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Root lay in bed.

She hadn’t been horizontal this much since Unn, or maybe even before she left home. A comfy bed and nothing immediately demanding her verticality had become a novelty in the weeks since.

Unfortunately, the silver lining of rocks and roots bruising her ribs was that they kept her tossing and turning and therefore fended off the vivid Atnaterran dreams with their dull edges and vengeful attitudes. A bed just didn’t offer that same service of psychological babysitting.

So she lay awake, thanks to the theatrical performance by Malie with an organ in the middle of Oubliette Steakhouse that threatened to restart from the top if she closed her eyes again. Even in her dreams, everyone insisted on being so loud.

She hadn’t stayed in bed since they’d arrived at Syrus’s safe house that afternoon; she’d gotten up for a bit to have dinner and talk to the others while Syrus read through his newly attained documents in his room. But aside from that brief vertical stint, she’d been enjoying the soft blankets and feather pillows and butchered notes of a song about an old farmer and all the spirit worms he had. She had a sneaking suspicion this opportunity for down time wouldn’t last all that long, so she intended to make the most of it by doing as little as was absolutely required.

At the moment, that meant propping herself back into a standing position to (hopefully) reset whatever subconscious or extraconscious factors were manifesting as discordant warbling. She swung her legs out of the blankets; her bare feet found the cold floorboards.

She dressed and left her room silently. She didn’t know the hour any more than she could tell when staring Enyn in the face, but the silence in the building told her the answer was “late,” and that seemed sufficient for the moment. She made her way down the hall and out into the common area, moving slow over floorboards that didn’t care how fast she moved as they groaned away regardless.

The common area lay dim with only the constant twilight wafting through the windows, all of the candles snuffed out and cold. Root went to one window and looked out.

The safe house windows were among the higher ones in the city, so a sea of rooftops lay below, a view unobstructed save for a few towers erected just to make themselves and their occupants feel known and important. Of course, no building was more guilty of that crime than churches (and that hardly ranked among their greatest convictions).

A breeze swept in—the window hung ajar by an inch. On it rode the smell of city and a familiar whine of unveiled fright. All those locked doors and Syrus left the windows to the whims of the wind and whatever bird or birdlike thing thought the smells of the kitchen smelled enticing enough for some breaking and entering?

Root pushed the window open and poked her head out.

“You’re not going to fall. Or if you’re that worried about it, just go back in.”

She leaned farther out over the sill and around the wall to look up the roof in the direction from which the voice had come. On top of the gable sat Azriah, Vit, and Beel.

“What the hell, you guys?”

“Oh, hey Root,” said Vit.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Just chatting.”

“Without me? Even Beel is here!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Beel.

“We figured you were asleep,” said Azriah. He put out a hand to help Root out the window and up to their perch.

“I was. For a bit. The organ woke me up.”

Vit furrowed their brow. “Which organ?”

“Don’t worry about it. So what are we talking about?”

“But was it one of yours, at least?”

“Just Syrus. And Hamlick,” said Azriah. “And how Beel is going to fall off the roof.”

“Bladder?”

“You said I wouldn’t.”

“And you said you would.”

Root shifted until she found a comfortable position that didn’t make her feel like she, too, might tumble down the slope and over the edge of the roof to become a grease spot on the street below. “I’m surprised you didn’t invite Syrus to come hang out here with you guys too.”

“Why would we do that?” asked Vit.

“Dunno, he’s the only other one who didn’t get an invite.”

“Wasn’t really a planned meeting. Plus, then we couldn’t talk about him.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Mostly just what we said before,” said Azriah. “Although I think it’s interesting the way that he talks about Ajis. He knows him, obviously, which is fascinating in itself, but so far he’s been right—Golvy didn’t try to break in, and Ajis hasn’t come around looking for us even though we’re right where they last saw us. And unlike Harnn, I’m sure Golvy put two and two together and delivered the sum back to Ajis. Promptly, that is.”

Vit nodded. “And with the way Ajis blew up Affodell’s manor, he’s clearly not one to let a wall stop him.”

“Or historical architectural preservation,” said Root. “Maybe he’s just religious.”

“Hmm. Do you think it’s a sin to blow up a church?”

“I think that’s probably one of those ones that generally goes unsaid, yeah.”

“Well, it sort of reminds me of…” Azriah started. “You know, I’ve seen some… stuff over the years. You end up getting glimpses into some of the shadier, sharper parts of the worlds when you take temporary jobs as hired muscle. It reminds me of some of the spats I’ve seen between rivaling gangs. It was like Syrus knew Ajis wouldn’t come around out of some kind of territorial respect, either from a truce or fear. But Syrus is just some lone guy—at least as far as we know—and he’s not like the sort I’ve met before. It’s like I said, he’s no Ajis. He’s more…”

“Weak,” said Root.

“Academic?” asked Vit.

“Pampered,” finished Azriah.

“I think that’s close enough to be a point for me,” said Root.

“But he’s given us no reason not to trust him,” said Vit.

“Neither did Ophylla at first.”

“True, except he seems to trust us. He brought us into his safe house. We could tell anyone where he is hiding out, or rob him, or kill him.”

“Damn, Vit.”

“But we’re not going to, and he doesn’t seem worried at all that we might.”

Azriah leaned back against the roof. “I think he’s trustworthy, at least in the normal sense of the word. That being said, I think there are some precautions it just makes sense to take. Like the periapts—we can’t go leaving them around unguarded.”

Vit nodded. They pulled the bundled mirror from the wrap around their midsection.

“Oh,” Root looked guiltily back down at the window. “The amulet is in my bag in my room.”

Azriah shrugged. “Make sure it’s still there when you go back in, but yeah, we probably want to keep them on us. No leaving them in the safe house unguarded, or even just in another room. We should keep them with us. Easier for the amulet—that just fits in a pocket, even wrapped. The mirror…”

“I’m managing,” said Vit. “Kind of just looks like I’m trying to hide a bottle of liquor, though.”

“We’ll keep them close to our chests,” agreed Root. “Can’t risk anything happening to them if Ajis does break in, or if Syrus gets a little too handsy with our stuff.”

“You think Hamlick is after more of them?” asked Vit.

Root thought about this. “I don’t think so,” she said after a minute. “At least as far as what Syrus said—about him using it to manipulate the city’s populace—he seems to be getting the results he wants with just the one.”

“He also said Hamlick hasn’t had it long,” said Azriah. “Do you think he even knows what it is beyond what it can do? I mean, how much would we know about the mirror if we’d retrieved it but never got ahold of Ajis’s book?”

“Do we even know what these things are, really? Even with the book?” asked Vit.

“Fair point.”

“He might not have the full picture, you’re right,” said Root. “But who knows what he’ll uncover if the power goes to his head and he starts digging.”

“I’d say the power has already gone to his head,” said Vit. “Have you seen it? It’s like it’s spilling down his neck.”

“As long as it’s not going to his legs,” said Root.

Beel looked at her. “You seem awfully focused on Hamlick’s legs.”

Root gagged. “Beel, I swear I will push you off this roof.”

“So we’ll make sure we take the periapt from him, then,” said Vit. “Help out the people. Make sure Hamlick doesn’t lead them all away into the woods or whatever he’s up to.”

Root nodded. She looked out across Midden—to the rooftops and towers and the trees far beyond, a speckled landscape of all colors (rather, most colors) washed in the silver light. Lights flared and buzzed in the wildlands, the dancing glow of spirits on their nightly prowl and great big mushrooms brightening and dimming as they hummed to one another amidst the trees. Flocks of things flapped in the air—birds and bats and things that could be likened to neither nor anything else of any familiarity to Root. It was still so unfamiliar, that world, so strange and ready to become stranger just as soon as she thought she understood a part of it, like it wanted to keep her on her toes—wanted to be unknowable.

Something leathery landed at the roof’s peak. It looked at them with its dark eyes and snapping beak until, at Beel’s pleading, Azriah shooed it away. It coasted out over the city, soaring over the streets as it clicked and swooped around chimneys. It disappeared suddenly in a flash of purple light and a sound like a reverberating sneeze that had been trapped in its body for years.

“What time is it?” asked Root, looking helplessly at the sky.

“Late. A few hours after midnight,” answered Vit with hardly an upward glance.

“So many people still on the streets.”

It didn’t rival the crowds of the day, but enough passersby zigzagged about to give a cart driver a headache, or to impede a squad of guards giving chase to some scoundrel, or that the strange bird that had disappeared probably got at least a dozen anonymous responses of “gesundheit” despite no longer being corporeal enough to hear or thank or, in better news, eat them.

“I’m going to head to bed,” said Vit, sliding off the gable and around to the base of the tall window.

“Me too,” said Beel. “Could someone help me down?”

Root looked over the edge. “How far are you hoping to go? ‘Down’ is generally an easy one to do without assistance. I think with just a bit of momentum you could even clear that building there.”

“Not funny,” said Beel.

“It’d be easier because you’re very round, I’d expect.”

Beel looked down at the window. “Vit, help. Please, Vit. Vit, wait, Root’s being mean. Vit, I think another one of those birds is coming. Vit. Please. Vit.” Vit, fortunately, had retreated somewhere out of earshot.

“All right, Beel, damn,” said Root. “Here. Come on.”

The three of them filed down off the roof and through the window, and then set off for bed.

Somewhere in the bowels of the church, an organist flexed his fingers. (He had quite a lot of them—thirty-four, including the three on each elbow—which made him a better organist, or at least better able to hit more of the keys more of the time, which was all the same to him.) When he finished flexing his fingers (this took some time, owing to the—yep, okay, you followed—the numerity of his fingers), he struck them all down at once onto the keys.

The wee hours of the morning provided the best opportunity to play, not because anyone was around to hear it, but because they weren’t, and, well… suppose he wasn’t really an official organist per se, but more of an aspiring organist who may or may not have been told “not to touch the organ under any circumstances or so help me.” But the “so help me” bit sort of sounded like a request, right? A request, perhaps, for helping out with the gritty details of the newest organ composition. And what aspiring organist would pass up such a career-launching opportunity?

(Perhaps if this particular organist had, instead of all those fingers, even a single pair of ears, he might have found his dream became a bit more attainable and a bit less of a nuisance to everyone else.)

He’d only play for a couple of minutes. No one would be bothered by the music, surely.

(Mostly true. One pair of ears slept through the couple of notes unbothered; three couldn’t hear them from out on the rooftop; one heard them, but the sound fit itself into the pliability of the unconscious mind; one jumped upright and shouted: “Get away from that organ this instant or so help me—!”)