“Kirana didn’t think so.”

Liaro said, “I’m already feeling a bit like some secret explorer. Think we’ll fall off the map of the temple basements all together? Uncover old artifacts? I’m hoping to find a cure for hangovers, myself.”

Ahkio’s arrival at Oma’s Temple incited a flurry of activity. With Elder Ora Gaiso dead in the attempted coup and Ora Almeysia banished, he found new faces occupying their places. Younger, less predictable Oras with unknown family connections. He had Caisa note their names. They would need to study them, find their weaknesses, and exploit family ties.

Late that night, he woke Liaro, Caisa, and Una, the gatekeeper, and gained access to the temple basements. The first floor below the temple were the baths, great stone basins of fresh water heated by the beating heart of the temple; low ceilings, steam, and luscious night-creeping plants ran all along the warm walls. Many of their flowers were in bloom, great white-and-violet fingers that filled the air with the smell of honey and roses.

The four of them carried flame fly lanterns through the cloying heat. When they dropped to the second level, the warmth was gone, replaced by a dry chill that reminded Ahkio that spring threatened to warm the world.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like people going down past the third basement level,” Una said as she cleared the bracken trap from the door leading to the third subfloor.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like loud voices,” Liaro said, “or butterflies. I expect she strangles kittens in her spare time.”

“You’re a rude boy,” Una said. She patted her nest of hair and huffed down the long corridor of storage rooms. The doors here were marked in old Dhai characters, labeling rooms for rice and rye storage, dried hasaen tubers and fiddleheads, honey and salted greens. When they reached the fourth level, Una refused to go any further.

“Did you ever go down here with Kirana?” Ahkio asked her.

“Kai Kirana only came down here by herself,” Una said. “You’ll pardon, but the former Kai was a strange bird.”

Liaro rolled his eyes. “Pots and kettles.”

Ahkio raised his lantern so he could see the look on her face. He saw fear more than cunning. “Wait here for us, Ora Una.”

Her chin trembled. “An hour, Kai. Then I call down the militia.”

Ahkio plunged ahead, Caisa at his heels, Liaro grumbling behind. The store rooms went on forever. When they reached the sixth floor beneath the massive temple, Ahkio told Caisa to wait in the stairwell.

“But Kai–”

“If we’re not back by the time your flame flies settle, have Ora Una call for Nasaka.”