“If we go, will you stop orating?” asked Lianshi.
“Only until the time comes to give a toast! Up, on your feet! Scorio? Are you with us? Will you let the other victors celebrate while we mope about indoors?”
Scorio laughed and shook his head even as he arose. “With a speech like that? How could I say no?”
“And you, Naomi!” Leonis turned to stab a finger at her. “Don’t you dare say you care nothing for us, for Scorio. Tell me his friendship isn’t worth the celebration!”
Scorio looked to her, fully expecting Naomi to tell Leonis to get lost, but instead, she met his gaze then looked swiftly away. “Fine. I’ll come.”
“Ah-ha!” Leonis raised his flaywine high. “Now all my doubts are settled, and I know that I’ve fallen in with a righteous crew! Get dressed, you fools! The night is a-wasting!”
Scorio spread his arms. “This is my only clean set of robes.”
“Well,” said Leonis, a glint in his eye, “then I shall not have much competition with the ladies. Naomi? Lianshi?”
“Come on,” said Lianshi, laboriously climbing out of the pile of cushions and setting aside her tome. “Let’s see what we can do, Naomi.”
“I’m not doing anything.” Naomi blushed. “I agreed to go, not dress up like a courtesan.”
“I’ve a little more subtlety than that,” said Lianshi, looping her arm through Naomi’s and pulling her off her chair. “Come!”
“Here,” said Leonis, handing the bottle to Scorio. “Now that we’ve agreed to go, do you have any suggestions as to a destination?”
“What?” Scorio paused, bottle halfway to his lips. “You don’t have a plan?”
Leonis grinned. “My plan was to get us out onto the streets of this fair city. From there, I’m willing to let fate guide our footsteps.”
“A place to go.” Scorio took a sip and then winced. “Actually. Yes. Though it might be hard to get in the door.”
“Don’t fret,” said Leonis, taking the bottle back. “I’ve yet to meet a doorman who can stand in my way.” He took a drink, then considered. “Though to be accurate, I’ve yet to meet a doorman.”
Five minutes later, they slipped out of their suite. Lianshi had put on a robe of green silk chased with black and gold trim, with a broad sash of scarlet around her waist. Naomi had reluctantly agreed to wear another gorgeous set of robes, an elegant black outfit whose surface revealed intricate patterns when the light caught it just right. Leonis led them quickly through the students’ halls down into the servants’ quarters, and from there down to the cellars where they entered a familiar room.
“The map revealed a series of connecting passageways that open up in a dry cistern,” said Leonis, moving to the secret door. “Last time we simply climbed to the basilica, but why should we ignore the other options?”
“Didn’t we guess that these secret passageways aren’t that secret?” asked Scorio.
“Well, whomever we meet along the way will be as motivated as we are to not raise an alarm. Come!”
Leonis opened the secret portal, and led them off to the right, following a cramped tunnel that turned erratically, following an architectural logic that Scorio couldn’t divine. They all sharpened their darkvision and thus were able to make their way through the shadowed interstices of the Academy till at last Leonis paused by a circular stone.
“Here,” he said, taking hold of two handles that had been carved free of the mass. “It takes a Cinder at the very least to open this up. Give me some elbow space.”
They watched as Leonis twisted the stone plug, his whole frame shaking as he exerted terrible strength upon the door. Which turned with a deep grinding noise, and then pushed free into the gloom beyond.
“There we go. Follow me!” Leonis ducked through the portal, and one by one they followed. Scorio cast a glance back the way they’d come, but saw nothing and no one.
The room beyond was a colonnaded chamber, low ceilinged and ancient, the brickwork deformed by the weight pressing down upon the vaulted ceiling. Replacing the stone plug, Leonis wiped the dust off his palms and then turned around, getting his bearings. “This is the old cistern. We go this way, I think.”
For a while longer, they crept through the dusty vault, till at last they climbed up onto a platform that might once have been at water level, and from there ascended a cobwebbed staircase to emerge into a dark gallery that encircled an abandoned courtyard. Silently, little more than shadows themselves, they slipped out through an archway and found themselves in a street, the hulking mass of the Academy looming before them.
“Does the Golden King not deliver?” Leonis spread his arms wide. “I hereby pass the baton of leadership to our illustrious friend, Scorio the… well. Which of your nicknames do you prefer?”
“I’m working on new ones,” said Scorio, leading them down the street. “Come on, we’ve got to get to Ward 11.”
“What’s in Ward 11?” asked Lianshi, stepping up alongside him, arm in arm with Naomi.
“Some friends. Remember Feiyan and Helena? They opened a… concert hall of sorts with the sunphire I gave them.”
Naomi frowned. “I thought Feiyan told you to never return.”
To which Scorio could only grin. “She enjoys being disappointed. Plus, Helena will be glad to see me. Come on!”
Buoyed by sudden energy, feeling terribly alive, young and filled with promise, he led them into the nocturnal streets of Bastion, whose main thoroughfares were lit as before by the delirious lights emitted by copper and iron spheres. Overhead the sun-wire was a smoldering filament, giving forth no actual illumination, but everywhere else was slate blue shadow, deep ebon darkness, and cool, exhilarating realms of surreal color and activity.
His friends clustered in close beside him as he led the way, following the wet streets that gleamed under the impossible lights, through night markets, past places of questionable business that only opened at night, stalls giving off clouds of steam as their cooks served up bowls of freshly grilled street food. Here and there were signs of Imogen’s destruction, the architecture perverted or inverted, even, but despite those markets the crowd pressed by uncaring in gaudy robes, music swirling from open windows where beautiful men and women beckoned for the passerby to come closer.
“I feel like I’ve fallen into a dream,” said Lianshi, eyes wide as she tried to take it all in. “It’s like this every night?”
“See?” Leonis tried for his boisterous grin and nearly managed. “I told you it was worth the adventure.”
“Watch your purses,” said Naomi, eyes narrowed. “We stand out like children at a brothel.”
“Ew,” said Lianshi. “What an awful metaphor.”
“This way,” said Scorio, spotting a steep set of steps that led down to a glimmering canal. “The Flame should be close, unless I’m completely lost. We’ve gone radially west enough, at any rate.”
Down the steep steps they went, laughing and holding onto each other as they took turns nearly slipping on the treacherously wet rock, then out beside the broad canal. Its waters gleamed like black oil, and up ahead Scorio saw a large crowd gathered outside an open doorway from which loud, melodic music burst forth, the rhythm insistent, infectious.