The Celestial looked like a white rat dressed in a jewelled vest, except she towered taller than any building he had seen, in Sutao or Tarkan. She was preoccupied with an object in her pink little hands, a puzzle or a work of art, gems and wires arranged in the symmetries of the thirteenth order... or at least Xi thought it was the thirteenth. Maybe he should not have had abandoned the study of symmetries a decade ago, but who knew it could come in handy.

"You!" the Celestial's voice clapped like a whip of a thunder-god in the folk-tales of the Kazagi people that Rustam Bei recorded on Master Jiang's request. Neither of his masters knew that he'd copied the scroll and read it instead of the treatise on--- what was it? An elaboration on the dark enigma of being?

The rats' muzzles lifted up and pointed towards the sound of their Mistress's voice, quivering with adoration. One put its head on her slippers and squeaked. The Celestial leaned forward to tickle her ears, but her ruby eyes remained on Sayewa and Xi. The two of them prostrated themselves.

"Why are you here again, little one? More troubles? That's a different human, did you have to replace that other specimen? So short-lived, so fragile, regrettable, regrettable... and where is the unstable hybrid?"

"The unstable hybrid had perished, because he refused to follow your instructions, Your Elevated Grace," Sayewa replied softly.

Xi sighed. He was kneeling before the Celestial, and the Celestial wanted to know about Yu. He should have known.

"That's unfortunate, but that's in situ experimentation for you. Bench testing is so much more controllable. Well, chuck that into the dustbin. You did not come here to upset me with the failure, did you, little one?"

"No, Your Elevated Grace, I did not." Just like with the Son of Heavens earlier, Xi felt that Sayewa held sway over the person in power, even as she knelt in front of them.

"Go on," the Celestial blurted out impatiently.

Sayewa recited the same tale as she had recited in the palace. The Celestial listened, paws folded in her lap.

"Dragons only now went extinct without new strains added? How marvellous!" An excitment gave way to a frown that ran the length of her white furry nose. "The Philosophy Group 3568 must never know. They will never shut up about it."

The Celestial rubbed her pink palms together, then imploded onto herself, while keeping her form intact. Xi's mind struggled with the process, though not the result. The result was as clear any elegant solution: the Mistress of Rats was now of the same height as they were.

Her paw touched his shoulder. "Get up from your knees, please. Your insistence on this antiquated tradition is getting on my nerves. Plus, I shudder to think how bad the wear and tear is on the pants."

Xi rose, fixing what he gleaned from the Celestial's understanding in his memory, hopeful that he could recreate it, maybe even in Tiandi.

"He is on the small side." the Celestial observed critically, after walking a full circle around him and poking him unceremoniously in the ribs.

An irrational fear that the Mistress of Rats checked him in the same manner a cook chooses the foodstuffs at the market ruffled Xi's feathers. Not feathers, I'd never had feathers, I was not a chick, not a fenghuang, not truly, it was just a name... He threw a panicked glance at Sayewa. You did not bring me here as a sacrifice, did you?

Sayewa's face was serene, and her blooms - white again, pink in the middle, as innocent as the first day of spring.

The Celestial circumnavigated Xi one more time. "I will provide you with the information you need to start a new generation of dragons in exchange for you carrying out a simple assignment."

"We are yours to command," Sayewa pledged.

"You will enter the Forge of Eternity, and bring me a sample of the alloy used by the Craftsmen 11239."

"Are they also Celestials?" Xi piped in.

"Who else would they be?" the Mistress snapped. "Follow me, I will show you the mark."

A secret door opened in the wall, large enough to let the Celestial through. Beyond it was a hall and a set of stairs, quite ordinary except they were shrinking a few steps ahead of their hostess from gigantic to suitable. Another door at the end of the hall opened up on what Xi deemed to be 'the outside'.

It was a mess, a bright bewildering mess.

Xi twisted his head around trying to guess the purpose of the unfamiliar shapes.

A floating tower flipped to its side arched upwards in its middle to become a bridge over a stampeding herd of stone pillars.

He saw buildings and the mushrooms taller than buildings, along with the stacked cubes of shiny glass. The sun looked more like a full moon, but pale and large, its light was magnified and reflected by contraptions made from the same shiny glass giving everything unnaturally bright colours.

An upside-down tree reached to the skies with its roots to snap flying shapes out of the air.

The flying shapes defied description, apart from 'complex' and make Xi regret abandoning his studies of symmetry yet again.

If Xi had to describe the Heavenly Realm in one word, he would have picked 'busy'.

Between the strange objects, the strange creatures moved in groups or on their own, some resembling familiar animals, some - nothing at all, ranging in size from ants to small mountains. Their multitudes filed past him, and nobody took a second look.

A colossal figure with a nose of a crane apologized brusquely for nearly stomping on them. Then it turned around and squinted through the golden disks set over its nose. "Q-347, aren't these invasive species?"

"No," the Mistress muttered, "they are nothing to write home about, just a couple of curio. I will release them in a few days."

The crane-head shook a human finger and boomed, "I am sure I had seen them on a list somewhere... I can't recall which one, but don't stir trouble. We do not want a repeat of the Maddanian fiasco."

The Mistress of Rats chuckled. "It's nothing like Madda, I assure you!"

The other Celestial harrumphed but let them go. The Mistress stayed to the shadows after waving the crane-head off, taking sharp turns and doubling back a few times.

Finally, they ended up on a platform that overlooked a maze of pipes, pistons and cauldrons.

"There." The Mistress pointed to transparent straws that ran out of the vats, gleaming red with a boiling liquid. "That one. Take samples of everything it is being mixed with."

After giving these precise instructions, the Mistress dissipated into a wisp of smoky-gray air, leaving Xi alone with Sayewa and a dozen or so transparent containers in a white box.

Xi picked the box up and focused preparing to float them into the middle of the mayhem below.

Sayewa put a staying palm on his shoulder. "Look at the structure, and ignore the strange things, Chong Xi. The layout has logic."

She was right. What they could see was an outdoor portion of the plant, with everything sealed, and all the conductive structures - the shining straws - leading into another building. Its huge central gate was shut.

"You will set us down there." She pointed at a tight space behind a large vat. "Then we will unlock that door."

He had to squint to see the side entrance a bit off the ground, accessed by a flimsy spiral ladder. "I can get us on the ladder."

Sayewa scoffed. "I know mages love birds, but I do not wish to swing like a chick on a too thin of a branch. We will climb single file, you preceding me to ensure the structure is sound."

"As you wish, Serene Mother." Xi cocked his brow. The last thing he suspected Serene Mother of was being self-conscious about her weight.

They landed on the gravel-covered ground without attracting notice, but getting up the ladder proved trickier. Xi would have thought that the ambient noise of the huffing furnaces, pounding pistons and churning metal would cover his steps, but no! It was amazing just how loudly the rusty steps could squeal - or how sensitive the ears of an inexperienced thief could be.

Xi could swear every step he took resonated through the entire Heavenly Realm, despite him having no idea how vast the land was. His mother had probably been roused out of her sleep in Zushulin by the loud thumping of his heart! And Minh... he clenched his jaw. Minh is a world away, lost to me.

"The landing is secure, if tight," Xi reported down to Sayewa.

"Good, good." She nodded but made no attempt to follow him. "Chong Xi, the magic I wield is similar to that of the Celestials, except much weaker. Anything locked against them will be locked against me. Your hsin magic stands a better chance to cut through their wards."

"Oh." Xi chewed his lip. The light of understanding that had nothing to do with magic illumined him. This is how his abilities complimented hers. "You insisted on bringing me along as a lockpick? Or do you wish me to branch out into pick-pocketing as well, Serene Mother?"

"Chong Xi, I had once begged on the streets of Askala for seven days covered in filth to get us this far. I do not ask of you what I would not ask of myself."

There must have been words better suited to make him feel like a sulking boy. If so, he was grateful Sayewa did not have time to search for them.

"Be careful."

Ah, she found them, the words. Hunching his shoulders against her kindness, Xi turned away, focusing... focusing...

He pushed at the door with his palm, and it started rotating inward, opening a crack.

"It was not—"

"Just get inside and wait for me." The faery rolled her top pair of eyes upward while searching the surroundings with the remaining two. This ocular redundancy was a handy thing.

Xi slipped through the narrow opening, daring not to open the door wider. Inside, he would have plastered himself against the wall even if he was not playing at a crook.

The noise level tripled. The automatons crowded the low warehouse-like building, outlandish, frightening, relentless in performing their tasks. A host of blobby creatures zipped through the air, and glided along the floors and the walkways at staggering speeds. The blobs felt alive, the automatons did not.

Sayewa closed the door behind Xi's back. He noticed with relief that she took care to leave it a hair short of being shut all the way.

Together, they watched the dashing creatures frolic to the deafening drumbeat of the workshop.

"They look like jellyfish with butterfly's wings," Xi whispered. "Or two beetles glued together by their backs."

"Hmph, interesting comparison," Sayewa said. He could hear her over the din only because they huddled together. "What I see is that they are of the solid element, rock and metal, with a bit of the vapour element added in. Hence, I can conceal us among them. Step closer, Xi."

A part of him expected her arms to draw him into a comforting embrace, and the rest of him riled with shame at the thought. He was a war mage, curse it!

"Xi?"

He shifted another inch closer to her. Sayewa threw a curtain of her flower-heavy hair over him, draped her arm over his shoulders. Step by step, she led him through the crowd of the elementals. Her hair, her arm, her chin at his forehead, her warmth... he had to slow his breath down to keep his mind clear.

That he managed not to trip over his feet and was able to keep the tremors out of his voice by the end of their journey testified to the rigours of his training. "I will take a look."

What he promised to look at was another door, this one of frosted glass. Above it, the twisted straws and spirals filled with the flowing metals formed conjunction before pushing through the wall into the room behind the door.

Xi trusted Sayewa to remember the substance that the Mistress of Rats had wanted, because he did not. He was just a lockpick, a boy who knew magic tricks. He tried the door but his luck ran out. Still sheltered under the faery hair, he knelt and poured all of his focus into understanding the locking mechanism.