Page 64 of Tidal Creatures

“And how close they are to claiming the City,” says Roger, rather more direly. “We don’t want the Impossible City. I don’t know much about the place, because I’m not supposed to. No one who exists in this world is supposed to know too much about that one. No one travels between them.”

“No one but the Moon,” says Erin, looking to Chang’e.

Feeling obscurely as if she’s just been pulled from audience to actor after a welcome chance to catch her breath, Chang’e nods. “Every night,” she says. “That’s why there are so many of us. Every night, we go into the everything—the passage between this world and the outskirts of the Impossible City—and we take one more step up from our normal manifestation. We step into the sky, and we shine down on the City as we cross from one side to the other.”

“That shouldn’t need more than, what, thirty of you?” asks Roger.

“There are dozens of us shining at any given time,” says Chang’e. “Moon gods from all around the world, coming together until we have the mass and power to form a proper Moon.”

“A composite moon,” says Dodger. “Fascinating.”

“So you have nightly access to the City?” asks Roger, looking at the Lunars. When they nod, in ragged disharmony, he sips his coffee again. “All right. Could I access this ‘everything’?”

“You? Probably,” says Artemis. “Once you knew what it was and how to find it, I doubt it would be able to keep you out. If you’re asking whether an alchemist could pull the same trick, I don’t think they could.”

“What if they were wearing one of us like a coat?” asks Máni. “Some real Silence of the Lambs bullshit.”

“First person to say Thomas Harris is an alchemist is getting slapped,” says Dodger, almost singsong.

“That’s disgusting,” says Artemis, to Máni. She pauses, then, considering. “But it just might work. If you could find the gate when you had managed to trick the universe into seeing you as a Lunar, you could probably enter the everything, and we’ve never had any indication that the windows would know the difference between a Lunar and a person playing pretend. Wrapping yourself in the skin of a wolf when you want to fool the deer into leaving you alone is an old hunter’s trick. I think we have narrative weight behind it working here.”

“Don’t talk about us like we’re stories,” says Erin, and Artemis looks at her flatly. They stay that way for several seconds, two hunters sizing each other up and staring each other down. One born of science, one born of the human need to fictionalize the world around them. They aren’t the same. They are exactly the same. In that contradiction waits their conflict, and their collaboration.

Erin looks away first. Artemis returns her attention to Dodger. “If you could fool the gate and get access to the everything, once you’re in that deep, I don’t think there are any defenses that would keep you from entering the sky above the City.”

“And if there are multiple Moons up there every night, what’s going to stop one from playing shooting star and dropping down into the streets?” Dodger looks to Smita. “In the books, didn’t the returning Queen of Wands get access to the City by sneaking Zib in through an unguarded path and having her unlock the doors from the inside? We keep saying the Up-and-Under books were meant to be a roadmap for the alchemists to follow. What if that was the part where Asphodel told them how to get in?”

“They sent Zib along the graveyard path in one of the early books, but they didn’t use the road of moonlight until what, book twelve? By that point, it didn’t feel as much like Asphodel was teaching big lessons as like she was writing errata,” says Smita.

Dodger nods. “Exactly. Reed focused all his attention on those first four books, the big elemental adventures, the ones with the most obvious alchemical applications. At this point, the people who are left are grasping at straws. Anything that gets them past the City walls is going to look like something worth trying.”

“It always comes back to the damn City,” says Roger. “Why do they want it so badly?”

Kelpie straightens, pulling slightly away from Smita as she turns to answer him. “The City is everything,” she says. “The Tower is in the City, and whoever holds the Tower holds everything. The Tower controls the universe. It’s the center of creation. If they can take the City, they can take the Tower. If they can take the Tower, it won’t matter that you went rogue and destroyed your creator, or that I ran away, or anything. They won’t need to follow the rules anymore, because they’ll be making the rules.”

Isabella laughs, a little uneasily. “You make it sound like whoever controls this Impossible City is some kind of God.”

“Oh, no,” says Kelpie. She gestures to the Lunars. “They’re some kind of god.”

“Moon gods, in specific,” says Artemis.

“Whoever controls the Impossible City is just God. They get the whole mess. Mostly it runs on its own, and they don’t have to do anything to keep it going. But they can make changes if they want to.”

The idea of the alchemists who would commit the kind of atrocities they’ve all seen becoming God is horrifying enough that for a moment, the kitchen falls silent. Only Kelpie doesn’t appear to share in the general malaise that has fallen over the rest of them. She looks from face to face, wide-eyed and curious, and pauses when she gets to Artemis, frowning just a little, like she recognizes her but doesn’t understand entirely how. Pulling her gaze away, she looks to Chang’e and cocks her head.

“Your eyes are pink,” she says. “I’ve never seen that before. Red, sure, in some of the mice, but never pink. It’s pretty. More people should have pink eyes.”

“They’re not pink; they’re peach,” says Chang’e. “I’m Chang’e, the Chinese goddess of the moon and immortality. I tend the peach orchards that grow on my version of the moon, and that’s where I go when it’s my turn to shine down on the City.”

“Were they always pink?”

“No. They changed when I took this form, and they change back to hazel when I step down to let my mortal host take care of things.”

“That must be confusing, not always being the one in charge of being you.”

“It can be. If I step too far down, Judy can do things without my being aware of her having done them, and if I step too far forward, I can do the same thing to her. Cruel Lunars can take advantage of the disconnect between our mortal and divine sides to abuse their hosts, shutting them out of their own lives and gradually isolating them from the world. I don’t understand what would motivate someone to do that to something that is, at the end, a part of them, but I don’t need to understand to disapprove. Judy and I are a partnership. We keep each other informed.”

“Oh,” says Kelpie, eyes wide and round. “Is she here now?”