The young woman no longer looked sturdy. She no longer was a miner either. Not since the day of the nightling. Not since her mangled leg.

Her sister, too, had not set foot in a tunnel ever since. The girl had stayed by the elder's side day and night, nursing her, keeping her alive by sheer willpower. Or so it seemed to the neighbors, who passed by every now and then with a stew or a bit of soup.

It worked, for a while. The young woman did not die right away. Week after week she lingered, delirious, weak from blood loss and open wounds. But now the fever had gotten worse. Her torn leg was red, festering, swollen beyond recognition. Little beads of sweat stood on her brow. She muttered, a wild, confused, anxious stuttering punctured by breathless screams that broke off suddenly. Her chest shook. Her eyes were wild.

"There, now." The girl dabbed her sister's brow with a towel. Her jaw was set, determined, the face of someone holding on to hope against hope. Unwilling to give in, to let go.

"Come, now, sister. Come here. I need you. I love you."

But there it was. One last rattling breath, one lone shiver running over her body. And her sister's eyes turned empty, dead.

* * *

"It has been too long." Enim was fretting. "Why have we not heard back?"

He rubbed a hand up and down his arm. "I could write to Varoonya again. To each bureau, asking them to at least confirm receipt of my report and to say how long it will be before we hear anything else from them."

Enim shook his head. "But I am too impatient. Or too unsure, perhaps, that this was the right way to go about it. For if it wasn't, and people have to explain to me in writing what to do instead, and every round of question-answer between them and me takes over two moons—that is just too long. So I think I had better go there in person. Clear this up."

Enim raked a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his brow. "I have finished my largest contract as an artificer. The others can wait. After all, this is much more important, much more urgent."

The morning air was fresh and bright over the highlands, with a thousand tiny wildflowers nodding their colorful heads contentedly in the breeze. Little Quena picked a few select blossoms and placed them in Lhut's hair with great deliberation. Cahuan squinted slightly as the sun touched her face. Her skin shimmered a pearly gold, and an iridescent green in between.

Departure hung in the air like a haze, holding a mirage of hope, but also a chilling cool.

"Enim." Cahuan's voice was low, hesitant. "You are going to Varoonya. Where you come from, where all your old friends are. Where there is learning and amusement and a big bustling city, and enough trabarns to offer exciting work."

Her eyes sought Enim's. "Will you come back? No matter what happens?"

A hawk circled high in the sky. Then, leaning into the changing winds, he sailed away, a small black arrow darting off into the clouds.

Enim firmly held Cahuan's gaze. "I don't know how it will go in Varoonya." He paused. "I don't know how long I will stay. But I am going there because of here. And I will never forget that. I promise."

* * *

The carriage horses stepped swiftly, flaring their nostrils, tossing the manes over their gleaming coats. Enim looked out of the coach window, craning his neck impatiently. There! He could already see the palace hill rise above the Roon, the white stones of the capital shining over the river in the last rays of the sun.

The light had faded from the sky when the coach rattled over the cobbles of Farewell Square in the heart of the old city. Enim disembarked, inhaling deeply. The familiar sights, the sounds and scents of Varoonya made him feel happy and strange and homesick all at once.

He turned around somewhat aimlessly. It seemed ages ago. It all felt familiar, and also unreal. It was a homecoming, but to a home that had vanished. Enim had returned, but the world he had lived in before was gone. It would never be the same again. He had seen too much that was not part of his reality before.

Enim shook his head slightly. His heart ached. With a sigh, he shouldered his baggage and made his way off into the night.

He was going to try Yoor first.

Enim walked uphill along tangled streets until the last of the lanes turned into a narrow dirt path that balanced between scrawny bushes and patches of naked rock. Yoor's mountain house was a stray, a little renegade hanging on to the edge of Old Varoonya by a thread. It squeezed into the hillside beneath the palace, just where the slope turned into an almost vertical fall above the river, a quirky abode nestling against stone and earth on one side, practically hanging out in the air on the other. It was slim, narrow, so as not to fall off the mountain. But it was endearing, and even in its odd, almost ludicrous location and with the proportions dictated by it, had forgone none of the elaborate, absurd playfulness of its siblings in the heart of the city.

Enim came to the door and knocked.

There was even a bath. Enim sank down gratefully into the warm waters while Yoor finished transforming the little storage room into a guest chamber. Enim let out a deep sigh of relief, angling for another fruit from the plate beside the tub. The world was good. He was home.

Recovered and happy, but also eager and impatient, Enim finally abandoned the bathtub, wrapped himself in Yoor's sarong and came over to the parlor.

The room was illuminated by the soft golden glow of magical lanterns. Carpets hiding strange animals and fantastical vines were scattered across the floor here and there.

Yoor sat in his favorite place, the convergence of a balcony and a bay window. Broad and inviting, it had a wooden base like an overgrown windowsill, panes that folded back, and an ornate wrought-iron balustrade curving far out into the sky before returning to its fastenings up above. Even more than the rest of the house, the bay balcony seemed to be hanging in the air, with a wide starry sky all above and a view of the river bend below. A few boats were rocking idly down on the waters, their colored lights reflecting brightly off black waves in the night.

Yoor tied his silvery hair into a loose knot at his nape and let one leg of velvety blue dangle out between the balusters. He smiled invitingly at Enim.

But just as Enim was about to sit down, Torly came in, her round brown cheeks dimpling in happy surprise. Enim hugged her so fervently that she gasped.

"Enim! Say, what happened to you in the Mountains? You have returned more passionate and less timid than before, I gather?"

Enim blushed, much more his former self again. "Well, yes, I have, in a way," he said. "Returned more passionate. Or passionate about different things, in any case."

As they settled into the sky above the Roon River, he began to tell them. About the beauty of the mountains and the people. About Shebbetin. About conditions in the mines. About the deaths caused by the nightling, or by the lack of precautions. About Lhut's missing legs. About the healers that were not there to meet the need. About the children in work cabins.

And his friends listened. They truly heard him. They did not turn around in the middle to tell him about their own affairs, of which there must have been many, Enim was sure. They stayed with him and his tale.

It hit home. Even though they had seen none of it with their own eyes, had not met any of the people, had not buried the dead. It was only Enim's tale that came to them; yet they heard him. They believed. They understood.