Matabar

"You need to be faster, Ard! Faster!"

Aversky slammed his staff against the stone floor of the training ground. Almost instantly — faster than even a revolver's discharge — his spell rocketed out. Ardi was certain that, if science had the means to measure the speed of thought, the spell cast by this Grand Magister of military magic would have barely lagged behind it.

His seal was black, the color of Aversky's Star, with a mere two contours and four arrays — three static, one dynamic — within which the emphasis had been placed on…

Ardan was flung a good meter and a half into the air, carried another two or so meters forward, then slammed forcefully to the floor. For a few moments, he gasped for air, trying to catch his breath. Though Aversky had used only a simple, non-lethal Air Ram spell, it had still been wielded by the hand of a master — a Grand Magister at that.

"How many contours?" That same Grand Magister asked impatiently, not moving from his spot.

"Two," Ardan rasped.

"Correct. How many arrays?"

"Four."

"Correct. Which ones?"

"Three static, one dynamic."

"Correct. Spell type?"

"Penetrating."

"Correct. Which nodes were you planning to neutralize?"

"The form nodes, so the spell would disperse and lose its kinetic energy."

"Correct. And what sort of shield should you have used?"

"A dispersing shield. One utilizing runes of deformation, stretching and a rune intended to reverse the attacker's energy to accelerate the disintegration of your spell's form."

"Correct again!" Aversky practically barked, sounding more like his Cloak mask than ever. "So why, Ard — by the Eternal Angels — did you do absolutely nothing?!"

Still rubbing his bruised abdomen for what felt like the hundredth time, Ardan propped himself up on his staff and got to his feet. As was always the case in the basement of house number 4 on Guild Embankment Street, Ardi was once more becoming acutely aware of the yawning gulf that separated his modest abilities from those of the titans — Grand Magisters like Aversky or, at the very least, the Senior Magisters.

This sounded absurdly dismissive, of course. The Senior Magisters were far from 'the very least…'

"I was trying to calculate the additional load in the node that was tied to-"

"Don't try to calculate anything extra!" Aversky interrupted, invoking the Angels once more as he set his staff aside and began adjusting his prosthetics. "You already knew the solution and you had every means of blocking my spell! You need to act instantly! And to do that, Ard, you must hammer all the fundamentals into your mind even though it lacks even the slightest bit of talent for military magic. You must act without thinking. Without spending so much as a fraction of a second on calculations, suppositions, theory, or whatever else your engineer's brain might conjure."

After the young man had spent almost half a year studying under the Grand Magister, Aversky had come to the disappointing conclusion that Ardan did not possess any remarkable aptitude for military magic. He lacked a specific set of qualities.

The first and most valuable quality, paradoxical as this might sound, was recklessness. Ardan always tried to think everything through, to calculate and choose the most optimal, most correct way to solve a problem. Military magic demanded an entirely different approach.

Interestingly enough, Ardi had heard something very similar a long time ago, among the peaks of the Alkade, from Aergar. The snow leopard had always lamented the fact that Ardan wasn't suited to the icy paths of the cold crags. Even back then, the young hunter had felt far more at ease — and far more interested in — spending time with Atta'nha and Skusty, and learning how to hear the unheard and see the unseen.

And yet, just like he'd done with Aergar, Ardi had no choice but to grit his teeth and continue the monotonous, repetitive drills that left no room for creativity.

It was all endless memorization, first mental then physical, where knowledge slowly seeped into skill and skill fused into instinctive reaction.

And if Aergar had used his tails to speed things up, Aversky used spells.

"Eternal Angels, Ard, I swear on everything dear to me — when it comes to the art of war, you are hopeless," Aversky growled, walking over to the nearby table and taking a swig from a flask containing a pungent, bitter brew. By this point, the Grand Magister already looked so haggard you could have used him as a scarecrow, or mistaken him for some sort of ghastly creature from Fifth Street in Baliero.

Ardan nearly blurted out, "Is there even such a thing?" Though, to be fair, Edward Aversky cherished… his laboratory, his experiments, and his major scientific discoveries above all else.

"And if not for my, dare I say it, extraordinary gift for training even individuals as dull as you — again, strictly regarding military matters; I do not mean to belittle your undoubtedly brilliant engineering talents — then you would… I can't even imagine it. I have no words for such a travesty!"

Ardan remained silent. Aversky's remarks didn't bother him in the slightest. First, he had no inflated ego — at least by his own reckoning — and knew perfectly well how weak he was as a military mage. And secondly, Edward Aversky would inevitably go off on a heated, eccentric tirade sooner or later. It happened most often when his experiments had been failing for a long while or, even more frequently, when the topic at hand was Ardan himself.

"Explain it to me, Ard. How is this possible?" Aversky plopped down in a chair, stretched out his legs, and pressed a towel to his forehead. The towel was wrapped around a small metal box filled with ice. "You can, in just a couple of hours, design a three-contour seal with five arrays, trace the runic connections within them, then fuse the whole thing with another seal so that — where one would expect, at best, some sort of abomination — you end up with a decent piece of engineering. But the moment you see a swiftly-forming seal in front of you, you freeze like a startled rabbit."

"There are just several possible-"

"Yes, damn it all, Ard!" The older man shouted, waving his hand so vigorously that his finger prosthetics nearly flew off. "There are always multiple options! Choose one, by the Eternal Angels!"

"But in order to choose, you need to analyze the rest."

"On paper, Ard! On paper! In a fight, you only need to survive! Ideally without being maimed! Or at least in good enough shape so you don't have to visit a different kind of engineer afterwards." Aversky waved his artificial fingers pointedly, then motioned to his prosthetic foot. "You won't always be able to rely on clever tricks, Ard. There won't always be explosives tucked away on the train, or a passive protective seal in the manor house. You might have to neutralize a demon or some other fiend all on your own. And then all your undoubtedly useful qualities — your resourcefulness, your creative spark, your ability to keep a level head — won't be able to help you at all in a real fight!"

Aversky exhaled, apparently calmer now that he had vented.

Ardan understood that the man was right, but…

"The most frustrating part is that you really do try, Ard," the Grand Magister said, removing the metal box full of ice from beneath the damp towel and draping the cloth over his face. "You've even made progress. But after six months, Ard… six whole months… I was hoping that by now, we'd be practicing military magic of the two-Star variety, not to mention combining various spells, tactics and battle strategies. And yet you still can't show me even a seventy percent success rate in defending yourself from basic Red Star spells."

Ardi could have protested, pointing out that his success rate had climbed to seventy-three percent last month, and almost seventy-six this month. But he stayed silent. Even a ninety percent success rate would mean that in a real life-or-death situation — when all these training exercises would truly matter — a mage still had a one-in-ten chance of meeting the Eternal Angels. That was one too many.

Roughly three times out of four, Ardi had managed to recognize the arrays in the Grand Magister's seals, rewrite his own seal on the fly, and erect the appropriate shield. This had led to Aversky's spells ending up unraveled, reflected, or absorbed.

But that was "only" within the Red Star's domain, and much like with the stones and Cassara, it was a thoroughly controlled environment. The training ground on Guild Embankment Street was worlds apart from the Stronghold, for example.

"Very well, Ard, very well." The Grand Magister raised his hands in a gesture of concession. "I still have faith in you, though it dims with every passing month. At least you've made significant strides in your raw speed. Now then, demonstrate something from our repertoire."

When instructing Ardan, Aversky believed it was unwise to focus solely on Nicholas the Stranger's ice spells. Instead, he was having Ardi learn other elements, principles, and more modern developments as well.

The result was a sort of library. It had ten rows of miniature metal cabinets, each stack was ten drawers high, and each drawer was about thirty centimeters deep. In total, this archive contained around a hundred and forty spells, plus an absurd number of modifications.

He didn't have to memorize them all. He only had to cast them from the cards. Pure memorization, Aversky had advised him, should be reserved for his ice spells, since Ardan's Aean'Hane skills naturally amplified those.

In other words… It was all a bit distasteful to Ardi. Yes, he understood the need for him to be trained as a military mage. At times, whenever he made a notable breakthrough, he even felt a spark of excitement, but never more than that.

Fighting had never appealed to him. Not since his childhood. And from that standpoint, nothing had changed in his soul — except the sheer necessity that had arisen.

"Which one shall I take?" He asked.

Aversky waved his artificial fingers again. "Section three, row seven, one of the first ten spells."

Ardan went over to the cabinet, found the correct slot, and slid out a long row of patiently-waiting spell cards, selecting one lucky candidate from the bunch.

"Sulfur Spit," Ardan read. "A modification for a fan-shaped spread, sacrificing speed and range for an increased area of effect."

"Perfect," Aversky said, lifting the towel away from one eye. "Demonstrate. Tony, as always, will be at your service."

Tony — a Ley artifact in the form of a human-sized training dummy connected to a set of Ley-cables — remained stoic, silent, and wooden in every sense of the word.

Even when a seal took shape under Ardi's feet almost instantaneously, and green jets of energy shot forth from the tip of his staff, hitting both Tony and several invisible targets around him, the mannequin didn't so much as twitch — though, to be fair, it hardly had any eyebrows it could raise.

Sulfur Spit — or, in this specific instance, Sulfur Spit, Fan Spread modification — unleashed four seven-meter long, green jets of acidic energy. Wherever they landed, they flared up into splashes of actual acid. If not for the testing ground's elaborate protection system, the acid would have corroded Tony, the cables, and the floor beneath them as well.

Instead, with a soft hiss, the jets of energy dissolved into the veil of the shielding dome.

"I'm honestly baffled by this paradox of yours, Ard," Aversky remarked, his brow furrowing as though in genuine astonishment. "You'd ask an attacking mage to freeze in place so you could stare at their seal for hours, yet you cast your own spells with rather impressive speed."

"There's nothing to overthink here," Ardi said, replacing the card. "It's already been worked out."

"And your own research?"

"I have time to test my creations at the Spell Market training grounds now, thanks to my salary," Ardan countered.

"You do realize why I'm insisting on all of this, don't you, Ard?" Aversky asked, only to answer his own question at once. "You lack experience. Specifically, experience facing opponents in your own 'weight class,' so to speak, and in environments at least a little closer to real conditions. Just like three months ago. In other words… How do you feel about the Magical Boxing I recommended to you several months back?"

Ardan, guessing that the day's practical portion was likely done, slid the cabinet drawer shut and moved over to the table, settling into a chair that had practically become his own.

He had no doubt that if someone at the Grand ever found out Ardan Egobar had his own personal chair in Edward Aversky's laboratory, they might just choke to death with envy.

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"I missed the spring tryouts for the Sponsor League because of-"

"Spare me the details, Ard," Aversky cut him off at once. "Here, we engage in science, not in the affairs of duty. Everything regarding the Black House can be discussed another time."

Ardi shrugged. "The next tryout is in summer — at the end of the Month of the Sun."

"Mhm," the older man grunted. "And sending you to participate in sparring matches at the Grand University with those children is about as absurd as… Damn it all. My capacity for coherent speech is failing me this evening." Aversky shot a suspicious look at his flask.

Ardan understood the implication. Constant use of invigorating brews could wreak havoc on the nervous system, leading to all sorts of side effects. For instance, Ardi sometimes struggled to contain his impulses (the incidents with Iolai Agrov or the Ragman were proof of that), while Aversky had begun mixing up his words and suffering from mild absentmindedness.

"So in other words, Ard, we have no choice but to hope that, until the Month of the Sun, you can once again rely on your intellect rather than your skills if a crisis arises."

This might have sounded absurd to someone unfamiliar with the principles of military magic, but if you understood them, it was perfectly logical.

As Aversky had warned him from the start, military magic really did boil down to hundreds of hours — thousands of hours even — of repetitive drills. And just as many sparring sessions.

Or, alternatively, you could skip some of that training if you were born with talent — like Kerimov, Boris Fahtov, Iolai Agrov, Polina Erkerovsky, and basically everyone else currently enrolled at the Military Faculty of the Grand.

Ardi didn't have that talent, so he needed even more time, even more training.

"Would you like some tea?" Aversky asked, sliding a porcelain cup closer to Ardi and tipping the teapot in invitation.

"Is it the Kargaam Amber blend?" Ardi asked hopefully.

"Of course, Ard. Of course."

It was thanks to Aversky that Ardi had come to adore that particular variety of tea — perhaps he loved it even more than cocoa.

For a while, they sat together in silence, drinking tea and gazing toward Tony, whose form shimmered slightly in the glow of the flowing Ley energy.

Ardi had never asked him about what had happened at the Grand University last week. And in all honesty, there would have been no point.

"Shall we finally move on to something genuinely interesting, Ard?" Aversky asked, and for the first time that evening, his eyes started gleaming with the spark of a curious mind eager for a pursuit that was far more thrilling than repeating the same exercises over and over. "Are you ready?"

"Certainly, Edward," Ardi responded respectfully, matching his tone.

They gathered their cups and moved together into the Grand Magister's laboratory.

Since Ardi's last visit, the laboratory had undergone some changes. On the far wall, opposite the entrance, the black graphite board still hung beside a heavy table. On both sides, there were tall cabinets crammed with grimoires and books, artifacts and cryptic instruments — all manner of objects tied to the study and development of Star Magic.

At the center of the room, there had previously been a single worktable piled high with drafts and sheets of scrawled notes, a few arithmometers, plus an assortment of wooden Ley-engineering rulers and drafting boards.

After Ardi's recent visits to the Spell Market, he had a better grasp of how costly such items truly were. Even a single worktable like this — with its many devices — would be enough to fund the Grand University education of dozens of mages.

And next to that chaos-laden table, there was now another. This one wasn't made of pine or spruce and merely covered with walnut, redwood, or Alkade birch. No, Ardi's practiced eye had recognized the "winter oak" at once. It grew north of the Alkade, near the Great Glacier. It was sturdy, reliable wood.

Its drawers were made of walnut and smoked pine and had been finished with lacquer. A rectangular inset of waxed felt formed a proper work surface.

A Ley-lamp stood above it. The chair was made of bent and steamed elm, with the addition of comfortable cushions both for one's back and a more delicate region.

There was a steel arithmometer with a hefty coil for deep calculations on the table, and beside it, there was also an arithmograph — a similar device that recorded results on a strip of paper, punching the necessary values into it.

And, of course, there were plenty of drafting boards, rulers, sharpened pencils, and stencils.

Aversky skirted around the new table, took a seat behind his own, and, raising a stack of papers, nodded toward the chair across from him.

"Have a seat, Ard. Let's not waste time."

Ardan exhaled in mild amazement, dusted himself off, placed his staff alongside the Grand Magister's, loosened his jacket, and settled into the chair.

Aversky took out a cigarette, lit it, and offered Ardan the open case with a gesture.

"Still not smoking?"

"No."

"That's sad," the Grand Magister said, clicking the case shut. He pulled an ashtray closer and began to draw Ardan into the matter at hand. "The spell I'm about to start working on, Ard, is a mobile construction designed for a group casting by six Star Mages with no fewer than four Stars and four rays each. There's a core seal with two nested seals. Altogether, that makes for fourteen contours, forty-two arrays, and an 11-to-31 split of static and dynamic arrays. Which means we're looking at-"

"588 runic connections," Ardi breathed, going noticeably pale as his heart drummed faster than an automobile's pistons.

"Your arithmetic is as sharp as ever… Scared?"

Ardan shook his head resolutely. On the contrary, his fingers were already itching to get his hands on the first sheets — or anything at all, really. He still didn't know what part he was expected to play in this project, but he was eager to dive in. There would be puzzles and conundrums.

And there would be magic.

What could be more fascinating?

"Lately, you've grown adept at calculating runic connections," Aversky went on. "I'm glad I didn't turn you in to the Colonel or take away your copies of Lady Talia's seals. Here." He handed Ardi a sheaf of papers. "Begin with the first dynamic array — the one responsible for anchoring to the location. I need runic pathways that will let this array transmit the base altitude of the core construction to the first contour, so that in the future…"

"It's able to merge with another array that can analyze obstacles rising above the initial level," Ardi said, excitement coursing through him as he nearly snatched the papers from the Grand Magister's hands.

"Excellent, Ard, excellent. Let's get started."

Aversky took a long drag on his cigarette and exhaled a swirl of smoke. Plucking a pencil from a tin cup, he began making calculations, and so did Ardi. The laboratory was soon filled with a haze of cigarette smoke, the click of metal keys, the scratch of graphite on paper, the squeak of chairs, the rustle of pages, and the hum of two inquisitive minds at work.

***

Ardan thanked the driver (no trams ran at night in Baliero), handed over two bills and some change totaling fourteen kso, and stepped out into the open.

A warm spring wind brushed against his face, carrying with it the aromas of sharp coffee, sweet tea, veranda chatter, sparkling smiles, and laughter that rang like bells. Baliero never slept.

The streets of the district glowed with the lights of signs, shop windows, the gleam of expensive car headlights, garish decorations, and clothes just as ostentatious — sometimes embroidered with crystals and sequins, and in the case of men, sporting ruby cufflinks or flamboyant feathers tucked into hat ribbons. Smoke from cigars drifted side by side with the city folk, while strains of music contended with the unending din to see which could outdo the other in liveliness.

In the parks, street musicians played, drawing in those fond of dancing and languid, philosophical discussions spiced up with bottles of wine or something stronger. These gatherings would continue until some overzealous guard noticed the indecency and charged forward in a desperate attempt to grab the laughing, impoverished artists, the charming models, the aspiring performers searching for a muse, the musicians who composed on the move, the poets reciting verses as they walked, and… the sculptors, who watched it all with a lazy air and a sense of superiority.

Along the boulevards and roads, elf men and women strolled, gathering admiring gazes and basking in the flash of cameras, their light merging into the patchwork of Baliero's night.

Here, extreme poverty lived side by side with wanton wealth, talent mingled with mediocrity, and airy, weightless beauty might not even notice the horrors of the kind found at Fifth Street. Among all the districts of the capital, including the New City, it was Baliero that stirred the most complicated emotions in Ardan. Perhaps it was because out here, there was none of that regal bearing draped in mystique and secrecy that the Central District wore so gracefully — something Ardi had already grown accustomed to and fond of.

Baliero was home to revelry, to a carefree atmosphere that made one forget the troubles and concerns of everyday drudgery — the ones that, barking like angry dogs, stood on the border of the Niewa River, separating the island of Baliero from the Metropolis.

"Are you free?" A young woman in a light dress, wearing a hat, a cigarette holder, and elbow-length black brocade gloves, dashed up to Ardi. "Join us! We're going to the movies. Will you come along?"

The movies… He and Tess had been planning for ages to see what this new wave of culture mixed with technological progress was all about, but they'd never gotten around to it. And now this girl was tugging at his arm, pulling him toward a convertible whose interior already held more people than the designers had ever intended it to. There were about six of them, including the driver.

They laughed and sipped sparkling wine from crystal glasses, shouting something and waving at him in greeting.

"Forgive me," Ardan said, tipping his hat slightly. "I'm afraid I must decline."

"Really?" The girl batted her lashes at him. "Well, all right… But if you change your mind, come to Twelfth Street, House Three! Tomorrow, after seven in the evening, there's going to be a home concert by Ranaso in my apartment!"

Ardi smiled appreciatively and nodded. He had no idea who — or what — Ranaso was. Without missing a beat, the woman dashed off into the crowd to hunt for another companion.

Baliero…

As he strolled along its streets, immersed in the shimmering, raucous night, several groups of young people beckoned him over. He received offers ranging from an invitation to debate the meaning of life with already visibly tipsy philosophers, to an offer to attend the premiere of a new show at the Imperial Ballet and Opera Theater, which seemed to be causing quite a stir. More than once, he was asked to join folks at cafés and restaurants where music mingled with the night air, danced over piano keys, and trembled along guitar strings. People called him toward the embankment, where magicians, mimes and street portraitists entertained dancers. Different hands kept tugging him in different directions, and… Yes, the path was not an easy one. Not because Ardi was special in any way.

No.

The peculiarity lay in Baliero itself. When you came here, you were never alone. Perhaps that was why so many young, creative types flocked to it like moths to a too-bright flame — they sought its warmth so they wouldn't feel the loneliness and chill of that black river that regarded this bright island with cold, stony contempt from its granite prison.

Ardan smiled.

Baliero always reminded him of poems from Atta'nha's scrolls, making it so even his thoughts arranged themselves in a poetic manner when he was here, and…

Ardi froze. The next turn led to Seventh Street, and from there, once he crossed the avenue, it would be a short distance to Fifth Street.

A slight shiver ran through him. He quickened his step, soon reaching Eleventh Street.

Finding the building he needed wasn't difficult. It was on the odd-numbered side, five doors down from the intersection. How did Ardan know?

For starters, it stood out among the rest the same way a remnant of the Central District's old architecture would stand out in the New City.

Ornate and graceful, it nevertheless loomed above the line of rooftops around Baliero. Its facade featured pristine white columns holding up a pyramidal entablature set on marble capitals. Along the frieze, where there was a three-dimensional inscription in Old Galessian, triglyphs descended in vertical lines, separating the metopes that bore carvings of scenes from tales and myths as well as from plays and performances. Even the small guttae at the tops of the columns looked entirely unusual, resembling musical instruments and bits of a score more than classical decorative embellishments. The pediment itself, hovering over the building, wasn't just a "roof," but something that aspired to reach those same unattainable heights of architecture from which the dome over the Palace of the Kings of the Past had once descended.

Ardi, keeping one hand on his hat, admired the building. He also felt a twinge of pride that he had not wasted his school days at Evergale — Teacher Parnas would have been proud. Perhaps he would have even awarded him top marks again for his knowledge of architectural elements.

How exactly did these details help Ardi? To be honest, they didn't. He simply knew this was the only building on Eleventh Street in Baliero that looked like a theater. It was also… hidden behind scaffolding and a tall wooden fence thrown up temporarily for construction.

Ardan glanced at his watch.

It seemed like he'd arrived on time.

Walking along the fence, he reached the gates and… hesitated before knocking. The sky above was calm and dark, silent. The season of spring storms and tempests, which visited the capital every year, had passed. But the entire situation still felt far too similar to what had happened back at the Menagerie.

Shaking off such thoughts, Ardan found a raised button that still had some exposed wiring and pressed it to activate the Ley-powered bell.

It was a full five minutes before the door opened, revealing the inner courtyard. The grounds were a muddy mess: huge empty reels of Ley-cables lay scattered everywhere, alongside crates and pallets, several trucks, welding gas cylinders, and all sorts of other construction materials and tools.

"The Mage Guild?" Growled a construction worker dressed in a simple blue jumpsuit over a wool sweater, an aluminum hard hat perched on his head. In his hands, he held a lantern powered by a household Ley accumulator. It wasn't a cheap item, so he was likely someone in charge. "We've already reported which company we're contracting for the stationary shield installation and submitted all the Ley-cable plans."

"No, I-"

"Then what do you want?!" He roared. "You think all this stuff is here just for show?"

"Sorry to bother you, I-"

"Spit it out."

Ardan nodded and showed him the invitation Tess had given him. Essentially, it was just a scrap of paper with the singer's signature and a small stamp reading, "Baliero Concert Hall." It was rather plain, but easy to recognize.

"Uhm," grunted the foreman. "It's inside. First… Ah, Eternal Angels, I've got better things to do… You can find your own way. Get in! Don't just stand there."

Ardan was wearing his usual attire: an inexpensive suit he'd bought from a market stall (with his own salary, no less) and a light coat his mother had sewn and mailed to him — a parcel that had no doubt cost more than he cared to consider.

Honestly, it wasn't surprising that the foreman was acting like this — Ardi was no Milar, flaunting the instantly-recognizable uniform of the Second Chancery. Still, Ardan did not blame the man for his harshness. If someone had interrupted his work, he'd have hardly been cheerful, either.

"Thank you."

"Mm-hmm… Erklad! Your mother's… a wonderful lady! Where do you think you're hauling that cable?"

"To the warehouse…"

"The warehouse is the other way, you son of siblings! You're obviously trying to fucking ste-"

Ardan didn't catch the rest. By then, neither the foreman nor his workers were paying him the slightest bit of attention. The man slammed the door shut, hurrying back to his crew. Ardi, stepping carefully along the planks laid out across the muddy puddles, made his way over to what would eventually become the grand entrance.

He climbed the steps that were still covered in boards for safety reasons, went under the scaffolding, and passed through massive glass doors fitted into elegant wooden frames, finally arriving at the foyer. By late summer, it would likely be beautiful, but for now, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and artists were finishing the job. Scaffolding had cluttered up the area in here as well, along with workbenches, paint canisters, canvases, rolls of paper, stacks of cardboard, boards, tools — everything one might expect to find at a construction site.

Relying on common sense, Ardi walked clockwise around the foyer and soon reached a line of doors and staircases. The stairs presumably led to the boxes, balconies and mezzanine, while the doors led to the orchestra pit and parterre.

Tess had specifically asked him to come to the parterre, so Ardi opened the farthest door and stepped through.

Or rather, he tried to do so, only to freeze mid-stride.

This was the first time he had ever truly seen a theater. Mart had told him so much about these places. Dozens — no, hundreds — of seats rose higher and higher, cascading like a wave until they broke against the gilded walls crowned with red velvet railings. The theater boxes, like little rounded alcoves, hid beneath crimson velvet curtains. The balconies appeared more modest, but even they might have rivaled the facade in splendor. A giant chandelier hung from the ceiling, weighing several tons by the look of it. Sculpted wind and water spirits, seemingly lifted straight from the pages of Fae fairy tales, were perched on it, holding what felt like a countless number of candles.

And that stage…

Until now, Ardan couldn't have even imagined that it was so vast. Judging by the curtain alone, the audience would see only a fraction of it, and even that fraction looked impressive.

All of this was…

"Inspiring, isn't it?" Came a familiar, unhurried, courteous voice from nearby.

Ardan's grip tightened on his staff.

"Good evening, Mr. Egobar."

"Good evening," Ardi replied evenly. "Mr. Belski."

Standing beside him was the Dandy, the uncrowned king of the capital's underworld himself. In the flesh.

And for some reason, Ardan was certain that if he ever had to choose between facing a demon and this man, he'd gladly take his chances with the demon.