Neb rolled aside and squatted, regarding the unlocked hatch in the ground. He gripped the edge of it with his fingers and put his strength into lifting the iron cap. It groaned slightly but swung open upon oiled hinges. Glancing to Renard, he decided against waking the man.

This place was made for me to find it. He knew this was true. Even as he knew that his father had had a hand in it. Soon enough, Neb knew that he would understand to just what depth his father had known and prepared against this day.

An iron ladder, bolted into the side of the stone well, descended before him. Bathed in the blue-green light of the moon, he climbed down into the earth. He climbed until the darkness swallowed him, but he did not fear. The song was there with him, around him, cradling him, and he knew that it waited below him.

He was not sure how long he climbed before his feet found the solid floor of the well. He looked up to see the moon framed in the round opening above.

It was too dark to see the small box with his eyes, but his ear knew where it was, and he went to it. Fumbling it open, his fingers found the cool, smooth metal object within, and he lifted it out carefully. Tinny and far away, the song played out from it and he lifted it, holding it against the backdrop of the dim light from above. The song grew louder, and beneath it, Neb heard the croaking of frogs and the distant burbling of a brook.

Beneath his fingers, he felt the line of continents and mountains upon the crescent-shaped object. He held it to his ear and felt the solid comfort of how it fit there.

It requires a response.

Slipping the crescent into his pocket, Neb climbed out of the darkness and into the moonlight. When he reached the top, he closed the cap and locked it. Then, he stretched out upon the cold iron and pulled the object from his pocket.

He knew what he would see, but he did not know how he knew it. Still, holding it up against the moon, he saw the sliver for what it was and compared the rough map of its surface to the blue-green orb that hung in the night sky behind it.

They matched. It was the moon.

Starlight and moonlight swirled in its silver surface, and it was a metal that he’d seen before. The same strange and ancient steel that formed the Firstfall axe of Winters’s office. Bringing it down, he rested the silver crescent between his shoulder and the side of his head, cradling it against himself so that his ear was pressed up to it.

This is the source of the dream. Hidden within that “Canticle to the Fallen Moon” lay Neb’s destiny, and he welcomed it.

He must have drowsed because he dreamed. Only it was a dream he’d had before and not the dream of the metal men that he longed for. And this second time he dreamed it, it was more clear, more detailed than previously.

He remembered it well-it was one he did not mind repeating. He and Winters were naked and tangled in one another. They were older, but not by much. The sheets were soaked with their sweat, and his limbs and his eyelids were heavy with exhaustion and spent passion. They lay beneath a silk canopy in a tropical forest overlooking a sea. Above that sea a brown and blue world arose and filled the starry sky. It made the moon he was accustomed to ridiculously small by comparison.

“This is our home,” she whispered in his ear as she rubbed a stomach swollen with life to come.

It was a good dream; a dream that felt true.

He stirred himself awake briefly and wondered if some dreams were promises-deposits made upon a future that destiny could carve for them if they listened to its canticle even in the darkest nights and danced to its calling by moonlight.

I am called to find that home; this song will bear me to it.

And as the canticle played on, Neb wrapped himself in destiny like the warmest of blankets and hoped against hope that dreams could be made true.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam stood at the base of the gangway and waited. She’d received her father’s note and had spent the day pondering what to do. Finally, she’d decided to come and see him one last time before he sailed on an unmagicked Kinshark to rendezvous with his armada and sail south in search of answers and vengeance.

Rafe Merrique’s first mate had gone to fetch him even as the crew readied the ship to sail. While she waited, she watched the campfires in the Gypsy camp. The other camps were gone now-the Entrolusians had left last, though they’d left a man behind, unbeknownst to their Overseer. Sethbert’s most celebrated general, Lysias, had petitioned Rudolfo for asylum earlier in the day, and her husband had assented when she’d told him that he was their nursemaid’s father.

“I will find work worthy of his rank,” Rudolfo had told her after.

Pylos and Turam had left before the others. Rudolfo had given his best effort to restoring peace with them but to no avail. She had known that it would be that way. She’d seen the look of wrath on Meirov’s face, the venomous daggers of her eyes, when Jin Li Tam’s son had been healed and given back to her.

She heard her father’s footsteps on the gangway and looked to him. He walked slower and his shoulders were weighed down. He held a packet of papers in his hands. “I didn’t think you would come, but I’m glad that you did.”

She nodded. “I received your note.”

He stepped closer and passed the papers over to her. “These are all your sister could think of to help Jakob.” She took the packet and looked down at pages crowded with ink. “I know it’s irrelevant now, but she spent her last days looking for a cure, and I thought you should have them.”

Jin Li Tam blinked. Looking for a cure? “But I received her note, Father. She told me there was no cure.”

“By the bird?”

She nodded, and Vlad Li Tam shook his head. “The birds have become unreliable, Daughter,” he said. “They cannot be trusted.” Behind him, she heard the whistle of “all hands,” and he looked over his shoulder. “I’ve shared what I know with Rudolfo. Our messages are compromised, and birds are being diverted; forgeries are misdirecting us. Your husband is going to task the mechoservitors with establishing new codes.”

She nodded. “That would be prudent.”

The first mate reappeared now. “We’re ready to sail, Lord Tam.”

Her father nodded. “I’m glad you came,” he said.

Then they embraced and he climbed the gangway. She watched while they raised it and left before the anchors rose.

As she returned to the camp, she pondered.

The note was a snare. The realization struck her like a fist. She’d received the note that morning. It was in her pocket when the Y’Zirite, Ria, interrupted their council. She had put her foot into it and it had done its work.

There is no cure. No, but when she saw a cure before her very eyes-saw Petronus rise up from the dead-and heard the Machtvolk queen’s words, she’d had to act. The forged note from her sister was the snare that had caught her, luring her to a decision that had been so easy to make.

Ask me to save him and I will.

And kneeling, she had taken the devil’s feet into her hands and wet them with her tears, begging for the life of her son.

When she reached her tent, she did not recognize the girl with her calico dress and long brown hair who waited for her there. But when the girl stood, her awkward and coltish posture betrayed her. “Winters?”

The girl smiled, and Jin Li Tam marveled at the transformation. She thought at first she might ask but then decided against it. She had more pressing matters. She needed to see her son. Winters curtsied. “Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam looked around the room, an uneasiness growing quickly to alarm. “Where are Lynnae and Jakob?”

Winters blinked. “Both with their fathers. Lynnae is talking to General Lysias. And Rudolfo took Jakob to walk the perimeter.”