They discovered that most of the palace staff had been murdered, including Claire's old handmaids. Not surprisingly, the child refused to stay at the palace. Instead, they returned to the tilt-rotor parked on the Western Face and then flew south to the library city at the apex of Spire Lyn.

  Fiona led them through narrow tunnels cut into the bone-white and blood-red stone. The path curved slightly, and in some places there were holes, windows in the wall of the stone tunnels which revealed the towering stacks of the library city beyond. There were bright white lights behind ocean-blue sails supported by handmade wooden fittings, brilliant cones of white above, diffuse blue light below. The steps were shallow, the descent gentle. Claire giggled at some silent joke that only she understood.

  When they reached the northern edge of Spire Lyn, the tunnel opened up into a series of greenhouse chasms. It was damp, filled with the sound of trickling waterfalls and babbling streams. It was also warm, lit overhead by a series of sunlamps. Greedy ferns grew on the edge of the escarpments overhead, while vines dangled down in the places where the light touched. Across a small bridge over a lightless void, they came upon a sealed stone door, marked with the symbol of a Green Dragon.

  Fiona used a stone-aspect weave to move the door aside. There was a small private library within, occupied by the Witch of the Spire. Kiera had seen her once before, at the top of Spire Erika. She had green hair and the purple eyes of an oculomancer. The shining green scales on her cheeks and forehead betrayed a draconic ancestry. As before, the witch wore olive drab robes with a tall pointy hat, accented with slashes of darker brown. She had called herself Lyn the Historian.

  "Fjenna," Lyn said. "This is very unusual. Why did you return so soon? Where are the acolytes?"

  "Conditions have changed," Fiona replied. She rested her hand on Kiera's shoulder and squeezed. "Kiera, show her."

  Kiera removed her porcelain mask. Lyn's purple eyes went wide.

  "Extraordinary," Lyn said. "A Remembrancer? Does the Bloodraker know about this?"

  "Does she need to know?" Fiona asked.

  "I suppose not. Are you planning to overthrow her?"

  "Nothing has changed," Kiera said. "I want to find a way to heal her."

  "So then why rush back?" Lyn asked. "The Bloodraker isn't going anywhere."

  "We were hoping to question King Edwin Aden," Fiona said. "But conditions have changed, as I said. Is there anything in your private library regarding the Remembrancers?"

  "I have a few things around here somewhere. Give me a few moments to collect them."

  Lyn began roaming the library, plucking old leather-bound tomes off the wooden shelves. Fiona took advantage of the silence to change the subject: "What is happening in the west?"

  "A male witch in southern Truscasia," Lyn said. "A descendant of the Gold Dragon whelps. Low intelligence. Masculine preoccupation."

  "Male extermination or ethnic cleansing?" Fiona asked.

  "Neither. The witch is surrounded by advisors from the local clergy. The religion facilitates an eugenics-obsessed caste system. Breeding human livestock. Ten thousand years of peace. That sort of thing."

  "That is very rare," Fiona observed. "Has Diana moved yet?"

  "Diana sent her Marines to raid the man's home and mortally wound his sons. Because he is a male witch, he does not have access to healing weaves. His sons died slow and excruciatingly painful deaths. This made the witch very angry, and very stupid. Diana's oculomancers then started spreading propaganda pamphlets, air dropped from above the fog, calling on the man's supporters to gather in a huge vengeance rally."

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  "Wait," Kiera interrupted. "Why would they be helping this witch gather his followers?"

  "They want his supporters in one place," Fiona said. "Then they can carpet bomb the whole site."

  "You grown-ups are sick," Claire muttered.

  "Then the Bloodraker drops in with her spikes," Lyn said. She clawed four fingers across her throat.

  Kiera shivered. "It seems like I still have a lot to learn."

  "It just takes experience," Fiona insisted. "Once you take control of the Cloudsea spire you will have your own staff of oculomancers to help draft plans. Lyn, what is the probability that this witch will invent the airplane?"

  "Impossible," Lyn replied. "As I said, low intelligence."

  "Then there is no need for urgency."

  Lyn began to arrange the books on the table in the center of the room. Kiera glided over to one of the armchairs and plopped down. She had spent the day being ferried around in a tilt-rotor. It felt nice to relax for once. Even Lyn's beautiful private library was too demanding, too professional, too profane. Kiera shifted her eyesight into that other sky, the gentle pale-gold of the Elemental Plane of Light.

  Then she gasped.

  Directly ahead, occupying the space where the library city would have been, there was a cloud of black blobs. They slowly drifted, at around the speed of a person walking, growing slower in the distance. They were, Kiera realized, people.

  "Is something wrong?" Fiona asked.

  "There are blobs of darkness out there," Kiera replied. "Hundreds of them. I think they are people."

  "What about us?" Lyn asked. "Do we have blobs of darkness as well?"

  "She would have seen that before," Fiona noted.

  "Not you," Kiera said.

  "If it's not the oculomancers," Lyn began.

  "Then it must be the thralls!" Kiera exclaimed. "Fiona, we need to find a thrall."

  "I can go get one!" Claire said. Fiona nodded. The child scampered off.

  "Here it is," Lyn finally said. She pointed to a passage in one of the open books. Kiera began reading.

  The Eight Color Monastery was at least two centuries old when the witchstone appeared in the sky for the first time. The institution preserves student records going back to the founding. Some of the teaching materials in use today had been used by the professors who taught the very first students. The school's name, Eight Color Monastery, betrays its purpose. It was always concerned with educating students about the eight free aspects: Fire and Water, Wind and Stone, Metal and Lightning, Life and Heaven. Each aspect is paired with a complement, each pair occupies a single year, and students spend four years at the school before graduating.

  There is at least one additional aspect. It is more probable than not that there are, in fact, two aspects, not just one. The Eight Color Monastery, as an institution, does not concern itself with these aspects because they are too restrictive. The ninth aspect, also known as the ninth color, is only available to the ancient sect of oculomancers. Because they can see into the darkness, skilled oculomancers are sometimes able to burn spirit-ether to power dark-aspect weaves. Note, this does not work when burning dream-ether. Because of the vast expense involved in acquiring spirit-ether, this aspect is rarely used in practice.

  The tenth aspect only exists by implication. Some oculomancers claim that their ancient leaders, the Remembrancers, were unable to use the ninth color because they could not see into the darkness. As with the aspects at the Eight Color Monastery, the ninth color presumably has a complement. Thus we must assume that there exists light-aspect weaves which were only available to the Remembrancers, and, like their dark complements, they could only be activated by burning raw spirit-ether.

  "Fascinating," Fiona said.

  "Did you know about the ninth color?" Kiera asked. "Dark-aspect weaves?"

  "Of course. All the witches have practiced using those weaves. We do not use them very often, for the reasons described here. Well, except Annatiki. She uses them all the time. In fact, she rarely uses other aspects."

  "Fjenna," Lyn said. "You have forgotten to mention Reyndell. He could also use dark-aspect weaves. And he was not an oculomancer."

  Claire Aden appeared at the door and interrupted their conversation. She was winded. "I found one," she gasped. "A cleaner. I asked him to help dust the library."

  Kiera saw the thrall even before he entered the room. His dark blob followed him, wrapped around his heart like a ball of writhing snakes. Faint wisps of darkness drifted off into the pale-gold sky in the Plane of Light. Kiera shifted her vision back to normal. The man, completely disinterested, darted about the room, attacking the shelves with his feather duster.

  "It's true. The dark blobs I'm seeing are thralls."

  "Then perhaps you can find a way to use the tenth aspect to remove the darkness?" Fiona asked. "That might help them somehow. Maybe even cure them."

  "It's worth a try," Kiera said, suddenly determined.

  "Claire has never used the ninth color before," Fiona said. "I will teach her myself. And, at the same time, you can attempt to discover the complement."