The Comfort Of The Knife

“Where’re we going?” I asked.

We’d just stepped off our third cable car transfer, and were deep in the international district within Brightgate proper. Grand skyscrapers towered to the point that the streets were in an eternal shade—cool with a breeze that picked up speed as it snaked about the buildings. Around us was the diversity of modern man that reminded me of the station.

From our stop it was only a few blocks before we arrived at the Tower of Peace and Concord, or as Secretary put it, the Diplomat’s Dive. The building was avant garde in its construction as portion after portion of the building rippled into a different architectural style. Endlessly shifting its exterior like an octopus testing out new colorations. A side-effect of how the entire building was spatially expanded to allow for as much room as was needed to accommodate its guests.

Frankly, the whole place was intimidating, but Secretary entered with an eye toward dominance that failed to recognize anything—especially a building—as above them. I followed close behind as we crossed the sunshine-hued lobby with its conversational pits and marble floors. The elevators were in the back, but rather than an up or a down button there was just a clearance scanner and a keypad for someone with the proper clearance to punch in the number coded to the guest’s room.

Apparently Secretary had the proper clearance, as they produced a small rectangular prism of sunshine yellow glass and held it to the scanner while punching in seven digits. The elevator doors parted, and we stepped inside.

Its walls and floors were mirrors that repeated ourselves infinitely in all dimensions. I watched as a thousand thousand me’s took in Secretary’s endless reflections. Noted the way their eyes just barely slid toward me and my infinity. I smiled. They looked away from me, but in one of the endless them’s I caught the playful crook of a smile of their own.

It was only a few seconds of a wait, and then the elevator’s doors opened as we stepped out into a bluish-green forest whose leaves shook in a silent not-breeze. The floor—the forest floor—was soft and loamy. Almost bouncy, and the child in me couldn’t help but jump. Only to find myself floating up, and up into the weightless air. My head tilted back in glee as I beheld the void of space painted in nebula hues of purples, blues, and greens with Stars that felt familiar, or teasing upon familiar. Then I descended from my hop’s apogee down toward the loamy floor.

I swallowed nothing, and looked down at my arms—I could see the bright metal musculature of my spirit. Secretary didn’t care much to humor my astonishment, and passed me by leaving a smoky trail of their Phantasmal musculature. When I didn’t move, they looked back with a quirked brow.

“She already knows we’re here, little brute,” they said. “No need to get cautious now.”

“It’s not caution. Just,” I said. “It’s interesting to know what your musculature type is.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who thinks your musculature means anything?”

I shrugged as I had no real stock in the timeless debate. “Not really, but sometimes it's uncanny how much one’s type can match someone.”

In another low-gravity hop I landed beside Secretary. Gestured at their phantasmal shape—translucent, yet a bit smoky, a haze of sorts.

“A Phantasmal spy that roams from assignment to assignment. It fits perfectly.”

“And here, a thick-headed brute that’s a Metallic. Oh the stereotypes we fill.”

Secretary pushed on ahead, and I followed as we winded beneath the trees. Their blue-green leaves luminescent in the starlight they bounced down toward the ground. I’d never seen trees like them before, or blue loam that belonged out of a fairy-myth.

“What kind of person lives here?” I asked.

“No one of this terrestrial world,” Blotomisc said.

I looked up to find him suddenly walking beside Secretary. It’s head was a churning ferro-fluid ball that hovered above the collar of a long robe with the brocade embroidery of a human brain unspooling across his chest. Psychedelic threads of collar seeping from within the embroidered wrinkles of the organ. It was a gorgeous robe that felt like it belonged in one of Mom’s old court drama shows that she’d saved from during the Changeover.

“You don’t have my dad’s face,” I said.

Blotomisc’s “head” churned in a manner that suggested a confused tilt of the head.

“I thought you disapproved?” he asked.

“I did. I do, but that never stopped you.”

“Of course it didn’t, I told him not to comply with it,” Secretary said. “I needed to be sure you were mentally tough, little brute, and not just a bundle of physical capability.”

“So now it’s over?” I asked.

Secretary smirked, “Of course not. No, Blotomisc has to assume his unmodded appearance because of who we’re meeting.”

“And that is?” I asked.

Blotomisc answered, “A Nightlord.”

The term whistled through my ears but failed to catch a tune.

Secretary said, “You don’t have to know what it is. It’s just a moonie term.”

It was then that the trees quivered, and the non-air breeze became a voice of solid admonishment that pressed down on my spirit.

“#404, don’t go insulting my culture you grav-born slut,” a cheery youthful voice declared.

We eventually crossed the treeline to arrive in a glen illuminated by purple bioluminescent flowers. On a picnic blanket the size of my residence suite, reclined a four-armed ten-foot tall woman with silver skin. A single ebon horn curved down toward the smooth purple metal plate helmet that covered her face, flowed down her neck in stacked segments, to a gorgeous gorget before becoming hidden by a fuzzy coat that teased the curves of her body. Stopping just short of her ebon hooves. This was the Nightlord.

“Hey, #404, we didn’t expect to see you,” called one of the four secretaries already present and sipping mimosas beneath the stars.

“I had to pick up my charge,” Secretary—#404—said. “So, unnie, you willing to dress her up?”

The Nightlord tilted her head. “Hmph, you know I hate to work last minute,” she said.

#404 countered, “Unnie, you hate to work, period.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she sang. “I’m not meant to work at all. Ugh, talking to me like this as if I'm not a Nightlord.”

She banged her fist against the ground which rippled beneath our feet depositing us into the air. We hovered briefly in the low-gravity before returning to the ground.

“Um, what’s a Nightlord?” I asked with a step forward.

She tossed her head as if throwing a mane of thick hair behind her shoulder.

“Ugh, I’m sorry. These rude secretaries just throw me from all decorum,” she said. “Can one of you do proper introductions seeing as we lack a herald right now.”

The secretaries finished laughing, and a different one than who called out to—and named—#404 stood up. They were composed in the sleek lines of a white faille suit. Whose sharpness matched the extremity of their cheekbones and the narrowed slit of their eyes.

“I can do the honors, unnie,” they said to her.

“You’re always such a dear, #225.”

#225 pulled a sorc-deck from their pocket. Slid their thumb across as they projected two screens. Then cleared their throat in a gently practiced manner.

“Welcoming the examinee-class probationary Lodgemember, Nadia Temple. Inheritor of no factional titles, but famed for her deeds that have won her epithets recognized by the Brightgate branch of the Summoner’s Lodge. These include: The Starshine Beast, Slayer of Lurkers, and the Explodo-Bitch.”

“The Explodo-Bitch,” I whispered.

#404 whispered back, “You made a lot of paperwork for a lot of secretaries.”

#225 continued, “Her link is that of the soldiery, and her Court is declared as Revelation. Though that last bit goes unverified or recognized by the Lodge.”

“I’ll recognize and verify it,” the Nightlord said. “I’d know a cousin anywhere. Speaking of she’s being really rude right now.”

The Nightlord crawled in the fashion of stalking predator toward me and #404. In truth, just me, as #404 hastily circled away from me toward their fellow secretaries without comment from the Nightlord. Who reached out with her hand, ignored my now native resistance to Sorcery, and violated the inner sanctity of my spirit. Sifting through its fibers in search of Sphinx, found her, and evicted her out from within myself. It only took moments, and then suddenly, dangled by the scruff of her neck, was Sphinx. Held up like a treasure found between couch cushions.

“Tsk tsk, really cousin you should know better than to try hiding anything in front of a Nightlord.”

Sphinx’s eyes were wide as she beat a rapid rhythm with her bowing head—eager to not offend the power before her anymore than she’d already done. I shot a glare toward #404, you couldn't have said anything? Despite the anger wafting from me, their expression was innocent and mocking yet bright despite the circumstance. They shrugged as if to say, now why would I, little brute. Then took a sip of a newly claimed mimosa.

“Apologies my lady, but I was recuperating. My summoner, Nadia, died recently and I was forced into dormancy. I’m still healing from it.”

The admission was no surprise to the secretaries—they were all called into overtime due to the attack—but it did move one of them, #404. It was a nigh-imperceptible raising of the brow. A glance to Blotomisc as they no doubt shared with him some telepathic communique. Then a reassembling of their poise and laissez-faire regard to the world and its motions.

On the Nightlord the news hit harder. Their energy was quiet and withdrawn as they returned Sphinx to the ground. I made no delay to pull her into my arms in a quick hug. A mental check-in shared between the two of us about how safe we actually felt in front of something that could violate me—us—with as much effort as rooting about for change.

“I’m sorry,” the Nightlord said. “That’s like, such a perfectly fine reason. So, um, seeing that your summoner isn’t dead…”

I interjected, “According to my friend it wasn’t a true death. Only two out of three: heart and brain.”

“Oh,” she said, “then you’re both very lucky. Now here’s me breaking decorum. Finish her introduction #225, then mine, and after we can get Nadia here fitted for the ball.”

“You’ll do it?” I asked.

She shimmied, rallying the party energy from earlier. “Of course,” she said. “If I’m going to stick my hand where the moon’s light fails to land then I might as well apologize with my labor.”

#225 looked up from their sorc-deck, “Um, that’s it for her I’m pretty sure.”

The Nightlord leaned back on her thighs as she shook her head.

“I’m sorry, cousin,” she said to Sphinx, “there’s much humans fail to see.”

Sphinx chuckled, “Even when it stands before them barefaced.”

“#225, you should write it down that Nadia here is a princess.”

“By blood?” #225 asked.

“Providence,” the Nightlord said.

#225 asked, “#404 why isn’t this in her file?”

“Some things are better kept as secrets, right unnie?” I asked.

The Nightlord giggled and pantomimed locking her non-existent lips with an imaginary key. #225 shook their head in disbelief, but #404’s gaze that locked on me was just barely misty from that emotionless sensation of hurt. Their eyes flicked about in search of the feeling’s source—a surprise to even them I think—before once more assuming their proper face.

“Well, then I guess it’s just unnie’s titles left.” #225 said, “And with the welcome of princess Nadia, it is my honor to introduce you to this lovely hotel’s pre-eminent guest, Ferilala Nu-zo, unbonded Earl of the 58th Lunar Palace, Black Herald of the Procellarum constellation, and noble blade of the Mottled Queen, Sovereign of Night and queen of the moon.”

Another secretary chimes in this time, “With other such glorious titles as: the Soap Opera Glutton.”

A different secretary adds, “Oh oh, the Celestial Layabout.”

#404 finishes, “And Patron Extraordinaire to secretaries everywhere.”

“The joke titles were so unnecessary,” Ferilala Nu-zo said. “Now she’ll think I’m some loser.”

The one who started the listing of joke titles said, “And even if you were, we’d all still love you.”

“Thanks #375.”

“I’m sorry, but how are you unbonded?” I asked.

Ferilala Nu-zo wobbled her head, “It’s not really an interesting story. My summoner, she’d summoned me back when she was just a scribe for the constellation. Together we graduated to a position of true importance as we’d finally gained the link of Earl. Unfortunately, once you’re important then you’re important. My summoner was sent here as an advance party—”

#225 said, “The palaces were eyeing Brightgate for the possibility of invasion, again.”

“And I’ve told you it was a diplomatic mission,” Ferilala Nu-zo said, entirely uninterested in resurrecting an old debate. “Either which way, we came down here and were betrayed. My summoner suffered a ‘two-out-of-three’ sort of death. Brain and spirit.”

She continued, “Luckily for us—me, mainly—she was struck low here in our hotel suite. I’d destroyed the assassin, and realized that I wasn’t discorporating quite that fast. So I made this place into a territory for myself. Rather doable considering the entire hotel is just a series of stacked Conceptual spaces. Got the conditions just right that as long as I don’t leave the room I’ll stay in reality.”

#404 said, “Lodgemaster Khapoor didn’t want to deal with the fallout between Brightgate and the palaces, so unnie gets to stay here for as long as she wants.”

When I let out a breath I realized how tight I’d gripped Sphinx. The story was a little close to home, and my own mind couldn’t help but imagine what if my sort-of death was just a little different. Sphinx was just a soldier, not strong enough to make a territory on her own, and I wasn’t important enough to justify letting her keep the place. She’d discorporate despite any attempt to hold on. Then I imagined what if she could hold on, and that wrung my heart of its blood in the process. A life—a generally immortal life—stuck forever in one hotel suite. Unable to cross something as mundane as a door threshold without being shredded to pieces by reality and tossed back to whence she came. It made me pity the Nightlord.

#225 added, “With the only stipulation being that she helps out now and then. With the help mainly being keeping us looking good.”

Ferilala Nu-zo shrugged, “I don’t have much else I can do. Besides, you all are so cute that it makes it worth it. Now, no more introductions and no more sad talk.”

The Nightlord stood, briefly towering above me and the rest of the secretaries, before leaping into the air and shrinking down to a more manageable five foot height—if you counted the horn she was five-foot-six. Once she’d floated back to the ground, she took my hand and guided me deeper into the glen. With a raise of one hand, the loamy earth surged upward forming smooth rounded steps of a dais not too dissimilar to the constructed one at the previous dress shop.

She shoo’d me with quick sweeps of her hands, and I climbed the steps leaving Sphinx at her “cousin’s” side. The secretaries walked over—drinks still well in hand, and apparently self-refilling. Under all the attention I couldn’t help but fidget. Their expressions were bright with mirth, but still retained the sharpness necessary to be the eyes and ears of the Lodge.

#375 yelled, “Take your shirt off.”

“No, that’ll come later,” Ferilala Nu-zo corrected to the cheer of the secretaries and #404’s smirk. “First, I want to know your intentions with your outfit. Is this just a fun night? Are we trying to like network? Or is tonight something a little more romantic date-y?”

She tilted her head toward #404 with the last option. A gesture that caused the secretaries to snicker at their expense while they choked on a sip of their mimosa. Face already hot as they looked to me to set things right. Though I let the moment drag for at least two more seconds—I’d wanted #404 to taste some of the sweet agony they enjoyed plunging me into.

“There’s nothing between us, but work,” I said. “They’ve made that very clear.”

#404 nodded with only the faintest grimace from the blunt trauma of my statement.

“Though my goals tonight are still romantic,” I said. “My ex and I had a fight—mainly my fault—and right now I don’t want to let this distance between the two of us settle. I need an outfit that screams, ‘You know you don’t want to let this go,’ with as much passion as how I don’t want to let her go. Especially not to that short asshole, Ina.”

I inhaled after my emotive ramble. The secretaries were silent, and Sphinx was placid as she gave the slightest tilt of her head as if to say, it’ll only be us in the end, so why be jealous?

#404 said, “You’re trying to ‘get her back,’ little brute? Your past actions made me think you’d accepted you were on divergent trajectories.”

Their words came out the side of their mouth. A quick jab of a knife I’d not expected them of all people to pull. It was Ferilala Nu-zo who treated the proverbial wound #404 sought to make.

“Well I’m glad she’s not,” she said. “It’s so boring to make an outfit for someone that simply wants to look cute or sophisticated. The Night lives for drama, and a selfish motive is the soil that produces the most succulent fruit.”

#404 scoffed, and caught the Nightlord’s attention in the process. She turned to the secretary, and gave her a polite yet potent hip-check. Spilling the remnants of #404’s drink.

“Oops, sorry about your mimosa, but like let’s be happy it’s not your tea. Though I’m always willing to show my work if you don’t trust me.”

A chill swept through the glen as herald to a rushing tide of frigid darkness. The luminescence of the surrounding forest snuffed and buried deep below as a mere memory of light. Above was no painted nebula but instead the awful grandeur of a watching harvest moon. Red in the dried blood of some celestial murder. While its many craters opened to reveal legions upon legions of eyes—crescent slit and sly—that were hungry to see what #404 would say next.

Secretary placed their glass on the ground. It melted down into translucent fluid that was swallowed by the earth. They straightened their clothes and held up both hands in surrender.

“No need, unnie, I misspoke. Can you bring back the stars? I’d hate for you to work in a dour mood.”

Their voice was loose and unbothered. How many times have they done this song and dance with this Nightlord, I wondered. Enough times that after their words it was only a blink and everything was as it was before #404’s social gaffe.

Ferilala Nu-zo said, “Alls below, you’re so right. We don’t want you in some funeral gown do we?”

“No, unnie?” I asked intending it to be an answer. Though the way my body shook—shivered—I couldn’t help it. Though it was apparently good enough for her.

“Lovely, so I’m going to need you all to go try on your outfits while I get to work with Nadia here,” she said. “This one strikes me as the type who needs some privacy.”

Two rows of flowers crescendoed in brightness forming a walkway back through the trees to wherever the secretaries’ outfits for the ball were stored. Those with drinks to carry placed their glasses down—which guzzled down much like #404’s was—and ventured off between the trees.

“Not you, #404.”

The Nightlord’s finger pointed down at a position beside her opposite Sphinx. Though as much as it was a gesture toward where #404 was to be, it was a nail that pinned Secretary down with the reminder that where they stood, went, or even got to drink was entirely at her discretion. #404 followed the request expeditiously.

I’d seen Secretary wear many faces—most of them confident edging into cocky. Sometimes comedic, a harlequin laughing at the invisible joke which seemed to sit on my shoulders for how often it seemed like they were laughing at me. Yet I’d never seen them look truly as nervous as they did now. Even Blotomisc looked resigned—he may have lacked a face at that moment, but with how his head compressed down to a plate, little more than a line, you’d get the idea.

“Can I help you, unnie?” Secretary asked.

Ferilala Nu-zo giggled, “Little lesson cousin for when you graduate, that question right there is the only thing you want the help to ever say to their betters.”

Sphinx bowed but said nothing choosing instead to swear within their mind. #404 scowled at the Nightlord’s designation of them as “the help.” Not that the idea of being helpful was bad, but rather Ferilala Nu-zo had stressed what she meant using an Old World expression—albeit in a lunar accent—which roughly translated to, “servile non-person.”

“I’d say otherwise,” I declared.

“Really?” she asked. “On what grounds?”

“That hierarchies like that don’t belong in this world. My mother wouldn’t stand for it and neither do I.”

Mom had raised me on the right stories. Stories about the Au Pair Assassinations, where hundreds of young women slaughtered the political tyrants that tried to steal the future of the world for themselves by attempting to hide summoning. I’d learned of the maids whose chemical knowledge birthed the bombs which shattered the gates of nearly every cthonic commune populated by more Old World monsters. It was the “help” who were at the frontlines of the Changeover, and I wouldn’t see them—or #404—be besmirched.

“Your mother doesn't run my Court and never graced the moon. My Sovereign saw to that.”

“Then maybe I’ll finish her work.”

I stared down from the dais into the reflective depths of the Nightlord’s faceplate. It meant staring into myself—my eyes wide in fear but with an inviolable will to face my end. A daring smile taunting her to introduce me to it. It was a smile Mom practiced every day.

#404 rushed between us and propped themselves on two steps. While Blotomisc stood beside me, their body at ninety degrees in a spine severing bow.

“All apologies, my lady, but the summoner is new,” he said.

And #404 added, “Besides, it’d be improper for you both to not realize this as a moment of cultural exchange. Little brute, the Changeover was different for them. If hierarchy must exist, it’s in the unforgiving reaches of space.”

They turned to Ferilala Nu-zo and said, “And might I remind you, that us grav-born take those more derogatory Old World terms very seriously. You know better, and she’s sorry.”

The Nightlord slowly nodded as she backed up.

“Look at you, a princess already acting like a king and the servant—no, vizier—that’d apologize for their every misstep. You guys have like got to tell me how you met up sometime,” she said, her voice mutating from its prior haughtiness. “Sorry about that, cousin, I needed your emotional measurements.”

I asked, “My emotional measurements?”

“Yep, but sorry I had to get all ugly. Not every emotion arises from positive stimuli, and without a full picture I couldn’t possibly do you justice.”

“Secretary, did you know she was doing that?”

#404 muttered, “I should have. She did it to me when I was fitted.”

“That I did,” she said before turning to me. “You wouldn’t believe the colors within this one right here. Looks like boring grayscale, but turn up the saturation and—.”

“Are you done with me….unnie?” #404 asked.

She said, “Yes, yes, go get fitted with the others. I was able to sneak in some last minute alterations just now.”

#404’s eyes narrowed at the Nightlord as they realized something about just now. They glanced up at me with a hesitance to something—their expression not fully legible.

“Be good, little brute,” they said, before disappearing between the trees.

I followed their every step with my eyes until even the echo of them in the darkness had faded.

“My emotional measure?” I asked, still skeptical.

“Oh cousin,” Ferilala Nu-zo directed to Sphinx, “she’s so inflexible.”

“Nadia abhors games. Nothing more.”

“I don’t think that’s it. She’s the biggest player here after all. I mean, wanting to win her fiancee back with one hand and clutching tight around her new treasure at the same time,” Ferilala Nu-zo said, before turning to address me. “That’s being a greedy player, princess.”

“What new treasure?” I asked.

“Oh you’re so funny,” she said. “Hmm, I do worry about you when the game is called and you see who you’re playing against. It’ll break you utterly if it doesn’t kill you first.”

She stared at me with the reflection of my own face stretched in the curvature of her helm. My mouth, just barely open, ripped into a yawning cry for help. I looked away—unable to win the staring contest against the girl I saw in that reflection.

“What’s the next step?” I asked.

“Show unnie, a spell.”

“What does that have to do with my outfit?”

Ferilala Nu-zo no doubt rolled her eyes—Conceptual or otherwise—behind her helmet.

“Everything. Night is about the accentuation and obfuscation of things. Imagine, a lake at night with fireflies above it,” she instructed. “Their light is only so strong, too organic and weak for proper illumination, but strong enough that they can dye the black. With enough of them it’s like looking at the heat still lurking in a burnt piece of paper. You toss a rock, and then the world ripples. That’s what I do.”

“Okay, so am I the firefly or the lake?”

“This is a tough marriage you’ve struck, cousin,” she tossed to Sphinx. “You’re the memory, Nadia. And I’m going to help you construct the perfect frame for it, but to do that I needed your intent, and—.”

“My emotional measure,” I answered.

“Now you’re catching up. Yes, a measure gained by making you face yourself. Finally, I take a measure of your spirit and the Court which threads through it.”

“And you can get that with one spell?”

Ferilala Nu-zo chuckled behind their hand. “Of course, unless you already have a thing for your lovely unnie, and want to bare even more of yourself for me?”

“I’ll just have to trust you’ll get everything you need in one go.”

“Then pick a good spell. In fact, show me the spell you consider to be…”

Sphinx hurriedly said, “Cousin, don’t ask—.”

“The cornerstone of your relationship to Revelation.”

Her words had pushed my mind back in consideration. Tipping my consciousness down toward some place within myself—a room I’d not opened, but was always there since I’d met Sphinx. By her final word, I couldn’t hear Sphinx whine nor was I consciously aware of how the shadows stretched—even here in the Nightlord’s territory—to assume the silhouettes belonging to Sphinx’s upChain forms who raced to fall across my body in thick umbral bands.