The Spirit Rebellion: The Legend of Eli Monpress: Book 2

CHAPTER 23

Duke Edward stood soaked and alone on the battlements of his citadel. His guards were gone; so were his servants. He didn’t know where and he didn’t care. He had larger problems. He stood very still, his eyes closed, his face twitching in a concentration deeper than any he’d ever had to maintain. Below him, spread out in a dark grid, was the city, his city, and every spirit, every speck of stone, cowered in homage to him. Their fear bled through the raging spread of his own spirit, making him feel ill and weak, but he did not loosen his grip. Such unpleasantness was necessary if he was to preserve the perfection he’d worked his whole life to achieve. This was just another test, and though he’d never been pushed to Enslavement before, he’d always been ready to do what he had to do. Perfection was not something that could be achieved through half-measures.

Out on the edge of his control, he could feel the sea spirit that had taken over his river surging. It was gathering water from farther upstream, increasing its size and power. It had doubled since he began the Enslavement, swollen with water until he could no longer feel the Spiritualist girl’s hold on it. Maybe she had died, or maybe the water spirit had grown too large for her and broken away. Whatever the case, Hern’s idea of catching and forcing her to remove her spirit had never been an efficient option. The river was growing too quickly. In another ten minutes it would have enough water to flood the whole city, an outcome that could break his already tenuous hold on his spirits and ruin his town, neither of which was an option he was willing to consider. No, his path was clear. Reestablishing control meant getting the sea spirit out of his river, and Edward was going to do just that, even if it meant destroying the water.

He reached out, his focus sliding across the cowering city to the warehouses on the northern stretch of the river, where he kept his tanneries. Long ago, when he was just a boy, he’d brought the river to heel by threatening to dump the tannery waste into its waters. Now, forty years later, he made good on that threat. With a great thrust of his spirit, the side of the tannery burst open, and five enormous metal barrels of stinking hide soak, their tops frothy with flies and decay, toppled into the river’s newly clear water. He grinned when he felt the Great Spirit’s power shudder and cringe as hundreds of gallons of rancid, black-green sludge slithered across its surface.

Still, it wasn’t enough. The river surged beneath the layer of poison, denying Edward’s control of the area, refusing to retreat. He needed something more drastic, but he was already panting from the effort of controlling spirits so far away. Fortunately, the next step was easy. Even Enslaved, fire needed little encouragement to burn. All he had to do was nudge one of the fallen torches that lay on the docks, dropped by his retreating army, and the flame leaped into the polluted water.

The sludge caught instantly, and the night lit up as hot red fire streaked across the river’s surface. The water screamed and churned, raising great waves as it tried to break the surface film of floating sludge and smother the flames, but all it managed was to fan them higher. The duke smiled in triumph, but never let his control waver. Even this might not be enough to drive the invading spirit out.

“My lord?” a small voice whispered beside him. It was plaintive and hoarse, as if it had been calling a long time. He would have ignored it, but if a spirit had gotten up the courage to interrupt him under these circumstances, it was probably important.

“What?” he said, turning only a tiny fraction of his attention from his battle with the river.

The spirit flickered, and he saw it was the castle fire, the single large fire that moved the treasury door and cooked the castle’s food and heated the rooms, speaking through the chimney. The fire had remained loyal even when the river had been compromised, which was why he turned to listen more closely.

“The thief, Eli Monpress,” it said, its voice crackling. “He’s out in the front square.”

The duke’s patience vanished instantly. “Don’t bother me with such rubbish,” he said, turning back to the river.

“But sir,” the fire said again. “I really think you should look. He’s doing something…” It paused, throwing a puff of nervous smoke into the air. “Odd.”

“Odd?” The duke looked sideways at the chimney. “Odd how?”

“It looks like he’s giving a speech, sir,” the fire finished in a rush, its light ducking back down the chimney just in case the duke decided it was wasting his time. But Edward was frowning, considering his decision. The river demanded his attention, but ignoring Eli Monpress was a risk only fools took. He tried it one way, then another, and came to the conclusion there was nothing to be done but to have a look himself. Keeping the back of his mind on the burning river, the duke walked through the small knot of buildings at the top of the citadel to the battlements on the opposite side, which overlooked the square.

The moment he looked down he understood why the fire had called him. There, standing on a pile of barrels and crates he’d scavenged from who knew where, was Eli Monpress. He was standing in plain sight in the middle of the square, and he seemed to be yelling. Very cautiously, the duke shifted a bit of his spirit away from the river and toward the city center. As his spirit moved over the square, he suddenly heard the thief’s words loud and clear, and his hands clutched the edge of the battlements in white-knuckled fury.

Eli stood atop his mountain of borrowed barrels like a general in a war monument. Light rain soaked his shirt and plastered his black hair to his scalp, which added nicely to the desired effect. Beleaguered heroes always looked better in the rain.

He threw out his hands dramatically as he spoke, pouring every ounce of every scrap of everything he’d ever learned from a lifetime of unconventional wizardry into his voice. “Spirits of Gaol!” he cried, layering just enough power so that his words flowed smooth and strong over the quivering panic around him. “Look at what’s been done to you! Look at the situation you’ve allowed yourselves to be put in! What has happened in Gaol? Free spirits are beholden to no one save their Great Spirit, and yet here you are, cowering while your river is out there fighting the duke for your freedom!”

“That’s not our river!” one of the lamps shouted. “It’s that Spiritualist’s spirit!”

“All the more reason to be ashamed!” Eli answered, his voice harsh. “That an outsider came and risked their neck to save you, and you won’t even help.”

A great round of shouts went up at this, calling him wizard thief, and demanding why should we listen to you? Finally, one voice rolled over the rest. It was the door, the great iron door from the treasury, now standing sullenly at the corner of the square, propped up with sandbags.

“What do you know?” it said. “This is all your fault, anyway. Things were fine until you got here. And now you stand there and tell us to what, rise up? Bah, easy for you! You’re a wizard. You never lived with the duke!”

Eli stared at the door, his eyes wide. When he spoke next, there was a tremor in his voice. “You think I don’t know the duke’s cruelty? You think I just waltzed into Gaol to make empty speeches? Look then!” he shouted, ripping off his coat. “Look for yourselves and then say that I don’t know what it’s like to cross the Duke of Gaol!”

He unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it back, and a great sound went up from the gathered spirits as his bare shoulders came into view. Eli’s skin, always pale, was now a horrid mottle of black and purple bruises. Angry red marks stood out on his lower arms, and his joints were red and swollen until they were painful to look at. All around the courtyard, the spirits who could see the physical world were whispering to those who couldn’t. Those in turn whispered to their neighbors, and Eli’s injuries got worse with every telling. For his part, Eli stood perfectly still, letting the soft rain splash on his injured skin as the story grew around him.

“So you see,” Eli said, gritting his teeth as he gently replaced his shirt, “I, too, have felt what it means to defy the Duke of Gaol.”

But the door was not impressed. “Bah,” it growled. “What are a few bruises? You’re human. You’re free from the true horrors. You can’t even feel the Enslavement, the duke putting his boot on your mind. If you could feel what we feel, you’d be terrified. You wouldn’t last a day living the life we live.”

A general murmur of agreement went up at this, but Eli kept his eyes on the door. “And this life,” he said calmly. “Do you like it?”

“Of course not,” the iron said. “We hate every day, but what can we do? This is our domain; we can’t leave it.”

“You don’t need to leave to be free!” Eli stood up straight, filling his voice with power until it swelled through the entire square. “Listen up, all of you. You’re right that, as a human, I can never know the humiliation of Enslavement. But, as a human, and a wizard, let me tell you a secret: No wizard, not even the Duke of Gaol, is strong enough to simultaneously Enslave an entire city. The only reason he was able to do it is because you’re all afraid of him. It is your own fear that Enslaves you, not the duke! If you want to be free of this life of fear and subservience, then stand up and fight back! His control is already broken, or he wouldn’t have had to try an Enslavement in the first place. The only thing standing between you and a free life is yourselves!”

A great murmur went up across the square as the last of Eli’s words echoed off the tall buildings. Lamps flickered and houses leaned their eaves together, whispering. Eli remained on his barrels, listening, marking the difference in tone. Fear was being replaced by something else-energy, anticipation, and a raw urge to get out of an intolerable situation. Then, like the tide shifting, the fear came roaring back. In a single instant, the square fell silent. Eli squinted a moment in the dim lamplight, confused, and then he turned around and looked up. Two stories up on the battlements of the square citadel stood the Duke of Gaol.

He looked down over the square in utter contempt, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. At that moment, the full weight of his crushing will slammed down on the square. All around Eli, spirits began to squirm frantically, lowering themselves and begging for forgiveness. The duke just sneered, and the Enslavement grew until the weight was unbearable. It was at that moment, when it looked like the spirits would be under that crushing weight forever, that Eli crooked his fingers behind his back. Suddenly, a sound broke the silence. It was a thin, soft whistling noise, as of a rope being spun, and then, out of the dark, something small and black launched from the alley between two houses. Everything in the square turned to look as a stone roofing tile shot through the air, flying in a beautiful, straight arc high over the houses and the cobbled square, straight toward the duke.

What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion. The duke stared at the tile in disbelief as it whistled toward him. Then, belatedly, he threw up his hands and began to shout a command, but he never got the words out. The tile struck him on the shoulder with a loud, solid thwack.

The duke stumbled back with a pained gasp, clutching his shoulder. The tile’s impact wasn’t a blow to kill him, or even injure him beyond inconvenience. His Enslavement hadn’t even wavered, but the change in the square was immediate. All at once, spirits straightened up, gazing in wonder as the duke, the untouchable, terrible, unbeatable Duke of Gaol, lurched from the blow of a single tile.

For a long second, everything was silent, and then, with a great cry, another roofing tile launched itself at the citadel. It fell short, clacking off the stone wall, but the next one whizzed just past the duke’s head, forcing him to duck for cover. The moment his head disappeared below the battlements, the square went crazy.

Houses shook, tossing off the drainpipes, shutters, and overhangs that had been their mouthpieces for reporting to the duke’s wind. The lamps flared up like tiny, glass-trapped suns, spreading the story of what had just happened down the dark streets in a wave of light. Everywhere, spirits were casting off the duke’s order, shouting and carrying on and doing what they wanted. The cobblestones slid out of their perfect geometric alignment to lie comfortably crooked. The tiny flowers in the pristine window boxes sprouted in absurd abundance, spilling leaves and seedpods into the street. Inside the empty houses, whose residents had fled for the walls the moment the conscript army was routed, tables flipped themselves over, chairs fell backward, and neat piles of table linens threw themselves like streamers over everything, creating dancing shapes behind the wobbly glass windows.

It was, in short, beautiful chaos, and Eli could not have been happier. He hopped off his pile of now-jittering barrels and waved at them as they rolled off to wherever they wanted to go. He was sliding his wet jacket back over his sore shoulders when Monpress jogged over from his alley, an anxious look on his usually calm face.

“Excellent job,” Eli said with a wide grin, slapping the old man on the back. “Beautiful arc, too. You haven’t lost an inch on that throw.”

Monpress gave him a sideways look. “Glad to hear you’re so happy about it,” he said, glancing at a pack of wooden benches as they gallivanted down a side street. “From my point of view, it looks like we just kicked off the end of the world.”

“Hardly,” Eli said. “We were merely the catalyst for something that had been brewing for years.” He smiled up at the empty battlements. “People and spirits aren’t all that different in their fundamentals. When the circumstances are primed, all it takes is one act of defiance to set off a revolution.”

“I see,” Monpress said, frowning as a line of barrels rolled out of a shop on their own accord and emptied themselves into the street, dumping gallons of dark red wine into the gutters. “Remind me never to take you into a country I like.”

Eli just grinned and settled back to watch the show.

The Duke of Gaol ran down the spiral stairs of his citadel, taking the broad stone steps two at time. He could hear the chaos through the thick stone walls, and rage like he had never felt burned in his mind, tightening the grip of his enslavement even as more and more of the city’s spirits slipped free. Well, he thought as he burst into the great hall of the citadel, not for much longer. He was the Duke of Gaol still. The rebellious spirits would remember who their master was before the sun rose.

The last of his soldiers had already fled, leaving the great hall empty. The duke marched past the scattered benches and to the enormous hearth. The fire was banked for the night, awake and quiet under a blanket of ash. Without hesitation, the duke thrust his hand into the glowing embers, and the fire sprang up with a piteous, crackling roar.

“You’re coming with me,” the duke growled. “We’re putting an end to this.”

The fire bowed, shuddering under the Enslavement that roared down the duke’s arm. It rose heatless from its bed and settled itself in his hand, flickering across his skin without so much as singeing his white cuffs, too cowed even to burn. Satisfied that this spirit was still loyal, for the moment at least, the duke turned on his heel and walked toward the great racks of weaponry on the far wall. He grabbed an ax with a great, curving moon for a blade. Hefting it in one hand, he mastered the small, stupid spirit with one blast of his will. Thus armed, he marched to the front of his citadel. The great doors flung themselves open as he approached, and he stepped into the chaos that was once his ordered, beautiful, perfect city to face the man responsible.

“Monpress!” he roared, his voice cutting through every other sound.

Across the square, two men looked up, and the duke, one hand wreathed in orange fire, the other gripping his ax, went out to reclaim his authority.

“Eli,” Monpress whispered, watching the black figure with the flaming hand and the gleaming ax stalk toward them. “I say this as your teacher. You should run. That man cannot be reasoned with.”

“You think?” Eli said quietly. “However, considering the little speech I just made, running doesn’t seem like an option.”

Monpress sighed. “Do you see the trouble principles get you into? If I’d known you were this eager to throw your life away, I wouldn’t have bothered coming here to save you.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.” Eli sighed, turning to face the duke. “If you don’t want to fight, I suggest you leave. This could get ugly.”

He expected some sort of protest at this, maybe a dry stab at his supposed inability to do anything without help. But all he got was a hand squeezing his shoulder. “Good luck,” Monpress whispered. Then the hand was gone, and so was the feeling of having someone beside him.

Eli gritted his teeth. Couldn’t blame the old man, really. He was just living by the rules that had kept him alive through his decades as a thief. The rules he had taught Eli, and which Eli was ignoring right now as he stood at the end of the chaotic square, lounging with his arms crossed as the duke marched toward him.

“I should point out,” he said when the duke was ten feet away, “that if you kill me, you’ll never know where I stashed all the money I’ve stolen.”

“You’ve made yourself more trouble than any money could pay down at this point.” The duke’s voice was an icy knife.

Eli swallowed and took a step back. His back was to the line of houses on the far side of the square, directly across from the citadel. Though the ruckus of rebellion was raging loud and strong around them, the houses facing the duke were silent and crouching. The show of obedience didn’t save them. The duke glared up at the wooden structures and raised his left hand, the one wreathed in flame.

“Stop!” Eli cried. “If you burn it, it’ll never serve you again.”

The duke glared murder at him. “Understand, thief,” he said. “I’d rather rule a smoking pit than be disobeyed by my city.”

He waved his hand in a great, glorious burst of orange sparks, and the house behind Eli exploded in flames.

“Let this be a lesson!” the duke cried, his voice booming through the Enslavement that was, even now, still grabbing at order. “The price for disobedience is death!”

The house screamed and writhed as enormous flames raced across its timber frame, devouring the old hardwood with unnatural speed. But then, as fast as the flames had started, they flickered out. The duke’s eyes widened, and he turned to the fire in his hand. It flared up, flickering in terror and pointing wildly at Eli.

Eli was standing at the house’s door, one hand gripping the wood of the door frame. He had his back to the duke, and his figure was shimmering with heat. Steam rose from his wet jacket and with it smoke curled from his shoulders in long white wisps, forming a cloud above his head that flashed and sparked. The cloud grew, clinging to him, and by the time the last of the house fires flickered out, Eli’s shape was almost invisible behind the thick smoke. A great sound roared up in the sudden darkness, and a giant burst from the sparking smoke. It stood as tall as the house it clung to, glowing and liquid, like flowing fire, in a bulky and almost human shape, complete with a great, grinning face. Little puffs of steam rose from the giant’s surface as the soft rain brushed against it, but the fiery monster ignored the water, grinning down at the duke with monstrous glee.

“You see, Edward,” Eli said, his voice hoarse with smoke but still mocking, still triumphant as he grinned over his shoulder, “you don’t get to set the price anymore.”

The duke’s eyes narrowed. “So your fire spirit appears at last? I was beginning to think it was a rumor after all when you failed to bring it out during out little talk.”

“Come on,” Eli said. “You weren’t nearly scary enough before for me to bring out my trump cards.”

“Really?” The duke scowled. “Well, let’s see how many more I can make you play before you die.”

“Now,” Eli said, turning around, “be reasonable-”

A blast of fire was his only answer. Eli dove sideways as the duke lashed out, sending fire out in great waves, burning anything that would burn. All around them the houses burst into flame, and the wood began to shriek in terror. Eli shouted to Karon. The giant nodded and began moving from house to house, sucking up the fire as he went. But even he wasn’t fast enough to stop it all. The duke’s enslaved flames leaped with singular purpose, eating up the wet wood like sparks on dry grass, turning the square into a trap of flames.

Grim and grinning, his ax gleaming in the firelight, the duke began to advance on Eli, and Eli, not keen on traps or axes, decided it was time to run. In a burst of speed, he shot past the duke and ran flat-out toward the far side of the square, where the fire had not reached. But hard as he ran, he could hear the duke behind him. The duke moved with amazing speed for a man his age, and just as Eli was about to duck down a fireless alley, the duke gave a shout. There was a flash of light, and a stream of flame leaped over Eli’s head, singeing his hair. A moment later, the houses on either side of the alley burst into a hungry fire.

Eli skidded to a stop and turned to find the duke right on top of him, swinging wildly with the ax. The old man held it like a stick of firewood, but with a blade like that, he didn’t have to be good. Eli shrieked and jumped out of the way, careful to keep his back to the open square and not the burning buildings.

The duke recovered instantly, hurling a wave of flame, not at the houses, but at Eli himself. The thief was gone before it landed, running along the edge of the square and back toward his lava giant, his last refuge. Before he’d gone a dozen feet, the duke landed a blast of fire on his back, and Eli fell. He rolled across the wet cobbles, smacking the giggling flames with his hands until they were smothered, but while he was putting himself out, the duke had closed the distance, and when Eli looked up again, he saw that he was trapped. They were back where they’d started, at the farthest end of the square from the citadel. Eli jumped to his feet as the duke advanced, ready to run again, but there was nowhere to go. He was right up against the burning doorway of a storefront, with the duke in front of him and everything else in flames.

By the time Eli realized that he was truly trapped, it was too late. The duke’s burning hand closed on his shoulder and tossed him to the ground with surprising strength. Eli hit the doorstep hard, crying out as the skin on his shoulder blistered from the duke’s burning grip. He started to get up again, but the duke’s boot slammed down on his chest, pinning him to the ground. Edward stood above him, a black silhouette against the burning night.

“Go on,” the duke whispered. “Call your lava spirit. It won’t do you any good. Your head will be off your shoulders before the words leave you.”

Eli swallowed, and the duke’s boot pressed harder on his chest, crushing the breath out of him.

“I’ve won, Monpress,” the duke said, raising his ax in a shining arc. “I always win.”

Eli couldn’t even think of an answer for that. He could only watch as the ax whistled through the air, flying straight for the exposed area between his collarbone and his neck.

A moment before it struck, something strange happened. The blow, which had been straight and true, turned sideways, landing not in Eli’s flesh, but deep in the wooden doorstep beside him. For a moment, both Eli and the duke just stared at the blade. Then Edward ripped it free with a roar of rage and raised the ax again, using both hands this time, the fire from his flame-wreathed fingers scorching the ax’s wooden handle. But as he swung again, Eli saw the ax blade flip in the duke’s hands. It flipped on its own, and Eli heard a small, terrified voice cry out in defiance, “Death to tyrants!”

With that cry, the metal head of the ax let go of its shaft. It flew into the house behind Eli, burying itself in the burning door. Edward, robbed of the ax’s weight, stumbled into his swing. He was still staring at the bladeless hilt in disbelief when another extraordinary thing happened. The wooden shop sign, its painted surface blistered and illegible from the fire’s heat, let go of its hinges. Nothing had broken, for the nails were still there, still strong. The wood simply had stopped holding on to them. The sign fell with a fearsome cry of vengeance and struck the duke square in the back.

“Go!” the sign shouted, bearing down on the duke with all its weight.

Eli went. He shot up, kicking the duke out of the way and running past him. But the duke was not done. With tremendous strength, he threw the sign off and made a grab for Eli as he passed, catching the thief’s leg and sending them both sprawling on the wet cobbles. Eli kicked, but Edward was too fast. He surged forward, his hands going for Eli’s neck, but just before he reached the thief, the ground beneath them began to rumble. At the corner of the square, the iron treasury door launched off its supports with a great, ringing cry. It rolled like a wheel, bouncing over the cobblestones that swiveled to guide it.

“For the cause!” it cried, its iron voice filled with decades of bottled anger. “Death to tyrants!”

The duke had just enough time to look up, his face pale and disbelieving, as the door flipped itself around and, with a final wordless cry of vengeance, fell flat-side down on top of him.

With a great, iron crash, the enslavement over Gaol vanished. The duke’s control winked out like a snuffed candle, and all at once spirits were everywhere, piling themselves on top of the door, which was ringing like a gong in triumph. Unfortunately, in their exuberance, they weren’t watching for Eli, who was still lying on his back where the duke had tripped him, staring in amazement. When the second hail of roofing tiles nearly took his leg off, he realized he’d better get out.

He rolled over with a groan, moving stiff and slow where the running and the falls had battered his poor bruises, looking for somewhere safe to lie. But everywhere he looked, spirits were rushing forward, trampling him under a wave of pent-up rage. Eli beat them back as best he could, but it was like fighting the tide, and he realized that he was going to be crushed to death under a riot of celebrating barrels, cobblestones, and roofing tile.

He had just enough time to appreciate the inglorious and ironic nature of such an end when a pair of strong arms burst through the jabbering spirits and grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him up and out in a single motion.

“You all right?” said a blessedly familiar gruff voice, and Eli nearly burst into tears. He’d never been so happy to hear Josef in his life.

“Better than the other guy,” he said, but the words turned into a choking cough. Even with the rain, the square was still black with smoke.

“He’s fine,” Josef said, slapping him on the back.

Somewhere behind them, Eli heard Giuseppe Monpress’s familiar sigh. “Glad I found you, then. If he’d died here, he’d have been too burned to turn in for the bounty.”

“Thanks for the sympathy,” Eli coughed out, slapping his chest to get his lungs clear. He was just thinking about maybe trying to stand on his own when he felt the courtyard rumble and looked up to see Karon coming.

“I’ve kept the fires confined as best I could,” the lava spirit rumbled. “But I think it’s time for me to go. The river seems to be taking matters into its own hands.”

As if to prove his point, a great crashing sound rose up in the distance, the sound of water washing over things it shouldn’t. Eli opened his arms and let Karon’s smoke pour into him again, wincing as the pain of the burn on his chest flashed like a fresh wound. But the pain faded quickly, and he pushed off of Josef just before a wave of white water burst into the square. It flooded up the street, surging over the burning houses in absurd, gravity-defying waves. Even the great pile of spirits marking where the duke had fallen was washed under, and everywhere the fire vanished beneath the cool, blue-white surge.

With the water came a stiff wind. It blew from the west, driving the stench of burned wood away. By this point, Eli and the rest had slogged through the water to the steps of the duke’s citadel, where they were out of the flood. The wind hit them head-on, chilling their wet clothes and filling the air with the smell of the cold, rocky shore. Then something landed with an enormous splash just around the corner. Eli jumped at the sound, and Josef’s hand went to the Heart, but he dropped his grip when the source of the sound came around the corner. It was a little old man, thin as whipcord and with a genteel, scholarly appearance that was only slightly ruined by the way he was wringing the water out of his billowing white robes.

He stopped when he reached the stairs, staring at the huddled group with trepidation as he settled his spectacles on his nose.

“Excuse me,” he said, leaning forward inquisitively. “Which of you is Eli Monpress?”

“That would be me,” Eli said, stepping forward. “Might I ask who’s asking?”

“My name is Lelbon,” the man said with a dry, polite smile. “I am a scholar and general errand runner for Illir, the West Wind.”

He paused, as if this should mean something to them, but Josef just stared at him, and the elder Monpress leaned back against the doors, keen to see where this would go. Eli, however, broke into a grin.

“The West Wind, you say?” Eli scratched his chin thoughtfully. “And what is the West Wind doing sending representatives here? Gaol certainly doesn’t count as the western coast.”

“My employer is interested in the well-being of all the lands he blows over,” Lelbon said stiffly. “We’ve been aware of the situation in Gaol for some time, but were unable to interfere due to the local Great Spirit’s refusal to allow outside aid. The Spiritualist Lyonette has been investigating for us and, as you can see, has rectified the situation.”

“By flooding the whole place,” Eli said, laughing. “That’s Spiritualists for you.”

Lelbon just gave him a sour look. “I was sent to you with a warning. Spiritualist Lyonette is currently speaking with my master, but she will be heading in this direction shortly. I am instructed to relay that it would be wise of you to move on.”

“Would it?” Eli said. “And where exactly does your master get off giving me orders?”

“It’s only a suggestion,” Lelbon said with a shrug. “The great Illir is merely concerned for your welfare. After all, even for as great a spirit as the West Wind, interfering in the affairs of the favorite is politically unadvisable.”

“Favorite?” Josef said, looking at Eli. “Favorite what?”

“Forget it,” Eli said. “All right, you heard the little old man. Let’s get out of here.”

“What, just like that?” Josef asked. “We’re not going to steal anything?”

“What’s left to steal?” Eli said, nodding at the smoldering town and the great empty citadel. “Besides,” he said, grinning at Monpress, “according to everyone, I already stole the entire treasury from the thief-proof fortress. That’s quite enough for one country. We’ve got the Fenzetti; we’re done here.”

That’s when he noticed that Josef wasn’t carrying anything.

“You do have the Fenzetti, don’t you?” Eli said. “It’s with Nico, right? Where is she, anyway?”

“I’ve got it,” Josef said flatly. “Nico’s another matter.” He turned around and walked into the shadowed doorway of the citadel, coming back with the Heart strapped across his shoulders and two wrapped bundles. One was sword-shaped and wrapped in cloth, the Fenzetti. The other was small and dark and carefully cradled in Josef’s arms.

“Wait,” Eli said, going very, very pale. “She’s not-”

“No,” Josef said. “But it isn’t exactly good. I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s go if we’re going.”

“Right,” Eli said quietly, putting his smiling face back so fast Josef didn’t even see his expression change. He turned to the elder Monpress, who was still lounging on the dry step. “You’re welcome to piggyback on our escape, old man. It makes me feel useful to assist the elderly.”

“Your concern is touching,” Monpress said, “but I’ve still a little unfinished business here. Anyway, even your quiet escapes are too flashy for me.”

“Suit yourself,” Eli said. “See you around.”

“Hopefully not,” Monpress answered, but Eli and Josef were already splashing across the soggy square. They vanished down a side street headed toward the north gate, where the panicked crowds of people, who had fled to the city border the first time the city went mad, were now surging through the newly opened doors and over the walls, which had shrunk back to their original size and shape on the duke’s death.

When the thief and his swordsman had vanished completely into the dark, Lelbon and Monpress exchanged a polite farewell and went their separate ways, Lelbon down the road toward the river, and Monpress, very quietly, into the citadel. That was the last Gaol saw of either of the Monpress thieves.