Iris couldn’t believe she’d gotten away with it.

  They rocketed away. Actually rocketed — there weren’t any kind of stabilizers onboard, which Iris had found out face-first when the Lucifer had lurched away from the Chance.

  Eos had apologized for it or whatever, but there was still a sour red mark on Iris’s forehead which shouldn’t exist at all. If Mama were here she’d throw a fit.

  But she wasn’t here.

  It didn’t feel good, but it also sort of did, the same way Iris had felt sick to her stomach years and years ago when she’d accidentally drunk her mom’s sweet bubbly wine when she hadn’t been looking. Back then, Mama had gone on and on about brain damage and hypoxia or whatever while Iris had been in her arms, heart warm and ready to fall asleep.

  But this time wasn’t an accident.

  This was for real.

  Eos had shown Iris to her room. According to Eos, they used the Lucifer as a passenger ship. Iris didn’t know who the heck they’d been transporting prior to this, but they had to have been tiny. The entire room looked like a remodeled supply closet.

  Her bed was stacked and shuffled into the wall like a shelf. Underneath it was a tiny desk, and tinier shelves, and an empty chest bolted to the floorboards with a big, nasty metal key Eos had given her to lock her things in.

  Hah. Well, Iris traveled light. She’d learned to give up all the stuff she didn’t actually need for the stuff she definitely did need and couldn’t get out once she was in the Outer Rim. She’d stuck all her clothes and all the jewelry she’d gotten for her birthday into that rusty chest, and prepared for a quick journey. She’d pass the time thinking about important things.

  How to stop murders and crime, for instance. And how good she’d probably be at pirating and crime, if she wanted to be.

  That had been a whole standard turn ago, which should have been enough time for Iris to get used to life onboard — but it really, really wasn’t.

  The whole ship rattled like a hag hacking up phlegm. A sound Iris now knew, thanks to the old “Captain” curled up in her chair. Iris wasn’t sure who the hell the old lady scammed to get the title of Captain, but man, Iris was almost sorry for the poor bastard.

  Iris definitely felt all sorts of sorry for Eos, which was only overshadowed by how awesome she felt that Eos was so easy to scam. Mama was right — generous people were great, but nice people were suckers, and Eos might have been the biggest sucker Iris had ever met.

  The entirety of the Lucifer was run by her alone, basically. She made breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She charted their course. She set the sails and turned the rudder. She even took the old “Captain” out for walks on the deck to enjoy the passing sun.

  The “Captain”, for her part, was pretty much as useful as a houseplant. She got sun, water and the fertilizer slop Eos cooked and called “food”. Then she’d park herself somewhere and just watch them do things.

  Both of them. Tonight, she was watching as Iris waited for the slop.

  Iris watched her right back. There was no way this lady was really an empyrean. Or even a half-empyrean. But if that were true — well, Iris couldn’t think like that. It would mean she got scammed, and Iris had studied way too many scams to get scammed.

  “And here’s dinner!” Eos called, swinging into view at the doorway. Her boots clunked on the threshhold. Balanced in one hand was a huge platter of something steaming.

  Iris tore her gaze away from the box. It felt like trying to break the surface of water, almost running out of breath. Her lungs hurt.

  “Apologies for the delay, but as you know, all good things come to those who wait,” Eos said, setting down the dish in the center of the table.

  A massive fish, completely intact, its head flopping off the edge of the board.

  Holy moly.

  It came with one wooden spatula, probably the same Eos had used to cook it. And now Eos was cutting up the fish. With the spatula. Holy moly.

  “Where’s the knife?” Iris shrieked. Eos paused.

  “Where I come from, we eat with our hands,” Eos said apologetically. She set a chunk of fish on Iris’s plate. “But I use this to serve. Hm… I can fetch you some utensils.”

  Anesidora eyed Iris. She grabbed a fistful of searing hot fish and shoveled it into her own mouth.

  By the gods. These people were so poor they couldn’t even buy forks.

  “No,” Iris huffed. “I’m better than some fork. I’ll do it your way.”

  She could be nice to them, even if they were poor. And she was better than a fork — and the old lady. Iris grabbed at the fish. It was piping hot, and it hurt like hell, but Iris shoved it into her mouth and forced herself to swallow.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Eos said. “Calm yourself, bug. Isn’t it too hot?”

  Of course it was. Iris glared at her.

  “I can take it,” Iris muttered. She was better than an idiot fish.

  Eos took a breath. “Well… before we eat, we have a tradition upon the Lucifer. Whoever makes the dinner gets to ask for a story. And we get the story as we eat.”

  “Yeah, right. She’s already eating,” Iris said, pointing. Anesidora was chewing on the set of leafy greens Eos had left in the side basket.

  “True enough,” Eos said cheerfully. “My Captain is what we call rude.”

  Anesidora gave her a sharp side-eye, but Iris grinned.

  “Yeah,” Iris said. “Super rude.”

  Eos shook her head. “Then as suitable punishment, I’ll have her tell the story for today, and you pick which story. How’s that?”

  Iris squinted. “How is she going to tell the story? Write it out?”

  “No, no,” Eos said, smiling. “She’d sign it. And I’d interpret.”

  “Sign it…” Iris said. Heh. “But you eat with your hands, right?”

  Anesidora was giving her a dark glare.

  “I want to know how Anesidora became an empyrean.”

  Anesidora signed something at Eos, which made Eos grimace.

  “What, what?” Iris asked.

  “Something meant to insult me alone, bug,” Eos sighed. “… Come on, Anesi. A tradition is a tradition. And a promise is a promise.”

  Anesidora flicked her fishy hands at Eos again, before turning her cranky look to Iris. She wiped her hands on her shawl.

  “To understand how I became an empyrean, you first have to understand Ishvaat.”

  “Uh-huh,” Iris said. “And what about Ishvaat?”

  “Blue,” Eos translated. “Bluer than you’ve ever seen. Sky, mountain, village. They call it the Lazuli Moon. But it has other colors. Purple river. Violet, like crushed blueberries. It all runs from the peak of the sacred mountain down to the village below. Dark blue buildings rising out of the sand. All part of the same horizon.”

  “We’re already on the way to see Ishvaat,” Iris huffed. “Why do I need to know Ishvaat is blue to know why you’re somehow an empyrean?”

  Anesidora slapped her hands flat on the table. It rattled the plates.

  “Do you know what it means when we speak of naming the sun?”

  “It means doing something useless,” Iris answered.

  “Something hopeless.” Eos’s voice caught, but Anesidora’s hands didn’t stop for a second. “You can’t do this any more than you could name the sun. Do you know why?”

  “It’s just a saying,” Iris said.

  “Why bother saying things? Why bother passing sayings down? Every word has a meaning. Every meaning has a purpose. Like a name — what’s in naming something? To know something. To make it known to others. But the sun is already known to everyone — it already has a name. Who could rename the sun? Stupid notion. Hopeless endeavor.”

  Anesidora flexed her hands. Eos didn’t translate. Iris opened her mouth to ask, and then Eos reached over and took Anesidora’s hands, and it hit Iris— that wasn’t a word, or anything. Eos was massaging Anesidora’s hands. They hurt.

  Anesidora took her hands back.

  “Ishvaat is blue, and purple. And when the sun sets, it is red.”

  Anesidora wasn’t looking at her now. She was staring at the dead-eyed fish on the table.

  “When you build your whole life around one color, the universe is small. But then you get a glimpse of something more. Every dawn and every dusk, one chance to see something more. I saved all I had and burnt it all to reach the sky. Flew around for years — decades — learning everything I could. I hoped to make something that could help people. Find out what was beyond a small universe. Take it, and bring it down to touch my home.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Anesidora sniffed. “I was so full of it.”

  Iris dug her nails into the chair. This vague outlines of a story was making her lose her appetite. But she found herself leaning in, anyways. Anesidora kept on.

  “I found Elpis on my travels. She liked my dreaming. I found out what was beyond. And now look at me…. As useful as naming the sun.”

  Anesidora idly scratched her long, yellow nail along the rim of her plate.

  “I became an empyrean because I got curious. Elpis died because I got curious. And you’ll wither away and die before I recount all the ways I killed her.”

  Anesidora grabbed a piece of fish, and stuffed it into her mouth. Eos didn’t need to translate that. The end. Hurry up and eat.

  Eos looked like she had a frog caught in her throat, trying to spit it out, trying to hold it in. She started trying to sign something, but Anesidora just waved her off, going back to the fish and the leaves.

  Eos made eye contact with Iris. Iris could understand what she meant by that, too. I’m sorry.

  Iris glared down at the fish. It stared at her, dead-eyed and cool.

  “That was a terrible story,” Iris said, and shoveled the fish into her mouth.

  It was worse cold.

  They didn’t really bother with many stories after that. Eos would cook and they’d wind up at the table by themselves. Anesidora was “not feeling well.” Serves her right. Iris didn’t feel well, after that exchange. But you didn’t see her complaining. At least she had established dominance over the table. Anesidora could go eat in her room by herself, until she realized how weirdly rude she had been.

  Anything to not spend another second in that stuffy old cabin with that hunched-over hag. Iris didn’t know what she did to make that lady so grouchy. Probably nothing! She was probably born old and upset. Probably…. Iris would figure it out later. She was good at that, figuring out people. And then she’d get Anesidora to like her. She was also good that that.

  Not that she needed Anesidora to like her, or anything. Like she said, Anesidora could sit herself in her room. Iris didn’t need her at the table, making conversation and answering burning questions or telling epic stories about her dead dragon or anything.

  Still… it was weird, not sitting across from Mama. Iris had eaten on her own before, during her internship at the Outer Rim, but usually she’d at least scry a call to Mama. Now she couldn’t scry at all.

  At least Eos was okay at conversation. Since they were the only ones at the table, Eos would ask Iris for stories.

  It was nice to be able to tell the same old stories again to somebody who’d never heard them before. And it was good practice, for when Iris would be able to tell them again to somebody else. Eos did appropriately “ooh” and “aah” whenever Iris mentioned her missions.

  Heh. Even if the missions had been lame at the time, at least now Iris could get some recognition for them.

  (Mielikki still should’ve let her get a few more punches in. Sometimes Iris would add them back into the story, just to make it consistent with what she could actually do.)

  But sometimes Eos didn’t sit with her at all. She’d serve Iris and head off to go help the Captain. What kind of person needed help eating? Eos really was a sucker.

  It was a few turns later when one of those dinners came by. Iris pushed her nasty, gross peas around her plate (Eos did not know how to cook peas), when there was the drumming of boots on wood. Eos swung into the doorway, grinning.

  “Good news, bug, the planet’s in full view! None of that tiny pinpoint dot business. If you come up to the deck, you can see me make the landing.”

  Iris was out the door before she finished her sentence.

  Blue. Bluer than blue, if that was possible. The entire planet below was bathed in an azure wash and glowed faintly, the sunlight reflecting back. Iris had to shield her watering eyes. If she squinted, she could make out the swirls of lavender-colored clouds, and maybe the shadow of a river or two. But — blue. Overwhelmingly so.

  Mama would’ve liked this planet as a ring on her finger. Iris would have to remember where it was.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Eos said. “You can see there — look. The dark side of the planet. Hardly any lights.”

  “What the heck?” Iris said. “Are there no people there or something?”

  “Many of the Outer Rim planets have much smaller populations than those in the Inner Rim,” Eos said. “A pristine place, with a single fingerprint on it. Just as beautiful as Anesi said, no?”

  Iris gave her an incredulous look. “She just told me the planet was blue. And purple. And sometimes it’s red. Why do you bother translating anything for her? You should have just have lied.”

  Eos paused. There was some sort of calculation running through her head she probably thought Iris couldn’t see, but Iris could read her like a book. Some made-up dumbed-downed crap was about to leave her mouth, wasn’t it?

  “Why don’t you help me land the Lucifer?” Eos said. “She’s rigged for one-man operation, and if I ever go down, it’s excellent for you to know how not to crash her.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Iris muttered, waving Eos on. Eos gave her a half-smile and started walking back towards the rudder. “Queen of avoiding questions.”

  They’d positioned something Eos had dubbed “the captaining station” near the back. Close to, but not exactly by the rudder. It lay just beyond the gazebo-like structure on the upper deck — to give passengers a show, Eos had admitted. They could sit and watch her captain-ing, you know, instead of the actual captain.

  The Lucifer was way too big for a single person to man. But through some insane mechanical riggings, ropes, pulleys and gods knew what else, they’d managed to transform it into the worlds’s ugliest knot. And a ship that could be piloted by a single person. It was this captaining station Eos escaped to, avoiding Iris’s question all the way.

  “Alright, be careful here,” Eos said. “Once I show you what to do, you can start moving things.”

  Iris flicked at a switch idly. It turned some sort of metal dial up and down. Damn. They didn’t even have working lights.

  “It’s a terrible thing, to not be listened to,” Eos said.

  “It’s not even doing anything—“

  “Not you, bug,” Eos said. “You listen. You’re too clever not to.”

  Eos pulled a lever, slowly and carefully, and it screeched in protest. “This is for steering… ah. Not being listened to. I know the feeling well. I speak the common tongue, but — as you’ll doubtless have noticed — perhaps not like your Inner Ring.”

  “No kidding,” Iris snorted. “You’re so old.”

  “Hah,” Eos said. “Believe it or not, I used to be worse. I had never really left my planet before it was lost. For a long time, I didn’t know how to speak to people. It was… very lonely.”

  She shook her head. “When I met Anesidora, only she and a few priestesses of Ishvaat knew how to sign to her. Now that we travel, I act as her voice when she needs one. But it’s her voice. Not mine. It’s not right for me to take that away from her, no matter how much I disagree.”

  Eos bumped Iris with her hip. “But now that it’s just you and I, I can tell you I think that my captain is a sore sourpuss for telling you the tale like that.”

  Iris bumped Eos right back, twice as hard. Eos stumbled. Heh.

  “So, are you gonna tell me how they actually met?”

  “That’s a secret even I’m not fully privy to,” Eos said, shooting her a smile. Iris’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Really?” Iris said. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “Believe it or not, mentors usually don’t teach their students every little thing,” Eos said.

  “That seems stupid,” Iris said. “Isn’t the whole point for them to teach you? Are you not going to teach me everything?”

  Eos paused. Her face had gone all slack-jawed and surprised for a second, but now it looked all shiny and happy. Urgh. What had Iris said now?

  “I’ll happily teach you all I know,” Eos laughed. Oh great, had Iris said something funny? “But my relationship with Anesi isn’t just that of a mentor. I suppose we’re like family. She found me when I had lost everything, and dusted me all off. I can afford her a little privacy.”

  Eos leaned forward, pointing. Iris traced her finger to a point on the planet — in the sea of swarming blue, a slightly pale spot.

  “We met right there, actually,” Eos said. “Right at the temple in Ishvaat. I was staying there while trying to figure out where to go. She rescued me from a rather untoward encounter I was having.”

  “Untoward?” Iris said. “What the heck does that mean?”

  Eos’s eyes went distant. “Just a man,” she said. “Trying to take advantage of a hungry girl. Anesi found me and fed me. I’ve been with her ever since.”

  Iris stared down at the planet. “…My Mama found me, too,” she said. “When I was a baby. She said I was starving to death. She fed me too, I guess.”

  I can afford her a little privacy. If only. Iris chewed on the inside of her cheek, feeling her eyes unfocus on the planet below. Sorry, Mama. You’ll just have to forgive me later.

  Iris jumped as Eos patted her shoulder. But her hands were warm. It was nice, on this stupid old ship with no climate control. It had been a little cold.

  “It’s nice to have family, isn’t it?”

  Iris felt her gut twist. It was. No matter what everyone else thought or said, it was.

  “… What does this lever do?” Iris asked.

  Eos smiled. “Well, that one helps us fold in Elpis’s skeleton for landing. Keeps it from damage. Here, turn the handle like this…”

  Turns out Eos’s idea of a “landing” was splashing down directly into the violet river.

  Eos had landed them high up. Iris squinted out over the landscape. They were up on some mountain, trawling along a massive river. Must’ve been artificially dug, Iris thought, because no way would it be this big naturally.

  But that might be the only artificial thing about it. Iris could smell the nature — their stale, recycled atmosphere refreshing itself as it cycled in the air of Ishvaat. It smelled like lots of things, but mostly fresh rain. Iris sucked in air ‘til her lungs couldn’t handle any more.

  Their hull hit the water. Gravity sank the bones down to the level of the river, where they had struck the water and surged violently to the surface. In a wave of whitewater and glittering droplets, Elpis was now floating all around the belly of the Lucifer, looking as if she was prowling upon the water.

  Iris hated to say it, but it was really freakin’ cool.

  Iris looked up at the skeleton. Elpis’s neck bent around to curl over their ship and then she rested her jaw in the water. The villagers were going to lose their minds seeing this.

  How did it work, though? Mama would throw a fit to know.

  “That which flies, floats,” Eos said brightly, making Iris jump. Eos smiled at her. Behind her, a stupid crazy knot of tangled rope seemed to be holding their rudder, and sails, and who knew what else together. “What’s wrong, little bug? You didn’t think I could sneak?”

  Iris drew her shoulders back. “Duh, I knew you could sneak!” she said. “It’s what I hired you for. But why are you sneaking up on me?”

  “It’s good practice,” Eos laughed. “For you and for me. And we’ll need it.”

  “What? Why would we need it?”

  “Oh, you’ll see,” Eos said mysteriously. “Look alive, bug. Our welcome awaits.”

  They were approaching what looked like a thin, tiny dock on the wide mountain river. Huddled like birds was a flock of people in thick, blue robes. And standing in the front, clearly leader of them all, was the (second) most beautiful woman Iris had ever seen.

  (Behind her Mama, of course).

  She towered over every single one of them. Her body was built solidly, but also — soft. Her face was round, her shoulders were soft, and her skin was so dark that when she opened her eyes, they looked like stars.

  Over her shaved head she wore a veil in the same deep shade of blue that the entire planet seemed to be saturated in. Iris stared. The woman could have been a statue in the town square, or for the building.

  The gangway rattled down, settling between the spaces of Elpis’s ribs. Eos slid down and bowed deeply.

  “High Priestess Ninhursag,” Eos said, hiding a laugh in her voice. “How long has it been?”

  The woman looked at Eos with the gentlest, most exasperated look to ever grace a person’s face.

  (Also besides Mama, but they didn’t talk about The Cherry situation.)

  Iris tried to meet her gaze, trying desperately to communicate, Haha, so sorry for my very cringe employe, but the priestess didn’t look at her.

  Dangit.

  “Long enough without your antics,” she said. Eos laughed, prancing forward and taking the woman’s hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, then raised the hand and touched it to her forehead.

  “Faith and fidelity,” Eos said warmly. “It’s good to be back.”

  Priestess Ninhursag shook her head, took her hand and moved it to stroke Eos’s hair.

  “It’s good to have you home,” she said. “A surprise.” Her eyes darkened suddenly. “Is…?”

  “Anesi is still among us,” Eos said quickly, and Iris watched the flock collectively breathe a sigh of relief. Why, Iris didn’t know. “She’s feeling a little unwell, though, and is resting inside.”

  “Unwell, or antisocial?” muttered Ninhursag.

  “Both,” Iris said. Ninhursag looked at Iris. It was funny. She could laugh.

  Ninhursag did not laugh.

  “My passenger,” Eos cut in, and Iris felt her heart plummet into her stomach as Ninhursag looked away from her. Man. What was with these people? Was everyone from Ishvaat pre-programmed to not like her? “She seeks a Challenge. Do you have anything like that for us?”

  Ninhursag raised an eyebrow.

  “Come. We’ll travel together.”

  Iris could get behind that. She grabbed her staff and hopped down the gangway, rattling against the dock and landing really cool, just in case the priestesses were paying attention.

  “You know the High Priestess here?”

  “A friend of Anesi’s,” Eos said.

  Weird. That old lady definitely didn’t have friends, but Iris didn’t feel like expending the energy to correct Eos.

  “She’s not going to rat us out to the Guild or anything,” Iris said, hurrying after Eos. Dangit. Everyone had taller legs. “Right?”

  “The mountain is sacred,” Eos said “… the people of Ishvaat usually don’t travel up here. The only ones who come here are the mountainside attendants of their sacred beast. No worries, bug, I haven’t forgotten how sneaky you wanted to be. The Guild cannot charge what they cannot find, and they haven’t spread their reach here.”

  “It’s not like I can’t pay the Guild toll,” Iris complained. Inner Rim fees were a scam, but hey, temples had to make money too. But Iris would never get to even accepting the Challenge if she went through the proper channels, so, dinky backwater planet it was. “So the temple is here?”

  “One of them,” Eos said, holding up a finger. “This is where the sacred beast lives, but we need to go to the people’s temple first.”

  There was a small boat waiting for them. Even smaller than the Lucifer, and not nearly big enough for everyone — just Ninhursag, Eos, and Iris piled in, and off they went down the river.

  The temple wasn’t high up. It wasn’t carved into the mountainside, didn’t have stairs, didn’t even sit on a slightly bumpy patch of road. The temple was some ugly, squat building sandwiched in between what apparently was an inkmaker and a cured meats shop.

  It was blue, like all other buildings.

  Iris caught sight of Eos staring into a darkness. There was an unlit alley next to the temple, lined with typical alley things — trash, ratty old tents, broken bottles.

  “What?” Iris asked.

  Eos blinked, then looked at Iris.

  “Hah,” she said faintly. “Just feeling a little nostalgia. That’s all.” Eos looped an arm around her shoulders and ushered her inwards. “Come on.”

  The inside of the temple was… warm. In every sense of the word. The place was brightly lit by an overwhelming number of braziers hung high into its ceilings, which felt taller inside than they had looked outside. Orange light spilled across every surface of the bustling temple. There were dozens of people here, of all ages, mixed in with the blue-robed attendants.

  Not that it was much of a descriptor — everyone else here also wore various shades of blue or purple. Damn. They really didn’t have that many colors, did they?

  It didn’t look anything like the Inner Ring’s temples. Quiet contemplation seemed to have no place here. Heck yeah.

  Ninhursag murmured something to one of the passing attendants, and then ushered Eos and Iris into a side room. An office, maybe. Iris’s only hint was a low, flat table and the honeycombed walls stuffed full of crinkly, dusty scrolls. Iris sneezed.

  “Child,” Ninhursag said.

  Iris stiffened. “I’m twelve,” she says. “And three-eighths.”

  Eos glanced at Ninhursag and signed something. Ninhursag raised an eyebrow. Iris also tried to raise an eyebrow, as she could also see what was going on but did not know what was being said.

  “What name should I call you by?”

  “Iris,” she said. There was the urge to finish the statement, Nixie, from House Nixie, my mama is Sionna Nixie and I’m her youngest child — but Iris hadn’t finished that statement in years, and she didn’t need to, now. “Just Iris.”

  “Just Iris,” said Ninhursag. “Hm.”

  Pretty or not, this lady was acting really judgy. “You got a problem with my name?”

  “Just Iris and I would like to ask you a great favor, Priestess,” Eos butted. She hugged her arm around Iris’s shoulder. Urgh. This was corny and all, but Iris would allow it. She let her shoulder sink into Eos’s side. “We come seeking to accept a Challenge.”

  “A request I’ve heard before,” Ninhursag said. “Your bruises have healed, then?”

  “All but my ego,” Eos said. “But I come not for myself, this time. For little Iris, here.”

  “I’m not little,” Iris shrugged off Eos’s arm, stepping forward to glare up at the Priestess. Stupid adults and their petty back-and-forth. She was right there. “I came here because I wanted to. I’m going to the Challenge and I’m going to win it. I have enough mass to get to any temple I want to, but Eos said we should come here. She told me about the trial or whatever — and I can win that, too. Are you going to let us see the sacred beast or what?”

  “You have bite,” Ninhursag said.

  “I have nails and knuckles, too.” Iris made sure to lift her chin, arms crossed. “And my big ol’ staff.”

  “Like student, like mentor,” Ninhursag noted. “She reminds me of you, Eos.”

  “Ouch,” Eos pressed a hand to her heart. “Spare me the truth, Priestess.”

  “I’m not like Eos,” Iris snapped. She was still there. “I’m not like anybody here.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Ninhursag said. “You’ll have your Temple Trial, Iris.”

  Eos bowed. Why, Iris didn’t know. She kept her arms firmly crossed, right until Eos took her shoulder and pushed her down.

  “Hey!”

  “Thank you, Priestess,” Eos said. “Blessings to the beast.”

  “Blessings to the beast,” Ninhursag said. “You have until sunrise.”

  Before Iris could say anything else, Eos was dragging her out. Away from the dry old office, back into the hustle and bustle of the main temple — except there wasn’t all that much hustle. Iris could hear voices outside, all fading away from where they were standing.

  What the heck? Was it closing hours?

  Eos was looking out a tall window.

  “That’s all?” Iris asked. “Nothing happened.”

  Eos laughed. “That’s because the sun’s still out. Once we lose the sun, we lose their mercy. Quickly, now, bug. The trial’s already begun.”