“For twenty-five years.”
“Then why won’t he let you into the tower?”
Why indeed? Even on those rare occasions when the Crane hadn’t granted me an audience, his doorman had always animated to reject my plea. If the Aerie’s defenses had fallen into disrepair, it meant the Crane’s health was worse than I thought. I picked up another stone, larger this time, and flung it at the guardian. It had no more effect than the first, and I sat back down.
I poured ice water on my temper. There was still work that needed doing. Wren flipped his legs over the white stone. I did the same and we looked out toward the city.
“I like this labyrinth,” Wren said.
“It’s a maze.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A labyrinth only has one path and ends in the center. A maze has many different paths and ends where you find a way out.”
I rose to greet Celia. Her dress looked soft in the afternoon light and she was smiling. “I’m sorry that you had to wait. I’ve taken over running the Aerie, but I haven’t quite figured out how to operate the guardian yet.” She took my hand gently.
“Who is this here?” she asked. I looked down to see Wren had pulled a snarl across his face. I chalked it up to the perverse instinct common among adolescents when presented with a member of the preferred sex, the root impulse that drives young men to rub mud in the hair of their future betrothed. There were few women walking the streets of Low Town to compare with Celia.
“Wren, this is Celia. Celia, this is Wren. Don’t mind the face-he stepped on a bit of rusty metal yesterday. I think he’s coming down with lockjaw.”
“I’m glad he brought you over, then. We’ll have the Master take a look at it.” Celia’s attempt to win over the boy from his opening offering of irrational dislike proved unsuccessful-if anything his grimace deepened. With a graceful lift of her shoulders Celia turned her attention back toward me. “Still picking up wastrels, I see.”
“He’s more of an apprentice. Are we to continue this discussion in the street, or were you planning on inviting us inside?”
She laughed a little. I could always make her laugh. We climbed to the top of the tower, and Celia walked us into the Crane’s drawing room. “The Master should be here shortly. I alerted him to your arrival before I went to let you in.”
We watched the sun fade through the south window. Wren stood close, his eyes scanning the Crane’s treasures with the intensity of someone whose collected possessions could fit comfortably in a rucksack.
The bedroom door opened and the Crane entered, cheerily but with a stiffness that no good humor could hide. “Back for some clandestine purpose no doubt,” he began, before noticing the child at my hip.
Then his eyes lit up like they used to, and years seemed to shed off him, and I was glad that I had bothered to rustle Wren out of the Earl. “I see you’ve brought a guest. Come over here, child. I’m old, and my sight isn’t what it once was.”
Contra the unfriendliness he’d shown Celia, Wren moved forward without further prompting, and again I was struck by the easy grace the Crane possessed with children. “You’re thinner than a boy your age should be, but then so was your master. Chest like a mop handle. What’s your name?”
“Wren.”
“Wren?” The Crane’s laughter echoed through the room, for once not trailed by a hacking cough. “Wren and Crane! We might as well be brothers! Of course, my namesake is a creature of dignity and poise-while yours is a silly fowl, notable only for its rather aggravating song.”
This wasn’t quite enough to bring a smile to the boy’s face, but it was close, awful close for Wren.
“Well then, Wren. Will you grace us with a tune?”
The boy shook his head.
“Then it seems I shall provide the entertainment.” With a youthful burst of speed he moved to a shelf over the fire and pulled down an old creation of his, a strange-looking instrument halfway between a trumpet and a hunting horn, curling bands of burnished copper capped by pale ivory. “You are certain you won’t indulge your musical talents, young Wren?”
Wren shook his head again furiously.
The Crane shrugged in mock disappointment, then put the thing to his lips and let forth with a full-throated blast. It made a sound like the bellow of a bull, and a kaleidoscope of red and orange sparks erupted from the end, eddying about in the firmament.
Wren brushed at the glittering light that swirled through the air. I had loved that thing as a child-odd that I hadn’t thought about it for so long.
Celia interrupted. “Master, if you’d be so kind as to entertain our new friend, I need to have a few words with our old one.”
I thought he would object, but instead he flashed me a quick smile before turning back to the boy. “Each note releases a different color, see?” He blew another tone on the trumpet, and a spray shot out, blue green like the foam of the sea.
We descended to the conservatory without speaking. The glass door was fogged from the heat, and Celia opened it and ushered me inside. Before I had time to appreciate the new suite of flowers that had taken bloom, Celia jumped into it. “Well? What of our investigation?”
“Shouldn’t we include the Master in this?”
“If you want to tear a dying man away from one of the few pleasures left to him, it’s on your head.”
Having seen the man, it didn’t come as a complete shock. But still, I didn’t like hearing my suspicions confirmed. “He’s dying?”
Celia sat on a stool beside a pink orchid and nodded sadly.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s old. He won’t tell me exactly, but he’s seventy-five if he’s a day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, but moved on quickly. “It upsets him, this business with the children. He’s always been… softhearted.”
“I’m not sure you need to be oversensitive to find child murder distasteful,” I said, brushing a grain of pollen out of my eye and trying not to sneeze.
“I didn’t mean that. What’s happened to the children is terrible. But there isn’t much the Master can do. He isn’t what he was.” Her eyes were firm. “The Crane has served the people of this city for half a century. He deserves peace in his final days. Surely you owe him that much, at least?”
“I owe the Master more than I could ever repay.” A memory came to my mind of the Crane as he had been, his eyes sparkling with wit and mischief, his back neither bent nor bowed. “But that isn’t the point. This thing needs to be stopped, and my resources are not such that I can afford to lose an ally.” I laughed caustically. “In a week it won’t matter one way or the other.”
“What does that mean?”
“Forget it-a poor attempt at humor.”
She was unconvinced but didn’t pursue it further. “I’m not cutting you off. If you need help… I’ll never be the Crane’s equal in ability or in wisdom. But I am a Sorcerer First Rank.” She nodded modestly at the ring that testified to this last fact. “The Master has watched over Low Town long enough-having taken over the tower, perhaps it’s time I adopt the rest of his mantle.”
The years since we had seen each other had aged Celia. She was no longer the child I had brought to the Aerie decades ago. Though she still spoke like it sometimes-“adopt his mantle,” the Daevas save us.
Celia took my silence as agreement. “You have any leads?”
“I have suspicions. I always have suspicions.”
“Don’t let me hurry you-if there’s some other matter pressing on your shoulders, feel free to take care of that first.”
“I visited a party thrown by the Duke of Beaconfield, the Smiling Blade. Your gem throbbed against my chest while we talked.”