Her companions remained silent long after she took them off-road just beyond the small circle of thatched huts, cottages and stalls, and through the long grasses and that acted as a fence for the berry patches. Ciaran and Mairin scanned for trouble, and Faelan had sunk into his own thoughts.

When they reached the goat trail, Rin finally asked the question she knew burned in him. “They knows ‘bout me, Lady?” he asked, consternated.

“You make a good hero for city stories,” she told him. “Wraygrey’s a bit odd, though. I’m not certain why. They love to be lightly frightened by city goings-on, and find great amusement in the wealthier losing a purse or two to intrepid rats. Patch says it’s because they have nothing else to liven their very boring days and even more boring nights. Maybe, but they also get to brag to their fellow farmers about dealing with chasers and the dangerous stakes they’ve helped with, and that makes them a popular community out here.”

“Patch stops there?” Faelan asked. His disbelief, considering her partner’s deep dislike of the countryside, made her smile.

“Yeah.” Her pantleg snagged on a tall weed and she shook it, hard, to dislodge it. She dusted at her calf; prickles remained, but the thick fabric kept them from scratching her skin. “It’s the last place to get water before heading into heavy farmland and the foothills. They’re really good at passing along information they’ve heard from travelers, too, as long as you buy enough berries.”

“That why they’s talkin’ ‘bout Anquerette?” Rin asked.

“Yeah. They give me something, I check on Wrethe and Fawn.”

“Have you heard of them?” Mairin asked.

“No.”

“I’ve not encountered any syndicate called Anquerette, either,” Faelan said. “Jarosa might know them, and if not, I can ask the Minq. If a foreign criminal enterprise is interested in moving into Jilvayna, they’ll want to know.”

“There’s a bird!” Mairin warned.

Sure enough, on the edge of the field to the west, an orange cone of light poured down onto the grassy land from an unsteady black blob. Dentherion tech, and they searched for something. It did not seem as if it would fly their way, but she picked up the pace, just in case. They left it behind as quickly as the rocky, pitted trail allowed.

They noted two other birds, but not one of them flew in their direction. The metal machines hovered over the routes between the fields and did not stray off them, which struck her as odd. Sticking to those lines, coupled with the obvious light, would help any target avoid them. In some places, the grass rose shoulder-high and would provide good cover for someone attempting to hide. If they did look for something, she doubted it was a spy.

They reached the grass-concealed culvert without mishap. Lapis urged her mount down onto the loose soil, then into a metal pipe that rang with the strike of horseshoes. The local adults knew of the gaping hole but avoided it. Who, other than children, explored recesses in the earth hidden by hanging grasses and dead brush when they had more important things to do?

The place was dark, even during daylight, and she doubted many young ones made it far without turning around and scampering back to sunlight. Even if they reached the jumble of fake rock blocking the way, they had no way around it, forcing a retreat.

“Dismount and lead your horses. We’re going to go down this pipe until we come to a blockage. Then we’re going to knock. No light—we don’t want the birds to investigate.”

“What kind of blockage?” Faelan asked as everyone slid from their saddles.

“A pile of rubble that isn’t a pile of rubble.” Her voice echoed around them, and she winced. She continued, much softer. “This is a back way. A very back way.”

“Do you think those birds are looking for Wrethe?” Ciaran asked, as if he had been pondering it a while.

“Maybe. Danaea and her partner were supposed to lead Dentherions this way, and the soldiers did tell Wraygrey about a spy, which made them worry about him.”

“He is a chaser informant,” Faelan murmured. “And the Dentherions may know he works for the Minq. That might be the connection, since the skyshroud is here to quell syndicate unrest. It may be, that Danaea’s told her partner about the hideout, but not the specific location because she expected to lead the hunt.”

“Wrethe doesn’t hide what he does, even if he hides himself,” she said. “It pisses the palace off to no end because he used to work for them. Maybe Gall wanted the soldiers to go after him in retaliation.”

“Revenge is his calling,” Faelan agreed.

Lapis held her hand in front of her and struck the blockage before anyone else encountered it. “Hold!” she called. She felt for Rin, gave him the reins, and limped to the left, her fingers searching for the tiny knob hidden among the boulders. She found it, very cold and smooth, and pressed in.

“Tell Patch I’m here and I’m pissed,” she yelled.

The clang of the outer door closing over the pipe entrance startled the horses and everyone else, but made her relax. He obviously was there, or she would have heard a grumpy voice muttering about her impudence. She waited patiently for the blockage to melt into itself and slide up into the ceiling, whispering calm and warm reassurances to her mount. A soft light sifted underneath the door, and she caught Rin’s wide-eyed incredulity.

Fawn met them. She was eleven, with a shock of soft red hair and a multitude of freckles sprinkled about a red-cheeked face. She wore a jacket and boots, out of keeping with the hour.

“Lady,” she breathed, worried. “Da said you’d be around.”

“Do you know what’s happening?” Lapis asked as she pushed Rin inside, their mount following him. The entry had stables, and a couple of horses stood in the stalls, munching away at oats in a trough. She recognized Limber, one of Ferry’s courier mounts. He rented his horses to chasers, though the amount he charged kept most from taking advantage of it. Patch must have visited him and asked for a speedy beast. Limber loved to run and run fast.

“I don’t know, but Da and Patch and Jaki are upset.”

“Jaki’s here?” Faelan asked.

Who was Jaki?

Lapis put aside her curiosity and smiled at Fawn, who regarded him with suspicion. “This is my brother Faelan, Fawn. He and Patch are good friends.”

Her eyes popped wide, surprised. “Patch was just talking about you,” she said. “Da said we might have to leave, and that you’d put us up.”

“You’d be welcome at the House,” he assured her.

Lapis opened a stall door. “Put the horses inside, and we can go yell at Patch.”

Fawn’s skeptical humor at the announcement annoyed her. She did not bother to wait for the others, but shuffled down the hallway, concentrating on breathing. Her lungs ached, as they typically did when she found the air too cold, but that usually occurred in winter, after the snows froze the earth and the winds flew with frost. Rin trotted up to her and kept to her side, though he paid far more attention to the décor than her walking difficulty.

The hallway was sleek black metal that had grey stripes at regular intervals and thin lines of bright gold that ran the length of it, providing light. Panels and switches and buttons in various states of disrepair filled the black walls, and some still had red, blue or purple illumination.

“Lady?” he asked, looking up at a defunct pipe running along the ceiling.

“It’s a repurposed skyshroud,” she told him. He jerked, surprised. “It crashed two-hundred-and-twenty years ago, during the first battles for Jiy. I’m not certain why they left it to rot rather than blow it up to prevent unintended usages, but Wrethe’s grandmother discovered an entrance sticking out of a hill a hundred years ago. She buried the crew’s remains in the decimated parts, collapsed them, and spent her elder years getting generators for the rest of the place. It’s pretty nice.”

“So this is Dentherion tech?” he asked, awed. The stables did not have the nicest route to the large reception room, and she looked forward to his reaction once he beheld it.

“Yes.” She winced as her back protested a step. Hopefully he did not realize her pain.

The others caught them, and they proceeded together. Fawn answered Faelan’s polite questions, already at ease with him. She had not inherited her grandfather’s intense paranoia concerning strangers, but perhaps that would come in time. Or, her brother was simply that charismatic.

The increase in temperature further along the hall, normally a nice change from a chillier outdoors, made Lapis nauseous. She set her arm across her stomach and willed herself not to throw up. Her body desperately wished to sit down, and she forced each step. No one mentioned her difficulty, so she succeeded in hiding her reaction. Good. She did not need Faelan nor Rin’s well-intentioned and unwanted sympathy, or their chastisement about how she should have remained at the Eaves.

Patch was already there, snarly, arms folded across his chest. His annoyance disappeared once he saw her. She pressed her hand into her tummy but could not stop the sickness; she barely made it to the guest restroom before she threw up whatever had sat uneasily in her stomach. Medicine, water, all tinged an ugly brownish-green.

What was in that stuff Lady Thais gave her?

Rin handed her a glass of water, and she rinsed her mouth. What came up, it tasted far nastier than it had going down. The rat rubbed anxiously at her back, and she patted his leg, trying to regain her composure. Drowning in embarrassment that so many witnessed her weakness sat as uncomfortably as the medicine.

He moved slightly, then presented her with a small purple vial that smelled of fruit. “This’s what Lady Thais said you’d need, iffen you gots sick,” he told her apologetically. She eyed it with distrust but swallowed it anyway. It felt nice going down, eradicating much of the burn in her throat, and set well in her stomach.

“What, you couldn’t just stay in Jiy?”

Patch, and his irritated voice rang off the metal walls.

“Maybe, just maybe, you could tell someone what’s going on before you take off.”

Faelan did not sound any better.

“Those two fucks,” she choked before smacking the vial into Rin’s chest and rising.

“Lady,” Rin said, worried, grabbing at the glass.

She stumbled into the room, and both men looked over at her. She glared her annoyed, hurt, furious and on-the-verge-of-tears distress. Neither ever argued with her when she had the urge to throttle them while breaking down. Patch had told her she looked fragile during those times, and he never wished to say something to inflict further emotional pain.

“Do you know, how it would feel, to have the Dentherions take you away from me?” she asked in a hoarse voice. She set her hand against her throat while Patch turned red with embarrassed anxiety and ran a hand through his bangs.

“Lanth—”

“Do you?” She pointed her finger in the vague direction of the stables. “We read more code. Danaea was supposed to bring soldiers from the skyshroud here tonight. They have birds out, looking, Patch. Are they looking for Wrethe?”

“No, they’re looking for Hoyt.”

The woman looked vaguely familiar, though Lapis could not place her. She had shoulder-length black hair and dark eyes, stood as tall as Faelan’s chest, but her confidence filled the air about her, making her seem lofty and stately.

“I’m surprised you’re here, Jaki,” Faelan said, heat still tinging his voice.

“Wrethe’s a Minq asset, but I happen to like him and Fawn, too. So here I am.” She glanced above her. “They’ve employed birds, huh?”

“Is Hoyt here?” Ciaran asked.

“No. He came through days ago.” Wrethe shuffled through a doorway, wearing a long coat and warm clothing. His wispy white hair twirled about in the puffs of heated air blowing from grates in the ceiling, his grey eyes red and swollen from lack of sleep. With him strode a squat, muscular man with pristine, all-white eyes. He had a larger tummy and a beard that fell to his waist. A small, red-and-gold striped dagger patch on his shoulder indicated a Minq of high rank. “He rang at the official entrance and demanded I hide him. Didn’t even bother to reply. He was desperate, said someone was chasing him.” He shrugged. “I hardly care about some guttershank.” He eyed her. “Patch said they poisoned you.”

“They did,” she whispered. “And I’m still not feeling all that well.”

“Hmm.” His gaze whisked over the people he did not recognize, then lingered on Faelan. “Believe it or not, I remember you from one of the Minq meetings,” he told him. “Never could forget those eyes. You know Lanth here?”

“She’s my sister.”

His surprise startled her. “So a Nicodem survived? That’s good. The palace doesn’t deserve that victory.” He half-smiled. “My Gran told me about their shiftiness, but I didn’t listen. That broke me. No reason, to kill kids like that. Ruthless bastards.”

“They’ve employed birds,” Jaki said.

“Figured as much. I hope the villagers keep tight. Random slaughter right now won’t sit well with anyone.”

He continued, but Lapis had to concentrate on her legs. They trembled, and she tried to lock her knees to keep herself from falling over. Rin slid his arm through hers, and she held tight, not that it did much good. She ended up collapsing, confidence shredded because she could not stand in the presence of the Minq. Dammit, Patch should have taken help, should have told someone, leaving her to snuggle down in a warm bed when her body needed the sleep.

Patch knelt and slipped his arms under her legs and around her back. Wrethe motioned for them to follow him, then headed back the way he had come. She buried her face in her partner’s shoulder and refused to move until they entered another room with a more comfortable temperature. He turned about and plopped down on a soft sofa, keeping his arms curled about her.

“What kind of birds?” Jaki asked as she settled her upper leg on top of a table and glanced at a device in her hand.

“They looked like the kind that drops explosives rather than the ones with guns,” Mairin said. “Fully laden, too.”

“That’s a bit much, to hunt down Hoyt,” Wrethe said as he sank deep into a comfortable chair. “I think Danaea told them about me and they assumed I’d put him up and thought to get us both. Asses. Even with her help, they’d be searching blind.”

“She mentioned a partner,” Lapis told him. “Thyden.”

“Never heard of him, which means he doesn’t know where I’m at.”

“That may not matter. They have specialized equipment to detect heat from bodies,” Mairin said. “That might be why they wanted the villagers to stay indoors, to keep them from being targeted.”

“They do,” he agreed. “And this ol’ girl is made from their special alloy.” He twirled his finger about. “It hides heat signatures, tech signatures, you name it, it hides it. My Gran spent a lot of time and money repairing the holes in this part of the ship and cutting it off from the other remains. They won’t find us.”

“We were out and about,” Faelan said. “They might have noticed us.”

“Not likely,” Wrethe mumbled. “There’s a lot of interference in this area, probably from decaying materials left over from this ship here. Most of their delicate equipment won’t work, including sensors. Been through it before, with the same results. The Dentherions nose about, snarl at the locals, then turn and slink away, no wiser.”

“Have you heard of her partner?” Lapis asked, looking up at Patch.

“No.”

Jaki hmphed, annoyed. “I don’t know who this Thyden is, either, but I suspect he might be a Dentherion plant. Danaea was getting desperate enough to latch onto anyone who showed an interest, no matter who they worked for.”

“Desperate?” Ciaran asked.

“As desperate as Hoyt, in her own way. She owed a large debt to Mibi, and he was getting annoyed at her inability to pay. She began taking riskier stakes to get money and failed at most of them. Patch said her records showed that, too.”

Danaea borrowed money from the Shank’s owner? That seemed unwise. The underground had far better, more reputable moneygrubbers than Mibi.

“How much?” Ciaran asked.

“Several metgal. Enough of a sum to indebt her for life. Mibi’s going to regret loaning it, too, because Jo Ban is going to be looking into who staked his son, and he’ll be an obvious person to ask.”

No one would mourn if the Minq took out Mibi.

The shroud shuddered, a subtle rocking. Everyone, including Wrethe, frowned. Jaki picked up a square tech object with a wire leading into the nearby wall, and quickly scanned the screen. “Gera says the birds found what they were looking for, and have released their loads further west, near the treeline. Her spyglass is having issues due to the interference, but she thinks a cyan-colored beam shot at them before the release.”

“Cyan?” Faelan asked, startled. Eyes riveted to him and he firmed his lips. “Can she get an image?”

Jaki held the device between her palms and typed with her thumbs. Rin had a sharp interest in it all, and Lapis sighed to herself. Most street rats avoided tech because those who employed it often meant them harm, but she had just exposed him to another side of it, one that helped rather than hurt.

“What’s wrong with a cyan beam?” she asked.

He shook his head as Jaki glanced up. “Dirk already has one. He’s coming down.” She raised an eyebrow at Wrethe. “I told you, lookouts are worth their weight in metgal.”

He hmphed loudly but did not contradict her. Her bearded partner grinned widely, exposing teeth as pristine white as his eyes. Lapis idly wondered what other body parts he had modded, and how much trouble he attracted for the overt but illegal display.

Another shake rocked the furniture just as Dirk appeared. He had the look of a street rat turned undershank, gangly and deeply tanned, with wrinkles that made his face look far older than he likely was. Jaki and Faelan intercepted him while Fawn edged over to her grandfather and pressed herself against his chair. He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed.

Faelan swore in seething disbelief. “That color of beam, that’s a Meergevenis weapon.”

Meergevenis? “Wait,” Lapis said, raising her hand. Her chest, her face, turned cold. “Brander told me that Hoyt broke a shank out of jail, someone named Seft, because he had contacts outside the Dentherion Empire. One of those contacts was supposed to be with Meergevenis.”

“When did he tell you this?”

“The night Nevid attacked Sir Armarandos at the Tree Streets Guardhouse. Seft was at Orinder’s place while we were there, then joined in with his buddies at the guardhouse. Rin recognized him.”

“He’d pissed Chinder off,” he said softly. “We’d been warned ‘bout him, ‘cause he’s vengeful-like.”

“Brander said he helped Chinder clean him out and turned the bad stuff over to the guard. They discovered evidence of a Meergevenis contact in the process. What if Hoyt fled out here to meet with Meergevenis? If they just showed up tonight, it could be he needed a place to stay until they arrived at a designated time.”

“Oh, this is getting fucked,” Patch said with venom.

Jaki stared at her, emotionally dead but for the lightning snapping through her eyes. “So you’re saying there is reason to think Hoyt may be acting on behalf of Meergevenis, a foreign power from across the ocean who has no business being anywhere near Theyndora.”

“It’s a lead to check.”

The shroud shook again.

“The birds obviously didn’t take the enemy out on the first round,” Mairin said. “Are we close enough the battle could spill over us?”

Another Minq trotted into the room, rubbing at her chest and carrying a device similar to that which Jaki held. “Maybe,” she said. “It’s getting fierce out there, and neither side seems to care about accuracy.”

“This is a warship. It’s old, but it can take a bit of damage,” Wrethe said. “We have a hill’s worth of soil over us. That’ll take the brunt of it.”

Fawn whimpered. The old man looked at her, then sighed and hugged her tighter. “But it might be best, if we visit friends until this is all over.”

“Really, Da?”

“Yes.”

Everyone felt her relief.

Patch insisted on carrying Lapis back to the stables, and while she protested, no one took her side. She tried to drown her grumpy annoyance at that; the situation was far more dire than her embarrassment, but his protectiveness grated.

Jaki and Gera saddled Wrethe’s two horses while he and Fawn retrieved their packs. The coder helped his granddaughter mount her horse and led his to the door, then waited while everyone filed out. He closed it and triggered the outer door; the wait for the round portal to roll back took longer than a snail crossing a road, but it finally revealed the dark-shrouded grasses waving in the cool breeze.

Flashes of colored light, orange, green and cyan, lit the air. How near had the battle progressed? Mairin and Gera dismounted, peeked over the culvert, and immediately hopped back down to their mounts.

“They’re close,” Mairin said. “It looks like both sides are on foot. There isn’t much to hide behind besides grass, either. We need to go.”

She gained her seat just before a bird whisked to their position, bathing the embankment in orange light.

Patch did not bother to wait; he pressed his eyepatch and a blue beam shot into the black metal. Smoke erupted from it, something exploded, and the orange light flickered and died as it keeled to the side and went down.

“Split up!” Jaki shouted. “Give them more targets. Wrethe, come with me.”

Patch jerked his chin; Lapis snapped the reins, and her mount surged forward. Rin yelped and clasped her tightly as they galloped down the culvert.

Orange light came from the left and right. The depression ended, and Lapis urged the horse into an open field, just in time for a burst of cyan followed by a deafening explosion to jar them. He fought for his head, and she firmly held the reins; she was in charge, and the horse would listen to her. She pulled his head to the left, smacked his shoulder, and he raced towards the distant lights of Jiy.

Green flared behind them; she felt Rin turn, and he hissed, stressed. Unfortunately, the farmland had few places to hide. The irrigation ditches were shallow, providing little protection. No trees, no tall brush, and the nearest habitation was Wraygrey. Would the fight carry to them? They reached a trail, soft dirt but few stones, and she turned the horse towards the small settlement.

“Lady!” Rin called. “I sees some wagons ‘n horses, all runnin’.”

Sure enough; bulky shadows fled along the field pathways. Farmers with wagons and carts pulled by oxen whipped at them, frantic. Horses raced around them, far faster than their bovine brethren. Individuals on foot ran, their arms pumping back and forth with hectic speed. It surprised her, that so many chose to seek safety elsewhere rather than hunker down in their huts and cottages and pray to the non-existent gods for rescue. She did not know whether it was wise to do so, but the numbers meant they could blend in with their flight.

The birds flew over them but did not hesitate and whisked north, towards the flares of color indicating a fierce battle.

In the distance, green-glowing black blots rose into the sky from the skyshroud dock; Dentherions called them Swifts, light and speedy airships that raced about the clouds and completed performative drills to awe tech-ignorant empire residents. That the leaders of the shroud sent them into battle iced her terror. The cyan beams must frighten them, to make such a showing.

Small, thin, manned vehicles, with green lights running along the length and a superficial resemblance to the bicycles nobles rode when out for a day in the eastern city parks, roared past horse and wagon on the main road. A bright light on the front illuminated their way, frightening the farm animals, who veered into the grass beyond. Some horses threw their riders, but the oxen slowed immediately as the wheels of the wagons they pulled dug into the softer earth and provided a natural break that allowed their owners to regain control.

“The Pit,” Rin breathed, his voice trembling slightly.

The Swifts roared overhead, air striking down and flattening the grass, shrubs and crops alike. Screams, shrieks, too many people afraid. Cyan beams flared past, and one struck; the ship wobbled before heading down, right in her path.

Damn it to the Pit, it was going to crash.