Inching toward where the beaming met a column, Luscia pushed her upturned boots against the pillar and ran toward the ceiling of the dome, landing on the balcony in a backward crouch. It would have been perfect, a soundless dismount, if not for the jangle of luxiron blades secured about her person. Luckily silence was not the present priority, considering Sayuri Naborū-Zuo no longer occupied the apartment.

Since her earsplitting shrieks early that morning, the al’Haidren to Pilar had refused to enter her former quarters. Luscia had overheard the entire ordeal as she drank her breakfast cup of ennus and viridi tea. The al’Haidren had screamed to her staff about some fetid odor and demanded her belongings be relocated immediately. Palace staff had yet to find the source of the stench, or a remedy for it.

Luscia grinned. They wouldn’t.

She’d ventured into Sayuri’s apartment the previous evening with Aksel’s contribution in hand, sprinkling lycran waste over every piece of upholstery. Luscia had even coated the wood moldings while Sayuri dreamt, none the wiser. Luscia didn’t harbor any remorse for repurposing the al’Haidren’s unique quarters—by Mila’s testimony, Sayuri had abused the hidden stair to better regulate her inferiors. Under new stewardship, it could be used to save them.

Locating the main chamber, Luscia squatted low and plucked a few hairs from her scalp. Suspending them aloft, Luscia studied the pastel strands for movement. The entire suite had been boarded upon the al’Haidren’s transfer, so any breach in the interior wall would emit a subtle draft, though probably imperceptible. Her superior eyes caught a slight sway of the ends and tracked the course of airflow to a massive, ornate armoire, situated in front of a floor-length tapestry.

Moving toward the piece of furniture, Luscia angled her body to shove the hunk of timber away from the wall, only to realize it was fixed in place. Circling it, she knelt to feel under the bottom lip. A cool draft caressed the back of her knuckles.

“How clever you are, Sayuri Naborū-Zuo,” Luscia credited.

She had been foolish to assume the entry point would be so blatant. Because Dmitri’s grandfather, King Aquila, had the passage sealed, Luscia doubted Sayuri’s reopening of it was exactly sanctioned. Ingeniously, Pilar’s al’Haidren had concealed her unauthorized stair in plain sight, as just another article of her overzealous decor.

Luscia opened the face of the armoire. There, a few steps inside the piece of bulky furniture, stood a humble wooden door within the stonework. Pausing, Luscia reached into the black cloak concealing her personal armory and produced a round, glossy stone.

Entering the stairwell, she brought the lumilore to her lips, the pebble’s warmth a familiar kiss of home and history. Luscia inhaled the dank flavor of mildew and let her breath pass over the surface of the lumilore, awaking it to life.

A subtle, kaleidoscopic light flooded the emptiness, set off by tendrils of lumin pulsing inside the small stone. Even Tiergan eyes needed aid to see in complete darkness, and the moon could not follow her into the stairwell. Luscia stretched the lumilore before her feet, grateful she’d thought to bring it with her to Bastiion. When they were young, Boreali children spent days during Ana’Innöx searching for the strange pebbles among the rocky banks of the Dönumn. Phalen swore she always found the brightest stones, as his never seemed to shine quite the same.

Luscia smiled tightly, trying not to miss him.

The stair descended in a steep spiral, the quiet stuffier with each step. After what she estimated as seven stories lower, another modest door came into view. Luscia pressed her ear against the rough grain. Muffled, racing chatter and clanking pots indicated the kitchens lay on the other side; a less than preferable route.

Curious, she crept off the landing and slunk deeper, where the temperature dropped to a refreshing chill. At the final door, the whoosh of rushing water beyond met her ears. Luscia cast the lumilore about, spotting a soiled pot near her boot.

Gripping the corroded handle of the door, left unlocked, she pushed it open. Luscia dry-heaved at the smell, so much stronger to her nostrils than those of a Unitarian maid. A brackish brew of excrement and sludge flowed past the archway.

After all, who would lock a servant’s access to a sewer? Luscia chuckled to herself.

“Pretentious yancies.”

She renewed the lumilore’s glow and studied the architecture. An adjacent ledge bordered each side of the outtake conduit. Luscia entered the slimy tunnel and skirted along to the west. Something flickered in the distance. Following the direction of the flowing muck, the offshoot bent and narrowed until the conduit ended. Brown water spilled over like a murky tongue into an external aqueduct, carrying it away from the palace main. Gulping the newly fresh air, she’d never been so grateful for the seedy odor of the west docks.

Luscia huffed victoriously. Over the edge of the sewer aqueduct sprawled the freedom of the backstreet, stories below.

She pulled her hood over her fair braids and secured a veil to hide most of her northern face. Standing atop the rim of the waterway, Luscia gazed over the trembling embers of decadence and depravity illuminating the night sky.

Unbeknownst to the monsters within, tonight the city of Bastiion would host a hungry al’Haidren to Boreal. Taking a step into nothingness, Luscia leapt, eager to greet them.

NINETEEN

Zaethan

   Teetering atop the witch’s wooden orb, Zaethan’s weight bobbed to the side when she offered him another curved rod, mirroring the first in his right hand.

“No, niit. Lower your center if need be,” the y’siti scolded, strutting to her trunk against the wall. “You breathe, you balance.”

“‘You breathe, you balance,’” he mocked in her raspy accent and bent his knees. “Meme qondai, I get it already.”

“Then do it without being told.”

Zaethan all but fell off the klödjen, eager to retaliate, but stabilized himself when the rim almost dipped into the faint ring of powder encircling the base. Last time, he’d gone the entire session without disrupting it. Damn him to the Depths if he couldn’t do it again.

“Waedfrel,” she remarked as she bent into the trunk. “Get down.”

“Yesterday, you kept me on this kakka-shtàka ball for over an hour.”

“Were you to look—” The y’siti snaked a long, braided whip around her neck and closed the lid. “—you’d realize this is today, and not the day before. Would you prefer we repeat it?”

Zaethan tensed his grip on the rods and jumped off the orb, coming toward her. “One of these mornings you won’t be able to run that mouth anymore.”

“Because I’ll finally be able to sleep in again.” The leather whip wrapped around the front of her crisp tunic, where she casually held each end in either hand. “Toward the middle, arcs at the ready.”