“I don’t know. I could ask.”

“Yes. Yes. Do.” But Coleel looked off, his gaze faraway.

Avery took a leap. “The Resistance will prevail. Octung can’t last long. And when they do, they’ll reward their friends, you can be sure of it. You help me out and I’ll make sure they know of it all throughout their ranks. You’ll be well set-up when the fighting ends.”

Coleel seemed interested now, though he was trying to hide it. “That would be … nice. But …”

“Yes?”

Coleel glanced up to the smoke dancing and writhing against the ceiling. “I … can’t stay in hiding forever. They’ll … catch me … eventually.” It seemed to cost him a lot to say this, to admit to his own weakness, his own poor bargaining position. “I’ve either got to flee the city somehow or … reach a place of safety.”

Avery nodded, seeing it now. “The rebels.”

“Yes.” Coleel fixed him with a hard stare. “Get me to their headquarters and I’ll help you get more nectar.”

*   *   *

Layanna half lifted herself up when Avery entered. Already she looked better, with a ruddier complexion and more life in her eyes. A low red glow lit the room from an alchemical lamp on a bedside table, throwing Layanna into an otherworldly, somewhat hellish light. Despite this, she seemed angelic with her cascading blond hair, high cheekbones, long neck and penetrating blue eyes.

“How did it go?” she said, as he came closer.

“I found him, but …” Avery told her what the merchant wanted from them.

She grimaced. “It won’t be easy for us to get through the patrols by ourselves, but with this man—”

“—and his two bodyguards—”

She shook her head. At least she was looking well enough to seem irritated, and it pleased him to be able to recognize it. “I don’t know if we can do it, Francis. I’m still not able to … I would be useless.”

He could see that this offended her. She was a god, by rights, she shouldn’t have to feel less than that. She shouldn’t have to feel the same as everyone else. Worse, with her weakness, she was a hindrance to them, which must be ten times worse.

“We’ll make it,” he assured her. “Hopefully Janx and Hildra will be waiting for us back at Vursk’s headquarters.”

When they emerged into the street, the green mist swirled even thicker than before, and weird glows could be seen pulsing in a much greater darkness. The songs and noise of the multitudes (however diminished at this hour) echoed strangely in the fog and seemed to come from far away, as if on another world. Avery felt unsteady.

“Well?” said Coleel, appearing from the gloom, his tattoos lighting the fog up around him like a rainbow-hued nimbus. His guards, one of whom was Yoi, ranged to either side. “Which way?”

Avery steeled himself and marched forward, supporting Layanna as they went; she was still sickly. Just as they rounded a bend, dark figures appeared before them—hunched shapes in tattered black robes, vultures in the mist, extrusions of its malevolence. Avery shrank back.

“W-what do you want?” he said.

The shapes all spoke as one, and their voices sounded something like the hiss of radio static merged with the mindless buzz of insects:

“Give us the woman.”

Avery glanced to Layanna, but she looked just as perplexed as he felt.

“Leave us alone,” he told the shapes.

“She must awake the Sleeper.”

“Didn’t you hear the man?” Coleel said. “Get out of here, you bastards.”

Angrily, one of his bodyguards stepped toward the figures. A robed form raised its hand, and shapes could be seen wriggling under its cadaverous flesh. With shocking speed, the figure plunged its palm against the bodyguard’s chest, and the man gasped, stopped, then, slowly, sank to his knees. His gun clattered to the ground. His large body trembled and shook. The figure didn’t take its hand away, and the shaking went on.

The other bodyguard, Yoi, pulled his gun. “Get back,” he told Coleel, who obeyed. Yoi lifted his gun and fired a round at the robed figure’s feet. “Stop!”

The shape didn’t obey. Yoi aimed at its chest.

Three more figures stepped forward, around the first one, still doing whatever it was doing to the first bodyguard, and made for Yoi. He fired. Streamers of flesh and clothing fluttered behind the vulture-like shape, the former just as dry as the latter. The shapes came on.

Yoi fired again, again, then reeled back as the figures converged on him. Avery pulled out his own gun and fired, but though he was certain he’d struck two of them—he could see little puffs where the rounds hit—the shapes didn’t stop.

Yoi tripped and sprawled backward, a cry on his lips. The three shapes fell on him, though what it was they did to him Avery didn’t know. Others moved around the three, toward Avery, Layanna and Coleel.

“Run!” he said.

He wheeled about, off balance and slow with Layanna at his side, and marched her forward. Coleel fell back ahead of them, looking ashen. Passing a corner, Avery handed him his pistol, since Coleel didn’t appear to be armed.

“Fire back,” Avery said, since he himself was occupied.

Coleel swore but dutifully loosed a couple of shots around the corner, then recoiled. “They’re still coming.”

They ran.

“The priests of the Restoration,” Layanna panted. “They must have been.”

“But what could they … want with us?” Avery said.

“Not us. Me. I … have no idea.”

At least it explained, or partly explained, why the Father had stared at Layanna at the temple of the Sisters of Junica. He had recognized in Layanna something that was important to him or his group. She must wake the Sleeper.

The three turned down an alley, hit a cross-alley and took it. The dark shapes followed. Avery yanked his pistol back from Coleel, who didn’t seem interested in wasting time on something that hadn’t worked so far, and swiveled to fire, but he could see no sign of their pursuers, not at first. Then he heard the sound of static. He fired. There came no grunt, no cry of pain, and the static-y sound didn’t even pause … but only drew closer.

The three stumbled out onto a street and ran down it, rounded a corner. Passing a busy establishment of some sort, its glow cutting through the fog, they hit another street and started up it, then drew back.

“Shit!” said Coleel. “Collaborators.”

Indeed, they’d almost run straight into the cordon of Octunggen-controlled troops and their vehicles that fenced the Maze in. A line of cars waited to clear the checkpoint before being allowed to leave, and the soldiers were searching each car thoroughly.

“Shit,” said Coleel.

They started back, passing the establishment again, but before they’d hit the alley they’d come from the dark shapes poured from it. Knives glimmered in their fists, but the rest of them remained in shadow. Avery and the others drew back, caught between one doom and another.