“They brought the city with them?”

Sul shrugged. “I don’t know about that part. I never saw much of the city. Vuhon wasn’t very happy with me. He only kept me alive to torture. After a few years he forgot about me and I escaped. I had some arts, and since the forbidding wasn’t on me, I managed to leave Vile’s realm, albeit into another part of Oblivion.”

“So it’s Umbra that wants the sword, not Vuhon?”

“It might be either. Maybe Vuhon has turned against Umbra and seeks to imprison him. Whatever the case, we can’t let them have it.”

Attrebus opened his mouth, but Sul jerked his head from side to side. “Enough. You know what you need to know for now.”

“I—So I allow all this—we still can’t get there in time.”

“No,” Sul said. “As I said, there is a way. If we survive it.”

“What way would that be?”

“We’ll take a shortcut. Through Oblivion.”

And he left Attrebus there with the willows and soft, gliding voices of the night birds.

FOUR

“Perfect,” Toel opined, his mysterious little grin turning into something a bit larger. He dipped his finger in the little bowl of viscous mist and brought the bit that clung to it up to his lips for another taste. With his other hand he stroked the back of her neck lightly, familiarly, and she felt her cheeks warm.

“I’ve come to expect the very best from you,” he said. “Come around this afternoon so we can discuss your progress here.”

He gave a perfunctory nod to the rest of the staff and then left.

Still embarrassed, Annaïg studied her vapor another moment. When she looked up, the rest of the cooks had returned silently to their jobs. All except Slyr.

“Another evening with Toel,” she said softly. “How he must enjoy your conversation.”

Annaïg felt a bit of sting from that. “I hope you don’t think anything else is going on.”

“What would I know?” she replied. “I’ve never been invited to Lord Toel’s quarters. How can I imagine what might go on there?”

“It sounds like you’ve been imagining it quite a lot,” Annaïg returned. “But if you’re fantasizing about anything improper, that’s nothing to do with me.”

“Him having you there at all is improper,” Slyr countered. “It’s bad for morale.”

“Well, maybe you ought to tell him that.”

Slyr looked back down at the powders she was sifting.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “You know I worry.”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“It’s only been a few days,” she said. “He never even speaks to me.”

Annaïg snorted a little laugh. “Now you’re talking like he’s your lover.”

Slyr looked back up. “I just worry, that’s all.”

“Well, worry over this for a bit, then,” she replied, rising to her feet. “I need to go check on the root wine vats.”

Toel’s kitchen was very different from Qijne’s inferno. There was only one pit of hot stone and one oven, and neither was of particular size. In their place were long tables of polished red granite. Some supported brass steaming chambers, centrifuges, a hundred kinds of alchemical apparatuses. Others were entirely for the preparation of raw ingredients. While the production of distillations, infusions, and precipitations of soul-stuff had been a minor part of Qijne’s kitchen, here more than half the cooking space was dedicated to the coquinaria spiritualia. The rest of the cavernous kitchen was devoted to one thing—feeding trees.

She remembered the strange collar of the vegetation that depended from the edge and rocky sides of Umbriel. She didn’t know much about trees, so it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder how they survived. As it turned out, plants—like people and animals—needed more than sunlight and water to live. They also needed food of a sort, and Toel’s kitchen made that food. Huge siphons drew water and detritus from the bottom of the sump and brought it into holding vats, where it was redirected into parsers that separated out the matter most useful to the trees. What wasn’t used was returned to the sump. What remained was fortified by the addition of certain formulae before being pumped to the roots through a vast ring beneath Umbriel’s rim. Toel wanted her to learn all of the processes in his kitchen, so she spent an hour or so each day with the vats, and ostensibly she was experimenting with some of the formulae to try and improve upon them.

In fact, the vats were very far from everything else, and very quiet. And, in a large cabinet in the work area, was the most complete collection of materials she had ever seen.

Dimple, her new hob, was already there when she arrived, and had found four substances for her to examine. None of them smelled right, so she sent him away and went back to her experiment with the tree-wine. She wondered if trees tasted anything, if they knew one “flavor” of tree-wine from another. She stirred a reagent of calprine into her flask wand and watched it turn yellow.

After a moment she saw Dimple return with more containers.

Absorbed in what she was doing, she didn’t actually look at what he’d brought, but when she took a break, she rubbed her eyes and turned her attention there.

One of the jars was half filled with a black liquid. She blinked and hesitated, not wanting to get her hopes up too high, not wanting to be disappointed again.

She knew it by its smell.

“That’s it, then,” she whispered. “Everything I need.”

But she felt oddly empty, because that wasn’t really true.

She didn’t have Mere-Glim and the knowledge she needed to destroy Umbriel. Or her locket, so Attrebus would know where she was.

If Attrebus was still alive. The last time they’d spoken, there was something about him, vulnerability. And the way he talked to her, as if he cared, as if he was risking his life just for her …

She shook that thought off and read the label on the jar.

ICHOR OF WINGED TWILIGHT.

Well, that made sense. She put it in the little cabinet that was for her private use, along with the other ingredients she needed, and a great many she did not. Then she finished out the hour and went back to help with dinner.

Slyr watched her dress in yet another new outfit that Dulg had appeared with, a simple green gossamer slip of a gown. The other woman was halfway through a bottle of wine already.

“Don’t forget me,” she said as Annaïg left.

As usual, she met him on his balcony. They sipped a red slurry that—despite being cold—burned her throat gently as it went down.

“Lord Irrel sent his compliments,” Toel said.

“He enjoyed your meal, then.”

Toel nodded. “The meal was not uninspired,” he said. “I am an artist. But you have added so much to my palette, and the special touches you invent—Lord Irrel is usually pleased with what I make him, but lately his compliments have come more frequently and sincerely.”

“I’m happy to have helped, then.”

She felt a little giddy, and realized that whatever was in her drink was already having an effect.

“With me you will become great,” he said. “But there is more to being great than being an artist. You must also have vision, and the strength to do the thing that must be done. Do you understand?”

“I think so, Chef.”

“And you must learn to make choices uncolored by any sort of passion.”

Annaïg took another drink, not liking the direction the conversation was going.

“When I took you from Qijne, I spared Slyr as well. But since she has been here, I haven’t felt justified in that decision. I rather think she should go.”

“Without her, I would never have come to your attention,” Annaïg said. “Without her, I would never have learned so much in so little time.”