Aliyah

“So,” Kionah said. “It was the Plum Dove that you rested at, yes?”

“Yes,” Aliyah answered. “I…understand. A warning.”

She shivered and moved her hand to grip at the tracker-mark, little good that would do. She’d known the faeries could pinpoint her location—last night had made that clear enough. But something about them having tracked her on a map was worse: an arrow each into Whistle House and the Plum Dove. No way to turn back, the redness seemed to sneer. No safehouse to fall back on, and nowhere to run.

“I don’t quite follow,” Shasta said after a pause. “Ah. Don’t tell me you’ve dragged something over with you, Kionah.” His gaze fixed upon Aliyah instead. “Dead princess not the last of it?”

If only it had ended with the seventhborn, Aliyah thought. She clenched her fist tight around the fabric; Healer red and Healer weave. If Saiphenora’s allies had fought Zahir and won, then what hope did she have against them?

She looked from Shasta to Kionah to Luxon, and to Silas hovering a careful two paces away. Two criminals, a potioneer, and a retired dungeonrunner: none of whom had any reason to help her. She looked closely at Kionah again, now launching into a smooth, hastily-spun explanation of last night’s attack that gave very little away in the way of actual information.

Maybe, just maybe, she could spin this her way too.

The ‘ransom’ note had been written in a neat, neutral hand with black ink on an unremarkable slip of paper. It sat in front of her now, curling at the edges where it had been rolled up. Kionah had placed it onto the kitchen table along with the three arrows, the silver badge, and the lengths of Healer cloth. Silas, playing the part of the begrudging host, had made tea. Aliyah warmed her fingers on her cup and tried not to think about how the edges of the Healer cloth were frayed as if they had been torn. The cloth was clean—but Healer weave was specifically made to keep from soaking up blood.

She’d sensitised her sense of smell as best she could, but any lingering blood-scent was drowned out beneath the white-hot, metal-sharp tang of lingering magic.

Zahir had his moments, but he’d been kind, overall. A week into her false-apprenticeship, he’d ordered a platter of cooked red meats from the higher kitchens and placed it unceremoniously in front of her at luncheon.

“What’s this for?” she’d asked, bewildered.

“Eat,” he’d answered. “You’re severely anaemic. It’s getting on my nerves.” And then he’d gone right back to titrating stars-knew-what at the back of his office.

She might’ve found the memory more touching were it not for the times he’d taught her to block noxious stimuli with peppers also sourced from the higher kitchens; she liked spice as much as any other maid with little money to spare, but the memory of that one ghostfire-pepper still made her eyes water reflexively.

Still, he’d been as kind as could be expected of a highborn. And if the note could be believed, he was now in the clutches of murderous faeries. They’d delivered the note to her, hadn’t they? There was a lingering duty here, a duty that could not be drowned out by the fear beating within her lungs like a dozen restless wings.

“Also,” Shasta was saying, “that scuffle up on Hallow street? Was that you?”

“I hardly started it,” Kionah said. “We were set up—”

Aliyah cleared her throat to interrupt them. “That doesn’t matter. My mentor’s being held hostage.”

Kionah frowned as her gaze flicked over. “Like I said earlier, we don’t know that for certain. If they have a Healer ally—”

Shasta’s gaze sharpened at the mention of a Healer. “An ally? Come on, Kionah. This looks like a setup, but not fully all the way. If this ‘Saar-Salai’ fellow is at risk, perhaps his protégé would know best, eh?”

“Oh that’s bull and you know it.” Kionah snorted. “Hoping to get another one of her out of this? That’s very funny, Shasta, very short-sighted and opportunistic of you.”

“Says the one fleeing the enemies of her dead employer.”

“Shasta, be serious now.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m also bored as hell. Caius’ll have me locked in a princess’s tower, the way he’s going on. Maybe I could send a couple of the boys out to have a look, go with—”

“Saltstone is a death-trap and you know it. That’s what it’s for. Remember the business with Bruzik and Sunders four summers back? Half a dozen—”

“Excuse me,” Aliyah broke in, voice faltering.

“Let her talk,” Silas broke in from his corner. His tone was even, but Kionah stopped mid-sentence all the same.

“Right,” Aliyah said into the silence and swallowed nervously. “So, my mentor’s been captured. I guess I have to do something about it, but I can’t do it alone.”

“Oh I see,” Silas said with a shake of his head. “No. Count me out. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, and I will not risk my neck over your sort of feud.” He rose to his feet, leveling a hard stare at Shasta in particular. “And don’t even think about dragging Laurent into this. He might be softhearted to agree, but gods help me, I’ll lock him in the bathroom if I have to.” He shook his head, turning away. “You kids these days, playing wargames and thinking you’re invincible. I tell you, you win every fight that you avoid. But do you people listen? Hah. The spires should sooner fall.” With that, he ambled out of the kitchen.

“See?” Kionah said. “It’s a trap. It’s an ambush.”

Aliyah sighed. “I know.”

Kionah blinked. “My pardon?”

“I’m not stupid,” Aliyah said. “It’s obviously a trap. That faery, Saiphenora, she wanted to drag me off to her…employers? Having the meeting place be at an abandoned dockyard at sunset is just the…what’s the saying? It’s just the ribbon on top.”

“Well then,” Kionah said, “don’t go.”

“It might be a trap, but…the cloth, the badge…I think they do have Zahir as a hostage.” She hesitated. “And you’ve got him to thank for being here, haven’t you?”

Kionah narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what kind of mage you think I am, Aliyah, but I can’t stand my ground against a dozen waiting faeries. If you wish to be so suicidal, then good luck to you.”

“Hey now,” Shasta said with a flash of teeth. “I’m much better help if it’s fighting you need.”

“Oh don’t you even,” Kionah warned. “Shasta, no. This is a terrible idea. Wouldn’t be worth it for a dozen Healers in exchange—and trust me, Saar-Salai’s not the grateful type. None of them are.”

Aliyah wondered if that last part was directed at her too. Shasta snorted and made to reply before Luxon gave a delicate cough from her corner.

“Kionah dear,” Luxon said. Her gemstone-eyes fixed upon the contents of the table. “If schismatists have made off with a citizen, you must inform the Hive.”

“Didn’t you say your Hive was busy?” Aliyah ventured.

“Regardless,” Luxon said, straightening in her seat. “I must assure you the Hive is very honourable and upon this honour the treaty is built. We cannot allow the sullying of our name by other parties.”

“How long would it take?” Aliyah asked. “For your Hive to help, I mean. They weren’t, um, too helpful when we got attacked on the street.”

Luxon gave an uncomfortable little laugh. “I’m…not sure, I’m afraid. Not part of the Hive proper anymore, as it were—I’m sure they’re doing their best, and for this they’d send a Lieutenant, at the very least.”

Sending a Lieutenant wouldn’t help her much if they couldn’t do it by sunset.

“Right,” she said. “Okay. Thank you Luxon.” She unwound her fingers from her fast-cooling mug and flexed them; the bones of her hands suddenly seemed too-fragile. Breakage and vasodilation would not be enough—Saiphenora alone had almost been enough to capture her. “Is there any way you could help?” she asked the faery. Fire against fire, or so the saying went.

“Absolutely not,” Luxon said in a rush. “I don’t fight.”

“I do,” Shasta said, very casually. “I’m right here, you know.”

Aliyah pressed a hand to her temple. “Right,” she said. “I have thirty six Songian crowns, however much that is in Glisterian money. Luxon, Shasta, what can I buy for that?”

“I don’t especially want coin,” Shasta said. “Your healing, however—”

“Not going to work,” Kionah snapped. “You’ll bring the weight of the spires down on us, that way. Do you wonder why Aliyah’s sort—you know, those blue-bird fuckers—do you ever wonder why they’ve never brought a Healer over? A princess, sure—but not a Healer?”

Shasta crossed his arms. “Kionah. You’ve got it all wrong. I got a couple guys turning yellow and whatnot. They’re decent fellows, did good work back in the day—is it so bad I’d not want to leave them to hang? I’m not going to tie your friend down with a ball and chain. Would just appreciate a little help, you know.” He flashed another smile, half-grimace, half-teeth. “Between friends.”

“Oh,” Aliyah said. “I don’t think I can fix liver failure. Not permanently. Sorry.”

“Ah,” Shasta said, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward a fraction. “But you can do other things? I can work with that—”

“They took a Healer,” Kionah broke in flatly. “Maybe twenty, thirty years ago. Set back the Songian visits by a decade. Alhena told me.”

“They?” Aliyah asked. “Your…city’s court? The king and queen?”

Kionah shook her head grimly. “Spire people. Noble-house, old money types. The Healer killed a lot of them. Almost made it out, too.”

“Right,” Aliyah said faintly, thoughts turning as fast as they could. “And these spire people, if they find out about me…?”

From across the table, Luxon shuddered. “If I’m correct in guessing what a Healer is, then best they not. I’ve had my run-ins with the Chelicera’s folk, and they aren’t the friendliest at the best of times.”

“Hey now,” Shasta said, and made an appeasing gesture with his hands. “I’m not going to sell your friend out to the spires either, Kionah. I thought you knew me better than this.”

“I do,” Kionah said coolly. “I know you may not wave your tongue about, but what of the people you want her to miracle back into health? What about them, eh?”

“But you think it’ll work if you haul her around as your personal guard,” Shasta observed. “How interesting. I’m sure those spire bastards’d think that, too.”

“Enough,” Aliyah said. The words froze in her throat when they all turned to look at her. “Look, I don’t want to be hunted down any more than I am already. I’m offering coin. Only coin. Answer the question, please: what can I get?”

“I haven’t the faintest clue,” Shasta said. “Songian coin isn’t exactly common, here.”

“Crowns are gold,” Aliyah said. “Like your crests. I want…help. Spell-slips, potions, needles, that kind of thing. You’ve got, um, ‘foray-men’, haven’t you? What’s the going rate for a day?”

Kionah groaned. “Aliyah, you’re going to get yourself killed. It’s bait—they probably won’t even have your master with them.”

“Yes,” Aliyah said. “Exactly. Which is why I want to pay one of you to find out where he really is.”

Kionah blinked, thrown silent for only a second. “And how are you going to do that? It’s not like he’s got a bloody homing collar on him.”

Aliyah gestured at the pile of arrows and cloth in front of them. “You have bloodhounds in this city, don’t you?”

“Well shit,” Kionah said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Aliyah, but faeries fly.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling her face grow warm. “Yes—um. But surely there’s a spell or something, or—Luxon, you know potionwork, and uh…faerie stuff. Is there anything—”

Luxon shook her head. “Nothing for your purposes that I know of, I’m afraid. There are tracker-marks unique to my kind,” she said, inclining her head at Aliyah’s arm, “but they require specialised learning and placement beforehand. Perhaps an experienced General could track scent through open air, but…” she trailed off, almost embarrassedly. “Well, I am not a General and I gather the Hive cannot spare one presently.”

“Okay,” Aliyah said, racking her head for ideas. “If not bloodhounds, then…is there such thing as those scenting birds hereabouts? I know some Healers had them as pets—”

Kionah snorted. “Poisoner’s pigeons? They can’t be trained to track anything; I tried when I was younger.” She elbowed Shasta. “We used to sling them down by the dozen for supper, didn’t we? Bet they’ve all been eaten by now.”

“Hey,” Shasta broke in. “I think Mutt’s got a bit of pigeon in him.”

“Mutt?” Aliyah asked, thoughts skipping back. “Oh, your…feather dog?” The chimerical creature that had greeted her in Shasta’s apartment certainly looked as if it had a bit of everything in it.

“Shasta,” Kionah said. “Don’t give false hope. You’re practically scalping the poor girl.”

Shasta shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Unless you’ve got something different in mind?”

“I have a few scent-enhancing potions in stock,” Luxon piped up. “How about a discount on those?”

“Not you, too,” Kionah muttered.

“Great,” Aliyah said, seizing onto Luxon’s words. Potions were actionable magic, and Kionah had at least implied that Luxon was an excellent brewer—right now, it sounded as strategic of an idea as any. “That sounds good. But about that dockyard—”

“I am not jesting when I say this,” Kionah broke in, leaning her elbows onto the table. She met Aliyah’s eyes, her gaze sharpening. “There’s a very good chance that you’re getting hurt if you go. Hurt badly. You know what the inside of a dead ship is like? Darkness and corners and tripwires and cutting-cords. One of the gone-away leaders, Brizek, he and a dozen of his best forayers went into a moored wreck chasing after a defector holed up there. None of them made it out—not fucking one.”

Aliyah shook her head. “I never said I was going in. But I’ll have to be there, won’t I?” She held up her arm, where the tracker-mark still gleamed. “They can check where I am right now. If I don’t go there before sunset, they might not even show up.”

“Aliyah, you don’t want them to show.”

“No,” she agreed. “But I need them to. If this group of faeries have Zahir and you’re tracking him down with Mutt, it’ll be easier if they’re spread thin.”

Kionah put a hand to her forehead. “This is a terrible plan.”

“Okay—why?”

Kionah scowled. “First off, Shasta’s mutt isn’t a real tracking dog. He’s not even a bloody dog. Even if you do, by some miracle, succeed at tracking down Saar-Salai or whatever Healer has fallen afoul of their plans, how do you hope to free him? They must have proper bindings if they hope to hold a Healer. What are you going to do, search out some Breaker magic? They’re the ones with the false-Magician on their side.”

Aliyah glanced across the table, the beginnings of an idea forming. “Maybe Luxon can—”

“Ah,” Luxon broke in, her smile gone very tight. “I do not—that is to say, we whom you call faeries do not—engage in such…loathsome arts. I wish to make that quite clear.”

Aliyah blinked. “I’m sorry?”

Next to her, Kionah stiffened fractionally. Shasta’s gaze skipped between Aliyah and Luxon, the faintest hint of wry amusement gliding over his face.

Luxon’s spines tilted back, almost flat against the sides of her face. “To break is to slaughter,” she said. Her expression looked as if it were trying to fight back against a scowl. “The very suggestion that any of our kind would take up such teachings is absurd. That is all I wish to say on the matter.”

Aliyah winced. The sensation of stumbling over a hidden indelicacy was familiar, even if this particular one was not. “Uh, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t…realise? I meant no, um, offense.”

“You weren’t to know,” Luxon said a touch too brightly. “I cannot expect too much from one who hails from a land of such esteemed ignorance and story-scented cruelties.”

“Hey,” Kionah said. “Easy, Luxon. No Breaker stuff on our end, I can promise you that.”

Luxon nodded stiffly. “Of…course. I’m…certainly amenable to aiding you if that’s the case. Do carry on.”

“Um,” Aliyah said. “Right. So, Kionah. Those spell-slips that Zahir gave me, the ones that got you free—surely you have something similar here?”

“Doubt it,” Kionah said with a shake of her head. “Bet he bought them off a Higher Librarian. Counted as Breaker magic, too.”

“We’ve got key-charms for unlocking,” Shasta broke in lazily. “For quite reasonable prices.”

“Shoddy charms, last I recalled,” Kionah said.

Shasta shrugged. “’S what you use if the lock lacks a keyhole.”

“I’ll take it,” Aliyah said. “How much, for everything?”

At that, both criminal and faery leaned in with interest.

===

Afternoon came faster than she could have thought; Shasta led the way down cobbled streets that seemed to get emptier and more derelict each time they took a turn. Houses turned to shops, shops merged with sheds, and sheds became rusted-open warehouses.

“Bet you there’ll be fog, eh?” Shasta said. He strode easily, sounding more cheerful than he had any right to be. It reminded her of Zahir, which was not a good thing; worry would not help her here—only focus. “Not good fighting ground, but Yenis here’s got tricks for that.”

The burly foray-man by his side inclined his head in response. Aliyah eyed the coils of spell-slips strung at his belt and wondered, very briefly, if she could trust either of them. It wasn’t as though she had many options: Kionah and Luxon were coaxing Shasta’s mutt into scenting the Healer cloth, and Silas had already made his position quite clear. Though, he had left her with one unsettling scrap of advice.

“Check the ceilings,” he’d said. Something had flickered over his face as he’d said it, an expression she couldn’t quite place and didn’t especially want to. “Never forget to look up. Things like to…wait there. Things that don’t move like we do.”

She wasn’t going to enter anywhere with ceilings if she could help it. If Kionah was anywhere close to correct about the corners of those ships, she’d rather chance it with faery arrows. And Kionah herself…well, she’d given Aliyah a knife.

“Just in case,” she’d said with a too-bright grin. “You know how this works, don’t you? Cut and stab, and never let go once you’ve drawn it. Bastards’ll turn it on you given half the chance.”

The knife hung at her belt now, sheathed and heavy against her hip. She could only hope that she wouldn’t need it.

Saltstone was, as predicted, host to a fog rolling in. As they approached, it rose up to surround them in a shifting film. Everything took on a muffled quality; the faint sound of lapping water stirred gooseflesh at the nape of her neck.

Aliyah breathed in, then out. Slowly, now, an easy rhythm. With each breath came the scents of salt, brine, and an oddly metallic tang that was perhaps the smell of ship-parts rotting and rusting. The planks felt solid beneath her boots at least, an anchor against the mist. Blurry silhouettes of broken masts loomed off to the side. She scanned the skies for flashes of faerie wing and found none, then stopped as Shasta and Yenis drew to a standstill.

“We’re here,” Shasta said. “Slap bang in the middle and I can’t see no sign of ‘em on the quay proper. What now? We’re not tangling with the wrecks, no we aren’t.”

Aliyah frowned at the tracker-mark on her arm, faintly itching but not more than that.

“We stay here,” she said, more decisively than she felt. “Keep an eye out.” And stall for time, she didn’t add. Kionah and Luxon needed time—time in which the faeries were split up and confused, time in which she had to act the distraction.

Shasta exchanged a glance with Yenis. The foray-man muttered what might have been the words ‘sitting ducks’ under his breath.

The two men cast shields in unison, and Aliyah hastily followed suit. Shasta and Yenis lapsed into seemingly well-practiced restfulness that she couldn’t hope to emulate. She kept glancing up, heart kicking in her chest, at the thought of Saiphenora lurking above. The glow of her shield was weak, but it cut through a good couple inches of fog at the very least. Would that make a difference? Better to be hit with a shield ready than not, she supposed.

The wharf lay quiet. Aliyah had read about the ocean, but there was very little to see of it here. The sound of the water was gentle and the wrecks did not list, sitting squat with their sails long-stripped. Sea-ships were larger than she’d assumed they might be. Each was at least the size of the royal skyship back in Shadowsong, wide and double-decked—but any spellwork woven into their hulls had long-since sputtered out.

She increased the sensitivity of her ears a notch and listened. For two, three minutes, there was nothing. And then—what might have been a word, drifting in beneath the sound of slow water.

“…Help,” she heard. Or thought she heard. It was hard to tell, with the dampening of the mists, but she definitely heard something.

Shasta heard it with her, his head whipping round to pinpoint the source of the noise. One hand moved to the hilt of his blade in the time it took her to blink. His other hand had landed on the holster of his pistol.

Something banged some ways off, a hard and unmistakable thump. Metal-edged, heavy.

“Well now,” Shasta murmured.

Aliyah took a deep breath. “I’ll…I’ll go look. You, uh, don’t have to.”

She set off without waiting for an answer. After several heartbeats, a set of light footfalls followed, barely audible over the sound of another thud. Blunter, that one. Heavy enough to be a body?

Aliyah quickened her pace without meaning to. The thudding seemed to come from the depths of a particular metal-plated wreck—double levels, shattered windows above, broken railing lining the upper deck. She eyed the part of the ship that was flush with the wharf. She could step right onto it if she were so inclined. Straight ahead was a door flung wide, revealing a stretch of empty, decaying corridor fading to darkness. She almost took a step back, before a flash of colour caught her eye—a scrap of fabric tied to the handle, redder than blood.

“Don’t like the look of that,” Shasta said quietly. From behind him came Yenis’s grunt of assent.

Another thud. Half a word. And then a scream, male in pitch.

Her blood ran cold. Was that Zahir? She had never heard him scream—couldn’t tell for certain. Another Healer, then? Someone, all the same.

One more thud, and then quiet. The darkness seemed to beckon. The redness seemed to demand.

Will you wait? it seemed to gloat. Will you leave him to die, like you left Rana? Her pulse pounded in her ears. The world seemed at once very far away.

“Whoa, wait—” Shasta shouted, as she stepped onto the ship.

Fingers brushed the back of her arm, but she was already running, breakage in one hand and vasodilation in the other. She plunged into the darkness in seconds, flushing her eyes with scotopic magic to better see her way through.

Two paces in, and a sound scraped behind her. Only then did the rest of her mind catch up.

Too late, she realised as the door slammed shut behind her. The faeries used illusions.