Festival pricing:

Crepes – 9 copper

Iced cream – 21 copper (Cone extra)

Donuts – 1 for 3 copper, dozen for 30

  A reasonable tourist would expect Ruhum to celebrate the Harvest festival during the Harvest season.

  Naturally, the carnival took place on the tenth of Solace.

  Small towns across the brown plains celebrated with beer, arts and crafts, and traditional Auren songs. They used this final feast day to prepare belly and soul for the stark, grey winter ahead.

  Lumia, jewel of Ruhum, would never settle for such pedestrian fare. Every intersection sported garlands; every shop boasted sales and specials; every café opened for a week straight of drunken revelry. In more rarified circles, the Inventors planned extravagant demonstrations for their noble patrons, and the Houses made donations of goodwill to the church and charities.

  Crowds clogged the streets from dawn to dusk, and criers plied them with stories lurid and fanciful. The religious preferred gossip of the false goddess in Wave’s Lament; the nationalist wanted to hear about the poor harvest in Moros; yet the common man would only listen to one topic.

  Only the election sufficed.

  On the third day of the festival, the elite gathered at the steps of the Cathedral of Flame for public declarations. In previous years, these somber speeches drew a thin audience. This year, men clogged the square to bursting to hear the election speeches.

  The Lords and Ladies of the Conclave sat on raised platforms above the crowd, resplendent and distant. All the Houses attended – or at least all that remained. There were two empty chairs this day, consequence of the vote tax the day before.

  House Eide and House Curia were no more. The Guilds had demanded full payment after scandalous reports in the papers, and both had collapsed in short order.

  Alisandra reclined in her seat, legs crossed at the ankles and hands clasped across the fabric of her lap, and wondered what Edmond Curia would do now. The pup would have no further chances to prove his mettle.

  A pity, she thought. In time, he might have grown into a wolf.

  “Curia should have known better than backing Lucas,” a noble whispered none too quietly nearby.

  “Of course. Elections are a diversion for commoners. Best to wait this storm out,” replied his companion.

  “Personally, I think the Guilds acted despicably. Reed and his goons will not get my contracts any time soon!”

  “Agreed! I will import Whistlers before I give that House-breaking traitor a silver!”

  “He’s a fool if he thinks he can win anything – even an election! – without House support. He’s a dead man walking.”

  Both laughed, edged with fear.

  The Lady Mishkan sighed privately. She would rather juggle the Hand of God than sit through these speeches, but her position required these appearances.

  War as mortals do, Sebastian counseled. Respect the laws and structures of the world around you. They are fragile and precious things.

  Easy for him to say. He didn’t have to listen to the Keeper of the Flame drawl on for thirty minutes straight!

  Afterwards, each of the election candidates spoke in turn. Father Lucas opened, drawing a vision of the future for his beloved nation. He thanked Aure but stopped short of implying that his god blessed his appointment.

  “May Aure guide whoever wins,” he said instead, “And may they be guided by Him. Amen.”

  Fewer of the nobles clapped more than was strictly polite.

  The Inventors Alva and Tura orated next. They recited all the usual lines about progress, innovation and prosperity. Many of the reporters used the opportunity to snag lunch at one of the street vendors.

  Guildsmaster Reed spoke last, and his speech broadcast his trademark subtlety.

  “Lumia for Lumians!” he roared. “When I am in charge, there won’t be any tenements! No more bread lines! No more rotten, noble hoards built off the backs of honest men! Every man will get his fair share, and every woman will know peace of mind! That’s right. I’ll see three hours back to the worker every evening and not a copper less in pay!”

  Surely he cannot simply lie like this? Alisandra wondered. The city manager has nothing even approaching that level of discretion.

  “There are certain parties that think Lumia belongs to them! Well, they’re wrong! This is our city! We built it with blood and sweat, and we’re going to claim what’s ours!”

  The pulp papers would rave about his incendiary passion. Amazing how enthusiastic journalists could be when they wrote about their master.

  Moments after he finished, a regiment of Guildsmen surged forward, chanting, fists raised in solidarity “Reed wins! Reed wins! Reed wins! Take us home! Take us home!”

  Hired help, the angel snorted to herself.

  The regiment rounded on the noble platform, shaking their fists. “Take what’s ours! Take what’s ours!”

  There were no men among them; only a mob.

  A prickle of apprehension bloomed in Alisandra’s belly. Money could buy a performance, but the rage in those twisted faces was more than gold.

  The mob dared closer and closer to their superiors, pelting snowballs at the untouchable from the safety of the crowd.

  A few moments later, a squad of constables blew their whistles and shoved towards the ruffians, their clubs high.

  The protestors took this as their queue, and they melted away into the sea of caps and heavy jackets.

  “How distasteful!” one of the noble women muttered, brushing snow off her shoulder.

  Alisandra agreed for once. Perhaps I should have voted against the election. This process is somewhat rowdier than anticipated.

  What game was Reed actually playing? Did he plan to win election without the support of a single noble House? He would be completely crippled in his office, denied permissions at every turn by the Conclave that still controlled Lumia in all but name.

  Such folly did not seem like Reed.

  Alisandra dwelled a moment on the two empty seats. The winnowing continued, House by House…

  Perhaps Edmond will work for Mirielle now. She bought both House votes.

  Her neighbors in the stands rose, milling towards the catering on the steps of the Cathedral. There would be caviar, finger foods, and Livery servants in every eve until this droll event finally surrendered.

  She would rather take her chances with the mob.

  Alisandra hopped the twelve feet from the noble platform to the concrete and wove through the crowd towards the food trucks. Catering could bring exotic Verdant fruits, but she wanted a fresh funnel cake with a mountain of powdered sugar for ten copper.

  No matter how she trained, how she meditated, how she dreamed, her stomach still rumbled at the thought.

  Am I to be the angel of appetite, then? Or the angel of oversleeping?

  Or perhaps she would need a century to even find the aspect that her seniors grasped on their Blooming day.

  She glimpsed Oliver amongst the crowd but refrained from eye contact. They needed to limit contact, especially in such a public venue.

  ‘The true fun will begin in Spring’…Lace is no less a threat than Reed. She cannot possibly be content to play witch to the Guildsman.

  How tempting to visit her in the night and wring the answers from the witch’s neck. Would that not be a simpler course of action? No more spying and games of influence.

  Nothing but Alisandra, Lace, and last confessions.

  Is that the angel you would be? her conscience nagged in her father’s voice. A hitman in the night? Is that what you will build with your Light?

  Alisandra sighed.

  To kill is trivial, whispered a soft, familiar voice in her ear, accompanied by the fluttering kiss of soft, blue wings. But how fast the conflagration spreads once sparked…

  An infamous smuggler and several of his pirates had been discovered face-down in the canal just this morning, several days rotted. Their throats had been slit with no signs of struggle. The constables had impounded his vessel, but there had only been legal goods left in the hold by this point.

  Joining the line for the funnel cakes, Alisandra wondered what Lynne would do in this situation.

  People stared at the noble among them in such a rich azure dress.

  There was a certain temerity in wearing the Stormmother’s color to a public event, especially now, but Alisandra enjoyed her little rebellions.

  A few minutes into the queue, a miscreant boy attempted to slip a hand into her purse.

  She caught his fingers in her wallet and squeezed with a sliver of her actual strength. “I would not advise this course of action.”

  A sliver of strength was enough. The boy paled as grey as the sky.

  “I suggest you find a good job somewhere. I do not wish to see you plying this trade again.”

  She released his fingers.

  The boy darted away, cradling his hand to his chest.

  Did he actually listen, or was he just afraid I’d shatter his knuckles?

  Was this her purpose? Should she meet the Chorus and proclaim her might: Alisandra the thief-chider?

  At least a fresh funnel cake accepted her without judgement. She escaped to the park to enjoy her meal, and she enjoyed a few minutes free of her title.

  Thea found her there not long after and offered a damp handkerchief without a word.

  “Thank you.” Alisandra wiped her cheeks and fingers clean. “Here to tell me about the titanium mine? Sebastian has informed me it is operational.”

  “You have survived the vote tax.”

  “I have,” she agreed. By selling half the furniture and taking a letter of credit. “Was Mirielle party to this vote blitz?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you need?” Alisandra inquired.

  “Have there been any astral intrusions at your manor?”

  “Imps?” She shrugged. “None that I know, but Sebastian maintains the wards.”

  “I have recorded a great deal of movement in the past few days,” Thea explained. “Imps swarm the Houses and the Inventors both. Stealing papers, notes. Delivering them.”

  “That is nothing new.”

  “Delivering them to specific witches.”

  She frowned. “The Redeemers?”

  “No. Everyone but the Redeemers.”

  “Is she trying to flood the market?” Alisandra wondered. A glut of forbidden knowledge and espionage to collapse demand so that Lace might starve the smaller witches out. No different than House warfare, really.

  “At the same time, she has claimed the import market,” Thea noted.

  “And killed anyone with the knowledge to circumvent her,” the young angel agreed, thinking of a captain dead in the mud.

  “Monopoly is harmful to the schedule,” the demon doll warned. “Be it the Guilds or the witches.”

  “Are you asking me to involve myself in the mess?”

  “You are already involved. What remains is to decide whether you will risk your proxy or yourself.” Thea paused, calculating what morsels to dole. “There were significant improvements in the wards found in the smuggler’s hold. Such powerful restraints would allow for the import of…larger…creatures.”

  Alisandra frowned, crossing her arms. “Cragbears?”

  The demon doll shrugged rather than guess. “I am tracking an imp. I would appreciate your assistance.”

  “Come now. You do not need my help to capture an imp!”

  “If we are successful, it will lessen the risk of the Redeemer operation.”

  The young angel scowled. Playing dirty, are we?

  “Obviously, my ulterior motive is to draw you into direct engagement. Consider this tutoring.”

  “I believe I have graduated finishing school.”

  “Not as long as you live under wing.”

  Twitching in annoyance, Alisandra conceded the point. “Fine. Give me twenty minutes.”

  “Rendezvous at Novia’s wharf. I will be waiting.”

  As Alisandra retreated to her car, she wondered which was meant to goad her more: the implication that she was a schoolchild or that she could have questions actually answered.

  Its Thea. Both angles are intentional. What must it be like in her mind, watching the world through so many eyes? The angel of multitasking…

  She fetched a peasant dress from the suitcases in her trunk and changed in the cab. She left her purse in the back seat and searched for a suitable pair of shoes.

  “Six pairs of heels, and I left my boots at home,” she groused. “Fine. Barefoot it is.”

  How much would it cost to commission a wardrobe that shifted form as easily as her car?

  Not that the demons would charge in something as cheap as money…

  Late already, she snuck a distance from her car and then broke into a run. A few boys catcalled after, already flush with their drink and the bravery of crowds, but she brushed past them. Maintaining a steady sprint, she cleared the crowded Cathedral square without raising her heartbeat. From there, she crossed the empty lots faster than the average wagon and arrived at the harbor shortly.

  Tight clusters of sailors glared at the interloper, huddled close after the murders. The streets were empty of wagons and constables both. Many of the warehouses sank into themselves, windows broken and planks rotted.

  Every season this district worsens, she worried to herself. Sailors were not part of the Guilds, but the workers of port and transport were. Every House in Lumia paid taxes to clean and care for these districts, and the Guilds pledged a percentage of every union due as well. So where is all that money going?

  Though the hooligans and robbers noticed Alisandra, none felt like chasing a woman who could race a gazelle.

  Thea waited before the largest of the Inventor’s warehouses, unmolested by any security. This body was carved from white birch and wore the peasant dress, same as the young Mishkan.

  “One of us will have to change,” Alisandra drawled.

  Thea arched an eyebrow and pressed a finger into her dress. The fabric stained to a baby blue at her touch.

  “In what universe does your aspect somehow encompass the color of your dress?” the angel demanded, baffled.

  “Does your father ask permission of his aspect to wake with the dawn?”

  “His words are explicit,” she countered. “Even angels must pay to use the divine arcana.”

  “Then who charges the toll?” Thea asked. “No guardian awaits you with flaming sword. Claim all the fruit you can hold.”

  “Do whatever I want, then?”

  “For the eternal few, both what is permitted and what is expected are far greater.”

  Alisandra scowled. “And I am to judge myself how?”

  “If the weight of sin drops you into Reverie, then it was too much.”

  The Lady Mishkan rolled her eyes. Consider me illuminated. “The imp?”

  Thea pointed to a stretch of half-rotted wharf. “Beneath the planks. It communes with its handler.”

  “Then let us ask him a few questions.” Alisandra approached the crumbling wharf, wincing with every other step. Though her heels shattered the splinters and dented the studs, each still stung.

  Thea followed for the first dozen steps, but then the demon doll froze. She tilted her ear to the wave and remarked, “Serpents approach.”

  Alisandra stopped, regarding the choppy harbor. The cold waters heaved with whitecaps, always surly in winter, and a lonely ship guarded the exit to the open sea.

  Then two ripples rose among the waves. Sinuous, dark creatures swam within, and their passage left a stain of ichor and dead fish.

  “For the Harvest festival?!” the angel hissed. What of Lace and her measured game now?!

  She reached for the Hand of God by instinct, but of course she did not carry the sword today. Her hand ached only by the echo…

  Alisandra stepped back, preparing to dive into the harbor. It would be a nasty fight, but she would meet them!

  Thea laid a restraining hand on the eager angel’s shoulder. “Allow your elder to demonstrate.”

  “Demonstrate? Thea, you’re barehanded!”

  “Allocating resources.”

  The air around Thea warped, distorting like the world through glass. Inside that bubble, there for a moment stood two of Thea: the one wooden and carved, homely in peasant blue; the other a sleek, naked figure of silver metal with circuit diagrams traced down her arms and a glowing inferno captured in the bauble at the small of her back.

  Alisandra shook her head against the dual vision, becoming aware of a tension like a vibrating guitar string in the air. The world itself seemed to groan around the demon…

  “Thea?!”

  “The Foundation of Separation wakes,” the demon hummed from two sets of lips.

  The silver Thea detached the bauble from her back and handed it to the wooden one.

  At the same time, the tension in the air began to rattle, the dock to smolder…

  The Foundation…wakes?!

  “Ah, but the insult is slight, she is slow to rouse…”

  The wooden Thea pulled the bauble of power into her belly, and her skin began to race with circuits. Electric power grew behind her cool eyes, and her fingertips sparked.

  “…and already I race away.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Even the wet wood of the decaying warehouses began to pop and crackle, releasing a building cloud of steam that curled against the breeze towards Thea…

  But Thea released her distortion, and there was only one doll on the docks.

  “What is a Foundation but Will bound in undying service?” the demon asked. She cupped her shifting hands together, and her formerly wooden fingers melted together with mechanical precision. “We are the same Light, and I am the nimbler.”

  By now, the serpents rose, carrying their tidal wave higher, and the surf beneath the wharves sucked out to sea.

  Thea leaned back, the barrel of a gun forming from her flesh. It was no design from the Archangel’s library, hissing with alien power.

  “There were angels before there were aspects, Alisandra. Do you require the title to know the taste of your own soul? Will you be King only when crowned?”

  Thea leaned back, sighting carefully; the gun erupted into a flurry of angry sparks all along the barrel. Alisandra’s necklace suddenly jerked towards the gun, and nails wrenched themselves free of the pier to ping against the demon’s back.

  The serpents breached, blackened and sick creatures, atop the cresting wave.

  The demon doll fired.

  Only one shot was required.

  The slug caught the wave across the crest, and the shockwave of impact reduced the serpents to chunks. The wave buckled, its head reduced to steam, and its body hovered frozen for a trembling moment. Yet gravity remained, and the tidal wave sagged weakly back into the bounds of the harbor. A wave heavy with silt slammed into the wharf, crested the pier, and doused Alisandra’s shins with the red chum that had been two elemental beasts.

  “This place is built of Will, child,” the demon doll continued, her weapon slowly retreating into fingers. “From greatest Foundation to lowest beast, we must forge the future for ourselves.”

  Too late for comfort, the warning sirens began to bellow.

  The broken wave rolled two blocks inland, blowing power fuses, depositing a heavy layer of mud, and promising a major headache for the national insurance fund.

  “If no Will opposes, why may I not declare the color of a dress?”

  “That was a railgun,” Alisandra accused.

  “Did you think we would be content to subsist on Eden’s scraps?” Thea countered, amused.

  “You build superweapons for fun.”

  “Superweapons, starships, and living metal. Which is the greater: the weapon or the Will?”

  Alisandra scowled. “Don’t expect me to ask which Will stands against Mirielle and her lullaby.”

  The demon pressed two fingers against the glowing bauble, and it sank into her torso without a trace. Then she began to squeeze muddy water from her skirts. “A question for the Chorus, young angel. Why not ask the Foundations themselves? Perhaps that will be even more illustrative.”

  Alisandra remembered:

Next time will not be so gentle.

None are above the Law.

  She shivered to herself.

  Thea finally smiled for Alisandra for the first time since her lab. A touch sardonic, a touch indulgent, like a big sister with a secret.

  Alisandra stretched out her hand to bridge the gap between angel and demon. To heal her shattered family.

  Naturally, Mirielle interrupted.

  “This entire place reeks like a whaling ship,” the demon of indulgence noted. She waded into sight, struggling through the muck that stained her split dress from the knee down.

  Jerking her hand back, Alisandra covered her embarrassment with a curtsy. “Mirielle.”

  “Happy Harvest, Lady Mishkan.” Mirielle curtsied in return, one equal to another.

  Behind her, another Thea waited in Livery black. This one was somehow unstained by the flood waters.

  “Where is our happy suspect?” the demon of indulgence asked.

  Thea pointed to the brackish harbor waters.

  “A pity.”

  Alisandra’s Thea spun on her heel and marched away without even bothering to say goodbye.

  Mirielle’s Thea waited patiently, hands clasped against her skirt.

  Mirielle herself leaned close to Alisandra and smiled sweetly. “For an angel, you seem to be enjoying the election first hand.”

  “I merely act to protect my city, same as any loyal citizen.”

  “Of course, Lady Mishkan. Of course.” Her smile grew into a smirk. “How progress your little dreams?”

  Leaning away, the young angel admitted, “Slowly.”

  “I can tell you what lies at the end of the flower path,” Mirielle whispered. “For a price.”

  Alisandra flushed with interest despite herself. Biting her lower lip, she banished the scattered recollections: wagon, wing, flowers, butterfly. A path through the estate, and I most desire to see what waits at the end…

  No. I will not take such transparent bait.

  “Then again,” the demon mused, “perhaps not. Most mortals never remember their dreams, anyways.”

  The distant sirens continued to wail, and the wood smoked where the strange fury of a Foundation had risen from the very air.

  To defy the Chorus…to flee, prize in hand, before your parents realize the cookie jar is empty…

  With the danger past, curious sailors trickled onto the wharf to gawk at the damage. The broken wave had collapsed two piers and coated the roads, but there were no bodies for the sea this day.

  Another siren began to ring just down the wharf.

  “Isn’t that Oliver’s warehouse?” the young angel asked.

  “I believe so,” Mirielle agreed. “Why don’t you go see what the fuss is about, dear? Like a good concerned citizen.”

  Scowling, Alisandra brushed past the demon. Live as mortals live. Act as mortals act. Strive to learn the quiet wisdom of a restrained life. Do not throw the smug whore of a demon through a building.

  Others joined her, taking this opportunity to catch a closer glimpse at an Inventor’s warehouse while security was overwhelmed. The blaring siren prevented any useful speech, and Alisandra gave up on shouting at the people around her.

  Oliver himself emerged from his warehouse, coated, oddly enough, in a mixture of fresh harbor mud and kiln charcoal. Fresh smoke rose from his chimney; why had he felt the need to restart his furnace right after receiving a foot of flood water? If he was trying to dry his papers, he was more likely to catch his laboratory on fire.

  He shouted and waved his arms, trying to banish the crowd. Many laughed, and few strained to hear.

  Alisandra nearly reached him before she could make out his words over the siren.

  “This is a tornado warning. Tornado! Do you understand me?! You all need to seek shelter! Everyone find cover!”

  Two things happened next.

  First, Alisandra finally noticed the ripple of a fairy in action high in the skies above Lumia. The currents of air rushed around the tiny figure with unseen force, and a deadly whistle was just audible beneath the sirens.

  Second, the fairy flung its winds into the mass of people strung across the dock, and the world exploded into a maelstrom of wooden and metal shrapnel.

  A flash of steel shot through the air faster than any mortal eye might see.

  Instinctively, Alisandra tackled Oliver.

  Cold metal bit deep into her side.

  Beneath the sirens, the crowds began to scream.

***

Witch attack!

Three hundred dead!

A state of emergency declared!

  Her father’s library said that angels were titans, gifted with endurance beyond reckoning. They would weather shattered bones and severed limbs as inconveniences. They were beings of Light; like that first Light, they would survive.

  Oh, but how little the books mentioned of pain.

  To wrap her hand around the metal rod through her belly and feel the studs quiver with her pulse.

  “Hold on back there!” Oliver hollered from the front seat. He drove the Mishkan car in sputtering panic, fumbling at the car’s strange controls. It veered like a bronco under his commands, throwing Alisandra around in back.

  She bit back a scream. Her animal hindbrain screamed in panic, struggling to take command. Death, death, death, death!

  There was metal where no object should pierce; her innards squirmed around the pipe with every breath.

  “Just…” Hells, every word drove the pain deeper, and his clumsy driving did not help matters! “Autopilot! Use the autopilot!”

  “Which button is that?!”

  She forced herself to speak with measured calm. “Third to the right. Green button.”

  He smashed his thumb into the button, and the car slipped into a smooth acceleration. Then the boy clambered into the back seat and regarded the bloody angel, eyes wide as a gazelle. “Great. Great. Just great.”

  “Focus!”

  “This thing wouldn’t happen to be a hospital, would it?”

  Alisandra snarled. Her consciousness dipped into the sea of red a moment, and she gasped for conscious thought. Would this pain ever relent?!

  Of course not. She would not go numb, faint, or pass into shock. Angels endured.

  Wasn’t this what you wanted? whispered her inner cynic. Can you feel your higher nature now?

  “What do I do?” Oliver pled.

  She clutched the cushions with all her strength, and her fingertips left dents in the seat beneath. There was only one course of action. “Pull it out.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  She taught him several new words in sailor’s cant. “Pull the damned thing out!”

  Oliver swallowed hard, straddled her, and grasped the pipe with both hands. “Aure forgive me.”

  I can feel his hands tremble through the pipe, she noted clinically. “Aure’s gone; it’s just me. Now pull!”

  Oliver heaved upwards.

  The metal studs on the pipe caught on her lowest ribs, and she discovered entire new worlds of pain. Each stud was a note in this melody, carving its song into the meat of her ribs. She in turn traveled the contour of the pipe from highest stud to smooth shaft, and that violation burned itself into her mind.

  There was no time like the first, after all.

  Luckily for her, Oliver retained the grip of a day laborer. He jerked, straining back and arms, and tore the metal free on the first yank.

  Alisandra screamed. No shame in that.

  Then she toppled back, trembling like a leaf, and touched a shaking hand to the hole through her belly.

  The void where living flesh should have been.

  So very much blood, spilling like a river, brilliant red stain that gleamed too much for even wet fluid.

  “Are you going to die?” Oliver whispered, tossing the scrap away. “By Aure, please don’t die.”

  “No, I’m not going to die,” she hissed. Surely she could not die to something so petty. “I need…to bind…I need…paper…”

  There were runes of healing and peace if she could only write them.

  Yet she struggled to remain present. Part of her still swam in that sea of agony – all that her eidetic memory could recall.

  Eight years old – hands covered in blood – a path through flowers – crows wait upon the edge of the gazebo.

  “Paper?” Oliver muttered frantically. “Paper? Or chalk? Or blood?!”

  He needed to verbalize a coherent request. The car could understand speech, yes, but not the squeaking panic of a boy.

  She drifted further by the moment – a tug of dreams deeper than sleep.

  Reverie.

  Garden questions, unfair as a pop quiz. Why should she answer? All she wanted was to meet her mother beneath the gazebo at the end of a garden path!

  “You may cry if you want,” advised the butterfly.

  Of course the butterfly came when she lay bleeding…

  “I do not want to cry,” she replied, blood pouring down her smock. “I want to walk the path to its end!”

  “You will never reach the end if you do not cry,” lectured the butterfly.

  Alisandra forced herself onto her elbows. The streets in the world beyond her car swarmed with firefighter’s wagons, constables, and medics. People shouted, wept, and searched for their loved ones. Traffic sat at nearly a standstill.

  “Car. Return to the manor. Drive as you must,” she ordered, trying desperately not to sink into the fugue.

  Just like Thea, she danced in two places at once. If the Foundations did not rise against her, it was only because one half of this fugue was deep in her own garden…

  She stared at the butterfly. She glanced at her pinafore, red as blood. She noticed, for the first time, the butterfly pin upon her breast pocket.

  “You are the one who forces me to play at childhood!” she accused, high and shrill as any brat. “Why?! Why this mortifying farce of homework and wagon rides?!”

  The butterfly answered calmly, faintly pleased by the insight. “Children are honest in their need. The same cannot be said of a great House Lady.”

  The vehicle surged into action. It swerved through the slightest of gaps, drifted corners, and churned through the empty lots. At the steep rise of the noble hill, it transformed tires into treads and tore upwards.

  Oliver toppled over, and Alisandra cried out against the jostling.

  “Am I not playing along?! I answer your riddles; I endure the same cursed wagon three times a night!”

  “You merely bide your time, young angel, in the seeming of a child.” The butterfly alighted upon the edge of a tea cup and serenely sipped.

  “I am four-foot-tall and wearing a pinafore!”

  They slammed to a stop in the Mishkan garage, and Oliver hefted her from the bloody seat. “Come on, Alisandra. Stick with me!”

  The butterfly flicked its wings, and a rock soared from its bed alongside the road.

  Alisandra snatched it from the air.

  “Attendance is not attention. Do you wish to war for ownership of this place? There is nothing to conquer in the garden, dread Lady. Just a beautiful morning wagon ride.”

  “Sebastian!” roared the Inventor, carrying her to a seat on the kitchen counter. Gently, he laid her across the counter – like a knight with his princess.

  “Why do you continue to bar my way?!” she demanded, unheeding.

  “Almost time to wake up, dear.” The butterfly fluttered higher, glimmering. “Until next time, little Ali.”

  The angel of witness charged into view. “Ah, thank heaven above! We haven’t lost you yet!”

  Oliver hopped back, letting the angel attend at her side.

  “Go home, Oliver,” Sebastian ordered.

  “But–”

  “Go home!” he snapped. “You have done what you can!”

  Blanching, the young man cast a glance at Alisandra. He bit his lower lip, nodded, and departed.

  Alisandra’s dual vision faded to a single focus. She had not breathed while caught in the garden – a small mercy – and her instinctive gasp as Sebastian touched her side sent her tumbling into a new storm of pain.

  She groaned, spitting blood.

  Sebastian gently pushed her back. “Steady, young angel. Steady. Ah, your father will be so proud. Where did you find such strength to hold together for so long?”

  Butterfly wings and infuriating dreams…

  “Its…not getting any better…” she rasped, ignoring his question.

  “No, I’m afraid it does not,” he agreed. Holding his hands above his belly, he murmured, “Now, let us see what we need to fix…”

  His eyes flashed, and he broke into a wide grin.

  “Alisandra, child, you saved Oliver’s life.”

  Was this really what she needed right now?! “There was no time to think…”

  “Only time for your heart to act.”

  “Can you heal me or not, you blasted fool?!”

  “Strictly speaking, you must heal yourself.”

  Of course. I bleed on the kitchen table, and still he lectures.

  She laughed despite herself. That hurt too.

  “All I do is show you the way. Consider this a practicum.”

  “Then…it will hurt.”

   “Be glad it does. Pain is a vital link to the world of mortality.”

  She nodded. “On with it then…”

  Sebastian plucked a kitchen knife from its rack and drove the blade through his palm without even a wince.

  “Does it hurt for you too?” she wheezed.

  She needed to banter – to focus her mind on Sebastian’s familiar, vexing manner. The butterfly was gone, and in her place grew a heavy weight of what should be. After all, such a wound was obviously fatal…

  “Pain is not an enemy,” counseled the angel. He held his hand over her wound and yanked the blade free.

  Alisandra bled as red as any mortal, excepting perhaps a strange gleam in the corner of the eye.

  The angel of witness, older than memory, bled Light. Honey gold and thick as molasses, his essence dripped into her wound.

  It burst through her belly like sunlight, and she heard wisdom she had never earned.

  A power called but never owned.

  A Light as old as the first dawn…

  A body is a mold is a choice. A metaphor of Malkuth chained in brilliant bondage.

  She heard the Witness echo through her belly, and she seized his strength like a drowning man to claim as her own.

  The pattern of her vessel mended, remembering what it had chosen as true.

  In your aspect, young angel, you will find the furnace from which to forge Light yourself. For now, though, this will suffice.

  Unbidden, Alisandra felt a memory not her own.

His hand dribbled Light onto the man’s face.

The mortal screamed.

Light that scoured flesh free of impurities, and what was humanity but impure?

A sudden snap like a broken rubber band, and only a corpse remained.

The voice that spoke, imperious and cold: “Useless. They flee to the Gate at the slightest imposition.”

His hip ached, a weight like–

  Sebastian withdrew his fist and the flow of Light.

  Alisandra laid dazed a moment, one hand stroking over her healed belly. Finally, she managed to cough, “Th-thank you, Sebastian. Are you well?”

  The angel of witness rested his hands on the counter, his lips pressed together in pain.

  Pain from the knife, pain from the Light, or pain from that memory? Sebastian, was that you?

  Did she really glimpse the dry, reserved angel of witness drowning a prisoner in Light?

  Sebastian! The terror of pheasants and hedges!

  “It is my aspect to share pain,” he whispered.

  “Yes, but…”

  Steeling himself, Sebastian straightened and met her eyes. He would answer what she asked.

  She swallowed. Once more she felt the tenuous balance of this place. This life. How simple questions could throw her mother’s House into disarray. “…I will have to be very careful with my Light.”

  “Indeed,” he agreed softly.

  Alisandra twisted to take her feet, slipped on an ungodly pool of blood, and nearly brained herself on the marble counter.

  “Hells!” she swore, staggering to her feet. The puddle stretched all the way to the kitchen door! “This will take forever to clean!”

  “Yes. Best if we finish before the Inquisitor arrives. I expect her within the hour.” The angel of witness bound his hand with a towel. “I will start with the stains in the hall if you will handle the kitchen.”

  She stood in a small pond of her own blood. Did a human body hold so much…

  …Or did she bleed because some part of her believed that she should?

  Wait. “The Inquisitor?”

  “Yes.”

  Philosophy would have to wait. “We need more towels!”

***

  Alisandra shoved a final wad of blood-soaked rags into the overflowing trash just as the knocker boomed.

  “Sixty-four minutes!” she called to Sebastian.

  “Truly, I must surrender my title,” he replied from the hallway, stained mop in hand.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk to the Inquisitor?”

  Surely the angel of witness could be persuasive as Mirielle was…a single conversation that could wrap problems with a neat little bow.

  “Though I could speak the words,” he offered gravely, “I could not guarantee what would be received. Mirielle exploits those who hear only the thunder of greed. What awaits her when one arises who instead listens to their heart?”

  If not an Inquisitor, then who?

  Sighing, Alisandra dusted her fresh dress and marched to answer the door.

  Angela Cecille waited on the porch, hands folded over a book among her skirts. “Alisandra! Thank Aure that you’re alright!

  This is my shocked expression, Alisandra thought. She smiled. “Angela! What occasion brings you?”

  “I had to make sure you were alright after that terrible attack!”

  Alisandra briefly contemplated denying the Cecille entry. Certainly, there would be a visceral satisfaction to slamming the door in her smug face.

  The consequences would come later.

  “Please, do come in! I’m afraid I don’t have any tea going.”

  The young angel carefully steered Angela through the one path not coated in her own blood. Once to the freshly scrubbed kitchen, she offered the Inquisitor the stool furthest from the packed trash can and immediately started a pot of honey tea. Doubling the dose, she prayed the scent would mask the lingering stink of copper.

  They then shared small talk for several minutes, no different than any luncheon in the city. Distant sirens continued to wail from the harbor, but that was a matter for the world beneath the noble hill.

  Once she secured a cup of warm tea, Angela broached the reason for her visit. “I was quite worried after I heard you were at the docks during the attack. Such a terrible assault…I shudder to think what other horrors the witches have in store for us!”

  “Are we sure who committed the attack yet?”

  Angela shook her head. “I haven’t heard. But this attack makes it clear that we have allowed certain indiscretions to linger in our shadow for far too long.”

  Alisandra sipped her tea.

  “We will have to do something about it,” Angela continued.

  “Indeed.”

  The Inquisitor spy wiped her napkin across her book and waited for a reaction.

  Unfortunately, the noble Lady had never seen this one before. Surely it was heretical in some fashion, but even a bookworm of Alisandra’s caliber couldn’t read every title published in a year.

  “It is a great blessing that you came away from that attack unharmed.”

  Alisandra nodded. “Many cannot say the same.”

  “Yes. In fact, if you were at the Inventor’s wharf, I must express some shock. The casualties have been shockingly high from even a cursory report.”

  She remembered the exact position of the debris in the moments before the pipe hit. She could chart the people that would feel the bite of shrapnel as she had, and they would not have the benefit of an angel’s constitution.

  Hells, and the only one I saved was Oliver. What was I thinking?!

  Aloud, Alisandra snapped, “I’m well aware, Angela.”

  Angela’s smile grew thinner. “Some said they saw you dragged into a car with a pipe through your belly by that Inventor boy.”

  “He did drag me into the car,” she agreed. A good lie needed to be mostly truth.

  “You are in perfectly good health, it seems. Aure bless.”

  “It would be troublesome if my tea seeped out my side as fast as I drank it.”

  They stared at each other across the kettle. Both smiled, neither sincere.

  Angela shrugged. “Some very strange tracks were found at the base of the hill.”

  “Oh?” So fast? When most the constables are dealing with the panic downstairs? How miraculous.

  “Yes. Nothing quite like what we know. Perhaps some Inventor’s toy. The tracks tear halfway up the side of the hill in a straight line towards your House, I’m afraid.”

  “And then?”

  “Then they seem to have been lost,” the Inquisitor said.

  Our wards even eat tracks? I must give Sebastian some credit: he certainly knows how to cover for every eventuality!

  Alisandra set down her empty tea cup. “It would take quite the crew to cover fresh tracks so quickly. Even a witch with a bucket of imp blood would have trouble vanishing an entire hillside.”

  “Yes, it is quite remarkable. A cragbear could manage it, I would think. Dreadful creatures. Have you ever met one?”

  “No, I have not.”

  “Few good citizens have.”

  “I usually outsource my clean up to one of the lesser Houses,” Alisandra offered, her smile thin as a razor and a slight emphasis on Houses.

  A vein in Angela’s forehead began to throb. “Have you seen anything strange today?”

  “Other than a wharf exploding?”

  “Yes, other than that.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Such active veins could not be good for a woman’s blood pressure.

  “Forgive my impertinence, of course, but you have no idea how such tracks could vanish at the very edge of your property?”

  “Perhaps a fairy carried it into the sky.”

  “And what do you know of fairies?” asked Angela, drumming her fingers on her book.

  “Only what the doctrines say. The elemental beasts give me a wide berth.”

  Imps, too, since I crushed one’s skull in my hand.

  “I see.” Angela dropped her tea onto its plate with a sharp little rattle. “You are quite blessed.”

  “House Mishkan has indeed been blessed.”

  Now demand to inspect the grounds, Inquisitor Cecille, or get out.

  There would be a reckoning for false accusations. Angela did not tower over an ignorant peasant but sit in the kitchen of an ancient House.

  Angela sniffed several times. Perhaps caught the whiff of copper. Yet the young Lady of the House before her was obviously unwounded, and blood needed a body.

  You are thinking that this will proceed so much smoother once my House crumbles, aren’t you? Waiting for Mishkan to finally crumble like all the rest of the vipers.

  As though I would dishonor my legacy by falling to the likes of you.

  “Thank you for the tea, Alisandra,” she said at last.

  The insult there, that presumptive first name, was not lost on either of them.

  “You’re welcome, Miss Cecille.”

  But not Lady Cecille.

  Alisandra saw the Inquisitor to the door. She shut it none too gently.

  Now if only I could say that was the last I will see of Angela Cecille, Inquisitor of Fire.

***

  Bereft a car, Oliver hiked the long miles back to the docks. He did not arrive until after dark, and he had to argue with the constables on post for almost an hour before they allowed him back into his own warehouse.

  A wooden beam had rammed through one of the high windows, and shrapnel peppered the south façade, but the warehouse still stood. Inside it stank of sea water, and his cot was completely ruined. Many of his notes had been strewn on the floor, and the ink was completely scoured.

  He stepped past the papers, over his ruined prototype, and ducked under the chassis of his signal tower.

  Everyone would know that his alarms worked now, but what good had that done? How could he have been so stupid? An alarm was just noise if he did not educate the masses on what the signals meant!

  The Inventor stopped before the kiln. The heat had baked the nearby floorboards dry, and it made his burn scars tighten. Shaking his head, he unlatched the door and peered into the embers.

  A small, feathery bundle inside stirred. Phi woke slowly, stretching her swanlike neck and shuffling in the fading embers like a child unready for the cold floors beyond the bed.

  “Hello there,” Oliver whispered.

  The phoenix regarded him a moment, trilled like a jaunty flute, and burst out of the kiln.

  Squawking, he tumbled backwards, head over heels.

  Phi alighted on his knee and trilled again. She shone brighter than a lantern, perched with care despite those wicked avian claws.

  “You scared me,” he exclaimed, sitting up. “Don’t you know I’ve had enough surprises for one day?!”

  He extended an arm, miming the hawker from his village.

  She obediently hopped over and trilled again. Cocking her head, she flared her crest, and it gleamed like embers.

  “Yes,” he agreed, smiling. “You’re beautiful.”

  With one finger, he stroked the flaming pinions of her neck.

  Something caught between them, a bond without words.

  Phi leaned into his petting, and he was not burned.

  “So this is my laboratory,” he offered. “Smells like a bilge deck, and all my work from the last month has been ruined. I don’t have any food, and I’m still on probationary status.”

  The phoenix chirped.

  “If you’d like, you are welcome here.”

  His stomach rumbled. He had not eaten since before the attack. Naturally, he had lost his wallet somewhere in House Mishkan.

  Phi chirped again and nodded in agreement.

  Oliver laughed. “Yes, we can order something to eat. How does fried tuna sound?”

***

  An emergency Conclave was called, of course. Due to the haste necessary, session was held in the Cathedral of Fire, and certain Houses were unable to assemble in time.

  An outside observer might note that these absent Houses had estates in Lumia and wonder why they were delayed on a jaunty trip down the hill.

  That observer might, if careful, hear rumblings that the church had concerns about these tardy Houses.

  Being of a wise persuasion, that observer would put no stock in rumors that papers of illicit, illegal, and heretical nature were known to be found in the possession of these Houses. Such scandalous rumors were all too common, after all, and no good citizen paid them heed.

  Surely, though, illegal papers could not simply appear in one’s safe deposit box or library…

  Thus, the Inquisitors arrive on scene, Alisandra thought. We will see which ones snag a prize fish and which ones drown under the weight of their catch.

  Yet the Conclave needed decisive action to allay the panic swelling in the streets. As a result, suspects were rounded up with only a perfunctory veneer of legal process.

  The peasant witches caught in these dragnets were tried without fanfare. Branded, exiled or executed, they met their fates without so much as a notice in the paper.

  Three House witches were also caught, and they stood before the Conclave today for the capital charge of heresy. Their crimes carried, at a minimum, fines that could drive an accountant to tears. If the evidence proved that the witches operated at the discretion of a Lord or Lady, the House itself would be dissolved.

  Had these Houses had the cash on hand necessary to properly bribe the Church, they would never have been marched before the Conclave in shame.

  They were already condemned. This was an act in public relations.

  Alisandra watched this circus from a far seat, noticing the pattern beneath the panic.

  First, not a single one of the peasant witches was a Redeemer.

  Second, the three Houses on trial today were all staunch opponents of Guildsmaster Reed.

  Lace and Reed understand Ruhum as well as I do, she admitted. I assumed that only nobility would understand how to manipulate the game of Houses.

  We have underestimated our foes.

  The second House woman in line, clad in black and shackles, wept openly. She was a confessed witch – she had kept a fairy in her gardens to play with.

  Alisandra had gone to finishing school with her.

  Let us not repeat this mistake.