"Clivia, we call the beasts. The Ancients preferred another term, lost now to time. They counseled us not to purge the creatures from the land and warned us of moral transgressions, lost opportunities, and dire consequences. Yet the Holy Ovidiana counsels otherwise; all bestia populations must be controlled and, where they cannot be controlled, eliminated."

--from "Holey Holies",
out of A Garden of Fragrant Heresies

*~*~*~*

Tea time arrived, and Buccina found her daughter's bedchamber door closed and locked. Again.

She stared at the walnut door and forced herself to study its marbled black grain and brilliant blue lapiz trim. A deep breath in through her nose smothered some of the restless pressure within her belly to see the girl, but it rose anew as she exhaled. Despite her efforts to master herself, her hands shook as the door separating her from her youngest daughter remained barred.

Everyone had nearly died five days ago, and she wanted to see her child. Needed to see her child. She needed to reassure herself that her child was safe and well.

But her child did not want to see her. The girl burned with righteous fire and Buccina could not begrudge her anger. Not after everything Lyra had witnessed the past three days.

The brutal sentencing of a boy Lyra's tender age.

The horrific pageant of a public execution.

The dreadful coronation of a royal hostage.

And Lyra's royal mother, present at every awful moment. Complicit in all the horror.

No wonder the justice-loving girl hated her. No wonder Lyra feared what might come after the barrage of monstrous events. Buccina shared her disgust over what had happened and her dread of the future that, with a single death, had lurched a step closer to fruition.

Buccina closed her eyes and swallowed, but the scene played over and over against the back of her eyelids. The boy sank to his knees. Fell.

Sank to his knees. Fell.

Sinking.

Falling.

A small adjustment could fix this misery. A little snip with promenia, and she'd be free of the horrible memory. But some things must never be forgotten.

Sinking.

Falling.

She drew a deep breath and opened her eyes, then turned to the uncomfortable Electi escorting her.

The young man shifted from foot to foot, his face darkening as though he'd been the one to refuse his Princeps's morning visit. "Please forgive the girl, Basilicus. She has an artist's temperament." He frowned at the door's keyhole. "Shall I summon the Keeper of Keys?"

"No, Promerenti. But I expect to see Lychnis in two hours." She tilted her head. "Or is it Lytra?"

"Her name is Lyra, Basilicus," the man said crisply.

Buccina waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever. I expect her to join my retinue for the funeral."

"Very well, Basilicus. Shall the other artists also--"

The door flung open, revealing Lyra, barefoot and wild-haired in her feminine ivory and masculine turquoise layered paenulas. Buccina tried not to drink in the sight of her daughter, furious but safe, in too obvious a manner.

"Basilicus," the girl said, voice and body stiff with restrained fury, "I'm not feeling well and ask to be excused from the funeral."

Buccina's eyes narrowed. "A Princeps has died, young Erus. You shall show him the respect he is due."

"Respect, Basilicus?" Lyra's dark eyes narrowed in scorn. "As the Five Thrones showed him respect when you murdered him? When you discarded him after all his hard work like garbage and made it likely that... that--" She broke off, shaking her head, and then continued in a heated rush. "The other boy is untrained! He'll never be able to hold the Trellis even if he manages to restore it! And then..." She shook her head again and her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she glared at Buccina. "How could you do this?"

The Electi went rigid. "You will mind your tongue when addressing your Princ--"

Buccina held up a hand and smiled painfully, the quirk of her lips tugging at her scars. "Lyra's artistic passion is why I accepted her into my household," she said and then narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "And because she is a member of my household, and serves at my pleasure, I expect to see her in my retinue at Princeps Daedalus's funeral. See it done."

The Electi glanced at Lyra and grimaced at the night-dweller girl. "Of course, Basilicus," he said, his voice reluctant. Buccina didn't blame him; Lyra, in her strange and unkempt fashion, looked like something that might bite if provoked. "And the other artists-in-residence as well?"

Buccina nodded. "Of course." She flicked her daughter a warning look. The girl needed to start being far more careful. Anyone looking at them too closely might see past the scars to the family resemblance. "She's not special, after all."

<>

At last, he'd found one. Haedus grinned. And not just any one, but one just far enough gone to earn him an extra coin or two from the Shadow Man.

It had taken him three days after the man in the hooded paenula visited him and pressed a shiny gold in his palm. He'd searched Vola Apertus's icy cold insulas, the gutters, and the trash heaps for a suitable prospect, avoiding the piles of glowing rubble from Trellis Descent the other Pullati had swept into the alleys.

He'd even checked to see if there might be anything useful after yesterday's clivia attack at the textile mill, but nothing remained but bloodstains and broken cages covered in a weird bluish-white webbing. The stuff was beautiful, with a glossy iridescence, but he knew better than to try snatching it. He'd never heard of clivia doing that, whether in captivity or out in the wild, but caution overwhelmed curiosity; the fibers were probably poisonous. And he'd had a hunt to continue.

Finally, this morning, abandoned in a pile of rags, he'd at last found something that met all of the characteristics his patron had told him to look for.

"Come on," Haedus told Lenis as the younger Pullatus helped him drag his prize into the sewer. "I'll give you ten percent if you hurry the hell up."

"What's the rush?" the girl asked, wrinkling her nose as her bare feet slapped in the filth. "And you owe me twenty percent." She dry-gagged again and then grimaced. "This is so gross."

"Fine." The amount didn't matter; Haedus wouldn't be giving her anything. Not this time. "Just hurry. It has to be there in time for pickup."

"Pickup?" Lenis asked, grunting as together they tossed their burden into a somewhat cleaner corner. "Who the hell would want this thing?"

"Best not to ask," Haedus said, reaching into his pocket and feeling tender shoots.

He chewed a slender sprig as Lenis, groaning, bent over the sewage to retch in disgust at the foul stench. Haedus walked up behind her and the girl barely had time to blink at the blue light flaring against filth before promenia surged into her.

A few snips at the other kid's short-term memory and a suggestion that maybe it would be best to go find water to bathe, and off Lenis wandered.

A footstep splashed behind Haedus and he whipped around.

"You cut it close," the Shadow Man chided.

Haedus frowned at his sometimes mentor, sometimes customer. The man's face, as always, remained hidden within his hooded paenula behind writhing shadows.

"You didn't give me much time, Aedificanti," he grumbled and grinned as his mentor pressed a fat purse into his hand. Then he heard the hum and saw the wavering distortion gathering around the Shadow Man and frowned. "What? You're wiping my memory?" The Shadow Man had never done that after any of the other work he'd given Haedus.

"It's too dangerous for you to remember this time," the man's gravelly voice rumbled.

"But--" Haedus blinked, unsure what he'd been about to say. Or why he smelled like lavender and mint soap. He sniffed his clean black tunica and scowled in dismay. Just great, every mark would smell him coming long before he got a chance to snatch anything from their pockets.

He wandered out of the insula he shared with Lenis and the other orphans and, grumbling stepped into the weird new unchanging crimson morning light.

Best to go find some water to cleanse away the herbal stench. Though the Eternal Radiance only knew why the hell he smelled like such a dunce.

<>

The pockmarked boy wasn't what he seemed. Vola Apertus's Rex Pullati hadn't the foggiest notion who and what the hell the ebony-skinned boy was--some lifeholder probably, seeing as the creepy kid hadn't grown a bit in the ten years Caryon had known him.

"What now?" Caryon growled. He already sheltered two fugitive Lightholder kids and two political prisoners the Rex left no stone overturned to find. The last thing Caryon needed to add to his dangerous guest list was some eerie unaging lifeholder kid.

"Just a small favor," the boy said, his crooked grin putting double rows of broken, rotting teeth on display.

Caryon glared. "I've done you plenty of favors." Made things and people come and go, mostly, and for a nice bit of coin, too. But the world teetered on the brink of destruction and Pullati would be the first to go if everything went south. Certain risks of the past could not be taken now. "What do you want?"

The boy shrugged and led him over to an ox cart. Six large crates sat stacked in neat rows. "For you to take some goods off my hands."

"Open them," Caryon said, sighing. Some risks could not be taken; some opportunities could not be passed up. "Let's see what you've got."

"Oh, I think you want to open these inside," the boy said, that disturbing smile spreading over his face anew.

"No, I don't think so. Open them up."

Sighing, the boy did as he told, prying the first crate open with a crowbar just enough for Caryon to squint through the crack. And gape.

"No! Hell no, not here! Go elsewhere."

The boy shrugged closing the crate. "If I go elsewhere, I take these with me," he said and pried open the second crate.

Caryon should know better than to look. Yet curiosity got the better of him and he found himself leaning over the next opened crate. And stared, mouth ajar.

"For your revolution," the boy said slyly, nudging the top layer of consecturi aside to show that the crystalline weapons filled the entire crate.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Caryon said.

"Then I suppose you have no use for these," the boy said, shrugging. "Or the other four crates filled with food, medical gear, and cold-weather clothing. And the ten other carts full of crates full of nice things I would love to send your way each week."

Caryon gritted his teeth. This was one of those temptations it would be idiotic and probably suicidal to indulge. But it would also be idiotic and suicidal not to accept. He doubted that the boy would let him live after what he'd just seen.

He massaged the bridge of his nose, where a headache throbbed. "Help me bring this stuff inside."