She didn't know.
Angela stood staring at me, as much shock on her face as her little brass pistons could manage. The rest of the room exploded. There were calls to arrest her, to unhand her, calls for guards, guards. They were all met with silence.
At the middle of the storm, I stood with Angela.
"What are you doing to me?" she asked.
"You didn't know it was him?"
"No," she shook her head. "I didn't… I had no idea. He was a doctor, for papa. He's very sick."
Papa. Not a word I'd ever heard her say. Ever expected to hear her say. Strange little machine-girl, and her papa-in-a-tomb. Tried to get my head around that.
"I think he followed Alexander in," I said. "Met him on that trip upriver. He… gods, it's loud in here."
Wilson slid up next to me, nodded to the Lady Tomb, then handed me my shotgun.
"Are you sure you weren't a butler in a past life?" I asked him.
"Be serious, Jacob. I was a monster in a past life."
"Well, either way. Thank you."
I raised the shotgun and fired into the air. The report reverberated through the chamber, and the buck went up into that priceless stained glass dome, shattering it. The splinters seemed to hang in the air for a second, and then rained down on us in glittering shards of pure light. When the last of the panes had scattered on the marble floor, I raised my head and looked up at the raging sky.
"Forgot that was there," I said.
Angela giggled (actually giggled!) and held her hand over her mouth.
"Oh, Jacob. You make such a mess of things."
"I do, don't I?" I shouldered the shotgun and walked around the circle, glass crunching under my boots. "Listen, people. She was deceived, just like my father was deceived. And yes, Alexander was nearly mad by the end of it, and the Tombs were tricked into thinking that this man Crane could save the Patron from his inevitable death." I stopped on my heel and turned to Angela. "And he couldn't."
It took a second for that to settle into the minds of the Councilors. Plumer got it first.
"The Patron is dead," he whispered.
Another round of hubbub, Angela shaking her head at me all the while. I went to her.
"No more time for politics, Angela. See what Crane has done to you. Done to the city. This Council is still yours, as it always was." I handed her the shotgun. "Take them, and avenge yourself on Ezekiel Crane."
She grimaced at me, at the weapon in her hand. A coldness came over her face. I stepped away, taking Wilson with me. We returned to the Burn dais and settled in for the show.
"Enough!" she yelled. There was still some conversation, most of it among the industrialists. Angela scurried across the room and put the butt of the gun heavily into the dais of the Trotter-Heights. It resounded like a gong. "Enough!"
They stopped, and they looked at her. It was all she needed.
"The succession will continue. Tomorrow, if there's still a city. Tomorrow, if we're still alive to surrender the seat. The Patron clung to life, but mostly he clung to the Council. Let's not throw him off without a fight. Ezekiel Crane has done my family a great harm. I would harm him back."
"It was you called the curfew, Tomb. It was you who suggested we hide the attacks and separate a portion of the Badge to suppress it. It's you they report to, Lady Tomb." The speaker was the Councilor for one of the older industrialist families. He saw a Founder falling, and he loved it. Wanted to stand where she fell. "Tell us why we don't throw you out of the Chamber this very second, and take our own direction."
"Your own direction? Nathan, you couldn't take your own piss. We have talked enough. Jacob is right. The time has come to act against this threat."
"Your honor, with all due respect…" Nathan protested, with enunciation as sharp as the shattered glass on the floor.
"With due respect," Angela interrupted, "you can throw me out tomorrow, if you can get your nerve up by then. Councilor Burn," she said, turning to me. "You have the most experience with this man, excluding the ruse he has been playing on my family's hospitality. What can you tell us of him? What are his goals, his intentions?"
I sat up from where I had been lounging in my Council seat. Honestly, I had felt like my part in this conversation was done. I was hoping that Angela would just take the authority and run with it, and let me scuttle back into the shadows. Oh well.
"He has revenge on his mind. Best we've been able to piece together, he's the last remnant of one of the Founding Families, come back to knock Veridon on its ass."
"Which family?" Plumer asked. "One of the lines that fell out of favor, probably. Let's see, who among us died out? Lever? Mastingway? The Hoat?"
"Maker," I said. They met me with blank stares.
"That must be a stage name, or something," Nathan said. "My family's records of the lineages of Veridon are quite extensive, as you all know. The name means nothing to me."
"They won't be in your books. Nor will they be mentioned in the histories of the city, or on the plagues of Memory. They have been removed. Utterly."
"But how is that…" Nathan began, then understood. "A Rite of Purge."
"Correct. Maker seems to have been allied with the Artificers Guild. Not sure what their role was in the trials, if they were accused or merely worked to defend the Guild. Either way, it seems that the result was pretty severe."
"A Rite of Purge is very thorough, Jacob," Angela said. "If one was leveled at these Makers, there wouldn't be any left."
"Or any survivors would have to live in such isolation that the subsequent centuries would have driven them mad," I answered. They settled back in their chairs, thought about what they'd seen in the past few months. They were beginning to see it.
"But what is his goal?" Angela said. "Surely there's more to it than this?"
"He has shut the city down and apparently murdered two of the most prominent members of this Council," Nathan said nervously. "I hardly think that's insignificant."
"He made it clear to us that he intended to strike down the heart of Veridon. I don't think he wants to level the city, or kill massive numbers of the population. But he wants to change the city forever." I spread my hands. "Whether that means upsetting the balance of power, or making the Council that purged his family irrelevant to the future of the city, I don't know."
"Make us irrelevant?" Plumer squawked, much like the crows outside. "How could he do such a thing?"
"He could start by killing all of us," Angela said. That settled the room down some. "So, what do you think, Jacob?"
"I think there's more going on in this room than most of you are admitting. Tomb and Burn have suffered losses," I looked around the room, my eyes only briefly pausing on Veronica Bright. "Have any other families been struck?"
There was nervous shuffling of papers, proud Councilors unwilling to make eye contact. Finally Plumer sighed and stood.
"We have lost three sons. The next three in succession." This fat man had no sons of his own, I remembered. It was his brother who was mourning. "But not today. This happened two weeks ago. We didn't think it had anything to do with the attacks. It seemed to be the work of a human agent." He glanced up at me. "They were shot, while on cruise on the Reine."
"Hardly seems Crane's style. But perhaps it's relevant. Wilson and I saw a strange woman near Crane's house. She wore an iron mask, perhaps a reference to the Purge Mask. Maybe she is somehow involved in these attacks."
"You well know that we lost many, Mr. Burn," Veronica spoke up. "Nearly all. There are younger children left, those who were eating in a different room. But for practical purposes, I am the last Bright who can hold this seat."
"I did not wish to force your hand, Lady Bright," I said, nodding to her. "Anyone else?"
They all had stories. There had been assassinations, suspicious accidents and outright murders going back three months. They all seemed aimed at weakening each family's grip on power in the Council. Suddenly my father's madness didn't look so bad. The Families had not shared this information because the attacks seemed politically motivated. And there had been counterstrikes, though no one would admit to it. Heirs had been lost, and assassins had been hired to retaliate. One reason that the Badge had been assigned to guard each Family's estate was that everyone expected their rivals to use the curfew as cover for their final strike. And maybe that was happening, right now. More than one Councilor called for servants to hurry messages out into the city. Perhaps assassinations were being called off, or at least delayed. Hopefully we could stop killing each other, at least for a day.
"It seems to me," Angela said quietly, after people had stopped talking, "that we have been played for a fool. Crane, or Maker, or whatever his name is… Ezekiel has set us against each other. It doesn't take much to put us at each other's throats, does it?"
"Apparently not," I said. "And you were worried about letting me into your august company. Hardly seems worth discussing, to add another murderer to your ranks."
"Hardly necessary, Mr. Burn," Nathan said. "But it doesn't matter. We have seen through Crane's scheme, and stand united. He tried to get us to kill each other. Instead he has driven us together. Fortunate that you escaped his clutches, Councilor."
It took me a second to realize he meant me. I chuckled at the title. Uncomfortably.
"I would hardly say I escaped him, sir," I said. "Time and again he had me, and time and again he let me go. I think he was hoping to implicate me in the Patron's death. Nearly succeeded, too. At the end we were able to disrupt his control of the cog-dead just long enough to slip free. Near thing."
Wilson came around the edge of my chair and cleared his throat. Being good aristocrats, and mistaking the anansi for my manservant, the other Councilors ignored him.
"It hardly matters now how you did it, young Burn. But I suppose that once this is all over we'll need to hunt the scoundrel down and give him a good thrashing." Nathan removed his glasses and cleaned them with the edge of a cloth that hung from his belt, apparently for precisely that purpose. "I suppose you'll want to lead that hunt, eh?"
"Jacob," Wilson said. Before I could turn to him, Plumer stepped forward.
"Oh, I would think the Badge should handle that. Though I suppose a formal hunting party, sort of a parade or something. I suppose we could approve that. Do you think, Nathan?"
"Jacob," Wilson hissed in my ear.
"In fact, I think we should make a day of it…" Nathan began.
"For gods' sake, Jacob!" Wilson grabbed me by the elbow and turned me around. There were gasps, at least one from me. Wilson was strong. "What if we didn't disrupt his control, as you said? We never did understand how that worked."
"We don't understand most of what he did, Wilson. Why?"
"What if he let us go? What if he held them at bay, just long enough to make it look good when we did get out? Enough to make our escape feel real."
"Why in hell would be do that?" I asked.
"So we could come here. So we could reveal his plan to the Council. So we could foil his little scheme."
"Well. That would be terribly clever of him, I must admit. That's exactly what he's accomplished. Look," I said, waving an arm around the Chamber. "Council's in session, no cog-dead ravaging through the hall, and we're not killing each other. Just as he planned."
"Jacob," he said. "The crows. They let us through."
"Maybe he… maybe he doesn't have as much control of those things as we thought?" Wilson just stared at me. "Maybe he didn't expect them to believe me, thought they would throw me out and go at each others' throats the second my ass hit the pavement. Maybe…"
I had nothing else. He was right. It didn't make sense.
"What is your man implying?" Plumer asked.
"I'm not his man," Wilson growled. "And I'm implying that we're still being played. We're holed up in here, and the Badge is patrolling your estates. The rest of the city is empty of authority. He could be anywhere, doing anything."
"Well," Nathan said, "that may be. But it sounds to me like we've got the important stuff covered."
"I'll be sure to relay your sympathies to the rest of the citizenry of Veridon," I spat. "He could be butchering the population and turning them into an army of the cog-dead."
The Council paled, except for Angela. She was pretty pale to begin with. And Veronica. She just sat there, thinking.
"What did Crane say to you?" she asked. "Specifically. You said before, but I need to hear it again."
"He said that he meant to strike at the heart of Veridon. To level the city, or something."
"The heart. Gentlemen, and Lady" — Veronica stood — "we are not the heart of Veridon. If you'll excuse me, I have a service to attend." And she exited.
"Never knew the Brights to be the religious type," Nathan said. "But, you know, in the face of fear. It's the natural reaction, I suppose."
"The Church," I said, and addressed myself to Angela. "What does the Church know of the attacks?"
"Nothing," she said. "We hid them from everyone. None of them affected the Church directly."
"None of the attacks that you know about," I countered. "If we can keep incidents hidden from them, surely they can do the same to us."
"Perhaps. But they're aware of the curfew. We sent a messenger, alerting them of the procedure and explaining its purpose."
"You heard back?" I asked.
"No, but we took their silence as tacit approval. They're rarely verbose, especially to the Council."
"I've heard enough." I stood and crossed to Angela's dais. Holding out my hands, I said, "Ma'am, I'm going to need my iron back."
She looked at me crossly, but handed the shotgun over. We left the chamber without further comment.
"Excitable lad, isn't he?" Nathan said as I left. "The Council will be an interesting place, with him voting."
"Perhaps," Plumer said. "As long as he remembers to vote, and not just rush off…"
I was most of the way to the door before I heard a mechanical clattering behind me. Angela was on my heels, and making good speed in the formal engine. She rumbled past me and turned to block my path.
"Jacob!" she yelled. "Don't go charging into anything just yet. You'll need help."
"I can't imagine what you're going to offer me, but I suspect I'm better off on my own. Thanks, though." I tried to push past her.
"Nonsense. You're very stubborn, but you're also very much just one guy with a shotgun. You think he's doing something at the Algorithm?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it? That cog, the Wrights even call it the heart. Or maybe he's after Camilla. It doesn't matter, though, does it? It was the Algorithm that got the Council to ban the Artificers. It was the Algorithm that replaced the Guild as the driving force of technology in Veridon." I snapped my fingers and pointed to Wilson. "In the Manor Tomb, when we were rushing upstairs. All the technology had turned into plants and stuff. Imagine what would happen if he did something like that in the Church."
"We'd all be worshiping trees, I get it. But you can't think you'll be able to stop him on your own. I've sent for the Badge officers who are protecting the Manor. If what you've said is true, there's nothing there for them to guard, anyway." She paused, then drew nearer. "Is it true? Is the Patron dead?"
"He looked awfully sick," I said, measuring my words. "And you left him in the care of a man who intended to kill him, and who had access to technology we don't even begin to understand. I can't imagine he survived."
"Actually," Wilson said, imposing himself on the conversation. "Crane said that he couldn't kill him. Just that what the Patron was becoming couldn't be called living, after a certain point."
"I'm not sure that's any better," Angela whispered.
"Listen. We'll get this sorted out. And you have my sympathy. But the last time I talked to him, the Patron didn't seem too happy with the state of things."
She didn't answer, just nodded and backed away. We went to the door.
"They'll meet you at the Church," she said. "It's not much, but it's all I can offer."
I smiled and went outside. "It's more than I expected," I said to no one in particular. Wilson pretended to not hear.
The streets were less empty than they had been earlier. Curious mothers and frightened fathers stood at the doors of their houses, looking up, or gathered at the cross-streets, talking quietly to neighbors. Many were armed. The city had the feel of a place under siege. Veridon's walls had always been the rivers, but it felt like the rivers themselves were attacking us. People knew what was going on, although they hadn't been told. Blood was in the air. Blood and fear.
More than one group hailed us as we passed. It was like they could sense the Council's authority on my shoulders. Usually, with the tattered condition of my clothes and my general miscreant's bearing, these people would either ignore me or shirk away. Today they called out, and asked what the Council was doing. What was going on. I didn't answer. Although I suppose rushing down the street, fully armed, with an equally well-armed anansi in my wake was its own answer. That we were clearly heading toward the Church of the Algorithm probably meant something to them, too.
Things changed once we got to Hallowsward, the district around the Algorithm. No one was standing in their doors, or gathering at the crosses. The windows were boarded up from the inside. There were a couple homes that had been barricaded at their front gates, the approaches guarded by men with guns. This was a richer district than most of Veridon. These people could afford guards. Something must have spooked them. Something more than a general sense of uneasiness. I approached one of the barricades, shotgun on my back, hands in the air.
"Hello up there! Jacob Burn, Councilor of Veridon! What news?"
I was met with silence. The men behind the barricade were scanning their rifles across the street, although the barrels spent more time lingering over me than I liked.
"I'm on Council business!" I yelled. "What have you seen?"
"All manner of things," one of them finally answered. "Would you be fetching the Badge, then?"
"Badge are occupied throughout the city," I lied. Well. I misdirected. Since they weren't actively shooting at me, I approached the barricade. "I'm here to assess the situation in this district, and do what I can to resolve matters. What can you tell me?"
The men were well-dressed. Butlers or horsemen, the type of servant expected to look good in front of the master. But they handled their rifles well enough. I only got so close before one of them poked his weapon in my direction. I stopped, hands still in the air.
"Could've used the Badge earlier. Not sure but you're too late. Noise has mostly gone away."
"What noise?" I asked.
He nodded down the street, in the direction of the Church.
"Awful sounds," he said. "Like metal tearing. Like an engine the size of a building. And crows like you wouldn't believe. Crows to block out the sky. We've been hunkered down ever since."
"Engine the size of a building," I repeated. "Thanks for your time, sir. Best of luck with your barricade."
Only one engine that big, and these men knew it. The Wrights of the Algorithm had been putting together an engine for the last several hundred years inside their church. Taken random bits of machinery and found cogwork that they had dredged up from the river Reine, assembling it according to some pattern that looked a lot like guesswork. To them, the pattern was god. It was a divine assembly, conjured from their souls and meshing with their hearts.
And from the sound of it, their god was suffering.
For once, the Badge beat us there. A squad of officers was huddled in the lee of a warehouse that overlooked the Church of the Algorithm. The Church itself hunched over the Ebd river like some complicated nautilus that had washed to shore and broken open. Water flowed through its many chambers, feeding or cooling boilers far beneath the surface. Domes bubbled out of the architecture, bristling with bell towers, and walkways led into the open courtyards between buildings. The Church grew every year, just as the mechanical algorithm that chewed through its corridors grew. New buildings were added, or even grown, at a breathtaking rate. And that was just the development that was plainly visible. The majority of the Church was submerged beneath the river. The waterline upriver of the Church rose and dropped with chaotic frequency, as the obstruction grew and new channels were opened to prevent flooding. I wondered if anyone in the Council knew the depth and breadth of this place.
Despite my fears, though, the Church of the Algorithm looked quiet. At least as quiet as it ever did. The engines of god were rumbling, the chimneys spewed steam into the air. The boilers boiled. Nothing about that swirling cancer of architecture looked any different from what I was used to seeing. Wilson and I finished our descent to the river and went to talk to the Badgemen who had been sent to assist us. There was an old friend among them.
"Curious Mr. Matthew," I said, smiling. "Matthew the Joker. I don't think it's any coincidence that Lady Tomb sent you to help us out, do you?"
"I volunteered for the duty," he said. This was the man who had questioned me after the factory fire. I didn't see him as an ordinary beat cop. The crash gear he wore looked custom-fitted, though, so maybe he liked to play brutal boy every once in a while. "When it was obvious that the Council Families were dividing our forces and keeping us away from the Church, I made sure I was on the team that went to the Tombs. And when we saw what we saw there, I made sure I got put on the team that came down here."
"What exactly did you see there?" I asked.
"Don't be cute, Burn." He turned from me and addressed himself to the Church. "Going to be a hell of a nut to crack."
"Seriously, I want to know what you saw." I pulled him around and poked his chest. "I'm holding the Burn seat on the Council; answer my questions."
"You want to know, you read the report," he said. "And if you're really on the Council then I'm sure this conversation is over. We've got business here, with the Algorithm. That's as far as your authority with me lies, Burn."
"What the hell has gotten into everyone today?" I asked. "Okay, fine. You want to be a smart ass, I can understand that. What have you seen of the Church?"
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing different, at least. But we've got reports of a tremendous noise, and lots of blackbirds circling the building before diving in. Then nothing else."
"Crows," Wilson said. "Not blackbirds."
"Same thing, smart ass."
"It doesn't matter," I cut them off. "We have to assume that Crane is inside. I don't like that we haven't heard any fighting. The Wrights should have at least put up a struggle."
"Assuming that they're fighting," Matthew said. "Assuming that they haven't been in on this thing from the beginning."
"That's actually an interesting thought," Wilson said, stepping in. "Angela said that there have been no known attacks on the Church. While it's possible that they could have simply been hiding them from us, it's also true that a lot of the technology of the Artificers is compatible with the technology produced by the Wrights. The engram singers, for example, must be implanted with cogwork engines for the maker beetles to take effect."
"What's also an interesting thought," Matthew said. "Is that they're a bunch of weaselly little cog-lovers, and I don't trust them as far as I could throw them."
"Well, your obvious lack of distrust of technology is adorable, in a down-to-earth, rough-guy sort of way," Wilson said, "but that doesn't mean that you haven't had a good idea. Purely by chance, of course, but there it is."
"I have half a mind to arrest you," Matthew fumed.
"You can't arrest him. He's here with me, and I'm here representing the Council," I said.
"Jacob Burn, the last time I saw you, you were in custody for acts of terrorism. That you were sprung by that monster Tomb does nothing to raise my opinion of you." He spat over his shoulder and gave me a little shove. "For all I know you're here to disrupt my investigation, break into the Church of the Algorithm, and steal some bit of magic coggery to undo whatever it is that happened to Patron Tomb and take over the Council."
"I want to get back to the part where the Church and Crane were in on this from the beginning," Wilson said. Stubborn, stubborn bug. "Because that has legs. Maybe they've had some trouble with their source of cogwork and are trying to supplement their Algorithm with work from the Artificers. Or maybe they've finally decided to cast off the Council and take over the city. That seems entirely possible."
"Enough bright ideas," I said. "We've got enough trouble without trying to make up new conspiracies." I began ticking points off on my fingers. "Crane is the last remnant of a family of Artificers, purged out when the Guild was exiled. He's back to get revenge on the city. He's killed a bunch of Councilors, and now he's trying to destroy the religion that got the Guild in trouble in the first place." I held up my hand, showing my fingers to Wilson, Matthew, and the gathered officers of the Badge. "That's the story we're sticking to. Everyone got it?"
Numb nods all around. Poor guys had probably thought they were dealing with a simple power struggle in the Council. Only Matthew looked unconvinced.
"Good enough," I said. "So we're going to go in there, find Ezekiel Crane, and we're going to kill him. I don't want to know anything more about his motives, I don't want to give him a fair trial in a court of his peers, I don't want to question him to find anything out. I want him shot. And if that doesn't kill him, I want him shot again. Any questions?"
None of them bothered to nod. They just stared back at me.
"Okay, then. The front door is as good a place as any to start. Suit up, check your ammunition, and follow me."