“In trouble with whom?” Miranda said, slamming down the report and spinning around in her chair.
Gin looked away.
“You mean the Shep—”
“Stop,” Gin growled, lashing his tail. “Don’t say her name. It attracts her attention.”
“Fine with me,” Miranda said, crossing her arms. “There are several things I want to ask her.”
“Get in line,” Mellinor rumbled bitterly. “But if the Shepherdess could be appealed to, I wouldn’t have spent four centuries locked in a pillar of salt.”
“Mellinor,” Gin said in a warning tone.
“No,” Mellinor said. “I don’t care if it’s forbidden to speak of the Shepherdess’s business with humans. The Shaper Mountain already broke the edicts. Why should we bother keeping them?”
“The Shaper Mountain is one of the oldest spirits in the world,” Gin said. “He’s also the biggest. He can afford to take risks.”
“So can we,” Miranda said firmly. “Slorn said the Shaper Mountain showed us the truth for a reason.”
Gin snorted. “Yes, because the mountain knows you’re ignorant. The old rock pile wants you to take the fall for asking questions spirits shouldn’t ask.”
“What do you mean?”
The ghosthound sighed. “There are things that it’s better not to know, Miranda. And just because some great mountain and his pet bear man are fed up with the Shepherdess’s antics doesn’t mean you should go putting yourself in danger.”
“If the Shepherdess isn’t doing what she should, then I have to take action, danger or no,” Miranda snapped. “I’m sworn to protect the spirits.”
“Good,” Gin snapped back. “So do that. Kill Enslavers, stop abusive wizards, but don’t go poking your nose where it’ll get bitten off.”
Miranda turned away with a huff. Gin crouched low, his swirling fur moving in quick little patterns, and Mellinor began to rumble.
“Listen,” she said, calmly now. “Whatever happens from here out, I’m always going to choose the path that leads to a better, fairer world for all of us. That’s my job. That’s why I became a Spiritualist. And if that path leads me off a cliff, then so be it, but I will not turn back. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to follow.”
Gin bared his teeth. “Don’t even try,” he growled. “I go where you go, no matter how reckless or stupid. But that doesn’t mean I have to keep my mouth shut about it.”
Miranda couldn’t help grinning at that. “Nothing could make you keep your mouth shut, mutt.”
Gin snorted and put his head on his paws. “Better put away your reading. Someone’s coming.”
Miranda glanced at the door a split second before the knock sounded. Gin gave her a superior look, and Miranda rolled her eyes. She stood up, carefully marking her place before closing the record book, and walked to the reading room door. A young man in apprentice robes was standing on the other side. His face lit up when he saw her.
“Spiritualist Lyonette? Master Banage wants to see you at the top of the Tower. He says it’s urgent.”
“The top of the Tower?” Miranda said, wrinkling her nose. “You mean his office?”
“No, ma’am,” the apprentice said, shaking his head. “He said the top.”
“The top?” Gin said, suddenly behind her. He grinned, showing a wall of teeth. “I’ve never been to the top.”
“Neither have I,” Miranda said, elbowing her dog. The apprentice was staring at Gin’s teeth like he might faint. “Take us there.”
“Yes, Spiritualist,” the boy said, starting down the hall sideways so he wouldn’t have to put his back to Gin. “This way.”
Miranda shook her head and followed. Behind her, Gin crawled through the door, slipping his long body through the small opening with practiced ease. They climbed up and up, past floors of meeting rooms, guest rooms, and storerooms, until they reached the landing outside the Rector’s office. This was where the stairs usually ended, but now there was a new opening in the wall beside the Rector’s office door, a set of stairs Miranda had never seen before, leading up.
“We can make it from here,” she said, smiling at the apprentice. “Thank you for your service.”
“It is an honor to serve, Spiritualist,” the boy said with a halfhearted bow. After a final, terrified glance at Gin, he vanished down the stairs like a frightened rabbit.
“That one knows his place,” Gin said, flipping his tail smugly.
“Stop it,” Miranda muttered, starting up the new stairwell. “You’d better stay here.”
Gin growled and sat, ears turned forward so he wouldn’t miss anything.
The new stairs wound up for a dozen feet before stopping at a little stone door barely larger than she was. It opened when Miranda touched it, and a blast of wind nearly blew her back down the stairs. The door let out on the very top of the Tower’s spire. Below, she could see all of Zarin and the plains beyond. The white buildings were almost blinding in the afternoon sun, and the Whitefall River was little more than a glittering thread between the dark shapes of the bridges and barges. The wind roared around her, and for a moment Miranda was afraid it would blow her off altogether. Thankfully, the door was set back in the Tower’s spire, and the tiny alcove provided just enough shelter to keep the wind from ripping her off the Tower. Master Banage was already here, standing with his back pressed against the stone and his head tilted up toward the sky.
“Miranda,” he said in a voice that carried over the wind. “Glad you could join us.”
The moment he said it, Miranda felt the truth. The wind howling around them wasn’t the usual gusts found this high up. There was a familiar heaviness to it, a great spiritual pressure that made her ears pop, and she didn’t need Eril’s frantic clamor to know who, or what, she was facing.
“Lord Illir,” she said, clutching her wind spirit’s shaking pendant against her chest. “It is a pleasure to meet you again.”
“Pleasure tainted with crisis, I’m afraid,” the wind hummed around her. “Let the little one pay his respects before he bursts.”
Miranda let Eril fly at once. The smaller wind tore out of his necklace, spinning in a reverent circle before returning to Miranda’s side.
She exchanged a brief look with Master Banage, and then the Rector Spiritualis stepped out a fraction and addressed the wind. “Lord of the West, Miranda Lyonette is here, as you asked. Now, how may we help you?”
“I bring a message,” the great wind said. “From Osera.”
That threw Miranda. Who in Osera could use one of the four great winds as a messenger?
“The Immortal Empress has arrived,” the wind continued. “Her ships will reach Osera by evening, if not sooner. War is here.”
Miranda and Banage exchanged a wide-eyed look, and then Miranda looked toward the Council’s citadel. It looked the same as ever—no panic, no surge of troops.
“They don’t know,” the wind said, answering her question before she could ask it. “And they won’t, unless you tell them. Osera’s Relay points were destroyed by a traitor on the inside. That is why I’ve come.” There was a shift in air pressure as the wind turned to focus on Banage. “I know you have declared that your Court will not enter the human’s war, but I am here to ask you, on behalf of all spirits on this continent, not to let the Empress land on this shore.”
For the first time in all their years together, Miranda saw Master Banage look completely bewildered.
“How do you know…” he said, and then shook his head. “Never mind. Why do you care what human rules this land? The Court will always look after you no matter who calls themselves Merchant Prince or Empress.”
“You don’t understand,” the wind rumbled. “If the Immortal Empress were only human, I would agree with you. But she is more, far more.”
Banage scowled. “What do you mean ‘more’?”
“I cannot tell you,” the wind said. “It is forbidden, even for me.”
Miranda frowned. Forbidden? Even for a spirit as great as the West Wind? But as she tried to puzzle out what Illir meant by that, the wind shifted and grew colder. Suddenly, she could smell cold stone, snow, and thin high air. The smell of the mountain filled her lungs, and everything came together.
“The Empress is a star.”
“What?” Banage turned to her. “Impossible. The Empress is human.”
