She hadn't lied, and she wasn't breaking her promise. She was going to avoid Cristof.
Just not his shop.
She picked up another set of messages from Dispatch, on her way down, and spent an hour and a half delivering them. Once they were gone, she flew to Gryngoth Plaza and landed by the statue, then hurried to Jayce's dressmaking shop.
Cassi's nephew allowed her to store her wings in his shop, but it took her half an hour to get away from his interrogation about the party. At last she promised to tell him everything over lunch later that week and grabbed another cloak to cover her flight leathers.
"That's two you've borrowed," Jayce pointed out as she left.
"I'll bring them both back tomorrow," she promised. "Really. And the dress, too."
"It's intact?" he asked, disappointed.
"Well, it was close," she admitted. "Or it might have been. But Viera Octavus was looking out for my virtue."
"Damn," Jayce muttered, waving her off as he turned back to his dressmaker's model. "Try harder next time."
She made a face at him and left, thinking ruefully about her almost-kiss.
Next time, I won't pull away
, she promised herself, heading down to Tertius.
When she reached the marketplace, she pulled the cloak's hood up to cover her face and hair. An "Open" sign hung on the front of Cristof's shop, but the door was closed against the autumn chill and the sooty air. Taya settled in to wait, crouching in an alley across the street.
I'll stay for an hour,
she promised herself.
Then I'll report back to the dispatch office. And I'll work an extra hour this evening, to make up for all this lost time.
Half an hour later, a man descended into Cristof's shop. Taya couldn't get a glimpse of his face, but shortly after his arrival Cristof left with him, pulling on his coat and, characteristically, frowning.
Taya waited until they were around the corner before she scurried down to the shop door.
The quality of locks in Tertius hadn't improved since she'd been a little girl. The loose frame wiggled under her hand, and with some ruthless jabbing with her utility knife, she managed to jimmy the locks and yank the door open. Cristof would notice, but this was Tertius. Break-ins happened all the time.
The dimly lit shop was still filled with whirring and clicking. Taya went straight to Cristof's desk, searching his papers.
Diagrams for clockwork mechanisms abounded, but none of them looked like a bomb to her untrained eye. She searched through the drawers, not sure what she was looking for. A torn punch card, maybe, or a half-constructed bomb. Instead, she found tools and broken clockwork.
Nothing. She turned to his filing cabinet. Bills, receipts, work orders. Cristof's filing system was as orderly as his brother's was chaotic. Even his handwriting was neat, each letter tiny and precise. He'd been telling the truth about getting most of his commissions from Secundus and Primus, she noticed.
She stepped through the curtains into his living quarters. Shelves of books; a wardrobe; a small, neatly made bed; an icon of Our Lady of the Forge on whitewashed walls. The room was monastic in its simplicity.
She opened the wardrobe and grimaced. Black, black, and black. And Cassi thought Taya's wardrobe was limited. Cristof had no imagination whatsoever. Wait — a spot of brilliance squashed in the back caught her eye. Taya pushed aside his suits and coats to see what secret vice Cristof was concealing in the back of his armoire.
"Oh." She stared.
It was an exalted's robe, wrinkled and musty-smelling. Its gems seemed dull in the dim light, and its gold-and-silver embroidery was dark with age. An ivory mask hung by silk cords from the robe's hangar. Taya touched the mask's smooth surface, feeling gritty dust covering it.
The robe reeked of old secrets and strong emotion. Of something hidden and tainted that Cristof couldn't quite bring himself to discard.
Of guilt, maybe.
Taya let the rest of the suits fall back to cover the robe and closed the wardrobe door. So far she hadn't found anything to warrant her trespass. On the one hand, she was relieved. Alister would be happy if his brother turned out to be innocent. But on the other hand, Taya couldn't help but hope she'd find something that would excuse her ugly suspicions. If Cristof didn't have anything to hide, she was going to owe him a very humble apology.
She looked at the books and felt a twinge of optimism. Most of them were about clockwork and clocks, but a number of other titles sat on the shelves, as well. She examined the spines. Books on programming and foreign customs, explosives and religion, exalted genealogies and icarus armatures. Weapons, poisons, anatomy. She shivered. The bottom shelf was full of dog-eared directories. The official directories weren't surprising, but her eyebrows rose as she pulled out badly printed, back-alley directories to gambling houses and brothels, "gentlemen's shows" and animal fights. Was this a side to the outcaste that she hadn't seen yet?
She found the wireferry map and opened it. Cristof's neat notes indicated time and distance from station to station. Other numbers were marked, too, and it took her a few minutes of reading to realize they were notations about repairs.
She refolded it, not certain what to think.
At the very end of the shelf she pulled out a small bundle of letters and official documents. Crouching, she paged through them, handling the old paper with care.
Coroner's Report: Emeline Forlore, Exalted.
The notes were taken in Cristof's small, neat handwriting. She skimmed the medical jargon, noting the words that stood out. Lacerations. Perforation. Fracture. Hemorrhage.
She looked at the date and the age of the victim. Emeline Forlore had been thirty-seven when she'd died. Violently.
She grimaced, set the report down, and moved on to letters signed by Viera, dated twenty-five years ago, written in wide, childish script.
Don't worry, Father says everything will be all right. Give Alister kisses for me. Three more weeks!!! I can hardly wait to see you again. We are painting two rooms for you. You will love them.
A small clipped obituary:
Emeline and Tadeus Forlore. No cause of death given. Survived by sons Cristof, 12, and Alister, 10.
A tabloid-sized page from
The Keyhole Peeper
Taya had never heard of it before. It was typeset on yellowing paper and dated around the time of Viera's letters.
Exalted Murder/Suicide Cover-Up?
She started to read the article when the shop burst into clamorous noise. Taya shrieked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The clocks were chiming the hour.
Lady! She folded the article and jammed the bundle back where she'd found it. She'd lost track of time, and she had nothing to show for her search except a list of suspicious books, an inconclusive map, and some sad family secrets.
She wrapped her borrowed cloak around her and hurried back through the shop, cracking the door open to slip through.
The edge of the door hit Cristof in the face. He swore and recoiled, one hand over his nose.
"Oh." Taya stared at him, shocked.
"You!" He drew his hand away from his nose and looked at it. Blood ran over his fingertips. "Did you do this?" He pointed a crimson-stained finger at the jimmy marks in his door frame.
"No. I found the door that way, so I walked in," Taya lied, her heart pounding. "I didn't see you inside, so I was just leaving—"
"Give me your knife."
"What?"
He wiped a fresh trickle of blood from under his nose and held out his stained hand.
"Give me your knife. The one on your harness."
"Why?" She stepped back, alarmed.
"Because I'm going to match the blade to these marks," he said, glaring at her. "And if they look alike, I'm going to call the lictors and have you arrested for breaking and entering."
"Don't be ridiculous." She drew herself up. "I walked in to see if you were all right! Someone might have left you hurt, or tied up."
"Did you leave me any presents?"
"Presents?" Taya was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. The kinds of presents that start fires," he growled. "Or maybe just a mutilated punch card."
"Punch card? If there are any mutilated punch cards in here, they're yours!" she snapped, flushing. "Maybe the lictors will find them tucked inside all your books about explosives and poison!"
"You did break in!" Cristof crowed, triumphantly.
"I—"
A low, distant boom made both of them stop and look up.
An orange glow burned briefly on the side of the mountain far above them, just visible through the sooty haze in the air.
"Lady help us." Cristof sounded shaken, his face still turned upward. "What have you done?"
"My wings." Taya turned and ran, swearing at herself for leaving her wings behind while she was on duty.
Two minutes later, wailing sirens began to sound across the city, calling an emergency. Taya ran faster, pushing and shoving past the gawkers who stood in the streets and lined the bridges, staring up the mountain.
Jayce was standing in front of his shop when she reached Secundus. Taya dashed past him and grabbed her wings, dragging them outside. She stripped off the cloak and left it on the sooty cobblestones.
"What happened?" she asked, thrusting her arms through the armature and grabbing straps and buckles. Icarii were already circling overhead, summoned by the sirens to offer emergency assistance.
"I don't know. I heard an explosion. People are saying it's another wireferry."
"On Primus?"
"Higher, I think." Jayce squinted. "I think it's the ferry to Oporphyr Tower."
"Oh, no." Taya closed the keel over her chest and yanked its buckles tight. "Oh, Lady, no. Not another one. Where are the stairs to the roof?"
"Around back." Jayce kept staring up the mountain.
Taya folded her wings and pounded up the stairs, throwing herself off the roof and into the wind with furious abandon.
The diispira nearly swept her into a neighboring building, but a few strong beats of her wings raised her above the roofs and chimneys of Secundus. She kicked down her tailset and swept herself aloft as soon as she could, shooting up between towers and wires with reckless speed, heading toward the wreckage that grew more horrific as she drew closer.
Signalers were already standing on the towers on Primus, wind whipping their hair and clothes around them as their semaphores instructed the icarii about their approach pattern and civic duties.
Wireferry down. Search and rescue. Damage report. Maintenance escort.
Taya tilted and flew toward the other silver-winged searchers who circled the cliffs and rocks that jutted between Yeovil's peak and the top level of Primus. Up on the tower, response flags flapped in the strong winds, confirming the message below.
Wireferry down. Passengers aboard.
She swooped and turned, following the broken line.
Wires hung limp against the cliff, swaying in the wind. Two wireferry towers were bent. The cliff face had been blackened by the explosion. Wreckage was strewn across the rocks.
Taya felt sick, dropping closer to the ground. One of other icarii wing-signaled to her. Cassi.
They teamed up and fell into a criss-cross search pattern. Around them other icarii were doing the same, while another team soared around the damaged ferry tower, then swooped back to report its findings to the workers below. Down on the icarus docks, training wings were being prepared to lift signalers and engineers to the damaged parts of the wireferry. Other icarii would start evacuating the Tower. With the wireferry broken, the only way up or down the peak was going to be by wing.
A shrill whistle announced a find.
The air above the mountainside was a silver, swirling mass of icarii. Taya joined the circle, swooping low enough to confirm the find, then flying back out, sickened.
There wasn't much left of the wireferry car.
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 gasped and 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, waiting. 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 then 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, relaying the news to lictors and laborers. Gawkers were held to the side 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 for one brief moment as she thought he meant the other Forlore, but it was Cristof who stared at her across the crowd of lictors and workers. For a moment 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 for her 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 at them 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 has books about explosives on his shelves! He murdered Pins!"
"Don't even try to blame your crimes on me," Cristof snarled. "Pins was alive when my men left her. She only 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 off her wings and take her to the nearest holding cell," Cristof said, coldly. He rubbed his ribs, glaring at her.
"Any charges?" the nearest lictor asked, locking manacles around her wrists.
"Breaking and entering, and at least one count of murder. I'm sure we'll be able to add more later."
"Ask him about his books! 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. "Alister was going to confront him and make him confess, and Cristof killed him for it!"
The lictors yanked her around, marching her off.
"Cristof!" she wailed. "You can't do this!"
The soldiers gave her a sharp shake and dragged her onward.
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 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 wreckage that was all that had been left of the wireferry car.
Her eyes burned and she wiped her face on her sleeve. She was not going to cry. She wasn't 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 a few times, rubbing her aching wrists, then sat against the wall again. The manacles chafed her flesh. For a while she lined up the evidence against Cristof, then thought about Pyke's suspicions 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 silence.
The light in the cell was fading when the door finally opened again. Cristof stood silhouetted in the light from the hall. He gazed at her for a moment, 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 asked, glaring at him. "Who let you in? Where are the guards? Guards!"
A passing lictor glanced in the doorway, then walked on.
"You don't need to shout for the guards." Cristof sounded impatient. "I'm one of them."
Taya jutted out her chin, staring at him with distrust.
"What would the lictors want with an outcaste like you?"
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."
For a moment 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
, she thought with satisfaction.
"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 the chafed flesh on her wrists. Cristof 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?"
His eyes narrowed behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
"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." Taya was unrepentant. They stood in silence again a moment. 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 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 until more evidence is found, neither us can be held on an improbability."
She stared at him.
"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 from it all?
She rested her head against the door frame a moment, 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 aren't going to 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 started to turn, 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 a moment 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 a long moment.
"You know what?" he asked, his voice flat. "Neither do I."