Thunder stopped threatening, and lightning struck. The heavens opened with the Three’s rage, a pillar of power striking Vertiline’s blade, and she took it from high to low once more, discharging all that power through the Curator.

  It gave a low, musical tone, then cracked like a dropped egg, white light glaring from within. Vertiline took three steps back toward Evanne, who in all this time had managed to make zero moves, snatched her guitar, spun it about like a shield on a stick, golden light limning the instrument, and braced just as the Curator exploded. Fire roared past them, a dome of gentle yellow holding the flame at bay, then Vertiline turned and offered the instrument back to Evanne. “Get back!”

  Then Vertiline ran into the fray. Evanne looked at her guitar, the Curators, the dragon, and the guitar again, then said, “Fuck that.” She plucked the strings, feeling the instrument want to call out encouragement, and let it. Brazen chords challenged the Curators. The high string trembled as it reached for the heart and tugged it to faster action. Evanne stamped in time to the song, reaching out to anyone who could hear. The Tresward, not what was left of them, but what they were meant to be. She called to the Feybrind, and their link to this world. And the dragon, of course the dragon, all mighty wings.

  In a world of ancient steel, the Curators soar,

  Blue runes of power, a threat we can't ignore.

  Tresward knights, Feybrind's might, Myryntir by our side,

  In this battle we unite, with courage as our guide.

  Tresward, Feybrind, and Myryntir, we stand tall,

  Together we will rise, and the curators will fall.

  In this epic quest,

  Ancient machines will be put to rest.

  Myryntir roared in delight as the sun kissed Vertiline’s sword. In accompaniment to Evanne’s beat, the Tresward Amir raced past her and into the fray, too few students in his wake. The two cats were there, one with bow and one with steel. Armitage too, her father roaring like he was young and angry again, the fence picket in his hands looking as comfortable as any halberd.

  The Curators turned about, diving to meet new threats, and the battle was joined.

  Evanne scanned the crowd, not for Mama and Papa, because they’d be fine, but for one with wheat-pale hair and a magic sword. She didn’t see Tarragon, and her fingers trembled against the strings for but a moment. The song stumbled, tried to find its footing, missed the beat. She was going to lose it, dammit, and people would fucking die, so get it together Evanne, just sort it out, you’ve got this one fucking job⁠—

  “What news?” Tarragon was at her side, Requiem a slash of blue-white fire. “The song was nice. You should keep it up.”

  “I couldn’t see you.” Evanne wanted to sob in relief, but it wasn’t the time, because the battle needed winning, and of course Tarragon would be putting herself in more danger in seconds. She wanted to hold this slice of time, stretch it out, and make it never end.

  Tarragon gave a lopsided, half-crazed smile, and Evanne noticed she had a small nick above one eyebrow. “They’re attacking from the rear. Or were. Faust and Larochette hold the line.”

  “More of these?”

  Tarragon gave a jaundiced stare at the Curators as one dove for Armitage. Evanne’s father swung his fence paling like a bat, knocking the giant machine in a wobbling arc away. “Yes. Flying spheres that attack all. They burst from the cliff side.”

  “Have you seen these before?”

  “No.” Tarragon shook her head. “These are new. A special surprise from one side or another. They do not look Vehement, and they do not seem Itikari.” She leaned in, stole a kiss from Evanne’s numb lips, and charged into the fray.

  The guitar trembled in her hands, and Evanne laughed with it, raised her hand, and brought it down against the strings. The music flowed from her instrument in a torrent, a song that made them mighty, that promised the halls of kings awaited the victors and the fallen alike. Evanne closed her eyes, stance wide, feeling the words of the song about to come, then fell on her side, hard, all the air going from her in an ungh sound. Her eyes snapped open, meeting the ochre gaze of Sands Apart. The woman’s eyes seemed feral, the colour of blood and anger, her fangs bared.

  Evanne was on her back, the Feybrind on her. Her machete was lost amid the field of battle. Three’s mercy, but this is how I die.

  The cat pressed a finger to Evanne’s lips, then pointed the blade of her hand at a Curator hovering but five metres away. {They see sound.}

  Evanne wanted to say, are you cracked, but that would emit sound. She watched the Curator turn a slow circle above where she’d stood moments before the Feybrind knocked her over. It made a harsh, flat tone, then sped away. Evanne let herself be helped up, and said, {How did you know?}

  Sands Apart pointed to Sight of Day, his arrows hitting Curators over and over with no apparent effect. He moved about the field of battle, feet cat quiet, not a mark on him. {They go to where Sight of Day was because of his bow’s song, not where he is.}

  Evanne wanted to scream. {I’ve got one stupid Trick and I can’t use it!}

  {It’s not stupid,} the cat said. {It’s inconvenient.}

  Evanne almost laughed but held it in by biting her lip. {Let me get my sword.}

  {Did I knock you onto your head?} Sands Apart made a great show of looking at the back of her skull. {I was so careful.}

  Evanne looked past her at the battle. The pace had faltered since her song fell. The Tresward were not doing well; those who’d not yet passed their Trials placing inadequate blade against ancient might. Vertiline was doing well enough for all, Armitage at her back, the pair fighting as one. Curiously, Uncle Heser was husbanding the Raven around the mountainside, which didn’t bode well for Faust and Larochette’s rearguard.

  At least the dragon looked to be having fun. He had a Curator in one clawed hand, the machine spitting lances of blue energy, which the dragon directed at its allies to great effect, a sphere bursting into flame and tumbling into the ground.

  Which cracked. The sphere rolled toward Vertiline and Armitage. Evanne screamed, “No!” She was running, legs pumping, no thought for how she’d gone from standstill to full sprint. Her hand reached out, fingers stretched as the fallen Curator rolled toward her parents. “Mama! Papa!”

  The sphere exploded. The earth sank as rock spewed skyward, then heaved. Men and women screamed. Evanne was knocked from her feet and added her own scream to the mix. The ground caved away and she fell, rock around her. There, Tarragon’s glitter-bright blade. Around her hips, Sands Apart’s arms. Against all reason, her machete fell past her face.

  She hit the ground with a crump. Myryntir fell like a slow-moving bolt of lightning, rocks hammering his wings, starving his flight, binding him to gravity along with the rest of them.

  Evanne hit, and spared a glance at the falling dragon, rocks, and then curled her Vhemin-strong body about Sands Apart. I was wrong. This is how I die.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vertiline fell, and for half a second she was an Adept again, no clue of what pattern to lean on. The world was full of rock and dust, her lungs locked up, the golden glow dying from her blade. She slammed against an outcropping of rude stone, jarring her shoulder, the pain something that would come knocking in a moment if she lived that long.

  Evanne passed her, her daughter falling straight as a shot arrow, somehow balled around a Feybrind, good fortune sparing them from smashing against the wall. She heard a roar, and Armitage was there, her wonderful husband, his body about Vertiline’s, for all she was the protector. They hit another spur, and she felt it through his body, but he didn’t let her go for all the long, long ride to the bottom. The trip felt like hours but was seconds at best.

  They landed, and Vertiline remembered who she was. Not an Adept at all, but the High Justiciar, the head of an ancient order, protector of the world. And I’m on my side in the dust, my husband keeping me safe, my daughter Three knows where. She surged to her feet, feeling the weight of falling stone above her, the presence that would crush them all. The dragon was a blazing meteor as he plummeted. Vertiline sprinted toward a sliver of steel, a cracked shield sticking from between two stones, tore it free, and held it up.

  Stance planted. Legs just so. Perfection in her movement, timed exquisitely as the dragon landed not five paces from her, a nimbus of gold arced above them. Vertiline knew, felt, this was the shield pattern Knight Champion Mireille used when the ancients’ weapons smote the earth with enough force to destroy the world. I am not Mireille. I’m not strong enough.

  She thought of Evanne and Armitage and tightened up her right heel by half a millimetre. The shield above her flared, and then the rocks hit, a cascade of rubble that felt endless. Here they were, a tiny bubble of souls as the earth tried to eat them for the sins of all who came before.

  Vertiline screamed but kept her form. Held it, as if it were a stallion bucking to be free of the reins. Heard Israel’s voice, of all the damnable people, his whisper against her neck. “Your shoulder must be forward. Yes, like that.” The shield held. The golden glow flared brighter, and rock above smoked and hissed, turning red and molten as it broke like waves against the Three’s Storm. Israel’s hand was on her arm, finger a moth on her elbow, correcting her, gentle as he always had been, firm as he always must be. Her muscles wanted to tremble, but he soothed them as if she were a wild horse. “The Storm will work for you. Be its equal.”

  “How am I supposed to equal a god?” she hissed.

  He was gone, of course. He’d never been there. He was dead, like all the rest she’d loved. But the shield held, the faux ceiling above cooling, and she lowered her arm. She stood in a domed room, unbearably hot from the rock, but also safe because the weight above was held by a perfect arch.

  “Fuck me,” Armitage said.

  Someone teased forth a little light. Amir, of course. He was always faster than Faust and Larochette, the other two not yet holding the Storm, and here he was using the Sway. Vertiline saw the faces about her. Armitage, by her side, and—Three’s mercy—Evanne getting to her feet. Tarragon was nearby; Vertiline’s daughter helped the once-fairy up.

  The dragon was hard to miss. He tried to rise, knocked his scaled head against the low ceiling, and said, //COULD YOU NOT HAVE MADE THE ROOM BIGGER?//

  Vertiline swore there was nothing beside Myryntir two eye blinks past, but no, there was Pakhet, the tiger looking dusty, all flat ears and lashing tail. She turned to see the sinner crouched beside the merchant Amber and his sister Jade. Sight of Day and Sands Apart examined the wall of the dome, hands moving fast as they spoke at a speed no human could keep up with. Heser was a boulder next to a stunned Raven Queen. The guardsman’s armour was beat about and dusty, but Morgan looked unharmed. Her protector still did his job well. Good.

  The spectre, Hitch, completed the group as he stepped through the wall and headed toward Evanne. Ghostly blue footprints faded in his wake. “Well, this is cosy.”

  There was, of course, no way out. The walls were a perfect dome of cooled rock. The only person—if he could be called such—who could get in and out was Hitch.

  The spectre hung about Evanne like a gloomy cloud. “There’s a lot of rock, like, everywhere.”

  Vertiline’s hand twitched above her sword hilt. “I’m not certain I can murder a man already dead, but I’d be willing to give it a try.”

  He tsk’d. “The good news is, soon you’ll all be dead, and we can have a proper ghost party. No need to sleep or eat. No getting tired! We’ll all hang about this domed room forever, waiting for a future archaeologist to unearth us, or the world to crack again and spit us out.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Meriwether said. “I think I speak for all of us when I say, I’d like a drink before I die.”

  Vertiline glared at the sinner. “What would you propose? Can you conjure water?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Can you conjure water without the Three taking your soul?”

  “Probably not,” he conceded. “You have the Sway, though. Can you not,” he wobbled his hand like a bird with a broken wing, “magic some up?”

  “I could,” she allowed. “I would age and die if I kept it up, and then you’d die of thirst anyway. I’d prefer a more permanent solution to our situation. If it comes to it, I will⁠—”

  //I’M GETTING CRAMP.//

  “What the lizard’s trying to get across is, it’s tight in here.” Armitage stretched, then put a companionable hand on the dragon’s leg. “Isn’t that right?”

  Myryntir stared at Armitage’s hand like a person who’s had a bee land on their nose. //YOU’RE TOUCHING ME.//

  “You’re warm.”

  “The whole room is warm.” Pakhet uncurled from near the wall. “It’s rather nice.”

  “Hitch.” Evanne stood. “Can you wander about and see what’s out there?”

  “Rock,” the ghost said.

  “Further on.”

  “More rock.”

  Vertiline’s daughter growled. “And past that?”

  “What about up?” Meriwether glanced at the domed roof. “Have you tried up?”

  Hitch gave the sinner a blue-eyed stare. “Well, of course not. That’s where the sky is.”

  “We’ll never dig that far. Just a little way up.” He sighed. “Those things that attacked us⁠—”

  “Curators,” Hitch said. “A late-stage invention during the war designed to⁠—”

  “Yes, sure,” Meriwether said. “I’m sure they’re very fancy. The thing is, Myryntir might be big and fat⁠—”

  //HEY.//

  “But he’s not that chunky⁠—”

  //THANKS.//

  “He’s not big enough to crater the earth down five hundred metres, which is about where we are. Which means the Curators were close to the surface. We blew one up⁠—”

  “Technically it blew itself up.”

  The holomancer closed his eyes, pressing his fingers into his temples, and took a deep breath. “What I’m getting at is there’s got to be a middle laneway. A place they all hung about for Curator parties, waiting for a stupid dragon to⁠—”

  //WATCH IT.//

  “My apologies. A clumsy dragon,” Meriwether ignored Myryntir’s glare, “to break the crust off the pie and get to the meaty centre. We need but travel the small distance to that place and find the doorway out. It’ll be a cinch. Why, Tilly and I have done this hundreds of times.”

  Vertiline could feel the frost in her stare. “Hundreds?”

  “It’s more than zero and less than a hundred, perhaps. I’m hazy on the details. The only thing we need worry about is avoiding Personates, because they’re nasty pieces of work.”

  “Personates won’t be down here.” Hitch crossed not-arms. “They are Vehement creations. The Curators are not. The Curators were made as a kind of antitoxin to the wiles of Vehement and Itikari.”

  “Who is their master?” Vertiline watched Hitch’s body language. He is concerned, not afraid. He fought them before and won, but lost comrades perhaps.

  “No one, now.” Hitch sighed blue. “They should not have attacked, because there are no treasures for them to guard.”

  “Treasures?” Amber perked up. “Perhaps this caravan is not a complete loss.”

  “I’ll go check… up,” Hitch offered. “I’ll let you know if there are treasures or Curators.”

  “I just care about a nice, soothing corridor,” Meriwether said. “We can remove the vermin at our leisure.”

  Piece by piece it became clear. Hitch described a causeway collection a few metres above their head. He said it was connected to other tunnels higher up by way of a vertical shaft. This was sadly caved in by the explosion-meets-dragon incident. The spectre said digging up ten metres would bring them into an open space.

  //AND HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DIG A HOLE BIG ENOUGH FOR ME?//

  The spectre gave the dragon a withering stare. “You great clod, I’m not digging. I’m dead! I don’t have hands, and if I did, they wouldn’t be real. The rest of me isn’t real either. You’re digging.”

  //I’M NOT A DOG.//

  “No, you’re a bloody great dragon with clawed feet. Get cracking.” The ghost crossed his arms.

  //THEY’RE HANDS.//

  “Three’s mercy,” Vertiline breathed. “It is no great surprise to me why dragons became extinct.”

  //WE’RE NOT EXTINCT. I’M RIGHT HERE.// The dragon gave a cerulean, toothy smile. //SEE?//

  “You were a corpse when I found you,” Evanne reminded him.

  //A TRIFLING TECHNICALITY. WE DRAGONS ARE VERY RESISTANT TO DEATH.//

  “He’s not wrong,” Meriwether said. “Ormeon is tougher than a bag of stones. She also has a higher work ethic. I guess the reds are just better than the blues, hey?”

  Myryntir rounded on the sinner. //BLUES ARE THE BEST.//

  “Then blues best get digging.”

  The dragon growled, then turned on the wall of the dome and smashed into it. He clawed great furrows in the rock, mighty muscles bunching under scale as the creature turned rock into sand. Meriwether watched with a smile on his face. Vertiline sidled up to him. “I see what you did there.”

  “The best part is, Myryntir saw what I did too, yet he must dig or prove me right.”

  “You’re entirely too pleased with yourself.”

  His smile dimmed. “There is carrot and stick, but I find neither fits my hand right. I am sick with worry for Geneve, and I will use any trick I can to get to her.”

  “Could you open a gate by yourself? You are a Holomancer.” Vertiline ducked as a chunk of rock spun free of Myryntir’s excavation.

  “Perhaps.” Meriwether looked at his feet. “The book had nothing to say on the matter, but I will try if we have no other course. No, don’t say it. I know Geneve would kill me if I opened the portal and died in the attempt.” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “She would bring me back to kill me again.”