7

Una woke to rapid footfall and hushed, nervous voices. Already, she mourned the comfort of her bed. She lent an ear to the whispers beyond her door and waited for the inevitable knock. The stone floor was cold to her feet.

A great swell of moonlight had tumbled through her latticed window while she slept. She slowed in front of it and glimpsed the benighted mountainside of Redbeard's Backbone, where, in every season, rain or shine, the gaping wound of the Throat stared back. Its exhale of endless mist rolled forth, coating the midlands in sheets of white.

She pulled on her robe without breaking eye contact with the foul earthen beast. The cavern wasn't her responsibility, she knew, but there was something about it just then, something dark, that had called upon her weary attentions.

The women had begun shouting at her door. Una sighed and tied her sash, answering at a pace of her own. She was met by a cluster of toadying young preservites. The one at the front, a taller plain-faced girl, Meryn, quickly quieted them.

"Seal off the upper levels," Una said. "Someone fetch Wallace." 

At once, the lot went scrambling to follow instruction. Meryn lingered, expectant. "We came as soon as we could," she swore. "Lucille's bleeding."

"I warned you all to keep your distance." Una put out a fist and held it there until the dull-witted woman realized that she ought to put out her hand. A single gold casting fell into her palm. "For your devotion," Una explained. "I'll leave you to deal with the others."

She dipped her head, once, twice, in gratitude. "Thank you, I—"

"We're done here," Una said. "Go."

Meryn excused herself, still nodding like a deranged pigeon, and fled to the darkness.

Una sighed again when she was alone. With an offhand gesture, she chased the musty shadow of night by casting a few haphazard spotters. The gleaming pearls buoyantly caught to the air and led her toward the sounds of activity above.

Considering how desolate it had become, it was challenging to imagine Whitestar Reach as having once been a renowned destination. Not much was known of the draughtsman who'd tackled the design, but the fort itself, which seemed from afar to melt right into the craggy mountainside, was a singularly unique one, erected atop a fabled clearspring that bled from Redbeard's Backbone itself. The sheer size was enough to get lost in at times. Such vast emptiness.

Feet dragging, Una's climb to the lunar summit was impeded throughout by a series of cramped spiral stairwells. Once there, she was forced to sidestep the tripping retreat of a frightened woman, who, after flinching at the sight of her, sprinted for the exit.

Una caught the chamber door before it could clatter shut. There remained a few well-intentioned miscreants within, to whom she sharply said, "Out," and they all seemed eager enough to gather up their skirts and comply. Una stood to one side as they filed elsewhere.

A grand elliptical room, scarcely furnished. The domed ceiling was a skyglass masterpiece, a magnificent fusion of fallen stars imported ages prior from the desert city of Prosperity. Through it, the unfinished moon appeared as a hazy glob of light.

Una glanced at the lunar bed where the old sightress lay. Her condition was unchanged from their encounter the night before, eyes milky and wide as could be. A pitcher on the nightstand launched itself at the closing door, wild and pointless— the effect of a powerful mind gone murky.

"You're scaring off all the girls, Olba," Una said, longsince depleted by the midnight fits, skirting broken ceramic. "We won't have a soul in the Reach to tend the clearspring if you keep this up."

Olba's exhale was like the opening of a tomb. "Wrong," she breathed. "Wrong."

Five or so paces away, Una stopped to admire herself in the room's standing mirror. The spotters orbited fawningly. "You're letting yourself go," she said. "Ten years ago you'd have been mortified to let yourself be seen like this."

"Wrong," Olba repeated. "Wrong—"

"I'll be the same as you at the rate I'm going. Wasted. Squandered."

Olba lurched, stretching webs of tired neck skin. The mirror cracked down the middle, prompting a mild start from Una. "It's wrong," snarled Olba. "It dies."

Feeling chilled, Una drew the robe tight around her shoulders. She turned to listen.

"It's fed, but it dies." The iron bedframe shrieked inches across the floor, raking angry lines into priceless primstone. An elegant foot rail curled and split. Olba grimaced, presenting a grisly glimpse of stained teeth. "It dies," she persisted. "It's fed— it's fed, but it— "

Intrigued, Una stood over her and waited. "What dies?"

"It's fed by light, but dies by it."

The door opened. Wallace entered, remarkably alert despite just being dragged out of bed. Perhaps he'd been lying awake, waiting for the same stale knock that had come for Una. "We should be clear for now," he said. "Did I miss anything?"

Una impatiently waved him over. "She's talking."

Wallace was an ordinary sort of man; ordinarily intelligent, ordinarily attractive— but the interest that moved across his face made him more than that. Briefly. As Olba's retainer, he'd heard the best and the worst of the world. "It's about time," he said. "Did she get in?"

"I'm not sure. It's an odd one."

Olba's cloudy gaze rolled about. "Please," she croaked, and the arm closest to Una weakly lifted from the sheets. "Please?"

Una reached for her, but paused when Wallace moved as if to stop her short. She glared over the bed at him. "I'm doing it," she told him. "I won't tolerate another sleepless week."

"This business is between her and the benefactor. Leave it be."

The benefactor— a nameless man who possessed the twin of Olba's most unadorned shell. He was the mysterious voice in her ear, someone who likely saw her as little more than a convenient vessel of knowledge. He would, Una was sure, sleep perfectly fine if the sightress passed on in the course of her contract with him. There were other midland prophets he could turn to.

But this time felt different. It felt dangerous.

So Una said, "Curse the benefactor," and she seized Olba's clammy, shriveled hand, spiriting off to wherever her tormented mind had channeled. Wallace's expression across the bed was the last thing she saw, exasperation incarnate. Soundless thunder rattled her bones.

She'd never been able to tell at a glance the difference between dawn and dusk, so when she found herself surrounded by meadows turned violently orange, she couldn't have said with certainty which sort it was that had canvassed it. A mild breeze transformed the vista into motion, coercing every grass and reed aquiver, she among them. There were mountains far off, cradling sunlight. Dawn, she thought.

It took longer than anticipated to adjust to the transition. She turned a few times about, searching for something worth looking at, until the splintered wreck of a sailing vessel appeared like magic behind her. It had been scarred by fire and things much deadlier, keel snapped, hull collapsed, lone mast broken and missing entirely. A remnant of the open seas, left to deteriorate.

Someone was perched on the bulwark of the crippled fore, bare feet dangling over open air. She had to get a little closer to see that it was a filthy child, no older than six or seven. "It's easy to get into," he called out, as she approached. "Geddit, Olba?"

The low sun was blinding. Una shielded her eyes, but paled in disgust when she found herself peering out from beneath a hand that wasn't her own. The unsettling awareness that she was wearing Olba's withered, hanging flesh made her body feel twice as heavy. 

From someplace terribly distant, there wrung a gruesome howl.

"Ah, I forgot it's a two-parter," the boy sheepishly continued, stretching his legs out, spreading his toes. "It's easy to get into, but it's hard to get out of." He leaned forward, half-hidden by a mess of dark, unruly hair. He repeated, "Geddit, Olba?"

The ship was close enough to swallow her in its shadow. Two eyes peered down at her, wider and greener than they had any right to be. She gazed up into them and asked, "Who are you?"

He smiled, as if at a joke. "What, you don't know?"

"Am I supposed to?"

"I don't really care if you do or not."

"What's this business about getting in and out of things?"

"Think about it," he sang. "I threw you a bone this time."

She frowned, switching gears. "It's a riddle?"

"Aye," he replied. "A riddle."

"What do I get if I guess correctly?"

His amusement faded some. He tilted forward again, hanging from a banister. "You sure have a lot of questions today," he noticed. "Is it because you're different on the inside?"

"Maybe I'll tell you if you come down from there."

"But this is my ship."

"It's not like it's going anywhere."

"But what if the crew comes back while I'm gone?"

"Then they'll probably wait for their captain."

"But what if she never returns?"

"She?"

The grin rekindled. "Aye," he said again. "She shouted, 'Damn all, says I!' and then drove it right into the ground." He dropped from the bulwark into a far-from-perfect landing, but he only stumbled and laughed and shook the hair out of his eyes. Without missing a step, he smilingly reached for her face and said, "Here, let me help you with that."

She bent for him, puzzled. "What are you helping me with?"

"It looks heavy, is all." He was a dark thing, even at ground level. He felt around her jawline with child-clumsy fingers, gaze devoted to his search. Surprisingly, she felt no surge of mortification when he found an open fold in the skin behind her ears. "It was your eyes that gave you away," he said. "They're very beautiful, you know. Like tree sap."

"Thank you, I think."

"But I guess they're kind of similar to Olba's." The slap of fresh air was invigorating, like she'd shed wet leather. He spoke while she knuckled her vision clear. "That's better," he said, and his voice had changed. "How do you feel?"

The boy had crouched in front of her, but he was older now, a bit wiser, perhaps, and a little bit sadder in the turns of his smile. She thoughtlessly touched his cheek in confusion, but the familiar sight of her own slender hand came as an instant diversion. There was a frantic sense of pride there, in having discarded the skin she'd ridden in on, in being given the opportunity to see him make the expression that she so effortlessly inspired in those who looked upon her.

He just continued to smile, unmoved. "So have you solved the riddle, yet?"

It took a humbling moment for her to remember what she was doing. She cleared her throat. "It's not a very good one," she retorted. "There are too many answers."

His smile turned impish. "That's what makes it fun."

"You never told me what I'd get in return."

"Can't a riddle just be a riddle?"

"Not when it involves Olba and the benefactor." Una straightened. "I demand to know her purpose for coming here night after night," she said. "I demand it."

"Such entitlement." His eyes shifted to something behind her. With a small, crooked grin, he spoke loudly enough to be heard at a distance. "How about it, Olba?" he called out. "Are you ready to explain your obsession with getting past me?"

Una glanced. Olba was several paces away, red-faced and winded, furious. Even just standing, she staggered. "Get away from it, Una," she barked. "Quickly."

Staring, Una asked, "What happened?"

"She tried to cheat." The curious youth had risen from his crouch. Hands in his pockets, his bearing conveyed friendly disapproval. "You know the rules, Olba," he said. "You don't get another audience until you've earned it. Solve your riddle."

That sightless gaze seemed to see him fine. "You won't— "

"The riddle, please, Olba," he interjected. "I'm not allowed to negotiate with you."

Una's hand acted without her. It lightly jumped to his arm, inviting the mild glare of his molded civility. "Is that the prize?" she asked. "An audience?"

Aslant, he studied her. "That's right."

"With whom?"

"With me."

"But we're already speaking."

He tapped the end of his nose, roguish. "Are you?"

Olba muttered, "It's a sentry, a gatekeeper— an imitation. Move away from it."

Una hardly heard her. She couldn't move. "Easy to get into," she echoed, gripped quite suddenly by an all-too-illogical desire to know. "Hard to get out of."

He stepped in close and said her name, experimental, as if he'd just wanted to hear what it sounded like. "Careful," he cautioned, and he traced her jaw with the backs of his fingers. "You'll be leaving poor old Olba behind, right or wrong."

"Will she be in danger?"

"Do you care?"

A temperate wind stirred the tranquil world. "Trouble," she said quietly. "Easy to get into, hard to get out of. The answer is trouble."

His face split into a grin. "That's what I love about you, Una," he laughed. "No heart."

The meadow sucked her in, feet first. She was submerged in an instant, too abrupt, and a gasp of muddy water gagged her. Lungs aflame, Una floundered toward a glimmer of light.

Her fingertips broke the surface and closed on brittle stalks of grass. Her lips met the air a moment later. She swallowed it greedily, half-coughing, and heaved her elbows over a blissless embankment of jagged rocks and dry vegetation. She was motionless for a short while, legs adrift in the water, eyes closed as she tried to breathe. Dirt clung to her face.

A roll of thunder shook the earth, sending pebbles buzzing about. A quick study from the ground yielded Redbeard's Backbone, still in sight, but she didn't know enough of its summits to grasp which part of the world she'd happened upon. It was a desolate place, a barren land, flat, wild, and pervasively dead. Una grimaced and rolled onto her back. The horizon was bloated with leaden clouds, ripe with impending rainfall.

"A storm's coming."

Una let out an undignified squeak of alarm. The sentry was directly beside her, lying in reverse. He was watching the concrete veil on high, head pillowed by an arm. Flushed, she rebelled from the dusty ground, dripping. She snarled, "You swine, I could've drowned."

He glanced over at her in surprise. "Come again?"

"I should have you beaten." Una wrung out her hair, incensed. "Do you have any idea how much this robe costs? This is real moonsilk from Elmen. Elmen. I'd be pulling you limb from limb right now if it wasn't just a foul turn of sightress nonsense."

His eyes rounded. "Limb from limb?"

Una thrust an angry finger at him. He shrank back. "Where do you get off calling me heartless?" she demanded. "Acting as if you know me, all high and mighty, playing cute. I ought to— to— "

But he'd begun to smile. "Interesting," he said. "Do you know where you are?"

Shiftily, she surveyed the terrain. "Some horrible gray place." His gaze was wandering when she looked back at him, so she scowled and cinched the front of her robe. "Scoundrel," she fumed, pleased in spite of herself. "Avert your eyes this instant."

"You're the indecent one," he said, in amusement. "You should've worn something more practical if you were going to be crawling around in someone else's dream."

Una blinked in the face of his good-natured teasing. With a stab of embarrassment, she realized quite suddenly that she was, in fact, speaking with an actual person. "It's you, then," she said. "You're the one Olba's been trying to reach."

"Olba?" It took him a moment. "That lady with the spooky eyes?"

"That spooky-eyed lady is my grandmother."

"Then you must have inherited her bad manners," he said. "She popped in uninvited a couple of nights ago, stuck her nose in some stuff that I had no intention of sharing."

"What did she want?"

He finally sat up. "No offense, but what exactly are you doing here?"

She glowered, arms folded. "Am I bothering you?"

"Sort of. It's late. I'm trying to sleep."

"It's cold and dark and we're in the middle of nowhere."

He gave a shrug. "I don't always get to choose the location."

Lightning pulsed in the clouds. "Who are you?"

"Me?" He gave her a mildly stern look. "I'm not in the business of enlightenment," he said. "That goes double for pretty burglars who tiptoe around in my head without asking."

"I'm no burglar," she sulked. "Your insolent sentry let me in."

His eyebrows went up. "My insolent what now?"

"The one in the shipwreck. I solved his riddle."

"My insolent shipwrecked sentry told you a riddle?"

She furiously blushed for him. "Olba called him a gatekeeper."

His eyebrows sank back to where they belonged. But then they went lower. He began to knead his forehead. "I guess it's comforting to know that I've taken certain measures to protect myself," he said, sounding a little thrown by it. "Even if it did only take care of half the problem."

"Olba couldn't rise to the challenge. I left her behind."

He glanced. "That's awfully callous of you."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"Because it's funny. That's how you treat family?"

"We're not close," she felt a need to point out. "I'm only living with her because my father wanted me out of Oldden during the negotiations with Wulfstead."

His nod was slow and somewhat dubious. "I'll take your word for it."

It came as a curious realization that he had no idea what she was talking about. Was he completely unaware of the tensions up north? Una glared until he made a funny face at her. "Tell me your name this instant," she huffed. "I can't stand not knowing."

"You're still going on about that?"

"I demand that you tell me."

"A demand," he teased. "My weakness."

"You crooked son of an ox— I'll have your head."

His laughed, but it didn't last. His eyes eventually slid low. "You kind of caught me at a bad time," he confessed. "Believe it or not, this isn't the weirdest part of my day."

Una gauged the weariness in his voice. "Are you unwell?"

Surprise moved over his face. It was gone in an instant. "You're here because of Olba, remember," he said, circling back, changing subjects. "I'll tell you what I know since you seem like an okay person, but after that I really need you to go."

Unenthused, she grunted, "I'm listening."

He scratched his head, exuding a guilty air. "It was tough luck on her part, dropping in when she did," he said. "I didn't really notice that she was an outsider at first. She was yelling at me, trying to get my attention. She kept asking where I was going." His cavalier gesture made it seem like she'd run off at that point in the story. "The critters swept her up."

"What critters?"

"We'll never stop talking if everything I say confuses you."

"It's your fault for being so eerie and vague."

He just laughed again and reached for her, first two fingers aligned as if to poke her between the eyes. It was distressingly reminiscent of her exchange with the guardian child. "Anyway, it was nice to meet you," he said. "I hope you lead a good life somewhere."

Una flinched away from him. "Wait."

"Is there something else?"

"Olba's riddle."

His hand fell a little. "Riddle?"

She pushed his hand down the rest of the way. "It's fed by light," she pressed. "The solution. It's fed by light, but dies by it. What is it?"

The span of his smile was a grand, broad thing. She thought he'd certainly break a heart or two in his time. "Are you sure you can't figure it out on your own?" he asked. "I'm not all that clever." 

"What's the point in playing dumb if you're just going to grin like that?"

He had the decency to laugh. "It's a shadow, isn't it?"

She stared, blank. "A shadow?"

"Or darkness, I guess. Not the answer you were looking for?"

"No, it's just— I thought it'd be more profound." Una studied him anew. "There must be more to it," she said. "Something I'm missing. Something you know, maybe. Or something you have."

He shrugged, amused by her all over again. "Why?"

"Olba was here on a job. He wouldn't have sent her without a good reason."

"He?" the boy echoed. "He who?"

"The benefactor."

"Never heard of him."

"He subsidizes all the Whitestar sanctuaries on the midland side of the Backbone," she said. "Olba undergoes assignments like this in exchange for his funding." 

Silence breathed a bit before he spoke again. "So she came to me on his behalf."

"Precisely," she said. "And the sanctuaries do a lot of good. They exist for destitute women, most of them children who'd otherwise turn to harlotry."

A ghost of his smile returned. "Is this what they call a guilt trip?"

"Sorry. Maybe a little. But most people can't shut us out like you do." Una was surprised at herself for not having noticed it sooner. Even the simple flatland was a wonder of sorts, so steady and real that it could have put any craftsman to shame. "It's actually quite impressive," she said. "Olba always gets what she needs without giving herself away, but you… you stopped her at the door." She laughed aloud, a rarity. "And they say the gods never give with both hands."

He leaned in and lightly touched the silver bangle around her wrist. It jingled. "Gods don't make people," he told her. "People make people."

"What does that mean?"

The swagger had gone from his slow, rising smile. He warily held her eyes. "Tomorrow I enter the southern pass," he revealed. "My aim is Oldden." 

"You're taking the Throat?"

"If this benefactor wants to talk, we can talk in person when I'm in the midlands. I'm sure I'll stop off in some towns along the way. But tell him this route won't work a third time. I'm sealing the door shut behind you." He chose then to bridge the gap between them, to tap her between the eyes. He held his two fingers there long enough to add, "Also— you really ought to laugh more. It suits you."

His withdrawal was like a spell of hysterical blindness. She tried to stop it, too late. Her vision clouded and stole every trace of him, locking her out, and in the eternal darkness beyond, something gruesome uncoiled from the starving cavity of her chest. 

The lunar summit welcomed her home with unexceptionally open arms.

Wallace was kneeling over her, hands hovering while she limped back into her tawdry flesh. The piercing agony in her head registered on a marginally greater level. Fragments of skyglass chimed to the primstone floor, refracting the moonlight like so many fallen stars. It took all of a few moments to figure out that she'd been flung into the far wall somehow, cracking the dome itself. 

Wallace tried to catch her eyes. "Can you see me?"

"How did I end up over here?"

"It was a rejection. You went airborne."

His proximity was making it difficult to rise. "Move," she muttered. "You're too close."

"How do you feel?"

She shoved him away. "Move, I said."

Startled by her abruptness, he caught himself with a quick-thinking hand. "Hey, take it slow," he objected, a bystander. "I heard your head hit the glass. You should let me have a look at you before you start moving around again."

She approached the bed, legs heavy. "Stop talking, Wallace."

Olba's face suddenly turned in their direction, ending the exchange. A film of sweat clung to her craggy, grayish skin. "Wallace," she said. "Give us the room. No questions."

Una stopped where she was without intending to. Wallace did the same beside her, stunned. "All due respect," he sputtered. "Neither of you are in any condition to— "

"She told you to leave," Una snarled, glaring. "Go."

He reciprocated the expression. "I'm getting really sick of your attitude."

Una stanced on the cold, polished floor, and the door swung open of its own accord. Wallace came close to glancing over his shoulder, but she'd already trained a fist on him, elbow locked. His eyes darted to it. They both knew that it held no gold casting. It was a threat. And a good one.

"Don't," he warned. "He'll know if you do."

In answer, the silver bangle danced around her wrist, weightless. She splayed her fingers. Wallace was instantly sucked from the room, chased by his own strangled cry of surprise. A ragdoll, yanked by a tattered back seam.

The door banged shut behind him. The jamb knocked into its place.

Olba muttered, "You're too harsh on him, Una."

"He's not here to question your orders."

"Come closer." With a sigh and a languid gesture, Olba righted an overturned chair. It set itself down beside the bed. "Sit," she said. "Make your case."

"I apologize for leaving you back there."

"Cease your feigned contrition. It's unlike you to bother with buttering."

That made Una smile. She sat, feeling stiff. "I'll be blunt, then," she said. "Explain the assignment to me or I'll withhold the knowledge I've acquired."

The whites of Olba's eyes rolled this way and that, perhaps to the moon, perhaps to the door— it was often impossible to tell. Maybe she was weighing her options. "He's called Ethos," she said. "He's under observation for now."

Ethos. "Why?"

"I never ask."

"Do you know who he is?"

A dismal laugh rolled off her tongue. "And the earth turned the color of blood turned the color of dawn turned the color of fire," she sang. "What a grand feast we'll have with them all, out here with the flies and the dead."

Una scowled at her. "There's a fine line between augury and madness, Olba," she said. "Don't force me to doubt the state of your mind."

"Did I ever tell you how I lost my sight?"

"No."

"It happened shortly after the collapse of Prosperity," she said. "You were still a babe in Ellena's arms back then, wailing so incessantly that I occasionally wished she'd just smother you and be done with it. I was standing in the Spellman solarium when I was struck by a vision."

"About him?"

She nodded. "He was in some sort of terrible pain," she remembered. "When I took him by the shoulder to ask what was wrong, the eyes that arose were so filled with rage that they disfigured me. I'd have been better off staring into the sun."

Una glanced away. "That doesn't sound at all like him."

"You're taking him at face value, Una," she said. "The moment you stepped foot in that world, you put yourself at his mercy. He could have easily trapped you there if he'd so wanted. He could have broken your mind beyond repair." Olba laughed aloud at the notion. "Una, the vegetable. I rather like it, actually. You could use a lesson in humility."

"I believe a heartfelt thank you is in order. If it weren't for me, you'd still be stuck at that ship like a drifter unfit for entry."

Olba's gaze moved about once more. "Tell me everything in detail."

Her demand evoked the memory of his smile. Una could have told her about it, how he'd made such pleasant, silly faces and scowled a bit in fond suspicion, or of how he'd laughed and called her indecent, regardless of his wandering eyes. She could have told Olba all of that, and she could have told her more, and she could have told her when and where he'd pass into the midlands.

"Una." Olba felt for her. "Una, answer me."

Una guided those groping fingers back to the sheets. "You're tired," she murmured, and stroked a sultry flood of persuasion into the veined, spotted flesh of her hand. "You need rest."

Olba's familiarity with the practice staggered Una's attempt to enthrall. The crone went alight all at once, wrenching away with what residual strength she could muster, clawing at coverlet. Una couldn't help but feel charmed by the consistency of her.

"You've never been so tired before," Una calmly continued, holding her still. "You think this must be a dream of your own, some midnight manifestation of your not-so-veiled hatred for me. Your eyes can scarcely stay open."

They'd done the dance enough times in the past for Una to recognize when she'd won. Horror had pared Olba apart. As always, she whispered, "Una, no."

"You're not afraid." The tension eased. Una dug in, found the flaws in her deteriorating defense, and then used their failings to tear it all down. "You've had a long week, and it's taken a toll," she went on, hushing her protest. "You're tired. You know you need help."

"Tired." The fear bled out of her expression. "Help."

"Where are you keeping the shell these days?"

Olba's finger moved. "The nightstand."

"Describe the assignment. In the benefactor's words."

" 'You saw him first, Olba. You know the danger. And none of the other seers will do it. I need to know what he's after and where he's been. Objective and origin, explicitly. Ellena says hello, by the way. She's thinking of visiting in the spring.' "

The latter part aside, it was a straightforward order. "Is that all?"

Olba's head swung to and fro. "Tired," she said, unhelpfully. "Nightstand."

"Then tell me what you saw when you made it past the sentry."

"Darkness. Fire. Blood in the air."

"A fight?"

Drowsily, Olba said, "The creaking."

Una rolled her eyes and sighed. "Maybe we've done this too many times."

Olba was already sleeping. Had it been an ordinary night, Una would have left her there in pursuit of some much-needed rest, but the evening's events had been anything but. Strange thing, curiosity, the likeable assailant; the harder it gripped her, the less she wanted to escape it. 

She opened the nightstand drawer and found the unadorned shell glowing softly within, looking for all the world like a child with a secret. She lifted it out with careful precision and turned it about in her hands, musing. She walked with it to the edge of the elliptical dome, facing north.

A few scattered clouds had dappled the mountainside with shadow, and the moonshine seemed all the more bright when they passed. Una put the shell to her ear as she gazed into the steaming mouth of the Throat, pulse quickening.

"You were right about the forest." The benefactor's voice was decidedly placid, almost absent of inflection. "I'm glad to see it thriving again, despite the implications," he said. "I also have an answer for that riddle. Speak to me in the morning if you're still having trouble with him."

Strictly business. Unoccupied, the shell was much lighter, much colder. Una wet her lips and spoke directly into the curved glass. Her hot brush of breath refilled it with a pale blue gleam. "Shadow," she whispered. "The solution is a shadow."

A reply came, despite the hour. "Oho," it teased. "Is that you, princess?"

"I don't believe we've ever spoken to one another."

"No," he agreed. "But I do like to have a general understanding of what I keep in my arsenal. It's something of a one-sided relationship on my part."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Denied, Your Highness."

She stared sightlessly, gears turning, while he patiently waited for her to continue the dialogue. He wouldn't give up his name, she knew, so she quickly discarded the impulse to negotiate with him. "I've made contact with the boy you sent Olba in for," she eventually told him. "He'll be taking precautions now that he's aware of your meddling."

"You spoke to him?"

"That's right."

The blue light faded: a sign that he'd heard her answer. The silence persisted for only a moment, just long enough to make his subsequent question a riddle in its own right. 

"So what was he like?"