The next day, Saia and Serit readied for their descent to the bottom of the city. Serit insisted to take the stairs.

“We don’t have time to wait. We should be at least an hour early to show the proper amount of respect.”

They set off at an extremely fast pace that Saia was glad she could match with ease.

“I have a question,” she started, to gauge whether they were willing to talk.

“Go on,” they said, trying to keep their evident nervousness at bay.

“I was thinking about the basins, and I don’t understand why you shilvé rain the way you do. You could, I don’t know, lower yourselves inside a container until you were past the line? Then someone would haul you up again. You need viss, so you could have someone pour viss into you, and then…”

Serit looked back at her and smiled.

“Then?”

“Then reform,” she reluctantly concluded.

“You see what the problem is, right?”

“That you wouldn’t recompose spontaneously?”

“Exactly. While the viss can come from someone else in the way you just outlined, the reforming process is a bit more complicated. We don’t know enough about it, we don’t know what exactly prompts it. The only sure way to recompose is to go through the whole cycle. Or not to rain in the first place,” they added as an afterthought. “Which is what I plan to happen once you’re keeping someone whole with your powers. The idea is that the viss you’d use for the process would both keep the person solid and also feed them the viss their body needs, delaying the urge to rain indefinitely. But this is something I’ll add at the end of the process, once the kernel works as it should.”

Saia nodded. If she knew the details on how the whole rain-and-reform process worked, she could maybe use it to her advantage, even if she had no clue on how to do that yet.

Serit kept an uncharacteristic silence for the rest of the trip, until they were forced to stop by a group of armed guards blocking their path.

“We’ve been sent as your escort,” their captain said, pointing the trident to Saia’s chest.

Serit looked at her and sighed.

“Sorry.”

They proceeded along the path, the crowd of cloud people around them becoming thinner with every turn of the road. It disappeared when they arrived at a large building at the center of the bottom level, surrounded by a small garden of patchy grass that was enclosed by a low wooden fence. The building had three round, short towers with monochrome carpets hanging from the walls, a different color for each tower: blue, gray and green, the same ones of the carpets on the outside of the warehouse. They were connected to a central round structure similar to the main room of the temple.

There were more guards at the entrance. Serit showed them a document with their personal information and the letter of the representatives in which they accepted to see them. Saia remember their words about being early and was expecting a long wait, but the guards gestured for Serit to enter. They went inside first, Saia stepping in after them with her ring of guards.

A short hallway opened into the big central room. The huge table at the center was triangular with the borders cut off, so that in place of the tips there were three other borders the size of a regular desk. One of the larger sides of the table faced the door, and the chair of heavy wood at the opposite corner was empty. Enanit sat at the left corner, while Héshe was on the right. Two different piles of documents and groups of bottles with complicated labels were strewn in front of them.

Serit bowed their head and raised both their cupped hands above it.

“Thank you for receiving me, representatives.”

“You talked about a request,” Enanit said. “And yet we haven't seen any results.”

She glanced at Saia. She remained impassive, realizing the representatives didn't necessarily know that she understood their language, unless Serit had told them in the letter.

Héshe gave Serit a polite smile.

“Make your request, then we'll evaluate it.”

“Thank you again. I require permission to visit Ifse and bring the sphere with me.”

Saia resisted the temptation to voice her disappointment when they called her ‘the sphere’.

Enanit scoffed and looked away.

“Denied.”

Héshe glanced at her before addressing Serit.

“Why do you need this?”

“The first step to make sure she can keep a shile whole is to check whether she can manipulate éshan well enough to solidify some objects. I'm positive she can, but she doesn't know how to. I know a wind spirit who could be willing to teach her without asking too many questions.”

“Last time I checked,” Enanit interjected. “You were building an iron kernel that would force her to keep a person whole and solid. I didn’t get the impression we needed to convince her to do it or even check whether she is capable.”

“No, but it would make my work a lot easier. Years shaved off of my research, a lot less resources wasted, higher probability of success. And we agreed that the contingency plan in case of failure would be too dangerous, so it’s better to try everything we have before we get there.”

Enanit moved some sheets aside, looking annoyed.

“And what did the main plan entail? I don’t think about your research the whole day, engineer.”

Saia had an even more difficult time pretending she wasn’t listening. She badly wanted to ask Serit about what the contingency plan entailed, but that would mean distracting them from the conversation in a way that would have tipped off the representatives on the fact she understood them.

“It entails knowing the pattern her viss takes when she manages to solidify éshan and copy it onto the kernel,” Serit said. “Also, I think it would be beneficial to be certain it’s in the realm of possibilities. We don’t want to keep someone solid if that means they wouldn’t be able to move, for example.”

Héshe looked at the other representative.

“Why are you contrary, Enanit?”

“They might betray us. It could be a way to escape to another city. Maybe they have received a better offering.”

Serit tensed.

“I can assure you of my absolute devotion to this city.”

“But you can't prove it with results.”

“I think,” Héshe interjected. “That they have already proven themselves. They promised to get us a sphere, and they did.”

Enanit shot her an annoyed glance.

“There's also the fact that wind spirits might find out who she is and want to keep her. We aren't in a position to refuse them anything.”

Héshe slowly nodded.

“That is a valid concern. Serit?”

“I can only reiterate the trustworthiness of my contact at Ifse. He belongs to a low stratus, he isn’t involved with the elders and engineer Hilon is…”

“Irrelevant,” Enanit said. “I reject your request. Héshe?”

She took a second before answering.

“I reject it too.”

She gave Serit an apologetic smile.

They didn't answer, only unclenched their hands and repeated their greeting.

Saia sensed that the meeting had finished. She expanded her domain to include the room and the table with the sheets. Enanit’s were all about boring stuff that concerned water pipes and some citizens’ requests. Among Héshe’s pile she found a short letter about something called herlamis, which roughly translated as throw-circles:

I have to be honest with you: we might win the next match with the Midnight Cormorants, but we’re thoroughly unprepared to face the other teams from Agméze. Our narrator’s stories are too classical for this kind of event, and Ilit is still recovering from that elbow injury.

The letter wasn’t signed, but the tone made it clear it was someone Héshe knew quite well.

Serit was already walking out of the building, so she followed them. Once they were back on a more populated road, the ring of guards stopped following Saia.

“What’s the contingency plan?” she asked immediately after.

They sighed.

“I really wish Enanit hadn’t forced me to mention it at all. It’s only going to make things sourer.

“It won’t. I can’t imagine my situation getting worse than this, except for you deactivating me.”

They glanced at her.

“It’s exactly about us deactivating you in case you do something dangerous or I can’t find a solution. Of course I will go on with the research and try to use your viss anyway and build the kernel to the best of my abilities. But in case that fails, we won’t just put your sphere on a shelf. The plan is to harvest your energy.”

Saia thought about how the monks had taken away three years from Vizena’s lifespan.

“Is that possible? I thought you could just remove it, not keep it.”

“Kind of. It’s like detaching lichen from a rock: it will shatter in smaller pieces that would then dissolve immediately.”

Saia’s viss buzzed with excitement in hearing those words so similar to the ones of a book she’d read back at the mountain. She didn’t show it, though, waiting for Serit to finish their explanation.

“If you plan to extract a small or average amount of viss, which is about the quantity you can find in a person or animal, the pieces are going to be insignificant. That’s why we would attempt to extract all of your viss at once, which is a lot and would shatter in bigger chunks. We’d then gather it immediately with some machines that were built just for this task. We’d still lose at least two-thirds of it immediately, and the technology is experimental, since we never really had a chance to test it properly. But we’d eventually do it, if it turns out there’s no other use for you.”

They looked away and maintained a casual tone that felt forced, as if they were aware they were talking about how to dispose of her corpse. She thought back at the meeting they just had with the representatives, and how it had ended with a failure.

“What now?” she asked Serit.

They didn't answer, eyes focused on the staircase in the distance.

Saia observed the big round building, now hidden among the other houses. There was no need for her to be there at all: nobody had addressed her or asked for her opinion. She was just a sphere to them, full of power they couldn't wait to use.

Then she remembered how Serit hadn’t let her leave the warehouse the previous day. She looked up at the city's walls as if they were a mountain. Maybe seeing her going around without Serit was the signal to deactivate her. But to know she wasn’t following them, someone needed to observe her from afar, no matter where she was.

Her eyes looked up to the last level, the fifth, mostly empty of buildings and full of vegetation. It seemed like a good place to start looking. Except she couldn’t get there on her own.

She followed Serit back to the warehouse in complete silence. Once the kitchen door was closed behind them, she decided to address the situation again.

“So what do we do now?”

Serit was about to cross into the corridor, but they stopped in the doorway. They spoke with their head half-turned toward her, eyes to the ground.

“We wait for Izha, the other representative. He approved of my plan to get a sphere. When he'll return from his rain-voyage and see that I succeeded, he will listen to me.”

“And when is he going to return?"

Serit turned completely now, still avoiding the gaze of her stone eyes.

“I’ve told you, it’s impossible to know for sure. Statistics tell us it will probably be between three to four months.”

Saia made some quick math. She'd be down to seventy or fifty years of viss by then.

“It's too much.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Saia repeated louder. “That's it? We just accept it and wait?”

Serit finally looked at her.

“There are no other options. Trying to leave the city on our own will get us shot.”

“Why?”

Serit stepped forward and reached for one of the chairs around the table.

“The same reasons Enanit mentioned: dealing with wind spirits is a delicate matter. We're in a position where we can't refuse any of their requests, so the only way we have to defend ourselves is to make sure they don't make them at all.”

They didn't sit down, grabbing the back of the chair instead and leaning a bit forward.

“That requires keeping everything secret and having total control over what we tell them. She doesn't think I'd be able to handle that.”

“You said you know a wind spirit.”

“Yes, even if I don't know how much he can help me.”

“And you can't contact him? Ask him to come here, or…”

“No. We send letters through doves and pigeons, and the guards are looking out for them too. Nothing can leave the city if the representatives haven't explicitly authorized it. Besides, I don’t think he’d be allowed to leave his city either.”

Saia crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.

“We should talk to the representatives again, then,” she said. “And try to convince at least Héshe.”

Serit's hands tensed around the chair's back.

“It's too risky. Insisting might ruin mine and yours reputation forever. They could refuse to see us again, take away my research, keep you asleep forever.”

They looked like they could go on for a bit, but just became quiet and shook their head.

“Of course I don't mean going there to insist,” Saia said. “But maybe we can offer them something in exchange. Can you tell me more about them?”

“No. If you say something you shouldn't know and the representatives find out that I've told you stuff about them, my research won't be the only thing on the line. I risk my credibility as an engineer and my rights as a citizen.”

“And if we don't do anything I'll risk my life.” Saia paused, realizing they didn't care. “I’ll last less,” she said then, her voice low and sharp. “If you waste my viss, you'll need to catch another sphere.”

Serit let go of the chair.

“We can deactivate you until Izha returns. That should save up some viss.”

Saia tried to imagine how much further she could get from home in three months.

“No.”

“Then that's it.” Serit sat down, dropping their body against the chair. “End of my solutions.”

Saia looked out of the window, to the shadow of the walls slowly moving towards the houses. She needed to convince Serit to trust her and negotiate with the representatives. She had compelling arguments on her side, but they implied revealing a lot about the mountain, potentially about her friends and family too. And from what she recalled, information was another thing the representatives wanted from her. Maybe she could leverage that, if nothing else came to mind.

She detached from the wall.

“I need to tell you something, but it's long and if I just used words you would never believe me. Can I have another empty bottle?”

Serit shrugged and, after a bit of rummaging in their pockets, handed her the key to the storage room. Saia returned almost immediately with the smallest bottle she could find. She sat at the table in front of Serit and deactivated her vision, focusing only on the viss that she started to spin inside the éshan. She heard Serit move and handle plates and glass containers, but she kept focused on the memories of the night she'd fought Vizena.

She didn't dedicate as much time to clarifying the details as she usually did when writing her 'diary', as she had finally decided to label it. In her mind, at least: the actual label recited ‘sceneries’. She left out the part where she went up the mountain to become a goddess, figuring cloud people didn't need to know the exact process, nor the inside of the monks' village. She added some final touches where the information was missing and activated her vision again.

Serit was still sitting in front of her, eating cooked bird meat from a plate. They openly stared at her in a way that would have been impolite if she hadn't been perfectly still for several minutes. Activating her sight didn't do anything visible, like moving her eyes, unless it was a conscious decision. She batted her eyelids, startling Serit.

“Here”, she said, handing them the bottle.

They opened it and rested their hand on the border, only a finger bent to touch the éshan inside. Their eyes zoned out and their mouth opened a bit. The longer Saia watched their expression, the more it looked like someone about to scream in fear. She felt uncomfortable and stood, pacing along the room.

“That was... something,” Serit said after a bit.

They turned their head, clearly looking for her, and finally found her standing next to the wooden counters.

“Why are you there?”

“You looked like you were about to freak out.”

“Oh. Sorry about that, it's just my reading face.” They shook away the éshan from their finger and closed the bottle. “It was definitely a dangerous plan, but it worked out nicely given the premise.”

“I can do that again.”

Serit pushed the bottle to the center of the table.

“What do you mean?”

“It was a difficult situation, but I managed to take Vizena by surprise. I know how to keep information hidden, and I'm way more powerful now. At least give me enough answers to come up with an idea, then you'll decide if it's worth trying.”

Serit interlocked the fingers of their hands on the table. They looked down at them, seemingly considering her words, then shrugged and raised their head.

“What do you need to know?”

She sat in front of them.

“Héshe. What are her views, what does she do when she's not working?”

“She's very young, as I mentioned, at least for a representative. She became popular thanks to her career as a herlamis player. Then…”

“Herlamis?” Saia asked, remembering the letter.

Serit raised their head at that, eyes twinkling with excitement.

“It's our most important sport. We have four local teams with six categories each, then there are tournaments with teams from other cities in the same category.”

Saia didn't know exactly what a tournament entailed, but she didn’t want to derail the conversation further.

“Then,” Serit added, “She became a coordinator for these events, then head of a category, and eventually president of the Twilight Doves, the second more popular team of the city.”

“So she wants her team to win, right?”

Serit gave her an uncertain nod, as if wary of what she could say next.

“Then I could play in the next match. I don't get tired and I'm stronger than a regular person. Or even a not regular one.”

She was about to mention the injured player she could replace, but that would mean revealing she had read the letter, and she didn’t know how Serit would react to that. Plus, they were already shaking their head before she could end the sentence.

“She isn't the kind of person to allow cheating. She considers the sport something sacred and has put a lot of focus on the quality of the stories her narrators produce.”

Saia inclined her head, remembering that word too.

“Narrators?”

Serit smiled.

“The other reason why I don't think your idea would work. Herlamis isn't only a matter of physical prowess.”

“What do you mean?”

Serit looked out of the window.

“You know what, maybe I could bring you to watch the next match, in two days. We'll keep practicing with the éshan in the meantime.”

Saia nodded. She didn't miss the fact they had told her where they were going, this time. She hoped they were starting to trust her a bit.