Chasing Sunlight

Jonathan stepped off the paternoster and approached the gangplank to the courier ship, which had the name Lady Green painted in large letters across the hull, determined to get some answers. The logo over the ship’s narrow door was that of the Leary Company, one of the old and venerable names for transport, so Jonathan altered his approach accordingly. An aggressive walk became a confident stroll, and his grip on his cane went from ready for action to elegant sophistication.

There were no crew out front to receive callers, so Jonathan rapped on the metal door with his cane handle. He didn’t have long to wait, as a mere few seconds later the door opened to reveal an aged airman with a drooping moustache and a face dominated by heavy jowls. The airman’s look of annoyance shifted as he took in Jonathan’s impeccable suit, expensive cane, and patient-but-friendly expression, and he reached up to touch his cap.

“What c’n I do for you, sir?”

“My name is Jonathan Heights, owner of one of the airships docked here. We’ve had trouble with some thieves and I believe they are trying to implicate your ship in the incident.” No captain or crew ever wanted trouble of any sort, so convincing them to help him required a certain finessing of the truth. Not that Jonathan was afraid to resort to an outright lie, but he found they were rarely necessary.

“I’ll have to get the Captain, Mister Heights,” the airman said, and Jonathan nodded amicably. He tapped the cane lightly against the gangplank as he waited, no more than another minute or so before a much younger man in a crisp lieutenant’s uniform appeared to usher him inside. The Lady Green’s age was visible, and despite being impeccably clean the floor and doors and hatches were worn, the glass windows slightly hazy. The bridge was barely larger than his cabin aboard the Endeavor, with a navigation array good for little more than determining north from south — but couriers only ran between cities, so they were never out of sight of landmarks.

“Mister Heights, what’s this about?” The captain was overly portly, with pinched eyes and a mangled ear. He didn’t invite Jonathan to sit.

“A thief stole aboard my ship and took certain navigational maps,” Jonathan said, which certainly got the captain’s attention. “Due to certain evidence, I believe that the perpetrator was trying to direct us toward your most recent passenger. A man from Beacon, I believe?”

“Aye, that he was,” the captain said cautiously.

“Do you happen to know who he represented, or where he went?” Jonathan remained affable, but a hardness behind his eyes made the captain and the able airmen next to him somewhat nervous. “Then I can leave you be and bring trouble to those that deserve it.” The captain’s eyes flickered, gauging Jonathan’s demeanor, then finally he heaved a sigh.

“A mister Harrington, with the Society of Explorers. He said we could send any missives to the Faithful Respite, in the merchant’s quarter.” The captain didn’t seem happy to say it, but Jonathan couldn’t detect any notes of falsehood. Especially since he could well believe the Society would be so petty as to steal his maps — likely they wished to before, but had been constrained by both the Crown and Reflected Council presence in Beacon.

Hiring a mercenary ship to harass an exploration vessel was an outlandish expense regardless of who might have sent it — but that the Society in particular would squander its limited coffers on such a thing was more than passing strange. Jealousy was an ugly but powerful motivator, though whether it would bestir the amount of coin necessary for such an operation was an entirely different consideration. He didn’t recognize Harrington’s name, but with luck Jonathan could use the man to persuade the Society that interfering with him was a poor idea.

“Thank you, Captain. I assure you that you will hear no more about this affair,” Jonathan said, and the captain swallowed, then gestured for the lieutenant to escort him out. His cane tapped ominously on the metal decking of the ship to remind them what storm had passed them by, then on the gangplank with a brisk, determined punctuation as he left the courier ship behind. He found it fortunate they had been cooperative, as otherwise the Endeavor’s stay at Autochthon Reach would have likely become quite fraught.

Descending from the mooring towers, he once again found a hired carriage. The driver did know where the boardinghouse in question was, and while he gave Jonathan a doubtful look at the request, he let Jonathan off a few streets away. Jonathan’s silver coin was more than enough to silence any comments.

The gas-lamps of the merchant’s quarter cast faintly flickering shadows of passers-by on streets and walls, the big glass bells of the burners standing on tall iron lampposts that showed streaks of rust. He strolled along the street toward the boardinghouse, the sweet smell of the Reach’s waters mingled with the musty leather of old books, the sharpness of exotic spices, and the dull cold of old stone. None of the people seemed to pay him any particular attention, just one well-dressed gentleman among many, but there were a pair of burly men smoking pipes on the landing outside of the Faithful Respite that seemed a little too interested in anyone who came close by.

Jonathan thumped his cane on the cobbles of the street as he thought, passing by the boardinghouse and turning to enter a discreet cigar shop with an engraving of a lit match on the door. The hired muscle was fairly obvious, which meant that the Society expected trouble. As Jonathan was the only one who would be giving them trouble, it behooved him to take a more measured approach than simply kicking in the door. He browsed the selection for a few minutes as he considered options, handing the hovering clerk a few coins and tucking his purchases into his jacket, before he blinked and turned to a familiar figure entering the store.

“Not a coincidence, I take it?” Eleanor asked, tilting her head in the direction of the boardinghouse.

“If there is a coincidence here, it is only in the timing,” Jonathan said. “You tracked the maps rather quickly.”

“Petty criminals are very easy to persuade,” Eleanor said, her eyes glinting, and she clearly had not charmed it out of her targets. “I’m not impressed with this Harrington. He just had the goods sent here.”

“I doubt a member of the Society of Explorers is used to proper skullduggery,” Jonathan told her, offering her his arm. “I was going to consider a more surreptitious entrance, but I expect you have a way in already?”

“Of course I do,” Eleanor scoffed, laying her hand on his arm and adjusting her cloche hat so she presented the proper and refined image. “You’re lucky I saw you first, or else you’d have broken in for no reason.”

“No doubt,” Jonathan said with amusement, tipping his hat to the clerk as they emerged back onto the cobbles. They stood for a moment as a reckless driver drove a zint carriage past at a too-fast speed, the wheels beating a manic rhythm on the flagstones, then crossed to the far side of the street. Eleanor directed him into a nearby alley and down an areaway, where the gas light of the streets was cut off and the only illumination was the dim reflection from off-white walls.

She pushed open a door that Jonathan could have sworn was locked, and they were met with the bitter scent of rot and mold from an uncleaned basement, a pitch-black room of stacked crates and cluttered shelves. Eleanor had no problem with the darkness and neither did he, the two of them sliding through the cramped room in their own particular ways to where light leaked under a crack from the interior door. Jonathan turned the knob, and Eleanor went first, pointing up the stairwell.

“Third floor,” she said, and Jonathan nodded acknowledgement. The amount of scouting she’d done in the brief time she’d had was certainly impressive. His cane struck the stone stairs with the ominous finality of a closing coffin lid as they ascended, catching only glimpses of other tenants renting out the rooms. Despite the state of the basement, the boardinghouse seemed of fair quality, with rugs and dark-stained myceliplank paneling covering the off-white stone. Gas lamps flickered in sconces, sending shadows dancing against the walls as they climbed.

As befit a merchant boardinghouse, the centerpiece of each floor was a combination of study and office, where work could be done by those whose lives revolved around the exchange of coin. On the third floor, Jonathan could almost smell his maps, and he didn’t need Eleanor’s guidance to make a straight line to the closed door of the study. He flung it open with a bang, making the man inside jump and spill ink across the table that separated him from the door.

“Mister Harrington,” Jonathan said, as Eleanor slid into the room behind him. “I believe you have something of mine.” Harrington, if that was indeed his name, looking vaguely familiar. A pencil-necked, bespectacled fellow that seemed of the same breed that had pestered him before, back in Beacon. The sons and cousins of the real explorers, who thought they knew the truth without ever seeing it for themselves.

Harrington scooped up the maps, which despite being enciphered still drew the eye with dread import. Even when written in code, certain symbols held too much significance to be truly rendered safe. The heavy paper they were scribed on curled of its own accord, rolling into cylinders that Harrington gripped tightly as he narrowed his eyes at Jonathan.

“You,” he said darkly, which struck Jonathan as a particularly useless reply.

“My charts, Mister Harrington,” Jonathan said, taking a few steps forward and holding out his hand. Harrington jumped back, holding the maps threateningly out to the lit fireplace.

“Don’t come any closer,” Harrington warned.

“So those are, in fact, your maps?” Eleanor asked idly.

“They are,” Jonathan confirmed, gauging the distance from where he stood to where Harrington threatened the precious documents.

“Then hold onto them this time,” Eleanor told him, offering him the bundle of rolled papers, still warm from the fireplace. Jonathan took them gravely, and Harrington gawked down at his empty hands, unable to grasp how Eleanor had taken them.

“As for you…” Eleanor began, withdrawing a long dagger from where it was hidden inside her dress. Jonathan reached out with his cane to bar her path before she could do anything precipitous.

“A moment, Eleanor,” Jonathan said. “I think that first we should understand exactly who it is Mister Harrington represents and why.” Harrington straightened himself up, summoning a backbone and regarding the pair of them. Jonathan favored him with a humorless smile. “Perhaps he will be of use taking a message to his masters. The Society of Explorers, I believe?”

“You certainly know who I am,” Harrington said with dignity. “I very much doubt you have anything to say to me. Not after you ignored our warnings!”

“Nobody is going to stop me from finding sunlight,” Jonathan said, voice flat and eyes suddenly blazing. Harrison snorted.

“You can keep your fairy tale,” he said dismissively. “But it’s far too dangerous to venture out into the savage east. The things out there don’t need to know about us, about our kingdom. You don’t need to bring them down upon us.”

“That’s it?” Jonathan said in disbelief. “All that because you’re scared of a few savage tribes? I’m sure that’s what your masters told you.” Jonathan looked at Eleanor. “Shall I handle this?”

“Be my guest,” she said, tucking her dagger away and making herself obviously bored with the whole proceedings.

“You, Mister Harrington, will be carrying a message back to Beacon for me,” Jonathan said coldly, holding the man’s eyes. Harrington whimpered, unable to look away or even blink, his eyelids scorched from the force of Jonathan’s displeasure. “I don’t care how frightened the Society is. They’re petty and irrelevant cowards, quailing from the dark. I know what’s out there and how little humanity matters to any of it. If any of your agents cross my path again, I will destroy them. Whoever it is, whatever their rank or role. I will not suffer anyone barring my way to sunlight.”

Jonathan became aware he had advanced another few steps as he spoke, stopped only by the table; Harrington himself was nearly in the fire, clothes smoldering and glassy-eyed in panic. He snorted in disgust and turned away. Eleanor followed, and he only stopped for a moment on the stairs to rearrange the maps more properly. Then they swept out onto the street, past the toughs who lacked the wit to worry about someone leaving the boardinghouse.

“You know, you can be a little scary when you’re mad,” Eleanor said eventually. “I thought he was going to catch fire on the spot there.”

“He shouldn’t have stolen from me,” Jonathan said shortly. Eleanor chuckled.

The return to the Endeavor was entirely free of any drama, discounting the standard jolting and cursing of a driver navigating a busy city’s streets. Back aboard, Jonathan placed the maps in a more discreet location in his cabin, cognizant of how simple it was to access his safe. Most security was the theatre of it regardless, and anyone who was truly determined could get through any obvious lock. Soon enough the maps would be brought out and used, but once that was the case they would have no dock or port where some enterprising thief or saboteur could enter.

“You could use the ship’s safe,” Montgomery grunted, leaning against the jamb of the door to Jonathan’s cabin. “Or my quarters, if you want to.”

“Not yet, thank you,” Jonathan demurred. “It’s not that I distrust you, but it is a responsibility I am not yet ready to hand off.” He was also far more certain of his ability to repel any force or someone with more esoteric talents than Montgomery’s crew. When Antomine returned, Jonathan briefly emerged to give the inquisitor a suitably edited account of the incident, if for no other reason than to allow Antomine to decide how to field any official complaints.

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but Autochthon Reach seems to be under the sway of more temporal concerns than the Illuminated King and the Inquisition,” Antomine said, his voice hard. “I am not certain I can even trust them to properly treat the criminals I gave them.”

“Best to suggest to the captain to prepare to leave as soon as may be. If there’s trouble brewing here, we want no part of it.” Jonathan knew there would be trouble, from André if nobody else, but he wouldn’t admit that to an inquisitor. Antomine gave him a sour look but nodded and went to update Montgomery. Jonathan stayed in his room, going over his notebooks until late in the night.

A pounding on his cabin door woke him, and he rolled out of bed and glanced at the clock. The hour was an early one by Beacon reckoning and, while no city or even ship ever truly slept, anything stirring at such a time was like as not an emergency. When he opened the door a few seconds later, his suit pristine as usual, the youthful airman waiting there surrendered an envelope into Jonathan’s hands and disappeared without explanation.

The seal on the envelope was André’s, and Jonathan opened it with a scowl, skimming through the terse words inked on the thick paper. Then he sighed, dressed, and went to find Captain Montgomery. The situation was not quite an emergency yet, but did call for prompt action.

“I am aware it is an inconvenience,” Jonathan told Montgomery as the latter downed a hasty breakfast. “But we need to leave immediately. It may be coincidence or it may be aimed at us, but the Baron will be commandeering all ships to deal with a Rising.” It was true that sometimes things came from the Reach, and perhaps there was someone who could read the signs and know ahead of time, or it was simply engineered to tie up ships and men. An unacceptable delay regardless.

“Seems a bit cowardly,” Montgomery said, but he didn’t specify whether he meant running away or commandeering ships to deal with the local wildlife. “I’d prefer not to, but if you’re certain, I can take steps.”

“I’m certain,” Jonathan said. He could leave the captain to send runners and expedite or cancel shipments of supplies and all the other thousand and one details of making a ship ready for departure. “We’ll make do at Danby’s.”

“So long as we do find crew there,” Montgomery said, giving Jonathan a sour look. “You’re paying for it all, but it’s just not safe without enough people and supplies.”

“You are quite right, Captain,” Jonathan said. “And it goes against the grain to cede ground to these people, but our business is elsewhere, and this local trouble only delays us.”

“Then I have a lot of work to do,” Montgomery said, dropping his fork on his tin plate and standing. “Excuse me, Mister Heights.”

It took several painfully long hours before Montgomery had them ready to go. The ship’s whistle sang over the speaking-tubes as the mooring lines dropped and the Endeavor powered away from Autochthon Reach, most of the passengers gathered in the observation room to see the city slide away. Even Marie was there, sporting a number of bandages under new maid garments. Given the deadline Jonathan had set initially, he knew that was practically a miracle, yet it was barely enough.

Only minutes after they had slid away, the sound of bells came faintly through the air, and the yellow gas-fire of the lighthouse turned a smeared crimson. Antomine regarded the sight with his hands laced behind his back, and looked at Jonathan with a frown.

“We should help,” Antomine said.

“Certainly not,” Jonathan disagreed. “It’s why we left early. Even if it is a true emergency, the Endeavor is not heavily armed enough to make an impact.”

“Whether it is genuine or not, someone should be asking sharp questions about how and who had foreknowledge.” Antomine said, unable to restrain the Inquisitor’s impulse. Jonathan shook his head and didn’t bother arguing.

They left the possibly-besieged city behind, and Jonathan put it out of his mind. It would only matter on the Endeavor’s return, and that was hardly relevant. He was confident that Danby’s Point would have everything they needed, despite its distance from Beacon. The easternmost point of human civilization might have been a small outpost once, but when he’d last visited it had grown far beyond those humble beginnings.

He spent the few days of travel educating his companions so they would, at least, not bring disaster down upon their heads by way of simple ignorance. Jonathan intended to take command in any emergency or foreign encounter, but there were some rules they should all know. Certain hazards were hazards to all.

Danby’s Point was the end of the line, the illuminated track reaching its easternmost terminus at the base of a tall, zint-illuminated tower built into a solid face of bruised-purple rock. The blue-white light of human civilization sprawled along one side of a plateau, coming to the summit where zint competed with bruised purple and faint brown-orange; the lights of other races. Those strange and savage types met with humans at this one point, where the Inquisition was both at its strongest and its weakest. They bowed to the inevitability of trade on one hand, while trying to keep the contact contained and restrained on the other.

The shades and shapes revealed under the alien illumination both drew and repelled the eye, with colors that had no name or purpose in human lands and monoliths that formed strange angles repugnant to human sensibilities. The aberrant architecture crowded oppressively in on the straight and proud lines of familiar constructions, blurring the boundary and twisting the familiar into something objectionable. Jonathan couldn’t say whether the human presence on the plateau had gained or lost ground since he had last been there, but it was an ongoing and intense battle that involved violence not at all.

“That’s just not right,” Eleanor said, watching as the hostile construction of Danby’s Point drew closer. Antomine said nothing, his lips pursed in disapproval.

“The trinkets they bring back to Beacon are but the safest and tamest of what the Illuminated King allows,” Jonathan said, and Antomine sighed.

“It is true,” the young man conceded, as if it the words physically hurt. “There are some useful things that we have yet to be able to duplicate. Knowledge of movements in the dark we may have to marshal our forces to address.”

Montgomery brought the ship in to the mooring towers projecting from the top of the plateau, high above the train station below. Jonathan gathered certain items from his room, packing a satchel and slinging it over his shoulder. He had been intending to venture out on his own, but both Eleanor and Antomine were waiting as he left his quarters and presented a unified front.

“What better place to introduce us to the savages?” Eleanor asked, her arms crossed. “Unless you plan to keep us locked up in the ship the whole time, and in that case why did you bring us?”

“Very well,” Jonathan said, as he had merely been operating from habit. Few people liked to go into foreign places filled with foreign people. Those that inhabited Danby’s Point were at least marginally understanding of human viewpoints, and it might do to allow his companions to become inured to the presence of the unfamiliar. “We have business in the Tower, first, but beyond that — I suggest you arm yourselves.”

“I’m never not armed,” Eleanor said archly.

“I would think such advice obvious,” Antomine murmured, looking out at the unsettling illumination and twisted stone. Jonathan inclined his head, then led the way off the ship, leaving only a murmured message for Montgomery with the airman on watch. Out they went into the border settlement, the streets narrow and cramped and steep, the populace ever so slightly wild-eyed and frayed.

There were no carriages. The journey was by foot and by lift to the warehousing district, where Jonathan inspected and signed off on the enormous number of crates to be loaded onto the Endeavor. Even at the edge of civilization, proper paperwork drove everything, though Antomine’s presence as a member of the Inquisition did expedite matters.

That task performed, Jonathan led them to the boundary, both Eleanor and Antomine looking around with curiosity and caution both. Antomine’s guards, trailing behind, betrayed no emotion, but Sarah couldn’t help but hunch under the weight of the unnatural aura the abhuman buildings seemed to emit. The passing humans looked strange, too long or short of limb or eye or jaw, altered by dwelling so close to the denizens of the dark.

A great metal gate, lit by intense zint light, separated the human portion of the plateau from that claimed by darker forces, and passing under it they could see the influence was not one way. The further spires were the most twisted and hunched, while near the wall they had been pulled into straighter lines. Then there were the denizens, and Eleanor sucked in a breath at her first view of one of the nonhuman races.

Some were damnably familiar, going about on two legs with clothes that were a subtle mockery of human finery. These were the fractured, and would never be mistaken for human from the way their features flowed and distorted from one movement to the next. A face would change expressions, eyes, jawline, or beard from each angle, or sometimes simply be a blank mask of flesh. A leg might seem to skip from one position to another without traveling the intervening space; a hand might have too many fingers or not enough, both within the span of a few seconds. The ever-changing forms were a human seen through dark waters, bewildering and nauseating to contemplate.

By contrast, the other things, spindly many-limbed balls of black tar with unsettlingly human eyes, were less offensive. They were strange, true, and every movement carried with it an implicit threat of violence, but their very strangeness rendered the eye blind to the more disconcerting details of their existence. Such as how the smallest ones were no larger than a ship’s cat like Penelope, while some few rested among the spires, much larger than any building could hold and only barely comprehensible as something living, squatting in the pale orange lights they favored.

Both the nonhuman races claimed to be the spire-builders, but Jonathan knew better. They had been there before anyone, human, fractured, or tarfolk, had arrived at Danby’s Point. Yet even the earliest records had shown every artifact removed, every sign and symbol erased by some unknowable hand.

“It’s one thing to hear, but quite another to see,” Antomine said, eyes narrowed under his broad-brimmed hat.

“Take care not to insult our hosts,” Jonathan said, pointing the way down an irregular street where certain banners with a spiral design hung from above spire doors. “I doubt they would be so unwise as to attack us, but they may not be willing to trade.”

“Of course,” Antomine agreed, and Eleanor just shook her head, posture no longer relaxed as she took in the strange forms that surrounded them. They did not have far to go, as even Jonathan would not dare to travel too deep into the spires of Danby’s point, merely to the spiral-marked doors that led along crooked hallways to an interior courtyard lit with indigo. Some few humans stood among the fractured there, with no tarfolk in evidence.

“Jonathan!” The voice was sweet and husky and sounded like a noble lady, which made its source even more disturbing as a female fractured made her inconstant way to their group. While she was a beautiful woman, every angle and motion made her a different beautiful woman — except for those times when there was a glimpse of a monstrous form. “What are you doing back here? I thought you had gone on your last expedition.”

“So had I,” Jonathan admitted, removing his hat and offering her a bow. “But I found something worth pursuing.”

“And who are your friends?” The fractured turned to their group, eyeing Eleanor and Antomine specifically, several variations of a smile sliding across her face. “Oh, this one is cute,” she said, taking a step toward Antomine, and his stony expression showed the iron self-control he exercised to keep from stepping away.

“Tiuni, please do not try to seduce a member of the Inquisition,” Jonathan said with as much patience as he could muster.

“You’re no fun,” Tiuni accused him, and tilted her head at Eleanor. “What about this one?”

Eleanor was too shocked at being propositioned to even speak.

“We’re here on business, Tiuni,” Jonathan said gently, hefting his satchel. “The same as last time.”

“You never bring anything for me to play with,” Tiuni accused him, and despite the light tone the very thought made Jonathan’s skin crawl.

“I always bring something worthwhile, do I not?” Jonathan asked.

“I suppose,” Tiuni said, the pout in her voice obvious even if the face had a dozen different expressions as she looked between them. “Come on, then.” She sauntered off through the courtyard, other fractured and the few humans making way, and Jonathan followed after.

“Do we really need to deal with her?” Eleanor asked in a low tone, enough that Jonathan could barely hear it.

“It’s that or risk flying into hostile airspace,” Jonathan murmured back. Eleanor wrinkled her nose.

They slipped through an entrance made of unwholesome angles, the door clearly shaped wrong to the frame and yet fitting smooth and flush as it closed behind them. The room beyond was large enough for Jonathan’s entire entourage to crowd into, though it was built for forms less certain than their own. A long table dominated the center, and mementos of human artifice dotted the walls. Tiuni flickered to the end of the table and beckoned for the humans to sit in the twisted seats, but only Jonathan took her offer. Not that he blamed the others.

“I assume you have the information,” Jonathan said, withdrawing one of his maps from his satchel and spreading it on the table.

“I do,” Tiuni said primly. “Do you have the payment?”

“Certainly,” Jonathan said, and began taking the other items out of his satchel. Several books, small framed paintings, the menus from several taverns and restaurants. Tiuni eagerly snatched up one of the books, opening it and leafing through the pages.

“Is that…” Eleanor squinted at the cover. “Lady Grim’s Memoirs? The bodice-ripper?” She asked, baffled.

“There is a certain market for human literature,” Jonathan replied. He didn’t know what the fractured thought of human romance, but Tiuni had always been eager to take the more salacious volumes.

“I’ll accept these,” Tiuni said, fingers flicking in and out of existence as she dropped the book on the table. “Your information, then,” she continued, and turned to the map. Jonathan had copied out an uncyphered version, and the diagrams describing the lands beyond Danby’s Point were clear, if often painful to the eyes.

“The third house has ascended among the Thrantin, and their caravans have shifted here, here, and here.” Tiuni began to rattle off the movements and locations of forces and beasts from the savage lands to the east, where the Verdant Expanse grew and shifted like a changing tide, and ruins of ancient forces much like the twisted spires squatted.

None of it was beyond expectations, and as Jonathan made notes the potential routes narrowed. Tiuni was always his final stop before any venture beyond human lands, even if he wasn’t heading east. He had no idea how the fractured gathered all her information, but he’d found it all to be invaluable.

“That was a lie,” Antomine abruptly said, and Jonathan’s fingers halted just before he wrote the latest notation on the maps, closing off some of the better routes thanks to the Wandering Slough. Jonathan lifted his gaze from his map to look at Antomine, then at Tiuni.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Tiuni said, her voice suddenly dangerous and her features spinning through a dozen different expressions of disapproval. In response, Antomine stepped forward, white pupils glowing with a light very much like zint. It drowned out the dull indigo lamps on the walls and froze Tiuni into a single, ill-wrought form.

“You’ve never tried to deceive me before,” Jonathan said, not commenting on Antomine’s display, nor doubting his statement.

“I’m not—” Tiuni started, but hissed at Antomine, a sound not made by a human mouth. “What are you?” She demanded.

“Why did you lie?” Antomine asked in return. Jonathan quietly rolled up the map, as it was clear the frank exchange of information was at an end. While he had not known Antomine as long as Tiuni and had no real reason to trust the man, it would never do to forget Tiuni was not human. She was, ultimately, not on his side.

“Hmph.” Tiuni drew herself up, not incidentally stepping away from Antomine. “He returned from the farthest east. That is not something people do, and it would be better if it did not happen again. The secrets there should not be disturbed.”

“What do you know about sunlight?” Jonathan demanded, instantly alert. She had never shown any knowledge or even reaction about the topic before, but clearly things had changed.

“That myth?” Tiuni said derisively, continuing to step back until Eleanor appeared behind her with dagger at the ready. “It is the ancient things you might lead back here.”

“Then we are done here,” Jonathan said, putting the map in his satchel. He eyed the rest of the payment on the table, but didn’t bother retrieving it. It didn’t have any value outside of Danby’s Point anyway. “We have enough to go on.”

“What do I do with her?” Eleanor said, not quite touching Tiuni. Jonathan regarded the fractured that had been his source of information for years, and his father’s before him.

“Remove her,” he decided. “I’d rather she not turn the fractured against us.”

Before Tiuni could say a word, the dagger punched through the back of her neck. Despite the alien nature of the fractured, quicksilver blood poured forth and she dropped to the floor. Neither Antomine nor his guards flinched as Antomine let his illumination dim, likely not even caring about any nonhuman. Only Sarah asked a question.

“Won’t they be upset when they find out?”

“It’s always a risk when humans and nonhumans deal,” Jonathan said. “We won’t be back, and they won’t dare the human portion even if they know who we are. That said—” He glanced at the still-shifting body on the floor. “We should not linger. Let us retire to the Endeavor.”