I give the sky-steel crown another frantic shake. “Nimh,do something!”
A remnant of Nimh’s mist curls around me, seems almost to caress me. Just for an instant, it feels as though fingers brush my cheek. I’m haunted by the strange certainty that the touch is Nimh’s—though she’s never touched me before, somehow the way the mist curves against my skin is all hers.
And then the sensation is gone.
I’m still sitting on the ground, holding the melted crown. If I stand up, if I move, I acknowledge that this has really happened. That Nimh and Inshara are gone, far beyond where I can follow. I can’t do that.
Then something brushes against my leg and I start. It’s the cat. He’s limping as he moves, clearly in pain, but his steps are deliberate as he makes his way along my body until I can carefully gather him up in my arms. There he settles without protest, which is how I know he really must be hurting.
“We’ll find her,” I tell him quietly. “I promise. This isn’t over.”
Because I know she’s alive, and she’s in my world. And I know that was her touch just a few moments ago.
I know what I have to do, and I won’t fail her.
Techeki offers me his hand to help me up as he speaks. “We’ll search,” he says quietly. “We’ll find another way to the cloudlands.”
Someone clears her throat behind me and I jump. When I whirl around, I’m face-to-face with a woman a little older than me, her hair shorn close to her head. She’s dressed like a riverstrider—she’s standing with half a dozen other riverstriders gathered just behind her.
“Forgive me, cloudlander,” she says, inclining her head in a gesture of respect. “My name is Hiret, and I am a friend of your goddess. I bring greetings from the Fisher King of the riverstriders. He would meet with you, if you will see him.”
Irritation sears through me. “No. I can’t,” I blurt. “What use are stories to me right now? I don’t have time for your Fisher King.”
“Not even if you knew him by another name?” The voice is resonant, rich, and grave.
The riverstriders step away, revealing the figure standing in their midst—and my mouth falls open.
At the temple, he wore plain robes—so plain I can’t remember what color they were, only that he was nearly indistinguishable from the texts he guarded in his archives. Now he’s in a coat of dark turquoise velvet, gold braiding decorating the shoulders and running down his arms. Around his neck, he has necklace after necklace slung one atop the other, so that most of his chest is a mass of gleaming beads that clicks and shifts when he moves.
“Y-Youare the Fisher King?” I blurt.
Matias, Master of Archives, flashes me a grim smile. “Sometimes. I am always a protector of ancient secrets, cloudlander. Nimhara called me Master of Archives, charged me with protecting the temple’s written words. The riverstriders call me Fisher King, keeper of their stories.”
I tangle my fingers in the cat’s fur, still uncertain why he’s chosen this moment to find me—surrounded by the rubble, still reeling from having lost Nimh and my home in one terrible instant.
Matias stoops, twitching one velvet sleeve back. “You, no doubt, will call me Sentinel, guardian of the secret ways between the worlds.”
With a quiet incantation, he passes his other hand across his outstretched arm—a spot of black appears, and then, like ink dropped into water, it spreads to reveal an image tattooed on his palm: the image of a staring eye ringed by two circles. The same symbol marked on the secret passageway from the temple archives that Nimh and I used to escape together the night Inshara killed the high priest and took hold of this place.
It was there the whole time—if only Nimh or I had known what that symbol meant.
Sentinel.
Matias’s eyes are soft and sympathetic, but beneath that warmth I can see a glint of something harder, sterner. “We will get her back, cloudlander,” he tells me. “And save your people too.”
I swallow hard and turn away, my heart too full of conflicting emotions. On the horizon are the Lovers, Miella and Danna, locked in their eternal dance as they vanish into the dawn. Above them, no more than an inky spot in the still lightening sky, is the underside of Alciel.
How many times since falling did I look up and wonder if I’d ever get home? Now the question eats at me in a way it never has before, becauseNimhis up there, and she’s all alone with a woman twisted into monstrosity who wants her dead, who wants usalldead. I can only pray that I have enough time.
Time to stop Inshara. Time to find a way between worlds. Time to find a way back to Nimh.
Hold on, Nimh.The thought burns in me like a beacon—perhaps if I wish it hard enough, she might feel it, might know she isn’t as alone as she seems.Hold on … I’m coming.
SOMEWHERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY....
The transit conductor sighed, glanced down at his chrono, and then released the hand brake, allowing the current flowing through the city’s patchwork of rails to propel the carriage forward. The last of his passengers, a tipsy boy with glittery blue lipstick, had disembarked two stops ago. Few people ventured out during these quiet hours before dawn, but the king—long may he be remembered—had demanded safe, free transportation throughout the city for all Alciel’s citizens.
As the carriage gathered speed, the conductor let his mind wander. He fretted about his son, whose quarterly evaluation marks at the Royal Academy were still growing worse, not better, despite the sizable part of his paycheck that went to a private tutor. He wondered if any of his public transit colleagues had ever seen his son sneaking back late at night like the boy with the electric blue lips—wondered if they’d seen and not known him, or worse, seen and not told the conductor about it.
