Sil found Tallah in the small hours of the morning, on the steps in front of the Sisters’ great hospital. There was a near empty bottle by her side. She was watching traffic pass by in the gloomy sprite-light, looking comfortably numb to the cold, neatly hidden under the wide brim of her hat.

A thin layer of snow covered the walkways and hid the black ice beneath. The sorceress chuckled every time another passer-by slipped and fell.

“I see Aliana’s kicked you out in the cold,” Sil said by-way-of greeting, taking a seat next to her on the wet marble steps. Tallah offered the bottle, some liquid still sloshing on the bottom.

“I walked out on my own. This time. Took her stuff.” She slurred the words.

“Did she look at your eye?” Sil studied the liquid, holding it up to the nearest sprite-lamp. “No weird insects floating in this?”

Tallah turned to her and displayed her bright-pink eye.

“She did. Gave me a full course of her ministrations. Hurt like you wouldn’t believe. I thought you bunch weren’t supposed to enjoy hurting your patients.” For all her griping, she didn’t seem upset about the treatment.

Sil opened her satchel and pulled out a pair of round spectacles. She cleaned and handed them over. “I assume I’ll need to make a new lens for you,” she said as Tallah looked around.

“Still in range. I’ll let you know if I get a headache later.”

Sil finished up the bottle and hiccuped.

“How does she drink this stuff? If there were any justice in the world, this would make you blind.” She grimaced and leaned on Tallah, watching a stout aelir’sar take a nasty fall. Her instincts urged to help but her mind pointed out the hospital behind them. There was a still a trickle of people coming in, even at that strange hour.

“I got us about a hundred Valen griffons for our trouble.” She yawned and shifted closer. “Your little prize is of no concern to anyone, so he’s yours to keep.”

“That’s about double what I expected the maps to fetch. Was Lucian so happy to see you?”

Sil chuckled.

“Hardly. He couldn’t be greasier if they dipped him in lard. Do you remember killing a verman shaman?”

Tallah squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus.

“Vaguely. All rats look the same.”

“It was that one with the robe. You blew its spine out.” She gestured a minor explosion. “It was of interest to the Storm Guard, if you can imagine it. Lucian even offered an extra reward for killing the blighter. I smiled and accepted, though he now thinks the world of your abilities.”

Tallah scrunched up her nose and grumbled.

“Sometimes I forget the gap between myself and who Tianna’s supposed to be. It’s too early to get the Guard interested in her.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head on Sil’s shoulder as they sat in the cold, silent for some time. Heat wafted off her. A fever, or just burning off some illum for warmth? It was hard to tell.

“What next?” Sil asked when she felt the cold bite at her toes.

“Next, I may be sick. Give me something for it.”

Sil handed over a toxin purger in a glass vial, the last of her supply. She had it ready before the sorceress even asked.

“All at once or you’ll vomit it out,” she instructed, but Tallah had already downed it.

The sorceress sighed in relief as alcohol purged out of her. Her breath misted in the frigid night air, blown away by a gathering wind. Her heat was definitely a fever. She shivered and was trying to hide it.

“We’re staying put and lying low, after Tianna’s fashion,” Tallah said, speaking clearly. “I’m itching to know what you got out of the boy’s head.”

She pushed herself up and stretched the stiffness from her joints. Sil followed suit, dusting the snow off her clothes.

“Don’t blame me if stuff makes little sense. I have no reference points for most of it and it’s lahlah, as far as I can reason it out. I’ve been trying to sort through it since we got out.”

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“If he’s an Other then I’d be quite disappointed if he turned out to be boring. I’ll put him back in the caves myself.”

They walked abreast down the steps from the Upper City into the Lower, by the side of the Daylight Wall. About a hundred meters elevated the Upper City. They could have taken the Enginarium elevator down, but that also made Tallah sick.

That only left the stairs. Few people still used them. The wind had turned savage and howled outside the many small windows. Sil drew close against Tallah, the sound all too like the cries from the caves. Those would take long to sink below the surface of memory.

The Meadow had once been a watering hole on the edge of Valen, back when the city had been younger and wilder. Tallah, in her more pensive moments, talked about those days with uncharacteristic fondness. Now the once-quaint tavern offered the best accommodation that money could buy just shy of the Fortress itself. For someone like Tianna, making her name in the world while spending father’s significant fortune, it was the only possible lodging.

It hugged the great city wall at the end of a labyrinthine mess of alleyways and thoroughfares. Anyone unfamiliar with the dense cluster of the Lower City would never hope to stumble upon it, and for the regulars it was a point of pride to know the way by heart.

Even that early in the day, with cold Cares’s light just kissing the lip of the Outer Wall, the Meadow was abuzz with activity.

They found the elendine owner almost immediately in the chaos. Or, rather, the other way around. She was with them when they stepped through the door as if coming out of the woodwork itself to greet them.

“Welcome back, Your Ladyships.” Tallah started at that too cheerful tone for the hour, speaking right next to her ear. “I was not warned of your return. Shall I get your apartment ready?”

“Good morning to you too, Verti,” Sil said and bowed to the woman. They allowed themselves to be led through the early morning crowd. “Yes, please. We’ve just returned tonight.”

Verti, an elendine with ash-grey hair, was the eldest, and matriarch, of the Bergama family. They had owned the tavern since before the Empire had been built, mother to daughter, in a long, unbroken succession. For her to meet them in person was an honour.

“I feared something ill might have befallen you ladies,” Verti said as she led them up the spiral inner stair. “It will take some time for heating and hot water to reach your room. We have had a new Enginarium boiler and pump installed this week. The cold still lingers in some places. I hope you will pardon the discomfort.”

“It’s all right,” Tallah said and yawned. “I just need food and drink.”

“Will you be having breakfast? Or dinner?”

“Both. Either. I don’t care, as long as it’s proper food. I’m sick of dried meat and cheese.”

Verti smiled as she unlocked the heavy master’s lock to their apartment.

“I understand, Mistress Aieni. There will be neither of those.”

A gaggle of workers came in moments later with fresh linen for the beds, flowers for the vases, and wood for the hearth. They worked under Verti’s stern gaze with the efficiency of long practice.

“Food will come up shortly,” she said as she walked out, satisfied with her staff’s work. “As always, please enjoy your stay with us. I remain your servant.”

Tallah undressed and took the first turn to soak in a hot bath. Sil inspected the room and belongings.

Their three large chests lay as they had left them, locked tight and warded against curious hands. She checked every enchantment. Nothing had been disturbed while they were gone. Verti would have probably set at least one guard, for propriety’s sake.

She set her staff on a rack, tightened its covering, and then emptied her satchel on a table. Tallah’s silver mask would need cleaning and disinfecting, but it could wait. Anna’s bone wand exuded a cold, surly malice and Sil was glad to have it off her person. Both items went into a locked compartment in the largest chest.

The black gem she stowed in the deepest, darkest part of their armoured travel chest. Tallah would see to its storage when she recovered more of her strength. There wasn’t enough acid in the world to burn away the feel of it from Sil’s hands.

She undressed at long last and took out clean clothes. “I’m going to burn you when we’re done,” she mumbled as she held out the rough, itchy dress for inspection. “I’m going to make an evening of it, with wine and a comfortable chair from which to watch you burn.”

Dinner arrived just as they switched for the bath. Tallah met the two caterers at the door barely dressed and Sil slipped into the bathroom as they babbled their way through presenting the meal.

The tub was copper, and large enough to fit four women of Sil’s stature, while the bathroom itself could host a ball. A complex system of copper pipes protruded out of the ceiling to provide hot, cold, and fizzy water through three separate nozzles. The chill lingered—Tallah must’ve had a cold dip—and reminded her uncomfortably about all the rough living they’d been doing for weeks, memories of grisly mutations scratching at the surface of her thoughts.

She submerged under hot water, eyes closed, listening to the throbs of her heartbeat as all other sounds got drowned out.

It worked to drown out the the memories of this last terrible week. Tallah could detach herself from the horrors that had tried to claw their innards out, but it wasn’t as easy for her. She feared what her first sleep in a proper bed would conjure up to sour the night.

When she surfaced, Tallah was there on the edge of the bathtub, handing her a glass of rose petal wine.

“Tell me about the boy.”

Sil raised an eyebrow and took the proffered drink.

“Are you serious? You couldn’t let me enjoy the bath?”

The sorceress shrugged.

“You take forever in a bath, like a glass of wine whenever you soak, and are fond of this vintage. I don’t see why we can’t both get what we want.”

All true.

Sil sighed and leaned back, the foot of the glass pressing on her chest.

“Fine. Wash my hair and I’ll tell you about the blasted boy.”