I left I Doronte perhaps a couple of hours before midnight, not by choice. Admittedly, nobody wanted me to stay but myself. Even leaving that aside, I couldn’t justify dawdling with the silver noon still in progress.

In Vorsa’s South Quarter, dawn creeped inexorably close. In such a night as this one, it comes as little more than a sudden change in the quality of the light. As a child, I became obsessed with charting the exact moment of the shift and contrived to spend a few nights outside, sitting by the pond with a pocket watch. But not in summer nights like this one, with the garden paths damp with dew and the frogs calling to each other. I loved silver noons in the winter, when the moonslight is mirrored in the snow. Everything is new and bright, brittle and clear like crystal. And myself a stain in the arctic stillness, only alive in the faint vapor of my breath.

Vorsa's in the future, Azul had said. Which is to say, six hours ahead of I Doronte. But I suppose he'd consider that a pedestrian expression, wouldn't he? What a strange man. He'd risked his life to protect the ghost of someone he'd never met in life, he'd thrown himself at a man who'd smacked him like a jammed door less than an hour earlier. I’d seen his face when he saw Sergeant Vargas. Those kids were fortunate enough to miss the flash of it. It was the face of a man sentenced to death when the executioner walks in and he finally understands no pardon will come.

How could I let a man like that die?

If I could be swayed by beauty and eagerness alone, I'd have a much bigger bed. He’d understand soon enough.

Unfortunately, duty hadn’t relinquished its claim on me. I walked Melanthe to the garage and asked the ghost on duty to replace the battery, which had been depleted as those girls rode her back and forth. I didn’t know when the next emergency would arrive.

I'd barely entered the main building when Berganza glided up to me.

“I hope nothing else has come up,” I said.

Nothing had come up. Little Master had left her bed to await me, though.

“Of course. Thank you.”

As I strode to the kitchen, I glanced at my pocket watch. Past four thirty. Nine hours or so left in my watch. To think one of us could be comfortably asleep in her bed and refused to.

The kitchen was a wide, warm cavern. A couple of light spells hovered high up its domed roof. As a child, I too found refuge there when insomnia harried me; ghosts being naturally sleepless, you could find some of the staff in the kitchen at any hour. Suri sat at the sturdy old table in the same spot I used to favor, too: next to the oven scented of yeast and baked bread. She'd fallen asleep over the green tablecloth. A thoughtful ghost had covered her with a blanket, but the night was pleasant and she’d pushed it off her shoulder. Her hand remained partially wrapped around a glass with a few drops of milk.

“Suri, please.” She lifted her head and stretched drowsily. “You're lucky there’s no school in the summer.”

“Basketball practice."

Fucking basketball practice.

“Well, not tomorrow at least.” I tried to remember what day was supposed to be tomorrow. Friday? No, Thursday. Oh, wait. Thursday had already arrived, technically speaking. Never mind. “It’s this weekend, isn’t it?”

“Monday.” Of course. “But I won’t oversleep, I swear.”

“Don't swear over silly things.”

She looked away. “I know, Nana.”

“If you don’t sleep well, you won’t be able to focus. Not even for basketball practice. Especially for basketball practice. You can't afford to forget yourself. Don't you know how lucky you are—?”

“Yes, I knoooow.” Her brown eyes were blurry, her short curls stood up in every direction. Like looking into a mirror of the past.

I spread my arms; she jumped into them and clung to my neck. I nuzzled her cheek as she giggled.

Suri slept in a big bed befitting a big child like her, with her stuffed toys looking in solemnly from their shelves. I tucked her in and swept her baby-soft hair away from her face. Was I too easy on her? Too hard? Every time I thought I had the parameters figured out, she changed right under my feet.

“The second you have trouble with school, I'm grounding you a whole week. Are we clear?”

“Yeah. If I promise I won't do it again, will you hold my hand till I fall asleep?”

“I will always hold your hand.” I did just that, sitting on the edge of her bed. “You know why?”

“Because I'm your kid sibling?”

I flicked her nose.

She was asleep almost instantly. To think we'd both taken such pains for this. Once more I made sure she was properly covered; she had a habit of kicking her blankets away. In a summer night such as this one, with the night breeze barely stirring her curtains, it wasn’t an issue, but she’d do it even when the snow piled up outside.

Her toys watched over us solemnly. She’d lined up a collection of cozy animals—a cow, an ilimec, a cat. Her most beloved one, Big Bunny, was a venerable one; he’d belonged to me in his earlier days. I had to admit Big Bunny had always been homely, a patchwork beast of many colors and fabrics, but these days no amount of nostalgia could hide that he looked downright misshapen.

Children will love you to death.

Berganza floated up to me as I crossed the hallway. He wished to know if I'd have tea in the portal room. I always did.

“Aren't you ever tired of anticipating my wishes?”

He wouldn't make for a very good butler if he did, would he? And one ought to be good at one’s job after holding it for four generations and a half.

“I'd say it's impressive you haven't run screaming into the Underworld after dealing with four generations and a half of Umbras, myself.”

Berganza wouldn't pronounce himself one way or another, and sank through the floor before he incriminated my relatives.

The first thing you notice upon entering the portal room is an utter lack of any portals. No windows, for that matter. If you pay attention you’ll notice multiple layers of barrier spells in the walls and floor. If anything were to come crawling out of the Underworld, it should be contained there before it can escape into the world of the living.

In truth, it’s the entire room that’s a portal. Every single wall hanging and rug and sconce with a censer had been carefully chosen and arranged as a part of a greater spell. Each and every one of the wall panelings and floor tiles and roof beams. Anybody who meditated there for some time would acquire increased emotional stability, physical energy, mental fortitude, and magical reach. With proper training, the boundary between the world of the living and the Underworld could be crossed with little effort. Sitting there, you could feel any attempt to force the gates open like a siren screaming in your mind.

I went around the room lighting the censers again, falling into focus as the scented air coursed through my lungs. In the middle of the room was a cushion. I occupied it, legs crossed, back straight. Silent. I closed my eyes. The world of the living fell apart. The door to the Underworld might’ve remained closed, but I could've slipped beneath it like a sheet of paper. I could feel that realm all around me; it reached far beyond the seas, far beyond the other continents. Further even than the stars. You cannot understand how vast the Underworld is. The human mind rebels at the mere idea of it.

It’s so easy to become lost in it. Even easier to find something—someone—you weren’t counting on.

Though my eyes remained shut, I could feel the slow march of colossal creatures in the distance, each one of their legs larger than a mountain. Something far smaller and with far more legs crawled over where my left hand would be, but I left them alone. They were harmless.

In the distance, a sudden emerald blaze glowed through my eyelids. Naturally, someone was already doing necromancy again. Silver noons are unbearable. Looking around, I noticed a small flier with a curly prehensile tail and huge multifaceted eyes.

“Good journey and well met, friend.” It’d be pointless to wish it a good day, as most of the Underworld doesn’t have a night-and-day cycle.

The flier glanced up at me in curiosity.

“Could you tell me who did just lit up that blaze?”

The flier focused in the distance, its back ridges shivering with excitement.

“Really? Who lets their children fool around like this on a silver noon?” I sighed. “Would you mind going there and giving them a scare? I must ask you don’t hurt them, though I can’t say they don’t deserve it.”

The flier’s sharp mandibles clicked. I took out the bone knife and offered the flier a drop of blood so that it’d be bound to respect my terms. The flier lapped the blood up and flew away, buzzing with excitement.

I watched it go. Some people can’t be bothered to teach their offspring anything, can they? Never mind. I took a deep breath, letting my frustrations out with the exhale, and closed my eyes again.

Out of the endless black blossomed a familiar shape—just a memory in my mind’s eye. Dressed in many purple and crimson hues, shimmering and flowing into each other like the sunset. A single glossy chestnut lock fell from under his hat; it looked as careless as it was intentional. This wasn’t any regular night; he’d dressed up for some event I was too young to attend. We were much younger and he towered over me with the careless beauty of a cypress. A few years later I’d start sharing in the hard angles of his features, his slim-fingered hands, his long legs.

He didn’t look at me. Even if he had turned in my direction, his eyes would be focused somewhere else, behind me, as if he was still waiting for someone else to arrive. Then, when he had to accept it was just me, a vague disappointment. I remembered the shame, as if I’d swallowed the desert sun, at being only Vanth Umbra and never someone else.

I thought of Azul Mamani’s sweet hazel eyes frozen with anger.

When he glared so, he was less cute and more like a classic beauty. A missing sculpture by one of the old masters: the spirit of vengeance.

This was the man who’d just fallen on my lap? Who’d lain beneath me, face heating up and pulse racing on his wrists with every word of mine? I’d never been lucky, and it was hard for me to grasp that for once I might’ve lucked out. The one thing I could ask for was to have the Azul I’d seen in those hills again in my hands—the one who’d reacted to his speeding heart by taunting me. On hindsight he’d been trying to prevent me from noticing the others’s arrival; he likely didn’t think I was pretty. The flash of glee in his eyes hadn’t been faked, though, just as he hadn’t faked the way he’d looked at me when I’d refused to let him come, as if he needed my touch like air.

If I only could have him like that again; not tiptoeing around me, careful to tell me only what he thought I wanted to hear. I couldn’t exactly demand him to be genuine, however. I’d have to wait and hope he’d come to trust me.

In the world of the living, something clicked on the floor at my left. I inhaled deep, feeling the incense fill my lungs; I exhaled and remained quiet as the Underworld dropped away. I opened my eyes.