She’d spent over a year of her training in that library, reading up on the great bone makers of the past. Passing by its doors, she was tempted to go inside. She wondered if any of the librarians she remembered were still there and if they’d remember her—and if they’d remember her as the student she’d been or as the mythic (and missing) hero she had become.
Afraid it would be the latter, she didn’t stop.
At the fourth gate, her belongings were searched, including every pocket of her coat. She waited while they compared her face to a sketchbook that held the likeness of everyone approved for entry into the fourth tier.
The sketch was old, but it passed, under a different false name.
The wealthy lived in the fourth tier, and it showed.
Kreya was able to ride a moving platform, powered by bones, to the fifth gate. The fifth and final tier held the true elites: Those with unfathomable wealth, fame, and power. The masters of the various guilds. The owners of the theaters. The heads of the financial powerhouses. And several of Vos’s most valued and beloved bone workers, such as Zera.
This gate wasn’t a vast arch like the others. It was a single door of thick iron, with guards on either side and above it. She suspected there were other guards, archers, positioned out of sight, awaiting the signal of the gatekeepers.
She couldn’t give any of the names she’d used for the prior gates. There was only one name that would grant her access here:
Her own.
But once she gave it, word would spread. It would be known that Kreya Odi Altriana, the legendary bone maker who had disappeared over a decade ago, was alive and back. Whispers would spread. Rumors would start. And she’d have to find a way to vanish from the public imagination all over again, if she wanted any peace.
“It will be worth it,” she told herself.
Hopefully.
“Ma’am?” one of the guards said. He eyed her threadbare coat, hiker’s boots, and leather-reinforced pants. “You are aware this area is restricted?”
“No area is restricted to me,” Kreya said.
And she gave him her name.
The expression on the guard’s face almost made it worth it.
They consulted their books, and each other, but it wasn’t long before she passed through the gate into the fifth tier.
If the fourth tier was known to be decadent as sugar cake, then the fifth tier was like sugar cake drizzled with honey and soaked in chocolate sauce. Kreya stepped onto a disc of white stone carved to resemble a cloud, and it lifted her up the slope of the street. “No one told them this was absurd?”
Men and women, traveling on their own ridiculous “cloud” lifts, stared at her. She met their gazes until they blushed and looked away. She knew how she appeared to them: ragged, travel-worn. I probably smell. Subtly, she raised her arm and sniffed. Definitely smell.
In contrast, they were swathed in layers of Liyan silk, undoubtedly imported from the lake islands beyond Vos and woven by elite weavers who created their magnificent fabric in absolute silence. From the shimmer, the thread looked to be spun gold. Kreya had worn such a garment exactly once. It had ended up spattered in blood, the day Eklor had announced his intention to wage his war against the Bone Workers Guild and anyone who supported them. She had lost interest in wearing silk wraps after her favorite mentor had bled to death at her feet and she’d been unable to save him.
She did not enjoy the memories that the fifth tier brought back.
Switching onto a new cloud lift, Kreya traveled in a spiral up to the palatial home of her friend. She remembered the location perfectly, but as she was carried to the arched entrance, she didn’t recognize anything else about it. Years ago, Zera’s palace had been an elegant apartment, expensive but tasteful, with a spectacular view.
“The view is still nice,” Kreya said.
The word “tasteful,” though, did not apply.
Murals of either gems or colored glass covered the exterior, which would have been fine if the gems weren’t in the shape of animal, bird, and fish skeletons. Worse were the statues that clogged the gardens. Dozens of them. Each was a white stone carving of an animal, with its skeleton outlined in gold inlay.
Subtlety had never been Zera’s strength, but this was impressive in its hit-you-over-the-head way of announcing a bone wizard lived here. Couldn’t she have just invested in a sign? she thought.
Sidestepping between the statues, Kreya approached the entrance. Before she could knock, the door, which was flanked with more skeleton-themed statues, flew open. A woman with shockingly bright multicolored hair in a gold silk robe beamed at her.
“Kreya!” Zera cried.
“Hello, Zera.”
Zera looked her up and down. “You look terrible.”
“And you look ridiculous.”
Maybe this is going to be all right, she thought. She didn’t let go of the ball of worry in the pit of her stomach, though.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not embracing you until you’ve had a bath.” Zera wrinkled her nose, which caused her makeup to crinkle. She’d painted her cheeks in streaks of gold, and her eyelids were ruby red. “But I think it’s fantastic you’re not dead.”
“I’m not dead,” Kreya agreed. “Glad you’re not either.”
Zera flashed a smile that reminded Kreya of all the jewels in the city winking in the sun. And suddenly Kreya knew everything was not going to be all right. It was a false smile, the kind Zera used to use on potential buyers or on bandits to distract them before Jentt and Stran, the warriors of their team, attacked. She’d never, ever used that smile on Kreya.
Shit, Kreya thought.
“A hundred curious eyes are watching us,” Zera said gaily. “Come inside where only half that many will stare at us, and you can tell me what you’ve been doing the past twenty-five years, why you’ve never contacted me in all that time, and what brings you here now.”
Kreya heard the edge in her voice, beneath the bubbles.
Definitely not happy.
She let Zera guide her inside anyway.
Half-naked men and women of varying ages lounged around the salon, reclining on couches between pillars shaped like animal skeletons—when Zera liked a theme, she apparently went for it. A shirtless man played a harp by a pond with one of the fake waterfalls that cascaded from a vaulted ceiling into a koi pond. Two women played a child’s game with grape-size balls and circles drawn on a marble table. It smelled like cloying flowers and reminded Kreya of the unforgettable taste of poisoned wine. With all the tiny waterfalls (pouring out of vases, out of sculptures, and out of mosaic walls), it sounded as if two dozen people were simultaneously peeing on the floor.
“You live like this?” Kreya asked before she stopped herself.
“You are judging me,” Zera said in a singsong voice. Her diamond smile hadn’t faded, which was not a good sign. “How delightfully droll from someone who looks as if she climbed the aqueduct pipes to get here. You do realize you’re wearing the same coat you wore twenty-five years ago? Your hair hasn’t been cut or combed in that long either. And you left without a word, without a goodbye, and never once reached out to see if I was all right.
“It all—well, I’ll be blunt—stinks.”
She’s not wrong. Except about the hair. Kreya recalled instructing a construct to hack half of it off a few years ago, after she noticed silver strands sticking to her shirts. “You look like you’ve done all right.” She waved at her golden silk scarflike clothes, the multiple waterfalls, and the random assortment of lounging partially dressed people. “But I am sorry for leaving without a goodbye. It was just too painful—”