Matabar

"It's ironic, Magister," Milar, who'd apparently abandoned the idea of quitting smoking, said as he puffed on his third cigarette. At least the spring-summer weather made it so they could roll down the window and chase away some of the acrid tobacco haze. "A year ago, you first crossed paths with the Second Chancery, and now…"

Ardan watched the buildings of the Central District glide past. They weren't very tall and they were made of stone, but they still seemed oh so light and airy. It was as if, in the absence of the paving stones binding them in an unyielding embrace, the very first gust of the salty ocean breeze would have swept all those palaces away, whirling them around and carrying them somewhere far away, to where they truly belonged. To a land of colorful fairy tales filled with wonder and mystery, rather than…

Ardan ran his fingers over his staff and grimoire.

…Star Magic. No, he still loved it with the same fervor and excitement, but now, beyond the graceful complexity of its intricate seals, he saw something else — something dangerous, unsettling, hidden among the sticky pages of textbooks and workbooks. Something that reeked of pain and tasted like iron.

Much like blood.

The buildings, paying no mind to the inner turmoil of this one particular half-blood, shone beautifully. Opulent and squat, elegant yet ponderous, simple yet brimming with architectural flourishes, they merged into a single tapestry — a veil that lent the city a fairy-tale illusion of whimsy. But all you needed to do was step away from the central avenues, leave the main streets and head into the labyrinth of interconnected courtyards and walkways, for the world to change.

All the beauty from before, as if it had been scared off by the crooked basement windows, shrank back at once, yielding to the reality that went on behind the scenes of ordinary city life. The reason why the capital was swarming with guards, Cloaks, and the military. Yet, strangely enough, Ardi didn't feel especially disappointed in the capital for this. On the contrary, it now seemed far more comprehensible and realistic to him than that mythical image living in the minds of most of the Empire's people.

The Metropolis differed from Evergale in its prices, in its modes of transport, and of course, in scale. There was also its stale air, choking you with viscous diesel fumes, throat-tearing coal smog, and eye-stinging tobacco smoke. Here, simple melodies and campfire tunes had been replaced by jazz, and festivals and holidays by grand theaters. There were more people than blades of grass in the prairies, and if you knew at least a few of them by name, then you were already incredibly lucky.

But all of that was merely the façade presented by those central avenues and main streets. Once you took a turn, you found it was all the same underneath. Mart hadn't lied about that, either. Only the wrapping was different, while the candy inside remained unchanged. In this case, instead of chocolate, it was an unending procession of ordinary days, occasionally broken up by a fleeting holiday or weekend, and in the center of it all was the desperate attempt to survive while hoping to find a shoulder to lean on, someone with whom you could share half of that not-so-tasty candy.

And if you were lucky enough to find that someone, the candy's flavor became more bearable. Not as bitter. Sometimes even a bit sweet.

"Ard…"

"Yes?" The young man tore himself away from the sight of the buildings drifting past them.

"What's on your mind?"

Ardan leaned back in his seat.

"I was thinking that Metropolis isn't so different from Evergale," he answered.

Milar said nothing. Overhead, a string of Ley-lights stretched out like a thread of river pearls. These ever-silent sparks born from dead fire winked, frozen in absurd poses amid the golden blaze of the sky. And up there hung both the sun and the moon… The Eye of the Spirit of the Day and the Eye of the Spirit of the Night, each resting on opposite sides of the heavens. No stars shone between them.

Only Ley-lanterns.

"Nervous?" The captain asked.

They drove along calmly, going with the flow of cars, and the old "Derks" obligingly chugged along. Had Ardi not seen it with his own eyes — had he not experienced it himself — he never would have believed that this dilapidated vehicle was capable of what it had done a day and a half ago.

"I am," Ardan admitted.

"That's good," the captain nodded.

They fell silent, and Ardi mulled over the remark his partner had just made… In a couple of weeks, a year will have passed since that moment when he'd come home after a brief skirmish with those Ley wolves and his equally-brief, shared spark with Anna, only to then have his first encounter with Cassara, Yonatan, Katerina, and the others.

Over the months he'd spent in their company, he had managed to first hate them, then realize that they were only following orders, so while he hadn't been able to forgive them, he had put his personal grievances aside. And once everything was said and done, he even ended up feeling something akin to respect for them.

Then he'd had his meeting with Duchess Anorsky, whom he had believed to be a traitor. He'd even accused her of something that had actually been inevitable. It had been the choice of an entirely different… Matabar, rather than Oktana herself. Then he'd spent time in the Palace of the Kings of the Past, followed by his argument with Arkar, Lisa's death, Peter Oglanov's double-dealing, making friends in the form of Boris and Elena… There was also the strange relationship he'd cultivated with that same Arkar, whom he could not fully call a friend, but who had long ago ceased to be just some random… half-orc Overseer of the Orcish Jackets. There were also his classes at the Grand. His lessons with Aversky. Many adventures and scrapes. Demons, Homeless Fae, conspiracies, chases, shootouts, and endless new mysteries waiting for their time to strike.

And…

Tess.

And their small yet very cozy apartment at number 23 on Markov Canal.

If you added up everything Ardi had gone through in the past year, you could say that, from the start, from that very first night, everything he'd encountered had turned out to be entirely different from how it had appeared initially. It was the same, in a way, as the Metropolis itself. A city that had greeted him with smog, stale air, and a suffocating stench, and yet, it had confidently carved out a small but genuine spot in the young man's heart for itself.

"That's called growing up, partner."

"What?" Ardan twitched slightly.

"That look on your face," Milar explained, exhaling a cloud of smoke and flicking his ash out the open window, from where the wind snatched it away toward the Crookedwater Canal. "It's called growing up. When you realize you were wrong about how you saw the world and begin seeing it in a completely different light — that's growing up, Ard."

"How did you-"

"Almost everyone goes through it," Milar told him with a chuckle. "And you know what's the nastiest part of it all?"

Ardan shrugged again.

"That, at some point, you start to understand your parents… and not just them, but all those people who brushed you off with a 'When you're older, you'll understand,' while you seethed that they weren't taking the time to explain right then. Or if they did try to explain it to you, you argued until you were hoarse, until your knees shook, because you believed you were right. And then, all of a sudden" — Milar smiled and pressed the gas pedal just a little more — "you understand. You understand so much that you feel ashamed for a while. For everything you said. For how carelessly you treated things that actually mattered, and for how important you deemed things that had no meaning at all in this silly life. That's called growing up."

Ardi remembered what Neviy had said on his first day at work:

"This fucki… ridiculous adult life."

Back then, they hadn't understood that adult life had not truly begun for them yet. And maybe Ardan still wasn't fully grown up in some ways. After all, if he was supposed to understand his parents now, then… why?

Why had his father surrendered to his own inner demons and abandoned his own family, choosing dozens of complete strangers over his wife, grandfather, and children? He still had no answer.

This was the question he'd banished from his mind for so many years.

A question he couldn't truly answer even after reading Hector's letter. He understood why Hector had done it. Yet he still couldn't grasp why… Why he had given in to those shadows of the past and left his own family behind, trading them for so many other people's children, children he didn't even know…

He'd had all of them:
Grandfather.
Mother.
Erti.
And him.
Ardi.

And who knows how their lives might have turned out if Hector had returned to the mountain, if they had just fled…

Better? Worse?

Ardan would never know.

"And you know what bothers me the most?" Milar went on.

"That Elvira is going to kill you because your jacket smells like smoke?"

The captain turned his head so fast they almost veered onto the sidewalk.

"Was that… a joke? Ard Egobar knows how to joke?"

Ardi shrugged again. He loved learning new things. Maybe even an abstract concept like human humor would surrender to him someday. Though, as far as he knew, nobody in his family was renowned for their comedic wit.

"No, partner, though you're… somewhat correct," Milar smiled and placed his cigarette in the ashtray built into the dashboard. "It's that I'm sensing a cyclical pattern to everything. I'm sure that our elders were also told something when they were children. I bet that, after learning a thing or two, they promised themselves that they would explain everything to their own kids. Lay it all out clearly right from the start."

Even if Ardi hadn't mastered humor, he knew how to listen. Milar wasn't talking about some abstract "elders," but about himself. About a promise he had once made to himself regarding his own children.

And, apparently, about how he couldn't keep it…

"And then reality hits you," the captain confirmed Ardan's guess. "No matter how much you explain or lay it all out, eventually, you'll see your own miniature copy in front of you, arguing until their knees shake… so you brush them off. You say 'When you're older, you'll understand.' And then you realize that if your kid isn't one of those rare few who spend their entire lives with the mind of a naive teen, they really will figure it out. Life will teach them and put everything in its proper place. And all you can do is quietly pray to the Eternal Angels and the Face of Light that the lessons won't be too harsh. Or too painful."

After that monologue, Ardan understood only one thing.

"What are you getting at, Milar?"

The captain gripped the steering wheel so hard that the leather creaked and his knuckles went white.

"This morning, when I said goodbye to my wife and kids, partner, I said farewell to them," he whispered, emphasizing that last bit. "And it terrified me, Ard… It terrified me to think I might never see them again. For the first time in all these years of service, I felt that I might be embracing them for the last time. That this was the last time I'd laugh with them, get annoyed about some silly thing, and then chastise myself for it. The last time we'd get to just sit around the table, drinking tea, and chatting."

"And…"

"And I realized, partner, that beyond growing up, there's another threshold," the captain reached for his cigarette, paused, and left it in the ashtray. "Growing old. Today, Ard, I realized that I've started to age."

Again, there was silence. The city fell silent, too, listening. Perhaps it did so because it had heard such conversations hundreds of thousands of times before — it had both heard and listened to them. Maybe in some neighboring window, where the light was still on, someone was having a similar talk. Maybe there were even more than two such talks going on.

As Anastasia would say, behind every window, in every car, in every tram, there were thousands of stories. They were just like everyone else's, and yet each was completely different in its own way.

"Don't hesitate with Tess," Milar said softly when they were a few blocks from the Black House. "I wasn't going to tell you this now, but… since we started this silly talk anyway-"

"Her father is planning to come to Metropolis," Ardan interjected. "Soon."

"You already found out?"

"I guessed," Ardan turned once more toward the window. Outside, the airy, storybook buildings of Old Town were gradually giving way to the skyscrapers of the New City, each competing to reach ever higher into the sky. "When is he arriving?"

"After your exams."

"Well, in that case, there's a good chance that meeting won't hap-"

Milar thumped him on the shoulder. Not hard, but forcefully enough to make him feel it.

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"Until you learn how to do it properly, stick to simpler topics for your jokes, partner," he grumbled.

"Sorry," Ardan said, genuinely contrite. "I didn't think."

He really hadn't considered the fact that if he failed to meet the Governor-General of Shamtur, Milar might never again get to hug his children…

Yes, it had been a foolish joke.

"Dammit, Ard… If you're right, if the Spiders situation is as bad as you think, then I don't know… I'll… I'll…"

"Give me a hint about what to get Din and Plamena for their wedding," Ardan suggested.

"Ha!" Milar snorted. "If only someone would give me a hint… Eternal Angels! I feel like half our life is scheduled for early summer. There's so many events that I can't even remember them all. I completely forgot about their wedding."

Ardi had forgotten too. Tess had reminded him recently.

There was silence again, broken only by the engine's hum, the suspension's clatter, and the soft hiss of tires against asphalt. And perhaps the faint, barely-discernible whisper of the city, which Ardan had yet to learn how to truly hear. Even so, he kept trying.

They stopped near the Black House parking lot. Several nearly-identical copies of the captain's car sat parked by the curb, dozing in the gloom of the capital's gray haze.

Milar took his usual spot, turned off the engine, and looked at his cigarette. It was smoldering quietly, its small, red glow scorching the thin paper and burning through those tar-drenched leaves of cheap tobacco. It crackled cheerfully, ready to flare up brilliantly at the slightest command, however briefly.

A good, lively spark.

"There's still time to reconsider," he said quietly, barely moving his lips.

"I know."

"You going to change your mind?"

"No… You?"

"No."

Ardan, thanks to all his natural curiosity, wanted to ask "Why not?" but held back. Maybe Milar wanted to ask him the same thing and was also staying silent.

They got out of the car together and, after walking a few steps, climbed the granite stairs. At the entrance, a few security guards recorded the captain and corporal's service numbers in a logbook.

A short corridor followed and then… an elevator. It was just an ordinary elevator, nothing special about it, except instead of bringing visitors upstairs, it descended. And instead of a panel of buttons or a lever, there were several distinctive slots. Milar took out a bunch of medallions and inserted one of them into a recess.

The panel glowed with Ley, then the metal gate clanged shut and they began to descend in silence. The cables rattled, and the counterweight scraped behind them as the cabin sank lower and lower. Ardan tugged at his shirt collar, trying not to think about how the walls seemed to be closing in and the air was getting thinner and thinner.

Sweat beaded on his back, and he hardly noticed how heavily he was leaning on his staff.

Finally, the elevator halted and the doors slid open, letting them out into a corridor that looked much the same as any other upstairs. It had the same dark red parquet with worn carpets that had become gray from too much washing, and the same wood-paneled walls adorned with unremarkable paintings.

And, as always, there were doors without any plates or signs. They passed by a few of them before stepping into a spacious chamber large enough to serve as a sort of shooting range. It was fifty meters long and, at the other end of the room, Ardi spotted several dummy targets that were suspiciously similar to the "Tony" mannequins from Aversky's mansion. In fact, Ardan suspected that they weren't just "similar" to those…

To the right of the range, behind concrete barriers and Ley-cables, stood several tables cluttered with devices — most of them bristling like hedgehogs with connectors for Ley-cables. Those cables were coiled in a tangled mess at the edges of the tables. Farther in was an alchemical lab fitted with far more advanced equipment than anything Professor Kovertsky had at the Grand.

To the left of the shooting range, there was a small testing platform, marked off by a low rail and shielded under a protective dome. There, Aversky, who was looking gaunt, stood in the center, blasting a simple tailor's mannequin wearing a suit with a flow of fire from his staff. Ardan recognized the seal of a three-Star spell called Dragon's Breath, though it was some modified version aiming not to increase the range or density of the blazing heat, but its duration. And judging by the multicolored sparks within the flames, the modification also served as a screen for woven-in elements of lightning or maybe something else.

All in all, it took about five seconds for the suit on the mannequin to start smoking, even while enduring a spell powerful enough to torch a couple of army trucks in mere moments.

"Enough, enough!" Dagdag shouted, waving his arms.

Balanced on his long, hooked nose, the half-blood dwarf's usual pince-nez had been replaced by complicated goggles affixed with a leather strap that had multiple interchangeable lenses that could be switched at will, and he was also wearing a work apron with his sleeves rolled up. Dagdag pressed something on a wide control panel bristling with buttons, switches, levers, and knobs, and the mannequin — along with its charred suit — slid down. Part of the platform simply retracted, and a complex mechanism whisked the wooden dummy away somewhere below.

"In total, when subjected to a spell load of thirty-seven rays, the final version held for…" He began.

"Six seconds," Aversky answered, lowering his staff. "But that's under the implementation of a complex seal, Dagdag. Under simpler conditions, we can expect…"

"Eight seconds at best," Dagdag sighed, removing his goggles and placing them on a nearby table. "That won't be enough to withstand anything more serious than basic spells, Grand Magister."

"I know, Dagdag, but…" Aversky turned to face the newcomers. "…we weren't given enough time to create something more impressive."

"It's not like you, Edward," Milar replied, purposely drawing out the Grand Magister's first name with a hint of mockery, "gave us any extra time, either."

"Perhaps if you, Captain, had racked your brain a little harder, you might've come up with more time," Aversky retorted.

"Oh, you think so, Major? Maybe you should try tagging along with us more often, then?"

"Really now? And does it not occur to you, Captain, that I have more pressing matters to attend to than chasing after random pawns all over the capital?"

"'Pawns?!'" Milar roared as if he'd been hit by a Wanderer's blade. "Pawns?! Those pawns-"

Cutting him off, Aversky simply picked up a standard state-issued analyzer from the table and flung it at the captain's feet.

"You see that device, Milar?" He growled. "Almost all of the Empire's Star-based education system, and most wide-scale applications of Ley-equipment and Star Magic, rely on that plate."

"So what?"

"So, my dear uneducated colleague, for the past six months, markets all across the underground have been flooded with seals and mechanisms that mask Ley-emissions, and…" Aversky set his staff aside and sank into a chair, arming himself with a mug of strong coffee as usual. "…for almost half a year now, our analyzers have been utterly useless. And, from the look of it, neither we nor the Mage Guild will be able to restore the analyzers' functionality anytime in the next year. And if we do, by that time, the masking methods will have improved again."

"And that means?"

"It means, my dear Captain, that Imperial mages are now on the same footing as any other mages on this cramped planet," Aversky said, making a sipping sound and flexing the wooden prosthetic attached to his disfigured finger. He steepled his remaining fingers. "How do you expect me to have time to run around with you? You handle matters for which you have the competence, Mr. Pnev. Meanwhile, I am, unfortunately, forced to address entirely different problems. For instance, preventing another disaster like the one at the 'Heron,' which was fully concealed from all analyzers."

Ardan eyed the analyzer at his feet. Truth be told, he'd all but forgotten that he had requested a new version of this device — the same device that formed the backbone of the Empire's Star Science. They barely used it at the Grand these days. Professor Kovertsky had only needed them to bring theirs for a few of the lessons. They'd simply used them for ingredient analysis and then they'd compared the device's data to the numbers in the reference manual. In the end, the reference manual had turned out to be more detailed, and Kovertsky had insisted that one should never rely solely on a single instrument. "Collect as much information as possible," he'd said.

That was it.

And now he knew why the professors at the Grand had so abruptly — right in the middle of the academic year — stopped using the analyzer and would even ask students to remove theirs.

Still, Ardi would never have imagined that the reason was what Aversky had just revealed. And if you considered the fact that the Grand Magister had requested, from their very first meeting, that he not bring one with him… Well, the situation had clearly been going on for longer than Aversky had just admitted.

Sleeping Spirits…

Masking Ley-emissions so they couldn't be analyzed at all? That was a discovery worthy of the same medallion Aversky wore! But the fact that it hadn't been published, and had instead found its way to criminal organizations…

"Castilia?" Milar asked more calmly. "Selkado?"

"We thought so at first." Aversky crossed one leg over the other, exposing the straps that held his artificial foot in place. "But it looks more like someone tried to frame them. So…"

"Ours?" Milar's surprise was evident. "Imperial mages took out the analyzers?"

"Most likely."

"And for wh-"

"Everything else, Captain," Aversky cut him off, "pertains to a clearance level you don't possess. Just as I don't have full clearance regarding the issue in which you've involved my protégé."

Milar glanced at Ardan.

"Involved might be overstating it."

"And you-"

"Gentlemen!" Dagdag, raising his palms in a gesture of peace, stepped between the captain and the major. "I understand that you have concerns and disagreements, but we don't have much time left, and we need to outfit the Corporal."

Aversky and Milar pinned each other with unfriendly stares for a few more seconds before both of them gave a quick, curt nod.

Reassured that everyone had cooled down, Dagdag returned to a control panel set apart from the lab. For a while, he pressed buttons and lifted levers on it.

"Stand back," the half-blood dwarf waved them away.

Milar and Ardan moved aside just in time, as a moment later, an opening appeared in the floor once again, and several stands rose up on a slightly-shuddering, clanking platform.

Suits were laid out on the mannequins, wooden shoetrees displayed gleaming footwear, and beneath a glass case lay watches. Past them, lined up neatly, stood umbrellas. Beside them were satchels, and blank, lacquered heads that sported hats. There were also countless steel containers of various shapes, each hiding… something… beneath its lid.

"Let's start with the simple items," Dagdag said, approaching the first container. He opened it and revealed several velvet pads, like in a jewelry store. And resting on them were precious ornaments: cufflinks adorned with emeralds, agates, rubies, sapphires, and… These were most likely not genuine gemstones at all, but…

"You've figured it out?" Dagdag's proud gaze shone.

"Military accumulators."

"Exactly." The dwarf nodded, then lifted the lid to remove two emerald-studded cufflinks from the pad. "The crystals are too small to hold much, so each cufflink can only store three Green Star rays."

"I see," Ardan murmured, accepting the box where Dagdag had placed the accumulators.

Given that bringing accumulators to the auction was forbidden because it would be held in midair, where mages supposedly wouldn't be able to cast — and yet the organizers were still erring on the side of caution — six extra rays were better than none at all. Of course, if the auction was being held in the air, one might ask why Ardan needed specialized Star Magic devices at all. But, as always, things were never as simple as they appeared.

"Next, the Grand Magister and I had to work hard to fulfill your request," Dagdag continued, stepping up to the next container and lifting its lid with almost fatherly affection. "Under different circumstances, if we published the mechanism, it could serve as a Magisterium thesis, but…"

He let out a small, melancholy sigh and pulled out what looked like an ordinary medallion. It could've easily been mistaken for a family heirloom — there was even a faint crest visible. But once you opened it…

Inside, held in place by a very thin metal plate, lay a shard of Crystal Salamander scale connected to several wires. These were affixed to a mechanism strikingly reminiscent of clockwork, with rows of tiny gears, crystals, cogs, and other intricate parts. The whole contraption shifted, clicked, and… rattled slightly.

"We couldn't get rid of the noise," Dagdag instructed, gingerly handing Ardan the device. "So make sure no one presses against your chest, Corporal."

"How long does it last?"

"Once activated, you'll have about two seconds. Then the plate will lose its properties."

Two seconds… It wasn't much, but more than enough in some situations.

"Now for something in your size," Dagdag snapped his fingers at a suit that looked only slightly simpler and cheaper than the one the Anorsky family had provided for Ardi to wear at the Emperor's coronation. "We modified the standard set the Daggers get. It's fire-resistant and impact-resistant. It won't stop a point-blank army rifle shot, but it'll handle a couple of revolver bullets from more than ten meters away. So don't take any point-blank shots… And expect fractures and bruises afterwards. By the way, you'd do well to avoid getting cut by a saber."

"What about magic?"

"As you saw when you arrived, it can handle five, maybe six seconds when hit by spells that are up to thirty-seven Red Star rays in strength. Once again, I'd advise you not to stand in the epicenter of any explosions or try to catch grenades in your pocket," Dagdag said gently, running his hand over the suit's lapels. Then he pointed to the shoes. "This is a modified model. The heel contains a small, isolated accumulator in a closed circuit. If you click the heels together, the circuit completes and the seal it's linked to will activate."

"For how long?"

"What do you weigh?"

"Eighty-eight kilos."

Dagdag muttered in annoyance.

"I'd been told something else, Corporal…"

"I lost weight," Ardan replied simply.

"All right then…" The dwarf half-blood moved to his worktable, where his fingers flew across the keys of a calculating machine. "Twelve seconds… give or take."

"Perfect!" Ardan nodded happily.

Dagdag beamed once again and returned to the display.
"Next, we have the standard, if incomplete, Dagger kit, Corporal," he said, producing a glasses case and skillfully sliding it open to reveal a lens. "It's a miniature camera with four frames. To take a photo, point the lens at your target and press this little lever." Next, he took out a lighter. It looked perfectly ordinary, except its casing was slightly larger than usual. "There's only a tiny bit of fluid in here, so if you're lighting someone's cigarette, keep that in mind. To activate it…" Dagdag showed him a second lighter — likely just a dummy — and slid up a small panel with an engraving of a cat licking its paw. "You'll have a couple of seconds before the explosion. There won't be many fragments, and it'll have a minimal blast radius, so it's more of a distraction than anything else."

"Got it."

Then Dagdag produced two buttons, which he immediately fastened onto the suit's collar.

"Make sure to remember this, Corporal: the one on the right holds a rather complex alchemical compound in a capsule that dissolves upon contact with stomach ac-"

"Dagdag, with all due respect," Milar all but pleaded, "we only have three and a half hours until the auction starts."

The dwarf frowned and glanced at the Grand Magister, who had been sipping his coffee calmly the entire time, exuding an air of "I know exactly how you feel."

"On the left, Corporal, there's a pill that'll flood your bloodstream with a hefty dose of adrenaline. The right one, by contrast, will slow your heart so much you could pass for a dead man. Don't mix them up."

"All right."

"Here's your case." The dwarf placed a silver cigarette case on the table, which held twenty slim rolls of tobacco.

"What does it do?"

"It stores cigarettes, Corporal."

"But seriously-"

"It. Is. Just. A. Cigarette. Case," Dagdag repeated, pausing after each word in frustration. "Every gentleman carries one."

"But I don't smoke."

"No one's forcing you to…" Dagdag inhaled, clearly reining in his exasperation. "And finally…" He said, drawing a red handkerchief that had been folded into a triangular shape from a lacquered box and tucking it into the suit's breast pocket. "It's covered in a potent toxin. Press it to someone's nose and mouth, and they'll be paralyzed for a couple of minutes."

"What if they don't breathe in?"

"The toxin works upon contact with the skin, Corporal, not just through inhalation."

"Then why press it to their mouth and nose?"

"Because older models did, in fact, require inhalation."

"So what if someone never inhaled back then?"

"Then…" Dagdag flung his arms up in exasperation, looking first at Aversky, then at Milar. "Is he mocking me?"

"No," Milar and Aversky replied in unison.

***

Milar finished his cigarette. Glancing at Ardan, he stretched out his hand. Ardi gave him a firm handshake.

"See you on the other side, partner," Milar said with a wink in that usual manner of his that was part teasing, part silly, and just a touch serious.

"Yes," the young man nodded. "See you on the other side… partner."

With that, he climbed into the long, extravagant car. Compared to the "Derks," its interior looked like a second-class train compartment contrasted against a crowded one full of plain seats: it had tons of soft leather and an extended chassis that let Ardi — tall as he was — stretch out his legs. The ceiling, padded and lined with leather, arched overhead. A small couch on the right had been divided in half by a minibar built into the back wall, one that was stocked with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Naturally, there was also a heater and a draw curtain for the windows.

The panels had been fashioned from Alkade pine and royal cherrywood, each piece carefully cut, shaped, and meticulously decorated by hand, much like the finest ateliers would tailor custom suits and dresses.

Boris had told him that these cars could cost as much as five thousand exes. They were manufactured by the "Wings of Pegasus," with no more than a hundred units leaving the factory each year. On the one hand, that was hardly a huge number, but on the other, they would sell out immediately, with people lined up on a waiting list.

Right now, though, Ardan was paying little mind to the luxury surrounding him. All he could think about was the city lights receding into the distance. The driver was taking him to the testing area from which the dirigible would soon ascend.

A year ago, Ardan had left Evergale for the first time.

And who would have thought that, eleven and a half months later, he would leave solid ground itself, becoming one of the first to soar into the skies aboard an iron contraption?

"It's almost like one of Grandpa's stories," Ardi whispered.