Rianne had just thanked her when Aaro, seemingly finished with the bed sheets, turned toward her again. He nodded curtly at Astra, the kids, and the previous members of the group that had been playing cards. "Get out." The moment they were all outside the room, he moved to slam the door closed. Astra raised her eyebrows. Harsh.

She turned to look back at her companions. The males grimaced and gave her a half-hearted wave before they left down the hallway. Left in front of her was Rianne's and Myric's son, who had already sat down against the wall and was picking at his way too large gray shirt. Astra sat down criss-crossed across from him and tried to give him a reassuring smile.

"Well, I guess we're in for a long wait." The boy fidgeted with the loose seams at the edges of his shirt and then shrugged. Astra herself shifted, unsure what else to say, before she asked, "What's your name?"

There was a long, silent period of silence before the timid boy whispered, "Timothy." His voice was barely loud enough to carry to even Astra's enhanced ears. She ran a hand through her hair. The silence began again.

"Well, uh," she began, and then stopped. Timothy blinked at her. Damn, when was the last time she'd interacted with a child? She began again. "Well. My name is Astra." From his lap, his right hand came up halfway, before it shrank back down.

She asked, "Can I call you Timmy?" Timothy didn't react. Astra hadn't felt so self conscious in a while. "How old are you, Timmy?"

"Eight."

"Well Timmy, I'm seventeen." Timmy continued to blink his doe-like brown eyes at her. Astra couldn't restrain herself from glancing at the door behind her. How long did it take to birth a child?

When she had turned back around, Timmy had started fidgeting excessively again. The fabric thread he was twisting and untwisting was awfully long. It was frayed and looked like it had been there for a long time. No one had cut it, no doubt because there was nothing sharp in the army. Well, Astra thought with a wry smile to herself, nothing sharp except the sharp canines boasted by all wraiths.

"Are there really horses outside?"

She blinked in surprise at hearing the boy utter more than two words in a row. She refocused her eyes on Timothy's face instead of the gray thread he was still twirling in his hands.

"Outside? Probably in the stables."

"Stables?" he asked.

"You know, where the horses are kept." Timmy's blank expression had her reeling in confusion, and then, a second later, in suspicion. She asked, "Have you ever seen a horse before?"

Timothy twisted his hands, then said, "Mama always reads to me my favorite book. It has a lot of horses."

Astra hesitated, then ventured to ask, "Timmy, have you ever been outside of here?"

The boy shook his head. "Mama and Papa told me I was born here. In that room." He pointed at the room behind Astra. She stared at Timothy and did the math. And then she did the math again using her fingers so she could see the true magnitude.

"You've been here for eight years?" He shrugged. By the gods. That would mean... At least eight years. Timothy's parents had been enslaved here, underground, for at least eight years. And exactly how long had Auxerre been enslaving wraiths?

Astra closed her eyes so that she wouldn't have to see Timmy blinking his innocent brown eyes at her.

The better question was how Auxerre had managed to keep all of this secret in all these years.

She remembered the course of Iveian politics she'd been required to take during her training in Varaly. There had been nothing, absolutely nothing, mentioned of a slave army of any sort within Auxerre. Pelosia, yes, that she knew about firsthand. She could almost see the carnage and destruction and fire behind her closed lids. But not Auxerre. She almost chuckled out loud—there'd been nothing mentioned of the Wraith Ban in Auxerre either. So many questions, so few answers, and she knew the wise decision would be to ignore the urge to want to find the answers to those questions.

Astra opened her eyes and looked at the closed door behind her again. The door that was the entrance to where Timothy had entered the world and where his mother was currently giving birth to another child who would not see the sun and moon and stars for years on end. The thought was suffocating. Astra looked back at the boy before her. No, the reality was suffocating.

She couldn't imagine living in a world and never being able to see a skyline of high buildings and turrets, a silver moon hanging just above. For her, the days on end of seeing concrete had long ago began grating on her nerves, and only the reminder she would escape and see it once again kept her going. But Timmy had spent years upon years in the embrace of these concrete rooms. He knew of nothing else.

"Are you okay?" the young boy asked, oblivious to the colorful world outside and Astra's inner turmoil of questions and theories and fears. She gave him a weak smile.

"Of course." She hesitated again, wanting to ask if he was okay, but he wouldn't understand. Instead, she asked, "Tell me about yourself, Timmy?"

The boy fidgeted again, his eyes catching Astra's shyly. He said, "Can I ask you some questions instead?"

Astra smiled at his endearing bashfulness—it reminded her of a different boy and a happier time. "Of—of course. Anything you want. What would you like to know?"

"Where were you born?"

She paused, deliberating and unwilling to give away such information, but this was a child, who looked at her with so much raw hope and curiosity in his face. What could a child who had never been outside in the real world possibly do with her information? A lot, actually, her subconscious reminded her, but with honesty, she said, "Aurinski. I was born in Aurinski, in Solasia."

An expression of awe swept across Timmy's face. "The capital city... Mama's been there. She told me it's gorgeous." Astra smiled, the unease melting away by Timmy's enthusiasm.

"Yes. Yes it is."

"Will you describe it to me?"

She bit her lip. "Nearly the entire city is nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains dotted by all kinds of different evergreen trees. Huge eagles, large enough to ride, fly through those mountains. Long, winding rivers run through the city. The water is always clear as crystal, and you can see the fish. Near the water's edge, there are moon orchids. Dozens upon dozens. They don't look like much, just little silvery buds that look like they're formed out of ice. But when the moon rises, they bloom and glow and shine like starlight... they're some of the most beautiful flowers you'd ever see." It wasn't until she fell silent that she realized that the pang in her chest was from longing and sadness. How many years had it been since she stepped foot in Aurinski, not as a spy or soldier, but as a citizen?

"I wish I could see that." Timmy picked at a crack in the concrete ground

"I wish you could see it, too." They sat in companionable silence.

Describing the city out loud had invited an influx of memories of Aurinski. She remembered the snow covered city, its famous ice rink, and Sanalia, the winter festival that was held annually in Aurinski. It was a weeklong celebration of dancing and laughter in the snow more than anything else, but it was her favorite holiday.

Timmy's high voice cut through. "Have you ever been to the floating city?" Astra blinked in surprise and confusion.

"A floating—what?"

"A floating city," Timothy urged. "Mama told me there's an entire city that floats in the sky."

"I... I don't think so..."

"It's invisible," Timmy explained, "unless you're in the city, or you're super, super close to it. And no one's ever been able to find it. At least, that's what mama told me. Have you ever been there?" Astra shook her head. The idea of a floating city was ludicrous enough, even without the invisible part tacked on. Of course, she knew there were stories. She'd heard more than enough of them over the years—ones of a city floating among the clouds was just one of them, along with the ever popular tale of meeting one of the guardians. Ridiculous.

Perhaps wind wraiths would be able to pull off a feat of lifting an entire city into the air, but it would call for thousands upon thousands of them, all concentrating their magic together. And the city would fall the moment they faltered in their magic. Impossible.

But the idea of an invisible, floating city had Timmy on a roll.

"Mama told me that legend says the city is sustained by the life force of the guardian of ice." Astra turned to Timothy again in interest. The guardian of ice?

"Streia of the Ice created the city?" Astra asked in staunch disbelief. Timmy shrugged.

"No one knows who created it. But the legends say that the city's powers come from the guardian of ice."

Deciding to humor him, Astra mused, "That doesn't make any sense... Streia was the guardian of ice. Neither flight nor invisibility are within an ice wraith's abilities."

"But she was immortal. Or at least, she couldn't age," Timmy insisted. "She had more powers than the average ice wraith. Mama said that there's alway some truth to legends. Power doesn't just disappear, and that power must have went somewhere after she was killed." Astra grimaced, but decided not to comment. Perhaps she shouldn't have agreed to Rianne's request so quickly.

Timothy continued, "I told Mama that if there was one place I wanted to go in the whole wide world, it would be the floating city." He held up his left hand and showed his thumb to Astra. A tiny gold ring sat loosely at the base. "Mama gave it to me. She told me it's like a key. One day, it'll get me to the floating city." He admired the ring. Astra opened her mouth, wanting to remind him that he'd just told her that no one had ever been able to find the city. A short second passed before she closed it. He was just a child. Just a child trapped in a concrete tomb. She hadn't been able to dream and wish as a child—the least she could do was give him the freedom.

Still looking at the ring, he asked, "Can you imagine being able to look out at the world below from the sky?"

Unwilling to reject him, yet unwilling to agree, Astra gave him a sad smile instead.

Instead, they sat, and chatted, and talked. For hours upon hours as Astra accompanied the boy, and then chased away the guards when they came to inquire why they were not in bed.

Timothy, who loved horses and wanted to visit a city that floated in the clouds and Aurinski and Aeris and even the city he was born in, Venierre, and all the forests and lakes and deserts in between. The world was a cruel, dark place, especially now with inescapable discrimination, wars, and death, but that wasn't fair to the beauties still left. She'd always valued freedom and choice, and didn't Timothy at least deserve a chance to decide the world for himself?