The streets of the Undercity were louder than I'd ever heard them.
Music poured from every alley—fiddles chasing drums, flutes threading bright as birdsong over the low, belly-deep thrum of a horn. Laughter rang against stone, ricocheting off carved walls and archways draped in velvet banners.
Stalls lined the avenues shoulder to shoulder, each lit by its own cluster of lanterns: round moons of frosted glass, long teardrops speckled with mica, delicate cages of wire hung with slivers of mirror.
Without a real sky, we had built one, strings of lights drawn in swooping constellations from balcony to balcony until the whole Central District glowed like a jeweled bowl.
People swirled beneath it, dressed in fine clothes (some barely had any fabric in their bodies) that made the world a riot of silk and glitter.
Masks flashed, feathered plumes and filigree curls, obsidian shards and paper cut into crescent moons.
