Archive of Our Own ^beta

June

Gregor’s not thinking about the Underland when it happens. Really, he’s not. He’s thinking about finding the books his supervisor asked for, and about the emails piling up waiting for him to reply, and about how he’s going to have to swing by the bodega on his way home because he’s pretty sure his milk was on the verge of going bad yesterday and also he’s out of ramen. And then he’s thinking about how Lizzie called last week and got on his case about taking care of himself, and, yeah, he should probably skip the ramen. Or at least add in some kind of vegetable.

And then he’s standing in a dark hallway somewhere deep below the library, definitely not the right place to find the oversize stacks, and there’s a doorway with caution tape strung halfheartedly across it, which is redundant because he gets the feeling no one ever comes down to this level—

And the doorway is darker than the whole rest of the hallway, with no floor beyond it, and it swallows his phone’s flashlight beam like deep water—

And he hears his mom in his head saying I’m not sure I like you going back to New York and himself saying It’ll be fine, the internship’s on the other side of the city and anyway—

And he’s not thinking about the Underland, except in the way he always is a little bit, like a secret against his palms and under his tongue and tucked between his ribs—

And in the thin beam of light he sees it. Mist, glowing faintly white, curling and twining around nothing in the empty doorway.

He doesn’t think. He just leaps.

He has time, as the currents carry him downward, to become aware of how monumentally stupid this is. This is either a new gateway or one that no one knows about, which means there’s no saying where he’ll end up. His phone’s at 60% and he’s barely practiced his echolocation in years. He probably smells like a buffet to any rat within a dozen miles. And—crucially—he hasn’t told anyone where he’s going and no one knows that he’s coming. Because he didn’t know what he was going to do until he did it. So there’ll be no one on their way to save him from whatever mess he’s about to get himself into.

But though the currents set him down in blackness, it’s on dry land at least. He kneels there for a second, waiting, listening hard for something that might have heard his arrival. While he waits, his fingers flex in the coarse sandy dirt, and he breathes the cool air, and what he feels is an overwhelming sense of relief. It was real, all those years. And it’s still here.

Nothing comes to eat him. He dusts off his jeans and clicks experimentally a few times, but the world stays as impenetrably dark as ever. So he turns on his phone flashlight again and picks a direction to walk in. Before too long—before the worried voice in the back of his mind can get too loud—he comes to a stream, which joins a river, and the riverbed gives off an eerie glow, putting out enough light that he can see where he is. A rocky plain, flat in all directions as best he can tell, sloping slightly downward ahead of him. There’s no road beside the river, no sign that anyone else has ever been here. He keeps walking.

He loses track of time. Disjointed images come to him: a ball spinning high in the air, gently swaying vines, his own hand stretched out against black fur. He lets the memories pass through his mind and vanish, like pictures he doesn’t remember taking, the way he’s learned to do over the years. Firelight on rock. Torchlight on a bright blade.

He stops. Blinks in the dim light, unsure if what he’s seeing is the memory or not. But it stays when he opens his eyes again—four points of reddish light above him and downriver, coming closer. He can just make out the shapes of the bats, their flight so smooth that the torches barely flicker. There’s a pain in his heart at the sight.

Gregor points his phone upward like a searchlight. “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey, over here!”

He doesn’t know the riders or their bats, but they know him—they stare as they dismount, humans and fliers alike, and the leader of the group, a tall woman with some kind of insignia on her sleeve, bows deeply to him. “Warrior,” she says.

Gregor feels his face grow hot. He’d half-forgotten that of course they’d still recognize him down here—even after more than a decade. After all, even the rats knew he was his father’s son the first time around, and that was before he’d starred in a bunch of prophecies. He bows back. He’s not sure what else to do.

They send him to Regalia on one of the fliers, a gray bat who introduces herself as Ananke, while the rest of them continue on their way. Ananke doesn’t talk much on the flight, and Gregor gets the sense that she’s a little star-struck. He’s fine with sitting quietly, feeling the wind on his face, trying to slow his heart, which feels like it’s about to pound out of his chest for no apparent reason.

The lights that emerge from the darkness, the gray stone, the spires and towers of the city—a shiver goes down Gregor’s back at the sight of it. They land in the High Hall and the feeling of dreaming returns; he almost goes to his knees again to touch the cold, smooth floor. But he doesn’t—he can’t—he’s unable to move at all. Because either by coincidence or some subsonic bat warning there’s a contingent of Underlanders coming through the door to meet him, and at the head of the group is Luxa.

The other men and women are hurrying to keep up with her, but she doesn’t even seem to notice. She strides directly toward Gregor, walking so quickly that he hardly opens his mouth before she comes to an abrupt stop a few feet in front of him. She’s staring. And she looks—

“Hey,” Gregor says into the silence.

Luxa stares at him a moment more. Her hair is different, longer; it’s worked into an intricate twist of braids at the back of her head. She knots her hands in front of herself and then seems to deliberately relax them. “Gregor,” she says as her retinue arrange themselves into a somewhat breathless order behind her, “is it you?”

He nods.

There’s a spark in her eyes, and then she throws her arms around him in an embrace. Gregor hugs her back, feeling her fingers clutching at the fabric of his T-shirt and hearing murmurs from her attendants. But then she steps back, a frown on her face. “What is wrong?” she asks. “Why have you come? Is it your father? Or—or Boots?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Gregor says. “It’s not...” His face warms again. He’s supposed to be gone; hasn’t he been telling himself for years that it would be insanity to come back? So how can he explain it—the sense that all this time there was something leading him here? He shakes his head. “I just—I had to come back,” he says. “I had to.”

They give him clothes and burn his old ones; they take him away to bathe. It’s like déjà vu. But then the attendant leads him from the waters to a room he’s never been in, filled with shelves and shelves of scrolls, and Luxa rises from a chair to meet him. “Leave us, please,” she says, and the attendant bows and goes.

“So you’re the queen for real now,” Gregor says as the curtain falls to.

She nods and raises a hand to the crown on her head, but she doesn’t shove at it, just touches it as if she’d forgotten it was there. And that’s new, too. “For many years now,” she says.

“It suits you,” Gregor says. “I mean, I—I always thought you’d be good at it.”

Luxa smiles—just a flicker, there and then gone in the torchlight. “Twelve years of peace must count for something,” she says, coming forward. “Though I have you also to thank for that.”

Twelve years. It surprises Gregor, though he’d known, hadn’t he—he knows how long it’s been, even if he hasn’t counted the days this time. “So it worked?” he asks. “The peace, with the gnawers—it’s lasted?”

“It has held so far,” Luxa replies. The dim light casts strange shadows on her face, drawing out the ways it’s changed—grown thinner, with sharper lines than he remembers. But it’s the same; he knows her. Her eyes are searching his face as if looking for the same changes, and she says, hesitant, “Gregor.”

“Luxa...” He shakes his head. He’s suddenly sure she’s going to ask again what he’s really doing here, why he’s come back after so long. And it’s a fair question, but he doesn’t know if he has any more words than before.

But she doesn’t ask. “I thought you were far away,” she says. “In—”

“Virginia,” he supplies, relieved. “I was. I mean—I kind of still am. But I’m just finishing grad school, and I came back to New York for an internship. It’s just for the summer.”

“Oh,” Luxa says, and Gregor realizes what her next question will be even as she says it. “And what is this ‘grad school?’”

“It’s, um—studying. It’s more advanced.”

She nods in understanding. “Then it is fitting for us to meet here,” she says, gesturing to the room around them. “This is the Library of Regalia. All of our most learned folk study here.”

Gregor looks around at the shelves, the scrolls resting in their niches, the torch brackets placed here and there at the ready. Only the closest torches are lit. The stone shelves are carved with swirls and scrollwork, with little figures and words among the decoration. Close to him he can make out a bat with a rider, and looks away. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “I guess I didn’t really have a chance to see it when I was here before.”

Luxa traces the engraving on the nearest shelf with her fingers. “You did not have time to see many things,” she replies. “Not even the peace that we all fought so hard to win.” With her eyes still on the carving, she says, “How long, do you think, will you stay?”

“I... I don’t know,” Gregor says. “I’m in New York for the whole summer. And I wanted to see you, all of you, but I don’t want to—I mean, I know everything can’t just stop for me. So I won’t stay if it’s—”

“You are the warrior,” Luxa says. “There will always be a place for you here. And...” She turns back to him then and reaches out, clasping his hand in both of her own. It’s a formal grip, like she might give to someone on the council, but Gregor feels it like a jolt of lightning. She smiles again, more than a flicker this time—with a warmth in her eyes that Gregor missed more than he even knew. “It is good to see you, Gregor.”

He grins back. “It’s good to see you, too.”

She lets his hand go, blinking down and away. “But you are not wrong,” she says. “There is much to do, as always. And you are surely also busy with your studies.”

“Oh,” Gregor says through a rush of disappointment.

“So”—she smoothes her gown, brushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear—“arrangements could be made, as before, to have a flier meet you at the gateway when it is convenient. If that is what you wish.”

Her last words filter into Gregor’s ears and he blinks at her as his brain catches up. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, his heart re-starting, “yeah, of course.” Evenings, he thinks, and weekends. It’s the adult thing to do, he supposes. He can’t just drop off the face of the earth—again—even if he doesn’t live at home now. Someone would contact his family looking for him, and they’d lose it.

“Very well, then.” She nods decisively, like they’ve just concluded some kind of political negotiation. “And I hope you will come back soon,” she adds, with another quick smile at him. “For I know of many who will be very glad to meet you again.”

“I can’t wait to see everyone,” he tells her. And he means it. Hope flares to life in his chest: that it’s not goodbye forever. Not this time. He holds onto that feeling—as she walks him back to the High Hall, as she bids him farewell, as a new flier takes him swiftly back up to the stairway beneath Central Park, and as he emerges into the moonlight and the warm summer air.

“I had a dream last night,” Boots says. “It was weird, you know, I think I’ve had it before.”

Gregor holds the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he gets his keys out of his backpack. “What happened?”

“I was falling,” she says.

Gregor freezes with his key in the lock.

“I fell a long way. I couldn’t see anything, it was all dark.”

“Sounds scary,” Gregor says, managing to open the door. He shuts it again behind himself and leans against the wood, closing his eyes.

Boots laughs. “That’s the thing,” she says. “I was so happy. Like, I knew I was falling, but I knew I’d never hit the ground. And I could just—enjoy the ride.” She pauses. “Gregor?”

“I’m here,” he says. He keeps his eyes closed. He opens his mouth to change the subject, like they all always do, knowing she’ll hardly notice and certainly never guess the reason—but what comes out is, “I’ve had that dream, too.”

“Whoa,” she says. “Was it the same—like, did you have it more than once, too?”

“No,” he says, “only once.” The words weigh on his chest like stones. “And not for a long time.”

“Gregor!” The shout greets Gregor before he’s made it to the bottom of the stairs, and he barely has time to register even that before someone flies at him and hugs him. He stumbles backward, his arms coming up instinctively, and sees over the person’s shoulder—Howard, holding a torch and doing a bad job of not laughing.

Gregor pulls far enough out of the embrace to see a head of dark hair and dancing green eyes. “Wow,” he says— “Hazard?”

“Luxa said you were back.” Hazard grins at him, and it’s a shock—they’re just about the same height now. “But I did not believe it!”

“Let him breathe, Cousin.” Howard comes forward, still chuckling. “How fare you, Gregor?”

“Hey, Howard.” Gregor hesitates, then gives Howard a hug too. “I’m good—and you?”

“Well,” Howard says, “we are all well.” And he really looks it, clapping Gregor on the shoulder and smiling broadly. “Except that Hazard has left his studies in his eagerness to be the one to meet you. So we must return to Regalia with you at once lest he shame his family in his examinations tomorrow.” He raises an eyebrow at Hazard, taking all the sting out of the words, and Hazard rolls his eyes in response.

For all that Hazard’s voice is deeper, he’s as chatty as Gregor remembers. He keeps up a stream of information on the way back to the palace—riding on Nike, who greets Gregor warmly and explains that she and Howard are now bonds. Hazard tells Gregor about his studies in languages, and how he’s been working as an interpreter among the gnawers, the nibblers, and even the stingers. His exams, however, which start tomorrow and last two weeks, are in mathematics, rhetoric, and logic, and are the culmination of a Regalian education.

“And then Luxa says I will be able to join her at council meetings,” Hazard says. “But I think she wishes me there mostly to save her from the suitors.”

Gregor’s stomach turns over. “The what?”

Hazard shrugs. “There have been delegations from the Fount and even from Corsus for a few years now. The heirs to the noble families are each presenting themselves. I am trying to remember all the names,” he says, shaking his head, “but I think I would have had to start as soon as I could talk, like Luxa did. It is not a language I like learning.”

“Hazard,” Howard says from behind them, “tell Gregor of Corsus. He will not know of it.”

“Oh,” says Hazard, “yes! Well—” And then he’s off again. Gregor listens as attentively as he can, trying to ignore the part of his brain still saying suitors?! He gathers, from Hazard’s enthusiastic explanation, that there was an old settlement upriver from Regalia that was cut off a generation ago due to stinger incursions and thought lost—but that with the new peace and efforts toward diplomacy, the Regalians have re-established contact and even begun to build up trade between the cities again.

“I must study now,” Hazard says as they land in the High Hall, “or I will probably be the ruin of the royal line—but at the end of the exams there will be games and feasting to celebrate. Will you come?”

“Sure,” Gregor says. “And good luck!”

Howard leads Gregor out of the hall at a slower pace. After a short silence, he says, “The suitors Hazard speaks of—the council has advised that she marry. A political match, as is our custom.”

“Right, yeah.” Gregor remembers. He can tell from the way Howard skirts his gaze that he does, too. It’s somewhat mortifying to realize that Howard also apparently knew what was distracting him through the second half of the flight. “I’m sure she’ll find someone—you know, nice.”

A wry smile twists the edge of Howard’s mouth. “You and I both know that Luxa will not settle for nice. She is driving the council mad.”

Howard brings him to the small, tapestried royal dining room. The table is laden with dishes that smell incredible. “Luxa is meeting with her advisors,” he informs Gregor, “but she will be along presently. In the meantime, you and I must eat.”

While they eat, Howard fills him in on his own life over the past twelve years. He’s a full doctor now, and splits his time between the Regalian hospital and responding to the occasional skirmish outside of the city. “Between gnawers and nibblers, or spinners and crawlers, or between us humans and any of them,” Howard says. “I still fear with each conflict that war will return for all of us. But so far, thankfully, it has not—and less blood is shed each year.”

“I wish I could say the same about the Overland,” Gregor says, and Howard gives him a grim smile.

Howard tells him about the advances they’ve made in medicine, things they’ve learned from the other creatures of the Underland now that there’s more open communication between them. And there have been advances in other ways too—new construction in Regalia to support the growing population.

When Luxa appears in the doorway, she looks weary, not really as if she’s the leader of a flourishing city. But she smiles when she sees Gregor and takes a seat by his side.

“That is the face of someone who has just spent an hour listening to people who refuse to agree with one another,” Howard says, pushing a roll on a little plate toward Luxa. “Tell me, did Helene threaten to duel Perdita this time?”

“No,” Luxa says, taking a bite of the roll, “but she would have liked to duel me if she could. There is much frustration with the crawler contracts. And of course the crawlers themselves do not wish—” She cuts herself off, laughing. “Howard, why do you bait me into rudeness to our guest? Gregor does not want to hear talk of politics.”

“No,” Gregor says, “go on, it sounds fascinating. What’s up with the crawlers? Can I come watch the duel?”

They both laugh, and then Howard rises and excuses himself for the night shift at the hospital. When he’s gone, Luxa rubs her temples and then looks at Gregor with a wry smile. “The meetings truly are endless,” she says. “I do not think I knew, when I was younger, how much of my life as queen would be spent mediating between—well, as Howard says, between people who are determined to never agree on anything.”

“I know something about that,” Gregor says, taking the other half of the roll that she offers him. “My internship—my studies, in the Overland, it’s in climate legislation. Everyone has different opinions about what we should do, and when and how to do it.”

“It sounds important,” Luxa says. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Well, it’s not ruling a kingdom, but it’s all right,” Gregor says. “I guess—after, you know, the war and the—how much I saw down here—I wanted to make a difference.”

Her smile grows more thoughtful—almost sad. “I always knew that you would do something of consequence,” she says.

Something twinges in Gregor’s chest. Against his better judgment—unable to resist—he says, “So, what’s this about suitors?”

There’s a split second where Luxa just blinks at him with an unreadable expression. Gregor’s stomach does somersaults. And then she makes a face. “I will not ask who told you,” she says. “Yes, the council has been proposing matches for some time now. I am told I am impossible to please, and they are in despair.”

“I see,” Gregor says, trying to match her careless tone. It takes some effort. “What—are they all boring, or—?”

“Some are boring,” she concedes. “Some are rude and some are too old. Others are unobjectionable. But I do not wish to marry any of them.”

“Can you just—do that?” Gregor asks. “Just choose not to?”

“Oh yes,” she says. “There have been several rulers who never married or named an heir.”

Gregor snorts. “Bet Nerissa loves it when you talk about that.”

Luxa shakes her head. “Nerissa will not speak with me on the subject,” she says shortly. “And neither she nor the council may direct my heart.” And then she stands up, so abruptly that Gregor jumps. “Come, if you have finished eating,” she says. Her voice is light, but something in her eyes tells him the subject is closed. “There is someone you must see.”

She leads him through the palace to a wing he’s never been in, with thick woven carpets on the floor and even a fountain or two in niches set into the wall. She beckons him through a heavy, embroidered curtain, and Gregor can’t help but gasp. The room is dominated by tall windows that let in the lights of the city, and further illumination comes from small white gas lamps like the larger ones that hang in the fields—only these are hanging over rows and rows of plants. Red-leaved ferns, vines that wind around little trellises, sprays of tiny yellow flowers. Gregor’s so taken by the variety, and the assorted fragrances, that it’s a moment before he notices the man sitting beside the closest flower bed, a pot in his hands. The man rises, leaning heavily on a cane, and comes forward. “Gregor the Overlander. At last, you return.”

When Vikus opens his arms, Gregor hugs him, surprised at the tightness in his throat. The sense of overwhelming relief. He can feel that Vikus is frailer than he remembers, his shoulders thin, but his touch is still—reassuring. Though for some reason Gregor had thought he was beyond needing that. “It’s so good to see you,” Gregor says. “You look great!”

“Oh, yes,” Vikus says, smiling. “I regret that I could not bid you farewell when you last left us. But I am well these days—well enough, at least, to be a nuisance to both the council and the city’s gardeners.”

Gregor blinks around at the abundance of plant life. “Wait—you planted all this?”

“Ah.” Vikus’s eyes twinkle. “You will enjoy this.” He reaches out and unhooks one of the lamps, tilting it toward Gregor so that he can see the contraption inside. “We have used your father’s plan, Gregor, the idea that he had when he first saw our city. Do you recall?” Gregor nods. “We have better light now in our homes, and we can also grow such beauties as these.”

He pulls some leaves aside to show a cluster of violet flowers. The color makes Gregor think immediately of Luxa’s eyes, and then he catches himself—that’s silly; all the Underlanders have the same eyes. He feels his face grow warm anyway. “And are you still on the council?” he asks, glad that Vikus seems not to have noticed his distraction.

Vikus shakes his head. “No, I have been retired from politics for many years.”

“In name only,” says Luxa dryly. She’s been hanging back in the doorway, but now she comes forward. “You make your opinions known.”

“I... offer an old man’s advice,” Vikus allows, “whenever Luxa has need of it.”

“And I am glad for it,” Luxa says, looking fondly up at Vikus as she sits on the edge of the flowerbed.

They hang out while Vikus continues to putter with the flowers. When Vikus asks, Gregor tells him about his dad—the new treatments that have helped him sleep and put on weight, even if he’ll never be his old self; his work as a substitute teacher at a school down in Virginia. After a while, a messenger sticks his head in the door and Luxa excuses herself, but promises to come back before Gregor has to leave again. And then it’s just the two of them, Vikus waxing poetic about a trade fair that’s being planned between Regalia, Corsus, and the Fount. Gregor doesn’t know any of the names he mentions, but it’s nice to listen. It feels like talking to some of his favorite professors, or the folks who’d sit and chat on their porches in Virginia. And Gregor realizes how worried he’d been, without even knowing it, that he’d come back someday only to be shown Vikus’s grave.

“So, Gregor,” Vikus says while he gently unwinds a red vine from its neighbor, “what of you? I do not see that you have accumulated any new scars since last we spoke. Do I guess rightly that you are no longer a warrior?”

Gregor shakes his head. “Definitely not—I’m about as far away from fighting as you can get.” He doesn’t even do martial arts or anything; he’s never been able to forget Ripred’s final warning about being a rager.

“And have the years treated you well?”

“Pretty well,” Gregor says, even though it feels like a hard question to answer. “I have a job, a place to live. I do good work, stuff that helps people.” But there’s more, he thinks, that those things can’t touch. The sense of being adrift. Of moving through the world wrapped in a veil, like—well, like he never really came back from the Underland. He hadn’t wanted to think of it that way before now, but somehow being here, and being asked, he can’t deny it any longer.

Like he knows something of what’s going through Gregor’s mind, Vikus eyes him over the vine. “The war marked us all,” he says. “It left us with scars that cannot be seen with the eye. It could not have been easy for you to go on alone after you returned home.”

“I mean, I had my family,” Gregor says. “They all knew about—everything.” Vikus nods thoughtfully, his gaze on the plants. But Gregor thinks, watching him, that in a way he’s right. None of his family ever had to fight or even hold a weapon. Boots was there for lots of his battles, but the memories had faded quickly once they went home. And he’s so glad for that. But it meant that there was no one who could really understand, not even his dad. None of them were there with him and Ares, at the end. Gregor swallows hard. “I’m good, Vikus,” he says, wishing it wouldn’t sound so much like he’s trying to convince himself.

But Vikus only smiles at him. “You are strong,” he says. “That much has always been clear.”

“What happened to your hands?” Jen asks. Behind her, Peter twists around, curious.

He never knows when the question will come, but it always comes. At school, if he gets careless and pushes up his sleeves. At the doctor’s office, if the doctor’s tactless enough. On a sunny day, anywhere, when the light makes everything easier to see. Or now, in the municipal archives, when he’d relaxed just enough to think he was safe.

Gregor looks down at his hands. Raised lines, lighter than the rest of his skin, right across the palms.

“I was in an accident,” he says, and the lie drops so easily from his mouth that he can almost believe it doesn’t hurt.

July

Gregor braces himself a little when he descends the stairs, not sure what to expect—and for a second he thinks there’s no one here to meet him at all. But then a voice comes out of the darkness: “Drop, Gregor!”

He’d be lying if he said he’d missed throwing himself into black voids, all these years. But he knows the voice, so he steps off the edge and only falls for about three seconds before he lands on Aurora next to Luxa, who steadies him. “Hey,” he says, grinning at her. It’s like stepping back in time: her hair is braided and tucked into her belt, like the very first time he saw her. “So today’s the big day?”

“Hazard received the top score in rhetoric,” she informs him. “No one is surprised. And his whole cohort performed very well, of course.” Despite her words, she’s practically glowing with pride, as if she’d done the exams herself. “His spirits are so high he is almost floating.”

“Good thing there’s a party, then, to help calm him down,” Gregor says, and Luxa laughs. “By the way—where’s Ripred at these days? I wouldn’t expect him to miss any feasting if he can help it.”

“He cannot help it,” Luxa replies. “He is in the Dead Land, assisting in the gnawers’ settlements there. But he is expected back in a few weeks. He spends as much time here as there in recent years.”

“Wow.” Gregor eyes her. “And how’s the bond thing working out?”

A small, unexpected smile slips onto Luxa’s face. “It goes well,” she says. “He is one of few who will be truly honest with me.”

“Too honest,” Aurora says from beneath them. “Do you recall what he said about your plan for the fishing grounds?”

From the stories they tell him on the ride back, Gregor gathers Ripred has probably changed the least of anyone he knows down here. And then they’re diving down into the arena and coasting to a gentle landing on the moss. Gregor climbs off of Aurora, looking around. All the stands are empty, but there are dozens of people and fliers on the ground and in the air, variously stretching and tossing some balls around. Gregor cranes his neck, looking for Hazard, but someone comes in and tackles him, nearly knocking him over with the strength of the hug. “Overlander!”

“Mareth!” Laughing, Gregor looks up at him—Mareth’s still half a head taller. “How’s it going, man?”

“Very well.” Mareth shifts his weight, and Gregor realizes that his fishbone prosthetic is no longer plain—it’s covered in carvings and paintings like the ones all over the walls. “I am not a proper soldier anymore,” he says. “I now instruct the younger children in their first flying lessons, and train the older ones in more complex maneuvers.”

“That sounds really fun,” Gregor says.

“It suits me better, certainly,” Mareth agrees. “Which is good, for there is less need for soldiers now than before.”

“And tonight—are you here to play, too?”

“No,” Mareth says, shaking his head, “I came to see you!”

“Come, Mareth,” Luxa says, “you must play with us.” She raises an eyebrow. “I know that you have no work tonight.”

“Oh, Gregor! You made it!” Hazard runs up to their little cluster, out of breath. Mareth, who’s taller than him, too, tousles his hair, and Hazard looks around at him. “You are not leaving, are you, Mareth?” he asks. “Won’t you play a round?”

Mareth rolls his eyes and grins at Gregor. “How can I refuse?”

Luxa and Mareth explain the game to Gregor, who doesn’t really follow but gathers that the main thing is to hit the ball with any part of your body without catching it, and to not let the bats’ wings touch it. And then they take off and the Underlanders immediately start vaulting off their bats to kick or head the ball, flipping around in midair without breaking a sweat.

Gregor’s riding on a striped bat named Harmonia, who’s nimble in the air and seems to be having a great time, calling out moves to other players. Gregor manages to reach out and smack the ball a couple times, but he gets the feeling he’s not making much of a difference for his team. He makes eye contact with Luxa across the pitch; she’s laughing, but not at him. There’s a flush high in her cheeks and her eyes are dancing. He misses the ball entirely.

“I will help you,” Harmonia says, and maneuvers them through the air until they’re above most of the other players. Gregor watches the ball bounce around below them, and then Harmonia says, “Drop.”

She rolls in midair and he lets go, falling through the air at dizzying speed. He kicks out and feels his foot connect with the ball. Somewhere in his head he hears a cheer, but he’s still falling, and he’s still falling, and then—

And then he lands on Harmonia, who’s laughing in exhilaration. He can only cling to her fur and shut his eyes tight, his heart pounding and cold sweat on his skin. He thinks of bodies bursting on rocks. Black fur. Drop, Overlander. A wave of trembling washes over him.

Two people score. He hears the cheering, distantly, and feels Harmonia bank toward the ground as the game ends. “Overlander,” she says as they land, “are you well?” But he can’t find the words to answer, and waves her off.

There are people all around—forty or so Underlanders and as many bats, whooping and trading good-natured jokes. None of them seem to see Gregor’s distress. He’s glad, and tries to calm his breath and control his shaking hands, edging out of the crowd.

And then there’s a hand on his arm, pulling him around. Luxa: still flushed, but with a furrow in her brow. “What is it, Gregor?” she asks.

“I just,” he says, and wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. “I just, it made me think of—of Ares.” He swallows hard.

“Oh, Gregor,” she says, soft. Not letting go of him, she raises her other arm to signal, and Aurora lands next to them. “Come with me.”

“But—the party,” Gregor stammers out, feeling somehow that it’s important. “Hazard.”

“We will return,” Luxa tells him, tugging him onto Aurora’s back. “Come with me now.”

The last of the trembling leaves him as they fly through the darkness, Luxa snagging a torch from the wall. Gregor doesn’t try to follow the route they’re taking, but it seems familiar, with its many forks and turnings. And then they pass over a lake, and he knows.

Ares’s cave is dark and cold. Their footsteps echo against the rock, and in the quiet the guttering torch seems very loud. Luxa holds it high so that it illuminates the crystal formations, the spare torches and other items still clustered against one wall.

“There is a memorial in Regalia,” Luxa says, “for him and for the others who died. Many bring tokens of remembrance there. But... I thought perhaps this would be better.”

Gregor agrees silently. He doesn’t want to be around anyone but Aurora and Luxa, who don’t seem to count. They know. “Do you ever come here?” he asks.

It’s Aurora who speaks. “From time to time,” she says in her gentle purr. “We have not forgotten him.”

“Me neither,” Gregor gets out before his throat closes up. Of course none of them forgot. Gregor had grown around the grief, learned to manage it, to put it away like an old book on a shelf. But here—now—it’s like it was yesterday. He can almost feel the scars opening in his chest, raw and bleeding.

Soft footsteps behind him. “We miss him as well,” Luxa says. He turns to see her eyes bright with tears. “All of us who truly knew him.” And she pulls him into a hug.

He hugs her back, the firelight dancing even through his closed eyelids. The warmth of her body, the strength of her grip—it grounds him, despite the ache in his heart. It’s not like Gregor had thought it would be, coming back here. If he’d let himself imagine it. He’d tried hard not to: like the rule with his dad. But somehow the cold emptiness of the cave wakes him up to the fact that—after everything, they’re alive. So he leans his head on Luxa’s shoulder, and lets his lungs fill and empty, and holds on tight.

Mrs. Cormaci fixes him with a look across the rim of her iced tea glass. “You know, Mister,” she says, “it’s not only for your dad that I said I’d check in on you. But I’d hate to have to give him bad news.”

Gregor puts his own glass down. “What bad news?”

Her eyes flick over him. “You’re not sleeping. You’re too skinny. What do they have you doing at that internship, manual labor?”

“I’m a legal aide,” Gregor replies, but she doesn’t look convinced. “I’m okay,” he insists. “It’s just really different from school.”

“Hmph.”

“And—” Gregor takes a breath. He knows he shouldn’t say it, but he can’t help himself—it’s Mrs. Cormaci. She’s always helped, somehow; she’s always known what he needed. Even if it was just to sit with someone who didn’t ask questions. Which is ironic, all things considered. “And to tell you the truth,” he says, “I haven’t slept the night through in twelve years.”

“I cannot believe I let you convince me to do this,” Luxa says. She’s shifting from foot to foot, the kind of restless energy Gregor usually only sees in her before battles.

“We can always go back,” he offers, teasing.

In the beam of his phone flashlight, he sees her square her shoulders and toss him a challenging look. “Well, what do you think?” she asks. “Do I pass for an Overlander?”

She’s wearing jeans and a light sweater, scavenged from the museum and luckily not too old-fashioned. Her hair’s in a ponytail and she’s got a pair of sunglasses in her hand. “You’ll blend right in,” Gregor says. “C’mon.”

They go up the rest of the steps in silence, and Gregor shoves the stone slab aside. Then they’re standing in the fresh air, the warm summer night filled with the sounds of traffic and birds. For a long, long moment, Luxa just gazes up at the moon. “I never thought to see it again,” she says softly. “It is brighter than I remembered.” Gregor grins, seeing her obvious amazement. And then she turns to him. “So. What is this ‘pizza?’”

Gregor talks the whole time they’re walking, unsurprised that Luxa demands an explanation for every unfamiliar thing she sees. Cars, streetlights, window displays, the music drifting out of the passing buildings. The newspaper kiosks and parking meters. At the restaurant, Luxa puts her sunglasses on and Gregor finds them a table in the back corner where it feels almost cozy. “Hang on,” he says, struck with a sudden idea, and leaves her to people-watch while he gets their drinks and orders slices of four different types of pizza. “Try this,” he says, sitting back down and pushing the plastic cup towards her.

She takes a sip and gasps. “Root beer!”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember,” he says.

“If you saw a strange boy attack a spider with foam,” she says, “and then he drank it, you would not be so quick to forget, either.” She takes another sip of her root beer.

Their table has a good view of the rest of the restaurant, so they spend some time observing people go in and out of the other tables and booths. Luxa has questions about fashion, about earbuds and smartphones—but after a while she just watches. And Gregor watches her, caught up in her delight.

When the pizza arrives, Luxa pokes at it, curious. “You eat it with your hands?” she asks.

“Like a sandwich,” Gregor supplies, taking a slice of pepperoni.

It’s a little hilarious, watching Luxa figure out her way around a hot, gooey slice of pizza. Gregor guesses it’s not something anyone really looks dignified doing. But after the first couple bites, she smiles. “It is good,” she says, sounding a little surprised.

As they eat, Luxa asks about Boots and Lizzie. Gregor explains that Boots, who’s halfway done with high school, goes by Margaret now. And Lizzie’s just finishing her degree in math and linguistics. “She’s an overachiever,” Gregor says, “but it’s like she just can’t help herself.”

“And are they—much affected?” she asks. “By their time in the Underland?”

Gregor shrugs. “I don’t think Boots really remembers it,” he admits, slipping back into the nickname with a strange wave of nostalgia. “She used to talk about it, but it’s been years. And Lizzie—” He frowns. “I know Lizzie remembers. I think she tries not to mention it, though. Like she’s afraid of what we’d think—what I’d think.” It’d bothered him at first, that she wouldn’t talk to him about it. But as time went on he’d begun to feel like her way might be the only way.

“And did you want to speak of it?” Luxa asks quietly. “Your time with us?”

“I don’t know,” Gregor says. “I was always thinking about—all of it. Even when I tried not to.” Even behind the sunglasses, he can see the flash of hurt on Luxa’s face. “I don’t mean it like that,” he says quickly. “I didn’t want to forget. It wasn’t like that. I tried to hold on, to remember—but it hurt.” Everything he’d seen and lost, carrying it around like a wound inside himself. “So I let it go as much as I could. Except I—I never really did, you know? It was always there.”

He looks out at the restaurant, the laughing, chatting people. “No one up here understands,” he says. “At school, at work. Even just—buying food, taking the bus, watching movies, it was like I had this normal life but I just... couldn’t fit into it.” He pauses, then looks back to her, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Maybe that’s more than you wanted to hear.”

She shakes her head. “No,” she says with a quick smile. “It is all right. But, Gregor—did you not also have good days?”

“Sure,” he says, thrown by the concern in her voice. And he tells her—the long afternoons after school in Virginia, his friends in college, seeing his dad get strong enough to work again.

“I am glad,” she says as he finishes a story about a trip they’d taken to the ocean a few years after moving away. “I wanted—to think of you happy. I hoped that you would not be suffering as you did when you were with us.”

“It wasn’t all suffering down there, either,” Gregor says. And it’s kind of funny—he remembers dreading his visits to the Underland, going back to a place of such violence and hardship. Yet here he is, back of his own accord. And thinking less of death than of the people he shared those years with. Then something snags in his mind. “You thought of me?” he asks.

Luxa blushes bright pink, but she doesn’t look away, as far as he can tell with the sunglasses. “Of course I did,” she replies.

After they’ve eaten, they walk out again into the warm air and Gregor steers them back toward the park. He’s not sure what excuse Luxa gave to leave Regalia, but he guesses it won’t buy them more than a couple hours—but she doesn’t seem in a hurry to get back, either. “So,” he asks as they move on from watching a busker play the saxophone, “what’s it like to be queen?”

She snorts. “Oh, very boring.”

“Sure it is.” Gregor elbows her. “Come on, tell me. Tell me about what one day’s like for you.”

She gives him a look, sidelong, like she’s deciding how much he means it. And then she starts to talk. She tells him, as they walk back into the park, about the daily meeting with her council, and the time set aside for hearing petitions from Regalian citizens. The discussions with dignitaries and advisors. The hours overseeing construction, agriculture, trade. Gregor’s exhausted just thinking about it. But despite how tired Luxa’s seemed, she grows more animated as she tells him about it.

“And do you like it?” Gregor asks, sitting down on a park bench not too far from the gateway.

Luxa sits next to him. “Whether I like it or not is of no importance.”

He rolls his eyes. “Maybe not to the council,” he says, “but it is to me. So, do you?”

She lets a long breath out. “Yes,” she says. “And I hope I am a good queen as well.”

“You are,” he says, and means it. “I can tell.” He remembers how afraid she’d been, just before the surrender all those years ago, whispering I do not know what to do over and over again when there was no one else around. There’s no trace of that fear now.

“Well, you are not a fair judge,” she tells him, laughing. “You have only just returned. And you will not be there to see—” She breaks off, looking down and away.

There’s a moment of silence, the unspoken words sitting between them. “I’m serious,” Gregor says, as lightly as he can manage it. “You’re doing great. You’ve already made such a huge difference. And you’ll marry some great guy from the Fount and go down in history as the queen who helped bring peace to the whole Underland.”

Luxa laughs, but there’s a hollowness to the sound. Gregor thinks she’s blushing again, though it’s hard to tell in the darkness. “You are kind to say so,” she says.

There’s a pit in Gregor’s stomach. He wishes he hadn’t mentioned marrying anyone. He doesn’t know, he thinks, what the right thing is to say anymore, but he hates the expression that’s suddenly appeared on her face: closed-off and sad. And he’s afraid it might also be the wrong thing to do, but he reaches out and takes her hand where it rests on the park bench.

Luxa startles but doesn’t pull away. She holds his gaze, and her eyes seem darker in the moonlight, a deep indigo. “I’m glad,” he says, barely able to get the words out. A half-smile touches her lips. “I’m so glad things are good, Luxa. I wanted to think of you happy, too.”

He’s taking the subway home from his internship, longing for sleep, when the fight starts. Two guys who don’t seem to know one another, but who take offense at—something, anything, Gregor wasn’t paying attention. All he knows is that one of them has a knife, and everyone else in the train car is variously freaking out or shouting at the guys to stop. And they’re not stopping. And in a minute, someone’s going to get hurt.

Gregor stands up. One of the guys lunges for the other, and Gregor steps between them. And then things happen fast and slow at the same time, the old familiar rager sensation buzzing in Gregor’s veins, and it’s almost welcome to him. Like falling asleep.

When he comes back to himself the guys are on opposite sides of him, one clutching his bleeding nose and the other coughing on the floor. The knife, Gregor sees when he looks down, is in his own hand. The blade is mostly clean; his knuckles are covered in blood.

He stumbles back to his seat. Holds it together until the train screeches into the station, avoiding everyone’s eyes, even the ones that thank him shakily for stepping in. When the doors open, he scrambles up the stairs and onto the sidewalk, where he vomits until there’s nothing left to come up.

August

Gregor can hear the voices echoing off the stone several minutes before he reaches the High Hall. When he finally steps through the doorway, he’s taken aback. There are more Underlanders here than he’s ever seen in one place before, outside of battle, all dressed in colorful finery. And there’s some kind of perfume in the air, heady and sharp. He realizes it’s coming from unlit torches that everyone’s holding as they mill about, talking quietly like they’re waiting for something. And then Gregor does a double-take at a different shape in the crowd: wait, is that—?

“Oh, hello, Gregor!” Howard says, turning as he approaches. “I did not know you would be here today.”

But Gregor’s not looking at Howard. He’s grinning at the giant rat standing opposite him.

“Hello, Gregor,” Ripred echoes dryly. “I didn’t know you would be here ever. Was anyone going to tell me the warrior’s back?” he asks to no one in particular.

Luxa appears between the two of them, wearing the kind of stunning gown Gregor can only remember seeing on the day of surrender. “You have only just returned, Ripred. I was not sure whether you would even be in time to see him tonight.”

“That’s no excuse,” Ripred replies. “You know I need to know what’s going on.”

“So that you can turn it all to your benefit?” Luxa asks severely. But her eyes are amused, and Ripred’s whiskers twitch like he’s heard it a thousand times. “Besides, you cannot recruit Gregor to any of your causes tonight. He will not stay long enough to serve them. And he is here at my invitation.”

“Is that so?” Ripred’s gaze moves sharply to Gregor.

Luxa ignores him. “Gregor,” she says, turning to him now. She gives him a hug, but lets go almost before he can register that it’s happening. “I am glad you came. Here, you will need this.” And she hands him an unlit torch, too.

“What do I do with it?” he asks.

“You will see,” she says. A smile plays at the edge of her mouth. “It will soon begin.” And then she grabs Howard’s elbow. “Howard, you must come with me—the party from Corsus have brought a doctor, and he says they have made advances in treating—” And she ushers him away toward another group of Underlanders, glancing back at Gregor over her shoulder as she goes.

There’s a sudden tightness in Gregor’s chest. When he looks back to Ripred, the rat’s watching him with an uncomfortably shrewd expression. But all he says is, “You’re underdressed.”

Gregor glances down at his plain Underland clothes. “I didn’t know it would be this kind of party,” he says. He frowns at Ripred, who’s cleaner than Gregor ever remembers seeing him. “And you look almost—fancy.”

Ripred ruins the effect by snagging four little cakes off a cart as it’s wheeled by and stuffing them into his mouth all at once. “Eh,” he says, swallowing, “it comes with the position. And the Dead Land isn’t all that dead these days.”

“Do the other gnawers treat you okay,” Gregor asks, “being bonded to Luxa?”

Ripred bares his teeth in a grin. “They don’t have much of a choice about it,” he says. “Most of them had at least heard of me from before the war, so they know there’s a limit to what I’ll take. And Lapblood still speaks for me. That counts for a lot.”

Gregor’s heart warms at the mention of Lapblood’s name. “How’s she doing?”

“Well, most of us have lost our taste for royalty after Gorger and the Bane,” Ripred says, “but if we had anything like a queen anymore, she’d be it.” And Ripred tells him how she’s found ways for the gnawers to work with the other species in the Underland, how she’s led them to something approaching a lasting peace even among themselves. How she gives Luxa and Ripred both an earful whenever she thinks they need it, and how her pups have grown up to be leaders in their own rights. “Rat politics will probably always be messy,” Ripred says, munching thoughtfully on a skewer of meat and mushrooms from another cart. “But we are all sick of war, and eager to fill our lives with something other than blood.” He motions with his snout toward the other end of the High Hall. “With her on the throne, we have allies who’ll listen.”

Gregor follows his gaze, but he can only make out a glimmer of jewels from where he knows Luxa is. He peers around and realizes that the lanterns ringing the High Hall are being snuffed out, one by one, by attendants. Then he sees that the lanterns in the streets are going out, too, until only the distant lights around the city walls remain. And at that moment, the musicians begin to play an eerie melody, slow and strange. He hears it echoed by other players in the streets below.

There’s a shuffle, and then a spark, and then fire blooms like a golden flower in the darkness. The torch in Luxa’s hands illuminates her face with an otherworldly glow from where she’s standing on a raised platform at the open end of the hall. As they all watch, she bends down and touches her lit torch to someone else’s—Nerissa, Gregor sees, who lights Vikus’s torch, who in turn lights the torch of a woman Gregor recognizes with a jolt as Miravet. And on and on it goes, the light slowly spreading through the crowd, one person at a time. When it reaches Ripred, who’s grasping his torch a little awkwardly between both paws, he lights Gregor’s torch, who passes the flame on to an unfamiliar teenager to his left.

When it seems like everyone in the High Hall has a burning torch, Gregor looks around expectantly, but everyone seems to still be waiting. A couple minutes pass in silence. And then Ripred pokes him with his tail and motions toward the railing of the hall. Gregor cranes his neck to look, and sees a sight that takes his breath away. At the base of the palace, another chain of torches is being lit. At this height, each torch is a tiny spark in the blackness. They all watch as the light travels through the square and down the streets of the city like rivers of fire, until Gregor can’t even make out the individual torches.

And then the musicians stop, and Luxa raises her torch high. The light all around catches on her face and in her hair. “We have gathered in darkness,” she says, raising her voice so that it echoes down into the silent city, speaking so deliberately that Gregor can tell she’s reciting some part of a ritual.

Gregor jumps when all of the Underlanders respond: “Let us live in light.” The very stone seems to shake with the thunder of hundreds of voices.

Luxa had called it a harvest festival when she’d invited him, and she’d said it was the time of reaping in the fields, so Gregor had pictured—well, he definitely hadn’t pictured this. But he figures, as the musicians suddenly strike up a brighter tune and the air fills with cheering, that there wouldn’t be any harvest down here without the light.

“Excellent,” Ripred says at his shoulder. “Now we can have a real feast.” And he makes his way over to the long tables of food that are being assembled along one side of the hall.

Gregor turns at a hand on his shoulder to see Howard and Mareth, who usher him over to a group of Underlanders that, to his delight, includes Perdita. “Here, place your torch with the others,” Mareth tells him, pointing out many-pronged brackets affixed to the railings. “The festivities will go on all night.”

Gregor wanders through the halls of the palace, amazed. There are games, and singers, and performers who juggle torches and do magic tricks with lanterns. As far as he can tell, everyone in the city is celebrating.

But the person he’d most like to spend the night with is the one he can’t find. He hears Luxa’s laugh once, but loses her in the crowd. And then finally he glimpses a flash of her bejeweled gown vanishing through a curtained doorway, and squeezes through the crush of people to follow. In the relative quiet inside the room, he realizes it’s Vikus’s garden. The lamps are still lit, and outside those high windows the streets below still glow with countless torches. And in front of the windows, looking back at him with a small smile, is Luxa.

“This is some party,” Gregor says, walking over to join her. “You all do this every year?”

“The Day of Light,” she says, nodding as she gazes out through the windows. “The year that you were with us is the one time in living memory that we did not celebrate, for the war would not allow it. But it began in Sandwich’s time, to mark the first successful harvest in the Underland. The words we speak are said to come from him.”

Sandwich. The name sends a shiver down Gregor’s spine, but it’s not enough to make him forget the moment when she’d first lit her torch, how in the fire she’d looked as if she were made of gold. “It’s amazing,” he tells her. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“I am glad you find it so.” Her voice is subdued. He watches her, trying to read her expression, to put to rest the anxiety he’s felt since they spoke before, but she keeps her head turned to look out at the city. “I wanted you to experience it,” she says. “Though I know I cannot correct the balance of all that you have seen... I wanted you to know that we have more light than dark here, these days.”

He thinks back. To the darkness of the war and even before it, all those endless hours filled with tears and blood, fear and pain. But somehow it’s other memories that come more quickly to his mind. Temp chasing after Boots’s ball. Luxa dancing in a ring of children. Thalia’s laughter. Pain and sweetness intermingled, every time. “I knew that,” he says quietly. “I can tell from—from everyone I’ve ever met down here.”

She sighs. And finally she turns to him, her eyes searching his face even as they reflect the thousands of lights. “Tell me truly,” she says, “why have you come back?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? The one he’s been afraid of being asked all summer. Because he shouldn’t want to be here. He should have found a life in the Overland, in the sunlight. Left the warrior behind and found something else to be. And he tried so hard to do it, tried for years. But he’s only managed the one, and not the other. Like he left pieces of himself down here all this time, and hardly even realized until he’d found them again.

“I missed you all,” Gregor replies. “And—” He takes a breath. “Luxa, I—I missed you.”

“Gregor...” Her wide eyes hold his, filled with an expression he can’t quite parse. “Do not do this,” she says, barely louder than a whisper. “We are not children anymore.”

“I know,” Gregor says. He sounds desperate, he knows, but he can’t leave it there. “Everything’s different. You’re the queen, and I’m not the warrior. But—but my life is still better with you in it.” Her face twists, looking for all the world like she’s trying not to cry, and Gregor’s heart aches. He swallows. “Do... you want me to go?”

“No,” Luxa says swiftly, and closes her eyes a moment. When she opens them, they’re dry and clear. “I never do,” she says. “You know that. But—”

There’s a sudden increase in noise in the corridor, and a woman Gregor doesn’t know pushes through the curtain. “Queen Luxa,” she says, “we have need of you. The delegates from Corsus say—” She breaks off, looking between them. Even in the low light, Gregor can see her pale skin flushing. “I apologize, Your Highness. I will leave you.”

“No.” Luxa steps back from Gregor, standing very straight. “No, Helene, I will come now.” Her mouth does something that Gregor thinks is meant to be a smile, and then she leaves.

Gregor doesn’t move. He can’t think of what he would do. Where he would go. He doesn’t know what to make of whatever just happened. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything; he knows about the suitors, after all, and even before, didn’t he always know there was no hope for them in the long-term? He thinks of Luxa, months ago now, saying, There will always be a place for you here. But what kind of place, exactly? He loses track of time, the lights beyond the windows turning into nothing more than a fiery smear.

There’s another commotion behind him. Gregor turns, his heart in his throat—but it’s Ripred, ambling toward him between the garden beds. “Hiding, Warrior?” he asks as he comes closer. “There’s a party going on, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Stop calling me that,” Gregor says. His voice comes out raw.

“Fair enough.” Ripred slouches against the stone next to the window. “I see they haven’t strapped another sword into your belt yet, at any rate.”

Gregor shudders. “I’m not here to fight.”

“What are you here for, exactly?” the rat asks. “Just to reminisce with all of us?”

The bottom drops out of Gregor’s stomach. “Have you talked to Luxa?” he asks. She wouldn’t do that, he thinks—and then he wonders. He is one of few who will be truly honest with me.

“I have not,” Ripred drawls. “And despite the many combined talents my lethal and infuriating bond and I possess, I can’t read her mind.” A wave of relief washes over Gregor, wiped away immediately as Ripred continues: “But I can read everything written across your face, just like always.”

Gregor looks at him, braced for teasing or reprimand. There’s nothing like that in Ripred’s eyes, though. Just the usual keen understanding, but mixed with a tinge of sympathy that takes Gregor by surprise. He considers, then, the possibility that maybe Ripred has changed more in the last twelve years than Gregor has given him credit for. But then—Ripred’s always cared. Gregor knows that, as much as he would never say it to Ripred’s face. So maybe the real change is that he can show it.

“We were all going to die before, Ripred,” Gregor hears himself say. He clears his throat. “There wasn’t a future for—any of us. So the rest of it didn’t matter. And now...” He shakes his head. “There’s too much to worry about. The future is all there is.”

“Exactly,” Ripred says softly. “It’s the only time you’ll ever have. So do something with it.”

Gregor takes a deep breath. “Mom,” he says, “I need to tell you something.”

There’s a staticky silence over the phone. And then— “I know, baby,” she says. “I know.”

Gregor follows the attendant through the palace, until she bows outside a curtained doorway and says that the queen is inside. She leaves him, and Gregor realizes where she’s brought him: back to the library. He takes a breath and steps inside.

He doesn’t see Luxa, but one of the torches is missing from a nearby bracket. So he moves forward, into the darkness between the shelves, which stretch nearly to the ceiling. He can hear someone moving—and then he sees light up ahead. He rounds a corner to find Luxa sitting at a little table sandwiched between the shelves, her torch placed in another bracket. She’s reading a scroll and frowning at the contents, several more scrolls piled beside her, but she looks up as he approaches. “Oh, Gregor,” she says, standing quickly. “It is earlier than you usually come.”

“Yeah.” He steps forward, into the circle of light. “I have the day off, since my internship’s over. It was just for the summer.”

“Ah.” She ducks her head, then turns away from him, facing into the shelves like she’s searching for something. “So you have come to say goodbye.”

Gregor shakes his head, though she can’t see it. “Actually, I’m staying in New York.” He waits, but she doesn’t turn back around, doesn’t move at all as far as he can see. “I have work, and a place to live.” He hears her intake of breath. “Luxa,” he says, “won’t you look at me?”

She turns to face him, resolve in her eyes. “Why would you do this?” she asks.

He swallows. “You know why.”

Her expression turns pained. “I am bound by my station, Gregor. We—we cannot.”

“We could,” he says, urgent. “There’s time to figure it out.” He reaches out to take her hand, keeping his grip loose, and though he feels her fingers jolt against his, she doesn’t pull away. “What do you want, Luxa?”

She hesitates, then lifts her chin. “It is of no matter what I want,” she says. “I serve my people.”

“But you said,” Gregor insists, “you said they don’t command your heart. What does your heart say?”

She stares at him. Her mouth is half-open, like she’s about to argue further, but for a long moment she’s silent. The only thing that moves is the flickering torchlight. “You will leave again,” she says at last, soft and certain. “You always leave.”

“But I’m telling you, I’m not.” He takes a step closer, desperate for her to hear him. “Not this time.”

She shakes her head. “You cannot always have a foot in both worlds, Gregor.”

“Can’t I?” he challenges, and she blinks at him. “You were right,” he tells her. “It’s not like before. We’re not kids. But—but we can choose now. We get to decide things for ourselves.” He clasps her hand between both of his. “And I’m not asking for a promise now. Nothing like that. I’m just asking you to give this a chance.” His voice breaks on the last word, and she’s quiet, so quiet. Her eyes are lowered. “Even if—even if it’s not me,” he says, forcing his voice to steadiness, “even if we can’t... I’d stay and just be your friend, Luxa. I just don’t think I could leave you twice.”

All he can hear is the guttering torch and their own breathing: Luxa’s steady, his own a little ragged. And as the silence goes on, he thinks: at least I said it. At least she knows. And if there’s nothing else to say, if she doesn’t want him here, then—

Her hand twists in his, so that she’s holding on, too. And then she looks up, her eyes locked on his. “I do not want to be your friend,” she says. And she pulls him down into a kiss, slow and gentle. Gregor closes his eyes, the firelight warm through his eyelids, the blood singing in his veins, and kisses her back. His hand comes up to cup her jaw. After a moment they break apart, resting their foreheads together.

Gregor meets Luxa’s gaze in the half-light. “What are you gonna tell the council?” he whispers. He almost doesn’t want to ask, but he has to know—has to be sure that it’s real. That this wasn’t a goodbye kiss.

She huffs a breath of laughter. “It will not be so bad,” she says, just as quietly. “I cannot vex them more than I already have.”

Relief spreads through Gregor like a balm. He kisses her forehead, just for the thrill of being able to.

When Luxa speaks again, he can hear the smile in her voice. “You will have to be careful,” she says. “If you are to spend more time here, they will draw you into their schemes as well.”

“More prophecies?” Gregor asks with a jolt of trepidation.

“Oh, no,” Luxa replies. “They will make you into something much worse than a warrior.” She draws back to look him full in the face. “A politician.”

Gregor makes a face, and Luxa laughs. The sound echoes on the stone, sweet as birdsong all these miles beneath the ground, brilliant as light itself.