Ortahn led them across the planks of the suspension ladder, and beneath their feet lay human ground—the polished stone of the canton. His field of vision was severely limited, but he could see that the night city had greeted the guests from The Scar with a lazy cheerfulness, as if it hadn't even noticed Ortahn's absence.

  The air, as it should, smelled of children's dreams of caramel. Hanging glass arches, like frozen waves, fractured the moonlight and mixed it repeatedly with the gleam of advertising words. The darkness of the sky seemed warm and welcoming, and the glowing dots played playfully in swarms. For a moment, Ortahn even thought they were real fireflies, but no, real animals were extinct, and every one of their eco-niches had been filled by homunculi. But no one regretted that anymore.

  Everything around them breathed with life: the architecture, the magic, and the occasional passersby. Ortahn felt a slight longing for this place—the city lived on the same frequency as he did. "I should have walked with Viya at night," a detached thought flashed through his head, and he caught himself realizing that such a thought no longer cut, but only left a tolerable bitterness. A chattering group of women walked past, looking right through them. But this didn't mean the "mirror cloak" was working perfectly; it was just customary here not to notice strangers.

  Ortahn led Viya, that is, Esh, not along the shining main arteries of the canton, but through the quiet rib-streets. They walked through the city, and the city stood still beneath them, frozen in its nightly slumber. The pavement lay placidly, the colorful panes of stained glass on the countless towers resting after their day shift. The tower walls were covered in faded mosses, around which bright insects circled. Some plants and butterflies glowed with bioluminescent light, creating living signs and billboards. On the horizon, the Fires of Eden still pierced the sky, never for a moment interrupting their watch.

  Dozens of the light-weave pierced the night, carrying letters, memories, and entertainment. Beneath and around them, nightlife was in full swing: tables full of food, people laughing at messages from the living lines, domestic homunculi gliding about on others' business.

  At one intersection stood a statue of a woman from whose chest a steady stream of light flowed. Viya had always said it was a symbol of life. Now, with cold clarity, Ortahn understood that it was just a lantern. Its creator had decided to draw attention to the symbol of their world's power in this way. For some reason, this made him sad.

  "It's nice here," Ortahn said quietly. "In The Scar, I almost forgot that the world isn't limited to corridors. And that the night can be just the night, not a measurement between lectures. And it's especially pleasant to walk like this, arm in arm with a good person. It's even romantic."

  "Ort...ahn..." Esh whispered, but he didn't understand the meaning she put into his name. He couldn't see her face, but he felt with his skin how the heat from her intensified. This surprised him; he had made sure there was ventilation.

  "Don't worry, Esh," Ortahn decided to reassure her. "In this noise, it's unlikely anyone will overhear us. Too many improbable coincidences would have to align into one that harms us. And a good conversation will fuel my power."

  "Do you remember your first walk through the city?" she suddenly asked, changing the subject with the skill of high magic.

  He felt the chill of nostalgia, but next to Esh, this cold wasn't all-consuming. And she was asking about his first, not his last, walk. It was fine to remember the first one.

  "I remember," he answered. "It was also at night. I was walking with Viya, we were carrying her things and arguing about inevitability and determinism. Although, it was more like I was just inserting my remarks so she would keep talking. I actually agreed with her."

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  "And now?" Esh took his hand, pouring magical fuel into his spiritual veins.

  "Now I know that inevitability is just poor planning," he said with a slight smile.

  They came out onto a small, secluded plaza, squeezed between sleeping alleys. In its center, a multi-armed homunculus-musician was playing most of the known musical instruments, and couples were dancing around it. Ortahn felt Esh stumble (more with her attention than her foot), trying to drink in the scene with her eyes and ears, and also to postpone the moment of parting with it.

  "We could..." Ortahn suggested.

  "What?" Esh started.

  "Dance," Ortahn answered and nodded at the couples, though he knew Esh wouldn't see the gesture.

  "I can't dance. I'm a theorist, remember? I can describe the trajectory of a movement, but my body doesn't obey me."

  "I can't either," he admitted. "But I've learned to make things (and myself) move against their initial nature."

  They stood at a distance from the others, two invisible ghosts on the edge of the celebration. But even if they had collided with someone, the aether-condensed air around them should have repelled the external pressure. Ortahn took a step, causing their sphere to sway, and Esh, caught off guard, took a step to keep her balance.

  "What are you doing?" she breathed, her fingers clutching his sleeve.

  "I'm giving you a vector," he explained. "And you respond with a counterbalance. You like to combine lectures with actions, after all. Even if those actions aren't always permitted."

  "Lectures on magic," Esh objected, but without objection in her voice.

  "And what do you think we're doing now?" Ortahn smirked.

  They weren't dancing, but balancing in their cocoon of aether, clearly out of rhythm of the homunculus's music, but they didn't care; they were in their own rhythm. Two bodies engaged in awkward, strange, but sincere movements. He felt her balance, her reaction, and his magic adjusted to her. But even music is not eternal, and it fell silent.

  "I have to write this down, Ortahn," she said, breathing heavily. "We just invented a new type of social interaction, based on..."

  "Mutual support," Ortahn finished. "And let me save you some of your life's time—call me Ort. We're dance partners now, aren't we?"

  The wind brought the scent of blossoms—light, with a barely perceptible bitterness. They walked out onto the spine-street, and it was Ortahn's turn to stop. The pavement had been repaired, but he had no doubt—this was the place. He had known the path would treacherously turn here; he had just refused to think about it. But it was too late to think now; they were already here.

  "What's wrong, Ort?" Esh asked with concern, tugging at his sleeve.

  "You know that 'already seen' effect?" Ortahn decided to turn even his pain into lecture material. "When you remember that you've already lived through the current moment in the past. But there's a worse effect—'already dead.' When you remember that you've already died through this moment in the past. I had already died in this place once, just not physically. Perhaps it's because all my illusions about the world died here."

  "That's sad," Esh said, taking his hands in hers. Her palms were small but surprisingly strong. "We need illusions. When we know how to control them, and not become a part of them."

  "And what do you think I'm doing?"

  "For now, we're both just doing a little bit of everything," Esh replied. She could have been an excellent Sphinx.

  Esh didn't let Ort get stuck in that dead moment. She pulled him along, and soon they came to the very edge of the canton. Below them flowed a black river, on the surface of which phosphorescent ribbons glided—the traces of transport mag-currents carrying cargo to the lower towns. From within the city's foundation, a song could be heard. A male voice, low and clear, carried a melody, and in it was that same, almost forgotten tenderness that Ortahn hadn't heard in a long time.

  Esh tried to look down into that frightening and alluring darkness.

  "See?" she said. "We didn't escape. We just came out for some air."

  "If we're lucky, we'll continue," Ortahn concluded with a touch of irony.

  And at that moment, standing on the edge, he felt with absolute clarity: here and now, he was no longer the lost boy being led by the hand. He was walking on his own. And he was walking beside someone who knew how to walk.

  "A lot of pauses in our very secret and very dangerous mission," he stated, trying to look at Esh. He was surprised to realize he had almost stopped noticing how he was maintaining the complex spell. Esh, himself, and the cloak of invisibility had become an almost self-sustaining system.

  "Good pauses," Esh put in.

  "But the night is short," Ortahn reminded her, getting back to the point. "It's time to find answers to your unethical questions."