—Homecoming—

Ashlan was hanging back, scratching some more at the angry rash that had covered her legs, when the rest of them broke through the tree line. She could tell from the noises they were making that the city was in sight.

Tanka began singing to the wood, one last time before they left its safety, seeking its goodwill in her endeavor. Rafe sighed so hard it sounded like he was deflating. Even Jassa, who’d been quiet all these miles but for some brief consultations with Rafe and the occasional burst of babbling while she wrote in her book, let out a gasp and a fevered prayer.

Hollis peered up from Ashlan’s bag, whispering, “Are there strangers about? I’d love to get my first glimpse of Eth.”

“Knock yourself out,” Ashlan muttered. She’d had her fill of the place a century ago.

She seemed to remember swearing an oath that she’d never return.

One more to break before the end.

Itchy and ill-tempered, she made her way forward and joined the rest of them in the brush at the top of the hill. Down in the valley, open fields were divided by the packed dirt of Southway—a long, winding road whose trickle of travelers swelled into a dense crowd toward the end.

There, in the distance, stood Eth, its high, serrated wall gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the pink light of the sunset. The story went that its bricks were carved from the scales of some sea-beast slain by the heroes of old, back when the bodies of the Gone-Away gods were still warm underground, and the ocean was a damn sight nearer. Above the wall rose the city’s fabled architecture: the Nail of Naywen, Clumthrullion’s Keep, and that triple-cluster of crystalline towers known only as Shiny Clump.

The city was a showboat, to be sure, but none of its wonders had the power to stir Ashlan’s heart. She’d seen it all too many times, from too many angles, seeking too many things that never came to be.

That’s what she told herself, at least. Then she caught the barest glimpse of a low, silvered dome, and it felt like her pulse had caught on a pricker bush.

The University at Eth.

How happy her mother had been to see Ashlan, first-born in her brood, accepted. Then Elil Ley had been killed, along with half the population of Eth, including the vast majority of Ashlan’s classmates—all trotted out into the fields and executed, a hundred at a time.

That was the first time Ashlan had been slaughtered in public, and she’d later slipped off the back of the burial cart and into the wood, waiting for years until the Professoriate had forgotten her face.

There was a second chance, and third, and a fourth. Again and again, she’d emerge from the wood and put herself through the same entrance exam, always under a different name, all the while noting the subtle ways that Eth was changing around her. The Professoriate, after all, was influencing the magics of war, learning to shape the Uni into a powerful body whose knowledge would outlast even the shrewdest, most devious leaders of Eth.

But Ashlan was learning, too, albeit through sheer repetition. By the end, she whipped through the entrance exam so quickly that she was taken for some kind of prodigy. Through it all, she’d always half-expected one of the professors to recognize her eventually, but there were so many students, so many of them identical brood-mates, that the moment never came.

No one was there to watch when she finally graduated. But Ashlan was proud—not of herself, but for herself, in her mother’s stead. She’d still had hope, then, and it was the memory of that emotion that shocked her now.

How alien it seemed. She’d believed in this place. She’d loved its streets, even its people.

That was a hundred years in the past now, though, and in all that time, the one thing she’d never allowed herself to do was come back.

Seeing the shine of that faraway dome, she knew why.

It felt like she’d turned to coal inside, gray, cool, and cracked—and now the sight of the Uni had her splitting open, surging with a long-buried brightness.

She wondered how something so old could burn so hot.

“Come on, then,” called Rafe. “That’s a long line ahead of us, and we can’t afford to lose any more time.” Without a glance at the rest of them, he started down the hill. Jassa followed close behind, holding her ruined right arm overhead and singing.

“If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my office,” rasped Hollis, tucking himself back into Ashlan’s bag.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to follow that kid’s orders,” said Ashlan, watching Rafe zig-zag downhill.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be, Lady Ley,” said Tanka, starting off after him. “While you’re dispatching the Puppeteer, I’ll be—” She glanced at Ashlan’s handbag. “Otherwise occupied.”

Figuring out how to kill me, thought Ashlan, then rewiring the addicts, then using my regenerating body to get yourself a womb.

Only then—after everyone else had gotten theirs, and with Hollis’ magical bank in pocket—would Ashlan be allowed to end this journey.

She stopped to scratch her feet again, staring daggers at the Uni.

She’d been waiting for death since she left the place. She could wait a little longer.

Rafe looked up from the bottom of the hill, irritated. “Can’t you heal that up,” he called, “instead of slowing the rest of us down?”

“Looks contagious,” said Jassa, pursing her lips.

Ashlan shook her head, cursing under her breath as she worked her nails over the mottled skin of her ankles. For all these miles, Rafe had been dragging his feet, complaining about the worsening symptoms of withdrawal—but from the moment Ashlan stumbled through a scratch-patch and got her bare feet covered in this maddening rash, their lateness was her fault.

“I’m not hacking off my feet just to get rid of a rash, Rafe.” She wished Hollis hadn’t been so forthright about her powers. “It’ll pass.”

Unless she sloughed off the skin first, she thought, forcing herself to give it up. Sick of his nagging, she picked up her pace, overtaking him quickly—then forcing him to jog, panting, in order to keep up.

Now, from the front of the group, she noticed how deep the crowd was, and how tightly they’d packed the Southway. There were hundreds of them, mostly mercenaries, coming back from a day’s work in the killing fields. Most were in rough shape—sliced up, held together by bandages and tourniquets ripped from their own uniforms, slumped in the dirt or carried on their fellow soldiers’ backs. Ashlan was startled to notice there were no medics or supplies out here, yet for all the suffering, there was no sense of urgency either—the portcullis was closed, and folk were playing cards in the dirt while their brood-mates slid helplessly closer to death beside them.

It was hard to watch. But taking care of this endless war’s wounded wasn’t her job anymore. Hadn’t been for a century.

“The hell’s the holdup?” she said.

“The Guvnor locks the gates,” said Jassa, digging out her notebook and tucking it in her right armpit, “whenever there’s too much blood!”

“A real splatter-fest this week, too,” said a woman leaning on a pike near the side of the road. Her eyes kept drifting to the bear, though she looked too exhausted to make much of a fuss. “And his guards just finished knocking hell out of a protest over in Greater Splanchnic. Pushed the murder line right up into the red. Ground got a little wobbly yesterday.”

Ashlan blinked at her. Eth could only take so much killing before the catacombs came to a boil. Too many violent deaths, and the guts of the Gone-Away started to shift under the streets, shivering the city with quakes and rogue enchantments.

But armed conflict took place outside the wall.

At least, it was supposed to.

“He’s—killing citizens? Inside?”

“By the scores. Plus, the city medics got a raise recently. So they’ll wait for the worst of the wounded to die out here before they let the rest of us in. Just in case.” The pikewoman hawked and spat, philosophically. “You’ll probably want a guide. For a few coins an hour, I could—”

“She’s new,” said Rafe, glaring as he waved them on toward the line. “The rest of us aren’t.”

“Right,” muttered Ashlan, too distracted to argue, “that’s my problem.”

She was trying to imagine how many deaths it must have taken to push things this far. The shining wall kept a number of useful enchantments from spilling out over the countryside, where they’d lose their power—but at the cost of this constant instability. A ban on urban violence was the most expedient solution, but it was notoriously difficult to enforce—and people were murdered all the time, mostly by guards.

Half the times Ashlan had been cut down in her student days had been within the walls, and still the city stood. It must’ve taken a massacre to get this close to the edge.

“Better play it safe, Runt,” she whispered as they neared the throng. “Just the big guy. No minions. A bloodbath could bring the whole city down.”

Umber was drawing a great deal of attention as they came to the back of the line, but Tanka was supremely nonchalant. Ashlan looked closely at the crowd gathered around him. It wasn’t just the walking wounded who were shielding their faces from the glare of the low sun on the wall, as she’d originally thought. There were merchants’ carts, too, surrounded by armed escorts, and itinerant families with dusty faces, and a fair number of extremely pregnant women hoping to make it inside before they popped. The most famous of Eth’s enchantments was brood-birth—mothers never had single children here, but identical batches of seven, which made it far more likely that one would live until adulthood.

Ahead of them in line was a woman who hadn’t been able to keep herself from birthing. She clutched the lone baby to her breast, weeping as she insisted that it would be all right.

Ashlan glimpsed wet, matted hair and tiny, purple fingers—and all but broke into a run, spitting copiously, hands on her stomach.

“The hell are you going?” shouted Rafe.

“Change of plans,” called Ashlan.

“What are you up to, Ashlan Ley?” hissed Hollis from her bag.

She couldn’t wait to get him out of there—his weight against her body was more maddening with every step she took. Carrying him around for so long, so close to her body, she’d even caught herself thinking of him as her son. They did have a great deal in common, biologically, but the thought still felt too bizarre to entertain. “Trust me,” she whispered back, though it occurred to her that Rafe might not follow.

Luckily, Tanka was right behind her, Umber pulling the squeaking wheels of the silver-buckled trunk at their heels. “Is something wrong?”

Ashlan glanced back. Rafe’s face was red as the setting sun, but he’d taken off after them with Jassa following in his footsteps, moronically serene.

“We don’t have an extra day to wait for that gate to go up,” Ashlan barked, pressing on into the fields around the wall, where the pong of sewage wafted toward them. “By tomorrow night, these two will be sweating hard enough to forget their names. We’ve got to find another way in.”

“There is no other way in!” shouted Rafe, struggling to keep up. “They’ve locked the place down, except for Pharynx Gate—and every other chink in the wall, however tiny, is crawling with guards.”

“The sun will set in a matter of moments,” said Tanka, “and we’ll be blanketed by night. As for the guards, they’re nothing but armored flesh. They won’t slow us down any longer than we allow them to, will they, Umber?”

The bear, which had done nothing but shuffle along all this while, let out a rumbling gargle—not a roar, exactly, but a long, deep vibration that seemed to come from its bones. As Ashlan and the others startled, it opened its ragged mouth, shaking its head in a clear sign of assent.

“I—I don’t know, Tanka,” said Ashlan as Hollis wriggled against her hip. She was worried, now, about what she might have started. “We can’t just cut our way through the armed forces of Eth. Spill that much blood, we could bury a whole neighborhood.”

“Perhaps.” Tanka waved a hand across the field, where the nacreous wall was steadily darkening. “If we slay them within city limits, we risk awakening the remains of the Gone-Away. But draw them outside of Eth’s walls, and we suffer no such quandary.”

“A murder out of Eth is no murder at all,” offered Jassa, patting her blue sack of guts with affection.

Rafe had folded his arms tightly around his chest, tapping his sternum with two fingers. “How do you intend to draw them out, exactly?”

“There are tunnels used to dispose of the bodies of those they murder inside the city,” said Tanka. “There’s one not half a mile from here—I know it well.”

“What are you going to lure them out with, though?” Ashlan said, peering down the length of the wall.

Tanka smiled. “With you, Lady Ley.”

Rafe looked like he’d just gotten a bit of good news. “It could work.”

It was a sign she’d been spending too much time with these people that Ashlan could be comforted by Jassa’s assurances, if only for a moment. She kept tossing her dice on the pitted stone that rose from the reeking muck near the tunnel, muttering as she scribbled down the results. “Another kiss! Another kiss from Fortune’s lips.”

“Stop saying ‘kiss,’ ” pleaded Rafe, hunched beside her. Both of them were sniffling, their faces sheeted with sweat, but only he seemed shaken.

Ashlan stood before the moonlit mouth of the tunnel, knee-deep in bilge. She could feel the slippery bones in this slurry, and was glad for the cover of darkness.

Under the wall it was black as pitch. To one side of the round entrance stood the bear beside its wheeled trunk, Ashlan’s bag slung over its massive shoulder—she’d been relieved to get Hollis away from her for a while—while Tanka stood on the other, idly flexing her fingers.

From the far-off line before the gate, Ashlan heard the death of another mercenary, marked by a distant burst of ritual wailing as the brood marked its loss.

It was a fitting accompaniment to this idiotic mission, but there was no one to blame for this mess but herself. So, setting her jaw, she bent down and plunged inside.

The faint glow of moonlight left her. Unseen bodies bumped her shins—whole or in pieces, she’d never know—and she sloshed on ahead, stumbling suddenly over the rising floor.

At least she wasn’t wading through filth any more. She picked herself up, waving a hand overhead. The tunnel widened, and as she climbed through the darkness she stood straighter, seeing a glow far ahead.

She opened her mouth.

A match flared in a recess beside her.

She whirled around in surprise.

“Oi there!” came a voice. “Who’s that, now?”

The tunnel behind her brightened, a blue glow that seemed to burst from everywhere at once.

Voices rose in excitement, at least four of them, deep and as similar as echoes.

Ashlan tore down the incline—and tripped over a loose stone.

She sprawled twenty feet away from the muck. “I’m down!” she shouted, hearing the guards at her back, cursing herself. The plan had been to lure them out, not give herself up.

“Damn right you are,” came a voice from behind her. Something swung down and smashed her in the ribs.

She groaned. They’d broken a few, and kept on swinging.

“There’s more outside,” called another. “She’s called ’em. Rucks, get the bottle, bruh—we’ll take ’em out where they stand.”

She looked up, drawing breath.

The guards all had the same face—bald heads, bulbous noses, thick necks.

One swung a boot into her stomach before she could get a word of warning out.

Winded, she twisted her head around. The one called Rucks was dashing, whooping in excitement, toward whatever nasty surprise they had in store.

What a treat this must be. It wasn’t often they got to uncork an enchantment.

If he gets to that bottle, she thought as the truncheon swung down at her face—

Then stopped.

The guard above her was hanging in the air.

His three brothers looked up, gaping, then joined him.

Rucks called out, caught by the ankle himself.

Then all five of them whipped past her, helmets banging against the walls and floor, hollering as they were dragged, splashing, through the slurry.

They weren’t screaming long. As Ashlan pulled herself up, wondering at the silence, she heard a deep, gurgling rumble, followed by a raspy giggling.

She staggered out through the mire, holding her side as she ducked into the moonlight.

It shone on the glossy, black bark of the gazing-tree that had burst from the open lid of the silver-buckled trunk. Its spores must have been roiling in there for all these miles, held at bay by the force of Tanka’s will. Now each guard was caught by one of its branches, which were wound, tight as snakes, around their bodies, filling their open mouths with smooth darkness.

Umber the bear, letting out a bone-deep rumbling, grasped tight to one of the guards with its claws. Pawing his belly open, it dipped its wide, wet jaws inside—where it gave a bubbling roar, shaking its hoary head.

“Long after the ability to take sustenance departs,” said Tanka softly, “the hunger still remains.”

Ashlan sighed, her ribs aching. Tanka’s arms were extended, her fingers twisted, her hands sweeping through the air—and the tree responded, keeping every terrified wriggle of the guards under wraps.

“He is, after all, a predator,” she breathed. “We mustn’t begrudge him his nature.”

Umber had moved on, its empty ribs gleaming and red. At a safe distance, Jassa gave trembling praise, while Rafe breathed between his knees, overcome. The bear took another guard, gnashing through his abdomen, as Hollis danced in the slimy carnage beneath—pretending, no doubt, that these were the workings of his own creator.

“The bear’s nature, or yours?” muttered Ashlan.

Tanka seemed not to have heard her. When the last guard fell still, she worked her fingers as if she were massaging lather into wet hair. The gazing-tree strode out onto solid ground, its roots writhing along the surface like tentacles.

Rafe stumbled back, staring with a peculiar intensity at the carcasses of the guards as they dropped to the earth like half-eaten fruit.

“Gather their helmets,” said Tanka, “and anything else that might identify them. We’ll pack their things in the trunk, where the spores will keep them hid. The bodies we’ll sink in the muck, where they’ll soon be indistinguishable from the rest.”

“You’re taking trophies,” said Ashlan.

Tanka turned, furrowing her brow. “Lady Ley, are you displeased?”

Ashlan couldn’t stop staring at the faces of the men they’d killed.

Five of them, all the same. The other two in their brood were probably gone already. These ones would have joined them before long, anyway, during one overthrow or another. It was rare for a city guard to see thirty.

But they’d died tonight instead.

This is what you’ve done, she thought. This is what you are.

“Guess I can’t help but think of my own brothers.”

Tanka hummed. “They were city guards?”

“Wanted to be. They died in the killing fields before they had the chance.”

“My brothers died here,” Tanka murmured, “along with the rest of my relatives, all at the hands of men like these, who dragged them through this very hole.”

Ashlan decided to leave it alone. “How long do you think we have before anyone notices they’re missing?”

“Until the next change of guard, probably at dawn. We can press on at our leisure.”

Jassa was looting the corpses, singing as she worked. Hollis had put an oversized helmet on his head and was drumming gleefully along, his palms slapping something he’d retrieved from the muck, where Umber’s jaws had tossed it.

“See, this right here,” Ashlan muttered, turning, “is why I keep to myself.”

Ashlan shoveled spiced lamb and rice into her mouth, swallowed, and repeated, taking no time to savor the taste.

The girl carving meat for the next dish looked up, eyes wide.

“Lady, you have to breathe.”

“Piece of advice, kid.” Ashlan wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “As long as I survive the meal, eating like a pig just makes me a better customer.” She dumped the rest of the meal down her throat and tossed the bowl onto the counter. “See? Quickest turnover you’ll have all night.”

As Ashlan rose, letting the heat in her bones surge out into her chest, the girl’s father upbraided her.

“Poppa, she didn’t even chew!”

Two broken ribs popped back into place, and Ashlan sighed with relief, scratching her stomach as she walked on.

Hollis, hidden in the handbag she held close to her stomach, wriggled in dismay. “This,” he whispered, “has been one of the most disgusting experiences of my life, and I changed diapers for three broods at once.”

Ashlan let out a belch that turned heads all the way back at the cook stall. “Three broods, all in diapers? Sounds like they had a terrible nanny.”

“Feh. They resisted the chamber pot just to spite me.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Ashlan said, scanning the crowd. Closing time had come and gone, and the place was thronged with raucous drunkards. Among this company, they were filthy enough to blend right in, and a blood-streaked bear was just another story. Unfortunately, it was now so busy that she had no idea where the others had gotten to.

“Ooh, honey cakes,” she murmured, stopping before a stall full of baked goods. “Let me get two of those? Better make it three.”

“How can you still be hungry?” Hollis whispered as she handed over the rest of her coin.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, pushing the third cake into her mouth and swallowing. She wished he wouldn’t keep talking to her about food. “It’s comforting, maybe. The food’s the only thing in this town that hasn’t changed.”

She wasn’t sure why she’d expected anything to be where she’d left it. Banks, bookstores, even entire streets had shifted. She’d stepped into the Lidless Market—which used to be between Nuchal and Coracoid, and had since taken over half of Iliac Square—and started haggling over a handmade gammon board, just to make sure she still had what it took. Only after the vendor had tossed her out of his shop had she bothered listening to Rafe. According to him, Lady Such-and-Such of the Vermilion Rutabagas had long ago decreed that selling wares for anything but the advertised price was an abomination in the eyes of the Goddess of Fictitious Deities, so now there was no more haggling. Or something along those lines.

Ashlan couldn’t keep up, and she’d stopped trying. She didn’t stand a chance of tearing this city down, or getting anywhere near the Uni, even if she’d set her mind on it. That was just the old her flaring up, always trying to change things. This trip wasn’t about her, she had to remind herself, and never had been.

They’d made it inside the city walls, and if the kid wanted to lead, she’d let him lead.

She spotted him at a bend in the sprawling, canvas-ceilinged market. Ashlan ducked around produce stands and carts full of clothing. She’d almost trampled a display of clockwork toys on a blanket when Hollis jabbed her in the gut, hard.

“Easy, killer.”

“Stop,” he growled, not even bothering to whisper.

The woman on the blanket looked up, her brow furrowed.

“Sorry,” Ashlan said in her gruffest voice, “not you.” She turned her back. “Okay, I stopped.”

“I’ll have that, Ashlan Ley.”

She glanced back. “The clapping monkey or the waltzing babies?”

“Across the way. The knife.”

Ashlan sidled up to a wide island of conjoined stalls, one of which overflowed with kitchenwares. Nodding through the vendor’s speech, she followed Hollis’ abdominal prods until she found what he wanted—a thin-bladed boning knife with a curved wooden handle.

“This? Comes with a nice leather case.” The vendor slid it into the world’s smallest scabbard, snapping it shut and smiling. “Your husband likes your cooking?”

“You know. Always stuffing his face, that guy.” She dug a hand into her bag, then remembered that she’d spent the last of her coin. All she had left was the chunk of gold Hollis had given her at the farmhouse, and she couldn’t wave that around here.

“We have spices aplenty, here at our sister shop. What’s his favorite dish?”

“Uh.” Hollis pushed a coin into her palm, and she passed it to the vendor. “Chitterlings.”

The man stopped his pitch, staring at what he’d been handed. “I’ll make change!”

Ashlan sucked her teeth. She’d just given him a solid-gold button from Hollis’ waistcoat, emblazoned with a dancing mannikin.

“Subtle,” she murmured.

“I’ll have that knife.”

“I got it, Runt.”

She let out a long, purse-lipped breath as the vendor returned. He gave her a brown paper package, but no change. “These others, madam,” he said with a backward gesture, “at our other sister shop, they say they are with you. Is that correct? Will you settle up all at once?”

Jassa and Rafe stood on the other side of the island, Tanka and Umber lurking behind them.

Rafe was staring at her, his head cocked, daring her to object.

“I don’t think my husband would like me spending all his—uff.”

Hollis had thumped her again from inside the bag.

“Never mind. What he doesn’t know, right?”

“Have a look, though,” whispered Hollis.

“Right. I’ll just, ah, have a look at what they’re getting first.”

Ashlan came around to the other side of the island, passing Tanka, who seemed more interested in the crowds pouring out of the public houses than anything Rafe and Jassa were doing. She looked tired, thought Ashlan—less full somehow, as if the city was slowly sapping her.

The two of them had made a small pile of equipment on a clear stretch of counter. “What’s all this?” said Ashlan.

“Things we’ll need,” said Rafe.

He’d picked out an awl, a thick needle, and a spool of sturdy thread. Jassa had cupped her hands around a set of elaborate ivory dice and a devotional carving that stood nearly a foot tall.

“We’re sewing our way in?”

Rafe sucked his teeth. “The plan involves mending.”

“It’s fine,” whispered Hollis.

Ashlan nodded to the vendor, who started wrapping things up. “I think it’s time you explained what we’re doing.”

“I will,” he said, looking pointedly away. “When we get where we’re going.” The vendor handed him a packet, giving Ashlan what little was left of the change, and Rafe was off without another word.

Inside Eth, it was Rafe’s show—that was the deal. She’d meant to follow him without question, as even Tanka was doing. Only he and Jassa had any idea what they were getting into, and Jassa only barely.

Why, then, was Ashlan thinking of absconding with Hollis and ditching the rest of them in the crowd?

“Trust in him,” Jassa murmured, right in Ashlan’s ear. “The boy is favored!”

Ashlan shuddered. She hadn’t even known Jassa was behind her. “I hope to hell you’re right.”

Jassa knelt, setting her sack on the ground as she tore open the brown paper packet with her teeth. “Your feet,” she grunted, tugging her devotional statue free. “Are they feeling better?”

“Uh. Yeah, I guess. They don’t itch any more.”

“Good. Good! All is as it should be, in Her eyes.” Jassa hefted the statue with her left hand.

The carven woman had one arm, too. She wore a beggar’s robes and looked vaguely maniacal.

“Left-Handed Luce,” purred Jassa. “An aspect of Fortune. See? She’s smiling!”

“She’s a statue,” muttered Ashlan. “That’s all she can do.”

But Jassa had run off, purring to her inanimate friend about their tremendous luck.

At least one of them was feeling optimistic.

Dwarfed by the tall, clustered buildings outlined in moonlight, Ashlan wondered if Eth had always been this grimy. It had seemed so imposing to her once, so full of power and possibility. Now all she noticed were the gouges of artless graffiti and the reek of inadequate sewage.

Years ago, this city had been her home. She’d shared meals and stories with the students who’d lived around her, in these very buildings. Back then, it felt like they had a common past, or enough of one to fake it, and that they’d share a future, too.

But none of the others had lived to see twenty-five.

Ashlan was exhausted. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. Neighborhoods melted by as they walked, each one clotted with memories she’d prefer to avoid, mostly succeeding. Once, though, Rafe spotted a group of guards, their backs turned, their prey cornered. Swiftly, noiselessly, he turned down an alley, leading them all into a neighborhood known as the Lower ’Ninges.

Ashlan stumbled. Above her stood the unchanged façade of a flat she’d rented downtown, on her second attempt at her degree, once she’d confirmed that she was the last living Ley. She took up a fake name and played the role of a student she’d known before, a funny girl who was drunk all the time.

Now she stood staring through the open archway on the second floor at the same old staircase where she’d taken a spill one night, breaking a tooth in her fall. The story spread of how she’d spit out blood and enamel and stood up cackling, laughing too hard and for too long, like the pain itself was funny to her. For months after, she had to hold back the heat in her bones, keeping it from rushing toward the ache. She’d always had insomnia, but that’s when she nearly stopped sleeping altogether, for fear she’d wake up and the tooth would be healed—and she’d have to break it again, by hand, before anyone noticed.

Later, when a coup wiped out her Reparative Anatomy class, she’d been relieved to withdraw to the forest—because of the tooth, but also because exhaustion had caused her to test dead last.

The memory receded as they turned again.

“Just around this corner,” called Rafe, slipping out of sight with Jassa in tow.

Ashlan hadn’t noticed them getting so far ahead. Even the bear seemed to be dragging his paws. The only sounds on that dark street were their footfalls and the insistent squeak of the silver-buckled trunk.

“We’ll leave you here,” said Tanka softly, “Umber and I. Now that we know where to meet you.”

Ashlan stared at her. “You’re—leaving?”

Tanka frowned. “You sound so sad, Lady Ley. But there are other preparations we must make while here in Eth.” She seemed uncomfortable discussing it on the street, and Ashlan was too tired to press her. “And there is no room for me in Mister Davin’s plan.”

“She has a point,” said Hollis from below, startling Ashlan. “The time for grand gestures has ended. We must be precise.”

She’d drifted so far out that she’d forgotten he was even in the bag.

It was good that she’d been reduced to an accessory in all of this. She was coming unraveled—or maybe that had happened long ago, and only her solitude had kept it hidden from sight. How else could she have grown so different from the girl who once lived here?

“When the job is done,” said Tanka, stepping into the shadows as they rounded the corner, “I’ll meet you near here. A fragment of the tree will keep watch for your return, and I’ll be along soon after. Best of luck, Lady Ley.”

“Right. You too.”

Ashlan found Rafe standing stock-still in the middle of the street, Jassa slouching behind. Before him was a crooked green door atop a wide stone step so worn that it looked like it had melted. Face covered in a sheen of sweat, Rafe was staring up at a fresh-painted sign that read THE KING GUV.

“Something wrong?” said Ashlan, approaching.

“No,” said Rafe.

“What’s happening?” whispered Hollis.

“Everything’s fine,” said Rafe, sniffling. “Other than withdrawal.” He flung open the door, and Jassa followed him in.

“I don’t know, Runt,” she whispered into her bag. “I’m having second thoughts about following this kid around. He’s looking even shiftier than usual, and that’s saying something. You don’t think he’d sell us out the first chance he got?”

“Oh, pull yourself together,” Hollis hissed. “Shifty, indeed! What he looks like, Ashlan Ley, is a junkie on the verge of total breakdown, which is precisely what we want. The harder those two sweat, the more useful they are. Now hustle on in, and let’s find out what manner of plan they’ve concocted.”

The lobby was cramped, its walls speckled with yellowed dots of paste. The scraps of torn paper that clung to them looked like tiny, irregular flags, their shadows waving in the dim candlelight. Behind the counter, a sallow man with wild, silver hair sighed up and slapped a key on the wood. “Just the one night? Or what’s left of it?”

“Two,” said Rafe, staring down at the key. “But we—we’ll need a different room.”

Ashlan frowned. What was he playing at?

“Don’t like this one, huh.” The inn-keep pulled his lips back from his teeth. “Not this room.” He swiped up the key, peering at the number 17 as if he might find a flaw in its design. Then he shook his head like he had water in one ear, peering closely at Rafe. “What’s wrong with this room?” said the inn-keep. “Perfectly good. Warm and all. Nice view.”

They all stood perfectly still, like idiots.

“Does this boy speak for all of you? How old is he? Does he speak for you?”

He was looking at Ashlan.

She felt Hollis wriggling in her bag, and heard the pop of the button on his new knife’s leather case.

“Easy,” she whispered.

Not that she had the vaguest idea what else to do.

“My Ace speaks for all of us,” said Jassa. “And more. For Her.” She hoisted up her statue, giving the inn-keep an earnest smile that looked just as crazed as the carving.

He turned back to Rafe. “Ace, huh. You stayed here before, I gather? Because, you know, the old lady, the fruit-bat, Mrs. D, she had a—particular sort of clientele.”

Ashlan wondered what the hell was going on.

Rafe had said this was a place he knew, but he’d clearly never met this inn-keep.

But the inn-keep knew of him, or his people—which wasn’t working to their advantage.

Maybe he had a stash in one of the rooms he was now hoping to recover. If not, why would he risk all this attention?

“That what this is?” said the inn-keep, getting up, getting loud. “Because I’ve had enough of you people coming back to the roost, making sad eyes under your false lashes. Hasn’t been an oasis for the bent in this city for some time! Party’s over, you understand? I burnt whatever knick-knacks were left behind, just like the guards rounded up the last of your friends and burnt all of them—and that’s sad, yeah, but that sort of trouble is the last thing I need. So shuffle off, all of you,” he said, staring at Ashlan and Jassa, trying to decide if they fit the bill, “before I stop being neighborly and call the guards on you.”

Jassa was the only one of them who had an idea, it seemed.

Ashlan decided to run with it.

“Hey, you got us all wrong,” she said, smiling as she stepped up to the counter, her arms in the air. “I don’t know who you pegged us for, but this is all about luck.” She swiped up the key, rattling it in his face. “You know about luck, don’t you? The kid sure does. Seventeen’s his unlucky number. We’re gamblers, get it? Fortune’s playthings. Sure, he’s little, and he’s kind of spoiled—but we let the kid call the shots, because he always wins! And when he wins, we win. He’s like our, what do you call it, our insurance policy. Our lucky charm, or whatever.” She reached out and tousled his hair, and Rafe wrested his head away, his cheeks flushed.

“Lucky?” said the inn-keep, rubbing his nose.

“Oh!” cried Jassa, taking up Ashlan’s cue. “Very!” Stumbling over to the inn-keep, she dropped down to her knees by the edge of the counter, setting her statue on the floor and following it with a rattling fistful of dice. “See? Can’t argue with those. Lucky! That’s my Ace’s luck. Ha! That would have been four times the prize, had we bet at the table. Look there. And there!”

Hollis jabbed Ashlan in the gut again.

Reaching into the bag, she sighed, flipping another golden button onto the counter.

Was he naked in there?

The inn-keep was nodding now. “All right,” he said, grinning. “All right. So you had a good night, and he’s riding high. Just a boy. He’s just a boy! I didn’t mean to be rude, you know, it’s just that you don’t look like you have coin. Let’s get you another room, then. Nothing but the best for the golden child!” He flipped a key to Rafe, who caught it as it fell. “Anything you need, you just let me know. Full service for you lot, all right?”

But Rafe was already on the stairs, jumping them seemingly at random.

“You still don’t think this is shifty?” she whispered, climbing up behind him.

“No shiftier than the rest of you,” said Hollis.

Ashlan ducked down a hall, finding the keychain swinging from the lock. Pulling it free, she stepped inside a large, dusty room, where Rafe was shrugging out of his cloak, setting things on a crooked table.

“What was all that about, Rafe?”

“Does it matter? We’re alive.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

As Jassa closed the door, Hollis rolled from the handbag and hopped right up, showing no sign of cramp or fatigue, though he’d been curled up in there for hours on end. He was nothing if not well-built, she thought as he pulled his little knife from its case. It looked like a rapier in his hand, an impression that only strengthened as he began to lunge and parry.

Ashlan sat back on one of the beds, her feet on the floor. “You cut me, Runt, and I’ll boot you right in the face.”

“Hah!” He swiped at a corner of the blanket beside her, loosing a burst of feathers. “I’ll lop off your toes for trying, giantess.”

Jassa dropped her blue sack and began to set up her things in the corner, speaking to her dice as she arranged them in front of Left-Handed Luce.

Ashlan cracked her knuckles. “All right, you’ve pushed this string long enough, Ace. Let’s hear this plan of yours.”

Rafe stared down through the window at the street, looking sweaty and haunted.

There was no stash in here after all, Ashlan thought, watching him. He was just in a state. He’d seen how much his neighborhood had changed and gotten spooked, just like her.

Then he’d panicked, and brought them all through the lion’s jaws.

He’d better have something sensible to say for himself now.

“They sent us out to find organs, right. Human organs, to trade the Puppeteer for tlak. The fresher they are, the more we get paid. So, Ashlan, you’re going to be our mark.”

Of course she was. Whatever the plan, she was always the mark.

“We met you while we were harvesting. Far from Eth, the last surviving member of your clan, wandering the wood, looking for help. Now you’ve seen the light, and you want to join the Assemblage. Because you’ve seen what I can do.”

Hollis held his blade up to the light. “And what is that, exactly?”

“He plucks the strings of Fortune’s harp,” purred Jassa from the corner, “and makes them sing.”

“Aha,” said Hollis. “And when was this, exactly? I must have missed it.”

“Look,” said Rafe, turning, “it doesn’t matter what you two think of me. She’s my Deuce now, and I’m barely an initiate. That’ll be remarkable enough to them. And Jassa will bolster her claim with tales of my extraordinary luck, which she’ll send ahead in a letter. Sounds like that inn-keep will help us send it—there are couriers running before dawn in this neighborhood.”

“A letter?” said Ashlan, feeling uneasy. Jassa had pulled out her notebook, and was using Rafe’s new knife to cut out the pages she’d been writing.

“The Assemblage moves its base of operations every fortnight. There’s always someone at the pub on Lank Street, but it would be dangerous to trot you in unannounced. You might end up disappearing in a way that doesn’t serve the plan, is what I mean. And besides, I’d rather—” He set his jaw. “They think I’m a child. Just like that man downstairs does. That’s—the only way I’ve ever been able to pass. So I’m not walking in there without a solid introduction from my Deuce, saying how things have changed. Without it, none of this works.”

Jassa gave him a fawning look, and Ashlan resolved to read the letter closely. But this seemed to be more about Rafe’s ego than anything else, so she let it slide.

“Most important, though, is that I’ll have plenty of proof—a harvest of human organs in the sack, and another set, even fresher, inside you. That’s what you’ll look like to them, going in—a full purse for the Assemblage, and a body with no ties to the city for the Puppeteer, still steaming. And that’s what they’ll care about. How much tlak we’re about to bring them.”

“Okay,” said Ashlan. “So you, what, knock me out?”

Rafe shrugged. “Bash your skull in, probably. More convincing if they see your brains.”

How nonchalant he was. He was expecting her to protest, and he was expecting Hollis to side with him.

“Fine,” she said, refusing to give him the satisfaction. “But what about Hollis?”

“They’ll check your bag.” Rafe sat down on the bed beside her, his lips curling up at the edges. “So we need a way to get Hollis in, and to get you both to the Puppeteer.”

Hollis looked, for all the world, like a child eager to hear the end of a bedtime story.

“Okay,” said Ashlan. “So—”

“So that’s where this comes in,” said Rafe, holding up his oversized needle.

“Congratulations!” sang Jassa, giggling.

“I’m—missing something,” said Hollis, frowning.

Ashlan wasn’t.

“They want to gut me again,” she said, closing her eyes, “and sew you up inside.”

Hollis stepped back. “That’s—a bit much. Isn’t it? That is, a handbag is one thing, but—to be entirely surrounded by—by—”

“Unless you have a better idea,” said Rafe, “this is the plan. They’ve told us, time and again, that the Puppeteer wants fresh harvests, and untraceable ones. They don’t give a damn about quakes—it’s the trail leading back to the murder they want to avoid. So you’ll play the perfect mark, Ashlan, and after you fall, we’ll run your body right over to the Puppeteer. And when he goes to collect his prize, Hollis strikes.”

“With my knife at the ready,” he whispered, stroking the flat of his blade. “All sewed up inside, ready to meet the warm jelly of his eyes! Yes. And we’ll have a code word, Ashlan Ley, so I know when to slash my way out. How about—Father.”

“You’ve warmed right up to this idea, haven’t you,” she muttered, taking a deep breath and pushing it out slowly.

Carrying Hollis might be the nastiest thing she’d ever done to her body, and she’d done a lot.

I am a vessel, she thought, nothing more. I will carry them all, and then Tanka will allow me to sink.

Just a little longer.

Just a little more of Rafe’s bullshit.

That didn’t mean she had to go out of her way to make it pleasant for him, though.

She thought back to the farmhouse, when he’d cut her open. She remembered how shaken Rafe had been.

He’d barely been able to watch Jassa scoop her clean.

“All right then,” she said, clapping her hands. “If that’s the plan, that’s the plan. Runt, give me your knife.”

Rafe, sitting beside her, moved back.

She held out the blade. “Get the sack ready,” she said to Hollis, then pressed the hilt into Rafe’s palm.

He looked at her, startled. “What?”

“Sun’s almost up,” she said, standing squarely in front of him, pinning his knees between her legs, tugging her shirt off. “You’re the big man around here, right, Ace?”

She saw the tremor in his hand.

“So carve the fucking roast.”

Grasping him by the elbow, she yanked it in, hard.

There was a pop as the blade punctured her belly, then a hiss as she dragged his fist across.

The pain was brilliant. It was hers.

She could hear Jassa’s dice rattling in the corner.

Ashlan leaned close to his ear.

“Attaboy,” she whispered.