For a complete schedule of tomorrow’s brandings and executions, please see your local pastor.

  The servants ushered a slurring and belligerent Inventor towards the door. He staggered before their gentle direction, clutching his satchel and muttering obscenities.

  “What a pleasant fellow,” Alisandra muttered.

  Midnight past, moon asleep, the gala began to ebb. The guests trickled to their cars in little clumps, retreating to afterparties awash in harder pleasures, and the help cleaned the mess left in their wake.

  Sebastian stared after the departed Inventor, his expression cloudy.

  “Is something amiss?” she asked.

  “An echo of fire,” the angel of witness mumbled, distracted. “The Conclave often murmurs in its sleep.”

  “I see.” She scanned the diminished crowd. “Have you seen Oliver?”

  “Not in several hours.”

  “Has he gotten himself into trouble?”

  Sebastian’s eyes flashed, and he chuckled at echoes of mortal defiance. “Your young friend did find a touch of trouble, but he managed well enough on his own.”

  “Good. It would be awkward to challenge some fool pup to a duel to protect his honor.”

  “Please limit yourself to blowing up one room per year, young lady.”

  A Livery servant entered the hall, escorting a young woman from House Erudite. That House teetered on the edge, sorely pressed by the Inquisitors, and the grand Houses quietly debated which would consume those votes.

  Alliances of convenience, mutual tolerance as each power began to carve its territory…

  This woman wore a hundred-gold gown and ruby rings, the picture of nobility, but the strain showed in smaller ways. The jewelry was all from the last season; her neck was stiff from forced nonchalance; her eyes were swollen and red despite all attempts at makeup. She clutched her little purse like a lifeline, trailing after a Livery servant.

  She would not have been the first to cry in the bathroom of a grand gala.

  “Excuse us, Sebastian,” Alisandra said. “I believe this will be a conversation between women.”

  “Of course.” He bowed. “Let me know how much gold is required.”

  If the grand Houses fancied themselves hawks on the wing, then Alisandra would be the sheltering branch. After all, House Mishkan was fabulously wealthy now. What use were gold notes in a vault?

  Plus, she could empty her own coffers for once instead of waiting on a certain hopeless gardener to do it for her.

  Sebastian retreated as the servant approached, carving a space for the woman to sit under the illusion of privacy.

  “Welcome, Noble Erudite.” Alisandra offered a conciliatory smile. As the Lady of the House, she set the tone. “We will hear your story.”

  Could she summon her father’s charm? The title fell to her, but the Archangel remained more popular…

  His quirks well-known, no worries of a surprise…

  The servant politely introduced the Lady, bowed, and retreated to a nearby table.

  Barely twenty, the Noble Erudite spoke formally, hands squeezing her purse. “Thank you, Lady Mishkan. You are kind to accept this audience at such a late hour. I pray I do not lean overmuch on your compassionate ear.”

  She hesitated, unsure of how to broach the true topic of the conversation.

  “Speak freely,” Alisandra reassured. “These words are the mere fancy of a late night and too much wine. Nothing more.”

  Like coaxing a mouse from its burrow…

  “I must warn you, Lady Mishkan, that association with House Erudite is foolish. The church may have dropped charges against my sister, but…”

  “But the Inquisition lurks,” Alisandra completed, speaking that brash truth flatly.

  Noble Erudite gasped. “You dare…Then you know? The Inquisitors are…they’re like…they are blasted hounds!”

  Alisandra reached across the table to touch the woman’s hand. Over the woman’s shoulder, she locked eyes with that Livery Servant, now meekly scrubbing a nearby table.

  The spy decided to clean elsewhere.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  The young woman bit back a sob and spilled the entire story.

  “Not a day after charges against my sister, Inquisitors swarmed our holdings. They inspected every crate and every cart under threat of dissolution; they confiscated our exports because we export blue dye to Wave’s Lament! They claimed we contribute to the moral decline of the nation! Moral decline! As though a third of our stock did not vanish into their warehouses!”

  “The formal charges?” Alisandra prodded.

  “Consorting with heathens! What unsubstantiated rubbish! How are we supposed to conduct exports to a foreign city without consorting with the priestesses who run it?!” Noble Erudite bit her lower lip. “But while the Inquisition stands, none will accept our business. Our House will vanish with the Spring!”

  Alisandra nodded, weighing the situation. Though she was no lawyer, she did have angelic memory and the patience to read six thousand pages of arcane Auren legal precedent. Every woman needed a hobby for slow winter days, after all.

  “A wildly ambitious charge. Of the one-hundred-fourteen times apostasy has been raised against a trading venture, there has been a conviction only four times. Aure himself outlined the exceptions for conducting business in foreign lands. The Inquisitors who stand against you must prove your substantive intent to abandon the church.”

  The young lady stared at Alisandra longer than was perhaps courteous. “Y-yes…so our lawyers say. Oh, but their fees are outlandish! And not the day after we summoned the lawyers, we received an extortion notice from Guildsmaster Reed!”

  “Oh?” She tried to fake surprise.

  “If we do not support his bid for election, he will call our Guild debts due!”

  “He does seem to enjoy that particular gambit.”

  The young noble grimaced, caught between humiliation and desperation. “Lady Mishkan, the Inquisition will only accept legal defense trained in the seminaries, and the fees are…they are…” Her voice quavered. “It is quite unbearable! Tomorrow, I am to return this dress to be p-p-pawned!”

  The woman started to sob once more.

  The nightmare which haunts us all from childhood. The living death we see in the Cecilles every day. Dissolution.

  Alisandra raised her hand. “Noble Erudite, your plea moves me. House Mishkan will pay your legal fees and extend a line of credit. You will have the funds to pay the Guilds and the Inquisitors both.”

  This was enough to startle the young noble out of her sobbing. She stared, baffled. “I…I am not granted authority to swear vassalage.”

  Vassalage – a parasitic existence that granted a few more decades of existence to a fading House. No one ever broke out of vassalage once sworn. What House could conquer the power of compound interest?

  “No oaths. No fealty.”

  “That…that is most gracious!” Noble Erudite risked a small, hopeful smile. “The rumors were true!”

  I should hope so. We started them.

  “Your generosity is worthy of a queen! House Erudite will not forget this boon in our time of need!”

  Alisandra inclined her head in acknowledgement.

  “May I ask a question, Lady?”

  “You may call me Alisandra.”

  The young woman flushed. “May I ask a question, then…Alisandra?”

  “Of course.”

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  “Why? You risk the wrath of Aure’s chosen…”

  “The Inquisitors can suck rotten eggs,” Alisandra replied. “They burn only with their own egos.”

  Heresy, plainly stated.

  Yet Noble Erudite allowed the words to stand. She whispered, “I envy your bravery.”

  “Do not worry for my fate.” Alisandra would not lose her mother’s House to a couple of petty priests. “Attend to your House. You must find new contracts during the winter lull and arrive the stronger come Spring.”

  Blinking back tears of gratitude, the woman leaned across the table and kissed Alisandra on the cheek like a trusted sister. “I will. Thank you!”

  “My servant, Sebastian, will contact you regarding details of payment. Make sure to compliment his roast pheasant.”

  Noble Erudite fled, released from her torment.

  Alisandra leaned onto the back legs of her chair and flicked her butter knife into the air.

  Reed and his games. Cecille and her damned Inquisitors. Mirielle and her program.

  Lace strutting through the hall, dancing within easy reach, knowing damn well none will touch her on this floor…

  She caught the knife between two fingers.

  “This move is mine.”

***

  Sebastian loved museums. As the angel of witness, he could stroll ancient history with little effort – though best to only use his eyes lest the Foundation of Time express her displeasure by setting him and everything around him on fire.

  The Chorus could sometimes be a bit touchy.

  No, he loved museums for what they revealed of mankind. It was not reality that waited in a museum but the mythic narratives of heroes. Here were the stories that forged nations.

  The Hammer of His Strength, the Chisel of Wisdom, and the Saw of Revelations were all fake, of course. What kind of craftsman would use gold tools? Admittedly, Aure could craft a castle with twigs and pebbles, but he never forgot his roots in the mud.

  Gabriel landed on the roof of the Conclave, and the entire building quietly sighed like a relieved, old dog.

  Or perhaps it was the slumbering giant beneath that yearned to know its old captain once more.

  A few moments later, the Archangel unerringly found his companion in the museum.

  “They are quite tacky, aren’t they?” Gabriel said, brushing at his jacket. It was still covered in the fine loam and twigs of Deepbloom, and he left muddy tracks through the hall.

  “He tried to teach his disciples better.”

  “Yet the gulf between teaching and learning remains as stark as ever. Were you feeling nostalgic?”

  “Alisandra asked me to find Oliver.”

  The Inventor had already departed. The museum still echoed with music: Mirielle’s lullaby both subdued and enraged…and another music, perhaps not so powerful, but not to be ignored.

  Mortal souls might slumber, but we should not mistake slumber for absence.

  “Oh? Is she concerned for his welfare?”

  Sebastian wagged a finger. “Let us not gossip over the hearts of young women lest we incur the wrath of beings more terrifying than ourselves.”

  Gabriel slipped his hands into his pockets, only feigning ease. “It would be a temporary happiness at best. Am I to stand and watch her–”

  “Old friend, you no longer have a say in this matter. Leave it be.”

  The Archangel winced, coughed, and changed the subject. “The Conclave hums with Alisandra’s dreams tonight. Our young Lady is becoming quite the sudden philanthropist.”

  Now Sebastian shifted to his back foot. “A young lady may find inspiration in many places, of course…” He shrugged, admitting at least some guilt. “Though I made no efforts to hide my activities these last weeks. Regardless, she acts on her own volition.”

  “Meddlesome as ever…we’re a pack of fools.”

  “To Bloom is to seize this world with both hands. Idleness is a poor reward for the surrender of heaven.”

  “Do your pen pals agree?” the Archangel teased.

  “Of course. I’ll let you know when the response arrives.”

  Other places; other angels; a gulf of stars between them. Letters were somewhat delayed. Sebastian expected the first missive to arrive at the nearest diaspora world in another eight or nine hundred years.

  He and the Archangel had chosen this small, remote planet for very good reasons.

  Here they lived in peace and walked with care.

  The exact opposite of Eden.

  Why does my mind keep returning to this dread? To memories best left in slumber?

  “If Mirielle has her way, mankind will be building new worldships inside a century,” Gabriel remarked. He tapped his heel on the tiles.

  The depths below answered. A slumbering wonder remembered the stars. Its hallways still rang with the taste of the void, and its bays lay dark with the memory of the passengers who now lived and died on the new earth above.

  “If nothing else, the sight of an oricalchum spaceship above Mel would provide a distraction for the papers,” chuckled Sebastian.

  At least until the shock faded and the questions began. If there is a ship that can forge its path between stars, then where was such a ship constructed?

  A place of hubris and ruin, of course.

  “Do we make them worship us?” Gabriel asked, playing with something in his pockets.

  Another well-worn question; he avoided the purpose of the visit.

  Sebastian shrugged. “The soul and the mind ever war. We do not hide from the former, and yet we walk unseen by the latter. A covenant, perhaps, that mortal men should allow us to walk among them.”

  “The shepherds to their flock, or the wolf in need of a quick snack?”

  The angel of witness casually fished a wad of gold notes from his pocket. “Mortals are hardly a filling meal. Their lives easily claimed and their souls impossible to grasp. If they worship us, it is much the way primitive tribes worship the moon.”

  A reflection of something greater.

  Sebastian flicked the gold notes into the corners of the museum. There some small child would find a fortune, more than little hands could imagine, and learn painful lessons of frugality.

  Or not.

  Gabriel took this as the sign to finally reveal his own prize. He withdrew a small chip of hardened sap, worn smooth, and let it glimmer like a tear drop under the light.

  “A gift from Verdandi?” Sebastian asked cautiously.

  “She stirs from her Reverie to issue prophecy, and the words are a dark omen.”

  By his aspect, the angel of witness did not need the rest recited.

You are the only hope we have.

  Sebastian shivered.

  Gabriel nodded. “Verdandi has ever been gifted in the Song, old friend. A skill that only grows as she sinks deeper into the roots.”

  “She was willing to entertain Alice long before the others,” Sebastian agreed.

  A slight tremor in the Archangel’s white wings at that name. Every time.

  Sebastian winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “I will endure. Steel yourself.” The Archangel offered the sap.

  Inhaling, Sebastian accepted it.

Silence.

Darkness.

A silver moon cracked.

No footsteps of giants along the path.

Then nothing at all.

  He dropped the sap, hissing.

  It shattered against the tiles without sound.

  “I had hoped to quickly set Lynne’s mind at ease,” Gabriel said, his gaze somber. “To close this matter, see to the trial for Donovan, and have the entire affair forgotten by midsummer.”

  “But such is not to be,” Sebastian agreed. His palms blistered, bitten with frost.

  “Tell me that I err,” the Archangel pled. “Tell me that I sense some lingering remnant of Donovan’s bloody work or Lynne’s old madness.”

  Unsaid, between them: Tell me this does not reek of Eden.

  “I swore to never again lie to you.”

  On that day when Sebastian surrendered.

  Gabriel’s hand drifted to his hip and the artifact that rested there, unseen. “We knew it was always possible that some trail lingered.”

  “Yet none of the wards resound!” the angel of witness interjected, seeking some excuse to avoid this conclusion.

  “The Song is both past and future, but mere wards can only resound when the danger bears fruit. We have ancient, patient foes…”

  They both thought of a particular ancient, patient foe.

  “Not while we yet endure!” Sebastian snarled.

  They had sacrificed too much to see that Tyrant breathe again.

  The museum was still and dark as a mausoleum, and the winter wind howled with memories enough for both of them.

  “The stars darken, and treeblood whispers of ancient days…” Gabriel sighed. “The need is clear, but I flinch before my duty.”

  As he often dallied, savoring this mortal life. Watching his daughter grow into the spitting image of the one treasure he could never recover.

  Alice who danced through our hearts and leaped into the unknown. She was always the wisest of us.

  How long could a man endure when his every thought turned to the past?

  How long could the Chorus be denied?

  Aloud, Sebastian asked, “Will you say goodbye to Alisandra first?”

  “If I press myself, I can check the old prisons in as little as a decade,” the Archangel replied, evading.

  “A decade is still a long time to your daughter.”

  Gabriel huffed angrily.

  “Would I be your friend if I spared you?” the angel of witness challenged.

  “Sebastian, you will forever be my dearest friend…but your point is taken.” He sighed, fluttered his wings, and girded himself. “She’s going to yell at me.”

  “Would you rather she punched you again?”

  The Mishkan mansion howled at night now, courtesy of the surprise renovations to the solar.

  “An honest punch is fine. I felt her heart in that blow. Well, her heart, and four knuckles! Mark my words, Sebastian. She will grow to be a titan.”

  Only a father would be so proud of that sort of trouble.

  “We aspire to Light, Gabriel. Neither of us understood the brands then.”

  And now Lynne sets her mark to that child priestess…

  “I found it convenient to remain ignorant.”

  “You tried to save two people you loved.”

  “I tried to spare myself.”

  “You chose correctly in the end.”

  “And Alisandra suffered a hundred years unborn for my hesitation.”

  Sebastian changed the subject rather than retread the old shames. “I will set myself against Lynne if you ask it. If any angel can interfere in the brands, it is I.”

  The Archangel closed his eyes, considering the offer. “Do you believe this to be wisdom?”

  “I believe it to be foolishness to repeat the sins of the past.”

  For a moment, the museum grew quieter still. The frozen vacuum of a silver land where giants tread…

Echoes of footprints though none move.

Pillars that rise to heights unseen, supported by hands carved from Light.

  “No,” spoke the creature who sometimes heeded the name of Gabriel, oldest among the survivors.

  “As you wish.” My soon to depart comrade.

  “Lynne has found a path through the storm, old friend, and we must let her walk. Ah, were we wrong to name them demons? Something beyond my edict grows in her heart, and it must bloom. I can almost see…”

Manifold wings of fire around a core of molten light.

  Is it time to say goodbye? Sebastian wondered. Have we reached the end of this path already?

  But Gabriel shivered, and the vision faded. A man stood in this museum, possessed of wings and power but still shackled to the carnal world called Malkuth. He shook his head. “I can almost see so many things, but when I set my mind to the matter, I can only find Alisandra.”

  “She is grown,” Sebastian reminded him. You are the one holding onto her now.

  “Almost, old friend. Almost.”

  “Go tell your daughter that you are leaving,” the angel of witness cajoled. Savor what time remains. Give her good memories while you can.

  For you are called for by name.

***

  “Lynne has asked me to investigate a small matter in the heavens.”

  “By that, do you mean the atmosphere or the realms above?”

  The Archangel chuckled. “There’s a difference, dear?”

  “Quit stalling, Father. You were gone for weeks. What bothers you?”

  “I dearly love the way you say ‘Father’, Ali.”

  “You are acting quite strange.”

  “Humor me, daughter. I will not be your father for much longer.”

  “You will always be my father.”

  He merely smiled. “I will return as soon as I can, but it will be several years.”

  A moment of silence as a daughter realized her jester of a father was serious.

  “…a small matter, you say?”

  “Hopefully. Sebastian will lead the tribunal for Donovan. He will show you what is required. Keep training yourself and always trust your heart. I will return as swift as lightning. You will always guide me back.” He kissed her upon the head like a child. “And if anyone gives you trouble, give them hell, my morning star.”

  Then the Archangel launched into the cold, grey night.

  His daughter stared after him, brushing her forehead.

  “He is in a fey mood tonight…”