Canticle [Historical M/M Romantasy]

"I...do not understand, K'mrkad Senkov."

Genesis had been in K'atc'ayet for three months, two weeks. And still, he felt no closer to understanding what had become of the K'maneda. No amount of sliding through shadows after nightfall, watching the men reel through the streets as if half-asleep, or his efforts at cataloguing the great library's paltry collection of grimoires, had helped to make sense of anything.

He should have known better than to ask Senkov to explain. Instead of passing him a useful history book or opening a debate on what the K'maneda had become, Senkov had flashed him one of his hot-and-cold grins, the kind that always reminded Genesis of Earil, and had told him to pack up his things.

They were walking along the outermost ring road together, sticking to the shadows, headed toward the East Gate. The one Genesis had come through when he'd first dragged himself to K'atc'ayet, the heads of five of his brother's Imperial guards bouncing against his back in the sack he'd carried over one shoulder. Genesis had learned in short order that the First Debt was a thing of the past. But Senkov had been impressed enough by his efforts to keep him away from the humans who'd taken charge of the City of Glass, as they all called it now.

Senkov had told him that c'ayet was forgotten. He'd said that there was no children's house for him, no unsettled fighters' quarters for him to stay in if he debated the council well and convinced them that he was no longer s'ystet, even though he had no nis'yk to debate or fight beside him. The current council was meaningless. And there was no debating. Only obedience and cunning.

It had all made Genesis feel cold inside, made him want to call to his magic and wrap the shadows around himself like a second coat. But he'd learned how far he could test the bindings carved into his arms in London. He suspected he could push things further within the safety of K'atc'ayet, but he wasn't certain enough yet to try his luck.

Trying before he'd been prepared, before he'd been ready, was what had made every plan he'd made since he left the rooms he'd grown up in fall apart.

"There's nothing to worry about," Senkov said from beside him. Even if Senkov was strange, more Earil than K'anak, he'd always shown Genesis basic courtesy. He never walked ahead or behind, always beside. "But it is time that you found quarters of your own."

Genesis grinned in distaste, thinking of what he'd found out over the past months about the condition of each of K'atc'ayet's great buildings. "I will...choose a division?"

"Oh, Lord no," Senkov replied with one of his laughs. Also like Earil's, though Senkov's had more of a hissing edge. Genesis still was not certain what Senkov was. And he knew asking him would be futile.

"Then where?"

"With the other children, of course! I'd just been waiting for some decent prospects to arrive. Lucky for you, a whole k'asrat came in just two weeks ago. Well. It'll be a k'asrat once you convince them to let you join."

Genesis had expected Senkov to turn left at the courtyard in front of the East Gate. Down the road that cut to the heart of K'atc'ayet, toward the tower and the few other buildings still standing from when the City had been strong, had been c'ayet. Instead, he waved and called out to one of the two guards in dented, dull armor beside the East Gate, grabbing Genesis by the shoulder without warning and pushing him toward them.

Reflexively, Genesis hissed at Senkov, striking out at his arm before he could control himself. But Senkov was prepared; he held firm and met him with his own magic. Only once Senkov started speaking properly did Genesis begin to understand the sense to his manhandling.

"Comrades! Comrades, this urchin accosted me on my way back to the officers' dormitory! Are the guards so lax these days that even a child can outwit them?"

The two guards hurried over; the way the rattling of their armor and the squeaking of their boots echoed in the courtyard made Genesis wince and hiss again. He'd widened his senses when he'd lashed out at Senkov, preparing to fight. "Never seen this one before," one of the guards said. On the left, from the sound.

"So sorry, Comrade Major Senkov," the one on the right said. "Is that your bag he's got?"

Genesis heard the guard move, felt the disturbance in the dank fog that filled K'atc'ayet where none should have lingered, and dodged his attempt at taking the bag Senkov had told him to pack. He had every right to kick the guard's knee out for trying, but Genesis held himself back. Senkov had to be lying to them for a reason. Only waiting and watching would reveal what that reason was.

"No, I believe it's what he's been living out of. Not a very skilled thief, to be honest. It's nothing worth fighting him for, in any case. The child bites," Senkov said, waving his free hand at the guards. There was a ring of teethmarks on it that had not been there before. The redness that flowed from the manufactured bite smelled more like flowers, like fruit, than blood. Both the smell and the way the two guards took a few steps backward convinced Genesis to narrow his senses once more.

If the humans were foolish enough to believe Senkov's lies, that bite, then his full senses wouldn't be necessary to manage them.

"Want us to throw him out the gate, Comrade Major?" the guard on the right asked. "Sure the guild guard can handle the runt."

Senkov shook his head. "He needs to learn his lesson. Excellent material for the Boys Brigade, don't you think? Of course, I'd be willing to give you a cut of the finding if you make things easy. Comrades."

The two guards exchanged wide smiles that showed their teeth. Like Earil when he wanted to fight. The guard on the left turned that smile down at Genesis as he answered. Genesis bared his teeth back at him. "Sure thing, Comrade Major. Not a problem."

- - -

When K'atc'ayet had been strong, when it had been full of fighters who understood the meaning of c'ayet, the building had been used for study. Full of cells meant to narrow the senses, to limit distractions, to allow for the practice of complicated magic that could taint the chaos that fueled K'atc'ayet's wandering. Now it was a prison.

Senkov had left him at the front steps with a warning to the guards not to touch him, that it wasn't worth their fingers. He said Genesis would obey well enough with a sword at his back. Then Senkov had winked and walked away, his hands hidden in the long sleeves of the frivolous robes he always wore. Senkov had taught Genesis early what a wink meant, that odd gesture made by closing one eye and quirking up the corner of one's mouth. It meant to trust him. Other than his brother, Senkov had been the only person he'd met outside the rooms he'd been raised in who seemed worth trusting.

Genesis hoped he was not misjudging this situation as poorly as he had the one involving his brother. But the smell he was met with when the guards opened the door to the low, wide building and threatened him inside with the tips of their swords, made Genesis suspect he had made yet another error in judgment.

He clutched the bag full of grimoires tight to his chest, a shield against the stench. Genesis narrowed his senses as far as he could while still being able to hear the guards' movements, their words, and see all the details of the long, filth-filled hallway ahead. The hallway remained as it should be, as it had been built, wide to accommodate the height and limbs of five dozen different peoples. But the cells along either side of it were shut up with locks and wards even thicker than those on the building's front door.

At the end of the hall, there was, as Genesis had anticipated, a stairway that led down to the basement cells. Cells meant for scholars with senses like his own, whose concentration could be disturbed by magic and sound out in the street even with temporary wards in place. Another guard was posted at the top of the stairs, slumped over and asleep in a chair. He reeked so strongly of liquor that Genesis could smell it from the front door, despite having narrowed his senses. And despite all the other smells that filled the hall in such an oppressive haze Genesis felt it as a physical weight on his shoulders.

Excrement. Sweat. Blood. Everything a body could release hung thick in the air. As Genesis permitted himself to be prodded toward the stairs, he took stock of the building's locked away occupants to distract himself from the stench. The wards on the rooms were inexpert, though the physical locks appeared sturdy. Four presences in each cell, though some held only three or two. Genesis wondered at that discrepancy.

"Bart! Bart, get up, you piece of shit," the guard behind and to his left called out to the sleeping man by the stairs. "Got fresh meat for you."

The man awoke with a cough, turning his head. He dug underneath his cuirass for something. A crude stone with some kind of enchantment on it. Genesis couldn't focus well enough through the stench to guess the enchantment's purpose by feel. "What are you waking me up for, you gobshites?" the man slurred at the guards, his voice made so indistinct by the liquor that Genesis had to strain to understand him. "Put 'im in the cell by the door, Martin can sort 'im out in the morning."

One of the guards poked Genesis in the back with the tip of his sword. Genesis gripped his grimoires more tightly, closing his mouth and forcing himself not to breathe in an attempt to focus, to remain aware of his surroundings without becoming so distracted by the stench. He could kill all three of the guards without using his magic, Genesis was certain. But Senkov had not sent him into the prison for that reason.

Genesis was beginning to understand. He was there to liberate the prison's inmates. If no one else had freed them yet, there had to be a reason. Caution was warranted.

"Won't do, Comrade Major Senkov ordered. Gotta put him in the basement with the worst."

The drunk guard, stumbling up out of his chair, did not appear to be convinced by the other guard's words alone. Rubbing at his eye with one hand, he extended the stone out toward Genesis with the other. Genesis did not reach out to it with his magic. And yet, the stone turned black, then cracked into five pieces in the guard's palm.

Five pieces. That made Genesis feel less like he'd misjudged things. But it was not nearly enough to counteract how the stench made his insides twist into knots.

The drunk guard cursed and dropped the pieces, rubbing at his eyes now with both of his filth-streaked fists. Genesis hoped it would sicken and blind him, even if not that night. But humans, from what Genesis had seen of them thus far, seemed surprisingly resilient against disease, considering their overall frailness. "What the hell did you bring me, you pricks? Take 'im to Martin, I ain't paid to muck about with this kind of magic."

"Comrade Major Senkov ordered," the guard behind and to his left repeated.

The guard was still drunk, but becoming more alert. Heartbeat and breath rising, eyes locked down on him. Genesis forced himself to stare back. "Ah, fuck it. I'll throw him in with the angel. Either he'll kill the runt or the runt'll kill him, and I'll have one less piece of shit to deal with."

Genesis held firm against the swords jabbed into his back, pushing him toward the stairs. It made no logical sense. He would have been able to sense an Imperial angel, even over all the filth and rot in that place. The bindings on his arms would have responded. But their magic was little more than a nuisance still, like they always were in K'atc'ayet, a minor chafing against his senses. Before going down the steps, he needed to think things through.

He wasn't permitted that chance. When he refused to be goaded by the swords at his back, the drunk guard took hold of him by the arm and forced him down the stairs. Genesis hissed, recoiled, but was too disgusted by the thought of having to touch those filthy hands, the guard's odious body, to force him into letting him go.

"Careful now!" the guard behind and to his right called out with a laugh. "Comrade Major says he's bitey."

"You bite me, and I'll rip out your tongue, magic or not," the drunk guard slurred down at him as he hauled him down the stairs.

Genesis doubted the man to be capable of it. But he was too distracted by what he felt ahead of him to respond.

He widened his senses, to be certain of what he felt. The cells in the basement were arranged as the t'akkak said they would be, narrower still than the ones above. It was darker in the basement, the hall lit only by a single magelight at its middle. That was a small comfort to Genesis, even though the smell was worse there. The locks on the doors were more numerous. Larger, made of materials to enhance the potency of the magic that had been cast over them. The wards on the basement room had been cast by a better mage than the ones upstairs, someone who was intent on keeping the prisoners from sensing one another. Though Genesis widened his senses as far as he could stand, he couldn't sense anything past these wards. No heartbeats. No breaths. No magic.

The drunk guard forced him onward to the very end of the hall. To the last door on the left. He drew a knife from his belt and kept it ready while he dug in his filthy trousers for a ring of keys.

Genesis put the guard out of mind. He was no true threat. Though the wards on the basement cells were strong, whatever was behind that final door was stronger still. Genesis could hear a heartbeat on the other side, slow, even. And there was a breathing that was so loud it could be heard through the door even by human ears, Genesis suspected. The faint traces of magic Genesis could sense through the wards were puzzling.

Chaos and order. Water and fire. And yet, only one heartbeat. Only one breath. The incompetent men who were running the prison must not have understood what they were dealing with. No Imperial angel felt like that.

Unless it was a Southern angel? But the t'akakk that had been written during the time of K'atc'ayet's captivity had said all the Southerners were enslaved or dead, and the only one Genesis had seen felt nothing like—

Unwillingly, Genesis was drawn out of his thoughts by the clank of a key in the great lock set above the doorknob as the guard grasped him by the arm again. The lock wasn't surrounded by filth, Genesis realized, now that he'd widened his senses. The door was covered in scorch marks, fine soot from a flame that'd come and gone.

The guard laughed as he opened the door, kicking it ajar with the toe of his boot. "Best of luck to ye, runt."

Then the guard shoved Genesis into the cell, and he was too overwhelmed by what was inside to hear anything else.

It was an angel. Or perhaps a partial one rather than a full-blood. Certainly not an Imperial angel, not one of the Pure. All the cell had in it was a horrible, filthy mattress, nearly as large as the cell itself. The angel was spread out atop it on his stomach. His wings pulsed with light, just like an Imperial angel's did.

The horrible, loud breathing, echoing in the narrow cell, cut off. And the angel lifted his head, scrubbing at his eyes with one filthy hand, just like the drunk guard had.

Red eyes. Genesis had never seen an angel with red eyes.

When the angel spoke, it took Genesis a moment to understand him. He didn't speak in English. He spoke in Senkov's first language, albeit a strange form of it, some sounds slurred together, others drawn out long. Genesis had always wondered why Senkov had taught him a language no one else in K'atc'ayet spoke and that few of his grimoires were written in. A horrible coldness came over Genesis as he put the pieces together, a creeping chill that ran up and down his arms and made him fear the whole building was infested with some sort of terrible, invisible insect.

"Are you going to try to kill me too?"

- - -

For a second, K'aekniv thought he was still dreaming. That something from home had finally found him in that terrible, ugly demon city Father Sergei had sent him to.

K'aekniv had never seen a boy spirit before. Spirits were always ugly old women, or beautiful young women, or men who had been mixed with animals or trees. The boy standing by the door, a bag half as big as he was hugged against his chest, looked like one of those half-drowned women spirits when they turned mean. He was bony and white and his eyes were all black. A little like if someone had shrunk Zima down and had taken away all his magic but left him his big sharp teeth.

"I have...no reason to kill you."

He even spoke a weird Russian, like spirits did. All sharp and hissing, with some backwards accent. K'aekniv tried to think of who he'd pissed off heading west who might have sent something after hm. He did look like Zima. But Zima had sent him after his granddaughter, not a grandson. Maybe there were breasts hidden under that bag.

It couldn't hurt to ask, K'aekniv supposed. You weren't supposed to ask a spirit right away who they were, but K'aekniv had never been good at riddles. And this spirit was scrawny. He could fight him if he needed to. "Who are you, huh? Did Zima send you?"

The boy showed his teeth. They were pointy, like Zima's. But white instead of full of dried blood and ice. "I do not...know a Zima. Explain."

K'aekniv waved him off. He couldn't be a spirit, then. No spirit from home wouldn't know the old gods, the ones who moved the seasons. "Whatever. Kill me or let me go back to sleep, I don't care."

Instead of pulling a knife, the boy kept staring at him. With those weird eyes that were all black, with his back pressed against the door. K'aekniv couldn't figure out which he was going to do, run or fight. And he was too tired to care. K'aekniv put his head back down on his arms and tried to get comfortable again on that piece of shit mattress and the pillow he'd made out of all the dirty uniforms he'd saved.

K'aekniv was on the edge of sleep when he heard the boy talk again, in that weird accent of his. "You...smell terrible."

K'aekniv didn't bother lifting his head. "Fuck off, I'm trying to sleep."

"You have...been a prisoner here for some time."

That got his attention. K'aekniv lifted his head, just far enough to keep an eye on the boy in the glow of his winglight. "Prisoner? I came here to work. But the work's shit everywhere, no surprise. Some demon city this is..."

The boy made himself as tall as he could when K'aekniv mentioned the city. Not that it mattered. If K'aekniv had the energy to get to his feet, the boy would only come halfway up his chest. But there was something weird about the boy spirit that made him feel bigger, like he was hiding some part of himself. Magic, probably. All the boys and men they'd thrown in with him had been full of magic.

"This is not...what K'atc'ayet once was. There were never any prisons in K'atc'ayet. Prisons are cayet."

Those weird words the boy hissed at him, they weren't Russian. And they weren't English either, K'aekniv though. English didn't have so many click-clack noises in it. All of it made K'aekniv's headache worse. He'd been able to get out of the irons they'd put him in, again and again, but whatever magic chains the bastard mages who ran the city had put on his room to keep him from burning his way out gave him a headache. Like something was always pulling away his magic, making him so hungry he could never get to sleep.

K'aekniv couldn't think of anything to say to the boy, couldn't do much of anything through his headache and the constant pain in his gut from it being empty. "What?"

"This city. Its name...is K'atc'ayet."

K'aekniv heaved himself up just far enough to wave one hand at the boy spirit. "Whatever. It's the demon city. Now shut up and go to sleep or leave me alone."

The boy started talking to himself in a language K'aekniv didn't understand. He did his best to ignore it. He'd slept through worse ever since he'd left Father Sergei and the Mothers behind.

He was half asleep when the boy bothered him again. That time, K'aekniv lifted his head all the way. He'd come close enough to poke at him with the toe of his boot, so quiet K'aekniv didn't know he'd moved until he felt cold against his arm. "What?"

"There is...insufficient room."

"Huh?"

The boy clacked his teeth, and for a second K'aekniv thought about bashing him into the wall just so that he could be left alone long enough to sleep a bit before dawn. But he was too tired to get up. And the boy still hadn't pulled a knife or a sword on him. "I will...work in the southeast corner. If this is acceptable."

"Whatever! I don't care! Just leave me alone!"

That time, when K'aekniv fell back asleep, he stayed asleep. And when he woke up again at the sound of the bell down the hall that meant that bitch Andy was coming to get them for breakfast, everything inside the room he'd been locked up in for two weeks had changed.

- - -

Genesis had not brought adequate cleaning potions to manage the task at hand. But he'd at least brought enough to clear a space to work in.

It was difficult to concentrate with the giant angel making his loud breathing noises all night. The first task Genesis had set himself to after cleaning had been finding the proper word for it in the English dictionary from his bag. An easy puzzle, a way to learn to balance his senses, leaving them wide enough to study the wards on the room but narrow enough that he wasn't overwhelmed by the horrible noise.

Snoring. In English, it was called snoring. Genesis had not thought bring Senkov's Russian dictionary. Once he had liberated the prison, he would demand one from Senkov as the debt he owed him for throwing him into that place without adequate preparation.

After that was finished, Genesis turned his attention to other matters.

The wards were inexact, complex in the inartful way they'd been put together. He would need to study them for another night to be able to break them. Even worse, for some reason they worked together with the binding magic on his arms in an odd way, albeit one Genesis suspected was unintentional. The wards on the room bore no trace of Imperial spellcraft, the precision that made it so effective. But still, the wards made the bindings feel raw, like a knife was still digging into his flesh. It would be inadvisable to use his own magic to break through them. But he suspected the angel on the bed had more than enough potential to accomplish it, provided it was properly directed. And that the angel was agreeable to it.

The longer Genesis studied the sleeping angel, his magic, the more Genesis was convinced that he was not some sort of Southerner who had escaped the Empire's purge. He had to be something in between, like he was. Not for the first time since he'd left his rooms, Genesis found himself grateful that he'd inherited so few angelic traits from his mother. Like the need to sleep constantly, as the angel on the bed did.

Partial angel. An inexact term, but it would need to suffice until he could ask him directly what he was.

Once he had settled on a course of action and secured his notes, Genesis set himself to cleaning more of the room with what little magic he could call to through the bindings and the wards. Though it was wasteful to use the chaos in such a fashion, Genesis found it restful. Reassuring, watching the shadows eat away the filth and the blood and the other stains he didn't want to think of the provenance of, until the floor and the walls were scraped clean. Underneath all the muck, the room proved to have been mostly unaltered since it'd last served its intended purpose. Walls of plain, dark gray stone, each precisely the same width and height, the floor made of dark wood from a distant realm. The years had warped the wood, but a sufficiently talented mage would be able to restore it, Genesis thought.

Many sufficiently talented mages would be needed to return K'atc'ayet to what it once was. Genesis suspected he wouldn't find any in the basement.

The only alteration that'd been made to the study cell were the brackets on the wall. Mountings for chains. There were seven metal chainlinks scattered about the room, most of them wedged underneath the edge of the straw and sackcloth mattress. Genesis wondered if the partial angel was intending to craft a weapon out of them with his fire magic.

The partial angel. No matter how hard Genesis concentrated, he couldn't put his snoring out of mind. Or his stench. He was contemplating whether or not it would be advisable to use his magic to clean him too when the racket began at the end of the hall outside the door.

The banging of metal on metal, and a voice shouting over it. "Breakfast! Up and get your breakfast, lads! You'll be at the transporter in an hour!"

Over on the disgusting mattress, the partial angel threw an arm over his head and flared out his wings. "Fuck off...sleeping..."

Genesis remained crouched beside the door, silent and listening.

The banging stopped. Now that he'd learned how to match his senses to the magic of the wards, he could hear some of what was happening in the hall. More metal on metal, soft, and footsteps. Whoever had been banging before must now be collecting the prisoners. Starting from near the staircase. Genesis estimated he had fifteen minutes to think of what he'd do with the opportunity posed by being let out into the hall.

"What the hell?"

Genesis glanced back at the partial angel. He was propped up on his elbows, staring at him with his red eyes.

"What's all that?" the partial angel asked, when Genesis neither moved nor spoke. He waved one giant hand at the corner Genesis had begun his preliminary work in. Since there was so little space on the floor left with the mattress in the way, he had stuck his notes to the walls.

"...a spell," Genesis said, when the boy wouldn't stop looking at him. He'd learned since he'd left his rooms that when others looked at him that way, they expected him to speak, even when there was nothing to be said.

"What for?"

"To destroy the...wards on this room."

The partial angel waved his hand at the corner again. "Then blow it up already!"

"It is incomplete."

"Better hide it then," he said, as he crawled up onto his knees, shaking out his wings. Feathers flew through the air, and Genesis's fingers twitched at his sides despite his efforts to maintain his self-control. The boy had been awake for not even one minute, and already he'd made a mess. "If that bitch Andy sees it, he'll call Martin down to beat you for sure."

Genesis pressed as much of his magic as he dared through the bindings on his arms. It would suffice, if the guards' magic was as sloppy as their defenses. He sent the notes partially into the Abyss with a twitch of three fingers.

"What's your name, huh?" the partial angel asked as he got up onto his knees.

"...Genesis."

The boy made that odd expression again. Something like a frown. Perhaps it only looked so odd because his features were as large as everything else on him. "Isn't that some book? I think the Mothers read that to me once...whatever. I'm K'aekniv. Niv, since you didn't try to kill me."

Genesis grinned in distaste as he tried to parse the sounds that made up the partial angel's name. "I require the spelling."

"The what?"

"Your...name. The spelling."

"How am I supposed to know? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Are you fighting with us now?"

Genesis saw little other option than to fight alongside them for the time being, though he doubted that whatever mage was in charge of the prison would set them to an honorable contract. He nodded.

"I'll try to help you out when I can. But I always get put up front, and you should stay in the back with Mordka and Pasha."

"...why?"

The boy — K'aekniv, though he couldn't be certain of it, without knowing its spelling — made another face at him, his eyebrows moving up high, spreading apart. "You've fought before?"

Again, Genesis nodded. He was growing tired of the boy's constant questions. He must have been raised among humans to ask so many.

"I guess we'll see. Don't waste your strength on Andy if he pushes you around. You'll need it for later."

Genesis had been unconvinced of the sincerity of the boy's willingness to protect him. But when the guard came to their room and unlocked it, K'aekniv was up on his feet before the door opened, putting himself between the guard in the hall and him. It was an unnecessary maneuver. But it showed to Genesis that K'aekniv's spirit had not been broken by the prison the Hall of Concentration had been turned into by the ones who'd corrupted K'atc'ayet. There was potential there.

Even if it'd take five hours in a bath to get the filth out of his wings.

- - -

K'aekniv had thought the day couldn't get any weirder than the way it'd started out. But at every turn, that boy spirit with the book name made it worse.

The guards had left the boy spirit by him, putting themselves between them and the other boys as they trudged across the parade grounds to get breakfast. K'aekniv hadn't fought any of the guards since the first day they'd let him out, but they still remembered the beating. At least one of them always kept their eyes on him. K'aekniv wondered why they'd left the boy spirit with him instead of pulling him out to go with the rest. Maybe they were hoping K'aekniv would be too distracted by him to bitch too much.

"We get shit breakfast here. Bread, maybe an apple," K'aekniv said.

The boy spirit didn't say anything. Just kept watching everything, like he was counting up all the boys and the guards and figuring out his odds. His eyes were different now than they'd been last night, blue instead of black. But still not normal, weird in a way K'aekniv couldn't put his finger on, the same as the rest of him.

All the quiet made K'aekniv's wings itch. He'd have given anything to be up ahead with the others, the people he'd brought with him from home. He could see Ilya's head over those of the other boys, but not Pavel's or Mordecai's. There was still blood all over Ilya's white-yellow hair from yesterday.

"What's your name again?"

"...Genesis."

"Whatever, I'll come up with something later. Next they'll sit us all down out here, and we'll chew that shit bread until Martin decides what he wants us to do. Then they'll give us a few swords maybe, and they'll send us through that thing." K'aekniv pointed off toward the other side of the field, at the big silver magic door that opened into the horrible black place. "To go fight somewhere."

Genesis was showing his teeth at everything again. K'aekniv wasn't sure if he was just bad at smiling, or if that face meant something else. And he was squinting like it was noon, even though it was cold and cloudy like it always was in that terrible demon city. "This is...cayet."

Was he trying to curse, but just couldn't make the words come out right? K'aekniv was too tired to think about it. Everyone else had sat down when the guards yelled at them, so K'aekniv did too, even though none of the guards tried to order him around. Genesis didn't sit. But he did stay close. "Martin will be over soon, I'm sure," K'aekniv said, spreading out his wings on the ground behind him, so that the big feathers didn't get bent worse than they already were. "Since you're still alive."

The weird smile-frown went away from Genesis's face. "How many...have you killed?"

K'aekniv didn't like thinking about it. But he couldn't forget the number if he'd wanted to. "Five. But they tried killing me first! I'm not some animal."

"They...act as if you are one."

"That's because they're a bunch of bastards." K'aekniv sighed as he watched the scared woman make the rounds with the bread basket, throwing out the loaves, her eyes always on the guards instead of them. "Just bread today. Shit, I'm hungry..."

"Angels require...more food than humans to remain effective. Or they require more sleep. You are...being denied both."

That got K'aekniv to sit up straight again. "Fuck off, I'm not some bastard angel. What do you know about it anyway?"

Genesis's head was tilted on one side. And he looked down at him without blinking. K'aekniv screwed a hand around and tried to scratch the itch out of the wing he could reach. "Then...what are you?"

He had to stop thinking about Genesis like he was dealing with a normal person. He looked like a spirit, so he'd treat him like a spirit. And with spirits, everything was tricks and bargains. Maybe he could get something going now that he was more awake. "I'll tell you what I am if you tell me what you are."

Genesis put his hands behind his back. K'aekniv didn't like it, not one bit. He was watching the guards now, not him. Martin had to be heading their way, off from where the rich mages slept on the east side of the city. The guards all had their hands on their swords and were trying not to look like they'd spent all of last night drinking. "This is fair. My nis'yk was a demon of no house. I will...call myself the same."

K'aekniv laughed. "A demon? Maybe Father Sergei was right after all."

"...explain."

"My father — my real father — he sent me here to get stronger. He said this demon city would be full of strong men and ways to make gold. I'm bringing it all back to my family." K'aekniv paused. The boy spirit had kept up his end of the bargain. Better not to trick him first thing. "My mother was a witch, Nadezhda Moroz. Whoever the bastard was who made the other half of me, I don't care. I'm like her."

"A...human witch?"

"A witch is a witch. I don't know anything else. She's always been dead."

Genesis pointed with his chin toward the road, the one all the guards were looking down. "Tell me about this...Martin."

"Martin? He's a piece of shit. You know the kind of guy, thinks he's tough because he can push some little people around. All the other mages here hate him, so he's stuck with us. The Boys Brigade," he added, the English words coming out thick and rough. "Sometimes he calls out some boys from the school to fight with us, sometimes we go alone."

"The school." K'aekniv saw Genesis turn out of the corner of his eye, toward the big building to their right. The one next to the place where they all were locked up at night. "They have...made the children's house a school. This is...reasonable."

"Not good for anything. When they send the boys from in there out with us, more people just end up getting it." K'aekniv's eyes skimmed over the guards who were all still waiting and watching for Martin. "Some of the sergeants are all right. You know, old guys who are too beat up to do normal work any more. They come with Martin. But most of them are just as shit as those boys and the guards."

Genesis was silent again, and K'aekniv gave up on trying to reach his wings to scratch them, flopping onto his back and rubbing against the ground instead. He'd have given anything for a tree right then. But the demon city had no trees in it, and they were sitting on the only patch of grass there was. "What of...the mages?"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Huh?"

Again, Genesis pointed with his chin, that time at the boys sitting and talking and gnawing through breakfast on the other side of the guards. "There are...some with exceptional magical potential."

K'aekniv laughed. "The smart ones! And the small ones."

"You...are correct. It is mostly the smaller ones."

"Wait and see. Martin will test you as soon as he gets here," K'aekniv said with a wave of his hand, putting on his most friendly smile as the woman with the bread basket made their way over to them. But when she saw Genesis, she froze up, her eyes going wide.

K'aekniv scraped together all the English he knew to try to talk her into coming closer. "Sister! So hungry! Please, bread?"

She didn't look like she heard him. Genesis spoke up instead, all without ever turning and looking the bread woman in the eyes. The woman hurried over, dumped what was left in her basket in K'aekniv's lap without looking down at him, and ran away again before K'aekniv could even say thank you.

Shrugging, he said it to Genesis instead. "What did you tell her?" he asked, holding out one of the three loaves he'd scored to him.

Genesis wouldn't take it. He only shook his head.

"No wonder you're so bony," K'aekniv grumbled. But it was a good thing, in the end, K'aekniv supposed. If he had his mouth full when Martin showed up, the odds were better that it wouldn't get him in trouble.

And Martin did show up, while K'aekniv was chewing his way through his second loaf. Andy ran to meet him, coming up close to talk to Martin and pointing in their direction. The fact that Martin brought all three of the sergeants he'd called up for that day's fighting with him instead of just old Ron with his bag of swords over his shoulder wasn't good.

Martin was the same kind of man K'aekniv kept running into again and again in his life. In the village, it'd always been the man who'd started out with nothing but lucked into a few extra rows to plow or a spare cow or three and thought that made him the smartest man around. On the long walk to the city, it'd always been soldiers or guards who went making trouble so that they could look good when they fixed it.

And now it was Martin, with his big fancy mage cassock with all the silver stitching on its sleeves and around its neck and his tiny thin mustache that matched his tiny thin eyebrows. Martin put his hands behind his back just like Genesis did and came over and stared down at them with his hard, dark eyes. Maybe the hand thing was something big English mages did to scare each other.

K'aekniv knew a problem that was above him when he saw it. He tore the next loaf in two and settled back to watch the show.

- - -

"Who are you?"

Genesis did not answer the question. He had no obligation to. He owed this cayet mage nothing. Nothing but the removal of his head, which was what was due every individual who kept slaves.

And that's what all of those people on the field were: slaves, made to fight without debate or reason. Genesis had studied each of the seventy-three boys, and of those, the twenty-two who were closest in appearance to men and had the most magical potential wore copper bands around their wrists. A few of the smaller ones with greater magical potential had escaped being chained, perhaps because the mage who was now interrogating him had misjudged them. Or perhaps it was so the larger ones would not kill them and make them useless for fighting.

"I'm talking to you, boy."

Genesis turned his attention back to the mage. The mage made some small, cutting gesture at the guard who had pulled them up out of the basement, and he stepped forward and cuffed Genesis upside the head. Genesis adjusted his stance so that he didn't fall face-first down into the dirt, but did not retaliate. K'aekniv had told him not to waste his strength on Andy. And, thus far, the partial angel had proven to be knowledgeable about what was happening. Even if he lacked knowledge of anything else.

Something made the mage's brows lower. He slipped one hand into his robes and drew out a stone similar to the one the night guard had possessed. And like the night guard's, it broke before Genesis could study it long enough to sort out the enchantments on it. But at least it broke into five pieces, the same as the one before it had.

"That's how he made it through the night," the man to the mage's left, with a bag of swords slung over his shoulder, said to him. "Even bird boy's magic didn't do that."

Martin sighed, letting the broken pieces of stone fall to the ground. Genesis stared at them, wishing he could pick them up, as he listened to the men debate what to do with him. "Who did you say brought him in?" Martin asked.

"Comrade Major Senkov, m'lord," the one named Andy replied.

The anger was so clear in Martin's voice that Genesis had no difficulty recognizing it. Martin sounded exactly the way Riael, the head of his brother's guard, had sounded before he broke something. "I should have known that bastard was involved."

"You'll want to be careful then," the man with the swords said to Martin. "Senkov's always up to something. Better leave this one alone."

There was a long silence. Genesis raised his head just in time to see Martin take two copper bracelets out of the front pocket of his robes. The two men who'd arrived with him who carried nothing exchanged a look Genesis didn't know the meaning of and took a few steps closer to him.

Genesis didn't have time to think. Didn't have the opportunity to reason. Drawing in a deep, hissing breath, he narrowed his senses and focused on the bracelets in Martin's hands. There were runes carved into them — he recognized the spellwork, how it put together things that didn't match in the hopes of strength but fell short. It was weak where the different magicks were joined together. And the bindings that were already carved into him did not respond as the two men took hold of his arms and held them out toward Martin and the bracelets.

He could break them, if given time to study. But something inside of Genesis still recoiled, still went so hot it shifted right away to cold, as the mage put the bracelets on his wrists. He couldn't control his reactions. Genesis writhed and hissed and seethed against the bracelets, as he felt the spells on them try to engage. But the bindings that already held him, that were a constant, infernal ticking in the back of his mind, refused to permit another master to take control of him.

Distantly, Genesis heard some of the guards making those sharp, noisy exhales — laughter. All around him, everything was towering humans and armor smeared with grease and rows of yellowing, uneven, bared teeth. He couldn't stand it any longer. Genesis closed his eyes and pulled in hard on his senses and let the chaos rise up in his chest, refusing to see and hear and smell any more.

His internal sense of time distorted. Genesis wasn't certain how much time had passed before he was startled back to himself by the overwhelming reek of sweat and the feel of something rough and hot tapping his cheek. As he opened his eyes, Genesis struck out. It was pointless. The partial angel was crouched down next to him; he didn't react to the smack in the chest.

"Hey! Hey, are you good?"

Genesis shook his head, taking stock of his surroundings. He was on the ground, curled in on himself. The mage and his guards had left to survey the other boys. A dull, scratched sword had been left on the ground beside him. Genesis looked down at the copper bracelets that'd been put on his wrists. Already, they'd turned green, the runes scratched into them blurred and indistinct. But the other bindings — the ones that had been crafted by a much greater mage — had been irritated by the bracelets' presence. Those runes, the ones that had been carved into his flesh, had risen up into angry, red welts.

When he didn't reply immediately, K'aekniv kept on talking, his red eyes fixed on him in a way that Genesis disliked. "It'll be fine, don't worry about it. Martin tried those on me too. I know how to get out of them. I'll help you with them tonight."

"I...do not understand."

"Huh?"

Genesis didn't even know where to begin with all the things he didn't understand. Over by the transporter, the other prisoners were moving, getting to their feet and lining up. The guards were eager to kick and hit any of them who did not respond to commands quickly enough.

"Whatever," the partial angel said, holding out both his hands to him as he rose back to his feet. By the number and length of his feathers, Genesis understood that the partial angel was as young as he was. But he was already only two hands shorter than he remembered K'anak being. "Like I said, stay back with Mordka and Pasha. They'll help you out. But you'd better bring that sword too, just in case."

Genesis stood as well. The partial angel made an odd face at him. "I...do not require an...inferior sword."

K'aekniv sighed, looking down at his hands still held out in a gesture Genesis didn't understand. "I tried," he said, his voice so low and his accent so thick that Genesis could barely make out his words.

"Yes. I am...in your debt. For your consideration." Genesis looked back at the other prisoners. The ones who had been forced into bracelets would be incapable of defending themselves, Genesis understood now. It made his purpose more clear, made all the partial angel's constant talking make more sense. "I will repay it today."

- - -

It had been another normal day of shit work. Hauling big crates and bags for the mages and the soldiers who were real fighters. K'aekniv always watched the real fighters whenever they were allowed to stop and take a break in that weird, rocky land beyond the silver gate and the horrible dark place between. Some of the officers running after those real fighters seemed good, younger versions old Ron who passed out and took away their swords every day. Others were like the guards who wanted to see them die, and like Martin. Every time they let them rest and watch the free soldiers, K'aekniv tried to think of some way to get their attention, to make them see that there were people who could fight in the Boys Brigade. People who deserved to fight like real men instead of getting ordered around like peasants. But nothing he did ever worked. It was frustrating.

That night, though, K'aekniv had something new to be mad at. At least it felt different, even if in the end it was the same.

K'aekniv tried to make his voice as quiet as he could as they waited for Bart to come unlock their door and give them their supper and shove them inside for the night. Either the boy demon didn't hear him, or didn't want to hear him. K'aekniv knocked Genesis in the shoulder before asking the question for what felt like the hundredth time. "Where did you put it? What kind of thief are you?"

His eyes had gone black again, since they were back inside. He looked up at K'aekniv with a face that said as little as his mouth.

"Don't be a bitch," K'aekniv said, waving his finger in his face. "I saw you take it out when those big cat things came for us over those rocks. You have a good sword too."

Genesis nodded, once. Then went back to watching Bart and Martin lock the others up.

K'aekniv had had it. He stopped trying to be quiet, eyeing up his friends across the hall, four doors down. "Hey! Hey, Mordka! You've got magic that moves stuff. Where do you put your things when you want to hide them?"

Mordecai shrugged. Beside him, Pavel's eyes went white and he tried to shush him as Martin and Bart both turned to see what the noise was.

It worked like he'd wanted. Beside him, the boy demon made a bunch of hissing and clicking noises. He did it all the time; K'aekniv figured it had to be whatever language he spoke back at home. "Tell me," K'aekniv insisted, as Martin and Bart hurried through the boys they'd been working on over by the stairs, so that they could come deal with them.

"Do not...be an idiot."

"Tell me!"

"In...time."

"Fuck you! I want to know! If you're hi—"

Bart dropped his big bag of fresh chains with a curse and came running over. K'aekniv fixed a smile on his face, and Genesis just kept hissing to himself, pulling down on the sleeves of his uniform. "You gonna cause trouble now?" Bart yelled at the both of them, drawing his knife.

"I kill him," K'aekniv said in the best English he could, hitting Genesis in the shoulder. Not too hard, but hard enough to make it look like he meant it.

Genesis answered too. For once, K'aekniv didn't feel bad about being shit at English. From the looks of things, Bart didn't understand what the boy demon said either. He just rolled his eyes and dug out his keys. "If you want to kill each other, you don't need no supper. Get in there!"

The boy demon looked almost happy to get back in the room. But K'aekniv understood "no supper" and pulled himself up to his full height, flaring out his wings. "Yes supper!"

"No supper!" Bart yelled back at him. And kicked him hard in the balls. K'aekniv collapsed in on himself, and Bart's next kick sent him in past the threshold. The door was shut and locked before K'aekniv could get back on his feet, leaving him with nothing to do but curse and kick the door instead of beating Bart.

"...stop."

"Fuck off! I want my bread!"

K'aekniv felt a cold hand on his arm. He turned and looked, and found Genesis holding out a bag to him. Still cursing under his breath, K'aekniv took it and opened it. Inside were at least two dozen apples.

"Thief!" K'aekniv laughed, reaching out to pat the boy demon's head. Genesis ducked away and hunkered back down in the corner where he'd hidden all his magic books before K'aekniv could show his appreciation. "Where'd you get all these from?"

"You will...require adequate food to break the wards." Genesis paused, twitching his fingers at the dark corner. All his books and papers appeared. And the bracelets that'd been put on him that morning fell from his wrists, all green and thin like they were two hundred years old.

K'aekniv decided to take it easy. He flopped down on his stomach on the mattress, propping himself up on his elbows as he started to eat his way through the bag full of apples. They were fresh, even. He'd have killed someone for a good stew or some potatoes to go with it, but it was better than nothing. "Are you going to show me your sword?" he asked through a mouthful.

"...no."

"If you've got some secret place you can put anything in with some magic, why did you let old Ron take my swords back, huh? It'd be easy getting through if I had them," K'aekniv said, gesturing at the door across from him as he crunched down the last of the apple core. After thinking about it, he decided to eat the stem too. It couldn't hurt anything. And a full stomach was the most important part of getting good sleep.

"Your swords are...very large. That sergeant is perceptive."

"Yeah, old Ron isn't so bad," K'aekniv admitted with a shrug. "But I still want to see your sword."

Genesis propped his book carefully on his knees and fixed him in one of his unblinking stares. They probably would have been enough to make him shut up, K'aekniv supposed, if the look wasn't coming from someone so small. And who wasn't so weird about everything. "Why? I…do not understand."

"It looked as big as you are! Come, let me see it. I won't take it from you. You must be some big mage if you can hide a sword as big as you are from that bitch Martin and the rest." K'aekniv figured it couldn't hurt to butter Genesis up a little. And it was a pretty good trick, hiding something like that, even though it bothered K'aekniv that he couldn't figure out a way to do it himself. All the way from Warsaw, he'd been watching how Mordecai could lift keys off of guards and steal food from bakers and butchers and grocers without even using his magic, and K'aekniv thought he was getting pretty good at spotting it, even if he still dropped things all the time when he tried it himself.

"Will you...not disturb me further if I show you?"

K'aekniv nodded his head, hard, unable to keep the grin off his face. Genesis closed his book, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping off the floor before setting it aside. Despite the hunger gnawing at the pit of his stomach, K'aekniv didn't reach for another apple. He'd have to watch every move the boy demon made if he wanted to catch whatever trick he used.

But it was useless; it was all some big magic, not something Genesis did with his arms or his hands. He just stuck both of them out and a bare sword appeared in them, laid across his thin, bony fingers.

It was even bigger than K'aekniv had thought it was. He'd only seen it for a second before, when Genesis had used it to send all those cat things running without needing to cut up a single one. It was just as big as the swords his mother had left him, only Genesis's didn't shine in the light off his wings. It was almost like the thing wasn't made of metal at all, instead just more of that darkness that followed the boy demon everywhere forced into a blade. K'aekniv reached out one finger to tap on it. And got a big pinch in the arm for something that he couldn't see for his efforts, though at least he was sure that the sword wasn't all magic afterward. He'd felt cold metal before the pinch, just for a second.

"Ow! You bastard! What'd you do that for?"

"I...did nothing. It dislikes you."

"It's a sword! It doesn't like or hate anything!"

Though, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, K'aekniv thought better of it. Even if the thing across Genesis's bony fingers was a sword, it didn't act like one at all. Maybe there was some spirit that lived in it that Genesis had made a bargain with.

With a wave of his hands, the sword disappeared from Genesis's hands. K'aekniv didn't catch what trick he used that time either. He went back to crunching through the bag of apples, watching Genesis work out of the corner of his eye. The boy demon had kept to himself the whole time they'd been through the silver door, had only done just enough not to get beat by the sergeants and scared off those cat things the one time. The rest of the time, Genesis had just stared at things and not talked to anyone, not even when some of the smaller boys came up to him to try to be friendly. But now that he was locked back in the room in the basement, he was working fast, pulling and putting away books from the bag he'd hidden, writing something on a big piece of paper. As K'aekniv worked through the last apple, Genesis started writing with both hands at once, even.

"You're weird," K'aekniv said through a mouthful of it.

Genesis didn't raise his head. Or stop writing.

"If you can use all this big magic, how did they even catch you? Why don't you get out of here?"

"I cannot...reach my magic through the wards on this room. Not without…undue risk."

"What do you mean? You've used it ten times already tonight!"

The boy demon stopped writing, sucking in a big, hissing breath. His eyes were all narrow and he was making that weird not-smile expression as he pulled up both his sleeves. There were cuts all over them, deep and bleeding. "I...paid the price. But I will...free you. All of you."

K'aekniv stopped eating, holding up the apple and looking at it. The back half of it was still good. He held it out to the boy, sighing. "Maybe you should eat something. It makes me feel better."

Genesis shook his head and went back to work. Though he pulled his sleeves back down first, so that they'd catch the blood and none of it would get on his paper. "...I will become ill."

"You'll fit right in here," K'aekniv said to himself, laughing, as he shrugged and finished off the apple. "The only thing you know how to do is be a bastard."

Genesis stopped writing again, staring at him with those weird black eyes of his. "I do not understand."

The apple was gone too soon. Which left K'aekniv with nothing to do but add the sack to the pile of dirty laundry and try to get some sleep. He flopped down onto his stomach, folding his arms and sighing. "Whatever. Just wake me up when you need me."

The boy demon nodded and went back to his work. The scratching of whatever he wrote with, the feeling of having a half-full stomach for once, all if it made it easy for once for K'aekniv to get to sleep. But he couldn't help wondering, as he felt all the tiredness he'd been fighting ever since he left home grab hold of him, what sort of new weirdness he'd wake up to that time.

- - -

Genesis's senses ached. His arms throbbed. But he kept writing.

Calling to his magic past the copper bracelets that day had been troublesome, but easy enough. Especially once they'd gone through the transporter. He'd been unable to identify the realm by its terrain or its inhabitants or the words of the other boys and men, but he'd known by how the mental weight of the bindings on his arms had lessened that it had to be out on the rim, far away from the realms saturated with Imperial influence. Wherever Imanael and Gaebriel were, it wasn't anywhere close to that rocky, desolate place. Genesis had tried to take advantage of the closing of that ever-watchful eye to rest, to observe.

But as soon as he was back in K'atc'ayet, after a few peaceful, undisturbed moments of solitude in the Abyss, it all came rushing back to him. The bindings didn't itch and pinch as badly in the City as they did in London, but it was still distracting. In the cell in the basement of the Hall of Concentration, amplified by the mage Martin's haphazard spellcraft and a day full of too many horrid smells and noises, the pull of the bindings was a constant grating in the back of Genesis's mind.

He should not have wasted his potential calling his sword out of the Abyss to satisfy the partial angel's curiosity. He should not have even returned to the City. The guards tasked to watch them on that other realm had been careless. But he had a duty to liberate the boys who'd been taken prisoner by the cayet usurpers of K'atc'ayet — that was what K'anak and Earil had died for, the restoration of the K'maneda was the path he had chosen in honor of them and all he had learned of the old K'maneda. And Imanael would have come for him eventually. There was no escaping him, not as long as the bindings still held.

Still, Genesis paused his writing, and he wondered.

The spell was almost completed. A tedious task, owing to how Martin had borrowed from so many magical traditions to put it together, but not an overly difficult one. If his internal sense of time was correct, he had an hour and a half to spare before the guard Andy came to take them back up to the field before the Glass Tower. But Genesis didn't trust his internal sense of time, not in such adverse conditions.

K'aekniv was snoring again.

And he reeked from the marching he'd done under bare suns of that other realm, still streaked all over with dirt and dust from the track through the waste they'd marched down and then back up. Genesis had been hoping that the guards would take them to the baths before locking them away again, but that hope had been misplaced. Instead, Genesis was stuck stewing in the partial angel's filth, along with his own, as he rushed to complete the spell.

After seeing how much effort the partial angel expended in helping the other boys that day, especially the smaller ones, Genesis had no doubt that K'aekniv would attempt to aid him in his efforts to break the wards. The only thing Genesis doubted was the partial angel's capacity to understand the spell. Genesis looked it over as he wrote down the last few lines, eyes skimming back and forth over the neat, even letters.

He had done his best to represent the proper c'ayetnak sounds in the language K'aekniv spoke. Hopefully his ignorance of his native language wasn't absolute. Clenching his teeth and clearing his mind to ignore the inevitable wave of pain, Genesis allowed his senses to widen, trying to take stock of what was going on out in the hall. He couldn't hear or smell a thing over K'aekniv and the wards combined.

That settled it. He'd force K'aekniv into a bath first thing once they gained their freedom. The bathtub in Senkov's room was original K'atc'ayet stonework, even if the spells on it were broken. There had to be other ones left. He would find one and claim it for himself, no matter how hard he had to fight the bindings and how many cayet mages he had to destroy to take it.

It all weighed on Genesis — the bindings, the wards, the uncertainty, the stench. It would be better to move too soon, to have time to compensate for all the unknown elements he couldn't perceive beyond those distractions, than move too late and be left trapped in the prison any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Genesis stacked his grimoires back in their bag and counted the repetitions of the spell he'd copied out. Twenty-five, one for each cell that lined the basement's central hall. He was currently trapped with K'aekniv in the largest of them, the one that had been made to suit the needs of a particular demon whose name Genesis had forgotten, despite having spent all his idle time over the last day and a half trying to remember. Thinking of that missing detail only made the headache clawing behind his eyes worsen.

But he'd put his frustration to good use. It would certainly take extraordinary efforts to awaken K'aekniv, if he was as exhausted and starved as he claimed to be.

Genesis called his name. As expected, it did nothing. After rising to his feet and tucking the spell away in his inside coat pocket for protection, he nudged K'aekniv in the arm with the barest edge of his boot. The partial angel's wings didn't so much as twitch. Bracing himself for any potential flare of magic, Genesis kicked him outright.

K'aekniv's wings fluttered, his snoring paused. But instead of waking, he only adjusted his head on his arms and the snoring resumed.

Hissing the worst curses he could remember K'anak ever using, Genesis considered his options, thinking of how K'anak had woken Earil up every time he attempted to sit in on their studies and inevitably fell asleep instead of paying attention. K'anak had always called out his claws and jabbed a few into the space between Earil's wings.

Shuffling to the side of the mattress, Genesis narrowed his eyes against the light pulsing off K'aekniv's wings and peered down into the gap between them. He doubted K'aekniv had ever washed between them; his back was gray with filth. Genesis knew calling to his own claws would be a mistake, that it would aggravate the bindings. Instead, he took out a handkerchief, wrapped his hand in it, and leaned down to jab the partial angel there as hard as he could.

Genesis was too exhausted for his reflexes to save him. One of K'aekniv's wings caught him in the chest and knocked him into the far wall of the cell. It stung, but better to find himself sprawled against stone than atop K'aekniv's unwashed bulk.

"Huh? Fuck...oh. What? Are you finished?"

K'aekniv shoved himself up onto his elbows, rubbing his eyes with one filthy palm as he came awake. Genesis was too preoccupied with recentering himself, evening his breath to respond.

"What's wrong with you?" K'aekniv asked.

Genesis traded the handkerchief — he'd have to destroy it once he had fuller access to his magic, it was completely unsalvageable — for the spell papers, but didn't yet hold them out to K'aekniv. "It is....finished."

"Good! Do whatever and then we'll go fight." K'aekniv heaved himself up onto his knees, stretching out his arms and his wings as he yawned. Genesis pressed himself hard against the wall to avoid getting knocked about by the latter once again.

"I have...prepared the spell. But you must complete it."

K'aekniv shrugged. "What do I have to do? Make one of those weird gestures? Burn some feathers?"

Ready to pull it back at the first sign of flames, Genesis offered out the spell. "You must read it. I have...written the necessary invocation in your language's letters."

K'aekniv lunged out and seized hold of the papers with an expression Genesis didn't understand the meaning of. He held the paper close to his face, squinting at it in the light cast by his wings. "Shye...kye...schych..."

"S'kyct."

"Fuck that. If you're so smart, you read it." K'aekniv shoved the spell back at him.

Genesis stared across the too narrow gap between them, at the sweat forming on K'aekniv's brow and the magic beginning to rise off his wings. "You...cannot read."

"Fuck you!"

He had prepared for this eventuality. He had constructed the spell as compactly, choosing the most powerful words of invocation so that it involved as few of them as possible. Genesis had memorized them before he'd even written them down. "Then I will...say the words, and you will repeat them. While holding the paper. To begin, s'kyct k c'ayet sk nis--"

"Fuck you! Those aren't words! They're just...just..."

K'aekniv was becoming agitated. He would have to simplify his explanations. "Begin with s'kyct."

"Shye..."

"Incorrect. You are ignoring the initial click. Listen. S'kyct."

"St...sye..."

"Attempt it again."

"Sh...shu..."

"There is no vowel of that nature in this language. The click is made...with the side of the tongue against the back teeth. Again."

"Fuck you! Fuck this!" Sparks and slivers of ice flew off K'aekniv's wings as he clenched the spell between both hands. "Why can't you be normal?"

The coldness rose in Genesis's chest, fast and hard, and he hadn't prepared himself against it. It made him grin in distaste. "Why...has no one taught you to read?"

Before Genesis could move to stop him, K'aekniv surged to his feet, squaring off against the door and calling to his magic. It surrounded him with a cloud of flame and snow that Genesis knew he couldn't stand against without full access to his own chaos. All he could do was press himself back harder against the wall, eyes fixed on the spell paper twisted between K'aekniv's hands. "You don't need to read to do some big magic! Watch this, you bastard!"

K'aekniv charged the door, summoning his magic in a rush of blistering heat and piercing cold while he ripped the spell in two. Genesis felt a hard tug on his magic, buried beneath the combined weight of the binding spells carved into his arms and the wards on the room. He hissed in pain, closing his eyes against the bright flare of K'aekniv's magic and pressing both palms hard against his own chest. It felt like something had grabbed hold of his heart and was trying to rip it bodily from his chest.

As Genesis tried to center himself, tried to ignore the pain as he'd been taught, he couldn't close his senses far enough to keep from hearing all the words — none of them part of the spell — that K'aekniv bellowed at the door as he pounded against it.

"Fucking reading! Fucking door! Fuck you! Who needs some spell? Get down! Get the fuck down!"

The wards around the room collapsed with a bang, and for a few seconds Genesis was stunned, caught in a deafness and a darkness so absolute that he thought the force of it had cast him into the Abyss. Then the darkness parted, and his lungs and his nose were overwhelmed with the acrid sting of smoke.

He moved before his senses recovered, unwilling to be caught off guard a second time, rising to his feet and crouching low into a defensive posture. The mattress on the floor had been reduced to ash. And so had the door to the cell. Fortunately, the grimoires had protected themselves from the blast, though the bag they'd been in was burned away. Genesis squinted against the pall of smoke and hugged the wall all the way to the door, the ringing in his ears fading. It was replaced by K'aekniv's shouting and the hollow thud of him pounding on a door down the hall.

"Mordka! Ilyusha! Pasha! I did it! I'm coming!"

Once he was out in the hall, Genesis felt like he could finally breathe again, although the air outside was as rancid as ever. He jerked up the sleeves of his coat. The binding runes wept their pink-tinged serum down both his forearms, but he couldn't feel the sting or the weight of them any longer.

None of it made any sense. He'd not crafted the spell to work that way, to cast itself upon the ripping of the paper it was written on. There had to be some reasonable explanation, something he had overlooked. Genesis knew that was the task he should set himself to first. And yet...

Putting K'aekniv and his yelling out of mind, Genesis stretched out one hand and called to the chaos both within and beyond himself. It rose around him in perfect curls of shadow, eager and grasping. And within his mind, within those shadows, he felt no tug on the binding spells, felt none of the force of the wards that covered all the rooms along either side of the hall. All that remained was chaos. And it responded to every twitch of his fingers, ready to destroy, to make everything clean and right and c'ayet once more.

From the stairs at the opposite end of the hall, Genesis heard another voice shouting. Distantly, he heard K'aekniv call out to him. Something about needing to take out his sword, to use his magic.

Without the wards repressing his magic any longer, with the chaos of K'atc'ayet hissing all around him and easing the burden of the bindings carved into his arms, Genesis no longer saw any reason why he shouldn't.

- - -

"What is he?"

All K'aekniv could do, for what felt like the thousandth time, was shrug. "You tell me, Mordka. But he's our friend, anyway."

"I don't think he's anyone's friend," Pavel mumbled, his eyes gone white as he looked back at the crowd of boys huddled behind them. Ilya was watching them, making sure none of the real bastards from up on the first floor decided to take advantage of the situation to shove a knife between anyone's shoulder blades. The ones who decided to run while they had the chance, Ilya let go. Ilya understood what it was like, being pulled into fighting when you didn't want any of it.

The rest of them were keeping an eye on Genesis.

K'aekniv didn't know why he hadn't just done all of this right from the start. Some magic, probably, magic Genesis himself would say he was too stupid to understand. But the thing K'aekniv knew he understood better than Genesis was the way things worked in the City. When Genesis had started using all of his hissing black magic to choke the life out of Bart, K'aekniv had smacked him in the shoulder a few times until he stopped and listened to what he had to say.

Genesis deciding to listen to him for once was the only reason that bitch Bart was still alive. Him and the two squads of Watch guards they'd sent in after them were all wrapped up tight in big bunches of that weird black magic of Genesis's, lined up one by one on the ground in front of the steps into the building. The boy demon was standing on the step above them, his hands held behind his back again like he was some big mage instead of a no one just like the rest of them.

"I...do not understand the meaning of this plan," Genesis said, without looking back at K'aekniv.

"It's early still," K'aekniv said, watching as another boy pushed past Ilya and ran away, off along the side of the building, disappearing into that thick dark that always hung around the City until the sun was fully up. "The big mages are never out of bed until all the little fighters are all ready to go."

Genesis made one of his weird twisted up faces at one of the guards who was trying to wiggle away and tightened his hold on him with his magic. "I have observed this. What I do not understand...is why these cayet slave drivers must be kept alive."

Not for the first time that morning, K'aekniv was glad that Genesis had decided to be their friend after all, even if he was still a weird bastard. He might have known everything there was to know about magic, and about reading, but he didn't know a thing about people. Except how to kill them. "Listen. I don't like these bastards any more than you do. They've been beating me ever since I came here. But killing a bunch of little people doesn't do anything except make the big mages mad."

"Then...I will fight them as well."

K'aekniv tried to think of a way to explain, to tell Genesis about how easy it was to end up in a bad place doing bad things for bastards just because you were poor if you didn't think too hard about everything. But even if they were stuck waiting for Martin and the other big mages to show up until sunset, he didn't think he could convince Genesis of that. He needed to start small. Needed to think like a real bastard, like some spirit so old that the life of some peasant mattered as much to him as the life of a fly or a frog. "Sure. That's what I thought too. But that's how I ended up in that room downstairs with bastards trying to kill me every night."

"I...see."

"You like it here, yes? In this demon city?"

Genesis nodded.

"Well, if you want to stay, you need to not piss off so many people. You can't fight everyone at once. Do some thinking. You're good at that."

K'aekniv didn't know what part of it got through to Genesis. But when Andy came running across the field with old Ron and the other sargeants fast behind him, he didn't reach out right away with more of that black magic to tie them up. Instead he used it to throw one of the Watch men at them, so hard that something in his chest made a wet snap and he screamed.

Then Genesis did something weird with his voice, pitched it down low and hissed his words. K'aekniv could still understand him, even though he knew Genesis wasn't speaking normal Russian like he had been before. "Bring me the Council of Commanders," he said, as the guard cried on and on. "I wish to debate for our freedom."

At least throwing that one guard kept all the other guards still. And it gave another couple boys a chance to run away. K'aekniv held his head in his hands and mumbled all the old prayers from the Mothers he could think of, asking whatever saints were listening not to let Genesis kill anyone.

Mordecai elbowed him in the ribs, speaking low and fast in his people's language. K'aekniv understood enough to get by; Mordecai was probably hoping Genesis didn't know any. "Are you sure he's not going to get all of us killed?"

"Relax, Mordka. Wait and see."

They didn't have to wait long. By the time the healers had come down out of their building to shut up the guard, K'aekniv could see Martin standing off down the road by the big tower that looked like it was made of sea ice, Andy talking fast into his ear as a bunch of other big, older men in fancy uniforms all put their heads together over what was going on. Genesis was watching them close, so K'aekniv decided he'd better do it too. At least until Mordecai elbowed him again, harder.

"Look!" Mordecai hissed, switching back into Russian. "Two redheads this time! One for you and one for me," he added with a laugh, puffing up his chest and trying to look as big and tough as he could stuck between him and Ilya. At least he looked braver than Pavel. He looked like he was going to fall over from all the bad things he could See coming for them.

K'aekniv knew he shouldn't. But he couldn't help himself. He took a peak at where Mordecai was pointing, over by the guard who had finally stopped crying. He was right. The healers had sent out three people that time, and two of them had all kinds of long, curly red hair, while the third was some young guy who looked like he wanted to kill the guard instead of save him. The tall and thin redhead from before was one of them, the one Mordecai had set his sights on not even two days after they'd got to the City. The other one was new. With a face as mean as the young guy's, but a nice ass to make up for it. A nice ass could make up for a lot of things, in K'aekniv's opinion. Like a mean face and a chest as flat as a board.

"As long as you still like the skinny one more," K'aekniv said, "I'm in."

"Come on," Pavel whined, knocking Mordecai about the head and jabbing K'aekniv between the wings. "Now's not the time."

"You come on, Pasha. It can't be that bad," Mordecai said as he rubbed at his head.

"Enjoy life more," K'aekniv agreed.

Ilya sighed. "They're coming now. Be quiet. Commanders always want quiet."

"You two never want to have any fun," Mordecai grumbled. But he shut up along with the rest of them, as the big group of serious old men started coming for them, Martin and Andy and old Ron at the front. K'aekniv knew bait when he saw it. Even though he knew it was a bad idea, part of him hoped Martin would say the wrong thing or make the wrong move with his magic and Genesis would rip his head off with all his weird, hissing magic.

Genesis let his hands fall to his sides as the commanders came up to the steps. And he rolled his shoulders back, puffing himself up in a way just as weird as he was, with his chin sticking out. Maybe that was the way big rich mages talked to each other in England. K'aekniv knew Genesis couldn't be rich, even if he was the cleanest person K'aekniv had ever seen — no rich boy ended up in the Brigade — but all his shadows were proof that he was a better mage than the rest of them.

His voice still had that low, hissing ring to it, the one that made it so no one could miss his words. "This is not the Council of Commanders. I wish to debate the full one."

The older mages, the ones in the uniforms with more little silver things on their fronts, all gave Martin sour looks. And Martin shoved that all onto Genesis, stepping up past Andy and old Ron and shaking the sleeve of his mage cassock away from the hand he did his magic with. "Let them go right now, boy, and maybe you won't hang for being a fool."

Genesis's hands twitched at his sides, his long fingers moving like he was flipping through one of his big ugly books. "I am Genesis, syk'ca of K'anak k'amskec. You will free these people. Or else I will debate you with magic instead of words."

Martin was starting to go red in the face, his fists clenched tight at his sides. Behind him, the fattest of the rich old commanders turned to shoot a dark look at the tallest. He had the most silver pieces on his uniform, and the hilt of his sword sticking out over his left shoulder had a whole bunch of big red stones the size of goose eggs all along the guard. A sword for doing magic with, not for fighting. "I told you we should have just called him up to handle this from the start," the fat commander said.

"I have no doubt he will come," the tall one replied.

They were talking too fast for K'aekniv to think through all the words. But it made sense soon enough. Another big old mage, his cassock strung all over with pearls and ribbons, came running over from the tower that looked like sea ice. He was taller than the one with the rich sword, even. And the way he moved made K'aekniv think of a raven, with his arms flapping and long hair flying and his sharp dark eyes and big nose. "Comrades! Good morning!"

Martin was so red now that K'aekniv though his head was going to pop like a too-ripe berry. Especially when the raven mage pushed him aside and made some weird gesture to Genesis that made the boy demon relax a little.

"Do you know this child, Comrade Major Senkov?" the fat commander asked.

"No, no, of course not. What would I be doing associating with children? But he knows us, that's for certain. This is an ancient and storied practice of the old K'maneda, Comrade Commanders. The art of the principled debate."

"I was not aware a sensible debate involved taking hostages and breaking arms, Comrade Major," the tall commander said.

"Old ways. Barbaric, for certain, but I have it well in hand."

K'aekniv could follow none of their big English mage talk. He watched faces and hands instead. The commanders had started to back away as soon as the raven mage showed up. Like they were already done with Genesis and whatever he had planned. The raven mage elbowed Martin aside, and while Martin cursed, old Ron and Andy shared a grin.

"I accept the debate on behalf of the command council, k'mrkad," the raven mage said, pointing his chin out and dropping his hands to his sides just like Genesis had. And he talked like him too, in that weird hissing voice that K'aekniv could understand just as well as if the raven mage was using normal words like a normal person. "I am K'mrkad Senkov, syk'ca of R'ksyn t'akec."

"R'ksyn t'akec," Genesis repeated, his fingers still twitching away. "I have read of this person."

"Of course, k'mrkad. The one who mastered all the t'akakk, before they were lost."

Genesis was thinking hard. So hard he forgot to talk. K'aekniv reached forward and smacked him on the shoulder to knock him out of it. The boy demon hissed at him, and the raven mage, Senkov, started talking to get his attention back.

"You wish to debate for the freedom of these boys."

"Yes. It is cayet to keep slaves. I must offer no reasoning beyond that."

"Of course, of course," Senkov said, making some weird sweeping gesture with both his hands, tilting his head all to one side. It made him look even more like a bird than he already did. "The old ways have been lost to many of the humans. Fortunately, I'm here to debate for them. We're in your debt, of course, since you're in the right. How can we repay it? In exchange for the lives of these slave drivers, so that they may study and learn the error of their human ways."

Even though K'aekniv could understand all the words flying back and forth now, mostly, they still didn't make sense to him. But both he and all the boys behind him could tell that Genesis was making a bargain, and the mention of pay got all of them talking, elbowing one another as they shouted out demands.

"More food!"

"Better swords!"

"No more locks!"

"Gold!"

"Gold for sure," Mordecai said from beside him, elbowing his way forward again. "But that's just the start."

Genesis, like the bastard he was, ignored all of them, even though Senkov nodded along. All the big rich commanders standing behind him were ignoring them just as much as Genesis was. "All very good, lads, only right," Senkov said. "But what do you think, k'mrkad? You're the one who opened the debate, after all."

Genesis was quiet for a long time. "No more locks. All debts will be paid. Open debate. And that." He gestured with one bony hand to the building next door, the school. All the rich boys who'd gone inside an hour ago without giving the guards tied up in Genesis's magic a second look had their faces pressed up against its windows to watch. Probably hoping someone would get killed.

Senkov made another big sweeping gesture, and Genesis spoke up again.

"I will go to school. And any who chooses that path will be allowed to join me rather than being servants for the other divisions."

Behind Genesis, everyone groaned and cursed and spat. "School!" Mordecai held his head in his hands. "I just got away from school! I'm not going back again!"

"That's a wonderful idea, k'mrkad. Learning is the source of all just action, as the t'akakk say," Senkov said. A big grin with too many teeth, just like the boy demon's, spread across his face. "What do you think, Comrade Commanders?"

The big mages and fighters all looked suspicious. K'aekniv would have been too. It wasn't normal, tying up a bunch of people with some big magic and threatening to pop off their heads just so that you could go do some book learning. Anyone would think it was stupid. Anyone who hadn't seen Genesis sitting up alone all night writing with both hands.

The tall one with the fancy sword stepped forward to speak for all of them, and the raven mage hopped aside, just like the bird he was, scraping and bowing. But with that same grin on his face, like this was all some joke to him. "I will not tolerate any more insubordination. You have taken control of these boys by force. That was my mistake, for leaving such incompetent men in charge. Now they are your command, boy. But know that if there's any thieving or slacking from any of them, both you and the criminals will hang. I will show no mercy."

From the way the commander with the sword spoke, K'aekniv knew he expected Genesis to bow and scrape just like Senkov had once he finished talking. But Genesis refused, his shoulders straight again, his head held high. "I accept."

"Those of you who want to go to the Academy can start tomorrow," the commander said, raising his voice so that all the boys out on the steps could hear him. "Today, you've got a contract waiting. You'll keep getting your contracts done. Or you won't eat. And if any more of you try to run, when the Watch catches you, you'll get the rope."

A bunch of grumbles and mumbles filled the air as the commander, at last, turned to Martin. "Beaten by a child, Comrade Major? Pathetic. You're demoted. Get out of my sight before I decide to take your magic along with your command." A weird red light shone in the goose egg gems in the hilt of his sword, and Martin swallowed hard.

It was over and done. The big mages all went off to have their breakfasts, and Martin ran away to go hide like the rat he was, along with all the guards Genesis let go with a wave of his hand. The only big mage who stayed was the raven mage, Senkov, who came up to the foot of the stairs to look them all over, still grinning his big weird grin. The next time he spoke, it was in the same old, weird Russian Genesis used, like he was some kind of spirit. K'aekniv was sure Senkov had to be one, even if Genesis wasn't.

"Excellent work, Genesis. A bit flashy for my tastes, but it got the job done."

"I...do not understand," Genesis said, the long pauses sneaking back between his words once he stopped using his weird hissing voice. "I do not understand...any of this."

"But what better way to learn than doing? And look at all the friends you've made! Old Abram's grandson...a foot soldier direct from Leto's host...one of the Seers of Krasny Bor...and you!" The raven mage stopped in front of K'aekniv, holding both hands out to him. "Magnificent. Just magnificent. All the strength of the Empire and the taiga witches combined. Our work's just begun, lads. But I have no doubt it'll be a success with all of you joining in."

K'aekniv wished he could say the same. Baking in the first long rays of the sun, his stomach still growling despite all the apples he'd had the night before, K'aekniv knew by the pounding at his temples that they were all even more fucked now than they'd been back when they'd all been locked up under Martin's spells.

But at least he wouldn't have to keep going hungry every night.