“Oh, all right,” the boy said glumly. His attention turned to her pistol and sword. “Hey, you think there’s gonna be fighting? Da said that the Palo bitch was gonna hang high for stirrin’ up trouble.”
“Don’t say bitch,” the girl next to him said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Well, that’s what Da said! Anyway, I hope there’s a fight.” He leaned eagerly out from the branch. Vlora got herself ready to catch him if he fell. “Hangin’s happen all the time, but Da always makes us go inside during the riots.”
“Probably smart of him,” Vlora commented absently. Her own attention moved to the Blackhats as a group of them shoved forward through the crowd, surrounding a prison wagon with white roses painted on the side. It came to a slow stop in front of the gallows and the Blackhats fanned out, pushing back the crowd, before opening the door. Mama Palo, looking rumpled and angry but no worse for the wear, was led out of the wagon.
There was a sudden cacophony, a shoving and shouting match between Palo and the Blackhats nearest the wagon, then Mama Palo was led up to the gallows. Lindet, still flanked by her Privileged, climbed onto the gallows and waited patiently while the noose was draped around Mama Palo’s neck.
Vlora could feel the protective sorcery surrounding Lindet. If she had opened her third eye she would have seen splashes of sorcerous color. The Lady Chancellor wasn’t taking any chances with this crowd. Mama Palo would hang, and the Palo wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it no matter how feisty they got.
“That’s her, huh?” the boy said. “The ol’ Palo bit—I mean, lady?”
“That’s her,” Vlora confirmed.
“She doesn’t look like much.”
Vlora couldn’t help but agree. Mama Palo looked smaller, older, and more feeble in the light of day. Despite the pageantry and the obvious hopelessness of her situation, she managed to keep her chin up, her back straight. Once the noose had been tightened around her neck she gave a small smile.
For some reason, that smile made Vlora nervous.
Vlora scanned the crowd again, wondering if there would be a rescue operation of some kind. She had no intention of interfering—her work here was done—but anything the Palo mounted would be doomed to fail. She looked again and again, scanning for weapons among the crowd, or large groups of men, or anything that looked mildly organized. Nothing caught her eye.
She returned her gaze to Mama Palo. The old woman continued to smile, and Vlora wasn’t the only person who’d caught on to it. Lindet eyed her warily while her Privileged searched the crowd with the same deftness as Vlora. They seemed satisfied with the absence of a threat, but remained vigilant.
Vlora’s next check of the crowd caught sight of something peculiar, but it wasn’t at all what she expected.
Standing near the edge of the park, leaning against a tree with his arms folded, lips pursed, was Meln-Dun. The Palo businessman smoked a cigarette, his eyes glued to Mama Palo, and Vlora couldn’t help but wonder why he was here. He needed to be in Greenfire Depths, securing his power base—making sure his family and business were still intact. Had he already managed it? Was he here out of spite? To be sure that Mama Palo did, in fact, hang?
“Careful, lady, you’re gonna fall,” the boy next to Vlora warned.
She reached out to steady herself against the trunk of the tree and forced herself to settle down and watch the execution, though she couldn’t keep from looking toward Meln-Dun. It would be wise, she decided, to check in with him, make sure everything had gone smoothly.
She was about to climb down from the tree when she spotted something that made her skin crawl: A pair of dragonmen stood less than fifteen paces behind Meln-Dun. They were powerful-looking Palo in gray, tailored suits and tinted spectacles, and they might have easily been mistaken for Palo businessmen but for the unmistakable black tattoos visible at their wrists and collars.
And behind them, almost close enough to touch the pair, was Gregious Tampo. Tampo was dressed to the nines and twirling a cane like he didn’t have a care in the world. Vlora wasn’t sure which she was unhappier to see—Tampo or the dragonmen—and then, like the final piece of a puzzle fitting perfectly, everything fell into place.
Tampo had been at the party. He was in Mama Palo’s inner circle. Those dragonmen were there with him. And as she watched, they pushed through the crowd toward Meln-Dun.
Vlora almost knocked a pair of kids off the branch as she leapt from the tree. She landed in a crouch, the pain of the impact barely registering through her powder trance, and tried to shout a warning.
“Meln-Dun! Meln-Dun!”
Lindet had just begun to address the crowd, her voice amplified by Privileged sorcery, and Vlora’s words were swallowed in the responding angry mutter of the mob. Vlora shoved her way through the crowd, tossing a powder charge into her mouth and chewing it into a mush of paper and grit, feeling the sorcery course through her veins.
She kicked and shoved, catching brief glimpses of Meln-Dun through the crowd. The dragonmen were almost upon him, and then she lost all sight of them as the crowd began to churn in response to Lindet’s speech.
She arrived at Meln-Dun’s tree, pistol drawn, only to spot him entering an alley with the two dragonmen. Gregious Tampo was nowhere to be seen.
She gave chase, her mind working desperately. Were the dragonmen not here to rescue Mama Palo? Were there more of them behind the gallows, preparing to spring a trap? Vlora hesitated, wondering if she should warn Lindet, but dismissed the notion. Lindet, after all, had two Privileged up there with her. Meln-Dun was unprotected.
Vlora dashed down several alleys, jumping to see over the heads of the sprawling crowd, catching glimpses of gray suits from time to time. She had gone nearly a block before catching sight of Meln-Dun walking into a small café followed by the two dragonmen. She charged along, her pistol held discreetly at her side, eyes scanning the traffic for any sign of Tampo or more of the Dynize.
She reached the entrance of the café, checked the pan of her pistol, and immediately ducked inside. Any moment she wasted might mean Meln-Dun’s life.
The café was a long, narrow room. A handful of Kressians occupied chairs, sipping their noon tea. At the far end Meln-Dun and the two dragonmen slipped into a corner table while a Palo waiter brought them iced tea.
Vlora froze in the doorway. Meln-Dun didn’t look like he was in danger.
Meln-Dun leaned over to one of the dragonmen and said something, to which the other chuckled. He slapped the dragonman on the back and lifted his gaze toward the doorway. Behind her, back in the park, Vlora heard the unmistakable sound of a trapdoor opening, and the angry response of the crowd as Mama Palo was hanged for her crimes.
Vlora’s breath felt as if it had been snatched away from her as she understood—or thought she did. Meln-Dun’s family and business had never been in danger. The attacks on her men had been feints to lure her to Meln-Dun’s side, and she had walked right into his trap, helping him take down Mama Palo to secure power in Greenfire Depths, taking advantage of her eagerness to carry out Lindet’s task. The dragonmen weren’t working for Mama Palo.
They were working for Meln-Dun.
All that passed through Vlora’s head in an instant as Meln-Dun’s eyes met hers. The Palo leapt to his feet, face turning red. Vlora hesitated, uncertain which of the three men across the café to put a bullet in. She’d come here thinking she would protect a friend, but she wasn’t entirely sure if she could kill a single dragonman, let alone two. This was not a good fight.
“Kill her,” Meln-Dun ordered.
The two dragonmen leapt from their seats. A café patron screamed, and Vlora spun toward the door, ready to run. She’d lose them quickly in the street, get back to the fort, and—
She collided with a man’s chest, bouncing off it like she’d just run straight into a brick wall. She looked up to find Tampo in front of her, and snatched for her sword. His mouth opened, but she had no intention of letting him say a word. This was
no coincidence; this was …
The thought was arrested as he snatched her by the wrist before she could fully draw her sword. She snarled at him, tugging, unable to so much as move.
“Sit down, Vlora,” Tampo said calmly, shoving her to one side. She landed in a chair, almost tumbling to the floor, and was ready to come back up and at him in half a second only to find he had already stepped past her.
The cane in his hand clicked, and he drew the sword hidden within in a single, swift motion. The first dragonman moved impossibly quick, almost as fast as a powder mage, bone knife coming out and stabbing toward Tampo’s chest.
Tampo was faster. Like a mongoose snatching a snake by the throat, Tampo skewered the dragonman through the center of the chest, picking him up and throwing him at his companion like he was no more than a rag doll. The second dragonman dodged the flying body only to have Tampo grab him by the wrist, producing an audible snap with a single twist, and driving the dragonman’s head into the brick wall with the force of a draft horse’s kick.
The whole fight was over in a handful of seconds. Meln-Dun fled out the back even before the dragonmen had reached Tampo, and Vlora moved to give chase only to have her arm caught by Tampo. The lawyer manhandled her out of the café and into the street before straightening his jacket casually and linking arms with her forcefully. She tried to pull away, but to no avail, and soon found herself walking briskly away from the scene of the crime.
Tampo whistled softly to himself, as if murdering a pair of legendary warriors without breaking a sweat was just another item on his to-do list, right next to a reminder to pick up a loaf of bread. Vlora stopped fighting him by the time they reached the next street over. She was in a daze, her mind tied in knots by what had just happened.
She knew of only one man capable of manhandling a powder mage, one man who might conceivably move so bloody fast. She’d not seen nor heard from him in ten years, and the last time they’d met he hadn’t been entirely human anymore—and he’d had access to the kind of mysterious sorcery that might even be able to change his face and hide his sorcery.
Besides, after all this time she still knew that pleased whistle.
“Why are you here, Taniel?” she demanded.
Taniel Two-shot, wearing another man’s face, lifted his hand to hail a hackney cab. “Because we need to have a talk.”
CHAPTER 46
This isn’t a street address,” the clerk said.
Michel stood at the front of a long line in the Landfall commissioner’s office while a middle-aged clerk looked at him over the top of her spectacles. She held his paper in her hand, arm outstretched to one side as if the whole thing was a terrible inconvenience. Michel, wearing plainclothes instead of a uniform, resisted the urge to pull out his Gold Rose and reminded himself he was trying to be as circumspect as possible.
“You’re joking,” Michel said.
“Nope.” She handed the paper back. “It’s not an address.”
He took it sourly, stuffing it in his pocket. “That explains why I couldn’t find the damn place anywhere.”
“Mm-hmm.” The clerk made a show of looking around him at the line. “Next!” she shouted, waving him away dismissively. “It’s not an address. It’s a lot number. Probably south of the city.”
“What do you mean, a lot number?” The next person in line approached the desk and started talking, but Michel shoved himself back in front of the clerk. “Lot number?” he demanded.
“Public land. South of the city.”
“That’s the same as an address!”
“Good day, sir. Next, please.”
Michel wasn’t certain what to expect when he took a hackney cab two miles south of the outskirts of Landfall. There wasn’t much out here but farmland—endless floodplains covered in tobacco, cotton, and wheat. What he didn’t expect was to find a camp.
From a distance it resembled a labor camp. Acres upon acres had been cordoned off, a short palisade built to encircle countless rows of dirty tents. There were a few wooden buildings in the center, beside a number of man-made hills of soil, steaming in the summer heat like piles of shit. The camp had been plopped right in the center of a cotton field, plants crushed underfoot, muddy wagon ruts leading to and from the main road.
As he drew closer he caught sight of guards in yellow uniforms doing a frequent circuit of the camp, carrying Hrusch rifles instead of truncheons—a sure sign of a military presence. He vaguely remembered reading something in the newspaper about an archeology dig down here, but he hadn’t read the whole article. The local colleges had half of Landfall dug up looking for Dynize relics, so one dig hadn’t stood out to him.
The cab came to a stop near one of the muddy paths leading to the camp. Michel vacillated. Heading into camp didn’t seem advisable, not with so many guards. But this was his best lead on the godstones. If he let it go, then … then what? The camp looked semipermanent. It would still be here in a week or two, and once the Blackhats were no longer on high alert Michel might get a chance to snoop around the upper archives with carte blanche. Hurrying now might betray his real purpose to Fidelis Jes.
He thumped on the roof of the cab. “Head back to the city,” he called.
“Uh, sorry, sir,” the driver responded. “A man wants to speak to you.”
“A man …?” Michel trailed off as a soldier rounded the side of the cab and came up to the window, opening the door with one hand while the other rested on the butt of his pistol. He wore a dark yellow uniform with the bar and star of a major in the Fatrastan army on one shoulder, and a stitched white rose on the other; a soldier working with Blackhat authority.
The major did not look pleased. His broad face was expressionless, his mouth pressed into a firm line and his back as stiff as a board. “Out of the cab,” he said.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Michel responded.
The major reached inside and grabbed Michel by the front of his shirt, dragging him out of the cab as he protested. Michel managed to keep his feet, avoiding the indignity of falling in the mud, and soon found himself surrounded by a whole platoon of the Landfall garrison. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and let instinct kick in.
“You curious about what’s going on here?” the major demanded, pointing at the camp behind him. “Didn’t you see the signs? No stopping? The newspapers were told to stay out.”
Michel cleared his throat, letting an irritated expression blanket his face, and snapped, “Are you paranoid, Major?”
The major leaned forward slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting in a sneer. “Am I what?”
Slowly, deliberately, Michel drew the Gold Rose from his shirt and let it dangle at the end of its chain. Somewhere in the back of the company someone muttered just a little too loudly, “The major messed up this time.” He was quickly shushed.
“Surprise inspection, Major,” Michel said, trying to sound as smug as possible.
The major somehow managed to straighten further, eyes snapping forward and hand coming up in a salute. “Sir!”
Michel didn’t give the major any time to ask questions. He was in it now, and he needed to move quickly enough that he was gone before anyone could figure out that maybe he wasn’t supposed to be here. He ran through a hundred questions in his head, trying to figure out how to ask what the pit this place was without looking like he didn’t actually know. “State your name.”
“Major Cole, sir.”
“Major Cole, would you kindly have your men escort me to the camp?”
“Of course, sir. Fall in!”
Within moments Michel was squelching through the mud, wondering if his shoes would be completely ruined and resisting the urge to look back at his cab. This little excursion had either just gone very right, or very, very wrong.
They entered the camp through a guarded gap in the palisade. Convict laborers milled everywhere. Some stood by the palisade, taking their lunch of gruel and bread, while others hid from the heat beneath sagging
tents. They stared at Michel with sunken, bleary eyes, and he wondered at the size of the workforce and the presence of the army for what appeared—from a distance, at least—to be a midsize archeology dig.
The major snapped another salute when they reached one of the buildings in the center of the camp. “Very sorry for the confusion, sir. I hope you’ll understand I was just doing my job.”
“Which is?” Michel asked, trying to look like he didn’t actually care.
“Make sure no one takes too much interest in the camp, sir.”
Michel bit his tongue to keep from asking why and gave a gracious nod. “Thank you, Major, I’ll take your … zeal … into account on my report.” He gave one last glance around, noting the direction from which the laborers were coming with their wheelbarrows and then stepping up to the door to the building in front of him. The major seemed to expect that Michel wanted to end up here, so there was nothing to do but duck inside.
He found himself in what appeared to be a hastily built office barely bigger than a frontier tent. It was startlingly cool inside; a block of ice packed in sawdust was positioned in the corner of the room, while a pair of convicts slowly fanned it to circulate the air. Most of the space was taken up by tables and chairs, covered in vast stacks of handwritten notes. Other than the convicts, there was only a single occupant: a man bent over a table in the center of the room, his attention so focused as he scribbled notes that he didn’t even look up when Michel cleared his throat.
Michel picked his way through the papers, trying to avoid stepping on anything important with his muddy shoes. The man seemed completely oblivious to Michel’s presence. He stopped scribbling for a moment to scratch his balding scalp and mutter to himself, then went back to work. Michel bent over the nearest table, examining the notes.
They meant nothing to him. Equations, long rambling paragraphs, geometry—there was even a star chart buried beneath a stack of reference cards. The notes appeared to be in at least four different handwritings, one of which looked awfully like the writing in the book where Michel had found the lot number for this camp.
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