The Serpent Sea

Chapter Thirteen

Jade hauled Moon across the stairwell to a room on the far side. Root, who still hung from the ceiling, stared curiously as they went past but didn’t speak.

The room had a wall of tall windows, sheltered by the terrace on the floor above. Dawn was breaking, the first light spreading gray-blue across the dark sky. There was just enough light to see the carved figures in the walls glaring down with sightless eyes. Wind whipped through the room, scouring away the scent of mold.

Jade dropped Moon’s arm and went to the window. She faced away from him, her spines still quivering in agitation.

Moon watched her warily. He couldn’t tell who she was most angry at, him, Stone, Rift, or all three of them. He said, “I’m not going to let Stone kill him.”

Jade flicked a look at him. “He’s a solitary.”

Coming from her, that hurt. “So was I.” Rift had inadvertently betrayed Indigo Cloud to Ardan, not knowing the colony tree was soon to be occupied. Moon had inadvertently betrayed Indigo Cloud to the Fell, not knowing they had been waiting for turns for vengeance. Moon didn’t see much of a difference, except that he was a consort, and the court had needed him.

Jade turned to face him. He couldn’t see her expression with her back to the light, but her voice was still taut. “You weren’t thrown out of a court, Moon. It’s not the same thing.”

It felt like the same thing. “If I’d been born a warrior—”

“Moon.” Jade moved to him and grabbed his shoulders. Moon was braced for just about anything, except what she said. “Stone likes you. He likes you better than most of his natural descendants.”

He tried to pull away but she didn’t let go. She said, “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you I’m glad you’re alive. I get here and find out you’ve talked your way into a groundling wizard’s tower, a groundling wizard who collects the decaying bodies of rare creatures—”

“You were supposed to give us three days.”

“I couldn’t wait.” She let him go and turned away with a distracted hiss. “Now the warriors are probably trapped out here and this damn thing is still moving. If we go further out than even Stone can fly, we can’t even—” She bit the words off.

Moon rubbed his arms where her hands had pressed into his groundling skin, jolted into remembering that Rift wasn’t the only issue. If they all died here, unable to escape, or drowned trying to reach the forest coast, it would be Jade’s fault for not waiting. That would please River, though probably not much, what with being dead himself. And why had Pearl sent River after them and not one of her other warriors? As far as Moon had been able to tell, she had always kept her favorite warriorlover close at hand. Maybe River had wanted to prove himself. Things had changed in Indigo Cloud, and maybe River couldn’t hold on to his status without showing he was willing to risk his life for the court like Vine and Floret and the other warriors.

He could worry about River’s motives later. Jade was too much of a Raksura to remember there were other ways off this leviathan than flying. Moon said, “The groundlings—Esom and Karsis—have a boat.”

Jade’s spines twitched. “Of course,” she muttered. She turned to him, her brow furrowed. “They’ve said they won’t leave without their friends. We’d have to take it from them.”

Moon shrugged uncomfortably. “I know.” Negal and his crew had helped steal the seed. But telling Esom and Karsis they were on their own was one thing; forcing them to abandon their people to die was another. Maybe we could work something out. They didn’t need a boat for the whole trip, just to carry them far enough that the coast was within a safe flying distance for the warriors. “Maybe…” He let the word trail off as he realized the subtle sway of the tower, the sense of motion, was dying away with the howl of the wind.

Jade went to the window. Moon reached her side and looked over the rooftops out to the sea. The rising sun broke through the streaked clouds and glanced off the water, glittering on the roiling whitecaps stirred by the leviathan’s fins. But the waves died down and settled to swells. The leviathan was gliding to a halt.

Jade hissed in bitter amusement. “You and Rift escape Ardan, and suddenly this creature moves further out to sea? It can’t be a coincidence.”

Moon leaned on the windowsill. “It has to be. The whole reason the city needs the magisters at all is because the leviathan moves… at random.” Huh. That was what all the groundlings thought, anyway. Because that’s what the magisters tell them.

Jade’s expression was thoughtfully skeptical. “How convenient for the magisters.”

Moon looked out to sea again. “Some groundlings who live here told us that turns ago the magisters started to lose their power, and the leviathan woke and swam away. They can still keep the city together, but they can’t make the leviathan go back to the shore.”

“Or they let the leviathan swim away, so they could keep control of the city,” Jade said.

“Maybe. Maybe they have just enough power to make it move when they want.” Ardan clearly had some hold over Magister Lethen, a hold that Lethen bitterly resented. “Or when Ardan wants. Maybe he’s the only one with the power to make the leviathan move anymore. He’s the youngest magister.” He turned away from the window, thinking over what Ardan had said, and not said.

“We know he thought our seed would help him somehow, give him power. We don’t know if he was right or not.” Jade shook her spines, irritated. “We won’t know until we find this mortuary temple.”

Moon hesitated, but he wanted this point settled. “Are you going to let Stone kill Rift?”

Jade twitched at the question. But she said, “Not today.” Her voice hardened. “That’s as far as I’ll go.”

Moon set his jaw, forced himself not to argue, and walked out.

Moon went back into the main room. Rift sat on the floor in the far corner. Esom and Karsis were still seated on the bench, and Chime, Balm, and Drift stood around looking uncomfortable.

Moon asked, “Where’s Flower?” River was missing too, but he didn’t care if River had gone up to take a turn on watch or had flown away to die somewhere.

He had spoken in Kedaic, and Karsis answered, “She said she was going to talk to the older man who stormed off earlier.”

“Is Jade all right?” Balm asked, a little hesitantly.

“Yes.” Moon was hesitant too. “She’s… resting.”

Drift sneered. “She should give you a beating.”

Moon took a step toward him. His expression must have made his first impulse clear. Drift flinched back and hissed.

Balm hissed at Drift, and Chime threw him a glare, saying, “Why don’t you go say that to Jade and see what happens?”

Apparently declining to follow that advice, Drift subsided. He retreated to lean against the wall with his arms folded, and eyed Moon resentfully.

Esom and Karsis sat stiffly, trying to look as if they weren’t tense to the point of rigidity. It seemed cruel to expose them to any more of Drift than absolutely necessary, but they had to be watched. Moon nodded toward an alcove on the other side of the room. It had another stone bench and room to stretch out on the floor. The two groundlings had been awake all night, too, and had to be weary. He said, “You can go over there to rest, if you want. Chime, do you have spare blankets?”

Chime turned to one of the packs lying against the wall. “Yes, I’ll find some. And some water, and I think we have some dried fruit and roots they could eat.”

Relaxing a little, Karsis said, “Thank you,” and Esom nodded, still stiffly.

Moon went over to where Rift was crouched in the corner and sat near him. Rift watched him warily, his body tight with tension. This close, Moon could scent the fear in his sweat. He said, “They won’t kill you.”

Rift’s shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes for a moment. He made a noise that was between a sob and a harsh laugh, and looked up at Moon again. “Your queen does whatever you want?”

Moon stared him down, until Rift dropped his gaze. “Sorry,” Rift muttered. “I didn’t mean… The consorts at my court weren’t like you.”

That was probably true. “Did Ardan think I was here alone?” Yesterday Moon had told the magister that he had friends waiting for him, but he was hoping Ardan had taken that as a lie, part of Moon’s persona as a trader.

Rift shook his head. “I don’t know. He didn’t even tell me that he had another guest.”

Moon let out his breath. He didn’t think that was a lie. Rift’s shock at seeing another Raksura had been genuine. “How much does Ardan know about Raksura? When he saw me shift, would he have known I was a consort? That a consort wouldn’t be here alone?”

Rift’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “He knows what a consort is, but… I’m not sure he really understands, not well enough to realize you wouldn’t be traveling alone.” Rift hesitated and watched him uneasily. “Why did they send you to the tower? Why not one of the warriors?”

Moon drew back. “I’ve been around groundlings. The others haven’t.” He wasn’t ready to say more than that. Rift already had a hold on him, he didn’t need to know details. He countered, “What did you do to get thrown out of your court?”

It was Rift’s turn to recoil. After a moment, he said, “The queens didn’t like me.”

The flicker of hesitation in Rift’s eyes told Moon it was a lie. And if that was a reason to be exiled, half of Indigo Cloud would be wandering the Three Worlds. “Were you from a royal clutch?”

Startled resentment crossed Rift’s expression. “Yes,” Rift admitted, biting the word off as if it hurt to tell the truth. “How did you know?”

There was something about Rift’s attitude that suggested it. The warriors born out of royal clutches always seemed to be the troublesome ones. “Just a wild guess,” Moon said. Across the room he saw Drift, who had been pretending not to listen, roll his eyes in derision.

Rift’s sideways look was dubious. Moon said, “Why didn’t the queens like you?”

“I had a fight with one of the reigning queen’s favorites.” That wasn’t a good reason to be exiled, either. Moon hadn’t even been in the court that long, and he knew young warriors frequently attacked each other. River and Moon had tried to kill each other right in front of Pearl and Jade, and nobody had suggested exiling anybody.

Moon asked, “Did you kill her?”

Rift flicked his spines. “Of course not.”

Moon sensed the story had just veered off the truth again. Rift’s answer had been too easy. Moon thought an adult female warrior, especially a favorite probably from a royal clutch herself, could have beaten Rift into the ground. And if the fight was so violent that Rift had killed his opponent in self-defense, that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing to admit. Moon said, “So they threw you out of the court for losing a fight with a queen’s favorite?”

Rift’s jaw set as if he suppressed some strong emotion. Moon knew in his bones that this was play-acting. Rift said bitterly, “If that’s how you want to describe it. It wasn’t fair, but it’s what happened.”

Moon watched him for a long moment, but Rift’s gaze didn’t waver. He knew he hadn’t gotten the truth yet, but Rift seemed committed to this story, at least for now.

He got to his feet and walked out, randomly picking another doorway off the stairwell. The room within was thankfully empty, a little smaller than the others on this floor, with long narrow windows letting in light and the damp air.

There was a quiet step behind him and he glanced back to see Balm.

She stopped and said, “He’s not like you, Moon. He’s a real solitary, exiled from his court for a good reason.”

Moon rubbed his eyes, trying to be patient. He suspected he was going to be having this conversation a lot. “You don’t know he’s not like me,” he said, aware he was just being difficult. “I could be lying.”

Balm shook her head in exasperation. “You don’t know anything about living in a court. You have to have everything explained to you, and when we do explain it, you look like you think we’re crazy. Everyone who speaks to you notices that. No one is that good a liar.”

Moon turned away abruptly and sat down against the wall, folding his arms. He had expected to have the conversation, but not that it was going to be about him. Balm followed and sat on her heels in front of him. He said, reluctantly, “It could have been me. Everything Rift did. When I was alone, I was just looking for a place to live. If I’d been hurt, trapped, and been found by someone like Ardan, who was kind to me… Even if he wanted to use me, I might have gone along with it, just to belong somewhere.” He waved a hand in frustration. “That’s exactly what happened with Stone. I crossed the Three Worlds for the first person who asked me.”

“The first Raksura who asked you,” Balm corrected, unconvinced. “Back at the colony tree, you told me what I should do. Now I’m telling you. This solitary is not like you. Thinking of him that way is a mistake.” She sat back. “He’s even changed his name. No one calls a child ‘Rift.’”

Stone had said much the same thing about Sorrow, the warrior whom Moon had thought of as his mother. But a warrior who changed her name to Sorrow because her court had been destroyed and she was left alone with four small Arbora and a fledgling consort to care for was understandable. A warrior who left his court and called himself “Rift”… “I know. I know I can’t trust him.”

Balm watched him. “Do you trust us?”

Moon couldn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t trust them. Maybe he was pretending they were his family, going through the motions, but deep in his heart he didn’t really believe it. It would explain a lot, he told himself. Like why you keep acting like an idiot.

Balm shook her head regretfully. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it. Did you think we would have let that noisy little Emerald Twilight queen touch you?”

It had never even crossed his mind that they might defend him. From a Fell or a predator or some other common enemy, but not from a Raksuran queen, even one from a strange court. It was an uncomfortable insight.

His inability to answer told Balm all she needed to know. She sighed and squeezed his knee sympathetically, then pushed to her feet and walked away.

Chime passed her in the doorway, and Moon hunched his shoulders, feeling beleaguered. “Don’t say she’s right. I know she’s right.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” Chime sat down, settling uneasily on the cracked tiles. “She is right, though.”

Moon rubbed his forehead; the tension and the long night underground had given him a headache. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing. I just… I don’t want to worry Flower. Especially now, when she’s trying to talk to Stone.”

Moon squelched a surge of guilt at the mention of Stone. “Worry her about what?”

Chime sighed. “I keep having these… odd feelings.”

“Odd how?”

Chime made a vague gesture. “Like I can feel water moving, and… cold and weight and rock. I’m twitchy, like I can just catch glimpses of things that flick away before I can focus on them. The feelings come and go, in bursts—which is good, because otherwise I’d go out of my head.”

That definitely sounded odd. “When did it start?”

“Since just before dawn, when we landed on this creature.” Chime shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the whole idea that he might have some sort of heightened awareness of the leviathan. “I know. If it’s a coincidence, it’s a strange one.”

“Is it a mentor thing? I mean, are you…” Knowing how badly Chime felt about his involuntary change to warrior, Moon hesitated to suggest that Chime might be getting his abilities back. If he wasn’t, if it was just his imagination… Hope was painful.

But Chime shook his head. “No, it can’t be. Augury isn’t like this. This is different.”

“Then you should talk to Flower.”

“I know.” Chime slumped. “I’m tired of strange things happening to me. I just got used to being able to fly, and to hunting, and all the other things I’m supposed to do now. I know this is the only way you’ve ever seen me, but to me it still feels like it just happened.”

“No, I know what you mean.” Moon felt like he was reliving his past at regular intervals, whether he liked it or not.

Flower stepped into the doorway, gave the room a sour look, then came to sit down next to Moon with a grunt of effort. “Consorts,” she said, in a tone that made it sound like an insulting epithet. “Old, stubborn, obstinate consorts.” She eyed Moon without favor. “And you. You have to be coaxed to do everything except risk your life.”

Moon fumbled for a rebuttal as Chime said, “Are you all right? You look terrible.”

Flower transferred her glare to him. “If you ask me that one more time, I will curdle your liver.”

“Hah, good luck trying to slip me the simple to do it with.” Chime leaned close to her, despite her attempt to bat him away. “You’ve got blood trails in your eyes.”

Moon took her hand. Her skin was the matte white of extreme age, no trace left of its original color, though there were traces of gray in the creases around her wrist and on her palm. He wondered how many Raksura were left in the court who remembered what Flower had looked like in her youth, if her skin had been bronze or copper or some shade in between, if her hair had been black or red-brown. Stone was more than old enough, and maybe Bone. Pearl might be, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t learned to judge the age of queens yet. He said, “You should rest.”

She freed her hand. “I’ll rest when we get the seed.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m risking my life,” Moon said pointedly. “We knew what we were doing. You shouldn’t have let Jade bring the warriors.”

“I know.” Flower rubbed her eyes. “I advised her not to go.”

That didn’t make Moon feel any better. Worried, Chime said, “I didn’t know. Did you have a vision that we shouldn’t go? And Jade didn’t listen?”

“No, it wasn’t a vision,” she said, annoyed. “I just thought we should wait. Sometimes I don’t have visions; sometimes I have common sense. Not that any of you listen to me.”

“You could have lied and said it was a vision,” Moon said. They both looked at him, nearly identical exasperated expressions. “What?”

“Mentors don’t lie about visions.” Flower sighed. “I’m going to rest now, hold still.”

“What? No, I can’t—” Flower climbed into Moon’s lap, ignoring his protests. “I need to keep an eye on Rift.”

“Balm and the others are watching him and the groundlings. Root is going to come get me when it’s my turn,” Chime said and settled against Moon’s shoulder.

Flower had buried her face against his chest and he automatically put his arms around her. She felt like she was all sharp bones under the light material of her dress; it was like holding a Kek. He didn’t remember her feeling this insubstantial. In fact he was fairly certain she had had more solid muscle, like the other Arbora, not that long ago. But before he could think of a way to frame a question, she said, “Stone won’t kill him. Not now. You two can fight that out later.”

Moon leaned back against the wall. He was painfully sensitive to any mention of Stone at the moment, angry, guilty, and angry at himself for feeling guilty.

He didn’t mean to rest, but he hadn’t slept since last night, so he ended up dozing for a while. He woke when Root came to get Chime for his turn at watch. Too anxious to stay still, Moon handed the still-sleeping Flower over to Root.

Everything was quiet. Chime and Song settled down to watch Rift, who had fallen asleep. Jade was in the other room, sleeping with Balm, and River was up in the top room on watch. Esom and Karsis had even dozed off, lying in a corner of the main room on borrowed blankets.

Moon paced an empty room on the far side of the stairwell, thinking of everything they needed to do. Jade and the warriors had eaten heavily before they left the mainland, and had brought meat in their packs, wrapped in the big leaves of the mountain-saplings. It was enough for the moment, but they were going to have to feed everyone in the next couple of days. They still had enough metal bits to buy food, but the market he and Stone had used was too close to Ardan’s tower. Looking for another one would be a good use of Moon’s time, except he couldn’t go outside in the daylight for fear that Ardan’s men might be searching for him.

He had reached a peak of frustration when Song ducked into the doorway. She said, “Floret’s back. She says they found the place.”

“It was just like the groundling said,” Floret reported, when they gathered in the main room again.

Stone had returned from the depths of the tower and leaned against the wall, as calm as if nothing had happened. That made Moon’s jaw so tight his back teeth ached. Rift hunched in a corner, with Chime and Balm nearby. River stood near Jade, with a grimly skeptical expression that seemed to be trying to indicate that he was a leader but not responsible for anything that went wrong. Esom and Karsis had taken seats on the bench again, and watched anxiously. Flower sat nearby, still trying to wake up. Drift was on guard now, up on the open top floor, and Root and Song stayed near the doorway, as if ready to make a quick escape if there was another fight.

Having left before the argument broke out, Floret didn’t notice the undercurrents, or if she did, she was too excited by her news to worry about it. “A big round building, near a flooded part of the city, towards the front of the leviathan. There weren’t many groundlings living nearby, and they all seemed to be sick or sleeping, and they smelled funny.” Or drunk, Moon thought. Floret had probably never seen anyone intoxicated before. She continued, “The only ones who looked normal were guarding the round building’s doors. Vine stayed behind to keep watch on it, in case anyone comes to take the seed away.”

Jade asked, “There was only one way in?”

“That we could see.” Floret glanced at Moon. “Vine and I thought that since you and the two groundlings found an underground passage out of that tower—”

“There could be one into this mortuary.” Moon looked at Rift. “Is there?”

Rift shrugged helplessly. “There could be, but I never went there with Ardan. I don’t know where the entrance would be.”

“If it’s guarded on the surface, wouldn’t it be guarded underground, too?” Chime ventured, with a cautious glance at Stone.

“The passage down from Ardan’s tower wasn’t, but then groundlings would have needed ropes or ladders to use it,” Moon said. It had looked more like a handy disposal area for garbage or waste. Whatever its original purpose, it had fallen into such disuse it had been nearly forgotten. He didn’t remember seeing any other shafts upward to other structures, not that he had been looking closely. “We could try going back and working our way toward the mortuary, but Ardan might still be searching down there for us.”

Stone said, in Kedaic, “Why did you think it was a mortuary?”

Moon looked up, startled. Stone watched Esom and Karsis. Confused, since no one had translated the other part of the conversation for them, Esom said, “The building I described, where we think your seed is? Oh, well, Negal and I saw what seemed to be a funeral procession going inside. We asked one of the local men, and he told us the dead were carried there.” He looked around, and explained, “We had been trying to find out about the burial customs of the city.”

“Why?” Balm asked, her expression critical. She seemed to find this a dubious pursuit at best.

Karsis explained, “Negal believes that it tells a great deal about a people, how they dispose of their dead.”

“So they’ve been storing all the remains of everyone who died on this leviathan for however many turns?” River said, skeptical. Then he added, “Maybe that’s what the underground area is for and there is a passage up into the place from there.”

Moon was too struck by River actually saying something helpful to reply immediately. Jade turned to Rift. “Is that what they do with their dead?”

“I don’t know.” Rift twitched uncomfortably. But after a moment of reluctant thought, he added, “I never saw anything down there that looked like a place for burials, but I didn’t explore very far. Once I found a way to the surface, I didn’t want to risk Ardan finding out where I’d gone.”

Jade nodded, her decision made. “We won’t go back through the underground, not unless there’s no other choice. Moon’s right. Ardan might still be looking for you down there. We’ll search around this temple.” She glanced toward the stairwell, the fall of gray light still illuminating it, and amended, “Some of us will search around it. Unobtrusively, as groundlings. I’ll join you when it gets dark.”

“I’ll go,” River said.

Of course you will, Moon thought. He was trapped here until dark.

Stone pushed away from the wall. Moon tensed all over, but Stone only said, “I’m going out to talk to some groundlings, see what they know about this mortuary place.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was such a good idea, Moon wished he had thought of it. There was Theri, Rith, and Enad to ask, if they were back from their daily work, or the woman who ran the wine bar. But it was a much touchier subject than how strangers found work in the city. Moon asked, “How are you going to work ‘What do you do with your dead?’ casually into a conversation?” Tension made the words come out sharper than he meant.

Everyone seemed to tense in apprehension. But Stone just said, “I thought I’d ask somebody who won’t notice. Like Dari.”

As soon as the sun sank out of the cloudy sky, Moon and Jade left the tower, flying toward the coastline near the leviathan’s head.

All through the afternoon, the warriors had taken turns surreptitiously searching the empty buildings in this area, looking for passages down to the underground space. Root, Song, and Floret had been left back at their tower to keep watch over Rift and the two groundlings.

The mortuary temple lay in a shallow valley between the leviathan’s shoulders, surrounded by crowded, crumbling stone structures only a few stories high. There weren’t many vapor-lights and the empty streets were deeply shadowed, except for the gleam of water. The sea must wash up over the leviathan’s head whenever it moved, flooding the streets and leaving puddles behind. Moon could pick out only a few lit windows here and there. This was obviously not a highly prized neighborhood, if it had ever been one.

To the northwest, he could see where the creature’s body dipped down, just below the ridge formed by its right arm. The roofs and top stories of flooded buildings were just visible above the dark water.

They banked in to land on the peak of a roof, and Jade climbed down to the alley. Moon paused to watch a groundling lamp-tender make his way across the open plaza in front of the temple’s entrance. It was a big, round structure, at least four stories tall, topped by an octagonal dome. A wall formed a roofless court before the entrance, and inside it several blue-pearl guards, probably Ardan’s men, stood in front of the metalbound double doors. The night was cool, and they had gathered around a waist-high brazier. From their postures, they were very bored.

The lamp-tender reached the stand at the far end of the plaza. He filled the well in its base from the heavy canister he carried, closed it, and went on his way. The sputtering vapor-light in its glass cage at the top of the stand brightened noticeably.

“Moon,” Jade whispered from below.

Moon climbed down the pitched roof to a ledge where Chime and Balm waited. Chime reported quietly, “Stone just got here. He said he thinks there’s something over in that part that’s underwater.”

“We hadn’t looked there yet,” Balm said, frustrated. “We thought if there was an open passage, the water would have drained away.”

They took flight again, Chime following them toward the flooded section. Balm went to gather the others back from their fruitless search.

They circled down to the flooded street, and Moon landed on a roof and crept to the edge. The street formed a dark passage below, lined with empty stone houses, their doors long ago washed away. Stone was in groundling form, standing balanced on top of a low wall just below this house. The water was as dark as obsidian and gleamed in the moonlight. The place smelled of dead fish and silt and… “Do you smell that?” Moon whispered.

Jade answered, “Yes, it’s water traveler. There must have been one through here at some point.”

Moon hooked his claws into chinks in the mortar and climbed down the wall. “I saw some yesterday, heading toward the city. But why is the scent here, and not at the harbor?”

Following Moon and Jade, Chime said, “This must be where they do their trading, to keep them away from the groundlings in the harbor. After all, Nobent wanted to eat you when he thought you were a groundling.”

Then from below Stone said, “The rumor I heard from Dari is that the city trades the dead bodies of the poor to the water travelers in exchange for edilvine.”

“They trade their dead?” Moon stepped cautiously into the water and his claws slipped on the slimy pavement.

“For vines?” Jade added skeptically, hanging from the wall as she waited for Chime to climb down.

“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet,” Stone admitted, and turned to lead the way along the flooded street.

Behind them, Chime muttered, “The more I hear about this place, the less I like it.”

If this was true, the vines had to be something the city wanted or needed, badly. “Maybe they make a drug out of it. Like that smoke, and whatever it is that Dari drinks.”

Stone made a noncommittal noise and turned a corner to follow the street as it passed under a high, curved archway. It led into what had been an open court with a covered terrace at the back, supported by pillars carved in the shape of giant lily stalks. Like the street, it was flooded, the water washing the broad steps up to the deeply shadowed terrace. “How did you find this place?” Chime asked.

Stone said, “Once Dari mentioned water travelers, I just followed the scent.”

Moon tasted the air as he and Jade followed Stone up the steps and past the columns. The scent of water traveler was much heavier here, clinging to the damp mortar and the furry plants growing across the vaulted ceiling. Stone dug in the pouch at his belt and pulled out a faintly glowing object—one of Flower’s spelled rocks.

It cast a dim light over the cracked, stained paving and up to the far wall, revealing a carved scene with life-size groundlings in a procession, carrying a body on a bier. The carving framed a doorway, rusted metal figured with elaborate curving designs. “It’s locked, maybe barred on the inside.” Stone tugged on the handle, demonstrating.

“Let me see. If you shift under here, you’ll break the roof.” Jade stepped forward and took the handle.

“Don’t break it off,” Moon said.

“Moon—” Jade jerked at the door and it yielded with a loud crack. Pieces of a broken lock fell to the ground as the door swung open. Stone lifted his light and it shone down a long ramp that led into darkness.

Stone started to step forward and Chime snapped, “Stop!”

They all froze. Moon flicked a quick glance around the doorway, but he didn’t see anything but dark patches of mold. He whispered, “What?”

“I— It’s— I’ve got a funny feeling,” Chime said, sounding mortally embarrassed. “Like there’s something there.”

“A mentor feeling?” Jade asked, and crouched down for a closer look at the pavement just inside the door. Careful not to let any of his frills fall past the threshold, Moon joined her.

“Maybe,” Chime admitted.

“I thought all that didn’t come back after you changed,” Stone said, his tone carefully neutral.

“Well, it hadn’t.” Chime twitched uneasily. “Until… Look, I’m probably wrong.”

Jade nudged Moon and nodded toward something on the pavement inside the doorway. “No, you’re right,” Moon told Chime. About a pace past the threshold was a line of dirt and flotsam that had washed up under the door. It had formed a straight line across the ramp, as if it had encountered some solid object, except there was nothing there. “It’s one of Ardan’s barriers, like the one around the tower.”

Jade sat up, her spines flicking impatiently. “This could be a trap. If they trade with the water travelers, groundlings must come and go through here, and the lock would be enough to keep thieves out. The only reason to put a magical barrier here is to catch us.”

“Trap or not, we still have to get in there,” Stone said.

“Esom said he could get past the tower barrier without Ardan knowing,” Moon said. “If he wasn’t lying.”

“We’ll find out.” Jade turned to Chime. “Bring him here.”

“It’s an untested theory,” Esom said, though at least he kept his voice low as he sloshed through the water up the terrace steps.

“Then we’ll test it,” Chime told him as he climbed down a column from the roof.

Balm and River waited here now too. Drift was on watch, posted on a rooftop above the flooded street, and Vine on the roof of the terrace.

“Finally,” Jade muttered, and pushed to her feet. It hadn’t really been that long. Moon and Stone had spent the time exploring the terrace, carefully not speaking to each other. Moon had found wilting scraps of a plant that smelled like the vegetation that had grown all over the Kek town on the coast, more evidence for the idea that the water travelers traded here.

River hadn’t been in favor of the plan. “You’re trusting a groundling thief,” he had said. “That’s almost as bad as trusting the solitary.”

Jade just ignored his objections, and Moon didn’t have an argument either. The only basis they had for trusting Esom was that he would be a fool to betray them to Ardan.

Then Floret climbed down the wall, followed by Flower. Jade hissed, startled and angry. “What are you doing here? Who’s watching the solitary?”

“Root and Song and the groundling woman,” Floret said, her flattened spines conveying guilt and chagrin.

“The groundling woman?” Jade repeated incredulously. “Are you—”

“I made her bring me,” Flower interrupted, sounding brisk. She shifted to groundling and shook out her dress. “It smells foul here. Where’s this barrier you’re all babbling about?”

Silence fell. Moon scratched under the frills behind his ear and kept his mouth shut. After a moment, Jade said through gritted teeth, “Floret, get back to the tower.”

Floret fled.

Jade made an effort to drop her ruffled spines. She said, “You should be resting. You’ve been ill since we reached the coast, whether you’ll admit it or not.”

“I can rest later.” Flower crossed the terrace to the threshold of the doorway, and Stone shone the light on it for her. She nodded and glanced at Chime thoughtfully. “Something’s there, all right. It smells of groundling magic.”

Chime shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know. Maybe it was just a good guess.”

Stone snorted, but didn’t otherwise comment.

Esom edged forward and frowned at the barrier. Moon switched to Kedaic, asking him, “Can you see it?”

“No, but I can feel it.” He held out a hand, carefully not reaching past the doorway. “It’s similar to the barrier around Ardan’s tower.”

“Can you get us past it?” Jade said, her voice tight with impatience.

“I can try.” Esom looked around at them all, his expression grim. “I was never able to get outside Ardan’s tower to try with that barrier. Tampering with this one could alert Ardan.”

River hissed angrily, as if they hadn’t all thought of that earlier. “If it does—”

“If it does,” Moon cut him off, and finished to Esom, “Then you’ll know, for when you go back to his tower to get your friends.”

Esom glanced nervously at River, but said, “That’s a good point.” He stepped forward, hands out, and eased across the threshold, right up to the line of debris that marked the barrier. He crouched down and slid his hands along the pavement.

Moon stepped to the side to see his face. Esom’s eyes were shut in concentration, and sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool air. Flower cocked her head, as if listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear. Chime watched intently, obviously straining his senses to feel what Esom and Flower felt.

Esom turned his head, and said in a hoarse whisper, “Be ready. I won’t be able to keep it open very long.”

Jade turned to the others. “Vine and Drift will stay here on watch. The rest of you will come with us.”

Vine, hanging upside down from the edge of the terrace roof, said worriedly, “Be careful.”

Moon happened to look at Balm in time to see an expression of relief cross her face. She had been afraid Jade would leave her behind.

Then Esom slowly eased to his feet and held his arms out as if lifting an invisible curtain. As Esom stood, Moon felt a breath of cooler air, tinged with decay and incense and mold. It was a draft that had been held back by the barrier, now flowing from the doorway. It was more confirmation that Esom was performing as promised.

Esom stepped in, pushed the barrier above his head. He gasped, “Now!”

Moon lunged forward, halted at the threshold as Jade beat him there and slipped past Esom. He followed her, Chime and Flower behind him. River and Balm ducked past Esom, then Stone. Esom stumbled suddenly, staggered forward as if something heavy had fallen on him. Breathing hard, he moved further down the ramp, away from the barrier. “I think… I think it’s all right. Hopefully Ardan didn’t sense that.”

Jade said, “You didn’t have to come in here. You could have waited outside with Vine.”

Esom leaned against the wall, still catching his breath. He made a helpless gesture. “I meant to, but it got a little much for me. It was easier to go forward than back.”

“You can say that about a lot of things,” Flower said in an aside to Chime.

“Then you’d better come with us,” Jade told Esom. She took the lightrock away from Stone and started down the ramp.

Moon had somehow assumed Stone was staying behind. Unable to stop himself from sounding accusing, he said, “Why did you come? This place is too small for you to shift.”

Even in the dark, he could tell Stone was giving him that look. “That’s none of your business.”

“It’s my business if you collapse the ceiling on us.”

“Both of you, quiet,” Jade snapped.