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  Megrithe got more than some tea out of the Lannings as she told them the story of her journey to the neneckt island. There was a hearty breakfast in it for her, too, which she hadn’t realized she wanted until she had half cleaned her plate, and a nip of brandy at the bottom of her mug that helped clear out the cobwebs in her mind.

  The banker had not given her much special treatment in regards to his holding fees for her money, although he had promised that the balance would be available in full whenever she wished. She had taken a healthy amount with her in case she needed to spread it about, because she didn’t know what kind of man Leofric would turn out to be. She didn’t know what kind of man Nikko would turn out to be, either, but there was never any telling what a neneckt was going to do from one moment to the next.

  The blue door was easy enough to find now that she knew where to look for it. Persimmon Street ran through a quietly middling neighborhood, filled with the sort of people who filed dutifully from workplace to home every evening and stayed inside when they got there. Flashy décor was generally discouraged, and the sky-colored paint made the small house as distinct from its neighbors on the outside as its residents were in their beds.

  “Can I help you with something, miss?” asked a slim young man with bare feet who came to the door upon hearing the bell.

  “I was hoping to see Mister Gunhilde,” she replied, trying not to stare at him. His eyes were a startling shade of emerald green, the pupils glimmering like polished silver. Their strangeness did not at all detract from his obvious, perfect, nearly maddening beauty, and he seemed very aware of it.

  “Which Mister Gunhilde would that be?” Nikko asked, a smile playing on his lips.

  “The younger,” she said. “Both of the younger ones, actually.”

  “How good of you,” he replied, the smile widening a little. “And you are?”

  “Inspector – that is…just Miss Prinsthorpe. I’m not an inspector. Not anymore.”

  “Perhaps you should come in, Miss Not-An-Inspector Prinsthorpe,” he said, cocking his head curiously before ushering her inside.

  “Thank you. Is your – is Leofric here now?”

  “I’ll get him. Won’t you take a seat? I’ll have Marius bring you some tea.”

  She knew she shouldn’t be surprised at how ordinary the parlor looked. There was a pair of framed miniatures on the mantle, overseeing a pair of sedate rosewood chairs on either side, and there was clean, crisp cotton swooping decoratively across the windows. A few cushions were scattered on the floor in a corner next to a stack of half-read books, but the formal furniture seemed to get more use.

  The only truly odd thing was the screen in front of the fireplace: an openwork mosaic of bright blue, green, and amber sea glass that would make the light of the flames shimmer across the walls at night like the moonlit waves danced above Emyer-Ekvori, the neneckt capital.

  The thought of the beautiful, treacherous city, sparking like a jewel underwater, made her swallow hard to get rid of the lump in her throat. Its impression on her, during her brief visit, had not been a very nice one.

  “Good afternoon,” Leofric said from halfway down the stairs. In stark contrast to his lover’s informality, he was rather stiffly starched and buttoned up in a dark, high-collared jacket and boots that must have been brand new from the way they squeaked. He appeared a bit older, with the beginnings of a gray streak in his neatly clipped beard, but there was an ornamented serviceman’s sword on his hip and every indication in his movements that he knew exactly how to use it.

  “I’m so sorry, but I’m just on my way out,” he told her. “Normally I would be honored to help the Guild in any way possible, but…”

  “This isn’t about the Guild, sir,” Megrithe said as Nikko took a seat while their serving boy brought in a tea tray. “I was hoping to speak to you about a personal matter.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t speak to strangers about personal matters, miss,” Leofric said. “Although they do seem to find out a great deal on their own.”

  “You are right, sir. And there is gossip enough on every corner to keep me entertained if that is what interested me. But it isn’t. I need help with a very delicate issue, and more than gossip tells me that you’re the right two men to speak to.”

  “Men, is it?” Nikko laughed, leaning forward to pluck a sweet from the tray, but frowning slightly as he sat back again.

  She couldn’t tell if she had offended him. Did neneckt dislike being referred to by the way they appeared? Nikko had chosen his face and form, after all, just as easily as he could choose to look like a woman or a child or anything in between.

  “I need you to come with me to Niheba,” she said, pushing on regardless. There was no point in tiptoeing around it. They would either say yes or no, and the way Nikko was now looking at her was starting to put her off.

  She expected them to laugh at her, but they didn’t. They just exchanged a glance, and then Leofric sat down.

  “That is quite a thing to ask of a stranger,” he said carefully. “What need would drive you to a question like that?”

  “An urgent one, Mister Gunhilde. A man’s life is at stake. Much more than one man. Everyone is in danger.”

  “You want help saving the world, do you?” Nikko asked, reaching for another confection. “No, thank you. Too hard to guarantee the chance of a hot bath.”

  “I’m rather of the same opinion,” Leofric said, but he had met Megrithe’s eye and was not looking away. “But I’d like to know why you should say such an extraordinary thing.”

  “Even aside from your choice in companionship, Mister Gunhilde, you know more about the neneckt than any human on this earth. I need to learn everything you can tell me about them. They have captured a friend of mine, and I must find him. I cannot tell you more than that without confirmation of your trust, but I will say that there is a rotten heart to Emyer-Ekvori, and I know that neither of you will stand for that.”

  “You know nothing about what we stand for, miss,” Nikko said, growing very serious. “It is dangerous to presume that you do, no matter to whom you’re speaking.”

  “I am well aware, sir, I assure you,” she replied. “But you are both honorable men, and I –”

  “What did I just say about presumptions?” Nikko asked, cutting her off sharply.

  “Nikko, give her a bit of rope,” Leofric said soothingly. “She isn’t trying to upset you.”

  “No, I’m not,” Megrithe agreed. “I’m sorry. Please give me the words you prefer and I will use them.”

  “Never mind,” the neneckt muttered, slumping back in his seat at an admonishing look from his partner.

  “I know you were both involved in creating the Treaty of Libourg,” she said, trying to choose her words more carefully in order to stop Nikko’s glower from deepening. “I know you both care very much about maintaining the peace between Niheba and Paderborn. I am only asking you to help me ensure that there will still be people left alive on the continent to appreciate your hard work.”

  “The Treaty of Libourg was some time ago,” Leofric said. “We are both retired.”

  “And yet you appear to be dressed for court, Mister Gunhilde. Just a social call upon King Malveisin, I imagine?”

  Leofric smiled briefly. “Naturally.”

  “What is the threat to us?” Nikko asked. “You must at least give us some clue.”

  “There is going to be a war. The neneckt are having dealings with the Siheldi. The Guild would be powerless to stop it, even if they had the faintest inkling about what is happening. I know no one else who would be able to muster up the strength to try. If I don’t get my friend back soon, Tiaraku will murder us all.”

  “So to help you in this hopeless task, you turn to a pair of outcasts with no social standing, no political position, no money, and no armies, whose only power is to scandalize their enemies to death?” Leofric said.

  “Speak for yourself, darling,” Nikko said. “For me, it also works on my fri
ends.”

  “I’m turning to someone who knows the neneckt better than the neneckt know themselves,” she said. “Your power to scandalize is just a bonus. There is a person – a neneckt I need to find,” she said, glancing quickly at Nikko as she corrected her choice of words. “He knows where my friend is, but I don’t know where he’s hiding. That’s why I need you. Please. Just listen to me.”

  Leofric sighed and unhooked the buckle on his sword belt, placing it against the side of his chair. Nikko rolled his eyes, but poured out three cups of tea.

  “We’re willing to indulge you, apparently,” the neneckt said, handing one to her. “Tell us more about this budding war of yours.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nievfaya sat in the dark, her knees drawn up to her chin as she thought. Her rear end was starting to hurt from resting on the flat stone that had briefly served her as a bed, unencumbered by a soft mattress or sheets and pillows. There was nothing soft in that place: nothing warm, pleasant, or welcoming in the lightless underworld that lurked beneath the ocean’s floor. The Siheldi had no need of comfort for themselves, and they didn’t have guests often enough to understand the concept of hospitality. It was unlikely they would offer it even if they could.

  The fact that Nievfaya had survived the passage through Sind Heofonne, the gateway between the world of the living and the realm of the dead, was a miracle in itself. The flesh she had worn as Faidal had been seared away during her passage, and she was not sorry for it.

  She had always disliked being a man. Many neneckt felt equally comfortable as either human gender, and chose a form according to their whims or needs of the moment. Among the land-dwellers, they were famous for their flexibility, but she had always thought of herself as leaning towards the feminine in her own mind.

  She had much preferred to be Elargwyd, with her red dresses and soft skin and her pleasing figure, than to suffer through the stinking companionship of other men on the Celia, or to endure the foreign feeling of that thing between Faidal’s legs that seemed to have an inconveniently mobile life of its own.

  She was not particularly proud of either of her recent incarnations. They had done terrible things for terrible reasons, and they had landed her in absolutely the last place she could ever wish to be. Everything was wrong in the darkness. Everything was crushingly close, with the weight of the entire world pressing down on her, trapping her into a little capsule of stuffy, suspended space sandwiched between miles of rock above and below.

  While she could tolerate dry land with little discomfort, few neneckt strayed too far from the scent of the sea if they could help it. The ocean was her home, her birthright, and the only place where she felt safe – as safe as she ever could, at least. But here in the forsaken hell where she had found herself, there was no salt tang on the gently endless wind or tender swaying of friendly currents to bring her peace. There was no cool rushing of the tide to set the rhythm of her soul to the passing of the hours, or the shifting, freckled sands to anchor her to the gods of her kind.

  But leaving those things behind was part of the choice the Siheldi had given her, and she had submitted to the demands of the situation. She had saved herself, for the moment – and more importantly, she had saved Arran Swinn.

  The pendant she had stolen from Bartolo’s pocket had red iron in it: just a thin wire, brittle enough to crumble into powder. She had made Arran swallow the iron dust, hoping she had ground it fine enough not to cut open his throat from the inside, and so had preserved the last precious drops of his life from the Siheldi Queen’s thirst for as long as the mineral stayed in his body.

  With any luck, that would be indefinitely. Every neneckt knew that red iron did not pass through flesh in the same way as food and drink. The priests said that it stayed in the blood, and that sometimes the land-dwellers ate the metal to protect themselves from the night spirits without the risk of theft involved in carrying the material on their person.

  She remembered being told, as a youngling, any number of gruesome tales about humans who were cut open by curious surgeons upon their deaths only to find that their livers and lungs were filled with huge lumps of black and grainy filings.

  Nievfaya wasn’t sure she believed all the stories, but she hadn’t had much time to debate the issue. She hadn’t even had time to think about what it would mean if the Siheldi could not put a hand to Arran’s flesh without being burned.

  Arran had plunged a blade deep into his own chest to prevent the Queen from supping on his spirit, and the Siheldi were not known for being well-versed in the arts of healing. Nievfaya had not been allowed to see or speak to him, nor had she even been told if he, too, had survived the journey through the molten gate.

  The notion that it could have all been for naught had been plaguing her for hours – maybe days, for all she could tell about the passage of time in the lightless prison – and she had sunk into an anxious gloom, gnawing her fingernails down to the quick as she waited and waited for something to happen.

  When something did happen, it surprised her enough to make her jump half way out of her brand new skin.

  You will come, a voice said, suddenly close by her ear, and she couldn’t help flinching away. Normally, a neneckt had little to fear from the Siheldi, but Nievfaya was deep in their kingdom after betraying the tentative peace that had lasted between their two houses for millennia, and she hadn’t exactly knocked nicely at the door when she asked to come in.

  “Where will you take me?” she asked.

  To the dying man.

  She didn’t need another word, but stood up swiftly and followed the faintest of firefly lights that bloomed in front of her. The Siheldi were the opposite of light, and they hated it with all the power within them, but the spirit seemed to know that she would need a guide. The glimmer was too weak to show much of her surroundings as it bobbed along in front of her, and she groped along uncertainly as she tried to keep it in view.

  The tunnel was made of natural rock, she could tell by touch. It reminded her of an ant’s nest, dug down into the living bones of the world like the tiny insects burrowed in the soft soil underfoot. There were winding corridors and bulbous chambers, little alcoves and goodly sized rooms, all devoid of recognizable furnishings. The spirits did not take solid form like the neneckt were forced to do when they left the protection of the water, and they had not acquired a taste for such things in their own dwellings.

  “Where is he?” she asked after a long while of wandering.

  Here.

  The glow stopped, and Nievfaya did not take another step. It was difficult enough to walk through the lightless tunnels without feeling like she was going to tumble down into an endless void with every footfall, but now she really did think that there was some sort of pit in front of her.

  Go down, the Siheldi said.

  “How?” she asked.

  Go down.

  “Arran?” she called to the blankness in front of her. “Are you there?” Only silence answered. “I need light,” she said.

  There is light for you there. You must go down.

  Nievfaya took a deep breath and stuck her foot out in front of her, gingerly sweeping it forward to see if maybe there was a ladder or a stair. There wasn’t. It was just emptiness.

  Jumping was not an enticing prospect, but the Siheldi could push her if it wanted to, and she would rather avoid that. Instead, she knelt down and felt for the edge, swinging herself over the lip of the chasm so her feet dangled down as far as they could go. She wished she had made her body a little taller.

  The breathless fall ended much sooner than she had expected, jarring her bones as her ankles rolled under her, not three feet below her outstretched length. Such a short drop could not break her joints, but it certainly could hurt, and she stayed on her hands and knees for a moment to wait out the pain before feeling the bare stone floor for any sign of what she had been promised.

  She couldn’t suppress a yelp of relief when her hand closed on the sticky, pitch-
covered end of a torch. A bit more sweeping with blind fingers led her to a pair of flints, and she struck the stones together so eagerly that it took her twice as long as was strictly proper to get a flame going.

  When she did, she had to squeeze her eyes shut against the brightness of the flare. In the after-image on the back of her eyelids, she could see the shape of a man lying huddled in the corner of the pit, and she immediately crawled forward to find him.

  “Arran? Talk to me,” she said, resting the torch against the wall of the carven hollow, feeling thick, oozing blood nearly everywhere she put her hands. “Talk to me,” she commanded again.

  She could feel his breath, so very slow and shallow, but only because she had slipped knuckle-deep into a ragged gash under his ribs.

  “I need bandages,” she shouted upwards. A neneckt might survive an injury that serious, but she didn’t think a land-dweller could. She had been kept too long from him, and she didn’t know if anything she did now could help. “Please. And clean water and towels. I’ll put out the torch for you.”

  Do it, the Siheldi told her, but it seemed farther away. It would not come down into an enclosed space with a fire burning. It couldn’t.

  Nievfaya ground the end of the torch under her heel while pressing as hard as she could with both her hands on what seemed like the worst of Arran’s wound.

  As soon as the light was extinguished, a soft thud near her leg made her reach out again. It was a bundle of cotton strips wrapped around something hard in the center. Surgeon’s tools, she discovered when the light had been kindled again. Tools, a needle with thread, and a little vial of some liquid that glittered softly in the flickering light.

  She wasn’t a surgeon, and she didn’t know what the cordial was, but she did know what to do with the needle. Or at least she would, if the edges of the gaping slash were firm enough to sew together. Corruption had already started to take root in the flesh, and every time she tried to make a stitch, the skin melted away and left the bloodied thread bare again.