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  At last, familiar eyes held mine. Carmine, beneath a bristly brow. Their gaze drank the hard muscle of my chest and back, the low fall of my skirt. Hello again, Jasho-eshe. Instinct pulled me toward the dzaxa man like a hunting raptor, noting weak points to hook my claws. He’s lonely. He’ll buy your touch with gold, essence and secrets.

  I leapt off the Lost District’s vehicle, brightness speeding me across the fifteen-meter gap. Jasho caught me and pulled me onto his reja. “You cut your hair.” He stroked my close-cropped blond locks as a servant refilled his wine glass. “I liked it long and messy.”

  I eased into his embrace. The perfume of aster oil and raptor stables washed me as I nuzzled the sunny curls of his beard. “I have other clients to please. It’s not every day an ambassador from a lost civilization crosses your doorstep.”

  Jasho-eshe Phfigezava Dzaxashigé reclined on his pillows, pulling me down beside him. His gold brocade skirt shifted low beneath his round belly. “The Engineers at the university complained about the welcome parade. My mother’s busy meeting with Magistrate Vashathke—for the third time this week!—but she sent us here to monitor the envoys.”

  Lady Xezkavodz met him three times? The owner of the vast Archive building might meet with my father on innocuous business. As the ruler of all Victory Street, Vashathke arbitrated conflicts between landladies and oversaw Victory Street’s economy. He had innocent reasons to meet Xezkavodz—but three times said he was angling for her endorsement.

  My pulse quickened. Maybe I could still win her away.

  “Technically, I’m the one monitoring the envoys,” said a bright girl. Dark curls spilled down her rich brown shoulders as she gulped from a whiskey flask. Drunk mischief filled her short, round features. She shook my hand. “Riapáná Źutruro, Initiate Fire Weaver. Call me Ria.”

  A Fire Weaver. Her gold bracer, the mark of her order, brushed the inside of my wrist, hot as if it had drunk down sunlight.

  “Our very own hero-in-residence,” Jasho said dryly. “The High Master of their order sent his daughter to visit my mother’s building. We’re honored.”

  Movies framed the Fire Weavers, the Engineering District’s society of technological archeologists, as altruistic protectors of Jadzia, defusing ancient fission bombs and incinerating giant worms that roamed the city-planet’s core. But heroes only lived onscreen. Ria, with her honey-oak whiskey breath, was likely no more than a pleasure-seeking idle. An idle whose father commanded the ancient, deeply respected order.

  Every time in War’s history where the judgeship was disputed between candidates, the one endorsed by the High Master of the Fire Weavers had won.

  “Ria,” Jasho said, “this is Magistrate Vashathke’s bastard.”

  “I’ve heard about this custom of yours!” Ria rubbed her hands together, excited. “That means his parents didn’t swear marriage oaths before conceiving him, right? So he can’t call himself a dzaxa or claim a family name?”

  “It gives dzaxa men dangerous ideas if their bastards thrive.” Jasho rolled his eyes. “Your district has plenty of essence. You don’t need to control what people do in bed. But the dzaxa believe, if War doesn’t control its men, they’ll surrender their essence to the first untrustworthy who fucks them. Apparently, we can’t help it.”

  No one could help it. True sexual pleasure made one slip essence to their partners. Skilled courtesans like I shone, our bodies the War District’s ultimate luxury, because our clients paid in essence and in gold. A fact of nature for which men were ever blamed.

  “I’m Koré,” I said, sweet as iced apple wine. “Nice to meet you, Ria. Are you enjoying the parade?”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, it’s weird. Weird as a triceratops with two frills. The Lost District lies in ruins. Where’d all this fancy shit come from?”

  And if you’re revealing yourself to the world, why start with a poor, backwards district like War? “Has Engineering ever sent diplomats or explorers there? The Dzaxashigé family used to fund salvage expeditions every few centuries, but the women never came home.”

  She laughed. “Engineering doesn’t need to hunt down legends to make friends. The other districts love us! Of course, it helps we Fire Weavers single-handedly retrieved millions of their cultural relics after the conquests.”

  “You speak like you found all those yourself, Ria,” said Jasho. “How mighty of you. Traveling the world centuries before your own conception.” He snorted a mocking laugh, then turned to bellow orders at his poor driver.

  “Ignore Jasho,” I murmured to her. “He tears someone down whenever he’s in a poor mood. Approximately eight times an hour. Now, if I need to smile, I simply behold myself in a mirror.”

  “Come to think of it, I’ve seen your advertisements in the herald pamphlets,” Ria mused. “Captioned ‘The Loveliest Bastard in War.’”

  “Did you see the all-audiences version, or the one for adult distribution only?”

  “The one where you hang a silk scarf on your erect penis.”

  “I’m gorgeous and a marketing expert. What more could you ask for in a man?”

  “I prefer my men with brains.” Her brown-diamond eyes studied me with focused intent. The first hint of fear brushed the back of my neck. “Men who ask interesting questions. Do you know much of the Lost District’s history? The Fire Weavers map and survey the Lost District—my mentor’s traveled there several times—but I’m just an initiate. I won’t learn more about them until I earn my second bracer.”

  I shrugged. “I only know children’s stories. My education ended at age fourteen. Kneeling and sucking doesn’t require an advanced degree.”

  “But understanding the present world requires scholarship and critical thought! I’m sorry you lack that.”

  Dzkegé’s tits, not pity. Nothing upended a seduction faster. I neither wanted nor needed a stranger looking past my eyeshadow and boyish silliness, so I smiled and flattered her. “You’ll earn your second bracer soon. The Fire Weavers must see your obvious talent.”

  She nodded, took a second whiskey flask from a servant, and drank deep. “I’ll get promoted when I make my big discovery.” A brass-and-wire chip flashed between her fingers. “I’m remotely monitoring energy signals in the Archive’s lower levels. One reading matches the signature of Dzkegé. The war god.”

  “Our… thigakazifi?” I had to dip into Old Jiké for the phrase. The god to whom we kneel. The god of the War District and its people. Nineteen deities had laid the foundation of Jadzia, the planet-sized city, each choosing a neighborhood to represent their sacred trades: civil engineering, urban gardening, research and scholarship, medical manufacturing… and the violence through which great cities suppressed disorder. But modern languages didn’t need religious terms, and my modern mind couldn’t fit the concept. Why would a god hide below the Archive? “That would be impressive indeed.”

  Impossible, indeed. If Dzkegé still existed, my dzaxa ancestors would have forced her to invest a new herald generations ago. Even one of her dragons could have solved our essence woes. Opened the way for us to dominate Jadzia’s economy once more.

  “If I find Dzkegé’s shade, she could transform our knowledge of history and science,” Ria said. “Which would impress my nerd friends back home and usher in a new era of utopia.” She grinned like she could fix the world with a wine glass in one hand and a whiskey flask in the other.

  “Not even a god can change Victory Street,” I warned her.

  “Well then, pretty boy, how does anything get done here?” Ria took a step closer. “Let me guess: do you pull all the strings?”

  I bit my tongue before I could answer. Even half-jesting, I dared not speak aloud of all the dzaxa in my fist. What is this stranger doing to me? I hadn’t felt true confidence since age six. But Ria believed she could do the impossible, in a way that whispered I could, too. Without a sip of alcohol, I was drunk on her.

  A cry rang up from the street. A guard knocked a dull child’s hand from her sash. A purse flew from the child’s fingers as another guard struck her with the sparking shiki end of a baton.

  “Barbarians.” Ria flicked a switch on her bracer. Gold façade slid off its carvings of triceratops-horned giants. Orange holdfire shimmered beneath, blocks of hammered, molten color. Flames gathered in her palm, rising and stretching like a cat, drawing eyes and worried whispers from the crowd. She gave her flask—and the monitoring chip—to me. “Put that on ice for me, pretty boy.”

  Bright essence fueled her speed as she leapt into the fray and flung a guard over her hip. Her bracer blocked a descending baton. Her fist caught the steel shaft and bent it backward.

  “Go!” she shouted to the child. “I’ve got this.”

  The child fled. Ria flung herself into the growing brawl. My eyebrows lifted. We could have driven past and done nothing. I knew such vulnerability in my bones, and I’d grown used to turning away. Searching for kindness on Victory Street was like asking to be broken.

  Ria moved like a hero. Bolder than the crushing world. Fire flashed. Her dark cheeks and red skirts danced through the pale, duller guards in the melee. The watching crowd pressed tight against the parade barrier, shouting, placing bets.

  As Ria sent three guards sprawling with a kick, her chip buzzed in my palm.

  “Her sensors found something.” Jasho plucked the chip from me. “Dzkegé’s shade? Ridiculous story. She wants the Nojof-era genetic recoders.”

  That made more sense than hidden gods. Jasho’s soldier ancestors had robbed the Warmwater District dry and the Fire Weavers were sworn to help our world recover from those ancient wars. “Can you make the recoders work?”

  “We keep them to celebrate our family history. Every time the Fire Weavers demand them, we move them somewhere new.” Jasho sighed. “First they take our money, then they come for our pride.”

  You’re in debt to Engineers because your family didn’t invest in civic infrastructure until half your pipes exploded. The septic recovery company had charged his mother a fortune, the arduous work exacerbated by centuries of neglect. Many of the dzaxa blamed the Engineering District for our economic woes, even though their skills alone kept our district standing. We built War on weak foundations. Our district was always doomed to crumble.

  “Come and help me find them, Koré. The abandoned lower levels of the Archive are quite private.” His fingers slid across the nape of my neck. “You wouldn’t be chatting with me if you had a client booked.”

  I almost refused. Stonefire had already led Tamadza off her horn; the ambassador was answering Ruby’s smiles. Powerful guests would flood the High Kiss. I had to prepare.

  But my employees could start a party themselves. If I put Jasho in a good mood, he might tell me how his mother’s support could be won.

  And if I could discover where his family kept their plundered artifacts, and slip that location to Ria, she might be grateful enough to secure me an audience with her High Master.

  “Let’s go,” I breathed in Jasho’s ear.

  Jasho muttered to his driver. The reja changed course, its six gold-plumed raptors tossing their heads, the hoverplatform—wide enough to hold Jasho’s reclining bed—knocking over guards as it spun. Jasho pulled me onto his lap. Spectators dove from our path as we abandoned the parade’s train and raced toward the Archive’s squatting shadow.

  Two hours later, we arrived at the first alcove out of ten million.

  I dismounted, squinting off into the evershade, where sunlight would never seep. Even my bright eyes couldn’t see where the line of alcoves ended. An abandoned storage floor. I knelt and touched up my makeup by the reja’s low holdlights. The bronze powder on my left eyelid had smudged. I wiped off the old coat and swept fresh powder out in the traditional shape of a dragon’s wing.

  “Jasho-eshe, you dishonor your wife with this… improper friendship,” said Jasho’s driver, tossing a pigeon to a raptor. The beast caught it in serrated reptilian teeth. Blood and feathers flew.

  “Rank and raging queer sexual yearning,” was how I’d describe Jasho’s feelings for me. Improper friendship my ass. But War used that euphemism for feelings it ignored. Homosexual affairs weren’t illegal, but frowned upon as a waste of essence. Happiness meant nothing when propriety demanded one raise children and pass on their store.

  “I’ve done everything for my wife,” Jasho said. “I built our salvage company. I raised our child. I won’t be slut-shamed by some dull!”

  I walked to the reja’s front and caught the driver’s eye. “Could you please send a herald to the High Kiss? Have Stonefire pick me up at the sixth bell. Thank you.” Her fist curled around the silver vodz I tossed her. A courtesan’s coin is as true as a judge’s. Raptors chirped as she reclaimed the driver’s seat and whipped them back towards the stairs.

  Jasho and I were alone.

  He passed me a holdlight. Warm yellow illumination shone from the fist-sized, cool lump, an unset chunk of one of the eleven substances transmutationists teased from the bodies of the dead. The elemental building blocks enabling a city Jadzia’s size to defy physics and remain standing.

  “My mother showed me the hidden recoders as a child,” Jasho said. “Hopefully, my bright brain remembers where they are. Keep an eye out for Fire Weaver instruments.”

  I bowed to him. “Lead on.”

  He steered me into the guts of his family’s building. My fingers ran along the cool jet-green feldspar of the lined-up alcoves. I lost count at six hundred of the waist-high, identical cylinders. The scent of old parchment rose from the worn floor. The air sat choking still. Jasho’s grip on my shoulder weighed me down like an anchor.

  “My ancestors brought the Archive to War by boat,” he said. “The founders of the Phfigezava line.”

  Phfigezava, Readers of Knowledge. One of the many lines within the sprawling, knotted Dzaxashigé family tree. I recalled my childhood history lessons. “The Phfigezava fought alongside Varjthosheri the Dragon-Blessed in the Warmwater–Scholars War.” Half a million souls had drowned in the final battle. But I’d focus on the glory to flatter him. “Tell me more about your family’s victories.”

  History spilled into the surrounding dark. A story of warriors conquering the Archive, soldiers dragging the building up Victory Street, and indebted merchants selling back its contents to the Scholars, scroll by scroll. The only ancestor I couldn’t make Jasho talk about was his mother.

  Disturbed dust swirled about our hems and sandals as we walked. Deep crimson parchment winked in our footsteps. The line of alcoves ran out beneath my fingers. I stretched out my holdlight, but saw no next row. “How much further?”

  “Not much.” Open space swallowed his deep, musical voice. The lack of an echo sent needles pricking up my spine. “But we can rest if you’d like.”

  I knew what he wanted. Stepping forward, I kissed him.

  The curls of his beard slid smooth over my shaven chin. He moaned, deep in his throat, and leant into me. Slowly. Slowly. His teeth nipped my cheek. A quick gasp escaped me, and, encouraged, he wrapped his hands across the small of my back. Fingers hooked under the lip of my skirt.

  “How are you?” he said. I knew what he meant. I wasn’t hard yet—but he was. I could feel him through his gold brocade.

  “Get me there,” I commanded. Essence tuned my voice true. He obeyed. His lips brushed my neck, my collarbone, my nipple. His teeth pressed. Biting. Lower. Lower. Potential gathered in my loins. My breath hitched.

  Stay focused, I told myself. Be hard. Please him. Learn secrets. Win allies. Get revenge.

  His brushing lips provoked me. My fists tightened on his curls, steering him. I woke inside him. All vanished but his breath on my thighs and the sweet tightness at the core of me.

  I recalled a memory. Scarlet eyes, twin to my own, washing over me like garbage. Bitterness balanced the demanding need between my legs. If my own father can look at me so, no one will ever love me. Jasho cares for me only as an object of lust.

  As my peak rolled through me, no essence leapt from my skin.

  The floor trembled. A light flared deep below us, ghostly and half-smothered by stacked floors.

  Are the planet’s foundations resettling? Is the Archive collapsing? Fear tensed me. Jasho gasped. Essence fluttered like wings as it leapt from him and settled into my flesh. The rattling pulse stilled.

  Only when I was completely limp did he pull away. I re-tied my skirt with finer-seeming hands. My light tan smoothed into a warm gold dusting. My nails were thicker and more even. A papercut on my knuckle had vanished.

  So had the light from below.

  “Drink,” I commanded, offering a flask. Jasho gulped down whiskey as amber drops flooded his beard. When he ran empty, I brushed a chaste kiss to his forehead. Another drop of essence flashed into me. “How’s your thirst?”

  “Sated, for now.” Jasho lifted his holdlight. His fingers fluttered as they closed, a heartbeat less quick, an inch less graceful. We both still burned bright as stars. But when he’d drunk his pleasure, he’d lessened and I’d gained. “You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

  “I know.”

  His hand, unbidden, cracked on my ass. I bit my tongue.

  “Learn modesty, boy!”

  I’d never be modest. But I’d play anything for the right price.

  Onward we went. The line of alcoves resumed under my fingertips. Jasho’s spirits lifted into song. An old husband’s lay for his soldier-wife drifted off into coiling evershade.

  “How is your mother feeling about the succession?” I asked when I couldn’t take another verse. “She and Judge Rarafashi are old friends. It must be hard, watching the judge’s health decline.”

  Jasho broke off mid-line. “She visits her in Skygarden whenever she can. Still, Rarafashi has ruled for ninety-two years, and War has only grown poorer. It’s time for new blood.”

  War would only ever grow poorer. Such was the truth of a world without fresh essence. But wishing for new blood—I could use that. My father was young, but, as Rarafashi’s husband, hardly the fresh face Xezkavodz might crave.