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  “Oh, it worked just fine,” said Perlandine with a dry chuckle. “If you count the few stragglers we managed to actually catch. Hardly worth the effort. A year or two after the raid, they simply set up camp again. They came out of the woods and planted their tents as if nothing had ever happened. Then the cataclysms began, the Flux being what it is—”

  “Why not just raid them again?”

  “It’s expensive, frankly,” said Perlandine. “Our cities have limited funds to support such endeavors. The landscape, as you well know, is very dense between here and Lassimir, nearly impossible to send an army through except single file. People speak of the forest being haunted… crazy talk if you ask me, but you can’t pay most soldiers enough to go through there. They call it The Wilds for a reason, Reverend.”

  “Burn it,” Lyle said through the smoke.

  “Tried,” Perlandine said. “Grows back faster than we can move through. The smoke drives the men insane and the coastal fog keeps everything too damn moist.”

  Lyle took a long grotesque puff on his cigar, spewing a long, slow plume of blue smoke. His expression was thoughtful.

  “Why not just invade by sea… via the river? Rhinewall has access to naval vessels I assume. The river seems wide enough.”

  “Wide, but not deep,” Perlandine said. “The depth of the river makes it accessible by wide, shallow ships, but nothing ironclad would be able to navigate it. A dreadnaught would ground itself as soon as it left the Rhinewall ports. You’ll notice that Bollingbrook does not have a navy for a reason. We have access to docks, but only small ships.”

  “Small vessels then,” Lyle said, growing impatient with the list of excuses.

  “Over the last, say, ten years or so, the pirate town has achieved a much stronger foothold. They have artillery, ballistae and cannons. Any ships that are not welcome are almost instantly dispatched.” Perlandine puffed bitterly on his cigar. “Ships who wish to do business with Lassimir use a semaphore code… a complex lamp signal to gain access.”

  “I am aware of what a semaphore is,” Lyle said, smiling. You patronizing ass. “How hard would it be to crack the code?”

  Perlandine chuckled. “That’s a mystery. The code is changed frequently and only those who have done business with Lassimir are told the next signal to use. We’ve tried and the ships have never come back.”

  “Honor among thieves, eh?”

  “Indeed. For a city of outlaws, their security is impeccable.”

  The two men sat in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Lyle looked out onto the streets at the beggars, the businessmen, the merchants. He looked at the distant factory smokestacks of the industrial wedge: black, tall, and dormant.

  “Not much of a need for military these days,” Lyle said.

  “Sadly, no.” Perlandine matched the Reverend’s gaze out the window. “I used to command some of those beggars you see down there.”

  “Is that so?”

  Perlandine nodded. “During the Crusades... unfortunately, many of them had difficulty finding work in a city no longer at war.”

  “Begging seems unfitting for men of that caliber,” Lyle said.

  “Mmm,” Perlandine muttered. “Well, some do find work as bodyguards, hitmen, assassins, that sort of thing. I wish we could get more of them on the police force but, well, you can only hire so many. I end up arresting a dozen men every year that, not a decade ago, I commanded. It’s a damn shame.” He snarled around his cigar.

  “Good men, all of them, no doubt,” Lyle said as the two men looked out the window.

  “The finest,” said Perlandine. “I know that it contradicts popular sentiment, but peace was the worst thing that ever happened to this city.”

  “I understand you still make some fine armor here. One of your soldiers was wearing it. Excellent craftsmanship.”

  “And weapons,” Perlandine said. “What we didn’t use, we sold to Arist or Rhinewall. The mayor we have now killed most of those deals.” He paused and muttered, “Idiot.”

  Lyle shifted the conversation by taking a deliberate drag of his cigar.

  “I’m sure you are aware that I lead a fairly successful branch of The Church, Chief Perlandine.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard a great deal about it,” Perlandine said. “A little dramatic for my tastes, but then we’re all Catholics out here. You’re something of a celebrity.”

  “Well, I just give the people what they want. To each his own. We both play for the same team either way.”

  Perlandine nodded. He was looking at Lyle expectantly.

  Lyle continued. “As you must have figured out by now, I have a business proposal for your city. I’m looking to make a substantial investment.”

  “For the entire city?” Perlandine cigar drooped. “Why come to me with a business proposal if it’s for the city?”

  “I understand you are considering a run for the Mayorship.”

  Perlandine raised an eyebrow. “I guess it wasn’t as tight a secret as I had hoped. Yes, I was considering making a run in a year or two. It’s all a matter of timing, I suppose.”

  “Well,” Lyle said. “You’ve certainly made plenty of progress in law enforcement.”

  “About as far as I can go, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s a logical next step. And a fine city too, I might add.” Lyle puffed. “They’d be lucky to have you.”

  Perlandine looked out the window again. An old man wearing the top half of a uniform stood begging on the sidewalk, invisible to the passersby. The Chief constable’s face sagged.

  “It was,” he said. “It has certainly seen better days.”

  “What amount of money,” Lyle said, “would it take to… make an impact on your industry?”

  Perlandine laughed. “My dear Reverend,” he said. “I appreciate your ambition, but I doubt even you have that sort of bankroll.”

  “Try me.” The smoke seemed to speak for The Reverend.

  Perlandine froze as if he were about to be run over by a cart full of gold bars. “It… It would be substantial… in the billions.”

  The Reverend Lyle Summers didn’t flinch. Instead he calmly took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at it again, a stream of smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth. Perlandine sat back in his chair and stared at the Reverend.

  “What is in it for you?” he asked. “I sincerely doubt that this is all being done in the name of charity.”

  “Let’s call it an investment,” said Lyle.

  Something in the conversation shifted. A shadow seemed to fall over the Reverend’s face as his cheeks caved in, puffing. When he finally released the cigar from his mouth, he looked directly at Perlandine. The Chief Constable felt something prickle at the base of his neck.

  “I’m sure you are aware of the recent fire that occurred in what you call the ‘Industrial Wedge,’” Lyle said, his eyes, seeming colder somehow.

  “I am,” Perlandine said, leaning back in his chair. It creaked. “The Gutter Wedge. A good place to go if you want a good whore, or an illegal substance. I hear you can get your palm read if you aren’t afraid to be arrested.”

  “Then I am sure you are aware of the spiritual malaise that has plagued this city for a decade or so.”

  “I’m not much of a religious man,” Perlandine said. “I leave that business to the archbishop. I deal with more… material transgressions.”

  “The archbishop is well aware of that,” Lyle said. “My point is this: the presence that has lived like a cancer in your city has escaped, and unless it is stopped, this disease will get worse for everyone.” He scratched at his arm unconsciously.

  Perlandine laughed. “Well, as I said, Reverend, I am not a religious man. But I think I know whom you are talking about. This ‘Lynn-witch’ woman is dead I take it?”

  “Killed in the fire,” said Lyle. “I believe that her daughter may have fled to this Lassimir pirate colony.”

  Perlandine raised an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure?”r />
  “You tell me if you can think of another city that would let her in,” Lyle said. “Also, it’s closer than any city-states, the next one being Rhinewall.”

  “Ahh,” Perlandine said. “Let me see if I understand what you are suggesting. So you believe that if you deliver Lassimir to me, I will in turn, deliver this girl to you. What if she escapes?”

  “Flushing the game, so to speak,” Lyle said. The end of his cigar glowed red. “I suggest you take a closer look at the opportunity I am handing you.”

  “I suppose that next you will tell me exactly how you intend to invade an inaccessible and quite mobile city.”

  “I’ll get to that,” Lyle said. “But first I want to make sure that I and The Church can count on your support. I assure you, this will reflect well on your run for Mayor should it succeed.”

  Perlandine rolled forward and got up from his seat. The Chief Constable stood, backlit by the window, eclipsing it like a moon. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. Lyle fought the urge to slap it away.

  When he spoke at last, the Chief Constable was distant, as if trying to detach himself from his words. “The woman and her child used to attend a local parish, near the girl’s school up in the Millstone Wedge. The priest there is Father Thomas. I do have files on the woman, outbursts, disorderly conduct and that sort of thing, but he can probably give you more information if that’s what you’re looking for. He knew them, might know motives. She might even return and seek refuge with him.”

  “Cavorting with witches.” Lyle raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting approach for a priest.”

  “Father Thomas is… controversial,” said Perlandine. “Friends with the archbishop.” He looked at the end of his cigar with distaste.

  Lyle got up from his seat. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Before you go,” Perlandine said, as if remembering something important. He waddled briskly to his desk and opened a drawer. He removed a large beige scroll and opened it. Satisfied by what he saw, he rolled it up again and handed it to The Reverend.

  Lyle took the weathered scroll with a grin. “Thank you Chief Constable Perlandine. This will be very useful indeed. Or should I get used to saying, Mayor Perlandine?”

  The two men chuckled and shook hands. Lyle walked from the police headquarters and into the noon heat.

  Chapter 6

  Skyla could feel herself getting lost almost immediately. For the first hundred yards or so, she would turn and look over her shoulder. The coppery wall of Bollingbrook became more and more obscured behind leaves, fog, and redwood. Behind her, the forest had closed in, leaving nothing but emerald leaves and rough bark. Leaves, wood, rocks, gravel. It was hard to believe there had ever been any city at all.

  Days and nights seemed arbitrary, time itself just a formless tangle of branches, vines, and plants. She slept in the crooks of trees, underneath rock ledges and pine needles. In the mornings Orrin provided blackberries, wild strawberries, and grapes for her to eat.

  Orrin rode on her shoulder, calling to birds that sang unseen in the treetops. He urged her forward, guiding her by pecking at her ear or squawking when she made a wrong turn. Occasionally he would soar off to an opening in a pair of branches she had never noticed before.

  “How much further?” she asked, exhausted.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see him staring at her from her shoulder. When he blinked this closely, she noticed his eyelids were white, which seemed very odd to her.

  In a moment of protest, Skyla turned sharply off of the path, heading down an open space between the branches. Almost immediately, Orrin squawked loudly and landed at her feet, blocking her, pecking at her shoe.

  “I don’t know where you are taking me!” she yelled. “Hell, we’ve been here for days.”

  “Hell,” Orrin parroted.

  “You know what I’m saying don’t you?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Rhee-ah.”

  “Yes her. Why can’t you just tell me?”

  “Preeeecher. Daaaaanger.” His voice was hoarse.

  “Yes, him and now I am following a giant crow down a stupid path that might not ever end. Where does this path even go?”

  “Rhinewall,” said Orrin. It sounded like a man’s voice played through a phonograph.

  Skyla blinked.

  “Rhinewall,” said Orrin again, blinking.

  “So you do know where you’re taking me,” she accused.

  Rhinewall was supposedly where Rhia lived, out by the sea, beyond the vagrant tent city Lassimir. It was far, farther than she ever imagined she could travel.

  A branch snapped, and Skyla saw a large hoof just beyond the branches. She traced its shape upward to see a horse-sized animal staring placidly at her. It moved and Skyla counted not two, but four willowy antlers sprouting from its long russet head. She got to her feet and took a tentative step. It stared at her with a huge brown eye framed by long lashes. She could see its outline from between the young trees and took it for some sort or deer, or maybe an elk.

  Skyla reached out a hand and touched its muzzle.

  The world changed. She was no longer looking at the woods. Shadows became living things that stared at her, as surprised to see her as she was in seeing them. They peered at her from behind the liquid trees, wonder on their faces. Tree trunks twisted. Leaves turned black.

  The deer was covered in bright lavender scales, so thin they could have been short feathers. From beneath its scales the creature’s skin pulsed with pink, neon energy. Its huge eyes were no longer brown but bright electric blue.

  It backed up and suddenly bolted away, taking the world she had just glimpsed with it as it hurled down the path. She was left standing there. The world seemed plain and boring again.

  Orrin croaked in her ear. “Follow.”

  *

  By late afternoon, the sky had become a monochrome watercolor and wind had begun to whip the tops of the trees. The forest thinned as the trail became wider and eventually Skyla found herself in a vast meadow with a clear view of the valley. A wide arc of sparkling silver, the Lassimir River, was still days away.

  Her feet felt swollen inside her mud-caked, dirty school shoes, the soles cracked. Skyla sat on an axe-marked tree stump and looked out across the landscape. A slender column of white smoke stood out from the treetops. She could reach it in an hour.

  “I’m going to go to see who lives in that cabin,” she said to Orrin.

  “No,” he said in that eerily human voice. She had been expecting a squawk.

  “No?” she said. “I can’t exactly live off berries for another day. I won’t have the strength to make it to the river. I’m going. You can eat whatever you want and I will meet you after I am done begging for food.”

  “Daaaanger.”

  “I don’t care,” she snapped. “I am in more danger from starvation—or thirst—than what’s in that cabin.”

  “Skyla,” he said.

  “They would have killed you at the school, do you know that?” she hissed. “And I saved you from those boys throwing stones. I did.” She poked herself in the chest with her finger. “So I’m making the rules from now on and I’m hungry.”

  Orrin launched from her backpack with enough force that it almost shoved her off the stump. He disappeared into the trees.

  “Fine!” she yelled after him. “Go! Go choke on a nut!”

  She only felt the slightest concern that he might never come back.

  Her nose was the only thing telling her she was going the right direction. The smell became stronger, as did the growling noises from her stomach. By the time she reached the tiny crossroads, the wind had picked up and small raindrops began to peck at her face.

  A modest but sturdy-looking wood cabin sat on a stone foundation. A crooked iron chimney crept up the outside of one wall, matched by ivy on the opposite corner of the building. A woodshed with halved and quartered logs stood to the side of the cabin. A nearby stump held an axe by its blade.

/>   She was about to explore the other side of the building when a sudden rustling noise made her jump. Orrin landed a few yards away from her. He presented a gift. It was a lizard, still wriggling in his beak. Orrin hopped toward her and dropped it on the ground.

  “Food,” he croaked.

  “I’m not eating that,” she said with revulsion. “It’s still alive!”

  She looked about. The last thing she wanted was to be discovered trespassing, talking to a giant crow. She turned back to Orrin, who had pinned his writhing prey with one black scaled claw. He looked up at her.

  “Food.”

  “Food for you maybe,” she said. “I’m a person. I need a warm bed and a meal—a decent meal. I’m starving.”

  She turned toward the cabin.

  “Sky—la.” It was a pleading, desperate cry.

  She shushed him and turned on her heel, stomping toward the cabin at first, then softening her steps as she grew closer. The interior looked warm and inviting. A few antlers were mounted on the walls, along with clockwork rifles of various shapes and sizes. They were of the sort of guns that long-range hunters use, unfolded for display. The solitary, black metal stove cast an orange glow across the room. She saw nobody inside, but the interior of the cabin was surprisingly neat and well-kept.

  She traced a path around the back of the house and found another trail lined with blood-red branches, their bark as smooth as flesh, the leaves a startling green.

  A twig snapped and Skyla spun around to find herself facing a large, barrel-chested man. He looked down from dark, thickly browed eyes and a bushy beard, nearly black. He wore a skin cap with flaps that fell over his ears, his checkered shirt a wall of fabric. In one hand he held a rifle, in the other a pheasant. Blood dripped from the slain bird onto his large black boot.

  Skyla let out a squeak of surprise, and then laughed in relief and embarrassment, simply glad to finally see another human face. The hunter however, did not seem the least bit amused. A suspicious scowl crept across his features.