to work with you. If you listen to my colleagues,” he added, with a genuine grin, “it is an expensive honor.”
She did laugh, then. He was working for free, after all. “What will you tell Sigurne?”
“That is more troublesome. I will rely on your permission—or lack thereof—to discuss anything with her at all.”
Jewel snorted. “You will not.”
“Perhaps not. But we will rely on it to act.”
“What would she counsel?”
“I am not entirely certain.” He inhaled. When he exhaled, he exhaled rings. They eddied up toward the ceiling in the still air, and she watched them as if she were simple audience in the streets of the holdings, although in those streets, she wouldn’t have dared to get this close. “I would, of course, be delighted to remove him from consideration.
“He is not, however, wrong.”
“In what way?”
“You will build a city here. It will encompass the whole of the Isle and the hundred before you are done; anything less, and you will surrender a part of your domain to the Lord of the Hells. That was bold, by the way.”
“His name?”
Meralonne nodded. “I would suggest a more extreme form of caution in this place.”
“I was angry.”
“And anger will serve neither of us.”
“What will the Kings do?”
“I do not know. In their position, I would now be very, very cautious.”
“Cautious enough to have me executed?”
“I am not the Kings. Their Empire is not an Empire that could have existed in ancient times; it is too diverse, too easily lost. They are as concerned as you are with the welfare of their citizens. You are correct; mortals did not survive overlong in the ancient cities.
“Yet in the Cities of Man—should they reach them—they could. They did not often survive as lords, but the citizens of the hundred are no lords now, and if I am not mistaken, they are the prize that the Lord of the Hells seeks. They are also his sustenance. Do not think that even your city will survive without loss; people will die. You cannot prevent it. You will meet the Kings, if I am not mistaken, on the morrow.”
“Will you be there?”
He smiled. “I will, with the guildmaster’s permission. If nothing else, it promises a lack of boredom seldom found in the usual bickering for near invisible improvements in position.”
“My life’s ambition is not to make yours less boring.”
“No; it is a happy consequence.” He lifted the pipe and he gazed out of the window that had never quite lost the whole of his attention. “I believe we may have some difficulty.”
Jewel’s eyes narrowed as she immediately sought whatever had caught his gaze. Shadow. Or rather, what occupied the air in pursuit of the great, winged cat. At a distance, she had mistaken wings for birds. Shadow was not at a distance—and neither were his pursuers. This close to the window—and at the speed of his flight, growing closer with each passing second—such a mistake was impossible.
“Avandar!”
He was already in motion. Meralonne turned to Angel and handed him his pipe. “I am very attached to that pipe,” he said, as he threw his arms wide. “Terafin, your permission?”
“You have it. Are they demons?”
Meralonne laughed. “No, Terafin, they are not; they are the natural denizens of the skies in this place.”
They looked like demons to Jewel; they were, in shape—absent their wings—roughly human, in that they had faces, necks, arms and legs. But the arms and legs seemed covered in fur or feathers, and their faces would look normal only if by normal one meant enraged, insane, and dangerous. That, and they were screeching.
“Avandar?”
They are not demonic, no. They are natural.
But—they have tails.
Yes, Terafin. Come away from the window.
She couldn’t. She indicated that the Chosen should stand back—but of course, if she didn’t, they couldn’t. It didn’t matter. Wind swept through the window, reaching for Meralonne, who had opened his arms wide to embrace it. He rose—no, he leaped—through what still appeared as glass to Jewel’s eye, and the sky became his terrain.
She knew why Finch thought he was beautiful, then. He was not a mage who had taken to the skies; he was, at that moment, of them. His hair swept out behind him, like a pale, perfect cape. He drew no shield, no sword, but watching him, she couldn’t imagine he needed them.
“Terafin,” Torvan said—because the Chosen had drawn swords. “Please. Retreat.”
She shook her head. “If they can breach the windows,” she replied, unable to look away from Meralonne APhaniel, “we need to know. This is where