Category: Main Story

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Chapter One

Wallside

The muted chime of the evening bells was all that could be heard in the little entryway, as the young man crossed the tiles to reach the courtyard. Outside, the bustle of the city streets continued unabated beneath the eternal twilight sky. The murmur of the guests in the ballroom past the empty flagstones rose and fell in a comfortable, familiar rhythm that echoed out past the archways. The wedding itself was long since over, the guests trickling out slowly as the family gathered around the new couple to congratulate them.

Truth had not been invited. He understood why, of course. But he did want to at least give his sister her wedding present, and now, with the party winding down, seemed his best chance to do so quietly. The courtyard was open to the sky, and a gentle breeze flitted through, ruffling his burnt amber hair as he walked towards the ballroom. He had decided not to wear his uniform, as it would be certain to set people off, and so he was wearing a simple buttoned shirt and slacks dug out of the back of his closet. Formal enough for a wedding, he hoped. Or at least for after a wedding.

He hesitated in one of the archways, realizing more people were still here than he’d anticipated. He didn’t see their parents in the crowd, thankfully, but Spoons was still chatting with her new husband’s parents, arm looped through his. Her blue eyes, so like Truth’s own, were bright with emotion. He watched, smiling fondly, as some comment from her new mother-in-law sent her into a fit of giggling. When the groom nudged her to point Truth out, she turned and called his name with delight.


“Truth! Oh my god, Truth, it’s so good to see you!”

So much for an unobtrusive entrance. He walked over quickly, dropping a kiss on his sister’s proffered cheek and handing her the wrapped package. She didn’t open it, setting it aside so she could take his hand, pulling at him as she said, “Look, there’s still cake! Do you want some?” She added with pride, “I baked it myself.”

Of course she had, a professional chef and baker wasn’t going to trust her wedding cake to someone else. A lopsided smile tugged at his face, and he replied, flattening his voice as he always did in public, “I was just stopping by on my way home to give you my best wishes- there’s really no need to-”

There was already a slice on a plate being proffered to him, and he couldn’t just say no to his sister’s baking. Everyone was politely ignoring his presence, so he accepted the plate. Hands on her hips, his sister was watching him expectantly. “Well, go on, try it!”

Light and fluffy, with hints of vanilla and cinnamon, it was definitely the best thing he’d tasted in weeks. The drizzled lemon icing was just tart enough to counter the sweetness of the cake, and before he realized it he’d wolfed the whole slice down. Spoons was delighted, of course, and there was already a second slice waiting for him. He tried to protest this one too, but she seemed determined to make the most of his company. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to stay for just a bit –

Behind him, he heard a slightly slurred voice speak, clearly pitched so he could hear. “My little Juanita has embraced her supernatural heritage! She’s already left to go back to her work, you know – I’m so proud of her, even if she won’t tell me the details for my safety. You don’t see her parading around with those overdressed thugs!”

It was definitely time to go. Spoons had heard, too, and didn’t protest when he said quietly, “Sorry, Spoonsy, looks like that’s my cue to leave. Have a good night-”

He turned, and was met with all five feet of his aunt’s swirling skirts and heavy perfume looking down her nose at him disdainfully, despite being a full foot shorter. She held a half-empty champagne glass delicately in one hand.


“Hello, Auntie Isabella. I… was just leaving…”

“Always taking the easy way out, aren’t you,” she sniffed. “Anyone else from the family would have at least tried to use conscientious objection to get out of being conscripted, but I guess that was too much work, hm? Couldn’t resist the free ride?”

He winced, but couldn’t reasonably object. He had gotten the best medical training available out of it, in addition to the other benefits. “I just came to wish my sister well at her wedding, Auntie, I’m not here to argue-”

“A wedding to which you weren’t invited, as I recall!” She wagged a disapproving finger at him. “You shouldn’t even be here, and you know it. Nobody likes you, and I don’t know why your sister still harbors any sympathy for a scumbag government dog like you.” Oh dear. The situation was rapidly deteriorating, and she was still blocking his exit.


“I’ll just… go now.”

He attempted to edge past her skirts, but that simple phrase was too much for her inebriated fury, and she reached out to grab the front of his shirt. “Oh, is that what you said after your people arrested my husband? ‘I’ll just go now, don’t want the family seeing what a rotten person I am-’”

Spoons had hold of their aunt’s arm now and was trying to calm her down, but she wrenched it free, shoving the champagne glass at the nearest person and rearing back to punch him. There wasn’t any way to avoid it, even as the rest of the family tried to intervene too, but he could at least roll with it so it wouldn’t do as much damage.

For an older, out of shape woman his aunt sure hit hard. He saw stars for a moment, and with a blink realized he was sitting on the floor. At least now he could stand up and hastily retreat back to the courtyard, brushing off his pants and combing back his hair with his fingers. He prodded his eye gingerly. It was already puffy, and would likely start turning black shortly, if it hadn’t already. And because so many people had seen him get hit, he would have to leave it alone…


“Truth!”

He turned at that voice. His sister clattered across the flagstones after him, her elaborate white skirts bundled up in her arms so she didn’t trip. She let go of them as she reached him, and the delicate material drifted gently back to the ground to resume its previous flowery shape.


“I’m so sorry, Spoons… I should have just left immediately. Your cake was amazing but I don’t think it was worth ruining your wedding for.”

Spoons snorted, her usual indelicate mannerisms looking out of place in all that finery, spun silver earrings swaying with the motion. “To be fair, Truth, that’s one of the better family interactions you’ve had recently. I’m not going to blame you for it.”

Truth sighed, running his hand through his hair again, letting his usual lilt creep back into his voice. “I don’t know why she always thinks using pretentious words like supernatural instead of plain old magic like regular people is going to put me in my place.”

She snorted again. “She’s always been that way, Truth, even when we were kids. She just didn’t used to aim it at us.” She added, taking his hand, “I still don’t understand why you don’t just tell the rest of the family, you know they can keep a secret.”

Truth glanced around. They were alone in the courtyard, but he lowered his voice anyway. “It’s not about whether they can keep it or not, it’s about how much scrutiny I get from my superiors as an officer. Even the slightest hint of anything unnatural and I’d lose my job, my commission, and my source of funds for my little clinic, as well as all the information I pass along – not to mention, they’d probably court-martial me and send me straight to prison if they found it was true. The family’s distaste for me is an unfortunate, but extremely convincing smokescreen, you know that.”


“You could always charge for the work at your clinic, you know.”


“And you know exactly how many people can’t afford that kind of care in the underground, Spoons, I couldn’t do that to them.”

He patted her arm, and said, “You’re lucky you don’t need to worry about any of that yourself. Sometimes I worry you’ll forget you ‘don’t know’ I’m talented though – I don’t want you getting tagged for concealing a magic-user either.”


“Truth-”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been here too long as it is – I should get back to the clinic. It’s still the weekend, and people know that’s when they can see the surgeon instead of Cherry.”


He dropped another kiss on her cheek, and said, “Congrats, by the way. He’s a real catch.”

Spoons blushed and smiled at him, waving goodbye as he ducked out the entrance before anything else could happen.

Nightside

Oreo counted the buttons on the console again. There were exactly 47 of them, just the same as the last time, and the time before that… There was really no reason for her to be out here on this surveying trip, but B kept insisting on teaching her how to navigate planetside in the little hopper. She kept telling her, she hadn’t gotten it so she could fly through an atmosphere, but she knew somehow it would still end up being her turn to pilot on the way back. She watched the lights of another ice mining camp pass beneath them, one of the few visible features from up here nightside, then sighed, turning back to the cockpit.


“Are we there yet?”


“Nearly,” B replied, not turning, lights from the instruments edging her delicate plastic features. It was easier for her to just plug herself into the controls and interface directly – another reason Oreo didn’t think she needed to be along – and she was draped in cables pulled from under the cockpit’s sleek exterior. “The last survey team said there had been a ravine collapse and there might be something buried under the ice back here, but it wasn’t on their itinerary so they didn’t take a look.”


“I know,” Oreo said. “You told me when we left.”


“And I’m telling you again in case you weren’t paying attention the first time.”


“I still don’t see why we couldn’t just wait until we sent a regular team out and check it out then. Shards, Buttercup, this was supposed to be our day off.” Oreo flopped into the copilot’s seat and slouched, letting herself sprawl out into the space B wasn’t occupying. Her ponytail slid over the back of the chair in a messy black tangle. “You were just bored, weren’t you?”


“It was an excellent opportunity for you to practice flying without needing to worry about fuel conservation.”

The android’s fingers danced across the console, flipping switches and turning knobs with a graceful precision that Oreo envied. They were descending now, and she remembered to clip herself into the seat as a precaution. Their flight slowed to a hover, the craft turning gently to present them with the best view. Below them gaped the dark maw of the new crevasse, their lights tiny against its massive sheets of ice. She pulled out the binoculars. B was controlling the hopper, so Oreo’d be the one watching for anything interesting.

They descended for what seemed like miles. The entire bottom had fallen out of the old valley, it seemed – and there was still no sign of the ground.


“Do you think it reaches the core?” Oreo asked idly, scanning the walls around them.


B lowered her eyelids in acknowledgment, watching the instruments. “I doubt it. Those ones usually don’t get covered in the first place.”


“True,” Oreo said, going back to watching the walls. There was silence as they dropped further, down so far now they couldn’t see the edges of ice framing the sky anymore. Oreo pointed an exposed ledge out to B. Bare earth – they must be approaching the bottom. B turned to follow it, dropping down along the edge to skim over the frozen dirt. And then Oreo saw a flash of green under their lights.


“Wait, wait, woah, back up again. That shouldn’t be there.”

The android obliged, retracing their path slowly, until Oreo saw it again. There, in a crack in the ice, was a patch of grass, somehow thriving despite the cold and the dark.


“Okay,” Oreo said, “Now I’m interested.”

It took some time to find a stable point close enough to land the little hopper so they could both get out and take a look. The crack was more of a passageway, now that they were closer – and when they shone their lights into it, there was more than just grass growing in it. “Magically preserved, you think?” She lowered her voice and added, finger to her lips, “I can sense traces of a fading look-away spell, too.” Oreo’s breath puffed out into the chill air with each word.


“Old world remnants,” B agreed, turning her arm to let the sensors in it scan the foliage. “Wild phlox. That doesn’t grow here naturally anymore.”


“Come on, let’s check it out,” Oreo said, starting into the cavern without waiting for B. “You’d have said by now if there were old warbots or anything dangerous around.” The android, one digit raised in protest, lowered it without comment and followed. The grass grew thicker and lusher as they headed deeper, behaving for all the world as though it was a balmy wallside evening in some wealthy manor’s garden instead of nightside, miles beneath layers upon layers of ice and rocks.

Eventually, they turned a corner, and the cavern opened up before them, an enormous, perfectly carved sphere in the ice marking where the boundaries of the spellwork lay. As they watched, birds flitted across the wide space and into the crumbling building in the center. The magic sustaining the grass, the birds, and the flowers had not been so kind to whatever this had been – a temple, perhaps? Some kind of elaborately carved stone was still visible in the pale gleam of the ice coating it.


“Dude,” Oreo said, “This is so fucking cool.”

She stepped out into the cavern proper, startling more birds. The central building was the only thing inside, other than the quiet greenery, so she headed straight for it. B followed silently, playing her sensors across the open field and the building. As they reached it, she reported quietly, “It appears to be structurally sound, if not in the best of shape.” Oreo nodded, stepping inside and raising her flashlight. More birds startled, rustling wings echoing off the icy stone. As they reached it, she reported quietly, “It appears to be structurally sound, if not in the best of shape.” Oreo nodded, stepping inside and raising her flashlight. More birds startled, rustling wings echoing off the icy stone.

The building was relatively tall, and the ceiling remained a dark void unless one of them turned their light directly at it. Glinting icicles and the occasional bird were the only things up there, and they stopped bothering. B murmured quietly, “There appears to be a large central chamber to the right. Anything of interest will probably be in there.” They turned down that hall, then turned again to find themselves facing a pair of stone doors, still standing despite all they’d seen. An ominous red x had been hastily splashed across them who knows how long ago – a warning for ancient travelers that had never arrived.


“That paint is ancient,” B said, scanning it. “Who knows how long it’s been here.”


“You want to slice them open?” Oreo asked.

B shook her head, the steam from her heat vents wavering with the motion. “They’re carved. Probably worth studying if not worth money.” She bent to examine the crack between them. “Barred from within. Disease, maybe?”


Oreo’s brow wrinkled in concern. “I don’t like the sound of that.”


“You can always stay back here and let me go inside,” B said, flattening her arm and extending it through the crack to knock the bar off. The noise it made was so loud compared to the previous stillness that they both froze in anticipation. Birds chirped at them in annoyance, but nothing else happened, and after a moment they both relaxed. The android set her shoulder to the first door and shoved it aside, revealing a tall room, shattered glass dome open to the sky – or what would be the sky if it weren’t buried in ice. “I don’t sense any known pathogens, though. It’s up to you,” she said, stepping over the bar and starting right for the shelves full of preserved books.

Oreo wasn’t paying attention. Her gaze had immediately been caught by the pair of imposing statues seated by the far wall. Two men, larger than life – one carved out of some black stone, and one out of pale golden marble. Each was dressed in a loose robe of the same color, sleeveless and slit down the sides, tiny pinpricks of embroidery tracing obscure patterns across the folds. Their entwined hair draped across the floor and the walls, gold and black, stretching up to the ceiling. Even the finest of strands had been detailed – they had to have been carved right into the wall for that complex of a structure. She stepped closer. The amount of detail in those composed, sleeping faces was incredible; just similar enough to show they were related, but different enough that they were easily told apart. Paint meant to mimic tattoos accented the differences.


“Bee, look at these statues,” she whispered. “The artistry is absolutely stunning.” She reached up a hand to gently touch the pale statue’s face.


“Oreo, wait,” B said uneasily, “I don’t think those are statues…”

She realized her mistake the moment her fingers touched flesh and two pairs of colorless unblinking eyes opened, staring straight at her. Everything after that happened in a blur.


“Temerators!” thundered the pale statue as he stood, draping hair whipping back and out threateningly. The dark statue said nothing, merely gazed blankly at them, before disappearing entirely in a gust of air. B had activated her stealth camouflage in horror, but loops of hair swooped out to snag her anyway. Oreo’s gun was in her hands, and panicking, she fired point-blank at the pale statue’s face, even as she felt the moving coils snag her ankles and pull her off balance. The statue didn’t even blink as the bullet shattered against his cheek, arm lashing out in retaliation, magic gathering in that clawed hand before hitting her square in the chest.

Nothing happened. At least, not right away. She was upside down and dangling a foot in the air before she felt a burning itch start where she’d been struck. The statue didn’t seem concerned with them now that they’d been contained – his attention was on the empty seat next to him.


“Heu,” he said, voice gentle now and somehow… sad. “O Imum, ubi te?” He reached a hand out as if he could summon the other man back, but there was no response.


“He disappeared right after you yelled,” Oreo volunteered helpfully, still swinging in the air. She would very much like to scratch at her chest but her arms were pinned to her sides. B made a little hissing noise as if to tell her to shut up, but it was a little too late – the statue turned his attention back to his prisoners.

He stared at them a moment, eyelids flickering as he seemed to analyze the deepest inner reaches of their souls, then said, fumbling for words as though speaking in a foreign language, “What, exactly, are you doing in here? Did you not see the warning on the door?”


“Well,” Oreo started, fidgeting under that eerie gaze that looked through her and not at her, “The paint was really really really old, so we thought maybe whatever it was wasn’t a problem anymore? This place has been buried in ice for a really long time, after all….”


The statue blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, what? What ice?”


“You know, the glacier? Since we’re nightside?”


He said, frowning, “Your words ring true, but the images in your mind make no sense.”


From her own cocoon of hair, B inquired, “Exactly how long have you been asleep in here?”


“Too long, clearly,” he muttered under his breath. Then, louder, turning his gaze directly towards the pair of them, he said, “It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that my brother is unstable, and I do not know where he has gone.” His words became clearer the longer he spoke, as if he was tuning his accent to their ears. “I sense no malice from either of you; if I release you, will you refrain from any further aggression?”


B acquiesced immediately with a simple ‘Yes.’


Oreo, though, said, “Only if you tell me what you did that’s making me itch so badly.”


“Ah,” the statue said, righting Oreo and lowering them to the ground, “I do apologize for marking you. It was a reflex after your attack, but presents no current danger. The itch will subside after the mark settles.”

Released from its unnatural animation, his hair settled back as though it had never been anything else. Oreo said suspiciously, noting his phrasing, “Current danger?”


He nodded. “You have sinned, and not atoned for it,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “The mark shows that I may render justice for your sin.”


That sounded complicated. “What?”


The statue tilted his head to the side and said, “To put it bluntly, I am allowed to execute you.”


“I’m sorry, what? Because I shot at you?”


“No,” he said calmly. “You have killed someone, and the weight of that guilt hangs heavy on your soul.”

She took a step back, fear starting to bubble up in the back of her head. “That- that was self-defense!” To the side, she noted absently that B was watching this whole conversation with interest, probably recording it for later.


“Yes, I could see that in your mind,” the statue agreed. “I am not inclined to punish someone so heavily for defending against a legitimate threat to their survival.” He paused, tilting his head to the other side. “You are lucky he didn’t notice. He might not have had enough… discernment to understand the difference.”


She relaxed a little. “So… can you take it off then?”


“I am afraid I cannot, as it is at its essence a curse. Once marked for judgment, the only way to remove it is to properly atone for your sin. As I said, I do apologize… it was a reflex.”


Oreo said, fidgeting uncomfortably, “Well, shit.”

He was unconcerned, waving a hand in dismissal. “I am patient. The only real time constraint is your lifespan; it can always be dealt with later. Right now,” he said, gesturing towards the empty chairs, “My brother must be found. The hope was that his rage would have dimmed during our slumber, so that I could heal him when we woke – but I do not know if it actually has, nor where he could have gone. He could be wreaking havoc somewhere as we speak.”

B said thoughtfully, “If you’ve been asleep as long as I think you have, he won’t be familiar with anything outside. What would he do about that? Exactly how unstable is he?”

The statue lowered his head in thought, one finger rising to settle under his chin. “He will be feeling as drained as I am now, perhaps more. In the absence of the familiar, he would gravitate towards the nearest aether-rich environment so he could recover his strength.” He nodded. “As to his state of mind…. Before I managed to subdue him last time, he leveled a small forest in anger, and was not responding to verbal instructions.”


“Okay, that sounds… pretty bad,” Oreo said, trying not to wince. “Aether-rich… that… wouldn’t happen to be the underground, would it, Bee?” She was afraid she knew the answer already, and the android’s small nod was just confirmation.


“It tends to concentrate where we set up, due to all the magical activity, so if not our pocket of the underground it would certainly be another.”


“Can you send them a message from here?”

B shook her head, already turning towards the exit. “We’re too deep beneath the ice and too far from the wall. We’ll have to get back to the hopper first to boost the signal.” She waved a commanding arm at the statue, saying, “Come on, then, spooky, we can fit one more person in the hopper, even a giant. Let’s go find your missing scary friend.”


“Spooky?”

The startled look the statue gave the android’s back was the most human thing Oreo had seen from him. He elected not to comment further on the improvised name, saying instead, “A moment,” straightening to his full height – eight feet or so, Oreo guessed – then whistling, and one of the many birds fluttered down through the open roof and onto his shoulder. That was all he needed, apparently, because he vanished in a gust of wind, leaving Oreo alone in the empty room. Her chest had stopped itching, she realized, unzipping her thick coat briefly to take a look. Three curving vertical lines, with a small diamond beneath the middle line, just like on the statue’s face – and roughly carved into his chair too, she noted.

If she didn’t move, though, she’d be left behind, and she zipped her coat back up and hurried out after B, following the determined tap tap tap of her plastic outer shell against the stone.

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Chapter Two

The Market

The clothes Truth had chosen for the wedding were comfortable enough that he’d decided not to swap them out again, though he did slip his earrings out of his pocket and jab them into his ears again. It was awkward healing the holes every time he left the market, but by this point he tried to keep as many noticeable differences between his two lives and appearances as possible – and that was one that people would notice if changed in his all-business military persona. He wound his way through the tiny kitchen towards the stairs with ease, sliding past familiar obstacles with practiced grace. His house was remarkable only in that it was rather small for someone who made as much money as he did. He didn’t need any more space though, and he had better uses for that money.

His mask sat right where he’d left it, hidden under the smallest illusion on his nightstand, and he slipped it on over the slim hood it paired with. He briefly checked his appearance in the mirror for escaping curls or visible identifying marks as he reached for the secret teleportation mark inscribed near it. It would have been convenient for it to take him straight to his clinic, but there were protocols to be followed. At the very least he didn’t need to go walking through the streets juggling his ‘I’m-definitely-up-to-something-illegal’ mask and his medical tools while hoping no one noticed anything.

The little side chamber off of the main passageway already had several occupants when he arrived, clustered by the exit on the intricately tiled floor. Most of them he recognized by their masks; a few raised their hands in greeting on seeing him. One said, “Back already, Songbird?” Truth smiled behind the iridescent green of his painted wooden feathers, and said, “I did say it was a very small errand.” It was so nice to just speak naturally, let the words flow out and easy, no clipped military accent draining the color from his voice. The familiar dull ache in his earlobes settled in as he joined the queue.

He always loved seeing the market from up here, the colorful roofs sprawled across the cavern floor, interspersed with dripstone pillars and stalagmites carved into fantastical shapes where they had grown. Little floating globes of light hovered above the houses and shops, each a small welcoming glow – nearly impossible to tell which was magic and which was electric. Merchants with no shop fronts lined the streets in their stalls, hawking potions and charms along with more mundane offerings like fresh pretzels and roasted nuts, side by side with others selling the latest tablet models and teleconduits patched to link to the underground network. Androids weren’t common even here, but they were sprinkled through the area too – some simply shopping, while others were merchants in their own right. The grass and the gardens, spelled to believe they grew under an open sky instead of in a cave, spread between the buildings and grew through the cracks in the mossy cobblestone with abandon. Even the occasional tree flourished in the out of the way corners of the market, tended with the same care as all the rest of the plants.

The guard had changed since he’d left, he noted; it was Boots on duty now. He didn’t know the man’s real name, of course, but he knew him quite well all the same. The same couldn’t be said for Boots, of course – you learned a lot of things inadvertently when mindreading people, even for as simple a task as this. They didn’t call them memory guards for nothing. He likely knew Truth’s true name, his real job, and that old name he’d rather forget for good measure. Their strict silence was what bought the market the safety it enjoyed.

It was late enough now that most people were leaving the market, or closing their shops for the night, so it shouldn’t take too long to slip back inside, even if he was the last. He waited politely for Boots to finishing processing the current group of guests that were on their way out, as the man blindfolded each one and then suppressed the memory of the market’s location in their minds. Their escorts teleported them out, when he was done, and Truth sauntered up to the gate to say hello.


“Hey, Boots.”


The man nodded at him, tapping a finger to the plain black mask that both concealed and protected his whole face in a casual salute. “’Lo, Songbird. Going back in?”


Truth nodded in return, saying, “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”


“Actually,” Boots said, turning and looking over his shoulder at the outskirts of the sprawling complex, “We had a newcomer teleport right in to the market, bypassing the gate. Must have a talent for it, since he didn’t use a mark. You can see him, right… there.” He pointed, indicating a tiny black figure that was wandering slowly, aimlessly along the darker edge of the cavern where the grass thinned. “He’s maskless and not doing anything concerning at the moment, so we’ve left him alone for now – he’s clearly a magic-user of some kind, so he’s allowed – but someone ought to check on him.” He shook his head. “No mask… have to wonder if he ran into some trouble somewhere and had to run for it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Truth nodded thoughtfully. That happened, occasionally. Once you were registered in the system as a magic-user, it became near-impossible to move around in more usual ways. The underground market was a good place to start if you needed help.


“If he did have a run-in with the authorities he might need to stop by my place later too.” Truth squinted, considering what he could see of the man’s gait from there. “He’s up and walking steadily though, so if he’s hurt it’s probably not too bad.”

Boots was frowning at his dashboard when Truth looked back, watching one meter in particular. Then he flipped the alarm switch. Truth started, concerned. That would send silent mental alarms blaring across the whole cavern, alerting people to get out, and get out now. Boots said, very quietly, “That’s a lot of footsteps in the main tunnel. Too many footsteps.” That could only mean one thing.


A raid. A raid, here? Something had gone very, very wrong.


“Oh no,” Truth whispered, fear twisting his stomach.

Boots bent and pulled out his shotgun, something he’d never seen any gate guard do in over a decade with the market. The man slid the handguard back and forth with a quick, practiced motion, loading it with a clack. “You’d better get inside the gate and run, son. I can distract them for a little while so people can get out.”

He seemed too calm, as though accepting the inevitability of his death. Truth stared at the pile of magazines next to the chair. More ammunition than Boots could possibly use, unless…


“You could distract them for a lot longer if I was healing you,” he said, crouching behind the desk. Over Boots protests, he rolled up the nearest of the man’s pant legs and put his hand on bare skin. “Now they’ll have to take both of us down,” he said. He knew he was too close to this entrance to get away anyway if they were already that far in the main tunnel.

Boots stood silently. His chin moved as he tried to think of things to say to persuade Truth to run, but finally he just said, “You sure about this, Songbird? I’m old already, but you… you could at least try to get away.”

Truth nodded, determined. “If they caught me it would be… especially unpleasant,” he said. His voice hardened. “I’d much rather be dead.” He knew the other man would understand why.


“It’s too late for that now, son,” Boots said gently. Confused, Truth looked up, saw the apologetic look on the man’s face – when had he removed his mask? What– then felt the butt of the gun hit the back of his head. Stars exploded in his vision – he was hit again one more time as he tried not to collapse, and the bitter taste of betrayal was all he knew as he spiraled down into nothingness.

Nightside

The pale statue had been waiting for them outside the building, having apparently not bothered to traverse the inside. Ortus, he had said he was called initially, then paused to think before continuing – in their language it would be akin to… to Apex, the Apex to his brother’s Nadir. Apparently that had meant something, a long time ago. Realizing they had as little comprehension of his statements as he did of theirs, he waved the details aside. He told them, “Suffice it to say, we worked in pairs, one to gather power, and one to expend it. My brother was always the more dangerous of us…” Oreo peppered him with questions as they climbed back out of the cavern and through the passage in the ice. Why, for instance, was he so damn tall? How did his hair work? What exactly was wrong with Nadir?

He was silent for a moment at that, and when he spoke his face twisted in a wry smile. “There were… unintended consequences inherent in the magic that binds us. We were created to guard kings, you see, to judge those who approached them with sin heavy on their souls.” He looked up through the ice, as though seeing something not there. “When the last of the kings was gone, what more need was there for us? A dangerous question to ask, it seems. When the master spellmark was destroyed and our spellcircles shattered, many of us died simply from the shock. Some of us went mad and were hunted down. Others fell silent, then still, and eventually faded away.”

He turned to face Oreo, trying to make his point clear. “With our keystone mark gone, with nothing to guard, our minds… broke. We had to have something. Anything.”


“In my own lapse of sanity I found a patch of flowers and was captivated by it, finding it so enthralling that I bound myself to it.” He tipped his head towards the phlox growing wild around them. “It was a completely inane thing to do, and yet it was enough to save me. They have been growing here ever since.”


“Wait,” Oreo said, blinking in surprise. “These flowers? They’re not preserved by a gardening spell? Shouldn’t they be dead by now?”


“The grass is, but not the flowers. They do not seem to be entirely mortal now,” Apex agreed. “It was not a thing meant to be used on plants, or small creatures, I think.” They turned another corner, the grass growing thinner as they approached the end of the tunnel. “It was not a perfect solution to the problem. I spent far more time carefully plucking insects off leaves than I would prefer to admit…” He shook his head. “By the time I had recovered enough of myself to think that perhaps something similar could be used to save others- hence the magpie,” he said, gesturing at the bird on his shoulder, “there were very few of us left. My brother was one; he was always terrifying at his full strength and more than a few hunting parties had fallen to him.”

“His rage was terrible,” Apex said quietly, eyes downcast. “Rage that he was broken, rage that he could not fix it, rage that he could not control himself, rage that it wasn’t even his own doing that had destroyed him. It was all I could sense from him when I finally found him. I have never seen him so furious. I do not know what exactly he went through – I have never been the mindreader he is – but to escape the chaos when the empire fell cannot have been easy, not damaged as we were.”

He shook his head again, golden hair dancing with the movement. “He tried to kill me too; I don’t think he recognized me at first. But, he was my brother… I could never have made myself fight him, let alone kill him, so I had to try to pacify him. Even in the same alignment as him, I was barely strong enough to put him to sleep, and I was uncertain that it would hold- I had by that time claimed the building behind us, and I had thought that if I put myself to sleep as well, it would be like a second layer of sleep on him through our link, until he could calm down.”

He was silent for a moment, following B. “It was never meant to be a permanent rest. Perhaps our separate sleeping spells reinforced each other through the link, instead of overlapping to make us sleep deeper.”


Oreo honestly wasn’t sure how to respond to any of that, and said the first thing that popped into her head, “So wait, it wasn’t your temple or anything, you just found the place? You sure people didn’t worship you in there?”


Apex’s face was a picture of horror as he looked down at Oreo. “Worship me? What a… distressing thought. Thankfully, no, it was abandoned when I found it, and I stayed because the ceilings are high enough for me to move around comfortably. My flowers aren’t very mobile, you see, so it was convenient to replant some of them nearby.”

They had slowed while they talked, and B was already seated inside the hopper by the time they exited the crevice. They could see her fingers typing furiously through the window, and her voice echoed through the open door as she saw them. “Bad news. We get reception out here, barely, but the underground channels are full of distress calls.”


Apex disappeared in a brief flurry of wind, only to reappear right at the door, anxiety in his voice as he asked, “Nadir?”

B shook her head, fingers still flashing across the keys. “No,” she said, her voice going thin and tinny. “No, there’s been a raid. They found the market.”

The Market

When Truth woke, groggily opening his eyes to the sharp stabbing pain of the military standard floodlights, he found his arms twisted back uncomfortably and his mouth gagged, loosely bound to a stake by the remains of the main entrance. There appeared to be some sort of makeshift proceeding happening in front of him, as an officer sat behind Boots’ desk and others spoke – Oh. Damn, they moved fast, he thought, they didn’t even wait to give me a proper court-martial, they’re just doing it right here. Apparently he didn’t even need to be awake for it. He watched as the presiding officer banged the makeshift gavel and announced his dishonorable discharge and three lifetime imprisonments for treason, espionage, and unauthorized magical usage. Not mentioned in the official sentence, of course, was the extreme likelihood that he would be experimented on for the rest of his natural life. Even if the infamous bill legalizing magic ever passed, the other charges were enough to keep him behind bars forever.

Truth couldn’t turn his head at all, sparking pain shooting up his neck and down his back when he tried, bright spots blooming in his vision as he did (potentially fractured skull, spine. Prevent movement, check none of the fragments are out of place before healing) but none of the soldiers he could see were injured. Boots must’ve just let them in. They had to have known when exactly to show up for his shift and everything. And judging by the amount of specialized equipment he saw being used, this wasn’t some hastily executed sneak attack, but a carefully planned raid. He felt a flash of anger at the thought – this man had been a trusted member of the market community for well over a decade, longer than Truth himself, and he repaid them like this?

He rolled his eyes, trying to see if he could spot any other captives without jarring his injury. He thought he caught a glimpse of a mask, but it might have just been the edge of a crate glinting in the lights as it was moved. He knew there were children living in the market – it was, after all, the oldest magical community still around and entire families had grown up in it – and they could be difficult if they didn’t understand how serious a situation was. He really, really hoped they had all gotten away. People still found mass unmarked graves with the bodies of children from magical families, from back when there were still purges. He wouldn’t put it past them not to have a few ‘accidents’ on a raid this big, with so little warning.

The officers in front of him were signing papers now, probably authorizing his detention and deportation. Perhaps they thought he wasn’t much of a threat, being injured and only medical corps, since they’d bound him so loosely – they would shortly realize that had been a mistake. He fumbled with his bound hands, twisting them around and turning until he could place one set of fingers on the skin of the other hand. This was not the best way to heal someone, but it was fast and doable, and he dumped energy into himself, flooding his body with enough aether to heal damn near anything short of a mortal wound. Without any real direction, the energy went everywhere, sealing the open piercings in his ears around the earrings as well as the intended fractures in his skull and on down to even the tiniest scratches on his hands. Horribly inefficient and left him drained, but his senses were suddenly sharp and alert again, pain gone and eyes clear. His eyes darted around the scene, noting which officers were closest to him; which soldiers had weapons and which were yawning with boredom due to the length of the proceeding. No one seemed to have noticed the slight glow where he’d transferred the power through his fingers, to his relief. He hoped his eye hadn’t been bruised enough for them to notice a difference in that either.

More quiet and careful twisting got one hand free, and then he was able to slip the other out with ease, loosely holding onto the ropes as if he was still bound. All he needed now was an opportunity. He’d only get one chance at this, he knew – but if a memory guard had turned on them, they were all in deep trouble. Even if Boots only knew specifics about the market, that could still have devastating consequences. He needed to warn somebody -anybody – and he had nothing left to lose now except his life. Prison and a lifetime of experimentation were all that awaited him. Hardly an appealing thought. Escape would be preferable, even into death – and with his death, he’d remove the chance that he could incriminate someone else, too.

His chance came when a careless soldier walked too close and turned his back. He was up and moving in seconds, foot lashing out to knock the man off balance, grabbing the firearm from the holster to fling away as hard as he could and garroting the neck of the next nearest soldier with his arm. The man made a strangled choking noise as he hit the ground and Truth dropped beneath the swinging limbs of onlookers turned attackers, dodging with every ounce of skill he had. He knew that they wouldn’t risk shooting him if he was in a tangle with their own soldiers, which only gave him more reason to trip and bite and jab his way through the bodies rushing him instead of trying to get clear. He had to make a real break for it eventually, though, and he darted for the nearest stalagmite, dodging and weaving – any cover was better than none.

Now, now they started shooting. He was prepared, though, hand to skin already, just waiting for the first bullets to hit him. The minute something tore, he healed it. A bullet passing through an arm was already healed by the time it exited. Bones chipped, fractured – those were much harder to heal, but he did it, forcing them to stay strong, be sturdy as he ran for it. He poured everything he had into his escape, holding nothing back. All that existed was the running and the mending of torn flesh, the expelling of bullets from where they lodged, the careful orchestration of skin and bone and muscle to force itself back together again and again and again-

He felt the sharp pinch of a needle, instead of a bullet, and cold numbness started flooding into his system from what he knew must be tranquilizer. He couldn’t really fight both the tranquilizer and heal the bullet wounds at the same time, but he tried. Oh, he tried. If he hadn’t had to heal his head from Boots’ treachery he might have managed it, but then the second dart hit him, and the third and fourth…. his steps began slowing, staggering, even as the bullets stopped hitting him and the numbness spread and he finally crumpled to the ground. Oh well, he thought as he fell back into that blank nothingness, they might have been prepared for it, but at least I gave it my best shot… wasted a bunch of their ammunition while I was at it… assholes…

Posted On

Chapter Three

Nightside

B was handling ten different conversations at once, talking to the various branches of the underground that hadn’t been hit, all while giving a running stream of updates to the two vultures leaning over her to watch the console. There was a little good news to come out of it – Nadir, or his exact twin, had been spotted wandering the edge of the market before things went to hell. He had not, damn Apex for making them anxious, been murdering everything that moved, just walking around in a daze. That did mean he hadn’t resisted capture when the military finally got there though, so he’d been carted off with the other captives. Apparently Boots and Songbird had been at the main entrance when it happened – all anyone could talk about was the sound of gunfire from the entrance as they ran for the nearest portals. The two of them must have put up one hell of a fight. For a miracle almost everyone had made it out because of the alarm sounding first, so the current problem was finding places for all of them to hide in the other branches.


“Acknowledged. Butterfingers out,” she said, closing the link finally. She swiveled the chair around to face the other two. “So far we have thirty-two confirmed captures, not counting your Nadir. The three big ones were Boots, Songbird, and Peekaboo.”


Oreo’s hands flew up to her mouth, her dark eyes widening in shock. “Peekaboo? They got the market’s director?”

B nodded grimly. “Report is she went charging over to the entrance to try and fight when she learned they were being raided, instead of running like a sensible person.” She raised one slim jointed finger. “It’s very possible they don’t know who they have, though, they were laser focused on Songbird when they pulled his mask off and realized he was one of their officers, a big one. No wonder the market always knew so much about what they were up to. Seems they excommunicated him or whatever they do, right then and there. Footage is spotty, since a lot of the cameras were damaged, but what the other branches managed to get was enough to confirm that. The direct teleconduits have all been disconnected since, of course – can’t risk them tracing the links.”

Apex, still standing outside the entrance to the hopper, had listened to all of this with a small frown, resting one arm on the roof of the hopper as he leaned down to watch. “If I may ask,” he began, “Who exactly is this ‘they’ hunting you?”


“The government, of course,” B said.


He seemed perplexed by this, opening his mouth to reveal razor sharp teeth then changing his mind and closing it repeatedly, finally stating simply, “Why?”


Oreo dropped her hands finally, and said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “What, you’ve never heard of the government hunting talented people? Had they not banned magic yet when you were awake before?”


“They had not,” Apex confirmed, ignoring the sarcasm. “We were created under the then-empire’s sanction.”


“Wait,” Oreo said, serious now. “Really?”


“Yes.” He tilted his head. “Is that so surprising?”


“That has to have been… thousands of years ago,” Oreo said, waving her hands frantically as her brow knit in disbelief. “Hundreds of thousands! How many planets did you even have back then? Two? Three?”


“Well, there were the five wandering planets, if that’s what you mean…” The man blinked slowly, trying to understand the reference. “What does astronomy have to do with… anything?”


B said, quietly, “She means inhabited planets, Apex. We have more than just the one Earth we live on, now. Not that we’ve taken good care of it, as you’ll see… I thought you might be older than spaceflight when you didn’t understand what nightside meant.”


Apex stared at them by turns with those pale flaxen eyes of his, first B, then Oreo. “I am afraid,” he admitted after a long moment, “That I have no idea what any of that meant in the slightest, mental images notwithstanding.”

B had declined to let Oreo give Apex a brief version of galactic history, stating simply that “she’d make a complete hash of it.” Instead, Oreo was piloting the hopper back to their usual Wallside port, while B attempted to do just that. They had run into an immediate problem: the man was essentially blind when it came to technology. Presented with a tablet, his comment had been that, “This surface is a uniform temperature.” After determining that he couldn’t see anything at all on any of their screens, B had resorted to using various objects from the single cabin above the cockpit to make physical diagrams for him, to accompany the mental images he said he was getting when she spoke. She had at least been pleased to discover that was how he had seen through her camouflage; he hadn’t even noticed a difference because he was seeing her body heat.

They were both seated on the floor in the back of the hopper right now, an upturned laundry basket serving as a table. Apex was too tall to stand up properly inside the little craft, so this had simply worked better. She was just finishing up the part about how Earth had colonized Mars, using an orange to represent the Earth and an apple for Mars (a pencil had served as the ridiculous clunky spaceships they had used back then).

“Once we developed jump technology, of course,” she said, pulling out the bottlecap she’d found, “It became much easier to go between the two planets.” She demonstrated by hopping the bottlecap back and forth between the two fruit. “That’s when the problems started. The colonists had mostly been managing fine on their own up until that point, but now that Earth could drop by any time, they were always going over and sticking their noses in everything, trying to keep most of the best stuff for themselves.” She tapped the apple. “The colonists hated it, of course. They finally got so angry they decided they didn’t want to be a colony anymore, they wanted to be their own planet. That’s how the war started, anyway.” Apex was listening silently, but he nodded at that. Wars were something humans had always been having. Those, he was familiar with.

“Records from back then aren’t great as a lot of them got destroyed – but from what we understand, the war divided both sides on magic. Old Earth had always been more magically tolerant than the colonists, anyway, and they got really patriotic about their magic as things heated up, and so on Mars it became super suspicious to be magically inclined. They started locking people up unless they could prove they weren’t Earth supporters.” She started peeling the orange as Apex watched curiously, not understanding the meaning. “Then, when the last big battle rolled around, Earth’s latest technomagical contraption interacted with mars’ own newest invention in… an unexpected way. The resulting explosion missed Mars, but hit Earth. It was… bad.” She pulled the orange apart. “Really bad.” Apex’s eyebrows had climbed all the way up his forehead as he watched her fingers work. She pulled two slices off one half of the orange, then stacked the pieces precariously on top of each other.

“People tried to fix it, of course, but the damage was done. Holes carved all the way to the core, pieces split off and threatening to fall and smash anything that had survived the initial cataclysm. Emergency magical teams bound those shards safely to their orbits, but the rotation was all wrong, too – suddenly we were tidally locked, one side permanently facing the sun, and the other permanently frozen. Sunside, all the oceans boiled away, and everything was scorched beyond surviving. Nightside was where all the remaining moisture eventually collected, and everything was coated in miles and miles of ice. Most of the population didn’t have a chance.”

Apex prodded the mangled orange gently, nearly knocking one of the pieces off. “And we’re nightside, right now.” B nodded. “And people still live here?” She nodded again.


“It’s not so bad, really, Earth’s not even the only planet we’ve got like it. The twilight band between the two sides is mostly comfortable, and the cities have even begun to edge into nightside a bit, pushing the big wall back into the ice to make room for more people. It takes a while, since there’s a lot of dangerous still things frozen over there from the old war, but it’s happening. Ice mining’s a big thing too, for water. Sunside is a permanent source of easy energy – it’s full of solar farms now. Can’t live above ground there, but there’s plenty of subsurface communities out there.” She was silent for a moment, considering the orange. Apex’s bird was eying it hungrily from his shoulder, but hadn’t moved yet.

“The market was one of them,” she continued. “It was very hard to get to without magic, because none of the eclipse caravans passed nearby – that’s why it’s lasted so long, that and the protections they set up. If you didn’t live there, or weren’t a member of the council or the memory guards, leaving the market meant forgetting the location. It wasn’t our usual part of the underground, so I don’t remember it myself right now, same for Oreo.” She shrugged. “You can’t give it up if you just don’t know it. It’s worked for centuries.”


Apex looked back up at her, and said, “What changed, then?”

B was silent again, rolling the pencil between her fingers. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “And that’s a big problem. Someone has to have leaked the location, somehow. And crossing sunside directly is very, very dangerous, but they did it anyway.” They were both silent for a moment, then looked back at the orange as the magpie pounced and stuffed half of it in its beak, nearly choking in its greed.


Apex returned to the topic at hand. “And somehow, all of this resulted in a complete ban of magic?”

She waved the pencil in dismissal, saying, “New Earth – that was what Mars was calling itself back then, because they were feeling important – felt that obviously the whole disaster was Earth’s own fault for relying on magic, and insisted their clearly superior technology couldn’t have been to blame at all. Earth wasn’t really in any shape to protest anything because they were just trying to put all the pieces back together and survive, and nobody could even deny that it was their own device that had backfired.”

B shook her head in disappointment at those shortsighted lawmakers, and continued, “No one even thought to study the thing to find out what happened, they just destroyed it so it couldn’t misfire again. And the end result was that Mars and their anti-magic leaders got to make all of the rules for the next few hundred years, and that’s how we got here, thousands of years later, fighting just for the right to exist. Except now there’s several million some full planets, not just two.”

Apex opened his mouth and she raised a finger to stop him as she continued, “There’s been steady progress on that front, actually – the purges ended centuries ago, and having magic used on you is no longer cause for quarantine and invasive examinations. There are delicate negotiations happening right now in the Planetary Commonwealth’s congress to finally decriminalize and regulate magic use – which is why it’s very odd that this big of a raid would happen now of all times. It seems far too well timed to be coincidental. Or perhaps ill-timed.”

The man nodded thoughtfully as he spoke. “Put it that way, and I agree with you. I still do not understand all of this, but I believe I have a grasp of the basics. Each planet is like its own country, separated by a vast sea of emptiness. Viewed like that, it is not much different than the islands we sailed between in our time.” He looked back at the android, raising one eyebrow. “I am curious, though – you say we but I sense no magical ability in you.”

B blinked in confusion, then said, “Oh, of course you wouldn’t know – Androids aren’t aether-sensitive, at least no one’s figured out how to make that work yet, but we’re not considered people, legally, so we have a lot of common goals with magic-users, who also aren’t considered full people.”


Apex’s eyebrows shot up his forehead again. “How are you not a person? You have a soul I can read like every other person I’ve ever met.”

She stood up, saying dryly, “Tell that to the government. And figure out a way to prove it, while you’re at it.” It was always nice to hear she was considered a real person, though, and she felt her mood lifting despite everything. After a moment she changed to one of her favorite shell skins, a luminous red, with burnished golden accents and filigree running down the side. It might help persuade other people that nothing was out of the ordinary for her if she appeared to be in a good mood.

Oreo was still navigating her way back to the wall. It had probably taken them twice as long with her at the controls, but at least that had given her a good long time to explain things to Apex.


“Done with the history lesson, finally?” She said sourly, eying the obvious skin change.


“I believe we covered the important points, yes,” B said, ignoring her partner’s mood. “There’s something we haven’t thought about though.” She waved an arm at Apex and his very obviously magical self, still seated on the floor. “How exactly are we going to hide all of that while we get to a secure location?”

Oreo slammed on the brakes, jolting both of the others hard enough to knock them into the walls and startling the magpie into flight. She swore, vehemently. “Fuck. Fuck, we can’t just march him straight through town. Just his height alone would attract every guard and watchdog out there-”


“Like I said,” B continued, propping herself back up against the wall before standing, “We’re going to have to do something. We can’t just leave him here in the hopper while we figure out what he can do about his brother-”


“If I may,” Apex began, having stood up himself, bent awkwardly under the low ceiling, “I can teleport. There is no need to risk exposing me to inimical forces at all.” Oreo turned back in the chair to face the other two, the hopper now idling midair.


“Yeah,” she said, “We’ve seen. But that’s usually a pretty short range talent, isn’t it?”


“I can reform my aetherial composition at any point within a certain radius of one of my marks, and it is a simple enough matter to bring other things with me, such as my robe.” He pointed at Oreo. “You bear my mark. We are linked, now. There is nowhere you can go that I cannot find you.”


Her eyes widened in dismay, trying to focus on that single claw pointed at her. “Oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”


“It was not intended as a threat.”


“I still don’t like it-”

One hand out to each side, the android stepped between them to intervene. “Okay, calm down guys. That isn’t actually important right now, what matters is we can get him out without attracting attention. We can give him an earpiece so we can tell him when we’re in a safe location and then he can just port over. Problem solved.” She clapped her hands together. “Start her up again, Oreo, we don’t want people wondering why we’re stopped in the middle of nowhere so close to the wall.”

Oreo huffed and muttered something especially unpleasant under her breath, but didn’t object, starting back towards the wall at a good clip. “What are we even doing when we get back, anyway?”

B seated herself in the copilot chair and buckled herself in as she said, calmly, “The least we can do is locate where they’ve sent the prisoners, so we can figure out where he needs to go. If it’s close enough he could just teleport there and sort things out. Easy peasy. Plus, it’s information the rest of the underground would also appreciate, so two birds with one stone.”

Apex tilted his head in acknowledgment, sitting back down. “Thank you. I do apologize for the inconvenience. I assure you, once I have ensured my brother is sane and in complete control of himself, there will be no need to impose on you further.”

Red arms draping over the back of the chair, she said, thoughtfully, “You aren’t planning on going back to that crumbling ruin afterward, are you? That doesn’t seem terribly comfortable.”


Apex shook his head, resigned. “In this much changed world, we will need to find a new place. Perhaps you can help with that as well, should you feel so inclined. But I am not concerned about that at the moment. Your government has taken Nadir, and I must follow.”

Thinking, the android spun the chair back and forth, curling her legs underneath it with a dainty little kick. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid. The raid happened over an hour ago. He’s likely been shipped to a prison somewhere by now, and those kinds of records aren’t public. We’d have to find a way to access their files.”


Oreo made a rude noise from her own chair, not taking her eyes off the instruments. “You say that like you haven’t done it before.”


“I am merely explaining,” B said, giving Oreo an unamused look, “that it would require some effort to find him now. I can use my camouflage to sneak into a military base and steal their files, but it won’t be easy.”

Apex leaned back, thinking. “I understand. Is there any way in which I could possibly assist?” He raised a finger, closing his eyes briefly. A wave of darkness swept the man’s body. “I can, for instance, shift my alignment to umbral, as Nadir prefers. I am nearly invisible in the dark like this, and it is far easier to cast complicated spellwork.”

Sitting up, B watched the transformation with interest over the back of her chair. “That does seem useful, but I don’t think it will help right now. The nearest base to us is still wallside, and the light wouldn’t be dim enough for you to go unnoticed.”

The color drained back out of the man as he nodded and returned to his more usual pale gold. Oreo said, still focusing on the flight, “I think we also need to consider that with negotiations where they are right now, it may not be a good idea to do anything at all. Nearly everyone captured will have been charged with minor offenses for magic use or collaborating with magic users – if the legislation passes as it is right now, they’d all be released and their records wiped. Trying for a prison break could actually make it harder to get the bill through.”

B frowned as best she could, tilting her head back and forth, conflicted. Her ribbon swayed back and forth with the movement as she thought. “On the other hand, just finding where everyone was sent and what exactly they were charged with doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. Songbird and Boots will have gotten the worst of it for fighting, of course, but it would be good to make sure your assumption that everyone else got minor charges is correct before deciding what to do.”

Apex’s eyelids lowered as he considered this. “I do not believe leaving Nadir to his own devices for any length of time is advisable, but you are correct that we will need to locate him first in any case. If I have to I will follow him myself.”


“I think it would be best,” B said, “If I were to go straight to the base and get a head start on the files, since you won’t need me to get him somewhere safe, Oreo. I suppose your apartment will have to do for now- unless you have a better idea?”


“It’s certainly closest,” she admitted grudgingly. “I think our usual underground branch would be safer, in the long run, but while we sort things out it’ll work. He’ll just have to stay away from the windows.”

From his seat on the floor, Apex said slowly, “If the market was only one of these underground branches… how do you know yours or others have not been compromised as well?” Both women shared a glance.


“That’s… a very good point,” Oreo admitted. “Did they know what had happened when you were exchanging information, Bee?”


“No, actually. PK did recently issue a general warning to all branches that there was currently an increased threat level, due to suspicious activity and the furor over the legislation, but she didn’t have anything concrete to watch for. This big of a raid was straight out of the blue – caught everyone off guard. They were talking about double-checking all of the gate records to make sure that no one had managed to slip out without seeing a memory guard, because the only other explanation is that someone deliberately betrayed us.”

Oreo whistled. “Yeah, okay, spooky there may be right. Maybe we just stick to ourselves for a little bit, at least until we’re sure there aren’t going to be any other raids.” There was a huffed sigh from the man.


“I am Apex,” he reminded them politely, patience written all over his face. Oreo dropped her head back to look at him over the back of the pilot’s chair, while her partner frantically grabbed for the nearest wheel.


“Everyone gets a codename in the underground, Spooky my dude, my buddy. That way people can’t find you so easy.”


He raised a finger to object, mouth open in dismay, but thought better of it as B interrupted, furious.


“OREO, YOU’RE FLYING DAMMIT.”

Posted On

Chapter Four

Wallside

The three of them walked down the corridor together, shoes clicking in tandem on the polished stone. This close to sunside, the pale twilight was nearly gone from the sky, the sun’s rays shining from behind the curve of the horizon in a radiant halo, spilling light through the carefully positioned windows so brightly that no other illumination was necessary. It was a sight they’d all grown used to, as it never changed, and they barely glanced at the spectacle.

They’d left processing this one until last, since it was an unusual specimen. He flipped through the paperwork again as they walked. Clearly unnatural, somehow altered to inhuman standards, with an apparent reduced mental capacity. It had barely acknowledged the existence of its captors, not even protesting when they leashed it and led it away, simply standing still when they stopped moving it. They likely didn’t even need to put it in an actual cell once they transferred it to the experimental division of the prison (not that they’d actually let it run free). Proper procedures still needed to be followed, however, and that meant the creature’s possessions had to be removed, including its clothes. They had an approximate measurement of the thing from when it was let out into the prison courtyard, and so a custom jumpsuit had been cobbled together for it – a jumpsuit which they now needed to persuade the creature to put on. He sighed. This job did have some interesting moments.

Putting on his cheeriest expression, he opened the door to the storage room they’d put it in (it had been too large for a regular interim cell) and said, “Hello, there! I hope you didn’t have to wait too long for us, we’re here to get you all sorted out and settled in your new home!” It didn’t move, eyes half-closed and seemingly unresponsive – not that he had expected it to from the descriptions. One eye wept a small trail of golden liquid, and the thing didn’t even seem to notice. They might have to undress it manually. He continued in his best i-am-on-your-side voice, “We’re going to need a few things from you before we start-” He looked up from the paperwork just as the thing’s nostrils flared, and the eyes opened fully. Disturbing creature –

“You smell of murder,” it said, pale eyes focusing directly on him. The face was alert, now, and suddenly it didn’t look nearly as docile as it had been described.

“I- I beg your pardon?”

“Your soul. It is heavy with the weight of murder. I can smell it.”

He did not like where this was heading. Had the creature somehow gotten information about him before he arrived?

“If – If you are referring to my wife’s death, I will have you know that I was acquitted of all charges in a court of law and the true culprit was found and imprisoned-” Or framed, rather, the man had been asking for it.

The creature reacted as if he had heard that last thought. “No, you only made it look like he was the culprit.” It leaned closer. “You. Have. Sinned. Will you atone for your sins?”

“How dare you,” he sputtered, beginning to lose his composure. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. “I haven’t murdered anybody!” That didn’t deserve it, anyway.

It raised one finger, eyes locked on his. “Ann Kelly, strangled in your bed with a shoelace. Buried in the flower garden behind your house.”

“I already said-”

It continued implacably, raising another finger. “Jordan Hoffman, pushed off a building before he could talk to authorities.”

His heart nearly froze in terror. No one had ever, ever accused him of that one. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see his assistants backing away from him, drawing their guns. It slowly raised a third finger. The creature exuded an overwhelming aura of menace now, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away from those unearthly eyes.

“Alwyn Mark. You didn’t know her name, or even ask. Violated, then strangled, and her body thrown in the bay.”

His one lapse. Somehow the creature knew. There was no other possible explanation –

It hadn’t moved a muscle, but the space between them had disappeared and it loomed over him now, asking, “Will you atone for your sins?”

He found his tongue. “I didn’t – I didn’t do any of that.” Even to him, the denial sounded weak.

“You refuse to atone?”

“I don’t have anything to atone for-”

The man’s voice was cut off by a sickening squelch. Simple enough to reach out and mark him as he grasped the head to crush it.

“Life for life,” he said, the ritual words rolling off his tongue easily, “Sins forgiven.”

The horrible stench of wrongness was gone now, and he could rest. The other two were of no consequence. They had left the door open behind them. But thinking about that was simply too much effort. The blood pooling at his feet was joined by the blood dripping from his hand as he stood unmoving, and then by the blood dripping from his chin as the trail of aether seeping from his eye reached the edge of his face. Easier to just stand there. Easier to focus on staying awake.

He wouldn’t lose control again.

B peeked around the edge of the electric fence, carefully not touching it. The military base was surrounded by a huge open space, deliberately cleared to prevent exactly what she was about to attempt. Her camouflage coding was custom and had taken her years to develop, so she wasn’t too concerned that there would be safeguards against it, but she wanted to make absolutely certain there was nothing out of place before she started – just in case.

It was slow going, picking her way across the bare ground. Her camo worked best when it had time to adjust to the surroundings, so she made sure to move gently, smoothly, stopping when a searchlight passed nearby, waiting for it to pass on before moving again. As long as nobody got close enough to hear the occasional accidental click as she bumped a stray pebble or stone here and there, she would have no problems getting to her target. The dark shape loomed large against the clouded purple of the skies, so very nearly the black of nightside, yet so much brighter.

The building was nothing remarkable in and of itself, plain stone and cement. But inside it, there were teleconduits linking it to every other military base and major ship and outpost. The military network was never connected to civilian ones. Civilian ones weren’t even permitted on the grounds, when possible. That unfortunate fact was why B was out here in the chilly gloom of deep wallside, slowly creeping her way across the expanse between the perimeter fencing and the building. Reaching the building was only the first of the problems, though. She still had to get in, and after that locate a terminal of some sort to connect to – not to mention there would be security.

The last time she’d done this she’d crawled in through an air vent, but that had been a different base and so far she didn’t see any accessible ones here. If she had to she could wait until someone used a door or hatch and slip inside, but that could take hours. It was unlikely there’d be any open or unlatched windows this close to nightside, what with the cold, but she’d at least keep an eye out. What she was really hoping to find here, though, was a garage – not all military vehicles came with direct links to the network, but plenty did, and security on a garage was generally weaker than it was around the main buildings where they actually stored important items and data. She didn’t need anything fancy, just access to the network. Admittedly, it would probably be more difficult and take longer through a smaller link, but she was willing to take that over waiting for hours to maybe get in.

B’s luck was with her; she found a garage almost immediately, around the side of the building, and the lock was simple enough to pick with just her shelless fingers. No one was around to see her bared framework magically appear from thin air, and she slipped inside through the smallest crack in the door she could manage. A quick scan of the inside revealed several candidates for network links; she might as well start with the nearest. Some kind of patrol skimmer, looked like. That would be near impossible to hide under, so she moved to the next one instead. Not only was this one parked near a wall, it had actual wheels. Ground transport only, apparently. A more thorough scan of the vehicle revealed it did in fact seem to have a teleconduit in place, and while it was one of the smallest and cheapest kinds out there, it would do. She squeezed herself under the truck so no one could accidentally trip over her while she was busy, and got to work.

The easiest way to do this would be to tap the conduit directly and piggyback off its network link from there without involving the truck at all, but that was only if she could reach it. As it seemed to be buried inside the depths of the dashboard, she was going to have to instead persuade the truck that this strange BFN-G35 mechanism was in fact a legitimate part of its systems and had every right to be connecting to the network. It took her most of an hour to talk her way past the damn thing’s internal security systems – it was a military vehicle, after all – and then nearly another half hour to slip inside the general network security, since the conduit’s default clearance level was far too low for what she was looking for.

She started her search simple: earthside related files from the last twenty-four hours. Skimming the results gave her a more accurate time for the raid, and she eliminated everything before that point. She wasn’t going to bother decrypting all of these until she got back home – for now she just downloaded anything that looked relevant. Thirty low-security files on prisoners from the raid were unencrypted; those she read as she downloaded them. Nearly all of them had been charged with the same two things: unauthorized magic usage, and/or collaborating with unauthorised magic users. Each file had their true name listed with a mugshot and a picture of the mask they had been wearing below, as well as a list of impounded possessions.

Interestingly, Peekaboo’s mask was in a file among those with generic magic collaboration charges, not even usage – they clearly had no idea she was anything other than a regular market-goer, and no one had enlightened them. If that changed, there could be problems – as the director, she knew the most about the market and its underground connections, and could quite possibly take down entire branches with her if she talked or was read. For now though, she appeared to be safely and anonymously ensconced in a simple nonmagical wallside prison under the name “Juanita Perez”. She made an extra copy of that file to store in her protected internal drives, just in case.

There were three more prisoner files from around the time of the raid, which matched the numbers they’d been given. Two were encrypted and filed under the highest security clearance possible, while the other was merely much longer than the rest. Apparently Boots had had a previous criminal record and had escaped without serving his time for his original two charges; curse casting, and endangerment of a minor via curse. Those were actually quite serious, if true – curses were generally frowned upon, and curses on kids was just plain not okay – but for all she knew, it was regular magic that had been labeled as a curse by the prosecutors for more impact. What was most interesting was that they’d gotten several different government mages to try summoning the man back for his court dates by his true name, and while each call had connected, he’d had the mental fortitude or protections to resist each one. There were of course extra charges for evading law enforcement and declining to appear for court, and then the expected ‘assaulting government officials’ and ‘resisting arrest’ and ‘failure to comply with regulations’. It didn’t specify which regulations exactly, but she could guess.

The two high security files were a little harder to get hold of, but once downloaded she started decrypting them immediately, letting that process run in the back of her head while she double-checked that there wasn’t anything else interesting related to the raid she might want. She went ahead and downloaded everything that might possibly be relevant, even expanding her search back several days to cast a wider net – they’d had to plan the thing after all. Things could get dicey if she stayed connected too long and someone noticed her, but she needed to make sure that the last two prisoner files were actually Songbird and Nadir before she left – if they were in fact two different prisoners, she’d have to expand her search again.

The first file wasn’t finished yet, but from what she could see it was indeed Songbird’s – she might not know him personally, but he was a known and respected figure in the underground. There was his mask, and the hasty mugshot, where he appeared to be asleep and propped up against the wall, and his true name – Dr. Truth Weiss-Perez, MD? Was he related to the director? A quick search of the network found files confirming that not only were they cousins, the entire extended family was now under increased scrutiny and surveillance until further notice. It apparently wasn’t the first time a Perez had been caught dabbling in magic, but it was the first time one of them had been a military officer working his way up through the ranks while spying for the underground.

As the charges were decrypted, she could see they were by far the most serious – treason, espionage, the list went on. There was absolutely no way the man would ever leave prison if his former superiors had anything to say about it – they appeared to have thrown the book at him, writing him up for every possible charge they could think of. (Some of them were quite petty. Failure to shine one’s buttons before a ceremonial function? Seriously?)

They’d diverted the entire high-security anti-magic prison ship to Sol’s neighborhood just to pick him up, rather than shipping him out there by himself. Judging by the write-up of what he’d done trying to escape after his capture, they thought the man nigh-impossible to kill and one of the most dangerous people they’d ever encountered. In addition to the injuries he’d caused breaking out, several magazines of machine gun fire emptied into his body as he fled had essentially done nothing, and it had taken five tranquilizer darts to down him, when one was sufficient to knock out most humans. The entire file practically vibrated with the impression that the man was absolutely, terrifyingly, inhuman. She had to admit, it did sound rather impressive. She was also well aware that not only was that sort of healing mastery very rare and extremely difficult to acquire, but it had probably drained all of his aether keeping up with his injuries. If they’d kept shooting, there was no question they’d have killed him sooner rather than later.

A brief check of the other file’s mostly decrypted contents confirmed that this one was Nadir. Interestingly, it appeared to have been hastily edited shortly after its creation, increasing the clearance level to maximum and encrypting it. She dug through the actual online file briefly, seeing if she could discern what edits had been made. It looked like they’d initially considered him a harmless curiosity, only for him to promptly kill someone. And he’d been reclassified as a ‘dangerous magical artifact’ instead of human.

B checked her internal timer again. She’d definitely been connected for longer than was safe, so she started backing her way out of the network – it wouldn’t do to just disconnect, she wanted to leave everything looking like she hadn’t been there. Getting out physically would be just the same as getting in; she’d finish decrypting Nadir’s file on the way back and start on the rest while she was at it.

The Utopia

They had already been in the air when the shuttle had abruptly turned around and landed again – apparently to pick up one of the other prisoners from the market raid? Truth had heard only a little of what was going on outside the little magic-dampening containment tube he’d woken up in. To his utter dismay, he’d been stripped and placed in a generic prison jumpsuit while he’d been out – the thought of vengeful military hands undressing him made his skin crawl in horror. His breathing quickened and his pulse raced as he hastily placed his fingers on his wrist. As far as he was aware there wasn’t any way to disable an active birth control spell from the outside, but that was only one of many possible nightmares. He let out a sigh of relief as a quick scan revealed no signs of… invasive damage. A slower, more thorough check indicated the same – no internal injuries, no foreign fluids present. At least he hadn’t suffered that indignity. Yet.

It occurred to him that this was supposed to be a magic-dampening container, and he wondered why it hadn’t stopped him from making those checks. Not that he was inclined to alert anyone that their systems weren’t working as intended at the moment. He thought for a moment. If he could scan himself, could he perhaps also heal himself? He’d sensed the perforations from the darts on his back were starting to get infected already during his scan, so he tried it.

Sure enough, whatever the tube was actually doing, it wasn’t doing anything to stop Truth from healing himself. He felt a little better with the pain gone, but his heartbeat was still thundering in his ears from that brief moment of panic, and he pressed one hand to his chest, trying to calm down.

He couldn’t see anything but pipes and steam from the tiny window in his tube, so he ran through his breathing exercises to distract himself. They were simple little things he’d learned when he was still young, still thought he could be a doctor and a musician and an all-star sports player at the same time. He still loved singing, of course, nothing could stop him from being musical, but when he sang, it was for himself – while his life, his medical work was for his patients and his fellows above all else. Even if he sang in the course of his work to comfort someone on the edge of death or to mourn the dead, it was still the one indulgence he’d allowed himself to keep through everything.

And so his breathing exercises always calmed him, reminded him that he’d always have that, at least. Breath in, down to the diaphragm, then hold. Even here, on his way to one of the highest security prison ships in the galaxy, he still had that. Controlled release, held as long as possible. They could cut his throat, try to take his vocal cords, and he’d still be able to fix it. Another breath in, cool air flowing over his tongue and down his throat. He’d given it up once, and it had been worth it, but he would never give it up again. Focus on the slow exhalation, letting out every bit of air in his lungs. He could handle this.

That thought and his calm, relaxed breathing sustained him all the way through the shuttle’s jump through space, through the docking procedure and the unstrapping of his container. He knew all about the military’s prison ships, of course; as an officer he had to know. They would have sent him to the Utopia – that was the one they sent all their dangerous magical criminals to, equipped with extra magical safeguards. He didn’t know who had named the prison ships, but he’d always found them horribly ironic. Paradise, Utopia, Eden, all places that were anything but.

They finally released him once the container had been lowered onto the bare-bones deck of the docking bay, faded yellow guidelines stretching across the length of the shuttered room as guards pointed rifles at him from their posts. He knew they’d let him out only because they felt their anti-magic protections were sufficient here to risk it – not that he could do anything other than healing. He’d never bothered to study the other possibilities with more than a fascinated “maybe someday.” Truth wondered where the other prisoner was, though, the one they’d gone back for. There wasn’t a second container on the deck with him.

He realized why once the hatch opened and the ramp slid out. There was absolutely no way they could have fit this man in one of the standard containers. He towered above his nervous guards, wearing a somewhat disheveled black sheet pinned with carved silver circles, seemingly half-asleep. Drugged, perhaps? He couldn’t be sure, but from the look of him – black hair, black skin – it seemed entirely possible this was the newcomer that had been wandering the edges of the market right before everything went to hell. An unfortunate time to visit.

He noted the fresh blood on the man’s not-quite-human hand, coating the palm and those long, thin, sharp-nailed fingers. It was in that sticky stage where it wasn’t quite dry, tiny globs of it shifting with his every movement. That had to have been why they turned the shuttle around. It also explained why the guards were so jumpy – he might look half asleep, but if they thought he was too dangerous to clean that off, there was no way he was anything but a potential disaster for them. Good, Truth thought grimly. Let them be nervous, for once. The man’s head turned, seemingly at that thought, pale eyes opening more than a sliver to gaze right through him. Time compressed, and he could almost feel him rifling through his head. The moment passed, the dark man’s head bowing and eyes lidding again as he watched his footsteps.

Orders were barked, and the two of them were shuffled off in the same direction, nervous guards on either side. Truth ignored all of that to focus on his fellow prisoner. He knew it took expert skill as a mindreader of any sort to do it without physical contact. The man had to be very, very good at it. It didn’t seem to have helped him any, though, to have ended up here on the Utopia with all the rest.

As they walked, Truth began counting the floors they passed through, marking their progress through the ship on what he remembered of the layout of the thing. He grew increasingly concerned as they passed every high-security section – maximum security was hardly ever used, meant for the most dangerous of prisoners who could be capable of anything. They’d thrown every available nullifying charm at the area, and doubled them up for good measure. He certainly wasn’t that much of a threat, but maybe they thought the other man was.

Sure enough, they stopped at approximately where he remembered maximum security as being. He’d never actually seen it, of course, not even pictures – that would have been too much even for him to get through. And so, he was surprised to realize as they stepped inside, that not only did the cells have the usual forcefields, they also had bars inside them. Iron bars. He almost choked trying not to snort, trying not to attract attention – fairy tales and useless cold iron in the military’s highest security prison. They really had just thrown everything they could think of at the maximum security section. Oh, how the underground would laugh to hear it, if he could only tell them.

Their guards stopped them just inside the entrance, one heading to the terminal in the middle of the room to tap at the terminal there, the first two cell doors clicking open – were they both staying in maximum, then? Truth wondered if they were just leaving him here because it was more convenient than having to put him somewhere else after walking all the way over here. He could understand that, really. One cell would be the same as another for him. To be quite honest though, he would have expected them to be done and locked up by now, but the first guard seemed to be having trouble with something on the terminal. The second walked over to correct him, briefly leaving the two of them to their own devices.

Idly, he watched his fellow prisoner as the man’s head tilted, considering the force field of the nearest cell. The guards were arguing about whatever it was over by the terminals, and neither was looking at them, for the moment. The man’s arm moved, as though he was about to touch the force field – surely he wouldn’t actually do that, he has to know that would burn him – and then he pressed his palm to it, INTO it, flesh sizzling as it smoked and crisped.

“Oh my GOD,” Truth gasped, eyes wide in pure horror, as the man pulled his hand back with a hiss of obvious pain. “God, god, don’t move it, let me see it-”

The guards were only just reacting, heads turning at the noise, and he had his unbound hands on the other prisoner’s wrist and hand before they could stop him. The palm had burned clear down to the tendons, flesh still smoking and sizzling around the bones – dear god, the bones, completely unmarked by the forcefield. Every exposed surface on them was covered in tiny, deliberate spellwork, symbols that were clearly magical in function – he could feel the aether flowing through them in patterns meant to boost his healing as he regrew flesh and nerves and skin –

“No collaborating between prisoners,” one of the guards was yelling frantically, as he was pulled off and flung roughly aside. Both guns were pointing at him, now, then one guard realized abruptly that the other prisoner could still be a threat and hastily pointed theirs at him instead. The man ignored them, calmly examining his newly-healed hand, opening and closing the fingers as though checking everything still worked.

“Thank you, doctor,” he said, voice soft and resonant as he turned to look at Truth. His face was alert now, as though the pain had shocked him awake. Perhaps it had – maybe that was why he’d done it. Maybe he’d realized Truth could heal it when he’d read him, earlier. They were very lucky the guards hadn’t just started firing at them, though. His eyes flickered from Truth to the guards at that thought, and he regarded them almost… like they were tiny nuisances, to be tolerated, not feared. It was oddly comforting, actually.

Maybe sharing a space with this man for the foreseeable future wouldn’t be that bad.

Posted On

Chapter Five

Wallside

It was very late – or early, could be either really – when B reached their tiny apartment, perched with all its drab neighbors above the coldest and cheapest parts of wallside. Wet fog crept up the sides of the building as she fumbled with the lock. To her surprise, she was greeted by a nod from Apex, clearly still wide awake and seated on the faded carpeting by the tv, a large book in his lap. Oddly, one of Oreo’s dented saucepans, full of dirt with several of the same phlox from the ruin planted in it, sat next to him on an upturned cardboard box. The curtains had all been shut, and the flickering screen was the only light in the apartment, shifting blue glow chasing bright shadows across the ceiling and the walls. Oreo’s sprawled form on the couch didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest, face buried in one arm and the other dangling off the cushions. The half-empty pan of fresh brownies on the floor nearby had almost certainly been mostly eaten by her, not their guest. It was her favorite comfort food, after all.

Apex’s head was tilted just slightly, listening to the very faint sound coming from the tv. His magpie was a dark round shape snuggled into the hair draped across his shoulder, feathers fluffed as it slept in the slight chill.

“Can you actually hear that?” she asked curiously, stepping quietly over the discarded clothes on the floor so as not to wake Oreo, reaching for the little magnetic transfer disc that would recharge her. It was not quite loud enough for B herself to hear clearly. He nodded, still listening.

His voice was barely louder than the tv itself when he spoke. “I have been monitoring this device for public updates on the raid, as Oreo asked me to before she went to sleep. I cannot say I understand everything, but I have a much broader grasp of your situation now.”

“You’re not tired yourself?”

“I do not need sleep,” the man confirmed. “Was your foray successful? I am eager to know the whereabouts and condition of my brother.”

“Yeah, about that…” Bee considered how best to phrase the disaster Nadir had gotten himself into.

Might as well just tell him. “Apparently one of the first people they sent in to talk to him was a previously accused but acquitted murderer, and he killed the guy. Accused him of two more murders while he was at it, and then went right back to ignoring everything, including the bullets they shot at him. So instead of leaving him wallside with everyone else where you could just go port to him, they shipped him offplanet, to the high-security prison ship for magic users.”

“…I take it from the way you say that that it will be much more difficult to follow him than anticipated?”

“You have no idea,” B said. “The Utopia was diverted to Sol’s neighborhood just to pick up Songbird, and then they sent your brother with him for good measure. They probably won’t jump again immediately, but the whole point of the prison ships is that they’re constantly on the move, to make escape attempts difficult. They’re not for your run-of-the-mill burglars and the like.”

Apex’s face contorted in an unhappy grimace. “Meaning we have a limited amount of time to retrieve them before it becomes even more difficult to track and rescue them?”

“Basically,” she said, noting that Apex had automatically included Songbird in his calculations.

He traced the patterns on the cover of the book he was holding thoughtfully – had he managed to teleport all the way back to the ruin from here? It looked ancient, it couldn’t be theirs – then said, “Your Oreo still believes that doing nothing is the best idea. I cannot say I agree, yet I have no experience with this sort of travel or even the means to do so.”

“Actually,” B said, calculating what that book implied about his teleportation range, “Based on where it’s currently sitting, I think we could get you there ourselves. But the hopper technically belongs to Oreo, so I’ll have to talk her into it.”

Apex raised his eyebrows. “Is that wise? From what she said, you are both expected at your regular work for the foreseeable future, though she did tell me she had asked for today to be excluded before she slept.”

She shrugged. “With what I found in the files, I think it’d be best anyway. I should wake her up so I only have to explain everything once, though.”

Turning his head to regard Oreo’s sleeping form, he said calmly, “There is no need for you to trouble yourself.” Moments later she bolted upright with a startled gasp, clutching her chest through her t-shirt where she’d been marked.

“Oh shards that’s cold! What the fuck, dude?”

“You requested I wake you after Bee returned,” Apex said, raising a single eyebrow.

“I meant like shaking my shoulder, not dropping an ice cube down my shirt!” She rubbed at the spot on her chest again. “Gahhhh, I can still feel it. Please never, ever do that again.”

“Your preference is noted,” Apex said, not the slightest hint of remorse in his voice. Was that a tiny smile quirking the corner of his mouth? It was gone in seconds, but B got the impression that he was really more amused than anything.

Oreo hadn’t missed the smile either, and eyed Apex suspiciously as she reached over the back of the couch to slap the light switch, saying, “Well, whatever, I’m awake now. Fill me in. What’ve we got?” She added, turning to the kitchen, “Coffee. Now, please.”

B held up a finger. “I think the most important thing is that some of the planning files I downloaded reference an unnamed collaborator.”

“Oh, fuck,” Oreo said, reaching for the steaming cup of coffee her little automated kitchen bot was tapping across the kitchen counter to bring her.

“Eloquently put,” B said brightly, before continuing with her summary. “There’s that, and PK managing to skate under the radar for now, and there’s Songbird and Nadir being sent to a prison ship.”

“Well,” Oreo said after a long pause, cradling the battered cup in both hands, “There goes any chance of spooky getting his brother back.

“Both him and Songbird were put in maximum security, in case you were feeling any optimism.” Better to get the bad news out of the way first, so Oreo’d have time to get used to it.

“However, like I said, they don’t seem to have realized who Peekaboo is – she’s been sent to a nonmagical wallside prison, barely any security. I don’t know what that tells us about our collaborator – anyone who could leak the market’s location would definitely know the market’s director by mask.”

Looking around, she spotted the usual worn tablet underneath the open bag of chocolate chips on the counter, and headed for it. A few of them rolled out of the bag as she snagged the pad. “It’s probably better to pretend that we think she’s no one important too, as long as they’re ignoring her. That’s what I’m going to tell our chairman when I forward all these files to him – and yes, I’m going to, because I think the underground at least needs to know there’s a traitor, instead of wasting their time searching records. It could be basically anyone.”

“Except you and me, and spooky makes three. Plus the prisoners.”

“Here’s the thing though,” she said, nodding. “PK’s not the only one that knows a lot about the underground. So does Songbird. He was always traveling to the other earthside branches when they needed medical things, including ours, and he’s bound to know more than he should. And they’re definitely interested in him right now, and we know for certain after that raid that they’re still trying to locate the rest of us before the legislation passes.”

Oreo rolled her eyes, taking a sip. “It’s not like he’s gonna talk to them, he’s got nerves of steel if he was spying for us – for like a decade, I might add. I looked him up last night after they started arguing about whether or not he’s broken his oath of service on the news.”

Apex said, from his corner by the tv, “He can’t have been your only healer, can he? It’s not that rare of a talent, and is easily learned, if not mastered.”

One hand flapping in denial, Oreo sat up. “LORD no, no no no, he’s got an apprentice and she’s even got her own apprentices and everything. But it’s hard to find a doctor that is: willing to treat the underground, and an experienced healer, and has actual medical training, let alone the kind of highly specific surgical knowledge he’s got.” She wiggled her four raised fingers meaningfully. “He just gets a lot of work, that’s all. He can’t have been sleeping much, the way he was running around.”

“The point is,” B said, taking back control of the conversation, “not only does he have a lot of potentially dangerous knowledge, they’re also planning on experimenting on him. I have a list of everything they’ve currently scheduled for him – here, look.” She handed the tablet with Songbird’s file to Oreo, scrolled exactly to the right point for her to get a good look.

Oreo took it casually in her free hand, then as she began scanning the lines her face paled, and she sat up straight. “Oh.” The further she scrolled the more her lips curled in disgust, and she looked like she might vomit. “Oh, my god.” She held the tablet away from her as if it could bite and swore, “Bloody fucking shards of earth, they can’t be serious.”

B just looked at Oreo and said nothing, letting the tablet speak for itself. Apex, on the other hand, said, “Enlighten me, please.”

Oreo shook her head and said simply, “You don’t wanna know. You really don’t wanna know.”

He frowned, then a loop of his hair snaked its way over to touch her bare foot. Apparently this let him get some sense of what she was looking at, because his eyebrows shot up so far they nearly fell off his face. “Disturbing,” was his only comment.

“Yeah, so that’s what he’s looking at right now,” B said, hands on her hips. “It may not be intended to make him talk – but I could see it happening. Personally, I think leaving anyone there to face that would be criminal, even if he didn’t actually know anything.”

Oreo eyed her half-empty coffee cup unhappily, then set it down, still looked faintly greenish as she said, “You make an excellent point, but it’s not like we can do anything about it. We’ll have to see if we can’t get the underground branches to put some hustle in their step and maybe mount a rescue – one of the branches has to have a decent spaceship somewhere.”

“That might work, if the collaborator doesn’t have any say in it. But we don’t know who that is, and even if they don’t I can bet you pennies to pounds that the rest of the underground is going to tie themselves in so many knots over the situation they won’t get anything done. If we want anything done in time, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

“You are absolutely correct, Bu- Bee,” Oreo said, burying her face in her hands. “Of course you are.” She sighed, resigned. “Please tell me you’ve thought of something to do, rather than just delighting in crushing my dreams of not being involved.”

If B had been capable of grinning, she would have. The tiny pert smile her molded lips managed to curve into would have to do instead. “I have, in fact. Our little hopper can jump not quite three parsecs – it barely qualifies as jump-capable, but because they diverted the Utopia near Sol, I think we can planet-hop over to it.” She snagged another smaller tablet from the kitchen counter. “Depending on how far Apex can teleport, we might be able to just bring him close enough to get on board, grab the prisoners, and port back to your mark. The hopper wouldn’t even need to stay in the same place to wait for him, since you’d be his point of reference.”

“I knew it,” Oreo muttered. “I just knew it was gonna involve something stupid.”

“Oh, hush, you. You do stupid things all the time.” B was busily pulling up a star chart of the near-sol neighborhood.

“According to the files I decrypted, the Utopia is currently located in EZ Aquarii – it’s a triple star system with no planets. Our hopper is so small we could probably hide it by one of the stars inside their orbits, and they wouldn’t notice us in all the glare and radiation.”

“That sounds like an extremely difficult feat of piloting to pull off with three gravitational wells to deal with.”

“I’m sure that’s why they picked the system in the first place,” B said airily. “That, and it being uninhabited. Don’t worry, I believe in you. You’ve always been better at spaceflight than planetary flight.”

Oreo shot her a look from under her eyebrows, clearly unamused. B continued as if she hadn’t seen it. “Getting there will take a few hops, and we’ll need to recharge and refuel after each one, but if you look here,” she said, highlighting the systems in question, “we can hop from Alpha Centauri, to the Ross 154 research station, to Eib Alpha, and from there we can easily reach EZ Aquarii and still have enough power to jump back to Eib Alpha afterward.” Oreo’s nose wrinkled in distaste as she leaned over the tablet to examine the route.

“Isn’t Eib Alpha a domed moon base? Bijou de Lacaille is about the same distance from the Ross and Aquarii systems, and’s an actual planet with an atmosphere to boot.”

“We’re not going on vacation, Oreo. Eib Alpha has both a branch of the underground and a military base on it, and we can use the time while we refuel there to double-check that the prison ship hasn’t moved before we jump out into the middle of nowhere.”

“Okay, fair enough, but Bijou also has a branch of the underground, a bigger one, and it’s citizen patrolled with no military presence. If we’re bringing fugitives back with us, that’s clearly a better place for them to hide.”

“That’s… a good point,” B had to admit. “But Bijou is expensive, and we might have to stay for a while, so we’d be able to stretch things further on Eib Alpha.”

“I don’t like it.” Oreo folded her arms, as Apex stood up from his corner to join them by the counter, gently removing his sleepy magpie from his shoulder to let it nestle down on the floor instead.

He frowned at the tablet, and B realized he was having the same problem as before – he couldn’t see the chart. She hastily picked up a few of the spilled chocolate chips and placed them on the tablet on the systems in question for him, to a grateful nod. Oreo continued her argument by tapping emphatically on the chip for Eib Alpha.

“You don’t see tourism brochures for ‘the fantastic moons of Epsilon Indi’ for a reason, and that’s because the places are so regulated you can’t sneeze without a permit. Hiding fugitives there would be a nightmare, even if it was just until we could get them off. You know the hopper can’t do more than two jumps in a row, so we’d be stuck there until it recharged.”

Apex, head uncomfortably pressed against the ceiling and one hand braced against it for balance, asked, “If the one place is a good option for double-checking everything before the rescue attempt, and the other is a good option for hiding afterward, why not simply use both?” He added, leaning over the tablet to examine the chocolate chips, “Might it not also look suspicious were we to head out from one place to nowhere in particular, then turn and come right back? We could instead pretend we were heading straight from this Eib Alpha to the final destination, Bijou.”

They all paused, looking at the chart for a moment. “I do have to file a flight plan before we leave,” B said thoughtfully. “If we said our ultimate goal was Bijou, we actually could just say our purpose for the trip was vacation. It would make an excellent cover story.” She tapped her fingers against her facial shell as her mind raced to explore the new possibilities. “And even though the hopper will take longer to recharge after two jumps in a row, if we’re supposed to be staying for a while it won’t be too suspicious for it to stay longer in the charging bay.”

“On the subject of vacation,” Oreo said, arms still folded, “What exactly are we gonna do about work? It’s not like we’ve been planning this for months and have things all set up.”

“Apex said you’d asked for today off, since yesterday didn’t really count. They’re pretty good about that, and then we have the weekend.” She held up three fingers. “That’s three days. So, if we file our vacation time now, we should be good, even if it is short notice. We have to use it before the end of the year anyway, might as well be now.”

“All of it?” Oreo asked plaintively.

“All of it,” B confirmed. “Don’t complain, you’re getting to go to Bijou for part of it and I’m sure you’ll find some way to enjoy it.”

“Damn straight I will,” said Oreo, picking up the chocolate chips one by one and dropping them in her mouth. “But I’m gonna miss taking extra days off for the holidays when they roll around.”

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Chapter Six

The Utopia

Truth sat on the floor and watched as the other prisoner made another loop around the bare cell across from him. Two of his long steps to the back, five past the shapeless folded bunk to the tamper-proofed sink, two more back to the front of the cell and then five back to that first rounded corner by the door. He’d been pacing it incessantly, hands clasped behind his back, stalking the edges with deliberate, controlled steps as though looking for a way out. There wouldn’t be one, of course; the force field would stop them from leaving even if those ridiculous iron bars wouldn’t, and there were prominent teleportation nullifying marks cast into the front of each cell door. They weren’t going anywhere. He had a look of intense concentration on his face, though, and Truth suspected he might actually be thinking, the pacing giving him an outlet for his apparent frustration.

Healing someone always left a slight sympathetic link between you, for a time. He was fairly certain that tiny itching desire to get up, go, move, time is running out in the back of his mind wasn’t actually his, judging by the scene he was watching. He kept wondering why the man had touched the force field, though – had he known it would hurt him? He had seemed surprised. Two more loops around the cell in front of him and he gave up and asked.

“If I can ask – why did you touch the force field?”

The man didn’t seem to hear him, continuing his measured steps around and around. They faltered, after a moment, and he looked up as if just remembering Truth was there. He stared blankly, and an uncomfortably long period of time passed.

He finally spoke, haltingly. “It… had – an unusual aetheric resonance. I… had not seen the like before.”

“It didn’t occur to you it could hurt you?” The man tilted his head, pondering the words before replying.

“My flesh is still more… vulnerable than my bones.” He blinked slowly, the words coming with an effort. Perhaps he was more out of it than Truth had thought. “But,” he continued, “Having experienced it now, it is no longer a threat. My safeguards will have adjusted.”

He reached out towards the force field as he spoke, with the same hand, Truth’s eyes widening in dismay that he would touch it AGAIN– but this time, the crackles and sparking were from some magic in the man’s skin repelling the field as he dragged his fingers across it. Tiny glowing motes flew out into the air around his hand. “You see?” He pressed against it, harder, and the field itself impossibly began to fizz and warp, showering more sparks on the floor. Tiny burn marks across the floor around the other man proved that Truth wasn’t imagining it.

“I could walk through it now,” his fellow prisoner said, “if I desired it.” He blinked again, seeming to be falling back into the sleepy stupor he had briefly broken out of. “It would not be worth it, I think.” He gestured at the area around them, saying, “This – it is like an island. Outside is dark, and frozen; nearly devoid of aether – I would likely not survive for long enough to travel elsewhere…” He stopped, head bowed in thought.

“In the middle of a vast emptiness, I can sense nowhere else to go.”

“Well, we are on a spaceship.”

“That term has no meaning to me.” He paused, staring at Truth in puzzlement, then continued, “Your mental images are- also confusing.”

“How do you not know what a spaceship is?”

Truth was starting to be very concerned about this man’s mental state – he seemed to be having a lot more difficulty than could be attributed to merely disorientation. He reached for that tiny link in the back of his head. He might not be mentally talented himself, but he was a healer; he knew how to ease tiredness and boost cognitive function.

“Oh,” the man said. “Oh,” he said again, straightening in relief. He shook himself, a quick shiver as if shaking off cobwebs, as he blinked rapidly. Some of the tension in his face eased, and he turned to face Truth fully.

“Thank you,” he said, notes of gratitude ringing clear in his voice. “That is much, much better. As for your question… I am uncertain. My brother and I,” he said, “We were asleep… and before that… before that I had been broken, and he came for me.”

“I think… I think I might have hurt him.” There was a trace of horror in his voice at the realization. He paused again, blinking tiredly. “I almost wish I hadn’t woken up.”

“Why?”

The man shook his head, offering no answer. Truth was genuinely curious what had happened that he would call himself ‘broken’, that had resulted in him only just now realizing he might have hurt his brother. Was it something he could heal? Even if it wasn’t, could he help, beyond just giving the man a boost?

“Is it simple exhaustion? Would a nap help?”

“No. It would be pointless. I do not need sleep, so it would not ease this fatigue, and before I woke my mind was too… too thick, too muddled for dreams.”

He looked up, gazing through the ceiling as though it wasn’t there towards that vast emptiness he’d described. “Better to simply stay awake rather than face waking into this nightmare again. Or worse,” he added quietly, “losing control again. I will not let that happen.”

“Oh,” Truth said, wondering if perhaps the man needed to focus his mental resources on staying sane instead of chatting-

“No. Please, continue.” He looked back down at Truth, brow knitting over those pale eyes as he sensed that thought, saying urgently, “Your voice… is another strand of reality for me to hold on to. By myself it was much more difficult.”

Oh. In that case… “Well, if talking helps, do you want to tell me about it?” The man gestured voicelessly, silently indicating he had no words for what had happened to him. He seemed to want to try, though, repeatedly opening his mouth and then thinking better of whatever he was about to say, so Truth drew his knees up and rested his head on his arms to listen. The man was still for a moment, a dark figure against the cold metal of the walls, head bowed, hair trailing on the floor behind him.

“I remember…” he started, voice barely audible. “It was sudden. I remember feeling such fury; that I was broken, and would never again be whole; that the core of who I was had been forcibly taken from me.” He made a tearing gesture, as though something had been ripped from his chest.

“Without a charge to protect, without a duty, the compulsions upon me tore me in two. Nothing of the like had ever happened before, and then all of us, at the same time… That shock alone I could have withstood, I think, but then my daughter stepped up and took the killing blow meant for me… and I lost my temper.” He shook his head, blinking back what Truth thought might be tears, but they etched golden tracery down his cheekbones anyway.

“I remember the anger, but I no longer feel it. Now… now I am simply tired.”

Despair. That was despair Truth heard in those words. From anger to despair, and no one to talk to… He said, softly, “I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. That’s not something anyone should have to go through.” He stayed silent for a moment, head bowed in respect for that sacrifice.

He continued slowly, thinking out loud, “If not having a – a duty was the problem, couldn’t you find something else to protect, even for just a little bit?”

“I do not believe a simple blessing of protection on something else could have replaced the true keystone mark after its destruction, as it would not have repaired what had been ripped apart in the process. Still, it simply did not occur to me then…” He paused. “Perhaps it would have been different if I had tried it. Perhaps not. The empire would still have fallen, and I would still have had to fight for my life, bleeding out the aether that kept me whole all the while.”

The man was silent for a moment himself. “It was a very long time before my brother found me, and the damage had only spread further by then.”

Listening, it occurred to Truth that this man must be very, very old. As far as he was aware, there hadn’t even been any empires for hundreds of years before the great war. There certainly hadn’t been any since then. The man blinked at him, recognizing some sense of the passage of time in the thought, then asked, wiping back the golden streaks, “Has it truly been that long?”

Truth shook his head. He couldn’t say. History before the war was sketchy at best, and he was no expert. Even if his fellow prisoner were to tell him the name of the fallen empire, he probably wouldn’t recognize it. The man’s face fell at that, angular features creasing in sorrow. He looked back up after a moment, examining Truth intently again.

“Nadir,” he said, after he decided whatever he saw was satisfactory. “In your language, I would be Nadir. We have conversed, now. It is not… not acceptable for me to know all your names, and you none of mine.” He nodded sharply, decisively, hair swaying with the motion, and sat on the floor, crossing those long legs and resting his hands on his thighs.

“I have told you what I remember of my own disaster. Tell me of yours, now.”

Truth blinked, startled. “Can’t you see it in my head with everything else?”

Nadir shook his head, gently. “My talent may have been for mindreading before I was reforged, but it functions differently, now. I have… less control, and more at the same time. Surface thoughts, of course, those are always there, images and ideas skimming the edge of your mind. Impossible to completely block, at this range. That is no different. But rather than search through all that you are… significant events… jump out at me from the echoes of your life.” He gestured vaguely, trying to clarify what he meant.

“Defining choices.” He thought a moment, and continued, “Moments of import.”

“Sins and crimes, revelations and sacrifices.” He nodded, satisfied with the examples. “Whatever happened to bring you here, is buried strongly underneath the other things I sense from you.”

This was absolutely fascinating; it had never occurred to Truth that you could manipulate the way talents themselves worked, using the very magic they were based in. “What things are those?” he asked, curious.

Nadir closed his eyes, tipping his head back slightly as though scenting the air. “An oath, sworn under duress, but kept all the same. The heat in the air from the morning sun on the thousands of people around you also swearing the same oath, and yet, such a different one. A feathered mask in the mirror, hiding a face you don’t know yet. The fear of discovery as you take it off. Your twin faces you, identical in all respects, or so you thought then… A song, echoed on the breeze, two voices raised in perfect harmony one last time.”

He tipped his head back again, considering. “The oath kept is the strongest impression I get from you, overwhelming almost everything else. I could look deeper, search for more, but that would require letting go of myself to read you, and I don’t dare. Not now.” He didn’t move, merely looked at Truth out of the corner of his eyes. “However, I scent no wrongdoing on you, or we would not be speaking. And I have always done my best not to pry into the lives of those who are innocent of crimes in any case.”

Interesting. “Does… does crime… smell different?”

“It does,” he said, nodding. “Certain events just smell… wrong. Rape.” Truth shuddered. “Murder. Theft.” He eyed Truth again. “Oathbreaking. They are all slightly different, and often people just… radiate that scent so strongly I don’t even need to read them to know they have committed those crimes.”

“Like a shark scenting blood in the water,” Truth said.

“Yes,” Nadir said. “Exactly like that.” He smiled faintly, dangerously, and for the first time Truth saw the edges of what could only be described as shark teeth behind those thin lips. That was unexpected. And mildly disturbing.

It didn’t take long for him to tell Nadir what had happened at the market – on mentioning seeing the man there, he’d confirmed that yes, that had been him. He had literally just woken and blindly sought out the nearest high concentration of aether to try and recover some semblance of cognizance and stability. He would not have been coherent had they approached him, then. Thinking back, Truth was pretty sure Boots had been trying to encourage him to leave the gate by pointing Nadir out, though it hadn’t worked.

“I wish I understood what happened,” Truth said, running his hand through his hair again. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would Boots betray us now, of all times? The legalization of magic is so close to passing both the senate and the planetary assembly that you can practically taste it.” He sighed. “And not just that – they came in through the main entrance, straight through sunside, with sunshields and skimmers and rock cutters and everything else they might need. They had to have been planning it for weeks, and I didn’t hear anything.”

Nadir, his eyes closed as he listened, said, “Would you have expected to hear something?”

“Admittedly, I am – I was part of the medical corps, and we’re not always involved in raids, but usually we at least hear about these things. If they were keeping it secret even from officers, I have to wonder if they suspected something… But if Boots had told them about me from the start they would’ve moved to discharge me immediately.” He rubbed his face tiredly, defeated. “I just… don’t get it. And I can’t help feeling like I need to warn somebody about all of it.”

He shook his head. “Well, whatever happened, it’s all over now. No more secrets, nothing left to hide. I feel… lighter, just thinking about it. Relieved.”

Nadir’s head lifted at that, eyes opening, alert again. “You still have people to protect, do you not? Names and places.”

“Well, yes,” Truth admitted, tapping his fingers rhythmically against the deck, each making a satisfyingly solid sound. How to describe it? “But, I don’t have to pretend to be different people any more, or to like one thing as one of my selves and not as the other. I don’t have to worry about what my superiors or fellow market councilors might think if I said a particular thing, or if wearing something would raise suspicion. I never have to imitate that horrible flat accent again. Hell, I could finally tell the rest of my family that I’m talented without worrying they’d get in trouble for knowing when I was caught. I can just… be myself again. Even if I’m being that self in prison.” Thinking about his family, he wondered how they’d taken the news. His aunt, especially.

Nadir nodded, eyes closing again in understanding. “A major source of internal conflict has been removed from you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Truth looked up excitedly and pointed a finger in realization. “Exactly that. There’s… other things to worry about now, but none of them seem as… overwhelming. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” The other man tilted his head in concern.

“Like… like I know at some point they’re going to start experimenting on me.” It was inevitable, given how few healers they captured. “The general assumption with healing talented is that they’ll heal themselves, given the chance… It won’t be pleasant.”

He hesitated, but the man had already said he considered it a wrong, so he continued, “And… and it’s a prison. You hear things about, abuse, and… rape.” He’d always been terrified of that. It was his worst fear, since before he’d grown old enough to even really understand what it meant.

Nadir’s eyes opened a fraction at the word, pale slits in a dark shadow suddenly full of menace. “I would not permit it. They can confine me, but they cannot contain me. Should it be necessary, I will break these chambers, and all their petty restriction charms. That, at least, I can promise you.”

Petty? These cells were equipped with the very latest in modern anti-magical charms. Then again, considering magic was generally banned, it wasn’t as if there was real research on the subject. You only had to look at those useless iron bars to see that. Still, that was not something he’d expected to hear. Even if it was an empty offer – and he suspected it might not be, after the force field demonstration – his pounding heartbeat slowed a little. He looked down, not wanting to see what expression might be on the other man’s face, pity or sympathy or whatever it was he was feeling from that tiny link. He’d been doing a good job remaining calm in the face of everything, but that, he thought that might break him.

He needed a distraction. “Would you like to hear a story?” he asked, abruptly. “It would give me something to keep talking about, at least for a while, and then you don’t need to think about conversation.”

“I will listen,” Nadir said. Good enough, he’d take that as a yes.

“Okay, I- I’ll tell you my favorite one. It’s an old magic fairytale that people don’t tell publicly anymore, but as a little kid I really loved it.”

He took a deep breath, as if he was going to sing instead of speak, and cast his mind back to those quiet evenings when their father would tell his daughters stories about things that could be or might have been or maybe someday would be.

“In a magical land far away,” he began, “there stood a mighty castle.”

Inside the castle, there was a King, and a Queen, and all their many children and courtiers and servants. And inside the castle, there was a library, and a great hall, and a thousand thousand rooms.

And inside the great hall, there was a fireplace.

And inside the fireplace there was a fire. But not any ordinary fire.

No, this was a magical fire. This fire, you see, had a mind of its own. In the winter, it watched the King and the Queen and all their many courtiers and children dancing to its warmth. In the summer, it dimmed its flames and listened as the King and the Queen and the courtiers told their children of many fascinating adventures and wonderful places-

“Wait,” said Nadir, raising a hand in warning. “I hear footsteps approaching us.”

Truth turned his head, listening. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the faint hum of the ventilation. How could the man possibly hear footsteps through yards and yards of steel and mechanical systems? Then again, he could also apparently smell wrongdoing. Inhuman hearing wasn’t any stranger than that. But… already? Admittedly, he didn’t know the sleep cycle on this ship, but he’d have thought they’d be left alone for more than a few hours. He sighed.

“I guess I can tell you the story later, then, if you’re still interested.”

Nadir had politely ignored his brief flash of skepticism, and acknowledged this with a shallow nod of his head and a faint smile. “I feel strong enough now, mentally, to go without your aid for a time should they separate us. It is still very much appreciated, and I am certain the story will be no less interesting for the wait.”

The two men fell silent, tensely waiting for whatever their unwelcome visitors would bring.

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Chapter Seven

Sol

Apex had not realized just how empty space would be. Outside the thin metal skin of the little hopper there was only the barest trace of aether for him to absorb; if they were to spend any length of time here, he would inevitably drain the interior. They would need to adjust their plans for that. Against the vast emptiness, his home; Earth. From here, he could see exactly what B had tried to describe for him – the wide cracks in the surface of the world right down to the center that glowed with a heat he could see plainly against the chill purples of the frozen, shadowed nightside, and the drifting fragments of the moon he’d loved and the planet itself, bound to their paths by long-ago spells of desperation. His heart twisted in pain at the sight, an ache of bottomless sorrow at what had been lost. The thin rim of daylight warming the edge in a red heat was beautiful, not dangerous, from here, but he knew it spelled death for the unprotected there.

“I retract my previous statement,” he said, watching the shadowed orb beneath them and its fiery wound grow smaller between the bright pinprick points of heat that marked the familiar stars. “The ambient aether inside this craft is not sufficient to sustain me for any lengthy period of time in such an aetherless void.” Oreo paused her preparations at that.

“You need us to turn around?” she asked, eyes wide in concern, hand moving to the wheel.

Apex shook his head. “No, I am merely noting that I would also require food for longer trips. It is something to consider when we land, but not urgent.”


“Gotcha,” Oreo said, turning back to the console. “Like we said, the jump itself won’t take long – it’s making sure we’re not going to jump into anyone else that’s the time-waster.”

B hadn’t looked up from her own chair at this brief conversation, busily toggling things and flipping switches, quietly conversing with far-away people monitoring the skies of this other planet they were heading to. It seemed extraordinarily complicated, compared to sailing. Certainly, you still had to worry about the wind speed and direction when launching, that he understood, but there was also this fuel that they carried and needed to move, and the mechanisms directing it all that had to be constantly monitored. The jumping process itself was an entirely separate mechanism by itself – they had told him it was based on thorough research into the way teleportation worked, from before the great war, and as such required aether to function. Theirs was apparently older, inefficient, and only held enough aether for small jumps. They should really charge it after each one, to be safe, though they were going to ignore that at least once during this trip.

Many things had been based on that research, apparently – their communication networks were linked across planets and moons throughout the galaxy by the devices they called teleconduits. B had shown him the one they used to connect to the secret underground network when she’d pulled it out to transfer the prisoner files – a small thing, barely the size of his little finger. Portable, she had said, so they could connect from anywhere. Theirs had an identifying signature too, because it linked with a specific type of inbound connector, and the underground network had to know to look for it – it would simply refuse all unknown connections. It all seemed terribly… exhausting, to keep up with. They had assured him that most things simply worked without needing to know how, but he still found just the thought of everything new tiring. Instead, he was carefully thinking about only what needed to be done right now. He could afford to be tired later, when his brother wasn’t still out there, alone and broken.

The orb in the window disappeared abruptly, though the stars around it barely moved. Apex looked around to see another, much larger orb in front of them; this one bore no such great wound, bright shifting clouds drifting across the surface trailing cooler shadows in their wake below them. The warm and welcoming dry red and yellow heat of the landmasses – so different here, so unfamiliar – was complimented by the cool chill of the green and blue waters surrounding them. The bright colors dimmed to cold purple, and then near-black where the shadow of night fell, glistening spiderwebs of light tracing the paths of humanity across the dark surface. He’d been told there were two moons, but only one was visible at the moment, and his heart twisted again with the thought that this is what their Earth had looked like before. A beautiful, gently spinning globe in a glittering sea of darkness, shining with warmth even in the cool purples of the falling night. He hadn’t realized how desolate Earth’s nightside had been until now, when he could compare the clearly marked footprints of cities and towns and roads on this new planet to his own.

He thought he might cry.

Alpha Centauri

It had taken him some time to recover his composure after that dual shock, but his two companions had been busy landing the craft and hadn’t noticed. Or at least, they were pretending not to have noticed, and he was grateful either way. There was paperwork to be filed for their brief stay – supplies to be paid for and forms filled, and B had left to handle that. Oreo, meanwhile, had said she’d take a quick trip out to pick up some extra food for him just in case. They might not be planning on staying out in space long enough for it to be a problem, but she’d rather be prepared.

Left to his own devices, with the windows blacked and shuttered for his protection, he couldn’t deny an overwhelming sense of curiosity. He had seen the planet as they had landed, but he wanted to experience it, to feel the foreign wind on his face and taste the alien rain he could hear tapping on the roof. He had noted that they had landed in a spot that was past nightfall – the longer he thought about it, the more he was tempted to shift his alignment to umbral so that he could explore without worry people would see him.

His companions had activated one of their devices for him, that he might listen to the news channels while he waited, and he did, for a while. Here on Alpha Centauri, the market raid was only a distant, if notable, incident – the topic still dominated many of the channels, but in a more dispassionate sense, as observers, not people truly affected. He sat listening to the same arguments repeated again and again with slightly different words, stroking his contentedly fluffed magpie, and the sense that he had heard it all before was too strong to ignore. More statesmen were making official comments and speeches about the raid now as the news spread, and some of those were actually played repeatedly – for instance, this Senator Allen, of Tau Ceti, had made an especially fiery speech about the audacity of raiding such an old and well-established haven at a time like this, and vowed that it would only strengthen their efforts to get the bill through. “Such an ill-timed crackdown,” he had declared, “Is clearly meant to derail our work in support of the magical community, and I will not stand for it!”

There was no new information to be heard on these channels, not with the raid still so recent. There was only the briefest mention of his brother, among the many words spoken, and he could feel his attention slipping back to the sound of the rain outside. The temptation and his own curiosity eventually proved too much, and he resolved to explore while he had the chance. The bird would not appreciate getting wet, he felt, so he gently moved it from his lap, letting it nestle down by Nadir’s journal in the folds of the blanket he sat on. That was one of the very few things left from that long-ago disaster, having been with him at the time of the attack and then preserved with a spell; he had brought it with them in the hopes that the familiarity of the book might help soothe his brother.

He teleported outside, to the closest location he could sense with no one nearby. That seemed to be the roof of the docking station, and from here he could see the towering buildings composing the central city through the sheeting rain. Many still glowed with warmth, despite the late hour, and he wondered how many people were inside them, working or relaxing or whatever they did at this time. He ambled along the edge of the flat roof, rain running down his skin and wind streaming his robe and hair out to the side in gusts, just looking at his surroundings, taking it all in with each deep breath. If he hadn’t known, Apex could have closed his eyes and thought himself still at home, during a summer night’s rain. He looked further and could see the heat of other buildings out near the horizon, smaller and more widely spaced. Houses, if he guessed right.

A thought, and he was there, walking down empty streets lined with tall lights past the homes of these strange, still-human families. He could see them moving, inside; watched the bright children of this house run by each other as a cooler, slower parent tried to herd them to bed, the couple in that house chatting over steaming mugs of some liquid as their heat signatures merged together on the couch they sat on. The houses were strange too, and yet. And yet. They were clearly houses; their doors were the size they should be, the roofs at the height he subconsciously expected them to be.

He wandered slowly, listening absent-mindedly to the muted voices of the occupants, losing himself in the very smell of the rain on the odd stone of the streets, the gentle hints of growing things that he hadn’t realized he had been missing until now. Nadir had always been the gardener, not him, but he had grown accustomed to those scents in their years together – the earthy wet soil and the sharp pang of bruised grass and leaves, the delicate scents of his brother’s beloved flowers. Some that he smelled now were familiar, but others were completely foreign to him.

Apex followed one such scent to a bush like none he had ever seen before, flowers open wide to drink their fill of the rain, subtle patterns displayed in the warmth of the petals around the heat of the central head. Nadir would have loved these, he knew. If he had been here, one would have found its way back to his journal, to be pressed and later identified, perhaps grown if he could find seeds. They lost their heat patterns when dried, but perhaps… perhaps he would appreciate the thought anyway.

When his ear had vibrated, he had been perched on another taller rooftop high above the city proper, just taking in the various glowing warmths of the houses and lights and buildings, twirling the stem of his freshly plucked blossom between his fingers in thought. He nearly lost his balance at the unexpected intrusion, foot slipping on the wet tiles as he practically jumped out of his skin.

The earpiece, he remembered. He had never bothered to remove it, it being so light and unobtrusive. Apex reached up and fumbled with the tiny thing a moment, and heard the beep as it connected.

The first thing he heard was, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

Oreo.

She was both panicked and furious, he sensed through her mark. “My apologies,” he began, feeling somewhat contrite at having caused concern, but he was cut off.


“Just get your ass back here before somebody sees you!”

Easy enough. He sensed both her mark and the magpie’s occupying the same space, and sent his body streaming after his consciousness towards them. He hadn’t thought to exclude the rain from his jump, though, and was still dripping wet when he arrived, water immediately beginning to pool on the floor underneath him. Oreo stepped back to avoid it, as he hastily stepped away from Nadir’s journal. It wouldn’t do for it to have survived all this time only to be ruined by a careless mistake.

“Good fucking god, you’re soaked,” Oreo said. “And what the hell is this?” She pointed at his flower. He sensed both fury and relief battling for supremacy through her mark.

“Nadir is fond of flowers,” he said. “I thought to bring him one he didn’t know.”

“I-” She raised her hands to her head, scrubbing her fingers through her hair, clearly torn between reactions. “I- That’s – You could have asked us to get you one- the hell were you thinking, wandering around alone in the middle of the night and the rain – what if someone called police on you???”

“Nobody saw me,” he assured her. “I would have sensed their attention. I merely wished to see this new planet for myself. It feels very… human. Familiar.”

“Okay, maybe people didn’t see you, but what about cameras? Or motion detectors or any of that- no wait, if Bee catches you dripping water all over her precious ship she’ll kill both of us – we gotta dry this before she gets back-” She snagged the blanket he’d been sitting on, dislodging both the journal and the magpie, which squawked at her in a huff before fluttering off to perch grumpily on the back of the copilot’s chair.

“Is water harmful to it?” he asked curiously. “It seems too well constructed for that.”


“No, not really,” Oreo said, dropping the blanket directly on the puddle he was standing in. “Not unless it gets in the fiddly bits inside. But if it stains or rusts it will be my fault and I’ll never hear the end of it-”

This was apparently the highest priority now that he’d been located, as she attacked the wet areas with an unusual ferocity.

“You’d better take that thing off so we can dry it,” she added as she worked, gesturing towards his thoroughly drenched robe.

“You’re lucky I thought to get you something else to wear too while I was out getting food, though I can’t imagine it’ll fit great, you being so tall.” He had just been about to point out he had nothing else to wear, but instead uncurled a single loop of hair to lift the parcel she casually shoved toward him with her foot between wiping motions. He hesitated a moment, then handed the flower to the magpie to hold in its beak.

“Go on,” Oreo said, waving at the hopper’s little cabin. “Make sure you dry yourself off too, grab another blanket or whatever.”

The ceiling inside was even lower than the rest of the hopper, but it did have a curtain he could draw for some semblance of privacy, and he took advantage of that as best he could. A simple spell shed the rest of the water he was coated in, and it was easy enough to unclasp his robe and let it fall to the floor with the water – but on closer inspection the plain black garments she had purchased for him were less friendly. The body of the shirt would fit, he thought, if barely, but the sleeves were simply too thin and too short. He’d never be able to put his arms in them. He turned his attention to the other dark swathe of cloth instead, guessing it must be for his legs. It looked suspiciously as though it might just be a dress intended for a smaller, shorter human – but it did approximately fit around his waist when he pulled it on. The arm holes were still visible, but the shirt was so long that it would probably cover that. If he could sort out the sleeve issue, that is.

“Hey, so,” said Oreo from outside the curtain. “About this mark thing.”

He could guess. “You wish to know more?”

“Yeah. Like, I know currently we’re gonna need it to pull this whole rescue thing off, but after that how do I get rid of it?”

“It is simple enough, really. To atone, you need only give back as much to this world as you unrightfully took. A life taken, a life saved. The mark will disappear once your soul’s weight is balanced.”

There was silence from outside the curtain.

“Is that really it?”

“Yes,” he said, examining the sleeves again. “It is not a complicated spell. Actually fulfilling the requirements may prove harder than it would seem – a life saved could be many things, and could also not be many things – but as a general rule, the idea is not for it to be impossible to atone, merely to bring equal good to balance the harm caused.”

“And remember,” he continued, “I am the arbiter of justice in charge of you, and I have no intention of setting unfair rules or time limits on you. I still feel that marking you was not appropriate with regards to the event in question, but as it cannot be undone, I can at least help you to complete your penance instead.”

After some consideration, he cast another tiny spell, simply severing the problematic bits of cloth so he could pull the shirt itself on without them. Sliding it over the flowers he’d planted in his spine before they’d left was delicate work, but the neck of the shirt sat right below them when he’d finished, a surprisingly comforting support for the tiny stems. He might have to look into getting something similar for them as a permanent addition to his wardrobe. The discarded sleeves he managed to fashion a simple loincloth out of, something she had not thought to include.

A tight fit overall, but it was dry, and comfortable enough. Not so the floor where he’d dropped the robe. The android would likely not appreciate water in this area either, and glancing around, he saw only the blankets on the fold-out bunk to dry the mess with – he doubted that was what Oreo had meant.

“Oreo,” he began, sliding the curtain back open and carefully extracting himself from the tiny room, “You surely didn’t mean to use the blankets from the bed to dry things, did you? I do not see any others.”

She didn’t look up from her attempt to take the flower from the magpie, just said, “Yeah, just take one, we can stick everything in the dry press after and it’ll be fine. We just gotta get the water cleaned up first.”

It appeared she had filled a flimsy disposable cup with water for the plant, and he reached out to the bird, letting it know she could have it. He watched, amused, as it fluffed its feathers stubbornly, reluctant to give up its prize, but it did eventually let her take it. She plopped it in the cup with a triumphant “ha!” then placed it in one of the indents along the wall clearly meant for such things. Once the water had been mopped up, Oreo showed him the dry press built into the wall of the little room – cloth or clothing placed inside was returned shortly both cleaned and dried. A fascinating mechanism. He had insisted on retrieving his medallions before drying his robe on the off chance it would damage them, but the robe itself was returned unharmed, delicate stitching and gold trim and all. Rather than change back again, he decided to wrap the journal inside, pinning it with the medallions as an extra layer of protection. The makeshift outfit he’d been provided with would serve well enough for now.


He tried not to think about the fact that there was also no one left to recognize what the robe meant.

Posted On

Chapter Eight

The Utopia

Sure enough, the bay doors had slid open to reveal an escort for Truth. From the comments he overheard from the researchers, they’d woken up early to squeeze in a before-breakfast ‘session’ with him, in addition to the one they’d managed to fit in their schedule later that day. To his dismay, they’d immediately started him off with reattaching limbs. He made sure to point out that most healers couldn’t manipulate bones well enough to actually reattach more than fingers, if that – but that was apparently the point. His display of skill during his escape attempt had earned him a highly customized set of tests that were going to be recorded in minute detail by every available scientific instrument, down to his last drop of aether. The researchers were far more excited about this than they had any right to be, in his professional opinion, and he told them so.

That was the point at which they gagged him.

When they finally dragged Truth back to his cell, he was exhausted. He hadn’t dared let himself fall unconscious, despite having hardly any energy left – who knew what they’d do while he was out. He’d rather know than have to wonder. There was some kind of thick cracker waiting for him in an indentation in the wall – he suspected it might be the ‘breakfast’ the researchers had mentioned, despite how unappetizing it smelled. Nadir was still seated on the floor where he’d left him; he blinked at Truth slowly, then acknowledged his presence with a quiet, “Doctor.” There was no sign of any such cracker in his cell; he must have already eaten his. Truth might be tired, but he knew eating would help restore his strength and aether both, so he picked the thing up and hesitantly touched his tongue to it, tasting what was in it. He wouldn’t have put it past them to poison the thing so they could study what he’d do about it. The indentation melded back into the wall as soon as he took it, leaving the wall blank and featureless again.

His other talent was just a simple Intuition – knowing what ingredients things he tasted were made from. It wasn’t really something he could turn off, but it was thankfully also undetectable, as it was a completely internal process. It was the talent Spoons used most, since it was useful in her line of work, but it had only ever been a curiosity for Truth.

“Corn, and oats, egg, salt… Is this supposed to be food?”

He was talking to himself, really – he wasn’t expecting an answer, but Nadir said tiredly from the other cell, “I… would not dignify it with that appellation.”

Truth tapped the thing against the cell wall. “It’s hard as a rock.”

That wouldn’t stop him from eating it, but he wasn’t looking forward to the gnawing it would involve. He flipped his bunk down to sit on it, then realized that might have been a mistake, as he didn’t have the energy to get back up again, and it would be just so easy to give in, finish lying down and close his eyes to sleep…

He forced himself to start chewing on the biscuit instead.

While he was at it, he could update Nadir about what had happened, since talking had helped the man. How to start, though? ‘I was right, they’ve planned twice-daily experimental procedures for me and it sucks?’ Seemed a little abrupt… but then again, they weren’t exactly here to make small talk.


“So, uh, it seems it’s a good thing my expertise is more in mending than fortification or regeneration. I don’t know if they’re just more interested in that specific subset of healing or if they don’t know enough to know that’s not all there is to it… I didn’t really get the chance to ask.” Nadir merely stared at him from his seat on the floor.

“It wasn’t… quite as bad as I thought it might be, but this was only the first set of experiments…”

Nadir was silent, then said, slowly, “Is there a point to this line of thought? I am having… trouble… processing it.”

Truth felt a brief pang of reflexive hurt that the man hadn’t been paying attention, but as Nadir blinked tiredly at him, he knew the man couldn’t help his condition either, and the pang became a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t even thought to restore the mental boost immediately.

“Shards,” he mumbled, face heating at his stupidity, “I didn’t realize it would have worn off already – here,” he said, reaching out through that tiny link, “I’ve got you.”

“Oh,” the man said, straightening a bit, “that’s better.”

He closed his eyes in relief, and then opened them with, “My apologies. There were just… the words. There were so many, and they simply became shapeless sounds, ones I recognized, but I just couldn’t piece them together…” He shook his head, strands of that dark hair shifting and falling over his shoulder at the movement, abandoning his attempt to explain.

“Could you perhaps start again, from the beginning?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Truth said with a rueful smile, face still warm with embarrassment, “It’s not your fault. I should’ve remembered. I was just saying that I was right about them experimenting on me. They’re going to be pulling me out a couple times every day for it, and it’s not going to be fun.”

Nadir’s face tightened in anger. “Would you like for me to do something about that? I could make things very difficult for them, even from here.”

“And if they pulled me too far away, you’d start having trouble again, wouldn’t you?” Truth shook his head, still gnawing on his cracker between words. “I can’t imagine that helping anything – you should save your strength. Healing I can do, it’s just the part where they hurt me first that sucks. And at least it’s all clean edged wounds, nothing ragged or already infected.”

The noise Nadir made could have been described as a disgruntled huff, if Truth had been listening, but he was still thinking about the link. “A sympathetic healing link won’t last forever, after all – it’ll fade eventually, even with me manipulating it to extend its lifespan. I doubt they’ll be so careless as to let us out in the same space again, so you’ll have to be ready for that when it happens.”

“I had not considered that,” Nadir said after a long moment. “You are correct; while I have the chance I should take advantage of this mental clarity to devise my own solution for my instability. The effect of yours faded gradually enough that I should be able to implement mine before I lose focus again when it comes time.”

That hadn’t exactly been what Truth had meant, but it was a good idea. There was no guarantee they’d keep both of them in the same place after all, and Nadir would do much better if he didn’t need to rely on Truth just to function normally.

“Yes,” Nadir agreed, slowly peeling the dried blood off his hand bit by bit, letting the flakes crumble and fall to the floor as he watched. “I do not intend to stay here forever; I am entirely capable of bypassing or overpowering these restrictions. All that I need is to solve the problem of leaving this isolated location. Continued mental clarity would only make it easier.”

Truth said, thoughtfully, “You could always try to get on a resupply ship when one shows up, but if they noticed you were gone before it left they would probably hold it here until they found you-” He stopped himself abruptly, holding up his unoccupied hand.

“Wait, wait wait wait, you realize they’re recording all of this through those cameras, right?” He pointed them out to the man, the little lenses in every corner of each cell and the spaces in between. “Even if they’re not actively listening right now, they can definitely check up on us later and make sure no one’s, you know, plotting to escape or something.”

Nadir eyed the cameras suspiciously, then said, “Noted.”

It seemed that would be the end of the conversation, both men breaking eye contact and avoiding looking at the ever-watchful cameras. Then, in the back of his head, the link between them… almost vibrated oddly, a peculiar sensation he couldn’t name, and Truth looked up sharply as the man’s voice whispered softly in his head.

<They may have placed mental blocks for telepathy here,> it said, <but an internal link is not technically telepathy. As you can use it to bypass the distance between us to heal, so can I bypass the distance between us to communicate directly.>

There was a distinct undercurrent of smugness running through the foreign thought, and an overlying sense that Nadir hadn’t been sure it would work, matching the trace of pleased satisfaction on the lean face across from him.

<Yes, I wasn’t certain,> the voice agreed, <as my talent is definitely not telepathy, but I am fortunate to have trained in the skill enough to try it. This way, while your connection lasts, they cannot hear us. One less problem. As for the other problem, the guards realizing I was gone, it would be simple enough to leave an illusion in this cell for them to watch instead.>

Truth knew they’d built illusion strippers into the walls, though. They weren’t that out of touch with aetherological studies.

In the other cell, Nadir snorted, amusement clear in his thoughts. <Those? I would not build one so easily destroyed. They would wear it down eventually, of course, but by then I would be gone.> He gestured at the prominent teleportation blockers carved in various locations, and continued, <These, now, these are strong and well-made enough that I might have to break them, rather than bypassing them. But I rather think a gaping hole in my cell walls would be noticed. I will have to consider what to do about them.>

He nodded firmly, one hand rising to tuck that stray lock of hair back behind his ear. <Once I am past those I can travel where I please, and I think it would please me to remove you from their grasp as well. You have committed no crimes deserving of confinement or torture; and you have also been kind. I will remember that.>

“Oh,” Truth said out loud, with a startled blink. He hadn’t been expecting that at all, and took a moment to process it, half-eaten ration remnants forgotten in his hand. Then he tried to form a clear thought in reply to the man, rather than just letting him interpret his mental reactions.

<I suppose if you were to take me with you I could reestablish a link too, in case you can’t figure something more permanent out yourself.>

He certainly wasn’t going to object to not having to endure torture for the rest of his life – and on second thought it might give him a chance to warn someone about Boots. That decided him; he was definitely going to help if he could. Nadir nodded again at that thought, a pleased smile forming on his lips. He looked dignified even sitting on the floor of his cell planning a prison break, his straight, easy posture a glimpse of the man he was behind the fractured spellwork.

<A good first attempt, Doctor. Forming the thought solidly is the basis of every mental skill.>

He looked back over at Truth, the smile fading to his normal serious demeanor. <Do remember, such aid would only be necessary until I locate my brother. We woke together; and I remember noting before he cast the sleep spell on me that his circle was whole and unbroken. He would know how to repair this wound, if he mended his own. After that, you would be free to leave without worry for me.>

Not that Truth had anywhere to go, now, he realized, carefully picking the crumbs from his jumpsuit and eating them one at a time. The underground would take him in, he knew, but he’d still have this criminal record to trail him for the rest of his life. He’d always hoped that he could transition to working at his clinic full time once magic was finally legalized, but that would never happen now.

<Do not think about what could have been,> his fellow prisoner advised him, <for there is nothing to be gained by such regrets right now. You will have the entirety of your life to find a new path, once we are free. Until then, we should both focus on the now and the morrow.>

He added, tilting his head, <I can sense how drained you are from your trials. You should sleep, before they begin again.> Concern threaded through the thought, a sense that Nadir knew just how far the healer had been pushed earlier. <Even should that limit your help, I can still use the time before it fades to work.>

Truth shook his head ever so slightly in frustration, knowing the man was right. There was no reason for Nadir to be worried about the mental boost, at least. It wouldn’t fade unless one of them got too far away, as it was just a simple fortification twined through the link itself, nothing that required his active attention like the more physical healing skills.

<Ah,> that quiet voice in his head said, <I see. I am no healer, so I will trust your expertise. Sleep, then, and regain your strength. I do not wish to overstrain this link with my presence, but I can still stand guard from without while I think.> Truth could sense the man withdrawing from his mind as he finished the thought, making it clear that the conversation was over, for now.

He certainly intended to sleep, but once Truth lay down and closed his eyes his traitorous mind kept turning to the market, remembering the broken homes and trampled gardens he’d seen in those brief glimpses. He hoped Cherry had made it out. He’d taught her everything he knew, both medical and magical, and she’d be a real help for the underground at a time like this. He hoped she – no, no, he needed to sleep. He was exhausted, he knew he was, a bone-deep tiredness he’d only felt once before in his life, when he’d been sick with the measles as a child. But closed, his eyes saw only the market. Open, there were only the featureless walls of his prison, and his mind ran in circles either way.

Perhaps if he asked nicely, the guards would use the tranquilizer on him again. He wouldn’t even fight it this time. Or he could hit his own head-

“I would not recommend that,” his fellow prisoner said from across the way. “I suspect it would not be restful, not in the way you need.” He paused, then added, “I may not know any fictional stories, but if you need something to distract you from your worries, I could tell you about my old garden. It is not exactly a thrilling-”

“Yes,” Truth said gratefully, seizing on any possible distraction. “Yes, please. Anything.”

“Very well,” Nadir said, “I am no poet, but I will do my best.”

“Behind our family house,” he began, slowly, trying to find the right words in an unfamiliar language, “we had a small courtyard, where I grew a variety of flowering plants. I tried to keep one of each I ever found, and it grew quite crowded over the years. There were decorative pillars lining the edges, around which I grew ivy and climbing… climbing roses. At the base of each column were the sturdier plants, the shrubs and the small trees, the little bushes. In the shade of the walls I grew the shyer plants, the ones that wilted from too much sun, and in the center were the sun-loving ones. There was always something blooming, no matter the season, except when the snows came, and even then there were the trees to care for.” His voice deepened as he spoke, the words that had come so slowly beginning to flow easily from his lips as he described the little sanctuary.

“At the far end there was a small stone bowl for the birds to bathe in; I hung little rooms for them from the wall and the pillars there, and left seed for them to eat nearby. In the harvest season some of my bushes grew berries, and they loved those almost as much as the seeds. The bolder ones would fly to your shoulder and eat right from your hands, and sometimes they would let you stroke their heads. Their feathers were nearly as soft as the fine cloth you could sometimes find at the markets, but the smaller ones were so… so fragile I was almost afraid to touch them, for fear they would break.”

“Had I my brother’s talent,” he continued, “I could share with you exactly what it looked like as the rising sun colored the sky and warmed the stone in the early morning, and the sounds of the birds waking in song. Or the way the sun’s rays would filter through the leaves that climbed their way over the wall, before the vines uncurled and the day flowers opened their petals.”

The man clearly loved his garden. A garden that Truth realized, on reflection, was almost certainly no longer in existence. Not after this long.

“I know,” Nadir said, voice once again barely audible. “I have seen enough in your mind and the minds of these others to know that. But I am still here to remember it, even if it is gone. And I can start another, some day. It is something to look forward to.”

A strangely hopeful thought, that. That even here in prison he could look forward to starting a new garden some day. “Maybe you can show me when you do,” Truth said, closing his eyes and trying to imagine it. He’d never seen a sunrise himself, but he’d seen videos.

“I will,” Nadir affirmed. “I think you would like it, doctor.”

“Tell me more,” Truth said, wanting to keep hearing the comforting sound of that quiet voice. It didn’t really matter what it said. “Tell me about your favorites.”

So Nadir began describing his plants in detail, and Truth finally drifted off to sleep, mind full of imagined flowers and darting birds, growing vines tangling the bitter worries that would have woken him.