So long the seed must slumber

  before the springtime thaw

  The flowing nectar brings the bees;

  their humming is my call

  To spread my petals open wide,

  surrendered and enthralled

  Rapture glistens on their hair

  from whence they dared to crawl

  So long our pollen mingles

  after tender touch withdraws

  I bear the seeds that slumber

  in remembrance of it all

  —From “The Song for Suska” by Kaledor

  ~

  Though he was approaching four hundred years—ten times Esor’s age—àstin an Galefar was still considered young by àlvar standards. He chuckled incredulously when asked about romance. “My prospects are as many as yours,” said àstin. “I can’t secure manumission for a village lass, much less the children she bears us. I’ve no mind for marrying until the All-Mother produces a doe suitable in form and status. She will have to fund her own freedom.”

  “Not every romantic prospect is one for marriage,” said Esor.

  àstin laughed again, lasciviously. “You dirty dog.”

  They shared a drink in the parlor of House Anrire after luncheon had ended, passing the afternoon in the lord’s hospitality. The sons of the House, Ismiren and Verim, were due for private tutoring on astronomy once Night fell, so Esor and àstin remained in wait to escort them. Crystalline minerals were caught within the grip of wood urged to cage stone, then hung on shelves. The husks of monstrous insects hunted by miners adorned their walls. The parlor doors stood open to a garden with imported trees and spring-flush flowers. Such luxurious comfort gave Esor and àstin’s conversation the mood to skew toward the personal.

  àstin said, “I’ve had tumbles in many a port, if that’s what you suggest, but I would not tumble so casually in ?elasdur. Why, have you found the prospects quality since your arrival? Have you been actively searching for that special one in the brothels, perhaps?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Esor, stuttering. “I never.”

  “Maybe you ought to,” said àstin. “I know a place in the village where the ladies are not so fine, but lovely to behold and be held!” Esor choked on his attempted response. He could not speak. àstin said, “They have fellows too, if that’s your preference. Are fellows your preference, Master Esor?”

  They couldn’t continue speaking once the housekeeper presented Ismiren and Verim. They were pale children few vetone distant in age, the youngest young enough that he wouldn’t have been out of place carrying a doll.

  “Will this take long?” asked little Verim, trembling.

  àstin sobered and slipped into a teacher’s role. “The sooner we begin, the sooner it ends.”

  Esor guided them through the Night by lantern. Ismiren showed no fear, though he held Verim’s hand tightly. àstin hummed to himself, rehearsing the melodies he would teach them using the keyed lyre hanging off his shoulder.

  The palace was poorly lit once Nam?’s golden eye sank below the horizon, leaving nothing but the expanse of starlight and the crescents of Lorkullen’s watchful moons. The spiral hall into the astronomy tower was pitch dark outside Esor’s lamplight.

  “It’s so quiet here,” Ismiren said. “Nobody comes out this late.”

  “Because it’s dangerous,” said Verim.

  “I often walk the halls of ?elasdur at Night,” said Esor, holding the lantern higher to illuminate the jagged steps. “I remain safe and whole.”

  “Why do you walk at Night?” asked Ismiren.

  “Master Esor loathes beds and prefers to catch his rest atop his desk,” teased àstin. Esor swung a kick at his fellow teacher as a child might.

  A laugh from Ismiren was strange in the echoing tower—a joyful sound that seemed hostile to the creak of ancient wood.

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  “In my wanderings, I’ve heard many a strange sound, and seen many a strange shadow,” said Esor. “It is a strange xilcadis, don’t you think? Yet not all that is strange wants to hurt us. You may be sure you’re safe in àstin’s care.” He winked at the children. “Naturally, I would allow the monsters to eat you.”

  The children were cheery enough to begin the lesson as soon as they entered the astronomy tower. Esor sat back with his lantern, sketching in his journal, while àstin sought gaps in the clouds to show them stars.

  “Astronomy was easier to teach in Rosen,” said àstin. “The skies were clear and cold! The Everhalls may see us through such cloud cover, but we cannot see the Everhalls.” His voice took a professorial cadence, describing each visible star and the souls with which it associated. “That star peeking through the storm, Daledus, is where the souls of lustful àlvar are punished in death... And Orotio is a place of wrath... Few reach Ko Devero, but it is the finest of them...”

  When they were done, Esor escorted the boys back to the city. àstin was already gone when Esor returned to the tower, and Esor could not find him anywhere. àstin’s chambers were in the same hallway behind the scullery as Esor’s. As near as Esor could tell, àstin never slept there. It was not so strange. With the onslaught of nightmares, Esor tried not to sleep in his room, either. Perhaps nobody in ?elasdur slept, driven to wander by the shrieking winds and promise of secrets.

  ~

  SOME LIGHTS LATER, the teachers shared luncheon at House Avandulen. Lord Duxnus was eager to show his wealth by serving finely sliced greatfish, pickled and adorned in capers.

  “It’s marvelous,” Esor assured the lady of the House, who blushed at the compliment. “I recently ate Frostland hare that was, until now, the finest meal of my life. I never expected to revise my opinions so quickly.” àstin was not eating as eagerly, subdued at his end of the table. “Would you prefer the hare, Master àstin?”

  “Hare has never been to my taste,” àstin said. “The greatfish is delightful.”

  Every House Esor visited seemed much the same. The fine decor varied only to distinguish a House’s source of wealth, such as forestry or mining. All gardens were small and obsessively tended by artisans with an Affinity for flora. The àlvilere were terribly proud of their xilcadis homes, their wives were dying for gossip, and Esor saw nothing of the Dwarrow among any of them. He only saw enormous wealth straddling the spire road overlooking enormous poverty.

  Weeks unfolded with tense quiet. Esor accepted every invitation that did not conflict with teaching Ilare.

  àstin stopped showing up for luncheon one week.

  “Imagine his exhaustion, poor thing,” tutted Lady Vàliere of House I?kirad. “Even a Dokàlvar so newly manumitted can only work so hard and so long before requiring respite.”

  Esor took advantage of àstin’s absence to ask, “Oh, his manumission was recent?”

  She and her sisters were eager to tell him that àstin an Galefar had paid his bond off only a century past, delivering a mountain of gold to the Church’s tithe barn in one visit. “Apparently one of his students’ families was very grateful for his work,” said a sister, Kinevare. “He’s a handsome thing. I might be grateful for his work too, if I could get him to perform it for me.”

  Vàliere giggled the loudest of the group. “Naughty lass!”

  Esor’s polite smile made up for his silence.

  “Your bond was paid at birth, was it not, Master Esor?” asked Vàliere. “What a triumph for your bloodline. True redemption is mere generations away. You’ll see your family’s quality improve quickly, I tell you. Look at the maiden-of-the-garden, Governess Malenē. Only the first generation born to her House, yet already, she would pass for old-blood L?sàlvar if not for those stubby little ears.” Those last three words were delivered as though she spoke to a baby. Stubby little ears. She wiggled her forefingers beside her own gracefully long pinnae. “Nam?’s blessing comes swiftly to those Low who please her. I’m sure you please her greatly, Master Esor.”

  He murmured thanks as the ladies tittered.

  After luncheon that Light, Esor retired to the quiet of his classroom. He’d written a letter about àstin’s behavior to Corvin. The first draft was quick and short.

  àstin an Galefar is given to lie about his whereabouts. He denies visiting the sin?os, but I witnessed him bringing a white hare to a healer.

  As time passed, Esor added more details about the elusive teacher. àstin’s inconsistent stories of his past were enough to fill a page. Esor had also sketched a white rabbit at the bottom, stretched out dead, as if carried in a fist.

  Esor hid the page when his classroom door opened.

  “Care to get a drink in the city?” asked àstin. He looked tireder than Esor. The smell of bitter wine clung to his jacket.

  “I fear work keeps me at my desk. Lady Ilare is an ambitious student who demands challenging lessons to hold her attention. My sleepless Nights are barely enough time to learn the alchemical processes before she does, and now Corvin asks more work of me.”

  “A drink could remedy much of that,” said àstin. “I have listening ears if you want to talk through the rest. Unless it is a private affair?”

  “Private indeed. I can only share that the Lord Mayor demanded I perform research. I’m unsure I can offer what he desires.”

  “I have no envy for the tasks you face. The visiting Levusàlvare show no interest in my presence—a mercy for one such as we. You are a bright wit, Master Esor. Your answers will come to you.”

  Esor was not so confident, gazing hollowly into his ink bottle. “Forty winters have I fared upon Neu? Mak Nam?, and endless they have seemed—purposeless beyond a search for purpose. àlvare are meant to be timeless, yet I feel each day crawl. I suffer each minute I can neither sleep nor grasp the ghosts I am tasked to grasp.” Esor resentfully knuckled the Heartbox, currently resting on the desk. “This is far from the only lock I have failed to open.”

  “The passage of seasons is slow for the young,” said àstin. “Impatience is a fleeting gift that dims as we numb to the rhythm of life—its failures and successes alike. For now, turn your frustration to passion for the chase. It is your advantage. In the meantime, my invitation to the tavern remains.”

  “As do my refusal and gratitude, friend.”

  “Brother,” said àstin, patting him on the shoulder.

  àstin departed. Esor tugged the letter he drafted from underneath his book and despaired over the details.

  “No certain answer,” Esor said, “but a certain fate unto anyone I report to Corvin.” He laughed to himself, shaking his head. “àstin, Dwarrow sympathizer? At worst he is a rake.”

  He tossed the letter into his brazier and resolved to no longer investigate àstin an Galefar.