How furious the others would be if they knew Ruby had fallen asleep on watch.
But it was fine. Minya was drugged. It was obvious that the potion in the green glass bottle was working. It was ridiculous that they had to watch her sleep. That was probably a sport in purgatory, Ruby thought: sleep-watching. Well, she was bad at it. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t skilled at being bored like the others were. If they expected her to stay awake on watch, then someone would have to keep her company.
“That defeats the whole purpose of taking turns,” Sparrow had said when Ruby pleaded with her to stay.
“Stay with me, and I’ll stay with you,” she’d tried bargaining.
“No, you won’t,” Sparrow had replied. “You’ll skip off free the instant your turn is over.”
“Well, can you blame me?”
“No. And that’s why I’m skipping off free now.” And she had, and so had Feral, claiming he had to refill the tub in the rain room, and so Ruby had taken a nap, more out of spite than fatigue. But now she was awake, and as her flash of panic receded, she heard voices out in the corridor.
And…were those footsteps?
You never heard footsteps in the citadel, because they all went barefoot all the time. But Ruby heard them now and came instantly alive. She was off the bed and sprinting down the stairs from Minya’s bedroom, through the domed antechamber to the door. Lazlo had left it open when he brought the doors back to life, since they were all coming and going so often, and it was a good thing, or else Ruby wouldn’t have heard anything, or woken up, or poked her head out into the corridor to the incredible sight of people crossing the passage up ahead. Fully human, fully alive, boot-wearing people.
Ruby ducked back inside, breathing fast. What were people doing in the citadel? She peeked out again. They were headed into the passage that led to the heart of the citadel, and she registered what she hadn’t before: that Lazlo, Sarai, Sparrow, and Feral were walking with them. Calmly.
No one was holding anyone hostage, as far as she could tell. And…was that the scent of bread?
Well. If they thought she was going to stay here and watch Minya sleep at a time like this, they were sorely mistaken. Indignantly, she followed them.
…
Every soul left in Weep was watching the citadel. After so many years living in dread of the sight of it, it was hard to make themselves look at it now. But their own had gone up there and none would be easy until their return, so they watched.
Into this curious waiting, Soulzeren and Ozwin returned. They’d been sent for by Azareen, and had made the trip back from Enet-Sarra only to learn that she and Eril-Fane had flown with Lazlo up to the citadel.
“I suppose that means they don’t need our services after all,” remarked Ozwin.
They were the husband-and-wife botanist and mechanist who’d conceived the silk sleigh, a clever flying machine lifted by the gas given off by decaying ulola flowers. They were part of the Godslayer’s delegation, and had vacated the city the other morning along with nearly everyone else.
“Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to be back,” said Soulzeren.
It wasn’t that they’d minded the rugged conditions at Enet-Sarra. They hailed from the Thanagost badlands and weren’t put off by a little camping. It was their fellow faranji they’d minded. Their sourness and bickering had poisoned the very air. Soulzeren thought the others might have borne the danger and inconvenience with more fortitude if they’d still believed the Godslayer’s “great reward” could be theirs at the end of it. But they were men of facts and numbers, and with Weep’s problem no longer seeming likely to be resolved by mundane means, they were embittered by their sudden irrelevance.
The word unnatural had been tossed about like a hot potato, and sweet, earnest Lazlo Strange had been trumped up into an infernal mastermind who’d had them all fooled.
“You reckon it’s safe to stay?” asked Ozwin, rubbing his balding head. Their escort hadn’t been quite clear on the situation in the city, but nobody seemed panicked, and that boded well.
“Some’ll be safer if we do. I’m less likely to commit murder here,” replied Soulzeren.
“Well then, that settles it. Murder’s an awful bother. Bodies to deal with, paperwork and that.”
Soulzeren raised an eyebrow. “Paperwork for murder?”
“There’s paperwork for everything. Shall we reclaim our old room, my lady?”
And so they ambled over to the Merchants’ Guildhall, where they were greeted by the astonishing sight of Thyon Nero unhitching a donkey from a cart. He looked decidedly disheveled, his usually pristine clothes wrinkled and dusty, and his famous golden hair uncombed. “Oh,” he said, surprised to see them, and smiled not at all unpleasantly. “You’re back.”
For a moment they could only stare. He seemed a different man from the one they’d traveled the Elmuthaleth with, who would certainly never have touched a donkey, or worn a dirty shirt, or smiled like he meant it. His smiles had been pickled things, as though they’d been preserved in vinegar on some earlier occasion, to be pulled out to act as garnish to his artfully plated expressions. This smile was crooked and loose and seemed born of laughter. He wasn’t alone. The young Tizerkane, Ruza, was with him, holding a heavy black frying pan, a long strip of bacon lolling from his mouth like a dog’s tongue. This was strange, too. Not the bacon tongue—that was Ruza to a T. But the warrior was Lazlo’s friend, and there had never been any warmth between Thyon Nero and either of them.
Well, thought Soulzeren, disaster makes strange bedfellows.
“Care for some bacon?” Thyon asked.
“I’ll never say no to bacon,” replied Ozwin.
The young men were outside so they could keep an eye on the citadel. After witnessing the departure of the flying metal creatures, they’d drawn straws for who had to go back for the donkey. Thyon had lost, and he’d been halfway back to the sinkhole before it occurred to him that he should be incensed. No doubt Ruza had cheated with the straws (he had, of course), and besides, Thyon should have been exempt from such tasks. He didn’t fetch donkeys. But his outrage had refused to kindle. He didn’t want to be exempt. He wanted to go off muttering and fetch the damn donkey, and come back and be teased about it over a meal of scraps with friends.
Friends? A pair of warriors and a thief? Even now a voice within him explained that they were lowborn, incompatible with his station, and ridiculous besides. But now that voice sounded haughty and condescending, and he wanted to put it in a jar and toss it in a river, then sit and eat bacon with his ridiculous, lowborn friends.
Calixte and Tzara emerged from the guildhall with a tray piled high with odds and ends. Calixte squealed to see her fellow faranji returned, and threw her arms around them both, only to immediately draw back, put her hands on her hips, and regard them sternly.
“I can’t believe you left,” she said. “We good faranji stayed here and performed selfless works, in total disregard for our own safety.”
“Selfless works like making sure the cheese gets to fulfill its destiny,” put in Tzara.
Calixte said, “Don’t mock. In my country it’s a crime to let cheese go to waste. It’s the real reason I was in prison—”
“Did you just call me a good faranji?” asked Thyon, cutting her off.
“No,” scoffed Calixte. “As if.”
“You did. I heard you.” Thyon turned to Ruza. “You heard her, too.”
“I heard cheese destiny,” Ruza said, though it was hard to make out because he still had his bacon tongue, and had to talk with his
teeth together to keep it from falling out of his mouth.
“I heard,” said Tzara. “He’s winning you over. Admit it.”
“Only because he found bacon,” said Calixte, grabbing a slice out of the skillet. Holding it up, she said, very seriously, “Bacon has a destiny, too.”
They’d pulled a table out of the dining room, and they fetched extra chairs for Soulzeren and Ozwin. “So how are things downriver?”