"Stars smile upon you," greets the gate warden, as they approach. And then he looks them up and down and blurts out: "What happened to you?"

  Four days out on the open road. Four days of nonstop hiking with only minimal food and water, with neither beds nor blankets nor shelter—with nothing to shield them from the vicious Vokian winter save for their own ragged coats. Four nights of restless sleep and hideous nightmares.

  That was what had happened to Tiger, and Panther, and Casso. That was the reason the three of them looked like the living dead—mud-crusted, eyes sunken and ringed, expressions locked into what could only be described as a particularly combative flavor of dull misery. They stood now at the front of a very long line—after nearly an hour's worth of waiting—and whilst Panther and Casso were giving the official the sort of blank stares that Tiger knew precluded acts of violence, the seventh prince was already moving ahead of them to cut the impending conflict short. "The damn Equinox happened," Tiger complains, slipping easily into character as he jabs a thumb over one shoulder. "We're all the way out from Keloka—supposed to be in town for my brother's wedding, though by now we're two days overshot."

  "Keloka? That's quite the distance." The warden furrows his brow. "You really hiked all that alone? At this time of year?" And as the warden speaks, unconsciously—without putting any real thought behind it at all—he extends a hand for their hukou passports.

  Whether the warden means winter or the Yellow Equinox, Tiger can't say. "Well, you see, we were supposed to be riding along with a merchant caravan." Tiger dutifully hands over his passport; in silence, Panther and Casso do the same. "But that sky-cursed son-of-a-whore wagon boss took our money and snuck off in the night. Caravan was gone come morning, and we were left high and dry with hardly a cent to our names. We certainly couldn't hire our way onto another one."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," says the warden—paying too much attention to their conversation and too little to the documents actually in hand (just as Tiger had hoped.) "But I don't understand. At that point, why bother attempting the journey at all?" And he gives Tiger's falsified identification just the briefest of glances before handing it right back.

  "Like I said, the three of us were flat broke." Tiger gives the man a world-weary what-can-you-do sort of shrug. "Truth be told, we still are. But our brother, he's a well-off blacksmith working in the city—our hope is that he can lend a hand, help us all back on our feet. Especially since it's only for his sake that we came all this way in the first place."

  "Wait, our brother?" The warden's eyes flick up, settling upon Panther and Casso for the very first time. "Hold on—you two, what's your relation?" Their passports are clutched right there in his hand; their fates, too, are held tight in this ruddy-cheeked man's grip.

  A fraught moment passes. The flaws in their facade are so glaringly, painfully obvious. "I'm his sister," Panther offers, finally, in the absolute flattest and most detached of monotones. She has always been a woman with little affinity for the dramaturgical arts.

  "I'm—" Casso burps, "—their uncle."

  The warden's eyes slide from pale-skinned Casso to tan-skinned Panther, and then to even darker-skinned Tiger. Then they climb to meet the seventh prince's gaze in obvious query. The warden is not quite suspicious, not yet. But he is certainly curious, and curiosity is the road to a whole plethora of terrible destinations.

  So: "Our dad was a bit of a..." Tiger trails off, lets the implication hang.

  "He slept around," Panther adds bluntly.

  Another tense moment passes. Credibility strains. And yet, nevertheless: "Huh," the warden eventually grunts, shrugging that bit of incongruency right off and returning his eyes to the documents at hand. And while he does, he also—much to Tiger's relief—keeps right on talking. "Anyway, what were you people even thinking? Walking the road alone during an Equinox is suicide, y'know, everybody knows that." The warden's eyes flick halfheartedly over Panther's documents, his mind clearly moreso focused upon the lecture at hand. "I've got to be honest, okay, and this is going to sound a little harsh. But in my estimation you three are lucky to even be alive."

  "Oh, we know," Tiger nods vigorously.

  "Sorry," Panther chimes in. "We're kind of stupid." To which Tiger shoots her an equal parts furious and baffled look, and she replies with a nigh-imperceptible shrug.

  Panther's falsified passport is returned. Now Casso's is the last one up; run dry of conversation, Tiger is forced to wait in the tensest of silences as the warden gives it his full and undivided attention. Ordinarily Tiger would have no trouble at all conjuring some more small talk out of thin air—but right now his head is much akin to a hollow urn. The landscape of his mind is as desolate and dry-cracked as the harshest desert. His whole body is running on fumes—he needs sleep, real sleep, in a real bed. Not to mention a decent meal. And now, from the three of them combined, there can be felt a certain desperation in the air. A pointed voraciousness, a yawning hunger. The warden glances up; he feels it too, senses suddenly and subtly the sheer depth of their need. He looks to Panther's smooth stare and fails to recognize its true meaning, that she is seriously considered murdering him in broad daylight if he in any way bars their path.

  But there is nothing to fear. In the end, their rabid desperation aligns logically with the tale that Tiger has spun. And so the warden, who considers himself a gregarious man—a fact that is only occasionally and conditionally true—takes it upon himself to tell them what they obviously want to hear. "All looks good to me," he declares, handing the final passport back. Meaning that all three of them are indeed native-born Vokian citizens, despite the unusual pigmentation of their skin. "You're free to head on in. Welcome to Baijo."

  Nobody does anything quite so obvious as sigh aloud with relief, though Tiger does come very close. Instead they just offer a series of polite nods and grunts, and set off at once past a quartet of ironclad guards through a wide brick archway. And the sun is blotted out behind the shadow of the stone just as their heads begin to fill with thoughts of boundlessly indulgent rest and repose, and just as their mouths quite literally begin to salivate—and just as the warden barks out, "Hey!"

  That sound hits like a slap to the face. All three of them skid to abrupt halts and whirl right around, with Panther drawing a throwing-knife beneath her cloak and Tiger tugging his right-hand glove off with a muttered oath. And Casso just stands there with hands in pockets, his overwhelming intention to kill so perfectly masked beneath a shroud of drunken nonchalance.

  In this moment, the warden is most certainly about to die.

  "Good luck with your brother!" he calls, then, with a friendly wave, as the line behind him grumbles ever-louder for things to be hurried along. "Hope he isn't too upset that you missed the wedding!"

  "Ah, no worries!" Tiger calls back, pumping his voice chock-full with every ounce of candor he can still muster. "I know how to handle him, I'm sure he'll come around. But, hey—thank you again!"

  The warden hollers some manner of congenial reply; Tiger just whirls back around and immediately bangs fist against forehead in furious recrimination. Thank you again?! Why in the world did he just thank the warden for granting them entry? They're supposed to be natural-born Vokian citizens and he is supposed to be letting them in! Tiger lambasts himself in angry silence as they continue on, and as finally the shadows peel back, and as finally the three of them step once more into the light of day. Into Baijo, the fifth Vokian tributary province, the place called informally—but never openly, never aloud—the Twilit City.

  "Fuck's sake," Casso mutters, squinting against the harsh sun. "Thought you two'd never shut up."

  "Kept him distracted, didn't I?" Tiger snaps. His stomach is but a gaping pit, and Casso's perpetually-acerbic state of being is already setting him on edge. "Kept him from looking too closely at your shitty forgeries."

  "Keep your voice down," says Panther, to which Tiger shoots her an irritated glare—and she returns it with flat, unblinking ire of her own.

  Tiger was trying, at any rate, not to think about the fact that Casso had fake IDs for the both of them already on his person and ready to go. He was trying not to dwell upon the sheer depth of planning and specificity of foresight that implied. "Papers woulda held up," Casso mutters, anyway, still not looking at either of them.

  "Yeah?" Tiger scoffs. "Right, I don't look or sound even remotely Shalasharan. No reason to be suspicious of me at all."

  "Why are you our uncle, anyway?" Panther interjects. "That was bad lie. We look nothing alike."

  "Look, kids, the passports worked. Okay? So just shut up and let's go already." He removes his flask from his coat, flicks finger twice against that hollow vessel. "Been sober two whole fuckin' days, man, I'm fed up with this shit." At which point the old man turns to glare at them both. Panther and Tiger glare right back; for a moment, it seems that another drawn-out verbal spat is all but inevitable. Until—

  "Don't call me kid," Panther grunts, finally—which is her rather gruff version of conceding the point. "I'm twenty-three years old."

  "Yeah, and I'm fifty—"

  "You're twenty-four years old?" Tiger blurts.

  "What? Yeah."

  "Panther, I'm twenty-five."

  "That's—wait, what? You're older than me?"

  And for a moment the two of them exchange silent, bewildered looks, hunger pangs entirely forgotten.

  "That does not feel right," says Tiger.

  "No, it doesn't," says Panther—just as Casso starts outright walking away, gaze cast anywhere but back at them, and so the two must scramble now to catch up as the afternoon light is sealed away behind a solid curtain of cloud.

  The Twilit City, they call it. A fitting moniker, for Baijo was a city was forever caught in the space between its two selves. As the northernmost Vokian province, Baijo was nestled right up against the Shalasharan border—just a week's journey away, and an inevitable landmark on the path of anyone traveling to or from. Thus did Baijo boast the largest population of Shalasharan migrants and merchants in all of Vokia; gradually, it had grown to an even broader sort of migratory hub, a whole melting pot of immigrant Shalasharans as well as all manner of southern—or even coastal—foreigners as well. Southern travelers would happily bypass every other Vokian province just to get to Baijo; it was often said that Baijo was the true heart of Xon, the central lodestone at which all the continent's cultures and tongues collided.

  But alas. Baijo's relationship with Shalashar was subject to all the same ebbs and flows as her mother Vokia. In times of peace Baijo was a booming hub of international commerce, a direct off-ramp for Shalasharan goods and an essential stop for any merchant making their way into greater Vokia. Wedged between the two great nation-cities, Baijo was more than happy to be the man in the middle, and thus did the city flourish in turn.

  In wartime, however, Baijo's nature was startlingly different. The Vokian-Shalasharan border was of course entirely closed; any Shalasharans present in Baijo upon a declaration of war were essentially made to be captives of the tributary province. Granted, in recent years the Vokian Synod had reluctantly allowed such unfortunate individuals to register themselves as temporary "quarter-citizens" of Vokia—but still they, and all other Shalasharans, were forbidden to travel beyond the city walls. And besides, where could they even go? Certainly not back home, for their border was now the frontline of a ongoing war. Worse yet, Baijo's proximity to said border made it an ideal staging ground for Vokian military operations—soon, everyone knew, the grey and gold legions would commandeer half the damn city in demand of food, lodging, and most importantly space. And thus was vibrant, thriving Baijo turned time and time again to a cold and desolate security state; after seven brutal years they had been allowed to flourish once more under Ibis, only to have it all cut short just another two years later.

  At any rate, all this is relevant because without proof of prior Vokian identity—without documents saying that they were born, albeit of Shalasharan immigrants, on Vokian soil—then Panther and especially Tiger would have been refused entry. Baijo's nominal 'open door' policy was totally superseded by the Emperor's new authority, and such measures were now enacted by decree of Taro Zohn himself. And every man and woman of Baijo knew that very soon Oculus and the Torai would arrive to see that edict enforced.

  And so the city seemed sullen, somehow, as the three of them made their way down white-bricked streets. Tiger had visited here with Ibis and Panther just a half-year prior, and already he was noticing that the pedestrian crowds seemed very much sparser than he remembered. Windows were shut and locked, banners put away, merchant stalls disassembled and vanished. Natives and foreigners alike kept their heads down and their gazes averted. The whole city was hunkering down, digging in, preparing itself for a very long winter indeed.

  "Stars above." Tiger had his collar up and his hands shoved deep in his pockets; still, he was forced to brace against a sudden gust of bitter cold. "This whole place has the attitude of a kicked dog."

  He says this without thinking; he does not truly expect either one of his laconic companions to reply. Imagine his surprise, then, when Casso mutters back: "Hasn't been long since the last war. Scars are fresh enough that they still remember the feel of the cut."

  War. Scars. Cuts. Maybe it was just Casso being uncharacteristically somber (and verbose), but those words churned like rotten milk in Tiger's gut. For Vokia—the cold, brutal, unfeeling beast that had cannibalized its last Empress—was turning now to devour the very place of his birth. Violence was thick in the air; suddenly Tiger could taste it, suddenly he was choking on it, suddenly he felt as though he might vomit right then and there.

  And then there is a touch. Some of Tiger's inner turmoil must have slipped through to his face; Panther, in an exceedingly rare display of physical affection, elbows him surreptitiously between the ribs. Tiger looks up and Panther looks back, her countenance that same steady calm as always. Her eyes that same cool slate-grey as always. And Tiger finds solace there, in her own self-assurance, finds an edifice to cling to amidst roiling and foamy seas.

  You okay? Panther doesn't ask.

  Not really, Tiger doesn't reply. Thank you for asking, though.

  Don't mention it.

  Now the three of them come to a halt outside of a decidedly unremarkable-looking inn, Tiger and Panther waiting behind Casso with bated breath as the old man's foggy eyes rove up and down, left and right, surveying the exterior of the building—a three-story structure wedged into a long interconnected line of similar structures—for reasons unknown. Was he evaluating? Searching for something? Why this inn in particular, and not the dozen-or-so they had already passed? Tiger couldn't even venture a guess. But finally he does inquire, a tad impatiently: "Why exactly are we here?"

  Casso doesn't look back. "Cuz that's the plan."

  "So the plan is to stay here, specifically?"

  Casso grunts.

  "This place in particular, as opposed to anywhere else?"

  Casso grunts again.

  "For how long?"

  Casso doesn't reply. He just looks a moment longer and then, without a word, steps forward and gestures for the others to follow. And so, having followed him thus far, they do.

  The door swings open, a bell chimes above, the three of them step inside—and at once their whole world is transformed. Poor Tiger and Panther have known naught but glacial misery for four days straight; winter of such bitter severity that even the most roaring fires they could conjure (when they dared to do so) served as hardly any reprieve at all. The cold had been dug into their very bones. But here, now, finally—the foyer of the inn is orange-lit and warm like the womb, the atmosphere so much thicker in the way of comfort rather than humidity. Stepping indoors after all this time feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket; immediately Tiger's shoulders sag, and he lets out a sigh of naked relief, whilst Casso makes a quiet sort of phew sound and even Panther's icy demeanor seems to thaw by some degree

  "Oh, thank the stars," Tiger practically moans, rubbing his hands together. Though not quite ready to actually shed his coat yet, the seventh prince is certainly on fast approach. "Is this paradise? Panther, did we die and go to paradise?"

  "You think you're getting into paradise?"

  "You two, stay here," Casso orders. "Don't do anything stupid." At which point, before either of them can get out a word in complaint, the old man paths straight to the innkeeper's desk, and so Tiger and Panther are left (relatively) alone in a sort of combination lobby and cafeteria. Some dozen-or-so other individuals are seated amongst half that many long tables, all eating and chatting amicably. There is a pleasant buzz of conversation in the air, a certain idle backdrop that immediately sets Tiger even further at ease. He feels unremarkable here. Just another traveler, just another face in the crowd.

  "He has such a way with words," Tiger quips, apropos of nothing, at Casso's retreating back.

  "Nice guy," Panther agrees.

  And then they speak no further, because quite frankly they have run out of things to say. Because he and she are like children, suddenly, paralyzed in eager anticipation of the relief soon to come. Tiger is rapid-fire tapping his foot in total unconscious; Panther rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, intermittently rolling her shoulders or cracking her neck. Tiger scratches at the tattoo beneath his glove. Panther drums her fingers upon the hilt of her sword. Tiger starts taking his coat off, gets halfway there, then changes his mind and shrugs it back on. Panther's eyes rove from face to face, not so much scanning for threats as she is simply seeking out any stimulation available. These scant few minutes are, to Ibis's bereaved, an eternity.

  And then finally Casso returns, with key in hand, and the two fix the old man with wild-eyed stares like a pack of starving dogs. Which, to some extent, is basically what they are. "Stars," says Casso, eyeing them both. "Calm the fuck down."

  "Do we have a room or what?" Tiger demands.

  "Uh huh. One room, two beds. You two figure out who's sleeping on the floor, cuz it ain't gonna be me."

  The issue was entirely moot. Panther, of course, volunteered at once for the floor—despite her insomniac tendencies, she was also blessed with the ability to nap quite literally anywhere at any time—but by time they stepped into the cramped enclosure that was to be their new home, it became abundantly clear to Tiger that he, too, could sleep anywhere at all. More to the point, in that moment he was incapable of not sleeping: two steps in, his legs gave out, and when his skull made contact with that ratty old pillow the darkness did not so much rush in as it did slam down like a ten-thousand-pound avalanche upon him. One minute, the world was awash with all that color and sound and texture and what-have-you. The next? Lights out. What a mercy.

  Sleep. Real sleep, not the jumbled half-waking menagerie of voices shapes that Tiger had for four nights been forced to endure. That was not sleep. That was some malevolent, spiteful imitation; every time Tiger awoke he remembered not one iota of the nightmares he endured, and yet he knew the existence of them with perfect and painful clarity. And somehow every morning he came to even wearier and more haggard than he was the night before.

  But this? This is good. This is beautiful. This is sheer relief. Tiger dreams of nothing at all; he just sinks like an unfeeling stone into a sea of total quiescence.

  And all is well.

  Twelve hours later, when Tiger awakes, he does so much in the way the neonate butterfly emerges from its withered chrysalis—that is to say drastically changed, and now capable of flight. It feels as though all the weight of the past four days had simply been wiped away. Tiger rises to his feet and arches his back, and feels his spine pop with immense satisfaction, and thus he is a man wholly remade.

  Now the seventh prince glances about the room. First he sees Casso sprawled out on the opposite bed with mouth gaping open and arms spread wide like a man on the torturer's rack. His snoring is abhorrently loud. Then Tiger turns to see Panther at the foot of his own bed, halfway upright and curled like her feline namesake between the bedframe and the corner of the room. Her cloak is draped like a tarp over her entire form; one might very well mistake her for a mere lump of shadowy grey, were it not for the subtle rising and falling of said lump.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Tiger feels the small satisfaction of He Who Was First To Awake; he drinks deeply of that sacred stillness, that quiet that comes at the most primordial hour of dawn. And then the horrible pit that is his stomach makes its complaints quite loudly known, and all thoughts are banished at once by one singular imperative—EAT.

  This is a task easily fulfilled. Just ten minutes later Tiger sits amongst a host of other bleary-eyed transients in the cafeteria, chowing through a vast quantity of victuals with the kind of rapaciousness usually reserved for the sharp-toothed predators of the animal kingdom. It is a gory affair to say the least. And it is not long after Tiger sets in that a slow-blinking, messy-haired Panther materializes to join him; beyond a pair of mercurial grunts, the two do not speak for quite some time, united as they are in joint pursuit of eating as much as possible as fast as possible.

  "Guh." Finally Tiger's forehead hits the table, and his shoulders shake as he weeps for joy. "Panther, just kill me now. Snap my neck or something while I'm not looking. Let me die happy."

  "Do it yourself," Panther yawns, leaning back with eyes closed in gratified repose.

  "Oh, you're useless." Tiger sits upright and lets out a well-sated sigh, running both hands down the length of his face. He looks at Panther and sees a reflection of himself, for the two of them are still very much encrusted in mud and filth. They look like feral children, like Equinox Beasts taken malformed human shape. "So what's the plan, do you think?"

  One of Panther's eyes slits open. "Dunno. You should ask the boss." And that epithet—the boss—was spoken little like a title and very much like an obscenity.

  "I don't think the boss will be up for quite a while. I can hear him snoring from all the way down here."

  Panther pauses, cocks her head. "Huh," she remarks, after a moment. "You really can."

  Baths followed shortly thereafter, with each taking turns standing guard for the other. The water was borderline-scalding and also quite literally paradise on earth; Tiger could have soaked there for eons, could have submerged himself and drowned right there—and all that would matter was that he had drowned warm. All the grit and grime and abominable weight of the past four days was sloughing off in discolored sheets, melting away until all that remained was sheer human being. Unfettered and unburdened. When Tiger departed the bathhouse, he felt as though his feet were levitating just a few inches above the floor.

  Clothes and armor were scrubbed relatively clean, and subsequently brought back to the room to dry (for Panther insisted her leather gambeson was liable to be stolen if left unattended). This left everyone in loose shorts and undershirts, a problem that was exacerbated by Casso's rather sudden, violent, and foul-smelling awakening. Because: "Not a fucking chance," was his reply, when Tiger suggested that they might step out and purchase some alternate clothes. Or anything at all. "Nobody leaves this room."

  "Wait, hold on—"

  "How are we—"

  "That's how it is," is all Casso offers in reply, before turning his flask upside-down and drinking of whatever scant few drops remained within. "Don't either of you start bitching at me, I've already got a headache."

  "This room is tiny!" Tiger protests.

  "How long are we staying here?" Panther asks.

  Casso, peering down into his flask, holds up a single finger. "One day. Tomorrow we move on."

  Tiger folds his arms. "And this is all according to the plan?"

  "Yup."

  "And then where are we moving on to?"

  To which Casso just gives him that look—that look, that same old infuriating look that never fails to set Tiger's blood boiling alight. That's the look Casso gives whenever Tiger asks a question that won't be answered—that flat, dull-eyed, totally disinterested stars-damned stare, a stare that goes beyond I won't answer that and instead jeers, Come on, you moron, did you really think I was gonna answer that?

  Tiger glares. Casso stares back. They've done this dance so many times; Casso always wins, for age has granted him inexhaustible reserves of stubbornness. But not this time. This time, Casso maintains that flat stare for just a few moments longer—and then finally, with an irritated sigh, he flips his flask end-up in one quick motion and holds it out for the seventh prince to take.

  "Whatever," Casso says. "Just fill this up with the cheapest booze you can find. You—" he turns to Panther, "—watch him. It's your fault if he dies. You—" he turns back to Tiger, "—cover that tattoo, for fuck's sake. Both of you just get what you need and get out."

  Panther is already listing off on her fingers. "Packs, rations, bedrolls—"

  "Matches," Tiger chimes in.

  "You mean more cigarettes."

  "Casso," the seventh prince prompts instead, rather than reply. He turns to the foul-mouthed old man and he extends, reluctantly, the barest of olive branches: "Anything you need?"

  "Just booze," says Casso, scooting back and leaning his head against the wall. He closes his eyes.

  "You don't want new clothes? Yours are filthy."

  "Kid, they've been filthy."

  "You don't want a proper pack? A bedroll?"

  "Nah."

  "Food?"

  "You can carry all that." But then he pauses—hesitates very briefly—and then adds, "Knives."

  "Knives?"

  "Two of 'em." Accompanied by two fingers, his eyes remaining closed all the while. "Cooking knives is fine, long as they're sharp. I ain't picky."

  Tiger glances over at Panther, who simply repeats, impassive, "Booze and two knives."

  "Stars, man." Tiger casts his gaze down upon the aging mercenary with hands perched on hips. "How do you live like this?"

  Something interesting happens, then. Something unexpected. Casso's eyes snap open—and there is a real and present anger there. Not his usual irritated choler or mean-spirited snapping, no. This was an emotion deeper and more genuine than anything Tiger had ever seen from the old mercenary. He seemed outraged. And it seemed, for a moment, as though he were most certainly about to speak.

  But the moment never arrives. The anger vanishes just as it came. And Casso just closes his eyes once more and waves them away, muttering, "Just get goin' already."

  And so, after another awkward moment, they do just that. They get going.

  It was perhaps an even grayer day than the one before.

  Whilst the sky above was a virulent and blotchy purple, a whole frenetic explosion of color, the city below was all but monochromatic. Today the shadow of the impending occupation was keenly felt; Tiger was certain that their unusual garb was hardly the sole reason that he and Panther were receiving such hooded glares, such consistently averted gazes and avoided foot-paths. The city was retreating like a tortoise into its shell, hostile to outsiders now in anticipation of forced hostility to outsiders. It made for a strange and unpleasant paradigm indeed. And so it was in the shadow of Taro Zohn—in the shadow of Ibis's killer himself—that Tiger and Panther shopped.

  Clothes were purchased and donned in short order; Panther a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of baggy trousers, and Tiger much the same in addition to a long wool-lined greatcoat. When Ibis had sent them away, on the night of her death, she had granted them both a sizable stipend indeed—which was either fortuitous or outright unsettling, depending on one's perspective. Nevertheless it was still serving them well; these were fine, comfortable, practical clothes, a cut above the disintegrating rags they had been stuck with before. Shoulder-slung packs were festooned with a week's worth of supplies; carving knives were purchased from a butchery, and pure grain alcohol (rancid to smell, surely worse to taste) was procured from a nearby tavern. Panther found herself a new cloak and then that, finally, was that.

  As instructed, they spoke to almost no-one. They traveled circuitous paths. They met no eye and encountered no resistance throughout. All, it seemed, was well, and for the first time in a long time both Tiger and Panther were in remarkably high spirits.

  This mood died on the vine from the moment the door swung shut behind them. Casso, still sitting right where he had been an hour ago, doesn't bother with a Were you followed? or any such interrogation of the sort. He just holds out a hand; Panther tosses him his flask, and Tiger lays both the knives at the feet of his bed.

  "Mmh," Casso grunts, which barely qualifies as a thank-you.

  And then they are stuck. Alone. With each other. No windows, save for barred slats allowing mere shreds of daylight to illuminate the room. No furniture save for the two beds and a nightstand over which an oil lantern holds sole dominion. No airflow whatsoever—the room reeks of sweat, dirt, and blood, as well as Casso's intermittent farts.

  Stars, but Tiger and Panther just did not like him. Casso, that is. They could not like him—it was as though the gods had crafted for them the most crass, lazy, irritable, and utterly unsympathetic 'boss' there could ever be. Casso just rubbed people raw; when he wasn't snapping orders, he was worthless for conversation and seemingly utterly disinterested in even one iota of anyone else's interior lives. Not that he seemed much to care for himself, either—if anything he seemed to loathe that man worst of all. Every hour he spent with him, Tiger felt his initial assertion was proving increasingly true: that looking into the eyes of Casso Vos was just the same thing as looking into the eyes of a corpse.

  And so the early hours of that day were torture, plain and simple. These were three people who had barely spoken to one another for the duration of their journey and yet had still somehow run out of things to say. They each retreated to their own corner in turn, Panther alternating between maintenance of her weapons and maintenance of herself—that is to say, basic calisthenic exercises—whilst Tiger scrawled at frantic, neurotic start-stop pace in a small notebook. The room was filled with the sound of charcoal scratching against parchment; at one point, in the depths of his fervor, his right eye actually burst into flame, to which Casso immediately snapped at him to Knock That Off. And Casso, all the while, was just drinking and staring blankly up at the ceiling, as corpselike as he had ever appeared.

  By the fifth hour, however, they broke. And it was shockingly Casso of all people who broke first.

  "So, hey," says the old man, without warning, startling both Tiger and Panther both. "About that Toscht fella."

  The two of them exchange a wary look; both are caught wildly off-guard, for this is perhaps the first time Casso has ever prompted a conversation by himself. Eyes dart back and forth; eventually, and unsurprisingly, it is Tiger who deigns to reply. "Yeah...?" he trails off. "What about him?"

  "He ever give any hint about the fact that he was, y'know—" Casso gestures vaguely, "—working that side gig for our mutual friend?"

  Tiger arches an eyebrow at side gig; Panther just folds her arms and answers, "No."

  "We only ever knew him as Naok's bodyguard," Tiger agrees. "I never even suspected—"

  "No," Panther coldly reiterates. To which Tiger just closes his mouth and nods his head.

  "He never mentioned anything about a payment? Anything like that?"

  And this time Panther freezes. Tiger and Casso both see and so she is caught, her usually-stoic demeanor serving now only to further contrast the uncertainty flickering across her face. Casso says nothing—does not needle, or press her further in any way. He just waits.

  "Last time I saw Baras," Panther recounts, finally, "I told him not to die for them. For Naok. It didn't make any sense to me. I told him it was just money. It wasn't worth his life."

  Tiger watches, wide-eyed and silent. Tiger has heard not a word of this. Tiger knows only the congenial mercenary and the defiant, roaring beast that tackled Daiga through a window. He knows not the bridge between.

  "And what'd he say?" asks Casso. Tiger has never seen him so intently focused on someone else's words.

  "He said that it wasn't always about money." Panther's face was a grim mask. Those slate-grey eyes reflected no light at all. "Said it was just like...just like my duty to my dead Empress. Those were his exact words."

  "Oh," says Tiger.

  "Huh," Casso grunts. "Interesting." And then, after a moment: "Yeah, that tracks. That's how she gets ya. Money's too common, you see—shit's everywhere, there's too many ways to get your hands on it. But our mutual friend, she finds something no-one can give you. And then she offers it. And then you're stuck." He leans forward, hangs his head, lets out a weary sigh, and mutters softly, "Sounds like we both got suckered into a bad deal."

  "How did you know her?" Panther blurts suddenly, with shocking desperation, her composure cast utterly aside. "Casso—you always talk like you knew her! How did you and Ibis—"

  The old man doesn't look up. He deigns to spare her the usual disparaging look; he just keeps his head hung, and the meaning is made clear. But Panther sputters, inexorably drawn in by the sudden promise of anything Ibis at all, and suddenly her breath is catching in that terrible way one's breath does in the sudden and shocking throes of grief. Tiger sees it all, in that moment, in his friend's eyes—and so it is with quick thinking that he jumps in and diverts, "Hang on. Sorry, I'm just curious. You called it a bad deal just now. Your payment—this mysterious payment we're somehow supposed to procure for you—if you don't mind me asking, is it in some way insufficient?"

  Aiding Panther and probing Casso for information, all in one fell swoop. Tiger is well and truly a politician's son. And Casso Vos is an illiterate killer—who is, also, at that moment, absolutely incorrigibly drunk. And so: "Not at all," the old man answers with surprising readiness, with none of his usual cagey reluctance. "Like I said, she's offering me the only thing I want."

  "And what is—"

  "Still a bad deal," Casso continues, looking up into the prince's eyes now. Looking suddenly ten thousand years old, like a creature of eras and eons caught in miserably slow decay. Like a man stuck in-between. "I hate this," he admits, voice haggard and low. "I'm tired. I intend to be doing any of this ever again. But."

  "But?"

  "But I couldn't say no. Once it was offered, I couldn't turn it down. Once she said it out loud...once it was put out there into the world, as something that could possibly exist...there was just nothing I could do. So here I am." He raises his flask. "Cheers to that." And then he tilts his head back and takes one enormous swig.

  "Well..." Tiger trails off, into that strange and uneasy silence to follow. "If we're all asking questions, then could I possibly inquire about something else? Nothing about the conspiracy, or the plan, or the payment, or anything like that. Nothing about her. Just—"

  "Oh for fuck's sake, just ask," Casso sighs. "You're already giving me another headache."

  And thus the floodgates are rent open. The dam bursts. "How in the living hell did you perform Sorcery!?" Tiger blurts, at startling volume and with startling intensity—so much so that it is immediately apparent that the question has been haunting him for the entire duration of their journey. Then, before the interrogatee can even attempt to respond, the interrogator launches into action: "Sightless, you said, and then Daiga's eyes went totally black—I'm fairly certain anyway, I mean there were a lot of black spots on my vision by that point, but—and then you two rush him, like you think he should be vulnerable in some way. Sightless, right? That was supposed to blind him."

  Casso, after a moment: "Uh huh."

  "But obviously it didn't work, which I surmise was because of an Incipitor's so-called sixth sense—Daiga told me once that he could smell my Aia, as unbelievable as that sounds. Now, already this is wildly unorthodox Sorcery—I see how you get there, I've been retracing your steps, but it's still totally at odds with the traditional Shalasharan schools of thought. So that's already weird. But then—" he points, "—you, my friend, are also very obviously a dull-eye. So what gives? Now, I saw the sparks instead of the flame, and that does track—okay, so maybe you've got just a glint, maybe your conduit is juuust barely open. That's normal, most people have at least a tiny glint in their eye. But almost nobody can ever actually do anything with it. And your sparks—" he points again, "—they were black. Just like the fire from Daiga's conduit, from his artificial and man-made Negation Sorcery. So, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but the point of all this is—Casso Vos, you foul-mouthed half-blind brainless old drunk, did you somehow manage to reverse-engineer Yauju Daret's artificial Sorcery techniques? And if so, how in all of Xon did you manage to do so without giving yourself a lobotomy in the process?"

  A few moments pass, wherein Tiger is now looming upright and panting heavily, and Panther is observing with steady curiosity and mild concern, her desperate grief momentarily forgotten. Casso's face remains totally unreadable. And then, finally, he repeats, "Brainless old drunk?"

  "Just answer the question."

  "Alright, alright." Casso sits forward and raises one leathery old hand, the back facing directly towards Tiger and Panther both. All five fingers point right up to the ceiling. "Runes," he says. "Under my nails. Ripped 'em out and carved a couple of, uh, waddya call 'em—important names or whatever underneath. Old Sorcerer drinking buddy of mine helped me do it. Hurt like a bitch and they took ages to grow back, but..." He shrugs. "That was in my thirties. Back then I still gave a shit."

  For a moment, Tiger just gapes. His mouth moves, struggling to find the words. They come in fragments: "That's insane. That is insane. I—look, anyone can go and carve some symbols into their skin, okay. But to actually make it work, to force open your own conduit—do you have any idea the sheer depth of skill and discipline required to—"

  "Took me years," Casso burps. "Like I said, back then I still gave a shit. I'd take anything that made me even a little bit better at doing what I did."

  "Which was?"

  "Same thing as it is now."

  "And...is that blind all that you can do?"

  "Yup. Two fingers to bare skin gets me thirty seconds, once every three months. So." His gaze turns pointed. "Woulda been nice not to have used that back there."

  "I don't believe you."

  Both heads turn at once; it is laconic Panther who speaks, who has not spoken in some time, who has always had an uncanny ability to hold so still that she simply becomes one with the indistinct background shapes and colors. It is Panther who accuses now, "You can do more than just the blind."

  Casso blinks lazy and unfocused, like a cat. "Uh huh. And why would I lie about that?"

  "The way you came up behind Daiga," Panther continues, unabated. "I never saw you come in. Never even saw you approach. You just appeared out nowhere."

  "No, wait—I saw that too!" Tiger agrees. "I swear, it was like you stepped out of his shadow. I thought I was just seeing things."

  "Weren't you half-blind by then?"

  "And back on the road," Panther jerks her head, "you fought twenty-two full-kitted Sathai in an open area. Tiger was right, earlier—that's not possible."

  "So?" Casso challenges. "What, you think I killed 'em all with magic lightning or some shit?"

  "No—!" Tiger cuts in. "Nothing destructive, nothing over-the-top. Probably nothing close to what I can do. What I'm thinking now is that you've got a whole toolbox of little tricks just like Sightless. Nothing crazy—just extra, unexpected little advantages to push an already spectacular fighter just over the finish line. Just like Panther's arm-bracer trick."

  "Well. You're entitled to your opinion," is all that Casso says, to all of that. And then, before anyone can get in another word, "My turn." And then he pivots sharply, points one finger square at Panther, and asks, "Those scars self-inflicted?"

  Panther blinks, taken briefly aback. "Which ones?"

  "You know which one." Casso reaches up and traces a line across his throat. He refers, of course, to the faded imprint of the noose around her neck. "The interesting ones."

  Tiger's eyes flick to Panther in immediate alarm—but he sees, instead, that her steady calm remains unbroken, and so he does not intervene. "Self-inflicted," Panther answers flatly. "But not in the way that you mean."

  Casso raises one eyebrow.

  "I made a stupid mistake and I paid for it." She shrugs. "Simple as that."

  "Botched hanging, then?" Casso lets out a low whistle. "Huh. How'd they manage to fuck that up?"

  "I wanted to live more than they wanted me dead," Panther replies—and this time, the tone of her voice makes perfectly clear that this particular line of conversation is at an end. And so it is Tiger who jumps in with something else entirely, with another hyperactive tirade thinly disguised as a question, and so gradually the light draws pale from the barred slit above. Sunlight turns to moonlight; the lantern is ignited, food is delivered to the door and devoured hungrily, and soon Tiger and Panther join Casso with chilled steaming alcoholic drinks of their own. They talk, and they talk, and they talk until they pass out, and for just a little bit—in this tiny little prison, this cramped oubliette at the center of the world—they all feel like real human beings.

  Come next morning, though, the illusion is shattered. They are all strangers once more. Armor, gear, and weapons are all donned in silence. Casso is once more his abrasive and unsympathetic self. Ibis's absence hangs once more like a black cloud over Panther's thoughts, even despite her newfound sense of purpose. And poor Tiger—Tiger is every bit just as lost, confused, and utterly hapless as he was before. And he is keenly aware to boot.

  Nevertheless. The three of them descend the stairs and stop not to dine; eating will be done on the road, as the Twilit City fades into the horizon behind them. Casso goes to pay at the front desk whilst Tiger and Panther flank him like a pair of unspeaking bodyguards, each newly awkward and uncomfortable—each suddenly unable to speak to the other, bound as they still are by those posthumous chains. And so Casso is immersed in haggling with the innkeeper, and Tiger and Panther are each fading into the stormy recesses of their own minds, and so neither one of them is quite paying close enough attention as a nondescript stranger walks right past, right up to Casso's side. Neither is taking any particular notice at all, until Casso remarks: "Jian Jaharo."

  Both Tiger and Panther's heads snap right up at that particular name.

  "Casso Vos," the stranger replies. "Funny seeing you here."

  Neither man looks at the other; each is just staring straight ahead, slouching with hands in pockets, even as Tiger and Panther are already going for their respective weapons. And the hum of conversation in the lobby is fading away; all present can sense it now, can feel the faint tingling of potential energy in the air.

  The atmosphere has changed.

  "Not really," Casso shrugs, still casual as can be. "I'm just trying to get paid."

  "Mmh," the stranger nods. "Yeah, I did hear that you were back to work."

  "Well, you heard right."

  "For the wrong side." And then the stranger glances back at them. And then Tiger and Panther get a full glimpse of it: not just those palest-of-pale blue eyes, not just that gaunt and stubble-studded face, not just that unkempt greasy-black hair—but the hideous warping and mottling of skin, the innate curling of the lip, the precise vertical divide wherein an ordinary human face was turned to naught but barely-healed burn scars. Burn scars in exact mirror opposite to Taro Zohn's own. And now Jian Jaharo, The Pugilist, looks Tiger and Panther dead in the eyes, and says, "How about we all sit down and chat."

  "I'd rather not," says Casso, just as that little bell above the doorway goes ding!, and just as Tiger turns to see two figures stepping into the lobby—one gauze-wrapped and rotting, the other with a golden bow on his back and a wolf's grin on his face. Tiger's head snaps back around—Panther's got her sabre halfway out, Casso's has one hand in his coat, the innkeeper is ducking behind his desk and everyone else is frozen in silent terror, the whole lobby turned quite suddenly to a garden of living statues. And then all attention is drawn right to the center of the room as Jian Jaharo clears his throat.

  "I wasn't asking," he says. He raises one arm; frost creeps along the back of his hand, and ice cracks between tattoo-banded fingers. "I'm telling. So, come on." Both Kyar and the Empty Man take a single step closer. Panther's sword comes another inch out from its sheath. Tiger's right eye flares unconsciously to life. Casso seems totally nonchalant. And Jian Jaharo—he never even blinks, as he tells them: "Sit."

  End Credits Theme