“Young of body, eons of mind.”

  —Lieutenant General Herbert Gauss of the Kaskit Emergence Corps, in recollection of the Second Signature. 125 AB.

  The Kaskit Postal Service outsources its delivery services to the Ferrence Gondola Company through three vessels traveling along the Second Signature’s private ropeway into her alcazar. On the last of these gondolas, June-Leckie stands in the observation deck wearing a nondescript brown dress that Tale Jethry had said came from a high-end tailor but looks more like it was drawn from a costume designer’s chest of rejects. At least it reaches to her ankles, hiding the scar.

  Each entry path onto the vessel was a new chance at deception. At the KPS office, June feigned she was an incubator lost during an academic assignment to study maligned rats in the city’s sewers. After reaching the gondola’s ramp, June fabricated a different story for the terminal’s security staff that she was not lost but had been chasing a man she thought was a Chant of Harmony assassin and, by doing so, had strayed far beyond the secure convoy that she was joining on a shopping trip. Finally, on the gondola, June told the guards she was enjoying a scenic ride through the city.

  The point is true as June pulls into the alcazar. Stalks of grass grow so high they brush the gondola’s windows. She dangles past rooms of attendants with wide open windows, decorated Flung and Corps officers poring over tables. As the line descends to a lower support tower, she sees below the manicured gardens, statues, tiers of academies, labs, and sporting yards that disguise all the inner workings of the Second Signature’s machinations underground. June has seen the alcazar’s dank corners, and they make her sick.

  “I will be fine from here,” June informs one of the Ferrence attendants once they’ve pulled into the terminal, “but I’m afraid I have no money to lend you. The Second Signature does not allow us to spend culas directly.” She’s not sure any of that is true.

  “Oh, nonsense,” says the attendant. “Your presence here is more compensation than we could hope for.” The man looks abashed. “Ma’am, if I could, I would love to tell our marketing department that an incubator traveled with us today.”

  “Be sure to.” She smiles, striding off the ramp and into the loading bay of the Second Signature’s alcazar terminal. The place is domed by a massive roof of glass, not unlike the enclosure surrounding Kaskit’s core. Through it, June makes out the movements of elite guards patrolling, attached to the slippery surface via rope lines.

  She bumps into someone, turns, and looks at a middle-aged guard captain. “Lost?” the man asks.

  June nods, waving him away.

  The man holds out an arm, looks at something past the glass, and nods. “Better get there before the show,” he says.

  June doesn’t want to ask how he knows where she’s going but ignores it.

  She finds the Debut Hall minutes later, the route circuitous, but with a convincing innocent demeanor as a lost incubator, she runs ahead of the suitors lining up to it.

  June knows the calculations men make when looking at women. She knows how they balance their confidence against the desire to play the chivalrous prince or to keep their hands to themselves. The man standing in front of her is a castellan, an incubator’s mentor and overseer, this one dressed in a prim purple suit. His first glance at June is one of surprise and disgust, immediately switching to calculation as she approaches. Even those in the Second Signature’s employ are easy to read.

  “What is your name?” the castellan asks June.

  “Your mother.”

  She doesn’t give him a chance to reply. It doesn’t matter anyway, for none of the alcazar’s elites descend on her. It’s all so easy to be here. Why had Tale ever said the alcazar is impenetrable?

  Armored guards stand on the edge of a pillared hallway, wielding curved bardiches and spiraled halberds while hiding in heavy shell armor. How far off are these men from the greens the krab killed? Thinking back, there must have been a hundred or more. A whole Hells-damned company in that hallway alone. And some Thurmgeists, too.

  It leads to a dining room reaching at least seven or eight stories high, where above twenty balconies brim with guests. Conversations assault her, the chink of glasses and silverware clanging on plates. Tassels of gold hang from the ceiling like the swingers on Hyrnlak, while tall cathedral windows offer the view of tiered pagodas and squat structures outside. The building has been intentionally placed, or perhaps the plants outside were grown to fawn over the hall as if waving or peering curiously inside. The guests eat up the spectacle, gazing upon the unique fauna, the men likely never getting a chance to see them again.

  A single dinner table sits at the room’s center, not nearly enough seats for a tenth of the occupants on the floor who congregate near the pillars or watch the band play on a side stage. The Hells-damned custom never made sense. Why not have enough tables for everyone? Hells, people are standing and eating. You only do that if you’re on the march or on watch, and none of the women here look capable of besting June in a fight. Given enough time, she would love to try.

  What does make sense, however, is the food. She notices a skewered lamb, grilled duck, burgeoning dishes of roasted vegetables and other plants she hasn’t seen but has no doubt will be edible, and what looks like a furry millipede with its soft, pink innards splayed open, most of which have been scooped out and spread over fluffy loaves of bread. Waiters intercept guests to refill their glasses of sparkling water, doubtless boiled to the highest purity—only the best for the Second Signature and her incubators.

  “Oh my!” A woman beside June clutches her bulging stomach. “A hand, madam?” She is an incubator, a disgusting one at that. Rolls of fat collect under her chin, powder caking her face, and not the kind you can fire a musket with. June imagines pushing the woman down a steep hill and watching her roll. Hopefully, there would be a cliff at the bottom.

  June shoves the woman aside. Only one free seat is left at the dining table, and she notices two more incubators waddling over to it. June slides into it before anyone, making sure to give the losers of the race a sneer. An incubator gasps before turning to her castellan and pointing. June shows him the same treatment, and the man ushers the incubator away.

  The pressing eyes upon her are not the same that fixed in Hyrnlak’s jungles. These are confused creatures, scared of her more than she is of them. No one recognizes her, and why should they? June had never been so stupid to show her face. It’s as if she’s wearing a new disguise now, in plain sight.

  While a small crowd gathers, June finds the closest utensil and spears a creature’s breast with enough force to push the plate. It’s a small bird with a thick beak—probably something coastal on the warm side of Salvarin. Bijigress, she guesses.

  Faces turn her way as she chews. “What the Hells are you all looking at?”

  A confused suitor peers her way, some portly old man who is far beyond catching the attention of any woman here. “That’s a Bull Sprig duck,” he says.

  June takes another bite and swallows. Flavor surges her cheeks, shivering her down to the core. “Salute to its butcher and its chef, then. It’s delicious.” She digs into the thing with her fingers, peels the skin, and shoves it down her throat.

  The man looks aghast. “I think it’s customary to save some, ma’am.”

  “I think it’s customary to shut up and let me eat.”

  The man shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Apologies.” He prattles his fingers nervously on the table. “You actually think it’s good? You’re not just saying that just to be nice?”

  June never says anything ‘just to be nice.’ “Uh-huh.” Another bite, another glimpse of bliss. June’s far past eating the high-energy biscuits the Corps served her for the past two years. This is real food.

  “Excellent. Actually, that was going to be a demonstration of my lab’s work this year, but since you enjoy it so much-”

  June stops eating, a piece of the duck dangling from her mouth. She removes it slowly. “Lab?”

  “Of course.” The man nods emphatically. “They’ve been serving cultured meat in the Corps for years, but we’ve been working on more tolerable versions for the populace. The Replicator strand, you see-”

  June spits the piece out on the table. She knows what cultured food is but always avoided the stuff. The men in the Corps were more than happy to hand over their biscuits to her, which are leagues ahead of this shit. “People tolerate this stuff?”

  The man looks as if he’s witnessing a toddler’s outburst. “It’s come a long way since three years ago when the populace only started trying it.”

  June wants to throw up on the table right there. “I was here three years ago, and people only talked of this shit in nightmares. Strands in your food? Why bother boiling water then?”

  “Ah! Well, that, you see, that’s mostly a cultural ritual that-”

  June hurls the rest of the duck at him, smacking the man in the face. He makes a big show of it and leaves, and June gets a laugh as security escorts him out, not her.

  “Atrocious,” she murmurs to herself, snagging some thick drink from a waiter and chugging it back. It stings, but it’s not enough to remove the putrid aftertaste that her mind puts there.

  She finds a loaf of bread that looks the furthest from something cultured with Replicator strands and chows down, saving none for anyone else, while searching for Her.

  It doesn’t take June long.

  Pasha Adderey, Second Signature to the Decree, skirts the perimeter of the banquet hall, stopping on the secluded side of an ivory pillar, where a trio of brunettes congregate.

  “Hundreds of them tonight!” one of them gawks. “Thousands! For all of us! Yet I swear not one of them knows how to conduct themselves. Don’t they read?” The woman’s tirade captures the attention of two other incubators. “They’re brackish, sloppy, and I think one is drunk! Sloshing his wine all over the place. I don’t care how many of those things you’ve killed; if you make me puke, then you’re as repulsive as those things!”

  The shortest brunette of the bunch wears a bell-shaped dress the same shade as sunshine. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, hands clasping her flat belly as she urges her leader on, encouraging her to continue to speak ill of her suitors. Pasha wonders how this one will fare when she is pregnant. There are much worse pains waiting for you than clumsy men, dear.

  “One of them told me I was as beautiful as the tulips in his garden,” says the second brunette of medium height. “Why would he be talking about his garden when he’s here? Hasn’t he seen the terraces? The grounds? They’re much prettier. I cannot be matched with a gardener; they have such rough hands, you know.”

  The three women shake their heads in tandem.

  Unable to endure the useless prattle, Pasha rounds the corner. “Idiot! The man was complimenting you!” She stops in front of them. “I guess he’s not a poet, but neither are you, and you should have at least heard him out before storming off like an entitled child!”

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  Deers spotting their hunters would have looked less frightened than the three women now. They stiffen, Bell-Dress searching for a nearby table to place her drinks down, one in each hand.

  The leader keeps her back straight. “Signature.” She dips into a slight bow. “I beg your pardon, but seeing so many faces tires our minds and bodies. We needed respite from all of it.”

  “This is supposed to be your respite,” Pasha intones, “and if you are not used to the attention yet, then your matron and castellans have failed.” She rubs her forehead, caring not for any curious stares. “Be grateful you are here. It is a miracle that I’ve allowed any of you to attend. Any choice you have in your future and fate is a privilege. Do I need to repeat that?”

  The women look to their feet. Bell-Dress fiddles with her fingers, wrapping them around what could be an imaginary knife to drive into Pasha’s back. Before she even gripped such a weapon, Pasha’s Entrusted would descend. The creatures would have no qualms about tearing these girls apart.

  “Your castellans will select your nominations for a seed within the hour.” Pasha turns. “Pray that your choices are better than ours.”

  Her words are met with murmurs, but barely a few seconds pass before the three women fade into the droves of suitors. Of course, the women will never know that their preference means nothing, and their mates for the next breeding round have already been assigned. The Debut is meant to fuel the confidence of the young incubators, to get them accustomed to talking to men, who can be as intelligent as dogs sometimes. Consummation is much easier when you can converse with the man birthing alongside you.

  While the women fade into the Debut’s clamor, the suitors snapping back to them like schools of fish, Pasha imagines the time before the Bursting when most families raised children together through parental communion. That was 127 years ago, and such distant customs are fantasy now. She should know—Pasha has outlived every person in this room.

  She climbs the steps overlooking the central banquet table, eighty persons in length, almost every seat occupied. A multitude of balconies hang above the dining quarter, and from the lowest one, Pasha can see the bell-dressed woman garnering the attention of several dozen suitors already. She radiates and smiles, harboring the men’s affections as they spiral around her, throwing their admiration like bulls in a pen. She starkly contrasts the rest of the incubators in the hall, who lumber around with full wombs, their private servants delivering dishes that match their carefully curated diets. Life is the true sign of wealth, not money or military. Not anymore.

  Pasha grips the railing with the hands of a child, standing on the tallest of her stools to get a better look over the edge. At the dinner table below, a short-haired woman with a pointed nose and a modest brown dress the color of soil makes quick work of a cultured duck as if she hasn’t eaten all day. Between chomps, she stares up, searching the balconies in the deliberate way people do when pretending to be intentionless. Before returning to her meal, her gaze fixes on Pasha for a split second longer than anyone else’s.

  “Who let that one in?” says a crunching voice.

  Beside her, Sixt strides into view. Pasha’s female Entrusted is a rhinoceros beetle, bipedal and walking upright. She is unarmed but can envelop Pasha with her carapace fast enough to stop a crossbow bolt. Sixt has used that maneuver to save Pasha’s life more than once. A gift from Sacramount itself, author of the Decree, Pasha owes the world to her female Entrusted.

  “Perhaps she’s genuinely hungry,” says Pasha. “Still, I’ll burn the man who has been starving her in preparation for this.”

  “There is no such man.” The next voice belongs to Captain Drinnam, Pasha’s captain of the alcazar guards. The man strides up next to her, a double-bladed polearm hanging from his back that she’s never seen him use. “You don’t recognize her? Look again, Signature.”

  Pasha wonders why she puts up with the man who has a habit of always being late. Perhaps he feels overshadowed by the Entrusted. Still, Pasha indulges the guard captain in the little guessing game and inspects the incubator closely. “Holy Hells.”

  Drinnam pulls up to the railing and nods. “Should we converge on her? Before she goes anywhere?”

  Pasha holds up a hand, watching the woman drinking some of the alcoholic slosh meant for the suitors. “She doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Do you think she’s come to assassinate me?”

  “No,” Sixt says, able to spot potential assailants better than anyone. Her eyes work the room furiously, searching for other threats, though she too no doubt recognizes June-Leckie of the Thurmgeists

  “Should I get the women out?” asks Drinnam. “We can call an end to the debut anytime.”

  “And demonstrate my paranoia to the masses? The city already hates me enough.”

  On the stage below, five harpists and a string quartet conclude the outro to The Humanity Sonata, an aptly named triumphant piece arranged shortly after the Bursting. Pasha cheers, whistles, and waves. The musicians bow up to her, and the crowd joins, save for June-Leckie still munching away at her meal. She even has the gall to hail another waiter over.

  “And the riots, Pasha,” Sixt says, continuing their earlier conversation. “They’re getting worse. There was a demonstration outside the walls today.”

  “I noticed.” Pasha had been watching from the comfort of her quarters while gripping the curtain tight as if it were a rope she could climb away with. There have always been riots in Kaskit, but none as bad as the one nearly five years ago. Since then the skirmishes in the streets have been small affairs, yet growing each time.

  “They want the First Signature dead,” Drinnam finishes.

  “And I want the Hells extinguished. Sacramount would never draft another Decree if we lost Ruinalk, anyway. Who would replace him?”

  Sixt sags to convey a sigh, but they both know the answer. If either of the Signatures died, so too would the Decree.

  Drinnam clears his throat. “Signature?”

  “No,” says Pasha, “let her be. She doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.” What would this abductor of incubators want with her? “You just let a woman like that walk into my alcazar?”

  “She didn’t recognize me, Signature. I was younger then. I could have gutted her, but I thought you’d want the pleasure.” Drinnam produces from his holster a flintlock pistol. “We can hold her down.”

  “I doubt my hands could fire that,” Pasha says, seeing a dagger at Drinnam’s side. Still, she doesn’t ask for it. “All eyes on me.” She turns to Sixt. “If she so much as touches me, get me out.”

  “Always, Pasha,” says Sixt.

  The Second Signature leaps from her stool and heads downstairs, Sixt watching from above.

  June’s stomach roils, curdles, and groans as her body attempts to process what it just consumed.

  After finishing three plates and five glasses of sparkling water, she retreats from the dining table. She times it well, for just as she walks out, the band’s fiddler takes center stage, drawing his bow across the strings to drone a lingering note. The audience recognizes the tune, for they rise, grab partners, and spring into an awkward-looking jig. June hates dancing.

  By now, the incubators have left their comfortable perches on the overlooking balconies to entertain their suitors, affluent men of Kaskit who believe they, of all people, are noteworthy enough to marry and, if the Hells spared them, plant their seed. They hold positions in politics, finance, trade, and even the military. June hopes her simple brown dress, a stark contrast to the bright, inviting colors of the incubators, will convince these suitors not to lump her in with those enslaved human factories.

  When she climbs up on a stone wall about as tall as her, surrounding a flower bed outside, she learns she is wrong.

  “Tulips bloom early while daffodils bloom late.” A man approaches her from the crowd of samely dressed suitors, looking up to her. “That makes this particular flowerbed a peculiar mix.”

  June only now notices the plants she had flattened while climbing up. The wall is not the most comfortable seat, but it is far out of the suffocating holds of the dining room with its tightly pressed bodies, too tight, close together, so close that flesh touches, melds together, and turns. Turning. Turning.

  “Is everything alright, miss?” Someone else speaks from below, the first man having lost interest in June’s impassiveness.

  “Leave me alone,” says June.

  The man’s stare is still like a painting, but he obeys, nods respectfully, and leaves.

  She continues to fend suitors off like that, some comparing her to tales of a woman seeking help from a balcony. Two guards standing at the nearest doorway notice the interest June garners, and with a nod she tells them she could dispel these hungry dogs herself. Still, the way those elites eye June as she speaks to the prying men, she guesses they could hear a feather drop in a city street.

  When June finishes inspecting a passing patrol, she sees the girl again. The Second Signature looks out of place among the staring men, their heads turned down to the figure of an eight-year-old child. Young of body, eons of mind, as the saying goes. It's an obvious exaggeration, but who knows what the girl had learned after signing the Decree and speaking to those things sitting in between man and maligned? The Second Signature masks all her knowing and wisdom under a young, unassuming visage, and not one she chose, either, but one that was Written, bounded as tight as the Decree. Yet even from her childish gait and the way she observes her surroundings anxiously, the Second Signature commands an air of respect.

  She has answers, June reminds herself. Answers you need.

  The girl moves to within five paces of the wall and stares up. Covering that distance would take a heartbeat, meaning it is too close. The girl’s confidence is justified when her Entrusted steps behind her, a giant female rhinoceros beetle clicking its mandibles. The thing is the instantiation of the Decree’s guardian clause—that the Second Signature should always be protected. Adding to the creature are the alcazar elites bordering the promenade walls and overlooking balconies. An entire army has joined the courtyard in less than a minute.

  “Remind me,” the Second Signature starts, “why Sixt shouldn’t rip your head off right now.”

  So, she does recognize June. “Hello, girl. Did you lock your vats, or should I walk in and take them all?”

  The guards pull their rifles. The Second Signature holds up a hand. “She likes to jabber, calm down.” The men drop their guns. “We saw you come in.”

  “I could have been a Chant assassin, then you’d be dead right now.”

  “You wouldn’t like that?”

  June shrugs. “Maybe, but it’s much more fun rescuing my girls.”

  “And where are they now?”

  The girl asks the question innocently, with a bit of concern in her voice. To June, it is the worst thing she could have said.

  Perhaps the Second Signature understands because she steps forward, looking confused at the bottom of the stone wall. Then, at a flick of her finger, the female Entrusted soars down and lifts her. The Entrusted places her on the wall next to June, leaving a gap too wide to cross, before studying the Thurmgeist. “She’s unarmed, Pasha,” says the beetle.

  The girl remains on guard, seeming genuinely confused. “Come to turn yourself in?” She scans June. “We could squeeze ten incubators out of you, though I’d have to check your strandular compositions first. Hyrnlak may have compromised all of you. Then again, maybe you intended to spoil your bodies.”

  June rolls her eyes, the threats meaning nothing from an eight-year-old body. “I was attacked, Second Signature.”

  The girl blinks. “What?”

  “I think you heard me.” June stretches her fingers across the stones beside her. “A maligned attacked me and turned my Thurmgeists. I saw it happen right before my eyes.”

  The girl pales and shakes her head. “Pardon me?”

  “You’re not very comprehensible today.” June leans forward, almost bridging the gap between them. “I’ll show you.” June spins to her side and lifts the bottom of her dress, revealing the scar running down her calf.

  The Second Signature’s back straightens like a child would upon seeing a dead dog. “A glancing blow, surely.”

  June shakes her head. “It was quite intentional.” She remembers the women in the pods but doesn’t say anything. Information is currency and better left for when you need it.

  The Second Signature pulls back, stares at the scar, and then at June again. There is no evidence of eons in those milky eyes, only the incomprehension of a confused youth.

  “Is the Decree still working?” June asks plainly so that all can hear.

  The girl swallows and nods. “Of course, it still holds. I know it. The maligned could not have broken it. It is Written.”

  “Then how do you explain what happened?” She feels spittle spraying from her mouth. “Whatever arrangement you have with the First Signature, whatever is Written, you may want to review it.” She points down to her scar. “Because this and what I saw is ample proof to the contrary.”

  The child can’t hide her confusion. In front of them, the Entrusted hovers, blotting out the hanging lamps outside and surrounding June in darkness, but not attacking—not yet.

  “You want to tell me where he is?” asks June. “Maybe I’ll ask him what’s going on since you don’t seem to know shit.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why?”

  The Second Signature breathes out. “A great many people would love to sink their daggers into the First Signature.” A pang of rage creeps into the young girl’s voice. “Is that what you want? To sew destruction? There are forces at work here greater than you can even comprehend.” She folds her arms but doesn’t add anything else—because she can’t.

  She doesn’t know. No one in the alcazar knows what is happening. Maybe it was a mistake to come here.

  The girl pipes up at some possibility she must have been thinking of all this time. “You could be lying.”

  June wants to say she could, but the idea of forsaking the memory of her fallen Thurmgeists makes her shiver. “For once,” she says, “I am telling the truth.”

  The child shakes her head. “The Decree still holds. It has held for 97 years. Why would it stop now?”

  The mention of time stutters June’s memories. “You’re off, girl. 97?”

  The Second Signature squints. “Do you know who you’re asking? I’m the only person in the world to have seen all that time through.”

  June barks a laugh at the absurdity. A jest at a time like this? “It should be 92 years old, just passed, signed in 30 AB.” June never forgets the date the Decree was signed. “The world tore 122 years ago, and the raw ground sprung forth.”

  The girl, the elites, the captain of the guard, and even her Entrusted seem unperturbed. “We have officially entered 127 AB,” says the Second Signature, and regards June in a new light. “What are you on about?”

  June pauses, and whatever takes her at that moment seems to hold. Soon, she can’t speak. She runs back the last few days, meeting Tale and stepping off the transport gondola. Come to think of it, that part of time is fuzzy, emerging not as images but as sensations, as implications. “When did the Hyrnlak assault start?” she asks. She has to be sure.

  The girl looks down to June’s calf.

  “Answer me.”

  She does. “The first transport gondola left Kaskit for the Hyrnlak Archipelago seven years ago—in 120 AB.”

  Seven years ago? June rode one of the early transport gondolas and knows only two years have elapsed since then. Then where are the other five?

  She’s about to ask more when a tiny pinprick of pain pulses on her back. She reaches behind her and feels the feathered tip of a dart embedded in her flesh. Her arms go limp, and then her eyes close. She tries to speak, but it comes out as a lull, her tongue heavy.

  She falls, and all goes black.