GETTING TO TAL Abisi’s eastern shore wasn’t easy. The Shimmer wasn’t a place people visited—not people with good sense. The Clockwork King’s infamous act had saturated the old Smuggler’s District with magic of undefinable and chaotic qualities. Three hundred years later, its potency remained. Ship captains steered clear. And canal routes had long been dammed off. The only way in was to hire a boatman to put them on the edge of the Old City, then trek by foot.
Eveen kept them at a steady clip. She had no idea how long this spell would take. And night was fast running out. Sky matched her pace as they walked the old empty road that led to their destination. Mael was another matter.
He was probably a decade younger than Eveen, but he stumbled through the dark—even with the lone lantern Sky had brought along. Of course, it was probably also the heavy satchel he carried on his back with the devices to work his magic. She could have helped but watching him struggle under the burden seemed fitting for his part in their troubles.
“Have you ever been?” Sky asked, sliding up. “To the Shimmer?”
Eveen shook her head. “We resurrected-by-sorcery types try to avoid magical hazards.”
“When I was small, kids made dares,” the girl said. “But we never went through with it.”
“It’s not as bad as all that!” Mael called from behind, breathing heavy.
“Says the idiot tapping into a well of chaotic magic,” Eveen remarked.
She still couldn’t believe what he’d told them—that he and his fellow Edgelords had drawn on the Shimmer’s errant sorcery to perform their spell. Supposedly it had been Pol Oranus’s idea. Even provided them the equipment.
“Being inside the Shimmer isn’t what people think,” Mael went on. “It won’t transmogrify you. Or make you combust spontaneously. At least, not right away.”
“Oh well, no problem then,” Sky retorted, sharing an is-this-guy-for-real look with Eveen.
“The magic in there is just more intense,” he said. “Like Shimmer Fever but tenfold.”
“Is Shimmer Fever what became of the last bunch who resettled there?” Eveen cracked.
Sky looked incredulous. “The city’s still at it? Trying to reclaim land from the Shimmer?”
“Every Grand Patriarch has a new plan,” Eveen said. “Last settlers got turned to stone.”
“Well actually,” Mael corrected, “it was a type of rare quartz.”
“Well actually,” Eveen snapped back, “they were still fucked. And you have dumb gods’ luck you all weren’t smeared to the twelve winds.” Harnessing the Shimmer’s power wasn’t a new idea. The last sanctioned attempt had produced a sorcerous backlash, setting off all sorts of oddities—buildings torn from their foundations and sent floating, a third of the city reduced to speaking unintelligible languages, canal eels enlarged into man-eating monsters. Prohibitions were placed against any future attempts, with stiff punishments for transgressors.
“I’m only saying,” the man tried again, “that maybe all this fearmongering about the Shimmer is a way to stop us from utilizing it. The thaumaturgists keep everyone frightened, reliant on sanctioned magics, while there’s power out here for the taking! Pol Oranus at least had the foresight to—”
“Did he come out here?” Sky interrupted. “With you, I mean?”
Mael took a second. “No. He gave us the equipment and told us where—”
Eveen barked a laugh. “He wasn’t about to get himself imploded if you failed!”
She made sure to laugh long and hard.
“But we didn’t fail,” Mael said defensively. “We did it. We did some amazing magic. We should be the most famous sorcerers in the city.”
“Now two of you are the deadest,” Eveen noted dryly.
That shut him up, and he fell into a brooding quiet. She almost felt sorry for him. He bore responsibility for what was happening. But he was just a dupe. In that way, they shared a commonality—playthings of a scheming Patriarch, like pieces on a gameboard. Or puppets on a string.
“What happens when I’m gone?” Sky asked. Her voice was low, meant for only Eveen to hear. “What if, knowing what I do…” She paused, her face uncertain in the glow lamp’s light. “… I don’t make the choice to become you?”
Eveen had thought on this already. She hoped with the girl gone, Fennis’s obscure clause would undo the contract. But what did it mean beyond that? “Maybe then I go poof after all,” she said.
They walked in awkward silence after that, Eveen contemplating nonexistence.
“There it is!” Mael said.
Both were pulled from their thoughts, looking to where the man pointed. The Shimmer lit up the near distance: a wall of cascading light covering the land and rising high into the sky. They stopped to take in the breadth of it—a monument to one man’s ego.
“Spurned men are such crybabies,” Sky whispered.
Eveen nodded, then walked down the road. The others followed.
Stepping into the Shimmer was like plunging through a ward with the force of a churning river. Eveen clenched her teeth as the magic enveloped her, the knives at her side quivering. Then she was in daylight. An oddity of being inside the Shimmer. It was always daylight here. The sun hung in a blue sky, sometime at midmorning—locked in the moment of the Clockwork King’s fury some three centuries past. And that wasn’t all.
The old Smuggler’s District was laid out before them—where pirates and contraband runners once put in to port. Tal Abisi had waged a long war with piracy, until realizing it was also good for trade. So they’d negotiated a truce allowing for the maintenance of the informal economy—creating a semi-autonomous zone where the rules of the main city were relaxed, provided proper fees and taxes were paid.
“It’s still here,” Sky whispered. She stood by Eveen, teeth chattering from the magic.
Everything was still here—the old Smuggler’s District as it had existed three hundred years past. Paved streets snaked between buildings large and small, all unmarked by time.
“We need to be at the shore,” Mael said, coming to stand by them. “Where the magic is strongest.”
Sky looked to him, touching a blue braid. “That’s where you pulled me through. I remember waking and hearing water, thinking it was day. But I was inside the Shimmer. And the magic is strong there because…”
She didn’t finish. Everyone knew why the magic would be stronger there—where the Clockwork King had carried out his destructive deed.
“Let’s go, then,” Eveen said, leading the way.
Moving through the Shimmer brought its own strangeness. The air shifted—waves of colorful light that danced before your eyes, leaving visible vibrations in your wake. Sky put out a finger to tap the space in front of her, setting off a rainbow of ripples like the surface of a pond. That errant magic. They were submerged in it now.
The sandy shore peeked between buildings, where waves crashed upon jagged rocks. When it all finally came into view, Eveen stared. She had looked out at the old lighthouse on many a night while perched atop the Tomb of the Patriarchs. But that didn’t do it justice.
The lighthouse had once risen up from a flat base, complete with a walkway. Now, it leaned low across the beach: a rounded edifice of stone banded in ochre and white, where diamond-shaped windows gave glimpses of a winding inner staircase. The massive construction had existed long before the first Patriarch came to Tal Abisi. Whichever ancient people had built it, they left nothing else of their presence—and perhaps they had only placed it here to assure ships safe passage. It seemed mindboggling that something so ageless could be felled like a tree. That is, until you saw the woodsmen.
Giants stood on the shore—beings wrought of iron and metal in the shapes of men. Sunlight glinted off the brass of their chests and the rounded heads that contained no nose or mouth, only two eyes of amber glass. There were nine in all, towering into the air with long metallic arms and hands that clutched great hammers and maces of black steel.
Eveen pondered the power of those weapons as they walked beneath the giants’ shadow. It was with these maces and hammers that the mechanical army had brought down the lighthouse: a show of force ordered by their maker, the Clockwork King. Though the threatened attack had never come, his army remained: sentinels of a past age who kept their eternal watch.
“This will do,” Mael said.
Eveen looked to find the man had stopped, his breathing quick and pupils dilated.
“Did you get high while we weren’t looking?” she asked.
“High?” His words came a bit too fast. “No, no. I just feel … fantastic!”
The Shimmer. Sky was practically shivering as she craned her neck to stare up at the clockwork giants. Eveen too could feel that magic prickling her undead flesh. They needed to be done and away from here, quick.
“Get started, then,” she told him.
Mael dumped out the contents of his satchel onto the sand. They looked like large silver pitchforks with blunted tips—only missing the middle tine, creating a U shape.
“Resonance tuners,” he explained—catching their curious looks. He planted one stem into the sand. “Imported from Kons and constructed of a special alloy. It’s long been known the Shimmer emits a resonance we can’t hear. It’s vibrating all around us. Pol Oranus had these made to tap into that reverberation.” He took out a small black rod and struck the implanted fork. It emitted a slight whine, drawing in light as a blue haze danced along the U-shaped top.
“It’s collecting the Shimmer’s magic!” Sky said in wonder.
Mael nodded, a bright smile peeking out from his beard. “Yes! It’s filling up, see?”
Eveen could see. As the magic hummed along the odd fork, the prickling on her skin began moving to the same strange harmony. “Is that safe?”
“If we keep it stable.” He gripped the fork to stop its vibrations, and the glow faded.
“Great,” she muttered, eyeing the thing warily.
“I’ve never actually seen the Clockwork King’s army up close,” Sky said. She’d turned back to staring up at the giants. “The stories don’t do them justice. How could anyone build things so … massive? Do you think they’re still alive? I mean, working?”
“Likely,” Eveen replied, trying to shake an itch in a shoulder blade. “Things here keep.”
Sky cocked her head, as if listening for ticking gears. “Why did you all turn them about?”
Eveen’s fingers struggled to reach the itch. Blast it. “Turn what about?”
“The clockwork giants. They’re facing the wrong way.”
Eveen rotated her shoulder to get at the itch. She looked up, to where great amber glass eyes, each an arm span wide, stared out to sea. “How do you mean? They’ve always faced that way.”
Sky frowned at her. “No, they haven’t.”
“Yes they have,” Eveen said. What was up with this godsdamned itch?
“They have,” Mael put in, unsolicited.
Sky looked at them both, puzzlement on her face. “But that’s not how the story goes.” At Eveen’s disinterested shrug, she rolled her eyes and began. “When the Clockwork King walked from the sea with his army and demanded the Golden Bounty surrendered to him, the Pirate Princess and everyone was prepared to fight. But the mechanical girl didn’t want to see such destruction. She walked out to meet him right here to say she wouldn’t return. That she was in love. And that he had to let her go. The Clockwork King was furious. He said if the Golden Bounty wouldn’t come back with him, then she had to give him back his gift—the power that made her live. So she opened up her chest, reached inside, and took out the clockwork heart he had built—so bright that people say it shined like a star. That’s when the amazing happened.”
“She didn’t die!” Mael called. He had placed four of the odd forks into the sand now.
“She didn’t die,” Sky repeated. “Whatever magic had given her life was a part of her now. She didn’t need his creation to live. So she bade him farewell, then turned back and went to her Pirate Princess.”
Eveen gave up on locating the bothersome itch. “That’s the story. What’s your point?”
“Well, the Clockwork King went mad,” the girl said. “In his fury, he threw down the heart and took out a large hammer to destroy it. But when he cracked the heart open the magic it released exploded. He was vaporized. The Shimmer is what was left behind.”
“Well actually, he wasn’t vaporized,” Mael began. “More like he was unwound—”
At a glare from them both, he fell into quiet mumbling and returned to the forks.
“Anyway,” Sky said, “the giants didn’t know where their maker had gone. Everyone feared they might yet destroy the city. But the Golden Bounty weaved a story for them—that their maker had gone inland in search of grand treasure. And that they must wait for him. That’s why the giants stand here facing the city, ever looking for the Clockwork King’s return.”
Eveen stared at the girl, momentarily forgetting the confounding itch.
“What are you talking about?” Mael shook his head, looking to Eveen. “What’s she even talking about?”
“It’s the story,” Sky retorted. “Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone does know,” Eveen told her slowly. “But the tale the Golden Bounty weaved for the giants was of their maker going to sea. That they had to stand and look out across the waters to await his return. That’s why they’re facing that way. Why they’ve always faced that way.”
Sky now looked utterly confused. “That’s not possible. Even over sixty years, the story couldn’t have changed that much.”
“There!” Mael broke in. He was standing with nine tuning forks arranged. “It’ll take a moment to get them fully powered. But when they draw enough magic, I can work the spell. I can send her back. Then you keep your end of the bargain? You get me out of the city?”
Eveen didn’t answer, meeting Sky’s questioning stare.
“Something’s wrong,” they both murmured at once.
In that instant, the itch in Eveen’s shoulder blade became a full body spasm.
She drew her knives, whipping her head around to find the danger. Her eyes fell on Mael. He was staring at her with a bewildered look of his own, before dropping his gaze to the curved hook of bone jutting from his chest, coated in his blood. He didn’t get a word out before he was violently yanked into the air, shooting up toward the leaning lighthouse. There, atop the stone, a figure stood waiting in a black cloak. Four skeletal hands caught Mael, holding him fast. Then, with a terrible wrenching, they tore his body in two.
“Eveen!” the figure called down in a male voice. He threw what was left of Mael away like discarded refuse. “It seems I have finally found you! Both of you! Good! Aeril be praised!” With a leap, he plunged toward the beach below.
Eveen jumped back, sliding between Sky and the figure, who landed in a cloud of sand, triggering intense vibrations of light. Now she understood the itch in her shoulder blades—the Shimmer screwing with her ability to sense the undead.
The figure pulled back a hood to reveal a grinning skull. The polished bone was misshapen, elongated to resemble something between a man and a cat, complete with long canines. The only flesh was the eyes: two white orbs with glowing red feline irises, fitted inside shadowy sockets.
“Eveen, Eveen, Eveen,” he tsked, sound emanating unnaturally from an empty throat. His clearly un–Tal Abisi accent made her name sound like Ah-veen, which always irritated.
“Valesh,” she greeted him. “Taking night strolls through the Shimmer?”
“I go where my job flees.” The Dead Cat Tail assassin flicked his bone whip, segments of joined spinal columns curling then going taut, sending blood flying from the curved end sharpened into a knife. Mael’s blood. He was dead. And with him, their only chance to send the girl home. After all they’d gone through tonight, to come so close was …
She fought off the despair. Best to focus on the immediate danger.
“Your job? Moonlighting for another guild now?”
Valesh sighed, shaking his grinning skull head as if dealing with a child. Pompous ass.
“My job was contracted through our guild,” he answered. “As were his associates.”
That caught Eveen by surprise. Valesh had killed Mael’s crew? This was Pol Oranus then. Had Baseema known? Set her on this path only to dash her hopes in the end?
“I tracked him here,” Valesh went on. “And surmised he had gone into the Shimmer when I could no longer sense his tell. What fortune that you and your job are also here. Now I can take care of three matters at once.”
“Valesh!” she said, urgent. “There’s something going on! Pol Oranus contracted the guild to take out Mael and his friends. It has something do with me and my job. She’s—”
“You,” Valesh finished with a nod. “I have heard the tale. A girl pulled through time.”
“Then you know none of this is normal. I think there’s even more to—”
“I don’t care,” Valesh broke in.
Eveen tried again.
“I’m telling you Pol Oranus is playing us! The entire guild is in danger!”
“Because you broke your contract.”
“Aeril’s fiery tits! I had to!”
That pompous head shake again, and she wanted to wring his skeleton neck.
“Always a reason,” he said, lecturing. “Always an excuse to break rules.”
“I paid for it,” she spat. “Still paying.”
“Too easy a penance. And why you are so cavalier in breaking them again.”
“So if you were in my shoes you’d just ship your younger self?”
“Yes. I’d turn about right now and cut my throat.”
His voice was unwavering. She thought the cocky bastard probably would.
“That is the difference between you and me,” he continued, unfastening his cloak. “You see rules as things to be set aside when they are inconvenient. To be broken when they suit your whims. I understand that rules are to be followed. No matter the consequence.”
He shook off the cloak, letting it drop away to reveal his body. A skeleton. But not just one. There were too many ribs, extra clavicles fused to make him broad, more femurs and humeri to give his legs bulk, scapulae welded along his back like a carapace—and from his shoulders, two sets of arms on either side, making for four arms in total. He was a monstrosity of bone: a mockery that only servants of a death goddess could dream up.
“Do you know what your problem is, Eveen?”
She grimaced. If this bony-faced fuck dropped his mandible to tell her what her—
“You are weak,” he said. “It is not your fault. It is your flesh.”
Oh. She rolled her eyes. This again? No one knew where Valesh had called home in his past life. Or how he ended up in Tal Abisi. But he had requested to become this monster upon resurrection. It was said people jumped to their deaths at the sight of him—certain some demon had come to drag their soul to one of the less pleasant hells.
“I am without such frailties.” He rapped a thick sternum. “Without your vanity. Your need to be tied to your flesh-bound past. What you fail to see is that we are no longer human. We have walked through the goddess’s veil and been reborn. This fragile thing—” He pointed a bony finger to Sky. “This bit of blood, brain, and viscera, is but old skin. To be sloughed off.”
“And become a soulless pile of bones?” Eveen quipped. “I’ll keep my frailties, thanks.”
That nerve-wracking sigh again. “Then I will kill her for you. After, I will scour away your flesh, so that what is left behind can be remolded into something stronger.”
The knives in Eveen’s grip hummed. “Not the first tonight to try.”
“I shall endeavor, then, to do better.”
He cracked the bone whip, snaking it in a flash toward her. Eveen batted away the curved blade seeking her flesh—once, then again. The third time the whip encircled a leg, and at a sharp pull, she went down. Her eyes went to Sky.
“Run!”
The girl didn’t hesitate.
Across from them, Valesh’s body shifted—bones creaking and clacking as he rearranged his skeletal frame. His spine elongated and he fell on all fours, becoming even more inhuman as he scampered after the girl.
Eveen tore the bone whip from her leg, wrestling the living thing until she had a grip around the handle. “You’re mine now!” she growled. Looking back, she caught sight of Valesh set to pounce on Sky: a beast after fleeing prey. She flung the bone whip to catch him midleap—pulling hard to send the bony mass crashing onto the sand. Running after him she threw herself onto his back, blades first.
Unfortunately, stabbing and slicing didn’t do much, her knives only scraping across bone. She found some luck in sliding a blade beneath a scapula covering his spine like a plate of armor. With a twist, she pried it off. She got several more before a skeletal hand grabbed hold of her and flung her off. Rolling on the sand, she came up knives out and ready.
Valesh shifted again, standing on two legs and holding the recovered bone whip. His skull swung about, red irises searching. But the girl was gone. Eveen hoped she kept running.
“No matter.” He refocused on her. “Once you are handled, the girl is mine to hunt.”
“Try and handle me,” she snapped. “Let that be the reason.”
“You know I searched your safe house,” he mused. “Went through your belongings.”
He meant the one the guild knew about. But the thought of his bony hands … blech.
“It was filled with rubbish,” he went on. “Like those Terribles you favor. Asheel the Maniac Hunter, is it?” His skeletal grin seemed to widen at seeing her stiffen.
“What did you do with my books?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“I looked through them, trying to find what you see in such childish things. But all I saw was nonsense. More pictures than words. So I ripped them up. Into small. Little. Pieces.” His hands made a motion, like throwing confetti into the air.
And it was in that moment that Eveen, without regret or remorse, chose violence. She pointed her knife. “Monster! You’ll pay for your crimes!”
“I’m sure,” he retorted. And the two charged.
Valesh had straightened his bone whip and now wielded it like a spear. Eveen met his attack, striking the weapon at angles to chip away bits. He was bigger, but she had the speed. Not to mention she was pissed. Tear up her books, would he? A swift knife swipe severed the spinal bones of the whip, breaking it in two. She took the advantage to slide into his guard—leaping up with the intent of plunging steel into an eye socket. She’d forgotten, however, he had other arms. Hands caught each of her wrists, while another crashed a bony fist into her jaw. She tried to roll with the punch but caught the brunt of it—and the world erupted in pain.
Eveen broke free, staggering back—her legs nearly giving out. Gods, that hurt! She couldn’t remember anything ever hurting like this. A coppery taste filled her mouth and she sucked in breath, blinking to regain her vision. It felt like—
She stopped cold.
Blinking? Sucking in breath? She was … breathing! And the coppery taste in her mouth. Fingers hastily dug inside came back out crimson. Blood? Her head spun. And not just from the blow. How was this happening? Undead flesh didn’t bleed. Her gaze took in the rippling vibrations of light their fight had kicked up. The Shimmer! That chaotic magic was working on her somehow. Even now she could feel a once-stilled heart beating faint in her chest.
Before she could put sense to what was happening, Valesh came again—hitting her like a rampaging bull cat. She was lifted up and slammed onto the sand—air flying from newly resuscitated lungs. She didn’t have time to recover before he struck her, bringing fresh pain that left her dazed. Another strike, and something broke. Probably her nose. Now teeth. She was certain the blows to her side had hit vital organs. It was probably only seconds, but the beating felt like hours. When it was done she lay staring into the red cat-eyed gaze of a grinning skull.
“The weakness of flesh,” he pronounced.
Her lips fought to do some proper cussing. Even spit at him—now that she had spit. But something gave her pause. She wasn’t healing. The smashed cartilage, the jaw and orbital bone she was certain were fractured, the spleen or whatever he’d pulverized, none of it was knitting back together. Damned Shimmer!
“Where are your jokes now?” Valesh mocked. “Your witty tongue and bombast? See what comes from failing to keep your word? But I keep mine.” A hand came forward brandishing the rejoined bone whip. The weapon collapsed, rearranging into a knife. “I told you I would scour the flesh from your bones.” With a high-pitched whirring the blade began to turn, spinning into a blur. She tried to move her head. But bony fingers gripped her chin, holding it straight. “We will start here. Scrape this face clean of all vanity and past ties. You will thank me, in the end.”
Eveen found the will to struggle, her hands gripping the bony arm holding the blade. It slowed but didn’t stop. Watching its descent, she wondered what was to come. Would she die, again? Or would she be left in limbo, flesh gone but alive, forever in torment? For the second time tonight, fear touched her. She surrendered it to it, wholly, letting herself drown in its depths—anything for the resolve to fight. Her focus was so fixed she barely glimpsed the figure who appeared suddenly behind Valesh to plunge something into his back. He stood quickly, turning about to find—Sky!
“You have returned.” His surprise matched Eveen’s. What in the hells was the girl still doing here? “Unwise. But I am saved the trouble of the hunt.” At a flick, his knife reformed into the bone whip, coiling like a serpent.
Sky at least had the sense to put distance between them. But she didn’t run. Instead, she yelled while pointing at Valesh. “Resonance! Magic! Collector!” Eveen caught every other word, and thought it gibberish, until she looked to the skeleton man’s back. Shoved among several scapulae was one of Mael’s odd forks.
“Only safe! Keep magic! Stable!” Sky yelled.
The jumble of words clicked into place at once. Eveen fought past pain to lift up, staggering, then limping, then running for Valesh. She held one of her knives. But when she reached the skeleton man she didn’t try to stab him. Instead, she brought the hilt down hard on the butt end of the fork jutting from his back. The thing vibrated when struck, emitting a blue haze and a building whine. Valesh looked down, just noticing the luminous metal lodged into his frame. Eveen spun around him, running faster now for Sky. She reached the girl, tackling her to the ground and curling about her as the whine reached a fever pitch.
There was an ear-shattering BOOM! as the blast of chaotic magic buffeted her. She gritted her teeth as bone fragments tore through clothing, cutting into her back with fresh pain, but held tight to Sky, trying to protect the girl as best she could. When it was over, she lifted her head up to look about. There was nothing much left of Valesh—just charred chunks of bone raining down to pelt the blackened sand. She searched through the mess until she found his severed skull lying face down. Standing on shaky legs, she staggered toward it, using her foot to flip it over. Two red eyes stared up from shadowed sockets.
“Are you kidding me?” Sky asked, coming to peer over her shoulder.
Valesh’s voice croaked. “A fine trick. You have proved a worthy opponent. But do not think this the end. We will face again—”
The words were lost as Eveen reached down to rip off his mandible. Gripping the skull by the gaping upper jaw, she mustered up all her strength and flung it out to sea. The skull sailed through the air to bounce off a rock before entering the waters with a ker-plunk! Then she collapsed. Sky dropped beside her.
“What’s wrong?” The girl’s hands traced Eveen’s body in alarm. “You aren’t healing!”
“Shimmer,” she managed, through ragged breaths.
Sky’s face lit up in some semblance of understanding and she helped Eveen up with a grunt. Both looked momentarily at the remaining odd forks.
“Let’s go,” the girl said. “There’s nothing for us here.”
In silence, they made their way from the beach, past the giants of the Clockwork King, who kept their steady and silent vigil.
THE NIGHT WAS quiet as they sat just off the old road. Leaving the Shimmer had broken the chaotic magic’s effects. Eveen felt it immediately—her pain receding to a familiar dullness as she healed. That was a relief. But the rest had gone too. The heart that briefly beat. The lungs that had taken air. All returned to undead flesh. She found herself running a tongue inside her mouth, yearning to recall the coppery taste of her own blood.
“Will Mael’s family be contacted?” Sky asked. She sat by a glow lamp, legs drawn up to her chin and blue braids falling over her knees.
“Not how it works,” Eveen replied.
“But somebody will miss him,” the girl countered.
Eveen studied her. Mael wasn’t exactly an innocent. Not by half. But he was a stupid kid, who had gotten a bad end. “I’ll try to see word gets to someone,” she said.
Sky nodded her thanks. “How long before dawn?”
Eveen glanced up at the stars. “A few hours.”
There was a stretch of quiet.
“I won’t be going back home, will I?” The girl’s words were a whisper.
Eveen paused, then shook her head. “Without Mael … I don’t see how. I’m sorry.”
Sky exhaled deeply before speaking again. “No need for both of us to suffer. If my dying saves you somehow, then…” Her eyes closed. “I just don’t want it to hurt.”
Eveen stared, bewildered by the offer. “I’m not doing that.”
The girl’s eyes flew open. “But your goddess will—”
“Fuck her and her fucking fiery tits!”
Sky made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “My gods, your mouth.”
Eveen returned a grin that slowly resolved into a frown.
“What is it?” the girl asked.
Eveen bit her lip. She’d been trying to make sense of a problem since leaving the Shimmer—one that might help them. Though she couldn’t yet figure out how.
“Do you remember our talk before Valesh appeared?” she asked.
Sky cocked her head, thinking. “We were trading stories.”
Eveen nodded. “We both said ‘something’s wrong’ at the same time.”
“I remember. It was about the giants—the way they were facing.”
“I think there’s more there. Something we’re missing.”
Sky shrugged. “They’re just stories.”
“Every story carries its own truths,” Eveen recited. “Something Fennis told me.”
“Poetic,” the girl said. “But how can that help us?”
Eveen tried to make the jumble in her head coherent, choosing what she might say. But instead of talking, she was looking at something in her hand. One of her knives. She frowned. When had she taken that out? Now her arm hung in the air—and she stared, confused. The next thing she knew, a fistful of blue braids was clutched in her grip as the tip of the knife pressed on Sky’s throat. The girl struggled, held fast by a knee pressing her down. Eveen’s knee. She was set to slide the blade across the waiting jugular—but a voice in her head screamed. It was her own voice. Only distant. Like it had fallen down a deep hole.
“Good night, Eveen,” someone said.
She looked up to find a man. A tall man. He wore a dark coat that hung past his knees, just above tall black boots—reminding her of a crow. Where had he come from? He lowered to a crouch beside her, tipping up a beaten wide-brimmed hat that partially hid a gaunt, narrow face. His yellow eyes drank her in as he spoke in an oddly quiet voice.
“I’m the man from out of town.”
His words set off a hundred forgotten alarms. Words Baseema had spoken.
I have a man coming in from out of town. A last resort.
She knew what that meant. Had known. It was the buried voice within her that spoke.
“Necromancer.” The word was a stammered whisper. Inside, she wailed.
The man didn’t smile. But he did nod, once.
“Eveen!” Sky shouted, still held fast by the knee in her back. Her head twisted up to glare at the man between long blue braids. “What are you doing? Who is this?”
Eveen fought to make her lips work. It felt like lifting a boulder. With her teeth. “Necromancer,” the stammer came again. She never even glanced down, unable to pull her eyes from the crouching figure.
Sky gasped, confusion giving way to shock, then horror. “Is he controlling—?”
The girl’s words were cut off as Eveen clapped a hand over her mouth.
The necromancer looked down at Sky, placing a long finger to his lips with a hush.
His attention returned to Eveen. “I tracked you here but kept my distance from…” He gestured to the Shimmer. “I interrogated the skeleton man who followed you—not that he would remember. I hoped he would resolve this matter. Obviously, he failed.”
The voice inside Eveen screamed to lunge at him. To bury her knives into some non-lethal but very painful part of his body—to the hilt. But she didn’t move. Not a muscle. Not a twitch. Her unblinking eyes stayed focused on him, unable to look at anything else. Right now, he was her entire world.
“It’s early still,” he went on tiredly. “Your guild boss was adamant I allow you until dawn. I will keep to that part of the contract. But why continue the chase when we can simply wait out the remaining hours? Here. Alone.”
He reached over to root about inside Sky’s satchel, inspecting the Festival token before tossing it. The surgical tools he took more of a liking to. Eveen was still as he opened her jacket, withdrawing one of her knives. His finger traced the edge of the dark blade, which jumped suddenly at the unfamiliar touch. He dropped it, cursing at being cut. The voice inside Eveen laughed raucously.
“Careless.” He tsked, sucking away blood. “I was warned those were not for the taking.” He reached instead to pull two of her daggers free, disappearing them into his coat. “A pity necromancy is banned in Tal Abisi. So that a man of my talent must skulk about in the shadows. Rights for the undead.”
He huffed in umbrage at the very notion, while pilfering the figurine of the Pirate Princess from Eveen. His hands moved over her shoulder to push back her locs, those yellow eyes studying her face. “You’re pretty. That’s a compliment. I’ve seen my share of the dead. You’re well kept. But you should smile more.” His fingers drew a curving line and Eveen felt the corners of her mouth tug upward against her will.
“Better.” He bent his head to look to Sky, who still lay flat. “A relative?”
Eveen only smiled.
“Of course,” he said absently, fingers moving. “Speak.”
The words flew out. “She’s me.”
A pair of bushy eyebrows rose. “Interesting. How is that possible? Speak.”
“Pulled from the past. You thieving eel-fucked son of a dead man-whore’s—”
Her mouth clamped shut, her teeth clicking as his fingers closed. “More than I asked. Strong willed. Well, there are ways to break that.” He returned to Sky, caressing the back of her neck in a way that made Eveen snarl inside. The little finger on her right hand jumped.
“I have no control over you,” he told the girl. “But her undead flesh is under my sway.”
Eveen’s little finger jumped again. The voice inside cried out at this small triumph.
“I have ways to make her hurt you. Ways to make you scream. We could see which—”
The necromancer’s face spasmed. He shook his head, beginning anew. “We could—”
This time his whole left side spasmed. He frowned, lifting a trembling hand, his words slurring. “What … is this?”
As she watched his body spasm further, the buried voice inside Eveen grew, filling her up until it was shouting. Her little finger jumped. Then another finger. And another. Whatever was happening to the necromancer, it was lessening his hold. If she could just push … She strained. It was like throwing herself against the whole damned world. Push. Push. Just a bit more … His hold on her broke abruptly—like ropes being cut. She released Sky and that damned smile. The necromancer now lay on his side, wracked by convulsive shivers.
Sky sat up, gulping air and rubbing her neck where the knife had rested. “What’d you do to him?”
Eveen shook her head. She was set to say she hadn’t done anything when she heard the humming. From her bewildered look, Sky heard it too. A child’s lullaby about the Golden Bounty. It came from the dark, with the sound of light footsteps. How many godsdamned people are on this road, she wondered? Then her skin … prickled. The two watched, bracing, as a new figure stepped from the shadows.
A boy, in a child’s Pirate Princess costume—complete with a pretend pistol. His face was covered in a white papier-mâché cat’s mask, cut with black eyes and a pink lolling tongue. He stared at them for a moment, then lifted his mask to rest it on a mop of thick curls. The brown face beneath couldn’t have been more than ten, with large eyes that reflected his bright smile.
“Hello, Eveen,” he greeted in a squeaky voice.
She let her knife drop with a weary sigh. “Hey. Old man.”
Sky gaped. “This is the old man?”
He turned his head sideways to look the girl over. “She does favor you.”
“How long?” Eveen asked, ignoring the small talk.
The old man sat down cross-legged, beaming up at them. “Since Baseema’s.”
She laughed tiredly. Here she thought they’d avoided one of the Cat Tail’s deadliest. And he’d been on their trail the whole tine.
“A lively night you’ve had,” he said. “Burying Rejik. What you did to Valesh!” He tittered, puffing his small cheeks out to mimic an explosion. “Bwoosh!”
“Is this a joke?” Sky asked, staring incredulous. “The old man is a kid?”
“Not a kid,” Eveen corrected. The old man had worked for other guilds before Baseema poached him. No one knew how a child had bargained with a death goddess. Or why he had died so young. But he wasn’t a kid anymore. “He’s more mature than he looks.”
“How mature?” the girl asked.
The old man winked, gesturing to the Shimmer. “I remember when that wasn’t there.”
Sky practically sputtered.
“You took out the necromancer.” Eveen gazed down at the man. He’d gone still. But his yellow eyes darted about, regarding each of them with a stunned look.
The old man smiled, showing boyish dimples. “You know my work.”
That she did. What made him so dangerous. And so damned good. He studied his jobs. Learned their habits. When you got shipped by the old man, it was through poison inhaled from your favorite flower. Or dabbing on a death potion, mixed into your usual perfume. He had an array of toxins that killed or paralyzed. The necromancer probably never felt the needle’s prick.
“Was this done to me?” she asked. Some of those toxins worked as well on undead flesh.
His child’s face went eerily flat, drained of all emotion.
“No,” he said in a hollow voice. “Nor the girl.”
Relief flooded her. But then … “Why? Baseema asked you to do the same as the others.”
“Asked,” he emphasized. “Not a contract. That’s different.”
She frowned. “Then what do you want?”
He grinned suddenly, a frightening child’s grin. Or the mockery of one. “To see the game finished!”
“Game?” Sky asked tentatively.
The old man turned a dead gaze on her and she flinched.
“The one that pulled you through time! That had Eveen carry out a contract on herself! All orchestrated by a Patriarch! I’ve been watching it play out all night. And he—” There was a frown for the necromancer. “—was going to ruin the ending!”
Sky looked befuddled.
“He’s into games,” Eveen said, not taking her eyes from him. “So you’re letting us go?”
The boy that was not a boy propped his chin on a small fist. “Depends.”
“On…?”
His face twisted, and he spoke with a snarl. “Whether you’re ready to stop dicking around and take this game to the only place it can end!”
Eveen shared a long look with him, staring into eyes far older than ten.
“We are.” She thought perhaps she had known it for a while now.
The old man’s face was all boyish delight again—like rainbows and puppies. His small hands clapped happily.
Eveen reached down to search the necromancer for their pilfered goods.
“Where are we going, then?” Sky asked, reclaiming her satchel and throwing disturbed glances at the old man.
“To see Pol Oranus,” Eveen answered, sheathing her daggers.
That took the girl by surprise. “But you said you couldn’t touch him.”
“I can’t.” She paused. “We’re turning ourselves in.”
Sky’s jaw dropped. But at seeing Eveen’s look, her face turned curious. “You have a plan.”
“Something like one. Maybe. Need to see to our thaumaturgist first.”
“Fennis’s brother? Why?”
Eveen tucked the Pirate Princess figurine back in place, then picked up the discarded Festival token, studying it before offering it back to Sky. “I want to talk to him about magic sea jellies. And symmetry. I’ll explain on the way.” She looked to the necromancer, then the old man. “What about him?”
The boy that was not a boy made a sour face. “I don’t like necromancers.” He bent until his eyes were level with the prone man. “And while I can’t kill you, I am going to break your fingers. Then your toes. After that, things should get … interesting. It will hurt very, very much.”
Eveen took some pleasure in seeing those yellow eyes fill with terror. She and Sky left the small assassin to his work—as the first crack of bone sounded in the dark.