Little was left of Daphne Mains.
The machine built inside her defended itself. Wheels and wards, enchantments and escarpments and demonic intelligences spun against the Blacksuits who swept through the sky, and against one of them in specific, the claw-fingered angel who tore Daphne and was torn in turn. The machine needed more power, more speed, and it burned through Daphne’s shells, recruiting shards of her annexed soul for the war effort. Dreams, nightmares, fantasies, mirror-memories, all melted for the sake of speed.
Observer-Daphne, at the bottom of her mind’s well, felt parts of her she had not known survived grind in the machine.
She thought slowly.
Slower.
Drained of color, judgment, time.
Many hands speared Blacksuits in midair. Hurt them. Trapped them. Flayed the goddess from them. One Suit dove for Madeline Ramp instead of Daphne; Ramp raised a hand. The Suit bounced off an invisible wall.
Thoughts reached Daphne under deep water’s weight, when they reached her at all. The machine moved fast, though. She caught the winged cop around the throat. The cop tore free, bleeding. She caught her again, one arm, then the next. Daphne grew two more claws, and her fingers sharpened to diamond points, to pierce.
Time went strange.
A voice spoke, over and beside the din.
“Apologies to the court for my tardiness.”
Daphne, inside herself, recognized that voice. Tara.
“Ms. Abernathy,” the Judge said, “you’re late.”
“I was delayed.” She stood outside the circle, on empty air. “I am sorry.”
She wore a suit of nacreous gray, as if pearls had been spun to wool and woven. Moonlight caught in her hair and on the curve of her cheek. She held a briefcase.
“Sorry,” the Judge said, “doesn’t cover it, Ms. Abernathy. Ms. Ramp and Ms. Mains at least comport themselves within the standards of the court—but these creatures entering themselves as representatives, Wakefield sniping from the sidelines, local authorities trying to arrest Craftswomen in my own circle—I won’t let you derail these proceedings further.”
“That’s fine, Your Honor,” Tara said. “I don’t mean to derail these proceedings at all.”
* * *
Tara looked at Daphne. It was hard to do that without letting the tears come. She could see what had happened to her now the wards were engaged, the enchantments woken, the demons risen from their slumber. Metal glinted through gaps in Daphne’s skin, and glyphwork Tara could barely comprehend. The parts of Daphne their old teacher hollowed out were filled with weapons and golemetric clockwork. The demons that wore Daphne’s face, many-armed, sharp-toothed, and glyph-inscribed, held two of Tara’s friends by the throat.
“Sorry, Daffy,” she said, and opened her briefcase.
“Ms. Abernathy, you are seconds from being held in contempt.”
“I’ll use those seconds wisely, Your Honor. Seril stands in Her own defense. I wouldn’t dream of interrupting a case in such an advanced stage of debate. I am here only to submit relevant documents to the Court of Craft.”
Ramp seemed tense. Tara liked that.
“Give them to me.”
The deal, calligraphed in Tara’s own hand, signed in Altemoc’s blood, floated past hovering gargoyles, to the bench. The Judge cleared her throat, produced reading glasses from her breast pocket, donned them, and scanned the deal.
“Speaking of irregular, Ms. Abernathy.”
“I understand your hesitation, Your Honor, but I assure you the document’s legitimate.”
“No payment involved?”
“Altemoc’s Concern has an unorthodox structure, Your Honor. They do not seek repayment from the direct beneficiaries of their dispensations.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, really, but the fact remains: that document represents a transfer of assets from the Two Serpents Group to the Church of Seril Undying.”
“Very well,” the Judge said, and a spring unwound between Tara’s shoulder blades. “Ms. Abernathy, how are you supporting yourself outside the circle? You aren’t strong enough to fight Alt Coulumb’s interdict by yourself.”
She allowed herself a smile. “That brings us the next matter I wanted to discuss. Your Honor, Ms. Mains, dear guests”—that last addressed to the skyspires arrayed around them—“I’m afraid you are all trespassing.”
* * *
The fight’s pause let Daphne-under-shells think again, let her reclaim her mind from the machine. She felt a sudden tension when Tara spoke, the grinding of ill-meshed gears, the music of a dying engine.
The Judge frowned. “Go on.”
“Your Honor,” Tara said, “those assets represent airspace rights over Alt Coulumb, which have been the subject of tangled courtroom challenges for fifty years. You see, the sky above Alt Coulumb belongs to Seril. Kos claimed it after She died, but the King in Red of Dresediel Lex registered a competing claim based on salvage rights from Seril’s presumed corpse. With this transfer, that salvage claim has been formally relinquished; the King in Red’s airspace rights devolve to Seril. And now”—and the grin Daphne knew Tara thought she was hiding grew wider—“now Kos has dropped his competing claim.”
Lightning stripped and squared the circle. Thunder rolled.
“Your Honor, Seril Undying owns these skies, and She doesn’t care for your presence here—or the spires’ either.” Light trailed Tara’s finger as she gestured toward the crystal towers.
“Are you threatening the court, Ms. Abernathy?” The Judge’s voice was the voice of ages.
“Not at all. In fact, I believe the Lady is offering these spires’ owners, and the court itself, temporary tenancy agreements as we speak. Some might call the rent She’s demanding extortionate, but wait until we put this space on the open market. Trust me: the Alt Coulumb real estate market is absurd, and my client now holds rights to several hundred cubic miles of fresh territory. Ms. Ramp. Ms. Mains.” The moon pulsed with rage. The bonds that held the gargoyles shattered; their stone healed. Their eyes were bonfires within gems. The Blacksuits in midair unfroze, and the healed hosts of Justice assembled in arrays. The cop slipped from Daphne’s claws as if she were made of light. “If you’d like to continue your assault on my client, feel free. She’s feeling a bit more battle ready at the moment.”
What answer could Daphne give, or the machine outside her? The court itself acknowledged Seril’s rights to the sky. Easier to move the world without a lever than fight the court from within.
Tara had won.
But Daphne heard slow applause and recognized Ramp’s voice.
“Neatly done, Ms. Abernathy. But would you please refrain from declaring premature victory? It’s a bad habit.”
The machine in Daphne moved again.
* * *
Tara was caught by surprise. So was the Judge. The monster with Daphne’s face pointed, and lightning leapt from her to the paper that bore Tara’s seal, and Altemoc’s.
The document smoked—the bond of ownership unraveling as Daphne attacked the contract, the ownership trail of Seril’s sky. After decades of Craftwork wrangling, how could Kos renounce his claim?
Tara blocked, reinforcing the deal with Kos’s own testimony, with moonlit records in city stone, with the organic glyphs of Alt Coulumb’s streets: the God’s claim assumed His Lady’s death, but She was very much alive. His certainty stood as a wall against Daphne’s spears.
The spears became vines, became water, became worms that wriggled into Tara’s mind. Perhaps the spirit who called herself Seril was not the same as the Goddess who died?
But Tara fought back. Seril’s children testified, with their crystal teeth and their claws and their long memories. And Kos Himself offered surety in flame. One by one, with spiderlong fingers, Tara plucked up the argument-worms and burned them as they screamed.
The machine burned faster. Daphne cut through Tara’s argument: the goddess who fought in the Wars has changed to the point of death. She fought Craftswomen, and now employs them. She ruled, and now she hides. Her body was remade. Her mortal worshippers are gone, or long since converted to other faiths. She was a ghost surviving in a few monsters’ dreams. The being who emerges, reborn, is not the lady who fell at the King in Red’s hands, her blood smoking on his claws.
Blades of Craft pierced beneath the skin of reality, speared Seril Herself, and pried apart the seconds and ages of Her life. All Daphne’s might, all the court’s power, wedged present Seril from Her past.
Tara slipped beneath those blades, blunted them and redirected. Seril has changed, as I have changed, as you have changed, bitwise, slantwise, like the philosopher’s ship. But Her faithful call Her by the same name, and so does Her lover, and so do Her children. And so, by rights, She is.
Tara’s web closed around the blades, and hardened.
But still the machine in Daphne fought.
Seril now is Seril who was before, but Seril who was before is not Seril who is now. Seril is Seril and is not Seril. Tara is Tara and is not Tara. Daphne is Daphne and is not Daphne.
Webs of Craft reflected themselves, distorted.
Tara saw the discontinuity too late.
Craftwork logic, spun against itself, made a hole in the wielder’s mind.
And a demon stepped through.
Reflections bubbled in Daphne’s eyes, and the eyes themselves faceted, serrated, grew polygonal and inflated round again. Daphne became a cutout superimposed on the world. Much of her skin was gone, or shredded, but the thaumaturgical implements inside her now frayed, or turned on invisible axes to become writhing glass, devouring their complexity as the world tore.
Daphne’s lips peeled back, and back, and back. The corners of her mouth split to show fangs. In those fangs Tara thought she saw Daphne’s face, or her own, or both their faces melded and forever screaming. A choir sang music no human throats could make.
Tara tried to catch the demon’s edges, see its bindings. There were none. Ill-defined it passed through the portal of Daphne’s broken logic—limitless and hungry.
Cat leapt for it, wings spread. The demon pierced her and she fell. Demonglass caught Tara, skinned the moonlight from her, grew inward. She blunted its assault, defining the claws by their pressure on her skin and so destroying them—but space twisted as the demon overflowed itself, reshaping Daphne’s body to fit its expanded being, so fast it made itself faster.
The gargoyles fought, and Justice. Unreal blades cut down.
The demon grew so fast it seemed to be exploding: glass pierced Alt Coulumb pavement into bedrock, and more glass spread from the wound. A tendril darted left, impaled a nearby skyspire and began to suck. Crystal broke, and flight Craft failed, as the demon asserted new reality. It belonged here. Here belonged to it. Flyspeck Craftsmen fell screaming toward the city. Crystal shards rained down.
Bleeding, burned, caught in thorns, Tara imposed shapes and rules on the demon, but they slipped—it moved too fast for her to trap. Her shields broke. She made new ones. Her skin ripped.
Within her she felt Seril, and with her Kos, the silver light and the deep flame, and both were afraid.
The city began to die.
Time ran slow, because there was not much left.
Many thoughts dovetailed in Tara’s head at once.
The demon that came through Daphne’s mind was not protected by the Court of Craft. It crushed court wards and burst the guardian circle. Kos could engage it directly, now, and Seril, but unbound demons moved faster than faith. They might last mere seconds in real time, but in those seconds they could rewrite the world from underneath the gods. As the demon grew it would kill and convert, and as their faithful died or were swallowed by the glass, Kos and Seril would falter, weaken, change to demon-things themselves.
Glass closed her around, reflected her against herself, remade.
Tara remembered the Keeper in the mountain, her fear, her triumph in torment. She could do the same. Give this demon something to eat instead of Alt Coulumb and its gods, instead of Abelard and Cat and Aev and Raz and Bede. Something still mostly human. Something that could die.
Something like her.
She’d walked within the Keeper, seen her heart. She thought she knew the trick of it.
A cage of her hair. A lake of her blood. A mountain of her bone. A maze of her mind.
Invite the demon into the terror palace of her dreams, and, before it could break free—fall.
There were wards around a Craftswoman’s dreams, glyph walls to prevent intrusion, subroutines to scrub parasites away. She turned them off. She opened her gates.
The demon swelled above her, a spider taller than buildings.
A chain around your neck, a skull’s imagined voice whispered in her ear. I was right.
No.
“Come on,” Tara said, and bared her teeth, and let the demon in.
* * *
Raz saw Cat fall. Her wings caught air, slowed her, but she crashed onto a neighboring rooftop. He smelled her blood through silver.
Above him a demon blossomed. He’d seen these before, or things like them. City smashers. Undefined, indefinable. Craftsmen had used them as weapons when the Wars turned bad.
Cat lay still.
Raz put the blood jade between his teeth, bit, and drank.
It tasted sharp.
All of a sudden even the demon in the sky seemed slow.
He put his hands into his pockets. This wasn’t what he’d imagined at all, but it made a kind of sense.
He walked up into the air, humming softly to himself.
* * *
Tara offered—
* * *
Demonglass scythed toward Raz, slow as an opening flower.
He ran his hand along the blade’s edge. It felt rough. When he drew his fingers away, he saw the edge had dimpled his skin.
He flicked the glass, which broke.
The demon had an outer skin, which he stepped through. Inside, he found its angles mostly wrong, so he righted them.
In the demon’s center hung the remnants of a woman. He walked toward her.
* * *
—herself, and the demon—
* * *
Daphne saw the man approach, humming tunelessly.
The demon tore her, demanded her, but she was its door, and consuming her it would consume itself.
So she remained.
The man approached. The demon roared.
He cocked his head to one side, listening.
“I’m no good at this sort of thing,” he said. “Want an explanation, you’d be better off asking Tara, or Lady K.”
He was very close to her now.
“You’re dangerous because you’re undefined, because the world doesn’t know what limits to place on you. Now, the thing to which I just joined myself—it’s very old. Older than gods. Nothing lasts this long unless it’s quite simple.”
He sounded sad.
“You know the joke, that there are two kinds of people in the world, the ones who think there are two kinds of people and the ones who don’t? This is the former. As far as it’s concerned the whole world’s made of things it’s eaten, and things it hasn’t yet.” He bared his teeth. “As far as it’s concerned, you’re not undefined at all. It knows just what to do with you.”
His fangs went in. Glass cracked around her.
We can choke him, the demon said, and Daphne realized it was talking to her. He can eat us, but he does not know if we can die. You’re the only part of us that can. Endure, and we can clog him with ourselves, we can sate even this hunger. Stay strong. Work with me, and we’ll have glory you cannot imagine. And the pain will stop.
Daphne’s broken memories held a man in suspenders with a pleasant smile, who cupped her cheek and said the same words to her in a voice so sweet and steady she could not help but listen.
This time, she turned away.
* * *
—Died.
Tara waited for the crack in the world she knew was coming. It didn’t.
She gasped. She hovered, empty, in air. Alive. Free.
Demonglass cooled and hardened. Weaker pieces shattered—boiled off to unreality and tumbled to the pavement as drops of wet confusion. A three-legged arch remained, towering above Alt Coulumb. It caught the moon, and shone rainbows on the earth.
Gargoyles and Blacksuits flew; the Judge let her diamond shield dissolve. Ramp was gone.
At its apex, the glass arch held a single flaw. Tara could not look on it directly—the light it shed hit her eyes wrong. She thought it was a woman’s silhouette.
* * *
Jones felt the change in Market Square—they all did. The world was dying, but then it wasn’t, and a glass arch bloomed to the north. Jones had never seen anything like it, which in her experience meant her next step should be run to a safe distance and take notes.
She stayed.
Then they heard the cheers—from the sky, from the surrounding buildings, and at last from their own throats, cheering before they knew why, tumbling over one another, rolling and laughing and pointing at the arch and the moon at once smiling and impossibly full. Onstage, the Rafferty girls embraced. Jones saluted Aev and her people, up there in the sky. Then someone tackled her from the side and kissed her, and to her surprise (she wasn’t a casual girl, ask anyone) she kissed back.
* * *
Abelard collapsed, laughing and weeping, when he felt the demon break. Cardinals and Technicians rejoiced, overcome by awe.
Then Abelard noticed the moon through the sanctum window, and felt the Everburning Flame warm against his neck, and heard—thought he heard—the clearing of an enormous throat.
“My masters and teachers,” he said. “Our Lord would appreciate a bit of, um. Privacy.”
In five minutes the sanctum was empty for the first time in Abelard’s memory. He was the last to leave.
That’s two I owe you now, the fire said to him.
Don’t mention it, he replied. What are friends for?
* * *
Cat was mostly conscious when the vampire crashed to the roof beside her.
She lay in the ruins of her own skin—the Suit ablated to break her fall. She had some broken ribs, one leg didn’t work, and she’d stuffed her fist against the hole in her side to keep the blood contained.
The vampire, fallen, made a crater in the roof. She crawled toward him, dragging her useless leg. He was very still. Then he coughed, rolled onto his side, and vomited a glassy fluid that evaporated as it left his lips.
“Sexy.”
He turned to her, his face a horror mask. She caught his wrist before he could pull out of reach, and held it.
“I’ll—Cat, I am so hungry. It wants to eat and eat and eat. I have to go.”
“Don’t.” She felt as weak as he looked.
“I can’t hold on, dammit. Your blood’s right there, I’ll—” Teeth, out, pointed, dripping. The eyes were Raz’s, and not. A new emptiness at their pits made their colors turn, like ruddy whirlpools. He seemed to be drawing inward toward a point not present in any physical geometry.
“I get it.” She winced. “Eternal hunger. Call of the deep. Here.” She reached for her medallion.
“Your Suit won’t help.”
“Shut up for one minute.” Took a second to work the thing out one-handed. The holy symbol swung between them: the blind woman enrobed.
One last chance.
Okay, Lady, Cat prayed. You win.
The blind woman looked up at Cat and smiled.
Cat was stone, was sky, was an insect beneath an enormous entomologist’s gaze. The Seril who addressed her in the shower, and on the city’s rooftops, had been smaller, conceivable almost as a kind of invisible person, who saw the world as mortals did. Not so this Being. Yet She had not changed, only grown more Herself.
That made what she was about to do better, and worse.
I offer myself to you, she prayed. Save him.
The light waited.
You called me priestess, before.
But Cat had denied it.
I fought for you. I saved you. I learned from you. I was pierced for you. I almost died for you. I was scared of the word, that’s all. Just keep him here, before he goes away forever. Please.
Nothing changed.
She would lose him.
Raz looked different. He was lit, she realized, by trebled moonlight: from above, and from her own eyes.
She set her hand on his forehead.
“I offer you asylum,” she said, not knowing how the words or gesture came to her, “under the protection of Seril Undying. The Lady will answer any liens against your soul. I give you back yourself.”
“You can’t,” he croaked. “They want me. They’ll take me.”
“They helped us, and you fed them in turn. The Lady will pay whatever more they feel they’re owed.”
“They won’t—” He broke off, coughing. “They won’t accept that. They want me. Father of a line. They’ll come for me, on land or sea. And for you.”
“And when that happens, we’ll be ready. Together. You can live here—at least some of the time. Seril’s protection’s strongest in Alt Coulumb. If you’re worried about the rent, I have a nice couch. And I could get better curtains.”
“I hate this city.”
“But not the people in it.”
“No,” he said.
He was silent for what felt like a long time, and so was she.
“You said you wouldn’t stop me from doing something stupid to save you.”
“I did.” She nodded. “But I never said I wouldn’t do something stupid to save you back.”
“I accept.”
His teeth receded. The whirl in his eyes stilled.
Far away, something ancient screamed.
He exhaled, and some of the animal left him, and some of a man she’d not yet come to know returned. “They’ll be after you, too, now.”
“Worth it,” she said.
Lights bloomed in the sky. Silver and red nets and circles, twining—like fireworks but not.
“Now come on.” She tried to sit up, and failed. “Drag me to the hospital. I’d like to beat the rush.”
* * *
Tara flew over the city. Over her city. Free.
Stone wings beat, and Aev approached her. “Shale?”
She turned from the flaw in the demonglass arch. “He’s trapped,” she said. “Out west. He—threw himself into a monster’s mouth to save us. I’ll get him back. Bring him home.” She heard the weakness in her voice and didn’t hate herself for it.
That’s new, she thought.
Aev touched her arm. Then, before Tara could push her away, the gargoyle hugged her. Her stone was cold and warm at once.
“Thanks,” Tara said when they were done.
“We are wounded,” Aev said. “We are tired. We will heal, and go back for him. For now, let us celebrate like free women.”
“And Abelard. We should pick him up. He needs a break.”
“Do you think he can keep up?”
Tara grinned. “I’d like to watch him try.”