It was the seventh day, and Nataan didn't feel much better than he had on the sixth. He'd been told that it wouldn't last more than eight days this time around. The nausea, the numbness, the detachment, the sense that so much as standing was too much effort, hopefully it would soon go away. Nataan hated feeling like this. It was just as bad as ethershock.

The price was bearable, so long as Obuu eventually provided what Nataan was looking for.

Nataan downed the last of his tea. It was a bracing blend given to him by the sky woman up the street. Oldwife Hanii hoped that this would lessen Nataan's symptoms. She hadn't charged him for the remedy, citing that she wasn't certain it would work but also out of gratitude for what he was doing for Obuu.

Hanii deserved his thanks. The tea helped. Sky women were really something. Very few Nataan knew of were arcanists, but even so, they worked a magic all their own.

Pulling himself together, Nataan dressed. He chose red for his trousers today, an energetic color. He'd need red's Blessing to make it through the day. A sash of yellow and another of a mint green around his waist, Blessings of resilience and health. His shirt had three different shades of red, slashes of pale, dark, and vibrant. A forest green vest and a powder blue scarf completed the outfit.

Foreigners thought the Irdish manner of dress garish and eye-wrenching. Nataan supposed he could see their side of it, but after living all his life in Irdruin, foreigners all appeared drab and boring to his eyes.

The colors helped conceal the sallowness of Nataan's skin. It had a hint of yellow to it after so long under the weather, unlike the healthy pale gray it should have been. His ashen hair was listless, and his black eyes were taking on a sunken appearance.

Some said that the Irdish sought the Blessings of color to compensate for the lack of color in themselves. Foreigners even thought the people of Irdruin to be albinos. That wasn't the case. The Irdish had pigment, but it was gray and white, not brown or pink or whatever strange hue foreign skin decided to be.

Nataan was fully dressed, he had taken his morning tea, and he had eaten as much breakfast as he could stomach. Greens from his roof garden made up most of his diet, though he made a point of boiling a megarach egg at Oldwife Hanii's behest.

Leaving his home, Nataan turned the key to lock his door. His little house was at the corner of Weaver Street and the Western Road that left the city. Up either lane, each building was painted in swaths of varying colors. Dyed fabrics were draped across windows, and banners were caught in the salty breeze coming off of the harbor.

Irdruin, the City of Color, earned its name. It sat at the mouth of the Haanitaal River coming down from the Shield Mountains. It was a city-state, commanding only the lands within sight of her walls. Though not a true kingdom in her own right, Irdruin was still a part of the Five Kingdoms and owed fealty to Althandor and the Highest King.

Nataan pocketed his house key as he waited for a break in the foot traffic on the street. Men and women, wearing every shade of color imaginable, crowded the busy roads. They pulled carts, rode horses and megarachs, or strolled by on foot. The weather was more temperate in Irdruin than in neighboring Altier Nashal, and the spring was starting to get warm. Most people were happy to go without coats now that winter was a fading memory, and more than a few were barefoot.

The crowds parted for a steam carriage chugging up the lane, and Nataan took the opportunity to hop into the shadow of a particularly large megarach female. The big spider's body was just high enough off the ground that Nataan could walk beneath her without ducking his head. He repaid the megarach's tolerance by giving her belly a scratching as they ambled together up Weaver Street.

After three intersections, Nataan darted from beneath his escort and walked down Forge Street. It was lined with blacksmiths and silversmiths, metal workers of all kinds. His destination was a two-story workshop with a residence above. There was a short alleyway that took Nataan to the rear of the building.

Beneath a bright green canvas awning, there were a number of workbenches cluttered with metalworking tools, augers, lathes, and drill presses. A pair of steam engines whirred and clanked as they provided torque to the various powered instruments scattered throughout the workshop interior and just outside in the alleyway.

Obuu, artificer and machinist, stood amongst the disarray. She was a young woman of twenty-two, average height and slender. Her dainty, upturned nose lent her a delicate face, as did her full lips and slim jawline. While Nataan and the majority of Irdish people had black eyes, Obuu's were pale blue, a rare inborn Blessing. She kept her eyes lidded, which gave her the appearance of always being bored.

Today, she was both drably and immodestly dressed. Shades, but it looked like she'd forgotten to wear trousers today. Her leather apron was ostensibly for protection, but it left her thighs bare. Obuu's brown shirt was cropped short and sleeveless. She had a black knitted cap over her long and straight white hair, and she wore thick leather gloves. All said and done, Obuu was displaying far more skin than was decent.

"Obuu!"

She didn't acknowledge Nataan's exclamation. Obuu was fiddling with one of the steam engines— while it was running, Nataan noted with displeasure— and must not have heard.

Nataan picked up a rubber mallet and started banging it against a sheet of corrugated metal. Obuu's head perked up at the racket, and she looked in his direction. She blinked slowly, then turned back to the steam engine. Throughout, her bored expression never changed.

Shades deliver me, Nataan thought. He set the mallet aside, then went to the cutoff switch for the steam engine. He was about to flip it off when a wrench hurtled across the workshop and struck the wall next to his head.

Nataan squawked and recoiled away. He then glared accusingly at Obuu. She was looking at him again, her lips pulled into a slight frown. A deliberate shake of her head warned Nataan away from doing something she'd make him regret.

There was nothing for it but to wait. Obuu did things at her own pace, and there wasn't a power on the Continent that could convince her to hurry. Nataan crossed his arms and leaned against a workbench.

Obuu's face, arms, and midriff were smudged with streaks of oil, grease, and coal dust. Nataan squinted as he noted a black handprint on her left posterior. His jaw dropped, and he was about to scold her for her lack of cleanliness when he thought better of admitting to looking at her backside. Perhaps he ought scold her for her lack of modesty instead. Her tiny smallclothes left precious little to the imagination.

At last, whatever task occupied her was completed. Obuu stepped back from the steam engine and stretched. She raised her arms high above her head and made a soft groaning sound.

Nataan flushed. This girl... Not an ounce of decency.

Determinedly keeping his eyes where it was appropriate, Nataan turned off the steam engine. Obuu leveled a disapproving frown in his direction, but he bore it defiantly.

"I have asked you before not to touch my equipment," Obuu said in a monotone.

"It's not safe to stick your hand in there when it's running," Nataan retorted.

"It is not," Obuu agreed. Her disaffected stare was unsettling.

Nataan sighed in exasperation. "Look, I didn't come here to debate workshop safety with you."

"You did not," Obuu agreed again.

"Pardon?"

"To debate would require you to give consideration to anything I might say on the matter."

Nataan may have felt his temper rising. "You think I wouldn't?"

"You would not," Obuu replied. "Despite my experience, you believe yourself to be the wiser. I suspect this flaw in your personality comes of you being an arcanist. Sorcerers in particular are vulnerable to this mode of thinking, as their spellcraft requires less education than that of the other four paths."

Nataan definitely felt his temper rising.

"Then again, it may be due to your masculinity. I have found that men are often unduly confident in their ability to speak with authority on subjects they have little to no knowledge of."

"I didn't come here to take your abuse either," he growled.

Obuu furrowed her brow, bemused.

Shades take the girl. He could tell that she was legitimately mystified at how he might have taken offense at anything she said.

Often, Nataan wondered which of them was truly the elder. He may have been two years her junior, but Obuu often acted as if she were still a child.

"It has not been eight days," Obuu said to change the subject. "Are you certain that you are prepared for the next stage of the artifice?"

Nataan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "If you are, I am."

Obuu nodded. "I thank you."

Nataan watched Obuu as she went to some cabinets tucked behind the boiler. She rummaged through her mess for a few moments before walking to her workbench with an armload of metal scraps. The metal had a blue hue. Orichalcum, Nataan guessed.

"Might you put on a skirt? Or some trousers?" Nataan asked.

"No." Obuu looked up from her workbench and noted his scandalized expression. "I was hot."

Between the boiler and the steam engines, it was rather warm here even though half of her work area was spilling into the alleyway outside.

Nataan averted his eyes and resigned himself to the situation.

"Are you worried that your lover will come upon us and believe you to be unfaithful?" Obuu asked.

"Not in the slightest," Nataan muttered.

"Your lover is that confident in your courting preference for men?"

"Talk like that is half of why folk think you're part Altieri."

Obuu made a thoughtful sound. "I assumed it was because of my eyes. Fascinating."

"You don't just come out and talk about others' love lives," Nataan muttered.

She made that thoughtful sound of hers again, taking in this new information and cataloguing it alongside the rest. Obuu didn't comprehend such things like the rest of Irdruin. Social conventions that most folk understood seemingly from birth had to be explained to Obuu, in detail and to her satisfaction, before she considered heeding them.

They hadn't been speaking long, but Obuu finished her work at the bench in the short span of their conversation. The scraps of orichalcum she'd gathered were cut down and pressed into a dozen thin, hand-long strips.

"What are those for?" Nataan asked.

"Shielding." Obuu brought the metal strips to a steam-powered roller and began feeding them through the wheels. When they came out, the metal was bent into even curves. "Orichalcum alloyed with carbon has less density than steel but a significantly higher thermal resistance. It is difficult to heat beyond a certain threshold, and that is desirable to protect the theurallurgic mechanism. It is devoid of ablative characteristics yet suffers little to no chance of deformation. I project that the finished device will generate a large quantity of heat in its operation."

Nataan felt like his eyes were beginning to glaze over.

"Unfortunately," Obuu continued, "orichalcum is prone to shearing when combined with steel actuators. Differing densities has that effect. Your spellcraft last week has negated that issue entirely, so I do not anticipate further damage to the final artifice."

"Glad to be of service," Nataan said, though he understood little of anything Obuu talked of. He knew the words she used, but not when put in that particular order.

Obuu practiced a rare craft, all but unheard of in this part of the Continent. Theurallurgy was a combination of spellcraft and engineering. Many folk colloquially referred to theurallurgic devices as either "magitech" or "metia", but Obuu refused to allow those terms to be spoken in her presence. She called such words "the nonsensical terminology of those who do not know any better" and insisted that people call it by its proper name.

Though a theurallurgic engineer, Obuu wasn't an arcanist. She claimed to be unable to educate herself adequately in both fields, so she had chosen the one she believed the more challenging.

A somewhat arrogant position to take, in Nataan's opinion. He had to admit, however, that she had a point. What Obuu did was wholly beyond his understanding.

When creating her magical machines, Obuu needed the aid of someone who was an arcanist. Someone to concentrate on infusing her creations with ether, locking the spells, and allowing the magic to persist within the constructs permanently. Namely, Nataan. It was imbuing metal and gears and sprockets with his ether that left Nataan feeling sickly and weak for much of his time.

Thus far, the arrangement had been wholly one-sided. Eight months in, and he couldn't remember a single day in that time where he felt healthy. Nataan gave and gave, but he had yet to receive what he wanted in return. Well, of course Obuu paid him, but coin wasn't what Nataan had come home to Irdruin to find.

Soon, though, he thought. Very soon, this will all be worth it. If Obuu knows what I think she does, I'd do this for a decade to learn it.

"You know," Nataan said casually, "I don't think you ever mentioned what we're making."

"Have I not?" Obuu asked.

"You have not."

"Hmm." Obuu arranged her curved strips of orichalcum into a conical formation. She fitted dark-tinted goggles over her eyes and placed a wand-like device to the seams. A brilliant, eye-searing flame erupted from the end, fusing the metal together.

Another theurallurgic device. Obuu called it a "welding wand", and Nataan had assisted her in creating dozens of such things to be sold across the Five Kingdoms for kings' ransoms. Talk around the city was that Obuu's little invention was revolutionizing metalworking throughout the Continent.

It was beyond Nataan's understanding why Obuu wasn't living in a manor in the center of the city, or at the very least why she didn't claim a title. Looking at her, one would never suspect she was likely the wealthiest craftsman within a thousand leagues.

"So?" Nataan prompted.

"Yes?"

"What are we making?"

Obuu shut down her wand. "Ah, you were inquiring, not making an observation. I see now. Thank you for illustrating the difference."

Nataan smiled. She wasn't being sarcastic, rather Obuu was genuinely grateful. Mind-bogglingly brilliant in a thousand ways, but she had such difficulty conversing with other humans. It was tempting to pity her, but Nataan decided against it. Her differences were part of what made her amazing.

She placed a cooling shroud over the metal she welded together while she spoke. "This was commissioned by a shipmaster from Ecclesia."

"An Altieri?"

"Southron, actually," Obuu corrected. "His name is Dammit."

"Watch your mouth."

She blinked, non-plussed, then chose to ignore Nataan's jape. "He consulted me for an artifice that would assist in salvaging shipwrecks at the sea's bottom. It was an interesting prospect, so I agreed to design something for him."

Nataan had read a story once about such a theurallurgic device. He remembered a fanciful tale of an explorer in a submersible watercraft, a hidden kingdom of selkies beneath the waves, and a tragic romance. When he asked if Obuu intended to make something similar, she looked at him as if he had gone mad.

"Do you think you would be willing to imbue a device that extensive?" she asked. "Just making a welding wand puts you in bed for thirty-three hours."

Does she really have it worked out that exactly? Nataan wondered.

"No, we are not making a submersible," Obuu said. "I am calling this a fluidic displacer for now, but it will be for the client to name if he chooses."

"What's it do?"

Obuu went to a different workbench just inside her shop. Nataan followed and looked over her shoulder as she pulled out a model no longer than his arm. He assumed the finished product would be significantly larger.

It was a rope and pulley on a wooden pole, likely to be attached the bowsprit of a salvage boat. A pyramidal shape was fastened to the end of the rope. Obuu demonstrated lowering the pyramid with the winch and pulley.

"This will go into the water above the wreck," she explained. "The artifice will be weighted to make it sink. The sinking motion will draw water through these ports on the bottom, thereby turning the actuators within the artifice. This will initiate the artifice and activate the sigils. Prolonged use will draw ether from nearby ley lines in the Weave for power, provided it is not used too far from the coastline. Location will be a minor issue."

Nataan felt the hairs on his arm stand on end. He concentrated on regulating his breathing. "Sigils?" he asked nonchalantly. "As in, scrivener magic?"

"I am aware that runes and sigils are outside of a sorcerer's ability," Obuu said. "I commissioned Nooka, the artificer from up the street, to engrave the components I need and lock the spells."

"I know of him. Strange fellow."

"I found him to be most accommodating and a pleasant conversationalist."

You would, Nataan thought wryly. "So these sigils, what do they do?"

Obuu led him to another corner of her workshop. She pulled a pair of strangely shaped gears— all curved flanges and wavy lines— from a cabinet and held them up for Nataan to inspect. A number of straight-lined runes were engraved along the entire surface, some in circles and others in geometric patterns. Nataan recognized very few, but he did notice Ameka, a first-tier rune of water, showing up in a dozen instances. The engravings all glowed with a soft, green etherlight.

Strange. I've never seen green etherlight before. It's always been white.

"Nooka's already done?" Nataan asked.

"Yes. Yours is the final step in the device's construction, I believe." She returned the gears to the cabinet. "The sigils will displace the seawater as it is lowered, a combination of water wards and an enchantment extending the surface area of  the..."

"Wait a moment," Nataan interrupted. "Are you saying that this device will... make a tunnel? Through water? Straight to the bottom of the sea?"

Obuu blinked. "That is my aim, yes. It is my belief that it will facilitate easy access to the wrecks my client wishes to salvage."

Nataan closed his mouth once he realized it was hanging open in wonderment. He wasn't sure if Obuu even realized how amazing what she was talking about truly was. It boggled his mind to even imagine. He shook his head to clear it. Ignoring the sheer audacity of what Obuu was building, the use of sigils in the creation was what he needed to focus on.

This was why he started working with Obuu in the first place.

"I don't think I've ever seen you use sigils in your constructs before."

Obuu hummed thoughtfully as she returned to where she had welded the orichalcum. She removed the cooling shroud and began peering closely at her handiwork. "I suppose I have not since we met. Oh, is this a question? I am afraid I did not understand if it was."

"No, this time it was just an observation. Then again, I suppose I am a bit curious. Why haven't you used sigils recently?"

"It is rarely necessary," Obuu said. "Sigils are seldom required except for the most advanced theurallurgic devices. In fact, the only other time I have done so was a commission from House Karst in Altier Nashal."

Nataan furrowed his brow. "I don't remember helping with that."

"Lord Niklaus insisted on doing the imbuing himself, and I was intrigued at the prospect of working with an alchemist in theurallurgy. You should consider yourself fortunate, as it required far more ether than I would ever ask of you. The Lord Regent will not fully recover for several more months yet."

"What was it you made for him?"

Obuu shook her head. "I was asked to never reveal that. I will not do so."

Fair enough. Not what I want to know in any case.

This close to the information he wanted, Nataan felt emboldened. Months and months of working with Obuu, gaining her confidence, he daresay even befriending her, and it might very well pay off today. He needed to be careful. Obuu's peculiarities were difficult to understand at times, and Nataan was uncertain if she'd close herself off if she suspected an ulterior motive.

"I hope you don't mind my asking questions," he said.

"Of course not," she replied. Obuu then smiled, perhaps the first time Nataan had ever seen such a thing from her. "It is easier to speak with you about this than other subjects."

Shades, now I feel guilty, Nataan thought. He couldn't let that dissuade him. This was important— perhaps the most important task of his life. The others were counting on him.

"I remember you once used a gemstone. It was that doohickey that attracted and stored lightning strikes."

Obuu winced at the use of doohickey. "The astramantic battery, I remember. Ultimately, too inefficient for my electrical lighting project. What of it?"

Gaslights are just fine, Obuu. Why try to reinvent modern lighting fixtures? Pushing the thought aside, Nataan pressed onward. "What purpose does the gemstone serve?"

Obuu found herself a seat. She launched wholeheartedly into a long-winded dissertation on crystalline formations and how ether could be shaped into spells by the unique properties of various gemstones. She compared the spellcraft properties to both the somatic gestures of wizards and the transmutational reagents of alchemists. It was apparently unclear to researchers in the magocracy which of the two paths were better suited to utilizing gem-based spellcraft.

"It is an academic distinction in the end," Obuu concluded. "Neither wizards or alchemists have uncovered reliable methods of using gemstones in practical spellcraft, outside of their base composition of course. So far, only theurallurgic engineers have ever demonstrated measurable results in their utilization."

Nataan felt like he needed a mop to clean up his brains leaking out of his ears. That had been torturous to sit through and pretend to be interested in. Still, it was oddly heartwarming to see Obuu speak so animatedly and at such length about something. She looked genuinely happy, and Nataan couldn't help but be happy also when he saw that.

"That's not entirely true, though," Nataan pointed out. "The Nadian elder bloodline uses gemstones."

Obuu furrowed her brow. "I was still a baby at the end of the Nadian Rebellion. It is my understanding that the former Nadian royal line is extinct and the elder magic with it."

Nataan swallowed. He'd slipped up. Present rather than past tense carried world-shaking consequences. A slight mistake, and with someone other than Obuu, a potentially fatal one. Talk of geomancers and dead royal houses was a dangerous subject under Althandi rule. "I suppose they are," he said with a nervous laugh. "Does that mean you've experimented with different kinds of gemstone? Learned the various things they can do?"

Obuu nodded. "Naturally, in addition to reading of the experiments conducted at the Summit Academy in Drok Moran. My astramantic battery used a sapphire, a technique pioneered in a city called Marwin. I am unsure where that is, though I found old records of their theurallurgic processes in the library during my studies."

"Never heard of Marwin," Nataan said with a shrug. It was becoming difficult keeping Obuu on subject. Her attention was wandering, rather it was being drawn back to the project she wanted to complete. If Nataan was going to learn what he needed today, it had to be done now. "Gem-based theurallurgy is powerful, then?"

"More versatile than powerful, however the potential is there."

Nataan pulled at the collar of his shirt. He was gambling now. He shouldn't be gambling. Perhaps it was Obuu's surprisingly disarming smile, or maybe it was the constant bouts of sickliness. Whatever the reason, Nataan asked the question.

"I was only wondering if you ever considered... just possibly, mind you... putting sigils directly on the gemstone?"

Obuu went still. Her eyes flickered from side to side like she was reading something. It was an outward indication of how intensely she contemplated what Nataan said. Obuu stood, and went to her drafting table inside her workshop.

"What is it?" Nataan asked.

"Intriguing," she murmured while scribbling notes into a leather-bound journal. "Never considered. Nullified degradation of ethereal transmission. Direct exposure. Fascinating. Potential, uncertain. Consideration of acquired material, utmost necessity. Required precision of etched sigils, astronomical. Costs... irrelevant." Her inkpen stopped scratching against the paper for a long moment before she started again. "Amendment. Potential, unrivaled."

"Obuu? What might something like that be able to do?"

She turned from her drafting table. Her eyes were wide with what Nataan could only describe as unbridled excitement. Whatever he put in her head, she definitely wasn't bored anymore. "What could it do?" she asked rhetorically.

Nataan held his breath.

She smiled, and Nataan didn't find it at all charming anymore. Obuu's manic grin chilled him to the bone.

"Anything."

He watched her go back to her notes. The scribbling continued unabated for what felt like hours but was likely only a few minutes. After a time, Obuu set her inkpen aside and narrowed her eyes as she looked over the figures she had written out on the page.

"Obuu?"

She abruptly tore the paper from her notebook and ripped it to shreds.

"Wait! Obuu!"

"Bad idea," she said simply. She tossed the shredded bits of paper into her furnace, flipped the lever, and incinerated her notes.

Nataan scratched his head as he looked between the smoldering ashes and Obuu. She returned to her sea-tunneling project as if there had never been a distraction from it.

"I don't understand," Nataan said. "Why's it a bad idea?"

"The costs were not irrelevant," Obuu said. "Nothing that costs so much could ever be irrelevant."

"Doesn't that just mean your profit margin is a little smaller?"

"Not costs to me," Obuu said. She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes troubled. "Costs to you. You are my friend. I would not want you to die."

She returned to her work, leaving Nataan feeling like the blood had rushed out of his head. Obuu suggested that creating a theurallurgic gemstone with sigils would require... sacrifice. Significantly more sacrifice than anything Nataan had heard of since working with her.

"Just so I'm clear on this," Nataan said carefully, "Taking a diamond and covering it with runes would..."

"Diamond?" Obuu exclaimed. Her eyes were wide with fright. "Never diamond. No! You must never use diamond in theurallurgy!"

Nataan was taken aback by her intensity. "Why not?"

"Diamond has null essence," she explained. "Ethereally neutral. You understand, yes? You are a sorcerer, and you should know what it means for a material to be absent of essence. If it is ethereally neutral, it can only be used for..."

"Blood magic," Nataan finished. He swallowed and felt dreadfully ill, and that had nothing to do with imbuing things for Obuu. "Don't use diamond. I understand completely."

Obuu let out a relieved sigh. "A single rune on a single small gemstone would necessitate days of imbuing."

Nataan paled. The longest he spent on one of her projects was three hours. That had left him feeling drained for a month.

"Many arcanists would be required," Obuu went on. "Dozens. They would die in the making."

"What of a gem the size of... let's say... a chicken egg?"

Obuu looked horrified. "Thousands."

Nataan wished that the workshop would stop spinning. He was about to throw up.

Obuu watched him intently. "It must never be done," she said in a deliberate tone.

But it already has been done, Nataan thought grimly. Just what in the names of Blessings did Ham find?

"Nataan? You look unwell. Are you certain you wish to continue today?"

He cast about with his hand until he found something solid to lean against. Nataan steadied himself and found his voice. It sounded weak in his ears. "I might have been a little overzealous in coming out today. Might we do this tomorrow?"

Obuu set her tools aside and approached him. Her brow was drawn together with concern, and she touched his forehead. "Not tomorrow. The day after, at the earliest. We are ahead of schedule. You need not push yourself."

"Don't worry so much," he assured her. He took her hand from his forehead and stepped back from her. "I just... need some more sleep. I'll be right as rain after a nap. Only, I think I'll head back home for now."

"I will come to your home once I am finished," she said. "I wish to make certain you are recovering."

Despite everything, Nataan found that he was deeply touched by her concern. She had even called him her friend. "Just... put on some pants before you come by."

Obuu looked down at her bare legs and frowned. "If you insist it is necessary."

"It is," Nataan scoffed. "You're very pretty, and you have nice legs. You'd cause a riot."

"That does not seem to indicate any wrongdoing on my part, rather on the inability of others to control themselves."

Nataan suppressed the urge to slap his forehead. "Probably true. All the same. Pants. Vaall should be home by then, and I'll introduce you."

Obuu perked up. "I will look forward to that. You speak highly of him."

Once I make sure Vaall understands to keep his good-natured mockery to himself. He makes fun of people he likes, and I don't think that would go over well with you.

Nataan excused himself and left Obuu's workshop through the front door. Once he was on Forge Street, Nataan didn't turn towards his home. Instead, he joined the throngs heading towards the train station. The north lines were open again now that it was spring, and the single train running between Irdruin and Gaulatia was supposed to have arrived yesterday.

With only one track on that line, there was only the one train, and it was a five-day journey from one end of the line to the other. Nataan hadn't considered that part of it when he pressed Obuu for information, but if he hadn't gotten what he needed today, he would have had to wait another ten days or more before his next chance to send word.

Arriving at the station, Nataan saw that the Gaulatia Express was still in. The thirty-five car train was being maintained by a veritable army of engineers, and a crowd of Irdish locals and Gaulatian visitors were crowding the ticket offices. Cargo was being offloaded from the freight cars while exports were put back in their place. According to the chalk notices written high above the platform, it was scheduled to leave before dawn the following day.

Excellent, Nataan thought in relief. He had worried he had missed his opening.

He waited in line at the messenger desk while composing his missive in his head. It needed to be as short as he could make it while it also communicated just how dire what he learned from Obuu really was. When he came to the front of the queue, he had settled on precisely what to say. Nothing overtly incriminating, just in case the wrong eyes read his words, but clear enough that the recipient couldn't misunderstand the severity of the situation.

"Where to, Goodman?" the clerk asked him. A pleasantly plump and middle-aged Irdish man with kind eyes. He wore enough pale pink sashes that Nataan was certain the clerk's wife would conceive soon. The Blessing of fertility was a common sight in the spring.

"Rosewater, Gaulatia," Nataan replied.

The clerk ticked off the proper boxes on his printed form. "Recipient?"

"Hamish Folio, care of the Rosewater paperworks."

The clerk wrote the name and a series of numbers onto a paper envelope—lovely handwriting, Nataan noticed— then slid it across his desk. "Two scubs," he said cheerily.

Two coppers? Shades, it used to be three silvers.

It bothered Nataan more than he cared to admit when Althandi rule brought positive results. No matter. The conveniences couldn't be allowed to distract from the injustices. He slid the payment and took the envelope before heading to one of the dozen writing desks lining this part of the platform.

H,
Found what we wanted. Uncovered method of construction. Confirmed as theurallurgy. Extremely high mortality rate. All makers dead as result. Thousands according to expert. Involving lifeblood certain. Origin unknown. Purpose unknown. DANGEROUS. Do not use. Do not sell. Destroy if possible. GET RID OF IT.

Nataan chewed on his lip for a moment. He added another paragraph.

Do not respond. I want out. I didn't join for this. Tell R I took her advice. I made friends.
,N.

Hastily shoving the letter into the envelope, Nataan then dropped it into the slot of the nearby mailbox. The messenger desk clerk nodded his way, and Nataan returned the gesture as nonchalantly as he could.

With that, Nataan felt lighter. The Courtesans could hang themselves, if the Althandi didn't do it for them first.

As for himself, Nataan had a good thing going. He had a paramour, handsome if a bit snide, but a good sort. Against all odds, he also had gainful employment with the finest artificer in Irdruin, if not the Five Kingdoms. Shades take him, but she even called Nataan her friend.

Continent-spanning revolutionary movements and theurallurgic devices forged from the deaths of a thousand arcanists or not, that meant something to Nataan. Obuu meant something to him.

Nataan made his way home, and he found himself looking forward to introducing Vaall to his friend later that evening.