Thanks to the hundreds of years of forgotten infrastructure and crumbling buildings, filled in with layers of rock and soil and mud, the human’s elevator no longer reached the surface.

Instead, much to Eolh’s annoyance, the elevator stopped somewhere in the sewers. The exit was blocked by chunks of stone and wet, filthy dirt. They had to dig their way out.

Well, Eolh didn’t. He stood and watched, nursing the dull ache in his arm, as Ryke and the fledgling human flung dirt and stones out of their way.

Once they cleared it, Eolh insisted that Poire wash the assassin’s toxic mucus off with sewer water.

The Queen muttered something about blasphemy, asking a god to bathe in waste, and Poire protested that he was fine.

But Eolh said, “You might be immune, but we’re not. Scrub harder.”

So the fledgling did as he was told, gagging the whole time as he used brown water to rinse the sticky substance off, until his black skin shone in the dim light. To his credit, the fledgling only emptied his stomach once before he was “clean.”

“You all right?” Eolh said.

Poire wiped the sick off his mouth and nodded.

The Queen tore off part of her dress shirt, and Poire used it to dry himself off. She wouldn’t stop apologizing to the human—“Divine One, our deepest apologies; our foul city is not worthy of your presence”—but Poire shrugged her off.

“I’m fine,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

Together, the three of them sloshed through the sewers, following the flow of the current up. They didn’t have to go far to find a hatch-hole.

The Queen went first, pushing open the rusted iron cover just an inch. “It’s dark,” she whispered down at them. “We won’t get a better chance.”

Eolh went after the human. Climbing was difficult with only one hand, and his feathered fingers scrabbled to fit into the ancient stone holds.

Up on the surface, the human’s eyes were wide with wonder. “Is this real?” he kept saying. “Is all of this real?”

“What else would it be?” Eolh asked.

The light of dawn had not yet broken over the Cauldron’s steep cliff walls, but the city was already shrouded in the early morning mist. Water dripped from every roof and every balcony, and even the heaviest footstep was dampened by a jungle fog.

The fledgling human touched the dew on the lantern poles as if he had never seen water before. He dragged his fingers across the bricks of a row house, and when he started climbing through a vinehedge to look into someone’s window, Eolh grabbed the back of his shirt and held him back.

“What are you doing?” Eolh snarled. “Do you want to be seen?”

“Corvani!” Ryke whispered sharply, clapping her hand on Eolh’s. “Have you no respect? Do you not know how precious he is?”

“I’m not a child,” the fledgling said, abashed and annoyed at the same time. “I was just curious.”

“Bad time to be curious,” Eolh muttered, but he loosened his grip. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and it’s almost daybreak.”

“Do people really live like this, right on top of each other?” Poire asked. “How many people live here?”

“In the Midcity,” Ryke said, “there are perhaps a million people.”

“That many?”

She lifted her beak, and her chest filled with pride. “If you count each tier and the palace above, the Cauldron sprawls to almost three million. This is Gaiam’s greatest city.”

“Was,” Eolh cawed bitterly. “It was Gaiam’s greatest city.”

That earned him a dark look from the Queen, but she offered no argument.

Despite the mist, they could see glimpses of Lowtown down the steeper streets and over the lowest rooftops. Down there, the streetlamps were weak, greasy lights that outlined a jumbled maze of alleys and nooks and unplanned streets. Far beyond, the vium ran through a huge cleft in the Cauldron’s walls and out toward the Wash, where the first factories were already at work. Distant, isolated pillars of smoke poured silently toward the sky, only to be erased by the ocean winds.

Eolh stopped them at the bottom of the street. “Into the alley. Now.” The three of them pressed into a nook between two row houses, listening.

Out on the street, a group of uniformed imperials were gathered in front of a house, whose windows were all dark. One of them was hammering on the door. Behind them, a woman with a short, white beak and red plumage was on her knees in the street, sobbing, begging for them to leave the house alone. The imperials ignored her until she tugged at one of their cloaks.

An imperial slammed the stock of his endloader into her chest. She crumpled to the ground with a squawk. When the imperial kicked her in the stomach, two of the others laughed and egged him on. The cyran kicked her again.

It wasn’t anything new, not to Eolh. Maybe not such a common sight up here in the Midcity, but this was every day in Lowtown. The imperials regularly took their boredom and frustration out on the Cauldron’s poorest citizens.

He scanned the alley, seeking a way around their squadron. But this early in the morning, the streets were too empty.

Ryke was standing right behind him, so close that he could hear the enraged grinding of her beak. Her crest feathers were fully raised, making her almost a head taller than normal. As if she actually cares about what happens to us little folk.

“Distract them,” she said. “I’ll get her out of there and—”

Eolh grabbed her arm before she could step out of the alley. He could feel her flight muscles straining against him.

“No,” he whispered.

“I must.”

“And how does that work, exactly? And what about him?”

Poire was still crouched several paces back, hiding by a statue half covered in lichen. His eyes were wide, soaking in every sight.

“What’s matters most?” Eolh asked.

Ryke exhaled her frustration, letting her crest feathers fall. So they went back down the alley, away from the laughing guards and those awful, squawking cries for help.

They crossed no other patrols until they reached the Vium Cyruam, the main avenue that fed into each of the three tiers and intersected the gate. The gate was nothing more than a flat disc of metal embedded in the cobblestones. Two semicircular rings of metal floated, perfectly still, over the disc.

Usually, the gate was watched only by skeleton patrols. Usually.

Today, there were dozens of guards, imperial soldiers, and even a cadre of enlisted avian militia walking up and down the avenue.

Compared to the cyran soldiers, the local guards looked like peasant rabble in their ill-fitting gear and carrying their old long-bore muskets. The cyrans’ gear gleamed, their endloaders tucked tight against their shoulders so the bayonets daggered up at the sky as they marched in watchful squadrons.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Look at them,” Eolh crowed. “Soon, there’ll be more of them than us.”

And here he was, working with the Queen. The very same avian who had let all this happen . . .

Why?

“How do we cross?” Ryke asked.

The avenue wrapped around the statue of the Sentinel, standing in his eternal pose in the middle of the avenue, dimly gleaming hands held in front of him as if pushing against some invisible force. Pots and urns of perfume and fresh floral offerings lay at his feet.

Beyond the statue, the gate itself sat empty. And it should remain that way for many weeks, until the next day of Opening.

Above, the first bright light of the sun peeked over the Cauldron cliffs and began to burn away the mists. Somewhere in the Midcity, a temple bell clanged heavy and slow, and the first crooning notes of the Morning Song lifted over the rooftops, calling the people to waken and praise the Old Ones for a new, blessed day.

All this while a dozen patrols of cyran troops traded shifts. Why are so damn many of them out today? Streams of them were marching up from the Midcity steps now, passing their compatriots headed down.

“I’ve got nothing,” Eolh said.

“There was a temple a few streets back. We can ask the priests to hide us.”

“The priests?” Eolh scoffed. “They will sell him out in a heartbeat.”

“Watch your tongue, corvani.”

“And you think I’m a thief? How many people pay alms to the Faith, and where does it all go?”

“I said watch your tongue.”

A shrieking, desperate yell pierced the mists. It came from a nearby rooftop and echoed through the avenue.

“Hail! Hail the return! Salvation is at hand!”

The patrols in the street stuttered and stopped as the soldiers looked around for the source of the voice.

Another voice, this one from across the avenue, answered. “FREEDOM OR FIRE! LONG LIVE THE CAULDRON!”

A glass bottle spun in the sky. It caught the sunlight as it fell—a glint of clear liquid—and when it smashed against the ground, a pool of fire erupted over the cobblestones. Two cyrans were swallowed by the flames, flailing and screaming as they ran out of the blaze.

More glass bottles were hurled from the rooftops, creating instant bonfires in the middle of the vium. Eolh saw three silhouettes on the rooftops across the way, their arms cocked back. Ready to throw more.

A sudden memory stung him, pulling him into a moment he had long forgotten. Running on the rooftops, chasing down the imperials with his blood crew. Talons slapping against the wooden shingles, toward the enemy. Toward victory.

The others had been too blind to see the trap.

Glass shattered on the road in front of them, and the heat from the flames snapped him back.

Idiots, Eolh thought. They’re going to get themselves killed.

The imperials were already forming into squares, shouting and aiming their endloaders at the rooftops. A crackling round of gunfire, and one of the silhouettes on the rooftop jerked and fell, the feathered body smacking on the ground.

But there were more silhouettes, hiding behind chimneys or leaning out of windows. They had their own guns.

They shot back until gun smoke filled the alleys and drifted over the vium in a white haze. Those damned, blessed idiots.

“It’s time,” Eolh said.

Ryke nodded, grabbed Poire by the arm, and started to run.

They dashed across the vium as far from the chaos as they could. Shouts echoed and gunshots crackled, and the clouds of smoke kept growing. Every footstep sent pain lancing through his arm, and it was all he could do to ignore it.

Cyran soldiers barked orders at the militia to “stand your ground! Shoot them!” At one point, he heard the rebels screaming about cutting off the Coward Queen’s head. After that, it was too loud to hear anything at all. Once, a bullet scraped the cobblestone street right in front of them, but Eolh couldn’t tell where it had come from.

He threw himself across the street, skidding to a stop behind the Sentinel’s statue, cradling his wounded wrist, which throbbed with pain. New blood speckled his filthy gray bandages. Poire and Ryke fell in behind him, all three catching their breaths.

Fire climbed up one of the row houses, pouring a cloud of thick, oily smoke into the air. Just like old times.

“Ready?” Eolh asked Ryke.

She nodded. He took off first.

Shots whipped past Eolh through the haze, going wide of their mark. Eolh was almost across the avenue; he could just see the alley when he heard a shout from behind.

“Corvani!”

He turned around. Ryke was flapping nervously, trying to coax the human to run, but Poire was ignoring her. The fledgling was standing at the base of the Sentinel. His mouth was hanging open as he stared up into the statue’s face.

“What’s he doing?” Eolh whispered hoarsely at the Queen. “Grab him!”

But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t lay hands on the fledgling, and she dared not touch him, as if he were made of holy fire. Eolh cursed her for being so devout, and he cursed Poire for being such a naive little fool—almost a full-grown fledgling and no survival instincts at all—and Eolh thrust his wings back, running and flying across the vium toward them.

“Fledge!” Eolh said. “Come on!”

“It’s him.” His eyes were glued to the statue.

“What in the burning hells are you talking about? Move!”

But Poire was transfixed.

The statue was made of that human-forged metal, which meant it was both absurdly rare and as flawless as the day it was made. None dared to profane it, and even if they wanted to, no mortal tools could touch that metal.

The Sentinel’s face was a simple, featureless mask. Its body was hidden under folds of metal masterfully forged to look like fabric. But everyone knew the statue was undeniably human.

“Divine One, please,” Ryke begged. Her hands hovered over him, inches from the strange formfitting fabric of his suit.

“Fledge, it’s just a statue!”

Poire spoke so quietly that Eolh almost didn’t hear him over the sounds of battle.

“No. It’s him.”

But Eolh wasn’t listening anymore. He pushed Ryke out of the way and grabbed the human by the arm, almost tugging him off his feet as they ran through gun smoke and fire.

***

Every gunshot, every cry of sedition, was another distraction that kept the imperials away from them. Eolh did not know why they chose today to start a fight, but it kept the imperials occupied. Thank the gods, Eolh thought, though he doubted they had any hand in this.

They did not stop running until they reached the base of the leaning tower. All the apartments and windows carved into the cracked stonework exterior were dark. No sign of guards at all.

Good.

The tower, more than a hundred feet taller than any other building in the Midcity, leaned dangerously over the Lowtown cliff.

Poire’s eyed it, not with simple interest, but with something like recognition.

“You know this place?” Eolh asked.

“No,” Poire said. “Not as a place.”

There was no time to puzzle out the human’s latest obscurity. They had been lucky so far, but the patrols couldn’t be far off.

When they took the first steps into the basement and there was still no light, Eolh felt a twinge of nervousness.

“Doctor?” he called out, hesitant.

No response.

Eolh clicked on the android’s eye as he headed deeper into the basement. Hallways overgrown with roots, wires threaded around branches running across the ceiling. Dozens of gas lanterns, all of them dark.

“Doctor!” Eolh whispered a little louder.

A voice rushed through the dark hallway.

“I told you . . . corvani . . .” Vines descended from the ceiling, intertwining in a living wall that blocked their path. “You are not welcome . . . here.”

“What is that?” Poire whispered. He pressed against Ryke like a scared hatchling hugging its mother, which made Ryke flinch back, still afraid to touch the godling, or whatever he was.

“Doctor,” Eolh said, “I’m here to clear my debts.”

“Liar . . .” The voice made of wind whispered up through the wood, and something deep under the floor groaned and stretched. “What you stole . . . is beyond your reckoning.”

“You sure about that?” he said.

Eolh pulled three nanite tubes from his pouch. Though they were made of glass, all of them were free of scratches. Flawless.

“Hey!” Poire said, checking his own pockets and finding them lighter than before.

“Consider us even, Fledge,” Eolh muttered under his breath.

He turned back to the unfurling vines, one of which was capped with a single green eye as large as a fist. Tiny black roots spidered over the iris, securing it to the vine, and eyelids made of fleshy leaves allowed it to blink and focus on the three vials.

“How is this . . . possible? Where did you . . . get these?”

“Figured I owe you a bit of interest, so the first two should make us square.”

“And . . . the third?”

Eolh lifted his severed wrist wrapped in muddy linens.

The vine twisted in an arc over his wrist, letting the green eye view the wound from another angle. “I’m afraid . . . I do not work . . . miracles. But I will see . . . if I can help.”

The eye swiveled around the room, fixing first on the Queen.

“Your . . . Majesty . . .” they breathed, and she bowed back. “My life . . .”

“Is a gift to my city,” she finished the thought for him. “Please—you owe me nothing, Doctor.”

Something unspoken passed between them, Eolh was sure of it. How did they know each other? He would have to ask her about that later.

And then, the Doctor’s eye fell on the human.

“Ah . . . Achinwoan,” the Doctor breathed, using the old speech. Eolh didn’t know exactly what it meant. He had never been one for worship, even before the Empire opened the gate. “You . . . bless me . . . with your light . . . once more.”

“What are you?” Poire asked. “What is this thing?”

“Fledge,” Eolh hissed. “Mind yourself. The Doctor saved your life. You owe them your thanks.”

“Hardly,” the floors breathed out the Doctor’s words. “I merely used . . . the tools made by the Achin Kechal . . . Which reminds me . . . where is she?” The eye twisted around on the vine, searching the dark hallways. “Where is . . . the androfex?”

Eolh swallowed the lump in his throat and cast his eyes down to the dusty floorboards. “The android didn’t make it.”

It stung. It hurt worse than he thought it should. Worse, even, than the pain burning from his wrist, lancing down his arm.

The words came unbidden to his mind: How many times will you escape? How many will die while you keep living?

You should be dead, Eolh. Not her.

You.

“She gave her life to save the human.” Eolh’s beak clenched around the lie.

No, Eolh, his own thoughts clawed back, she gave her life to save you. You miserable worm.

But why? No part of him that could answer. Why . . .

The Doctor breathed out, “A great . . . sadness. To lose the child . . . of a Maker . . .”

Eolh couldn’t tear his gaze away from his own feet. He shook the feathers of his head as if he could shake off the thorns that wrapped around his heart.

You would have left her there.

He deserved this pain. He deserved so much worse.