“That’s good news.”

“News worth celebrating,” Slyr said. “Try the wine.”

It was dry and delicious, with a fragrance she couldn’t quite place but that reminded her of anise. The basket was filled with pastry rolls stuffed with a sort of buttery meat.

“What is it?” she asked, holding up the roll she was eating.

“Orchid shrimp. They live in the sump.”

“It’s delicious.”

“It was supposed to go to the Prixon Palace servants for their night ration. I snatched a few.”

“Thank you,” Annaïg said.

“Yes, yes,” Slyr said. “Eat. Drink.”

“What about Qijne?”

“She may be—ah, as you said. But when we succeed, so does she. Lord Ghol was on the verge of becoming the patron of another kitchen. When kitchens lose patrons, people start wondering whether the master chef ought to be replaced. We did well, so she’ll look the other way a bit if we take very discreet privileges.”

“What sort of privileges?”

“Well … this is about it. Having a little of the good stuff and not being watched too closely at night.”

Annaïg felt her face burn a bit. “Ah, Slyr—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” the chef replied. “I just thought you would enjoy being here, where you can see the sky. And no noisy, smelly dormitory. I love being here, alone—I don’t think anyone else knows about it. I just don’t dare come here often.”

“Well, then,” Annaïg said, “I am flattered, then.”

Slyr became a little sloppy after the first bottle of wine.

“I have heard something about your friend,” she confided.

Annaïg nearly choked on her drink. “Really?” she gasped. “About Glim? He’s okay?”

“He’s in the sump.”

It jagged through her like lightning.

“What?” she whispered.

But Slyr smiled.

“No, not like that,” she assured her. “He’s not dead. He’s working in the sump. The guy who brought the shrimp mentioned him. He can breathe underwater, did you know that? All of the sump tenders are talking about him.”

“Of course he can breathe underwater,” she replied. “He’s an Argonian.”

“Another of your nonsense words? There are more like him?’

She remembered the slaughter at Lilmoth. “I hope so,” she said.

“Oh,” Slyr said. “They’re down there.”

“Don’t you ever—” But she stopped herself. She couldn’t trust anyone here with thoughts of somehow stopping Umbriel.

But Slyr was waiting for her to finish.

“Have you ever been above?” she asked instead.

“To the palaces? No. But it is my dream to.” She looked up and her forehead wrinkled. “What are those?” she asked.

Annaïg followed her regard up to the small patch of night sky.

“Stars,” she said. “Haven’t you ever seen stars before?”

“No. What are they?”

“Depends on who you ask or what books you read. Some say they are tiny holes in Mundus, the world, and the light we see is Aetherius beyond. Others believe they are fragments of Magnus, who made the world.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Yes.”

And so they ate, and drank, and talked, and for the first time in many, many days Annaïg felt like a real person again.

When Slyr finally curled up to sleep with her blanket, she opened her locket again.

There wasn’t anything there, which meant Coo wasn’t with Attrebus. She waited, hoping he would answer, but after an hour or so she fell asleep, and her dreams were troubled.

FIVE

To Colin, the corpses looked like broken dolls flung down by a child in a tantrum. He couldn’t imagine any of them ever having been alive, breathing, talking, feeling. He couldn’t find any empathy even for the worst of the lot—those burnt to char—and he knew he ought to. He should at least feel sick or repelled, filled with the fear of such a thing happening to him, but he just couldn’t find anything like that in him.

Well, Prince, he thought, congratulations. Well done.

“Stay away from the bodies,” he told the royal guardsmen. He didn’t have to tell his own people; they were professionals. “Put sentinels on the road and in the woods. Stop any wagons and route foot and horse traffic well around this. Tell them a bunch of ogres have set up camp and we have to clear ’em out.

“Gerring, you start the search for witnesses. Every house, every shack in the area. Hand, you go to Ione and Pell’s Gate. Guilliam—you take Sweetwater and Eastbridge. Be discreet. See who’s saying what in the taverns. You know what to do.”

He nodded at a flurry of “Yes, inspector” but kept his gaze on the scene.

Most had been struck by arrows and had either died of that or of having their throats very professionally slit later. A sizable fraction had been immolated, presumably by sorcery. The attackers, interestingly, either hadn’t had any casualties or—if they had—didn’t leave them behind.

The arrows he recognized as belonging to an insurgent faction from County Skingrad that called themselves the “Natives.” A number of the bodies had been beheaded, a practice also in keeping with that same nasty bunch of thugs.

He stopped in front of one body that was burnt but not incinerated. Bits of clothing and jewelry still clung to it and a notably large ring. The head was missing.

“Too convenient,” he murmured as he took a closer look at the ring. As he suspected, it was the signet ring of Crown Prince Attrebus.

Of course, if it had been the Natives, they would certainly have singled out Attrebus’s head as the best trophy. But then, why leave the ring?

“Oh, sweet gods,” someone gasped. “It’s the prince.”

Irritated, Colin turned to find Captain Pundus dismounted and standing a few feet away.

“Captain, I asked you to stay clear of the bodies.”

Pundus reddened. “See here, I’m the leader of this expedition. Who do you imagine you are, shouting orders at me and my men?”

“You were the leader of this expedition until we found this,” Colin said, parting his hands. “Now I am in charge.”

“On whose authority?”

Colin removed a scroll from his haversack and handed it to the captain.

“You know the Emperor’s signature, I assume?”

Pundus’s eyes were trying to pop out of his head. He nodded rapidly.

“Good. Then set your men to divert traffic, as I requested, and advise them not to speak of anything they’ve seen here. I advise you the same.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said.

“After I’m done, we’ll need wagons, enough to hold the bodies. We’ll want them covered, as well. See if you can locate some in the nearby towns. And again, not a word.”

“Sir.” The captain nodded, remounted, and rode off.

He looked around a few more moments, then took a deep breath. He found the spark in himself that belonged not to the world, but to Aetherius, to the realm of pure and complete possibility.

He was lucky—this was easy for him. If he’d needed to start a fire or walk on water, it would require training, a mental sequence worked out by someone else to convince him that such things could be done. But for what he was doing, he need only focus and pay attention, look beneath the rock that everyone else didn’t notice.

The scene darkened and blurred, and for a moment he thought there was nothing left, but then he saw two spectral forms. One, a woman, was staring down at her body. The other, a man, was crouched into the roots of a large tree.

The man was closer, so he took the few steps necessary. He was already starting to feel himself weakening, the spark fading, so he knew he should hurry.

“You,” he said. “Listen to me.”

Vacant eyes turned to him. “Help me,” the ghost said. “I’m hurt.”

“Help is on the way,” Colin lied. “You need to tell me what happened here.”

“It hurts,” the specter said. “Please.”

“You came here with Prince Attrebus,” Colin pursued.

The man laughed harshly. “Help me up. I just want to go home. If I can get home, I’ll be fine.”