Berganza was just setting a tray, a silver-framed antique in little legs, inside the circle.

He’d stay there waiting primly until I took a sip, something he seemed to pass of as a professional desire to make sure everything moved according to my wishes, but I suspected was more of a sense of pride in the kitchen staff’s abilities. Whichever one, I shouldn’t keep him waiting. Lately I’d been drinking a lot of green tea with pineapple and vanilla—refreshing. The kitchen staff had included a handful of almond and chocolate chip cookies—bribing me with my favorites—and two sandwiches—salami and feta cheese—cut in perfect triangles. They worried I didn’t eat enough, you see. Especially in a silver noon, though regular nights wouldn’t prevent me from leaving before dinner and returning at a ludicrous hour.

After relaying him my thanks to the kitchen staff, I reminded Berganza to check in on me after breakfast was served. If I hadn’t come down by then, either I’d be out handling another case of necromancy, or—I'd have fallen asleep. At least there’s no risk of sleeping through a necromantical emergency, unpleasant as it is to be awakened by one.

Berganza had already transpassed the door—as he wasn't carrying anything, he had no need to open it—before I summoned him back and asked him to bring me something.

He returned a cookie later with an ivory jewel box that might've been older than the Protectorate. After a moment of searching, I located the pair of matching golden lockets I was looking for. I enclosed my half of the hair spell in one of them and wore both around my neck.

A bracelet in the shape of a silver snake blinked its green tourmaline eyes at me. It tasted the air with a flickering tongue. I reached my hand out and let it crawl around my wrist. Azul would likely find an use for this one, too, though I’d rather he didn’t have the chance.

Berganza suspected enough of what had happened to be concerned. No doubt he would’ve demanded an explanation if he wasn’t such a professional.

“The Megarchon has made her move. She's summoned a missing great-grandson to the capital. Someone wants him dead before arrival.”

Berganza thought it was best to wait and see what happened.

“It’d be much easier, but there's two issues with that. First, I must protect him.”

According to Berganza, my sense of honor was either outdated or ahead of its time.

“Oh, really?” I looked at him over my cup of tea. “You of all people should know that even if you can't live by your word, you can still die by it.”

Berganza glowed with wounded pride.

“Let us leave that business behind, shall we? Second, I must find out what the Megarchon intends.”

Berganza didn't think her intentions boded anything good for the great-grandson—or most other people, but that was to be expected.

Being both in my employment and already dead, he could afford to speak ill of the Megarchon.

“He's smart enough to know it, and therefore, to realize it’s in his own advantage to work with me.”

My argument didn’t entirely convince Berganza. Some people can’t be saved, and when they’re going to be more trouble than they’re worth, you should cut your losses. The earlier the better.

“He'll do as I say. He must, if he's to survive. This is the chance I need. The current Megarchon won't live half a decade longer. The Imperium hasn't been quickened. The heirs are ready to tear themselves apart.”

A laughter like silver bells rang in my mind.

This time, Berganza had to let my argument stand.

“When the time comes, take care of Little Master. That's all I ask of you.”

He left. I finished my tea. Some time later, Berganza came to fetch the tray, but I didn’t notice; as the senior staff member, he prided himself on looking after me when I used the portal room. Every once in a while I stood and stretched, but mostly I sat still and listened to the Underworld. Time passed slowly, as it always does when I’m restless. Morning had broken, but I was sheltered from it. Soon it’d be time for breakfast. I’d wait for Berganza to return and confirm I wanted another cup of tea, this time with a pile of freshly baked pastries the size of a quail’s egg, drizzling honey and filled with homemade jam.

A distant feeling clashed against my mind, soft but unmistakable. Not the echo of one of my own memories, and not a flare of magic echoing toward the Underworld either, but someone else’s mind rippling through the dreamvoid.

help

Not a call of distress. Too low, exhausted, and hopeless for that. It was the kind of pleading that comes from someone who’s given up on trying to escape,

help, help

repeated as if the words held no meaning anymore.

Only one living person held my essence, so that I could feel his distress across time and space. I doubted he’d want to see me; this was likely a nightmare, quite possibly just a regular nightmare incapable of causing him any harm. But in the chance it wasn’t, however small that chance might be? I was entitled to clear out any doubts.

He might not believe it justification enough, but my own life was on the line, so his opposition wouldn’t hold weight.

…Still, I should be careful not to barge in. Minds are very private; dreams wander into places the conscious self isn’t aware of. I could very easily regret what I was about to do.

A single thought led me through the dreamvoid. Before me appeared a small figure, shining out of the darkness.

Ah. Of course he glowed with his own light.

He was Azul Mamani indeed, but not the Azul Mamani I’d met earlier that day. Though he’d curled himself up on a ball, his legs held up before him like a barrier, his shoulders shaking in silence, it was clear he looked half his real age.

A memory for him too, then. But unlike me, he couldn’t tell this was only a memory. He didn’t even know there was a way out.

If I thought it was even remotely a good idea, I would’ve liked to look the same age as he did, and go sit next to him. Maybe he’d like having someone to talk to. It could be a way of making friends, I supposed.

Of course I couldn’t do that.

“Everything’s fine,” I said.

His head whipped up. Too late, he remembered to scrub the tracks of his tears off of his face. I didn’t need to feel his anger radiating against me, but nevertheless he broadcasted it, far louder and clearer than his distress had been. An improvement, I supposed.

“Go away!” He clutched his legs protectively.

“You summoned me.”

“No I didn’t.”

I kneeled so that our eyes would be closer, though there was no ground beneath us. “You’re not a child anymore. This is only a dream. Think about it and you’ll realize I’m telling you the truth.”

“Really?” He sounded skeptical at first, but then, his frown relaxed into a new understanding. “You’re right.”

He stood up smoothing his shirt out, now in the adult shape he belonged in. I did the same.

Azul wasn’t upset or angry anymore; the tide of strong emotion that’d drawn me to him had ebbed. His heart-shaped face looked so sweet; his profile, with his convex nose and dark eyelashes, so elegant. I wanted to hold him on my lap, resting his head over my heart, and breathe the scent of his soft coffee-colored hair. I wanted to strip him naked and sink my teeth on every morsel of soft flesh hidden by his clothes.

He frowned at me. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really? Enlighten me.”

He grinned, and lifted his hands to his shirt buttons, and popped one open.

“You seem to be mistaken.” Maybe he too had picked up on my emotions through the dreamvoid, but I was quite good at dampening them, so I felt confident in putting up a bluff.

“Liar.”

For an instant, we stood at an impasse.

There it was again! That gleam in his eyes again, if only for an instant: that gleeful defiance, so much sooner than I’d hoped to see it.

Lovers like those were always my favorites. The ones that must be peeled with exquisite care, so that the soft trembling flesh inside tastes all the sweeter. Any wait was worth it, to bring a man like that to his knees.

“Still,” I said, “you summoned me.”

“I don’t even know what this place’s supposed to be.” He looked around. The nothing remained nothing. “Is this my mind? Pretty sure I have way more interesting shit going on.”

“No. You can’t enter someone else’s mind. This is the dreamvoid.”

“Well, that explains nothing. Wait. I suppose the dreamvoid is what connects dreams to the Underworld?”

“That’s the simplest explanation I can provide. Give me one moment and I’ll improve on our surroundings.”

A neutral setting seemed best. A beach sounded good to me, like in southern Innel-Xel, with white sands and a bright turquoise sea and monochrome seabirds darting through the sky. Some people find seabirds an irritant, but I’ve always found their cries oddly comforting; they mean a place is a living one. I figured out Azul might feel similarly.

He looked around, hands on his pants pockets, and raised his eyes to the illusionary sun, which, being illusionary, could be looked at directly without harm to yourself.

“Not bad.”

“Thanks. Now listen: you must keep the spell with my essence on your person at all times. If I hadn’t been focusing on the Underworld, I would never have heard you through the dreamvoid.”

He stood very straight. Not that it could make any difference, seeing how this wasn’t the physical world. Also, it wouldn’t make a difference in the physical world either. He barely reached up to my chin. Wasn’t that just ridiculous? As ridiculous as it was delightful. I could fit him right in the space inside my arms, as if he was made to be there.

“I didn’t mean to summon you.”

Of course he'd say that. I believed him, too. Deep down he might’ve hoped someone would come, mistaking his dreams for reality, but all the layperson knows about entering dreams is that it has something to do with the Underworld and it’s highly illegal. Not quite necromancy, but not any more acceptable.

"I should remember to be more forthcoming with you," I said.

"Yeah!"

"So let me be forthcoming now: if the necromancer still intends to target you, they might try to strike through the dreamvoid next. Keep that spell with you, so that I can tell if you’re in any distress, and call me the second you feel unsafe.”

He looked into the roiling waves. "So you can show up in my dreams at any time?" 

"Only when you feel yourself threatened."

“I wasn’t threatened earlier.”

“I felt a call for help and didn’t wait to see what happened.”

"Hmm. So you shouldn't be able to start rattling around my skull in normal conditions?”

"Of course not. I mean, I couldn't do that anyway. What a strange metaphor. Invading someone's dreams is much harder than you might think. And look, I know it'll upset you, so I won't do it."

Though he nodded politely, I knew he wasn't that convinced. If I thought shaking him down would help get my message across, I would've done that.

"I'll be leaving now. Keep the spell in your person at all times."

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t care to die.”

I returned to the physical world as easily as I’d left it. For a few moments, my eyes remained closed as I focused on my own breathing. Very little time had passed. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know Berganza had come to inquire after breakfast. He wouldn’t stop pestering me in his subtle way until I went down and ate something.

About five hours left.