One year ago

23rd day of The Scorpion, aether years 53|68 

The brittle man descends the steps first, revealing long front teeth in his grin. The second man must duck to let his tall white horns through the door. An iron chain wraps his palm and trails down to his feet, where Talesin lies, eyes too heavy to keep open, body too cold to move. His bones bump against each edge of the stairs as he is dragged down; rib, then hip, then knee. Another bruise, another scrape that he has no energy to heal.

Through the grain of dust on his lashes he can make out the nature of the location. Cavernous walls cloaked in shadow, a tunnel lined in low tables, each piled in a merchandise that gives off its own light. Opalescent white liquid corked in tincture bottles, hanging bladders of starlight gas, mirrored trays reflecting the glow of a dozen piled gems. Even through his haze, Talesin reacts to the glowing product with fear. He has seen his life force bottled before.

The shadows of the patrons dance alongside their feet as they shuffle between merchants, inspecting products and haggling in whispers. The few that pause to see Talesin gape and shuffle away into the shadows. But most do not take the time to notice the particulars of a horned man dragging a young boy through the dirt. Live products are common enough in these white light markets.

Until the horned man stops and throws his prize to the middle of the cavern. Talesin hits the ground with a thud that makes him retch, and draws the eyes of every patron in sight. The gasps scatter through the crowd.

“Oh, yes, ladies and gentleman of Abona,” The brittle man spreads his arms over Talesin’s curled body, “tonight I bring you a special offering. Can I get an opening bid?”

A woman steps forward in a swish of ankle-length skirts, “are you mad? Here?”

“Here indeed, my lady,” the brittle man muses, “only an Abontine knows truly the worth of a live salamander. At least one thousand gold to start! Who offers me more?”

Protest erupts through the crowd.

“Take him away!”

“We’ll be raided! They’ll burn everything to the ground!”

“We do not cross the salamanders in their own garden!”

Talesin digs the iron chain into his neck as he tries to cover his ears, block out any more talk of salamanders. He has heard this more times that he can count; the power and authority behind the name, inspiring a fear and awe that Talesin has never experienced. 

The horned man holds a hand up until the crowd quiets, “your concern is understood, but this is a special case. A salamander indeed, but…”

His black nails tear away Talesin’s collar, exposing the bare shape of his collarbones.

“Unchained.”

An urgent whisper travels through the crowd. No longer in protest, but considering the risk against his size, his health, the amount of pure life energy that could be extracted from him.

For Talesin, this is the only truth of being a salamander. A tear squeezes between his eyelids.

The bidding begins.

Present day

28th day of The Balance, aether years 53|68

In the torchlight district of Abona, humans dance through the streetstreets, eyes rolling, garments rending, green-stained lips crying out for the fae. Unbeknownst to them, the fae watch. 

From corner tables and balconies too high to touch the light, the fae watch. Pipes hanging in needlepoint teeth. Smoke veiling their animal eyes. Fashion of the day barely concealing the strangeness of their bodies, the beauty of their faces, the glow of longevity beneath their skin.  The fae watch, drinking the same anise liquor as the humans, and they laugh at the madness in the streets. A group of women burning their fingers on the torches, trying to catch pixies inside. Two old men climbing into the sewer after the voice of a merwoman. Friends clawing at each other’s backs, sobbing over invisible wings. The fae never tire of human ignorance. No amount of anise will truly reveal the lifeblood of aether in the world, but enough will make a human aware that there is something. Something deeper, something primordial, something a being so brief can never possess. There are no pixies in the flames, no voices in the water, and no wings to be had. There is only the breaking of the human mind over a force beyond its understanding, and the laughter of the fae.

That laughter screeches low and thin through the crowds, not so much a sound as a prickling of hairs on arms and necks. Such a part of the madness that when they stop, the humans seem to sag like marionettes on tired strings. But the fae do not dare laugh again.

A young man appears at the end of the street. He breezes through the human crowd with easy steps and clear purpose. To them, he looks like nothing more than a rich boy out for fun, a wristwatch glinting beneath his sleeve, his jacket dyed a depth of black inaccessible to most. To the fae, he is two and a half centuries of carefully honed violence.

Locals return cautiously to their drinks. They have known Lyvithen Vettira long enough to recognize neutrality in his stride, and long enough to keep their guard high always. 

For those from further afield, the flash of torchlight on his blond hair is enough to make them shrink and whisper. Fae in every city on the olive sea have stories of the golden-topped Vettiras and the shadows that follow them; equal parts heroism, and horror.   

Only the most rural visitors do not know him by name or bloodline. These are the ones who scramble away the moment he is close enough to see the pendant winking on his throat–talons clutched around an eight-pointed star.

There is not a faerie alive that does not fear the chain of the salamanders. 

Cautious, afraid, and terrified alike, they crane their necks to watch him descend the steps that humans always pass without knowing why. A hostess in a close-cut dress of the latest style meets him at the door, her mouth pasted into a welcoming smile, her body tensed to flee at any moment.

“Lyvi, it has been awhile,” she scans him from head to toe, studying how he has grown, checking for a weapon. “Business or pleasure tonight?”

His answer will be what makes her ease the door open and welcome him inside, or throw the door open and run for her own life. For every night the salamanders come and break bones across the bar, a hundred go by where they fill the tills with gold. Still, one time is enough to learn the question, and learn it well.

Lyvi flashes her a smile, “neither.”

A moment after he says this, the keening laughter of the fae resumes in the night, and the human reverie finds new passions. Dragons and sea monsters and the mythical dances of legendary kings. Lyvi and the hostess both pause to listen. She relaxes into a grin.

“Well perhaps I can turn your mind to pleasure,” she opens the door behind her, “your shadow is already doing quite a job herself.”

“Yes, my reason for coming,” Lyvi steps past her, “where is she?”

The hostess lets the door swing shut behind them, replacing the sounds of the street with the croon of instruments in the main room. She takes Lyvi by the arm and walks him toward the bar. 

“Come now, drink with me first,” she leaves him on one side of the counter and pours whiskey into a glass, eyeing him over her exposed shoulder, “on the house for my…third favorite Vettira?”

“Third favorite?” Lyvi runs his middle finger around the rim of the glass, “Do I want to hear about the first?”

The other fae in the bar react to him much the way the ones outside had. Pausing, waiting, glancing. The few who hide in shadows or private rooms. Only the musicians continue seamlessly in their task. A flautist’s melody gripping the air, the tapping of a small skin drum felt in the ears as well as the pulse. One faerie stands to refresh his drink, only to meet the reflection of Lyvi’s eyes in the clear bottles behind the bar. Lapis blue, the pupils broad slits in this low light. The faerie hunches back down.

The hostess selects a spirit for herself and joins him, “I think your father amuses me the most. So very handsome, with no taste for fun. Though, he must have had some, you’re here.”

“Hm, I would prefer not to think about it,” Lyvi knocks back his drink and pushes the empty glass toward her. “Thank you. Point me to Sterliin?”

It would take him less time to find her himself, but a little indulgence goes further with petty fae than sniffing through their hallways.

The hostess pouts at him. “You’re going to leave me lonely, Lyvi? What will I do without your pretty face?”

Lyvi raises a sharp golden eyebrow. “Sterliin?”

She sighs, “in the backmost room, under a mountain of cocktails.”

“Thank you,” he leaves gold on the bar, “next round for the room on me.”

As he walks away, she begins pulling down bottles and huffs, “a Vettira indeed.”

The room livens again as drinks come around. Still Lyvi is watched as he strides past the musician’s niche and into a hallway of private rooms. The music is muffled here, travelling through the walls instead of the air. The medium only serves to make it resonate more deeply. Even fae ears can be entranced by such sweet sounds, and he is almost certain the very thing is happening behind the door before him. He steps inside and closes it with his shoulder. The small, rich room is papered in an ivy print, the pattern of the leaves carried into the hearth and furniture. Beneath the mantlepiece, a bouquet of black flames cast their glow over a phalanx of novelty glasses. Each one blown into different colors and shapes, each with only a single sip missing from the liquor within. 

Cast over the chaise lounge beside them is Sterliin Kharal, his battle pair. Feet draped over the backboard, head hanging off the cushions, glass reflections shimmering across her sharp cheekbones and the long, straight line of her nose. A jacket identical to Lyvi’s is cast onto the floor; mollusk-blackened wool, brass buttons on the breast, cuffs, and shoulders. Unlike him, all of her clothes are saturated in the same color. Dress cut even finer than the hostesses’, sleeveless with a notch at the top of the bodice to better show the embroidery on her chemisette, and a box pleated skirt hemmed just above her ankles. Her braid glistens to the floor like a trail of blood as thick as his fist. Lyvi nudges the end of it with his boot.

“The irony here is astounding.” he says.

Her eyes flick open, so dark and deep-set that they look black as well. Lyvi knows they are as green as the seafloor beneath those shadows. She closes them and rolls away.

“Drunken stupors seem to work for you,” she says, “I thought I would try one.”

“You are aware you have to drink the liquor for it to work, right?”

“Lyvithen, I am bored enough, logic me again and your ribs will feel the consequences,” Sterliin sighs, dragging her nails across her collarbone, “I am going to die of boredom and break my mother’s heart.”

Lyvi laughs at her, but she is right in part. It has indeed been a quiet autumn, with the aethersphere seemingly in a stall when it should be swelling to its peak. Opportunities for violence grow scarce when the petty fae are too lethargic for mischief, and the high fae hide in their strongholds. Even Lyvi’s moods, usually stormy with the changing of leaves, have been too placid to entertain her. He studies the collection of unfinished drinks, humming to himself. Sterliin is unlikely to die of her boredom, but someone else certainly could.

“Perfect timing then,” he leans closer and chooses his words carefully, “I had a crow from Metennē an hour ago, he has a job for us.”

Dimples appear in her cheeks, “oh? What kind of job?”

Not the question he had hoped for. He rolls his tongue over different versions of the truth, and her eyes slither up to his face as if he wondered aloud. She raises an eyebrow just as he had to the hostess; same expression, different eyebrow. He folds his arms.

“Fine. A retrieval. Talesin is caught in the white light market again.”

Her dimples evaporate, “leave him there. You should have let me kill him the first time he blew this shit.”

Lyvi hums in a noise that is half understanding, half exasperation. Regardless of what he, Sterliin, or even Talesin himself may think, decisions on life and usefulness belong not to them, but the leaders of the salamanders.

He says, “such decisions are not ours to make.”

“Hmm,” Sterliin muses, “one day.”

Lyvi’s eyes go a very dull shade of blue.

Laughing, she swings her feet down to the floor, but Lyvi knows better than to assume victory. She considers his hands, bandaged from wrist to second knuckle in undyed linen.

“Did Metennē specify anything about a clean retrieval?” She asks.

Lyvi smiles, “no, he did not.”

Her dimples deepen, thoughts turning down a track he cannot quite make out. One of her spidery hands reaches out to touch a chessboard hidden among her forest of glasses. 

“How about we play a game? If you beat me, I go.”

Lyvi bites back a sigh. He flips his wrist to look at his watch. It is late, there is far to walk. Still, beating her will be faster than arguing with her. He chokes back one of the too-sweet cocktails and sits on the white side of the board.

If he can beat her. 

He opens with a queen’s gambit. She plays her knights first. This is going to have to be fast, and bold, and on his feet. Sterliin doesn’t watch the board when they play chess; she watches him. The well of her gaze knows all of his favorite strategies and combinations, the very motion and texture of his thoughts. She will see how his wheels turn before they even finish. 

“Check.” He says, placing a bishop down. He will spend this game racing her to his own choices. 

She blinks downward, just once. She wasn’t expecting it so soon. But while he may not be able to stare straight into her head as she does his, he can see what she’s thinking as it travels through her face. It would look like nothing to anyone else, blinking, tiny motions in the seam of her lips, easily chalked up to fatigue, doubt, the need to blink and settle.

But Sterliin does not have these needs. She doesn’t get uncomfortable, she doesn’t get tired. She doubts nothing. The twitches and hesitations that mean little on one face mean everything on hers, and Lyvi can read them like a first language. 

“Check.” She says, and there is movement in the left corner of her mouth.

Lyvi tilts his head down to her rook ready to take his king from across the board. She knew his attention would get stuck on the center, where any rational player’s should. But he knew she wouldn’t make her move from there. He knew she would go left, and he knew she would play dirty. His battle pair operates on one fundamental rule: she will always do that which gives her the most pleasure in the moment. Nothing gives her more pleasure than throwing a knife into someone’s back.

Levi uses his knight to push her rook aside. She watches him the entire time.

“Checkmate,” he snatches her king off the board, “let’s go.”

Her eyes stay on him and the board for a few moments longer, full of a gleam he has not seen since their last assignment. Only mere months ago, but he missed her joy nonetheless. At last she buckles her shoes onto her feet, and he sweeps her jacket off the floor.

As she slides her arms into it, she says, “Talesin owes me a spectacular explanation for this.”

Lyvi eases her braid out of her collar, laughing, “and you are welcome to get that explanation, short of bodily harm. He’s been through things we cannot imagine, though. He may not be able to explain.”

She makes a faint noise of disgust, and strikes off toward the exit. The bar that had livened at Lyvi’s departure goes dead again as the two of them cross the floor. The caution the fae displayed toward Lyvi alone is nothing compared to the tremulous reverence they offer Sterliin. This is the shadow that taints every story of the Vettiras. When a salamander arrives, there are always two, and if one is a Vettira, the other will be a Kharal. Lies, dimples, and a throat torn from a neck. Sterliin does not have every calling card of her bloodline, but the fae know her regardless. They say every drop of blood spilled by the Kharals has trickled through generations to stain her hair. They say a girl so beautiful with a tongue so twisted is a punishment from the aether. They say her voice can crawl inside ears and make a brain lie to itself. 

The hostess who Lyvi had spoken with earlier meets them stiffly at the bar. As she settles the bill, her eyes never stop monitoring Sterliin’s hands. Like she is afraid those pointed nails might snatch out and behead her at any second. 

Sterliin offers a purse of money without counting it, “this should be enough.”

“Oh, indeed,” the hostess weighs the purse in her hand and goes doe-eyed, “are you…sure miss?”

“Yes, of course,” Sterliin smiles, and her lashes flutter over her irises, “thank you.”

The hostess seems to forget she was ever afraid, smiling back and leaning in, “you’re welcome! Good night.”

Lyvi shakes his head and leads Sterliin into the street. They pace each other out of the torchlight district, heading east with Abona’s great duomo looming before them. The night comes closer as the torches become half-burnt oil lamps, and the crowds thinner. Humans watch a young couple walk unchaperoned with moral curiosity, but little else. Fae do not frequent this part of the city at night. Not unless they are desperate for life or money.

“Did they move the market to the south tunnel of the catacombs?” Sterliin asks.

“They did,” Lyvi considers, recalling the layout of the undercity, “But I think a soft entry is best, I can go in through the cathedral entrance if you want to use the alley entrance and be above until I get Talesin.”

“A soft entry? Lyvithen, why bother if you are going to be dull about it?”

He shrugs, “because it is my birthright to annoy you, and I will exercise it every day of our lives together.”

“And you wonder why I long for a typical autumn.”

But he does not wonder at all. He knows exactly what she loves about his time of year, the very thing he dreads, until the moment it arrives. Sterliin can be endlessly patient, as long as her satisfaction is guaranteed. Place that guarantee into question though, and she becomes a dog gnashing at the walls of her cage. With every strangely quiet day that goes by, it seems more and more they will be facing the latter. Lyvi would be lying if he denied his amusement.

“Mhm. Your darling tantrum aside, after last time we would be wrong to come in full force.”

“Last time was glorious. My report says so.”

“Metennē did not seem overly pleased with your report at the time. So I think we should exercise a degree of restraint. Do what you like afterward, but give me the soft entry.”

She makes a slightly less displeased noise as she continues walking.

The street spills into the duomo square, an acre of granite arranged in herringbone bricks. That pattern continues in marble up the facade of the cathedral, alternating green, gray, and ivory until it disappears beneath the copper-clad dome that has crowned Abona for a millennium. Great limeclast ribs curve between the panels to find their apex amid the stars, supporting layers of brick and concrete and wood. A cross section is a story of human progress, each new technique adding girth, complexity, and sturdiness. Sterliin and Lyvi are alone in the square beneath, glinting between rows of small fountains on their way to the cathedral steps, their conversation snatched away by the bubbling of water.

At the base of the stairs they exchange a glance, Lyvi pointed, Sterliin rolling her eyes before she disappears into the shadow of the dome. Beyond is an alley with a grate that will let her into the undercity from above, where she can lie in wait until her part of the plan.

Lyvi swings open the cathedral door. No lamps are lit inside the nave, but a moon gate in the top of the duomo scatters light off of the five marble arches that stand surrounded by pews. He passes through them without reverence, looking for a door half-hidden in the back. It is not locked, one does not need keys to enter the white light market. One only needs to know how to navigate the catacombs. Lyvi turns right when he hits the cavern. Rows of entombments give way to scaffolds of bones, and gradually the evidence of burial disappears altogether. Old wagon ruts seam the packed ground, worn away in places, interspersed with early attempts at cobbling in others. Pieces of old facades peek in and out of the walls, older and more crumbled the deeper he goes. As it grows darker, Lyvi opens his palm and sends a candle flame to the surface of his skin, radiating just enough light to illuminate the twists and turns. 

The market used to be entered from the ruined baths on the outskirts of the city. It was better in some ways, more direct, with less human traffic than the cathedral. But now that stretch of the undercity goes untouched. The walls are still scorched black for a league in either direction, the ground carpeted with wood ash and broken wares and slow-rotting flesh. Lyvi remembers little of that night, but those who survived tell stories of being enveloped in golden fire, of blood and liquid aether turning the ground into muck. He need not see the scene to know they exaggerate about the rivers of blood–Sterliin did not have so much fun that night–but not about the fire. The fire was hot enough to burst glass and melt metal. Lyvi does remember his own rage.

He blows out a rough breath, and extinguishes the flame in his hand. The tunnel ahead is not dark. Faint light bleaches the tops of stones and deepens the wagon marks, growing brighter and paler as Lyvi draws closer. His pupils contract into slivers, and the hair on his temples stands as untapped power fills the air.

The white light market is where fae go to buy and sell aether. A blinding white stone hung around a neck could add centuries to a lifespan. Two huffs of glittered gas produces a rush that no liquor or herb can hope to achieve. Three drops of pearlescent liquid can turn even the pettiest fae’s hands into conduits of magic, for a short time. It is the thing that makes veins flow and hearts beat, from germ to wheat to human. It is the sacred light that the fae were gifted in abundance, and have continued to hoard through eons of time. The fae do not conceal their distaste when they say only those desperate for life or money come here. To create a stone housing centuries’ worth of aether, one must extract centuries’ worth of aether, and fae are too greedy to go giving up their own power. It must be stolen. 

With so much aether collected in the tunnel, Lyvi  is able to slip into the crowd without every set of eyes drawn toward the presence of a salamander. Those who do look long enough to notice him immediately slink off into the dark. Here, no one asks a salamander if they come for business or pleasure. To a salamander, this haggling over centuries of life and moments of power is pointless. 

He skims a careful eye over each merchant as he moves with the tide of feet, looking for Talesin, yes, but also for spots of color in the sea of white and silver. Tonight though, the tunnel is entirely colorless. Even if the petty fae of Abona cannot resist the potency of a high fae’s aether, they are careful enough after last year to hide the evidence. 

The sound of laughter draws Lyvi’s attention to the other side of the room. He looks over his shoulder to spot Talesin behind a display of aether vials and medicines, pinned there by the merchants. One holds his arms poised to snap behind his back, and another holds a straw dropper over his face.

“Come now, you must try it,” the redcap holding the straw lets a dark bead of medicine fall “my best formula.”

Lyvi raises his brows, impressed by the stubborn bravery in Talesin’s grimace. He is clearly fae, pink-eyed and sharp-toothed, but if not for his pupils, he would look nothing like a salamander. He produces only the tiniest amount of aether, so his tissues are as dull as a human’s, his hair the color and texture of rat fur. He is short, stunted even, with none of the grace that comes with the decades of training a salamander receives. In the year since Lyvi and Sterliin first recovered Talesin from this market, he has stumbled three other times into vulnerable positions with the petty fae. Lyvi watches another few moments as the redcaps goad Talesin. There could be a lesson in letting him be dosed with something harmless. But the tincture streaking Talesin’s chin is violet-black in a color Lyvi knows all too well. There is nothing harmless about norastra syrup.

He tests his senses for Sterliin, and finds her close. Another aether signature would be lost in the mud of so many, but hers is as much a part of him as his own. He knows she waits at a vent in the cavern ceiling, kicking her feet in anticipation.

Talesin tries to pull his face away from the dropper, “I don’t need any of that, just–”

“Salamanders say business before they come snooping for information,” the redcap lets another drop onto Talesin’s lower lip, “so we can only assume you’re here for pleasure, little chainless one. Open, I promise you’ll enjoy.”

His partner forces a finger onto Talesin’s teeth, trying to pry his mouth open. Talesin clenches his jaw with the determination of a guillotine and the strength of a leaflet.

“That’s enough,” Lyvi says as he approaches, “he’s coming with me.”

The crowd in earshot ripples back from the scene. Suddenly there is a ring of clear floor around the table, Lyvi, and the frozen faces of the merchants. Their shock breaks into matching frowns, and Talesin’s face twists in pain as his arms are twisted further behind him. 

“Is he, young Vettira?” The redcap merchant teases a smile, “he came down the tunnel of his own accord, no chain, no business. What happens to him is no concern of yours.”

“My concern is whatever I’m paid for,” Lyvi cuts Talesin a displeased look, “it’s as unfortunate for me as it is for you, but needs must. He is high fae, you know how this goes.”

Talesin glares back at Lyvi, his cheeks as blush as his eyes. That look houses no gratitude for rescue. One would almost think he wanted to be in this predicament.

The redcaps fill the cavern with laughter, “high fae! He holds less aether than one of these vials!”

Lyvi dismisses the argument with a snort. Chain or no chain, training or no training, little or less, Talesin houses a fire in his bones that creates aether. In another generation, he would be able to trade his current body for one of scales and wings and teeth, but those days are millennia past. The redcap presses his arms into a cross over his thick chest, bulging muscles as if that might intimidate. His smile curls at the edges.

“Do the laws of the high fae truly hold power when a child comes to enforce them?”

“Yes,” Lyvi raises an eyebrow, “are you sure you want to test that?”

He asks already knowing the answer, having known the moment he saw the creatures that had Talesin in their grasp. The redcap slides into a stance, hands out palm down, the fire of bloodsport radiating from his face.

“Let us see a salamander work for their salary.”

Behind them, the crowd murmurs and shuffles. A few take the opportunity to disappear, most simply move for a better view. Redcaps and salamanders are not the only fae with a penchant for violence. They have a strong stomach for blood, so long as the blood is not their own. Lyvi laughs and shifts his own weight forward, bringing his wrapped fists to the level of his mouth and throat. 

“Fine then,” he grins back, “hit me.”

The redcap does not hesitate, cutting a strike straight toward the salamander’s ribs. Lyvi steps out of the way, testing the footing under his boots. He deflects another strike with his forearm. The redcap has the weight advantage, his hands and feet both will hurt greatly if they connect, but Lyvi has the reach. For a while he plays with his opponent, dancing in and out of range, allowing a few hits to come within a breadth of his face. He watches the redcap gain confidence with each sliver he is allowed closer, flush in frustration with each connection just missed. Lyvi tosses a light jab into the redcap’s shoulder, just to show him the opening. The redcap tightens his guard downward and plunges into the fight with fresh vigor. Lyvi just sidesteps a kick and catches the blade of a hand on his clavicle. Pain radiates down to his toes, but the redcap’s guard is open above the shoulder, and he is too close.

“Not bad,” Lyvi huffs, and punches.

His knuckles crush into the redcap’s meaty nose, splaying blood over them both. The redcap’s defense falls and Lyvi smashes an easy combination into his ribs. He tries to scramble backward, but not far enough. Lyvi buckles him with a foot to his knee. A groan and scuffle echoes through the cavern as the redcap fights to stay on his feet. He manages, swinging at Lyvi once more, but his center of gravity is broken. Lyvi flicks a desperate swing away and sends the redcap down with a punt to his throat. 

The ring of fae around them tightens in a shuffle of toes and a murmur of wonder. Wondering if the redcap is dead. Waste not, want not. Lyvi halts them and rolls the redcap over with the heel of his boot. Fog-eyed, barely breathing, but breathing nonetheless.

“Are we done here?” Lyvi asks.

The redcap sags an arm into the air, “take him.”

“Stop!”

The redcap’s partner has a face pale with resolve, holding a knife into Talesin’s cheek. 

“Release us, or you will be lucky if I only maim your charge!”

Even the crowd pays no heed to the partner’s threats. It might have been a decent ploy, if the salamander were alone. But there are always two.

Lyvi sees Sterliin’s eyes lit like coins in the dark behind the partner. By the time he notices her, she has his knife hand in a wrist lock, and it is too late. The partner spins on her, his other arm prepared to strike, but that blade is hers now. She twists it between the faerie’s lungs. Her smile is feral. As his heart empties, the partner slides off his own knife and into their table, sending wood and wares across the floor. Bruised herbs, wasted syrups, and from a broken box, a trail of jewels that send threads of rainbow light throughout the cavern.

Lyvi understands now the redcap’s desire to fight–a misdirection–and the partner’s panic when he fell. There is a low growl from the crowd. A sickly Kharal laugh. Talesin gasping.

“No, no, no!” Talesin scrambles to the partner and grapples at the wound like he is trying to hold it back together. “Where did you get these? Tell me, where did you–wake up, tell me!”

Lyvi leaves the redcap and steps over the mess of splinters and glass to Sterliin’s side. They trade a puzzled glance that ultimately returns to Talesin. He is up to his wrists in blood now, shaking the dead body beneath him by the shirt.

Lyvi says, “leave it, Talesin.”

“No, he cannot be dead yet!”

Sterliin cleans the knife with the end of her braid, “I cut his heart vein in half, he bled out in thirty four seconds,” she leans down to the level of Talesin’s ear, “your concern for your attacker is rather strange, hm?”

Talesin startles away from her, glaring into her smirk. She tilts her head curiously. He seals any reply in a thin white line behind his lips. 

“Most of us treat death as more than a diversion,” Talesin sneers.

Sterliin doesn’t reply, but her thoughts make Lyvi chuckle. He steps beyond the corpse and scoops the colored aether stones off the ground. Winks of chartreuse, violet, and cyan cover his face as he sorts through the gems with his thumb. Aether of sithe, ondine, other high fae, nothing he recognizes as salamander. Last year he was able to identify the colors of several salamander bloodlines. Most were associated with names he knew only in passing, one he knew by face, a face he had grown up with, trained beside, missed. Seeing Eleyas’s amber aether in a jewel is the only thing Lyvi remembers clearly from that night, the last thing he saw before the tunnels blurred into fire.

There are no such emotions here tonight. Lyvi pockets the collection of stones for Metennē, and picks Talesin off the ground. Any struggle Talesin offers with his mouth or his limbs is cut off when he notices the crowd over Lyvi’s shoulder. The fae leach ever closer like liquid across the dirt. Saliva bubbling on mouths, extraction devices at the ready. Eyes flick between the salamanders and the fallen.

Talesin ducks his head and submits to being led off. Lyvi takes him back toward the cathedral. A step behind, Sterliin lingers to address the hovering crowd. They tense to slide away.

“I trust you remember the penalty for possessing or pedaling the aether of high fae?” 

It is both permission, and a warning. There is an agreeing murmur, the flash of white light on sharp needles, sharper teeth. Sterliin jerks her chin toward the redcap and his partner.

“Enjoy.”

She walks away. The fae of the white light market descend on their fallen fellows with screeches and laughter. The sound follows the salamanders through the tunnels, as the redcap is relieved of his blood, slivers of skin, clumps of hair. Anything that could hold a glimmer of aether. 

Lyvi keeps a light hold of Talesin’s elbow as they walk, catching him when he stumbles through the wagon ruts, pushing him on when he lags. Sterliin casts a flame to light their way, black with a glow that turns the undercity green. Talesin glances at her frequently, a cautious knit in his brow. Her feet tap the ground as if walking out a parlor tune, and she twirls the merchant’s knife in her opposite hand.

The sounds of the market fade behind them, and Lyvi begins to consider how they will return home. He is unlikely to get anyone but himself on a boat, Talesin can barely ride. A carriage would be the best option for him, but that could take days to arrange. The moonlight returns as they cross back into the entombment hall under the cathedral. Sterliin disappears up the stairs, and Lyvi helps Talesin up ahead of him. Talesin squirms against Lyvi’s grip.

“I have no need of an apron string,” he grumbles.

“Your behavior suggests otherwise,” Lyvi lets him go to shut the wooden door, “this is not the first time I have carried you out of trouble.”

Talesin crosses his arms and stands rigid in the shadow of the arches. His cheeks and eyes look like they might catch fire.

He snaps, “I’m no child. You, Metennē, all of you need to stop treating me like something helpless.”

Sterliin raises an eyebrow. Lyvi snaps back.

“Then quit putting yourself in stupid predicaments for no gain!” He says, “the children at least have the discipline to resist their every whim.”

“It was not a predicament!” Talesin is already out of breath, “you two may sail through life on broken noses and eviscerations, but I have been denied such luck. I knew precisely what I was doing, and your interference ruined everything!”

“Ruined what, exactly?” Sterliin asks.

Talesin jumps at the sound of her voice. He steps backward, pressing his lips into a line. Lyvi pauses to play back through Talesin’s rescues. The market tonight, the banshee house over summer, the green liquor bar before. Always places where goods are exchanged, always caught asking questions.

“You’ve been looking for something,” Lyvi frowns, “why not just say so?”

Talesin speaks slowly, like he is trying to talk around a ball of truth in his mouth, “it is nothing of your concern.”

A statement true of matters they would not be paid to pursue. Nothing that could go in an assignment log, nothing related to Eleyas or dead fae or white light markets. These are all just avenues.

Lyvi trades another glance with Sterliin, and she moves. She slams her forearm into Talesin’s throat and drives him backward until he is pinned against the arch. He chokes on a gasp, his eyes going wide as she points a knife into his ribs. Sterliin leans her nose into his.

“You have one minute to tell me what you were looking for in that market,” she whispers, “ or I will show you exactly what evisceration means.”

Talesin’s eyes dart, but Lyvi is tracking the minute hand on his watch. He knows she is lying because they discussed this earlier. Talesin will only know it is a possibility.

The sound of his heart fills the empty cathedral all the way to the apex of the duomo. His face is bone white and growing sweat. He wants to say something, Lyvi can see his lips parting and closing, over and over as his sense of self-preservation pushes him to speak. But every time, his hands clench into tighter fists. 

Sterliin looks straight into his eyes the entire time. 

One minute arrives. She twists the knife point into the fabric of his shirt. Talesin winces, but he does not falter. Any other faerie would have to push the knife into his gut now. Any other faerie has to fulfill their word. Talesin is staking his life on the knowledge that only a Kharal does not.

Two minutes pass. Lyvi is impressed once again. 

Talesin squeaks at last, “you were bluffing?”

“Perhaps,” Sterliin looks at him through her eyelashes, “or perhaps I will stab you later.”

She drops her arm from his throat, and Talesin sags with his hands on his knees. Lyvi offers a hand that he bats away. After a few deep breaths, Talesin straightens again. A veneer of bravado returns to his face, but it taps hollow with his hands still shaking and covered in dried blood.

Lyvi looks at the blood on his own shirt, on Sterliin’s shoes. He checks his watch again. There may still be time for a good night’s sleep.

“It’s late,” he says, “we can stay at the Kharal house tonight and decide how we travel home tomorrow.”

Talesin looks at him wearily, “you expect me to sleep in her house after that?”

Sympathy comes readily to Lyvi’s voice, “ideally no. But no stable is going to let us fetch horses looking like this, and you are tired, Talesin.” He puts a hand on Talesin’s shoulder and whispers, “I promise you will be safe, she’s done for tonight.”

For a moment Talesin narrows his eyes and screws his mouth to snarl that he is fine, but in the face of Lyvi’s soft stare, he rips away and stalks out toward the square. Lyvi and Sterliin follow behind him. The moon has crossed just behind the duomo now, casting its great shadow onto the square. Talesin stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers as he weaves between the fountains. Lyvi watches closely, his head tilted down toward Sterliin.

Did you find your explanation?

She pouts, and her thoughts return to him as grudgingly as if she had spoken, some. He is good at burying his thoughts.

Lyvi sees snippets of what Talesin had shown her as he struggled not to tell. A girl’s face, a flurry of snow. Needles of blood, vials of aether. Lyvi takes the last images with an aura of shudder.

Not surprising. Was there anything else I should know? 

Her hands link behind her back, hmmm, be sweet to him, Lyvi. You were right, he has been through more than most can imagine.

Lyvi looks into her eyes and finds them lush and obscured as a forest floor. He knows how to dig little secrets from her, when they matter. In the case of Talesin’s secrets, he shakes his head, and extends his little finger into the night between them.

Tell me when the time is right?

She hooks her pinkie with his.