“Do you want us to get rid of Cassel?” Vanth asked.

  “Wait,” Amankay said, “how many people are in there with you?”

  “It’s just three of us,” I said. “You just heard Vanth Umbra. And Sergeant First Css Vargas is over there.”

  “Good afternoon,” Valentino said.

  “And seeing how y’all framed His Illustrious Highness to distract Cassel, I think you already owe him.”

  “That doesn’t count,” Amankay said.

  “Do you want to get rid of Cassel or not?” Vanth insisted.

  That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why would anybody bother getting rid of a governor, when the next one was sure to be just as bad? Unless the Snakes worked for someone trying to wrestle the governorship away from Cassel. I wanted to say they didn’t act like they were doing somebody else’s dirty business, but what did I know?

  No, wait!

  “Y’all want to free Tipilej Awki, don’t you?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply instantly. “So what if we do?”

  “Well, I can help you with that. We’re not that far from the Big Project, to begin with.”

  “I see. Is Cassel in this Big Project?”

  “Last time we checked, but that was a couple of hours ago.”

  “I see. Can you draw him out? An hour or so is enough.”

  I looked at Vanth.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where do you want him drawn to?” I asked.

  “The industrial district works fine. Just follow the river downstream. But you’ll have to introduce yourself to the strikers.”

  “Sure.”

  “When you see an orange rock, look under it. You should find an opening in the rock with a raft in it. Follow the river and when it splits in two, go left, then right. But you must hurry.”

  Valentino stood up, stretching. “We can get there faster than usual.”

  “Good luck.” The water that’d taken Amankay’s shape spshed back into the river.

  “Let’s get going,” I said.

  Valentino ran ahead; my spell light and me followed him. Vanth picked up his shirt and jacket before catching up with us.

  I held his jacket so he could get dressed. I was tryingto think about our next step, but got distracted real soon.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “What?” Vanth asked.

  I’d seen a few glimpses of fine ce at Vanth’s neck and cuffs before, and assumed he’d be wearing some kind of froofy shirt. But this thing—I wasn’t sure it could be called a shirt. It was just a collection of exquisite bck ce scraps in a vegetal motif—leaves, petals, beautifully delicate tendrils—that bared more of his pale skin than they hid. The colrbones and the navel and the nipples were carefully emphasized. Someone pced every scrap where it’d show best, so precisely that you knew he’d had to patiently sit there while someone sewed around him.

  “You call that a shirt?”

  Vanth put his jacket on. “What would you call it?”

  “Lingerie.”

  “I suppose it’s accurate.”

  “Did you dress up to come see me, or is that just something you do?”

  “I own a wardrobe full of shirts—I mean, pieces of lingerie like this one.”

  “Why?”

  “I happen to like the way they look on me.” He turned to look at me in the eye, clearly daring me to disagree.

  “I’m busy running,” I said. Vanth snorted, but it wasn’t entirely a lie. My legs are shorter than his! He also didn’t seem to be tired from that fight, something I’d normally find at least a bit annoying, but seeing how he’d gotten into that fight for my sake, I couldn’t be ungracious.

  “Over here!” Valentino called. We ran faster, so of course Vanth overtook me. But not for long.

  The orange rock was there, jutting a bit over the river. If you weren’t looking for it specifically, you probably wouldn’t have noticed it. After all, it was just a rock. But moss didn’t cover it—it seemed to be a different kind of stone from the others. I suspected it had been pnted there on purpose.

  Valentino was already kneeling by the shore and reaching under the rock. With Vanth’s help, he pulled out a guadua raft. It dropped into the river with a muted spsh. We all jumped on board.

  “Please stay still, for your safety.” Valentino sat on the center of the raft, so Vanth and me did the same. There was a guadua pole tied in pce, but Valentino didn’t pick it up. Instead, he focused, and the raft sped down the river with the crackling and popping of magic all around us.

  Vanth drew me into his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “What happened when I left?” I asked.

  “Not much. I wanted to shake up the ground a bit, just to distract Cassel, but it reacted more violently than I expected. Not surprised that Tipilej Awki has awoken.”

  “I barely noticed the shaking.”

  “Oh, it isn’t mad at you. Though it’s not in a very discriminating mood either. One of those tubes burst and nearly sprayed me with boiling water.”

  I kissed his cheek. “I’m so happy you’re fine.”

  “Me, too.” He squeezed my shoulder. “At least it caused a very helpful chaos. I picked Sergeant Vargas up and got out of there. Soon after that, we found your light spell.”

  “Wait, do you have an idea of how long did it take for you to find me?”

  “Maybe less than ten minutes.”

  I checked my watch. Only a bit past two and a half. “Can’t believe I barely slept five minutes. Then again, it’s not as if I got any rest, so I guess I do believe it.”

  “Sometimes I sleep five minutes,” Valentino said, “and I feel better than after sleeping five hours.” He tapped his knee. “But then, I’ve never been woken up by somebody who wanted to murder me.”

  “That’s chatty of you,” I said. “I don’t mind though. His Illustrious Highness don’t mind either.”

  Valentino just looked at us. I kinda got the feeling he was pleased by seeing us together, but why would he?

  Then, he mouthed out some words without speaking out loud. “Your Excellency doesn’t trust those people, right?”

  I didn’t particurly want to move out of Vanth’s p—it’s not as if the raft looked very comfortable or anything—but we didn’t have a lot of time to discuss the situation. I sat between the others, so that they could read my lips.

  “No, of course not,” I said. Communicating like this is more awkward than it sounds—I had to articute my words very slowly, and emphasized them with gestures for good measure. “With any luck, though, they’ll help us get rid of Cassel. After that,” I shrugged, “we’ll see.”

  Valentino nodded. Vanth didn’t say anything, but I suspected he got my point—Cassel wanted to have all of us decred traitors, and though he wouldn’t find the evidence he expected, he could still harm us. If nothing else, he could always bring us down with him. But the Snakes couldn’t stand against the Megarchon. The only reason why they hadn’t been already tried for treason was that Cassel was determined to solve this situation on his own. Either way, though, they were as good as dead.

  I didn’t really like it. Was there anything I could do about it, though? Maybe there was a way to get rid of Cassel and let the strikers live, but that would require bming everything on the Snakes and hoping the Megarchon wanted to restart production on High Tomenedra more than she wanted to make an example out of a bunch of workers.

  Or maybe, maybe we could kill Cassel, let the Snakes escape, and pretend they never existed, and Cassel was the one behind it all. Wanting to frame Vanth for his own treason? That might just work.

  “We’ll wait and see,” I repeated, mostly to myself. Vanth held my hand.

  Very soon after, we took the left fork in the river, then the right one. The end of our path was instantly visible: a sandy riverbank where glowing crabs scuttled by. Vanth jumped on nd before the raft touched it. Valentino and me followed him, not bothering to hide the raft. After all, soon enough the strike would be over and nobody would need to smuggle supplies anymore.

  This also looked like a natural cave adapted for human purposes, but one where the Imperial workers had had time to tile the floor and sand down the walls until fwlessly smooth. And they’d gotten to add wall carvings, too!

  “Look!” I said. “These seem to be identical to the ones in the mountainside! Here’s the Tepuy Trio, see, and here’s the river. This dot marks our current location. And this stripe, I think it’s some kind of elevator. I mean, it can’t go anywhere but up.”

  We looked around. No elevator or anything like it. We seemed to have reached a dead end.

  “No,” I continued, talking to myself. “There must be something. I told Amankay I could read the map, so she must’ve taken me at my word. Guess there’s a clue in here. But what?”

  I looked around the room. That’s how I found the carvings on the floor.

  “And here, the four corners of the world: north, south, east, west.” It’s easy to recognize them. They’re four circles. Respectively, they contain another circle, a square, a triangle, and a rhombus.

  “So you can read Imperial symbols?” Vanth asked.

  “Only a few of them. These are even older than the Empire, though. When you put the four corners together, you get the whole world. And when you duplicate them, you also get the four hinges of the day: north for noon, south for midnight, east for dawn, west for twilight. So eight’s the most sacred number—“

  I looked up. Three of the four directions had been carved on the ceiling, but not west. Interestingly, it pointed to the stone wall before us.

  “Vanth, can you see if there’s something in the ceiling right over that symbol?”

  He didn’t argue, seeing how he was the tallest and all. The spell light went to help him take a closer look.

  “There’s something. It’s hard to see, but I think they cut a square into the rock. It feels like a spell, too. Should I activate it?”

  “Sergeant Vargas and me should be prepared in case anything weird happens, but yeah, you do that.”

  Despite my precautions, nothing weird happened. What did happen is that part of the stone wall slid aside. A door! And beyond the door, some kind of steel ptform. Valentino jumped hard on it, just in case, but it was solid. It couldn’t be anywhere near seven centuries old.

  When you thought about it, Cassel’s suspicions of Vanth weren’t all that unfounded. How did the Snakes pay for that maintenance, never mind supplies? That’d have to wait, though.

  Valentino stood next to the ptform’s aeolipile. “Allow me.”

  That cave was quiet enough we could hear his spell throwing sparks inside the water container.

  Vanth climbed on the ptform and gave me a hand up. I didn’t really need it, as the ptform was only one step above ground, but it felt nice.

  Soon, the aeolipile steamed up. The ptform creaked and began to raise. It was slower than an elevator, but I didn’t mind. My stomach liked having more time to get used to vertical movement.

  Vanth crossed his arms and looked at Valentino. “Please watch over His Excellency. I’ll take the offensive.”

  “I will,” Valentino said.

  “Do you know if there’s any—suppression officers left alive?” I asked.

  “We should assume there are,” Vanth said. “I didn’t stay to make sure they weren’t. Most importantly, it’s very possible that Cassel brought an entire detachment of them.”

  I took a slow, deep breath. Detachments are one hundred guards each. “When was even the st time anybody mobilized a whole detachment of suppressors?”

  “Over a century ago.”

  I looked at him. “You know, that was an idle question. Maybe I shouldn’t have made it. It’s not exactly comforting to hear, y’know?”

  He looked away. “I’m the reason they’re here, so feel free to cast your bme at me.”

  “Because he suspects you of treason?” Nothing short of that would ever convince a Megarchon to let a governor deploy any number of greensuits.

  “Cassel has no proof,” Valentino said.

  “No,” Vanth said, “but he’s probably swayed his creditors. At this point, throwing their support with Cassel is very likely the only way they’ll ever see their money back. Also, his extended family holds quite a bit of political relevance.”

  I tapped my foot nervously. “Are you sure you can handle them?”

  Instead of answering, he grabbed my ass. I hopped away from him, not really because I minded, but because he’d surprised me.

  “Yes,” Vanth said.

  “Well, fine!” I said.

  Vanth seemed to have grown bored with the discussion, tying his hair back and looking ahead as if I wasn’t there. However, I wasn’t buying his indifference anymore.

  Never mind. If he wanted to be left alone, I’d leave him alone.

  Some time ter, the ptform shuddered into pce with a loud snap.

  “Wonderful!” I said. We were surrounded by rock walls on four sides. The ptform was roomy, but that didn’t help much against the weight of a whole mountain. At least there had to be a trap door or something above, right? I sent the spell light over our heads to check. Because I was awake and still powering it, it hadn’t faded, but it had begun to dim..

  It did suffice to see there was in fact a door of some sort in there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any kind of handle. Fortunately, I could hear somebody moving on the other side—someone far too big to be a rat.

  “Open up!” I said in Khachimik. “Amankay sent me!”

  Whoever was on the other side took a moment to react—not very long, just unnerving in my nervous state. Before I could start worrying, however, the door opened and a dder came down.

  I went up first, being the least scary of us by far. Looked like we’d returned to the industrial district after all—this was a warehouse, mostly empty except for some crates full of what looked like machine parts. The air was suffused with the scents of metal and sweat and burnt garbage.

  A dozen or so people in work clothes had encircled us, looking very much like they were ready to start throwing spells at the first sign of danger. And Valentino hadn’t even come up.

  I cleared my throat. “We’re here to help you with Cassel.”

  “The governor’s here?” someone asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Guess nobody had time to come bring you the news.”

  “We have a radio,” someone else said from the back. “But of course Cassel didn’t announce his arrival.”

  I didn’t need to tell them Cassel had come to kill them. Did they knew they were the bait? At this point, they probably did. Even so, they wouldn’t take too long to trust someone the Snakes had sent. It’s not as if they had any other way out of that mess.

  “I’m so sorry you got fucked over.” I tilted my head toward Vanth. “I wish I had an army, but this crazy white guy isn’t half bad.”

  broccolifloret