Aliyah

The Hive was a large, dark hillock which stuck out like a boil amongst gently rolling plains. Aliyah stepped out of the faeries’ woven cocoon-chariot and took a few slow steps, catching her bearings. The journey here had been a disorientating one, the flight jerkier and more undulating than she’d expected.

“As you can see, this is our home,” Luxon said. She’d shed her ostentatious gown for roughly-woven robes and a long tunic, both as pale as salt.

There wasn’t a path to the Hive; just more dirt and clumps of long grass, baked half-dry by the sun. The hillock was huge, but it had no visible openings. Sunset seemed to slide off its soft, shell-like surface. As they drew closer, the exterior started to ripple like a membrane.

Faerie magics, Aliyah thought warily. Of course. It looked strange, but no stranger than the outer Library had been.

A small circle of darkness breached the Hival shell. It widened like oil pooling across water. By the time they reached it, it had grown large enough to fit three people walking abreast.

“In we go,” Luxon said. Her wings flickered. “Friends, provide some light.”

The guards accompanying them flared their wings to life; a patchwork of colours splashed across featureless walls, made of a familiar-looking, tarry material. Aliyah didn’t reach out to touch it despite a flicker of morbid curiousity; it looked half-wet in a way that would cling.

The tunnel opened out into a chamber far larger than it had any right to be. Glister’s caverns had prepared her for the architecture, but not for the sheer number of faeries.

Chitinous bodies walked, crawled, and flew in front of and above her. Hisses filled the air, which was thick with a medley of unidentifiable scents. Tunnel holes studded the walls as densely as honeycomb, oozing open and closed at random. Some of the offshoots spat out a steady stream of Hivers, while others lay empty for several moments before a lone traveller exited and made for a different tunnel, or a chute in the ceiling. There was a flow to the queue of bodies, she realised. Brief swirls in the air and synchronous lines on the ground, only visible for a few seconds before they moved along and the pattern changed.

Several dozen pairs of eyes flicked to look at her, some glossy blank and others flashing with jewel-facets like Luxon’s.

“Is it like this all the time?” Aliyah murmured, trying not to breathe too deeply. The air didn’t smell bad, but it was a puzzle on the senses. She caught a hint of spiced mint one moment and a whiff of fresh mud the next. It made for a swift and interesting headache, until she decided to shut off her olfactory receptors.

“It’s much busier at the moment,” Luxon said, gesturing to a tunnel ahead. She hissed loudly. “Just warning people to move along. Forgive the attention; not everyone is a scout or a Lieutenant. Many of us haven’t ever seen a human in the flesh.”

“Don’t other humans come here?” she asked as they dodged someone dragging a cart loaded with glowing moss.

“Rarely,” one of the guards answered. “Mostly city representatives, and they don’t like to stay long. You must be closely supervised, you understand. Please, keep close and stay away from any drop shafts.”

“How far down do they go?” she asked warily, scanning the ground for openings.

“Quite far,” the guard replied. “But not always down. Here, this way has no such hazards.”

The new tunnel was quieter, lit by patches of glowing blue stone. Eventually, the stone gave way to cracked tiles marbled with streaks of thick, cushiony moss.

“Welcome,” Luxon announced with a grand sweep of her tail, “to the Archives.”

Spears of midnight-blue crystal hung from the ceiling, filled with drifting specks of light. Ahead of them, an empty wooden counter loomed, piled high with scrolls and bottles. Behind that was a carved stone wall with a high archway. Through it, she could see the beginnings of shelves.

“Does it go far?” Aliyah asked. “Like a Library?”

“It extends infinitely, as far as I know.” Luxon sighed, spines suddenly drooping. “Come on.”

So it was a Library, if masquerading under a different name. She felt a twinge of unease. “Where are we going?”

“I must find a controller-station. Orion could do without, but…” Luxon’s spines drooped further. “He can’t walk here to help me now.”

She trudged forward, and Aliyah hurried after her. The guards followed them in loose formation.

Patches of foliage budded between stone cairns and carved benches. A gnarled tree sprouted from the side of a shelf, drooping with dark fruits. It was an eerie mix of nature and order, clean lines intersecting rambling vines. Corridors of shelves formed tunnels fading into a misty distance. There was a perfectly ordinary ceiling overhead, but she suspected that piece of familiarity wouldn’t last for long.

Cautiously, she unblocked her olfactory receptors to discover the air was steadier here, scented with dry paper and old glue. Luxon led the way through one of the shelf-corridors. There were more scrolls than books here, some sealed with wax and others rolled up loose, their edges curling free. What text she could see was scrawled in incomprehensible strokes. Every now and again, she spotted other things propped up against the piles of scrolls: cracked inkwells, jarfuls of feathers, rolls of woven wool. She kept her arms by her sides, careful not to brush against anything. Watchful guards aside, the occasional warning flash of runesign reminded her too much of her own short-lived delves, hunting for books beyond the safe zones.

Luxon seemed to know where they were going, even though the turns they took seemed random and at times even circular. They trekked through the corridors of shelves, passing clearings of grass and pale stone. Some were dotted with menhirs and obelisks, while others looked bare but for a lone armchair or stagnant pond, host to gently circling damselflies. At times, loose paper piled up to form hills, some as high as her shoulders. Aliyah avoided stepping on anything, but Luxon and the others didn’t seem to care. Half of the sheaves looked like they were actively decaying into the soil. Now and again, movement rustled amongst the shelves. She yelped as an insect as large as her hand crawled past, many-legged and nimble.

“Don’t mind the ink-striders,” Luxon called from up ahead. “They don’t bite.”

Two more scuttled past. Aliyah noticed they left a trail of marks in their wake. She paused, crouching, when she realised they formed words.

“Dark corners inching together sixteen celestial carnassials in luceferin,” she read. “What?”

“It says something about water and energy,” one of the guards said, having stopped with her. “What is a ‘cyclase’?”

“No worth deciphering that,” Luxon added, glancing back at them. “It’s a nonsense trick. You’re both reading the same line, aren’t you? Their magic fools you into thinking the markings are words.”

“Creepy,” the guard murmured.

Aliyah straightened up, only vaguely disturbed. It made sense, in a roundabout way. A confused hunter stopping to read the trail would allow the creature more time to make an escape. She kept walking to the tune of Luxon’s sudden bright chatter, detailing how the insects laid their eggs in inkpots. Luxon was finishing up an anecdote of having a dozen of the things unexpectedly falling onto her when they approached a clearing containing a squat, hip-high cylinder of stone.

“Aha,” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “There we go. You might all want to stand back a little.”

Aliyah stopped several paces away, which was a couple of paces closer than the rest of the guards. The stone cylinder was carved with fine swirls reminiscent of river currents, and a greenish tinge glowed in the valley of each depression. Luxon ran a hand over the edge, murmuring to herself as she circled around to the other side. A thread of pale light sparked from her fingertips, feeding into the channels. The air temperature dropped, suddenly lush and cool, ripe with the smell of rain.

Luxon shut her eyes. When she opened them again, a third did too: it emerged from chitin peeling open across her forehead, looking less like a gemstone but blazing the same bright green as the others. She spoke something in the faery language. The stone split along invisible seams, splaying open like a flower.

Water streamed out between the petals, soaking into the surrounding soil. Aliyah frowned as the guard beside her recoiled, and two others gasped. Not water, she realised. Hemolymph. There was even more of it pooled in the center of the controller-station, clear and still. Luxon plunged her hands in up to the elbows.

“Bring me words of the magic-eaters,” she hissed, cupping the hemolymph and bringing it to her mouth.

One of the guards made a gagging sound as she drank. Aliyah winced when she pictured Luxon swapped out for a Librarian, and the hemolymph for warm blood.

Luxon tipped the last of the hemolymph back. The action seemed to pain her, every spine flattening in response. A sudden wind rifted the air, cold as desert night. It brought scraps of paper with it, whirling and tattered. More poured out of the shelves, some ragged and others not. Aliyah kept expecting the currents to slow with each passing second, but they kept coming. Parchment filled the air until the clearing looked as if it were storming. The guards flanking her dropped into crouches and Aliyah followed their example, narrowly avoiding a scroll to the face.

“Is this normal?” she called out to one, struggling to be heard over the sound of the wind. Luxon was barely visible now, shrouded in flying debris.

“You think we know?” the one closest retorted, shifting closer to speak. “I don’t come in here if I can help it!”

It took a full minute before the wind began to die down, papers thinning out. Luxon stood with wings flared, a scroll held triumphantly in her outstretched hand. Her robes billowed behind her for a moment longer, as if thrown aloft by invisible hands. They draped back down with the last scraps, fluttering to a forlorn rest. There was less left over than Aliyah had assumed; the Archival current had carried back most of what it had brought with it. The controller-station folded back together, sealing shut, neat and dry.

“It matches the description,” Luxon said, scanning the scroll. “Just as I thought. A weapon of legends and song was supposedly lost in the old wars. Aliyah, you mentioned a name to me a while ago. Shallownest, if I recall correctly? It has the sound of a name from the shattered lands. That fledgling General could be a connection.”

“I hardly know anything about the shattered lands,” Aliyah admitted. “Our history tutor only said the wars were enough to destroy the continent. I think some of the legacy families originated from there, but they came into the kingdom hundreds of years ago. Before the, um, ‘invasion skirmishes’ and Killing Mists, things like that.”

“Former General Parallax came from the shattered lands,” Luxon said, swishing her tail agitatedly. “But she served the Hive for many years before the sightings of this ‘Shallownest’ schismatist, who is quite young besides. She can’t be the damned mastermind. It has to be the one we’re not seeing. The Archivist.”

“Parallax was from Almucantar, not Shallownest,” one of the guards said.

“It hardly matters now, does it? Oh, what a mess.” Luxon raised the scroll again, unwinding it further. “This particular amphora was named the Thaumaphage. There was no known counter, but perhaps if we blended anti-magic-eater measures to create some kind of tracking and shattering weapon…”

“I can’t help with that,” Aliyah said warily.

“Few can,” Luxon said. She sighed, third eye glowing dull green. “They’ve cut Orion of the rhythms, so I need to sort it out. General Nephele seems to think the schismatists are aiming to kill us, kill the Hive. Perhaps killing humans too, but the damage to the Hival structure is telling.”

“How likely is that?” Aliyah asked. “I mean, can’t you use those fodder bodies you were talking about to fend them off?”

“That’s why they’re going for the Generals first,” one of the guards said quietly, her voice tinged with fear.

Aliyah hesitated. “I don’t mean this in offense, but can’t you make more Generals?”

“A General is earned, not made. There is…strength level, and other criteria.” Luxon tapped the scroll. “These things take time. Our Titania is doing all she can, searching for the best candidates and expending resources to improve them, but the Thaumaphage is a problem.”

“But that entrance hall we saw must’ve had a hundred faeries moving through each minute,” Aliyah said. “I’ve only seen about half a dozen schismatists and their fodder bodies, and they were weaker than Meissa plus a couple of acolytes.”

Luxon looked at her gravely. “We counted forty five fodder bodies in the aftermath. Meissa demonstrated exceptional bravery, but she would not have prevailed had General Nephele not swiftly arrived with reinforcements.” She paused pointedly. “I heard a good portion of them were subjected to unusual signs of traumatic bodily injury, as well.”

Oh. Aliyah recalled climbing over the surging hill of limbs, breakages fired into exoskeletons.

“You overestimate our resources if you think every Hiver you saw earlier is capable of combat,” Luxon added. “We have children and elderly too, and many perform purely internal roles. A large percentage of us are builders, weavers, processors and the like, even if you only see scouts and Lieutenants in the city.”

“Sorry,” Aliyah said. “That…makes sense. But you still have more fighters, unless you’re worried they’re going to bring an entire Hive over here?” She shivered, remembering the sheer numbers of faeries swarming over Shadowsong. “They attacked the kingdom, though. Surely they suffered losses, and…I thought you were a big Hive?”

“We’re as large as we need to be,” Luxon said simply. “The city sends us resources in exchange for help with Behemoth sightings. The witches help out, too. We don’t maintain the same fighting force we would if we were dependent on the whims of the wilderness and its seasons.”

“So hypothetically, if the schismatists manage to use their Thaumaphage thing on every General, would your Hive collapse?”

“No,” Luxon said grimly. “It could whittle us down and make things exceptionally painful, but it wouldn’t kill us. So I must be missing something. That damned Archivist…” She cast a glance over the guards and pointed back the way they’d come. “All of you, go stand over there. In view, but I need to discuss something privately with Mage Scionsong here.”

The guards gave hesitant salutes as they retreated.

“A traitor?” Aliyah asked quietly.

“Can never be too careful. Someone slipped a blood-poisoner into the Archives, and it might not have been Parallax. I’ve checked everything, tried to trace the source, but it was too faded, too tangled. Whoever set it knew tricks of channels and outflow. Please let it not be Orion, but the alternative…someone is brewing the syrup for the schismatists, and I—” Luxon leaned against the controller station, wings drooping. She let out a strangled hiss, bringing a hand up to cover her third eye. When she spoke again, her voice was anguished. “I’m not smart enough to out-think an Archivist.”

Aliyah hesitated. “You have to start from somewhere. What would happen if they kill you? Or your Titania?”

“That wouldn’t work either. That’s the beauty of a Hive. It doesn’t have a singular weak point. If the Titania dies, her attendants remain to indicate an egg she delegates as successor. Even if they don’t, well, the Hive will find or produce another egg. Of course, this isn’t ideal. But we wouldn’t…even if we had no Titania, it couldn’t end us immediately. As for the Archivist…” Her wings drooped further as she turned to pace. “If Orion dies, his attendants will also indicate a successor. It’s a similar situation. I was an anomaly. If they kill me, nothing happens.”

“Look,” Aliyah said. “You would know way more than I do. Hives have failed before, right?”

“As far as I know? Only in the wars and shattered lands. And even then, it was because your kind had thousands of mages.”

“Let’s, um, think this through. Besides killing mostly everyone, what else works?”

“I don’t know,” Luxon said, sounding wretched. She set the scroll on top of the controller-station, burying her head in her hands. “I’ve spent too long thinking about this already, but I can’t let it rest. They could’ve poisoned the Titania, but they can’t poison everyone.

“We eat in shifts, we know the rhythms. A hundred rogue processors wouldn’t go unnoticed. They can’t inflict what happened in the shattered lands either, not without outnumbering us ten times over. And it would have to be quick. The city won’t interfere right now, not with the Chelicera’s disinterest, but Glister’ll get around to helping if it gets worse gradually enough. They have a means. I’m not seeing it, but it’s there. The Thaumaphage…they must need all that magic for something.”

“They seemed ready to capture a Healer,” Aliyah said slowly. She thought back to the battlefield, the Magicians loosing spells that targeted only faeries. But the schismatists were faeries just like the Hivers were—wouldn’t that be too dangerous? “Are you sure there isn’t, I don’t know, a way to make every one of you unable to reproduce?”

“What?” Luxon asked. “No. What a strange idea. We’re made, not born.”

Aliyah shrugged. “It’s how I would do it. And Zahir’s a Healer too, so…”

“Your associate can’t kill hundreds of people at a time, can he?” Luxon tapped her chest, chitin clicking on chitin. “That’s still too slow for what they must be planning. If I hadn’t come out of a faulty Archivist’s egg, a collective would have assembled my body and the body would’ve incubated in a vat for a day or two before it awoke. We’re back to the ‘killing everyone’ and ‘physically destroying the entire Hive’ hypotheses…” she trailed off. “The eggs, however…”

“What is it?” Aliyah asked uneasily.

Luxon was staring at the controller-station with every spine raised and tense. “Every egg, Titania or Archivist, is produced by the Archive. The Hive draws upon the Archive for a significant amount of power and adaptability. There are always spares and caches, but perhaps with enough traitors…”

It took a moment for her to slot the pieces together. A broken Archive would mean a dead Titania, dead Archivist, and no more replacements.

“No,” Luxon whispered frantically. “That can’t be the answer. It shouldn’t be possible. And still—the method would be too slow? But the poison. Maybe the poison was a test. If this secret Archivist is even more skilled than I thought, maybe—if they fight us and we’re missing keystones…but I don’t even understand the Archive enough to be sure…” She leaned against the controller station and sank to the ground, hands fisted in the trailing ends of her own robe. “Try as I might, I’m not an Archivist. I shouldn’t be here.”

Aliyah hesitated, a strange pang of alarm tugging at her chest. If they couldn’t get a new Archivist unless the previous one died, then Luxon didn’t have a real choice. Not if she’d known the traitor Archivist. It plucked a strangely familiar chord—Rana and Kionah and Zahir, she thought.

“You’re doing great,” she offered gamely. She tried to think back to how Zahir phrased encouragement, defused frustration. “It’s a good thing that you’re aware of what you don’t know. The circumference of a circle increases with its area. Your boundary against the unknown is larger than anyone else’s here. I’m sure your Titania, um, Serin, wouldn’t have asked for your help if you couldn’t give it.”

“Her name is Segin,” Luxon corrected gloomily. “And no, I’m almost certain that a freshly-hatched Archivist would know more.”

Aliyah kept quiet, mulling over the implications again. “Couldn’t you ask the former Archivist? Orion?”

“He’s practically severed,” Luxon said quietly. “A traitor.”

She was a traitor, too. The spymaster Lady Sadrava had been one as well, apparently. “How can you be sure?”

Luxon gave her a sharp look. “Trust me, I would like to believe he isn’t. I would’ve never thought…”

“Traitors still have information.”

“Perhaps,” Luxon bit out. “But the rhythms are so against him now. I shouldn’t…if he tricks me into tipping the balance, what then?”

“You think you wouldn’t be able to see a trick like that in advance?” Aliyah asked doubtfully. “It’d have to be a big change, wouldn’t it? You were just saying earlier, how the Hive wasn’t so fragile. You should…have some more self-assurance. Believe in yourself, that kind of thing. You don’t have to use any of his suggestions if you’re that worried. Have you spoken to him since…well, the poisoning?”

“No,” Luxon said, rising to her feet and brushing the dust off her robes. “Titania Segin suggested it after she called for me, and I…delayed. But I suppose there’s no putting it off anymore.”

===

The Archivist was a small, forlorn speck, wings wrapped tight around his body like a tattered shawl. He sat caged in a nucleus of pale glyphs and shining runes, the markings hooked and unfamiliar, cut like arrowheads.

Columns of runestone ringed the chamber, humming at a barely audible frequency. Luxon approached first; Aliyah was glad to be half-hidden by her wings. Pools of light erupted beneath their feet with each step, rippling threateningly across the stone.

The guards lingered outside the boundary, exactly where Luxon had ordered them to remain. By the time they drew into the Archivist’s speaking distance, Aliyah could no longer make out their anxious buzzing.

“Orion,” Luxon said. “I am here to speak with you.” There was no quaver to her voice now, no bubbly lilt. For all her earlier trepidation, Aliyah only saw the mask of an Archivist worn as comfortably as a bejeweled gown.

“Luxon,” he answered slowly. “It’s two moons too soon for you to have finished brewing. Trade tongue? They whispered of a human in the walls. I see. Why?”

His voice creaked with the timbre of stress, and perhaps dehydration. Aliyah wasn’t sure whether she was imagining it, but there was a dazedness to his face. His third eye blinked sluggishly, as if concussed.

“Circumstances beyond you shape the Hive’s will. For now, we have many questions.”

“I don’t know who the poisoner is,” he said. “I won’t know, no matter how many times I am asked the same questions. Parsec was a good friend, but it’s she they should be looking for.”

“I have new questions,” Luxon retorted sharply. “Magic-eaters. Countermeasures. If you want to live, then you will tell me everything you know.”

Orion seemed to shrink into himself, wings dulling to an even greyer shade. “I am nearly fully severed, fading by the day. I’m afraid you don’t have authority over whether I live or die.”

“I will—” Luxon began imperiously, and then stopped. She took a deep breath. “Orion, please. I’m not an Archivist, but the Archive will listen enough for this: I won’t let them sever you, much less kill you, until I finish the truth potions to determine things once and for all. Help us. That’s the best I can do.”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “I would help you. No need for threats or bribery. But Nephele and Eltanin and all the rest of them won’t see reason. The evidence they found is falsified. I never even used those hidden compartments. No one wants to be a Titania. Why would I? An Archivist is nothing without an Archive.”

“We know the Archivist is not a matter of mere title,” Luxon said. She shot Aliyah a sideways glance. “Us Hival creations are made, not born. But the Archivist and the Titania are hatched and not created.” She turned back to Orion. “And no amount of wishing on my behalf will change that. So tell me: can an Archive be killed?”

Orion blinked into a long silence.

“Anything can be done with enough power or time,” he said at last. “You mentioned magic-eaters. They can’t devour ambient power, or spells already placed. Certainly not whole Archives.” His gaze cut to Aliyah’s, and a tendril of unease formed in her chest at the unsteady blankness of his eyes. “It won’t work so directly. Luxon, is it a good idea to have a human here?”

“Did you mean to have asked her in words I can understand?” Aliyah muttered.

“Why are you here, strange mage?” he challenged. “I haven’t seen one of you in close to six seasons, and now you’re as close to the heart of our home as a human has ever been.”

“She doesn’t have to answer your questions,” Luxon said sharply.

“It seems your Hive needs me,” Aliyah said. She noted the slightest lifting of his spines, like hackles raised. “What’s wrong with me being here? Are you scared? What could I do to the Archive that a Thaumaphage can’t?”

His third eye snapped shut. “Nothing. Nothing at all. There would need to be several hundred of you, if not more. But the Thaumaphage? There’s your answer, Luxon. Right there.”

“What do you mean?” Luxon demanded, almost brandishing the scroll. “What answer, so simple as that? The texts don’t have one.”

“It isn’t only the texts,” Orion said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

There was a tense, icy silence that Aliyah didn’t know what to do with.

“Yes,” Luxon finally said. “I know. I can see the path. I see it so clearly, but I’ll never know its tread. So you’ll have to explain in clear and simple terms for me and for my mage friend here.”

“It’s already simple,” Orion said with a heavy sigh. “Water will move from an area of low solute to high solute. Oil will rise to the surface of the water. Natural principles govern the world, and magic tests these principles, but magic itself has habits of its own. The veil enclosing the Archive—”

Equilibrium and osmolarity, Aliyah thought. She had a fair idea of where this was going.

“—is permeable by design, Luxon. You may have learned how transfer of magic is only well-tolerated within one’s own species. It pains you how Archival magic does not cohere, except to an Archivist. What do you think could happen if a vast quantity of dis-cohesive magic—especially human magic—were taken deep enough into the Archive and released?”

“It will find its way out,” Luxon said, gripping the scroll tight enough for it to crumple. “Violently enough to tear the veil? But I thought…you always talked about the sea, the drainage to other places…”

Orion shrugged. “The outflow works for normal comings and goings. Our Archive is a magnificent specimen of its kind, but if the legendary Thaumaphage is filled and emptied, all at once? Too much, too targeted. It’s an easy vessel, and easily carried. A body will bleed dry when the wound is too large to repair.”

“You speak like it’s proven—like it’s happened before,” Aliyah said, hardly a question.

“Just the once, if you believe in the songs of shattered lands.” He paused, then trilled a high, clear note. “You know the one, Luxon?”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s an uncommon tale. Perhaps I would not have known it either, if Parsec never spoke to me of her origins. But the song is an old, fearful one. Are you certain this isn’t a lesser replica?”

“We’ve seen it at work,” Luxon said grimly. “Its description matches the reference compiled. Even if it isn’t, we treat it like it is. How do we shatter this ghastly thing?”

“How do you think?” Orion asked wearily. “Find weapons, or make them. Ask the Archives for components. Dredge up things strong enough to break the Thaumaphage. If a straightforward pull doesn’t work for you, search the Archivist tombs. Arm only those you trust and send them hunting. If the weapons are strong enough, then Generals would do well fighting proxy with fodder bodies. Put the Hive on high alert and lock down the Archive. But you know there are costs to these things. You’ll need honey to nourish such formations, and it will be a strain on the Titania. If I’m a traitor, you shouldn’t trust my judgment.”

“I don’t want to think you are,” Luxon snapped. “What else can I do?”

“Keep the Hive safe for as long as it takes to finish those truth potions, and I’ll prove my innocence.” He hesitated. “But you may not have that long. Is the Thaumaphage in the city? Find it quickly. You don’t want it breaking in here.”

“One more question,” Luxon said. “Could an Archivist hurt the Archive without needing any of that? Say, one as strong as you?”

Orion swept a glance over his cage. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “A rogue? No, it doesn’t work like that. But cohesion makes a difference. If it’s an Archivist against you, bypassing your locks would be easier. Navigation as well. You’ll have to restructure. Arrange a forbidden zone around the Archive. Seal off every tunnel leading in, but don’t count on that stopping another Archivist. Set traps. Barricade the routes to the far-sea as a precaution, if you’re able to. Brew a fortress-shell, even. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“I’ve never even been to the shore,” Luxon hissed. “Alright. Alright, I’ll try. Come on, Aliyah. Let’s go.”

“That’s it?” Aliyah asked as they walked back up the corridor. “Your Archivist can’t help against Zahir? Zahir, who’s being used to collect the magic in the first place?”

Luxon shuddered. “Fleshcrafting isn’t an Archivist’s domain. I’ll put in some requisition requests. We have spells to slow and pause and bind. You can drag him off to a cursed Breaker afterwards, if you must.”

Afterwards? she thought grimly. Afterwards might not be enough. She wasn’t going to count on anything short of an aneurysm stopping a Healer in his tracks, and maybe not even that.

“Have you got coin and armour ready?” Aliyah demanded. “I might need one of those weapons the Archivist was talking about, if your people want me to fight up close.”

Luxon touched a hand to the wall and cocked her head to the side. “Armour and weapons are being crafted as we speak. They’ve prepared a bower for you, not too far from my workstation…there’s cloth and gold moving too. Practice targets and lesser potions. Ask for anything else you need.”

Aliyah exhaled deliberately. “Have you got anyone who teaches how to fight?”

“I’ll see if a Lieutenant can be spared.” Luxon dropped her hand away from the wall. “But I thought you were impervious to the quelling sleep and most other fleshcrafter tricks.”

“I’m not,” Aliyah said, her mind already conjuring dark pictures. Vasodilation was the very least of it. “And even if I were, it still wouldn’t be enough.”