“We’ll find you something,” said Feral, who was torn between wariness and awe of him.

He led Lazlo deeper into the citadel, giving him a rudimentary tour. “That way to the sinister arm,” he said, pointing left. Lazlo knew that sinister meant “left” in the language of heraldry, but something in Feral’s tone made him think the word applied in more ways than that, even before he added gruffly, “We don’t go there.”

He led the way to the dexter arm instead. It was a long corridor, sleek and tubelike. It curved to the right; Lazlo couldn’t see to the end. He realized that he was inside the seraph’s right arm.

They passed a door with a curtain strung across it. A pair of ghosts stood guard outside it. “Minya’s chambers,” said Feral. “They were Skathis’s, so they’re the biggest.”

Along the corridor were several more doors. Feral named them all as they went by. “Sparrow’s room. It was Korako’s before. Ruby’s was Letha’s. Here’s mine. It was Vanth’s. My father.” He said the word without feeling. At each door there were guards, and he continued to look past them. “And here’s Ikirok’s. No one uses it, so I guess it’s yours.”

His? Lazlo hadn’t thought as far as having a room here, of living here. His mind flashed to Sarai. He wanted to be where she was. As though Feral read the thought, he pointed ahead. “Sarai’s is next. The last one.” There was a kind of furtive curiosity in the younger man’s manner. He clearly wanted to ask a question, and finally he came out with it. “How do you know her?” he blurted. “How does she know you? When... how could you have possibly met?”

“In dreams,” Lazlo told him. “I didn’t know she was real until the silk sleigh, when she saved us.”

“That was you.” Feral hadn’t realized. He hadn’t gotten a good look that day, and of course, Lazlo had still been human. Shame flashed through him. Sarai had tried to persuade him to summon clouds so that the craft couldn’t reach the citadel, but he’d been too afraid to defy Minya. If it had been left up to him, Lazlo would be dead.

And if Lazlo was dead, he realized with a queasy lurch in his gut, they’d all have died last night. He swallowed down the sickening feeling. “But I didn’t think people could see her,” he said.

It was true. Normally, when Sarai entered a dream, she was an invisible presence there. For years she’d felt like a phantom. And then Lazlo. His first sight of her was emblazoned on his memory: a beautiful blue girl with wild red-brown hair and a slash of black paint from temple to temple, her blue eyes vivid as she stared at him with unmasked intrigue.

“I can see her,” he said. See her, touch her, hold her. Last night: the feel of her beneath him, her body full against him. She’d clasped his head with both hands, twining her fingers through his hair as he kissed a path down her throat. How real it had been—as real as anything that ever happened when he was awake.

“I wonder why,” said Feral. “Maybe it’s because you’re not human.”

“Can you see her?” Lazlo asked.

Feral shrugged. “Don’t know. She’s never come into my dreams. Any of ours. Minya forbade it.”

“And you obey her.”

Feral let out a short laugh. “Always,” he said. “Do you blame us?”

“Not at all,” said Lazlo. “She’s terrifying.”

Feral pushed aside the curtain in Ikirok’s doorway and motioned Lazlo to precede him. He did, thinking how the curtains—linen bedsheets rigged in place—were incongruous with the sleek design of the citadel. “There aren’t doors?” he asked.

“There were. The metal responded to touch, apparently. The Ellens say the doors could recognize those authorized to enter. But it all froze when Skathis died, and it’s been like this ever since.” He cocked his head to one side. “Maybe you could make them work again.”

Lazlo ran a hand down the edge of the doorframe. It was smooth, cool, and...waiting. He could feel the scheme of energies that governed it as surely as he could feel the metal itself, and he knew that he could make the doors work, that he could make the citadel fly, that he could bring this whole immense seraph to “life” as easily as he had awakened Rasalas.

“I could try,” he said, because to put his confidence into words felt arrogant.

“Well, later,” said Feral. He showed Lazlo to the dressing room. “Basically, if your thing is wearing twenty pounds of stiff jeweled brocade with fox skulls for epaulets and knife-tipped boots, today’s your lucky day.”

“Um,” said Lazlo, getting his first sight of a god’s wardrobe. “Not really.”

“In that case, there are underclothes.”

As the girls wore slips, so did Feral wear linen undershirts and cut-to-the-knee breeches. His were Vanth’s, and he showed Lazlo where to find Ikirok’s. The cloth was simple and very fine. “There are pajamas, too,” Feral said, holding up a silk sleeve in deep, shining crimson stitched with silver thread and seed pearls. “They’re a bit much.” He dropped the sleeve. “Have a look. There’s sure to be something that works.”

Lazlo had never imagined a day he’d be rummaging through a dead god’s closet, but then, it was far from the strangest thing to happen to him today. He didn’t fuss. He just pulled out a set of linen underclothes like Feral’s and held them up to himself.

“A bit short, maybe,” said Feral with a critical eye. “Skathis’s would probably fit you better.” Matter-of-factly, he added, “I suppose you’re his son.”

Lazlo almost dropped the clothes. “What?”

“Well, you have his gift, so that’s my guess. You could claim his things if you wanted. It’s not like Minya needs them. Gods, she hasn’t changed her clothes... ever. But today’s not really the day to go knocking on her door. So to speak. Since, you know, there are no doors.”

“I’ll make do,” said Lazlo.

“I wouldn’t expect any sisterly affection from her, but I suppose you’ve already gathered that.”

Again, Lazlo was stunned. “Sisterly...?”

Feral raised his eyebrows. “She’s Skathis’s daughter. So if you’re his son...” He shrugged.

Lazlo stared. Could it be true? Was Minya his sister? The idea floored him almost more than his transformation, and he didn’t properly hear the next several things Feral said to him. He had been a very small boy when he’d given up hope of ever having family, the monks having spared no effort in impressing on the boys how utterly alone they were in the world. Lazlo had channeled all his yearning into an equally impossible dream: going to the Unseen City and finding out what happened there. Well, here he was. So much for impossible. Had he found family, too?

“Bring those,” said Feral, gesturing to the clothes. “I’ll show you where the bath is.”

They met Ruby and Sparrow in the corridor, coming from Sarai’s room with her white slip in hand, and they all walked back together. A shyness overtook them in Lazlo’s presence. Even Ruby was subdued. A couple of times she almost blurted out questions, but stopped each time, and Feral and Sparrow were surprised to see her blushing.

For his part, Lazlo would have welcomed an opening. These three were Sarai’s family, even if not by blood, and he wanted them to like him. But he had scarcely more practice at conversing with strangers than they did, and couldn’t think where to begin.

In the gallery, Sparrow parted from them to carry the slip to Sarai, while Ruby went with Feral and Lazlo to help prepare the bath. It was awkward for Lazlo, being catered to—until, that is, he watched Feral hold up his hands and summon a cloud out of nothingness, right above the big copper drum that served them as a tub. The air grew dense, carrying with it a thick jungle scent, and for a span of minutes the only sound was rain pelting metal.

Lazlo smiled at the wonder of it. “I’ve never seen a trick like that before.”

“Well, it’s nothing like your gift,” said Feral, humble. “It’s only rain.”

And here, Ruby should have jumped in to disagree. It’s tacky to sing one’s own praises; your friends ought to do it for you. Your lover absolutely should, but Ruby was clueless, her attention all on Lazlo, so Feral was forced to add, “Though of course we’d have all died ages ago if we didn’t have water.”

“Water’s important,” agreed Lazlo.

“So’s fire,” said Ruby, not to be outdone. She held out her hands, and both kindled into fireballs in an instant. It was a flashier show than she usually put on when heating bathwater. Instead of pressing her hands against the side of the tub, which would have done perfectly well, she plunged them into the water itself, sending up great jets of steam where fire met water, and swiftly bringing it to a boil.

“Are you trying to cook him?” asked Feral, producing another cloud. There was no jungle scent to this one. It filled the room with a clean, cold tang, dosed the hot water with a flurry of snow, and brought it down to a reasonable temperature.

Ruby, her lips pressed thin, summoned a spark to her fingertips and flicked it, unseen, at Feral’s rear end. He managed to stifle his yelp, and favored her with a glare.

“This is amazing,” said Lazlo, marveling. “Thank you both.”

“It’s not much,” said Feral, one hand to the back of his neck. “This used to be a meat locker. It isn’t very fine. There are baths in the rooms, but they don’t work anymore....”

“This is excellent,” Lazlo assured him. “Until I came to Weep I never had a proper bath in my life. In winter, when I was a boy, we had to chip the ice off the bucket before we could wash.” He gave Ruby a smile. “You’d have been very welcome there. Well,” he reconsidered, “except that the monks would have thought you were a demon.”