“A dead brawler?” Tazien curled her lip, shoving both fists onto her hips until her silk cuffs crinkled. She forced her voice into a shrill, petulant register that set her own teeth on edge. “Is that what you call proper manners now, brother? I scrape through a tunnel full of scuttling filth, my hemline is shredded beyond salvation, and you accuse me of imitating some gutter rat? I have never been so insulted in all my days!”
Vorath blinked, his iron jaw slackening by an inch. The dark intensity in his gaze flickered, instantly replaced by flustered guilt. “Nysella, I only meant—”
“I don't care what you meant!” She stomped a heel against the brass-rimmed flagstones, producing an ear-splitting ring. “Look at me! My sleeves are ruined. My curls are flat. If I am to attend the Crystal Gala as the future Lady of House Pellin, I refuse to look like a soot-sweeper. You will escort me to the Upper Ring boutiques immediately, or I shall tell the High Council you abandoned your kin to despair!”
Pellin, still frozen in his absurd fighting pose, choked on his own tongue. He lowered his fists slowly, looking at Tazien as though she had grown a second head. “A… boutique? Right now?”
“Silence, Pellin!” Tazien snapped, glaring daggers at him. “A lady requires silk before treason! Or rather—before social ruin! Move!”
Vorath straightened up, his massive shoulders rolling back as his instincts shifted from grim inquisitor to panicked guardian. “Of course. A dress. We shall acquire the finest velvet in Vohl. You will have seven of them. Ten! Guards, clear the transit tubes!”
Thirty minutes later, the stench of subterranean grease gave way to thick clouds of powdered lotus and heated lavender. Madam Brume’s Gilded Pavilion sat precariously on the Eighth Promenade, its bay windows overlooking the radiant steam fissures of the crater below. Mannequins shaped from polished brass displayed shimmering gossamer gowns spun from pressurized vitreous fiber.
Vorath stood sentry square before the dressing parlor’s double doors, arms folded across his breastplate like an armored gargoyle. Every time a tailor approached with measuring tape, the big man growled until the poor clerk scurried behind a curtain.
“Take all the hours you require, little one!” Vorath bellowed through the mahogany panels, loud enough to rattle the prismatic chandeliers. “Nobody disturbs my sister while she prepares for her debut! Pellin, stay outside with me.”
“Actually,” Tazien purred, poking her head through the doorway and grabbing Pellin by his embroidered lapel, “my fiancé must inspect the corsetry. It is crater tradition. Stand watch, brother!”
She yanked Pellin inside and slammed the door, throwing the brass bolt.
“Are you entirely mad?” Pellin hissed, adjusting his crushed collar with trembling fingers. “You dragged us to the most expensive dressmaker in the metropolis while the Wraiths are crawling through the foundation!”
“Shut your mouth and look up,” Tazien muttered, tossing aside a monstrosity of pink tulle. She pointed toward an ornate brass grille near the ceiling. “Madam Brume’s back wall shares a ventilation axis with the Spire’s administrative wing. Specifically, the Headmaster’s private vault. That’s where the conspirators file off-record supply manifests.”
Pellin adjusted his spectacles, his scowl deepening as he inspected the blueprint etched in his own mind. “The master intake flue. It routes straight past the archive seals. How did you know that?”
“I spent three years casing these ducts back when I had decent calluses,” she muttered, kicking off her delicate slippers and hiking her petticoats into her waistband. “Climb on my shoulders. Unlatch the grate.”
“I will not step upon a noblewoman’s—”
“Pellin, if you don't put your boot on my clavicle in the next two seconds, I’m going to throw you through the ceiling.”
Pellin swallowed hard, scrambled onto her back with all the grace of a frightened crane, and jammed his pocket knife into the vent’s filigree latch. The mechanism popped with a metallic click. Tazien shimmied up beside him like a spider, completely ignoring the tearing sound of expensive satin.
The duct smelled of dried ink, ozone, and old wax. Crawling on their bellies through the narrow metal tunnel, they moved twenty yards before dropping through an open service hatch onto a plush crimson rug.
The vault was lined with towering shelves of cold-rolled iron. In the center sat an ebony desk cluttered with wax seals and glass ampoules.
“Hurry,” Tazien whispered, her street instincts razor-sharp. “Find the coil insignia.”
Pellin rifled through the desk drawers, his fingers flying across parchment sheets with frantic speed. “Receipts for ballast stones… freight licenses… here! The manifest for sub-vent seven. It details three hundred crates of dormant resonator cores routed straight to the lower fissures under the Headmaster’s personal seal. It’s him. He’s deliberately baiting the swarms to collapse the Spire!”
“Tuck it into your tunic,” Tazien commanded, grabbing his arm. “We have to get back before Vorath decides to break the boutique door down just to ask if I prefer emerald or ruby.”
As Pellin spun around to shove the thick ledger into his doublet, his elbow clipped a silver tray resting on a pedestal. A porcelain chalice wobbled, tipped, and shattered against the edge of a brass brazier.
A pale blue liquid hissed against the coals, instantly flashing into a thick, shimmering cloud of indigo steam.
“Hold your nose!” Pellin gagged, coughing violently as the sweet, sharp scent of crushed veritas root filled the chamber. “It’s Inquisitor’s Dew! The Headmaster keeps it boiling for interrogations!”
Pellin inhaled deeply on accident, choking on the vapor. His pupils dilated into massive black pools, and a strange, dreamy smile spread across his flushed cheeks.
At that exact second, the vault’s emergency sirens began to wail—a shrill, mechanical clanging that echoed off the stone walls.
From the other side of the heavy vault door, a voice roared like an avalanche: “NYSELLA?!”
The iron portal didn't just swing open; it exploded inward. The heavy steel lock sheared in half as Vorath’s boot collided with the center panel, tearing the hinges clean out of the masonry. The giant burst into the room, his thermal-blade ignited in a blinding blaze of white heat, eyes scanning for assassins, monsters, or kidnappers.
“Step away from her!” Vorath bellowed, his blade leveled straight at the center of the room. Then, he paused. He took in the shattered tea service, the open ledgers, and Tazien standing barefoot with her dress tucked into her bloomers. “What is the meaning of this? Why are you in the high archives? Did this boy force you here?”
Tazien scrambled to block Pellin, her mind racing. “Vorath! Wait! We were just looking for—we heard a sound, and Pellin thought—”
Pellin swayed on his feet. The veritas vapor had taken full hold of his nervous system, stripping away every ounce of aristocratic restraint. He giggled, a hollow, helpless sound, and aimed a trembling, righteous finger squarely at Tazien’s face.
“She’s not actually my fiancée!”