Also bound to the sacs was the moaner. A human, his pale skin bleached white with pain. He was embedded in the resin to the waist, leaving torso free. Where most people had two arms, he was left with just one, the severed limb on the ground a few paces away.

  Dried blood soaked the stone.

  The moaner rallied a shade when Vertiline raised her glow stick. His eyes were dulled by pain. I’ve seen enough people at the south end of battle to know this man doesn’t have long. The moaner swallowed, throat working hard, then croaked, “Help. Three’s mercy, help.”

  Armitage passed Vertiline, lumbering toward the spire and its gruesome catch. He tossed the Feybrind at the base of the sacs, put hands on hips, and stared up. “They go all the way to the top. Warm inside. There are creatures within.” He worried in his mouth for a moment, grimaced, and tossed a shark’s tooth aside. “Eggs. Plenty of eating here if we get hungry.”

  {This looks like a trap.} Sight of Day looked to the ceiling, then pointed to the walls. {Many holes allowing entry from the spiders. I believe this is their nest, the sacs their brood, and we the dinner when they hatch.}

  Vertiline pressed fingertips to her forehead, feeling weary. “It never ends, does it?”

  {Your kind kept making horrors. Don’t look at me.}

  “Help?” The moaner seemed less certain. “Please. They’ll be back soon.”

  Armitage fetched the man’s arm, holding it out to him. “Here you go.”

  “You’re a monster.” The moaner seemed surprised.

  Sight of Day rolled golden eyes, then hurried to the spire. {Not all of us. A moment.} He rummaged in his satchel, withdrawing a tiny, stoppered flask. Within was a clear liquid, tinted green by Vertiline’s glowing stick. He popped the cork. {For the pain.}

  The man drank the liquid, only a little dripping down his chin. “My thanks. Do you have water?”

  Armitage glared at Sight of Day. “This one will talk when I ask. He ain’t like you lot.”

  {Give the man some water. Trust me.}

  The Vhemin glared harder, but uncapped his canteen and held it to the moaner’s lips. The man slurped great gulps before Armitage recapped the canteen. “That’s enough. You pull through, you’ll get some more.”

  “I might not pull through if I don’t get water.”

  “Harden the fuck up,” Armitage advised.

  Vertiline stepped between her husband and dear friend, facing the moaner. “What’s your name?”

  “Valence.” Valence seemed surprised at his admission. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  {Because I gave you an elixir that promotes honesty among the faithless.}

  “But… you said it was for the pain!”

  {Are you in agony?} Sight of Day gave a small, encouraging nod.

  “Well, no.”

  {Then no lies were told.} He gave a half-step back. {He’s all yours.}

  Vertiline considered the unconscious woman at her feet. “Who’s that?”

  “Sands Apart.”

  “Same team, then.” She nodded. “Why are you here?”

  “Recovery crew.” Valence looked alarmed, as if wishing his lips would stop moving. “We didn’t get the demon army we wanted, so we came to find out why.”

  “Hmm.” She looked at the spire. “What’s that?”

  “No idea. It connects to the structure above, but we don’t know why.”

  “How’d you lose your arm?”

  “Spiders?” He hesitated. “I think they’re spiders.”

  “You said you were a recovery crew. What were you recovering?”

  Valence gave a manful attempt at biting his lip, but the words came anyway. “Cleo came here after the Half-Made, and⁠—”

  “You better not be talking about my kid,” Armitage warned. “Not unless you want to give up your other arm.”

  “It’s what she calls herself.” Valence flailed against the resin, then subsided. “Can you let me out?”

  {The elixir offers honesty, not compliance.}

  “That’s a no.” Vertiline kept her voice cool, despite wanting to cut Valence’s head from his shoulders. He knows of Evanne. “What role do you play?”

  “Role?”

  “Soldier, sycophant, sorcerer. Pick one.”

  “I’m a necromancer.” Valence winced. “By the Three, why do I keep saying the wrong things?”

  {Honesty is uncomfortable when the truth is ugly.} Sight of Day shrugged. {Perhaps you should have made better life choices.}

  “You make the dead live again.” Vertiline looked away. “Did you do it here?”

  “Yes.” Valence slumped in resignation. “I found one of ours. I woke him. He told me what happened here. Cleo used one of Evanne’s kin to force compliance. They had the human queen and used her powers to⁠—”

  “The queen is a sinner?” Vertiline took a step closer. “Which gift?”

  Valence paled as much as a man with acute blood loss could. “I, uh.”

  Vertiline reined herself in. Time for theatre. “It is of no moment. Come on, we’re leaving.” She turned heel. Sight of Day blinked, shrugged, and followed.

  Armitage growled. “Plenty of good eating on him.”

  “Hush,” she said a little louder than necessary, so Valence would be sure to hear. “You hardly ever eat people anymore.”

  “Wait! For pity’s sake, wait!” Valence sounded like his panic lever had been pulled, voice tense and a higher octave. “The Raven Queen is a Ritualist.”

  Vertiline paused, keeping her back to the captive man. Armitage spoke. “Like a shaman?”

  “Similar.” Valence sighed a gust. “Humans have the big bases covered. Evokers, Thaumaturges, Enchanters…”

  He wound down as Vertiline turned and gave a baleful glare. “Sinner, I know the weave of your workings. I carried glass and steel for the Three. I know better than you could⁠—”

  “Tilly.” Armitage put a hand on her arm. She looked down, saw her hand about the hilt of her sword, glass bared a hands breadth from the scabbard. “Easy now.”

  She slid the blade home with a snick. “I know what a Ritualist is.”

  “Not all of us have your lofty calling.” Armitage’s tone was light enough as he scratched under his chin. “I know murder, though. Can a Ritualist do that? Or is it something else?”

  Valence glanced between Vertiline and the Vhemin. “Do you want to tell him what a Ritualist is, or should I?”

  “For pity’s sake,” she grated. “Get on with it, man. I’ve been mansplained to enough to tolerate one more round.”

  Valence’s lips went bloodless, but he rallied. “The lesser races, uh.” He eyed Sight of Day, who’s tail swish, swished. “The non-human races do not have our gift. They can call no Light. And aside from the murky powers of the Vhemin shaman, no sorcery does their bidding.”

  {Lesser, says the man stuck in a spider trap.}

  Valence ignored Sight of Day’s Handspeak. “Where the line becomes gritty is Ritualism. It is a lesser, uh.” He sagged for a moment, head down. “Sorry. It is not considered a great power. If you want a contract to be really binding, you call a Ritualist. They can put a geas upon ink and parchment that can’t be broken by any but the Three. They specialise in the, uh,” he pursed his lips for a moment, “mechanics of magic. If there is a recipe, they can follow it.”

  Vertiline blinked. “Morgan’s a cook?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Valence looked at the ceiling for a moment. “The problem with Ritualism is most of the greater, uh. Most of the common gifts do not need an inner working. We do what we do without cant or ritual. The potential for a Ritualist to work wonders is there, but no one has given them a set of instructions.”

  “Shaman,” Armitage grumbled. “They use knotted string, leaves on twine, or scrawled marks in the mud.”

  “Yes, just because it’s not a book doesn’t mean it’s not an instruction.” Valence’s tone of contempt was clear.

  “Can I break his arm?” Armitage looked thoughtful. “Doesn’t need to write anything down for his gift, so I could⁠—”

  “I apologise,” Valence blurted. “I find myself in an unusual situation. It is clouding my judgement.”

  “Why would Morgan, surrounded by her Coterie, be unaware of this gift?” Vertiline frowned. “It makes little sense.”

  “Rituals are quiet works,” Valence suggested. “She might not have heard her inner whisper until the bustle of Ravenswall was behind her.” He looked thoughtful. “That’s not the impressive thing, though. A queen with the gift would be useful for our cause, but it was how Cleo used Evanne to … amplify it.”

  Vertiline kicked a loose stone. It clattered into the gloom. She thought she heard an answering tik-tok that was just a beat too late to be an echo. “Hurry this along, sinner.”

  “I’m not sure how to explain it.” If Valence hadn’t been bound, Vertiline could imagine him pacing, wringing his hands. “Cleo thought Evanne a necromancer, and that her power could extort the dead, now risen queen to great wonders. They opened the demon gate sealed these thousand years⁠—”

  “Wait, Morgan died?” Armitage frowned. “That’s a big detail.”

  Valence shrugged as much as he was able. “Apparently she passed back in the Battle of Ravenswall.”

  “Aye.” Vertiline nodded. “The High Justiciar told me of it.” She looked away out of habit. The pain was still there, Eleni’s sacrifice, Geneve’s greater one, and Vertiline’s own failure to uphold her end of the bargain. “Justiciar Eleni brought her back with the Sway. Swapped forty years of her life for Morgan’s four minutes of death.”

  {Rough trade.} Sight of Day turned golden eyes on her. {She would pay it again, you know.}

  “If she had the chance, but I took that from her.”

  {And yet still.} The cat glanced into the dark. {Did you hear that?}

  “Yes. So, the dead queen would be more powerful because of Evanne.” Vertiline nodded. “Using your corrupt gift to extort others to greater heights.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Valence said. “I wasn’t there.”

  “But you’d have done it if you were.”

  “Probably,” he admitted. “But Evanne is not a necromancer.”

  “You just said my kid helped Morgan open a demon gate.” Armitage looked at the glow stick he held. “Is this getting dimmer?”

  {It has been for a while now. Your eyes aren’t good enough to tell.}

  “You could’ve said something.” Armitage tossed the glow stick into a corner.

  {You’d have just got upset, like you are now.}

  “I’m not…” Armitage glared at the cat. “You’ll know when I’m upset, you little⁠—”

  “What I’d like to know,” Vertiline breezed over the top of him, “is what Evanne is.”

  “I don’t know,” Valence said. “She helped Morgan open the gate. She died herself, then came back.”

  “Evanne died?” Armitage swivelled back from the gloom he’d been staring into. “But she came back?”

  “Is there an echo?” Valence sighed.

  {To be fair, I was going to ask the same thing. He was just a beat quicker.} Sight of Day drew his sword, giving it a flourish. {I’ll get warmed up.}

  Vertiline tried to keep her scream inside. She’d frozen like an ice sheet when the necromancer said her baby girl died, then felt her heart limp back to life when he’d said she’d risen with the next breath. This makes no sense. “What is she, sinner? She died and lives. Evanne opened a gate with a Ritualist, a feat neither could do alone. And she’s not here. So where is she, and why did she go there?”

  “No clue,” Valence said. “It’s what we’re trying to work out.”

  “It’s time to go,” Armitage growled.

  “Wait, what?” Valence’s tone became a squeak. “You said you’d free me.”

  “Sure,” Armitage said. “Still will. But after you serve as bait.”

  “Bait for what?” The glow sticks dimmed rapidly, going sickly, the cavern sagging into darkness, leaving three dim fingers of light at their feet. A skittering came from the dark. “Three’s mercy, but bait for what?”

  Vertiline drew her blade, keeping the pattern in check. Not yet. The glass was heavy, and she could feel the edge of its bite as it tasted the air.

  “Bait for those sodden cunt biscuits,” her husband said, and she could hear his smile in the darkness.

  Vertiline had the sense of a hundred thousand feet on rock as the enemy surged toward them.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Evanne didn’t want to go into the tavern. It looked like shit, all dilapidated planks and boarded windows. Not a copper baron was spent in upkeep, and windows were the kind of silver regal-level expense that was as far out of reach here as the stars. The one thing going for it was that it was near Hollyhead’s lake, serving as a central hub for the scraggly remains of the townsfolk who were too cowardly to fight when Wandermere came knocking, billy club in hand.

  The rain urged her on, but she ignored it for a moment, gathering her cloak close about her shoulders. The rain urged harder, and as added encouragement, tried to find a way down the back of her collar. She gave the clouds a glare.

  They didn’t care.

  “Why aren’t we going inside?” Tarragon nestled in her hair, the fairy a warm glow at the curve of where Evanne’s shoulder met her neck. “The inside is less wet than the outside.”

  “It smells like old ass,” Evanne sniffed. “Old ass and older cooking fat.”

  “I just smell your hair. It’s nice.” The fairy snuggled closer, which Evanne had to admit wasn’t anything bad. “We won’t be able to get directions, or a boat, or … anything out here.”

  “I could steal a boat.” A man barged past her, his steps splashing muck, and shouldered into the tavern before her. Evanne didn’t lose her balance and resisted the urge to lash out. He might just be the one guy with a reliable fishing boat. “I could steal that asshole’s boat.”

  “How do you know he’s got a boat?” Tarragon peaked out from her hair. “Eww. You’re right, it doesn’t smell good.”

  “Wish me luck.” Evanne ducked her head, then shouldered through the door. The stench inside wasn’t actually as bad as outside, because a low open fire shed smoke into the room, making everything smell like woodsmoke instead of armpit. The smoke managed this by somehow avoiding the crudely hacked hole in the roof that stood in as a chimney. She squinted. Could just be the ceiling fell in and they called it a day. The fire pit had the dreary, weary output of unseasoned wood, clearly no expense spared there.

  A gaggle of patrons were scattered about the interior. A hag Evanne mistook for a witch gave her a leer, and after a brief moment of shock, Evanne realised it was meant to be alluring, and the woman was no doubt the bar maid. She considered her options, including just how long it’d been since she’d tasted another woman’s lips, and then cast the thought aside. No fucking way. Against the east wall slumped the remains of a bar, complete with a bartender pretending nothing was wrong with the list of his countertop. The south wall held a small stage, with a sad-looking man holding a lute and wearing a cap adorned with a bedraggled feather.

  The angle of the feather might have looked jaunty, if both the feather and man were ten summers younger.

  The lute player was doing his best to murder a stanza, and after a moment of serious contemplation Evanne wondered if it was the popular ballad The Three Come. It was supposed to be uplifting, a tale of gods back to save the world, penned by some sycophant trying to shine the Three on after Knight Champion Geneve and her band did all the hard work. The words the man sang were right, but the notes were not, and Evanne wished for a brief moment to have wax to stopper her ears.

  “What’s he doing?” Tarragon hissed in her ear.

  “Murdering a bad song,” Evanne said.

  “Not him. Him.” The fairy pointed, a shower of glimmer trickling down Evanne’s rain-slick cloak.

  Evanne followed the fairy’s arm, which directed her to the asshole she’d followed in. The asshole was making a path right for the hag, who looked like this was not how she’d wanted to spend the afternoon. Evanne gave it a moment’s thought, then decided it looked too hard to deal with before a drink and angled for the bar. Either the barmaid would solve her problem with the asshole or not, and if the latter, well, that’s when Hitch might come in handy.

  The bartender gave her a hard stare. “Coin?”

  “For certain.” Evanne nodded. “How generous. Normally it is I who would offer it to you, but I will take your⁠—”

  “Do you have it?” He hawked, spat on the floor, then wiped his mouth with the rag he was using to clean a mug.

  She pursed her lips. “I’ve a baron or two.” She placed two coppers on the counter, index and middle finger pinning them in place. “I’ve enough for an ale, and more for information.”

  The bartender gave a long, world-weary sigh. Evanne knew the Trick of it, saw the exaggerated slump of his shoulders, and ignored the theatre. “Information is expensive.”

  “Information is as cheap as your ale. This is not the high-class bordellos of fallen Imshir. Nor the calling houses of Ravenswall. No artists paint outside, rosewater scent and all, waiting to tell news of the patrons. We are in a shitty fishing village in a shittier part of the world where it rains all the time. Your single point of note is a lake,” she pointed to the south, past the lute-player, “which wasn’t there eight hundred years ago.”

  The bartender squinted. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “And this is why your information isn’t expensive. It’s likely of low quality if that’s the best you’ve got. Of course I’m not from around here. I’m⁠—”

  “You look funny,” he said. “Your eyes are weird. Your teeth are⁠—”

  “My teeth are fine,” Evanne said. “But my teeth aren’t the issue.” She fossicked in her memory for another Trick, just the right kind for a man like this. “What if I could promise you something no man here could have?” She tried to focus, but by the Three, the not-really-a-bard was bad. His strings were so out of tune it made her just-fine teeth hurt.