Slyr’s fears from the night before were still fresh in her mind. “I’d rather—” She began.

“You’d rather not protest Lord Toel’s wishes,” the thing interrupted.

She nodded, reminding herself that she had a greater mission. Besides, she could never put in a good word for the other woman if she never got to talk to Toel.

“What’s your name?” she asked the creature.

“Dulgiijbiddiggungudingu,” it sputtered. “Gluuip.”

She starred at the froth the name had formed on the creature’s mouth.

“Dulbig—” she started.

“Dulg will do,” he added.

“Lead the way, Dulg.”

“You don’t imagine you’re going in that?” Dulg asked. He gestured toward a curtained area.

She followed his gesture, and in the enclosure discovered a gold and black gown. Like everything else here, it might have been spun of spider silk, or something far finer.

She never wore things like this. It clung embarrassingly to her contours and was uselessly ornamented with fine beaded webs at the cuffs and collars. She felt clunky and far more out of her element than she had in Qijne’s fire pits. Although her father held a noble title in High Rock that had once had currency in Black Marsh, since before she was born there had been no balls, no cotillions, no evenings at the theater. All of that—and the frippery that went with it—was swept away when the Argonians retook control of their land.

And good riddance to that, at least. Or so she had always thought.

But she felt herself wondering if Attrebus would think she looked passable in this outfit.

“Come, come,” Dulg called impatiently. “Your hair and face must be tended to.”

An hour later, after the services of a silent, slight, blondish man, Dulg finally led her through a suite of richly furnished rooms and into a chamber with fresh air pouring through a large door and beyond …

Toel was there, but she could not make her gaze focus on him. There was too much else to wonder at.

She was outside, and Umbriel rose and fell all around her.

She stood on an outjut in a cliff face that was steep but not vertical, and that looked out on a vast, conical basin. Below her spread an emerald green lake and, above, the city grew from the stone itself, twisting spires and latticed buildings that might have been built with colored wire, whole castles hanging like bird cages from immensely thick cables. Higher still, the rocky rim of the island supported gossamer towers in every hue imaginable, and what appeared to be an enormous spiderweb of spun glass that broke the sunlight into hundreds of tiny rainbows.

“You like my little window?” Toel asked.

She stiffened, afraid to say anything for fear it might be the wrong thing, but just as fearful of saying nothing.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know that anything in Umbriel could be beautiful, you mean?”

She opened her mouth to try and correct her mistake, but he shook his head.

“How could you, laboring down in the pits? How could you have imagined this?”

She nodded.

“Do you fear me, child?” he asked.

“I do,” she admitted.

He smiled slightly at that, and then walked closer to the rail, putting his back to her. If she were quick and strong, she might send him toppling over.

But of course he knew that. She could tell by the easy confidence with which he moved. He knew she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do any such thing.

“Do you like your quarters?” he asked.

“Very much,” she replied. “You are very generous.”

“I’ve elevated you,” he said. “Things are better here. I think you will find your work more enjoyable, more stimulating.”

He turned and walked to a small table furnished with two chairs.

“Sit,” he said. “Join me.”

She complied, and a slight man in a vest with many buttons brought them a drink that hissed and fizzed and was mostly vapor. It tasted like mint, sage, and orange peel and was nearly intolerably cold.

“Now,” Toel said. “Tell me about this place you are from.”

“Lord?”

“What is it like, how was your life there? What did you do? That sort of thing.”

She wondered at first why she felt so surprised, but then it occurred to her that no one—not even Slyr—had ever asked her about her life before coming to Umbriel—not unless it concerned her knowledge of plants and minerals.

“There’s not much left of it, I think,” she said.

“No, I imagine not. And yet some of it lives in you yet, yes? And in Umbriel.”

“You mean because their souls were consumed here?”

“Not merely consumed,” he replied. “Mostly, yes, Umbriel must use living energy to remain aloft and functioning. But some of it is cycled, transformed, reborn—it’s not all lost. Take solace in that, if you can. If you cannot, it’s no matter to me, really, but a waste of your time and energy.”

“You think grieving a waste?”

“What else could it be? Anger, fear, ecstasy—these states of mind might produce something useful. Grief and regret produce nothing except bad poetry, which is actually worse than nothing. Now. Speak of what I asked you.”

She closed her eyes, trying to decide where to start, what to say. She didn’t want to tell him anything that might help Umbriel and its masters.

“My home was in a city called Lilmoth,” she said. “In the Kingdom of Black Marsh. I lived with my father. He was—”

Toel held up a finger. “Pardon me,” he said. “What is a father?”

“Maybe I used the wrong word,” she said. “I’m still learning this dialect.”

“Yes. I know of no such word.”

“My father is the man who sired me.”

Again the blank stare.

She shifted and held her hand up, palms facing each other.

“Ah, a man and woman, they, ahh … procreate—”

“Yes,” Toel said. “That can be very entertaining.”

She felt her face warm and nodded.

“You think so, too, I see. Very interesting. So a father is the man you used to procreate with?”

“No. Oh, no. That would be—no. I mean I’ve never—” She shook her head and started again. “A man and woman—my father and mother—they procreated and had me.”

“‘Had you’?”

“I was born to them.”

“You’re not making sense, dear.”

“After they procreated, I was conceived, and I grew in my mother until I was born.”

He sat back, and for the first time she saw his eyes flash with real astonishment. It looked very strange on him, as if he had never been surprised at anything.

“Do you mean to say that you were inside of a woman? And came out of her?”

“Yes.”

“Like a parasite—like a Zilh worm or chest borer?”

“No, it’s normal, it’s—weren’t you …?”

“That’s revolting!” he said, and laughed. “Absolutely revolting. Did you eat her corpse after you came out?”

“Well, it didn’t kill her.”

“How big were you?”

She shaped her hands to indicate the size of a newborn.

“Well, I have to say, this is already one of the most interesting—and disturbing—conversations I’ve ever had.”

“Then you people aren’t born?”

“Of course we are. Properly, from the Marrow Sump.”

“So when you use the word ‘procreate’—”

“It simply means sex. Copulation. It has no other sense, that I know of.”

Annaïg suddenly felt the world rearranging itself around her. She had been assuming that all the talk about coming from the sump and returning to it was a metaphor, a way of talking about life and death.

But Toel wasn’t kidding, she was sure of that.

“Please, go on. Tell me more such disgusting things.”

And so they talked on. After his initial outburst, however, he did not interrupt her much; he listened, with only the occasional question, usually concerning terms he didn’t know. She talked mostly about her life in Black Marsh, about history, about the secession of Black Marsh from the Empire and the subsequent collapse of the Empire. She did not say anything about the revival of the Empire, about the Emperor or Attrebus—but it was a challenge, because the way he listened, the way he hung on her every word, made her want to keep talking, to not let it stop, to keep that attention on her forever.