Galton looked different from above.

  It was the first time Dalliance had gotten a really good view of it. The city was sort of like a layered cake.

  At the very top, the city was a flat marvel: a whitened, grassy, carefully cultivated expanse surrounding the mirror-bright circle of the Imperial Lake. Beyond the cultivated lands, a fringe of forests, perhaps as wide as the city itself, and then eastward, the deep, stark grandeur of the Barrier Mountains. To the north, the edge of the shard and the drop into nothing.

  The mountains merged down to a towering chain of hills, the spine of the shard, and it was atop this that Galton had been built. The temple, the palaces, the lake: all on the southern slope. The immensity of the Imperial Tier was supported by columns and arches, massive and intricate at once, and in its shadow, the second tier of merchants, the fish market, practical affluence, and scholarship.

  And then below that, another tier, one of tight-packed buildings and bridges over streets. Some parts of the third tier were even out under the sunlight, with rooftop gardens and small, outdoor orchards breaking up the whitewashed, slate-tiled monotony. Below that was the Market Tier, with its plaza at the base of the Imperial Cataract, where the spillover from the Imperial Lake ran perpetually into the cistern, driving the water wheels along the length of Water Street—the engine of industry. Girded by the fourth tier’s towering apartment blocks, the city was like a canyon, cut off from the wind and colder.

  And yet the road went down from there to the final foot of the city, at which were the Farmer’s Gate and the Citadel Gate, the Narrows, where industry belched black smoke which, rising, coiled along the heights of the Citadel tower, whose shadow stretched across miles, seemingly endlessly.

  It was even uglier from above. He could see the intricate spell circles on protruding balconies from the grim, dark metal and stone edifice. And beyond, the Wall to the east, the drop-off to the south, and the forest and farmland to the west.

  It was hideous.

  It was remarkable.

  If he did everything right, it would be his home for the next dozen years.

  Dalliance swept down, the central point of his perception—the only semblance of a body within an undifferentiated mass of air—insubstantial and invisible. Banners stirred in his passing as he alighted before the house of healing where Earnest sat outside on a bench, smoking his pipe, leg crossed over one knee, foot shaking with nerves.

  His friend jumped and dropped his pipe when Dalliance coalesced in front of him, his appearance instant and shocking.

  “Hi,” said Dalliance. “Can we talk?”.

  “Don’t see what there is to talk about,” said Earnest mulishly once he’d gathered his effects and re-kindled his pipe. “You used me.”

  “I know.”

  “And you saved us. But now you want to feel better about it, and I don’t feel like you’re focusing on the right things at all.”

  Dalliance didn’t think this was quite fair, but listened.

  “Circe’s going to be okay. Her face will even be okay, after . . . a while. They said she may need a year to regain sensation, if she ever does.”

  Dalliance couldn’t imagine not being able to feel his face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She’s alive because of you. Neat spell, by the way. Spells. Both are neat.”

  Earnest coughed heavily. Dalliance hadn’t ever seen him smoke quite so viciously. It was like he was trying to suck the leaves right through the pipe.

  “Knot’s dead.”

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  Dalliance nodded. He’d tried not to think about it.

  “Sterling’s going to be fine. Circe healed the worst of it before . . . before.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m fine, just in case you cared.”

  “Earnest.”

  “But I’m mad, because you didn’t tell me I was going to be an accomplice to murder.”

  “Woebegone is fine.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Sorry,” Dalliance admitted. “You should be upset.”

  He looked towards the door to the healer’s hall—the same one he’d chased Cadence back through, so recently. Leaned out and called the guards to.

  “Is everyone—”

  “—everyone else is fine. Effie’s in with Circe, Charity’s off home, her father picked her up a half hour ago. You could visit Sterling if you like.”

  “No.”

  “Nah, I thought not. Here about Circe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dalliance walked over to the bench, sitting with a wince. The bruises were nice and colorful now.

  “Looks painful.”

  “I’m fine," Dalliance lied. There will be time to live with what you feel later. Survive now. Topaz hadn't meant for him to take it as a mantra, but.

  The silence stretched. Temple guards marched past in small formations, gleaming armor reflecting the sunlight.

  “I forgive you.” Earnest looked irritated to be saying it. “Zenith won’t, though, when you tell her where you left her spear.”

  “They don’t know?”

  “I was too busy being horrified to be funny. I’ll wait for the right time, it’ll be hilarious."

  Dalliance gave his friend a sour look, but his spirits were clearly rising, and he was on a roll. “‘Hey Dalliance,’ she’ll say, ‘Where’s my spear? Family heirloom, priceless.’ and you’ll be all ‘I left it up a bear’s ass’!”

  He barked a laugh.

  “Actually, Lackey has it. He was going to stab me with it.”

  Somber silence returned. Dalliance knew Earnest bore hard feelings after the beating earlier in the year, though it hadn’t been repeated.

  “Think he’ll get over it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Doves flew past in a small V-shape, wing-beats in soft staccato.

  “Gonna be here a lot,” Earnest said. “Both of us, I think. Let’s get acquainted.”

  What.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The lake. Swimming? Good for the joints, you’ll see. Come on.”

  Dalliance was unconvinced, but followed his friend obediently. It was going to be alright.

  He was still damp when the clock struck twelve, and Earnest suggested they head home. The broad avenues, with their sculpted trees in the middle and lustrous white-pebbled landscaping, glowed beneath the undimmed sun, except where interdicted by Dalliance or Earnest’s shadows. Citizens walked purposefully from one shaded building to another, but the two lads enjoyed undiminished peace for hours. It was a nice change.

  The coach outside the house of healing announced visitors, prompting their visit as well—Earnest assured Dalliance that he wouldn’t be thanked for interrupting Effie’s vigil while her friend slept, but if she were already interrupted . . . .

  Circe’s face was shrouded from view completely, not even her eyes being visible beneath the layers of poultice and bandage. Effluvia looked nearly as ill herself, skin sallow and eyes shadowed.

  Mister Holiday Mallow, by contrast, was vital, effusive, and nearly frenetic with relief at his daughter’s prognosis, going so far as to say that, should the academy not pan out, he’d have a place for Dalliance at the apothecary as a shopkeep. Dalliance barely got out in one piece from all the handshaking.

  Earnest, having snuck out earlier, Dalliance was alone as he left the city for the long trek back to the Best farmstead.

  He had a lot to think about.