Approaching the recessed doorway, Aralia cast a quick look up and down the dim, narrow street.

Empty as a wish.

There was only the scuff of her boots on cobblestone, the faint yowl of cats brawling, and the heavy curve of the moon, beaming ominous, malignant orange as she crested the rooftops.

A quick knock and the door cracked to reveal a sliver of Esca’s expectant face, aglow with warm lamplight. It swung wider as they shared a smile.

“Come in, come in!” Worn, familiar hands ushered her into the room.

Everyone else was already here.

At the table, Emilia and Pasha were talking in low tones, their heads close together. Alexi was also seated, poking glumly at the bowl of stew in front of him. Monarda was leaning against the buttery wood of the far wall, her fingers a blur as she dance done of her knives up and down her knuckles with liquid, mindless ease, her foot tapping a nervous rhythm on the floor.

At her entrance, Aralia felt the attention of the room shift and cohere onto her.

“Finally,” Monarda muttered, flipping her blade up, catching it and sheathing it fluidly, all without looking.

Esca threw her a reproachful look as she flapped her hands to herd Aralia towards the kitchen.

Emilia cleared her throat. “You’re late,” she pronounced, just a hint of acid in her tone.

“I’m here now, let’s begin.” Aralia held up both palms, only for Esca to thrust a mug of hot broth into them.

“You will drink this, first,” the stout older woman ordered firmly, and did not budge until her target relented.

“She can look after herself, Esca…” Monarda grumbled, earning herself a redoubled scowl. “C’mon, we have urgent business to deal with, here.”

“Urgent business needs more care, child, not less.”

Monarda rolled her eyes loudly.

Still, Aralia let herself be fussed over for a moment, gulping the cloudy pork broth and exhaling steam, a small interior part of her savoring the sweet and steady tug of Esca’s affection.

Emilia turned to Alexi. “Check the River.”

“I just did,” he said quickly.

“Well, do it again,” she snapped. “If anything changes down there, I want to know.”

He nodded, visibly biting back a retort, and then his eyes went abruptly distant as he hit the current.

“I filled Aralia in already,” said Pasha carefully. “Let’s start with the matter of Clarissa.”

“She’s recovered enough to ward herself,” interjected Monarda, biting her lip. “But she’s still weak. I don’t think she should leave the cistern until we can find a way to deal with the Eaters following her.”

Aralia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and cleared her throat. “There are two possibilities I can think of—we attack the sample, which I, too, suspect must be the vial of blood in Penelope’s possession, or we alter the target.”

Emilia sat up. “Alter the target? Explain.”

“If she’s willing to part with another sample, I may be able to factor a draught that shifts the biochemical profile of her blood slightly—just enough to throw a dowser off her scent, without prompting an allergic reaction from her body. It will be somewhat tricky, but such a thing is not technically impossible. Although…I’m not at all sure the same trick would work on the revenants tailing her.”

“I see. How soon could it be done?”

“Uncertain.” Aralia admitted. “It would be much simpler to destroy Penelope’s sample, and since I expect to be paying the Arcane laboratories a surprise visit tomorrow, I’ll soon have a better idea of what kinds of convenient accidents might befall the Prefect, and her tools.”

“I’ll see Clarissa after this,” said Pasha quietly. “If she’s willing, I can draw some blood, and store it safely. Just in case.”

“Thank you, Pasha,” Monarda breathed, exchanging a frank look of relief with Emilia.

Aralia nodded coolly, and turned to Alexi, her golden eyes narrowing. “On that note, I think we all deserve to hear an update on Penelope and her operation. What haven’t you been telling us, Alexi?”

He scrambled to alertness, raising both palms. “Listen, I’ve heard the same rumors you all have—the strange River instabilities around the Arcane Tower, the bodies turning up, the strange scarring. But—”

“They’re not rumors,” interjected Monarda, her voice flat and hard.

Alexi swallowed. “Look, everything that Opali girl said was news to me. Eaters are universally, unpredictably hostile—everyone knows that. They can’t be controlled, reasoned or bargained with, bound, or otherwise influenced.”

“Well forgive me if that doesn’t exactly set my mind at ease,” Aralia frowned at him. “You’re supposed to be the one keeping an eye on her. What good are you if some random Opali girl that Penelope is hunting for sport can tell us more about her?”

Alexi glared at Aralia. “Look, I may be more passable than you, but I’m no Dragonian, and those purity-obsessed fools can smell it on me. The only things I’ve got going for me are a rare talent for sorcery, just enough paleness to obscure my origins, a few clever lies, and dumb luck. Even so, I can tell some of the Prefects have their doubts about me, and I’m being kept at arms length, away from her inner circle. The boys that have been tapped to do her dirty work, in and out of the lab, are smug and close-mouthed about what exactly is going on.” He shifted in his seat, glancing around at each of them in turn. “So tell me, what would you have me do?”

Aralia frowned at him. “Have there been any more questions about your lost roommate?”

Alexi winced. “No…”

The tension in the room cranked noticeably up as everyone turned to glare at him.

He squirmed under their baleful scrutiny. “I’m sorry about that, alright? I told you, I didn’t understand the security risk she represented, and she was practically begging me—okay, okay!” He amended quickly, as Emilia growled at him. “I didn’t know you would care so much about some random kuffa girl, is all.”

Pasha shook his head in disbelief.

“You, are a fuckboy,” pronounced Monarda, her tone laced with incredulity.

“Fuck boy,” agreed Esca sourly.

Aralia threw him scathing look. “You’re still in the doghouse, until you earn your way out of it, understood?”

He slumped over the table again, with a groan.

“As much as I hate to follow on the heels of that poor display, the matter of the girl’s dispensibility is something we must confront directly.” Pasha’s mouth twisted. “We have a small edge on Penelope, given that she doesn’t yet know the full extent of who she is dowsing, but as soon as she catches onto the scale of what we’re up to here, we will face the full might of a Ministry investigation, including an audit of the alchemical stockroom and ledgers. And our heads will be on spikes soon after, unless—”

“No,” Aralia said flatly. “I refuse to even consider it.”

“You could at least ask her if she’s willing to play the part.”

“Of being a pawn?” said Aralia acidly.

“She’s already a pawn! You did that to her, in spite of my advice not to!”

“To save her life, Pasha!” Aralia threw up her hands. “But this?”

“Enough!” Emilia barked. “Speak plainly, Pasha. What exactly are you proposing?”

Pasha sighed. “A convenient scapegoat would give them a distraction and buy us some time, perhaps time enough to bury Penelope. It’s not something I’d suggest under normal circumstances, but this matter of the revenants, and their behavior towards Clarissa, is very troubling, and a lot more may be at stake in all this than our own necks.”

“You’re the one who warned me she would be only a liability if caught,” Aralia muttered. “Remember?”

“If you trust her to keep her mouth shut, Aralia, and we can control the way we introduce her into the game, we stand a much better chance of compromising any internal investigation or audit that goes forward, which means we can likely all survive it. And they’ll put her reins in your hands—who else? You’re the obvious choice. But if the investigation goes forward anyway, and the audit is kept above our reach, we will all go down, and then we will have truly failed our people.”

His eyes were fixed intently on Aralia, though she avoided meeting them. “Something very old and dangerous, a thing barely remembered in legend except by a scant handful out of every thousand now living, may be trying to enter this world again. That one of those few, and a bellwitch no less, was the one to warn us does not bode well. Our teacher Hallel said that sometimes the waters of time and death flow like an unseen river, sometimes encircle us like the tides of a infinite sea, and sometimes connect us like the strands of vast net, which shiver when brushed against, creating unforeseen, transcendent resonances. But there are no coincidences.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Esca harrumphed and crossed her arms.

“Depending on what the Prefect is really up to in that Tower, our hand may well be forced,” Aralia acknowledged, rubbing her face. “And call me a hypocrite for balking at making this particular sacrifice, but I’m fast approaching the end of my patience for tallying the balance sheets of such choice-making, in the name of staving off yet another emergency. I am here, with all of you, because I am willing to take risks for the purpose of constituting a genuine threat to the Imperiat and its world, but these sorts of crossroads seem more and more to blur our purpose rather than clarify it.” She gave them all a slightly lopsided smile. “The time may be upon us to ourselves become the real emergency, if you take my meaning.”

There was a rustle and a stir in the room. A few nods.A slow grin was gathering on Monarda’s faceas she looked around at all of them.

Pasha narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

Aralia looked pointedly between Emilia and Monarda. “I’d appreciate it if you would scrape together our remaining weaponry—anything we have left, alchemical and conventional. I want to know what kind of attack we can mount, if we must act in haste. Can we bring down a building? A bridge? Gas an assembly hall, or only a carriage?”

Emilia’s smile was downright wolfish. “I always did keep the best stuff back for myself.”

“Good. I’ll want you both taking turns to keep a close eye on the girl Mila, as well. It seems very important that we keep her alive and out of the Ministry’s clutches. If you think she needs to go underground for her own safety, you can give her the option, but otherwise follow her lead.”

She turned to Alexi. “I’ll be paying the Arcane laboratories a personal visit tomorrow morning, let us say tenth bell? Find a convenient excuse to be nearby when I do, and keep an eye on the River while I’m in there. I want to know any impressions you can glean.”

He nodded.

“If our worst fears bear out, we may have to move on our ertswhile Prefect faster than I ordinarily prefer.” She directed a meaningful look at Pasha. “Use your assets among the staff to compile as many details of her patterns and her movements as possible. And pull blueprints and layouts for the buildings she spends her time in—but be careful not to leave any traces where you dig. We may be dodging a full-fledged Ministerial investigation soon.”

She looked around at all of them. “Anything else?”

All that met her was the stir of sideways glances, and brimming silence.

Aralia stood, signaling with a loose gesture that the meeting was now over. “Thank you all for coming. There is already blood in the water, and there will be far more soon. Pray to whatever gods or spirits you still hold dear for the chance to keep most of it from being ours.”

Pasha sidled up to her as they waited for the conspirators to slip out onto the street, one at a time, at reasonable intervals.

“You sounded just like Kalista, then,” he murmured. “Tell me, are you liable to do something foolhardy?”

Aralia snorted.

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[thanks so much to this beautiful, anonymous piece of writing, and all that it contributed to this chapter:

as well as Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History which he wrote as a german jewish refugee in paris, right before the nazis invaded and he died trying to cross the pyrenees.

“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm.”]