Aliyah

She’d sewn the fabric together as best she could. Now, she wore it like a shawl—wore it like flag saying come get me, a target painted in Healer red.

Around her, crowds milled. Some were faeries, but most were humans. Searching the skies yielded nothing of use; her heart spiked at every glimpse of silver carapace, but the trouble with faeries was that they came in all kinds of colours. Saiphenora wasn’t the only silver faery in existence. She’d exhausted her paranoia after the first hour of following Luxon around. If Saiphenora wanted to greet her with an arrow-shot, then she’d know regardless. And somehow, she doubted it was likely to happen here.

The crowds thickened as they descended deeper into the market: men dressed as statues, governesses ushering children, ragpickers dragging trundling carts. Luxon’s spiked limbs and flared wings kept most passers-by at bay and for that, Aliyah was grateful. She’d left her own coin pouch back in Luxon’s bower, though—without Kionah here, she couldn’t trust herself to be vigilant enough to spot pickpockets.

The sun beat down. Hot winds gusted as a sheaf of scriveners scurried past, shedding paper scraps in their wake. She adjusted her grip on her basket, drawing the Healer-cloth tighter about her shoulders.

“Be careful,” Kionah had told her before leaving to fetch Luxon’s lists of reagents. “You don’t actually want to go where they want to take you.”

“Yes,” she’d said. “I know.”

“I’m serious. Even if it means you find out where he is—they could…” she’d hesitated visibly. Careful, courtly cadence bled into her voice. “If they are injuring him, it would hardly be beneficial for you to go and get yourself injured, too.”

“You mean, tortured.”

Kionah’s mouth had tightened into a grim line. “It is something to consider.”

“I’ve considered it,” Aliyah had said.

It was a realistic possibility, however unpleasant. It was possible—and here she steeled herself—it was possible that he was already dead. Not likely, given the ransom note and his Healer magic, but possible.

Kionah had given her a piercing look. “Well trust me, nothing’s worth being tortured for.”

Aliyah had swallowed uncomfortably, suddenly conscious of that first meeting, down in the dungeons—past locked gates and spiraling darkness.

“Yes,” she’d said. “I’ll be careful—though it’s not your concern.”

That had probably been the wrong thing to say, because Kionah’s face had gone even blanker.

“I appreciate all your help so far,” she’d added hastily. “Thank you.”

Kionah shook her head. “You’re welcome,” she’d said, and left without so much as a backwards glance.

Now, Aliyah wove through clusters of shoppers, following in Luxon’s wake. Luxon herself was a sight to behold—she’d swapped her brocade gown for robes of blue-violet and grey-green, shimmering like skyfish scales. Several potion-vials swung reassuringly from her belt. A woven basket dangled from her arm, a much smaller duplicate of the one Aliyah hefted with both hands.

Playing the part of Luxon’s personal courier was harder than she’d assumed it would be; she’d had to strengthen her own musculature to keep from dropping her cargo. And still, Luxon wasn’t done. Aliyah took several hurried steps so as to not become separated in the crowd—the faery walked fast; good thing she’d made herself easy to spot.

Mid-morning sun continued to blaze upon their backs, the occasional stuffy breeze her only respite. Her jacket felt too thick, and she found herself envying Luxon’s choice of hat—enormously brimmed and decorated with fabric flowers all over—as they made their way down the thoroughfare. After that came the navigation of several sweating plazas, spilling over with gaudy stalls and rainbows of bunting. Feral-looking pigeons swarmed beneath benches, fighting over crumbs. The city twisted and churned, its streets like overfilled arteries.

Luxon led the way to a shuttlebus station, switching her basket from hand to tail-tip as she pushed at the buttons of a ticket machine.

“Here,” she said, handing her the ticket. “A direct route; isn’t that nice?” She tilted her spines and nodded at the basket in Aliyah’s hands. “Holding up well, I see. Wonderful! I might be able to get everything in one trip after all.”

One trip? Aliyah had assumed it’d just be one trip; already, her basket held an assortment of liquids in large, heavy bottles. They clinked dully with each step.

Their awaited shuttlebus was sun-worn, its signage peeling with age. Aliyah fed her ticket to the automaton without incident and seated herself carefully, trying to keep from poking herself on Luxon’s spines. She succeeded. Mostly.

Her view from the window was of cables stretching skywards; their shuttlebus rose into the air. Strangely enough, it was one of the few which did. Dozens of others crawled along the ground of Glister proper, but this one juddered its way upwards—not absurdly high up, but enough to clear most of the ordinary rooftops. The cables upon which it ran spanned from the trunks of one city spire to another, and she leaned to peer out the window as they coasted over segments of Glisterian district.

Tiles sprawled by below, and the occasional rooftop garden—sprays of blue and green, the plants too far away to discern. Next to her, Luxon fiddled with the contents of her own basket, seemingly uninterested in the view. Well, it made sense; why bother looking, if you could fly anywhere you wanted? This shuttlebus route was likely more for her benefit than anything else. Aliyah glanced out the window again, eyeing the faeries which flitted past; some had packages in their arms, looking almost like any other ordinary citizen, heading home after a day of shopping—not at all like the swarms of snarling creatures who’d thrown themselves against the sides of Songian skyships.

“Luxon,” she said. “Are there a lot of faeries who live outside of um, that ‘Hive’ you were talking about?”

Luxon looked up from rearranging several bundles of dried herbs. “Hm? Oh, independents? Certainly, there are many—each to a greater or lesser degree than others.” She made a delicate coughing sound. “Not schismatists, you understand.”

Aliyah hesitated. “What’s the difference?” she asked. “The schismatists seem violent, of course,” she added hastily. “Not like you. Are they criminals?”

Luxon’s wings gave a little twitch. “No. That would be exiles. Schismatists simply…reject the Hive in all forms. They make their own honey, if you could even call it that, and they spout disrespectful rubbish about the ways of the Hive—don’t worry too much about them.”

The shuttlebus clicked to a halt, dinging as the door opened.

“Aha,” Luxon said, scooping up her basket. “Out we go! You’ll like this, I think.”

Aliyah hefted her own, much larger basket with a sigh. Whatever this place was, she wasn’t going to like it if it involved adding more to what she had to carry. Her muscles strained, having sprung back to equilibrium-strength—she gritted her teeth and fed them a fresh jolt of magic as she stepped off the shuttlebus.

They emerged onto a raised station overlooking a grand forum, laid out in glazed tiles. People crowded around merchant’s stalls, arms and backs laden high with packages. Aliyah squinted as they took the steps from the platform down to the forum proper—was that a loop of vertebrae on that podium?

“The spawn market,” Luxon declared. “Isn’t it simply marvelous? I know even you humans can appreciate the variety of ingredients here.”

‘Marvelous’ was a strange word to describe it. Everywhere she looked, she saw creature parts: bones, sheets of dried fascia, organs floating in brine. There were even cages crammed full of smaller live spawn—until now, she had only read of these monsters in miniature, their strange forms born from the cores of passing Behemoths.

The crowds parted as a group of witches unloaded a wagon, dragging something out: a sawfish-spawn, chained and leashed, trailing amber tentacles from each fin. Cuts marred its gleaming scales, oozing silvery-blue jelly. One of the witches ducked under the creature as it went, catching its blood in a pail.

The sawfish thrashed in the air, hissing through several rows of teeth. Colours swirled in each of its dozen eyes, all of them twitching in their sockets as it tried to lunge down. Its teeth snagged in the sleeve of the witch with the pail—there was a brief, bloody commotion as the spawn was wrested back under control. Then the procession carried along its way, heading for an area with a great many plinths and knives in wait, butchers lining the terrace with signs advertising their prices.

“Perhaps that one,” Luxon murmured next to her, and set off in the wake of the sawfish.

Aliyah hurried to follow; by the time they caught up, the first cut had been made. Silver-blue gushed from a gash in the fish’s throat, and the witch with the pail was hurriedly fetching a new one to fill. Oddly enough, it didn’t smell like blood—not much of the spawn market did, she realised. The air was thick with a slight tang of stray magic more than anything else.

The butcher turned the knife in his hand and made practiced cuts along the fins and belly; she recognised some matching the type used in necropsies. An assistant stepped in to slice tendrils away, passing them to another who packaged them with quick, practised movements. A different assistant moved around to the head, shucking teeth from their sockets with a pair of pliers. The whole thing had an eerily efficient air about it. They said that witches protected the continent from stray monsters—but was this what they did to make coin in the meantime? She hadn’t given it any consideration, back in Behemoth-free Shadowsong.

“Greetings,” Luxon announced.

Several pairs of witch’s eyes flickered up to glance at them as one. Aliyah hadn’t seen many back in the kingdom, but she’d heard plenty about the few that passed through. These ones looked exactly how she imagined witches to: black-cloaked and pointy-hatted. One even had a little bird perched on her shoulder, cheeping intermittently.

The witch with the bird on her shoulder stepped forward—their leader, presumably—and looked Luxon up and down. She was tall and well-muscled. Was that a glint of armour beneath the cloak?

“Greetings,” she echoed gruffly, tipping the brim of her hat. “You’re that faery potioneer, aren’t you? Suppose you’re here for some core’s essence?”

Luxon nodded enthusiastically. “Certainly. Your coven has brought down an admirable specimen, it seems—I certainly hope we could work out a little deal.”

“Of course,” the witch said. “Going rate’s twelve crowns a bottle, but I can give you three for thirty five if you’re wanting more.”

“I should like to purchase just one, for now.” Luxon dug around in her pockets and retrieved a handful of coins. “Your coven is…?” Before the witch could form a reply, she swung her gaze over to their wagon and kept speaking. “Ah, I see—Fernwood! What a delightful name. I shall keep it in mind.”

“Our thanks,” the witch said dryly.

An exchange was made; Aliyah sighed with relief as Luxon placed the bottle of silver-blue jelly into her own basket. Then she wondered at the price. Twelve Glisterian crowns amounted to a lot for such a modest quantity. Was Luxon so rich she didn’t have to worry about that? Her outfits had been on the more intricate-looking side, but Aliyah had thought that a more ordinary thing over here, where half the citizens sashayed around in satin and sequins.

“This way now,” Luxon called to her, already walking off. “I wish to take a look at the aqueous for sale…”

They passed by a variety of stalls, each vendor hawking their wares. Some of the stranger items—green blood, spiked skulls, squishy lengths of ripple-textured intestine—made Aliyah’s stomach turn with unease. Still, this was normal here, wasn’t it? She supposed it was sort of like the butcher’s section of a Songian market square, only more exotic…and less edible. At least, she hoped it was less edible. Some of the cuts of meat looked ordinary enough, but others looked actively harmful, bubbling over with glowing clots of acid.

Luxon paused to coo over displays of wool and hair and silk every now and again, exclaiming wistfully about ways of weaving them. But she always moved along shortly, only buying pieces that could presumably be used in potion-making—and placing the items into Aliyah’s basket this time. Aliyah trailed in her wake, arms straining with each successive addition to her haul.

“I think that should be all,” Luxon exclaimed after what felt like an hour of trekking from stall to stall. “Alright, this way now—I suppose we’d better take a shuttlebus back.”

Aliyah followed obediently. They were ascending the stairs to the station when a pair of witches stepped in, quite deliberately, to block their way.

“Well if isn’t the malformed archivist,” one of them said. The venom dripping from his voice made her jolt to attention.

He was a tall, fair-skinned man, clad in pale robes that reminded her of execution-wear. His hair drooped long and blond beneath his pale, pointed hat. When he swept his gaze over them, she realised that his eyes were unnaturally-coloured, bone-white, irises blending into sclera. Were those vanity contacts, like Kionah had worn, or had he dabbled in strange magics to make them that way?

“Cribellum Gaheris,” Luxon said, dipping her head. The motion was meeker than Aliyah had ever seen of her, but if the continual twitches of her spines and tail were anything to go by, anger simmered beneath.

“Show some respect,” Gaheris’s companion broke in. “That would be ‘Cribellum Tertius’, to you.” She was younger-looking, with long hair arranged in a series of thick braids—all of them dyed a highly unnatural shade of lavender. The colour matched her hat and poncho, both edged with embroidered vines. She gripped a broom in one hand, too: a flying broom, with runes inscribed along the handle.

Luxon parted her lips as if to argue, then shut them again. “My apologies, Cribellum…Vipsania,” she gritted out. “And Cribellum Tertius. I won’t keep you waiting.”

She made to step off to the side, but Vipsania shifted to block her way, her broom sliding horizontal in her grasp.

Aliyah tensed, half-hidden behind Luxon as she was. Whoever these people were, whatever the motive for this strange, public power-trip, she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. They reminded her too much of the more vicious highborns, kicking over her buckets as she scrubbed the hallways—just because they could.

Cribellum Tertius reached out and plucked the bottle of sawfish-essence from Luxon’s basket. He turned it over in his hand. Then he held it up and made a greater show of examining it, tilting it around in the light.

“Doing some shopping, I see,” he remarked. “Your Hive supplies the coin for this?”

“I finance my own business expenses,” Luxon said, head still tilted down.

“Hm,” Tertius said, sounding displeased. “Business must be prolific. You’ve had the means to hire an assistant?” His eerily-pale eyes flicked over Luxon’s shoulder; the lack of obvious iris made the movement difficult to discern. “Who might you be, miss? Is your employment to your liking?”

Vipsania’s gaze moved to her too, her eyes narrowing as she looked her up and down; Aliyah’s skin prickled at the scrutiny.

“Yes,” she managed. Her mouth felt inexplicably dry. “It’s quite to my liking. Sir.”

“That is mightily good to hear,” Tertius said, and gave a thin-lipped smile. “We shan’t keep you waiting, then.”

He walked around them and away, bottle still in hand. Vipsania shouldered her broom and followed, bringing up a hand to cup over her mouth. It was an odd gesture. Aliyah turned her head at it, catching the edge of a sentence as she went, murmured into her now-glowing palm.

“…Best to check,” Vipsania was saying. The words were so faint they would have been inaudible under the market bustle had Aliyah not sharpened her hearing. “Send Artesia to…”

She pushed her hearing as far as she could, tuning out the background bustle, and caught a few more words: “…Emporium and tell her to…” but Vipsania hurried further down, well out of range. Aliyah took a half-conscious step down, head humming with the urge to follow as suspicion and alarm collided in her chest—but pointed fingers latched onto her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Luxon asked. “Come on, we need to be getting back. I’ve got samples under stasis, and as excellent as my spellwork is, it doesn’t last forever.”

“He just took your shopping,” Aliyah blurted out. It was the key thing that came to mind—that sawfish essence had cost twelve crowns, hadn’t it?

Luxon’s expression scrunched up, her spines tilting back to lay almost flat against her scalp.

“Leave it,” she said. “I still have some to spare at home.”

“But…” Aliyah started, mind still on what Vipsanius had said. Best to check…check what? Or who?

Luxon shook her head and tugged at her shoulder—her grip was surprisingly strong. “We’re going back home.”

“…If you say so,” Aliyah said reluctantly. It was Luxon’s coin, after all, and Luxon would know better than her whether it was worth asking for it back. She hesitated as they drew onto the station platform. “Were those two…are they important people? Because they seemed…” She struggled to find a polite way of phrasing her thoughts.

Luxon hunched her shoulders, wings drawing close. “Something like that. They serve the Chelicera, so…” She made a vague gesture with the hand not gripping her basket. “…They aren’t fond of the likes of us. Keep saying Glister should be a human city, a witch’s city. Hah. If there was no Hive, this whole place would’ve been flattened by spawn and their Behemoths long ago, and yet…” She cleared her throat in a chittering manner. “Never you mind. It’s a troublesome subject. Best not to dwell upon it.”

She turned to the ticket machine and swiftly procured two tickets. “Here,” she said.

“But the Chelicera?” Aliyah asked, even as she took the ticket. The title sparked some recollection, but she wasn’t sure from where. “Haven’t you…mentioned that before? What is that?”

Luxon’s gemstone eyes narrowed. “The Chelicera is not a very pleasant man, I am told—and I will take my Hive’s word for it.”

“Oh,” Aliyah said. She supposed he must be like a very high highborn—perhaps the equivalent of a head Magician, or a Chief Librarian, or even a prince.

Luxon sighed a whistling, very faery-sounding sigh as she peered down the line, no doubt searching for a glimpse of incoming shuttlebus. Aliyah took the chance to set down her overflowing basket for the time being—her arms needed the break.

“So those two witches,” Aliyah started. “They’re with the Chelicera?”

Luxon stopped staring down the line and turned to look at her instead. “Yes indeed. They’re all, shall we say, of the spire crowd. Silken Circle folk.”

Aliyah blinked. “Right,” she said, even as a sinking feeling seeped ever deeper into the very tissues of her stomach.

Cribellum Vipsania’s words echoed in her head: best to check and send Artesia. Would it be needless paranoia to assume she’d have to deal with witches spying on her, too? Surely she didn’t come across as anyone special—maybe Vipsania was referring to someone else in the crowd below…

Aliyah retraced her thoughts, frowning. But hadn’t Vipsania also said ‘emporium’? There were many emporiums, surely, but she’d just been talking to Luxon…no, it was too much of a coincidence.

“This Silken Circle,” she ventured. “Do they happen to…dislike outsiders, a lot?”

“Faeries, mostly,” Luxon said curtly. “I still wouldn’t go seeking them out if I were you. Spire people are no good—and if what Kionah said about you is correct, with the…” she swished her tail and fluttered her fingers in an obscure gesture. “Yes, it would best if you evaded their interest.”

“Oh,” Aliyah said as a spike of alarm drove into her gut. “Actually, I think I…I heard them talking about me, when they were walking away. Or at least, the purple one was talking. She mentioned an emporium. Pretty sure she meant yours? She mentioned sending someone.”

Luxon frowned. “Are you quite sure? They’ve only harassed me when I’m out and about…it will be quite costly if they decide to throw stones at my windows, too.”

Aliyah frowned, twisting her hands into the hem of her shirt. Her fingers snagged onto a tail of her makeshift shawl. Something clicked in her head, pieces aligning.

“Oh,” she said.

She looked typically Songian enough, and the Healer weave was very bright. Perhaps her target had attracted the wrong interest entirely. Coldness seeped into her stomach. She was at once acutely aware of her rising magic, of where she’d stowed her begged needles: six of them, plunged into the lining of her jacket.

“What?” Luxon asked.

“I think they’re going to try and—” she started, before her words were drowned out by the shuttlebus clanking into the station. She shut her mouth as it came to a squealing stop.

“And bother you?” Luxon glanced her up and down. “Because of the whole Songian, ‘Healer’ thing…?” She shook her head grimly, then flicked her tail at the shuttlebus door. “I suppose Sadrava can be correct, for once—this is not good at all. Come on. We’ve got a little time to make contingencies, yet.”