The rain began to come down in earnest, long before we got to the Council Chamber. Veronica and I sat in opposite corners of her carriage, looking out the windows. She spent a lot of time folding and then refolding a pair of long, satin gloves in her lap. There was a box on the floor between her feet, and she kept moving her leg to check it was still there, like a child looking for comfort from some icon. We had guards, lots of them, running alongside us in the rain. It slowed us down, but the Lady Bright was clearly in no hurry to get to the Council.
"How many have there been?" I asked.
"Dead brothers? Just the one."
"You're awfully flip about this," I said, shifting in my seat to face her. "There were a lot of bodies in there. How many of them were family?"
"Everyone under my roof is my family, one way or another." She put her hands on top of the gloves and sighed. "Should I mourn them less if they were only a friend, or a servant? Should my father's brother's third daughter mean more to me than the man who poured my wine every night for the last eight years?" She looked at me and shrugged. "People die, Jacob. These people just died quite suddenly, over breakfast."
"You're out of your fucking mind."
"Oh, love. You have no idea."
I squeezed against the side of the carriage, trying to put as much space between us as I could. She sat as comfortable as you please, looking out the window, her hands folded demurely in her lap. Her toe tap-tap-tapped against the box.
"I meant, how many attacks have there been? I know the Council is hiding them from the public. I don't know exactly what happened at the docks, but what happened and what the Badge says happened are two very different things."
"Six," she said, finally, as we came around the last bend before our stop. "Six attacks. Most of them very isolated events. Isolated is the wrong word. Very precise events."
"They were targeted," I said.
"Yes. Targeted." She cocked her head like an animal. "But not logically. No real pattern. It was like the murderer is singing a song in a language none of us know. The pattern is lost on us. What you said about the docks." She paused and then turned her head to me. "What happened there?"
"You're kidding, right?"
She shook her head. "I felt there might be some connection. It seems unlikely that a fire could cause so many deaths. So many, in fact, that no one who survived has reported a fire at all."
I settled myself against the seat. What to tell her? What to be honest about, and what to hide?
"The Badge says they have witnesses who will swear that I set off a device, and that device started the fire." I gave her a hard eye, trying to weight her reaction. "There was a device, but not a fire. And I didn't set it off. I delivered it."
"To whom?" she asked.
"The Fehn. That was the contract."
"It seems unlikely to me that a device delivered to the Fehn could then cause a fire on the docks. There is a great deal of river between those two places." She stared distractedly out the front of the carriage. "Tell me, who contracted you to do this thing?"
I thought of Crane, up in the tower of Angela's grand home. What would this industrialist do with that knowledge?
"I don't really know, not yet. The guy who hired me, he was probably a ruse. Just passing the thing on to me. I'm sure there's someone above him. Just trying to figure out who it is."
"Could it be someone in the Council?" she asked carefully.
"Seems to me that there's not much that goes on in this city that doesn't get touched by someone in the Council."
"That's a very roundabout way of saying that you don't know, but that you intend to find out." She smiled. "And if anything I've heard about you is even vaguely true, you will find out by knocking people over and kicking them until they tell you what you want to know."
I snorted. "I like to think I'm a little more subtle than that," I said.
"I don't think you are, Jacob. I think you're a blunt instrument, accustomed to bloody work." She held up a hand when I frowned. "Don't get me wrong. I think there's a place for that. But I think that this matter may be a great deal more nuanced than you are prepared to manage."
I was quiet for a minute. We were making terrible time toward the Massif. It was in sight, but we were crawling toward it. I stared out at the guards who surrounded us. They were paying special attention to a nearby alleyway, and talking among themselves. I looked that way.
"These six attacks. How many of them were like this morning?" I asked.
"How many of them involved the wholesale butchering of a family of the Council? None," she answered. "Like I said, Jacob. Too blunt. Like the rent house, or the docks. They were attacks on properties that didn't seem to be connected to any special thing. There was no pattern."
"It wasn't an attack on the docks. It was an attack on the Fehn. And if they're so wildly different, how do you know they're all from the same attacker? Veridon can be a violent city. To say that the horror of your rent house, or the cog-dead crawling up from the river and sinking a boat, or even the madness that's afflicting my father are all…"
"So your father is going mad? We've been wondering."
I folded my arms. Always politics. Always stories told or untold, and secrets held.
"Does it matter, really?"
"He holds one of the few Founder's seats remaining on the Council. Every one counts. If they lose him, they lose much of their ability to influence the Council. So, yes. It matters. Besides, he's your father. Shouldn't it matter at least to you?"
"This from the woman whose family was just killed en masse, and who doesn't seem to give a damn."
"Jacob, we've covered this. I'm out of my fucking mind," she said stiffly, then clenched her hands in her lap. "Or I've spent my whole life learning to carry on in the face of tragedy, and doing whatever is necessary to advance the family. To put the strong face forward, no matter what. Which is its own sort of madness, isn't it?"
I stared her down. I honestly couldn't tell if she was finally opening up a little bit, or just being crazier. Strange girl. Strange family, what was left of it.
"What does the Church say about all this? If anyone's going to see a pattern in something, it's those old apopheniacs."
"I think you made up that word," she said. "But I like it. The Church of the Algorithm has been quite silent on this one. None of the attacks have touched them, that we know of."
"But they could have."
"Of course. They lie as well as us. After all, they're hiding an angel in their basement, aren't they, Jacob?" She smiled at me. No one believed my stories from two years ago, especially not the industrialists. They could afford not to believe me. "But we have agents. I think we would know."
"Do you know the guy living in the Manor Tomb? Up in that old tower on the west side?"
She squinted at me, trying to make a decision. Secrets to tell, secrets to keep.
"That has something to do with the balance of power in the Council, Jacob. Are you sure you want to know about it?"
"I asked. I could knock you down and kick you until you tell me what I want to know, if you'd rather."
"Not really to my taste," she said, smiling wickedly. I decided right there and then that I never wanted to find out what was to this girl's taste. "Fair enough. There has been a rumor circulating that the Patron Tomb is finally dying. And not just in the process of dying, but really, nearly dead. You know he's been on the Council since before the Church rose to power? Before the Artificers Guild was disbanded and its leaders strung up, even."
"How could I possibly not know that, Lady Bright? I'm the son of a Founder, remember."
"So easy to forget sometimes, what with your rough and tumble ways, Mr. Burn." She looked down at her fingers, preened away some bit of dust from her nails. "But yes. The Patron is dying. And that's what makes your father's condition so interesting. Because if the Patron dies, Burn becomes the premier Founder seat."
"What does this have to do with the guy in the tower?" I asked.
"That's someone the family has brought in to sustain the old man's life," she answered. "Someone from outside the city. An expert. Of what, no one seems willing to say."
I felt my heart sink. I began to suspect what kind of expert he was.
"Anyway," she continued. "There are two ways this plays out. First, the Patron dies. Per the terms of their contract, the Patron's death will move the Tomb Right of Name on to the Family Verde, who bought it from him all those generations ago. And the Tombs are out of the Council."
"Seems like Angela would do everything she could to prevent that."
"Yes. Unless…" she held up a second finger.
"Unless?" I prompted.
"Unless the Family Burn is declared incapable of performing their duties. Say, if it was shown that their seat was held by a madman, with no declared heir. Angela has positioned herself to be declared the ward of that seat, in perpetuity. The Tombs would maintain their position in the Council."
"And if the son were reinstated?" I asked, the barest quaver in my voice. "What then?"
"The son?" she asked. "You mean the criminal, the murderer, the thug who takes rides with dangerous girls, who is wanted for conspiracy and theft and, oh, a thousand other things? That son?"
"I see your point."
"Maybe. But that son would still have a legal right to the seat. If he were reinstated, of course." Her eyes glittered and she leaned closer to me. "And he didn't get himself killed in the process."
"I really can't tell if you're threatening me, or offering to help."
She laughed. "Such a blunt object, Mr. Burn. It's going to be a joy, watching you crash through the Council. Assuming you take up your father's letter and claim your right in the Massif."
"How do you know about that?" I asked, sternly.
"Like I said. We have agents."
"Sure. Your agents are everywhere, all seeing. That's why you know about the wall of dead cutting this city off from the rest of the world."
"Wall of dead? You're being dramatic, Jacob."
"Wall of dead. I was under the city, I saw them. There's an army of the cog-dead standing watch on the shores of the Reine, keeping even clever boys like me inside today. Tell me," I looked back out the window, at the looming hulk of the Chamber Massif. "Is that part of your Council-ordained curfew?"
"It is not," she said carefully.
"So. Maybe you don't have all the cards."
"Maybe." She unfolded the gloves one last time, then pulled them on her thin fingers. "But I have you."
We were getting very close to the Chamber, now. I shifted nervously in my seat.
"What's the warrant on me for?" I asked.
"Murder, conspiracy, insurrection." She laughed with her eyes. "There's something in there about our black-toothed friends. They're holding you responsible for a lot of this trouble."
"Do you think I did that stuff?"
"Not at all. But I think the Founders would like to see the Family Burn raised up or gone forever. Either one works for them. And I guess you're the key to that." Again the smile, hopelessly dead of normal emotion. "What with your father and all."
"Is that why you're turning me in? Something to do with getting back at the Founders?"
"Who said I was turning you in, Jacob?" She pounded her fist on the carriage wall, and we stopped. The Chamber wasn't more than a block away. It was a dark shape, sketched in light from the windows, barely seen through the driving rain. It was still early in the day, but the storm had brought an early night. "I'm giving you a choice. You want to know what's going on, I know. You wouldn't have risked coming to me, otherwise. Come with me, risk arrest, and see what's going on in the Council. Or get out of the carriage, and never show your face in this city again."
"Hell of a choice," I said.
"Hell of a choice," she agreed.
I stared down at the old building. The Chamber Massif was a dangerous place, especially for a guy like me. What were they going to do? Arrest me. Try me right there. They had that kind of power. And someone in that room was keyed in to what was going on in the city, not just the curfew, not just the attacks. Answers inside, and nothing out here but the rain and a chance to get away. Hell of a choice.
"Can you do something about these?" I asked, holding my wrists in front of me. "And maybe get my revolver back? Don't want to go in naked."
She smiled nastily. "Cuffs, no. Revolver, yes," she said, producing the weapon from the folds of her riding dress and tucking it backwards into my vest pocket.
"Well," I said. "Thanks for the ride, ma'am."
I popped the door and stepped out. It was coming down, cold and hard. Veronica Bright tutted at me as I stepped into the rain.
"Jacob, you disappoint me."
"Yeah," I yelled over the driving rain. "That happens."
I ran to the alley, getting some cover from the rain in the sloped walls of the building. The carriage door closed behind me. A few moments later the engine clattered back to life, and they continued on. I watched them disappear into the Massif's covered barbican. Hell of a choice.
"Took you long enough," Wilson said. He stepped from the shadows, knives in his hands.
"I really thought they were going to see you," I said. I had been following his shadow from rooftop to alleyway since we left the Manor Bright. I raised my still-shackled hands. "Something you can do about this?"
"Maybe. Why are you here?"
"I'm done running, Wilson. I couldn't do it. I mean, seriously, I couldn't do it. The docks were all closed. But once I realized I was stuck here, well. I guess I realized a lot of other stuff. Like maybe there's more to being a hero than — "
"Shut it," Wilson said. He bent to the cuffs and had them off in a second. "Nothing I hate more than a thug who thinks he's a poet. What's the plan?"
"Do you honestly think I have a plan?"
"I think you have an idea. That's enough for me."
"Well then." I rubbed my wrists and looked longingly at the bright lights of the Massif. "Here's my idea."
The Manor Tomb hunched under the storm clouds, rain sheeting off its slate roof like a waterfall. The lights were on, all of them, glowing through the gloom. Wilson and I huddled across the street, counting the guards and the intervals of their patrol.
"Usually have more time to plan this kind of stunt, Jacob," Wilson said. He'd been grumpy ever since we left the Chamber Massif without stabbing or shooting a single person. He liked my idea less and less, the further we got into it. "Not the kind of thing you do off the cuff."
"That's what makes it interesting," I said. "Not something they'll expect."
I looked up at the tower. The crows were all inside or flown away. There was a light on, and shadows moving behind the curtains. Crane was close.
"Whatever he's planning, I have to believe that having the Council meet in the middle of the curfew is part of it. Angela called the session." I turned to Wilson. He was looking up at the window, whetting his knife on a stone. "Don't know if he's doing her bidding, or the other way around."
"Don't know that it matters," Wilson said. "Let's get to it."
"Yeah." I turned my attention to the gate. Tired of counting intervals. Tired of waiting. "Let's."
I was across the street and climbing the fence without another word. Wilson followed, then passed me. He was over the gate and into the guards before I was to the top. I meant to say something about not hurting the guards because, hey, they were just guards. Just guys drawing a paycheck. I'm not sure if it would have mattered to Wilson, anyway. He laid into them, fists and knives. Didn't even shrug out of his coat to get the spider arms involved. They went down like dropped meat.
"You didn't have to kill them," I said, landing heavily in the muddy yard.
"Probably not," he answered. "They didn't have to fight back, either."
It didn't look like they'd done much fighting back. Matter for another day. We double-timed toward the house, avoiding the main door and looking for a kitchen entrance, or servants' gate. Halfway across the garden, Wilson's handiwork was discovered. The cry went up.
"Can I kill them now?" he asked. I didn't answer. He had that look in his eye. Didn't matter what I said.
There were surprisingly few guards, and those that there were we just avoided. They didn't really seem to be guarding anything anymore. Mostly creeping from bush to bush, pillar to shrub, weapons out. Skittish. They spent as much time looking back toward the house as out into the perimeter of the estate. Something had them spooked.
"Guess with Angela gone, there's not much inside to guard."
"There's the Patron," I said. "And, you know, generations' worth of accumulated wealth. Nice furniture and stuff."
"Not a good day to steal furniture. Ruin the upholstery."
"Good point." I ducked as one of the skittish patrols crept past us. Never even looked our way. The two guards bee-lined for the wall and, as we watched, hitched over the gate and out into the streets.
"Jacob," Wilson said. "Unless I'm mistaken, those gentleman just fled the scene."
"Yes. They did."
"Perhaps they know something we don't?"
"Perhaps. But I'd rather find out for myself."
Wilson sighed, but still seemed pretty anxious to cut someone. We got to the house and snuck into the kitchens. The ovens were cold, and there was no one around.
"Not too typical," I said. "Unless the Tombs are having the sort of staffing problems the Burns are having."
"Tomb always managed the descent better than you lot," Wilson said. "Always managed to keep up appearances. Then again, they've managed to keep their place on the Council, too."
"We haven't lost our seat," I said. "Just no one around to sit it, right now."
"Sure. Right now."
We stopped talking and listened, because we both heard it. Hurried footsteps, and the rushing of the wind. I got behind a cabinet. Wilson just disappeared into the drafty beams of the ceiling.
A serving girl rushed into the room. She had both hands wrapped around a kitchen knife, and her face was as white as a sheet. She slid on the tiled floor and fell behind a counter, and the knife went clattering away. She crawled toward it until the wind got much closer. Terrified, she froze, her hand halfway to the knife.
A great darkness filled the doorway. It slithered past at tremendous speed, a shadow of glossy black feathers and iron-hard beaks, eyes that stared like beads of oil and claws that were red with fresh blood. The sound was incredible, a thousand wings, beating the air. It sounded like the shuffling of velvet cards, amplified a hundred times over. Deafening and soft, thunder wrapped in soft leather. The rushing darkness passed and passed, a seemingly endless parade of wings and beaks that flowed like a skyborne river of ink. Distant yelling, the thudding of doors, then a sharp splintering sound and they were away. The hallway was silent.
The girl was panting in terror. Slowly she stood, hands on knees, until she was straight. She stared out at the empty hallway, the fluttering ghost of a feather all that remained of the thunderous visitor.
"Now, love," Wilson said as he lowered himself from the ceiling on his spider arms. "I want you to not shout at all."
She shouted a great deal, mostly in terror. She backed away from him, until she bumped into me. I took her by the arms and spun her around.
"It's okay, alright? Everything's fine. We just…"
She fainted. I sighed and let her fold onto the floor gently.
"That was well done. When are you going to get it?" I asked. "Look at you. People are terrified of you, Wilson. Especially when you drop from the ceiling like that."
"Not my problem," he said, picking up the girl's kitchen knife and stowing it into his vest of blades. "Those were crows."
"Yes, they were."
"Meaning he's still here."
"Meaning his pets are still here," I said. "And maybe him. That's what I'm hoping."
"Yes," Wilson said, grinning his thousand-tooth grin. "Hoping."
"Don't kill him outright," I begged. "Just this once, don't kill him outright. There are probably some questions we should ask."
"Probably. But let's find him first. Crane and his little army of crows."
We put the kitchen girl into a cabinet and hoped that wasn't some kind of death sentence. That makes two unconscious girls I've left in certain danger in the last eight hours. Just like a hero.
It was pretty clear why those two house guards had gone over the wall at their first chance. There were dead housies scattered throughout the living quarters, and a whole pile of them in the dining room. I wondered if Angela had even made it to the Council session, but saw no evidence of any family members. Just guards and servants. Most of them looked to be resting peacefully, only the group in the dining room showing wounds. Those guys died violently. Everyone else might have just lain down, with their eyes open and looks of terror on their faces, and just stopped moving.
"Our friend Crane, he likes to find a variety of ways to kill," Wilson said. We were standing at the foot of the grand stairwell. This would get us to the fourth floor. We'd have to look around for the tower stairs from there. Wilson bent to examine the body of a manservant draped at the bottom of the stairs. He had taken a tumble, but nothing that looked fatal. "Interesting."
"Too many things in this venture can be described as 'interesting,'" I said. "I don't like it."
"Perhaps you should hang out with people who are interested in less morbid things," Wilson said. He produced a pair of long tweezers and used them to fish around in the servant's gaping mouth. With a tug that pulled at something deep in the servant's chest, Wilson held up the tweezers. They were grasping a twig. "You can't tell me this isn't interesting."
"I can, and I will," I said, sweating nervously. "About as interesting as getting fatally shot, at the moment."
"Mm. Yes." Wilson dropped the twig into a specimen tube and tucked it happily into his vest. "Alrighty, then. Shall we continue?"
"Cheerfully."
The rest of the main house seemed deserted. The higher we got, the more nervous I got. The stranger our surroundings got, too. The carpets were so plush under our feet they seemed rotten, like swollen sponges. Several of the household plants that the Tombs kept carefully manicured in various sidehalls had grown fetid, spilling out from their containers and crawling up the walls. One midget oak had burst its blue and white ceramic vase with an exuberance of root growth, and the branches scratched at the ceiling and walls with their dry leaves.
"It's a lively place," Wilson said.
"Clever. This isn't natural, is it?" I asked.
"Oh, definitely not natural." Wilson paused to examine the oak, brushing the enormous leaves with the back of his hand. "Perhaps Mr. Crane is some sort of nature enthusiast?"
"He didn't seem the type," I said. "And again, this isn't natural."
I pointed out a clock that hung from the wall of the hallway. The cogs had sprung free and unraveled into looping cords of ivy. As we watched, the pendulum burst like a seed pod, a thin fuzz littering the escapement as it collapsed.
"I'm getting nervous about breathing this in," I said.
"Don't be," Wilson answered cheerfully. "We've been breathing it in for most of the last half hour. If it's going to kill us, the damage is already done."
"Couldn't you lie or something? Pretend that it's perfectly safe?"
"You know better than that, Jacob. Come on."
We continued to the top floor of the main house. Since the decline of their fortune, many families had shut up unused areas of their vast manors, and Tomb was no exception. The last two levels of the house were sealed off. Stiff tarp covered the archways off the stairwell that would usually lead to those halls. I was tempted to cut them open and see what might be hidden beyond, what fecund growths had taken root among the linens and the dust. My urgency to get to Crane and end this kept my curiosity in check.
The fact that everything was closed up made finding the path to Crane's tower simple enough. His was the only hallway that was open, and his was the only door that hadn't been sealed. Odd that they would put him way up here, so far from his supposed charge. Then again, if a man like Ezekiel Crane was in my house, I would want as much distance between us as possible. Distance and padlocks.
There was no way we were going to be able to sneak up on him. The staircase was a tightly coiled stone spiral, the steps worn by years of use. One of the original structures of the manor, I suspected, from back when the estates of the Founding Families were by necessity armed fortresses, rather than luxurious manors. Our feet were loud on the steps, and there was no other sound to mask them. Wilson led the way, walking carefully, his spider talons touching the walls on either side of the passage. Our hope was that he would be able to react more quickly to an ambush or sudden encounter. We needn't have worried about it.
Crane's room was empty. The walls were lined in empty cages and bird shit. The center of the room was occupied by a narrow bed, pushed up next to a desk. Books and papers were strewn across the desk, held in place by dripping candles and empty bottles of wine. It was a familiar scene. This time I was able to get a good look at the contents of the desk. I didn't understand them, other than to be sickened.
"Anatomical drawings, diagrams. Something that looks very much like a template for cogwork of some nature," Wilson said, flipping through the papers. "A genus of flora, overlaid with the typical mortal tree. Unusual stuff. Doesn't explain the ivy clock, or his dead friends in the river."
"Is there anything we can use? Any clue as to what he might be after?"
Wilson shook his head grimly. "Hard to say. Maybe if I had a week, or a month, I might be able to glean something from all this. This is not anything I'm familiar with. Not a traditionally taught science, whatever it is that he's practicing."
"Take what you can. What you think looks promising." I glanced at the stairway we had just left. This was the only way out. "He's downstairs somewhere. I don't really care why he's doing what he's doing. I just want to stop him. Maybe if we…"
I drifted off. A very old piece of paper hung, framed, above the door. I reached up and took it down, laying it on the desk.
"Lettering's faded. This thing is old." Wilson picked it up. No dust on the frame, or on the glass. He squinted at the paper. "Like, 'historical document' old. And the language is hard to make out."
"Is it Celestean?" I asked, averting my eyes.
"No, no. Nothing that exotic. Just old. Letters change, over time. Descenders shorten, people get lazy with…"
"What does it say, Wilson?"
He spun it around to face me.
"You're an adult. You can read."
It took me a second to adjust to the lettering, like he said. It was some sort of official document. There was a crumbling seal at the bottom, and many signatures in florid hands. But I picked out the words I needed.
"It's a Right of Name. These are supposed to be engraved in stone, or steel. I've never seen one on paper."
"Perhaps the original was destroyed. And the name, Maker. I've never heard of them."
"That's not possible. Every Founder's history is preserved by the Council. This must be some kind of forgery."
"Or," Wilson said, "the original was destroyed."
Things fell into place.
"There aren't many families left from that time," Wilson said. "But two of them — "
"— are Burn and Tomb," I finished for him, then ran to the door. The Tombs weren't just left from that time. Patron Tomb was still alive back then. Back before he took on his cloak of mausoleum, before his family came to depend on him staying alive to keep their seat. He was the last living link to that time. He might know who this guy was, who the Makers were, and why they were purged.
And unless I missed my guess, the Patron was alone right now, in the care of the last remaining scion of the Maker line.