She frowned, and he supposed such abstractions must sound ridiculous to a woman dealing with practical issues like needing money and trying to keep angry men from killing her. But in his experience, such lofty abstractions were the only things worth living for. Wasn't the history of Andoran founded on men willing to kill and die for abstract principles like freedom and equality and opportunity? He'd grown up believing anything was possible, and he still believed that—though in recent years he'd come to realize that meant all sorts of truly terrible things were possible, too.

  "I should go." She rose, then took his hand, her grip firm and warm, dark eyes gazing directly into his. "Thank you again. If I'm ever in a position to do you a good turn, I will. Though I may take your advice about leaving the city, at least for a while."

  "The world is full of interesting things," he said. "Travel broadens the mind." He was babbling—a woman hadn't touched him in a long time—and he forced himself to stop talking. "Good luck, Jaya."

  "And to you." She leaned in and kissed his cheek, then hurried to the door, opening it a crack—it was safe to open from the inside—to survey the street beyond before slipping out and away.

  "Mmm," Alaeron said, then shook his head sharply. Women were lovely, but even the most dangerous relics were more predictable. He sat down at his work table, adjusted the lenses and mirrors that focused a beam of concentrated light on the work surface, and placed the oblong relic—he thought of it as the "time egg" and hated himself for the imprecision of the term—in the circle of brightness.

  A number of new lines had appeared on its surface, thin as hairs and faintly blue. New markings appeared every time he used the egg, and he had no idea what that meant—was he using up charges? Were they cracks, and if so, merely cracks in the surface of the relic, or cracks in time itself? Was the time-slowing even relevant, or was it just a side effect, a sort of endochronic reaction unrelated to its true purpose? He'd used it often when he first discovered its powers—there were never enough hours in the day, after all, and the egg gave him more—but he resolved to use it only in emergencies from now on. He'd hate to use it up or have it crack into pieces before he'd figured out its true purpose.

  As he sketched out the new lines on a blank sheet of parchment, looking for patterns, he fell into the work, and the hours flew by, as they always did when he was deep into his studies: time flowing like water around him, without the necessity of magic at all.

  Chapter Two

  The Runaway Apprentice

  Alaeron took most of his meals at home—smoked river fish and apples could be stored in a dry cool place indefinitely—but he was relatively rich off the proceeds from selling the last of the skymetal he'd smuggled out of Starfall, so the night after he saved Jaya he decided to splurge. Of course, by his standards, a meal of luxurious excess involved little more than stopping by the common room of the Golden Eagle tavern, taking one of the small tables in a corner of the room, and calling for ale and bread and lamb.

  One of the most wonderful things about Andoran's capital city was the wild mix of cultures and classes there. The nation was founded on tolerance and equality, where no one was a slave—the polar opposite of Numeria, where essentially everyone was a slave, and could be murdered or tormented at the whim of its rulers.

  The Golden Eagle was one of the city's most famous taverns, its owner the proud descendant of one of the patriots who'd plotted the People's Revolt. The tavern was popular among radicals, merchants, soldiers, and citizen representatives, and its proximity to the docks and the size of its vast stone-and-timber common room made it attractive to passing trade as well. At all hours of the day and night it bustled with variety, the noise of shouted conversations in half a dozen languages vying against drunken songs, the scents of cooking food and spilled alcohol and fragrant smoke filling the air, and all sorts of people from all sorts of cultures making deals or making merry.

  Almas, where everything was tolerated except intolerance, and where men were free to be anything they liked, except slaves or slaveholders.

  Glancing around as he tucked into his tender cut of lamb, Alaeron saw a uniformed Eagle Knight arguing with a man in scholar's robes; a dwarf with a braided beard draining a tankard the size of his own head; an elf chatting with a sullen-looking man who had an obvious touch of orc blood; a fat merchant with a golden necklace bellowing for more wine; a ghost-pale Chelaxian playing a game involving a checkered board and small stones against a smirking Taldan; an Ulfen sailor with long, luxurious yellow hair and silver rings on every finger; a hulking Kellid in the doorway ...

  Alaeron swallowed hard. Kellids were rare even in a place as aggressively multicultural as this, and most people wouldn't even recognize this man as a member of that ostensibly barbaric race of savage northmen. Kellids by and large were lean, hard folk, not tall and broad like this one, and as portrayed on stage Kellids usually wore rough furs and leathers, while this one was dressed in a long black coat and quite fine boots, and even wore small round-rimmed spectacles.

  But his scarred face, and long dark hair, and hard black eyes, and the way he carried himself through the doorway—graceful, but a grace in service of potential violence—revealed his nature unmistakably to Alaeron.

  The alchemist had spent a year among such people in Numeria, and his gut ached like he'd swallowed a stone. Had he seen this man, in particular, in the capital of Starfall? Perhaps during the one banquet where Alaeron had met the addled and vicious Black Sovereign himself? Had this brute been among the Kellid bodyguards arrayed throughout the hall, perhaps?

  Surely not. Almas was a large city, and there must be many Kellids in the area, families who'd been here for generations. Alaeron was just being paranoid, and while paranoia had been the only sensible survival strategy while working for the Technic League, it was hardly necessary here, back home—

  The Kellid looked directly at Alaeron, bared his teeth in something that was not quite a smile, and picked his way through the crowded common room. Alaeron considered running away, but it was possible he was still mistaken. Alaeron's table had another chair, and the room was quite crowded, so perhaps the man just wanted to share the space.

  The Kellid lowered himself into the chair across from Alaeron, his clothes making a curious clanking sound—like metal clicking and clattering against metal—as if he had a jumble of silverware in his pockets. "Hello," he said, nodding seriously, and Alaeron made a noncommittal "Mmm" sound and took another bite of spiced lamb.

  "My name is Kormak," the Kellid said. "I believe we have some mutual friends." He chuckled, though it was rather grating and harsh for a laugh. "Well. My employers, really, and your enemies, but we might as well say friends."

  "I think you are mistaken," Alaeron said, as apologetically as possible. "I don't believe we've met before."

  "We weren't introduced." Kormak crossed one leg over the other and picked at a piece of lint on his knee. "But I saw you, at a certain dinner party for a certain king. I remembered you, because you were new, and I wondered if you might be trouble. Turns out you were, though not in the way I'd imagined. Anyway, Alaeron, I recognize you, so no use pretending you're anything but a runaway apprentice to the League, and a scheming thief besides. I've been sent to retrieve you—ideally alive—though more importantly to retrieve the things you stole from the Silver Mount."

  "I was more a consultant than an apprentice," Alaeron muttered, thinking furiously. There had to be a way out of this.

  "Here's what we'll do. We'll leave quietly, pick up the devices you stole from wherever you've hidden them, and then take the long journey up the Sellen River back to Starfall, where you'll face whatever justice the League sees fit to dispense."

  Alaeron snorted. "Justice? They'll kill me. If I'm lucky. More likely they'll experiment on me. You can't expect me to go quietly."

  Kormak shifted in his chair, making that clanking sound again. This time the noise struck Alaeron as significantly more ominous. "The League wasn't entirely sure what the relics you stole could do, so they sent me with a few of their favorite devices, just to make sure you'd be outmatched. You really don't want to see what I've got hidden inside this coat, boy. Some of these artifacts do such terrible things, even I don't like carrying them."

  Probably true, Alaeron thought, but he doubted Kormak would actually unleash any weapons of the Technic League here, in a crowded tavern, in the middle of a city. The members of the League were obsessively secretive, guarding their discoveries even from one another, and they wouldn't want their agent calling attention to himself. Alaeron wished he hadn't used the time egg yesterday—it would be days before it was sufficiently rested or recharged to work again, and he'd left it secreted away with the other relics he'd stolen from the Silver Mount in the meantime. The others were too dangerous or unpredictable to carry in his day-to-day business. He was armed with a few vials, of course, as always, but splashing acid or tossing bombs around wouldn't help this situation—at best it would bring guardsmen, and at worst, it might prompt Kormak to make good on his threats to unleash the esoteric technologies of the Technic League. "I don't have the relics anymore," Alaeron said. "I sold them. Surely you know the wealthiest Andorens are fanatics when it comes to relics from distant lands."

  Kormak sighed. "Must we do this? If you'd sold those relics, you'd be rich enough to live in a mansion, not your father's dusty old workshop, and you'd be eating somewhere finer than this, and dressed rather better, too, I'd imagine. You still have them. And you will give them to me."

  Kormak leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, and resting his chin in his hands in a surprisingly disarming and boyish way. Boyish except for all the scars and his oft-broken nose, anyway. "All right. I've had a long journey, and I don't relish the prospect of a fight, even against someone as obviously easy to crush as you. I want to get back to court, where when I'm not standing against a wall watching for assassins I can relax with women and wine and other pleasures. I've no great love for the Technic League. I served the Black Sovereign when he was still known only as Kevoth-Kul, when he sought to ally the warring tribes into one great empire. I don't like the influence those twisted little men in the League have over him. So let me make you a proposal: give me the relics you stole, and I'll return to the League with those, and tell them you died while I was torturing you for information. All right?" He lowered his hands and leaned closer, his face inches from Alaeron's own. "The alternative, of course, is to actually die while I'm torturing you for information."

  Alaeron chewed his lower lip. He didn't believe Kormak—perhaps he'd been one of the Black Sovereign's bosom companions before the warlord became a drug-addicted puppet of the Technic League, and perhaps not. But there was no way the League would have given weapons of power to someone who was not entirely in their control.

  But even if Kormak had been sincere in his offer, it wouldn't matter. Alaeron had endured unspeakable hardships to win that handful of relics from a certain unexplored chamber in the Silver Mount, and he'd barely begun to uncover their secrets. If he simply gave them up now, he'd never be able to live with himself. Alaeron was more likely to drink acid or take a bath in quicksilver than to let such secrets slip from his grasp without doing everything in his power to retain them.

  So he rose suddenly to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process, and pointed an accusing finger at Kormak. He shouted, loud enough to overwhelm the other conversations in the tavern: "You dare say such things here, in Andoran, the cradle of freedom?"

  Kormak narrowed his eyes and slid one hand inside his coat, and Alaeron shouted even louder. "How can you pledge fealty to the Black Sovereign, you Kellid dog? Are you a spy sent down the Sellen to measure this city for barbarian conquest?"

  "Here now, what's this?" The owner, a man Alaeron had known since he was a boy, came from behind the bar, slapping a length of wood sheathed in iron against his palm. "I want no trouble here—"

  "This man offered to sell me a slave." Alaeron was no longer shouting—but in the sudden silence of the tavern, he didn't need to. "A ‘Numerian wench,' he said, trained in the brothels of the savage capital of Starfall to give pleasure. He said I could buy her and pretend she was my daughter." Alaeron spat, but not on the floor: he spat down on the top of Kormak's head. Perhaps that was excessive, he thought, as the Kellid rose slowly to his feet, like an avalanche in reverse.

  "You little—" he began, but the owner growled low and shouted, "Slaver! Out of my tavern, you scum, before I set the guards on you!"

  "Step aside," Kormak rumbled

  But now the Eagle Knight Alaeron had spotted earlier stepped forward, blue and white regalia spotless, golden epaulets gleaming, with a hand on his sword. "A loyal son of Andoran has made serious charges against you, stranger," he said. "You will come with me and answer them." The Eagle Knights were devoted to upholding the ideals of Andoren culture, especially the self-evident truth that slavery was an unmitigated evil, and they were revered with good reason in the nation as a whole and the capital in particular. They were seen as shining paragons of everything good and true in the country.

  Which was why Alaeron couldn't help but smile when Kormak made the colossal mistake of putting one of his huge hands on the Eagle Knight's chest and shoving him back, making him stumble into a table and then fall onto the floor.

  The Andorens in the inn roared with a single voice, while the foreigners who'd just stopped in for a drink gaped in astonishment. The tavern's owner brought his cudgel down on the back of Kormak's neck with all his strength, making the Kellid drop to one knee, though failing to knock him out. A woman in long skirts took the opportunity to kick him in the face, knocking his spectacles askew, one lens dangling over his cheek. Kormak struggled to his feet, and a man sturdy as a dock worker seized him and lifted him bodily off the ground. The Kellid roared, but the crowd moved as one—oh, the patriots of Andoran, united in single purpose!—and carried him to the door, cheered by onlookers. They hurled him into the street, then made way for the furious Eagle Knight, who stalked out, followed by the tavern owner, presumably to deal with Kormak in some more official way.

  Alaeron didn't expect them to keep the Kellid busy for long, especially if he unleashed any of his borrowed devices, but he wouldn't need long. He went around the bar and through the kitchen—the cooks were out front, watching the drama in the street—and toward the back door. He could cut through a few alleys, climb over a low roof, and drop down behind his own workshop. He would grab what he thought of as his "panic bag"—a pack filled with essential traveling gear and enough specialized equipment to qualify as a mobile laboratory—and the relics from the Silver Mount, and try to lose himself. He hated to leave Almas again, but it seemed wise to make himself scarce. He could find a place to work in Absalom, probably, or even the once-gilded city of Oppara in neighboring Taldor. Money was a problem, as he didn't have that much, but he might find work teaching or working as a lab assistant in a university in Oppara, though Taldan intellectuals tended to disdain scholars from other countries. Neither Absalom nor Oppara were home, of course, but after his time in Numeria, being in any of the civilized cities of the Inner Sea would be like a vacation—

  Alaeron was so busy planning the next hours and days and weeks that he didn't pay sufficient attention to the here and now. Which was why he barely noticed the figures lurking in the shadows behind the tavern, and was completely unprepared when one of them clubbed him over the head.

  Kormak had basically shrugged off a blow like that a few minutes before. Alaeron's constitution was not so strong, however, and he hit the ground like a fallen tree. The Kellid must have hired someone to watch the back door and prevent Alaeron from escaping that way. Smart of him, though surprising, too—Kormak had seemed so confident in his own powers and so contemptuous of Alaeron that it was remarkable he'd bothered with a backup plan.

  "I'll cozen you, you tricksy bastard," growled a familiar voice, and in the moment before the next blow knocked him unconscious, Alareon's final muddled thought was: How strange that Kormak should hire the same thugs who threatened Jaya.

  Chapter Three

  An Offer You Shouldn't Refuse

  Alaeron had been knocked unconscious twice before—once on the journey to Numeria, and again as part of his initiation into the very lowest rung of hangers-on to the Technic League—and waking up this time was much the same as his previous experiences: grogginess, painful light when he opened his eyes, a thudding ache that felt strangely wet (even if it wasn't bleeding) at the back of his head, a sense that his ears had been muffled by cotton, and a profound temporal disorientation, with no idea if it was day or night or how much time he'd spent in the blackness.

  Three data points hardly constituted a sufficient sample size to draw any definite conclusions, but he would be comfortable stating that being clubbed unconscious was among his least favorite things. Who knew what such trauma was doing to his brain, and without that, what good was he?

  Once the blur of light and shapes resolved into recognizable objects, he took stock of his situation: he was tied to a chair in an extremely cluttered room, sitting across from Jaya, who was also tied to a chair, and had a rather nasty black eye, the flesh swollen and purplish. Alaeron winced. At least they hadn't hit him in the face, there was that—

  Wait. Jaya was here. Which meant Kormak hadn't coincidentally hired the same thugs Alaeron had time-frozen in an alley. Of course not. He would have realized right away if he hadn't been so disoriented. This situation was totally unrelated to the Technic League.