Valentino searched in his bag and took out a small case that smelled faintly of shoe polish. He spat on a corner of a rag, wiped his boots with it, then rubbed polish on them with a different corner of the rag. I watched him as the train creaked into motion, and then as the sunlight greyed and was overtaken by darkness. Then I made a light spell. Valentino put his boots on again, apparently not trusting the floor to be clean enough for his socks. Smart of him.

  “I’ll make dinner,” I said.

  All I did was hold the cardboard lid of a box on one hand like it was a tray—I’d waited tables when I traveled around, and washed dishes, and other such things—and pile up a mutton-and-bell-pepper kebab, a couple of big round empanadas, and a few k’ispi?as on it, then present it to Valentino.

  He accepted the cardboard lid very seriously. I picked up an identical lid full of food for me. The supplies, I decided one-sidedly, would be equally divided until I got the munchies.

  We both sat on the lower bunk and ate. I’d brought a couple of chicha bottles along, but we didn’t have any bowls so we just took turns drinking directly from it.

  “These empanadas are really juicy, so don’t eat all around the edges first,” I said. He’d probably feel real bad if his neat uniform got food stains on it.

  “Thanks for letting me know.” Valentino inspected a k’ispi?a.

  “These are quinoa biscuits. Hopefully you’ll like them. There’s half a box of ‘em. Well, if you don’t want ‘em, I do.”

  “Oh, free food has to be pretty terrible for me to get sick of it.” He’d put his vest back on—the desert gets cold way too fast at night—but not his cravat.

  “Anyway, I’m pretty sure these empanadas have sheep cheese too, or perhaps goat cheese. Mashed corn—it’s in season, you see, so it’s in everything—hardboiled mitema eggs, green onions. Baked until the cheese melts and the corn is creamy. A bit sweet, a bit spicy.”

  He took a big bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Not bad.”

  The kebabs were cold but still really good, with the mutton nearly coming apart in your mouth and nearly as juicy as the empanadas, and the peppers a bit sweet. And you could get free coffee and milk on the train, so I found nothing to compin about.

  Before going to sleep, Valentino checked the window frame, running his fingers all over it. “Not the strongest wards, but they should deter most attackers, especially in a moving vehicle. Unless they have something that belongs to Your Excellency. Or unless they’re hellishly persistent.”

  I propped my head on a fist and looked at him from the heights of my bunk. “That don’t sound very comforting to me.”

  He leaned on a bunkpost. “Does Your Excellency believe they could have a personal effect of his in their possession?”

  “Real doubtful.”

  “Well, without any of Your Excellency’s personal effects, they would need to sift through the entire desert, trying to figure out which one of its myriad living beings—not only humans—is the one they’re looking for. It’d be more efficient to find you in a crowd simply by looking around.”

  “I see. Sorry I bothered you.”

  He smiled. “Not in the slightest. My job is to keep Your Excellency safe. I can keep watch through the night if that’ll make Your Excellency rest easier.”

  “Never mind, I have a pretty light sleep. I don’t think I could fall asleep if you stayed up looking at me all night.”

  “Very well. See you tomorrow, Your Excellency.”

  I turned around to face the wall. “See you tomorrow, Sergeant Vargas.”

  Just as he’d said, his job was to keep me safe, nothing more. He wasn't on my side.

  The snake bracelet poked its flickering tongue out of my sleeve. I pulled my cuffs down so I could take a better look at it. Something else I couldn't get used to: carrying such an impressive work of art around my wrist at all times. The spellwork alone was incredible. If it was up to me I'd wrap it in a pair of socks and toss it to the bottom of my bundle, but Vanth wasn’t wrong. Despite myself, I had to admit that.

  One moment I was stretched out in my bunk, pondering how I’d ended up needing to trust that guy of all people, the next moment infinite stars rose above my head and the sea of rocky sands shone grey under the moonslight before me. If I paid attention, I thought I could hear an owl calling. The train was nowhere to be found.

  Yeah, the freedom of the open desert. In dreams, it couldn’t harm me. I could finally disappear into the quiet peace of the sands. It’d be nice if I didn’t have to wake up ever again.

  Something didn’t feel quite right, though. What could it be? The moons were in the right phase, to begin with. Every stone and cactus had its proper shadow. But the stars, the stars didn’t look like any consteltions I recognized. Only a dream? Or was this—somewhere else?

  Far ahead, in the vanishing point, a particle that wasn’t there a moment ago moved like a tiny leaf in the wind. If this was the real world, I’d say gleamwolves. These had to be rger, though. From where I stood they looked almost like ants. So far away, but they seemed to be getting closer. Probably faster than they should. If this still worked like a dream, they might stay in the same pce forever—or they might catch up with me in an instant. Could they reach me before I woke up? In a regur dream I’d wake up before anything bad could happen, but I wasn’t risking that.

  I pinched myself and received only the distant echo of pain, as if my body was trying to remember what that felt like. Fine, that answered my question. Didn’t mean I was safe.

  Maybe those things would never reach me, and I only thought they were coming closer because, well, they put me on edge. It was the way they moved that made me want to stay the hells away from them. As if their limbs bent weirdly. Too many limbs, perhaps? They had reminded me of ants, hadn’t they?

  Fuck. I could see their limbs more clearly than a moment ago. They were getting closer, and I wasn’t going to wait for them. I turned around and walked away. Before me was nothing more endless desert, but at least I was getting away. Right?

  I thought I heard a scraping noise, much like the sound those insectoid feet would make on the sand. I started running.

  Better not to think of those things catching me. Maybe they couldn’t harm me—but I wasn’t going to bet on that either. Last time I’d found myself in a situation like that, there’d been a river not too far away. If I was dreaming, though, maybe I could dream myself another? Maybe a dream river wouldn’t help—however, that was the only thing I could think of.

  Looking around, I couldn’t see any hints of running water. But I did hear something unexpected: the tuneless yowling of gleamwolves, coming from no direction in particur.

  I didn’t stop running, not that it was hard—at least I couldn’t get tired in a dream. The din continued undeterred, as if the gleamwolves were running along me. They’re very good at hiding themselves, but in such ft ground I should’ve been able to at least glimpse a few of them. In the real world, that is.

  “Maybe you can help me hide?” I asked them. “I promise to pay you back at the first chance. I promise I’ll always help a gleamwolf to the best of my ability as long as I live.”

  I could’ve sworn the yowling increased, though you could barely notice, it was so loud to begin with. And then I turned right and saw a rocky outcropping that wasn’t there before.

  Something came loping from the left—on four legs. Its fur glowed yellow-green with the friendly light of fireflies. Its tongue flopped from its mouth like an empty sock.

  The gleamwolf fell back, turning left again and howling as if it’d been stabbed. A few of its friends joined the chorus.

  I ran to the outcropping, picking up my pace. Almost instantly, however, I found myself reaching my destination, as if the ground had vanished under my feet. Good! It was my dream, so I had a right to cheat. The outcropping was almost as easy to climb.

  From my vantage position on top, I saw those things skitter in too many legs after the gleamwolves, who seemed to be mocking them with their calls, always easily keeping their distance. I was ignored.

  Dream or not, I’d made a deal, and I’d better keep it unless I wanted to risk something worse than those things befalling me. That didn’t worry me, though. I wasn’t dumb enough to promise something I couldn’t deliver.

  But that was for another time. There were no gleamwolves left, and none of those creatures either. I wasn’t in a rush to wake up. Maybe I could even find something useful. I couldn’t see anything around me other than the rocks I stood on, so I might as well inspect them. Not far from my feet, an opening yawned into the earth. I kneeled down and stuck an arm inside. Only air no matter how far I reached. A cave?

  The opening, barely big enough for me, looked too small for those creatures to squeeze through, so at least I wouldn’t be locked in with them. And the interior was probably empty. Probably. I slipped in, feet first, easier than I expected.

  I dropped down, easily nding on my feet. At the same time, my surroundings became light enough to see, though I couldn’t find any source of illumination. Nothing more than an empty cave. The opening I’d crawled through was too far above to reach—but then, I wasn’t pnning on leaving the same way I’d come in. If I’d gotten into this entire situation by falling asleep, it stands to reason I could leave by waking myself up. And Valentino wouldn’t let me oversleep for long, so I wasn’t worried.

  Something about this belly of the mountain gave me a weird feeling. Not bad, just weird. It didn’t look entirely natural, that’s what felt off about it. Someone had carved steps on the rock, old enough they had faded at the edges and cracked here and there. Seeing how I had nothing better to do, I followed the steps down.

  They led me into a vast cave. Far, far too vast to fit into those outcroppings. I couldn’t even see the roof above my head. In fact, if I squinted I thought I could see clouds up there. Right in front of me there was a path, zigzaging up toward the opposite wall; at both sides, empty air. I followed the path, because why not, and as I did I realized I wasn’t alone.

  The darkness was full of creatures. Some of them were alight with their own bright-colored lights, some had eyes that glowed in the dark—many of them. Some of them crawled along the walls in their pseudopods, some flew over my head in leathery wings. I could attempt to put a name at some of those—that one was like a caiman, I suppose, if caimans had long necks and an abundance of legs, and that one was like a centipede if centipedes could grin—but I didn’t see the point. Too many carapaces gleamed iridiscent, nails clicked chitinously, scales fred and fins spread and fiments swept. Most of them ignored me, but others stared at me, and I saw intelligence there. Maybe not human intelligence, but intelligence all the same.

  None of them made the slightest attempt to threaten me, so I continued my way up. One descended down a fiment of something that looked like spider’s web and stuck out their ropelike tongue at me. I stuck out my tongue at them. Could’ve sworn there was an amused gleam in their crown of eyes, but before I could be sure, they had already descended far into the darkness beneath.

  As I reached the end of the path, where solid ground spread before me, something bubbled up from that emptiness: liquid becoming solid, pin rock becoming shining obsidian. It shaped itself into a throne. The throne fanned itself open, like a huge bird spreading its wings, and I found myself face to face with someone sitting there. A human, at that.

  “Um,” I said.

  Vanth sat with his legs primly crossed at the ankles, head resting on one closed fist. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “No, not really. I should ask why you're naked.”

  broccolifloret