“What is it?”
The winter man gave a small shrug. “I trust nothing of late.”
“Makes sense to me.”
Frost smiled and any tension between them was gone. Oliver started down the stairs, reminded of the time as a boy that he and his sister had climbed the endless steps of the Statue of Liberty in New York. He had descended perhaps a hundred steps before he realized that he had stopped covering his face as soon as they had left the sewer, and though the smell lingered in his clothes and his nostrils, for the most part it was gone. It only smelled cold down inside that strange tower of metal stairs.
And faintly of flowers.
At the bottom of what seemed like hundreds of stairs was yet another door, this one carved of light wood and flanked on either side by oil lamps in sconces. Gong Gong paused at the door and looked back up the way they had come as though counting heads. Then the lightning-eyed dragon bent over and seemed to whisper something to the wood, and the door swung open to admit them.
The chamber they entered was so entirely different from anything Oliver might have expected that he stood just over the threshold, staring stupidly at the room laid out before him. It was constructed like an outdoor courtyard, with a pair of marble fountains adorned with statues of angels, pure water cascading around them. The stone tiles of the floor were run through with rich mineral colors, like something in a villa in Tuscany, and all around the sides of the chamber, where sloping walls curved upward, there were gardens filled with wildflowers. It should have been impossible for such flowers to grow down there so far beneath the ground, so far from the sun, but this was Perinthia, after all. The smell of flowers was intoxicating.
There were torches set in to the walls, but there also came a wash of light from the ceiling high above that could not have been genuine sunshine but replicated it nearly enough.
On the other side of that quaint courtyard two pair of French doors were set in to a wall as though they led into a house, and Oliver thought that perhaps they did. Perhaps this was a home, far beneath the streets— the mansion of the Mazikeen. For some of those gathered in the courtyard must have been the sorcerers they had sought. There were half a dozen beings that Oliver could see and half that number were tall wraithlike creatures in gold-fringed black robes with an almost priestly elegance. They were impossibly thin and they moved with a fluid grace as though they were dancing underwater. Though their faces were hidden in the shadows of draping hoods, their hands were visible, and seemed ordinary enough save for their skeletal thinness and the length of their fingers. The flesh had a purplish tint, as though lightly bruised.
At the center of the courtyard, roughly between the two fountains, was a hand-carved mahogany table surrounded by only three chairs. None of the creatures in that underground sanctuary were seated, however. Two of the Mazikeen stood together as though in silent communication on the far side of the chamber and did not so much as glance up as the newcomers arrived. The third stood by the table and faced their three guests.
“Come,” Kitsune said, startling Oliver, for he had not even realized she had come back to get him.
There was no mischief in her eyes, only urgency. Her hood was thrown back, and in that strange subterreanean daylight she seemed oddly vulnerable. She nudged him with a shoulder and together they approached. Gong Gong flew ahead and landed at the center of the table. All of those gathered around it had turned to watch the approach of these new arrivals with cold curiosity.
The Mazikeen presiding over the group at the table bowed to Frost, and the winter man returned the gesture. Fear rippled through Oliver as he tried to peer beneath the wraith sorcerer’s hood. This creature did not look like an ally. It looked like something that would send him screaming up out of a nightmarish sleep.
“Frost,” the sorcerer said. “Kitsune. I am pleased that you were able to come to us. There is much to be done if any of us are to survive.”
“Jenny and Gong Gong saw to it that we found you,” Kitsune replied.
The Black Dragon of Storms snorted and the thunderclouds in his eyes seemed to roil with menace. “I was watching the door. That’s all. Don’t bring me into this.”
The Mazikeen made a short bow in response to this muttering, but otherwise ignored it. Its head moved, draped in that hood, and Oliver could feel the sorcerer studying him, taking his measure. He fought the temptation to stand taller, to force a grim expression onto his face.
“This is the Bascombe?”
Frost nodded, and Oliver realized that Kitsune and the winter man had flanked him, standing on either side as though presenting him for some kind of judgment. “Indeed. An ally, to whom I owe my life.”
Kitsune’s fingers brushed against his where he had his hand hanging at his side, and a rush of warmth swept through him, lending him strength to bear up under the sorcerer’s regard.
“Oliver Bascombe,” he said, inclining his head in respect.
“I am Mazikeen,” the creature said, confusing Oliver for a moment until it gestured toward the other two who seemed almost entranced together. “We no longer have names as you would understand them. We are all simply Mazikeen.”
But Oliver doubted there was anything simple about it.
Introductions followed. He had arrived with Jenny Greenteeth, Kitsune, Frost, and the troublesome Gong Gong. Aside from the Mazikeen, there were three others in that bizarre courtyard, all standing round the table.
One of them was an ocher-skinned man in loose, rough clothing with three bright blue feathers tied into his long hair. Though his clothes were more old European, his aspect was that of a Native American, and the feathers did little to dispel this impression. He was called Blue Jay, and Oliver faintly recalled stories he’d read in college surrounding this myth, about a devilish trickster and shape-shifter. Blue Jay said nothing to him when introduced.
Beside him was a wild-looking man who seemed not quite flesh and not quite wood, with small branches growing in a sort of crown around his head and tiny flowers and leaves on his face and exposed arms. He was tall enough— nearly ten feet— that Oliver would once have considered him a giant, but now he’d seen real giants and this creature was almost of ordinary height in comparison. The towering forest man had brown hair that hung halfway down his back and a beard that fell nearly to his knees. He wore only a single garment like a Roman toga, tied round his body with vines. The Mazikeen introduced him as Lailoken, of Scotland, and the forest man thrust his hand out with a cordial, if slightly crazed, grin. Oliver shook his head, pleased that at least one of them was willing to be friendly to a human being.
With all that he had seen, not least of which were the extraordinary and intimidating creatures in the courtyard of the Mazikeen, very few things surprised Oliver more than the final member of that rebellious troupe of Borderkind. He had been aware of her since the moment they entered and his curiosity was rampant. Her hair was like spun sugar and her diaphanous gown was the blue-white of Frost’s eyes. The gossamer fabric clung to her curves in breathtaking fashion.