The next day Tomasso verified that the contract was authentic and the escrow funds intact. Then Leo, Nico, and Gianna departed from the Pathfinder guildhouse, embarking on a grand journey to find Ilhen’s Seventh — or at least infiltrate the top-secret Floating Library of Azkaya.

  They had packed lightly. Most of what they brought consisted of reading material, including the Pathfinders intelligence reports about the library. Nico had also brought his Illusion magic textbook, figuring he could snatch a few hours each night to brush up on his studies. After nailing down theory he could further practice Illusion cantrips. Perhaps in a month or two he’d be ready for the Spire…

  It was a sunny day, cloudless and windless, as they descended Petra’s Hill and entered the city’s main square. Passing through the Ink District, Leo and Gianna visited a pastry shop while Nico made a brief stop at Sam’s Spells & Sundries to pick up a few spell scrolls.

  A scroll was like a canned spell that could be deployed at will. It helped level the playing field between mages and non-mages, but scrolls were a volatile medium: too many scrolls confined in a tight space could prove highly combustible. The unbound magical energy might go supercritical, causing the hapless bearer to grow a new appendage, or their eyeballs to melt, or their heart to catch fire from within their abdomen. Attunement spires were littered with the bodies of adventurers who threw caution to the wind and carried a dozen scrolls.

  The bell chimed as Nico walked in. Sam himself was tending the counter, using a jeweler’s loupe to examine a scroll. Everything about Sam exuded drunk barkeep. Nico wondered how he’d wound up in this business.

  “Back again?” said Sam, setting down his loupe. “Didn’t I just see you here a week ago?”

  “Been practicing,” Nico said. “And now back to work.”

  “What will it be for you today? Got some new Illusion scrolls that might pique your interest.”

  “Not today,” Nico said, briefly perusing the wares inside the glass front counter. “Something a little more prosaic this time. Three scrolls: Divine Smite, Unremitting Aegis, and Illuminate. Reckon I’ll be lurking in some dark places.”

  Divine Smite was an offensive spell which would unleash a fatal lightning bolt, while Unremitting Aegis was a shield spell. Illuminate was of course simply a source of light, but far more potent and reliable that Shine, the equivalent cantrip.

  “Ominous,” Sam said. Using dragonscale gloves, Sam carefully rolled up the scrolls and slid them into an enchanted lambskin quiver.

  ***

  When he exited the shop, he found an agent of the Choir of Shadows leaning against the opposite storefront. He seemed to be watching Nico, his green eyes visible through his lacquered mask. Even in daytime, the Choir of Shadows seemed almost invisible. Nico averted his eyes and trotted off to rejoin Leo and Gianna.

  Cosimo’s galleon The Mint was berthed at Mercado’s, a private marina favored by nobles and wealthy merchants. Its wharfs brimmed with pleasure barges and yachts, each more decadent than the last, and all surpassed in decadence by the Mint.

  By rights, the Mint should not have been seaworthy. She was a gaudy vessel, heavily laden with gilt and ornamentation, including a pair of sculpted silver dolphins at her prow. It was a wonder that she stayed afloat. When they arrived, Cosimo was sitting astride the bowsprit, like a king atop his royal mount. He waved at them in greeting, and gestured them to board the gangplank.

  “Do you like my ship?” Cosimo asked, when they met at the ship’s railing.

  “Honestly, no. It’s a bit garish,” Leo said. “How do you keep the pirates off her?”

  “With guns. Delicate and dainty she may seem, but she's a feisty bitch when the need arises. I've enough iron and blackpowder to sink an armada of pirates if the need arises. Have no fear on that account.”

  “What about the Leviathan? asked Gianna. “Could you fend off the Leviathan? They say one haunts —”

  “I know,” said Cosimo with annoyance, holding up a silencing hand. “I've heard the ridiculous tales…”

  It was said that an eldritch sea monster haunted the waters of the eastern Myriad, creating massive maelstroms and swallowing ships whole. Some even claimed that the crew of those ships were transported to distant realms — distant worlds, even. Nico rather doubted that. But whether fact or fiction, most commercial and passenger ships avoided the waters like the cock pox. Nico prayed Cosimo would do the same, if they needed to venture that way.

  “What about her speed?” Leo asked. “Is she quick?”

  “Deceptively. She flies like the wind. I have aeromancers among my crew, and my seamen are well trained.”

  “Right,” Leo said, glancing around at the crew. “Speaking of which, you pick a motley crew, Cosimo. Seamen... seawomen, and seachildren too. That one on the mizzenmast looks like a sea-toddler.”

  “Slaves?” Nico asked bluntly.

  “Indentured servants,” Cosimo said, bristling. “Qirin is a Free City, and as a law-abiding citizen I do not traffic in human flesh.”

  “Indentured servitude is just slavery by another name.”

  These were sharp words to say to a wealthy client, but Nico never had any inhibitions about speaking truth to power. It was his view, shared by a growing number of Sages, that there was a fundamental equality between all men and women, regardless of wealth or status.

  Cosimo narrowed his eyes. “They made mistakes, and their debts were sold to me. I cannot be blamed for their financial carelessness.”

  “Yes,” said Leo dryly, “children can be so careless with money.”

  ***

  Cosimo led them to their living quarters.

  On other sea voyages — when the Pathfinders’ brig Arrow was not available — Leo and Nico occasionally sheltered with the crew, usually in a stinking hold below deck where the blankets were soaked with brine and rats nibbled on their toes. Aboard the Mint, they were treated like almost like royalty, being granted their own private room. It consisted of a bunk bed, a desk, and a small armoire, with room to spare for their accoutrements.

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  Within the hour, the Mint undocked from Mercado’s and slid out to sea. For several hours, the three adventurers labored in silence. Nico had brought several books with information on the Floating Library of Azkaya. Forewarned is forearmed, he thought. He wanted to know everything about the Library that there was to know about it. He was particularly intrigued by a top-secret dossier on the Library assembled by Pathfinders’ spies. He sat it aside on the desk, eager to read it later.

  Meanwhile, Leo sat on the floor with his back to the wall, reading Kampo’s Annals and Archives of the Discovered World. A ponderous tome, it was a comprehensive survey of libraries and museums across the world. The prose was sterile and academic and conveyed authority, but Leo found its contents implausible.

  Kampo claimed Azkaya was home to a vast collection of grimoires, spellbooks, and magical artifacts. Such items were imbued with magic and emitted a faint stream of arcane energy which, in aggregate, occasionally produced manifestations known as Metzengheist (in essence, spontaneous summonings). These Metzengheist ranged from the inconspicuous (a mote of dust) to the benign (a burgher — essentially a floppy wizard’s hat) to the absolute terrifying (a bloodthirsty manticore).

  The phenomenon was not unknown to Leo. He had observed it once while visiting the estate of an Edmiri noble. While they were inside the noble’s vast private library, a porcelain vase suddenly appeared in midair and crashed on the floor. The Edmiri had explained it was a somewhat frequent occurrence.

  But that was merely a vase. And while Leo knew magic could be potent and volatile, could such a random and arbitrary force really produce manticores and other complex beasts?

  He was dubious…

  Nonetheless, he took diligent notes about the library: its history, collections, and known perils. But Leo was always ill at ease when at sea, and the rock and sway the boat was making his head spin. Literature in all its forms was anathema to him.

  “I'm gonna take a break… need some fresh air.”

  When neither Nico nor Gianna replied, he took his leave.

  Day had yielded to dusk, and dusk to dark.

  Above deck, sailors worked the rigging, raising masts and jibs. Leo made his way past them, wandering to the taffrail, which was gilded like the bowsprit. It was a cool, windswept night; the sea was a dark and formless void, crashing ceaselessly against the ship's hull. The indigo moon Perses dappled its surfaced.

  The Myriad Isles were a strange and enchanted place — an archipelago brimming with myriad perils and treasures. Centuries ago it had been colonized by the Paladisian Empire, who still controlled it under the suzerainty of Duke Ferdinand II. The Empress had ordered the Diji natives to be ruthlessly put to sword, though many of them still lived on the fringes of Paladisian settlements, dwelling in their wicked tombs…

  Leo gazed up at the southern sky, recognizing the constellations like old, familiar friends. He could name almost all of them.

  As a young novitiate adventurer in the Pathfinders guild, Leo had been schooled in ranging. Tomasso had sent him west across the Jewel Sea to Saville Island, a lonely rock off the coast of the Paladis Empire’s mainland. There, his master Ariadne taught him how to hunt game, set traps, and find his way in the wilderness. At night, the mild-mannered Ariadne would brew mugs of hot cocoa and they would climb to the summit of her spire and study the stars. The skills he had learned under her tutelage had helped shape him into the man he was today.

  Tomasso had been like a father to me, he thought, Ariadne a mother… A mother who had as much sinew in her forearm as a bull had in his thigh, and who had once strangled a rabid bear with her bare hands. Still through the years Leo could hear her comforting voice in his head, when he chided himself for his failures. Patience, little bird, patience, she would say gently, for the gods did not shape the world in a day, and you have many more days ahead of you yet.

  Where might I be now if not for their patronage, their intervention in my life? Leo wondered. Like as not skulking some back-alley slum, resorting to beggary or outlawry. They saw something in me when I saw nothing in myself.

  He felt a pang of guilt over how he’d spoken to Tomasso the night prior. I ought to have apologized more forcefully. Without Tomasso in my life, I would be no one.

  His reverie was interrupted when a hand crept up his elbow. Startled, he nearly leapt over the railing.

  “Hi, Lee,” said Gianna. She had an incorrigible habit of sneaking up on him. In fact, she was the only one capable of doing so; Leo was normally very alert to his environment.

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack someday. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. What are you doing here?”

  Leo shrugged. “Just… I don’t know. Admiring the view, I guess. You see that?” He pointed to a bright cluster of light in the southeast. It was tracking steadily north, moving faster than the clouds.

  “Where? Oh, yes, I see it. What is it? A shooting star?”

  “No, it’s Skyborn University. Making its transit to… wherever the hell it goes.”

  “Skyborn? Really!?” Gianna’s voice was shrill with delight.

  “The one and only.” Skyborn magic academy, one of the Three Great Magic Academies, sat upon on a floating rock of limestone, borne by a pillowy cumulus cloud high up in the sky. It meandered the Discovered World aimlessly and was always a peculiar sight to behold.

  “So I've decided I want to be a Diviner,” Gianna said.

  “Oh, fuck no…” Leo said. “If you are hell bent on being a mage, I’ll make my peace with it. But Divination is quackery. It’s worse than useless.”

  “How can knowing the future be useless?”

  “They don't know the future, they only pretend to. It’s all just clumsy guesswork. Their predictions are seldom accurate, if not vague and meaningless. You would be making a mistake and wasting your time. Wasting your potential.”

  “Then I’ll waste it on my terms. I’ll make my own mistakes and live with them.”

  There was nothing to say to that. Leo may be opinionated and stubborn, but so was Gianna. They stayed there for a time, gazing out at the sea, saying nothing. A chill wind rent the air.

  Finally, Gianna said, “We should get going. Cosimo asked us to dinner.”

  “I must graciously decline. Cosimo is a Qirini. Have you seen Qirini food? They eat a lot of weird shit. Beetles… mollusks… cow penises…”

  “Cow penises? Have you ever been on a farm, Lee?”

  “You know what I mean,” Leo said, smirking. “Anyway, we still have sweetdough pastries.”

  “Err… well not anymore…”

  “You ate them? ALL of them?”

  “Every last crumb,” she said, smiling brightly, not a hint of remorse. “If it's any consolation, they were delicious.”

  Leo laughed. “It's not. You owe me one, lass.”

  “Fine. I won’t relent about studying Divination but I will begrudgingly accompany you to dinner with Cosimo. I’ll even eat your serving of beetles and mollusks.”

  “What about Nico? Will he be joining us?”

  Gianna shook her head. “Says he's too busy. He’s still working on forging the Letter of Imprimatur.”

  “Ah, damn him and his valid excuses… Shall we?”

  With that, the two of them crossed the ship to the Captain’s Quarters, where Cosimo was waiting to introduce them to the other party members.

  This might get ugly. Leo could only imagine how Cosimo would react to the news that Leo and Nico intended to enter the Azkaya Library alone.

  Bracing himself, Leo stepped into the Captain’s Quarters.