The pleasing composite visage of Silence, Amber, and Felina’s features suddenly contorted into the Gita’s whiskered snout at the worst possible part of Cadryn dream, that the face shouted ‘Wake up!’ was hardly necessary at that point.

“Wake up, Cadryn!” Gita said, in reality, as Cadryn jolted upright, sending the Batsel tumbling from his chest to the foot of the bed.

“Gods below, Gita, I’m awake,” he stammered out, trying to orient himself in his skull. “What time is it?”

“Past time to be awake, but Sefton gave you the day off.”

“And you? Or are you just avoiding work?”

Gita’s head darted to window, as if Sefton would hear them on the adjacent facing. “No. . . Yes . . . I need your help.”

Fragments of the night before, like sweeping up the glass shards of a broken window, began to accumulate into a partial image of the events. The Feast, the Trunk, Gita’s question. Cadryn rubbed the grime and sweat of the ale-soaked night from his face. Smelled his own filthiness, and groaned. He wanted to go to the river and bathe, and his stomach awoke at the memory of the feast.

“Fine,” he said, “What do you need?”

Gita bounded across the hills of his blanked and ascended his shoulder painfully. “Oh thank you, thank you, Cadryn! You won’t regret this, I promise.”

In his short time in the world, if Cadryn Bence had learned anything about that phrase, it was that, the people who used it, were hiding something.

This would prove to be one of those times that upholds the rule.

“You little shit,” Cadryn groused, looking out from where he stood at the top of the Respite, high above the Lower Gardens. From here he could see clear to Kellen’s Veld, the town’s buildings tiny squares of wood, thin stings of smoke wafting from their chimneys into the early dawn light. “Did you forget that I don’t have wings?”

“Of course I didn’t!” Gita yelled down, and, taking flight, pulled a knotted rope ladder off the lowest level of the Hanging Gardens. “I’ve been preparing this for days.”

Climbing the ladder, the morning winds mostly still, Cadryn watched Gita circle him, head on a swivel. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t your title in Sefton’s log ‘Spire Inspector’, Gita?”

“It is,” Gita replied, not looking away from the sky. “And that’s exactly what were doing.”

“We, Gita, you and I,” Cadryn said, pulling himself up onto the cross bar the ladder was tied to, that it swayed slightly with his movements made Cadryn more than a little nervous. “I still don’t see why you need my help with this.”

“Because,” Gita began tugging at the rope’s tied off end, and, coming loose, it fell to the roof of the Respite. “I need your help fighting the monster that claimed the Wreckage Spire.”

“You, what.” Cadryn managed, staring at the useless coil of rope five stories too far down.

“Come on,” Gita beamed, clearly pleased with herself. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”

Partially because he wanted to know, but mostly to avoid giving into a black rage at being tricked into this, Cadryn listened to the darting, circling, shape of Gita.

“After the end of the First Times, when the people of the Second Times began to spread across the world, they found the Obelisks left by the builders of the era before. Some avoided them, fearing their ancient power, others worshiped at them, building vast altars. The Neeft was one of the latter.”

“How do you know this?” Cadryn asked as he climbed amidst the vertical trestles of the Hanging Garden. The smell of exotic flowers he’d never experienced assailed him, and it left his head fuzzy.

“Encara,” Gita replied, lighting on one of the highest supports. “She knows the most about the Neeft, I think.”

“Right, go on,” Cadryn said.

“So the people built altars, in this case these barren spires as high as they could atop the existing work. Unfortunately for them, the spires attracted a monster that made its nest atop them; Raznir, Bane of Caravans.”

Rolling onto the top of the Hanging Gardens, Cadryn caught his breath. “Please tell me we’re not fighting that thing.”

“What? No, are you listening? This was a thousand, or was it thousands? of years ago. . . But Raznir nested on the spires for nearly a century, piling up the wreckage of caravans. They called this place the Spire of Broken Axles back then.”

“So what happened?” Cadryn asked, grateful for the rest.

“Gleam Sigh the Weary happened, the Mage arrived, slew Raznir, and claimed the whole thing for himself. Built the Respite the Night Shift sleeps in, and all that.”

“You still haven’t told me where we come in,” Cadryn said.

“Just a moment,” Gita said, disappearing into the overhanging foliage.

A few seconds later, another rope ladder crashed down through the thin canopy. Inhaling the clear air, Cadryn began to climb again, at the very least this was doing wonders for breaking his hang over. As he emerged from the last vegetation of the Hanging Gardens he paused.

Directly above him, smashed on, around, and atop, the spires, were hundreds of carriages, carts, and other contrivances. Nearly all were in advanced states of rot, those with arcane investments that preserved their condition stood out like gemstones in a trash heap, and made the sight all the more surreal.

Landing near where the rope was tied off, Gita held out her wings. “Welcome, to the Wreckage Spire.”