Aida shook her head as she walked through the shattered gates followed by her procession of Ferals, Imminents, a zombie-like Valeer, villa servants, and a pack of Wretches. "Some things stay the same."

"What was that?" Fallon adjusted his grungy scrub-top.

Little clusters of villa servants and their families merged with them, their pathetically-small bundles of worldly belongings balanced on their heads, slung on their backs, carried in their arms. Many coughed. Sick children hung slackly over their parent's shoulders. The scarcity of gray hairs among them reminded Aida that life expectancy scraped the thirties most of human history.

No Aliasara yet.

"I was just musing that last time I looked like this, I lived life like a house on fire. My parents never knew what to do with me; I learned to run almost as soon as I learned to walk, raced from adventure to misadventure to disaster my whole life until my third husband and menopause finally mellowed me out."

"I am entirely shocked that you left destruction in your wake in your youth," Fallon said with mock surprise, glancing back at the devastated villa behind them and the ruined estates still picked at by scavengers as they passed.

Said scavengers often wandered out to watch them pass. Each time Aida waved and shouted some variation of: "Mother of Exiles, if you've heard of me. Heading to the One-Eighth. Gather whatever and whoever you can. Join us for a new start!"

"As improper as ever and unplanned besides I would imagine," Fallon muttered.

"What? Speak up. If you're going to trash talk me at least do it loud enough that I can hear you." Aida stared at him hard as they walked.

"One of a Seneschal's primary purposes lies in shielding their Dynast from interacting with menials, yet you go right out and yell at them."

"Well, you were busy dying so I had to wing it for a bit. Flashed them, even, when nothing else worked."

He frowned. "Flash?"

"Never mind."

"What are they going to eat?" He swung his arm towards the closest group. "They have a few days worth of food if anything and we do not even know how we are going to eat."

"Apparently I don't need to." Aida waved and shouted at another scattering of looters. "I've been eating out of habit, but if I forget I don't even notice."

"So good for you. Let us all become Dynasts and solve the problem."

"Why can't you? What's so special about living to be a hundred with blood type O-Dynasty? Have they tried to make people immortals who aren't descended from Ebon? What happens if you do the monster-vomit-assault on a ninety-year-old?"

"Kin they are called. And it does not work."

"Ahah! Nice try, buddy, but I know your language now. That's Fallon-speak for 'I don't know but I'm not going to admit it.'"

The tight press of his lips and his sudden interest in their transition from walled estates to slum-like city proper provided answer enough.

Aida reversed her cap and squinted up through the haze, scanning the curve of the city in front and above them for the Thorn Cupola. Everywhere she looked the city veritably swarmed. Panicked people fled towards the giant Iris eyes and whatever lay beyond Jadeye's cylinder. Others barricaded entire blocks to keep the sick away. Yet others clustered around temples, the devotees surrounding the huge structures all bowing, chanting, and raising their hands in unison. A huge throng massed around the heavily-guarded Spire likely shouting demands that Ocyl fix things. The colorful markets unraveled as people grabbed what they could carry and ran. Block parties sprang up here-and-there as people celebrated the end of the world.

Fires smoldered or raged, throwing a smoky veil over everything. She wondered how the snarled Sighted Path traffic at the weightless center of Jadeye could even breathe. The giant Reachers waved tentacles frantically through the mess of people and belongings, working futilely to keep things orderly or to catch those whose courses sent them plummeting off towards the streets below. Too many fell to catch in the super-saturation of the Sighted Path.

Formations of soldiers marched and patrols of strider cavalry rode purposely through the chaos, fighting a losing battle to restore some semblance of order while struggling to put out fires real or metaphorical. Echoing shouts, cries, screams, chants, and crashes mingled in air thick with smoke.

It took a while to locate the Cupola through the haze. When she spotted it almost directly above them, she frowned at the roiling chaos between them and it.

"Yes, I'm sure, so long as you listen to me," Eth said at exactly the same time Aida asked "Are you sure we'll get there okay?"

"Have I told you how annoying that is?" Aida gestured at their growing troupe of servant families and the scavengers, looters, and citizens continually glomming onto their procession. "They aren't all going to starve to death when we get there, are they?"

"No."

"Good, I'll tell Fallon-"

"Most of them will die of the Plague if they aren't crushed first."

"Oh." Aida looked more closely. Pale faces, sweating, swaying, coughing, listlessness; the signs of sickness showed in more of her retinue than not. "Crushed?"

"I told you your coming would destroy everything. This is the first taste."

"Why not just have Ryk kill me when I arrived if I'm so terrible?" Aida forced herself to not look at him lest she get too distracted. "Why did whoever it was that sent Fallon want me here at all? And who sent him in the first place while we're at it?"

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"I'm sorry for your friend, truly. Remember that even if it seems otherwise later." Eth stepped away, looking down an empty side-street.

"What? Which-" Aida trailed off as Aliasara walked around the corner followed by a throng of relations. Disheveled hair fell in a tangle, tears and snot flowed. Aliasara hugged a tiny swaddled bundle to her chest.

"Oh no." Aida pressed her hand against her heart. "Oh God, no."

Aida expected Aliasara to look up with hate, to beat or kick her when she drew close, but when the woman looked up Aida saw only sadness and love.

"I'm so, so sorry." Aida's vision blurred with tears.

Aliasara stopped beside Aida, turning and brushing the blanket away from the tiny, still face. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"Oh Aliasara! I didn't know... if I'd known I never would have come..." Aida hugged herself tightly, guilt flooding. A heavy veil of grief fell across her with the weight of far too many funerals hammered into her past.

"Shh, hush now. Who knows if this plague was even to blame?" Aliasara raised her hand to brush away Aida's tears. "She got a few precious days to live, to breathe and cry and be with us."

"But most of that time stole you away to comfort and tend to me when you should have been with her. I-"

"No, no. Shh, no." Aliasara hugged Aida with one arm. "It's bad luck to name a child before their fifth year for a reason. The Ascendant see fit to call so many back when they look into their futures and see too much suffering. They do mercy to spare them that."

Aida pulled away, wracked with guilt in spite of Aliasara's attempts at comfort. "You forgive me?"

"Even if your coming caused it, which we don't know. Even if she would have lived had you not come, which we don't know." Aliasara squeezed Aida's hand and smiled. "Yes, I forgive you."

Eth butted between them. "As touching as this is, to get there before Ocyl seals off the Thorn completely, we have to keep moving."

"Do you feel anything? She's grieving the loss of a child!" Aida stared hard at the Imminent before glancing past her to Aliasara. "I'm sorry about her."

Aliasara waved it off and moved back to her family, leaving Aida alone with Eth.

"Grieving is not location-specific." Eth pointed up. "If we want to get to the One-Eighth and past the various roadblocks and riots, we're going to have to use that Wicker Way."

Aida followed the Imminent's gesture towards one of the cylinder-spanning scaffolding-and-rope structures running from a few blocks away on the near side to a square not far from the Thorn on the far. A seemingly-endless refugee flow scaled it to reach the Sighted Path. "We have to cross that?"

"In spite of what's about to happen to that one over there, yes." Eth pointed at the Wicker Way closest to the dry, rocky Iris."Ours won't collapse, at least until after we've gotten away. Assuming the fire works and Semon shows up on time anyway."

"Very reassuring. Who's Semon?" Aida stared at the densely-loaded structure Eth indicated, noticing a barely-perceptible sway in its length.

"Prophet's Servant. You'll hear all about him later." Eth snapped her fingers in Aida's face. "It's not going to yet, so stop staring and start moving. No time to waste. And yes, if they know what's good for them."

"Do all the Dynasts let you boss them around..." Aida realized Eth already answered her question. "Have I ever told you how annoying that is?"

"Rustrovan reminds me you make a point of it regularly." Eth turned and stomped off towards the Wicker Way, trailed by Rusty and Ryk, the latter smiling knowingly at Aida as he passed. In spite of the chaos erupting around them, Aida's breath caught as she smiled back.

A hard elbow staggered her. She turned indignantly to see Broadaxe eyeing Ryk, then winking at Aida.

"Yes we did, thank you very much." Aida stood tall as she walked after Eth. "Only good thing that happened today."

"I don't know if I'm strong enough to climb that." Fallon eyed the Wicker Way as they approached its solid stone foundation. "Your plague almost killed me."

Aida glanced over again at the apparently-doomed furthest Wicker Way. She wondered if she could get a message to the poor people climbing it, but dismissed the idea. Even if someone could get there, who would believe them?

"Hey, me and my plague were perfectly happy back on Earth before you came to get us." She glanced at Ghillie and smiled, the girl's eye corners crinkling slightly in that way Aida learned meant the girl did the same. She looked around for Goldilocks. The woman stood a ways back, hunched slightly with one arm wrapped about her mid-section, the other holding a torch of all things.

"Hey, Goldilocks, are you-"

The cracking and popping of a thousand breaking matchsticks interrupted her, all eyes jerking towards the sound's source amid a chorus of gasps and cries. Everyone watched in transfixed horror as the furthest Wicker Way groaned, creaked, bent, and broke, the supports where stone transitioned to wood at the bases splintering or shearing off. Distant screams rent the air as the structure collapsed, starting with the nearest end falling down then the opposite side falling upwards and away to the streets far above.

Aida wished the haze were thicker so she couldn't make out the tiny figures raining from it as it teetered and fell.

"I made Ocyl reinforce it to prevent that, but that just let more people up I guess," Eth muttered, shaking her head angrily. "Or did that make it fall? If you can't change anything what's the damn point?"

When the terrible awe of the spectacle finally faded, Aida pointed continued towards the Wicker Way looming up before them as practically everyone previously-ascending it experienced a sudden change of heart. Traffic streamed towards them as they approached.

"It's just going to fall too!" a woman shouted. "We can't go that way."

"I'm not yours," Eth grumbled.

Aida turned towards the woman's voice. Unable to locate the speaker specifically, she shouted out to everyone, gesturing at the Wicker Way. "You have my Imminent's word this one will not fall."

Some nodded, many more looked doubtful. To these she spoke again, filling her voice with as much scorn as she could muster. "You're willing to leave everything you know behind, follow me to a new verse, and create a society from scratch, but are too afraid to climb a few stairs and ramps?"

Without waiting for a reply, she walked purposely onward, hopefully presenting far more confidence than she felt. As she and her closest followers reached the stone stairs at the base of the tower, she glanced back to see most of her impromptu settlers following her example even if a fair number quietly melted back into the city.

At first the rush of traffic scrambling the other way made progress difficult, but by the time they reached the reinforced wooden beams near the superstructure's base they ascended practically by themselves. Aida felt the decrease in gravity's pull as they climbed far more than she had in the twisting confines of the Spire's dark tunnels. Perhaps anticipating the change, the lack of enclosing walls, or having a clear view of their altitude gain changed the psychology of the thing.

The physical exertion felt good after endless hours cooped up in the villa dealing with one crisis after another. Incredible now to think that she'd lived most of her adult life that way, constantly reacting as she leapt back-and-forth from frying pan to fire. She'd called her life exciting back then, but now, even as a Dynastic superwoman, she longed for some quiet. One benefit of being a screw-up at least is eventually everyone leaves you alone.

When they neared the center where wood transitioned to a skein of ropes stretching to the Wicker Way's far tower, Aida felt a soft nudge. Ghillie stood beside her, pointing down towards Ocyl's villa. A royal strider's unmistakable shape stood beside the building swathed in Wake's gray-and-gold. Dozens of tiny figures rushed about the grounds.

Eth hugged a rope nearby, wiping sweat and smoke grime from her brow. "They came for you."

"To what? Kill me?"

"No. Things haven't fallen that far. Yet." Eth sighed and looked off into the distance for moment before coming back to the present. She pointed at the Thorn Cupola. "That said, when we get there, Reck kills your Ferals, disperses your followers, arrests you, and sends you to the Black Court to stand trial."

"He does?"

"Unless you do something about it, yes."