“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.