“ASRA!” HAL’S VOICE TRAILED OFF AS I DROPPED LIKE A stone. Though the fall was longer than I expected, the light at the bottom of the tunnel came up in a rush. I hit the net less than just a few heartbeats later, then sprang up, gasping for breath. As I grabbed the ladder leading up to a narrow door, the chime sounded from the top of the tower again, and then the ground-level one echoed close by to signal that the way was clear.
Hal flew down behind me, using a gust of upswept air to soften his fall. He grinned at me when he stood.
“Sometimes you take me by surprise,” he said. I could barely make out his eyes in the dim light cast by a single gas lamp near the exit, but I could see the admiration in them.
“I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” I quipped.
He laughed, and the sound warmed me a little. Thankfully, the tunnel to the outside was short, and moments later I pushed through a swinging door to emerge in an alley. Fog swirled through the streets, limiting visibility to only the adjacent buildings. With how bad it was during the day, I wondered how anyone could navigate the city at night, when the light of even the brightest lamp would be dampened by the thick fog.
I dropped into my Sight. The life energy of the molds and mosses that grew in every crevice of the stone towers provided a dim outline of all that surrounded us. The buildings closest to us were so tall I couldn’t see the tops—they had been carved directly into the face of the cliff. Everything was made of stone save the doors and shutters.
“Be careful—the cobblestones are slippery. Do you need my hand?” Hal asked.
“No, that’s all right,” I replied, ignoring my desire to accept anyway. Soon he’d be reunited with his sister and I would have to continue on to Atheon. The sooner I could accustom myself to doing without him, the better. I could get by just fine alone.
“All right.” He turned away too quickly for me to catch his expression, but I might have heard a trace of disappointment in his voice—that or the fog was playing tricks on my ears as well as my eyes.
I followed Hal through the sloping streets, the mist swirling around us in ever-changing shapes. Most of the buildings were connected to one another, forming solid walls of stone on either side of us in a variety of heights and widths. Many walkways dropped off into staircases or ramps. The absence of any trees made it feel as though we’d entered a castle the size of a city, and the other street traffic felt strangely distant, shrouded in the fog, even as we passed shoulder to shoulder or a cart rattled slowly by.
Finally, we entered a narrow alley beside a cobbler’s shop. Water dripped down the brick buildings on either side, gathering to form a rivulet that trickled through the center of the alley. Halfway down the dead end, a door stood in the stone side of the building. It had no handle, only a keyhole. Both the door and the side of the building were devoid of any markings or decorations, anything that might give an indication of what the place was. Hal put his ear to the lock, and I recognized the serene expression that came over his face when he used his Farhearing.
“They’re here!” he said, his face breaking into the grin that had become so familiar and so warming throughout our travels. A pang of some confused emotion stirred in my breast. Somehow during our journey I had come to enjoy being the cause of that grin, and it was strange to see it painted on his face by others.
“How do we get in?” I asked.
“Like this.” He grabbed a pebble off the ground and dropped it into a tiny hole near the door. A few breaths later, a click sounded and the door swung open.
“Come on,” he said, and vanished into the stairwell.
I took a deep breath and plunged in after him.
Thankfully, the door led up another stone staircase instead of farther down into the earth. At the top of the third flight, we went through a creaky wooden door into an octagonal turret with a ceiling that arched to a high peak in the center. Muted conversations hummed from somewhere nearby. Windows of leaded glass in lacy patterns sparkled like gems in the light of an enormous chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling. The fixture seemed ordinary enough until I realized it was composed of several dozen glass orbs in varying sizes that burned with bright light in spite of being self-contained. In my Sight, the orbs shimmered almost as brightly as Hal, and seemed to be drawing energy from some low place in the earth that I couldn’t fully see or sense.
“What is that?” I asked, staring in wonder at the chandelier.
“A prize of the crown—a magical artifact created by one of the former monarchs using the gift of the gods’ magic,” Hal said.
“How did it get here?” I never would have guessed I’d see a prize of the crown anywhere outside Corovja. Miriel had told me pieces like the chandelier were often presented to the revelers at midsummer and midwinter festivals in Corovja as a reminder of the monarch’s power and abilities—some decorative and others deadly.
“The west wing of the palace in Corovja was redone about five years ago. One of the Swifts was able to rescue this piece for Nis before the entire wing was demolished. The lights weren’t working, but her research allowed us to restore it.”
Another surge of anxiety made me bite my lip. Nismae’s research was deep enough to somehow give her—or one of her people—the ability to work with magic directly. It was easier to meddle than to create, and certainly possible for them to do simple enchantments, but repairing something as sophisticated as a prize of the crown wasn’t something ordinary mortals should have been able to easily do. I hoped that meant she was that much more likely to know something about my abilities and which god they had come from.
“Are you ready to go in?” Hal asked.
“Of course.” I nodded, squeezing the strap of my satchel with both hands where it crossed between my breasts. We were about to rejoin his people, including the sister who had raised him. Would he be the same person around them? Hal had become entirely familiar to me. We could set up or take down our camps without exchanging more than a few words, the tasks routine and companionable. I’d come to rely on our easy familiarity and was suddenly frightened it might be snatched away.
What if Nismae didn’t like that he’d brought me here?
And what if she didn’t know anything about Atheon or the Fatestone after all? Knowing the secrets of my origin wouldn’t help me if I couldn’t fix my mistakes.
Hal tugged open a heavy wooden door so we could enter the adjacent room, a rectangular chamber filled with people conversing over food and hot tea. The windows along the west-facing wall stood open, though some unseen barrier kept the fog and the chill of the air at bay. A potted plant in the corner grew wildly over one windowsill, its heart-shaped leaves turned toward what little light filtered through the mist.
“Hal!” someone said, and then everyone in the room surged to their feet, surrounding Hal, hugging him and clapping him on the back. I scanned the room, looking for Hal’s sister, but I didn’t see anyone who shared his features or who carried herself like a leader.
“Where have you been?” an older man asked.
“We thought maybe you finally encountered something you couldn’t outrun,” one of the younger girls joked.
“Just took an unexpected detour on the way home is all,” Hal said, basking in the warmth of their affection. The younger people jostled Hal, showing him all sorts of improbable places they’d figured out to hide their weapons in their clothing. Was this what it felt like to truly have a family? Things had never been this way with Miriel, or even with Ina. The camaraderie in the room was so much bigger than anything I’d ever experienced.
“Yeon, where’s Nis?” Hal asked the older man who had spoken first.
“Said she’ll be back by the end of the week,” Yeon answered.
“She didn’t say where?” Hal asked.
Yeon shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better not to ask.”
“Well, at least we have a place to stay until she returns,” Hal said. He didn’t seem concerned, but of course he wouldn’t be—he didn’t understand the urgency of my quest.
I looked at him uncertainly, not sure how I felt about staying in this cold stone tower with all these people for days on end. He finally gestured for me to move up alongside him as soon as the others gave him a little space.
“This is Asra,” Hal introduced me.
Everyone stared at me, their expressions ranging from curiosity to distrust.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure yet that was the case.
“Where’d you pick this one up?” the oldest man asked. “Not that special massage parlor in Kartasha, I hope. Remember that?” He guffawed and elbowed a slim person beside him, nearly sending them flying. They gave him an indignant look and elbowed him back even harder.
Special massage parlor? That story hadn’t come up on our travels.
“Yeon! That was Nis’s job and you know it,” Hal said, shooting me a panicked look.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I was with Nismae on a mission to bring a lord’s daughter back from Kartasha, and it turned out she was working in a special massage parlor there where the people provide their services . . . unclothed.” He rushed through the explanation, clearly mortified.
“The kid was only twelve at the time!” Yeon slapped his knee, beyond delighted by the whole thing.
“It was very . . . educational,” Hal stammered.
“You northerners are so prudish, probably because it’s too gods-damned cold to take off your clothes ten moons out of the year,” Yeon said with a chuckle.
A few of the other Nightswifts—also from the north, I presumed—gave him dirty looks.
I couldn’t help a laugh at Hal’s red cheeks.
“Asra isn’t from Kartasha, nor does she work in a massage parlor. She saved my life when we ran into trouble in Valenko,” Hal said, doing his best to change the topic.
“Wondered how you were gonna get out of there without a manifest, but you always manage it.” Yeon shook his head.
“No thanks to you,” Hal teased.
“Not my fault you can’t fly like a proper Swift. Let’s give thanks to Asra, who helped our Hal escape!” Yeon said, raising a mug of tea from the table.
The rest of the room toasted me as well, and though I wanted to melt into the floor to disappear from the intensity of their attention, it still felt better than the skepticism with which I’d initially been received. They beckoned us to join them at their tables, sharing their bread, cheese, and bittersweet preserves, and caught Hal up on the humorous mishaps from their latest missions. I didn’t know what to say to anyone, so I kept quiet, smiled when it seemed appropriate, and stuffed myself with warm, crusty bread slathered in a thick creamy cheese veined with salty blue.
After nearly falling out of my chair the first time a bird flew through a window and took human form beside me, I soon became accustomed to the way the Nightswifts came and went—always through the window, always in and out of manifest form. They all seemed to have an affinity for the wind god. By the time we retired for the night, I’d met at least two dozen Swifts. They’d come from every part of the kingdom and every walk of life, now united by their purpose and their leader.
The accommodations turned out to be nicer than I would have guessed, largely because Hal gave me his west-facing room instead of one of the windowless guest chambers.
Besides a practical lantern, the table beside Hal’s bed bore a tiny set of chimes made of hardwood—a symbol of the wind god. A painted portrait of a woman who shared Hal’s deep brown skin and long-lashed eyes hung on the wall; she could only be his mother, because she fitted no description he’d ever given me of Nismae. Her hair was worn free of any braids or twists and framed her face in a halo of spiraling curls. She sat poised on a stone bench with a cluster of blossoms in her hands, but she had the slightest mysterious smile on her face—one I’d often seen on Hal. She even had the same single dimple in one cheek. I wondered who had painted it, if that person had loved her, and if the painting was something Nismae had stolen, perhaps from the temple of wind where their mother had been a cleric.
Because the Nightswifts spoke about things in a veiled way with me in their midst, it took a few days before I realized that many of the missions they referred to in passing or joked about over meals were still ones of death. Now they worked solely through Nismae instead of on behalf of the king. The lives and magical objects they stole made a lucrative business from the sound of it, though I couldn’t quite make out if Nismae’s goal was to obtain riches, knowledge, or something less specific. I didn’t know how she managed to serve in the role of contractor, researcher, and black market merchant, all without the king’s spies or soldiers catching her.
The scholars and craftsmen were a smaller and quieter group than the rest of the Swifts, from a young red-haired girl named Poe who couldn’t stop looking at Hal and blushing to a man about Yeon’s age who called Hal “son” even though he clearly wasn’t. Hal explained that the scholars and craftsmen didn’t participate in missions, but were a supporting force to help design weapons and patch up anyone who came back injured. The scholars were eager to hear what I knew of herbalism farther south, and we passed many hours in conversation. Meanwhile, the craftsmen showed Hal some enchanted blades specially designed for the Swifts. When Hal passed his hand over the bone handles of the daggers, an iridescent eagle appeared over them for a moment.
“These are very fine,” he said, hefting one of the larger blades and weighing it in his palm.
A blond woman with powerful arms who had to be their smith passed him another. “I’ve developed a new forging technique that allows us to imbue the blades with magic. It’s even better than the ones used by the king’s craftsmen. The weapons respond best in the hands of someone who can sense the energies.”
“Asra, feel this knife,” Hal said, handing the smaller blade to me.
I shook my head. I didn’t want it. The magic in my blood stirred uncomfortably at the thought of what I might be able to do with an enchanted knife. I’d done enough damage already without a weapon at my disposal.
I sighed as the conversations continued to go on without me, half wondering if I should give up on Nismae and start doing research of my own. Corovja might be a good place to start—if I could get there. But before I could start to follow that line of thought to a conclusion, Hal stood up and inclined his head toward the window, a slow smile blossoming on his face.
“What is it?” I asked, hope fluttering in my chest.
He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear so that no one else could hear.
“She’s back.”