Amcathra cleared his throat. The principessa flinched.
“If…” he gave Taya a sidelong look. “If you tied her outer skirt higher, you would enhance her disguise.”
“Why do you know so much about prostitutes, Lieutenant?”
“I have supervised undercover agents before,” he replied with a long-suffering air. “The principessa is more likely to be harassed if she appears to be a respectable woman lost in the wrong part of town than if she fits the local demographic.”
“Give her one of your pistols,” Taya said, turning to her husband. She was liking this plan less and less. Cristof’s amusement at her interchange with Amcathra faded and he held out the weapon.
“Here, Your Royal Highness. Do you know how to use it?”
While Cristof taught Principessa Liliana how to use a gun, Taya tied the girl’s skirt a few inches higher and looked at Amcathra, silently daring him to make any more suggestions. He remained silent.
At last the principessa was ready to leave, the pistol wrapped in a rag.
“I will return as soon as I can, Exalted,” she said, clutching the bundle close to her chest. She glanced around at all of them. “Be careful.”
“And you, Principessa,” Taya murmured with trepidation, slipping her fingers into Cristof’s hand for comfort.
* * *
They retreated deeper into the alley. The lictors sat by the wall with their rifles on their knees, keeping watch. Taya and Cristof huddled together against the winter chill, unable to sleep.
“Ah, here it is. I thought I felt something break.” Cristof fished the two halves of his ivory exalted’s mask from his public robe and tugged them free of their strings. Taya took them and rested the broken edges together. A large splinter of ivory was missing.
“I don’t think it can be repaired,” she said, a lump rising in her throat.
“Neither do I.” Cristof tugged them from her fingers and threw them behind him, into the trash that had collected in the corners of the alley. “Good riddance.”
“I guess we’re really at war now,” Taya said, quietly. Cristof pulled her closer.
Avoiding war had been unlikely, anyway. Eight hundred and seventy-four Ondiniums had been killed in the Glasgar bombing. The decaturs had reacted swiftly and decisively— every Alzanan had been kicked out of the country, even those who’d lived there for years, and every immigrant and Ondinium of first- to third-generation Demican descent had been required to take a special loyalty test or leave. The Council had tightened its censorship of the press and its restrictions on free assembly, shutting down the nation’s most radical publications and organizations. It had also called for an international summit on aerial warfare, a hypocritical move given that it was simultaneously readying its own top-secret fleet of ancient imperial ornithopters. Deep inside Ondinium Mountain, the Great Engine had ground away day and night, spitting out economic forecasts and military simulations.
Taya had hidden from the chaos. Her silence about what had happened in the skies beyond Glasgar had been required by the Official Secrets Act, but it had also been an easy way to avoid admitting the terrible things she’d done there.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered, trying to avoid her own dark memories.
“What I’m going to say to Alister when we finally meet face-to-face.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve imagined it a hundred times, and what I’ve wanted to say has always changed with my mood.” He forced a smile. “I never imagined I’d be asking him for help.”
“He’ll give it to you.”
His smile faltered. “The way I helped him, maybe. Blinded, outcaste, and exiled.”
Taya clasped his hand, feeling the scar tissue where a jagged piece of glass had pierced it in the train wreck.
“He wanted to live. You gave him that.”
“I wonder how he feels about it now.”
“He’s doing well enough— a published author with a personal following.”
“I suppose.” Cristof closed his eyes and leaned his head against the dirty brick wall. “I don’t think the Council is going to help us, Taya.”
“Since when has it ever helped us?” She studied his face, saddened by the scars around his left eye and the new lines that furrowed his forehead and bracketed his mouth. Working as Ondinium’s only exalted ambassador had thrust him from one peril to another, and the strain had visibly aged him. “We’ll be all right. As long as we’re together, we’ll be all right.”
His lips quirked up as he opened his eyes again.
“Have I told you recently that I love you?”
“Not recently, no.”
“I need to work on that.”
“Yes, you do.” She kissed him. “And the feeling’s mutual.”
Dawn was approaching when a canvas-covered wagon came to a noisy halt at the mouth of the alley. Amcathra raised his rifle, then lowered it when Principessa Liliana appeared, looking around fearfully.
“Hello? Are you still there?” she whispered. “We’re here to take you to Muraro Press.”
* * *
The scent of machine oil and ink washed over the small group as it entered the Muraro publishing house. A small, thin Alzanan with a rat-tail mustache greeted them, his eyes widening as he took in the lictors’ stern faces and ready weapons.
“No, no, say nothing,” he burst out in Alzanan before anyone could speak. “I see nothing, I hear nothing— I demand complete deniability, complete, do you understand?”
“We understand,” Taya assured him. “We’re here to see….” she frowned. What was Alister calling himself, again?
“Alessio Scordato, yes, I have sent for him. He — You — I was never told about any of this, I never knew about any of this, and I am leaving as soon as he comes and forgetting this entire morning.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Here. Follow me. Sit here. Right here.” He led them through the large room, which held several steam-powered presses, to a circle of uncomfortable-looking chairs drawn together around a desk. “Stay.”
“You seem a little nervous for a man who publishes radical political tracts,” Cristof remarked. Amcathra nodded to his lictors and they spread out, pacing through the rest of the printing press floor with their rifles held at the ready.
“I am a publisher, not a traitor. Scordato never told me he was associating with assassins!”
“Nobody here is an assassin,” Principessa Liliana objected. “The Ondiniums have done nothing wrong!”
“I didn’t hear that! Mister Scordato told me nothing about any of this, nothing. I am very unhappy with him, I assure you, very unhappy.” The small man hurried after the lieutenant.
“He’s very jumpy,” Cristof observed. “Very jumpy.”
“Stop that,” Taya chided, taking one of the chairs. She looked at the bedraggled principessa. “You didn’t tell him who you were, did you?”
“Of course not, Icarus. I do not know which Family he serves.”
“The room appears secure,” Lieutenant Amcathra reported, rejoining them. Principessa Liliana self-consciously tugged up her bodice. “The publisher has gone to his office and closed the door. Bright is watching him. The rest of us will guard the windows and doors. I regret that there is no food here, but we can make tea.”
“Thank you,” Cristof said. The lictor nodded and left.
“Did you have any trouble getting here?” Taya asked the girl. “Did anyone bother you?”
The principessa shook her head. “I ignored the men who whistled and walked as fast as I could. A street sweeper told me that Muraro Press was on this avenue.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
The girl nodded, looking away and biting her lip.
About an hour later, the workyard door opened again. Cristof shifted the pistol in
his lap, flicking off the safety.
Tap, tap, tap.
Alister came into sight, his hand on the arm of a pretty young woman in a Mareaux dress. Taya drew in a sharp breath, more disturbed at seeing him again than she had expected.
Her brother-in-law was tall and well-built, with smooth copper skin and a strong, handsome face. His long black hair was braided back and he wore clean but simple garments covered by a knee-length, rust-colored overcoat. A neatly folded black blindfold covered the scarred ruin of his eyes but left bare the jagged slashes tattooed across his castemarks. He carried a leather satchel slung over one shoulder and a slender chestnut cane in one hand.
His guide stopped, studying the three of them with wary eyes.
“We are here,” she said in accented Ondinan. “Lictors guard the door. Your brother and the icarus are present. I do not know who the third woman is. She is young and wearing a torn dress.”
“Al….” Cristof stood, swallowing hard as he set his pistol down.
“Cris.” Alister’s lips turned up in a wry smile. “Are you what smells so bad in here?”
“Quite possibly. I spent the night in an alley.” Cristof’s feet seemed frozen in place. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
Cristof closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I think this is yours?” Alister held out his brother’s golden pocketwatch. Cristof reluctantly stepped forward and took it from him, opening his mouth to say something, but the blind exalted had already shifted. “Taya? My silver-winged hawk? Are you there?”
Taya stood.
“I’m here, Alister. How are you?”
“As you see.” He smiled, his blind face turning toward her. “How is your leg?”
“All healed. Thank you for the information you sent in Mareaux. If we hadn’t gotten it—” she stopped. It might not be a good idea to let Principessa Liliana know that Alister had been instrumental in uncovering the Alzanan invasion. “Things would have been much different.”
Alister cocked his head, registering her shift in tone.
“Who else is here with us, Taya?”
“Principessa Liliana, Il Re Agosti’s granddaughter.”
“Ah….” Alister made a formal Alzanan bow. “I am honored, Principessa.”
The gesture startled Taya; Alister had been so casually authoritative as a decatur that she had never imagined him deferring to foreign royalty. Then again, he had always been excessively polite toward women of any rank.
“Mister… Scordato.” Principessa Liliana hesitated over the name. “Do you have any news about my Family?”
“Yes,” Cristof jumped in, “what do you know about the rebellion? Er, do you want to sit down?”
The Mareaux girl led Alister to a chair.
“Thank you. This is Florianne, my landlady’s daughter. She’s been kind enough to serve as my assistant since I moved to Mareaux.”
Florianne murmured an inaudible greeting and took the last chair. She was clean and pleasant-looking; not beautiful, Taya thought, but Alister had always valued utility over looks. That’s why he’d dated her, once.
“My Family….” the principessa insisted, still standing. Alister slid his satchel onto his lap and pulled out a folded paper.
“Florianne bought this on our way over, Your Royal Highness.” He held it out. “The news hawks were shouting that Ondinium’s ambassador had slaughtered the royal family and attacked the palace. I must say, Cris, that was rather enterprising of you.”
“We were framed, of course,” Cristof said, irritably. Principessa Liliana took the broadsheet. The print was poorly set and the headline took up half the front page. “The rebels faked a set of lictors’ stripes.”
“Florianne made me hide my castemarks on the way over.” Alister laid a hand on the scarf that hung loosely around his neck. “I’ll have to cut my visit to Alzana short unless I can convince the authorities that I’m a traitor. I don’t suppose you know who’s behind the coup?”
“I was hoping you might.”
“Have you met Fosca Mazzoletti?”
“Yes.” Taya leaned forward. “She was giving orders by the king’s carriage.”
“If she isn’t behind the uprising, you can be sure she’s close to those who are.”
“How do you know her?” Amcathra demanded, materializing behind them. Alister twitched, one hand tightening on his cane.
“Hello, Lieutenant Amcathra.”
“How do you know Fosca Mazzoletti?”
“She’s chatted with me a few times. She wanted to know how much I resented the nation that had mutilated and exiled me. I thought she might be a useful contact someday, so I let her believe I was extremely bitter about it. I suppose it’s time to renew our acquaintance.”
Amcathra gave the exile a baleful look.
“How do we know you are not working for her now?”
Alister’s smile held a tightness that hadn’t been there before his blinding.
“Because you are still here, Lieutenant.”
“Janos….” Cristof shook his head at the lieutenant, who took a begrudging step backward. “I trust you, Al. He’s just doing his job.”
“As he was when he escorted me to my blinding,” Alister said, his voice strained. “Forgive me if I bear some resentment toward your guard dog, Cris.”
“I was there, too, you know. Both times.”
“You didn’t have a rifle trained on me.”
“Please…” Taya intervened. “Alister, we need your help.”
He made a visible effort to lower his shoulders and raise his head. “To escape Alzana, I assume.”
“We need to get out of the capital,” Cristof said. “And a few miles north up the coast, if we can. Will you help?”
“How many of you are there?”
“Ten. Eleven, with the corpse.” Cristof hesitated. “Twelve or thirteen if you want to join us.”
Alister gave another thin, humorless smile. “I don’t think the Council would welcome me back.”
“We could drop you off in Mareaux.”
“No. We’ll manage.” Alister tapped his fingers on the top of his cane. “I think I can get you out. It will take some time to arrange, though. Gilberto will keep you safe until I return. By the way, have you heard any news about Allied Metals & Extraction?”
“The company was recently forced to halt production,” Cristof said.
“I certainly hope so. It seems that some of their personnel are now working for Alzanan employers willing to pay for Ondinium expertise.”
“The Council will find that interesting. Patrice Corundel?”
“She’s found herself an Alzanan patron. Are you wearing your wings, Taya?”
“No.” Taya was confused by the sudden change of subject. “The Council wouldn’t let me bring them to Alzana.”
“What a pity.” Alister stood, slinging his satchel over his shoulder and touching the tip of his cane to the floor. “I’ll return as soon as I can. Florianne?”
“Yes.” The girl guided Alister’s hand to her forearm and led him away. Taya listened to Alister’s cane gently tap the steam presses as they left. When the door closed behind them, she turned to her husband.
“He seems well. All things considered.”
“I— I couldn’t talk to him.” Cristof raked a hand through his hair, looking shaken. “I couldn’t say anything that mattered.”
“You’ll see him again. Talk to him then.”
He shook his head, frustrated.
Principessa Liliana looked up from the newspaper.
“My brother escaped,” she said, softly. “Silvio.”
Silvio… Taya placed the name. The young prince with the cold.
“How?” she asked.
“The paper
says that he heard the shots and ran away. He hid for hours until the guards found him.”
“They must have been loyalists,” Amcathra observed. “Your brother was fortunate, Principessa. It will be more difficult for the rebels to kill him now and blame his death on us.”
“Can we get him out of the palace?” the principessa asked. Taya shot the lictor a hopeful look. If they rescued Silvio, they could rescue Jayce and the rest of their staff.
“No. He is safer with Agosti loyalists, and we are safer out of Alzana.”
“But I can’t just leave him there!” The girl’s wail was echoed in Taya’s heart.
“What does the paper say about your sister?”
“Pietra? Nothing. Do you think she is in danger, too?”
“Has she ever expressed any interest in taking the throne?”
Taya recoiled and Cristof’s eyebrows rose. Principessa Liliana needed a moment longer to grasp the lictor’s meaning, and then she shot to her feet, the newspaper falling to the floor.
“No! Never! She would never do something like this!”
“You are certain?”
“Of course I am certain!”
“Then yes, she is in danger, too.”
The principessa sank back into her chair. “We must warn her.”
“Do you know where she is stationed?”
“No….”
Amcathra waited. She looked away.
“I think it would be best for all of you to get some sleep,” he said at last. “We may be waiting here for some time.”
Chapter Three
Alister and Florianne returned later in the day with a horse-drawn wagon full of empty crates. They pulled the wagon into the publisher’s loading bay.
“What is this?” Cristof ran a finger over the strange characters burned into one of the crates. “It looks… Cabisi?”
“Quite possibly,” Alister said. “The Alzanan government has been carrying out quite a bit of trade with Cabiel recently.”
“What are they buying?”
“I understand there is a strong demand among the larger Families for Cabisi weaponry.”
“I didn’t know they sold weaponry.”
Clockwork Secrets Page 3