The Nested Worlds

"Gunpowder doesn't tolerate fools for long." —attributed to Shaon Keeghan

After the blast

Lendwick city, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.13.09

Wullem de Tredleck regained his senses, with difficulty. His ears had that abused feeling like somebody had shoved wool into them, underwater, and then struck a tuning fork right next to them for good measure. The only thing he could hear that wasn't badly muffled was a bone-penetrating high eeeeeeee!

The only other sensation was weight. Warm, soft weight on his legs and lower back, and then hard pointy weight. Bricks. Right. Yes. They'd been standing next to a wall when—

When boom.

The warm soft weight was Adrey Mossjoy. Not an unpleasant experience, that. Having her cuddled up to him. Very pleasant. Much nicer than being cuddled up to Blaster, who was really not Wullem's type…

…Uhm…

It occurred to him in a floaty, dazed way that he was not concentrating properly, or on the right things. He raised his hands and drummed his fingers on the back of his skull, on the grounds that he'd heard somewhere that it made tinnitus go away. To his surprise, it worked. That was good. Didn't do anything for the wool-in-his-ears thing, or the pain from being nearly flattened under toppling brickwork, but…

Adrey picked herself up as well. Very pretty. Have to try and get cuddled up to her again, later…

Focus, you idiot.

She gave him a sharp look as though she could see and hear the muddle in his mind. Then she reached out and touched his cheek. That was very nice. More of that…

A thoroughly unpleasant jolt ripped through his head as she gave him a sharp blast of businesslike healing magic. It was like taking a bucket of ice water with an electric eel in it to the face, but by fuck it cleared his thoughts in a hurry. And brought sound rushing back in, clear and immediate.

"Aargh! Fuck!"

"Get up." She followed her own advice and rose, pulling a small pistol from somewhere inside her clothes.

"Right. Yeah. Thank you." Wullem used the half-collapsed wall for support and achieved verticality with a certain amount of pain and uncertainty. "…Red Lady's Arse."

Okay. so. They'd set a bomb to bring down two airships. One had escaped, but the other had come down atop the powder store. And now the mooring mast and several nearby buildings were gone. The din of nearby alarm bells and shouting was frankly not a great improvement on deafness.

Nor was the distinctive snap of a bullet passing much too close to his left, the sound of it ricocheting off something, and the belated crack of the rifle it had come from.

They dived through the first respectable escape route they could find as more shots came their way, and sprinted along an alleyway.

"How the fuck do they know which side we're on?" Wullem demanded as he turned and cracked off a few shots that kept heads down behind them.

"We're out past curfew!" Blaster reminded him.

Adrey indicated a spot where a parked wagon afforded a way over the wall. "This way!"

They scrambled over, dropped on to the road, and followed Adrey as she sprinted straight across and between the half-collapsed remains of one building, and an intact livery table whose frantic equine occupants, mad with fear, were busy kicking everything in reach and shrieking.

The sound masked their footsteps at least. At Adrey's hand signal they stopped moving, hid among some assorted clutter at the stable's back, and waited. Running boots and shouting voices passed their hiding place a second later, just at the perfect moment to have caught them like rats in a drainpipe if they'd kept moving. A lantern shone briefly through the cluttered space, then moved on.

A second later, Adrey muttered "Ah, shit…" to herself.

Wullem glanced at ehr. "Problem?"

"I don't think there's a way out of this…" she glanced around, gritting her teeth.

"What makes you say th—?"

Something drove him to his knees. It was a pressure, a pounding, a terrible vice-hard squeeze around the inside of his head. It was a feeling of violation, of being caught doing something illicit, of being seen with uncomfortable clarity. It was the sensation of opening a door while wandering naked around his own house, only to find several people standing huddled behind his desk where they'd been reading his diary and now they were staring at him. It was the furious, penetrating glare of a stern schoolmaster about to hand out ten of the best with a reed cane over something which nobody could ever have proven Wullem was guilty of, but Professor Thwaite had known anyway, somehow...

Exposed. Bare. Transparent. Vulnerable.

And the only thing that held back that terrible feeling from sinking right into him and tearing him apart was a wall as thin as a soap bubble.

Two words blasted into him with the force of an irresistible command.

Stand up.

Wullem's limbs jerked and tried to obey on their own. Some deep instinct made him fight the impulse, but he still staggered and fell.

Stand. Up!

Wullem grunted through gritted teeth. "Fuck you…"

The sense of scrutiny became a flash of hot rage, followed by grim resolve. A moment later, there was the rattle of booted feet, and a pistol was pressed to the back of his neck.

"Stand up." This voice was real, and human, and Wullem obeyed it. He did so slowly, his hands raised, and the pressure in his mind flowed away with a certain air of smug satisfaction.

He caught Adrey's eye. She didn't do anything so blatant as shake her head, but still the tiny subtle motions she did make told him everything. Stay calm. Don't fight…yet.

Without doing anything so blatant as nodding, he nodded. He certainly wasn't about to try anything stupid when the barrel of a revolver was gently trying to dislocate one of his vertebrae.

Their weapons were confiscated, and Blaster's many pockets emptied of all the fun surprises he'd packed into them. Adrey's face turned coldly stoic as one of their captors—a Guild mercenary who would have been quite handsome if not for his personality bleeding through—took rather more pleasure than was seemly in searching her for hidden weapons.

Despite their predicament, Wullem did find a moment to marvel at just how many he found.

Shackles were produced from somewhere, chaining them together at a little more than arm's length from each other, and then they were moving, marching left-right-left-right to keep from being tripped.

Well. This one would make for an interesting novel, at least. If he ever got to write it. But all he could do right now was hope Adrey had a plan.

Far away, in the distance, he heard the sound of cannons pounding the manor.

They were loaded into a prison wagon, which Adrey took as fortunate. It at least gave her the chance to sit, think and maybe plan a little with Blaster and Wullem.

Her mind was hunched and watchful right now, like a cat under a porch when there was a fox sniffing around. Civorage's psychic presence had withdrawn once he realized they were protected, but he would be back for certain. Most likely, he'd wait until the potion wore off, and then the two men would have no protection.

Adrey herself was fairly sure her Word would protect her from falling under his thrall. But the fact was, she was captured again. And as bad as the Peltons had been, Civorage was likely worse.

There was one silver lining. The man who'd frisked her for weapons had been fortunately unprofessional.

She'd learned early in her training that if a woman with concealed items about her person was captured and searched, there were three kinds of searchers: there were professionals, who would find everything but were fortunately rare*,* and two kinds of unprofessional searchers: creeps, and good but shy men.

Good, shy men would pat her down dutifully but not thoroughly as their sense of obligation to propriety made them uncomfortable around certain bits of her anatomy. Creeps would gladly search those certain bits, but their relish in the opportunity tended to make them disinterested in searching the rest.

Either way, there were…hinterlands…where a girl might keep a small item: places just chaste enough to bore the creeps, but still intimate enough to make the shy boys blush.

It was for this reason that she still had a garotte, a small folding knife, two lockpicks and the small leather bag she could fill with sand or shot to make a decent bludgeon. The guard's hand had groped within an inch of them, but he'd failed to identify them among the legitimate textures and underwiring of her garments.

With any luck, she'd repay his leching in due course. But ultimately, it didn't matter. What mattered was escape and survival.

For now, the options were nonexistent. They were too closely guarded, and Adrey was fairly sure that once again she was back in a position where her only option was to make her move at exactly the right moment.

She met Wullem's eye. He was watching the guards, counting them and memorizing the details, just like she was. There were seven, total: the serjant who'd searched her, a corporal and lance-corporal, four Guild armsmen. All were armed with a carbine, bayonet and backup revolver, except for the serjant, who was riding shotgun up on the wagon's seat, armed with a shotgun.

She'd get…one question, she guessed, before being told to shut up. Yes. One. But it had to be the right question. Not 'where are you taking us?' because the reply would just be some smug variant of 'you'll see.' But the serjant was a bully and a pig, and nasty enough to tell her the unguarded truth if she pricked him just right…

"You know, this city really has gone downhill since the last time I was here," she said conversationally to Wullem.

He arched an eyebrow at her, then played along. "Really, now? And here I thought the Guild had turned Lendwick into an enviable resort town…"

Good boy. "Oh, from where I'm sitting I can really see the place has gone to shit…" she jerked her head meaningfully toward the unpleasant view of the serjant's britches riding low in front of them. Wullem and Blaster both chuckled.

"Shut up back there!" the serjant snarled.

Adrey gave him her best sweetly sarcastic tone of voice. "How long is the ride to this Guild resort, anyway? I hope you boys brought a packed lunch?"

The serjant turned and pointed his shotgun right at her face. "It ain't far, little girl. But you won't see it if you keep waggin' that tongue, I promise 'yer."

Adrey looked him in the eye. No, he wouldn't shoot her. He was under orders to bring them in alive. But he would beat her bloody if she wasn't careful. She shut her mouth pointedly, which seemed to pass muster: he withdrew the shotgun and glared at the two men. "An' you two can keep quiet an' all," he added. "You'll 'ave plenty to say once we're at Feyfort, I'm sure…"

He turned back away from her with a sadistic chuckle.

Okay. Good. A ray of hope, in fact. They weren't going far. Adrey's worst-case scenario had involved being loaded onto an airship and flown out of the city, but Feyfort was the ancient elvish castle in Lendwick's center. Long since torn down and replaced with a sprawling government building, of course, but very much the seat of power in this city.

That meant transfers. Handoffs. Opportunities. And importantly, the opportunities would come soon, long before Ellaenie's potion wore off.

She settled into "obedient" silence, and met the eyes of her companions. They understood her: For now, there was nothing else to do but wait.

The whole taproom was fists, boots, and broken crockery. I got a solid elbow into someone's jaw, ducked under a bottle, and managed to wedge a bench between me and a pair of lads who clearly hadn't been taught to fight so much as flail with enthusiasm.

I was holding my own. Better than that, if I'm honest. Thought maybe we'd wrap it up with a few bruises and a story for the next round of drinks.

Then came the chair.

I only caught the shadow of it in the corner of my eye, swinging down like the bloody axe of judgment. No warning, no shout, not even a proper face to curse.

Well that's damned unsporting, I thought. And then the lights went out. —Wullem de Tredleck, The Arthenun Eagle

A quick meeting

Banmor Manor, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.09

"How did you know to be here?"

"Time." Jerl shrugged. "And a little help from a Herald."

Ellaenie looked up at the Cavalier Queen. The ship was holding station over the manege, well away from Banmor Manor. The house was, by some small mercy, merely smouldering rather than fully ablaze, and the house staff plus some of the Queen's crew were doing their best to put it out, but there was still a real danger the old building would go up like a candle.

So far, though, the estate's firefighters seemed to be winning.

The same couldn't necessarily be said down in the city, though. Ellaenie had missed it in all the excitement, but it seemed Adrey's mission to destroy the airships had instead resulted in a huge blast that showered quite a large part of Trail End with burning fuel.

Part of her was fretting about Adrey now. With everyone dosed up on the potion to protect them from Civorage's powers, she couldnt reach out and feel her friend's mind.

Jerl, she noticed, was armed up as though expecting trouble. "Did Time tell you anything about—?"

Jerl nodded, his expression grim with a hint of apology. "Adrey? Yes. She's in trouble. But it's necessary trouble, I'm afraid."

"Necessary how?"

"You want Civorage kicked off Garanhir?"

"…Oh."

He nodded. "Things have to play out a certain way," he said. "There's some uncertainty, and some factors beyond my control. But if things do go the right way, we're about to give him a very bloody nose and save Auldenheigh."

"So what needs to happen?" Ellaenie asked, looking uncertainly toward town.

"You aren't going to like it," he said, and told her.

Ellaenie didn't like it one bit. "…After what Adrey's already gone through…" she shook her head. "What happens if we—?"

"The war lasts longer, lots more people die, and our victory becomes less certain," Jerl said, bluntly.

Ellaenie looked at him thoughtfully. Was this really the same man she'd last seen at the Oasis? Well, yes, she could see as much. But at the same time…

Jerl's demon was…or had been…laziness. Deep in his core was a man who wanted to abdicate any responsibility and just wander the world having fun. The last time she'd seen him, the shackles on his demon had been newly forged, suggesting he'd largely succumbed to his impulse for most of his life.

Now, that demon was buried in an iron cage and it was resentful. Something had given Jerl the hard knock he needed to start taking his power and responsibility truly seriously, but there was no force in all the world that was going to make him wish in his core for anything other than the easy life. Accepting he couldn't have it had changed him, brought out a layer of sharp ice she hadn't guessed was there before.

It was a change for the better, she decided. Besides, there was no denying the pragrmatic truth in his words and Ellaenie knew Adrey would say the same thing, but dammit it didn't sit right not hearing her say so.

"…Alright. We'll follow the course you've foreseen," she said.

He nodded. "She'll be okay, I promise. She has to be, for what I have in mind to work."

That helped. Ellaenie nodded and relaxed a bit. "So what do we have to do?" she asked.

He inclined his head toward Uncle Eckard, who was having his arm attended to by Aunty Bren and Jerl's navigator, Amir.

Ellaenie understood.

I came to with the distinct impression that someone had tried to replace my skull with a gong and was taking it out for a test ring.

"You live," said a voice like sandalwood and sunlight, and I cracked open an eye to see the girl from the taphouse perched beside me like a queen surveying a battlefield. She was dabbing at my forehead with a cloth that smelled of cloves and disdain. "Regrettably."

"Darling," I croaked, "if you were going to watch me get brained, the least you could have done was bet on me."

She dabbed the stinging cloth to my cut again, without mercy. "I did. And I lost." —Wullem de Tredleck, The Arthenun Eagle

Taking a beating

Feyfort, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.09

Wullem de Tredleck was writing in his head, as a sort of meditation.

I've been on the receiving end of some nastily professional beatings in my time, and dear reader let me tell you: this one was among the most amateurish…

Three-quarters of a really dangerous beating were blows to the face, ribs and balls, but the Guild men weren't cracking open his protective huddle to get at them. Nor had they pried him away from the wall he'd flopped and writhed against to shield his kidneys. That wasn't to say the rain of kicks and punches didn't hurt—they really did, and he was quite sure several of the small bones in his left hand were broken—but it really could have been worse.

Planning how to do this scene when he came to write the novel was a way of keeping the panic at bay.

"If you're…looking for a spot…in the next book…" I croaked during a lull in the onslaught, "I'm afraid it's going to be…most unflattering."

He said no such thing, of course. That would just provoke them into redoubling their efforts. No, the smart move when there was a break was to lie still, wheeze plaintively, and loll around as though borderline unconscious. After all, if they wanted him dead they would have just shot him. Being worked over was a good indication he was wanted alive by somebody. Give 'em a little scare, therefore, and maybe…

It worked.

"Shit. Better give 'im a little jolt o' healing. We'll 'ear no end of it if he dies."

"Right, right…"

Wullem did not have to play-act the yelp of pain that came quite naturally when all the broken and dislocated bones in his hand returned to their natural position with an ugly meaty crackle. The guards seemed to take it as a reward of sort: they filed out, chuckling sadistically, and Wullem was left to recover after the door locked and closed behind them.

He lay still for a while to let the pain fade. Magic worked quickly when applied in such a brutally forceful way, but the cure was almost as bad as the wound.

Still, it wasn't long before he was ready to sit up and take stock.

He was, as expected, not actually in a cell. The Guild men had been informed on arrival that the cells were crammed full of the latest batch of rounded-up dissidents, suspected dissidents, and people who'd given anything in Clear Skies colors an even slightly sideways glance. So instead, Wullem, Adrey and Blaster had been consigned to the cellars…and then quite sensibly put in different rooms so they couldn't confer or cooperate.

This particular luxury resort semed to be a provisions store. The "wall" I'd shielded my back against turned out to be a stack of the rope-handled oblong crates familiar to all military men for their role in storing both ammunition and hard tack, and the shelves along the long walls groaned with kegs of peas, beans, lentils, sugar, tea, coffee, salt pork and pemmican. If not for the absence of any potable liquids, I could have barricaded the door and eaten well for a few years while I waited for the whole mess to blow over.

It occurred to him that he was perhaps still a bit dazed and shaken, if he was still escaping into fantasizing about how he'd write the experience down. Okay. Think.

Well…they obviously didn't intend to keep him in here for long. There was no privy, for a start. Nobody wanted a prisoner pissing in the provender. So, he'd be moved on from this room sooner rather than later.

…Not an encouraging thought, that. He briefly considered pissing in the provender anyway out of spite, but…nah. That was a waste of time he could be spending more productively.

He grunted and cursed his way upright and looked again at his prison from a slightly higher altitude. No visible lock on this side. Deadbolt and padlock on the outside? Probably. The only air circulation came from a draft under the door, the gap of which also revealed the shadow of booted feet. The light came from three magestone cages arranged in a triangle on the ceiling: enough to see by and stay safe from Eclipse, but such a dim glow could last a year between charges.

He stood there drawing a blank on how his plucky, cunning hero could get out of this predicament. It wasn't like the Guild men were going to come back piecemeal in numbers he could brawl with and win, even without the beating…

There was an alarmed, wordless grunt from outside, a "huh?" or a "hey!" that got cut off with a sharp crack as of somebody being hit in the head by something heavy. Then a slam that made the door rattle, then a prolonged rustle and some struggling sounds which faded to silence.

Then the jangle of keys.

Adrey opened the door. "Hello, Wullem."

"Countess Mossjoy." Wullem wouldn't have been Wullem de Tredleck if he couldn't feign cool in these moments. He limpted toward freedom. "I fear if you've come for an intimate tête-à-tête, I shall have to…mm…beg we reschedule. This is hardly the…ow…the Statdorf hotel."

She took his arm over her shoulder and helped him out of the room, checking him over. "They beat you?"

"Not too badly. Missed all the important bits, anyway. How did you—?"

"Luck. Excuse me a second." She stooped to the corpse of the man she'd garrotted, scooped up his revolver, and flung it down the corridor toward the approaching sound of booted feet. The boots' owner stepped around the corner at exactly the wrong moment so that the weapon landed neatly under his heel, which skittered away. He slipped, fell, and his head bounced off the flagstones with an ugly crack!

"Winter's tits…" Wullem blinked at the unconscious man.

Adrey confiscated the guard's magestone pouch as well, and used it to give him another jolt of healing. The troubling pain in Wullem's knee vanished, making him sigh in relief. He nodded his thanks, disentangled himself from her, and picked up the fallen man's carbine. "So what next?"

Adrey unwound her garotte from its victim's neck, then trotted up the corridor to retrieve the pistol she'd thrown. "Blaster's in the laundry. That way."

Wullem didn't ask how she knew. He just finished stripping the dead guard of his ammo belt, and followed. "And after we've found him?"

"I'm still figuring that out. Things aren't…fully resolved yet. There are a few ways it could go." She waved him to a halt at an intersection, counted under her breath, then waved him to follow her. As they darted around the corner. Wullem followed, to discover that there was a man standing guard who must have turned his back at exactly the wrong moment: In a flash, Adrey looped her wire around the unlucky fellow's throat, kicked him in the knee, then twisted as he fell and held his bodyweight over her shoulder with a grim expression.

Wullem shuddered. He'd never seen a garotte used properly before. It was, at least, a mercifully quick way to go. The guard's eyes fluttered and glazed into unconsciousness before he'd even had the chance to reach up and try to fight it properly. His feet kicked and twitched in useless ways for a few moments longer, and then he was still.

Such was war. But it occurred to me there and then that Adrey Mossjoy was easily the most deadly woman I'd ever met. I've never known another female who could kill so easily…

He shut up the inner author, who was babbling to cover for his discomfiture, and retrieved the keys from the guard's belt. Moments later, Barriman looked up at them from a pile of bed linens in the corner where he'd been recuperating after his own working-over.

"…Took you…bloody long enough…" he coughed.

Good line. Wullem thought. He'd use that one verbatim. While Adrey watched the corridor, he darted across the room and gave the Particular his best attempt at healing magic. It was a skill Wullem had picked up out of necessity rather than passion, and Blaster gasped as though he'd just dumped a bucket of freezing alcohol in his face.

It worked, though. Blaster coughed again, spat a gobbet of red phlegm into the corner, then levered himself upright. "Guess they went easy on you…" he noted to Adrey.

"I didn't give them the opportunity…" she said, distractedly. She looked like she was listening to a distant sound on she could hear.

Or…No. No, Wullem could hear it too. It was muffled by the fact they were behind several thick stone walls in a cellar, but he could very faintly make out…

"Gunfire?"

"The Earl's regiment, I think."

"So the duchess succeeded?" Wullem asked. "We only sunk one airship though."

Adrey shrugged. "Let's go find out. And while we're at it, we can rip the heart out of the Guild operation…"

"Works for me." Blaster picked up his guard's fallen weapons. "I owe these bastards back some pain."

A faint smile touched Adrey's face. "We all do," she said. "Come on: let's make a nuisance of ourselves."

Wullem grinned to himself. This was shaping up to be his best novel yet.

She was floating in knee-deep water beneath a grate that spilled night-light in slow, shifting bars across her green velvet dress. Her hair fanned out around her like ink in a glass. She almost looked peacefully asleep...but the hideous slash across her throat dispelled that illusion

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Mirelle Hager, jewel of Park End, whisper of scandal in the salons, runaway daughter and would-be romantic adventurer. The girl I was supposed to bring home safe.

She was only seventeen.

I only remembered how to move when my match burnt down to my fingertips and I dropped it in the water with a hiss. The city above still bustled with markets, dancers and music from a hundred rooftop terraces, but down here, the stillness smelled like rot and rosewater.

"You were drinking when she went missing." Mulusa's voice was tight with accusation. She was standing behind me, arms folded in her silks like she was at a funeral.

"And you were dancing," I said without looking at her. "We all had our distractions."

She didn't reply.

—Wullem de Tredleck, The Arthenun Eagle

Earning Loyalty

Lendwick First of Foot Regimental Headquarters, Thorpe House, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.09

By the time Civorage had realized what they were doing, it was already too late for him to react. The Rüwyrdan Set took the regimental headquarters in a literal blur, leaping over the walls and speeding across the grounds with superhuman acceleration to disarm sentries, restrain guards, and clamp their hands over the mouths of officers.

Ellaenie and her uncle strode in through the front gate, through the front door, up the main stairs, and right into Colonel Ramson's office, where the man himself sat nervously between two elves. He stood when the Earl entered, glancing nervously at Ellaenie.

"…My lord Earl. It's…" his eyes fell to Eckard's missing arm. "…Sir?"

Eckard gestured for him to sit, and made himself comfortable too, with Ellaenie's help. "This is a tricky position we're in, Jim," he said quietly. Ellaenie kept her internal wince from showing on her face: Eckard really ought to be resting after the trauma of being freed and so badly wounded. his voice was heavier with fatigue than she'd ever heard it before. He sounded…old.

Ramson's eyes flicked to Ellaenie. Clearly, he recognized her. "…I should say it is, my lord," he agreed.

"There are questions of trust. Accusations that my niece has powers of witchcraft and enchantment."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the accusations are true, Jim. She absolutely does. So the question is, if I tell you she's used them to free me from the influence of another…can you believe and trust me?"

Ramson frowned at Eckard, then at Ellaenie again. She was, she realized, confronting one of those quietly intelligent men who was far too modest and sensible to really allow the full power of his intellect to show. And right now, the wheels of rationality were grinding fine.

She didn't look at his demon. She didn't want to know what might be lurking in an old soldier's cage.

"I don't know much about witchcraft," Ramson said, eventually. "But it always seemed strange to me that the Earl went from loving you as his niece to condemning you for a witch overnight. It also seems to me that if you could really beguile and command men so easily, you would never have faced exile at all."

"I faced exile because one who can beguile and command men so easily chose to do so," Ellaenie told him. To her right, Eckard shifted uncomfortably. Clearly the thought of what he'd been compelled to say while Encircled discomfited him. "I can't control men, as it happens. At least…no more than any other woman can. Witchcraft grants me the power of insight, not of domination."

Ramson nodded slowly. "I can see how that would earn it a dark reputation," he admitted. But he still wasn't entirely convinced, Ellaenie saw.

She looked up at the elves. "…Vamas, entha."

They nodded, and slipped past the desk to leave the office.

"You too, Eckard."

He frowned at her, then dragged himself out of the chair, nodded to Ramson, and left the room. Ellaenie sat quietly and waited. Again, she watched his thoughts turn carefully.

"…You have a pistol in your desk, I imagine," she prompted, after half a minute.

"You imagine correctly."

"You could shoot me right now."

"Could I? You'd let me?"

Ellaenie simply spread her hands.

Ramson bowed his head in thought. His hand, Ellaenie noted, did stray toward the desk drawer. But she left him entirely alone to think for himself, and after a second he looked up at her again.

"…How may the Lendwick First of Foot serve, your Grace?"

The battle was fierce, and made bitterer by the fact the Lendwick regiment and the Guildsmen had been living side-by-side as apparent allies for the past several years.

There were a fair few desertions from the Regiment, too. Younger men, mostly, who'd been boys when Civorage dominated the dukes and had grown into manhood on a diet of his Oneist propaganda. The sort who had probably taken the Earl's coin so as to get some training and experience before they went on to be a Guildsman.

Rüwyrdan scouts nipped at their heels like sheepdogs, directing them to escape along the routes Jerl instructed. They would blunder into other regiments, spreading their story of mass desertion and Lendwick's treachery…and sow doubt. Very few of the old regiments were actually under Civorage's direct control, and most of their officers and lords were like Colonel Ramson in that the political upheaval of eight years ago had made very little sense to them at the time, and they'd been carefully keeping their heads down and thinking ever since.

Superior numbers and a longer fighting tradition would carry the day for the regiment, Jerl knew. But he did dearly wish there could be a more bloodless way. By daybreak, dozens of men would be dead, killed in fierce clashes across streets, from building to building, or in brutal close-quarters fighting.

But the most telling contest of the battle would happen behind closed doors...

Inside, the air was thick with the smells of oil, lift gas and secrets. The drydock was silent but for the creak of cables and the soft pad of our boots on the catwalk. But there she was.

She looked dead.

The lift bag had been unhitched and slumped across the upper trusses like a molted skin, the interior bladders stacked half-heartedly amidships. Her hull—brass-strapped and sharp-nosed—was frosted with dust. One engine cowling was half-open, like a mouth petrified mid-yawn.

"That's her?" Mulusa asked, voice hushed.

I raised my lantern. As the beam played across her prow, it illuminated the name Arthenun Eagle.

"Mirelle found her after all," I said.

—Wullem de Tredleck, The Arthenun Eagle

Heading for the exit

Feyfort, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.09

On any other day, in any other company, navigating Feyfort undetected would have been impossible…

Adrey beckoned aside and the two men followed her into a side room where they pushed the door to about three seconds before a group of men rounded the corner at a run and charged past their hiding place.

Blaster watched them go through the crack in the door. "Encircled?"

Adrey shook her head. "No. But we're getting close. Come on."

They slipped back out into the hallways and followed her at a trot. The building was one of thoese patchwork structures, where extensions and additions had conspired with remodeling to give the internal layout an awful lot of character and not much logical sense. Twice now they had gone down a flight of steps, along a brief stretch of corridor, and then back up a flight of steps without passing any doors or other features which might justify the change in elevation.

I was hopelessly lost, and so was Blaster. But the Countess strode in front like she'd grown up playing in this labyrinth and knew every last wrinkle of old.

Abruptly, she pushed through a double door and they were on a mezzanine. Large doors on the wall opposite had a certain solid, external and above all main entrance look to them*.*

They flitted to the cover of three thick pillars and surveyed the space below. Somebody had set up a command post of sorts down there, surrounded by barricades and a few bold men…all facing the wrong way.

A moment of eye contact was all the instruction Adrey needed to give.

Five ruthless seconds later, Wullem's weapon pinged as it spat out an empty clip. He rammed its replacement into place and let go of the bolt, but there was nobody left standing down there.

They surveyed what they had done for a moment, but none of the men stirred. Adrey emptied her own smoking revolver and turned to walk away, already thumbing new rounds into its cylinder as she strode off toward a side door.

Wullem and Blaster hurried to keep up. "So…now what?"

"Now we focus on surviving. With the Encircled dead, the Guildsmen—"

The doors they were heading for opened, and a man with bright blue eyes, pale blond hair and a matching mustache sauntered through, his rich airshipman's coat thrown back to reveal a duelling sword on his right hip.

His mere presence was a hammer blow to Wullem's senses. Just looking at him was enough to bring back that same terrible pressure of scrutiny and knowledge he'd felt back in the alleyway, but ten times worse.

Except…except…

Except the man in front of him wasn't blond and blue-eyed at all, nor was he dressed like an airman. He was a well-built younger man with a shaven head, clad in the grey robes of a Oneist circle.

The vision shot an irritated look at him. "I was right that your protection would wear off, but it seems I underestimated how long it would take. Your witch brews a potent draught," he said, and the voice was at one and the same time a hollow, emotionless drone and the soft burr of a middle-class Betlender made good. The force of his disapproval and frustration was still enough to make Wullem go weak at the knees.

Adrey seemed unaffected.

"Hello, Nils," she said, stepping forward with a sort of aggressive insouciance. "Not here in person, then?"

"Oh, why should I be?" Civorage asked through his puppet. "That's the mistake you and Jerl and the witch are making, you know: you're doing everything yourselves, fighting in the front lines where you're vulnerable…"

The puppet took a step forward, drawing a sword. "All it takes is one little slip, and you'll be in trouble that your Word can't get you out of," he said. "And trust me, when you're tied naked to my bed, I'll get under your skin in ways Mari Pelton never had the imagination for."

Wullem had no idea what he was talking about. But Adrey…didn't stiffen, as such, but her reply was a little too long in coming.

"If that's your idea of getting under my skin, Nils, you could have learned a lot from her while she was still alive."

Her voice contained a sharp threat that damn near unmanned me, and I wasn't even its target. Even so…it was bravado. I knew it, and I felt that Civorage knew it as well. He—

The puppet glared at Wullem. "You think too loudly," he said. "Shut up."

The command hammered against Wullem's mind like a cannonball. But it was the distraction Adrey had been waiting for. She pounced, whipping the bayonet she'd confiscated from one of the guards out of a hidden pocket. Even dazed as he was from the mental assault, Wullem recognized that he would have died to that strike.

Civorage parried it.

What followed was a display of bladework that left Wullem to stare in slack-jawed, blank-minded awe. He was a more than fair swordsman himself, having learned the gentlemen's art of the duel at school and used it in actual combat a few times since…but that just gave him enough to understand what he was seeing, and know he could never hope to match it.

He would have fallen in the first second against either of them. There were feints overlaid on feints in that duel, each move and counter-move made by a master thinking three, five, seven, ten steps ahead. But Adrey was better. She had to be, using a bayonet against a duelling sword. Civorage's puppet was taller and stronger, his blade more than three times longer. By every metric of a fight Wullem knew, the countess should have been terribly overmatched.

As it was, she was flawless. Her low-heeled boots made a rhythm of taps and clacking on the tiles that reminded him of an Oderan castanet dancer, and she never placed them wrong, never wasted a step, never made a spare move or mistake. With each passing second, Civorage's frustration and fury mounted, his focus intensified as he bent his will toward…

Oh. Right.

Civorage's attention was entirely on Adrey now…and therefore not on him.

Before the stray thought could slip out and be noticed, Wullem raised his gun and shot the Oneist puppet right through the temple.

The incredible fight ended as abruptly as it had started. The Encircled avatar went over as though Wullem had clubbed him in the head with a creaseball bat, slumped against the wall, and slid down it leaving a smear of gore and brain matter. As he did so, Adrey deftly tucked her toe under the dropped sword, flicked it in the air, and caught it deftly by the handle.

She favored Wullem with the first true smile he'd ever seen her give anyone, and tucked an errant lock of hair back into place behind her ear. "Thank you, Lord de Tredleck."

He picked himself up. "Happy to be of service, my lady Countess," he said, surprising himself with his own suave manner, before adding gallantly: "Though I daresay you had the matter well in hand."

She laughed, remarkably. But she also shook her head, and set about claiming her new trophy's scabbard from its former owner's belt.

Blaster was, it seemed, a little worse for Civorage's attentions. Perhaps the potion was wearing off a little quicker for him. He groaned and grumbled to his feet, then looked around the empty entrance hall. "…So…Are we rid've the bugger?"

Adrey nodded. "I think so, for now. Words of Creation…interfere with each other a bit. It's how I resist his power, and how he was able to match me. But…I don't think he has any more Encircled near enough to make a difference tonight. Lendwick's a bit of a backwater. And any second now…"

She paused as though listening, then gave a satisfied nod. "Don't be alarmed. They're friendly."

"Who—?" Wullem began, and then something smashed the big doors with so much force that the lock broke and they slammed open, probably never to close again without repair work.

Their destroyer was an elf—a male pyrfey with an explosion of dreadlocks and vibrant red, white and yellow dots painted all across his face, dressed in a pair of hide breeches and his vamdraech harness. He was barefoot, and currently rock-steady on just one leg with the other thrust out in a textbook kick. He uttered a satisfied grunt and lowered his foot as half a dozen of his fellows swarmed through the door to either side of him and leapt easily up from ground level to the mezzanine without apparent effort.

One of them wasn't a pyrfey but an ithfey, an ice elf with vibrant green eyes, dressed in a shirt and breeches of white linen. She looked like somebody who didn't smile often (or ever, if Wullem was any judge), but she did tighten her mouth at Adrey in a friendly sort of way.

"Countess Mossjoy. Captain Jerl Holten sends his compliments, and asks if you and your men would like to retire back to Banmor Manor to celebrate our victory," she said, with only a trace of irony.

I for one very much did like to, Wullem thought. Adrey glanced at him, smiling again as though she too could read his thoughts.

"Yes," she said. "I think we would all like that very much."

And so, Wullem mentally wrote, I got my wish.

He gave me the same smile as he had before. Earlier, I'd found it easy and likable. But now, the mask was entirely transparent and I saw the snake behind it.

"Lord de Tredleck," he said, apparently failing to notice my mood. Rather than stand, he twitched a hand vaguely toward the decanter on a side table to his right. "The hour is a little late, but if you have come to take me up on that drink, I'll gladly—"

I pulled my pistol and aimed it. He sat up straighter and his eyes narrowed. Then, after a second, he relaxed and nodded to himself. "I see."

"She was a child," I said. Loathing stuck each word to the sides of my throat and compelled me to force them out shakily, one by one.

"She was a liability," he replied, like a man about to undertake the boring task of explaining a minor expenses claim to a pernickety accountant. But it was the wrong thing to say to me in that moment.

I pulled the trigger.

—Wullem de Tredleck, The Arthenun Eagle

Ejected

Clear Skies Guild regional headquarters, Antage, Cantre, Garanhir 09.06.03.13.09

Nils massaged his temples and shook his head in a vain attempt to dispel the pain.

So. Now he knew what being shot through the brain felt like. Urgh.

As terminal experiences went, its only virtue was that it was quick. Which was, in truth, a significant virtue, and made it not a bad way to go at all. But experiencing it vicariously was a different matter.

The physical aspect was far less disturbing than what happened to their minds. Supressed and shriven though they were, there was still something there which slipped away intact, and on every occasion Nils' attention was compelled to follow…and then abruptly thrown back, as though a door had opened just long enough for him to run straight into it as it closed again.

People liked to imagine that death was just the first step on a long journey, but Nils had glimpsed through the door which opened on that journey, and seen nothing beyond. No, the more tastes he got of death through his puppets, the more he concluded that it was not for him, thank you very much. Living forever was much more his style.

He shook himself free of the morbid thoughts, and considered what had just happened.

Adrey Mossjoy. Now there was an unexpected twist. He had a pretty good idea of the work Mari Pelton had inflicted on the girl which, amateurish though it was, ought to have left her on the very edge of breaking.

Instead, at some point and seemingly out of nowhere, she'd found a Word of Creation. Even more incomprehensibly, her sanity had survived the blasting knowledge a Word carried and she had emerged just as impenetrable as Jerl or Mouse.

In a duel against any other foe, Mind granted him perfect understanding of what his opponent would do next and how they would respond to his own plays. But Adrey Mossjoy, a countess who by all rights should be a soft and delicate little thing, not only knew how to fight with knives, she had been multiple steps ahead of him throughout their dance.

What Word could it be? How had she gained it?

So many questions, and no answers. He would gnaw at the problem, but here and now…he had to confront the fact that he had just lost Lendwick. With his Encircled stolen or killed, his ships destroyed, and his loyal Guild forces surrounded and either captured or slaughtered, there was now a fracture in the iron ring he'd been closing tight around Auldenheigh. Through it, supplies would flow. And the Lendwick regiment would join the Auldenheigh militias and the Yunei.

He comforted himself that he still enjoyed massive industrial, agricultural, logistical and numerical superiority, despite the setback. But even so…Ellaenie had captured two cities now. And anything she could do twice, she could do three times, four, eight, a hundred.

The Ordfey, after all, had fallen long ago to their human slaves. Nils' empire could fall too, if he wasn't careful. And with Time on their side, anything that could happen would happen. It might be that Ellaenie needed to be lucky every time while Nils only needed to be lucky once…But with Time working for them, they would be lucky every time.

He needed a plan that removed luck from the equation therefore. He needed to create a no-win situation where Jerl could not influence the outcome no matter what. And he needed to do it now, while he still enjoyed the overwhelming balance of power. But first…he needed a tincture of willow bark for the pain.

There would be no more fighting tonight, anyway.

The events described herein are a fiction informed by real events. Some names and locations have been changed to protect involved parties, and some events have been dramatized. Do not attempt to imitate the exploits you are about to read. The text of this novel should not be taken as an admission of culpability on the author's part with regards to any illegal activity. —Disclaimer on the title pages of Wullem de Tredleck's books.

Taking notes

Banmor Manor, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.10

Despite the best efforts of an airship, Banmor Manor was still standing, for the most part. Salvageable, at least. A couple of years' hard work and it'd be good as new.

One wing of the place was even effectively undamaged. Even better, it was the wing with all the guest bedrooms.

As a gentleman and a famous writer, I was of course duly given one of the nicer ones on the manor's front face, where I had an excellent view of smoldering airship wreckage, the smoke pall over Lendwick, and the rubble-strewn front lawns. Yes, the old place was definitely going to need a little spit and polish before she was back to her best…

He sighed, and flexed his hand. He'd written so much in the last hour that the pen was beginning to feel more like a torture instrument. And all of it, if he was honest, was dancing carefully away from what he wanted to write.

With a second sigh, he tossed his journal onto the bedside table and flopped back into the comfortable matress. In the quiet, he could hear the elves singing around the camp fire they'd set up out on the manege.

Or…perhaps they were chanting. It sounded terribly sad, whatever it was. The whole group were droning out a constant low chord from the backs of their throats, then sometimes a voice would lift up out of the general rumble to describe a mournful melody before dropping back in to let somebody else take over. It sounded funereal, in stark contrast to the drinking, laughter and bawdies being sung by the humans reveling in their survival.

Well…these were penitent elves. Perhaps they were lamenting the dead? He'd need to ask one of them about it.

In any event, the eerie sound invited his thoughts to wander. And that was dangerous for Wullem right now, because there was one image they kept wandering back to.

It was the image of Adrey Mossjoy smiling at him, aglow with the exertion and exhilaration of her duel. The slight flush in her cheeks, the way her panting breath made a snug, practical tweed jacket rise and fall…

Well, there was no harm in fantasizing, was there? After all, he was tightly wound after a daring, dangerous mission, nearly dying, getting captured, escaping, and nearly dying again. Any man would be heated up after today's events. Perfectly normal to want a bit of skirt after such a day, and especially one that had smiled at him…

…but Crowns, such a smile. And from such a woman.

Half a dozen fantasies played themselves out unbidden but unresisted in his mind, tangling together confusedly. He realized, in the vague way of a man half-asleep and half-dreaming that he was half-asleep and half-dreaming. But they were such pleasant dreams, and he was far too comfortable to care overly much about trivialities like undressing and getting under the blankets properly.

Wouldn't it be just perfect if she was all heated up too? Maybe she'd slip away when she got the chance, ghost unnoticed through the battered house, looking for a bit of fun…in his drowsing mind's ear, he could almost hear her footsteps.

Wouldn't that just be the perfect scene I could never publish?

That was a point of pride. He'd included some of his various affairs and brief romances in the books, but never been so crass as to actually set them down on the page explicitly. Wullem knew he wasn't exactly an honorable man by the lights of normal polite society, but he'd never broken his own code.

He dreamed of somebody knocking on the door.

Real women, on real adventures. Dramatically inflated and sometimes given a different name for the readers, of course, but still…real enough. And though they'd enjoyed each other and parted ways (sometimes amicably, often not) and though he'd not shied away from recording that the affairs did happen, he always respectfully closed the scene and opened a new chapter without going into needless, disrespectful detail.

The knocking in his dreams came again. He smiled to himself, amused by his own foolish fantasizing. Crowns, he was going to have to tone down today's adventure for sure. They would certainly never accept his account of Adrey's exploits. Not feminine enough, they'd say. The garotte was too brutal, the ambush too ruthless. She was too—

The knock at the door finally woke him up. He sat up with a short breath, blinked, then cleared his throat.

"Yes?"

The door opened and Adrey stepped right out of his dreams and into his bedroom.

"Uh—" he said. It lacked something, as far as suave witticisms went, so he added: "Good evening."

She laughed softly, closed the door behind her and sat next to him. She had a bottle of rather fine claret with her, he noticed. And two glasses. "It's four in the morning," she said.

"Oh. Well…good morning then. What are you doing up?"

"Checking on you," she said. "You didn't join the others."

"I…uh…" he gestured vaguely to the journal. "…getting it down while it was all fresh in my mind, so to speak."

"Is that how you wrote the other ones?"

He shrugged. "Pretty much, yes…it clears my head." He watched her open the bottle and pour. "How do you unwind?"

"I read." She handed him a glass, then sipped from her own. Her eyes were wry even as she drank. "…Trashy lowbrow adventure novels, for preference. I'm actually rather a big fan of yours."

…Well now. Suddenly, the night was looking a good deal better.

Wullem affected bruised dignity. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I only write dramatic novelizations of real, historical events."

"Giving yourself a rather more central role than you actually had," she teased. "And you include the trysts and dalliances."

He shrugged. "People like a good dalliance."

"Did they all really happen?" Adrey asked.

"It'd be rather caddish to claim such a thing happened when it didn't, wouldn't it?"

"Highly," she agreed. "But you are something of a cad."

"Guilty as charged, but I have my pride," he retorted, with a grin.

"So… that airship captain from 'Spur of the Moment'? Brejli Agnarsdottir?"

"Her real name was Eiva."

"And Mulusa, from The Arthenun Eagle?"

"Crowns!" Wullem looked up at the ceiling in brief recollection. "I had to tone her down because the editors refused to believe a real woman would be so…sultry."

"Really?" Adrey grinned. "You made her sound like she could have been a courtesan as legendary as Palasarli."

"Oh, she was far too proud to open her legs for any amount of coin." Or play the submissive role in bed, for that matter. Crowns, she'd fucked like a wildcat, in ways that would have got the book banned as pornographic if he'd even hinted at them.

"And Shiveen, the navigator from Death and Diamonds?" Adrey pressed.

"My lady Countess…" he stopped her with her title, and held out his glass for a refill. "Where are you going with this?"

She refilled him, not breaking eye contact. "Perhaps I'm wondering how I compare."

"Well, I don't know yet."

"Oh?" She arched a perfect eyebrow at him. "Yet?"

"Sharing a drink is hardly a comparable dalliance."

She snorted. "Hmm…fair. But how do I compare so far, then?"

Wullem sat back and considered her. "Well, you're certainly more formidable in a fight than Eiva was. And you've a sharper mind than Shiveen."

"More beautiful than Mulusa?" she suggested.

Wullem tutted at her. "Shame on you! Don't put a man on the spot like that!" His reward was Adrey's surprisingly throaty laugh, and she nodded while sipping her claret. "Besides, beauty isn't a 'more or less' thing," he added.

"What is it, then, according to Wullem de Tredleck?"

"It's…hmm. Would you ever wear a delicate lotus pink silk saree?"

She blinked at him. "…Lotus pink? Crowns, no."

"No. You've the wrong skin and hair for it, it wouldn't flatter you at all. But you're breathtaking in tweed brown, and I imagine you look astounding in a dark teal ballgown."

She tilted her head at him. "You're right, I do," she allowed, after a beat. "And you, it must be said, look irresistible in that albino alligator skin vest of yours."

He tutted again. "Pity I didn't bring it with me."

"Oh, that's okay…" she set her empty glass aside and scooted toward him. "I rather fancy finding out what you look like with no clothes at all, anyway…"

They kissed. It was a lot better than fantasizing, and went on for some time as they both relaxed into each other and agreed that…yes. This was happening.

Once they agreed upon that, it got a lot heavier. There was an interlude where they paused to examine and compare each others' scars. Adrey had rather a lot more than Wullem, a whole tapestry of cuts as though somebody had really enjoyed marking her. She seemed uncomfortable with them at first, until Wullem put her at ease by kissing every single one. When he told her they only made her more beautiful, he truly meant it.

After that, she didn't let him finish exploring them. She pulled him into her arms, and from there on in Wullem was rather too distracted to think of anything but her.

Ellaenie sat by the fire, fumed, and fretted for her friend.

By the time she'd realized where Adrey had gone and what she was doing, it had been too late to try and stop her. And she wasn't even entirely sure she should. Or could. Adrey…had never been easily talked out of things, as she recalled. Once she set her mind on something, it took a lot to un-set her. And apparently she'd set her mind on going to Wullem de Tredleck's bed tonight.

Had it been almost anyone else, Ellaenie wouldn't have worried about it. So two adults were blowing off steam after a hectic and dangerous experience in the time-honored fashion of men and women since the First Day. So what?

Well, the so what was that Adrey was rather more badly damaged than she herself knew. And de Tredleck? The man novelized his exploits with women for goodness' sake! All very good fun on the pulpy pages of a cheap paperbackl, but actually being one of those exploits, to be enjoyed and discarded? After what Adrey had endured?

No, Ellaenie was not happy about it, not one bit. She'd had a good look at Wullem de Tredleck, and the man was the worst kind of womanizing rogue! That wasn't what Adrey needed!

….Was it?

The sudden pang of doubt shocked her so much that she was still sitting with an off-balance feeling when somebody large sat down next to her and stretched out his legs with a long sigh.

Jerl.

He yawned expansively and wriggled to get comfortable. "You should really be asleep, your Grace."

Ellaenie sighed. He was right, of course. "Too much on my mind," she said.

"Need a sympathetic ear?"

"Mm." She massaged her face, remembering her fatigue now he'd reminded her of it. "My husband's, ideally."

And a good deal more than just a sympathetic ear from him, truth be told. If she was to be brutally honest with herself, a tiny part of her irritation with Adrey was envy. Sayf knew how to keep a relationship passionate, and this was the longest she'd gone without his company since the day she'd joined the harem.

For that matter, she missed the other crownspouses, too. Pal and Cerida would have been full of good advice about Adrey, right now. And Rheannach. And she missed Lisze, too. And she especially missed Saoirse. It felt wrong to be apart from her little girl for so long, even knowing she was in the best possible hands.

…She was homesick, she realized. Homesick, pent-up, tired, and unsure which came first.

Jerl nodded sagely. "That's war, I suppose. Tearing people away from their loved ones."

"Not in your case," Ellaenie said, then cringed at herself: words she'd meant kindly had come out surprisingly bitter. "…Sorry. I really am tired."

Jerl, fortunately, was even-keeled enough to shrug it off. "You're not wrong. I found Mouse. And Sin and Derghan finally stopped dancing around each other. Sometimes, I guess we need the upheaval…"

"Upheaval isn't generally a good thing…"

"Certainly not when you're already on top of the heap," Jerl agreed.

"Usually not for the ones at the bottom of the heap, either," Ellaenie said, a touch waspishly. "More often than not, they end up getting buried deeper."

Jerl side-eyed her for a moment, then produced his pipe and started to pinch tobacco into it. "Something really is gnawing on you," he observed.

Ashamed of her own irritability, Ellaenie looked down at her boots. "…Yes. I'm worried about Adrey."

"What about her?"

"She's…I'm worried for her, rather," Ellaenie corrected herself. "She's been through so much recently, such terrible things, and…and for some reason she's got it in her head to go have a fling with that womanizing author, Tredleck! Trust me, with witch-sight the man's the worst kind of…of…"

"Hump-n'-dump?" Jerl suggested.

"Yes! Winter's tits, he even brags about it in his books! Every single one, he's got some girl throwing herself at him! What kind of an egotistical prat makes a profit off his…conquests? How does Adrey not know better? She's going to get her heart broken, just days after—well, after what the Peltons put her through."

"Hmm." Jerl finished filling his pipe, and wafted a match back and forth above it, puffing it up until it glowed. He took his time, mulling her words over, and finally blew a stream of smoke.

"…Good," he said.

"What?!"

"That's exactly the event I came here to ensure." He saw her expression, and raised a hand to forestall her from ripping a patch off his hide. "Oh, I don't mean 'good, Adrey's going to have her heart broken.' I'm pleased to say you're wrong about that."

"I am, am I?" Ellaenie glared at him.

Jerl took his infuriatingly sweet time to puff and blow a smoke ring. "Here's the thing about Adrey Mossjoy," he said at length. "The Word Nimico gave her makes her probably the most powerful being in all the Nested Worlds, short of the Crowns themselves, and me. And when I put myself ahead of her in that ranking, it's only because I can survey the outcomes I can achieve and what I have to do to make them happen. And even then, everyone else gets a say. Time is a twisty, winding, imprecise thing, and I'm just one man whose only real power is deciding where to go and what to say to change what's within my power to change. I'm far from omnipotent."

He sipped more smoke, then continued. "Adrey, though…Nimico gave her a word that could unmake the whole world. And I thought Time was bad for shaking a fellow's perception of reality, but what she got was something leagues worse. I really can't blame the poor girl for going mad the instant she got it."

Ellaenie's angry scowl was fading as she thought about what he was saying. "…What's your point, Jerl?"

"My point is…" Jerl puffed his pipe again. "In a lot of the futures we could reach from here, we will all live or die on Adrey's state of mind. And you're right: what she went through was…fuck. It would have broken me, I know that. So please believe me, Ellaenie, if I act to do anything involving her, it's all about making sure when the moment comes, she's strong and healthy enough in her head to handle Creation."

He turned, and aimed the pipe's stem up at the manor, in the vague direction of the guest bedrooms. "She needed a win today. And she damn well got one. She took on Civorage and beat him, and then she got a good, straightforward, no-strings-attached and no-rings-implied fuck. Think about it: what does de Tredleck want from her?"

Ellaenie paused. "Well…sex."

"Right. Just sex. He doesn't want to put a collar and leash on her, brand her with his initials or turn her into his broken slave. And for her part, he's not a source of information, or a piece in the spy game. There is absolutely no ulterior motive there, either way. Just innocent, uncomplicated, honest lust."

Ellaenie turned that idea over in her head. "I…she…I mean, Adrey was always a bit more…sultry…than me and Lisze," she allowed. "But sleeping with a man she's only known for a day? It's not like her."

"Or is it not like who she was?" Jerl asked.

Ellaenie opened her mouth, shut it again, then tipped her head back and sighed heavily.

"Ugh, I really am out of sorts. I'm forgetting one of the first basic tenets of witchcraft," she grumbled.

"What's that?"

"People change."

Jerl chuckled. "Yeah. You should see what people are like through Time. We're not one person, each of us is a community."

"And Adrey and I have been walking different paths for eight years. She's not who she was back then. She's…"

"She's a spy, a killer and an adventurer, because that's who she trained to become. And she trained to become that, because that's what she wanted to become." Jerl gave a little apologetic shrug. "Honest truth, Ellaenie? She's got more in common with Wullem de Tredleck than I think you want to allow."

Ellaenie exhaled. Thaighn Saoirse had warned her about this, years ago. It had been one of her earliest lessons, too: 'Remember, lass. 'Yer biggest blind spots will always cover th' people ye love.'

She nodded slowly, then looked up at Jerl. "…You've changed too."

He shrugged. "I got some perspective."

"It must have been good perspective. You've become more…" she paused.

"More what?"

"More…Crown-like. You remind me a bit of Eärrach."

He nodded gravely. "To be a Wordspeaker is to have a running start on the path they walked. Though, I've got a lot of heavy exercise in my future if I want to be like him."

Ellaenie couldn't help but giggle at that. They sat in silence while she gathered her thoughts and Jerl finished his smoke. Eventually, he knocked the ashes out, and blew through the pipe to clean it a little. The sound woke her up, when she hadn't even noticed dozing off.

"I should…get some sleep," she admitted.

"Mhm. You have a long day tomorrow."

"I don't need Time to know that," she groused, and stood. "Thanks, Jerl. I think I'll actually be able to sleep, now."

"Of course." He smiled at her, stood, and headed back towards his ship. As he did so, a shadow detached itself from the other shadows near the wall, and gave him a kiss: Mouse, returning from some errand or another.

It occurred to Ellaenie that they had all the allied Wordspeakers together in one place. That was…an opportunity, if she could only think how to use it.

The germ of an idea formed. She considered it, then smiled and decided to let it germinate in her sleep. She'd see if it was any good in the morning.

With a smile on her face she'd never have expected to find there, she headed indoors and up to her given bedroom. She couldn't quite stop herself from pausing and listening when she reached the guest wing landing, though.

Her smile got wider.

…Then, before it could get voyeuristic, she slipped into her own chambers and went to bed.

Adrey opened her eyes to the soft rumble of a quiet snore in her ear, and the flutter of breath through the hair on the back of her neck. Wullem was all around her, his body warm and solid against her back, his arm heavy on her waist, his fingertips tickling the side of her breast.

For the first time in years, she felt safe.

She smiled, turned over and briefly considered the option of slipping away and going back to her own bed. Deep sleep had softened his face, making him look almost innocent. He wouldn't wake up if she decided to go.

But…no. She deserved to enjoy this comfort a little longer.

She smiled, scooted forward under his arm, and fell asleep again with a completely clear mind.