It took three days to remove Fallen from the High Court. In addition to her physical evidence, Ardent convinced two of the thugs who’d tried to abduct Miro and the one she’d caught trying to rob her to testify that Fallen had coerced them into their crimes. Others came forward with more details about Fallen’s corruption and misdeeds. Fallen had a variety of methods for indebting and obligating fey to her, from promising artists grants and visibility for their work, to threatening to destroy their creations, to catering to their darkest desires. Once she had someone in her debt, she would ask small favors to drag them deeper into ethical murk, tricking them into enabling much worse acts. Fallen would generously ensure that their complicity remained hidden – and they would end further in her debt for that. It was social manipulation built on fear and secrecy, instead of mutual support and trust. The method had been remarkably effective.

To Ardent, the most appalling part was that Fallen had re-enabled the slave trade in mortals. It was one of her dirty, well-kept secrets, partly because Skein of the Absolute had no tolerance for mortal slavery, and partly because it made a much better handle for control when the fey recipients had to fear discovery and the revelation of their crimes. But some fey, like Stalks Hunter, had supported Fallen’s quest to build a new Etherium because she’d promised them the abuse of mortals would be acceptable in it. “Why should we treat them like people?” Stalks had said, unrepentant. “They’re not people. They’re weak, fragile, powerless, nothing. When one gets broken, who notices? If I choose to be careless with my toys, whose business is it besides my own?”

Ardent found herself helping the Justiciar – whose debt to Fallen now manifested as a puppy-like eagerness to prove he did not support her misdeeds – look for surviving mortals to free. The queen also wanted evidence against Fallen’s worst cohorts. Some of Fallen’s allies refused to give up on their patron, or were determined to obstruct the investigation because they knew they could not make it through the coming purge unscathed.

Days were not enough. Months probably wouldn’t be.

But then the rumors started about what had happened in the Sun Etherium. There wasn’t much contact between the two Etheriums, as normal teleports and farspeaking could not breach the hundred-eighty mile gap between them. But some barbarian traders and wanderers travelled between the two, bearing news and stories that soon turned to wild tales. By the morning of the third day, the Moon Etherium seethed with them. The wildest said Jinokimijin had returned and slaughtered the entire Sun Court while the Sun Etherium’s wards were drained. Others contended that only the Sun Queen was dead, or that no one was dead, or that the Sun Queen had executed Mirohirokon and Jinokimijin had killed her in revenge. Everyone agreed that Jinokimijin was now the ruler of the Sun Etherium. There were further rumors that the Sun King had declared war; upon whom or what varied.

Shortly after the Moon Court convened on the third day, amid rumors of a bloodbath in the Sun Etherium, the High Court ended their deliberations. They ruled that, for the good of the Etherium, Shadow of Fallen Scent was removed from her post as Surety to the Queen. The ruling was unanimous.

It didn’t end with Fallen’s removal. It only began.

---

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The Moon Court was not in session, so Ardent and Whispers Rain waited in the entrance hall while they tried to get an audience with the Queen. If Ardent still had a channel to the Sun Etherium and had not spent every scrap of sun aether she’d possessed, or if she still had an active wardbreaker, she’d have been tempted to force her way into the Queen’s presence. It was almost tempting to try anyway. She could feel the wards of the Palace weakening, its expansion spells drawing inwards, as aether was channeled away from the Etherium faster than it could replenish.

“What’s going to happen?” Rain stood at Ardent’s side, wings tightly furled against her back. “Can they empty the Etherium?”

“No. Fallen will die first,” Ardent said, with a confidence she didn’t feel. But what if Jino doesn’t need to empty the Moon Etherium? He’s got the phoenix rose now. He can build his own Etherium-destroying extractor. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

How could I have been so stupid? Is anything Mirohirokon told me even true? I only have his word for it that he has soulsight. Maybe it is just a Gift for seeing obligations and aether signatures without spellwork. He said he saw Fallen’s soul as evil – but he would tell me that, wouldn’t he? It’s what I want to believe. Just like saying that Rain’s soul is lovely. All he did was confirm my own biases. I only have his word for it that the Sun Queen was a villain.

After a few minutes, the aether drain stopped and the Etherium began to replenish.

Within a quarter of an hour, the Moon Queen received Ardent – alone and in private, without Rain. By then, the aether levels in the Moon Etherium had recovered to almost-normal amounts. Fey who hadn’t been paying attention might have missed the event.

Skein had been paying attention. “Do you know what happened?” she demanded of Ardent.

“Jinokimijin has a phoenix rose. I think her deal with Shadow of Fallen Scent has inverted now, and Fallen has to serve her. Jino used the phoenix rose to teleport them back to the Sun Etherium. You need to remove Fallen from the High Court. Now.”

“What? How did Jinokimijin get a phoenix rose?” Skein demanded. After Ardent summarized the struggle with Fallen, the Queen glowered at her. “When exactly did you plan to tell me that Fallen had a phoenix rose?”

“I don’t know, your majesty.” Ardent met her gaze with a level stare. “When did you plan to tell me?” Skein drew herself up to protest, and Ardent cut her off. “Look. If you want me to pretend you didn’t already know and approve of Fallen’s plan to destroy the Sun Etherium and replace it with a new Etherium of her own devising, fine. I can also pretend you didn’t only change your mind when you realized that if Fallen could destroy one Etherium to empower her own, nothing would stop her from destroying your Etherium, too. But I’m gonna have to ask you in return to pretend I didn’t know about the phoenix rose and was just, I don’t know, tricked by Mirohirokon and Jinokimijin into thinking I was retrieving property Fallen had stolen from them.”    

Skein of the Absolute folded her arms and scowled, the stars on her skin flashing. “You are impossible, Ardent Sojourner. You pledged your word to me.”

“Yes. I pledged to serve the Moon Etherium and to stop Fallen. Well. Fallen’s a prisoner of the Sun Etherium now. You’re not going to have worry about her again, at least not if you can get the court in motion and throw her out of it. I know she’s bound to have some partisans who’ll support her even in her absence, but seriously? She had a phoenix rose and was building an Etherium-destroying extractor for it. Do you want proof? I have got all the proof. Wardbreakers, palace where she kept it, residue of its alien aether, feathers from it, orders that she placed for the materials, everything. All you need to do is tell the court she’s a traitor to the Moon Etherium and you knew nothing about it. Sure, some people will know it’s a political ploy. But there is plenty enough truth to make it stick, and nobody loved her. Do it.”    

The Queen of the Moon Etherium compressed her full lips in a surly line, and finally huffed out a breath. “Very well.” She dispatched a message to her adjunct. “I will convene an emergency session of the court. You will testify to Fallen’s actions, and that you were pursuing her under my orders. Including that you didn’t know what she had until you burst in upon it earlier today. Now, if there is nothing else you have just recollected I should be informed regarding?”

Ardent went to one knee before the queen. “No, your majesty.”

“Then that will be all. Diamond will inform you when your testimony is needed. Dismissed.”

---

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The new adjunct had arranged for a delivery of aethcacao pods. Jino freed the phoenix rose from its present extractor to hand-feed it bits of pulp and cocoa seeds. Cooing at the creature afterwards, he preened its feathers and ignored Fallen’s disgusted look. Once the bird had eaten its fill, he let it fly about loose in the lab for a few minutes. Then, with some regret, he caught it again and put it into a different extractor. This time he put a gold and diamond ring beneath the device to charge.    

Jino turned to the cloud of folded paper messengers already trailing behind him, awaiting his attention. Farspeaker messengers in the Sun Etherium were all creations of folded paper; only the shapes varied. He’d never thought it monotonous until he’d seen the diversity of the Moon Etherium. After reading several and answering a few, he checked on the ring. He put it on, and took the phoenix rose from that cage to move it into another in the long row of extractors.

“How?” Fallen spoke, for the first time in hours. “Was all my research wrong? Did you lie to me, all that stuff about seasoning and preparation? How could you lie, when you were sworn to me by blood and bond?”

Jino glanced at her and laughed. “I never lied to you.” He reviewed the delivery from the next messenger.

“Then how? How can you have so many prepared and ready for the bird? Did you have one before and lose it? How?”

The Sun King laughed again, and stood. He looked down at her with utter contempt. “How? Because I’m not an idiot, Fallen. Because I’ve been studying the lore of the phoenix rose for forty-two years. Because I didn’t decide ‘well, no point in making any preparations until I’ve got a bird in hand’. Because I didn’t start with the biggest and most convoluted device that my newest servant told me about because it happened to be the one that could harness the most power. Here’s a tip for you, Fallen. It’s not how much raw power you have. It’s how well you use it. And here’s another one: you use power like a fool.”

She hissed, stung. “I used it well enough to catch you, Disgraced Jinokimijin. Just because your son was lucky enough to rescue you—”    

Jino laughed again. “By the Family, Fallen. Do you still delude yourself that anything that’s happening here has something to do with chance? Do you still think I didn’t know exactly where this bird was when I struck that deal with you?” She gaped at him, and he shook his head. “Justice. You do. How did you ever manage to amass such influence in the Moon Etherium and still be such a sorry fool? You know, I had failsafes in place to make sure you couldn’t order me to fetch extractors from my own collection, but you were never even smart enough to ask if I had working prototypes. Why yes, Fallen. I do. They’re right here.” He swept a hand across the laboratory. “You heard that I’d been disgraced, that I was a fool, that I was inept, and you never stopped to question your assumptions. No. You were too busy obsessing over your grand scheme – which would never have worked, by the by, because you couldn’t move that monstrous contraption to the Sun Etherium to destroy it, and your little wands wouldn’t be able to make a dent in the Sun Etherium’s supply even at maximum efficiency. I thought for sure you must be planning to transform the Moon Etherium instead. But that wouldn’t have worked either, not without a Moon channel in the Sun Etherium. Nonetheless, you were so sure that your plan was brilliant. You were so convinced that you’d outmaneuvered everyone that you never remembered: the rest of us are all people, too. And we’re not all standing still, waiting while you pull your scheme together. You wasted your time thinking up petty ways to hurt people and admiring your own cleverness at torture. ‘Oh, look, I can’t stab a fey directly, but if I get enough influence over them then I can make them cut themselves, just to keep me happy’.” Each word dripped with his contempt. “And you thought that clever. That’s why you lost, you imbecile. Because everyone may have been scared of you, but they all hated you too. Next time, try making some friends.”        

“Hah! You dethroned your own queen and you talk to me of having too many enemies? How do you plan to make friends, Jinokimijin?”    

Jino leaned back in his seat and gave her a lazy smile. “Mostly? By dethroning my own queen. She wasn’t quite as loathed as you, mind. But it will suffice.” He checked on the latest extractor, and took the bird out of it, along with a charged steel rod. He teleported himself and Fallen to a new chamber: a plain-looking wooden box eight feet on a side. It had no real windows or doors, but for the sake of appearances he glamoured it to look like a bedroom. He even troubled himself to make the bed real. One of the wall panels opened to reveal steel bars behind it, with an empty set of rings going across. He slotted the steel bar through the rings and closed the panel, then leashed Fallen to the bed and expanded the room’s space. “Get on the bed,” he told her.

She complied, looking suddenly worried. “Please, master, don’t – I didn’t make you—”

“Didn’t make me what?” Jinokimijin snarled. “Brand your name on my arm with burning iron? Kiss my own son like a lover? Oh wait.” She cringed back, and he glowered at her in disgust. “Don’t worry. I am not the kind of monster who’s obsessed with petty cruelties.” No, Jino thought. I’m the kind of monster who risks his son’s life for political gain, and hated himself. “Stay on this bed and in this place until I tell you otherwise. Do not attempt anything clever; you’ll only embarrass yourself further. You can sleep if you like.” He raised a hand to port away.

“What are you doing? Why are you leaving me here?” Fallen asked.

“Baiting a trap. Sleep well.”

Of course, his enemies attacked his position that night. When he’d invited the former queen’s partisans to attack him earlier, he’d known they wouldn’t do so. He’d been far too formidable: alert, armed with a channel and the phoenix rose, and with the Sun Etherium’s power at an ebb to boot. But they had to try eventually.

They didn’t go after Jinokimijin directly. A total of six fey tried to capture Fallen. The cage she was in caught them instead, and allowed neither them nor their messages to escape. Another three went into a similar cage, baited with Eletanene, whom he’d intercepted on her way up. Two tried to break into Jinokimijin’s bedroom, where he was sleeping on a bed next to Miro’s. They’d hoped to wrest the phoenix rose from him. Jino let them through his wards so he could capture them and put them into one of the cages. He took the opportunity to check on Miro and verify that the golems were doing an effective job of keeping watch. They’d had to move him from bath to bed twice as they managed his fever and chills.

Jino kissed his son’s forehead and went back to bed, weeping.

---

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Jino did not compel the courtiers to swear fealty; it had been almost six centuries since the tradition of fealty had been abandoned. But she did make each member pledge themselves to the good of the Sun Etherium, and she made each one acknowledge that she was its ruler. She’d taken a dozen pledges before she remembered that her form was still the same 15-year-old-girl version of her body that Fallen had stuck her in. And dressed in the same ridiculous outfit: a halter top held together by silver chains, with a loincloth linked over each hip by a silver chain. The cloth for both had been white, but was now splattered with her own blood. By now, the Sun Etherium had replenished enough aether that Jino could have restored herself, but it seemed a bit late now. No wonder they’re staring. Well, let them stare. The incongruity between appearance and actions probably puts them more off-balance. Might be just as well.

After a score of pledges, the Sun Etherium had replenished enough aether to permit its members to teleport. Jino sent a message to the former princess Ama telling her to check on Miro.

While Jino was watching the erstwhile Chancellor Pikopolili deliver its pledge a few minutes later, Ama sent a message back, “Dad! What happened to him? He’s not conscious and I can’t wake him up and he’s feverish and not responding to healing magic.”

“I told you, he channeled too much power. It’s caused by too much aether going through him, you can’t fix it with aether. Just stay with him and make sure he doesn’t get any worse.” Jino wrote out the reply on a farspeaker scroll at the same time that he waved Pikopolili to its feet, and beckoned the next courtier.

“How?!”

I wish I knew, Jino thought. “There’s some books on channeling in the lab. Look for the sections on treating sickness. Don’t use any treatments that I crossed out. If he wakes up, tell him I love him. And not to die.”

Once each member of the court had personally acknowledged Jino’s rule, Jino moved on to appointing his new High Court. Apart from the three High Lords of the Sun Etherium, Ele’s High Court had dissolved when Jino removed the Heart from her. Jino made Mirohirokon his crown prince, of course. He had no other children or a spouse to make natural members of the High Court, and Ele’s husbands and other children no longer qualified as such. Of the fifteen appointed High Court posts, Jino re-appointed six members of Ele’s High Court and replaced the rest. One of the replacements was Ele’s second-oldest child: the former Princess Amalatiti. Jino appointed another of her children to a minor Court role by making former Prince Tiqodomiqon his Justiciar.

During this process, Ele regained consciousness. Sputtering and fuming, she attempted to disrupt the proceedings. The ex-queen tried to grab Jino physically, which Jino declined to permit. Ele next yelled at Jino, ordered her to leave the throne, and demanded she return the Heart of Etherium. “No,” Jino told her. Ele launched into a tirade and appealed to her former court for support.

On the whole, the courtiers looked embarrassed on her behalf. No one answered her, or supported her; most of them tried to ignore her. The deposed queen’s fury redoubled at this. “You cannot ignore me! I am your queen!”

“No, you aren’t.” Jino had let her rant for a while, because it amused her to watch the court squirm, but she’d heard enough. Jino silenced Ele’s next reply with moon aether, and went on. “You are nothing to anyone, any more. You’re only still alive on my sufferance, and to be quite blunt I’ve suffered a lot lately, so let’s stop testing it.” She used the phoenix rose to teleport Ele fourteen miles below ground – far outside of the Etherium’s aether supply. “Justiciar Tiqodomiqon, trace Ele for me and let me know when she resurfaces,” Jino said. The ex-queen couldn’t teleport outside of an Etherium, but she could earthswim out. Eventually.

“Yes, your majesty.” The new justiciar left the court to comply.

After ten hours of conducting the court, Jino still had plenty of agenda left to go through, and no will to continue. “We will recess for tonight, and meet again on the morrow to discuss the new law of the Sun Etherium. Court dismissed.” Jino had a few private words with her newly-appointed adjunct. Then she ported home to her bedroom, bringing Fallen and the phoenix rose with her.

Ama had made a rocking chair beside the pool on one side of the room. She had a cloud of messengers around her, but was watching Miro drift in the pool instead of reviewing the messages. Ama had removed most of his clothing, leaving him in only underwear. “How is he?” Jino asked, going to them. She started to leave Fallen behind, then changed her mind and leashed her, making her trail in her wake.    

“I don’t know.” Ama gave a helpless shrug. “A little better, maybe. He drifts in and out of consciousness. Sometimes more lucid than others.”

Jino curled her legs to sit at the edge of the pool. “Hello there, my little dawn,” she said, softly.

Miro’s eyes twitched and opened to slits. “Hi Mom. Ama said you did it.” His voice still sounded terrible.

“Yup. Your big sister’s a chancellor now.”

“’grats, Ama.”

“Thanks. You’re doing great with the not-dying thing, kid. Keep it up,” Ama told him.

“Ardent’s orders,” Miro said. His eyes closed again. “Gave her my word.” His body convulsed, shuddering, and Jino reached out to take his shoulder, alarmed. “Gave myself to her. Mom, I betrayed her.”

“Hush,” Jino said. She slid into the pool next to him and hugged her son. He felt clammy, and she wondered if he was too cold now. “You haven’t. You haven’t.”

“Sh’ wanted the ’nix free, an’ I…” The next words were too soft to catch.

“I’ll make it right, Mirohiro, love.” Jino stroked her son’s hair, fresh tears running down her cheeks. “I’ll make everything right. You just get better.” Her son had passed out again.

“I tried everything the books said, Dad.” Ama wasn’t related to him, technically. In point of fact she was Ele’s second-born and thirty years older than Jinokimijin. But she had called Jino ‘Dad’ ever since Miro was ten years old, and she’d said to him ‘I wish I’d had a dad like yours.’ Miro had replied, with all the earnestness of childhood, that he would share. “I don’t know if it helped or not.”

“He’s doing better,” Jino said, because it had to be true. “I’m going to get him out of the bath; I don’t think he needs to cool any further.” She lifted him on a cushion of aether and dried him, then put him in her bed, in freshly-made pajamas and tucked between blankets.

“Yes, I had him out for a bit earlier, but then he overheated again. You’re king now, can you requisition some decent golems to keep a close eye on him? It’s not like anyone in the Etherium is good with mundane healing.”

“No, I suppose not.” Jino sent a message to her adjunct, then checked her notes to see who might be both trusted and spared from other duties. Ama was in many ways the best choice, but Jino needed her elsewhere, too.

“So why the new look, Dad? Not that ‘blood-drenched adolescent bed-slave girl’ isn’t…um…something. But it doesn’t quite match ‘Sun King’.”

“Well, Ele was the Sun Queen for too long. I don’t want there to be any confusion on that count.” Jino looked down at herself. “So you don’t like adolescent bed-slave? I think it must be growing on me.”    

“I think that form could stand another few years of growth,” Ama said, dryly.

“So, adult bed-slave?” Jino changed her body to widen the hips and fill out the chest, adding a little droop to the breasts and a few inches of height. She matured her face by several years, as well. “Better?”

“Much. Perhaps not the exact picture of a successful, confident Sun King, but better.”

“You don’t think so? I figured teleporting into the Sun Court and wresting power from my ex-wife while looking like a harem refugee showed true confidence. No clothing or regalia to mask any insecurities behind for me!”

“Uh.” Ama eyed her dubiously. “If you say so.”

“I do.” Jino changed back into his normal fey form, six foot three inches of well-muscled golden-brown man, with long straight blonde hair. After a moment, he changed the hair to indigo, to match Miro’s. He wore a typical Sun Etherium asymmetrical jacket over tights. “But I suppose it’s time to switch back.” He received a reply from his adjunct and read it. “We’ll have a pair of factotum golems here within the hour. Would you stay here with Miro for a few minutes? I need to feed my bird. And fuss over it.”

“I’ll be right here, Dad.” Ama moved her rocking chair over to the bed. Jino ported into the laboratory with Fallen and the phoenix rose.    

---

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The thirteenth teleport took Jinokimijin to her laboratory in the outer ring of the Sun Etherium, strategically located 0.673 miles from the center of the Etherium. The levels of aether were much lower than usual, but it was still an incalculable relief after the oppression of moon aether. She tried to stand with her son in her arms, and realized she lacked both the strength and hands that this task required. She left Fallen slumped on the laboratory floor. At a mental command, the phoenix rose teleported herself and Miro into the large, shallow bathing pool in her bedchamber. Unattended for over a week, the chamber stank of mildew. The water was room temperature and had a thin layer of scum on top. Jino scraped enough aether from the air to cleanse the water, and cooled it by several degrees more. She set the disgruntled phoenix rose on the edge of the pool and hauled herself dripping out beside it. She pulled Miro’s head into her lap. He felt like a furnace, his heart hammering like a hummingbird’s beneath her palm. “No no no, Mirohiro, my Mirohiro, don’t die, Love, Love, what have I done?”

Miro’s eyelids fluttered. “We’re home,” he whispered.

“Yes, little one. Rest. Can you try to slow your pulse?”

“No.” Miro closed his eyes again. “Is it over, Mom? Did you finish it?”

“Not yet, Mirohiro, why did you do it? Why did you let me talk you into this? Justice, I’m a worse monster than your mother ever was. Please don’t die. I love you, Mirohirokon. Please don’t die.”

“Can’t die,” Miro whispered. “Ardent’s orders. You go now, Mom. Not a monster. You need to fin’sh it. Don’t…waste…” Her son’s eyelids flickered and went still, body going limp.

Jino curled herself around his head and shoulders, wracked by helpless, useless sobs. Miro still breathed, in shallow painful gasps, heart still beating. The aether in the air grew a little thicker as a minute trickled past, and Jino forced herself upright. She tried to wipe her face with her bloody stump and realized by the pain in it what she was doing. She stifled a half-hysterical laugh and conjured just enough aether to scab over the wound. Regrowing it could wait. Everything could wait. Jino fixed an aether mask over her son’s face that would ensure he got fresh air. Fey invulnerability should protect him against drowning, but Jino did not want to take chances in Miro’s current condition. The phoenix rose had wandered halfway across the room, exploring. Jino grabbed it and ported to the laboratory.

Fallen was where she’d left her, still unconscious. Jino took the phoenix rose to one of several elaborate extractor cages, and tucked it inside over its squawking protests. “I know, I know, you just got out. I’m not keeping you forever, don’t worry,” Jino told it. She charged a wand from that extractor, then transferred the phoenix rose to a different one while it screeched at the indignity. “Sorry, sorry. We’ll be done soon.”

The screeching was loud enough to rouse Fallen from her aether-induced slumber. “What – what happened?” Horror dawned on her features as the timbre of the aether made it obvious where she was. “You treacherous cow! Take me home, Jiji!”

Jino laughed. “My name is Jinokimijin, but you can call me ‘master’. Get up.”

Against her will, she stood. “No – no, it’s not possible – the phoenix rose was mine first!”

“The deal wasn’t for ‘first’. Just ‘mine’. Mine now.” She took the phoenix’s cage off its hook, and slung it by a strap over her shoulder. Jino took the wand in her left hand, and realized she didn’t have a free hand to grab Fallen with. Sighing, Jino stuck her stump to the fox-tailed woman’s throat.

“What are you going to do to me?” Fallen whispered, frightened.    

“Well, that depends. How fast can the Queen of the Moon Host kick you out of the Moon Court?” Jino channeled moon aether out of Fallen and regrew her own hand with the abundant power. She took Fallen’s wrist and teleported to the sky above the Palace of the Sun.    

The Sun Etherium had an architectural grandeur and unity entirely unlike the Moon Etherium. It was a beautiful city of white and gold and crystal, with streets arranged in concentric circles about the center. Roads radiated like spokes on a wheel outwards with mathematical precision. The buildings themselves rose with fanciful curves and straight lines, decorated in abstract motifs or pastoral ones. The Palace of the Sun was set in a crystal globe laced with gold that surmounted an improbably slender pillar. It was a beautiful, intricate work of spiraling towers and crystal rooms, radiant with its own light.

Jino leveled her wand upon the crystal globe and blasted a hole in its wards, already weakened by the depletion of aether from the Sun Etherium. She teleported with Fallen into the Sun Court.

The Sun Court was held in a long golden hall. The Queen of the Sun Host sat in all her regal finery on a gigantic throne shaped like a rearing dragon. The High Court was arranged in rows to either side, their proximity to Her Majesty decided by the queen’s favoritism at the moment. Lesser courtiers took stations even farther away. Petitioners waited at the far end, and walked the length of the carpet at the center. How near they were allowed to draw to the queen depended on their social standing.

Jino put herself and Fallen in the air two paces in front of the queen’s throne.

Queen Eletanene had her head turned to one side and was in mid-rant, and so managed not to notice Jino anyway. “—is on you, Princess Amalatiti! If you hadn’t thwarted my efforts to have that worthless offspring of a disgraced coward removed from the High Court, we wouldn’t be vulnerable now. Chancellor Vayanivan! Have you figured out yet how long it will take the aether to regenerate to normal levels? Surely we can’t have to worry about this again – that idiot boy Miro must be dead by now, praise the light.”

Blood roared in Jino’s ears. She ripped power through Fallen’s body and launched herself like a spear at the throne. Some well-intended fool tried to put a ward over the queen: it shredded under Jino’s wand. The ceremonial dragon golem guards sprang to interpose themselves, and the wand crumbled them to dust. Moon aether pinned the queen to the throne, turned the wand to a club, and drove it against her perfumed head.

Even with the Sun Etherium depleted, the Sun Host fey retained invulnerability. The moon-aether-enhanced blow did not smash open her skull, merely made her reel to one side in the throne and split the skin. Blood trickled down Queen Eletanene’s face. She stared at Jino. “Who dares?” She tried to rise. Jino clubbed her again.

Jino was dimly aware of shouting in the room: cries of “Assassin!” and “Stop her!” She pulsed moon aether out in a wave across the hall that sent courtiers flying, or pinned them to their chairs, or forced them out to evade. Jino clubbed her ex-wife a third time, then finally recovered her senses enough to stop. She dropped the club and stepped on it to discourage herself from picking it up again.

“Who are you?” Eletanene asked, half slumped on her throne, her voice thick and dazed. “What do you want? I am Queen of the Sun Etherium, surely we can come to some…arrangement…”

“Your throne. And your absence. I am Jinokimijin, Ele, and if you ever speak of our son again I swear you will wish that I had killed you this day.” Jino unslung the phoenix rose’s cage from her shoulder and rested it on the queen’s chest.

“Jino?” Her tone reeked of disbelief. “No – no – you can’t possibly be that fool. Who are you in truth? What are you doing?”

“Taking your heart.” Jino activated the extractor. The Sun Queen screamed. “Or, more accurately, the heart of the Sun Etherium.” A brilliant golden glow pulled loose from the queen’s body, with a sickening wet sucking sound. Eletanene fell to one side, unconscious but still breathing.

Jino took the glow in her free hand and pushed it into her own ribcage, then turned to face the court. “My ladies, lords, gentlefolk: this is a coup. I hold the Heart of the Sun Etherium now. By ancient tradition of Might Makes Right And I Have All The Justice-Deprived Might You Can Imagine, I proclaim myself the Sun King Jinokimijin. Your ex-queen is not dead. I intend a bloodless coup, but if any here have objections to my rule, I am sure I can be persuaded to revisit that intent. Anyone? Come now, you all know there’ll be a reckoning in the days to come. Doesn’t anyone want to try me before my grasp is secure?” Jino pulled more moon aether out of Fallen, and she staggered.    

Nervous courtiers exchanged glances, shifted in place, and said nothing. “No? All right.” Jino rolled the queen’s body out of the throne and onto the floor, and took the empty seat. “On your knees, now, Fallen. You know your place. There’s a good girl.” To the rest of the hall, Jino continued, “I’ll accept your pledges now. Let’s start with – oh – you, Princess Amalatiti.” He beckoned to her with one finger. “Don’t be shy.”

“Yes, your majesty.” The tenth-favorite child of the former Sun Queen stood to ascend the steps towards the throne. She dropped to one knee before Jino. “I pledge my loyalty to the good of the Sun Etherium, and to the realm’s rightful ruler, the Sun King Jinokimijin.”    

---

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Rain twisted around. “What – how did she teleport? How did she teleport Fallen? Did she—”

Ardent did not stay to listen. She ported back to her room at the Underground. The tracer golem was on one of the giant mushrooms in the meadow setting, scribbling furiously. “Trace Shadow of Fallen Scent only,” she ordered it. “Drop everyone else. Give me her current position.”

The tracer wrote quickly: not once a minute, but every few seconds. Fallen was twenty-eight miles away. Forty-two miles. Fifty-six miles. Ardent closed her hands into fists and slammed them against the mushroom. It dented like a squishy cushion at the impact. The area’s wards asked if Whispers Rain still had permission to enter. “Yes!” she snapped. Then, “Trace Never Breaks, in this form.” She showed the tracer Miro’s homunculus.

He was in the exact same place as Fallen. They were halfway to the Sun Etherium. “What’s going on?” Rain asked, appearing beside her.

“I’m an idiot.” One-hundred seventy-seven point three-two-seven miles. The tracer stopped writing. Ardent summoned up a map, but knew what she’d find before she plotted it: they were in the Sun Etherium. “Trace Jinokimijin,” she said, and described her as best she could. The tracer whuffled and shook its head, ears flopping: it couldn’t find her.

Rain looked at the tracer’s work, perplexed. “Ardent, how could they get there so quickly? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“The phoenix rose. That bird we wrested away from Fallen’s possession. It’s a phoenix rose. Jinokimijin’s been researching it for years. Decades. She knew how to get it to teleport across the Broken Lands.” Ardent turned and slid to the meadow ground, grabbing fistfuls of hair. “How could I be so stupid? I gave it right to them.”

“Ardent, what are you talking about? Why did Fallen have a phoenix rose? Justice.” Rain clapped a small brown hand over her mouth. “She had a phoenix rose and you went to fight her?”

“Yes,” Ardent growled. Maybe Miro didn’t know. He almost died. He might still die. Surely that can’t have been part of his plan.

His voice echoed in her head, swearing three times that he didn’t want the phoenix rose for himself or for the Sun Queen. But he never swore he didn’t want it for his father. She punched an ineffectual fist against the spongy ground. The moon aether around them shifted, as if its natural currents had changed abruptly. It swirled inwards, towards the center of the Etherium with a curving motion.

“What’s happening to the aether?” Rain asked, watching it.

“Fallen.” Ardent leaped to her feet. “Jinokimijin’s channeling from her. We have to see the Queen.” She took Rain’s hand, and they teleported to the Palace of the Moon.

---

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They were beside a sky palace: one of the smaller ones, made of pearl with silver crenellations. Glass dragons patrolled the airspace around it. Ardent did not pause to take her bearings or take in the whole. As a glass dragon bore down upon them, she pointed her wand at the pearlescent wall and activated its power. The wall collapsed inwards, in a twisted funnel of mangled spellwork and failed space-expansion. The nearest dragon opened its jaws. Ardent ported again.

The teleport placed them in a large chamber, with pure aether pooled in a circular marble fountain some thirty yards across. In the middle of the fountain, where the centerpiece would be, hung the extractor. It was an intricate cage of not just ivory and alabaster, but gold and steel, polished granite and mirror-bright crystals, in nesting spheres of increasing sizes. The outermost sphere was several feet across. Each of the spheres revolved, at different angles and speeds. A ward of fire and ice swirled about the last sphere. Three humanoid figures of stone and crystal were assembling yet another sphere around the existing one.

In the center of the extractor’s smallest sphere – only a couple of feet across – the phoenix rose perched on a hovering horizontal bar. It looked nothing like the bird from the immersion: this creature had a long body with long, pointed tail feathers, most of it white with purple lines outlining the feathers. Its eyes were bright amber, its beak a deeper purple, like its talons. It hunched miserably, feathers fluffed out, avoiding contact with the cage walls.

Ardent stood calf-deep in the aether pool, Miro in one arm with his own arms looped around her neck, the wand in her other hand. She pointed the wand at the sphere. “The workers are golems,” Miro told her.

“Get out!” Fallen ported in and thrust her hand at Ardent, throwing a massive wave of power at her. Jinokimijin was with her, leashed to her wrist. Instead of evading, which would have thrown Ardent out of Fallen’s palace, the satyress tossed up a ward of her own fueled with sun aether. Claws of sun aether grew from her hooves to sink into the floor of the fountain. Fallen’s wave of power crashed against the ward and shoved; Ardent’s sun-aether-claws dug furrows into the marble as she slid backwards. Fallen hit her with another wave, backed by sun aether drawn from Jino. “This is my home! Get out!”

As Ardent’s ward crumbled under the onslaught, she activated the wardbreaker wand, still pointed at the extractor. The ward around it melted into mist, but the extractor cage was unaffected: it was all real materials, and all located in real space. Fallen shrieked, and shaped a tentacle to reach into the cage and grab the bird.

Ardent ported on top of the cage and threw a ward of her own to encircle the innermost ring, just in time to block Fallen’s tentacle. Fallen pulled aether from the pool and swirled it into a ward to stop Ardent from teleporting. The spell would suck any aether Ardent used for such purpose away before she could start. Ardent dropped her own now-powerless wand and launched herself at Fallen. Her right fist drove a sleep-enspelled spike for Fallen’s head. She drew on all her remaining reserves of sun aether to prevent Fallen from evading, and opened the channel with Miro to let more flood in to replenish it. Purpose anchored her against the intoxicating rush of power. Her nerves hummed, but she had never felt more focused, more aware of the world around her, and of the raw power she could wield in it.

It wasn’t enough.

Fallen drew her own wand to dispel the sun aether and dodged Ardent’s fist. She grabbed Jinokimijin’s wrist with her other hand and turned her wand into a sword to stab – not at Ardent, but at Miro, held in one arm. Ardent burned sun aether to interpose her own body, and grunted as she absorbed the blow. Fey invulnerability made it glance off her skin, the extra power behind it leaving a bruise but not piercing. Miro felt like a furnace on her arm, burning up as Ardent pulled aether recklessly through him. “Never break!” she yelled at him. “That’s an order!” Fallen and Jinokimikin disappeared in a teleport. Ardent looked around wildly as she bolted back to the extractor. She saw Fallen drop on them from above, sword down to slash at Miro, power swirling around Ardent to keep her from evading.

Whispers Rain ported on top of Fallen and tried to grab her. “No!” Instinctively, Fallen evaded the grasp, and changed the angle of her own attack. As she did so, Jinokimijin yanked herself into Fallen’s body by the leash, and drew the arm Fallen gripped in front of the blade.    

The sword fell with full force onto Jinokimjin’s arm, severing it just below the elbow.

Leaving Fallen holding her channel’s hand…but not her channel.    

Jino tumbled into the fountain of aether with a scream, clutching the stump of her arm. Ardent curled over Miro to take the remaining force of the sword against her back. Fallen ported back a few feet and made another clumsy strike before she realized she didn’t have a channel, or sun aether to pin Ardent with. Ardent evaded and took Miro with her. Whispers Rain screamed, “Stop it! Just stop it!” at Fallen and grabbed for her sword arm. Fallen evaded Rain, but after that Ardent’s sun aether held her in place. Ardent smashed her fist into the gray fey’s face, sleep-spike point first. Fallen collapsed.

“Don’t die don’t die don’t die,” Ardent chanted at Miro as she turned to the extractor. She smashed it apart, ignoring her own ward, and pulled the phoenix rose out. The bird made a querulous cooing noise at her. Ardent dropped to her knees with Miro in her lap. “How do I use this to heal him?” she yelled, and didn’t even know who she was hoping would answer.

Miro’s eyes slitted open at her shout. “Did we…?” His voice was almost inaudible, hoarse, strained.

“Yes,” Ardent told him. “Yes. See? Jino’s free.” She held up the phoenix rose in her other hand. “Rest now. Don’t die. That’s an order, Justice take it.” Miro stirred, tried to lift a hand to touch the bird, said something Ardent couldn’t hear. She put the bird in his lap and clasped his hand over it, tears running down her cheeks.

Whispers Rain helped Jino to her feet. “No, no, your arm—” She tried to stop the bleeding with aether, but could not heal the Sun fey’s injury.

“I can always get another one.” Jino clamped her fingers tighter around her elbow and staggered. “If I don’t bleed to death. But I only have one son. Miro, Mirohiro, what have you done?” Whispers Rain dissolved the chains on Jino into the aether, and made a tourniquet around the Sun fey’s elbow. Rain half-supported Jino over to Miro and Ardent. Jino sank to her knees beside her son, and shifted to take him in her good arm.

Ardent let her. “The phoenix rose – isn’t there anything it can do?” she pleaded.

Miro breathed shallowly, his skin flushed as red as sunburn. He shifted his hand on the bird. “Look, Dad,” he whispered. “We did it.”    

Jino swallowed. “So you did, Mirohiro.” She unclasped one of her earrings, a hoop of white gold and rubies. “I will do everything that I can,” Jino said, looking at Ardent, but the tears in the Sun fey’s eyes made her heart stop. “Thank you.” She clasped the hoop around the phoenix’s neck.

Miro, Jino, and Fallen disappeared.

---

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They hung in the overcast sky above the Moon Etherium. The clouds drizzled; this close to the edge of the aether no one bothered to conceal the true weather of the world behind enchantment and glamour. Automatically, Ardent put a shield against the rain around them along with a privacy bubble, as she hauled Miro out by the scruff. “Sunder it, Miro! What was that all about? Why, Justice lose us all, did you let her know you were still with me, after she told us she’s Fallen’s catspaw?”    

“Because I needed her to know I don’t blame her, and I may not have another chance to tell her,” Miro said, too calmly. “Did you get the coordinates? Are we near?” He tried to twist his little head around, mouse form dangling between her thumb and forefinger.

“Yes, and no, we’re on the other side of the Etherium. I needed to do a little prep first and I didn’t want her to see it.” Ardent dropped Miro on a cushion of aether, then thought better of it and put him on her shoulder instead. She took off her main locket to get out her bag, and then the wardbreaker wand from it.

“You should send the lockets away,” Miro said. “And restore me to my trueshift shape. Everything that takes aether to maintain – unless we’re going to need it to get the phoenix rose or to fight Fallen, get rid of it.”

She knew what he meant: if it came to a confrontation with Fallen, every scrap of aether might matter. Even though it replenished quickly, every second could make the difference. She sent both lockets away, back to her room at the Underground. “You’re staying a mouse,” she told Miro. “I can protect you better that way. And not give away to Fallen that you’re still here. Assuming Rain didn’t tell her the second we left.”

“Ardent.” He rose to his hindpaws on her shoulder. “Please. Whether or not she knows, the last thing she’d expect is that you would have me be recognizable. Her first thought will be to assume that it’s a ruse to make her wary. And I should prefer to face my fate as a man, and not a mouse.”

Ardent clenched her fist around the wardbreaker rod. “Fine,” she growled. She set him down in the air and handed over his homunculus. As soon as he’d turned back, Ardent pulled him hard against her side. “I’m going to teleport us as close as I can to the coordinates for the ivory and alabaster. Then I’ll use this wand to break her wards, and port to the exact coordinates. If the phoenix rose is there, I’ll grab it and we’ll get out. If not, we improvise. Fallen still has a trace on me, so she’s going to try to stop me as soon as I get there. I don’t think she’ll move the phoenix rose, though. She won’t want to start over with that extractor.”

“Agreed. Ardent – whatever power you may need from me, you have to take it. No matter what. No more being cautious, or holding back.”

She glared at him, furious. “I am not going to risk killing you.”

Miro swallowed. “Believe me, I appreciate that. But getting the phoenix rose away from her is more important than my life. It’s more important than your life. You saw how terrified Rain is of her, and that’s when she doesn’t have her own personal source of power that can potentially destroy an entire Etherium. That was used to Sunder the world and kill tens of thousands of fey, and Divine only knows how many mortals. I do not wish to die, my lady. But if my life is what it takes, then know this: I give it gladly.”

“Shut up,” Ardent said, and hauled him up in both arms to kiss him, hard. “Stop being crazy.”

“I can’t,” he whispered, and she realized she’d given him an order, two orders, and didn’t know what it must have cost him to argue with her anyway. “Not yet. Please, my lady. Ardent. Promise me you will do everything in your power.”

She kissed him again, crushing him in her embrace. Miro answered her passion with his own, cradling her head in both hands, wrapping his legs around her waist as they floated together in the sky. When she broke the kiss at last, tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. “I will.”

Then Ardent opened her eyes, and teleported them both to the battle.

---

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In the morning, Ardent woke before Miro. She took care not to wake him as she climbed out of bed and checked on the logs the golem had made. Tracking fifty-eight different individuals had taken up more space than she expected, since the tracer recorded movements every minute, even if they’d only moved a foot or two. She set to work devising a spell that would take all the coordinates and plot them onto a three-dimensional map of the Moon Etherium for her. After an hour of flipping through the references on information magic she’d gotten from White Rose, Ardent sorely wished that Play Until Collapsing Dreams was still speaking to her. Reading her monograph from the Archive was not the same. Maybe I can make a bunch of really stupid golems who’ll do this for me? Except I want it plotted on a three-dimensional translucent map, which means one made of glamour. And marked with glamour. And there are no really stupid golems that cast spells. Not even basic glamour spells.

She still hadn’t figured it out by the time Miro woke, so she took a break then to discuss breakfast. Which somehow turned into Miro nibbling on her. And then she made aetherfood for him to eat off of her, and then he insisted that she had to eat too…

It may not have been the best food she’d ever made, but the presentation definitely more than made up for it.

Afterwards, they talked about the plotting problem. “I’ve gone from far too little information to way too much, in a format I can’t make use of at all.”

“Perhaps instead of making a nice plot of all the coordinates, you could devise a glamour that highlights the values that are in the right range? The last number is the distance from the center of the Moon Etherium, and the phoenix rose will only thrive .67 to .68 miles from the center. So any numbers in that range are the only ones we care about.”

“Ooh, I should’ve thought of that hours ago, sugar.” Ardent laughed and cast the suggested spell. “Got too focused on doing it the first way that came to mind.”

As that spell worked, the tracer golem barked from inside her locket to let her know Verdant and his cargo had returned to the fey shard. Judging from his progress by the minute, he’d be back in the Moon Etherium in a couple of hours.

The highlighting of the tracer’s logs revealed four locations in the right range. They had no other leads to look at while they waited for Verdant’s return, so Ardent turned Miro back into a mouse and teleported to each location with him to have a look. They all turned out to be public places: a couple of parks, an aerial racecourse, and a farmshare. Nothing promising, not even cacao trees in the farmshare. Ardent scouted the farmshare from far above. Her lockets and Miro’s mouse form used too much aether for her to take them into a farm, and she wasn’t about to leave them alone while she went for a long walk. She couldn’t see Fallen keeping the phoenix rose anywhere public, regardless.

While Ardent was scouting the farm from the air, she received a note from Whispers Rain: “I heard about Miro last night. Can I see you?”

Ardent read the message a few times, conflicted, before she teleported back to her room at the Underground. She retrieved Miro from her cleavage and held him in one hand. “Rain wants to see me,” she told Miro. “We’ve got a little while yet before Verdant gets back. I’m gonna invite her here, and leave you as a mouse, all right? She thinks you left the Etherium, like everybody else.”

Miro crinkled his whiskers at her, mouse ears flattening back. “Ardent…there’s something about Whispers Rain I should tell you.” His voice sounded strange coming from such a small body. “She…has an obligation to Fallen. A heavy burden.”

The satyress stared at him. What? No. Not my Rain, she wanted to say, and remembered the Queen telling her: ‘Fallen has holds over everyone. Even your former wife.’ Ardent’s stomach cramped. “You knew. At the party. When you first met her. You always knew.”

He ducked his head. “I didn’t know how to warn you.”

And why would I trust you, a stranger, over my wife of thirty-two years? Why should I trust you? ‘Fallen has holds over everyone.’ “You think she set us up. You think Rain came that night to distract me while you were attacked.”

Miro sank down in her hand, miserable. “I have no evidence of that. Or anything against her. She has a beautiful soul, Ardent, truly.” I know that, Ardent thought, angrily. What makes you think I wouldn’t know that? Of course she does. “But she’s been controlled by her fears before. And she’s indebted to Fallen. That’s all I know. I’m sorry, my lady.”

It’s not true. She wouldn’t do that to me. To you. No matter what she owed.

‘Go after him. I’ll take care of Mirohirokon,’ Rain had said.

Ardent sank to sit on the edge of the bed, shaking, angry, sick. “I still have to see her,” she said, mechanically.

“Yes, my lady.” His tone was diffident.

“You…stay out of sight.” At his nod, Ardent put Miro back into her cleavage. She sent a reply to Rain: “I’d love to, sugar. When’s good for you?”

“Now’s fine, if you’re not busy?”

“Sure, just give me a minute. You want to come to me?”

“I’d be happy to. Whenever you’re ready.”

Ardent went to the locale globe of the chamber and dialed through different places while she tried to pull herself together. No point in seeing her if I don’t know how to play this. Oh Justice, Loyalty, Duty, I don’t know how to play this. Does she want to see me, or did Fallen ask her to? Is Fallen distracting me again, playing for time while she waits for her extractor to be complete? Do I confront Rain or play along and see what she lets slip? If I poke her in the right place, will she confess?    

I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. Not to Rain. Justice desert us all. Ardent selected a fairy-tale meadow, with green grass and flowers and dappled sunlight filtered between trees that reached without end towards an impossibly blue sky. Big white mushrooms offered unexpectedly plush seats. “Now’s good,” she told Rain, and gave the room’s wards permission to let Rain in.

Rain arrived in an unfolding flower, dressed in tights and a bodysuit made of straps. They crossed over her chest and ran between her legs to form a straight line between her wings and up her back. She launched herself into Ardent’s arms and the satyress caught her up. “Oh, Ardent, I’m so glad it wasn’t true!”

Ardent blinked, caught off guard despite every intention to be wary. She struggled for a cautious reply. “…what?”

“About Mirohirokon. I couldn’t believe you’d do it, make a slave of another fey. Not for anything. It’s not like you.” She had her arms wrapped behind Ardent’s neck. The satyress held her carefully in return. Miro was well-warded now and being squished between them wouldn’t hurt him, but even so. Rain gave a little laugh. “I should’ve known it was some scheme to help him.”

“Oh. That. Yeah.” Ardent sat on one of the mushrooms, putting Rain in her lap. “Funny, I thought it’d sound more plausible as me being selfish and wanting power.”

Rain giggled and slid an arm around Ardent’s waist. “Maybe to someone who didn’t know you.”

“Oh, c’mon. Everyone knows I always wanted the power to actually stop people. As opposed to the power to say ‘you naughty boy, don’t do that again or I’ll call you naughty a second time’.”

The faerie-winged woman braced her tiny feet against Ardent’s opposite thigh as she perched on Ardent’s other leg, and tilted her head to look up. Rain had turned her oversized eyes the same blue as her hair, vivid in her warm brown face. She shook her head. “No. Not to hurt people. You wouldn’t ever take advantage of a helpless fey, not even in the service of some greater good. You’re not that kind of person.”

“Heh. I don’t want to be that kind of person, anyway. Not so sure that I ain’t.”

“I am.” Rain leaned into her, pillowing her head against one breast, and Ardent’s heart twisted at the rightness of it. The wrongness of it. I don’t know how to do this. “Are you all right? I only heard gossip, but it sounded like a bad fight.”

Ardent nodded, kissed the top of Rain’s head because it was the normal thing to do, because it was what she wanted to do, because what else could she do? “You know me. I’m tough. And his highness will be a lot safer back in his own Etherium. Do you know, some goons tried to steal him again? Justice. I was afraid somebody’d kill him outright eventually, trying to get him for themselves.”

Rain nodded. After a moment’s silence, she said, “You never really meant to stay, did you? For good. You’ll go back to Try Again, soon.”    

Ardent felt ashamed. I guess she’s not the only one who lied about her real motives. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Rain squeezed her, slender arms barely reaching around Ardent’s broad back. “It’s just as well. The Moon Etherium…it’s no place for good people, Ardent. It hasn’t gotten any better since you left. Everyone’s petty and self-absorbed and false and…and…I want to say I’m surprised that they’d try to hurt your friend…and I guess part of me is…” Ardent felt a dampness against her chiton, and realized with a start that Rain was crying. “…but I shouldn’t be. It’s not unlike this place. It is just like this place. Everyone is so selfish they can’t tell what really matters. It’s no wonder you left. There’s nothing good here.”

The satyress lifted Rain’s chin with one hand, to meet her tear-filled eyes. “You’re here,” she said, softly.

“Yes.” Rain closed her eyes and pulled away. “And just as bad as all the rest.”

No you’re not. It’s not true. Ardent’s throat felt tight, too choked to speak.

“You should leave, Ardent. You should go now. It’s only going to get worse, and you can’t – I know you want to save Jinokimijin, but you can’t. You can’t save any of us, and we don’t deserve it even if you could.” Rain drew her arms back and wrapped them around her own shoulders. “I’m afraid, Ardent. I heard what happened to Contemplation After the Storm. If you don’t get out…they’ll find a way to hurt you, too.”

Ardent touched Rain’s cheek, fingers curving under her chin. The delicate woman let her turn her face up again. “Is that what you want, Rain?” she asked, as gently as she could. “Or is it what Fallen told you to do? Talk me into leaving.”

Rain closed her eyes again, blue lashes bright on dark cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered. “And yes. I’m sorry, Ardent. It’s just…Shadow of Fallen Scent is too powerful. Even the Queen can’t stand against her any more. Even if she wanted to, and I don’t think she does. Fallen is the only piper now, and everyone is dancing to her music.”

“I’m not,” Ardent said, her voice harsher than she intended.

“Then you don’t understand—”

“When you came to my apartment after the party,” Ardent said, interrupting her, “you were following Fallen’s orders then, too. The message you got, that ‘reminded’ you to block messages. And reminded me too. That was from her. You were to distract me and get me to block messages. So I wouldn’t hear Miro when he called for help.”

Rain shuddered. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know why—”

Ardent stood, pushing her former wife away. “You didn’t ask! Justice, Rain! He could have died. Did you even think about it? Why did you think she’d want me distracted?”

“I don’t know!” Rain wrapped her arms around her stomach, doubled over. “I didn’t want to think about it! I know I shouldn’t’ve but Ardent, you have no idea what she’s capable of. You can’t take her on and win. Not even with a Sun prince channel, and certainly not without one. Don’t you understand? You have to stop. You have to get out! While there’s still time! While it’s still safe in Try Again. While it’s still safe somewhere.”

“No,” Ardent said, breathing heavily. “I don’t understand.” There was a tinny banging from inside her new locket. “And I’m not going to leave. Because someone has to stop Fallen. While there’s still time. I’m not running away from this. Tell your master that, Whispers Rain.” She opened the locket, hooked out the golem inside and looked at the latest coordinates. Verdant Generosity was in the Moon Etherium. “I have to go.”

“Where are you going?” Rain asked, desperately.

The satyress gave her a cold look. “What, by all that remains and all that was Sundered, makes you think I would trust you?”

“Ardent, wait,” Miro’s voice said. Ardent froze, startled, as he poked his mouse’s head over the neck of her chiton. “Whispers Rain – I forgive you.”

Miro what are you doing—

“Prince Mirohirokon?” Rain’s big blue eyes grew even wider.

He nodded. “Yes. I just want you to know – whatever happens next – I know you did not want to see me hurt. I know you don’t want to see Fallen succeed. I know how hard it is, when everyone with power is against you, not to go along with what they want. I know how reasonable they can make it seem, when you already owe them, when it’s just some little thing, and you know they will get what they want one way or another, with your help or over your body. I understand. It doesn’t make you a monster. It just makes you a person. I bear you no ill-will for that.”

I do, Ardent thought. You could have died, Miro.

Rain bowed her head. “Thank you,” she said, softly. “You…really think you can stop her?”

“I believe we must try.”

Ardent glanced at the log again as the tracer golem wrote new coordinates down. Verdant Generosity and the two marks were no longer in the same place. The marks were now at a coordinate 0.6742 miles from the heart of the Moon Etherium. “Goodbye,” she said to Rain, and ported away.

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Lovemaking and channeling blended together this time. Miro’s hands pushed up her chiton while she was still drawing him in. He caressed her rear as she curled over his body and felt the slow intensity of sun aether filling her. The fey man pulsed his clothed hips against her until she gave in and used aether to undress him so she could feel his body enter her as well. So they could be linked by flesh as well as aether. When they climaxed, she closed the channel, and this time it felt right. She was replete, satisfied, not hungry to take more.

When she moved off him to lie at his side, Miro burrowed against her, body relaxed and expression blissful, contented. “I love you, Ardent,” he told her, and while she was still staring at him in shock, he fell asleep.

Well, that was…unexpected. Drunken. Right. He doesn’t mean love-love, it’s just the pleasure of release combined with the way channeling destroys his inhibitions. Just a momentary passion. Don’t take it seriously. Tears pricked at her eyelids. Definitely do not cry over it. Stop that right now.

“I love you too, Miro,” she whispered, and wiped the foolish tears from her cheeks. And you don’t mean that either, she tried to convince herself. You’ve only known him for a few days. What do you know about him? Nothing. Just that he’s brave, and determined even in the face of mortal danger. And sweet, and articulate, and resilient, and considerate, and treats me like an Ideal, and oh Love this is only gonna make it worse. You can’t really get to know someone in a few days, anyway. Maybe it’s all an act. Well, except for the bravery and willingness to face death for the people he cares about. Obviously. Can’t fake being articulate, either. Or resilience. I mean, you either fall all to pieces when you get violently assaulted or you go “nope, I’m ready for another helping of Extreme Danger, why haven’t we dived back in yet?” The sweetness and courtesy could be an act, though. Ardent sighed inwardly. This is my own story and even I’m not buying it.

She held him for a little while as he slept, but channeling invigorated her even as it drained him. Her restless energy at last drove her from the bed and into a comfortable chair. She read Jino’s notebook while she analyzed the wand she’d taken from Fallen’s catspaw. Without the notebook, she wouldn’t have been able to figure it out. Its power source was so unlike aether Ardent didn’t realize it was a form of power at all until she’d been over it several times. That power had been funneled into it from the phoenix rose’s extractor. A few tests were informative: the wand was designed to siphon aether and convert it to this strange un-aether. But the conversion was inefficient; it lost more un-aether than it regained during use. It was only good for destroying spellwork, but it was excellent at that. It looked like it had about half of its power supply remaining. Ardent refrained from any serious tests that might drain it significantly.

After a couple of hours of study, Ardent found her eyelids starting to droop. She crawled into bed next to Miro, who immediately snuggled into her, making cute sleepy pleased noises without actually waking. Oh, I forgot to include “cuddly and adorable” on my list of good qualities and enough, girl, just let it be. I’ve never been able to argue myself into or out of a feeling before, I don’t know why I think I can start now. On that note she fell asleep.

§

Ardent woke during the night to a muffled, tinny sound. Miro nosed sleepily at her shoulder. “Why is your chest barking?”

“Uh.” She fumbled at her locket, and hooked out a disgruntled tracer golem.

It stopped barking to snarl grumpily, “I ran out of paper. And it’s hard to write in there. And I found two of the new marks you wanted me to look for and tell you special if I found.”

“Oooh, that’s promising. Which marks?”

“Paper,” it said, insistently. “And it’s too crowded in that locket. I haven’t got space for all this. How’m I supposed to work in these conditions?”

She made it a new set of notebooks and it started writing. While she waited for it to catch up, she expended some sun aether to make a new miniaturized office in a second locket, just for the golem.

The marks it had found were the ones she had pre-arranged with Wind Sought to mean ‘alabaster in Verdant Generosity’s possession’ and the same thing for ivory. They were at the same spot as Verdant Generosity, who was still in the same city as before, judging by the pattern of their movement. “It worked.” Miro smiled. “So far.”

“Now we wait for it to come back. Good work, Trace,” she said, and kissed the top of the golem’s head. “Thanks. Here, I made you a better workspace. I appreciate you waking me to tell me. If Verdant Generosity or either of those marks enters the area of the land shared with the fey shard, please wake me again.”

The golem peered inside the new locket, and looked mollified. “Will do.”

She tucked it inside the locket, and fastened it around her neck. “I feel like a snail,” she told Miro. “Carrying my home on my back.”    

He ran his hands over her back, rear, and furred crooked legs. “You don’t feel like one to me,” he said, and kissed her.

“Mph. No being adorable at me, you. We need more sleep.”

“Yes, my lady,” he said, unrepentant. Snuggled together, they fell back to sleep.

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Don’t want to wait until the next post to read more? Buy The Moon Etherium now! Or check out the author’s other books: A Rational Arrangement and Further Arrangements.