But Juliana’s been sending back bogus little status reports, with scary details. She said she’d cleared it with your Council to move your sunk Pits and reallocate all the Gin at the base? I distinctly remember Clae saying he had to purchase it, so it’s private property and the Council has no say. Not that it matters what they think because that is a TREMENDOUSLY BAD IDEA! No Sweeper anywhere would approve that. They’re also implying that they’ve got help from an unnamed source, and it’s not from any established Sweeper guilds, or we’d have stepped in on the Pit matter. I’d guess it’s illegal, dangerous shit going down, and with someone who doesn’t care much whether Amicae’s people live or die, so long as they get what they want.
I want to say boot the MacDanels out, but don’t act immediately! The backlash will not be worth it! MacDanels are rotten, but their new business partners might be even more so. Don’t confront them. Get your police involved, but do it quietly. Don’t let them know what you’re up to. If you have to run, run. If you have to get out of the city entirely, then know that Sweepers are gossips and every city Melody’s telegram routed through read it. Everybody knows this is crazy. You’ve got offers to stay in Puer, Terrae, and Canis. Vir’s ready to officially request you as “perimeter advisors” if you need clearance to leave through your Council. Let us know if you need anything, but for the love of god, be careful.
It then went right back to the apology for accusing Clae’s mother of being “a hogwash tripey bollard,” as if the warning weren’t there at all.
“Is something wrong?” Juliana looked up with a frown.
“Nothing,” Laura lied. “He swears a lot is all.”
“I didn’t think you were bothered by such language,” Juliana laughed.
“Speaking it is one thing, writing it is another.”
Laura watched as she turned back to her work. Juliana hummed lightly, completely at ease. She looked like the newspapers made her out to be: friendly, trustworthy, dedicated. A little too dedicated, maybe. She hadn’t been here even a full month, and already she’d been impatient enough to fall in with something dangerous. If she hadn’t shared the who and why with the other Sweepers, she couldn’t have mentioned it to the Council; even if she had, the Council clearly didn’t know enough about Sweepers to judge their issues properly.
“Well, with all of his complaining, he jogged my memory,” said Laura. “I need to run an errand before I go home today. It’s not too busy, so do you mind if I leave early?”
Okane looked up at her from the other side of the counter, as if to say, You traitor.
“What sort of errand?” said Juliana.
“Ingredients for some dish Morgan wants to make. Apparently it was my mother’s favorite, and Basil seems to have insulted Clae’s mother a lot.”
“Oh! That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Juliana. “I’ve only got paperwork, and it’s something I can’t share quite yet, so you’re right. There’s not much to do here otherwise.”
“Thank you!” said Laura.
She slipped the letter into her vest and patted it so the paper crinkled. Hopefully this mimicked Okane’s treatment of Clae’s letter enough that he’d get the picture. Okane raised a brow, but otherwise made no comment on the letter’s supposed importance.
Laura had no interest in groceries. No, if other cities were confirming her fears, she needed to act. The MacDanels themselves she couldn’t judge, but the red Egg and their new business partner? A stranger steering the department—steering Amicae’s safety—was the last thing they needed. She had to gain some control over the Sinclairs before it escaped her forever.
Elinor had given them permission to use Sweeper equipment as necessary. As far as Laura could tell, the safe-deposit box mentioned in Clae’s letter would contain equipment. It was Sinclair property, but so was all the stored equipment in the armory. This couldn’t be too big a leap.
The Central Security Bank was an institution in the Second Quarter, and looked as if it had been here since Amicae’s birth. The inside reflected its upper-Quarter location, with carefully polished stone floors, carved tables supporting pamphlets of information, and shining yellow bars at each clerk’s window. A few people conferred with the tellers, while others were led through doors to myriad offices farther in the building. Laura approached the closest open window, trying to ignore the echoes after every footstep. The whole place made her feel small.
The clerk looked up from a form, slid it aside, and smiled. “How may I help you today?”
“I’d like to pick up the contents of a deposit box.”
“Wonderful. Do you have your key, number, and ID?”
“Yes, it’s box six eighty-four,” said Laura.
“Under Clae Sinclair?”
“That’s right. It was left to me in the will.” Laura rummaged through her purse before locating her ID and the little key. She set these down on the counter. “Is this all I need?”
The clerk studied her ID with a frown. “Normally we’d need a death certificate and documentation to allow you access, but he’s rather famously dead, and you are listed as his beneficiary. Please sign this first.”
He produced a card and slid this toward her. It seemed to be a record of anyone accessing the box, complete with signatures and dates. Clae’s signature took up every line. Laura signed in the next available spot, and the clerk took back the card.
“Please bring your key. We’ll access the box now.”
He opened a small door and beckoned her inside. She followed him into the back half of the building. Away from the offices and main floor, these hallways seemed dark, but the lights clearly illuminated a wall full of small, numbered doors. They passed the hundreds, the three hundreds, the five hundreds, until finally reaching six. The clerk stooped to reach a particularly large door near the floor, labeled 684. He pulled a cord out from around his neck and put its key pendant into one of the two locks.
“Your key goes into the other. We’ll turn at the same time.”
Laura knelt and fit in the key, swallowing her nerves. A twist, and the lock clicked open. The door swung out, revealing the side of a drawer. The clerk hooked his fingers around its edge and heaved. The drawer rattled out. The box itself was metal, two feet across each way.
“It’s heavy,” said the clerk. “Did you want to carry it, or—”
“I’m stronger than I look,” said Laura, offended. She reached in and tried to pick it up. Tried again. “Holy shit. What’s in here, an anchor?”
“None of my business,” said the clerk.
On the third try Laura finally got it balanced, and hauled it into her arms. The clerk shut the drawer and led her next into a small room with nothing inside but a table and a little statue.
“You can open the box here,” he told her. “Once you’ve finished with it, touch the statue to signal someone to come back in. We’ll replace the box, and help you with anything else you need.”
The door closed, and Laura was alone. She dropped the box onto the table and glared at it.
“Now what in hell are you supposed to be?”
Safe-deposit boxes in films had always been shown as small, holding a few pieces of heirloom jewelry or else important documents. She’d expected paperwork, maybe a deed or more information on the sunk Pits. Not this. She flipped open the lid and peeked in, only to laugh.
The box held another box. A jewelry box. It nearly filled the safe-deposit box, and she had to maneuver it carefully to get it out.
Its dark wooden surface had been painstakingly painted with blooming flowers that had faded over the years. The large lock and rounded handles were made of metal that might have been gold at one point but now looked dull, like a relic of better days. The box looked fit for a queen. As far as Laura was concerned, no one else could possibly have enough jewelry to fill it.
She ran her fingers slowly along its edge before pausing at the lock. It had the same keyhole as the armory. She pulled the key out and fit the swirl inside. Just like with th
e armory door, her fingers stuck. Tumblers rumbled inside the box before the lid popped open.
She wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed that it was jewelry, specifically Sweeper rings.
Rings took up the majority of the space, nestled in slots in red velvet lining. Row upon row of slim gold bands winked “S.S.Am.” Atop them rested a folded paper.
Laura—obviously you’ve gotten the key and the will is carried out. If this isn’t Laura, and you have no clearance to see this, pray for your soul because I’ll track you down and you will rue the day you were born. As you can see, this box contains Sweeper rings and amulets. I’m sure you can guess which kind.
Amulets? Now that she thought about it, the array of rings was shallow for such a big box. She pried up the edges and, as suspected, it proved to be a tray. Beneath it she found a hoard of circular gray objects carved with simplistic smiling faces. Gin amulets. No wonder it was so heavy; it held a fortune’s worth, easily enough to pay for a whole pack of college tuitions.
These amulets have been passed down in Sinclair Sweepers for as long as we’ve existed. They were originally a gift from Thrax at the formation of Amicae, and as such have historical value on top of inherent. I won’t bore you with the details—damn it, she wanted the details—but rest assured, these are extremely valuable. You’re the one I’m planning on training to take my place. I don’t want anyone but the head Sweeper in possession of them.
The rest of the page explained that the rings were tiny amulets too, how to get names engraved and removed. At the very end was a section scribbled, as if added last minute:
One ring isn’t Gin, and it’s obvious which one. Think of this one as a gift. It’s Niveus, used for streamlining magic in combination projects—basically it regulates magic flow to calm and make output more even, but you already know that. You’ve had one of these before. Maybe you’re not facing a test, but Sweeping gets stressful. Take your time and take care of yourself.
Laura pried the ring in question from its slot. Plain and white, it held no magic hollow and didn’t give off the playful feel of Niveus amulets. She could remember back in school, the antics other students had gotten up to during exam time; she’d spent her allowance on a little white Niveus ring in high school, not unlike this one. At every difficult question on the test she’d turned it thrice on her finger. The boy who sold it to her claimed it would chase out all her stress and help her focus. The stress had certainly lifted, but she wondered if that had really helped. She’d fallen just short of the mark to get into Class One. She complained about this once to Clae, described how she’d been so upset she’d thrown the ring into the Sylph Canal. She didn’t expect him to remember it. She swallowed a lump in her throat and slid it onto her finger.
“Well, if you were planning on me taking your spot, I don’t see how anyone else has a right to complain about it,” she murmured. “I can’t have been worse than Juliana.”
She cracked her knuckles, sucked in a breath, and laid her hands on the Gin amulets.
Hello, she thought.
One moment the box felt dead, and the next, magic stirred. The stones shifted, one rattling, another emitting a tiny magical pop, and golden fog ghosted between them.
Hello. Hello? Hello, wake. Long time. Friend? Where?
She didn’t recall the larger Gin sounding quite as fragmented, but maybe that happened to smaller pieces. Or maybe they’d lain inactive so long, it took a while for them to be coherent.
“Hello,” she said aloud. “I’m Laura. I’m Clae’s friend. Do you remember Clae?”
Clae? Yes. Yes, friend.
To make amulets work, Laura implied things. Faster, she’d think, and the magic accessed all connotations of the word in her mind and linked it to the situation; it saw a dog running, a car speeding, and sometimes Laura even noticed, if briefly, the memory being accessed. For a moment now, it went in reverse. Clae, said the amulets, and she saw him. A fraction of a second, a fraction of memory and not even a clear visual, but for a distinct moment she was convinced he was there in the room with her. Yes. Yes, friend.
Well, Okane was right about Gin recognizing them, at least.
“Clae’s not here anymore,” she told them. A few amulets shuddered as if alive, and she hurried to console them. “He’d be here if he could. The only reason he’s not is because he—he died.”
But, an amulet insisted, here? Clae here?
It tugged on her mind, but this time she felt no memory accessed or shared. It probably meant insistence, the same way Okane had “shouted” before.
“He wanted to make sure you were safe,” she continued. “He wanted to make sure you stayed with Sweepers, and I’m the person he wanted to take over, so technically he wanted you to stay with me. But I know you have a will, and you have a voice. You’d have to accept me taking you. Would you work with me in the future?”
Silence reigned. The gold fog thickened, curling around her fingers and billowing the soft scent of vanilla. When the Gin answered, it thrummed through each of the amulets at once.
Yes. Laura friend. Clae friend. Yes. See you.
Laura let out a shaky breath. “Thank you.”
Sleep until wake. One by one the amulets stilled, and the fog began to fade. See you. See you.
The magic drained out of them, and in moments they seemed like nothing but mundane rocks. Laura slowly drew her hands away, watching for any further reactions even while knowing there wouldn’t be any. She’d just managed a Gin transfer. Other Sweeper meetings needed multiple people introducing Gin to each other before the stone accepted its new ownership. She’d performed this alone, and with something like fifty individual pieces. They’d obviously collaborated somehow for this, but still. Fifty amulets. Nothing to sneeze at. Even better, holding complete ownership over the most valuable tools gave her power Juliana didn’t have.
I could even restart the department, she thought as she replaced the tray and letter. As the box closed, the lock and mechanics clicked back into place. If the Council doesn’t listen, if it gets too dangerous to be run by the city, Okane and I could start a second, independent Sweeper guild. At the very least, it gives us some weight in an argument.
Laura grabbed the handles of the jewelry box and heaved it up, ready to replace it back in the safe deposit. For now this would be the safest place for them.
The box wouldn’t do much on its own, but if she had other people, other facts backing her up, it might just become a trump card.
For now, she decided, a visit to Byron Rhodes was well overdue.
11
BREAKING POINT
The office of Byron Rhodes was a niche place, a hole-in-the-wall building in the Fourth Quarter that Laura had trouble locating. It turned out to be nestled behind a theater rather than beside it; the only route to the door wound through a narrow alley reeking of paint and strewn with excess set design pieces. Laura mentally cursed whatever idiot thought it a good idea to dump such things in such a narrow path, before pushing open the door. Thankfully, she didn’t put much force into it. The door smacked into something before it fully opened. A loud cuss issued from behind it and Laura jerked back immediately.
“I’m sorry!”
“Nothing! It’s nothing!” came a voice, shrill with irritation. “The damn door just—”
A shuffling sound, and the door was pulled open again. The woman there stood a few inches taller than Laura, brown hair taut in an unraveling bun and lines stark in her face. She looked like she’d been working overtime on something tedious, eyes tired and back slouched, but assumed a horrendously fake smile and ushered Laura inside.
“I suppose you’re here for Mr. Rhodes? He’s on the phone at the moment, but it won’t be long before he can see you.”
The woman bared her teeth in another terse grin and closed the door before retreating behind her desk. The room was truly tiny. Laura felt like she’d been locked in a broom closet. Barely wide as she was tall, the area miraculously contained a heavy secre
tary desk and two uncomfortable chairs with faded red seats. Two more doors stood dark on the other walls. Laura settled on one of the chairs while the woman fussed over a large rock on her desk. It changed color at her touch. Presumably it worked the same as the little statue at the bank, alerting someone else that she needed assistance.
“This is kind of cramped for a detective office, isn’t it?” said Laura.
“It’s cramped for anything, but he keeps saying it’s cheap, and he loves his hiding spots,” the woman replied.
“It would drive me crazy working here.”
“On breaks I escape to the filing room. Still cramped, but I have enough space to breathe. This whole place is more form than function. Rather like—”
“‘Rather like Mr. Rhodes’?”
Laura jumped at the new voice. Byron leaned through one of the doorways, smiling. “Nice to know I’m appreciated, Miss Heightland.”
“Nice to know you recognize your faults, Mr. Rhodes,” she snapped.
Byron shook his head fondly. “Whatever you say. Ah, Miss Kramer. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He stood aside, allowing her to walk past. His office, while small, was still bigger than the first room. It allowed more homey touches—the painting on the far wall and statuettes on the desk among them—and ample legroom. The chair in front of the desk proved infinitely better than the one in the waiting room. Byron spoke to his secretary a moment more, then closed the door and circled to his own chair. He sighed as he sat.
“Miss Heightland is convinced I’ve got her living in a mousehole, but she’s the one who insisted on having that clunky desk. I’d let her have this room, but my clients would never have privacy.”
“I’m surprised your clients can even find this place,” said Laura.
The Monstrous Citadel Page 17
