Pain.

Eolh’s body reverberated with hot, blistering pain. Wings, shoulders, broken ribs, rope scars around his thighs, his neck.

That’s what you get for breaking the rules, he thought.

All of them, by his count. Every rule he’d ever lived by. And for what?

Eolh didn’t want to move or even open his eyes. Instead, he lay still and listened.

This is what the listener heard: a soft, rasping breath from his left. The Queen, in another bed, half covered by a curtain.

To his right, the deep, careless snores of a fledgling human.

Not alone, then. Something about that made the pain recede a little. Made it easier to bear.

Eolh rolled his head to the left, though even that slight motion made him wince. Linen sheets, as light as gauze, covered the Queen up to her neck so that he could only see her face and her eyes, swollen shut. Her beak was wrapped in a clean, tan-colored cast. Something still rattled with each rise and fall of her chest, but she was alive.

Eolh could only guess at what she had gone through at the hands of the Magistrate. What she had survived.

On the bed to his right lay the fledgling human. He looked so small now without that armor covering his body. Almost fragile with his cheek smushed against a pillow, his mouth carelessly open as he snored like a packdragon.

Eolh blinked. On top of the tower, with Poire’s metal skin rippling through every color, and the way he glowed in the light, well. Only one word came to Eolh’s mind. Up there, Poire had looked like a god.

Poire snorted himself awake. “Huh?” he said, though his eyes did not open. He rolled over on his other side and started snoring again.

He’s got the right idea, Eolh thought. Going back to sleep. Against the cold air of the leaning tower’s basement, the warmth of this bed was simple perfection. Every bone in his body protested at the thought of getting up . . .

A sound, unlike anything he had ever heard before, erupted from his stomach.

No. Sleep.

It growled, then growled again. And the more he tried to ignore it, to sink back into perfect sleep, the more it gripped him.

Eolh grumbled to himself, and when he tried to sit up, a fresh wave of pain slammed into him, making him gasp. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the stabbing in his ribs or the one in his head.

It wasn’t until he tried to move again that he made his decision: Ribs. Definitely the ribs.

The corvani huffed a few short, shallow breaths, then tried again. This time, he rolled out of the bed, clenching his whole body. The linens slid over a nasty cut on his arm, catching on the stitches, sending a white-hot jolt through the limb.

But his talons found the floor.

And as long as he moved slowly, the pain receded to a low background ache.

A single light from the hall illuminated the infirmary in a hazy glow. Eolh steadied himself on a shelf near the foot of his bed. Bundles of feathers were neatly categorized by length and type. Silver tools gleamed in the light. They’re stitching her feathers back in? Eolh didn’t know they could do that.

In the bed, her head looked so strange without her feathers. So small. He could see all that pale gooseflesh and the wiry muscles of her neck. So alien, even to him.

How did she do it? How did she endure? Not just the torture, but nineteen damned years of living under the Magistrate’s twisted rule?

She was twitching, and her beak struggled against her cast, the tip of her beak clicking tightly. Her eyes flicked back and forth under her eyelids.

“Hey.” Eolh came to her side, wincing as he leaned down so he could whisper in her ear. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

He would have held her if he weren’t afraid of causing her more pain. Instead, he whispered, telling her she was safe, trying to ease her back into deeper sleep.

But her eyes opened. Two glints of light, shining through the puffy, bruised flesh.

“You came back,” she croaked. “I knew you would.”

“Go back to sleep.”

She closed her eyes, a slight crooked smile at the corner of her beak. “I knew you would.” And she fell back into sleep.

Out in the hallway, a scent made the knots in Eolh’s stomach twist harder: the sweet smell of ripe fruit, cooked meat, and the rich saltiness of fresh nut butter. His beak was watering.

Hushed voices. There were people down there, sitting around a table.

Eolh pressed himself into the shadows of the hallway and listened.

“Yes, but I can’t say I ever truly met him.” It was the clicking voice of an android. “I was born right before he died. My Maker left recordings of himself in my head. Images and words that I can remember as if I were there.”

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“What was he like, then? Go on and tell us.”

Horace’s voice. The old corvani boss was trying to sound cool, almost indifferent. But Eolh could tell he was hooked on the android’s every last word.

“Where shall I start?” Laykis asked.

“Tell us what he looked like!” This third voice took Eolh a moment to recognize. The Queen’s wingmaiden? Though Eolh could not see her face, he could imagine her eyes wide with wonder.

“Old,” Laykis said. “The lines in his face were deep, like valleys in a dry, cracked desert. He was always frowning, which meant he was thinking about something. And his eyes were machine, like mine. I thought all humans had machine eyes, until I saw Poire.”

Eolh ventured a glance around the corner, keeping his beak low so they wouldn’t see his profile. His ribs stabbed, and he put a hand to his gut, stifling a groan.

Laykis was propped up in an ornate, straight-backed chair. The fact that her mangled torso was exposed to the open air didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. Eolh felt a twinge of envy. Can androids even feel pain?

The other two were sitting at a rough wooden table, facing her. Heat lamps sprouted from the walls, turned to warm the trunk of the Doctor and the vines that weaved through the ceiling.

The table was laden with ceramic pots and glass jars and fruits. Curded cheeses sat in saucers, and a hunk of cooked red meat steamed on a copper plate. Eolh’s stomach clenched at the sight. He could almost taste it . . .

“My Maker was infected,” Laykis was saying. “Long before he began my construction. But he was always very careful to work on me remotely. I was built to his meticulous specifications. I do not know how long he worked on me. I wonder what he would say now if he saw me like this.”

Horace leaned forward, stroking the underside of his beak. Eolh had seen that look before. He was appraising her. Sizing and weighing the damage to her body.

“Your Maker, he must’ve been quite a mechanic. You know, I know a tinker. Finest in the Cauldron, perhaps. Not as fine as your Maker, but I’ll wager my girl could fix you right up, if you want. Though”—Horace looked casually at the feathers on his arm—“it’ll cost you a fair bit to see her.”

“Is that a joke?” The wingmaiden glared at him, outraged. “How dare you?”

“What?”

“This is no mere construct. She was made by a god. She is the daughter of a divine being, and here you are shaking her down for coin? What kind of avian are you? Imagine the debt you owe her, corvani. If this android had not come all this way, you would be dead. Or worse.”

Horace shrugged, as if to say maybe so, maybe not.

The wingmaiden turned back to Laykis. “Don’t listen to him. We will make sure the royal tinkers do everything they can to—”

“Pah!” Horace crowed, brushing at the air with a black-feathered wing. “Those half-cocked cobblers couldn’t fix a ticking clock. You said it yourself. Our fine metal friend here deserves nothing but the best care in the Cauldron.” He gestured at Laykis, his eyes glittering. “It’s not my fault the best always costs money.”

“Horace,” Eolh crowed from the shadows.

The wingmaiden snapped around, startled. Horace turned slowly, as if he’d been expecting Eolh to show up. A coy smile played at the corner of his beak. He folded his feathered hands over his belly. “Well, well, well. Look who lives and breathes.”

“Last I heard,” Eolh said, “you were one of Lowtown’s top bosses.”

“One of?” Horace cawed. “What do you mean one of? I’m the only one who stayed. Far as I can see, that makes me Lowtown’s only boss now.”

“Then surely, I would think Lowtown’s only boss could pull a few strings. Grant a simple favor, free of charge. Right?”

Horace cringed at the suggestion. Pretended to misunderstand it. “Free of what now?”

“Unless, of course, you want to start counting debts. I seem to recall a few recent moments. Let’s see. There was the prison cell. How much was your life worth, anyway?”

Horace put a hand on the table and pushed himself up, rising to his full height. He almost knocked over his chair. “You thieving bastard.”

The larger corvani’s shoulders rolled. His hands clenched into fists. And then, with a laugh, he opened his arms and grabbed Eolh in an embrace, laughing and shaking him. Even though it felt like his body was breaking, Eolh couldn’t stop smiling.

“Can you believe it?!” Horace shouted. “We got them! We got them all!”

Eolh struggled to speak. “Glad you’re not dead, old boss.”

“Gods, it’s good to have you back, you damned street wing.”

Back? That didn’t sound right to Eolh. The old Eolh would never have come back. The old Eolh would’ve left the Cauldron long before all this started. That poor bastard . . .

“I wasn’t joking about the android,” Eolh said. “Whatever she needs—”

Horace waved him off. “I’ll make it happen. Of course. Was only looking for a deal, you know. Old habits and all that.”

“Save your habits. We might need them soon with the city the way it is.”

Eolh turned to the wingmaiden and bowed. Even without the stiff pain in his ribs, it would’ve been an awkward motion for him, given how many years it had been since he’d offered this kind of respect to anyone. “I’m glad you’re well, Lady, uh—”

“Talya. Call me Talya. And you never need to bow to me, oh Guardian.” She returned his bow with easy grace earned from years of practice.

“Talya, then,” Eolh said. “Does anyone mind if I—” His stomach made another unholy sound.

“Are you a thief or a beggar?” Horace said, offering a seat. “Eat!”

Two baskets of fruit, six jars filled with different butters and honeys, and one small pot that smelled deliciously like red pudding. Eolh picked a fruit that looked like a plum but whose flesh was soft and starchy like a banana. Dozens of small black seeds crunched in his beak as he chewed.

“I found that in some Highcity cellar,” Horace said, beaming proudly. “Three full cartloads of ’em.”

He scooped his bare fingers into the jars, which Talya pretended not to notice, tasting each one twice. Then, Eolh shoved the half-eaten fruit into one of the jars, which Talya protested with a polite squawk. Too late. He dipped the fruit into the salted nut butter. The oily butter dripped golden brown off the fruit. Eolh bit into it and finished it in three bites, barely bothering to chew.

They kept talking while Eolh ate, trying to ignore his indulgent caws and moans of delight as he ripped meat from cooked bones or shoveled butter-covered fruit into his beak, slowly gulping his way through the spread.

By the time he finished, both of his hands were covered in seeds and jelly and grease. The metal hand felt so natural he had forgotten he was wearing it. It was almost as if it were a part of him, to the point that he thought he could feel the honey sticking to his fingers. Miraculous. Will our kind ever be able to create such wonders? He opened and closed his fingers again, feeling the sticky texture through the metal.

Laykis was staring at him from across the table. Silent.

“Sorry,” Eolh said. “I’ll clean it before I give it back to you.”

Laykis cocked her head. “Give it back?”

“I mean, now that it’s over, we can fix you up.”

But Laykis only blinked. “Now that what is over?”

“The city is safe now. At least, the people are. Isn’t that the prophecy? Isn’t that why Poire came here?”

“Oh, Eolh. Salvation is not here in the Cauldron. This—” She gestured with her one remaining hand. “This was incidental. A good incident, in my opinion. But the Divine One will be called far away from this world. I am not sure about my place, but I do know this . . .”

Laykis leaned forward, her eyes blossoming with a harsh, white light that bored into him.

“Our Savior will need his Guardian. Eolh, your journey has only just begun.”