Summernight

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “Tonight?”

  “Did you forget? One of our rewards for winning is an invitation to the Legend Ball, and you can hardly go in your apprentice clothing. I went ahead and purchased clothing for all the apprentices. Wear it so you don’t disgrace us.”

  The door creaked behind him when he left and Tamerlan lost himself in the routine work of compounding the ointment from the recipe. Easy enough. And a way for the guild to make money to fund their other projects.

  He didn’t even look up when the door creaked open again or when a pair of soft slippers whisked across the wood floor.

  “Ahem.”

  Tamerlan almost dropped his stone pestle when he did look up.

  Sian!

  His eyes went wide, his breath choking in his throat.

  “I know it was you,” she said in a wavering voice.

  Her hood was up, wreathing her face in shadows, but Tamerlan could still see the ugly bruises ringing her neck. Bruises he was responsible for. He made a sound in the back of his throat and took a step forward on impulse.

  She stepped back, slamming into a workbench behind her and scattering herbs across the floor.

  “Don’t come any closer!”

  Tamerlan froze. “I won’t. I promise. I’m so sorry!”

  He felt like he had lost a tiny piece of himself at the look in her eyes.

  “So, it was you,” the words were almost a sob. “I didn’t tell the Watch. I don’t want you to be in trouble, Tamerlan. I used to think ... I always thought ... You used to be a nice boy. The kind of boy a girl felt safe around.”

  “Sian,” he said, hands raised defensively. Her every word was a blow. He’d hurt her. He’d almost killed her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t.” She flinched from his words. “I didn’t tell them this time, but if I ever see you again outside of Library business, I will tell. I’ll tell anyone who will listen. Don’t ever come near me again, Tamerlan!”

  Her eyes were wet with unshed tears and her voice shook in a way that begged him to still it, to iron out the wrinkles of her crumpled heart. But she was already leaving, her threat still hanging in the air like a noxious smell.

  Tamerlan clenched and unclenched his fists in frustration. There was nothing he could do to make this right. He couldn’t even apologize. And he couldn’t even tell himself it wouldn’t happen again, because as soon as he was done compounding this ointment he was going to go up to his room and weigh and measure the rest of his ingredients so he could bathe in smoke again tonight.

  Should he stop? Should he think about what might happen if he used the smoke again?

  Lila Cherrylocks had almost murdered that poor girl with his hands, but she’d also done what she said she could – she’d broken into the Library with ease. It would be just as easy for her to break into the Sunset Tower, especially now that he had an invitation to the Legend Ball. If he chose not to do that, his sister would die. And he hadn’t actually killed Sian. He had stopped Lila in time.

  He would just have to stop her again if things got out of hand. Until Lila Cherrylocks broke his sister free from the Sunset Tower, Tamerlan would just have to eat his guilt and let it haunt him from the inside while he did what he had to on the outside.

  He ran his hand through his hair. None of this was what he’d planned, but with only three nights left, what other option was there?

  Third Night of Summernight

  16: Legend Ball

  Marielle

  WHEN MARIELLE HAD BEEN a little girl her favorite story had been the story of Queen Mer because Variena had been excellent at telling it. Her mother had draped long scarves around herself like water and seaweed as she told the story.

  “The Queen of the Sea is as moody as the sea herself,” her mother had said, waving her arms under the scarves like the shifting tides. “And like the sea, she claims the lives of men and swallows their fortunes. Like the sea itself, she rises up to judge wickedness on the earth and swallow up the haughty.”

  “Like the Dragonblooded?” young Marielle had asked, wide-eyed.

  “Some,” her mother agreed, “But Queen Mer is not concerned with individual guilt. She swallows a ship for the sake of one man in it. Swallows a city for the sins of just a few. Beware the vengeance of the Queen! Her wrath is great! A woman, little flower, a woman never forgets a wrong done to her!”

  And then her mother’s eyes would go wide and she would wave her arms like a giant octopus and chase small Marielle around the room until Marielle folded into a little bundle of laughter and delight and her mother would scoop her up and put her to bed for the night while she entertained her guests.

  That was the closest that Marielle had ever come to a re-enacted Legend.

  Until tonight.

  Marielle straightened her scarf carefully. She wasn’t used to such a loose, gauzy scarf, but using her uniform scarf wouldn’t make sense at a party and the one that Lord Mythos had provided matched the dress.

  The dress felt too pretty to wear. It had been too pretty when she put it on in her room – all clinging, filmy cloth like soft silken clouds – and it was too pretty here. Worse, it smelled of magic – just enough that it made her head whirl and pound. The other Scenters in the barracks had shied away when she walked past, shooting her nervous looks – but she didn’t think it was the dress that was magical, just the residue that the Lord Mythos left on it.

  She’d felt so awkward that she’d left the fancy slippers in the box, leaving her knee-high boots on instead. They were covered by the dress, but she was beginning to regret that decision now that she was so close to the Seven Suns Palace and the wonders beyond. Someone was sure to notice the iron-reinforced soles of her Watch boots.

  She stood in the gently rocking gondola with eight other people as it skimmed across the inky water – one boat in a line of a hundred – waiting for its chance to travel through the Water Gate into the palace.

  A menacing portcullis hung over the Water Gate and dragons had been carved in the wall on either side of it – a ward, no doubt to keep back spirits. But the humans guarding the gates were even more of a deterrent. Their long polearms were tipped with blades as long as Marielle’s arm and they gleamed razor-sharp. The guards smelled of watchful determination, a crisp blue with a hint of peppermint.

  Raucous laughter spilled from the gondola ahead of Marielle’s as it passed through the Water Gate.

  “I don’t care if they won the Scavenger Hunt,” a woman in Marielle’s gondola said with a sniff. “Alchemist Guild members shouldn’t be allowed into the Seven Suns Palace.

  Compared to the crowd of party-goers in her boat and the others, Marielle’s dress was actually quite simple. A man in her boat was dressed as Deathless Pirate with real skulls strung on a rope around his waist and his short-cape slung over his shoulders completely covered in what she thought might be blood-rubies. The feathers in his hat were made of gems and silk and they flashed as if by magic. The woman with him – the one angry about the Alchemists – was dressed as a Lady Sacrifice, just like Marielle, but she wore a white dress sewn all over in tiny bits of mirror and metallic thread that barely clung to her swaying curves. They both smelled of arrogance and anticipation.

  Marielle’s eyes had widened at the sight of them when she had joined them in the gondola, but they were only the first of many. It turned out that her “elaborate” dress was quite plain in comparison to those around her. Maybe she should have worn the slippers that went with them. If anyone saw her City Watch boots under the dress, she’d look like a fool – though she was a lot less likely to twist an ankle than the woman ahead of her who was dressed like Queen Mer and wore slippers with heels so high that she tottered worse than a ship on high seas.

  A loud gong sounded as they entered the Water Gate. The deep throbbing sound reverberating from a long way away. Marielle knew it was the great gong that stood in the central square of the Government District but even knowing that didn’t keep her from being startled at the sound.


  A loud splash from a gondola behind them suggested that someone else had been startled by the gong.

  “I don’t know why they have to ring that old gong every Summernight. It gives me a headache,” the other Lady Sacrifice complained as their gondola finally reached the landing inside the walls of the Seven Suns Palace and they began to disembark.

  Already, just steps into the palace, Marielle was in awe, her eyes as large as they had been in those days when her mother playacted Queen Mer. She had no time for the critical complaints of the Landholds arriving with her. Bright lanterns hung along the water’s edge, lighting the water with a thousand tiny lights like the stars in the sky. They hung in long chains from the walls of the inner palace.

  Marielle and the others entered through a wide arched door and into the space beyond where painted silks of landscapes were hung with lights fastened behind them, throwing colorful lights out from the cloth and long, dark shadows.

  Between the lights and shadows, characters in costume with painted faces mimed the stories of Legend. Marielle recognized Queen Mer with her dripping crown and vengeful countenance – but this Queen Mer wore a dress bedecked with sewn glass beads that reflected the colored lights and flashed with her fury.

  Byron Bronzebow stood proud and noble as he redistributed wealth to the commoners – wealth he’d stolen from the Landhold of his city when he challenged him to an archery contest and won. And then more wealth that he stole again when he fooled the Landhold and made him a public disgrace.

  The spectacles went on as the crowd grew, slowing down as they reached a pair of shadowed doors lit with flickering torches.

  Marielle felt edgy. The wonder of the crowd – a delicate ivory tinged with the sent of warm fir trees – filled her nose, but with it came a thousand smaller scents. Irritation, impatience, lust, anger, hope, ambition. They flooded her senses so that she could hardly take a breath. She pulled up the scarf, letting a single layer wind around her mouth and nose, but even that was not enough to do more than dull the ache of so many humans with so many hearts throbbing their own orchestral strains and clashing against each other like warring swords.

  A burst of sparks rained out of the torches and then, from above, a wide sheet descended, the corners tied with silken ropes and suspended from above. A woman lounged on the sheet. Her garb was that of Maid Chaos, the breast-plated warrior with a crown of dying roses who stood at the right hand of Death and while this Maid Chaos was cheerfully eating grapes while brandishing her silver shears, Marielle couldn’t help but shiver. Maid Chaos was her least favorite of the Legends. Wherever she went, Death followed.

  “Welcome to the Legend Ball on the Third Night of Summernight,” she proclaimed. “Take care, for on this night, Legends walk the halls with you and the man you speak to, or the woman you dance with, may be no man or woman at all, but a Legend from the past come back for just one night to bid us a merry Summernight.”

  “Do you think it’s true?” an eager girl from beside Marielle asked. Her Maid Chaos outfit was almost as elaborate as the woman in the sheet, but with a more buxom breastplate. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to dance with a Legend?”

  Marielle gave her a tight smile, realizing too late that she couldn’t see it from under the veil. It would most certainly not be lovely. Marielle had a bad feeling that any Legends walking the earth today would need to be arrested before they broke every single city law.

  The sheet was pulled back up into the shadows and the doors were flung open. Music spilled from the great room beyond, accompanied by so many scents that Marielle was forced to wind two more lengths of scarf around her face. It wasn’t thick enough to suppress so many hopes and fears and disappointments mingling into a powerful deluge that threatened to crush her.

  She stumbled to the side, grabbing at a carved pillar to steady her as she choked on the cloying scents. Other bodies, jostling to enter the room, swept her along in their movement until she was in the Grand Hall, the vaulted ceiling soaring above her where hundreds of candles were set in each hanging chandelier and hundreds of chandeliers hung over the room. Just paying the chandler bill for a single night would take more money that Marielle could earn in a year.

  She couldn’t see far into the room with so many people crushed against her, but there were hints overhead of spectacles to be viewed and intricate devices.

  And then suddenly, the other scents were all swept away as a fresh, over-powering smell washed over them, not just overpowering them but almost burning them away. The scent of magic.

  “I’m glad that you accepted my invitation, Marielle,” Lord Mythos’s cultured voice said from beside her.

  Marielle looked up, her breath catching in her throat at his perfect dress. Alone, of all the guests, he was not dressed as anything at all. He simply wore all black in perfect, precise tailoring that made everyone else’s elaborate costuming look garish in comparison.

  “I do apologize,” he said, concern lacing his tone, but never touching his icy eyes. “I forgot what a powerful effect an event like this might have on a Scenter. They’re about to start the entertainment, and I’m afraid it will only get worse.”

  He did not look sorry. The way his eyes weighed her made Marielle wonder if he had planned that effect. Had he given her such a light filmy scarf because he knew it could not protect her from the onslaught of scents? Or was she being narcissistic to think that any of this was about her?

  “Entertainment?” Marielle asked, cursing herself for her waving voice.

  Gleaming bird cages descended from the ceiling, but these were not for birds. They were sized for people.

  “It’s not real magic – of course,” the Lord Mythos said with a tiny smile. “You could smell that immediately, I’m sure.” Then where was the overpowering scent of magic coming from? “But with this much belief in the room, this much hope, this many fears, and nerve-sizzling anxieties, well anything might look like magic.”

  There was a flash and a pop in the golden cages, eliciting small screams and gasps from the crowd and a electric-blue and ivory scent of excited wonder burst up into the air like puffing clouds. Each cage now contained one of the Legends, perfectly costumed.

  “It’s a game,” Lord Mythos said. “My guests will ask the people in cages questions to discover which is the real Legend and which ones are merely play-acting. A magical game in some ways, but it is not why I asked you to meet me here. Come.”

  He didn’t really mean that he thought he had a true Legend in one of those cages ... did he?

  He strode past her, his short-cape swirling as he passed and his rapier scabbard rattling. He turned back after two steps and raised a single eyebrow.

  Oh. Yes. He was waiting for her.

  With a start, Marielle adjusted her face-scarf, glad that it protected her from both the scents in the room and the embarrassment of a blush, and hurried after him.

  17: Unexpected

  Tamerlan

  TAMERLAN GROUND HIS ingredients with the pestle as quickly as he could, his hands slipping on the rough stone in his haste. He’d overslept. The Alchemists and apprentices were already heading out to the gondolas that would take them to the Seven Suns Palace. Unless he hurried, they would leave without him.

  He’d been left a costume as promised – a ridiculous Deathless Pirate costume, complete with purple short-cape, a hook to hold in one hand, and a belt of gleaming skulls. He dressed before he started combining the ingredients. He didn’t want Lila Cherrylocks to try to dress as herself again. Maybe if he was already in costume, she’d just accept how he was dressed.

  He could hear apprentices leaving, their loud voices carrying up through the open window into his room. He needed to hurry, or he would miss the gondolas and he was counting on them to bring him right into the heart of the Seven Suns Palace. This time, Lila Cherrylocks could enter easily and then she could help him sneak down the halls and find the Sunset Tower.

  His heart was already beating faster, his breathing acc
elerating with excitement and anticipation. It was going to work. He’d already seen her do something just as difficult and she loved parties. She would be easy to work with this time.

  This time, he had all the opportunity he needed to steal his sister away from the tower and run away with her. Before he slept, he’d packed away essentials along with food and water and the extra orrisleaf he’d stolen – he had far more than he needed of that. The bundles were in the corner of his room just waiting to be used.

  This time, he was ready. This time, he felt confident and hopeful instead of despairing. It was going to work. He could feel it in his bones.

  He finished grinding the herbs – he’d used up all of them except for that orrisleaf - and hurried to the grate. He’d borrowed wood from Dathan’s room when he wasn’t there. It wasn’t like Dathan would be needing it in the middle of summer anyway.

  Sparking a fire with his steel and flint, he tucked them into his pocket and blew gently on the sparks as they lit the tiny ball of dried grass and twigs he’d prepared. He fidgeted with the silly purple cape as he waited for the fire to grow. Fashion demanded that short capes be worn tied over one shoulder and under the other to give the impression of broad shoulders and chests. A ridiculous fashion.

  When the flames finally leapt high enough – their flame in the wood strong enough not to go out when the herbs and powder were added – he dumped the concoction hastily on the fire. Hopefully, he’d done it right – just like last time. Hopefully, it would work again.

  With every nerve tingling, he stuck his head over the fire. He’d meant to gulp in a huge breath of smoke but after a single half-breath he fell back from the fire, his stinging eyes slamming shut as he gasped for fresh air and retched on the smoke. Had it been that strong last time? Coughs ripped through his body, scouring his lungs until he fell to his hands and knees, trembling from the effects. He should have had a bigger breath than that, but when he looked back at the fire, the ingredients were gone, burnt up by the flame. Only woodsmoke remained.