Chapter 2 - Emerald Viper

Words really can't describe what that first Essence-fueled run felt like. I understood immediately how the Dragonbloodshad developed their notions of Enlightened superiority. I was trying to stay focused as I fled down Market Street, dodging anyone who caught a glimpse of me and ignoring the exclamations of shock and awe that I heard.

I flew from rooftop to rooftop, flaring like a magnesium torch magnesium torch. Most of the people who saw me didn't seem to know what they were looking at, but some mercenaries were waving swords and shouting. After I jumped over the canal, they reconsidered their attempt at heroics and decided not to pursue me any further.

I didn't care what Val would think when he saw me. I had to make sure that he wasn't bleeding out somewhere, or crushed under a ton of rubble. I'd never be able to forgive myself if I'd gotten him killed. He'd warned me not to touch the well, and I hadn't listened to him!

Even as I clenched my feet and fought back tears, I couldn't contain the feeling that was welling up inside of me. If I'd been a good acrobat before, I was brilliant one then! My instincts were sharper than they had ever been. Any fear I'd ever had of crashing to my death was gone. I knew that I could not fall. With every step I took, I felt in the presence of the God... as if I was being held up by something powerful enough to move the foundations of the whole world. If I hadn't been on a mission, I would have kept running forever.

I landed effortlessly on my feet before The Tomb of Night. The guards, drunk probably, didn't even notice as I landed behind them and slid down the first ladder into the Shogunate-Era excavation. There were no other archaeologists working... they'd either left for the night or fled from the tremors.

While I'd never liked either of the crews who above us, seeing what had become of their gear caused me to whisper a few choice words under my breath and double my speed back to The Whispering Serpent. I slid down the ladder which led to our site and landed on the remains of one of our kerosene lanterns. The glass didn't cut through my boot, but it did get my attention.

Our site was a mess. Fluffy had fallen from the ceiling and was almost completely buried. The thought of having to dig the enormous construct free all over again was frustrating... but it wasn't until I looked in the direction of the Temple that my spirits really sank.

There was no way through! If Val hadn't made it all the way back to the ladder... and there was no way that he could have, he was trapped somewhere in between.

I slowly sank to the ground, evaluating my small supply of tools and explosives. Without more dynamite, it would take a miracle to get through. Considering what had just happened to me, I suspected that maybe a heartfelt prayer to my new patron would provide one, but had nothing to make any kind of offering. I discovered one of Val's notebooks was sitting near my foot and I did have a flint always kept close at hand. Taking one of my chisels, I struck a spark and lit the paper on fire, reciting the prayer that was written on it in Val's beautiful calligraphy. He'd be furious with me for destroying his notes, but as I spoke those words, I knew I'd never forget them. I could copy them from memory back into his book in my chicken-scratch if need be... as soon as we were both safely away from the site.

"I don't know if you're still listening to me." I whispered to the Unconquered Sun. "But my best friend is in there somewhere and he is going to die if I can't get through to him. I don't care what happens to me after this. Do whatever you want with me. Just help me save Val."

That was when I heard it... the faint sound of scratching nearby. I jumped up in shock, immediately drawing my firewands which were suddenly glowing with golden light. I'd always suspected that the weapons had some fine magic in them that I'd never been able to unlock and I knew it for certain then. Still fearing to be seen, I dodged behind Fluffy and hoped that I wasn't dealing with Immaculates or fae.

"Come out at once!" I ordered. "I am armed and I will shoot you, but only if you try to hide from me!" Those words had a certain force behind them, a familiarity that I had not expected. A strange thought occurred to me.

Righteous Devil Style.

I'd learned to shoot firewands in order to spite my mother, who hated how they smelled, but martial arts were foreign to me... or at least they should have been. Yet somehow, my body knew how to move. The positions weren't as comfortable as they would be with regular practice, but was sure that I was remembering something from very long ago, a different lifetime!

The Immaculates claim that all of us have lived before, and that if we're good and complacent we'll be reborn into better circumstances and eventually as one of the Dragonblooded. Of course, since virtually no one remembers their past lives, one can never tell if one is actually moving towards Enlightenment or not.

As the daughter of a prostitute, I never figured I had any way to go but up... at least not until that moment. As I stood there on the tracks of the Whispering Serpent, I knew that in a past life I'd been someone very important, a force to be reckoned with. Or no... it was more than that!

I had been a Solar before. Was that why I'd always been so drawn to archaeology?

"...Sapphire?" It was Val's voice I heard, though I didn't see him. He sounded shaky, but he was alive!

"Val!" I exclaimed.

"No, don't come any closer!" He ordered. I turned to see him anyway, but he hid from me behind a boulder.

"Listen, Val... I know what this must look like but it's me, Sapphire!" I pleaded.

I could see his foot sticking out a bit, so I knew where he was hiding. I came out from behind Fluffy, holstered my firewands and slowly climbed over the rubble towards him.

"I said stay back!" Val snapped, a strain in his voice I had never heard before. I froze.

"I'm your friend, Val. Your best friend!" I protested.

"I know. And that's why you need to get out of here. I don't want to hurt you!" He whispered.

"Hurt me?" I blinked in surprise. "Val, you've never been able to land a punch on anyone! Not once in your life! And I ought to know, because I've dragged you home from every fight you've ever been in!"

Val hesitated. "Do you promise not to panic?" He whispered.

"I won't panic, Val. C'mon out." I sighed heavily.

"I can't!" Val protested.

"Then I'm coming in there after you!" I replied without hesitation. Val covered his face as I landed on my feet directly behind him.

"Don't look!" He cried.

"Are you glowing?" I wondered incredulously.

Sure enough, there was a nebulous aura of silver flickering around him and the dark circles that usually surrounded his eyes were more obvious than ever before, almost giving him the look of a black mask, like a badger... or a ferret?

"I told you!" He snapped, his voice breaking into a sound that was definitely not a human one, almost a snarl. "Stay away from..."

He didn't finish his sentence. The moment he actually saw me, his jaw dropped and he leapt to his feet, wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug and sniffling as I'd never known him to do. Val was always a lot more emotional than I was, but I couldn't remember him ever crying on my shoulder before, not even when we were children.

"Um, Val? I sill have a neck you know, and you're breaking it." I laughed slightly, mostly to conceal my own apprehension.

We sat for a moment in silence and stared at one another.

"So what do we do now that we really are... A... Anathema?" Val stuttered.

I laughed slightly. "Honestly, Val… you don't believe we've been possessed by demons, do you? Honestly, how do you feel? Because I feel pretty damn awesome right now."

He smiled slightly. "Surprisingly good, considering that I've just had a building fall on me. Really good, actually… better than I've felt in years." He admitted.

"That's because it's not a curse. It's a gift." I informed him.

"Are you preaching at me?" Val wondered.

"Take it however you want!" I replied. "When the sun comes up, I am going to buy a whole bushel of peaches!"

"Oh! Our research!" Val grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me furiously. "Gods, do you have any idea what this means? We'll be able to do ten times, a hundred times more than we've ever dreamt of!"

"Yeah, uh... Val? Even if our crew didn't confess about the statue, someone's going to see him in the morning. The quake was so bad that the street collapsed. There's a ten foot hole in it right above the big guy's head... that's how I got out." I informed him. "And if we're not immediately executed for being demons or fired outright for hiding our find, we're still going to have to cut the number of papers we publish in half."

Val's face fell. "But..."

"Val?" I sighed. "Need I remind you that you and I are both glowing?"

"Oh." He observed. "Oh dear. You're right, of course. How silly of me. I simply thought that it would be so wonderful if we could actually fix the Whispering Serpent. Could you imagine what it would be like to have it running again, to repair those ancient dams in the Docks District and have this whole city all lit up at night?" He put his hand on the cold stone and stared at the tracks under our feet. I put my arm over his shoulder and he sighed in defeat.

"I can't help it!" He admitted. "I've always had big ideas, you know that! And... and they're bigger now! They're so much bigger! I simply can't explain!"

"And I'm not saying that I don't understand you completely." I replied, smiling slightly as the spark returned to his eyes. "I'm just saying that we need to be careful, and before we do anything else, we need to go see Emerald Viper."

"Emerald Viper?" Val stared at me with his jaw dropped as if I'd just suggested he jump into the Gray River. He never left the University except to go home or to our dig site. But he knew about Emerald Viper... everyone in Nexus did. Aside from my mother, she was the most dangerous whore in Harlotry. "Didn't she try to poison your mother? And didn't your mother set her wardrobe on fire?" Val demanded.

"No, mother poisoned Viper. Unsuccessfully. And it was Viper who set mother's kimonos on fire. But that wasn't where it began. The two of them have been feuding longer than I've been alive. Now it's not easy to get Viper alone, but I can do it." I admitted. Though I was ashamed to admit it, even after becoming employed full-time by the University, I hadn't cut ties with the whores and drug peddlers I'd been raised around. "I am Three Pearl's daughter. That gets you places in Harlotry."

"So why don't we go to see your mother instead?" Val wondered.

"Because I like her marginally less than Viper, and because if she wasn't a whore she'd be an Immaculate monk. Also, there's also a certain rumor about Viper which I happen to know to be true." I admitted.

Val raised an eyebrow in my direction. "You don't mean that she's…"

"Oh yes." I smirked. "She's a Lunar, my friend."

"I suppose I should have guessed." Val laughed slightly. "You know, Rose calls her "the scary snake lady"?"

Rose was the younger of Val's two daughters, just about eight years old.

"Smart girl." I smiled slightly.

Val's face fell. "Oh, the girls! Lily." He sat down on the railing of the whisper bridge and stared at the street. "I can't... I can't go home like this!" He whispered helplessly. "Can it be reversed, do you think?"

"No. No, that's not even a question! Val, don't you understand?" I demanded. "This was always meant to happen to us!"

"Sapphire. I... I can't handle this right now. To be honest, I'm not sure why you can... and it is scaring me somewhat. I agree that we need to get out of here before someone comes looking for us. But we can't be seen or we'll have Immaculates on our heads in a heartbeat. If Viper can help us, that's where we need to go." He glanced towards the ladder.

We waited until neither of us were glowing. In silence we made our way up a few ladders and through a section of The Whispering Serpent that had not been buried by the quake. A staircase halfway consumed by boulders let us out just under a famous First Age bridge that stretched across the Grand Canal from the Theatre District into the north end of Harlotry. Val glanced in the direction of the Yellow River, north to the section of town where he lived, and then stopped to examine the architecture where we stood.

Of course, very few people understood why the structure was called "The Bridge of Whispers"... because very few people knew about The Whispering Serpent that had once run everywhere under Nexus and perhaps as far away as Great Forks or Lookshy. Val touched the remnants of glyphs carved into the stone, the personal marks of Nexus's five founding Solars. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking. He seemed torn between wanting to run home and wanting to test the power he'd been given.

I felt like an absolute scoundrel. I'd never wished anything bad on Val's wife, but I'd often been jealous of her. Val could never dream of doing anything that might hurt Lily, and because I knew that, I avoided admitting how much I truly cared for him. I'd never understood his temperance. Just like my grandmother, I was the sort of person who went after whoever or whatever they wanted, consequences be damned! Naturally, the one thing I knew I could never have was what I'd always wanted most. I wanted Val to look at me as he always looked at Lily, as if I were a decent person rather than his brash, unapologetic pet hellion with an itchy trigger finger, and an extensive criminal record.

The two of us had just been freed from The University and given the opportunity to zealously pursue our mutual passion, the restoration of the world as it had once been. It was what I'd always wanted, only now I wanted nothing more than to give Val his life back. I was afraid of what he'd become without his little circle of stability. I'd always secretly suspected such a thing, but I could see it in his face then, ugly and true as it was. No matter how hard I tried, I would never be good enough for the both of us.

"What about Lily and your girls?" I wondered uneasily. Val turned slowly to face me, his face cold and emotionless. Even when I thought he'd been crushed to death in the quake, I had not been as afraid for him as I was at that moment. Though I often teased Val for being too intellectual and physically frail, it was his soft heart that had always seemed most fragile to me. But as our eyes met, I could see it hardening like a piece of flint. "We could get them a message from you? Tell them that you're alive? Maybe arrange for them to move to... wherever we find ourselves?" I suggested.

"No." Val took a deep breath. "They'll be safer if they think I'm dead. Let's just go."

Val followed me through the streets of Harlotry like a little lost sheep expecting a wolf around every corner. He wasn't wrong to be paranoid. When I caught sight of some of Chao Gongfang's boys watching him with interest, I made sure to give them a warning glare, my fingertips brushing my firewands to remind the thieves that I was armed, and that the "easy mark" passing through their territory was under the protection of a local. They quickly disappeared.

Granted, if anyone did happen to tangle with Val, they'd probably be getting a lot more than they bargained for, especially considering how jumpy he was... but my friend was clearly out of his element.

So were Gongfang's lackeys, technically speaking. They weren't supposed to be operating south of the Bridge of Whispers, but since the reigning slumlord of Tellnaught was murdered a few months back, it'd become obvious that old boundaries were being re-negotiated. In any case, I really preferred to avoid any potential fights. I needed to save the little energy that I still had for dealing with Viper.

"C'mon, Val!" I chided him, elbowing him in the ribs. "You're acting like you've never been down in Harlotry before"

"I haven't!" He admitted. "Well, never on the streets at night, anyway! I don't remember this neighborhood being so bad when we were children." He remarked.

"Oh, believe me... it was worse back then!" I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily, pausing for a moment in the middle of the street with my hands on my hips. "Harlotry is the real reason they call this city "The River Harlot's Legs". Anything you want and everything you don't, you can find it here. You probably never noticed how nasty it is because time around here runs the opposite of the rest of the city. When the sun goes down, that's when the work day begins! And we, my friend, are here bright an' early! You want the grand tour? I know all the sordid stories!"

Val didn't respond. He squinted through a cloud of rising sewer-smoke at the chains of red paper lanterns that criss-crossed the narrow cobbled streets just over our heads. They illuminated the signs of the better brothels, but they didn't make too much light. Marks being able to see more than three feet ahead would have annoyed the whores and the muggers equally.

As fate would have it, Val's moment of hesitation placed him directly in the path of the door to The Drunk Duck Inn, quite possibly the worst establishment in the whole of Nexus. The building itself smelled like a pigsty baked in the sun and its regulars were noticeably more pungent... but even Bloody Bill, the one-eyed proprietor, had certain standards.

"Get out of here, you mad cow!" He bellowed, throwing an old woman out the doors. It would have seemed like cruelty to anyone who didn't know better, and likely, that's what Val probably thought it was until the victim of the bartender's assault rose to her feet, cussing and spitting through what little remained of her blackened teeth.

"Are you all right?" Val gasped, running to help the old woman.

"Nice man!" The old woman beamed. Val grimaced, smelling her breath. "Help poor Old Bagsy, yes?" She offered him her wrinkled hand and he helped her to her feet. "Good man! Bagsy very grateful. Very, very!" She babbled, quickly making a move away from him... before he could notice what I'd already seen. For sure, my senses were a lot sharper than ever before, but at the same time, it didn't take a genius to figure out that anyone playing helpless in Harlotry was a con artist, a thief... or both.

As it was, I even recognized the old bitch.

"Not so fast, Coinbags!" I warned. The old woman's victorious grin soured as she turned and caught sight of me. "Give him back his money."

"What money? Poor Bagsy have no money! Husband die! Old Bagsy work hard, work hands to bone!" She protested.

"Oh, I've seen you work those hands!" I reached for my firewand and she gave an exasperated sigh. Spitting on the ground again, something too foul and black to recognize, Coinbags turned back to Val and reluctantly returned his pilfered purse.

"Now scram, Bagsy! Get!" I ordered.

The old bitch hissed at me like a feral Fae thing and then loped off with an agility that made her apparent advanced age look suspicious. While I didn't doubt that she was old... I'd never been convinced that she was actually human.

"She robbed me!" Val gasped.

"Yeah, that's Bagsy for you." I snorted. "Just be glad she wasn't propositioning you at the same time."

"Sapphire!" Val protested, raising his voice loud enough that everyone within two blocks must have heard him, even inside of The Drunk Duck.

"Sapphire? Sapphire Indari! As live and breathe!" A familiar voice exclaimed. I looked up just in time to witness Honeysuckle throwing open the shutters of his room on the second floor of The An-Tang Princess, which was across the street. Honey was well-named. His skin was the color of cinnamon and his long hair carried a luxurious golden sheen that perfectly complemented his amber eyes, flawless complexion and aquiline features. In short, he was one of those beautiful boys who made every woman jealous... especially since he openly preferred men.

I was generally not in the market for company of Honeysuckle's quality myself, but like I've said before... being born and raised in Harlotry does come with certain "advantages". Of course, to make his sudden appearance all the more memorable and shocking for Val, Honey was dressed in nothing save for a pale lavender scarf... tied around his neck.

Honey's present client, an older Dragonblooded man blinked owlishly in the sudden light from the street, obviously surprised by the neglectful behavior of his very highly paid whore.

"Aww, sweet Honey!" I laughed, reaching out as if to hug him from where I stood on the street. "I haven't seen you in forever and a day!"

"Oh, I know!" He gasped melodramatically. "I am feeling so neglected I may swoon! I miss my wild woman! Why don't you come up for a romp, eh?" He leaned over his windowsill and made an asinine little kissing face.

"You've got a client, Honey." I reminded him. "And I am a poor academic. You know I can't afford you, sweet-cheeks!"

"Bagsy discount? For nice lady?" He suggested with a feigned southern accent, notably meant to imitate one of Harlotry's most infamous streetwalkers, Empty Coinbags... the same ancient prostitute who had just pickpocketed Val outside of the Drunk Duck.

"Oh no, We've already had one run-in with ol' Bagsy tonight!" I laughed. "I just chased her off."

"Ick, ick ick!" Honey grimaced, hopping in little circles and flapping his hands furiously as if he would shake off the invisible traces of filth that simply hearing the name "Bagsy" conjured for him. After a moment's prancing, he turned back to me – cured, it seemed.

"Are you sure you don't want to come up and play, dearheart? I promise I won't bite. Unless you want me to that is." He grinned mischievously.

It was an old, old game between us. Though he'd been nearly silent for most of our walk from the dig site, I saw the faintest smile on Val's lips. In light of everything that had happened to us, I suppose it was nice for him to see that some things would never change.

That was when Honey's client decided that he'd had enough. "The sonova bitch left!" Honey gasped in mock horror. "That little pencil-dick! He didn't even pay me!"

"How unthinkably cruel!" I laughed.

Honey pouted for a dramatic moment and then slipped on the white kimono that hung on his bedpost. "Well, I suppose I must get back to work then! But if you're not available sweet, however shall I keep myself busy?"

"As if anyone could resist you! Goodnight, my love!" I bowed dramatically and Honeysuckle returned the favor, giggling like a hyena.

"I suppose his bark is worse than his bite?" Val remarked dryly as we crossed a small pedestrian bridge over the canal.

"Oh no. Honeysuckle can get a good scream out of an Immaculate monk." I replied.

That was when we finally reached our destination, Emerald Viper's house of ill repute. Aside from my mother's teahouse, it was the largest building in Harlotry, three stories tall with two dozen rooms, a parlor for games and even a little stage adjacent to the bar where dancers and itinerant bards would sometimes perform... on the nights when Viper wasn't shocking the pants off her regulars herself with her fire-eating and other "exotic" talents.

Strictly speaking, there were three kinds of brothels in Harlotry, the cheap and nasty ones like The Drunk Duck, the expensive and classy ones like The An-Tang Princess and my mother's Three Pearls Teahouse... and the ones that simply defied all imagination. Viper's establishment was that third kind.

In addition to being huge, the building was also ostentatious in every possible way, with red and gold columns and lacquered shutters that only drew a little attention away from the black tiled roof that was done up in the style of an Imperial palace. A magnificently offensive sign illuminated with brilliant green gaslights hung over the double doors which were always thrown open, allowing patrons to stagger in or out at will.

A half dozen Realm soldiers were hanging around in the middle of the street, apparently placing bets on whether or not one a certain prostitute could take the pants off of one of their prudish friends with only her teeth. Watching the calm, confidant expression on the girl's face as the soldiers argued all around her, I suspected she was about to make a lot of money.

Val stared at the sign over our heads in absolute horror. "Does that sign say what I think it says?" He whispered.

"Yup." I laughed. "Are you sure I never brought you down to this place? Maybe when we were kids? It's been here forever." I reminded him.

"How does it stay in business?" Val whispered, pointing at another girl nearby who was covered in silver body paint. A little pair of false wings were fastened to her back, and she was sitting on the lap of a huge Earth Aspect Dragonblood who had a very silly-looking yellow paper crown on his head.

"A very particular clientèle. Rich, perverse jerks with exotic fetishes, mostly. About half of the regulars are Imperial Army, waiting to ship out to someplace or another." I explained. "This place is blacklisted, so of course it's incredibly popular."

"But..." Val began.

I could guess what he was about to say. "It's all theatrics. All of these young Realm kids want to kill themselves some demons. They want to be big damn heroes." I informed him as a gold painted whore with rabbit ears danced past us, leading another very drunk soldier up the stairs. "And here, for the right amount of coin, they can get themselves a princess to save from some horrible fiend... or a little trussed up "Anathema" who'll beg and plead and call them "daddy". You know, if they're into that kind of thing." I sighed. "There aren't any real monsters here... just girls with cat ears and fluffy tails and pretty little golden boys in chainmail loincloths."

"Except for... Viper?" Val supplied, very quietly. "You say she's... how do you know that, anyway?"

I noticed that he avoided saying the word "Lunar", but I suspected that even his little evasion was somewhat better than saying "Anathema". Not for the first time, I bit down on my lip in frustration. How was it that Val... of all people, did not seem to understand that what had happened to us was a good thing?

"Well, that's easy." I replied, a little more sharply than I'd intended to. "I slept with her."

Val blanched and tripped his way up the steps. He would have fallen flat on his nose in the doorway if I hadn't caught him by the back of his shirt and helped him to his feet.

The two of us were filthy, but that wasn't unusual for Anathema's clientèle. As I'd explained to Val, most of the regulars were Realm soldiers looking for a wild night at one of the most notorious blacklisted establishments in Nexus. The rest were affiliated with organized crime or river pirates, about two steps up in social standing from the usual crowd at The Drunk Duck. Two Dragonbloods, obviously the officers of the men we'd seen carousing outside turned to stare at us where we stood darkening the doorway. I pointed at Val and pantomimed "drinking too much" and the Dragonbloods laughed, returning to their mahjong game.

I noticed with amusement that the man who was losing had acquired a dozen silver and gold circles painted on his face, presumably "targets" to punish him for betting beyond his means. Beyond that, I really didn't have an opportunity to take in the scene, at least not before a girl in a short red yukata came skipping in our direction.

Like Honeysuckle, Kitten was a whore I knew well. She was one of Viper's most shameless girls, which meant that she usually worked the front door or even the street, using her charisma and her generous curves to lure customers inside Anathema's. Kitten stopped before Val with a little dancer-pounce and adjusted the furry black cat ears that were attached to her headband. "Oh, meeeeeoooow!" Kitten gushed, draping herself all over him. "Hello, scrumptious! Say, would you like to tie me up and make me your prisoner?"

Val turned absolutely as red as a beet and I swore I could see smoke pouring out of his ears. Though he took my usual teasing in stride, it was obvious that the more-accomplished whores were breaking his composure. Granted, he was under and awful lot of pressure to begin with.

An uncomfortable thought occurred to me. Shouldn't I have felt the same? Why was I so comfortable with the idea of being – truly Anathema? If my mother or anyone from the University ever discovered what had happened to me... there'd be no place in Creation that I could hide. That thought was a little sobering.

"Leave him be, Kitten." I sighed. "We need to see Viper."

"Well, the Mistress is busy." Kitten lied... and not very well. I didn't begrudge her that. It was her job to dissuade anyone who asked to see her boss. Part of the reason that Anathema's was still in business was because no one seemed to be able to deliver court orders to its proprietress.

"We'll wait." I replied, guiding Val to a table near the back. He sat down and sighed in relief, blushing slightly as Sei Shonagon brought us some warm sake. Sei was one of Viper's more sophisticated ladies, and while Honeysuckle and Kitten had nearly sent Val running for the river, I suspected I might convince him to let Sei give him a good massage.

Val's twitchiness was making me nervous. A little alcohol would be a good start to calming him down. All things considered, I could definitely use a drink myself. The sake was cheap, but it didn't make me feel like I was inhaling paint fumes – and we hadn't paid for it, so I said nothing about our hostess's hospitality... or lack thereof. Before I realized what I was doing, I had finished off most of a bottle. Val toyed with his first cup which had long since gone cold.

"So, what are you thinking?" I asked him.

"I don't know." Val admitted. "This place, everything about it..."

"Harlotry is a sewer, Val. What you see here is all the life these people have. They don't think further ahead than the end of the night. Most of them can't read and can't do any figuring unless it's the price of a new kimono or a keg of ale. I came to the University because I wanted a better life. Granted, if I need to play "one of the girls"... I can do it. It's in my blood. It would be stupid to pretend that I don't know this place like I do." I paused. "But I'd rather be out digging with you. Always."

"Digging is what got us into this mess." Val remarked.

"Thinking is what got us into this mess, Val. Plenty of people dig who don't have brains at all! Like Fox!" I laughed, and then realized belatedly that I had no idea where Little Fox, Kasashi, Mehmed and Bruja actually were. If everything had gone impossibly well, they were probably back at the barracks laughing off the whole interrogation, but somehow I doubted that was the case. Especially in light of what had happened with the exploding well.

"I hope the team's alright." Val paused.

"They're tough!" I punched him in the shoulder. "C'mon, Val... you know that no man – not even a great Enlightened Dragonblood can withstand the power of Fox's belching! Bruja will kill em' all while they're gagging on the fumes, Mehmed will part out their bodies for jade and Kasashi will write a song about it!"

Val smiled. "A song?"

"What's wrong with that?" I demanded.

"Well, Kasashi has never struck me as the musical type. Perhaps it would be a great epic poem instead?"He suggested with a smirk. "Nay, even the might of the Five Immaculate Dragons cannot withstand this noxious fury! We had better leave now... in a hurry!"

"Val, you can write better poetry than that!" I groaned.

"Of course I can! I was trying to sound like a student! To be fair, I've never actually read any of Kasashi's work, but do you remember those papers we graded last fall for Professor Grace?" Val asked. "I think we decided on an award for the most innovative spelling of "traditional"? T-e-r-d-i-s-h-i-n-a-l?"

"Bleh! Don't remind me!" I laughed despite myself.

Val was tentatively peeking out of his shell, and I was all too glad for that. In the dim light of the bar, the indistinct black shadow around his eyes drew my attention just as it had when I first saw it. It was proof that I hadn't imagined everything the two of us had just gone through.

We really were changed... but were we different?

After a few minutes of joking and reminiscing, Val waved for Sei who refilled our sake. He'd finally finished his first cup and poured himself a second when the warmed bottle arrived. I was about to have another myself, probably my fifth, when Kitten came scurrying up to our table.

"Okay, so the Mistress wants to know why you're here." Kitten whispered. "Don't start staring over my shoulder, but she's in the pantry now. And she might meet with you, if she thinks you're not wasting her time."

"Good. Nice to see that we're finally getting somewhere." I replied, ignoring Kitten's warning not to look behind her. As I saw it, anyone who didn't know that Viper usually took special visitors in her pantry wouldn't figure that out from one patron briefly glancing in the direction of the kitchen.

"Tell Viper that my friend here is thinking about getting a tattoo." I paused, waiting for Kitten to absorb the message as I'd intended it. Viper's true nature was no secret to most of her employees, and Kitten was no exception. She stared at Val who sighed heavily and nodded, burying his face in his hands. Kitten's mouth widened into an "o" and she quickly raced into the kitchen without another word.

About five minutes later, Kitten returned, looking more than a little frazzled. "The Mistress will see you now." She said to Val.

Val stood slowly and glanced briefly in my direction before following Kitten into the kitchen. I went after the two of them myself and found myself staring at the half-open pantry door as if it were a gateway into another world. In a sense, it was.

I hadn't been lying to Val about my relationship with Viper, I'd just neglected to mention how one-sided it had really been. Though Viper treated her people well enough, she did have a sort of patronizing attitude towards all of them, an attitude which I'd noticed also carried over to me.

Then again, according to Viper's own reckoning she was more than three hundred years old... which I supposed gave her the right to act superior to the rest of us "little mortals" who lived out our whole lives in what was nothing more than a lazy weekend from her perspective. Really, I had no idea how long Lunars could live, although I knew that it was longer than Dragonblooded, and Dragonblooded lived six or seven times longer than ordinary people did. And as for Solars...

I instinctively touched my own forehead at the thought.

I loved the thought of being a hero. Having the power to strike back against the Realm's toadies like Summer Storm who intentionally made life difficult for ordinary folks was very appealing. But living forever? Was I immortal now? Or if not... so close to it that one day counting years would just seem silly? If I didn't do anything fatally stupid, would I be just like Viper, three hundred years in the future... surrounded by throngs of ignorant, adoring fans and a small contingent of loyal servants who knew just enough to be terribly afraid of me? I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

"Come in, Valen." Viper said, her voice soft like velvet, just as I remembered it. Usually she was brash and nasty, but when she had the proper motivation she could be very seductive.

Val didn't even glance in my direction for approval. He just sort of slipped into the pantry.

"The Mistress said she'd see your friend. She didn't say she'd see you." Kitten stopped me just inside of the kitchen.

I ignored her and started to follow Val.

"Stay out of this, Sapphire!" Viper's voice warned from just beyond the doorway. I couldn't see her where she sat. "I know you think you know what's going on, but you have no idea!"

"No idea?" I snapped. "I brought him here to you!"

"Damnit, don't make me throw you out!" Viper warned.

Still grumbling to myself, I went back into the bar and say down at the same table Val and I had been sitting at before. I put a finger in my sake and stirred it for a moment. Val was my best friend! He wouldn't even have known to look for Viper if I hadn't brought him through her front door. I didn't see how there was anything that she could have to tell him that I couldn't know!

A sweet, rank smell that I recognized immediately stung my nostrils. There was someone sitting across from me, but it wasn't Val or Kitten. A tendril of opium smoke rolling out from a cracked green glass pipe and a smile of cherry red lips and purposefully blackened teeth, like an old Realm prostitute caught my attention first. That is to say... nothing else of the person sitting across from me was actually visible, save for that wicked smile.

See, that's the thing about Gods. You never know when they're around because you can't see them until they want you to.

Very slowly, languorously, the God phased into visibility. First came her hands. Gold and silver rings adorned every one of her mummy-white fingers and her long nails curled almost twice over themselves. Then came her many kimonos... red, green and gold, each layer as garish as the exterior of Viper's brothel and embroidered with inhuman precision. An elaborate antiquated hairstyle formed itself before my eyes, feathers of chartreuse, cinnamon and cornflower blue growing out of nothingness along with locks of silver-frosted black hair. Little flames danced at the tips of each feather and loose tendril of hair, creating an elegant if somewhat bizarre picture.

Last but not least, a neck and a head, both heavily powdered and reeking of opium layered with perfume filled out the ostentatious costume sitting across from me. The Goddess's face would have looked younger than my own, except for the fact that her eyes were ancient and mismatched, one the color of the last embers of a dying fire and the other as green as absinthe and twice as hypnotic.

Burning Feather, The Goddess of Intoxicants... my grandmother, smirked at me.

"No more for you, poppet!" She scolded, slapping my hand away from my sake and finishing the cup.

"I'm hardly drunk!" I protested.

"Nor should you be! No descendant of mine loses her wits drinking watered-down sake!" She retorted. "Though I suppose you've a right to mourn your impending dismissal from the University?"

I snorted but didn't dignify that barbed comment with a response.

"Or is it... something else that weighs so heavily on your pretty little head?" She taunted, drawing a very distinct circle in the sake that Val had spilled on the table earlier with one of her claws.

I felt the blood freeze in my veins. She knew? Did that mean that... all Gods would know? If that was the case, I'd never succeed in hiding from my mother's thamaturgy! Maybe I had a lot more to learn about being Exalted than I'd previously thought.

"I would have told you." I finished lamely. "But you already know."

"Of course I already know, poppet! But tell me all the same!"

And so I told her everything that had happened all day from when the Immaculates had come onto our dig site up in the late afternoon until Kitten had thrown me out of the kitchen only moments before she appeared. I tried not to sound too starry-eyed as I described my run across the rooftops but found that I could conceal nothing when my grandmother asked me if the Unconquered Sun had spoken to me.

He hadn't... not with words anyway. But at the same time, he had.

I cried as I hadn't cried in years, rubbing my nose raw and red on the dirty sleeve of my shirt.

"I'm starting to think that maybe I don't know anything. I definitely don't know what he wants me to do!" I admitted finally. "But I'm going to do it! Whatever it is, I have to do it! Do you know what it's like to owe somebody your life? It's like that but... even worse! Better? I don't know which!"

For a long while we sat in silence, facing one another.

"I would keep this a secret from your mother, were I you." My grandmother remarked. That bit of advice didn't surprise me. The relationship that my grandmother had with my mother made my relationship with her seem friendly by comparison. As far back as I could remember, their fights had always revolved around one of two things... either my mother avoiding something my grandmother wanted her to do, or my grandmother purposefully withholding something that my mother wanted in order to goad her into doing that something she'd been avoiding. Still, I was a little surprised that she'd taken the news so well.

"You're not upset?" I wondered uneasily.

"Upset? Why in all Creation should I be upset with you, poppet? Upset is what I was when your mother developed a taste for Immaculate philosophy and encouraged her patrons to stop sending me offerings!" My grandmother laughed. She took both of my hands in her own and smiled slightly. "Honoredis what I am today. Finally, one of my descendants has made good!"

Even though I knew very well that she didn't like to be touched, I literally leapt up from my seat and hugged my grandmother in the most awkward way possible, my face pressed up to her obi. To my absolute shock, she actually hugged me back... if only for a moment. Careful not to scratch me with her long clawlike nails, she patted me on the head.

"Alright, that's enough hugging!" My grandmother brushed me away, not forcefully, but I still stumbled a bit. "Can't have you smelling like opium when your beau comes out!"

"Val is not my beau, grandmother." I sighed in defeat, knowing I'd never convince her otherwise.

"All the same." She took my chin and kissed me on the top of the head as she hadn't done since I was a little child.

"What?" Viper's voice roared from the adjoining room, loud enough that everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing and stared. There was a sound like a herd of elephants fast approaching and with a force that nearly tore her door from its hinges, Viper came barreling out of her kitchen.

To put it bluntly, Viper is no small woman. What she lacks in height, she makes up for in sheer brute strength and force of personality. Originally from a small island in the far southwest, she has skin the color of dark chocolate and shoulder-length black hair that she regularly braids with twenty pounds worth of colorful glass beads. She wears her own weight in gold jewelry but her preference for clothing is usually none at all... or as little as she can get away with.

Viper appeared that evening in a very flattering orange silk ensemble that left nothing of her body to the imagination. Her snakelike eyes would have appeared to be a wild pox, or some sort of clever illusion to anyone who didn't know that they were as real as the intricate moonsilver tattoos that were very visible on both her arms and legs.

While I didn't care for Viper the way that I cared for Val, we did have a bit of a history and my earlier meeting with Honeysuckle had only served to remind me of how long it had been since I'd had a bed to share with anyone. If Viper decided to take advantage of me, I was just drunk enough that she'd probably get whatever she wanted and I'd get nothing out of the equation. I cursed my own stupidity and hoped that I could still make the best of things for Val's sake.

Viper stood with her hands on her hips and gave me her look-of-death, which sent Sei dodging behind the bar and Kitten running for cover. I had a pretty good guess as to what Val had told her and was suddenly glad that my grandmother had finished drinking my sake for me, before I could have used it to further impair my negotiating skills.

"Sapphire! In the back! Now!" Viper ordered.

"I'll have my eye on you, poppet." My grandmother whispered in my ear. With a wink, she vanished. Wiping my tear-streaked face with a bar towel, I composed myself and followed Viper into the back.