I sat swaying, squirming and red-faced on the couch in Aralia’s office. I felt absolutely mortified to be under the scrutiny of Pasha, Aralia and Emilia, especially since Monarda had just melted all my thoughts into a cloying warmth.

  My mind felt coated in sticky, melted wax and my panties weren’t much better. There was no way they would let me off easy, right? I was about to face the combined power of their questioning–they would grill me mercilessly about Roxa, I was sure of it. And I was much too softened up to resist.

  “Give her a second,” ughed Monarda, stroking my back with a proprietary touch. “She’s a responsive little thing.”

  I groaned and blushed harder. Monarda had just been nice to me, that was all–and this was how I responded? I cursed myself internally, not for the first time, for being such a pliable, dumb little prey animal.

  Emilia’s eyes bzed reproachfully at her sister, but Monarda only grinned back shamelessly, still moving her hand in little circles on my back. It felt…much too good. Fuck.

  I was so done for.

  “Come here, girl,” Emilia ordered.

  The colr around my neck gave a warning tingle and I flinched and stood hastily.

  Seeing me jump, Emilia frowned. “I withdraw my st directive,” she said quickly. “Sorry Ellie,” she added, not unkindly. “But seriously, we must talk. If you would please come here?”

  Even phrased as a question, her voice was commanding. Instinctively, I took a few steps forward, still fighting my blush.

  “I absolutely forbid you both from compelling answers from her using the colr,” Aralia butted in testily, gncing at me. “She’s demonstrably been through enough on our behalf already.”

  I blinked. Now Aralia was advocating for me? With all that was now riding on what I might know? Could she really be on my side, after all? Or was this just another act?

  Pasha ignored her protest, and beckoned me closer. I hesitated and he threw an annoyed look at Aralia then turned back to me.

  “Look, Ellie. You’ve done very well, and I’m going to be honest with you, because you have indeed earned some trust. We’re in quite a new pickle now, if the Duchess Lapita is truly on the board and making such bold moves.” He grimaced. “Her foreign affairs agent, the Countess Monir, is a formidable adversary whose reputation precedes her, and whose daughter Roxa seems to have inherited her…proclivities. Caught between the Hierophancy, the administration and the Duchy, our chances are growing grimmer and slimmer with every passing hour.” He sighed. “You clearly knew Roxa, and she, you. If you have any inklings–”

  “Please,” I interrupted desperately. “I didn’t know anything about her–” I swallowed hard against my cloying despair. “Her true mission here.”

  “I told you both this,” Aralia said harshly. “She had no idea about the Monirs. I watched it all py out. There was no faking her reaction–she couldn’t hide her bewilderment. Besides, if Crissa was right about Mi–”

  I froze. What did that mean?

  “And if Mi has gone over to the Duchy?” Pasha bulled over her, his voice rising insistently. “Even if she has done so under duress, to count on her as an ally is foolhardy in the extreme. Roxa Monir has had months to set hooks in her. I know it’s tempting to think otherwise, Aralia, but Mi was probably a honey trap for you from the beginning. We have to assume that the sooner we bring her into our circle, the sooner Monir will have us for breakfast.”

  I winced.

  “Last night Penelope openly boasted of thanomancy in my hearing, Pasha, and I’ve already confirmed she has the quicksilver to back it up. We cannot assume anything except that the rules of the game have changed. This girl before you may well be our sole key to the trust of the only bellwitch within thousands of leagues–need I say more? We have nothing to gain by forcing Ellie into an interrogation, and everything to lose.”

  I shook my head in confusion as Pasha gred at her. Beside him, Emilia was looking me over with a new gleam in her eye.

  “What are you talking about?” I said pintively, and blushed as Pasha shot Aralia a look of pursed impatience over my head. None of these words–bellwitch, quicksilver, thanomancer–meant anything to me, but a small hope had lit in my breast–could it be they didn’t know Mi was a tea girl, after all?

  “She hasn’t heard the old stories,” said Pasha ftly.

  “Of course not,” Emilia sighed, crossing her arms.

  For no reason I understood, my cheeks burned an even brighter hue of red.

  “Those stories are far too subversive for their telling to be allowed here,” said Aralia. “Social hygiene’s ultimate purpose is to enclose all the tent possibilities of what can come next into a Future by sanitizing all that came before. Ellie was never allowed a glimpse of the great forest of stories that we all understood to be the past before we were forced to encounter the Imperiati concepts of History and Progress.”

  “Even if you’re right, it doesn’t matter whether Mi is with the Duchy by choice or under duress, she’s out of our reach!”

  “We’ll be able to judge that for ourselves tonight,” Emilia said, and he went still. “If Monir pys by any kind of book I know, she’ll make a show of force, which will give us ample opportunity to assess the strength of her operation. The Andartes still remember the old allegiances that brought down the thanomancers of a thousand years ago. We would be remiss to leave a bellwitch imprisoned in the Duchy’s power, even if the Hierophancy weren’t meddling with the veil.”

  This went entirely over my head, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and listen.

  “Then all the more reason to find out everything we can,” snapped Pasha, turning to me. “Right now.”

  I saw Emilia hesitate.

  So did Aralia. “If either of you push her on this, it will not end well. Pasha–”

  But he was already speaking insistently to Emilia. “Mi is the one who saw our smuggling operation in the tunnel, and she’s obviously the one who told Monir about it. Ellie may not be able to tell us about this new threat from the Duchy, but we all know she’s protecting Mi, who can.”

  I flinched back from his gold-armored gaze, right into Monarda, who had risen silently and come to stand behind me. She slid her arm around my waist and I nearly let out a squeak when she pulled me closer.

  “I agree with Aralia. No compulsions,” she said, her voice firm and final. She sought her sister’s gaze and when Emilia finally nodded, I melted a little into Monarda’s side, my knees wobbly and my sex convulsing involuntarily. I was so done for.

  “This girl belongs to us now,” Emilia said. “And I would have us honor the risk she took, and not abuse her vulnerability with interrogations.”

  A little shudder of relief ran down my spine. Can I really trust them?

  “We’ve come to the end of the line anyway, Pasha,” Aralia said harshly. “Penelope as good as admitted what she’s up to in that tower to my face, twice now. The Duchy is not what we need to be worried about–if we are too busy dealing with each other to reckon with what she will unleash, she will sweep us both and rule the board unchallenged.” She gnced at me, her golden hawk eyes fring. “Last night Ellie confronted her directly, and took a fatal risk to do so.”

  The tips of my ears went very hot.

  “It may have been foolish in the extreme, but it made me realize something I have so far struggled to see clearly–we must follow her example, whether we survive the gambit or not.”

  Fuck, they were all looking at me now. I squirmed, my face heating even further. Monarda’s hand settled between my shoulder bdes and I was too grateful to do anything but lean into her reassuring touch.

  Aralia swept her gaze around the room. “What the Hierophancy is doing here must be destroyed utterly, even if it means we lose our foothold at Harmine–even if it means we must bring this pce down on our own heads. If we falter, if we hesitate, we will lose everything anyway.”

  I thought of the pouring song of the current, pulling me towards the perilous and uncompromising stars, and swallowed hard.

  “And what of our people, Aralia?” Pasha retorted. “How will we find them, if not through our work here? We have put so many years and tears and blood into this pce. Would you throw all that away? What of–” Pasha cut himself off with a grimace and swallowed, before pushing ahead, his voice tight with emotion. “What would she say?”

  “I think she would tell us to keep moving, mia canar,” Aralia murmured, her voice burring roughly in the back of her throat. “If I knew our lost ones at all, they would insist we risk everything to act now. Especially Kalista. You cannot tell me that deep down you don’t know that, can you?”

  A silence stretched between them, taught and helplessly heavy with unspoken grief. I looked away, embarrassed, as Pasha grimaced and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and finally dropped the pleading fury of his gaze.

  Aralia took a deep breath. Her voice, when she spoke, was softer than I’d ever heard her be. “Besides, if we do this thing, I can’t help but think we’re not leaving her behind or throwing her away, but somehow walking towards her.”

  I bit my lip, feeling my heart’s careful armor crack in my breast, letting through a seeping, raw ache. After what I’d glimpsed st night in that brief, wondrous slipstream of dying, I couldn’t help but soften towards these people now that I had some idea of what moved them.

  Pasha stared at Aralia for a long, dense moment and then he sighed heavily. “As you wish.” He circled Aralia’s desk and dropped moodily into her chair. “But if you all refuse to compel the Imperiati girl, then we should strike the Hierophancy tonight. You all know what that means. Aralia doesn’t go to meet Monir. We forget this nonsense about saving Mi Finnochio from the Duchy–”

  “Wait,” I blurted. “What? No!”

  “With Penelope Caul binding Eaters to her will?” said Aralia sharply. “No, we must bring Mi over.”

  I shivered as a fresh gust of memory blew through me–Creswell’s hard flint eyes mocking me. Scream all you like. Somehow, I think they like Eating the screamers more.

  Emilia nodded grudging agreement. “A bellwitch is the only tactical match for a thanomancer. All the old stories are unequivocal on that. Who knows–she may be able to help sway the whole course of this war, here and now.”

  “And as I’ve said several times, she may be Monir’s asset through and through. We can’t afford to take that chance!”

  Emilia raised her eyebrows at him. “We can’t afford not to, either, Pasha. What happened to Crissa is proof enough that none of us can directly contend with thanomantic abilities.”

  “And we won’t have to. Wherever Penelope’s b is tucked away in that Tower, it won’t survive our contingency attack.”

  Creswell’s voice crept, cold and gleeful, through my mind. You saw what it’s like down there, yes? In the darkness, where you’re going, there are many hungry mouths to feed.

  I opened my mouth, hesitated. “I think whatever Penelope’s doing, it’s happening below the Tower,” I blurted. “Not inside it.”

  Monarda gave me a sharp look. “You think her boratory is somewhere in that byrinth of tunnels?”

  I nodded, remembering the limestone caves, the echoing all-dark, those lipless, inky mouths stretching open in silent screams. “When he caught me in the Tower, before Alexi saved me, Creswell was gloating…threatening to feed me to–to them–down there,” I muttered.

  “That makes sense,” mused Monarda. “There’s too many cave exits and entrances to count. It’s a literal maze. Any direct assault could easily fall into an ambush…”

  “Fine. All the more reason to attack decisively using alchemical weapons.”

  “We don’t have the munitions to gas the entire warren,” said Emilia, her voice hard. “The boiler pn is still our best shot.”

  Aralia sighed. “Even if that works and it outright kills everyone and destroys the b, we’ll never find out if that’s where the Hierophancy quicksilver production was taking pce. And if just one of the production alchemists survives, they’ll just start it up again somewhere else. No, I must see it with my own eyes. I have to confront Penelope and draw the information out of her, before I kill her. The rest of you have parts to py elsewhere.”

  “Aralia, you can’t fight a thanomancer, even a fledgling one.” Pasha’s voice was strained. “If you go in there, you go to your death. Even with a bellwitch by your side–”

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Aralia said dryly. “But I don’t want the consumption of any of your souls on my conscience.” Her eyes flicked to me, standing stricken and rigid. “I don’t intend to bring Mi down there with me either, Ellie.”

  I stared at her, frowning. Was she lying?

  “What we must ask Mi to do is carry this warning back to the bellwitches of Opali–that the Hierophancy has dug up the rotten bones of thanomancy, and stolen the realm-crossing key of quicksilver, and the alchemical means to make more. If I fail down there, getting that message out is the only thing that matters.”

  I blinked back at her. Little of this made sense to me, except the part about Mi going home. “Can you get her on a ship? Like you swore to?”

  Aralia looked at Emilia, who nodded. “Probably. The full moon is tonight and our people should be arriving for the shipment that was promised. If Mi joins them on the return, she could be safely on Faso within a week, and from there finding a berth to Opali is a simple matter.”

  Pasha stood. His face had taken on a stricken look. “Aralia, please listen to reason. If you go to those coordinates tonight, you won’t find Mi there–Monir is clearly keeping you away from her on purpose. Even if you can somehow find her, and get her away from the Duchy, there’s no way she’ll trust you enough to board a ship full of strangers.”

  And just like that, I saw my chance.

  “No, but I can do it,” I said, pulling away from Monarda. “Send me.”

  Everyone looked at me in astonishment.

  “Let me go with Aralia tonight,” I crified, my heart beating hard and fast. “Hand me over to the Duchy on some pretext. Roxa will jump at the chance, no matter what she said earlier. She’ll take me back to wherever they’re keeping Mi–she won’t be able to resist putting us together–and I can let Mi know about the offer of a smuggler’s ship back to Faso.”

  “Roxa Monir seemed not to care much about your life, Ellie.” Aralia looked vastly displeased with my counter-proposal. “And you haven’t exactly convinced us that she feels otherwise. Not to mention her superiors, of whom we know nothing. If you come with me tonight, against her instructions to come alone–”

  “Then there’s a chance I’ll be able to pass a message to Mi,” I interrupted.

  “And there’s a chance you won’t live to!” Aralia snapped.

  I bit my lip, resisting the urge to fold. She seemed genuinely upset. “Roxa won’t dispose of me,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster. “She was bluffing.” I think.

  “Good to know,” observed Emilia dryly. “Better te than never, I suppose.”

  Aralia had pinned me with a gaze like a steel nce, and looked as if she were deciding whether or not to call bullshit.

  Pasha was shaking his head. “And if you’re wrong? If the Duchy interrogates you? If–”

  I was losing patience. “Then dowse me and come get us both before they do! How else were you going to get Mi away from the Duchy, except by force?”

  “Aye,” Emilia’s mouth quirked. “She has a point there.”

  “The fastest, easiest way to find Mi is to use me as bait,” I said triumphantly. “If you’re not willing to do that, you should forget about her and focus on Penelope.”

  “And if your gambit fails, Ellie?” Aralia’s voice was a whipsh. “If they separate you? If Mi has already made her choice?”

  “Then you’ll have to leave me with them and move on Penelope on your own,” I fred back, flushing defiantly. I had never felt so out of my depth, and yet so stubborn before. “But you certainly won’t be worse off than you are right now.”

  “What if you can’t get Mi to trust us?” Aralia’s penetrating golden gaze narrowed. “Or you, for that matter?”

  Ouch. That stung, more than I liked.

  “Then what do you stand to lose?” I said, trying not to let my voice falter, though my throat felt like gss spiderwebbing with cracks, on the ragged edge of shattering. “I’ve served my purpose here, haven’t I?”

  “Ellie–” Monarda said roughly.

  Whatever she was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it. “Face it, I’m still the only one of you that Mi will maybe listen to,” I interrupted, trying to say the words as if I believed them. “Getting the two of us in the same room is your only hope of getting her to carry your message.”

  “Why?” said Pasha abruptly. “Why would you put yourself in such danger again?”

  “I’m already living on bargained time. This way I can at least offer Mi a way home,” I said, looking each of them straight in the eye. “I’m not much use otherwise. I…can’t really fight.” My cheeks warmed. “But I can do this.”

  Pasha’s tawny eyes were still as armored as ever, but the shape of his mouth softened ever so slightly.

  Monarda looked grudgingly, reluctantly impressed.

  Emilia gave me a judicious nod.

  Aralia’s jaw was clenched, her hawk gaze fixed on mine.

  “I–I’m not altogether sure what counts as loyalty and friendship anymore, and what counts as forsaking it,” I admitted, meeting Aralia’s gaze. “But I think this is the right thing to do.”

  Everyone was actually listening to me.

  My voice strengthened as I lifted my chin. I could see something in Aralia’s golden eyes crumbling as each word I spoke fed the bzing furnace in my breast. “I think I should find Mi and tell her what’s at stake. That’s what I can promise.”

  “Not bad,” said Emilia, the corners of her mouth tugging up in a rare smile. “Might be our best shot, actually.”

  “Ellie, that thing around your neck…” Monarda took a small step towards me, frowning. “Is the chance that your friend will listen really worth all the pain that strangers can inflict on you?”

  I closed my eyes and felt again that overwhelming, gut-churning sense of stepping out onto a swaying limb over a steep drop. My heart remembered falling, and recently–I flinched at the mere echo of the agony that the razor-edges of the rocks below could wreck.

  I took a deep, aching breath, and reached hesitant tendrils of my will into the sliding current, recalling how easily my sense of myself had dissolved into the dimensional waters only st night. The passage was still fresh, still rippling, still beckoning. I felt the fabric of my spirit thrum suddenly and snap wide, like a sail catching wind.

  –Silver skeins stretching beyond my comprehension, in a vast, unduting webwork of risk and grief and affection, as old and easily shared between us as light between stars–

  Warmth and breath flowed through my lungs, easing the frozen cramp of despair in my ribs. Even if my trust was battered and ruined and crippled beyond hope of healing, I could still decide to risk my heart anyway, when it really counted, for the right girl.

  I might not be able to do much, but I could do that.

  I opened my eyes. “It’s a risk, but if I can reach her, I trust what she’ll do about it.”

  Pasha frowned. “I still think we should move on the Hierophancy tonight, but if you all insist on finding Mi, this may be the best way.”

  Emilia shrugged. “It can’t hurt. Are we agreed?”

  “No,” grumbled Monarda. “But if she wants to do it…I don’t see another option.”

  “This–” Aralia pinched the bridge of her nose for a long moment. “Fine. Just–fine.”

  “Right.” I swallowed. My heart was thundering loud and fast. “So. Give me as long as you can?”

  “You have a night and a day,” said Monarda, gncing at the others for silent confirmation. “Before we do anything too drastic.”

  “If that,” growled Aralia.

  Emilia cpped me heartily on the back, nearly making me stumble and lose my bance. “Good luck, though.”

  Monarda grabbed me by the arm to steady me and I flinched, only half in relief. “You little idiot,” she breathed. “Do you know you’re going to get hurt?”

  “Do you think that’s not going to happen anyway?” I retorted, testing her hardsoft gaze with mine. “We only really have a choice about how.”

  Monarda rolled her eyes loudly.

  “None of us are in this room because we’re trying to survive,” Emilia said with a dark edge of satisfaction.

  Her sister released me reluctantly. “Yes, alright, but why does she have to be so stubborn and irritating about it?”

  I opened my mouth, searching for the words to thank them for refusing to interrogate me, then snapped it shut as the door to Aralia’s office burst open. We all tensed and Monarda drew a glittering length of sharp steel almost faster than the eye could follow, but it was only a panting Alexi.

  “Crissa’s gone,” he gasped. He was sporting a rapidly swelling bck eye and a slight limp. “Roxa took her.”

  ChaoticArmcandy