Pale Lights

Chapter 161 34

The tea was not as good as Song's.

No, Angharad corrected herself, that was unfair. It was better than the cheap Someshwari leaves the Thirteenth used as their basic stock, instead falling short of her captain's personal stash that was doled out as sign of favor and affection. 'Do Sau Ghode', the teahouse whose comfortable little sideroom she currently occupied, probably had better fare to offer than what she had been served anyhow. The Skiritai Guild was notoriously skinflint when it came to anything but equipment.

It was telling they would meet at the Do Sau Ghode rather than further up the street, at the much more elegant Han Ya teahouse. Or perhaps this was an uncharitable interpretation on Angharad's part: this teahouse was twice the size of the other and besides the sundry discreet siderooms it also had three different access to the streets. Which mattered, when one was to have tea with a man for whom a funeral had already been held.

The dark-skinned man across from her set down his cup of Varavedan redleaf, looking a little lost.

Gatsha Jibela was a tall, stocky Malani with unruly hair. He had a bit of a paunch, which his failure to sit straight only made more prominent, and more beard than one would expect from one his age. Had Angharad not been told that her fellow islander was freshly spit back out by the Acallar, she would never have guessed. The man did seem slightly distracted, often blinking at lights and faces as if trying to recall what they were, but that was the sort of thing more often ascribed to a bad night's sleep than resurrection.

Well, re-embodiment anyhow. Gatsha's soul had never returned to the Circle, so Angharad suspected resurrection might not be the accurate term. Should she ever think of a way to ask Professor Artigas without heavily hinting at what went on within the Acallar, she would make inquiries as to the proper terminology.

"Marshal de la Tavarin tells me I owe you my life," Gatsha said.

His voice kept breaking tone, like that of a boy freshly entering manhood. Angharad suspected that this was not a flaw of his new flesh but because Gatsha Jibela had forgotten what it was like to speak through his throat. The Marshal had warned them that not everything came back when you died down in the depths.

"I struck the blow that returned you to a body, but I was not alone in cornering the beast," Angharad replied. "The better part of twenty students fought on the field, my brigademate fired a cannon into its body and Alizia Salas bought me that blow."

"Take my thanks nonetheless," Gatsha said, "and my apology for my shade having ever clung to your soul. It was an unthinking decision, but I am told I fed on your strength. I owe you a debt twice over."

Angharad did not slight them both by pretending otherwise, simply inclining her head in acknowledgement.

"Have you been told what is to happen to you?" she asked.

He grimaced.

"The Dawnchasers will take me back, as they would have had I washed out of Scholomance through less unseemly a path than the grave," Gatsha said. "Though I expect my prospects will not be what they once were. Still, it seems in poor taste to complain of the bill due for cheating death."

He snorted.

"I would much rather be humbled than buried."

Had she not already finished her own cup, Angharad might have toasted that.

"I wish you luck in your service," she said, offering her hand from across the table.

"I hope we will meet again, that I might repay what I owe you," Gatsha replied, shaking it without hesitation.

He then paused even as he withdrew his arm.

"Alizia helped, you said?" he asked. "She is an acquaintance, so I will ask leave to thank her as well before my ship departs."

It was Angharad's turn to grimace.

"I am grieved to tell you she died during the fight," she said. "Taken by surprise by a hippogriff. She survived the initial wound but died on the way back to camp."

Frederique Long, the Second's signifier, had acted to cauterize her neck wound but it had worked too well: the neck artery was charred right through and it had killed her just as surely as bleeding out would have. By the time the Second Brigade had emerged from the tunnel, Alizia had been blind in one eye and paralyzed. Knowing death was shortly to follow, they had chosen to lay her down instead of letting her die convulsing on the road.

That all of them had been tending to her last moments while the loud business with Yaotl Acatl took place was... unfortunate. Guadalupe de Tovar's anger was understandable, if misplaced. Gatsha breathed in sharply.

"A Skiritai's death, then," he said with forced equanimity.

"So it was."

They both turned to the doorway, neither having heard the Marshal approach – he must have kept his cane off the ground – and he fluttered through the threshold, hand on today's extravagant hat while his garish cape trailed.

"A fool's death too, for having dropped her guard before the fight was finished," the Marshal brutally added. "But I have known older, wiser hands to make that mistake. In the end she died having dipped her blade in ichor, and that's as much as most of us can pray for."

Angharad's lips thinned. Perhaps there was truth in that, but there was also more callousness than she was willing to embrace. She could only hope that when she had been part of as many tragedies as Marshal de la Tavarin she would not grow as a cavalier with the pain of others.

"Off with you, boy," the Marshal said, eyeing Gatsha. "And keep your hood up through town – I expect half the port knows of our business in the Acallar, but there is no need to make it obvious."

Gatsha Jibela rose and saluted, the gesture reflexive and well drilled even after his time as a naked soul, and after one last thankful nod to Angharad he disappeared into the hallway of the teashop.

"Will he be able to speak farewells to his old cabal?" Angharad asked.

The Marshal shook his head.

"Only those in the guild get to know, and he'll be bound by oath never to speak on the nature his return," the old man said. "Leaks are inevitable, but we must be careful to limit firsthand tales."

"If leaks are inevitable then why bother with such an oath?" Angharad asked with a frown. "It is not the first time Scholomance has been open, surely the secret of the Acallar has long been outed."

"Because there's a hundred wild tales about Scholomance floating around at any time," the Marshal said. "And then a hundred more that the Masks planted to obscure what truly goes on here. There is a reason the great powers all send spies to study here – it is the only way for them to split the miraculous truths from the miraculous lies."

Ah, Angharad thought. Unfortunate, if this safety by cacophony came at the price of letting a brigade believe their friend was dead, but an oath of service was rarely a comfortable thing.

"Enough of that," the old man waved away. "That odd Mitra fellow wants a word with you, but beyond that we've no further business."

Angharad refrained from voicing her opinion on the matter of Marshal de la Tavarin calling anyone else odd, even the... enthusiastically fatalistic Lieutenant Mitra, and nodded. The old man stroked his mustache, then spared her a rare smile.

"Well done with the briarid, girl," he said. "They are tricky buggers even when blood-mad."

"I had help," Angharad said, not for the first time and likely not the last.

He smacked lips.

"Well, you've still a few years of seasoning ahead of you," the Marshal said in what she suspected was meant to be a comforting tone. "We should be able to get you past that before you leave Scholomance."

He brightened.

"And now that you are rid of one of your ghosts, your chances of reaching that graduation have improved," he said. "One less tick sucking at your soul, that ought to buy you some time."

However casual his tone, Angharad was not fooled. That had been a reminder to ask Mitra about the changed timeline of her demise, however cloaked in mockery. She inclined her head in thanks, genuinely this time. He waved her away, as if trying to shoo off a clingy child, and she left the small tearoom with an eye to finding the lieutenant as suggested. There was no need to wander far to find him, as he was still standing in the hall and pacing about. The wild-haired man lit up at the sight of her, striding her way.

"Sir," Angharad greeted, saluting.

"Tredegar," he replied. "A word, if you will?"

"Of course."

They moved away from the door, though she doubted that the Marshal would be all that interested in eavesdropping. The lieutenant was distracted enough that Angharad managed to slide in a question of her own about the difference made by shedding a third of her burden before he got around to his own inquiries. The man stroked his long beard thoughtfully.

"In a broader, universal sense all things are fated to nothingness by the inevitable march of entropy," Lieutenant Mitra said, "but in the particular I would expect a timeline of four months to now stand closer to six or seven."

He shrugged.

"Though I would advise regular inspection by a Master of the Guild if you intend to burn your wick to the last," he added. "It is difficult to gauge the effect of the souls feeding on you while the consequences of it are yet minor, so the prediction carries a degree of imprecision beyond that which all mortal forms are inherently condemned."

Angharad's fingers clenched. So, something of a breather. Presumably if she slew another creature worthy of the Steel List that timeline might extend further yet, though she would prefer not to stretch out the affair – she had been assured that upon shedding all three ghosts her soul would be mended from all its wound, thus allowing her to return to the Acallar.

"Glad news," she said. "Thank you."

The unkempt lieutenant simply nodded.

"Yours is a fascinating situation," Lieutenant Mitra said. "I know of no precedent for the removal of a soul from the Acallar altar, much less an early return to flesh as you delivered."

He was, she noted, visibly warming up to his subject.

"And even so, Cai Wei should have been the first to return! Instead the second in line was brought back, which was quite unexpected. I had a cursory look at the seal laid upon her soul earlier, but I was wondering if you might allow me a closer study."

Angharad cleared her throat.

"Which would involve?"

"From you? Standing around for an amount of time that might grow awkward," the Navigator said. "It does involve scrutiny of your soul's direct emanations, which would be highly rude without your permission, and of course I would be studying young Khaimov's handiwork."

Angharad was tempted to refuse but she held back the reflex. The Fourth Brigade's eccentric patron wore a silver signet ring, the mark of a Master of the Akelarre Guild. His acquaintance was one worth firming up, especially if Song might soon be making common cause with the Fourth. Besides, if he could shed light on the nature of her situation with the ghosts she would not complain.

"I have an appointment after this," she carefully said, "but can spare some minutes."

He cheerfully smiled.

"Lovely!" he exclaimed. "Come, let us return to the tearoom. It will be more comfortable for you to sit."

It ended up being largely as awkward as he'd predicted, her sitting there looking at empty cups while he put out his hand palm down an inch above her head and stood there, occasionally letting out small hums or grunts. It took him about five minutes before he withdrew the hand, blinking.

"Quite the prodigy, your girl," he finally said. "It is a delightfully devious piece of work she forced upon your uninvited guest."

"As I understand it, the seal was meant to keep Cai Wei from gaining from what she took from me," Angharad said.

"Which it does, and more. Khaimov's working both prevents the spirit from absorbing what it takes from your soul and from holding it at all," Lieutenant Mitra said. "She's effectively become a straw for the other souls."

He shook his head admiringly.

"It has more in common with a curse than a traditional seal and I can almost taste the spite permeating it. It is far beyond barefinger work, worthy of at least an acolyte's ring."

Angharad's brow rose, proud on Maryam's behalf at the compliment. The tin bands of the acolytes might be the least of the Akelarre rings, but none of the Navigator students on the island wore one yet. The lieutenant tugged at his beard.

"Inspiring work, and of northern origin I'd wager," Lieutenant Mitra said. "Once you've sent away the second of your guests you should have it removed, but until then it is safe."

His fingers tangled in his locks.

"As safe as our art ever is, anyhow, which is not very," he added.

"Duly noted," Angharad said, voiced slightly strangled.

She was not running late but pretended she was to get out faster, hurrying out of the teashop through the front door and stepping onto Templeward Street. It was a brisk walk down towards where the corner where Templeward met Hostel Street, though she would arrive well in advance of the time she had given Bibek. She slowed her stride, sought calm within herself and had found it by the time she arrived at the intersection.

From there she headed east towards the warehouses, though she would stop well shy of them. The empty, broken fountain waiting a few blocks out was overgrown with weeds but though its water was long gone it still served as a useful landmark for students. One that did not see much use at this time of the evening, but the one she had come here to see was present - though, to her surprise, not alone. Tall Bibek was standing by the fountain, but so was his captain.

Angharad mentally went over what she knew of Captain Saran Pillai as she approached, which was precious little. The man was Someshwari, of Ramayan extraction and supposedly connected to some merchant prince – but he did not have Watch ties, and like the Thirteenth belonged to neither of the princeling factions of Scholomance. That was rather the extent of what Angharad recalled, though he must not have placed highly in Cao's rankings for said rank never to be mentioned to her.

A practiced eye noted the billhook blade at his hip and that he had the callouses of one trained in its use. A chopping weapon, she filed away, and one without a guard. Little defense against thrusts, but his blade is thicker and heavier than mine. He could shatter my saber with the right blow. Her gaze slipped away from the captain to find that Bibek had been watching her the whole time, his seemingly lazy gaze always measuring the distance between them.

His segmented war-gauntlets were hanging off his belt, but he could put them on almost as fast as she could draw her saber. Angharad found herself in the faintly uncomfortable situation of continuing to approach while knowing that Bibek was significantly more dangerous to her in such close quarters. She stopped shy of her saber's full arc almost without noticing it. Almost.

"Lady Tredegar," the captain greeted her.

"Captain Pillai," she replied inclining her head. "Bibek."

"Angharad," he simply replied.

"I had not expected to be meeting two of you," she evenly said. "Else I would have brought a second of my own."

"I will not be staying long," Captain Pillai said. "I only mean to pass a message along to Captain Ren."

Her lips thinned.

"Do you now?"

The man turned a hard look on her.

"Seethe if you'd like," Captain Pillai said, "but I am not the one who opened hostilities between our brigades. Ren could have let us pass first, as warranted by our earlier arrival, or even offered to make common cause. Instead she chose to throw her weight around – and it was, as the Circle ever spins, eventually thrown back at her."

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The Twenty-Ninth had been present in that incident as well, as Angharad recalled, and yet there the man's enmity seemed quite evaporated. As if his grudges only existed when backed by over a dozen hired thugs.

"Is that your message, then?" she coldly asked.

He shook his head.

"Tell your captain I consider the matter settled and will pursue it no further," he said. "If hostilities resume, it will not be of my doing."

"You answer elbowing your brigade aside with a severe beating and think you can call those scales settled?" Angharad disbelievingly asked.

"I answered humiliation with humiliation," Saran Pillai said. "If she's any sense, it will end there."

With the practiced smoothness of someone who clutched onto good manners regardless of situation, the captain then offered her a slender bow and incline of the head.

"That concludes my business here," he said. "A good evening to you, Lady Tredegar."

"And to you," she replied through gritted teeth, quite trapped by courtesy.

He half-smiled at her as he made his leave, passing by and offering her his back as he began his walk towards the Triangle. It left her and Bibek alone, neither in a hurt to speak. They gauged one another in silence – looking for anger, for how serious the fight would be if her saber cleared the scabbard and his gauntlets were clasped into place.

"If you expect an apology," Tall Bibek finally said, "you will be disappointed."

"You joined a mob for a beating that left my friend and a first-year historian laid up in bed, dosed with poppy," Angharad flatly replied. "Give me a reason not to draw over it."

"Kapadia's scrappy, for a scribe," Bibek easily replied. "Ping will have a black eye from that blunderbuss she swung at him."

Her fingers tightened, and at the sight of her tensing frame Bibek put aside the nonchalance.

"You should not draw for the same reason I didn't give you shit at the Crocodilian after your brigade trampled over mine," Bibek flatly said. "Brigade politics are nothing personal, so long as they remain appropriately restrained."

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"If you want to make those matters personal, you'll find I have grievances of my own," Bibek said. "Bullying and beatings are one thing but you've made corpses, Angharad."

She blinked in surprise, only after a moment understanding his meaning.

"You would blame me for what happened to Alizia?" she asked, jaw clenched.

"Her captain does not," he allowed, "but it is your unhinged Sacromontan that talked everyone into the battle that killed her. And you didn't do a damn thing to stop him."

"You know less than you think," Angharad replied. "The Second Brigade are the ones who sought us out, not the other way around. Alizia herself approached me on her captain's behalf the day we met at the Crocodilian."

Surprise flickered across his face, then a few emotions harder to place. A moment passed and he swallowed, squaring her shoulder.

"Then I do owe you an apology," Bibek said, "for several unkind thoughts."

But not, she noted, for anything else. His hands remained close to the war-gauntlets, his stance steady. He had no intention of backing down, and Angharad found herself seriously considering a duel. The trouble here was that she could not find a stricture of honor broken. Their brigades had not been allies, and by the reckoning of most laws of honor the Eighth had been answering a given slight as was their right. It was how they had done it by joining hands with the likes of the Morcant that remained stuck in her throat, she eventually acknowledged.

No, more than that. They had lent the schemer a hand, profited and now intended to withdraw and leave Morcant and his cronies to suffer the Thirteenth's retaliation alone. They had bidden their time, taken their revenge and were now on the eve of retreating without consequence. I am not angry because it was dishonorable, Angharad admitted. I am angry because we were outplayed and there is little I can do about it. And that was no reason to swing a sword, so Angharad killed the girl who would have and became another.

She took her hand off her saber and watched Bibek's shoulders untense. He folded his arms in a matching gesture of goodwill.

"I did not care to speak of the matter when it was my own brigade who trampled yours," Angharad said. "It would be hypocrisy to hold you to a standard I failed to meet."

He grunted in agreement.

"I must, however, ask what your brigade's intentions are towards the Nineteenth Brigade," she said.

Her own line in the sand. It was one thing for Saran Pillai and his cabal to use them as cover for their own retaliation once, another to keep joining hands with the Thirteenth's enemy.

"I am not our captain," Bibek said, "but we've never joined up with one of the larger blocs before and I do not expect we will start."

Angharad stiffly nodded. Not as strong an answer as she would have liked, but as much as she could reasonably expect.

"Then we are finished here," she said.

He inclined his head.

"A good evening to you then, Angharad," Bibek said.

"And you," she replied, mirroring him.

This time, she nearly meant it.

--

The eastern quarter of the Workshop was usually closed to students, as it held the offices and facilities reserved for the Umuthi's many instructors.

Izel had been surprised to learn that his society had more teachers than either the Peiling or the Arthashastra. Not out of greater scholarly need, he was later told, but because mechanical work required more supervision than study did. In practice, though, a large chunk of their instructors were young Umuthi fresh out of their initial workshop assignment and willing to suffer a yearlong tour on Tolomontera for a recommendation that would improve their prospects.

But Professor Achari was not a fresh inductee, and his office was nothing like the cramped closets many of the younger instructors ended up in: his was a wide, elegant space with room for a private atelier with a beautiful view of the old sea wall and the seemingly endless waters beyond it.

Izel had felt too large and too clumsy when standing by the desk, afraid to topple one of the hundred trinkets and curios Professor Achari had accumulated over his long career – many of them gifts from former students – but when they moved to the atelier he loosened up. The old man insisted on opening the box himself, so he moved aside and let him deftly pop the locks and slide out the lenslight. The professor reached for his work bench afterwards, laying out a long padded case bearing his personal tools and crouching by the machine with a younger man's grace.

He cracked open the lenslight, carefully and methodically, setting down the pieces he removed on a screen of red silk. Once the second chamber was open the professor leaned over it with a gold-rimmed monocle held up over his eye, studying the aether-forged glass lenses within. He withdrew after a moment, producing a small silvery hammer and tapping against the one after another. He seemed to be listening for a sound, and stroked his silky white beard thoughtfully after leaning back.

"You said those lenses are from the third Khalkhea workshop?" Professor Achari asked.

"They are, sir," Izel confirmed. "Or at least it was their representative who sold them to me."

"I taught their workshop's head myself," the old man absent-mindedly said. "Gloriana was a talented student, and too proud to pass off someone else's work as her own. Or, for that matter, to sell a batch of aether-forged glass she had not tested properly first."

"So the flaw would not be in the materials," Izel slowly said.

"The possibility cannot be dismissed, but it is not probable," Professor Achari said, sounding quite interested. "Your Glare source is straight from Rookery mirrortrap stocks so it should not be the reason either, and every other component of your machine is quite common."

"Then the flaw is in the mathematics," he said.

Professor Achari stroked his beard.

"Or," the old man said, "you have stumbled onto a little-known property of the Glare."

Izel swallowed.

"You can't be serious," he said.

"Don't sound so surprised," Professor Achari snorted, smoothly beginning to assemble the lenslight he had unmade. "I said little known, not unheard of. I will send a letter to Caer Wylwr, their workshops are the vanguard in Glare work."

He paused, changing tools to adjust the tension on a screw.

"Still, it is entirely possible you stumbled across an unknown property by accident," the old man said.

"I am barely a year and change into my Umuthi schooling, sir," Izel said. "That seems..."

"Luck," Professor Achari bluntly said. "And very much the product of circumstance. It would not do to underestimate the many giants whose shoulders you squat on. Saliently, while aether-forged glass has been around for centuries the pieces you used are a relatively recent innovation."

He raised a finger.

"We have been able to make lenses this small for barely a century and a half."

Which would matter, Izel thought, if the oddity came from the size of the lens. A second finger went up.

"We have been able make them reliably of the same concentration of aether for perhaps sixty years."

Meaning the oddity, should it exist, might have been observed before but dismissed as the result of a faulty or irregular aether-forging. A third finger went up.

"And the Republics only came up with the Wei process in seventy-eight Sails, turning aether-forged glass from an exorbitant expense to a merely steep one."

In other words, thirty years ago it would have been outrageously expensive to make a machine like the lenslight without a good reason for it. Reasons which, aside from his own, were admittedly in short supply.

"That and it's an unusual device, by Deuteronomicon standards," the old man mused, sliding the last safety rods into place. "It is Glare work, which is never the most popular, and Glare work using very few extraordinary materials at that – even your fuel is mundane, Izel. Anyone with the budget for aether-forged glass would have sprung for Tianxi brine gas, at least."

The old man rose to his feet.

"No, considering all this I believe it possible you've found out some minor property of Glare."

Nilan Achari glanced at him thoughtfully.

"I'll write my letter to Caer Wylwr, but I recommend you pursue this as a priority," he said. "For one, finding out even the slightest of unknown Glare properties will be considered a pass in all Umuthi classes for the year."

A probing look.

"It would also guarantee you a place in either the Caer Wylwr workshops or the frontierworks of the Rookery," Professor Achari strongly hinted. "Every senior Umuthi on the island would sign off on a transfer out of Scholomance, I assure you."

Caer Wylwr was, from what Izel knew, an old fortified island off the northern coast of the Duchy of Peredur. Its grounds were half under the edge of the Glare pit covering most of the Kingdom of Malan. It was the leading set of workshops regarding machines involving Glare, as well as one of the Watch's major sources of mirrortraps.

It was the second mention that had his eyes widening, though. The frontierworks of the Rookery were not, strictly speaking, a purely Umuthi Society workshop. They were a joint undertaking with the Peiling Society dedicated to the applications of theoretical theology, proving or disproving metaphysics through practical work. Where Caer Wylwr was considered a bit of a dumping ground, the frontierworks were an extremely prestigious assignment – the kind that was fought over bitterly.

"That is very kind of you to say," Izel managed to croak out. "I'll keep it in mind."

Gods, the frontierworks? That was the sort of career he could only have dreamed of as a boy. Working for the sake of all mankind with hardly a weapon in sight. And the Conclave was unstinting in its funding of them, afraid of falling behind the successor-states, so the generous salary would allow him to continue funding his work on the likes of the lenslight. And it would let me make connections to the kind of people I'll need behind me when I return to Izcalli. The Umuthi head of the fontierworks had a seat on the Wednesday Council, just for one!

Professor Achari patted his back.

"I am told you enrolled in Scholomance to avoid some trouble back in Izcalli," he said. "And this place does get one into a covenant quicker than anywhere else, I'll grant."

He paused.

"But it is not the only way to enter a covenant, my boy," he gently said. "The Watch thrives by taking in the talent chased off by tyrants. You will find that once you've had that label attached to your name, the Conclave will have grown rather deaf to any Izcalli demands."

Izel nodded, not trusting his own words. Professor Achari moved away.

"Anyhow, draw up a testing proposal and have it sent to my office," the older man said. "I'll look it over."

Another significant favor. To have the head instructor of the Deuteronomicon on the island looking at your personal work was the sort of thing fistfights would be had over.

"I'll have it ready by tomorrow," Izel swore.

"Don't rush," the professor advised. "Think it out, talk with other tinkers – both tracks, and maybe some Peiling students if you can. Better to be thorough than quick."

And so Izel packed up his lenslight again as Professor Achari sat to begin drafting his letter, idly wondering if he should be bringing the machine back to his room at night instead of leaving it in his Workshop trunk. It was not entirely unheard of for tinkers to sabotage each other, though it was quite rare and much frowned upon. Sabotage tended to be more dangerous for Umuthi than the other two College covenants, who were significantly less at risk of losing a finger if another student went through their things.

No, he told himself. It wasn't like he had been trumpeting this about, and arguably lugging the box around every day would draw more attention than a single meeting with Professor Achari. He took his leave and dutifully put away his lenslight in the trunk, his mind wandering. He had never considered before that there might be a way to leave Scholomance early in honor. Failing out had been a sword above his head, for the Jaguar Society would still be out to settle accounts and the Ivory Library's remnants would count him a traitor.

Now, though... It was getting ahead of himself, Izel thought. There was yet to be any definitive proof he'd discovered anything beyond faulty materials. But the thought of joining the frontierworks, to be beyond the reach of the House of Acatl and dedicated to work that would not be used for war? It was more tempting a prospect than he'd anticipated. The tinker splashed water over his face to steady his mind, and when he felt settled again headed into town to seek out his evening plans.

He stopped to change in the Rainsparrow room, trading his regular's uniform for leisure clothes. Plain wool skirts and shirt, over which he slid on a dark green sleeveless jacket. Not unlike the doublets that dominated Lierganen and Malani fashion, though not anywhere as tightly fitted to his frame. That, and it had pockets. One could never have too many pockets. He headed down after, and found his companion of the evening waiting by the mail warehouse as they'd discussed.

"Oh good," Helena Vargas smiled at him. "I was afraid you'd go fancy and I would be underdressed."

She gestured down at herself, hand calling attention to her fitted white blouse, wide belt and brown trousers over which a loose black coat had been thrown on. His eye caught on the coat's silver buttons, which had fine engraving work on them. She was not the first student – or even soldier – around he'd seen with these, though the details seemed to vary.

"Elegance is never underdressed," he easily replied.

A smile tugged at her lips.

"Well," she hummed, "play your cards right..."

She offered him her arm after that tantalizing hint, which he took without missing a beat.

"What kind of fancy, anyhow?" he said. "Surely you don't mean court dress."

She snorted.

"No, but maybe face paint," she said. "Or those fancy round earrings Izcalli all seem to love."

Helena cleared her throat.

"Mind you, you're not exactly the showiest man I know."

"I never took to painting my face," Izel admitted. "We don't even have a house pattern, my father never made one of his own."

He used the formal dedication to the Moon-Eater when forced.

"And the earrings?" she curiously asked.

Izel smiled serenely.

"They have a meaning in Izcalli culture I care little for," he told her.

Izel Coyac had no intention of declaring his love for the Spheres by wearing them on his ears, or to style his hair in the cuachic that his birth entitled him to. Or for that matter the temillotl that the deaths he'd dealt out would earn him, much less the elaborate topknot of a Jaguar Society warrior. No, his face would remain bare and his head shaved. Neither would he wear cotton save when he must, or ever any cape in blue.

"Not unlike your buttons, I think," he continued. "They are a Watch tradition?"

She nodded.

"My family has long been in the black," Helena proudly said. "Five generations of service, and the buttons are engraved with the three fortresses we've lived in."

New Saraya was marked with a weathervane, she showed him, while the city of Origo out in the Artecale plains was a bounding fox and Khalkea was represented by an anvil.

"Most of the Vargas are still in Origo," she told him. "New Saraya's a small frontier outpost and the Malani are always testing the waters there. But my grandmother and father were members of a Khalkea workshop, so I spent some years there as a girl."

"They were reassigned?" he asked.

"Abuela was taken by spring fever a few years back," Helena said. "And my father was promoted to lieutenant on Lucierna, he's the second at their weapons workshop."

Most workshops were headed by a captain, even though in practice those officers commanded significantly fewer men than a captain usually would. Mostly they needed the rank's authority and right to independent command to be able to run their workshop without getting stepped on by senior officers without any tinker training looking to cut costs.

The pair kept heading west after reaching the end of Hostel Street, soon ending up in a warren of narrow streets where students were swarming. They did so in no small part because Dreg's Draughts – its sign famously vandalized to read as Dregs instead – was sprawled there in a corner, the cheapest and most plentiful drinks in Port Allazei. It was an uncomplicated place for a first outing, though there was no expectation of privacy even when the crowd had yet to come out in full.

That was part of the reason Izel had suggested it, though. He had chosen the time, the day, the location with care.

Both of them knew a few of the students inside, stopping by tables to chat with a slice of the Sixth – Captain Modest Propriety and the two Oriol must already be three drinks deep, by how loud they were laughing – and Cozco from the Forty-Fourth, who chased them off the moment Andreu Claver showed up to go and try his luck at flirting again.

"That's never going to happen," Helena opined. "Claver likes them slender."

Cozco, alas, had been born with the shoulders of a bull and the arms of a man apt to wrestle with them.

"His loss," Izel shrugged.

A moment of silence had him turning to find Helena looking at him rather warmly. Oh! Accident, but no need to mention that.

"Table?" he suggested.

"Table," she agreed.

The corner tables were always the first to go, so they had to settle on the periphery of the hall. They had a pitcher within minutes: Lierganen beer, the worst of all kinds, but it was cheap and not down. The pitchers kept coming, and between the talk about the latest gossip – the old king of Tariac was sick and his children were allegedly cold-blooded lizards, so there might be a succession crisis in the offing – and the generously filled blouse that Helena happened to unbutton slightly two cups in because it was 'getting warm' Izel almost forgot why he'd decided on here.

He was reminded when all conversation in the Dregs died out, like a candle snuffed out.

Yaotl had come in full war apparel: face painted in the Night King's own colors, hair feathered in blue and green. She wore the traditional quilted cotton shirt under a breastplate bearing the sigil of the reed-glyph in black obsidian. Bracers on her arms and greaves on her legs were painted in the pattern of a jaguar's coat, a mistake so blatant he almost winced at the sight. Worse for her was that her sawsword was already in her hand.

If this were a tavern for the townspeople, the sight of her on war footing might have scattered the crowd. In Izcalli the sight of an Acatl in such obvious fury would certainly have sent everyone not of a Sunflower line ducking out of sight. But the Dregs were a student tavern, a blackcloak tavern. Everyone here was armed, and most had stood before more fearsome sights than a princess with her blade out.

"It will be fine, Izel," Helena said from across the table. "I knew it might happen."

So had he. He'd counted on it, choosing a very public and popular tavern less than ten minutes away from where the Nineteenth dwelled. Yaotl stomped across the hall, eyes burning, and Izel found himself reaching for his pistol under the table. The sawsword thunked into the table, toppling the empty pitcher which shattered on the floor, and Yaotl ignored him entirely to glare at Helena.

"Leave," Yaotl ordered. "And do not try this again. He is betrothed."

"Fuck off, princess," Helena mildly replied. "Go away; last warning."

"It is yours, Lierganen," Yaotl hissed.

The blow took her completely by surprise – and, honesty compelled Izel to admit, himself as well. He'd not even noticed the woman approaching. A small Tianxi with strong arms and a grizzled face that might as well have been chewed up leather kicked Yaotl in the back of the knee and, in the moment of utter surprise, smashed her head on the tabletop. Yaotl fell back but recovered, ripping the blade off the table and turning only to find a slender three-pronged blade held just above her eye. A sai, Izel numbly identified it as.

"Drop the sword or lose the eye," the Tianxi said.

"You wouldn't dare," Yaotl snarled.

"Look around you, princess," Helena said.

And when Yaotl did, she saw the same thing Izel had: half the blackcloaks in the room had weapons out. Knives and swords and pistols, maces and sickles and even whip-blade. And none of them were looking in a friendly way at Yaotl Acatl, who had walked into the Dregs to throw a tantrum with a weapon out. Yaotl would have seen that coming, Izel knew. If she weren't furious. If she weren't freshly back from her class in the Acallar, which she always returned from in war gear. If she weren't tired and on a hair trigger from more than a week of petty harassment and bullying.

Knowing someone, it was a little like owning a dagger with their name written on it.

She sought out his eyes, finally, and he met them. He did not blink, or speak a single word.

Yaotl dropped the sword.

"Thank you, Guiying," Helena said, even as her cabalist kicked the sawsword away.

She must be the Skiritai in the Twelfth, Izel thought. Guiying withdrew her sai but dragged Yaotl up by the collar.

"Settle the repair bill and leave," she said. "Don't let me catch you around one of my brigade again."

Yaotl looked like she wanted to snarl, but in the throes of such humiliation she was not willing to look any of them in the eye again. She stalked away. The hall stayed silent until after she dropped a pouch full of coin on the counter and walked out of the Dregs, only then lighting back up with excited murmurs. The sawsword stayed on the ground until one of the waitresses came to pick it up, stashing it behind the counter. Guiying disappeared into the crowd after offering them a nod, though Izel did not see her leave.

After a long moment, Izel let out a breath and Helena sighed.

"The mood is rather spoiled, I think," Helena said. "This best be the end of our night, else we'll be swarmed with curious gossips the rest of the evening."

"Apologies," Izel quietly said.

And for more than she knew.

"You warned me she might lose her temper," Helena said. "That said, I am not a fool."

He cocked his head to the side, silent.

"You'll get a pass once," Helena calmly said, yet there was an undertone. "But next time we go for drinks, Coyac, I do expect it to be about me more than another woman."

Well, Izel thought, it sounded she was open to there being a next time.

"That can be arranged," he said, and by the look on her face it was the right answer.

--

Terceday morning, as Port Allazei woke to early morning light, a clamor was heard near the docks. On the horizon ships were approaching. Maryam only learned as they came into port, when she was asked a question on the street she did not have the answer to.

She had no idea, after all, why two warships just escorted her skimmer to the docks,