<You’d eat out of the trash?>
<Yeah. Have before. Probably will again.>
<The jungles to the west look very tropical. Maybe you could hide out there for a while?>
<There are wild pigs as tall as a man’s eye. Apparently they enjoy killing people for sport. Not sure a magic key could be of much help there.>
<Okay, but…but this is a giant city, right? You can’t find anywhere to hide? Anywhere?>
<Foundryside and the Greens aren’t safe. Maybe I could go to the Commons in the north, away from the channel. But the Commons only occupies about a tenth of Tevanne’s land. The rest of the city is campo—and it’s damn hard to hide there.>
<We’re pulling it off now,> said Clef.
<For now. On a rooftop. Yes. But this isn’t exactly a sustainable arrangement.>
<Okay…so what? What’s the plan?>
Sancia thought about it. <Claudia and Giovanni mentioned that the Candianos changed up their sachets…>
<The who?>
<The Candianos. One of the four merchant houses.> She pointed north. <See that big dome out there?>
<Like, the really, really, really big one?>
<Yes. That’s the Mountain of the Candianos. They used to be the most powerful merchant house in the world, until Tribuno Candiano went insane.>
<Oh yeah, you mentioned him. They locked him in a tower, right?>
<Supposedly. Anyways, Claudia said they changed their entire sachets up overnight, and no one does that unless something’s gone really wrong. It means chaos and confusion somewhere on the campo, and it’s easiest to steal things during chaos and confusion.> She sighed. <But it’d need to be something big to get us the cash we need.>
<Why not rob that Mountain place? It looks like it’s full of valuable stuff.>
She laughed lowly. <Yeah, no. No one—and I mean no one—has ever broken into the Mountain. You couldn’t break into that place even if you had the wand of Crasedes himself. I hear weird rumors about the Mountain—that it’s haunted or…well. Something worse.>
<So what are you going to do?>
<Figure it out. However I can.> She yawned, stretched out, and lay down on the flat stone roof. <We have a few hours until sunset. I’m going to rest until then.>
<What, you’re going to sleep on a stone roof?>
<Yeah? What’s wrong with that?>
Clef paused. <I get the sense, kid, that you’ve lived in some rough places.>
Sancia lay on the roof, staring up at the sky. She thought about Sark, about her apartment—which, as barren as it was, now seemed like a paradise to her.
<Talk to me, Clef,> she said.
<Huh? About what?>
<Anything. Anything besides what’s going on right now.>
<I see.> He thought about it. <Hmm. Well. There are thirty-seven scrivings currently active within a thousand-foot radius of us. Fourteen of those are interrelated, actively engaged with each other, feeding information or heat or energy back and forth.> His voice grew soft, and a singsong cadence crept into it. <I wish you could see them as I see them. The ones below us are dancing, in a way, seesawing back and forth ever so gently as one hands off heat into a giant block of dense stone, storing it deep in its bones, while another scriving scoops it up and spills the heat across a plate of glass beads, softening them, melting them, until they form a plate of clearest glass…There’s a scrived light on in a bedroom across the street from us. Its light is rosy and soft. Its scrivings stored up all this old candlelight and now they’re slowly letting it leak out a dribble at a time…The light is bouncing, very softly, something’s jostling it. I think a couple is making love on a nearby bed, perhaps…Imagine it—these people sharing their love in light that could be days, weeks, even years old…It’s like making love under starlight, isn’t it?>
Sancia listened to his voice, her eyelids growing heavy.
She was glad to have him here. He was a friend when she had none.
<I wish you could see them as I do, Sancia,> he whispered. <To me, they’re like stars in my mind…>
She slept.
* * *
Sancia did not dream anymore, after the operation. Yet sometimes when she slept her memories returned to her, like bones bubbling up from the depths of a tar pit.
There on the roof, Sancia slept, and remembered.
She remembered the hot sun of the plantations, the bite and slash of the sugarcane leaves. She remembered the taste of old bread and the swarms of stinging flies and the tiny, hard cots in the shoddy huts.
She remembered the smell of shit and urine, festering in an open pit mere yards from where they slept. The sound of whimpering and weeping at night. The panicked cries from the woods as the guards hauled away a woman, or sometimes a man, and did as they pleased with them.
And she remembered the house on the hill, behind the plantation house, where the fancy men from Tevanne had worked.
She remembered the wagon that had trundled away from the house on the hill every day at dusk. And she remembered how the flies had followed that wagon so closely, its contents hidden beneath a thick tarp.
Some had whispered that the missing slaves had escaped, but everyone had known this was a lie. Everyone had understood what was happening. Everyone knew about the screams they heard from the house on the hill, always at midnight. Always, always, always at midnight, every night.
Yet they’d been voiceless and helpless. Though they’d outnumbered the Tevannis eight to one on the island, the Tevannis bore armaments of terrifying power. They’d seen what happened when a slave raised a hand against their master, and wanted no part of it.
One night she’d tried to run away. They’d caught her easily. And perhaps because she’d tried to run away, they’d decided that she would be next.
Sancia remembered how the house had smelled. Alcohol and preservatives and putrefaction.
She remembered the white marble table in the middle of the basement, its shackles for her wrists and ankles. The thin, metal plates on the walls, covered with strange symbols, and the bright, sharp screws paired with them.
And she remembered the man down in that basement, short and thin and one eye just a blank socket, and she remembered how he was always dabbing at his brow, wiping away sweat.
She remembered how he’d looked at her, and smiled, and wearily said, “Well. Let’s see if this one works, then.”
That had been the first scriver Sancia had ever met.
She often remembered these things when she slept. And whenever she did, two things happened.
The first was that the scar on the side of her head would ache as if it were not a scar, but a brand.
And the second was that she forced herself to remember the one memory that made her feel safe.
Sancia remembered how everything had burned.
* * *
It was dark when she awoke. The first thing she did was slip her fingers out of her glove and touch the roof of the foundry.
The roof lit up in her mind. She felt the smoke coiling across it, felt the rain puddling at the base of the stacks, felt her own body, tiny and insignificant, pressing against its huge, stone skin. But most important, she felt she was alone. No one up here but her and Clef.
She started moving. She stood up, yawned, and rubbed her eyes.
<Morning,> said Clef. <Or should I say good eveni—>
There was a sharp crack from somewhere in the distance. Then something slammed into her knees, hard.
Sancia toppled over, crying out in surprise. As she did, she looked down and saw a strange, silvery rope was looping around her shins like a snare. She dimly
realized that someone out on the rooftops across from her had hurled or fired this rope at her—whatever it was.
She crashed onto the stone roof. <Damn!> said Clef. <We’ve been spotted!>
<No shit!> said Sancia. She tried to start crawling away, but found she couldn’t. The rope suddenly seemed impossibly heavy, as if it were not made of fibers but rather lead, and no matter how she heaved she could barely drag the coil of rope any farther than half an inch.
<It’s scrived to think it’s denser than it actually is!> said Clef. <The more someone tries to move it, the denser it gets!>
<So can we break i—>
She never finished, because then there was a second crack. She looked up in time to see a silvery rope hurtling toward her from a rooftop nearly a block away. It stretched out like someone opening their arms for an embrace before slamming into her chest, knocking her back onto the roof.
She started to heave at it, but stopped. <Wait. Clef, can I accidentally make it so dense that it could crush my chest?>
<It’s a loop, so it’ll distribute the force—somewhat. You could make it so dense that you fall through the roof, though.>
<Shit!> she said. She looked down at the cords—there seemed to be a locking mechanism on the side, awaiting a scrived key. <Do something! Unlock me!>
<I can’t! I’d have to be touching it!>
Sancia tried to pull him out of her shirt, but the second rope kept her arms tied fast to her body. <I can’t reach you!>
<What do we do, what do we do?>
Sancia stared up at the night sky. <I…I don’t…I don’t know.>
They waited there, looking up, the chants of the scrived ropes echoing in Sancia’s ears. Then, after a long while, she heard footsteps coming close. Heavy ones.
The bruised, scratched face of Captain Gregor Dandolo leaned overhead, a huge espringal on his back. He smiled politely. “Good evening again.”
* * *
Apparently Captain Dandolo had the control for the ropes: after adjusting something on his espringal, he was able to reduce their density enough that he could flip her over. He kept her bound, of course. “Something we used back in the wars, when capturing trespassers,” he said merrily. He grabbed the ropes with each hand, and picked her up much as one would a bound pig. “I’d know the smell of the Michiel foundry smoke like I would the scent of jasmine. I had to come here all the time to commission armaments. Flame and heat, as one would expect, are useful when making war.”
“Let me go, you dumb bastard!” she said. “Let me go!”
“No.” He somehow packed an infuriating amount of cheer into that one word.
“You put me in prison and they’ll kill me!”
“Who, your client?” he said, making his way for the stairs down. “They won’t be able to get at you. We’ll put you in the Dandolo jailhouse, which is quite safe. Your only concern will be me, young lady.”
Sancia bucked and kicked and snarled, but Dandolo was quite strong, and seemingly indifferent to her countless swears. He hummed happily as they started down the stairs.
He exited the stairs and hauled her across the street to a scrived carriage bearing the Dandolo loggotipo—the quill and the gear. “Our chariot awaits!” he said. He opened up the back, set her down on the floor, and reactivated the scrivings on the rope—there was some kind of dial on the side of the espringal—until she was pinned to the floor. “I hope this will be comfortable during our short ride.” Then he looked her over, took a breath, and said, “But first, I must ask…where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The item you stole,” he said. “The box.”
<Oh, shit,> said Clef. <This guy isn’t as stupid as he looks.>
“I don’t have it!” said Sancia, inventing a story as fast as she could. “I gave it over to my client!”
“Did you,” he said flatly.
<I don’t think he believes you,> said Clef.
<I know that! Shut the hell up, Clef!>
“Yes!” she said.
“Then why is your client trying to kill you, if you did as they asked? That is why you’re trying to escape the city—yes?”
“Yes,” said Sancia honestly. “And I don’t know why they’re out for me, or why they killed Sark.”
That gave him pause. “Sark is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Your client killed him?”
“Yes. Yes!”
He scratched his beard at his chin. “And I suppose you don’t know who your client is.”
“No. We were never to know names, and never to look in the box.”
“What did you do with it, then?”
Sancia decided on a story that was close to the truth. “Sark and I took the box to an appointed place and time—an abandoned fishery in the Greens. Four men showed up. Well-fed, campo sort. One took the box away and said he wanted to confirm it. Left us with the other three. Then there was some signal, and they stabbed Sark, and nearly killed me.”
“And you…fought your way out?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes,” she said defensively.
His large, dark eyes flicked over her small frame. “All by yourself?”
“I’m decent enough in a fight.”
“What fishery was this?”
“By the Anafesto Channel.”
He nodded, thinking about this. “Anafesto, eh. Well then,” he said. “Let’s go have a look, then!” He shut the door and climbed into the pilot’s seat.
“Look where?” said Sancia, startled.
“To the Greens,” said the captain. “To this fishery of which you speak. Presumably there will be dead bodies inside—yes? Bodies that might suggest exactly who paid you to rob my waterfront?”
“Wait! You…you can’t take me there!” she cried. “Just hours ago there were dozens of big bastards walking around there, looking to gut me!”
“Then you had better stay quiet, hadn’t you?”
* * *
Sancia lay perfectly still as the carriage rattled over the muddy Commons lanes to the Greens. This was possibly the worst outcome for her: she’d intended to never return to the Greens, let alone trussed up in Captain Gregor Dandolo’s carriage. <You tell me the second you sense something big coming at me, okay?> she said.
<Why, so you can sit and watch your death approach?> said Clef.
<Just do it, all right?>
Finally the carriage rolled to a stop. There was darkness outside the windows, but she could tell they were at the fisheries by the smell. Dread bloomed in her stomach as she remembered that night—just last night, though it seemed so long ago now.
For a long time, Dandolo said nothing. She imagined him sitting hunched in the cockpit, watching the streets and the fisheries. Then she heard his voice, quiet but confident: “Won’t be a moment.”
The carriage rocked slightly as he climbed out and slammed the door.
Sancia sat there, and waited. And waited.
<How the hell are we going to get out of this?> asked Clef.
<No idea yet.>
<If he searches you…I mean, I’m just on a string around your neck!>
<Gregor Dandolo is a campo gentleman,> said Sancia. <He might also be a veteran, but deep down, all good campo boys have absolutely no desire to touch a Commons person, let alone feel up a Commons girl’s chest.>
<I think you’ve misjudged hi…Wait.>
<What?>
<There…there is something scrived nearby.>
<Oh God…>
<No, no, it’s small. Really small. Tiny, even, easy to miss. It’s…like a dot, stuck to the outside of the carriage, in the back.>
<What’s it doing?>
<It’s…trying to join something else? Kind of like your construction scrivings, I guess. It’s like a magnet, it�
��s pulling really hard toward something that must be…kind of close…>
Sancia tensed up. She realized what must be happening. <Shit!> she said. <He’s been followed!>
<What do you mea—>
The cockpit door opened, and someone climbed in—presumably Gregor Dandolo, but she couldn’t see. Then she heard his voice quietly saying, “No bodies. None.”
Sancia blinked in shock. “But…That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Yes!”
“Where ought there have been bodies, young miss?”
“Upstairs, and on the stairs!”
He looked over the back of the seat at her. “Are you sure? Positive?”
She glared at him. “Yes, damn it!”
He sighed. “I see. Well. I did find quite a bit of blood in both of those locations—so I must grudgingly admit that some aspect of your story appears to be at least somewhat true.”
She stared at the ceiling, outraged. “You were testing me!”
He nodded. “I was testing you.”
“You…You…”
“Do you know what was in the box?” he demanded suddenly.
Surprised, Sancia tried to recover. “I told you. No.”
He stared off into the distance, thinking. “And…I suppose you don’t know anything about the hierophants?” he said softly.
Her skin went cold, but she said nothing.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Beyond that they were magic giants?” said Sancia. “No.”
“I think you’re lying. I think you’re lying to me about something—about what was in the box, about how your deal went down, about how that blood got there.”
<Goddamn,> said Clef. <This guy is terrifying.>
<Are you sure that thing’s on the back of the carriage?>
<Yeah. Bottom right if you’re facing it.>
“And I think I’m about to save your life,” she said. “Again.”