Felun

Iolite had summoned him to her laboratory for more than a chat; there was an expectant air to her voice. Behind her, a row of cauldrons bubbled away; the steam condensed into an intricate tangle of glass pipework and dribbled out into a dozen different bottles.

“Why do you think you’re here today?” she asked. The question was as good of a trap as any; it rankled him, that he was being treated like a misbehaving student. No, worse than a student—like a child.

He shrugged as carelessly as he could. “The amphora thing didn’t work out.”

Her wings fidgeted as she sorted through the fresh clutter on her bench. “I understand your difficulties. I have also decided it’s in your best interest to receive an intermission in your primary duties.”

Had she decided with the help of Suria’s recommendation? It was likely. He grimaced despite himself, remembering the darkness, the pervasive buzzing, the ‘human chamber’ to pace around in.

“Back to the Hive? You need help again?” Despite himself, he hoped she did. It’d be less boring than being locked out of the way.

“Archivist Zekore requires your assistance, but it is not an overly urgent matter. You may aid him at the end of your little break. How about that?”

“Break?”

“I believe you people call it a holiday.”

She expected him to stay at the Songian Hive? He couldn’t think of a worse place to while away time.

“Furthermore,” she added, “I imagine you will be most pleased to see your family again.”

His mind went momentarily blank. “Pardon?”

“Your family unit, Felun. They’ll be passing through the skydocks a few turns of the hourglass from now; you should pack with haste. Silverwater shall escort you and will be traveling in the hold for convenience. I will ask a favour of you and request you ensure your family unit does not harass him for the duration of the journey.”

“Wait. Passing through? Heading for the kingdom? I thought—” He caught himself and shut his mouth before he said anything he wasn’t technically supposed to know.

“You thought they had better plans?” Iolite scoffed. She tapped a point-tipped finger against her chin, Archival eye opening the thinnest sliver. “Overconfidence, if you were to ask me—which they did not. For what does a human lord care for the opinions of so-called faeries like us, hm?” She made a clicking noise. “Ah, well. It’s done with. As for the kingdom, you’ll be staying there for the duration of your break. It will do you some good to be in the company of your own kind, yes? Then a little visit to Zekore before you resume assisting us here. Does that sound good?”

She turned her attention back to the tangle atop her bench, hands trailing through a pile of gemstones and past a jumble of potions to delve into a trayful of spell-slips—clearly, they were more interesting to her than this conversation. He wondered if he had Suria’s recommendation to thank, or whether Iolite just really, really wanted to be rid of him for the time being.

“Will it be safe?” he asked. He remembered the swarming in the distance, swaths of chitin blotting the sky.

She gave him an inscrutable look, Archival eye widening to a thick crescent. “For you? Yes, I should think so. Stay away from those filthy thaumaturges and you’ll do just fine.” She paused. “I hesitate to make further requests of you, but perhaps listen around for news of their…’Library’, yes?”

“Okay,” he said, backing away before she could give more requests—orders, really. “Sure. I’ll go pack.”

===

The northern skydocks swelled with crowds. People sweated profusely under the high summer sun, waiting in lines chock full of luggage trunks.

Felun stuck a cooling rune to his forehead and groaned inwardly as a heavily-illusioned Silverwater told him to stay put, disappearing to search for a Sungrazer vessel in the queue. At least he’d be traveling by ship this time. Usually, they spun a cocoon-thing to transport him on longer trips; it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. Swaying, unseeing, unnerving and uncomfortable at the idea of being dropped…he didn’t think Thorn and the others liked carrying him so much, either.

He looked over the platform and saw a sea of chimneys below: puffs of smoke, birds perched on rooftops. They were up high—so grand was Glister that there were proper levels to the place—but some of the grand temples back home had been far taller. He knew he wouldn’t get dizzy as long as he didn’t look straight down. To the south, strands of shuttle-line stretched into the distance, terminating beside yawning, open-mouthed pits with staircase-steps like outstretched tongues. Northways, something was happening with a behemoth—flashy sparks of light resembling fireworks, the creature too far away to make out with the naked eye. He fetched a spyglass from his satchel as he waited, peering through, and—oh, that looked like a lot of legs. He was glad there were so few of the things back home.

“Good sight?” Silverwater said, sidling up again.

Felun lowered his spyglass. “Are they here?”

“Soon enough. A couple ships after this one.” He nodded at the wooden barge ahead of them and pulled a booklet from the pockets of his borrowed cloak.

Felun peered over as he flipped it open, stub of charcoal in hand. “Did you draw that?”

Silverwater looked up, scowling with his human visage. He snapped the booklet shut, but not before Felun had glimpsed a sketch of a faery—Ezphorza? It was hard to tell without colours, but the shapes and shading were very realistic.

“It’s good,” Felun said hastily, and at Silverwater’s skeptical expression he added, “really, I mean it. I’ve uh, seen some of the court painters use that style.”

It wasn’t exactly flattery, and there was no harm in getting on Silverwater’s good side. On a scale ranging from Thorn to Iolite, Silverwater placed solidly above Saiph. He was surprised a faery could draw like that, though; Zekore had shown him a bunch of faery artworks before, dredged from the sinking Archives. Those pieces had been weird textiles and assortments of aromas stored in bottles, for smelling or touching more than looking at.

Silverwater made a clicking noise, but he didn’t sound totally displeased. He opened the booklet and began sketching, though he kept it tilted away from Felun’s line of sight this time.

“Where’d you learn that?” Felun asked after a long silence, interspersed with the barking of crowds at his back. There was no one else to talk to, and waiting was making him antsy.

“With my eyes. It’s all a matter of the right mixtures of light and shadow.” He paused. “Well, Curlew brought home a newspaper with a human’s portrait on it once and I thought it couldn’t be that hard.”

“Oh. Cool hobby. You get a lot of downtime, working for Iolite?”

“Less than you.”

The Sungrazer ship pulled up at the dock, gleaming with gold trim and sparing him the embarrassment of figuring out an answer. He cleared his throat and picked up his luggage, casting a glance back to make sure Silverwater was following before walking into its shadow. A guard hollered into the onboarding doors as he approached, and out clambered a familiar face.

“Haoyu,” Yichen called, waving him past the guard.

“Hi,” he said, switching languages. “How’ve you been? Eaten yet?” He pointed at Silverwater, who was being glared at by the guard. “Let him on, too.”

Silverwater was still disguised as a human. He was only mildly suspicious-looking because of the oversized cloak in this heat—it was to hide any inconsistencies with the wing area, Suria had explained, dragging a hand over her exhausted face. She’d started weaving the veilment minutes after they got back from the amphora incident. Well, he’d assumed she had. She’d shoved the Healer to Thorn as she waved everyone off and stalked away, snarling that she’d punch anyone who disrupted her.

Yichen scrunched up his face. “Is that…you know…”

“Yeah. You don’t have to whisper. He can’t understand us.”

“The ones back home can.”

“Yeah, but he’s not from back home, is he?”

“Are you sure their weird societal magic thing won’t—”

“Whatever,” Felun said. “Just be polite. Don’t bother him.”

Yichen spoke to the guard. Silverwater asked for the direction of the cargo hold and promptly disappeared into it. The skyship barely shuddered as it disembarked, sails billowing with magicked winds. Unlike the last skyship he’d taken, there were no runes visible on any surface—a craft like this didn’t need to reassure its passengers with shining symbols.

“Your room’s the usual one,” Yichen said, motioning down the corridor.

“Great.” He hesitated, trying to recall which side it’d been on. “Have you heard anything about how Ishaan’s doing?”

Yichen gave him a funny look. “The dungeonrunner? You can ask him yourself.”

His heart just about dropped out the bottom of his stomach, even as his thoughts whirled. Really? Here? Now? And then a flurry of impressions, almost too rapid to categorise: fear, worry, opportunity— “He’s here?”

“Father thought it’d be a good idea to bring him. You know, cause of…” He trailed off meaningfully.

“Really?” Felun snapped. “Oh, come on. I’ve been doing everything they’ve asked. Have the faeries sent complaints? Where’ve you put him? Not in the hold, surely?”

“Nah. In Yuying’s.”

“Where’s she?”

Yichen gave him another look. “Oh, I thought they told you. She’s run off to be a witch. Gave herself a fishy name like you, too.” He raised his hands in finger quotes. “Likes to be called ‘Remora’ now. They’re not happy about that.”

Felun gaped at him. “You’re serious. She’s, what—running around in Shenzhou—”

Yichen grimaced. “Flying around, more like. Wants to get over here too, and you know what? It’s not a bad idea, if her goal’s to convince mother that a stint at an academy is better in comparison.”

“Right,” Felun said faintly. “Okay, I get it. That’s why—I’m the corrupting influence, now? Oh god, she’s way too young to be out in the city by herself.”

“You were about the same age,” Yichen said pointedly.

“Yeah, well you all treated me like shit.”

Yichen rolled his eyes. “Get over yourself, Haoyu. No one’s special unless he’s Guofan.”

“Is he here?”

“Nah. They left him to learn things in father’s absence, you know? Estate stuff.”

Felun winced. Yichen snickered.

“I know, right? Bet you he’ll burn something down before we’re back. Hopefully your quarters and not mine. Anyway. Mother told me to tell you that you’re expected at dinner.” He clapped a hand over his shoulder as he ambled back up on deck, no doubt to make swashbuckling smalltalk with the sailors and get in everyone’s way.

Felun found his old room, dragged his luggage in, and slammed the door shut. He unlocked his trunk and took a drink of water. There was a frayed quality to the air all of a sudden, a restlessness that came with knowing—if Yichen was to be believed—that Ishaan was here and alive, just three doors away.

Would he even want to talk? He hadn’t, the last time Felun had seen him. He tried to picture his appearance, some months prior: tired. Haggard. Better than when Felun had dragged him out of the dungeon, still pouring blood, but worse than he’d’ve assumed given all the stuff the family apothecaries were plying him with. Father had said they were doing a lot in exchange, but he didn’t know anything about physic or medicines so he’d had to take their word for it.

Ishaan hadn’t been lucid for most of it. He’d been properly awake in that last meeting, but he’d avoided Felun’s gaze, shrugging and mumbling his responses as mother oversaw the whole conversation like a four-eyed hawk. Felun had stumbled through apologies and left when he was called for. Was there really anything left to say? But he needed Ishaan’s cooperation, so he’d have to think of something. It was an opportunity on a silver plate. Even if Ishaan hated him, even if he’d been well-provided for…

Seven hundred and seventy seven. Iolite and her dangerously veiled plans. Less selfishly: the mercurial nature of his family’s care. This couldn’t continue forever.

He knew the doors could be locked from the inside, and he could always leave if he was shouted at. He was good at doing that.

===

He knocked twice, then once more for luck.

“Hey, uh. It’s me. Felun. I don’t know if you were expecting me. Thought I’d swing by in case.”

He heard shuffling, like boxes being moved aside, followed by footsteps. The door swung open.

“They call you ‘Hao yu’ here,” Ishaan said, getting the tones wrong.

“Hi,” he said weakly. “Yeah, that’s my—my Cathayan name. Uh. How’ve you been?”

Ishaan was standing—that was the first thing he registered: Ishaan, standing upright. He looked healthy. There was a bit of colour to his face, and a steady alertness in his eyes. Felun’s gaze skimmed over those details and slipped, as if magnetised, to the metalwork emerging from his trouser-legs and the sleeve of one arm.

The prosthetics were shaped like the limbs they replaced, more or less. The hand had uncanny ball-joints, like one of Yuying’s childhood dolls. They were made of silvery metal, though various other materials had been set into the armature. Felun recognised a few of the symbols darting over the surface of a runestone. Then he registered the quality and finish of the runestone, and clenched his jaw.

This was the reason why they’d brought Ishaan along: to say, look here, we’re holding up our end of the deal so well; time for you to prove yours. Like his friend—former friend—was nothing more than a fancy bargaining chip.

“I’m alright,” Ishaan spoke, gesturing with the artificial hand. “It’s fine, you can stare. Everyone else has been.”

Felun blinked, ashamed, and fought his eyes upwards again.

Ishaan cleared his throat. “Would you like some tea?” He gestured aimlessly into his room; Felun spied a clockwork kettle in the corner, along with a small mountain of boxes and bottles and packets of what was almost certainly all different kinds of dried fruit; he recognised the packaging for candied persimmons on sight. “They gave me heaps, all kinds. I mean, if you have time. I’ve got…questions.”

Felun’s stomach sank. Still, there was no way of avoiding it, if he wanted to be on speaking, planning, colluding terms—unless he could put it off by checking in on Silverwater? He dismissed the thought as soon as it came; it was a flimsy excuse, and Ishaan wasn’t yelling at him yet. There was no reason to not answer some…questions.

“Okay,” he said, steeling himself. “Ask away.”

It must have shown, because Ishaan gave a nervous, wincing smile. “There’s no hurry. Sit down, be comfortable. Didn’t want to interrogate you.” He laced his fingers together, skin against silver. “I’ll make tea. It’ll be easier if we both have something to drink.”

Felun reflected on whether it would be appropriate to inform Ishaan he knew where they kept the sorghum wine, and decided that probably wasn’t a good idea.

He sat himself down by the cramped corner table as Ishaan busied himself with tea-making, favouring the use of his flesh-arm. It was an oddly familiar sight. Back in Ironport, Ishaan had been the best cook out of the lot of them. His hovering over a cauldron had come to be familiar sight, same as Tyirn mumbling around his evening pipe and Vilette flicking through a deck of cards.

“…So many,” Ishaan was saying. “I don’t know where they get them from. Thought the bird spit was a bit weird. They gave me all this sugared fruit and stuff, too. I couldn’t possibly finish it all myself. Do you want some?”

“No,” Felun replied numbly. “I’m fine, thanks. I ate, earlier.”

Ishaan walked over to the table. He had a limp now, Felun observed. At least he could walk. At least he was alive. All that blood—

“The hand’s cool,” Ishaan said, even as he used his flesh-hand to pour the tea. “I can grab stuff, open doors. I’m practicing writing with it, now. I asked for a sword to practice with, but they wouldn’t give me one. They’re not—I don’t mean to complain. I know they spent a lot of money on all this. I told them they didn’t have to, but they brought in a silversmith and someone to teach me how to walk again and everything—” He was talking fast, the way he always did when he was nervous.

Felun watched helplessly as he stumbled to a halt. Was the surprise at seeing his face again wearing off? Surely he’d get around to yelling something. Any second now.

But Ishaan just gave a shaky laugh. “Why’re they doing this, Felun? I kept asking myself that, the whole time, and when I asked to see you, you were gone?” He set the teapot down and laughed again, even more nervously than before. “Seriously, I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t—there’s no way I could repay all this.”

Ah. So he was worried about debt that wasn’t his.

“It’s fine,” Felun offered. He took a too-quick sip of tea and burned his tongue. “They’re not going to ask you to pay them back. They wouldn’t—erm, I mean, they’re my family, and I talked to them, so I’m sure.”

Ishaan was silent for several, long moments. “Alright. Where’ve you been, then? Felun? Or is it Haoyu?” He did the tones better this time. Felun wondered how many times he’d heard the name being spoken—or whispered, or sneered, or snarled—by someone else in his absence. Wondered what else he’d heard.

“Felun is fine. I’ve been busy, with work. Had to be away. Sorry, I mean. For not visiting.”

Ishaan blinked. “So you’ve been…all this time—well—shit, okay. I guess it makes sense now.”

“What makes sense?”

Ishaan cleared his throat uneasily. “Just, your infinity bag and stuff. How you could runewrite so well. Why you knew so much about ancient politics. Why you can speak so many languages. Are you a secret Cathayan prince or something?”

Felun frowned. “No. Definitely not. And those were dialects, not languages. I only speak three languages. Two and a half. The third one isn’t fluent.”

Ishaan scoffed faintly. “But you’re important,” he pressed. “Right? You sailed around on this ship before you set out on an adventure?”

“I’m not important,” he said defensively. This conversation wasn’t going how he’d thought it would go. “I’m only the firstson. That’s, uh. It’s not so good when there are other sons, where we’re from.”

“That other guy’s more important than you because he’s younger?” Ishaan asked with what sounded like disbelief.

“You’ve met Yichen? I mean, yeah. Sort of.” Neither of them took held a candle to the venerated Guofan, though.

“Fine, so your family’s important,” Ishaan said, waving his artificial hand to indicate the room. It wasn’t a particularly good room; it had, after all, belonged to Yuying.

“You mean the ship?” He supposed it did look impressive. Father had big stakes in some shipyards though, so it wasn’t like they’d paid full price. It was nice enough to travel in, but it was entirely the family’s—maybe even the kin-group’s? It wasn’t like Felun could up and take it for a joyride. Guofan had tried once, and emerged from the ordeal entirely unpunished.

“I mean everything,” Ishaan said. He leaned in, eyes wide. “What the fuck is going on, Felun? People like this don’t take in nobodies like me and give them new limbs. They gave me a whole wing to myself, but wouldn’t even let me walk around without an escort. Or go outside. I’m bloody glad you showed up. Some of ‘em are so…they talk in circles, all the damn time. I ask where you are or why I’m here and they’ll nod and smile and say something really reassuring and two hours later I realise they never answered the damn question in the first place.”

Felun digested the outburst. “They aren’t going to harm you,” he said carefully.

“Oh c’mon,” Ishaan hissed. “But why am I stuck here? I asked if they were taking me back to Ironport and from what I gathered, the answer’s ‘no’. The guards stop me from going up on deck. No shit they haven’t hurt me, but what the fuck is happening? I’m not important, but I’m practically a prisoner—why? Tell me I’m not going crazy.”

Felun took a deep breath. “You’re not going crazy.”

“But why? Why me?”

“I…” Guilt strangled him into silence.

“Come on, spill it. You’ve gotta know, right? Unless you’re with them?”

“I don’t want to keep you here,” he said quickly. “In fact—”

“But you can’t get me out?”

“I can,” he said. “But I’ll need some time to plan.”

“How much time?”

“I can’t say for sure. Your, um. You can’t walk without those legs and they probably have an override spell, so…” He trailed off into an embarrassed silence. His words sounded pathetic, nebulous. He wasn’t a tinkerer or an inventor. Maybe he could buy help when they landed in Shadowsong. But for all his truthfulness, his words sounded vague, like they weren’t answering the question in the first place.

Ishaan was quiet for several, long moments. Then he said, “look, Felun. We got along in Ironport, but I’m getting out of here—with or without your help.”

Felun looked at him, then at the doorway.

“Not right now,” Ishaan added. “But I’ve got plans, and if you’re any friend of mine you won’t interfere when the time comes.”

A faint chill seeped into his bones. Plans was an uneasy word by now, layered in vagueness, lies, and intrigue. Iolite had practically redefined its meaning.

“Be careful,” was all he could say. Even so, his mind darted around for the slightest semblance of a plan. With Ishaan free, that would be one less tether obligating him to his faery service—to his family’s command. And if he couldn’t convince his family out of this, then at least he would’ve accomplished something.

“What about the others?” Ishaan asked abruptly. “I couldn’t—I don’t remember much, but they’re not here. Aren’t they? Did they—they’re fine, right? Mostly? Tyirn got a peg leg to match his stories, or was it just me who paid an arm and two legs?” Behind the humour, there was an edge of desperation.

A wave of unease crashed over him. He felt sick. It had been months. No one had told Ishaan about the aftermath since? He supposed he’d been unconscious and far from clear-headed at the time, but afterwards…well. He’d thought it was obvious.

He wasn’t very good at lying with his face—at least, not when it came to this. Ishaan flinched, the hope going out of his eyes.

“No,” Ishaan said, but it sounded reflexive. “No, but they—Tyirn’s shielding charm. And Vilette had so many tonics, we paid gold for those—”

The reasons sounded practiced, Felun registered dimly. Practiced in the privacy of one’s thoughts, shaped with hope, spoken to sound convincing.

“It’s just us,” Felun spoke over him without meaning to. He looked down at his own bandaged, unbroken hands. “The medics said it was—that they wouldn’t have suffered.” That was a lie, mostly. But the medics hadn’t needed to say anything. Felun had seen it with his own eyes, with his Breaker-sense, with paltry first-degree burns on his fingertips, long-healed now. The details were a lie, but the meaning was true. Anyone could’ve seen that it was true. He clung to one fact: it had happened too fast for them to feel pain.

Ishaan was silent, shoulders hunched, mouth pressed into a hard line.

“I’m sorry,” Felun offered. His voice sounded wrong. False. Dead. He got to his feet. “I…I thought you knew. You need space? I’ll just—I’ll go.”

Ishaan opened his mouth, but Felun fled before he could speak. He headed up on deck, where he knew Ishaan couldn’t follow.

===

Some hours of staring at the horizon allowed him to gather his thoughts, as did watching Yichen dart around and almost break his neck slipping on the rigging. His worries steeped like tea. Sunset came sooner than he liked—and with it, dinner. Felun made cordial talk over steamed fish and bean curd.

His parents said they were pleased to see him again, and he replied that he was pleased to see them too. There was no mention of faeries or Shadowsong or Ishaan. Yichen made a remark about the traveler in the hold. Felun shot him a dark look and said he’d check on him later. The conversation moved to news from the shipyards, trade deals with grain and jade and silks, the bountiful orchards this season, developments with farms and city legislature throughout father’s province. It was excruciating. He fled for the cargo hold when it was over, Ishaan’s presence weighing on his mind like a sackful of stolen ingots.

Silverwater had shed his human-disguise. He sat perched on a large crate, sketching in his booklet and looking completely at peace. Silverwater’s safety assured, Felun was about to leave when he glanced up.

“Hi,” Felun said, feeling pinned in place. “Nobody’s been bothering you?”

“Not particularly,” Silverwater said, tapping his stick of charcoal against his chin. “What do you think of this, Sungrazer Zhao? Or should I say, Sungrazer Felun? There seem to be a great many Zhaos here.” He tilted his chin at his booklet.

Felun came reluctantly closer, peering at the page. There was a fresh sketch there: a graceful building with an inwardly-swooping rooftop, covered in carvings. It reminded him of Yuying’s drawings; she’d told him the term once. What was it called, again? Something very regional, and to do with birds. A swallowtail roof?

“You’ve been to Cathay?” he asked, surprised.

“Never once in my life.”

“You were talking to a sailor?” he asked, even more surprised. The attitude towards faeries wasn’t hostile among most Cathayans, but they weren’t nearly as amiable as they seemed in Glister.

“Not quite. I think you should come out now,” Silverwater said. He grinned, and the motion of his spines grinned with him. It was highly unsettling. His gaze drifted over to a stack of crates in the corner.

“What?” Felun said, alarmed.

He reached for his magic, a shield brimming to life at his fingertips. Stowaways meant trouble. Did this one know whose ship they’d snuck onto? If an assassin—

“Come out,” Silverwater said. “Your brother is getting worried.”

“Aughhh,” came a joltingly familiar voice. A face peeked over the edge of the crate. “Calm down, it’s just me. Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yuying,” he blurted out, dropping the shield.

Yuying sighed and clambered onto the crate in a puff of skirts. She’d cut her hair, Felun realised, short enough to swish above her shoulders. Mother had probably thrown a fit.

“Aren’t you meant to be home?” he demanded. “Yichen said—anyway, why were you talking to him?” He gestured agitatedly at Silverwater.

“I wasn’t going to. He sniffed me out. He’s a faery, after all.”

“We’re not faeries,” Silverwater cut in. “Not like in your stories. You call us faeries.”

Yuying wrinkled her nose. “What do you call yourselves, then?”

He twirled his fingers aimlessly. “…People? The meaning is much the same.”

“You didn’t think to tell me she was here?” Felun asked, turning to Silverwater.

“I did,” Silverwater said, looking insulted. “Just then. She’s not a threat and I wasn’t going to walk around upstairs, was I? Not looking like this. So I waited.”

Felun groaned, turning back to Yuying. “Have you been chatting about architecture for the last six hours?”

“Sir Silver told me about Hives,” Yuying said cheerfully. “Wouldn’t tell me what you’ve been up to, though. Where were you? Glister City, right? I thought I could hop off and explore when we stopped, but they brought guards this time. Why’s that? Cause of the faer—cause of him?” She nodded at Silverwater.

“Yuying,” Felun said heavily. “You should go talk to mother. Bring Yichen with you—she won’t yell if he’s there.”

“No. I’m not going back. Father wants to marry me off to some courtier.”

“Promise mother you’ll stop with the witch stuff if she’ll let you go to an academy,” Felun tried. “Yichen told me,” he added at her surprised expression. “He’ll back you up. Just act sorry about it.”

“Nope,” Yuying said, shaking her head. “I know what’ll happen, now. They’ll let me attend a semester and drag me back right afterwards. Happened to cousin Jing last month, poor girl. If you and Yichen get to explore the world and go on adventures, why can’t I?”

“It’s not an adventure. It’s…politics. Trust me, it’s boring. Exceptionally boring. I have no words to properly describe the boredom.” He didn’t mention dangerous and violent, too; that would only intrigue her. He’d thought he could handle it easily, when he’d first set out.

“I wanted to see Auntie Shirin,” Yuying said stubbornly.

“She’s probably busy. And they’ll send you back once we land. You know they will, on one of the other ships.”

“So there’s no point in turning myself in, is there?”

He groaned. “What are you planning to do, hide here forever?”

“You could help me hide,” she pleaded. “You’re so good at runes—you could do it, definitely! I can’t go back, I can’t stay there. And you’re not going to say anything, right?” she asked, looking at Silverwater.

Silverwater shrugged, turning back to his sketchbook. “Sungrazer business has nothing to do with me.”

Felun brought a hand to his forehead. He thought of disappointed frowns and scornful words and blisters stinging across his palms. He wondered how much worse it could’ve been with father trying to marry him off to some random courtier on top of it all.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “But you’ve got to listen carefully, okay? And stay out of the way while we’re here.” It might be good to get her to Glister, afterwards. Or one of the smaller outlying towns. Whatever the faeries and his kin-family were planning, he didn’t want her to be near when it happened.

Her eyes widened. “Really? I mean—thank you! You’re the best. Waaay cooler than Yichen.”

He laughed, and realised with a start that he couldn’t pinpoint the last time he’d done so.