Aliyah

The Hive, it seemed, took no visitors.

“I don’t know,” Kionah said when Aliyah asked how the whole thing worked. “I suppose they’ve got Lieuntenants talking to magisters in their own spires. Stuff like that isn’t for the likes of us to know.” Was that bitterness threaded into her voice? It was gone as quickly as it had come. “So long as they patrol the streets, help with the witches—eh, we’ll find one eventually.”

Her tone was flippant enough, but that same tension crinkled her brow. Aliyah wondered how many years they’d known one another.

They turned into the main street, lit with lanterns and sizzling with smoked meats. Dry heat soaked into every last inch of night air. Shasta had swiftly escorted them out of Whistle House—even supplying Kionah with an extra basket and giving them coins for shuttle-fare. Perhaps it was only her imagination, but he might’ve been eyeing the tracker-mark on her arm.

The vendors were quieter at this hour, at least, and the crowds a little thinner. Aliyah shifted uncomfortably as they made their way into the closest square. Kionah hadn’t had any spare clothing on her, or in any of her packages—where she’d gotten her uniform from, Aliyah shelved away as a complete mystery—so neither of them had had the opportunity to change. She was aware, on a distant level, that her jacket was still lined with bloodstains.

City-goers streamed past her without so much as a second glance, intent on other, brighter things. A line of merchants to her left sold all manner of foods—boiled chestnuts, fried dough fritters, even dishes which looked as if they had been pried off the carcass of Behemoth-spawn. Night sky clouded overhead, broken only by the occasional flock of birds.

She scanned the square for any sign of a Lieutenant and wondered, rather wearily, what schedule a schismatist might keep. She almost wished they would hurry up in their hunting. After the horror of fighting Sebile, facing a few angry faeries almost seemed suspiciously manageable in comparison.

“Here,” Kionah said through a mouthful of bread.

She pressed a package into her hand. Aliyah peeled the paper back to reveal some sort of vegetable roll, still warm beneath its wrapping. She glanced at Kionah’s hands: both of them clutching a basket. How…?

“Thanks,” she said, and bit into it without further comment.

Looking for a faery Lieutenant was more difficult than she might’ve thought; there were what seemed to be ordinary faeries around, a few flitting overhead, but none bearing the same crest-covered tunic that Lieutenant Qilin had worn. She could enhance her vision and colour perception at will, adjusting for light conditions—the soft glow of lanternlight was swept aside by harsher shadows and alchemical lamps the further in they went—but that did very little for processing and pattern recognition, sorting silhouettes from the crowds.

Were there many Cribellums about at this time of night? Calamistrums, too? The mere thought made her feel a little sick. She focused on finding a Lieutenant instead.

They made it through to the other side of the square before Kionah caught hold of her wrist and tugged her leftwards. She jerked her gaze sideways, scanning over the jumble of heads and limbs and faces.

A faery Lieutenant perched atop a the awning of a ramshackle soup stall, a fair ways out of the milling of the crowds. His carapace glimmed blue in the light, and he wore the same tunic as Lieutenant Qilin had—the crest flashed gold against the glow of the market lamps. He had a bowl in his hand, and he raised it to his mouth for a sip.

“Pardon,” Kionah called as they drew near. “Sir Lieutenant!”

The faery’s eyes met their gazes. He set his bowl down before vaulting off the awning, landing without so much as a break in his stride.

“Lieutenant Hua at your service,” he said crisply. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“We are searching for a particular individual. A member of your Hive?”

The Lieutenant made a buzzing, clicking sound in the depths of his throat. “And who might this be?”

“Luxon,” Kionah said. “She’s independent, I guess you’d say. Works as a potion-maker.”

“Ah,” the Lieutenant said. His spines gave an inscrutable twitch. “The potioneer…yes, I believe I know of the individual you seek. Why is it so?”

Kionah cleared her throat. “We’re staying at her lodgings. We returned from…errands, to find her missing. There was a crack in her window, and she’s spoken of Cribellums harassing her previously, so…” She trailed off meaningfully.

“I see. How unusual, that she would seek humans for employ.” Hua’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Well, it is good to see independents do not leech off the comforts of their Hive. But the Cribellums are unnecessarily bold at times. You are in your rights to seek us out.”

He raised a hand to his mouth and placed two fingers between his teeth; Aliyah felt a jolt of alarm at the sight of them, unexpectedly sharp in that chitinous mouth. Hua inhaled, and then made as if to whistle hard—though only a faint, rustling sound emerged. The air shivered with a low buzz of magic, rippling outwards in concentric circles. Aliyah felt her ears pop; several metres away, heads turned in the crowd, faces flashing in annoyance.

Hua removed his fingers from his mouth and wheezed a cough into the back of his hand.

“My apologies,” he said. “A coworker will arrive shortly.”

“Huh,” Kionah said. “Pretty cool. Didn’t know you guys could do that.”

He gave them a level stare. “That is just as well. Often, it is used as a matter of cohering in order to land criminal quarry.”

Kionah made an interested, noncommittal noise. Aliyah swallowed the last of her purloined vegetable roll and crammed the leftover paper into her pocket.

A different faery flitted over the crowd, the colour of a cloudy sky. She landed a few feet away and dipped her head into a shallow bow as she approached. A chittering noise emerged from her mouth; it took Aliyah a moment to recognise the sounds as faery-words.

Hua replied with a few, short sentences of faery-language of his own. The other faery bowed her head and took two short, bounding steps away before launching into the air.

“The question of your associate’s whereabouts will be presented to the Hive,” Hua said. “You may wait here for the answer’s return.”

“How long might that be?” Kionah asked.

“I cannot say. It is dependent on the rhythms, and other such things—Preon is fairly adept at flying crosswinds. So perhaps, estimating, half the turn of an hour both ways. Might I suggest you partake of some soup to pass the time? It is quite good.” With that, he fluttered back to his perch on the awning.

“How far is the Hive?” Aliyah asked tentatively.

Kionah gave a mildly disgruntled sigh. “At least half an hour’s flight. It’s…you can see it well enough, up over the northern plains. Just can’t go there, unless you want to get killed.”

“Oh. Well, it might be because I haven’t grown up here, but I don’t understand—”

“Neither do I,” Kionah said with a shrug. “Like I said, it’s all spire business, keeping the city running. Magister talks. The faeries you meet are friendly enough—you reckon he’s got good taste in soup?”

She stalked over to the soup-seller’s counter before Aliyah could form a reply. Aliyah frowned and turned away, gaze going unfocused as she stared over the passing kaleidoscope of crowd. There were few ways that Kionah’s opinion of her might sink even lower, at the moment. If only she’d stayed with Luxon, instead of running off that shuttlebus…

Maybe nothing bad would’ve happened. Or maybe she would’ve killed two Cribellums instead of one Calamistrum. Nausea wormed its way into her gut, swirled in along with fretfulness coiled over in on itself, sheathing her nerves like myelin. She suspected that when the time came for actionable plans, she wouldn’t enjoy that either.

There was no real catharsis, she thought grimly. There was only the thought of a singular goal, boiled down to sharp points: rescue Zahir, hide from spire witches, flee the city…to where? Kraedia? Or a more tempting prospect…back to the kingdom, desperate to see if Rana was safe and alive. And yet, the memory of those Magicians, with their masks and runes and the feeling of her magic slipped loose, blood boiling to vapour—no, no. Too difficult to consider, right now. That was skipping too far ahead.

Find schismatists. Rescue Zahir. Hide from witches in the meantime. There, that sounded simpler—the trouble was, ‘simpler’ was an illusion. Thinking about it this way wouldn’t actually make anything any easier. But wasn’t it at least a little comforting to pretend?

“Here’s our absurdly late dinner,” Kionah called, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Or early breakfast.”

She’d seated herself down at one of the low stools off to the side of the soup stall, baskets piled at her feet. A series of mismatched seats clustered around a large, upturned crate—Aliyah swallowed an inexplicable lump in her throat at the memory of Rana’s old room, late night talks around a flickering stub of candle. Then she banished it. She was getting better at that.

Two bowls sat in a tray atop the crate. Kionah pushed one across to her as she seated herself opposite.

“Thank you,” she said, in lieu of anything else to say. “You didn’t have to, um—”

“My treat,” Kionah said curtly. “We both need a decent supper, it seems.”

Aliyah nodded in what she hoped was a meek and inoffensive manner. Kionah’s gaze skimmed tiredly over her before she dipped her spoon into her soup. Aliyah copied the motion, too anxious to fully taste it. Her awareness was mostly limited to how the sustenance warmed her stomach and her nudging along of digestive equilibrium to coax dim flickers of energy back into her body.

Across from her, Kionah picked the bones out of her bowl and chewed off the flesh, sucked at the marrow. Lantern-light nipped at the parts of her features not drenched in shadow; for a moment, the line of her jaw reminded Aliyah of a wolf, or perhaps a jackal.

===

In the time it took for Lieutenant Hua’s scout to return, she counted twenty two different faeries passing by, and—more unsettlingly—three witches walking shoulder-to-shoulder, all looking somber beneath the brims of their hats. Vendor-carts trundled on by and little birds hopped in their wake, seeking out crumbs. Kionah hadn’t spoken another word except to say ‘wake me when she returns,’ before leaning over onto the makeshift table and starting to doze, head pillowed in her arms.

Aliyah finished the last of her soup and tried not to stare at how some of Kionah’s hair had come undone from its pinnings. Discomfort welled in her stomach at the implicit trust there—or was it trust? Lieutenant Hua was still at his perch, no doubt keeping an eye on them. Would Kionah react like Shasta given some time to fully realise what she’d supposedly done? Careful to walk without her back exposed, careful not to rest in her presence in case she set off another fatal accident?

She supposed Kionah was already that sort of person—just maybe not to her. In retrospect, all that time traveling through faery caverns had helped foster allyship. But Calamistrum Sebile was dead now, sunken in many pieces, and Crowfire guide Emil would serve as a convenient mask. Still, it would only be a matter of time—days, weeks?—before he heard of the disappearance, noticed the potential for reward, connected the dots—Sebile, last seen attacking a Songian? It was too obvious. Her story would unravel. And while Kionah didn’t seem a friend of the spires, she was still subject to whatever authority they held over the city. Her discomfort grew the longer her thoughts lingered on such things; she was glad to shake Kionah awake when the scout returned.

“What?” Kionah murmured. If her tone of tiredness was a pretense, it was a very good one. “Already?”

“Yes. It’s just her, though. No Luxon.”

Hua had hopped down from his perch and was chirping faery-words at the scout. After a moment, he beckoned them over.

“A message,” he said. “Your employer Luxon is in no danger. She has simply been called back for the time being—Behemoth sighting, you see. But no need to worry or scream to your friends; it is only a middling-sized spawn, not full. A Lieutenant has assured us that she will return after sunrise.”

“She could’ve left a bloody note,” Kionah muttered, though Aliyah noted her shoulders sagging in relief. “Do you know when she means by ‘after sunrise’? Seeing as we’ve got no beds to sleep in—”

“My apologies on the Hive’s behalf,” Hua said with an easy, wing-crinkling shrug. “But there’s nothing more I can do. It is simply as Preon conveyed: Luxon will return tomorrow. Pleasure to be of assistance.”

With that, he strode back to his perch. The scout, Preon, shot them a sympathetic glance before taking to the air.

“Well shit,” Kionah muttered, and shook her head. “Guess we could try finding a coffee house to shore up til dawn.”

“Alright,” Aliyah said, glancing the crowd over.

People streamed past in a current of colours. No witches, though something else caught her eyes—and ears. Some distance away, little metal automatons clattered over the ground. Shaped like birds, eyes glinting like jewels. They hopped between stepping feet, blending in with their living kin. A whole flock of them pecking at the ground. Why would automatons need to peck? It wasn’t as if they needed crumbs like real birds. She turned the thought over in her mind as she stared. The sheen of their feathers struck a chord of unease within her, a twinge of recognition—oily, iridescent. Spider-like?

“Aliyah?” she heard. Kionah tugged at her arm, startling her out of her thoughts. “What is it?”

“I don’t think,” she started uneasily. “I could be wrong, but those birds seem like they’re looking for something. Earlier, I—I was, uh. Healing my arms? From carrying all the stuff for Luxon. Maybe they can sense magic?”

Her tongue tripped over the lie. It was far more likely that they could smell blood.

Kionah’s eyes narrowed. More strands of hair whipped loose as she jerked her head round to stare at the birds. “Maybe. Spire-work. Let’s go—quietly, now.”

She looped both baskets into the crook of one elbow and turned away, dragging Aliyah by the arm. Aliyah stumbled, almost tripping over her own feet before Kionah let go. She let the instinctive rhythm of speed-walking guide her movements as she followed—it stopped her from overthinking, even as her heart beat frantically against the back of her sternum.

Yet more metal birds perched on a nearby eave.

Kionah led the way into a series of winding alleys, glancing over her shoulder every now and again. They weren’t running, exactly. Not yet. But close to it. Aliyah glanced back herself—a handful of gleaming beaks pointed her way, peeking out from behind corners and silhouetted on rooftops. If she hadn’t been looking, she might not have seen.

“They’re following,” she said between faster breaths. Did she know any spells against true metal? The birds didn’t look as if they were formed from ironwood.

“They aren’t attacking,” Kionah said tersely. “Which means they aren’t sure. They’re only automatons, alright? Keep walking. Don’t scream and don’t run.”

“Can they fly?” Aliyah asked uneasily. Surely those wings weren’t just for decoration.

“I don’t know,” Kionah said. “They’re fashioned after…looks like poisoner’s pinions. So I assume so. But that isn’t what you should be worrying about. You used a lot of…your type of magic, is that right?”

At least the excuse had worked. Her jacket was suddenly stifling. “Yes.”

“Weird. Okay,” Kionah said, and took a sharp left. They emerged onto street bisected by a canal. The water gleamed beneath grimy lantern-light. Shuttered shopfronts lined the ways opposite; upon their rooftops perched the shapes of even more birds, shadowed against the sky. Were those flesh, or metal? Her blood ran cold in her veins.

“Okay,” Kionah said again, hand latching onto her arm. “You can hold your breath, right?”

“What?” Aliyah asked, gaze still fixed on the rooftops.

“You can hold your breath, right?” Kionah repeated with a strange urgency.

“Yeah,” Aliyah said, straining her ears. Metal clacked on the edge of her hearing. It could be rubbish blown about by the wind—but the breeze barely stirred, befitting of a summer night. The metal was probably the sound of talons. Night air choked her lungs, too-warm. “Why—”

“So hold it,” Kionah instructed as she dragged her across the street.

“What?” she said stupidly, thoughts still caught on the birds. Hands shoved into her side. She was falling by the time her brain caught up.

There was a split second to clamp her eyes and mouth shut, before water closed over her head. The shock of it almost made her inhale—but she reached for her magic, partitioning off her lungs. Slowed her metabolism in hopes of lowering oxygen demand. Bubbles frothed in her vision, clouded with debris. Silt water weighed her down, soaking into her clothes. Her thoughts whirled in desperate jumps to catch up with what was happening.

It was several degrees colder than the air had been, colder than she’d thought. Did it make a difference? It had only been a few seconds, at most. This wasn’t Kionah trying to drown her. She had perfectly adequate lung volume; her lungs were full of air. She’d float if she kicked her way upwards, if she followed where the bubbles were going. Surely Kionah didn’t mean for her to stay under for long? She must know Aliyah didn’t know how to swim. Shadowsong was in a desert, for star’s sake. And the water was filthy—oh. That was probably the point.

She surfaced almost without meaning to, hands scrabbling for the walls of the canal, scratching her palms open on the stone. Kionah peered down at her from the lip of the canal as she sucked in a breath, blinking silt from her eyes.

Aliyah coughed. “Are they gone?” The words came out a desperate rasp.

Kionah glanced over her shoulder, then up and around. “They’re going,” she said cautiously. “Stay here a little longer, alright? They’re just automatons, but…”

“Okay,” Aliyah said through chattering teeth, and sneezed. Her hair was a heavy lump plastered to her scalp. Water leaked from her ears, and she was sure there was a not-insignificant amount of mud lodged up her nose.

“Sorry,” Kionah added.

“It’s fine,” she managed. “As long as they’re leaving.”

The metal pigeons had to be attuned to Sebile’s blood. But they couldn’t be sure—not if they hadn’t outright attacked. The blood would have been mixed with and masked under her own blood—sweat, too, and maybe sea-spray from her time out on Harker’s boat. The canal water smelled of mud and rot; hopefully it’d be enough to mess with whatever aspect of scent had attracted the bird’s interest. They were, as Kionah had said, only automatons. Likely configured in quick order, used as a crude netting, good for covering large areas if they could fly…

The spires had noticed. The hunt was on. And all this thinking wasn’t distracting her from how cold it was.

“We should go,” she said through chattering teeth. “Can automatons signal their owners?”

“I don’t know,” Kionah said, frowning worriedly. “Here. Grab my hand, I’ll pull. Then grab the edge with your other hand, and swing a leg over. Mind the water in your clothes, there’ll be more drag than you expect. Ready?”

“I’ll try,” she answered doubtfully.

“Easier than it sounds,” Kionah said. “Come on. One—two—three—”

She slithered over the ledge like a dead fish, wincing all the while. Kionah tugged her to her feet.

“Now what?” she asked, shivering against the night breeze—so unnoticeable before, but uncomfortably evident now. Her clothes dripped over the cobbles, and water sloshed in her boots. She had half a mind to try wringing the water out, but that might reduce some of its scent-masking ability.

Kionah looked her up and down, frowning. “We’ll have to get you clean clothes,” she said. “Getting early. Hmm. I think I know a guy. Think we’ll have to take back alleys on the way there. Wish I had a spare cloak, but…” She shook her head and grimaced faintly. “Try not to get sick?”

“Okay,” Aliyah said. She raised her metabolism some. Sent a fresh wave of immune cells to any open skin too, for good measure.

“Come on,” Kionah said, shooting her an almost pitying look. “This way.”

Aliyah shivered as they went, feeling both fever-hot and water-cold. Nausea churned in her gut at the thought of Calamistrum Sebile, submerged beneath enough water to fill a hundred canals over. She glanced skywards, to no sign of sunrise. How long until Luxon returned? Perhaps it was just the effect of the canal-water and the shivering, but she felt wretched to her core.

There were, at least, no birds in sight.