There wasn’t much left of the wireferry car.
Sickened, she let herself soar upward on a thermal, closing her eyes as soon as she cleared the active airspace.
That could have been Viera and Ariq.
It might still be. She opened her eyes, searching for the tower’s signal flags. They were moving, being reeled around for update.
Two passengers.
She circled, joined by three, then six, other icarii. The flags kept jerking as more were added. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the house sigils being strung along the line.
Octavus. Forlore.
Taya screamed, tilting her wings down and folding them close to her body for the long dive to Primus.
Lictors shouted and scrambled out of the way as Taya threw out her wings at the last minute, back-beating dangerously close to estate walls as she dropped onto the wide cobbled street and skidded to a stop. The plaza had been turned into a makeshift operations headquarters, filled with rescue and repair equipment being hauled up by wagons and wireferries. Engineers were poring over a large schematic of the Tower wireferry line, trying to keep the map from flying away in the gusting winds, and signalers were decoding the messages from above for the lictors and laborers. Gawkers were held back by a line of soldiers running cords across the street.
“What is it?” a lictor demanded, approaching as she locked her wings high. “Another body?”
“I know who set the bomb,” she said, shaking with fury. “I know who killed them. Cristof Forlore, Alister’s brother. He did it!”
“The exalted?” The lictor stopped, his face registering confusion. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible! He killed Pins and Alister found out so he killed his brother to keep from being caught!”
“Exalted Forlore is right there,” the lictor said, staring at her as if she’d gone mad. He pointed.
Taya spun, her heart leaping as she thought he meant the other Forlore, but it was Cristof who stared at her across the crowd of lictors and workers. Shock emptied his narrow face of expression, and then it twisted with rage. He shouldered past the lictor who was talking to him, striding toward her.
Taya clenched her fists and marched to meet him, shaking with anger.
“You!” Cristof grabbed for her. Taya knocked his hand away and slugged him in the stomach.
“You bastard!” she shouted, as he staggered back a step. “You killed him!”
“I killed him?” Cristof straightened, lunging forward. His fingers wrapped around her harness straps and he shook her until her teeth rattled. “You scheming little—”
Taya rammed her palm up against his jaw, snapping his head back and knocking his glasses askew. His grip loosened and she tore herself away. He grabbed again and she ducked under his arm, elbowing him in the ribs. He jerked backward to keep from being slapped by her metal wings.
“Arrest him!” she shouted at the lictors, who were staring with slack jaws. “He killed his brother!”
“Arrest her,” Cristof demanded, holding his side with one hand and straightening his spectacles with the other. “She’s a Torn Card.”
To Taya’s amazement, the lictors jumped into action, grabbing her arms and flight harness. She twisted.
“Are you crazy? Don’t believe him just because he’s exalted! He killed his brother! He murdered Pins!”
“Don’t even try to blame your crimes on me,” Cristof snarled. “Pins was alive when my men left her. She died after you heard us talking about her!”
“You’re lying!” Taya gasped as the lictors twisted her arms behind her back, beneath the jutting tertiaries of her metal wings. “You think you can get away with this because you’re an exalted, but I know the truth, and so did Alister!”
“Strip her wings and take her to the nearest holding cell,” Cristof said, coldly. He rubbed his ribs, glaring at her.
“Charges?” the nearest lictor asked, locking manacles around her wrists.
“At least one count of murder. I’m sure we’ll add more later.”
“Ask him how he knows Pins; ask him about the wireferry map in his bookshelf!” Taya twisted, but two lictors held her tight. The metal manacles pinched her wrists. “His brother was going to make him confess, so Cristof killed him!”
The lictors gave her a sharp shake and yanked her around.
“No!” she wailed. “You can’t do this!”
They marched her to a stationhouse on Primus, unlocked her manacles long enough to remove her armature, and then fastened them back around her wrists and locked her into a cell. Chains ran from her left manacle to a ring embedded in the wall. Taya slumped on the floor, her hands suspended in front of her face, and closed her eyes.
Octavus. Forlore. The signal flags snapped and waved in her memory, superimposed over the dark, scattered wreckage of the wireferry car.
Her eyes burned and she wiped her face on her sleeve. She was not going to give them the satisfaction of making her cry.
Hours passed. She heard voices through the cell door but couldn’t make out any words. She stood and stretched, rubbing her aching wrists, then sat against the wall again. The manacles chafed her flesh. For a while she assembled the evidence against Cristof, then considered Pyke’s cynicism about exalteds, then wondered if she’d be given a chance to defend herself at all, then thought about what she should have said to Alister before they’d parted. That just depressed her, so she fumed about Cristof again. Cristof, with all his angry speeches about exalteds and rights, who hadn’t paused for a moment to use his caste privilege to force her into captivity.
The light in the cell was fading when the door opened again. Cristof stood silhouetted in the light from the hall. He gazed at her, then stepped inside. He looked haggard, his ragged hair raked on end and his mouth bracketed with deep lines of stress.
“Don’t even think about hitting or kicking me,” he snapped, pulling a ring of keys from his coat pocket.
“Why are you here?” Taya demanded. “Who let you in? Where are the guards? Guards!”
A passing lictor glanced through the doorway, then walked on.
“You don’t need to call the guards.” Cristof sounded impatient. “I’m one of them.”
Taya jutted out her chin, staring at him with distrust.
“I don’t see a lictor’s stripe on your face.”
He scowled.
“I’m going to unlock you. But I swear, if you try to attack me, I’ll have you thrown in the mines for the rest of your life.”
“Is that the way the system works? Is that the equality between icarus and exalted you were telling me about the other night?”
He twitched.
“Murderers have no rights. Did you kill my brother?”
“No.” She looked directly into his eyes. “Did you?”
“No.”
They glared at each other with mutual suspicion. Then Cristof stepped forward and unlocked the chain around her left hand. She pulled it in close to her chest and stood.
He never took his eyes off her, watching as if he expected her to kick him without warning. His wariness made her feel more confident. I’ll bet his jaw still hurts.
“Are you going to take these off?” she asked at last, holding out her wrists. He grabbed the manacles and unlocked them. Taya winced as she rubbed her chafed flesh. He let the metal bonds clatter to the stone floor.
“My men searched your rooms and questioned your acquaintances and family.” His voice was cold. “We don’t have enough evidence to hold you.”
“Your men?”
“My men.” He slid the keys back into his coat pocket. “I’ve been working with the lictors for fifteen years.”
“Did your men search your rooms, too? Or doesn’t an icarus’s accusation mean anything?”
“As a matter of fact, your accusation triggered a routine check that became rather more than routine once my superiors talked to the clerks in the Tower. I’ve spent all day in an interrogation room, thanks to you.”
“Well, I’ve spent all day in a cell.”
They stood in silence again. Then she took a breath, bracing herself. “Did they … have they … found him yet?”
“Probably.” Cristof jammed his hands into his pockets, shoulders high. The muscles around his mouth were tense. “It’s going to take some time for the coroners to confirm who was in that car.”
She rubbed her face, feeling the threat of tears again. She knew what that meant. The bodies were too mangled and burned to be identified. I’m not going to cry in front of Cristof, she told herself furiously. “What—”
“They know it was a bomb.” Cristof’s voice was under tight control. “And Alister left the Tower today holding the clock I’d repaired.”
Taya’s head jerked up.
“Then why aren’t you under arrest?”
“I was.”
She waited. He was silent.
“Well? What happened?”
“Putting a bomb into one of my repair jobs in order to kill my brother makes about as much sense as you rescuing Viera and Ariq after sabotaging the wireferry they were riding on.” He gave her a cool look. “It’s not impossible, but it’s improbable. And neither us can be held on an improbability.”
“Alister didn’t know you worked for the lictors, did he? Or he would have realized you hadn’t killed Pins.”
“No. He didn’t know. And thanks to you, he probably died thinking I was a terrorist.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Who cares? It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Cristof’s tone was bitter. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if he had known. He’d still be dead.” He turned his back on her, shoulders still hunched around his ears. “Get out of here, Icarus. I don’t want to see you again.”
Taya drew in a hurt breath, then slowly let it out. She rubbed her wrist again and started out the door, then stopped. Her eyes burned.
Alister was dead. Caster Octavus was dead. Last night’s party could have been a dream, for all it mattered today. And what was she supposed to do? Just walk away?
She rested her head against the doorframe, getting a grip on herself, and turned toward him.
“I didn’t kill your brother,” she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. “I liked him. A lot. And I liked Caster Octavus, too. So I’m going to find out who did this. For both of them.”
“No, you’re not.” He looked up, his expression bleak. “You’re going to stay out of the way and mind your caste.”
“Like you?”
“The lictors won’t let me investigate this case, either, thanks to your accusations.”
“Fine. You can do what you want with your spare time. I owe it to Alister and Exalted Octavus to find out who killed them.”
She turned to leave, but the exalted reached out and grabbed her arm, his thin fingers digging in until it hurt. His face was twisted in anger and something else. Desperation? Despair?
“Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Taya shot him a furious look. His eyes were red behind the lenses of his spectacles. Her anger diminished as she studied his face and saw the deep grief he was hiding beneath his sharp words.
Our parents are dead, and we’re all we have left, Alister had said. And now Alister was gone, and Cristof was all alone in the world.
“Then help me,” she said, simply. “He was your brother. You owe it to him, too.”
Cristof’s jaw tightened, and then he released her, scanning the hallway before focusing on her face again.
“You have to sign for your wings. I’ll meet you at the Wren and Cup, eight blocks east of the greenmarket in Secundus, in half an hour. They’ll be watching us.”
“I don’t care.”
He stared at her.
“You know what?” he asked, his voice flat. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Nine
Heads turned as Taya walked into the public house, folding her wings close to get through the door. She’d only snapped the keel shut when she’d retrieved it from the lictors; her harness straps were tied together and tucked out of the way.
Cristof sat at a table in the back. She locked her wings upright, out of the way of other patrons, and walked over to him. The tips of her metal flight feathers brushed the cobwebs on the ceiling beams.
The exalted slouched in his chair, staring at a tall pint of ale. His pocket watch was open next to his drink, gently ticking. Taya glanced at its mother-of-pearl face. She was just on time. Filling out the paperwork to reclaim her wings had taken her longer than expected.
“Can we talk here?” she asked, turning a chair around and sitting down. She folded her arms over its back.
“In generalities.” He reached forward and picked up the watch, closing it with care and slipping it into his vest pocket.
“All right.” She gave him a level look. “What are the lictors doing now?”
“The sun will set in twenty minutes. They’re already calling in the evacuation and repair teams and covering the supply wagons.” Cristof stopped as a serving woman walked up with a fresh pint of ale.
“First one’s on the house for rescue workers,” the woman said in a brisk voice.
“I didn’t do much,” Taya confessed, looking up.
“Every little bit counts.”
Taya stared at the ale, feeling guilty.
If she hadn’t gotten herself arrested, maybe she could have done something useful.
“They’ll wait out the night, then start working again as soon as there’s light,” Cristof continued. “Almost everyone has been evacuated from the Tower. A few lictors volunteered to stay up there as a skeleton crew.”
Taya thought of the cold, dark mountain and the mangled body parts and closed her eyes. Ceaseless construction had driven the wolves off Ondinium Mountain, but smaller scavengers would be out as soon as the sun set, picking at any flesh they found among the rocks.
At any pieces of Alister and Octavus that hadn’t been retrieved.
Her stomach twisted and she opened her eyes, grabbing the ale. Liquid spilled as she drank, seeking to drive away the gruesome mental image.
She lowered the glass and wiped her mouth, shuddering.
“Do you know any Torn Cards?” she demanded.
“None that haven’t already been arrested.” Cristof shifted in his seat. “Tell me what you know. What Alister knew.”
Taya recounted the morning’s conversation, pausing every few sentences to swallow hard. She wrestled with her conscience over mentioning the Clockwork Heart program. She’d all but promised not to say anything about it, but if she kept it a secret now, Alister’s murderers might go free. At last she sketched it out in as few words as possible, whispering to keep the other patrons from overhearing.
She didn’t mention the end of the conversation at all, her voice trailing off as she grabbed the pint of ale again.
I should have kissed him, she thought with anguish. I should have taken the chance.
While she was drinking, Cristof pulled off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So. Alister was up early to test a new engine. He was back in his office by the time you arrived. He left nearly three hours after you spoke to him. What was he doing in that interval, and where was he going when he left? Did he tell anyone about your suspicions? If he said something indiscreet in front of a Torn Card spy, he might have triggered a reaction that got him killed.”
“But there wouldn’t have be
en enough time for a spy to plant a bomb in his clock,” Taya protested.
“It wouldn’t take that long, if the spy knew what he was doing and Alister were out of his office.” Cristof shook his head. “But we don’t know for certain whether the bomb was in the clock. It’s just supposition.” He put his glasses back on. “And we don’t know for certain whether the explosion was meant for him, either. The lictors believe the first attack was aimed at Caster, and this one may have been, too. That’s the angle they’ll investigate first. If the searchers found any parts of the bomb, it will help explain what happened, but thanks to my arrest, I don’t know what they’ve discovered.”
“Lady.” Taya rubbed her face. How could he talk about the attack so calmly? Every time she paused to think about what had happened, about who she’d lost…
“Why were Alister and Caster together?” Cristof continued, watching her. “Was it coincidence, or did it have something to do with what you said about me? Were they talking about Council business?”
“I don’t know.” Taya felt daunted by all his questions. “How do we find out?”
“Talking to the clerks who were evacuated would help, but I don’t have access to them anymore. I’d like to search Alister’s and Caster’s offices in Oporphyr, but there’s no way up.” He looked frustrated. “We can’t talk to Viera, yet.”
“Poor Viera.” Taya’s heart ached. She’d only lost a hope. Viera had lost a husband. “I should go visit her.”
“Not tonight. The lictors told me she’s in hysterics.”
“Will she be all right?”
Cristof leaned forward in his chair and wrapped a hand around the base of his glass.
“She loved Caster,” he said, voice low. “He was twenty-five years older than she was and Alister and I tried to discourage her, but she married him anyway, and he made her happy. We were arrogant idiots who thought we knew what would be right for her. I’m glad she didn’t listen to us.” He paused, tilting the glass back and forth. “I don’t know what she’ll do without him,” he finished, and took a drink. Taya glanced down at the rings of condensation on the table, pretending she didn’t see him wipe his eyes with his free hand.
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