“So how will you get there?” asked Miasma, her eyes were wide and frightened in dim room. The noises from the street had subsided a little but it felt like only a pause. Like the quiet in the storm between thunderclaps. “You cannot go out there.” Ilyria looked at Astrapi. “Miasma is right. I need help getting to the Palace,” said Ilyria. “Can’t you just,” said Flame, standing and stretching her back with a crack. Fierce looked up drowsily from where she was now sleeping on the floor. Flame waved her hands around, “I don’t know, make magick to get there like you did to get here?” “It only works if I know the place I’m going to very well. I must be able to visualize it clearly. That’s why it’s always easiest for me to come back here. It’s the place I find most easy to think of.” Especially when she was scared or sad or angry. When does a place become a home? And when does love turn to deception. Was Suluu a deception? Ilyria stood and walked ove

“Suluu,” she said. Though her mind was racing she could not find the words to say to the man who had spent intimate days, weeks with. The man who she had even considered having a baby with. The man who she had betrayed Astrapi with. “Ilyria,” said Suluu. His voice cracked and she saw his need. Why do you stay away from me, his grey eyes seemed to ask, why do you not run toward me? She remembered the feel of the water against their skins. It was the last true memory. The water at the oasis. The feel of his mouth catching the water droplets that ran down her skin. The cool night air on their bodies. And then he was gone. She could not bring herself to recall the time lost in Utzed. That was an illusion that felt unfair. A conjuring of the twisted minds of the sirens. Not what she had wanted, Madame Skia had been wrong. The sirens had taken her loves and turned them all into physical desire only. There was so much more. She looked at Suluu standing in hi

Astrapi was shouting something at her, but she could not hear him over the sound of the sandstorm. Her ears were filled with the shifting, sighing sand that felt as if it coated every inch of her. Beneath her scarf she licked her lips and her tongue came away coated with it. So far, Menos was more like the City of Sand than the City of Earth. Astrapi was still shouting and she turned her head, to see him, irritated as the tiniest exposed parts of her skin were strafed. He was holding up his arm and pointing at it. His arm? He wanted to show her something on his arm? Her arm. Of course, the codes. It would be impossible to bring out the map in this storm though so what good would the codes be. She held up her arm, shaking her head and as she did so, the sleeve fell. Something bright red and blinking shot out from her arm and hovered directly in front of her face. Astrapi was nodding and gesturing with his hand to move forward. She took a step and the b

“What in Oren’s name was that?” said Ilyria, fighting to control her temper. There was no time for it. They had a job to do here, and they were down to roughly three days by her calculation in which to do it. “You were laying unconscious one minute in a ridiculous room full of mirrors and now you are here? What is going on? Is this what you had pictured?” Astrapi held up his hands in surrender. “Forgive me, Ilyria,” he said, his tone contrite, “This,” he said turning around and gesturing toward the hall around them, “This is what I remembered, this where I tried to take us.” Ilyria’s anger abated as she saw that Astrapi’s apology was genuine. “I remembered too late about the defense system. And then,” he smiled at her, “I remembered that you would figure it out and that there was nothing to worry about.” “What kind of a defense system is a room full of mirrors?” said Ilyria, “And what if I had not?” There was a brief flicker of worry across As

Ilyria stared up at the sky. Impassive and beautiful, it was streaked through with magenta where dawn’s light broke through the darkness. Yet it augured no hope in her, only sadness as to what would become of them all. Astrapi, if he were even still alive, would he be condemned to life as the Lightning Bird, forever at the outskirts of life and love? Zlo would rule with cruelty, of that she had no doubt. Her mother’s destruction would be complete. Madame Skia? Thassa? Nicos? They had survived since the One World. But would they survive this? She shook her head, thinking of the companions. Bonbon—did she even know what Thassa was? Loulou and the Mogul would never have a chance to fight for a love that the Palace would probably never tolerate. From what she now knew of the Princess, Ilyria felt certain that she would never allow her son to marry someone she herself had not selected. Ilyria had glimpsed the cold cruelty that lay beneath her enchantment. Miasma? Miasma could not survive