He motions at Lucien, and Lucien approaches the table carefully. Lysulli’s face falls, and they snaps their eyes accusatorially to us, as if asking why didn’t you tell me he was a prince in the first place?

“He has the look of a d’Malvane,” an ancestor agrees in a birdy, high-pitched wheeze as they look Lucien over.

“Do we have time to entertain him?” another ancestor asks in a guttural growl. “He offers nothing. Vetris is lost, their armies ravaged, and so shall we be if we do not finalize these battle plans.”

One of them scoffs. “We are in the spiral, but not so entrenched that we are empty of common manners for foreign royalty.”

“Welcome, then, Lucien of House d’Malvane,” the head ancestor announces. “You bring us information?”

“What is this ‘spiral’ they keep talking about?” I whisper to Yorl.

He leans in, whiskers tickling my cheek. “It’s what they call the eternal fight against the valkerax. Everything goes to the spiral. Everyone who dies returns to the spiral. And so on.”

“That explains the decor,” I whisper back, staring at the massive helix of carved emerald around the door.

Lucien looks over at Malachite, and then bows to the council. “Your Honors,” he starts. “I would gladly share my knowledge, but I fear for Malachite’s safety. Would you consider sparing him his punishment?”

The head ancestor shifts in his pool of a cloth robe. “Human word holds little sway in the Dark Below, Your Highness. Our laws are our laws, subject to no royal favors.”

“Outcasts must be disposed of, lest they rot the spiral!” An ancestor’s wrinkly fist beats the stone table.

The birdy-voiced ancestor speaks up. “Consider this, fellows; they bring a Farspear-Ashwalker with them—a great scholar who aided us many times before with the valkerax.”

All eyes flicker to Yorl, his mane flaring a little in stress or pride—I can’t tell. He really does look like Muro. The birdy-voiced ancestor smiles, face melting into a pool of wrinkles.

“If Farspear-Ashwalker’s information justly aids the spiral, as it has before, will we not consider mercy for a defector this once?”

There’s a stretched quiet, the ancestors looking to and from one another. They murmur, but not in whispers—far, far lower than a whisper. A breath. I can’t hear a single thing beyond the slight hiss of air, but I’m sure with their long ears, they hear one another’s words perfectly well.

Malachite shakes his head at the prince. “Don’t worry about it, Luc. I’ll be fine. Just tell ’em.”

“I won’t let them kill you, Mal,” the prince insists.

“Me either,” I agree.

“I came here figuring it’d happen.” Malachite’s voice turns to granite. “Just tell ’em. We don’t have time to sit here and stop everything just for me.”