She drew her cloak of many colours close. But there were so many once-mimics. They clawed at her, tearing fabric. The Feybrind whirled and struck, breaking free, but losing her cloak. She gave one last venomous glance their way, then turned tail and fled.

  Tarragon laughed. “Evanne. We’ve won the day!” She turned. “Evanne?”

  The maybe-Vhemin was gone.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Dancing Stars was on the wind.

  She ran because that’s what the smart money demanded. The path down the side of Dancing in the Storm was free of the undead army. She tucked the worthless command wand away, scampering down the side of the ancient ship at the same speed a human might run across flat ground.

  The People were gifted with better sight, speed, intelligence, and skill. She knew they should be in charge. That’s what this was all about, after all.

  Wild Sur would bare fang and lash his tail, but he wasn’t here, and hadn’t seen what Dancing Stars had to fight against. Their troupe was tiny, a small collective of the willing. A handful of humans, outnumbered for once by the People, and some strays from the vile Vhemin. All thought the humans should topple. It was a powerful anthem to march to, and all under Wild Sur’s control. He was the one who’d started their revolution. Been there, when it all stopped, empires toppled, but not fallen far enough. Had the sight and will to give a little extra push, and shove humanity over the edge.

  A last jump from the ship’s side set her on a grassy knoll littered with the driftwood remains of undead warriors. Dancing Stars had to give the unruly human warrior his due: the queen’s man fought better than she. The People respected excellence. Being Feybrind meant their base quality was higher. They were faster and smarter than humans but being long-lived made them better through practice. That she’d been bested by a manchild perhaps fifty summers old, all after he’d faced an exhausting battle on this very hillock, made her reconsider him with respect.

  The unruly mongrel who fought beside him had used a power Dancing Stars had never seen or felt. The music that spilled from Evanne’s instrument touched the Feybrind’s soul. She felt her resolve tremor, and the automatic response of her body had been that oh-so-awkward throw of a blade.

  Credit where due once more. The creature kept getting back up. She wouldn’t stay down. A full-grown Vhemin warrior wouldn’t shrug off that many cuts with such a shit-eating grin. They would have died, blow to the brain or no, and Dancing Stars needed to let Wild Sur know a new player was on the field. One who looked weaker than Vhemin, uglier than human, but was in point of fact more ornery than both.

  Shadow fell across her. Dancing Stars looked up. The ancient hulk Dancing in the Storm shifted on whatever ethereal current tugged at her rudder. The Vhemin ship piercing her ancient heart teetered, then with a groaning cry of metal, toppled into the depleted lakebed below.

  Water surged, muck and spackle on the wind. Dancing Stars thought hard for a moment. Dancing in the Storm was our prize, but there are treasures aplenty in the Vhemin hulk. Let them have their crippled vessel. I will find other ancient trinkets and bring them to Wild Sur. Legends say the Vhemin war gods made the better weapons, and I shall find more of their magics.

  She ran, bounding down the side of the hill, cat-light on her feet. When she hit slippery mud she didn’t fall, tail out behind her for balance, diamond eyes scanning for dangers. There were none, of course. Whatever lived in the lake would be struggling, and she could summon another everliving army with her wand given enough time and distance. The murky water was cold, but she was furred. Feybrind were not house cats. The People were warriors, poets, sages, and teachers. They weren’t afraid of a little water.

  The Century Charm settled on the lake floor. Dancing Stars swam the last, deep stretch to the vessel’s side, clambered aboard, and made her way inside through a rent in the sagging hull. A last glance outside showed none in the floating fortress above marked her presence. She didn’t need the cloak of many colours when naught but blind babes were her enemy. They didn’t have Feybrind eyes.

  The hulk creaked. Tiny cries of settling metal pitter-patted back and forth in the gloom. The vessel wasn’t steady, the giant ripples from the ship’s fall spread across the lake. A gentle, quieting roll lifted the floor and set it back in place before beginning all over again. It would settle eventually, but it was a timely reminder. This ship may not stay above water for long. I should be quick about this. No one will come rescue me if I get trapped in a drowning room.

  She padded across the floor, her natural grace and agility making the deck movement seem fun rather than precarious. Ancient boxes and cylinders rolled into corners and between shelves. I am in a storeroom. The term didn’t do it justice; the place was immense. Fallen shelves spilled rotted treasure far and wide. I am after artefacts of power, not broken junk. It was the work of moments to vault past it all, make the door, put shoulder to it, and escape into the corridor beyond.

  Metal rang on metal from ahead. Dancing Stars dropped to a crouch and froze, diamond eyes questing in the murk. It was black as pitch, and she could see very little. Her hearing helped. Was that sound a footfall? Did the hulk still have guardians, set free after the fall? No, the idea was preposterous. The Vhemin’s masters didn’t build to last.

  Still, her ears didn’t lie. A creature waited for her.

  The Feybrind mused. She could simply go the other way, but that would put a potential enemy at her back. Best to trust to a hunter’s instinct and put the prey down. She reached hands to pull the cloak of many colours close, then bared fangs, remembering its loss.

  It is no matter. The People have been shadows on the wind for an eon. I need no cloak.

  She removed a small marvel from her belt pouch. It was a tube about the length of her hand. A quick twist, a crack, and a calm warm glow seeped from the rod. She held the light stick high, casting shadow back. The corridor beckoned her on, so she followed, silent feet making no sound. There was a surprise in store for certain, but Dancing Stars was the one to bait the trap.

  A stuck door lay half open. She slipped through the gap and found herself in a room both long and wide. Pillars held the roof at least three stories above. Artifices lay in broken piles, their mooring lines snapped by either the recent fall or the crash years past. Her rod cast long, ghostly shadow fingers among the shapes. The Artifices resembled the corpses of giant spiders with their spindly, curled limbs.

  “You came.” The voice carried as if from the air itself. One might have called it sweet, if they didn’t know the disgusting mongrel throat it came from.

  Dancing Stars’ lips curled into a sneer. “You came all this way to die on my steel?” She drew her sword. “I admit to surprise. How did you get past me?”

  Evanne’s voice drifted to her from the left this time. “And they say Feybrind are the clever ones.”

  “Ah.” Dancing Stars half-smiled. “You climbed aboard the Century Charm before it fell. You were here before I was.”

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Evanne’s voice drifted from straight ahead, so Dancing Stars padded that way, a hunter on the scent. Except, there was no scent. Just that damnable voice. “I wasn’t sure if I’d drown, but I knew you’d come here once the main prize was lost. Cats like to play with shiny things, and this wreck is a bauble of unsurpassed brightness now Dancing in the Storm is above you.”

  The way the bastard creature said above you made Dancing Stars’ teeth itch. She rounded a fallen Artifice, sword high to strike, but there was nothing there. The Feybrind whirled, but no, no enemy was at her back, knife ready to strike. “Where are you, my pet? Come out and play.”

  “In a moment.” Evanne’s voice came from no more than twenty metres to the Feybrind’s right. She set off in pursuit. “You know, I would have been happy to die for them. But you made it so they had no hope of escape. So, I need to make sure you can’t pursue my family. Not now, and not ever again.” The tone wasn’t mocking or happy. If anything, Evanne sounded sad.

  “I’ve no interest in them anymore,” the Feybrind lied.

  “I thought you a bad liar, but I know it for certain now. There’s a Trick to it, do you see? Your lips must believe the lie before they speak it. Your heart must know it for truth before you feel it. Your mind must make it real, before setting pieces on the board.” A clatter in the gloom called Dancing Stars farther to the right. “You say things as if people should believe them, not because they must. Your arrogance makes you a terrible liar.”

  “Thanks for the tip.” Dancing Stars lunged about a pillar from where a shadow beckoned, but she cut nothing but air.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” Laughter tinkled from far behind her. “While you spent all that time cutting into my skin, I watched. I know what makes you tick. I see the purpose behind those beautiful diamond eyes. It’s so easy to make you do what I want. Be where I want.”

  A piece of machinery on a chain swung at the Feybrind from the gloom. She spun and dropped, taking the worst of the blow on her left shoulder. Her arm went numb, and the light rod clattered away. It rolled under a hulking machine, dropping visibility to less than what you’d get on a moonless, stormy night. Still, Dancing Stars wasn’t blind. She bared fangs. “Well done, little one. You play this game better than most mice.”

  There. Shadow rippled to her right. She sprang forward, right hand finding her knife with ease, curling the blade under her wrist, and tossing it. Silver spun through the gloom. Dancing Stars expected a grunt, a cry of pain, but all she got back was silence. Not even the clatter of metal.

  “A good throw.” Evanne’s voice was rich with encouragement. “But you can’t kill that which is already dead.”

  “You’re no more a corpse than I.” The Feybrind’s words held doubt, even to her own ears. Ludicrous. The talking collar conveys no negativity. It is just a voice, not a feeling.

  “Do you remember all those times you ran me through?” The voice drifted about, as if Evanne were walking a circle, but so very fast. Faster than any Feybrind could manage, and a ridiculous pace for a human mongrel. “So, so many. They stopped hurting after a while, and that’s how I knew I’d passed. Lifted this veil and put on the next. It’s not so bad, if you’ve got a purpose.”

  Dancing Stars had heard tricks of the voice before. Ventriloquism wasn’t a craft they owned, but she’d seen a market dandy put on a show with puppets and string. It was convincing enough if you believed the lie. But it was a lie all the same. She padded through the gloom, farther from her fallen light. There should be blood. A trail to follow. The scent of sweat.

  But there was nothing. No odour, no ichor, no gory red smear. A glimmer called, and she followed. She found her knife winking at her from below the arm of a fallen machine. How had it got here without making a sound? And the blade was clean. Cleaner than it had left her hand, as if it felt the polish of the underworld.

  “This is a very clever trick.” Dancing Stars listened to the slight echo of her voice die away, then whirled with a slash for good measure. She hit nothing.

  But something hit her, strong as a horse’s kick. She sprawled, knife falling free, and this time the traitorous blade had the decency to clatter. The cat sprang up and whirled. There was nothing there. No shadows, no ghosts. No falling girder or broken machine. What hit me?

  “Tricks are something different. A husk of the voice. A tilt of the shoulder. A game eye for the needful, and a firm hand with the strong.” Evanne’s voice husked from the darkness. It sounded tired, as if waiting in the world of the living stretched even a corpse’s resolve.

  “I’d know if you were dead. I would have felt the life leave you, like so many of your ugly kind.” Dancing Stars looked about for the knife, but it was gone. She found faint scratches on the floor where the blade marked it, but the weapon itself was gone. I was just looking over here. I would have seen a person.

  “Would you?” Evanne’s voice was sad again, as if she felt nothing but pity for those who remained on this world. “I’ve seen in your soul. There’s naught but darkness and pain. Oh, I know where it came from. A small cat, a lost mother, a father fallen to the blade.” How did she know that? “I see where my father’s people took yours on steel. I know the mark of human hands and see how they hurt.”

  “You know nothing of me.” Dancing Stars wanted to hiss, to growl, but the humans had denied them that simple release. She bared her fangs. “If you’re dead, you will bend the knee.” She pulled free her wand of the underworld, raising the gnarled, whorled stick aloft. A sickly, pale green light fell from it. The Feybrind felt cold as she always did when holding it. “Show yourself!”

  Pain lanced from her shoulder. She dropped the wand, light vanishing, to whirl on her attacker, and saw nothing. Except for her own knife lodged in her shoulder. She yanked it free. Dancing Stars turned to get the wand, fingers scrabbling on the deck. She couldn’t feel it between fursoft fingers. She spared a moment to glance down. No wand. Come to think of it, she’d never heard it hit the deck. As if it had fallen from her hand right into the lands of the dead.

  A snap came from above her, and she leaped back, diamond eyes up. There was nothing there of course, but from the gloom above fell fragments of wood, a tiny scatter of material that had once been a mighty wand of the ancients. She blinked, incredulous. “You’ve destroyed the wand?”

  “It isn’t good for you to hold it. It was making you sick. Deep inside, where there’s nothing but darkness, a deeper malaise grew. It was swallowing your soul.” Evanne’s voice was ahead of her, right where the glow stick was. Dancing Stars was looking right at it when the light went out. Not lifted away, not hidden in a box, just … gone.

  She crouched, fangs bared, fear flaring, her breath coming in short, panting gasps. “What are you?”

  “I’m a promise you could never keep.” That damnable voice, so close now. “I’m the air you feel on the back of your neck when there’s no draft. I’m winter hail in summer.” Dancing Stars felt that very breath on the back of her neck, and spun, lashing out. She struck nothing but air. “I’m everything this world needs, sent to take away that which it doesn’t. And you’re here, with me. Forever.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Tarragon was frantic. Evanne is missing. Evanne is missing! She wasn’t tiny like Tarragon, easily misplaced.

  I’m not tiny anymore. I’m a Big.

  The thought made her feel sick, because being a fairy was cool, except for the constant risk of dying. She’d agreed to become Big to save Evanne, except it wasn’t what she thought she was doing. Tarragon remembered Yasmine saying, Let us begin, again. We’ll change a tiny thing, so we can fix everything.

  Requiem in hand, she stalked back to the conning tower. Inside was a sad collection of inanimate luggage, a blood stain, and a smug fairy. Yasmine flitted about at eye height. “Hello, Tarragon.”

  “Is that even my name anymore?” She glanced at the sword she held. “It’s a fairy’s name. I’m a, a … Big.” She stumbled on the last word.

  “You have always been Tarragon. Cursed to live a fairy’s guise but never with their skills. We took them all for Helio. We placed a bet, pushed the long odds.” The other fairy hmm’d. “I think it paid off.”

  “Helio is dead. It was a sucker’s bet.”

  Yasmine’s smile widened. “That wasn’t the bet we placed. Helio was lovely. Kind and gentle, never a warrior. The worst of you, to lead the best of you. A person who could make you hunger for what you didn’t have, to urge you to find your feet, and to show you what you weren’t.”

  Tarragon wanted to swat her from the air. “Why would you do a thing like that?”

  “Because this world had too many people who thought they knew perfection. All the Bigs who couldn’t see past themselves to the beauty of difference.”

  “Being different isn’t beautiful,” Tarragon spat. “It’s hard, and it’s ugly, and no one likes you. Everyone wants you to be like them, and they shout at you if you try to just be you for a minute. If you can’t fix a reactor, someone shouts at you. If you don’t know the correct setting on a torque wrench, someone else shouts at you. If you drop a fuel rod into the wrong chute, everyone shouts at you. It’s shouting all the time!” She realised she was shouting herself, clenched her teeth, and looked at her feet. “I just wanted Evanne to live. I didn’t want people to shout at her for who she was, or for trying to be what she was.”

  “And did you do that?” For a moment, it wasn’t Yasmine, but the Dawn Warrior, a summer’s day within a spear of sunlight. A giant, with glowing eyes, and a presence that could stop time.

  Tarragon didn’t give a shit. “Do not pull the whole I-am-Cophine-the-Spring-Maiden nonsense. You’re either a fairy, or you can do anything you want. Pick a side.”

  “You’ve almost got it.” The goddess was now just Yasmine again. “Keep going.” An encouraging nod.

  “I’m not a fairy. And I’m not a good Big, either. I can’t even walk right without a song.”

  Yasmine sighed. “You single-handedly destroyed an undead legion swarming the deck of this battleship. You⁠—”

  “Heser helped.”

  “You did it with a borrowed blade and no wings. When this ship fell, a score of Tresward stood on this deck and died to the last, swarmed by Vhemin and human alike. You have done the impossible.”

  “But what of Evanne?”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, she’s dead! That’s why I’m angry!” Tarragon growled, realising she was shouting again, and just didn’t care.

  Yasmine frowned. “Why would you think that?”

  Tarragon swept her sword toward the doorway, almost decapitating Heser the Cheg who’d wandered in to see what the commotion was about. The man was swift, dodged the swing, and sensibly stood a little farther back. “Because she’s gone.”

  “She’s not ‘gone’ gone. She’s just not here.” Yasmine crossed her arms, hovering. “She is trying to save your life. Again.”