Sparrow couldn’t disagree with that. They made peace and ate pastries—and fruits that weren’t plums, and vegetables that weren’t kimril, and to top it all off, sausage, which they had never had before and which made for excellent proof that food could have flavor, in case there was any lingering doubt after the pastries, which there really wasn’t. No one actually swooned, but some eyes might have been moist with gratitude. Suheyla made sure they didn’t eat too much. “Your systems won’t know what to do with it,” she warned. And the tea was real tea, not crushed herbs, and there was a bowl full of sugar with a miniature spoon that Ruby loved beyond all reason, and held between her fingertips as though it were a doll’s spoon, her face lit with wonder while she scooped tiny spoonfuls into her cup, and then, bypassing her tea altogether, directly into her mouth.
They were to have clothes as well. Suheyla took them through the back door of a shuttered shop, and they put on blouses and embroidered belts, and leather cuffs to cinch their sleeves. The girls eyed skirts but chose trousers, considering their plans for the day. Feral got his first pair of trousers that weren’t gods’ underclothes, and a shirt and cuffs, too. They declined the offer of shoes, all being accustomed to bare feet, not to mention mindful that being barefoot at home was what kept them magical.
And they had every intention of being home again soon, walking on their own metal floors and sleeping in their own beds.
Minya didn’t go to the shop or try on blouses or trousers. Suheyla picked out a few things that might fit her, but she left them untouched on a chair. She did eat, and perhaps she enjoyed it, but if she did, she didn’t show it.
She’d been very quiet since the amphitheater. Sarai didn’t know what she was feeling, and Minya wasn’t likely to tell her, but she stayed close to her—not that she really had a choice—and she found that she didn’t mind. That was a change from the last few years, as Minya had grown more and more difficult, increasingly dark-minded.
It all made so much sense now, and Sarai was ashamed she hadn’t seen it before. All these years, all those souls. Who might Minya be if she hadn’t borne that burden? Who would she become, now that it was gone?
Sarai had seen the Ellens’ faces at the end, and she knew she’d been right: They’d been puppets. All that was warm and motherly, funny and thoughtful and wise in them had been Minya all along. Knowing it, though, didn’t mean she didn’t feel the nurses’ loss keenly. Ruby and Sparrow and Feral did, too, and Sarai thought even Minya did. The ghost women had been a huge part of their lives. So they were a lie? They weren’t real? Knowing it and feeling it were two very different things, and Sarai kept catching herself wishing for a hug from Great Ellen or a hummed tune from Less Ellen and trying to internalize that it had all been Minya.
It didn’t help that Minya showed no sign of those traits now. Would she ever? Were they in her?
Only time would tell.
They didn’t linger in Weep. Sarai had wanted to leave at once, but she’d had to admit that finding the portal by daylight would be difficult enough. By night, likely impossible. Now, healed, fed, and clothed, they assembled in the pavilion where the silk sleighs rested. Sarai was a bit anxious about flying them themselves, but she wouldn’t have felt right bringing the pilots into danger, even if they’d volunteered, which they hadn’t. She thought Soulzeren looked wistful, and might have liked the adventure, while Ozwin was the practical one of the duo, in charge of keeping them alive. And they all accepted that there was no certainty of that, but they chose not to dwell on it.
If they were lucky, the citadel hadn’t gone far. The silk sleighs might have been a marvel in Zeru, but they wouldn’t do for protracted pursuit of a mesarthium ship through an unknown world or worlds. Their only hope was to catch up to it before it got away.
“And then what?”
Eril-Fane voiced the question, but they were all thinking it. If— when—they caught up to the citadel, what then? The invader, who they all now knew was Korako’s sister, had beaten them badly. What would be different this time?
“We’ll surprise them,” said Sarai, though that hardly constituted a plan. How could they plan when they didn’t know what they’d find, or even if they’d find anything at all? They could go through the portal and be greeted by the nightmare landscape, the white stalks growing out of the tempestuous red sea, but no citadel, and no idea which way to go.
“This enemy steals magic,” said Eril-Fane. “You can’t rely on your abilities. It wouldn’t hurt to have warriors with you.”
Azareen, by his side, went cold, but she was unsurprised. She knew by now that Eril-Fane would never be free of the past, never able to turn and face forward. She didn’t look at him, but stood rigid, braced to hear him offer himself up to die again for his sins.
“But not us,” he said, and she felt the warm weight of his hand on her back, and turned in shock to look up at him. “Our duty is here,” he said. “I hope you understand.”
“Of course I do,” said Sarai, who would not have let him come in any case. This wasn’t his fight. She hoped his fight was over, and anyway, it was best not to tempt Minya’s forbearance any further. Sarai knew better than to imagine she’d forgiven him. This could be just a game of quell in which she found herself outnumbered in enemy territory. Who was to say she wouldn’t yet seek her vengeance when she regained her advantage?
Azareen was blinking back tears. Sarai, moved, pretended not to notice. “We don’t need warriors,” she assured them.
“Can we come anyway?” someone asked.
Sarai turned to see two Tizerkane standing back, awkward and hesitant. She knew them, of course. She knew everyone in Weep. They were Ruza and Tzara. Lazlo’s friends.
“You want to come?” she asked, caught off guard. Lazlo had told her, despairing, how deep their hatred of godspawn ran.
“If you’ll have us,” said Ruza, looking uncomfortable. “If it were me gone missing, he’d come looking. Not that I’m special, I mean. He’d come looking for anyone.” He turned to the golden godson and wrinkled his nose with unconvincing distaste. “Even you.”
“I know he would,” said Thyon, who understood now, as he hadn’t before, what it was to help someone for no other reason than that they needed it. “Can I come, too?” he asked, afraid that the girl— the ghost—would reject him and that they would leave him behind.
And Sarai did hesitate. She had not forgotten what it was like inside his dreams—how airless and tight they were, like coffins. And she remembered him at Lazlo’s window, too, arguing, right before she died. His manner had been so guarded, so scathing and cold.
He seemed different now. Not to mention, he had saved her. “If you wish,” she said.
Calixte appealed to come, too, and was welcomed, and that made nine: five godspawn and four humans. Two silk sleighs and one cut in the sky. That was the math of their rescue operation, and there wasn’t a moment to lose.
Chapter 56
Pirates of the Devourer
In every world, the seraphim had cut two portals: a front door and a back door, so to speak—a way in from the previous world, and a way out to the next. When navigating the Continuum, there were two directions: not north and south, right and left, up and down, but al-Meliz and ez-Meliz. Toward Meliz, and away from Meliz. The seraph home world, where the Faerers’ journey had begun, was the only compass point that mattered.
The cut in the sky over Weep was Zeru’s ez-Meliz portal. The world on the other side was called Var Elient, and it was not all red sea and mist. But the red sea, called Arev Bael, went on for many weeks’ journey, and had eaten more ships than it had ever let pass. The seraph Thakra, in an age long gone, had dubbed it the Devourer, and balked— or so the story went—at destroying the monsters that swam in it.
Var Elient was a world whose point of pride was that its monsters were too monstrous for even gods to destroy.
And maybe they were, or maybe the Faerers had just been too tired after destroying Zeru’s beasts.