Aliyah

Luxon dropped an overfilled crate onto the tabletop. A piece of leather slid off the top, toppling onto the floor. Aliyah picked it up and wiped off flecks of dust. She held it out with an assessing eye: it was armour, vest-like, paneled to curve around the ribs.

“Isn’t this a bit large?” she asked.

“You’re supposed to wear this under it, too.” Kionah passed her a thick mass of quilted fabric.

“It’s superbly reinforced,” Luxon clarified. She beamed beneath a fur-lined hat, one she claimed was enchanted to make her inconspicuous and difficult to follow. “See the padding? So lightweight, but I’m assured it resists both blunt and sharpened strikes. What an ingenious invention.”

Aliyah turned it over, noting a discoloured splotch on the sleeve. “That looks like a bloodstain to me.”

“Better on the outside than in the lining,” Luxon pointed out.

“I lifted it from an academy laundry chute,” Kionah said. “Hardly spoiled for choice. I suppose you could give it another wash If you’re concerned.”

Aliyah sighed. “No, it’s alright.” The only washtub was occupied. Her makeshift shawl was still soaking.

“Here’s the helmet.” Kionah nudged it over the table before reaching further into the crate and emerging with two small boxes in hand. “And the needles.”

The first box was filled with ordinary sewing needles, at least fifty of them. The second held fewer, but far larger ones: wickedly sharp and as long as fingers.

“Sailsmaker’s tools,” Kionah clarified. “Pearl Tavern had a surplus.”

“Thank you. And your…orphans?”

Kionah glanced up sharply. She picked out a potion bottle and set it onto the table. “They can wait. I wouldn’t leave a bunch of kids passed out in a warehouse. And they’re not mine. They aren’t anyone’s.”

“The sooner we can,” Aliyah started.

“I know. But we should have contingencies in case some schismatist breaks down the door while you’re working. Starting with that.” She nodded at the armour. “Not the most comfortable in this heat, but it should stop you from getting skewered by an arrow again.”

Aliyah shuddered as she touched the string of unlocking charms in her pocket. She’d kept them close since Kionah had offered them, but they’d be useless if she wasn’t in any state to activate the spells.

“Yes, thank you. The weather won’t be too bad.” She could compensate, with her magic. “But what about you?”

“I can shield properly. You need to practice pouring your shield onto that armour, if you can’t sustain it the normal way.”

“I’m going to need your help with that. Understanding illusions, too,” she added.

“I’d like to unpack my stuff first. And set some basic wards, maybe.”

“Go ahead.” That suited her just fine. “What did the Lieutenant say about the note and map?” she asked Luxon, once Kionah had disappeared down the peeling hallway.

“Which Lieutenant?” Luxon glanced up from her perusal of another crate, the one stuffed full of powdered fungus soup and rock-hard mushroom bread—cheap provisions, Kionah had explained, to ply the orphans with. “Oh, from Qilin? Nothing about the note, unfortunately. She said she’d send a scouting patrol of two or three.”

“How was the Behemoth fight? We saw it, from a distance.”

“Oh, it was splendid!” Luxon’s wings gave a flutter. “But dear me, I was only brewing. Not flying up close! They look very impressive, don’t they? Though General Cetus told me it was a weaker one this time, dealt with very efficiently.”

Aliyah fiddled with the box of sailmaker’s needles. She attempted levitating one. It was heavier and required a touch more magic, but the motions weren’t unfamiliar. She put it down and floated six of the ordinary ones instead, gauging the difference.

“I saw you sewing up your dress, before,” she ventured. “Any advice?”

Luxon’s eyes shifted subtly in their sockets, following the needles. “I’m afraid I prefer to use my hands, but I’ve made the acquaintance of some dressmakers who do as you do. You fly six at once?”

“Not for anything complicated.”

Luxon gave a knowing nod. “It’s useful, though. I once spoke with a schismastist—no, not that kind—by the name of Vetiver. Totally anosmic, poor fellow, but he had such a careful touch with hatmaking. A more…troubled type of schismatist tried to rob him a few years back, and it was a good thing he had his sewing kit at hand.”

Aliyah tested the point of one on her fingertip, wincing when it drew blood. “I’m not sure how easily these will pierce a shield. Or a schismatist’s…skin? Carapace?”

“If you get people moving, perhaps they won’t be shielding so well.”

Aliyah healed her finger and gave the needles an experimental spin, swirling them around her shoulders. “Um, Luxon, you’re also of an academic, right?”

Luxon gave a faery-grimace, spines reacting along with her face. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

“Those witch-people we ran into called you some sort of Archivist. And you sold that tunnel map to Kionah, which is no small artefact.” It had reminded her of the Library, too.

“Oh, you’ve gotten the wrong impression. I’m not a…” Luxon wrung her hands and her tail twitched, the end curling around one ankle like an anxious vine. “I’m nothing like a real Archivist. Those Cribellums weren’t being complimentary. You mustn’t mistake me for anything quite so illustrious. I’m just a Hival independent, a collector on the side…if you’re serious about seeking mage’s texts or some such, I’m not the one to ask. And if you were inquiring about the map, Qilin said she might need it for a while. I don’t anything similar for sale at the moment.”

“I don’t want to buy papers. But Archivist or not, you must know more about magic theory than I do. Can you tell me anything about…” She searched for the proper term. “…Burning out? Running dry? More specifically, the severity of repeated cases? Kionah told me a bit, but I thought you’d know a bit more. You have lots of customers, right? Surely someone’s asked you for a magic-replenishing potion before.”

“I can’t brew those without donated magic, and they expire rather quickly if not used. You could store it better in a rune-crystal, but those are…” She glanced over the packages of mushroom bread. “…Perhaps a little far out of your and Kionah’s budgets?” Aliyah suspected she was phrasing it delicately. Then she wondered how rich Shasta had to be, from smuggling weapons around.

“Now if it was Hival honey or schismatist syrup you were thinking of,” Luxon continued, “it’s totally inert in your kind. Doesn’t stop some of the sillier ones trying to try for themselves, but that’s foolishness for you. If you had someone who trusted you very much or owed you many favours, you could ask them to stay nearby and infuse you with magic when needed…but that’s hardly ideal for violent situations. The best thing to do, as far as I know, is to be careful and to keep from running out in the first place.”

“Yes, well. I wouldn’t want to faint in the middle of a fight, which is why…” She trailed off. “Suppose I make a spell which…sleeps? A type of spell that can be waiting and ready for parameters to be met. Signals of sudden vasodilation, in my case. If it were pre-infused with magic, just waiting…that could stop me from fainting even if the rest of my magic is gone, right? As a failsafe.”

It was an ambitious idea, but Zahir had made jokes—had they been false jokes? A part of her doubted so—about assassinating people that way. What if she could twist those plausible-sounding principles into something helpful?

“Theoretically, yes.” Luxon paused darkly, clicking her teeth together. “Some of you humans planted spell-bombs this way, in the bygone wars. But I don’t see how your body—aha, the healing. Well, I don’t see why not. Tuck one into your ribcage for a helpful hour, but be careful about relying on it.”

Aliyah frowned, casting her thoughts back to the escape from Glister, the reemergence of pain. Could she spin enough spellpower into suppressing the rebound symptoms of her disease along with stopping the fainting? It sounded so complicated already, and the fainting was far more temporary—just a quick crash. But the disease was the resting state of her body, no matter how much she liked living without it. She would’ve been hurting for hours if Kionah hadn’t given her some magic out of pity back down in the tunnels. If the worst happened and she ran out again—she’d come dangerously close, after Sebile—she couldn’t rely on Kionah a second time.

She turned the needles in the air, thinking.

“Most people…um, I mean humans—humans will only faint, right? At least, at first?”

“I’m far from an expert on humans,” Luxon cautioned. “You’d best ask Kionah.”

“I did. She said different symptoms appear if you do it too much, and it gets worse. Is it similar for you? It’s only happened to me…” Did the Library count, with the daemon and the pooling blood? No, that had felt different. “It’s only happened once.”

“I’ve overextended myself before, yes. Back when I lived in the Hive.” Luxon sighed, sounding melancholy. “Not too many times. Orion’s attendants always caught me when I fainted. I started losing the ends of a few spines with repetition, but they always regrew. I don’t push myself now, of course. No need, and no one around to make sure I fall softly.”

At least Luxon had a healthy respect for head injuries, Aliyah thought. Even with the carapace…which reminded her she couldn’t base her plans off the biology of another species. But it gave her an inkling that burning out was far worse for her than others. It was a weakness. If one of the faeries wore her down enough, they’d capture her easily. She’d have to be careful—or better yet, eliminate that weakness. She thought of excision, and shivered. Not with magic, But maybe…

She turned a needle over in her hand. A hinge squeaked somewhere behind her.

“Getting comfortable?” Kionah asked, her voice nearer than Aliyah had anticipated.

She suppressed a flinch. “Yes.”

Kionah circled round and flicked one of the floating needles with her fingertips, It swayed, before returning to its intended position. “Have you tried shielding the helmet and armour?”

“You should!” Luxon piped up. “The leather’s been treated to better hold magic.”

Kionah shook her head. “Psh, we got oversold. Those treatments don’t even last that long. It’s more about having the framework that matters. Of course, it won’t be as good as a dome-shield, but it’s better than a weaving that shatters like glass.”

“Maybe later.” Aliyah hesitated, glancing around the room. It was hardly clean here, but… “This might be a lot to ask of you two, but I need to do some, um. Some healing. Could you stand by with magic? Just for a few minutes? Not that anything’s likely to go wrong, but I’ve got a few coins left. I can repay you.”

Kionah frowned faintly. “What?”

“If you think your self-contained spell is too dangerous, perhaps you shouldn’t try,” Luxon said.

“I’m not worried about the spell. I want to…” She gave a nervous laugh. “It’s a bit like surgery, I suppose. It’s only since I didn’t take too well to having an arrow through my torso—but that was a lot of spellfire and I’m sure the schismatist had syrup to enhance it too. So it won’t be nearly as risky as that.”

“I can’t donate,” Luxon said. “Human-magic and our magic have a different…how do you say it, osmolarity? Too much effort. Not suitable for aiding ‘surgery’…” Luxon rolled the word in her mouth, as if tasting it. “Surgery. That’s a new one. I think I’m understanding the meaning correctly. I suppose you poor things can’t use cocoons or metamorphosis.”

“That’s quite advanced, isn’t it?” Kionah asked. “I thought only second-ranked and higher were supposed to use it.”

“That was just a hierarchical rule. Demarcation of service, or payment, or something.” She hadn’t been paying attention when Zahir had explained. “But they aren’t here stopping me, are they?”

Kionah gave her a doubtful glance. Luxon raised her spines a notch.

“Look, it’s really safe for me. Mostly. It’ll be easier to show you. Um—this might look a bit bloody, but it won’t hurt.”

Quickly, before either of them could argue, she numbed her hand before peeling it open. She’d been lying; it did hurt a little, but no worse than bumping an elbow. The skin of her fingers splayed like petals. It looked like a highly dramatic version of what she’d shown Shasta to prove she was, in fact, a Healer—ligaments shifted, muscle gleamed, and finger bones shone like city spires.

Her bloodflow wasn’t too hard to control. The numbing wasn’t perfect, but she suspected all of the forced practice from schismatists and Sebile meant she’d gotten better at it. As long as she kept her wits and awareness about her and didn’t hit an artery, she’d be fine. But if she did start bleeding out and didn’t have enough magic to heal herself, she wanted someone nearby to make sure she’d receive enough raw power to fix things. It’d be ideal to have another Healer, but she was the only one here—and really, that was the problem.

“That looks horrible,” Luxon said fascinatedly, and leaned in for a closer look.

“How well can you fix that wound?” Kionah asked.

“It’s not a wound. I’m controlling it.” Aliyah concentrated, melding the skin back together and flushing the pain away. She released the numbing and flexed all of her fingers, opening and closing the healed hand. “See? It’s fine.”

“Why do you need to do surgery?” Kionah sounded suspicious. She was likely already guessing the reason.

“As a precaution, for if I run out of magic again. You saw how bad it was, escaping those tunnels—treating the disease doesn’t mean I don’t still have it. Magical excision would be a bad idea, but physically? It would be easy. I just remove the entire organ by hand and fix the incision like I did just then.”

Kionah blinked. “That sounds just as dangerous as I was expecting it to. Besides, wouldn’t it…cause other difficulties?”

She pondered the question. “I don’t want children, if that’s what you mean. Even if I did, I could probably just grow them with ectogenesis. You know, like in a canister.”

“Ah, synthesis vats?” Luxon wriggled her spines interestedly. “I didn’t know you humans could make fodder bodies.”

“Fodder…what? No, I don’t think we can. The canister’s organic, just flesh outside of a body—”

“Flesh-canisters,” Kionah repeated with a severely raised eyebrow.

Aliyah paused, thoughts momentarily weighed down with confusion. “You didn’t hear the rumours, back in the kingdom?” Then again, Kionah had never been privy to the chatter of a sewing circle. “They say the younger princes and princesses were grown in bottles and stuff. You know, because the king and queen were already quite old by that point, and gestation is pretty dangerous and unpleasant even with Healers around, so…I mean, I’ve seen a canister work on rats, so it’s not just crazy gossip.”

Kionah grimaced. “I forget, sometimes, that the meaning of fleshcrafter goes far and beyond…” She furrowed her brow and murmured a number, seemingly doing arithmetic in her head. “Still, I’d rather you not risk a so-called surgery. I think…yes, I have enough money for medical potions. If they suspend the outgrowth of your disease, it’d free up whatever magic you’re using on suppressing the symptoms—right?”

“That could also work,” she supposed. She turned to Luxon. “What did you mean by ‘fodder bodies?’”

“We don’t use them nowadays,” Luxon said hastily. “It was a wartime thing. We, ah…we made empty bodies that Generals could control. I believe the Titania wanted to keep using them, against Behemoths and such, but your city-rulers didn’t like that idea very much.”

“Yeah,” Kionah snorted. “People get real twitchy at the idea of a soulless swarm blotting out the sky.”

“How did your Generals control them?” Aliyah asked, recalling that particular sky.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a General.”

“Surely they’d have to use magic to keep them working?” Aliyah guessed.

Luxon scowled. “Perhaps. It’s possible. Quite likely. I don’t think I should say more.”

“But wouldn’t that be too much to distribute? If it’s as Kionah says and there are hundreds…or there could be something in those synthesis vats you mentioned, to imbue—”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. You humans can figure out whatever you like, but if my touch is found on any work resembling Hival secrets…” She shuddered. “It’d be ghastly mess. Try not to create any horrible fleshy human versions of fodder-bodies, alright? And if you do, and anyone asks where you got the idea, you found it in a history book rather than hearing it from me.”

“…Okay.” She felt her frown deepen as she pondered the concept of synthesis vats and substances strange enough to sustain magic.

“I’ve got my work and my shop to get back to now, but if you find anything worth my time, you know where I am.”

“Careful on your way out,” Kionah said.

“Don’t trust my charmwork, do you?” Luxon scoffed as she pulled the enchanted hat low over her forehead, its fabric catching momentarily on her spines. “Thank you for your assistance with my ingredients, you two. Stay as safe as springtime rains, and preferably safer.”

Kionah heaved a sigh as she left. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try what I think you’re going to try.”

“No, I suppose your idea’s less risky.” Aliyah squinted at a spiderweb in the corner, the floorboards littered with beetle husks. “I don’t think this place would be clean of contaminants even if I mopped every surface.”

“I was referring to the synthesis vats. You can’t create flesh out of nothing, can you?”

She shook her head, remembering the skin-pockets she’d made to hide keys and spell-slips. That had been slow work—but then again, it wasn’t like she’d had practice back then. If she worked at it, with an eye for strategy…

“Not exactly. I’d have to bud it off my fingers or my arm or something. And there’s a limit to how much my magic will fuel synthesis, but I haven’t tested it yet. If I got a bunch of food or potions and ate them to make growing the flesh more efficient, I could stretch the boundaries. But I still think I’d need something magical to suspend it in…yes, to soak it in enough magic so it stays alive enough to control. I’m not a necromancer.”

“You are not making a brainless flesh puppet to use in a fight,” Kionah said severely. “That’s far too visible, not to mention—”

“Too disturbing?” She nodded. “Yes, I can see why. But who said it had to be person-shaped? It’s just flesh. These needles are good, but something stronger could be helpful.”

“Why not just control living flesh while you’re at it?” Kionah asked, narrowing her eyes. “Cats? Dogs? Humans?”

“That wouldn’t even work for very long,” she said uncomfortably. “Especially for a human. It’s an equilibrium thing. Part of it is the self-determination of the consciousness too, I read. Maybe I could use something small, like a mouse, for a few hours if I knocked it unconscious first and manipulated the muscle alone, but—”

Kionah exhaled softly. “I’m going out to fetch some orphans in an hour and I’d prefer you save your strength.”

“I wasn’t actually going to try,” she said. “What do you need me to do? I’m not healing them here, am I?”

“You’re coming with me. The healing can be on-site. Bring your needles. Wear the armour. This over the armour.” She paused to fish a greyish tangle of shawl from a crate. “Can you disguise yourself further? You can shape flesh. Make yourself look different. Older, for example. Or you could pretend to be a man. Something that wouldn’t get you recognised by any spire folk on the prowl, because we’re going up-side for this.”

“I don’t think it’s be a good idea to actually age my skin,” Aliyah started. “Maybe the collagen, purely cosmetically…as long as I can put it back exactly. I haven’t tried with anything that’s not a fresh wound. Or maybe I could…” She grappled with various ideas, discarding the more magic-intensive ones. “I could build a separate piece. A mask with different features? You’re right, wrinkles should be easiest. And gloves, for my hands. They’ll rot, though. I’ll have to replace—”

Kionah’s face had taken on a look of confusion and polite disinterest. “I’ll get you food. Just take your so-called gloves off when you’re working on them. Could you change your hair colour?”

“I could…maybe like this?” She concentrated, sending magic tingling along her scalp. Her existing hair grew out a good ten inches. The new growth came out imperfectly grey, leached of pigment. “Did you buy any scissors?”

Kionah quirked her lip. “No. Use this.” She passed her a knife.

===

Despite the fact she’d crafted the mask from her own skin, Aliyah felt uneasy. There was nothing wrong with it, exactly. It was perfectly molded to her face. But it felt like drinking from a cup she’d spat into. The wrinkles layering her hands were less bothersome; she’d cured the insides enough for them to feel like normal gloves, more or less. Still, they didn’t help with the heat. She perspired as they walked, trying to find the best equilibrium for keeping cool beneath the false-flesh.

“Don’t walk so upright,” Kionah hissed, nudging her with an elbow. “You’re an eighty-year old woman, remember?”

She hunched over, adjusting her gait, and contorted her vocal folds. “Does this sound okay?”

“Passable,” Kionah said.

They ducked into an apothecary on the way to their destination. Aliyah lingered near the entrance, eyes glazing over at the rainbows of vials on display as she waited. Twilight was falling swiftly. Foot traffic jostled down the street. Some pedestrians chattered, and others hummed tunes. A pot-bellied man strolled past, trailing a trio of leashed chimeras. Kionah bought a potion and handed it to her as they exited the shop.

“The lady said it starts working within a day, lasts for a couple of months. See if it makes a difference freeing up your capacity.”

“Thank you.” It tasted—unconvincingly—of honey and lemon.

She watched through the lens of her magic as the ingredients permeated into her bloodstream and hurried them along. Her insides shifted and settled. She’d practised the usual suppression of her illness so consistently that it was like breathing now, or blinking; she didn’t notice she was doing it unless she thought to pay attention. Satisfied that the potion was working, she dismantled her construct of suppressive magic and allowed it to resettle where it willed.

It freed up more than she’d assumed it might. She rolled her magic over in her hands, relishing that little bit extra, before Kionah tugged her down another street and passed her a bread roll baked in the shape of a dragon. The baker had added lopsided raisins for eyes.

“You said food would help your magic. Any particular kind?”

“The bread’s fine,” she mumbled, taking a bite. Chewing was awkward with the mask stuck to her face. “Tastes like there’s fruit in this? Fruit’s good too. As long as I can break it down easily.”

They passed another intersection of streets, this one particularly rowdy with performers. Kionah acquired a lantern; Aliyah saw her do it, scooping from a preoccupied seller’s pile and swinging it merrily as though she’d been holding onto it all along. They swerved away, following the wake of family outings and young merrymakers. A splash of gold at the edge of her vision caught her attention. When she turned to look, she realised it came from a procession of enormous, shining moths, chasing the end of a dancer’s ribbon.

Kionah followed her gaze. “How charming. But see? You can tell he’s an illusionist, right?”

“I can?”

“The butterflies. They’re not real.”

“Yes, but…” She frowned, lowering her voice. “Only because they’re so decorative. They’re still made of light, aren’t they? The illusion is light and the light’s real enough, because we’re all seeing it. I saw you cast plenty of light spells, and you’re not an illusionist.”

“Look closely. Do they illuminate the surroundings like a torch would? Or are they just bright to catch the eye?”

Kionah was right. Shadows pooled on the ground beneath their fluttering path.

“He’s not very good, is he?” Kionah added. “Nor are the little purse-cutters using him as a distraction. Come on, we’d better go this way.” They slotted behind a procession of tattooed acolytes carrying blocks of pale, unworked stone.

“But if the performer adds the actual illumination, what makes it any different?”

She snorted. “Not that much. It’s a big debate, up in the uppity academies. Or so my uncle has said. But a real difference is that people who have…you saw Shasta’s truth-lens? Well, you wouldn’t see the butterflies if you looked through it, no matter how realistic the caster paints the light. But you would see the light from a light spell.”

“But how does that help me? Do you have one of those lenses?”

“Hah! No. Not nearly rich enough.”

“How do you notice, then?”

“It’s like I said: practice. Illusion’s shaped by the caster’s thoughts, so if you can guess what they’re thinking, then patterns show up. Someone wants to hide something, and there’s an inconsistency in the room. Someone’s fighting you, and suddenly something happens which makes you want to stop. It’s just senses, layered to seem real.”

They were passed by a courier on wheels, and Aliyah swallowed an unexpected clot of nausea. The vehicle disappeared around a corner, but not before she got another look at the slosh of bright pink fuel in its fuel case.

“Once you’re aware, it’s easier to ignore,” Kionah was saying. “If you try to twist it or fight it or hit it, like I did with the wall, it’ll trip up the caster. Maia never liked it when I messed with hers. Said it gave her a headache. Illusions are just meant to be felt and believed, and anything more strains the magic. Takes more concentration, ‘specially the big or complicated ones, and it’ll fall apart eventually. There’s a reason the art’s going the way of necromancy, but it’s not the same one. Sight’s the easiest to trick, and the easiest to unmask.”

“Could an illusionist trick someone into feeling pain?” She asked distractedly. How would that work, if it happened to her? Would she be able to track signaling particles which weren’t actually there?

Kionah gave a thin smile. “It’s what the old masters did, or so the stories go. But I don’t think anyone could do that today—lots got killed in the old wars, the last of them in the faery one. But don’t go saying such morbid things so loudly, now.” She pointed. “Station’s over there.”

Their shuttlebus took them on a gently curving route down to the coast, right by the sea itself. It was more impressive when not viewed from Harker’s hidden dock, she noted. It looked like the salt flats, only larger and bluer and far louder—come to think of it, it even smelled a bit similar. They walked a gravel path down to the empty shore, and Kionah’s purloined lantern lit a rocky beach ahead.

“A little bird sang to me of a party in these particular caves,” Kionah said as they walked, shoes crunching over shells and pebbles. “Got a good haul and burned it all on moss wine, I expect. Not that I can fully blame them, but…” She sighed as they approached an opening in the cliffside; orange light flickered inside, spilling out around a jagged corner. “Best if you stay here. I’ll ply ‘em with the food and fetch you once they’re asleep.”

“Alright.”

Kionah handed her the smaller of the two sacks, marked with black ink. “Hold onto this for me, won’t you? Don’t let it get wet.”

Aliyah waited, listening to waves meeting the shore. She thought of salted waves and osmolarity and how a hypotonic solution might force cells to swell with water. How she might swap that out with magic…

She thought it over for a long while. Kionah emerged soft-footed from the cave, and gestured for her to enter.

The passage was tinged with the smell of saltwater and alcohol, and the winey haze grew stronger the further in they went. By the time the tunnel terminated in a craggy chamber, it was almost overpowering. Lanterns lit the scene: bags of sackcloth were piled against the far wall, and someone had spread a large, stained rug over the stony ground. Crumbs dusted it, accompanied by half-filled jars claiming to contain ‘nutrient paste’. Bottles sat half-drunk atop a makeshift table cobbled together from crates and driftwood, their contents drifting with spots of mossy bioluminescence. Two youths were slumped snoring against the table, and four others dozed in various places across the floor.

“Here,” Kionah whispered. “Start with this one. Broke his leg couple of years ago and didn’t get to an apothecary. It set wrong.”

“How sedated are they?” It was said that some of the highest Healers could tame equilibrium, but she’d probably have to rebreak the bone before she could set it right.

“Oh, plenty sufficiently.”

Aliyah removed her flesh-gloves, but kept the mask on. “I can’t erase their memories. If they fight the false-sleep enough to wake up…”

“They’ve drunk way too much, plus the sedative. You won’t have to. You’d better check they haven’t poisoned themselves, now that I think of it.” She frowned, glancing back towards the entrance. “I’ll keep an eye out for faeries. Call out if you need anything.”

Aliyah bit back a comment about safe dosages and stepped hastily around the cavern, checking that they were all still breathing before moving back to the youth with the crooked leg.

Kionah, for all her imprecision, was right. The urchins barely stirred as she prodded at their injuries with her magic and fixed what she could: the leg reshaped with minimal pain, followed by cuts and scrapes and a rotting tooth that had to be extracted. Her magic flowed clear and strong, and she slipped into a rhythm of concentration even as the night wore on. Only one thing gave her pause.

“How strange,” she said aloud.

“Who’s strange?” Kionah left her guardpost to peer over her shoulder.

Aliyah gestured to the last of the six, a bruised girl wrapped in a green shawl. “Her.”

“This one? Ah, Mihaelo’s little sister…Safira, I think her name is. What’s wrong?”

“Normally, there’s endogenous magic in most cells—in the blood,” she added at Kionah’s faintly puzzled frown. “Just a sense. I don’t mess with it, but I can feel it. Your mother’s was different, replaced with the spawnblood.”

Kionah whistled softly under her breath and prodded one of the fallen bottles with the toe of her boot. “Didn’t know the rascals could afford that. Thought there’d be enough cautionary stories to go round, but maybe not.”

“No, that’s not it.” She shook her head uneasily and examined the girl’s organs again. “Hers isn’t replaced. It feels like she’s got nothing at all.”

“Burnt out?” Kionah suggested dubiously.

“It’s been an hour. Even if it happened right before, it’d start coming back by now…right?” She checked a third time, and there was no doubt about it: the body, half-healthy as it was, wasn’t circulating so much as a drop of magic.

“She’s not shackled, is she? Some of the City Watch equipment is dampening, but…” Kionah trailed off and shook her head.

Aliyah glanced at the girl’s wrists and ankles, adorned with nothing but scrapes and bruises.

“There’s really nothing. Was she born without magic?” She’d never heard or read of such a thing in Shadowsong, but perhaps it was different in Glister.

“You know that’s just an old sailor’s tale, right?”

“Then how?” she asked.

“Safira, Safira…” Kionah recited in the wavering tones of recollection. “She was staying with a bunch of acolytes, last I heard. Temple exiles. They aren’t the most fortunate bunch, but they take care of their own. Mihaelo always said it was politics, sectarianism troubles, no blood-rite rituals or other nastiness in their sect as far as I know. Just do your best. Shouldn’t be anything wrong with her.”

Aliyah chewed her lip as she worked on the superficial wounds. A worm of discomfort itched at her occipital bone. Safira’s insides felt like the workings of any common animal, like the chickens and rats she’d first been given to practice on. There was something deeply wrong about that feeling. Too vast. All the wrong shape. She looked at the girl more closely. A scratch on her forehead, bruised skin, greasy hair—nothing otherwise remarkable. Her face looked peaceful in sleep.

“I’ve never seen this before,” she confessed uneasily. “Not in a human. Could you check her belongings for anything strange? Potions, medicines, anything like that? Spawnblood, even?”

“I doubt it, but alright.”

Kionah stepped away as Aliyah fixed the last of the bruises. Her gloves had started to deteriorate by the time she slipped them back on, but she poured fresh magic into the cells to stave off rot. When she stood up, she had to blink away spots and hastily circulate some blood—but there was no headache, no nosebleed. The extra magic was helping, she marveled.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Kionah started, and hesitated. “Wait, first—pass me that bag I gave you.”

She rooted out a selection of crudely-crafted ornaments: strings and stone and braided twigs. Stepping carefully around the sleeping bodies, she placed them around the cavern before rearranging the existing detritus into strange, deliberate patterns: triangles and circles and squares, the rug folded up to form a diamond. Then she prised the corks from a trio of clay jugs and walked the perimeter of the cavern, pouring a trail of fine grey ashes.

Lastly, she withdrew a pot of ink from the bag and daubed it across one of the urchin’s fingers before splashing the rest of it across the far wall. Blackness stained the rock in a great arc; if Aliyah looked at it a certain way, she supposed it could resemble a deliberate attempt at forming a shape, or an attempt at covering something already written. Kionah left the empty vessel by the urchin’s softly-snoring head and beckoned for Aliyah to leave, sweeping her gaze around to ensure they’d left no unintentional traces behind.

“What was all that for?” Aliyah asked as they departed. The salt winds were whipping up. Seafoam flecked the shore, and the ocean sounded louder and colder than it had earlier. Briefly, she pictured a witch-corpse bobbing across the wavetops.

Kionah grinned, a flicker-dart of teeth in the dark. “No idea. Doesn’t matter. Maybe a miracle’ll scare them right.”

“You were going to say something to me, earlier.”

Her expression sobered. “Yeah. It could be nothing—oh, hells. It probably isn’t, when it comes to you and yours. I found this in Safira’s travel-pack.”

She held out a tiny scrap of fabric, pinched between thumb and forefinger. Hardly woven together enough to even be called a scrap; it was more like a collection of loose threads, frayed off some larger whole. It was also red. Familiar, mocking red.

“Are you sure,” Aliyah started. She patted herself down, even though her makeshift shawl was soaking in soap, left at the yellow safehouse. “I could’ve brought it in with me and shed it. You’re sure it was in her bag?”

“Stuck to a bunch of bandages. I’m sorry. I should’ve shown you then, but I didn’t want to…distract you.” There was a careful hesitance to those last words, as if Kionah suspected she really could accidentally kill someone with an errant twitch of hand and thought.

Her stomach lurched. “That girl had no magic left. None at all.”

“If that’s how you saw it, I believe you.”

“Could you ask her? When she wakes? Even if she saw a different Healer, or a schismatist, any schismatist—”

Kionah met her desperate gaze head-on. “Might be risky.”

There was a balance to be maintained here, scale plates and fulcrums glinting golden in her mind’s eye. “How many more did you need me to heal?”

“No rush,” Kionah said with an edge of warning. “Your tracker mark’s still there, isn’t it?”

“You could’ve not told me this,” Aliyah pointed out. Night cloaked the shore, lapping at their island of lamplight. Kionah could have simply opened her hand to the wind, and Aliyah would’ve walked on none the wiser. “But you trust me to help, don’t you? And you don’t want to deal with the faeries coming after me, so it’ll suit you if I fix the people you care about and get out of your way as fast as I can. Name your price in patients.”

Kionah tilted her head fractionally. A cool composure flickered over her face, that shadowy court echo. “Yes. You do need help. But I didn’t tell you this to string you along. What would be the point of that? Seven already, at my request. I’ll see if I can find others you can heal, but—alright, I’ll ask. And I won’t hold you to a number.”

Was that graciousness, or simply a way of leaving the upper limit undefined? “Thank you,” she said anyway.

“You’re going to want to practice shielding with that armour,” Kionah said, and knocked an elbow lightly against her ribs. “If this kid’s had a brush with a Healer, and if the schismatists really do have your master, and if that peculiarity you described had anything to do with it all, then all this peace and quiet makes more sense. It’s possible they could’ve just forgotten about you for now.”

She met Kionah’s gaze, brimming with bitter optimism, before looking away. “That could be good. But I don’t think I’ll have to try very hard to make them remember.”