“No. This corpse was like the others upstairs. It made its way down here and killed the shopkeeper some time ago.” Ikmae’s devil eyes turned sad for a moment. “He was a short man. A little round. Loved to laugh. Discounted often, even when he shouldn’t. I buried him when I … took over.”

  “Took over?”

  “After we signed our covenant with the High Justiciar, I needed to get my feet off soil, and this looked a good, quiet place to weather the squall. Then you turned up.” He glanced at the sealed, vault-like door to the south. “And them.”

  “Is it Evanne? Is she here to kill you?”

  “No, she’s coming through there,” he pointed to the western wall. “She’ll be bringing the dragon, once they work out how to get something that big through the eye of a needle.”

  “Then who?” Tarragon hefted the broom and marched to the door. I’ve had just about enough of surprises. She palmed the ancient lock, waiting as lights grudgingly flickering into pale luminance. It gave what she supposed to be a trilling noise, but which time wore the end off, making it more of a dying warble. The big, round lock set in the middle clanked, dust silting from the mechanism, then it churned, bars sliding back, the door rising in a smooth hush of escaping air. Tarragon raised the broom, swinging it like a bo staff. “Ha!”

  She froze mid-swing. Kneeling on the other side was Sight of Day, frozen in the act of trying to pick an electronic lock. Sands Apart bared her fangs, preparing to leap at Tarragon, before relaxing in relief. {We thought to rescue you from evil.}

  Sight of Day stood. {It seems you need little rescuing. Although that man looks evil. Shall we dispatch him?}

  “That’s Ikmae.” Tarragon lowered the broom.

  {He seems less glamorous than when we last met.}

  “You’ve met Ikmae?” Tarragon goggled. “Twice, now?”

  {He gets around.} Sight of Day walked past her into the store.

  Sands Apart followed. {This place has a lot of stuff. It’s all junk, of course.}

  “Junk?” Tarragon felt like the conversation had already departed on a ship bound for nowhere.

  {It’s made by human hands. Feybrind craftsmanship is better.}

  “Some of it’s made by fairies.” Ikmae shrugged. “You make do with what you’ve got.”

  Tarragon bristled. “Hey!”

  Sands Apart clicked her fingers, drawing everyone’s eye. Sight of Day padded to her, Tarragon drifting in his wake. {What did you find?}

  Sands Apart tossed him a small cardboard box. The ink on it had faded almost to illegibility. Tarragon tried to peer closer, but Sight of Day gave her a raised eyebrow and raised shoulder to hide his prize, secreting it about his person. {We’ll need something else. The Justiciar is tenacious.}

  “What are you doing to Vertiline? And…” Tarragon gathered her thoughts. “And, what do you think you can do? She’s Tresward. The best of the best. Immune to pranks and sword thrusts both.”

  “She’s not as immune to everything as you might think.” Ikmae handed a roll of delicate, orbital-spun twine to Sight of Day. “Will this do?”

  The cat took it with a nod of thanks, then paused in great delight at a collection of small metal cylinders. To Tarragon’s eye they looked like emergency extinguishers, the kind you’d use if you were fresh out of fairies willing to walk into a fire to put out its cause. Sands Apart’s tail swished, and the woman steepled her fingers before speaking. {I think so.}

  “What do you mean, not immune?” Tarragon turned to Ikmae as the cats loped off through the aisles. “What happened to Vertiline? Is Evanne okay?”

  “Evanne and her mother will be here in a few moments. They will come through,” he pointed at the western wall again, but harder this time, “that. They will not be subtle. They will have swords and Light and command the Sway. Her mother is very angry because she almost died.”

  “She what?”

  “It is of no moment.”

  “It’s a big moment! Is Evanne okay?”

  “The Soulkeeper survives to keep more souls, yes. She is also angry, because she feels guilty and afraid. You can see it written on the stars.”

  Tarragon looked at the ceiling, seeing no stars. “We’re not outside.”

  “The stars are exactly where they are supposed to be. They swing in their celestial rhythm and we know where they’ll be because we know where they were and where they’re going. We don’t need to see them to see them.”

  Tarragon closed her eyes, pressing fingertips to temples. “My head hurts again.”

  She felt a soft touch under her chin. Her eyes snapped open. The god was right before her, hand tilting her chin toward him. His fingers weren’t sharp or scaly like she expected. They were infinitely careful, moved by a mind that woke the universe before time’s clock started. “All will be well, Tarragon. You have gathered all the friends you need. They are good friends, too. They will do what’s required, before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  In answer, the wall exploded in a shower of rubble and Light. The High Justiciar led the charge, summerglow blade held in high guard, feet cracking the floor where the patterns placed them. At her side was Armitage, the Vhemin ferocious, angry, and not looking like his old injury pained him at all. The sorcerer strode with them, his skin pale and stretched but his eyes hard.

  Pakhet flickered into visibility then snapped out. Amir strode with his blade bare, its length dripping molten Light on the ancient stone. Behind them all, Amber and Jade, siblings, merchants, and now warriors, both holding lengths of steel that would serve to sever soul from body well enough.

  And, of course, the dragon. Azure electricity crackled around Myryntir’s jaws, his eyes fever-bright, inhaling to roar or blast foes.

  Tarragon’s gaze fell on Evanne, her lover a step behind Vertiline, broken machete in hand, a song on her lips, and Tarragon felt it, really, right in the middle of her chest. It was a song that said you are absolutely fucking with the wrong person.

  The extinguisher canister tumbled toward the group from where Sight of Day hid behind a shelf. The Feybrind rose, loosed an arrow, and crouched behind cover again in one smooth motion. He was all flair, his cloak flapping, golden eyes fierce. Vertiline, nobody’s fool, sliced the arrow from the air, but her turning away allowed Sands Apart to slip from behind another shelf, throwing a blade underhand. The steel was lampblack, difficult to spot amid the dust and debris, and hit the canister dead centre.

  It exploded.

  It was packed with white motes, and these filled the room almost instantly, making Tarragon feel like they were standing inside a cloud. Sight of Day tossed the ancient cardboard box next, and this time his loosed arrow wasn’t cut by Vertiline, who was merely human, and currently blinded. The box also exploded, colouring the cloud red, and bringing a harsh spicy rasp to Tarragon’s throat, even at this distance. Cayenne. They’ve tossed pepper at a dragon. Are they mad?

  Evanne coughed, and her song died. Armitage sneezed, then so did the dragon, lightning crackling through the cloud. Amir caught a blast on the edge of his steel. The bolt arced to the floor and blasted him from his feet. A conduit of energy danced from the floor to a previously-invisible Pakhet, who suddenly became both visible and unconscious.

  Sight of Day and Sands Apart stood at the same time, and Tarragon caught the spider’s silk gleam of the orbital-spun cord stretched between them. They ran forward, and neatly clotheslined Vertiline, Armitage, Evanne, Amber, Meri, and Jade. The Feybrind, cat-quick, spun through their fallen friends, liberating an arsenal’s worth of weapons, pacing clear of the miasma choking everyone, and stood before Ikmae, who as near as Tarragon could tell hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “Now’s your moment,” the god murmured.

  Vertiline staggered upright, a snarl on her lips, and she tried to speak, but the Sway died in a coughing fit. Tarragon hurried forward, hands outstretched, realising she was making herself a target, and also a Big subject of everyone’s attention, including a pissed-off dragon, but excepting the unconscious giant grey tiger. “Hold!”

  “I’m gonna kill a motherfucker.” Armitage surged upright, his snake eyes wild. “And that motherfucker looks like a cat.”

  “I’ll help,” Meriwether offered.

  “Hold! Three’s mercy, hold!” Tarragon rattled around in her head, mental fingers landing on a possible solution. “This is not what it seems.”

  “It seems like someone wants a beating,” the Vhemin insisted.

  “They disarmed you to stop you killing a god,” Tarragon blurted.

  Everyone took a moment then. Evanne dusted white chalk from her black clothes, then scrubbed some from rust locks. “I have sand inside my sand.”

  Vertiline’s normally cool voice held a hint of cayenne-induced rasp. “Which god? There should be no gods here. I made a bargain.”

  “Them.” Tarragon stepped aside, revealing Ikmae behind her. “Ikmae. Lord of the⁠—”

  “I know who they are.” The air turned icy around Vertiline’s words. “We’ve met.”

  “Um.” Hic. “So, they need to talk to Evanne, and they look like a monster, and we know you were trying to save us, but hic we just need to calm down.”

  “I made a bargain. A compact, signed upon the heavens.”

  “I know, the stars.” Tarragon waved a hand upward. “They’re still where they were, last time we looked, and going where they’re needed, because we know where they started and where they want to be.”

  “Very good,” the god said, sotto voce.

  Evanne pushed past her mother, scrubbing more extinguisher dust from her hair. “Why does Ikmae want to talk to me?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You’re not much to look at.” Evanne kicked a stone, her boot scraping on the old stone floor. The pebbled rattled off into the gloom, the ancients’ lights flickering and stuttering after it.

  “For a god?” Ikmae walked beside her, the corpse’s midnight eyes tracking the gloom. The body they wore was male, dead, slightly hunched, and gave the impression of being more solid than granite.

  “For anyone. You’re a dead guy. And you don’t smell amazing.”

  “I don’t smell of anything. I’m a reanimated corpse designed for deep insurgency strikes on enemies. Odour would defeat the purpose.”

  “Well, your clothes don’t smell amazing.”

  “Fair. Now, ask me.”

  “Ask you what?” Evanne gave Ikmae a little side eye.

  “What it’s all about. Why you’re here. What you need to do.”

  “I know all that stuff.” Evanne ignored the widening of the god’s dead eyes. “I’m here because there’s no one else. There’s a thing I’ve got to do, over there,” she waved a hand at a wall, unsure if it was the right direction, “because Wild Sur is trying to break the world again. He’s been dredging up old hates with a new shovel, grabbing ancient-timey weapons to kill those who aren’t like him. I know the music. I hear it when I try to sleep.”

  “Do you know what you need to do?”

  “Kill Wild Sur.”

  “Consider delegation,” the god advised. “Wild Sur is an old Feybrind, wily, and good with a blade. He can’t be Commanded⁠—”

  “He what?” Evanne halted, the god coasting to a stop just a few paces forward. “I mean, I wouldn’t, because it’s wrong. But if he can’t be Commanded…” She hmm’d. “Could we use that Trick for other Feybrind? Set them free?”

  “I knew we chose the right one.” Ikmae gave her a little devil smile, those sharp teeth a rival for the shark-toothed grin her father had. They sobered. “Sadly, no. His … route to that solution isn’t typical. Other Feybrind would be unhappy with adopting his method.”

  “So, his logic is to erase the non-Feybrind to solve the problem?”

  “That’s a part of it.” The god bent, retrieving the stone she’d kicked earlier. “Do you know what’s important about this?”

  “It’s a stone.”

  “It’s a stone that was waiting down the hall we came from. It was made in the heart of a star millennia ago. Or lots of stars, over time, growing bigger, and collapsing on themselves. The forges of the heavens pushed out stronger, denser materials at each fall.”

  “You sound like Tarragon.”

  “Tarragon is wise.”

  “Tarragon was an innocent.” Evanne bristled. “You took that from her. You made her like us.”

  “My sister did, yes. And a little bit more. But we didn’t take her innocence away. She’s still got that. What we did for Tarragon started over eight hundred years ago. We made her empty, so she could be full. We made her of material you can’t find inside any star.”

  Evanne growled. “The stone?”

  “The youth have no eye for poetry.” The god rolled their shoulders, as if loosening up for a fight. “The stone formed when this planet did. Some of its materials were caught in a deep ocean lava floe. The seas surged, spitting chunks of black rock to the shore. A sick camel ate it by mistake. Its teeth cracked the stone, making it smaller. It fell through the fissures of the world, waiting inside this mountain. Thousands of years, the busy bees of industry rising and falling, until Susan Mercantile made⁠—”

  “Susan who?”

  “She’s not the important part of the story. Susan designed this facility. All the nooks and crannies, how it should huddle under the earth, and how it should be strong. But she didn’t design for the war that came, or the long wait in the dark after. The ceiling broke. The crack became a lesion. The stone escaped, falling down here, until you found it.”

  “So I could kick it?”

  “So you could kick it here, for me to pick it up, and this conversation could happen. So, in turn, I can do this.” They turned, whippet-quick, tossing the stone down the corridor. As he turned, the lights flared to brightness, showing three dead warriors on approach. The stone hit the skull of the first, cracking it like a dropped gourd. It careened off the creature’s spine, bounced into the eye socket of the second, rattled inside its skull a moment, popped out the top, ricochetted off the ceiling, and burrowed through the top of the third monster’s skull.

  All three dropped.

  “Show off,” Evanne said.

  “Conversations are important,” Ikmae countered. “Are you listening to this one?”

  “Things in motion, blah blah, important stuff, blah blah, end of the world.”

  The god rolled their black eyes. “You need to hurry up. You’ve got everyone you need. So does Wild Sur. His army amasses. He is trying to get control of the orbital weapons. When he does…”

  Evanne waited for them to finish, and when the god just stood there like a coat rack, she sighed. “When he does, doom.”

  “Doom.” Ikmae nodded.

  “If he’s got an army, what do we have?” She counted on her fingers. “A dragon, and not a very good one. He’s a bit enthusiastic with the friendly fire. A cat, terrified of shadows. A sorcerer who can’t magic, because of some mistake he made. Mama and Papa, who are so scared of what will happen to me they’ll get themselves killed. And Tarragon, who so badly wants to stand in front of me she’ll get killed too.” She felt her throat clench and took a couple deep breaths. “Two merchants. An Adept who’s so confident he’s just the kind of person who’ll fall into a hole by accident. And me. Just me, who can sing, but nothing else. I mean, I get too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. I can’t fight a war.”

  The god gave her an appraising eye, then counted on their fingers. “The dragon is a blue. They think they’re the best, and they might be. The dragon is the best thing to have when you meet another dragon. Pakhet⁠—”

  “What other dragon?”

  “The tiger has a good heart. You just need to stop expecting her to be someone she’s not.”

  “I don’t expect that. She does. It’s why she’s so scared all the time.”

  The god sighed. “Have you told her that?” At Evanne’s blank stare, they continued counting. “The sorcerer made no mistake. He only thinks he did. He will help you if you help him.”

  “By rescuing Geneve? I keep hearing about her, but what if she’s dead?”

  “If you think Geneve needs rescuing, you’ve missed the point.” They shook their head. “Your mother, father, and lover will fight for you, so you can fight for the world.”

  “I can’t fight for the world. I’ve got a, a,” she pulled her broken machete free, “whatever this is.”

  They swayed back from her erratic waving of a broken blade. “You’ve got a suit of armour built for just you.”

  “Eric’s suit? It’s broken.”

  “Eric. Eric.” Ikmae turned the name over. “I’d almost forgotten that name.”

  “So has he, and he asked me not to mention it to him. What about the merchants?”

  “You need balance in all things. Real people, to remind you not everyone is a hero.”

  “And the Adept?”

  “You’re right. He will fall in a hole.” Ikmae gave a tight smile. “But it’s a hole he dug, some time ago.”

  “Nice pep talk.”

  “I’m not here to cheer you up. Sit by a fire, have a cup of cocoa, and harden the fuck up.” They stepped closer. “I’m here to tell you there’s work to be done, and you’re taking far too long to get to it.”

  Evanne thought about that, feeling the anger at his words turn to a roiling sickness in her gut. “I⁠—”

  “Yes, you. And only you. We don’t ask for the world we’re given. But we’re given it anyway. What are you going to do about it?”

  She thought about that. Looked at the fallen warriors, and wondered about how gods thought, planning for things people couldn’t see across the span of a hundred lifetimes. “If you know how this is going to turn out⁠—”

  “We don’t know. We try. We got it wrong before, and badly. Which is why we agreed to your mother’s bargain. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone died. Time to try something different.”

  “I could fail?”

  “Sure.”