Vergil slept the sleep of the terminally exhausted, fallen off while Sil and Tallah argued on how best to handle the immediate future. By the time he woke and uncurled off his cot, on late afternoon of what felt like a different year altogether, the apartment had become an eerily quiet place.


    The earlier headache still dogged him, grown into a mute presence holding his head in a vice-like grip of throbbing pain. A niggling sensation of something trying to scratch its way out of his brain got him to his feet.


    <ul style="text-align: justify">


    <li>Attempted connection: Pending</li>


    <li>Attempted connection: Failed. Error: 432342 [Handshake could not be established]</li>


    <li>Please seek Engineering support via open public channel #2001.</li>


    </ul>


    Argia was at it again, trying to reestablish connection to a ship that was a reality away. It’d quiet down after some time.


    He stumbled into the common room in time to see Tallah slice open a dark slit in the air. It hovered a palm’s breadth above the floor. She widened it with a gesture into something about the size of a door.


    “Good. You’re awake. Carry these in there,” she instructed, as if there wasn’t a big rip in the air itself. “Don’t gawk. Hop to it.”


    He stuck his hand in and it didn’t come out the other side. The cold inside bit.


    “It’s a hole,” he said, too stupid for the time being to articulate anything more profound.


    “It’s a Rend. You’ve seen them before.” She pointed to a pack of clothes on the floor. “Go on, take them in.”


    It was his first time seeing one as big as this. He’d mostly seen Sil stowing stuff in her little black portals, or taking out vials and supplies for her alchemy.


    “What’s in there?”


    “Nothing.”


    “Why is it whispering?”


    Tallah stared at him, then at the Rend. She came next to him and placed the back of her hand to his forehead.


    “Just daft with an overactive imagination, not feverish,” she proclaimed. “The Rend’s not whispering. There’s nothing in there to do anything of the sort.”


    Vergil heard it quite clearly. Well, not clearly, more like a stream of static that never resolved into a language he could understand, but the impression of words was there.


    He really shouldn’t accept strange drinks anymore…


    “Where does it lead to?”


    “Nowhere.”


    He tried to mimic one of the impatient glares Sil always threw around. “Go into the dark portal, Vergil. There’s nothing in there, Vergil. It doesn’t go anywhere, Vergil. Do the two of you ever hear yourselves?”


    Tallah frowned, midway into stowing some books inside her chest. In a minute Vergil regretted his outburst as she launched into an explanation of what a Rend was in her usual cryptic way that assumed he was either much smarter than he really was, or a complete imbecile. Reality grew thin around people like her and Sil because of how they drew illum to them. A skilled enough channeller, like herself, could rearrange—and here she’d lost him completely—that thin reality into a gap outside of reality that only they could access and use it to store things inside. Clear enough?


    Mental. Absolutely mental.


    It shut him up.


    The two had been busy while he slept and it made him feel vaguely ashamed for it, and a little uneasy in seeing the room left so bare. Tianna and Sil’s lives fit neatly into the large chest that now dominated one wall of the room. What was still out were some clothes, Tallah’s trio of swords, and a bunch of labelled jars, the contents of which were either vile or alien to him.


    All of it depressing.


    He picked up the neatly stacked clothes, drew in and held a breath, and stepped through the Rend.


    Like dipping into ice-cold water. The chill knocked the air out of him. He’d expected a kind of midnight darkness but was met by grey twilight. The walls of the room outside became ghostly and indistinct. He could see Tallah move about, passing through the empty space he occupied, like two images overlaying.


    There were shelves that hadn’t been in the Meadow room. Some of them had nick-knacks heaped upon but most were covered by books and Sil’s alchemy supplies. There was a small chest on another with a very large lock set upon it.


    Air was thin and smelled faintly of a chemical spill.


    The whispers were louder on this side of the portal, buzzing almost, skipping like a bad communication port on the Gloria. How could Tallah not hear it? That, or she was pulling his leg.


    <ul style="text-align: justify">


    <li>Attempted connection: Pending</li>


    <li>Connection: Successful</li>


    </ul>


    “There you are! Stay put!”


    He whirled in place. He’d heard a woman’s voice clear as crystal. It had been just there, right besides him. Only Tallah’s ghostly figure passed through, crossing the room outside the Rend, unconcerned.


    <ul style="text-align: justify">


    <li>Connection: Dropped</li>


    <li>Attempted connection: Pending</li>


    </ul>


    “There is something in there.” Vergil’s voice cracked when he rushed out. Whether from the cold or the shock he wasn’t sure. “I’m not making it up. I swear.”


    Tallah gave him a suffering glare, walked past him and disappeared into the Rend. She was back out a few moments later.


    “Vergil, there’s nothing in there. Blast you, I thought you’d finally grown a backbone last night. If you’re scared of the dark just say so.”


    “I was drunk. And I’m not scared of the dark.”


    “And it’s left you dumb? Get out of my way.”


    She picked up the sheathed swords and carried them in. Her agitation left him shuffling his feet uncertainly, too red with embarrassment to even look at her as she walked circles around the nearly empty room, checking for things she might have missed. The portal just floated there, its edges rippling slightly as if from an unfelt breeze.


    Maybe he had imagined it? The connecting log was there, but it lasted less than a second. Maybe a bug with Argia? Maybe it was finally starting to malfunction?


    The unmentionable jars he took in himself. No more connections. No more voices in the dark space. Just the feeling of being watched by something that was constantly on the back of his head but maybe that’s just how Argia reacted to the absurd notion of a Rend.


    “Where’s Sil?” he asked to distract himself from the idea that his headware might be going loopy.


    “Talking to Vulniu. Man’s merciless. He’s charging me two arms and a whole arse for passage on his caravan.”


    “We’re leaving with him?”


    “No. But he’s charging me too much to take my chest. Said he knows what channellers do with their luggage and how he expects it’ll weight three times what it should.” She scoffed. “It weighs five times what it should, but that’s besides the point. It’s a matter of principle.”


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    She gestured to the large, ornate thing that now roosted alone by the wall.


    “You can’t put it in your… uh, in your Rend?”


    “It’s too heavy and carrying too many things imbued with illum. It’d distort the space and make it available for implings and their ilk. Blighters steal everything they can carry, and chew on what they can’t.” She gave him a grin. “Ask Sil about them. I bet she’d love to tell you a story or two about ruined unmentionables. And rightly blame me.”


    Vergil placed a hand on the chest’s polished ebony lid and took another look around the now empty room. The sight of it stirred something inside he couldn’t quite understand. In the few weeks since he’d met Tallah and Sil, that apartment on the third level of the Meadow had become home, or something as close to as he’d ever known.


    Tallah was doing another sweep of the rooms, checking nooks and corners, climbing on furniture and checking above dressers.


    “Can you please tell me what’s going on? Why are we in such a hurry to leave?”


    She shrugged, not turning to him. “Sil says I’ve gone mad. She’s probably right. But my instinct tells me things have taken a turn that’s going to be bad for me. I’ve enough scars to know when to listen to instinct.”


    He hadn’t expected an answer, much less an honest one. He would’ve preferred something more clear.


    “But, if you’re not certain, isn’t Tianna suddenly disappearing going to just make things worse?”


    “I don’t care. I’m burning this plan and scattering the ashes. I’ll try again later, in some other way.”


    “Try what? What was the plan? I’m not bright enough for riddles.”


    She waved his question away then gave him a strange look.


    “What do I do about you?” she asked, voice low, as if suddenly realising he was there.


    Vergil recoiled.


    “Not kill me, I hope.”


    “Don’t be daft. Why would you— Never mind. I’ll cut you loose when we get somewhere safe again. I won’t have the luxury of wasting time on deciphering whatever you are.”


    No. No, he refused the very notion of being left on his own again.


    “May I make a suggestion?”


    Tallah narrowed her eyes and gave him a long look, as if deciding if it was worth her time. He went on before she answered.


    “If I''ve pieced things together right, you’re worried that Tianna was compromised as a cover. I don’t know how or why, but I heard you and Sil talking about some things, and I think you had a long term plan involving the Storm Guard. You’re not just hiding here. You’re plotting.”


    Vergil was supposed to be asleep when some of those conversations happened. By Tallah’s deepening frown, she realised this and did not like the implication.


    He swallowed and went on, “So I think that you’re now willing to drop everything because of something that’s happened last night that got you panicking. You’re not just hiding; you’re really trying to infiltrate the Fortress?” It was a guess.


    “Go on,” she said, dry amusement coating the words.


    “So… uh… why don’t you ask someone else to be Tianna for a time? And reveal yourself as alive, to distinguish the two? Maybe… Sil?” He quickly added. “I mean, you know, Tianna is pretty reclusive. Aside from about four people, I haven’t seen you interacting with almost anyone in Valen. It wouldn’t take much to just show the disguise around and convince people.”


    Tallah was quiet for a time and then laughed slowly.


    “Had we not been vain and stupid years ago, that would work. But we both have two disguises already. A third wouldn’t stick for weeks, maybe a whole season.”


    “Me?”


    “You’d need to be utterly convinced you are who you look to be. From one sex to the other is… complicated for most people.”


    “Ah.” Vergil sat on the lid of the chest, deflated. “Would Mertle be able to do it?”


    “With help and time, sure. Though I’m not going to ask her.” She sat next to him, stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I’m curious how much else you’ve been piecing together.” There was, again, the same amusement in her voice but with an edge that Vergil wasn’t certain how to interpret.


    He decided to take his chances. “Ludwig was very vocal about some things. It wasn’t hard to connect everything with what I’ve been seeing.”


    “Mhm, go on.”


    “You don’t want to ask Mertle to do this… because she’s hiding as well?” He curdled the end of the sentence into a question without meaning to, but the idea had just occurred to him. It made a kind of sense that Tallah would surround herself with similar rogues. That glint in Mertle’s eyes, the way she had weighed his words and his life, her will to deal with someone like Tallah. It made sense.


    “And where would you have gotten that kind of idea, bucket-head?”


    He’d hit a nerve. It was in her voice and all over her face and in the thousand-leagues stare that avoided glancing at him.


    She can’t lie to save her life, he realised with some satisfaction.


    He told her the full story about the meeting with the Captain woman of the Storm Guard. She listened quietly to the entire thing but a crack showed in her mask. An eye twitched. And he could swear she was getting hot, like a boiling kettle close to bursting under the building pressure.


    “I think you’re underestimating what Mertle’s willing to do for you and Sil,” he said in closing, shifting uncomfortably as she kept quiet and got hotter.


    A glance over showed her chewing on the knuckle of her finger.


    “I could have cut you loose if you hadn’t told me all that,” she finally said, voice low. “You knowing about me can’t be helped. You figuring Mertle out… silly girl, couldn’t just play her chosen part.”


    “You and Sil, for all your threats and secrets, you don’t really hold back around me. Sometimes I think you forget I’m here.”


    Tallah pushed herself to her feet and straightened. Her hands flashed fire for a moment, then sputtered out.


    Vergil clasped his hands together and swallowed down the lump of fear in his throat.


    “I don’t want to be cut loose. I want to help you.” Conviction came easily. He believed every word. “I stand by what I said. I don’t care that you’re hunted.”


    “Sil said you have some ideas of the sort. The Storm Guard have some particularly nasty things in store for me, and some even nastier ones for those fool enough to follow me.” She turned a hard, pitiless look on him. “If I’m to be taken, I will burn you alive even if it’s with my last breath. With what you know, I should probably kill you now. But I’ll never get Sil to shut up about it if I do.”


    She would kill him. He knew that.


    He wasn’t afraid to die, not really. The thought of letting Tallah down, or Sil, or Tummy…


    “You won’t be taken.” Vergil grinned. “You don’t seem like the type to let it happen.”


    “Fancy that,” Tallah said with a voice and expression not wholly her own, “the stupid boy has become a frightfully stupid man, all in the span of one storm and a nap. Colour me impressed. His suggestion does have merit if Mergara goes back to bad habits.”


    Tallah clamped down, bit her lip, and let out a long sigh of annoyance.


    “Vergil, meet Christi, the original architect of our entire mess.”


    “Sil wasn’t pulling my leg?”


    “Christi’s a grafted soul, not an imaginary friend. Sil was being an arse.”


    “How—”


    But she was already moving away, distracted. Her long stare was back. Vergil waited as she paced the room in tight, slow circles. It didn’t take long for her inner council to reach a conclusion.


    “Get dressed,” she snapped. “You’re a runner again.”


    He was on his feet before her first words were even out.


    “Where am I going?” He was almost giddy with excitement. His head pounded still. But Tallah was going to give him another mission all of his own.


    “Aliana. And then to Mertle. You’re to present the plan to them and—I insist on this—do not try and convince them to do anything. You tell them that I will be making a move and I need to substitute Tianna for a time. For that, I need their help. Whatever they decide, you get right back here once you’re done.”


    “Why Mistress Aliana? What plan?”


    “Mertle’s an elend. Like you, she can’t channel illum, can’t use the staff. If Aliana’s willing, she’s going to do it for her after Sil and I go to ground for a time. She’s protected enough by her station that she won’t draw suspicion and, even if she does, she doesn’t need to care.”


    Vergil bounced on the balls of his feet as he pulled on his armour and its padding. Tallah helped him draw up the face covering. Her hands were warm and a light had lit up behind Tianna’s midnight-blue eyes. Whatever hesitation she had felt before, it was gone now.


    She explained what she wanted of Mertle and how to reach Aliana unquestioned. He repeated back every word until she was satisfied.


    “When are we starting?” he asked.


    “Now. If anything’s to happen, it won’t take them long to marshal against me. The sooner we get everyone on board, the better.”


    He ran out into the hallway and into the descending night. It wasn’t as bad a storm as the one the day prior but the wind still cut to the bone. Purpose kept him warm, and the fire he saw in Tallah’s eyes lent him strength to wade through the crowd and the snow.


    The White-leafed Tree shone above Valen’s higher quarters, still catching the last wisps of daylight in its silver leaves. A gap in the clouds above, punched through by the Hearth’s venting, allowed stray evening sunlight to filter through.


    Fire hung in the sky and Vergil pushed and shoved his way towards it.