“A blight with a plan. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”
“Jury’s out,” Fresko said.
“This isn’t just for me. We can help clear Letty, make things right between our people. If I can get hold of Lightgate –”
“You’ll do what, tie her up?” Fresko said. “Someone like Lightgate, it’s frontier justice or nothing, a fight to the death. You think no one’s tried before? Val’s Stabilisers gave up long before Lightgate skipped town. She’s a nutcase.”
“You’re all nutcases,” Pax pointed out.
“Not like her,” Mix said. “Besides which, you got no chance of finding her. She comes to you, and you better believe that’ll be on her terms. Nope. Double nope.” He opened the cooler and took out another beer. “Big fucking mistake sticking up for this one, Fresko. Best thing we could’ve done is left her to take the fall, like Lightgate wanted. Big fucking mistake.”
“Let Letty take the fall,” Fresko replied with aggravation, “then this lummox? We end up taking the fall too, eventually. You saw those fucking FTC reports about us. You wanna be called Rogue Fae all your life?”
“If it means living longer,” Mix said.
“Guys,” Pax said, “this is on me. You don’t put your necks on the line. Reach out to her, arrange a meeting, put me in a room with her. Convince her I’m on your side, that’s all I want. I’ll handle the rest.”
“How? Jump down another sewer hole?” Mix said.
“I’ll think of something.”
“Without help, you’ll die,” Palleday weighed in. He gave the others a disapproving look. “Letty always deserved better than you two ingrates; look what happens when she finally finds someone useful. You’re no-good cowards, you know that?”
“We’re survivors,” Fresko said, coldly. “Nothing more. You want to duel with Lightgate, you go ahead.”
“Maybe I bloody will,” the architect snapped. “Seems someone has to, before she tears the whole city down. Now, did you thick-skulled morons, or did you not, just see what I saw when this behemoth took a sip of our beer?”
They hesitated. Mix mumbled, “Saw her waste a good brew.”
“I’ve got dust,” Palleday said. “Plenty enough for a human to huff. And Lightgate’s been banging on doors around town, I’m due a visit. You give her the message I wanna talk and she’ll come, won’t she? The human can nab her as she waltzes in.”
Though appreciating the vote of confidence (other than being labelled a behemoth), Pax didn’t jump at the idea herself. Huffing Fae dust sounded like an unreliable plan.
Mix swung his bottle around. “We set Lightgate up like that, you know what happens? She rapes her face with a knife, then yours, then yours.” He pointed at them each in turn. “Then she skins yours truly alive.”
“Go hide under a rock, then, like you’re good at,” Palleday answered, looking at Fresko instead. “Only takes one of you to give her the nod.”
“Anyone gets through to her via any of us,” Mix said, angering, “it’s on all of us. You know what happened at the fucking Grit Plateau? That wasn’t just a couple of bumbling goons, she killed like forty elite soldiers. On both sides, because they pissed her off.”
“Hold up,” Pax said. “She wanted to see me, didn’t she? She wanted to meet with Palleday, too? You’d be doing as she asked.”
“Until you fuck up,” Mix said, “and the trap becomes obvious.”
“Then we make sure I don’t fuck up, don’t we?” Pax said. So she was accepting the really bad idea. “If that beer was something to go on . . . I just need to take a lot of your dust.”
6
Letty grouped her hostages around the right side of the main table, she and Flynt covering them from up the sloped floor opposite. The guards’ guns were piled on a table, and the corridor outside was empty. Letty perched on a desk, pistol loosely aimed at the crowd. It was time to face the music and she had no fucking idea what came next. Flynt’s face mirrored what she felt. His adrenaline was shifting back to doubt.
Valoria, at the front of the crowd, got them started. “You know there’s no way out, Letty. Whatever you do, my Stabilisers will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
“We’ll see,” Letty said. “Might be they’re not so loyal when they understand how screwy you are.”
“You have the faith of the deranged,” Val said, blandly. “There is nothing you can say that will shake the foundations we’ve built. The FTC has thrived without your sort here. Haven’t you seen it? Edwing” – she addressed Flynt – “he understood. This behaviour might have worked ten years ago, but not today.”
“Ten years ago,” Letty echoed. “The coup – that was bloody work, wasn’t it? You had no problem with the rule of the gun back then.”
“As a means to an end. I do not deny the origins of this peace, but –”
“But,” Letty hissed, “it was more than a Fae uprising. Ten years ago, you didn’t just take control – the humans stopped chasing us. The FTC got cemented. You made human friends – who royally fucked you last week. Don’t talk about that, do we? There goes Letty, screwing us by talking to humans, while everyone keeps quiet about Val’s contacts.”
Valoria shimmered with restrained hate. Hit a nerve. It wasn’t going to surprise anyone, but it was still shameful. “None would begrudge my efforts to deliver peace. We had a whole decade –”
“Had, Val,” Letty said, loudly. “Fucking had peace, until someone else called it quits. What kind of peace was it? No one even knows. How can we say what went wrong, make sure it doesn’t happen again, when you kept it to yourself.”
“What went wrong,” Valoria snorted, “was that you gave the humans –”
“Stop. Stop talking. It’s all you do. Talk and talk in circles so no one’s right but you. Let’s focus on what I know, shall we? Your contact in the Ministry? Some corrupt fucker, Lord Asquith?”
The governor said nothing.
“He was a goddamned plant. You want to know why the Ministry attacked us? The same reason we attacked them. Because you” – Letty pointed sharply – “made fucking pacts with the devils underground. The second we got a clue to their real nature – ‘we’ being me and a human – then your mates, the monsters in the Sunken City, they panicked. What they were doing was scorched fucking earth. And what you’re doing now is no better. Threatening the humans, locking our doors, burying your head in the sand.”
“What I’m doing,” Valoria rumbled, “is securing what’s best for our people.”
“With a poison out of Rostov? Where’d you get that idea? You prats all know about this?” Letty’s eyes ran over the crowd. Many refused to meet her gaze, some returned it stubbornly.
“You are delusional,” Valoria said, “if you think these good people will be swayed by your insolence. They recognise the need for decisive action.” She stood, pulling her overcoat closer around her shoulders. “Letty focuses on the means, instead of the end. Yes, we have a poison, delivered by the Rostov Fae. A carefully poised, highly targeted threat, which we hope not to use. But such a threat requires a willingness to use it. A steel resolve, which human-sympathisers, such as Letty, would undermine. I shoulder that burden so you don’t have to.”
“Oh you noble sack of blubber,” Letty said. “Does your neck ache from carrying gold chains on your people’s behalf?”
“Indeed, show your true colours, Letty,” Valoria warned. “I expect no civilised discourse from you. You believe yourself a victim, forcibly cast out, lied to. What have you ever done to earn a place here?”
Letty stared fire across the room.
Val sighed, heavily, like this was beneath her. “Flynt, it saddens me to see you keep her company. She set you up, can you not see that? The human Pax Kuranes, now working with the Ministry, is everything we stand against.”
“She talked the Ministry round!” Letty replied hotly. “Unlike you, who took handouts until they decided to stop giving them.”
“Quite,” Valoria
continued calmly. “I have, indeed, been betrayed by the humans. Regrettably, on the back of your disastrous involvement. But our new measures guarantee such a thing will not happen again. We will never again rely on human trust. They will ratify our demands. We will be recognised, and securely separated.”
“You can’t threaten your way into that kind of peace.”
“Says the one holding our government at gunpoint!” Valoria laughed with haughty bass. It inspired some of her supporters to snickers. “Dear Letty, your head was always in the clouds. You criticise my methods while bringing violence to this very chamber. You talk of sowing ill-will when it was you who murdered human agents?”
“That was Lightgate!” Letty jumped off the table.
“At least I own my mistakes, while you lay the blame at the feet of ghosts.”
“Half your fucking Council’s heard from her! They won’t admit it because it was your head she was after!”
Valoria gave her Council an amused look, not taking it seriously. Her sycophants shook their heads. “Convenient –”
“She’s telling the truth,” Flynt said, plucking up the nerve to speak. “I’ve seen her, too. Edwing confessed to meeting her, didn’t he? I was there when he turned her down.”
Valoria’s face turned steely. “And you didn’t report it.”
“They discussed human support,” Flynt said. “Edwing knew you’d disapprove.”
Deidre, at the back, cleared her throat to speak above a rush of murmurs. “I had the same offer. I also feared punishment for even entertaining human interaction.”
“Deidre?” Valoria turned a heavy stare to her.
“Aye she wasn’t the only one.” Smark found some spine, at last. “Fust and Nailer received messages from Lightgate, too.” The two councilmen both vigorously shook their heads. “And no one would be foolish enough to pretend to be Lightgate, would they?” He held Valoria’s stare, acknowledging that it was exactly what she was accusing Letty of.
Valoria huffed. “It’s no matter. The Stabilisers have tracked half the exiles in Ordshaw; they’ll find her too. If she’s out there. And it hardly exonerates Letty if she associated with the Scourge.”
“You accept Lightgate’s out there,” Letty snarled, “maybe you’d accept someone else might’ve been vile enough to murder Edwing, not a human I consider a friend.”
“A friend?” Valoria answered through tight lips. “Heaven forbid it should be what it appears to be. The inevitability of history repeating itself.”
“Meaning Apothel? A man whose crime, let’s face it, was wanting to use the Dispenser? Killed so you can keep us from the Sunken City?”
“You choose to believe –”
“It’s the fucking truth!” Letty shouted, making her audience jump. She walked through the room, pistol arm up, stiff. “You’re keeping the Dispenser from us, you always have! I know it works – your people could’ve made a new one any time they wanted. I’ve been in your fucking vats.”
Valoria had a tremor in her wings. Council members muttered concern, even some of Valoria’s closest supporters. “To not pursue such a venture was –”
“For the sake of the FTC?” Letty said. “Or just for your sake? So nothing ever changes. You’d give up everything for this seat.” Letty gestured to the podium, the throne-like chair behind it. “You’d risk completely alienating the humans for it.”
“To defend the FTC?” Valoria said. “Absolutely! How dare you –”
“How dare you keep the Sunken City from us!” Letty yelled, now only a few paces away. The gun shook in her hand. “You let me search for that weapon for nine years! Nine fucking years grubbing about under human feet, believing I could make up for everything! You never wanted it back and Apothel was fucking well right to steal it! That was the only hope we ever had of using it!”
Her audience gasped in shock.
“You simpering moles! You seriously think this bitch wants what’s best?”
“You have no idea!” Valoria said, hands balling into fists. “We have a civilisation to consider, the survival of a culture, our infrastructure! An untested weapon, monsters underground, humans that have betrayed us – why should we choose that!”
“The weapon was tested,” Letty answered, slowing down. “Why hide it?”
Valoria paused. “Then, as now, I bore the burden of a question too difficult to share.”
Letty glowered. The woman was clinging to her righteousness like it was a life preserver. She wanted to punch it out of her eyes. “Well, it’s time to open it to everyone. We have a weapon that can threaten the monsters. It’s time we went for the heart –”
“What heart?” Valoria demanded. “The berserker is not the problem, you ignorant fool! How could anyone truly believe it was that simple, with the humans bending over backwards to protect the monstrosities below? The humans can keep the Sunken City. We do not need it. The FTC survives alone, as it should be.”
Letty lowered her gun. It was a confession; Valoria knew of and ceded to whatever force operated behind the berserker. She had given up the Sunken City without apology. Still, the councillors weren’t stirring. They looked like they would have preferred never to have heard all this. Easier to leave it to the governor.
“Are you satisfied?” Valoria said, reading the reluctance from the room. “Do you understand the futility of all this? The necessity of what I have done?”
“No,” Letty said, straining to keep equally calm. “I’m a long way from satisfied. You’re going to recall your Stabilisers, rein in that fucking septjad. Tell the Ministry it was a mistake and we’ll make up for it. We’ll work with them on securing the Sunken City.”
“I won’t, Letty,” Valoria said. “I have only done what is best.”
Letty tried again, angrily, “Make the call. Tell your men to stand down.”
“No.”
“Make the fucking call!” Chairs scraped and short shrieks met Letty’s movement, her gun suddenly against Val’s head. The bulbous Fae glared with trembling indignation as Letty hissed, “Do it, or I’ll do you.”
Despite her fear, Valoria said, “You will not. Not if there’s an ounce of truth in your belief in Fae society.”
Braced there, wanting to do it, wishing it was as simple as pulling a trigger, Letty looked to Flynt. He had that same expression she’d seen on him a dozen times now: worried she might go too far. With an angry growl, Letty dropped her arm and addressed the Council. “None of you got a damn thing to say? Edwing the only one of you with any balls?”
Smark ventured, “This has moved very fast.”
“Should our future be made to wait?” Valoria replied, emboldened. “Whatever you say, Letty, the FTC needs my leadership. They want it. I am willing to pay the cost of peace.”
Letty’s fingers rapped against her pistol handle. Smark and Deidre’s backing wasn’t going to make a difference. This was Val’s domain. But there was a whole city of people that might disagree. Surely, would disagree. To reach them would mean signalling what was happening here. Val’s soldiers would be all over them.
There was no running now, anyway.
“Flynt.” Valoria tried again to appeal to the scout. “Surely you see this is for your brother. You are angry, and grieving, anyone would –”
“Piss on it, Val,” Letty cut in, meeting Flynt’s eye herself. “Edwing wouldn’t ever have wanted it your way and Flynt knows it. This chamber might not be willing to stand up to you, but there’s thousands outside that might.” Letty waved to where the camera was hidden, somewhere up above. “Put it out there, Newbry! Now!”
7
“Height of goddamned sacrilege, this is,” Palleday complained, despite his hand in the plan. If it was so offensive to him to rest a (human) bottle of beer here, perhaps he shouldn’t have built these towers with conveniently spaced ledges, including the one around chest height that Pax was using.
Trying to keep her hand steady as she carefully tipped a little tub of fine white powde
r into the neck, Pax said, “These sculptures would be great in pubs, you know. Lot of surface area for storing drinks without taking up a ton of space.”
Watching with Fresko from the next ledge up, the architect made a noise that said she was making it worse. Mix, sat by them, focused on his own beer.
“But I bet they looked more stunning in use,” Pax tried again. “Teeming with Fae.”
“Oh, like a dream,” Palleday assured her.
“With about as much substance,” Mix contributed. “Ain’t no one seen Palleday’s towers in use for decades. Even longer since we had a city of them. If you believe there ever was one.”
“Course there was, you disrespectful punk,” Palleday said. “How you gonna understand, you ever even sniffed those tunnels?”
“Only you,” Fresko said, “are old enough to remember that.”
“What’d it look like?” Pax prompted, the chatter helping distract her from spilling their precious powder. So far only a few grains outside the bottle; Mix winced at every one.
“The population bringing these beauties to life was one thing,” Palleday reflected, “but the plants made it. If you’d seen the way they lit the place. Ah – the colours –”
“Like, glowing plants?” Pax frowned. “From the weird underground weeds?”
“The Magnus family harvested them,” Palleday explained, “for medicinal uses and the like. This was before dust was so ubiquitous. They took a real blow when we were driven above ground. But Valoria’s people weathered it better than most.” His bitterness returned. “Found new interests, didn’t they. Kicked the old ways to the dirt.”
“We’re working on that,” Pax assured him. She stepped back from the fizzing beer, thoughtful. “You must’ve known the Sunken City well, back then. You ever come across caves that nothing went in? Older chambers, shaped like –”
Palleday scoffed. “What’re you messing with Chasm Shrines for?”
“Chasm . . .? Okay, so that’s a firm yes. Tell me what you know.”
The Sunken City Trilogy Page 91
