"If Aedus Kade doesn't get his head on right and summon the chimera, who knows what damage that horde of specters will do?" Giada asks the gathered group in the parlor. Night filters in through the curtains, but no one in the midst of their growing panic has thought to close them.

"I'm close to going over there myself and killing them both," Kit says, arms crossed and eyes glinting in a way that tells Giada she's hardly exaggerating.

More than half the residents of the citadel are sprawled throughout the parlor room, some on chairs, some standing or on the floor, and one perched on the windowsill (Lionel, of course). Lionel has just come back from delivering his report on the specters to the city council. The report had been penned by Tai, but the man himself isn't in the parlor with them, an odd occurrence given his own insistence on fulfilling the "Captain" role prescribed to him by the chimera.

Lionel notices that his brother isn't in the parlor either, but decides not to worry about it. Skander's probably resting. He would need it after the ordeal of his scouting trip.

"You told them in clear terms that Aedus Kade has to use the feather to summon the chimera, right? And that it has to be done right away?" Giada asks him, not placing much weight on Lionel's reliability.

"Clear as crystal," Lionel says. Giada frowns at his tone, his typical contradictory mix of nonchalance and casual bravado. He's slipped down from the windowsill to the floor to sit beside Zahara and rest his head on her shoulder. Moments like this still ache bitterly for Giada from time to time. She can't always forgive him for it.

"The councilman I gave my message to tried to say that Aedus Kade still doesn't think he's ready yet, but I told him it doesn't matter. He has to try anyway," Lionel continues. All the continuous back-and-forth of being a courier seems to be getting to him, finally draining his near-inexhaustible cache of energy. Zahara lets her head head fall to rest on top of his, and he sinks into the soothing calm of it.

Giada nearly throws her hands up in frustration. "I don't understand this man. We heard only a few weeks ago how his heirloom sword can generate fire now too, instead of only lightning. So he has an elemental sword and a prophecy behind him, what more does he need?"

"I've heard that he's been struggling with his confidence lately, since his training's been getting more difficult. He-"

"I really don't care about his personal problems. I'm more worried about us all not getting killed."

"Giada, calm down," Zahara says, giving her a worried glance. "If he gave in and said he'd try to summon the chimera, all we have to do is wait for that to happen."

Giada lets out a frustrated breath. Her braid's half-unraveled with how many times she's tugged at or run her hands through it. None of them have ever seen Aedus Kade. If she does, will she finally have that blind faith in him that so many others in Beledon seem to bear? What did he do to merit this worship, other than be the recipient of a handful of old words they attached the designation of "prophecy" to?

Giada worked in the archives for years: she knows the value of dead languages and ancient songs. That isn't what she aims for at this moment. She wants the palpable weight of cold steel hewing down the creatures that crawl in their periphery, or for them to fall lifelessly downward, strings cut with the fall of their otherworldly puppet-master.

Kit puts a hand up, stopping the growing murmur of rising conversation. "Someone tell me this," she says. "Does anyone even know how the feather is used to summon something forward?"

Giada looks at her for a long time. The stars wheel in their laughter outside, wondering if it's yet time for them to fall.

We're dead, she thinks.

————————————————————

Night passes, and many of them end up dropping to sleep one by one as they wait for Lionel to be summoned to Beledon for any further word. Has Aedus Kade been successful in using the feather to summon the chimera? Is the chimera with him right now? Is the fight ongoing, or has it passed already, with no one finding time to share the news yet?

As the outer edges of morning begin to lighten the sky, an oblivious Skander comes down to the kitchen. He's surprised to find the room empty. Rian is a notoriously early riser and is usually the first to begin their breakfast preparations, but he's nowhere in sight now.

As he takes out a bowl and begins cracking eggs into it, he finds himself smiling again and again: at the eggs, the bowl, the empty air in front of him. He feels as if he could whistle (he's never been able to manage it before) or sing (he'll leave that to Lionel) or dance (it's probably in his own best interest to not subject anyone to seeing that).

He mixes cream, dill, and sage into the bowl, then sets the concoction on a pan over the heat of the hearth.

Later, lost in the incandescence of his own thoughts, he doesn't notice that Tai has appeared in the open doorway. Tai takes in his rolled-up sleeves, folded out of the way as he prepares a thin layer of pastry dough. Flour dusts his hands and forearms, vivid white specks sprinkled along his brown skin. A strand of hair has fallen loose out of his carelessly swept-back style to lie over his forehead. When he catches sight of Tai watching him, his whole face kindles bright.

"There you are. Finally done fixing your hair?" he says lightly, before gesturing to the hearth with his elbow. "Could you get those eggs off the fire and onto a plate? I'm almost finished with this."

Tai doesn't say a word and only does as instructed, albeit with patently unpracticed hands as he spoons the egg onto the designated plate. He sets the dish down on the table before coming to stand near Skander, who barely has time to start saying "Thank you" before he's being kissed. After an initial moment of surprise, Skander's flour-dusted hands leave their work and slide up to his shoulders, bringing him closer even as the edge of the table already presses against his lower back.

They separate a long while later at the far-off sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Tai briefly presses their foreheads together before leaning in again for another last kiss, light and quick.

"Is there anything else you'd like my help with?" he asks as he takes a definitive step back, just as the door into the kitchen opens and Rian walks in.

Any answer Skander is capable of mustering up at the moment dissolves on the tip of his tongue when he sees Rian's face.

Rian's ever-steady gaze and cool demeanor are marred by the shadows darkening his under-eyes. His clothes are rumpled from long use and the gray of his eyes— usually so stormy from the tumult of constant thought and suppressed expression— are noticably subdued. Nothing behind them but a weighty fatigue.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?" The words fall all over themselves to get out.

Rian shakes his head. "We've been waiting all night for news from Beledon. Aedus Kade can't figure out how to use the feather to bring the chimera over, but needs to kill it before all those specters can get any further."

"That man's incompetence knows no bounds," Tai says bitingly. "He insisted on possession of the feather but doesn't know how to use it?"

"What has he tried so far?" Skander asks, swallowing down his own anger. The feather had been meant for him, not Aedus Kade.

Rian lists all the tactics tried over the hours, including dunking the feather in every available body of water ("since it's from the Water Palace"), holding it up under the light of the moon, and asking it politely. No luck with anything. The feather had remained intact no matter what was done to it, but it yielded no chimera.

Skander loses himself in thought, setting his mind back to the Thirty-Colored Bird of the Water Palace. It had been a gift to him: a token of one soul understanding another. He should be able to figure it out.

Whatever deduction progress he makes is interrupted by the sound of the frantic blowing of horns outside the citadel. Rian's look of surprise shows he has no more idea what it's about than Tai and Skander do. Wordlessly and in unison, they leave the kitchen to rush toward the citadel's entrance.

On their way down the hall, Tai catches Rian looking questioningly at him.

"What are you staring at?" he asks.

"Do you know you have flour on your shoulders?"

Tai doesn't deign that with a response, nor will he try to frantically brush any of the powder off while being observed. His eyes drift unwillingly to Skander, though, who's doing an admirable job of masking the embarrassment of his literal handiwork being so visible on Tai's coat.

Before they had left the kitchen he had wiped the flour from his hands with a piece of cloth, but his sleeves remain folded up to his elbows. Tai has a hard time looking away. What nonsense is this, to be enamored even with a person's forearms, he chastises himself, but it doesn't stop him from feeling like he would gladly let every grain of his gifted sand fall into a bottomless well, if it meant he could be alone with him again.

All thoughts in that direction stop abruptly when they push past the main doors and enter the open air, where many of the other citadel's residents already stand and stare blankly. The sky's blue is unblemished, the wind moving pleasantly but not oppressively past their hair and clothes. An April day better suited to picnics or flower-gathering than what they see before them, stretching far on its way from the gates of Sunset Citadel to the horizon line: specters. Hundreds, maybe thousands. All sizes, all forms, creating a widespread chorus of the eager whistle-sigh impossible to close one's ears against.

They claw eagerly at the gates to the citadel, ready to burst in and commence a slaughter. The members of the garrison along the walls continue to sound their horns, calling for the mobilization of all soldiers inside.

So Dagger Grove isn't the only outpost the chimera has sent an army's reckoning of specters to. They must have crept in from the mountains during the night, using whatever tricks the chimera could devise. Typical.

At the sight, Rian turns and disappears quickly back into the hall, bending over double in response to his racing heart as soon as he's out of anyone's vision. He can't, he can't. His shoulder flares with a phantom pain.

Tai straightens up. His hand moves decisively to the bottle of sand hanging from his belt, ready to summon a knife, a sword, or a spear as the situation calls for.

We're all going to die, Skander thinks. Except maybe Kit, who he can't see ever being killed by anything. She broke and burned one of the chimera's own doors, after all.

She burned it.

An idea sparks to life in his mind.

His brother, as always, comes when he calls. "Go to Beledon and tell them to burn the feather," he says to Lionel. "That'll get the bird's attention."

Lionel frowns in confusion. "But it's a water bird."

"Exactly. Go as fast as you can."

It's probably for the best if Lionel is out carrying messages instead of staying here with the rest of them, keeping the specters at bay. He doesn't want his little brother suffering through this for any longer than he strictly has to.

In a brave venture into optimism, Skander considers the task ahead of them. They'll only need to hold out long enough for Aedus Kade to fight and defeat the chimera, right? How hard could that be?

Looking out at the veritable sea of monsters, mouths full of shimmering teeth and pale as bloodless skin, Skander's question is answered for him.

It doesn't look very promising.