Allister leaned in. “Nalan. You ridiculous asshole. Go have sex with something. Just go! Go do it!”
Nalan pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to maintain his composure. “You talk like that's an option.”
“How is that not an option?” Allister said, barely keeping his voice below a shout. “I'm beginning to worry about you—medically! I'm worried one of your pipes is going to pop and kill you in your sleep!”
“I'm not you, okay? I can't just...go do that.”
“Why, because you want it to mean something?”
Nalan stared right into Allister. “Yes. That's it. Exactly.”
Allister rolled his eyes. “Look, Nalan. I love you like my little, brain damaged brother, and I'm here to tell you that sex doesn't mean anything. It feels amazing, it's great for cardiovascular health, but it means nothing. It's not some great spiritual act, or some mystical conjuration of elemental forces...it's just sex!”
Nalan glared at Allister. “Then you're not doing it right,” he seethed.
The temperature around Allister's body suddenly shot up by twenty degrees. Through clenched teeth, he spat, “I'm not...doing it right?”
Devan stepped between them. “You know what this is?”
The air around Allister's body could turn water to steam. “The day I pioneer the field of pyrotechnic castration?” he hissed.
“This is the two of you getting aggravated and turning on each other because you're frustrated over the vault lock.”
Allister shot Devan a dangerous look.
“You know I'm right,” Devan said.
Allister’s shoulders slumped again. He took a deep breath and relented, running a hand through his hair again. Nalan frowned and scratched his forehead. The air temperature returned to normal.
“Come here,” Devan said, leading them over to an empty table by the wall. They sat. Devan caught the arm of a serving girl and ordered a round. Meanwhile, Nalan and Allister sat facing away from one another, not talking, not moving. “Talk it out with me,” Devan said.
“You know it all,” Allister muttered. “What else is there to say?”
Devan got in his face. Allister refused to look him in the eyes. “Talk it out,” Devan insisted. He looked over at Nalan. “The gold goes into the tabernacles. We thought the tabernacles’ teleportation spell sent the gold to the lock room. We were wrong—the gold goes somewhere else.” Devan looked over to Allister. “The lock is the end point for a second teleportation spell, which the guards use to fill up the carts with gold bound for the counting room. Open the lock, gold pours out.” He turned back to Nalan again. “Nalan. In the lock room. What did you see?”
“Four walls, ceiling and floor,” Nalan said quietly. “Cart tracks on the floor.”
“The cart goes back and forth to the counting room,” Devan said.
“Right.”
“How do the tracks look?”
Nalan knitted his brow. “Metal?” Then he remembered: “Worn, they've been used a lot.”
“Okay...okay...” Devan mulled it over. “What else. What did you say were on the walls?”
“Brass icons. Three of them.”
“Like the ones in Instructor Winselle's?”
“Sort of,” Allister piped up, finally. “These were about the same size, but their harmonic was way different.”
The beer arrived. “But they work on the same basic concept, right?” Devan took a gulp from his stein and wiped the foam from his nose. “They anchor the working, right?”
Allister nodded, deep in thought.
“So,” Devan said, “what if we pull up the anchor?”
Nalan cocked his head to one side. “Pry the icons out of the wall?”
“Yeah,” Devan said. “Do they have to be in that one room to work? Or could we take them with us and set them up somewhere else?”
“Move the lock somewhere else and open it?” Allister leaned into the table, covering his nose and mouth with his hands. His eyes were darting back and forth. “The dimensions of the field would fold and distort as we moved the icons...but there's no reason to think that would disrupt the working...” He looked over at Nalan. Nalan looked back at him. “That could work.”
“But Allister still can't interact with the lock,” Nalan said. He wasn't complaining; he was just listing the remaining issues. “And even if he could, he's no picklock.”
“Z's working on the first problem,” Devan said, “and I have an idea for the second. But, speaking of Z...” Devan downed the rest of his beer and set the stein on the table. “...I should go find her. She's keeping an eye on Phaedra and...well, asking your girlfriend to babysit your mistress is probably not a pot you should leave boiling for too long.”
“And you say we aren't doing it right,” Allister told Nalan with a smirk.
“You aren't,” Nalan said into his stein.
“You—”
Devan put a hand on Allister's shoulder, cutting his friend off before he could start. “Find a way to make this happen, Alli,” he said. “We can’t afford any more situations like the one with the displacement ward.” He rose and left.
Allister slumped back in his chair and shook his head. “What?” Allister asked flatly when he noticed Nalan watching him.
“It’s just the way he is,” Nalan said.
Allister scoffed. “Yeah. Tell me about it.” He shook his head. “I’d just...feel a lot better if he was ever wrong about something. Even once. You know?”
Nalan thought about it a moment then said, “He was wrong not to congratulate you on saving us from those two Furies. That can’t have been easy.”
Allister raised an eyebrow at Nalan as if surprised. He smiled.
“Nalan, you big idiot,” he said, raising his glass. “I wish you and Cheris many happy years together. Just do your best not to think back on all the years you wasted not enjoying yourself.”
Nalan raised his glass back at Allister. “And, Allister, I hope you don't die of syphilis.”
Allister nodded gravely. “I'll drink to that.”
Zella
“Drake!” Phaedra's eyes grew huge, as they often did when she got excited, which she often did. She crossed the room to him and melted into him—knees, then hips, then lips.
Zella wondered what the punishment would be in this city for stabbing a redhead as many times as she wanted to. Then she wondered what the punishment would be for just stabbing her forty times or so.
“Mmm...” Phaedra moaned as she pulled her face away from Devan's.
“Mmm...” Devan moaned back with a smile.
“Mm,” Zella sniffed.
“Drake, I was beginning to think you'd forgotten all about me,” Phaedra said in her baby voice. “And here I almost had Zara on the verge of telling me all your secrets.” She laughed.
Zella laughed too. It was awful. Like children dying.
“Forget you?” Devan said, pushing a lock of Phaedra's thick red hair back over her ear. “Show me how that's possible.”
“Oh, me too,” Zella said, presenting her biggest, fakest smile. “Show me first.”
Phaedra laughed with her. Phaedra's fake smile was far more convincing. “Zara was just telling me about your lives growing up in the slums of the golden city. All this...” She waved around her at the vast ballroom and all of its colorful inhabitants. “...this must be as amazing for you two as it is for me.”
Devan looked around. “This isn't all that great, is it? Not compared to The Palace.”
“Ah,” Phaedra said with a sly smile. “But in The Palace's ballroom, I was waiting tables and wearing chef's whites. Here?” She twirled on the ball of one foot. Her red gown flared out in a ring of fire around her. “I can dance.”
Devan watched every inch of her and shook his head. “You really can,” he said quietly.
She took his hand. “Go dancing with me?”
Zella watched him, hoping he’d accept, while simultaneously hoping he wouldn’t. “I really shouldn't,” h
e said slowly. “But soon! Right now, though, Z and I have some things to talk about.”
“Ooh,” Phaedra cooed. “Thief talk?” She positively shivered with excitement.
“Ssssomething like that.” Devan went to kiss her on the forehead, but Phaedra bounced up on her tiptoes and intercepted his lips with hers. “Ahhh!” Devan laughed at the girl and her incorrigibility.
“You two work hard,” she said. “I'll go see if your friend Niro wants to dance.”
“I wouldn't do that,” Devan chuckled, thinking about the state Nalan was in. “Not if you plan on wearing that dress again. There could be stains.”
Zella slapped Devan on the chest. “Don't be disgusting.”
Devan hung his head. “I'm disgusting,” he moaned playfully. Zella pushed Devan into the crowd before Phaedra had time to toss off another precious rejoinder and Zella was forced to murder her.
“I swear to all the gods, dark and loathsome,” she hissed as they walked, “ten more minutes, and—”
“Oh, she's not so bad,” Devan smirked. “You two are actually a lot alike.”
“You know, Drake, an aneurysm is a terrible way to die,” Zella said.
“So you keep telling me. You get anything out of her?”
“Just her life story.” Zella called up to Devan. She was having trouble keeping up with Devan’s long-legged gait as he cut through the crowd, his handicap notwithstanding. “Plus the names of all her pets since she was three, and a long, involved sob story about her sickly brother.”
“No, I mean...” Devan tapped the side of his head.
“Yeah, funny thing about that. It seems your girlfriend thinks in a different language than she speaks. I couldn't understand a word she was thinking.”
The band began to play a soft waltz. “Hunh,” Devan said. “Funny.” He stopped abruptly, turned on his cane, and gathered Zella up in his free arm.
“What are you doing?” Zella complained.
Devan smiled down at her. “Dance with me?”
Suddenly tight against his chest, Zella was amazed, as she always was, at how warm Devan was. She could feel him radiating through his clothes. A week had been a long time to be angry with him. It was getting old, and she so wanted him to give her a reason to stop.
“All right,” she said, relenting at last. “But this doesn't count. You still owe me a night out.”
He passed his cane to the hand behind Zella's back. “Then you won't mind if we talk shop,” he replied, taking her hand in his.
The Collegium's annual galas gave Zella plenty of chances to dance with people, but nobody danced like Devan. Because of his leg, he moved in perpetual free fall—always falling, always catching himself at the last minute, either on his cane or on her. He didn't have the best sense of rhythm, but for Zella, just feeling his body move next to hers was never short of hypnotic. Quickly, the music fell away, and she moved to match him, staying pressed tightly into him, holding him up, letting him fall.
“So. Samus.”
“Hm?” Zella murmured.
“Samus,” Devan said with a smile. “What did he tell you? Weren't you going to go meet him as he came into the city?”
“Samus. Yes.” She cleared her throat. “He did some checking. The counting room carts are enchanted; when one approaches the lock, the lock opens and releases a uniform quantity of gold coins. After that, the cart can’t open the lock again for twenty-four hours.”
“A cartload of gold would be nice,” Devan said. “But not as good as all the cartloads of gold.”
“Which means we’ll need to open the lock manually. There aren't many people who are able to interact with the lock, but Samus seems certain that Faerathore is one of them.”
“Faerathore?”
“The Cenerons' lieutenant.”
“Ah.” Devan's hand on her back pulled her even tighter to him as they swayed back and forth on the dance floor.
“Distracted?” Zella asked, smiling to herself.
He laughed. “You wish.” The heat from his body rolled off him in waves now. A thin bead of sweat trickled down Zella's neck. “So what we need, then, is an Inflection of Faerathore.”
“And it'll have to be a good one. Fooling Instructor Winselle's protection circles were one thing. To hear Allister tell it, The Palace is working at a whole different level.”
“To get an Inflection that good,” Devan said, “you'll need to really connect with Faerathore. Really form an intense interpersonal connection.”
Slowly, Zella looked up into Devan's eyes and smiled. “Yup,” was all that she said to that.
“Maybe this is just me getting old before my time,” Devan said, “but it occurs to me that there's nothing wrong with taking the easy way every once in a while.”
“I'm not going to sleep with him,” Zella said. She turned around and pressed her back into him. She began to move in time with the music, not with him; now it was his turn to keep up.
“And I'm not going to tell you to.” He wrapped his long arms around her.
“You're goddamn right you're not going to,” she said. “Not if you know what's healthy for you.”
He smiled at that. “Why is this such a thing with you?” He asked, his cheek against her hair, his lips against her ear. “Since when did you get so Nalan about sex?”
She scoffed. “I am not Nalan about sex.”
“Then why are you so jealous of Phaedra?”
This time she really scoffed. “The ego on you,” she said. “That's not what this is about.”
Devan took her hands and spun her around so she was facing him again. “Of course it is.” She reversed her footing and spun back again. “Come on, Z,” Devan said, his tone softening. “I've known you for a long time. And you always said you didn’t want to be tied to somebody.”
“You’re right. That’s what I said.” She laid her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes. “But there’s a difference between having your parents tie you to someone when you’re born and choosing to tie that knot yourself.”
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, he did so cautiously. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I guess...I didn't want to have to say it. It just seemed to have happened on its own, naturally. Normally. And it was great. Right?”
“Yeah,” Devan replied. “Great.”
Zella fell silent.
“That...was underwhelming,” she said at last.
Devan scrunched up his forehead, “What do you...what? It was great.”
Zella stayed quiet. She stopped moving to the music. She started to walk away into the crowd.
“Come on, Z. Don't do this,” Devan said, hobbling awkwardly through the crowd, following as close as the other partygoers would let him. “What do you want? Do you want me to say I don't miss being with other people? That you're all I’ll ever want?”
Zella stopped hard, turned, and looked hard into his eyes. “Devan,” she said firmly. “Stop. I've known you for a long time, too.” She turned again, and slipped away into the crowd.
Allister
Five minutes later, the trumpets blared. The show was ready to begin. Devan jogged up to their table in front of the stage. “We good?” he asked Allister.
“We good,” Allister replied.
“Where's Z?”
“She wasn't feeling well,” Phaedra cooed, taking Devan's arm as he sat down. “She said she was calling it a night.”
Devan grimaced, then looked over at Tolem. “And where have you been all night?”
“Working the money rooms,” Tolem said. He looked exhausted. “Spreading some money around with the people who like their money extra spreadable. Whores don't buy themselves, you know.”
“If only,” Allister said wistfully. Nalan grunted his disdain.
Devan leaned in close to Allister. “What money?” he asked in his ear.
“Tolem wouldn't say,” Allister whispered back. “But reading between the lines, I think he got it the same plac
e he got this.” He held up the Aurium charm he wore around his neck.
“Vertus.” Devan rubbed his chin. He grumbled and fell silent.
A hush fell over the room as a man in a dazzling white robe took center stage. He held up his hands and welcomed the audience in attendance. The next twenty minutes were spent thanking various local dignitaries for their part in helping make The Palace's impending visit a reality. Devan took the time to scan the luxury boxes, trying to find the Lieutenant. He found the Cenerons, but no Faerathore. If he was there, he wasn't showing his face.
At last, the man in the dazzling white robe got to the point.
Arachnus of the Fall stood, and the crowd bellowed its adoration. The man in white recited a litany of bloody triumphs, rendered in breathless hyperbole, and when he finished, the crowd roared again.
Then, Fatalo, Sire of Darkness, stood, and the crowd bellowed louder still. Again, the man in white spoke—his oration broken up by the occasional snarling threat from Fatalo to Arachnus—and again, the crowd cheered when he finished.
But when Breigh took the stage, the crowd lost its mind completely.
Two guards attempted to bar her way, but the two fighters on the stage motioned for them to let her pass. She ascended the stairs. And she waited for the crowd to be still. She waited a long time, but at last, she got what she wanted.
Breigh approached Arachnus. She looked him up and down wordlessly, as if weighing his soul and trying to determine its worth. The crowd couldn't breathe—the threat of violence hung in the air between the two monstrous predators. At last, Breigh sniffed derisively and turned to Fatalo.
She barely glanced at the other fighter, resplendent as he was in blue and green war paint. She laughed—laughed!—and walked past him toward the stairs. The crowd laughed with her.
Incensed, Fatalo reached for Breigh's arm.
His hand hidden under a napkin, Allister waved two fingers at Breigh.
Breigh caught Fatalo's arm at the wrist. She shifted her hips, twisted her muscled frame, and pulled, bent on tossing the veteran gladiator into the crowd, With an extra boost from Allister, she expected to fling him a good long way. Only that wasn’t what happened.
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