Ordo Draconis agents filed into the subterranean audience chamber. Light from freshly-oiled sconces reflected off the bright white walls and the gold threading on banners bearing the Imperial sigil. The seating was arranged in concentric circles, with a curved council table off to one side. Linnea led the companions to sit with her in one of the middle rings. It had been almost a week since they arrived in Aurea and the long-awaited meeting was about to get underway.
“Grandmistress Anya,” the herald announced. All the agents stood in salute and the companions clumsily rose to their feet to do the same.
The leader of the Ordo Draconis made her way to her seat at the council table. Despite her noble bearing, she was humbly dressed in a plain, navy blue robe, her curly gray-blonde hair pulled away from her face with a simple tie. The simplicity of her dress seemed at odds with the enormous reverence shown to her as the room fell silent when she entered. Though elderly, she was tall and stood up straight, her eyes clear and piercing. Kaja’s stomach churned as she watched the Grandmistress take a seat. Something about the old woman made her nervous.
“The meeting is called to order,” the chairman said, her deep, strong voice easily carrying to the back of the hall. “Our first petitioner is”—she squinted at a sheaf of parchment papers—“Agent Ulla. Step forward.”
As Agent Ulla stood in the center of the room, reporting on the growing difficulties on southwest trade routes, Sakrattars couldn’t help but wonder why he and his companions had been invited. They were the only people in attendance not wearing the navy blue of the Ordo and, furthermore, Jo was the only natiuhan present and Amale the only lycaeon. In short, they stood out like a sore thumb. Sakrattars noticed more than one agent eying them discreetly but Linnea either didn’t see or didn’t mind, and Grandmistress Anya had not looked their way at all.
“Agent Dimitri Vasiliyev,” the chairman summoned once Agent Ulla was finished. A young man in his early thirties entered the circle. He was handsome, with suntanned skin, wavy black hair, and a short, well-groomed beard. His dark brown eyes had an alluring, mischievous sparkle.
“My friends,” he began cordially, his Volgarian accent thick. Leif frowned. Stjornugaard and Volgaria were ancient enemies, with no love lost between their people. “Gorzog Ironfang of the Snowskull Steppes can no longer be ignored. He has amassed an army of several thousand strong and has been slaughtering all who stand in his way. The only city he has yet to breach is the ferix stronghold of Forgeheart.”
“It’s Forgeheart Keep, actually,” said a bored agent seated in the front row.
“No, actually, it’s not. Only outsiders call it that,” Dimitri said, gaining a few murmurs from the crowd.
“The orcs and the ferix have been killing each other on the other side of the Datharian wall since the beginning of time,” an older man seated at the council said. “Why should it be any concern of the Empire? We have plenty of our own problems.”
“Because, Councilor Barla, if Forgeheart falls, Ironfang is out of targets in the Steppes. There will be nothing stopping him from uniting the last of the Snowskull orc tribes, and then he will turn his gaze southward to Datharia. And, as you so eloquently stated, the Empire does not have the resources to repel such an attack, especially since the Balthissican front is draining many of our supplies as it is.”
Barla was unmoved. “We don’t know that—Ironfang could go north too. Into Volgaria.”
A flash of anger ignited in Dimitri’s eyes, vaporizing his easy-going persona. “Volgaria! If he was, I would lead him there myself!” he snapped. “The ferix could be a powerful Imperial ally. Grandmistress,” he implored, “you must see the wisdom of what I’m saying. Ironfang is no petty warlord; he’s a conqueror. And conquerors don’t stop until someone stops them.”
Grandmistress Anya nodded her head once in assent. “I understand, Agent Vasiliyev.” Her voice was deep and calm, at once commanding respect and gentle from age. “However, Councilor Barla also has a valid point. Our legions are few and our agents fewer. I’m afraid we cannot ask this of the Empire.”
Dimitri’s jaw tensed and he turned away, heading back to his seat without another word.
Agent after agent spoke before the chamber, covering the goings-on in every corner of the Empire. Kaja leaned forward, her chin in her hands, her eyes glazed over in boredom, and Sakrattars had to elbow Jo in the ribs to stop her from drifting off to sleep. Without the sun it was impossible to tell what time it was, but it felt like the entire day had passed them by.
“—then the shepherd said that his wife and children saw a dragon in the sky.”
Jo sat up, Amale’s ears shot forward, and Leif’s eyes went wide. The companions weren’t the only ones shocked back into attention by the claim: a cacophony of whispers instantly rippled through the audience.
“Where was this again?” one agent asked.
“Just outside Hale,” the reporting agent confirmed.
“Hale! If a dragon flew by Hale, we’d be able to feel its wingbeats in Aurea!”
“Did anyone else see it?”
She shook her head. “It seems that it was late morning and most of the farmers were already inside at the time. The shepherd himself was out delivering milk.”
“How do we know that she didn’t just see a condor and let her imagination get the better of her? Perhaps she was suffering from the heat and got confused . . .”
“I asked her. She said, and I quote, ‘I have two children under the age of ten. I ought to know what dragons look like since everything in my home is covered in them.’”
There were a few quiet chuckles.
“Regardless, the thought of seeing a dragon is absurd! We don’t even know if any of the monsters still exist.”
“Dragons are still out there, sir agent, I assure you,” Leif said, standing. “I’ve seen them and the destruction they wreak with my own eyes.”
“Perhaps they still have dragons in Stjornugaard,” a councilor said, clearly identifying Leif’s strong accent, “but a dragon hasn’t been seen in Aurelia for hundreds of years.” Leif clenched a fist but sat down without reply.
“Even so,” the reporting agent continued, “we have hired a bestienjäger to comb the hills around Hale looking for signs of a dragon.”
“I hope they get torched,” Jo growled under her breath. Natiuhans had a well-known hatred for bestienjägers, people who hunted dangerous beasts for money and glory. Sakrattars shifted in his seat. The tension within their row was becoming unbearable. Fortunately the chairman dismissed the agent before any more offense could be dispensed, and called upon Linnea next.
Linnea delivered her report with stoicism, relating the details of Feriel’s and Bandrigan’s violent deaths at Lucretia’s hand with a calm, even tone. Notably, she did not mention Kaja’s identity or the encounter with the Fallen on the road to Barsicum. Linnea asked Sakrattars to speak about the memory crystals. She didn’t call on anyone else. Perhaps she assessed that Sakrattars would be a more impartial witness than Leif or Jo, and that Amale wasn’t the public speaking type, but it only served to further confuse Sakrattars as to why they had all been summoned to attend in the first place.
“My agents are searching for Lucretia’s location as we speak,” Linnea concluded. “I hope to have an update soon.”
When they were done, Grandmistress Anya gestured to Linnea and the pair disappeared into a hidden room behind a banner on the wall. Before the banner swung back into place, the Grandmistress looked over her shoulder, making direct eye contact with Kaja. A shot of adrenaline ran down Kaja’s spine.
The chairman cleared her throat. “That concludes today’s—”
“Excuse me, I haven’t had a chance to speak yet.” A ratfolk with soft, gray fur and large, pink ears padded forward, carrying a stack of documents almost as tall as she was. Her long, hairless tail swished behind her. She dropped the stack on the floor with an “oof” and patted the top.
“Ah, erm—”
“Kisha. Kisha Flickwhisker,” the ratfolk prompted. “I’m based right here in Aurea.”
“Undertown, maybe,” someone sitting near the party muttered to themselves.
“Kisha Flickwhisker. Go ahead,” the chairman said. Grumbles coursed through the room as agents who had gotten up to leave took their seats once more.
“I had hoped the Grandmistress would have been present to hear this,” Kisha started. “I have evidence of an Irkallu plot taking place right here in Aurea.”
Gasps and mutters surged through the ranks.
“Impossible!”
“Quite possible,” Kisha continued. “We've discovered that Jezzail Toxinrot, who has been recruiting off our streets for months, is now masterminding an alchemical attack on Undertown. If I could just have a few more agents—”
“If I remember correctly, Jezzail Toxinrot is a member of the Nightrunners, not the Irkallu,” a councilor said. “They are seditionists, surely, but not our main threat.”
Kisha faltered. “. . .yes, but we have reason to believe that the Nightrunners have connections to the Irkallu. You can't pretend that this is a local issue anymore.”
“The Nightrunners have never posed a serious threat. Why should this be any different? We don't have the agents to spare on another one of your alarmist reports.”
Kisha smacked the pile of documents heatedly. “My b . . .b . . . my agent almost gave his life to uncover these plans! He might still give his life,” she added softly.
“I don’t disagree,” someone else spoke up, “but we need to be realistic about what the senate will say. They will not approve allocating resources to something—”
“Something that they see as Undertown’s problem?” Kisha fired back. A chorus of voices filled the room, opinions drowning out one another in a desperate bid to be heard.
“Let her speak,” Dimitri said loudly. He rapped his sheathed cutlass against the stone floor in a series of loud, echoing reports. “Let her speak!”
Kisha nodded to him once in thanks. “The s . . . the s . . .”—her tail whipped in frustration—“we can’t let politics blind us. You’re happy to stay behind these walls but people are suffering on the other side. ‘What has the Aurean Empire ever done for you?’ the Irkallu ask, and most of the people down here can’t give a clear answer back.” Her voice grew stronger, fueled by her conviction. “We’re practically g . . . gift-wrapping new recruits for them. Imagine what happens if word gets out that we knew an attack was coming and did nothing to defend the innocent?”
A heavy silence blanketed the chamber, Kisha’s words reverberating off the hollow walls. Amale sat up in his seat. He thought of his hometown in Acathia, a village where the only future the youth could imagine existed outside of it. The Aurean Empire had promised Acathia so much and delivered so little. Amale thought of how well such a line would resonate in the hearts of his own people. His ears lowered as he realized he himself might have been tempted if he didn’t already know who the Irkallu really were.
“We will review your files,” the chairman said at last, with vain hope that the Grandmistress would reappear and handle the situation for her. “But you must understand: we’re losing too many agents and we need to prioritize what’s most important to the Empire.”
Kisha’s whiskers twitched. “What could be more important than Aurea?”
*
*
The meeting ended and Linnea regrouped with the companions, asking them if they wouldn’t mind staying in Aurea until she could confirm Lucretia’s location. They had no outright objections—Sakrattars planned on conducting some more research and Jo figured that Kaja would be safest in the city under the watchful eye of the Ordo. Their business settled, they ventured into the city for a late lunch.
Sakrattars sat down with the others and unfolded the kelp parcel he had procured, revealing a pile of steamed mussels in a bed of tomatoes, garlic, and lemons. Leif snatched a pot of sauce from a neighboring table.
“Anyone object?” he asked as he opened the lid. Kaja sniffed it and her eyes pinned, the salty, fishy odor instantly tantalizing her senses.
“I don’t want it.” Jo shook her head.
“Come on, even Kaja likes it,” Leif joked as he poured it over half of the mussels. Kaja picked one up, the shell overflowing with the fermented sauce, and popped the entire thing in her mouth.
“Don’t eat the shell!” Jo cried. Kaja paused, then chewed with a sickening crunch. Jo sighed.
“How about you, Amale?” Leif asked. Amale, his gaze distant, flicked an ear. But when Leif went to pour more sauce, both ears quickly flattened against the back of his head. “Alright, I get it. You don’t like it either.” He put down the pot and grabbed a mussel, drinking the juices from the shell. “What’s wrong?” The two sat in silence, listening to Sakrattars show Kaja how to use the stick to pick the meat. Leif just used his fingers. “It’s Kisha, isn’t it?”
Amale’s ears lowered. “I keep thinking about her. Her report,” he clarified when the corner of Leif’s lips curled into a grin. “Why don’t they help her?”
Leif’s smile disappeared. “Politics,” he answered grimly. “Seems like whoever is holding the Ordo’s chain has decided Undertown isn’t worth the trouble.”
Amale looked away, despondent. At one point, Aurea had decided that Acathia wasn’t “worth the trouble” either. A spark of anger flickered inside his heart.
Leif studied his old friend’s face carefully, then reached across the table and rested a hand on his arm. “I heard that they’re treating her agent at the convent. Let’s ask Christina about it when we get back.” Amale nodded, his ears softening.
They turned their attention back to the meal in time to witness Kaja dipping an entire sausage into the sauce pot.
Leif guffawed, patting her back. “With that attitude, you’ll be a proper Aurean in no time!”
*
*
“I’ve done all I can for him,” Christina said, looking into the room where Kisha’s agent, a ratfolk named Barli, lay, struggling for his life. “This toxin is unknown to us. All I can do is ease his pain with prayer.” Barli was placed on a straw bed, surrounded by bundles of aromatic herbs and shallow, pewter saucers of rose water. A single black crow’s feather, a symbol of Aia’s purifying power, lay across his chest, rising and falling with each shuddering breath.
“Poison,” Jo grumbled, “a coward’s weapon.”
“What happened?” Leif asked quietly.
“I don’t know the details, but I heard he was caught in the cloud of an alchemical bomb. What ingredients were used, I can’t say. I wish we knew, then maybe we could better help him.”
Sakrattars swallowed, remembering Kisha’s claim that an alchemical attack on Undertown was imminent. How many would suffer; how many would die?
“Do you know where we can find Kisha?” Amale said suddenly. His jaw was set, his head held high. Leif knew that look: Amale was going to help her, alone if he had to.
Christina crossed her arms thoughtfully. “There’s a barracks not too far from here. I can tell you how to get there. I don’t know if she’ll be there though.”
“I’m going with you,” Leif said to Amale. “Don’t think I’ll let you do this by yourself.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Me too,” Jo added. Both Sakrattars and Kaja nodded in agreement. Amale’s eyes brightened, his tail wagging once with a gentle swish.
*
*
Kisha cracked open the door. “May I help you?”
Amale didn’t say anything right away, so Leif jumped in instead. “Hello, we were at the meeting earlier today.”
Kisha twitched her nose. “I remember. You were with Agent Linnea.”
“Indeed,” Leif continued. “We don’t mean to intrude but we were wondering if we could help you.”
“You. You want to help me?” Kisha’s eyes went wide.
“If you’ll have us.”
Kisha glanced over the companions. Her eyebrow raised slightly when she saw Kaja but she said nothing of it. She closed the door, unlatched the chain, and swung it open, welcoming them into her humble apartment. It was incredibly small and cramped, Leif, Amale, and Sakrattars all having to duck their heads to avoid the ceiling. Jo took one look inside and sat down in the hallway. Kisha smiled sheepishly. “I’ll leave the door open for you . . .” she said.
Books and parchments lay all over the floor and clothes were draped across every surface of the room. Pinned to the wall, amid a scattering of maps and annotated documents, was a prominently-placed charcoal drawing of a nude ratfolk, impressively realistic and luridly detailed. Kisha hastily tore it down, crumpled it up, and kicked it under her bed.
“We visited Barli at the convent,” Leif said solemnly.
Kisha’s ears fell. “He was working within the Nightrunners. S . . .someone must have blown his cover.”
“Who are the Nightrunners? You said they were partnered with the Irkallu?” Sakrattars asked.
“I believe so, yes. They’re an extremist, anti-Aurelian group from Undertown who ostensibly want to overthrow the Aurean government. They claim they are avenging Imperial injustices against their fellow ratfolk, but you’d never know it considering they’ve only ever hurt us,” Kisha sighed. “And yet the senate does nothing to help us either, thus proving the Nightrunners correct in a way. It’s a horrible cycle, one I’ve been working hard to end.”
“And the Irkallu?”
“I don’t think the Irkallu care about the Nightrunners’ cause. They only back them to sow further discontent within the Empire.”
“What about the attack?” Amale said. It was the first time he had spoken and his stomach fluttered when Kisha looked his way.
“Barli uncovered the location of a large weapon cache, poisonous bombs and alchemical weapons, as well as a plan to set them off and blame the senate’s inaction.” Kisha gestured to a document on her wall. At the top, in big, block letters, it read OPERATION BLACK CLOUD. “I know where they are, I know what they’re doing, but I don’t have the agents to spare for a raid. As you saw, the senate doesn’t even consider it a threat.”
Jo shrugged. “Will we be enough?”
The corner of Kisha’s lip turned up into a plucky half-grin. “I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”
*
*
The next day, Kisha led the companions into Undertown. The neighborhood was built among the dilapidated, salt-covered ruins of ancient Aurea. Sakrattars wondered if the remains of the two thousand year old Aurean fortress, rumored to have been defended by the great goddess Aegis herself, now housed a humble family of kobolds. Despite the network of magical lamps lining the roads (set up by the archaeologists at the Academia Arcana for their own convenience, Kisha explained), Undertown was extremely dark, almost too dark for Leif or Jo to see. Kisha assured them that their eyes would adjust as they walked the damp, eroded street. Jo had her doubts. A drop of brackish water fell onto her head and she shook out her red curls irritably.
Dark and damp though it was, it could hardly be called gloomy or empty. Undertown looked like some of the market districts in Aurea above, just with everything scaled down to ratfolk-size and crammed together much tighter than anything seen on the surface. Ratfolk of every description, vocation, and fur color made their way along the narrow streets.
“Sorry, we have to use the main road,” Kisha said. She turned sideways to slip between two ratfolk crossing the street in opposite directions. She did so effortlessly, without even seeming to realize it. Sakrattars noted that all the ratfolk were not so much walking but flowing effortlessly around each other. It was a good bet that nearly all had been born and raised in these crowded warrens and were quite used to the traffic. “The side roads might be too small for . . . uh . . . some of us,” Kisha finished, making a point not to look at Jo.
Apartments and buildings two or three stories tall stretched toward the ceiling—which itself was the strong, rocky foundations that kept the city of Aurea secure. Though the buildings were made of secondhand materials—scrap wood, discarded bricks, parts of ships, even driftwood—clearly a lot of love, care, and craftsmanship had gone into their construction. Every surface was painted, carved, engraved, or all three. Businesses had signs featuring cute, stylized renditions of ratfolk availing themselves of whatever services were available inside. Kaja was endlessly charmed by them, tugging on either Sakrattars’ sleeve or Jo’s hand to point out each new one she spotted.
Kobolds, their bright, colorful scales standing out even among the garishly-clothed ratfolk, also called Undertown home. Though not as numerous at the ratfolk, they hawked wares, swept porches, and chatted amicably in their peculiar dialect. Children, kobold and ratfolk, played together, snaking around the dark, crowded ruins with ease.
The companions finally turned off the main roads and, much to Jo’s relief, the band of curious onlookers, many of whom had never seen a natiuhan in Undertown before, grew bored and dispersed. But just as her mood was starting to improve, the paths grew narrower and more cramped, the ceilings lower and lower. Sakrattars produced his own magical light but, rather than feeling warm and bright, it cast eerie shadows on the cluttered, claustrophobic alleyways. Jo wanted to find what they came for and get out as soon as possible.
Soon, they left the noise from Undertown far behind. They seemed to be walking through ancient aqueducts and cisterns, long since abandoned and filled with dark seawater. There was a subtle flow, indicating it was fed by a passage to the ocean somewhere in the twisting, subterranean labyrinth of tunnels. The water surged slightly, a swarm of blue lights flashing just beneath the surface, as hundreds of bioluminescent creatures were agitated by something unseen. Leif leaned over, trying to see if he could spot any dark-dwelling ocean creatures. Amale, conspicuously, did not do the same and instead walked with a hand on the wall as far away from the lip of the cistern as possible, his ears pinned back the entire time.
They stopped before a large, flat wall hewn directly from the limestone foundation of the island itself. Brackish water dripped from clusters of mussels anchored to the ceiling, suggesting that when the tide came in the chamber was almost fully-flooded.
“Barli said there’s an entrance to the cache around here,” Kisha said, pulling a parchment from her pack and studying it.
“I don’t see anything.” Leif rubbed the stone wall, giving it a few test knocks.
Sakrattars pulled a handful of sand from a pouch in his inner robes and chanted a few words of magic. Holding it out on an open palm, he gently blew the sand onto the walls. Jo and Leif exchanged doubtful looks, but their skepticism melted away when a glowing outline appeared on the stone. Amale pushed and a cleverly concealed door creaked open, revealing a secret passage.
No sooner than the door opened, the sound of rapid footsteps rang out on the other side. Amale jerked back as a man lunged from the darkness, thrusting forward with his short sword. Before anyone could draw their weapons, Kisha slid under the man’s strike, diving between his legs. Shocked, the man couldn’t react as she leapt up behind him and kicked with both feet. Striking him in the small of his back, she knocked him forward into the solid limestone wall. He crumpled to the ground. Amale blinked, his eyes wide, his ears standing at attention. “Wow . . .” he marveled.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Kisha asked, dusting off her blue tunic.
Amale shook his head. “No. Thanks to you.”
“Good,” Kisha smiled. The tip of Amale’s tail wagged in spite of himself. “We’ll need to . . . we’ll need to be careful.” She looked at Leif, with his glowing axe Oxhiminn, clunky shield, and rattling chainmail shirt, then at Jo.
“I get it. We’ll trail,” Jo said.
Kisha nodded, gesturing to Amale and Sakrattars to follow her. Sakrattars went, a sour look on his face. He reached up and patted Bartholomew’s cold head.
“Thank you, Sakrattars, for finding the hidden door,” he muttered to himself.
It wasn’t long before they came upon a sea cave, carved by wave action over thousands of years. The soft lapping of a saltwater river punctuated the silence. Judging by the echoes, the cave was open to the surface somewhere. Crates, tied together with ropes and piled high, filled the room, some covered in burlap. Staying low to the ground, Kisha pried up one of the lids and revealed rows and rows of bottles nestled in cotton fiber. It was the evidence she had been searching for.
“I knew it,” she whispered excitedly. She eagerly pulled out a set of tools and got to work collecting samples by Sakrattars’ light. Amale stood at attention, trying to keep a sharp eye on the surroundings without revealing their hiding place. He didn’t like how they hadn’t faced any resistance besides the one man guarding the entrance. When the savannah was quiet, it usually meant that a large predator was on the prowl.
As if on cue, his sharp ears picked up muffled voices. He gestured for Leif, Jo, and Kaja to stay hidden out in the hallway. Sakrattars’ light quickly blinked out, plunging him and Kisha into darkness just as three figures stepped into view.
One was a man with messy, brown hair and thick stubble. He was holding a torch and speaking to his two companions: both ratfolk, one with light gray fur and the other hooded and cloaked.
“—don’t have time to search the whole city,” the man was saying. “I’ve already been here for two days now and found no sign of her.”
“Give me one more day,” the gray ratfolk replied, wringing her paws. “I intended her to be a gift. A gesture of goodwill between the Nightrunners and the Irkallu.”
The man scoffed. “Normally people have a gift in their possession before offering it, Shorga.”
“Mr Aster—”
“Jax.”
“Jax,” Shorga corrected, “you will have her. Trust me.”
“And why should I?” Jax snapped. “Your informant was ‘mysteriously killed’ before he could even give you a description of the elf she was with. He took all of that knowledge we could have used to his grave. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, now the authorities will be looking for a murder victim. Thus far, you and your Nightshade friends have only been a damned liability.”
Shorga opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when Jax continued his rant.
“Our informant at the Academia Arcana accessed the records, and the only anomaly was one ‘Sakrattars Mistwood’. It says he was there to copy a scroll but the University of Barsicum, where he was allegedly from, has no record of his attendance this past year. He could have stolen that name from an old enrollment list for all we know,” Jax huffed. “There are thousands of elves in Aurea, we can’t investigate them all.” Sakrattars’ cheeks flushed and every muscle in his body tensed. “I’m going back to be with my wife,” Jax finished. “I’m not wasting any more time here.”
“Shh.” The cloaked ratfolk said. Her voice was ragged, almost sickly, yet even that single sound was laced with a forceful malevolence. She raised a paw, the fur on her forearm an unsettling gray-green color. “We’re not alone.”
Everyone went rigid. Kisha, slowly and quietly, slipped her dagger from its sheath.
The cloaked ratfolk narrowed her eyes. “Shorga.”
“Yes, Madame Jezzail,” Shorga said, understanding immediately. She drew her knives and tiptoed around the crates, peering down each aisle. Amale’s paw went to his kukri but Kisha shook her head. Shorga was almost upon her and Sakrattars. Sakrattars could hear the gentle footfalls of Shorga’s paws on the stone, the soft rustle of her fur against her clothes. He held his breath, the words to a spell playing on his lips. So focused were they on Shorga that they didn’t notice that Jezzail had made her move.
“Watch out!” Amale barked.
Kisha, Sakrattars, and Shorga looked up to a clay bomb hurtling through the air. It shattered at their feet and a green cloud exploded forth, engulfing them in its poisonous fumes. Jezzail watched with clinical curiosity and satisfaction as her handiwork took effect. Shorga and Kisha collapsed, coughing and sputtering. Covering his face with a sleeve, Sakrattars tried to drag Kisha with one arm but he, too, quickly succumbed and fell to his knees. Panic set in as it got harder and harder to breathe. Every movement felt like flames erupting under his skin. His vision swam and, as his senses were altered by the toxins, he started to hear hundreds of voices speaking from all around him—voices that were at once barely whispers and almost deafening.
Then a gust of freezing wind blew the toxic cloud away and Jo burst forward, her arm drawn back. She crashed down, her fist breaking through a crate as if it were made of wet paper, sending a puff of poisonous mist flowing down to the floor like a green waterfall. Jezzail narrowly dodged the unexpected attack but Jo shifted her weight and swung her arm back around, connecting with Jezzail’s gut and sending her flying. Stunned, with the wind knocked out of her, Jezzail grabbed a vial from her belt and bit the cork off the top. Jo charged, uttering a roaring cry as she lifted her fist for a finishing strike. Quick as lightning, Jezzail splashed the concoction into Jo’s face. Jo cried out, recoiling as it burned her eyes. Acrid, yellow smoke flowed down her face as the alchemical mixture reacted with her skin.
Jax grabbed Jezzail and helped her limp to the boat docked on the edge of the river. He tossed her among the cargo and pushed the boat into the water.
“Ca . . . ca . . .” Kisha wheezed, “stop them!”
Leif and Kaja moved to intercept but it was too late: Jax and Jezzail were already paddling down the river and into a dark tunnel. Kaja skidded to a stop at the water’s edge and tossed her hand out, several icicles shooting through the air like daggers. They narrowly missed Jax, embedding instead deep into his oar. He looked at them, then at Kaja, whose white hair was now flowing out from beneath her hood. His eyes widened in recognition.
Jezzail immediately guessed what Jax was thinking. “Keep going!” she croaked, clutching her stomach. She pulled another clay bomb from her belt and handed it to him. He didn’t need to be told what it was or what to do. Standing up on the wobbling boat, he threw the bomb as far as he could. It shattered against one of the weapons crates on shore, spewing a fountain of molten hot embers into the air. Kaja screamed as alchemical fires in a rainbow of unnatural colors roared to life around her.
“No!” Kisha cried, reaching out helplessly as all of her evidence went up in flames. “No no no no no!” Amale gritted his teeth and scooped her up even as she struggled.
Leif picked up Sakrattars, shifting the lanky elf’s weight in his arms. “Jo! Get the other one!”
Jo wiped her eyes one more time, blinking. She could barely see through the haze of tears but she managed to grab an unconscious Shorga and follow everyone else out of the smoke-filled chamber. Behind them, a series of sharp reports echoed off the stone walls as bottles burst from the heat. Each explosion spilled more unstable, noxious chemicals into the raging inferno. Kisha stole one last look at the burning weapons cache—the one thing she could have used to make her appeal to the senate to send the aid Undertown so desperately needed—then closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.
*
*
Kisha hunched over a roll of parchment, chewing on the end of her quill. She took it out of her mouth now and then, writing equations until she either ran out of ink or ideas, then chewed on it again.
It had been several days since the raid and the effects of the toxin had run its course so, naturally, she was back to work. Luckily, the few samples she had managed to gather were proving invaluable, both as evidence and in the synthesization of an effective treatment. Shorga’s capture was another major blow to the Nightrunners, though she was either unwilling to speak or unable to due to the heavy dose of toxins she had inhaled. Jax and Jezzail still remained at large, but Kisha was prepared to call it a victory all the same.
Then there came a knock at the door. Kisha looked up, blinking with surprise. It was just after dark and no one called on her that late unless it was an emergency. She slipped some clothes over her silken undergarments, and padded to the door in bare paws. Opening it a crack, she immediately recognized her visitor. “Amale!” she said with a smile, opening the door the rest of the way. Amale had come to see her every day she was being treated in the convent, but he hadn’t come to see her since she returned to the barracks. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Amale’s ear twitched. “It’s a nice night. Care for a walk?”
Kisha smiled, her brown eyes twinkling. “That’s s . . . nice of you to ask,” she said, her tail swishing nervously. She looked back to her desk, at the reams of parchment spread across it. “But I have a lot of work to do,” she said sadly.
Amale’s ears lowered and he nodded. “Okay, goodnight,” he said softly, turning to leave. He had made it a few steps when he heard Kisha’s door close. He looked back and saw her standing outside. His ears perked up.
“Though, I suppose I could use a break,” she said with a little smile.
The pair made their way through the darkened streets of Aurea, wandering into the gardens outside of the Daughters of Aia convent. It was quiet this time of night with only the sounds of trickling water and the occasional night bird’s dull cooing. The sounds of the market, still bustling as the outdoor taverns opened for the night, seemed far away and detached among the trees and manicured paths of the garden.
They approached a small, decorative bridge over a little pond. Pausing in the middle, Kisha sat down, dangling her legs off the edge and into the pool below. She kicked her toes gently against the surface. Amale stood next to her, leaning over the railing, eyes on the moonlit gardens.
“So you haven’t been back home in five years?” she asked. Amale nodded. “Wow,” Kisha said, looking back at her reflection in the water. Soon, that reflection was joined by another as Amale sat beside her.
“You’re from Aurea?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Yes,” Kisha said. “My parents live in Undertown along with all my brothers and sisters—all seventeen of them.”
Amale chuckled, a quiet, subtle sound, and Kisha grinned.
“Do you have siblings?”
Amale nodded. “Younger brother. Older sister.”
Kisha’s ears lowered. “And you haven’t seen them since you left?”
Amale’s ears lowered too as he looked down at the rippling water.
“That sounds lonely.”
Amale turned to her. For the first time since she had met him, Kisha saw a small grin cross his stoic face. “Only sometimes,” he said, making her smile too.
For a long time, they were quiet. Then Kisha leaned over, resting her head on Amale’s shoulder. His ear flicked at the unexpected contact—unexpected, but very welcome. He rested his cheek on the top of her head between her ears. Gently, he took her paw in his. She gave it a little squeeze, letting out a happy trill as she leaned against him. He closed his eyes and took a deep, relaxed breath.
They sat there in silence for a long while, Kisha kicking lightly at the surface of the water, Amale by her side with his hind paws submerged in the pond. Small fish, scales reflecting the moonlight, swam languidly between their feet. Amale was so at peace, he wasn’t sure if he had dozed off or not, but at some point Kisha reluctantly broke their embrace. “Well, it’s getting late, I should get back to work.” She moved away slowly, lifting herself to her feet. He stood as well, facing her, still holding her paw in his own.
They walked back toward the Ordo barracks under the flickering lanterns hanging over the cobblestone streets. There was activity everywhere: street performers doing juggling acts or theater in the round, outdoor grills blazing with light and exuding delicious smells, horses and carts rattling along the center of the street and pausing now and then to let pedestrians cross. Amale noticed that he was being led on a somewhat circuitous path but said nothing.
Yet despite Kisha’s attempts to make their evening last, it still seemed like no time at all before they found themselves once more outside her door. Kisha partially opened it, before turning back.
“Thank you, Amale. I needed this more than I realized.”
“So did I,” he said quietly. He paused to gather his courage. “May I see you again?”
Kisha smiled. “I’d really like that,” she said, “but I don’t know if I . . . if I can.” Her smile faded away and she took both of Amale’s paws in hers, looking down at them. “Things are happening quickly now. The Irkallu are on the move and the Ordo is overwhelmed. You and I have jobs to do. People to defend. People to help.”
Amale thought about that for a long time. As her words began to make sense, his ears drooped and his shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry,” Kisha said.
Amale shook his head. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Tonight was all I needed.”
Kisha gave both of his paws a squeeze, before parting from him. She was halfway through her door when she turned around again. “Promise me something though?”
“Hm?”
“When things have calmed down a little . . . ask me again?”
The tip of Amale’s tail quivered and his heart beat faster. “I promise.”
*
*
Late that night, Linnea also received a knock at her door. “Come in,” she called, looking up from a worn map of Aurelia.
An agent entered and stood straight in salute. “Ma’am.” Somehow, Linnea knew exactly what his next words would be.
“We’ve found Lucretia.”