If Talbur Gwenwig were an author, it would have been easy to find him. However, he was not.
Despite her doubts, Sandis searched authors, politicians, and people of note, but her surname was nowhere to be found. She began searching periodicals, but quickly realized it would be fruitless to continue the search. For a moment she was tempted to look for the paper that had written about her father’s death, but she didn’t want to relive that experience. She needed to stay positive. Hopeful.
To her relief and guilt, she found a stairway that led to a private area for the librarians. One person had left his lunch in there. Sandis had meant only to eat the nuts, but hunger drove her to consume the entire meal. She apologized to the empty box and hurried from the library as the second-shift bells tolled.
She could check another bank. But would Kazen have spies posted at those places? Sandis would need to act soon, before the city’s grime stained her clothes and skin. Before she looked homeless. Beggars were seldom treated with kindness, and were never allowed in prestigious places like banks and libraries.
What had Sandis gotten herself into? At least the amarinth should have reset by now, though at the moment, it seemed wholly unimportant.
She needed to get a job. But a job would make her stationary. They would find her if she got a job. If she even could.
The hot, wet smell of Heath burned in her memories. She hugged herself as the sun began to set.
Ireth, are you there? What should I do?
The numen did not reply. Sandis stared up at the heavens, imagining she peered into the ethereal plane. No knowledge filtered down to her.
She needed to find a safe place to sleep.
Would the grafters look for her in the wealthier neighborhoods? Perhaps not, but some do-gooder would probably turn her in to the scarlets, which would be just as bad. She couldn’t hide the gold-leaf branding on her back. She’d be thrown in prison and bumped to the top of the list for execution, surely. She shivered.
Talbur Gwenwig, where are you? Who are you? He might reside in one of the wealthy neighborhoods. Maybe if she asked someone, they would know him. The likelihood was slight, but Sandis only had hope to sustain her. She’d feed it as much as she could.
Quickening her pace, Sandis changed direction and headed north, where the wall was closest. All the wealthiest people lived in proximity to the wall—as far as possible from the smoke ring. She’d need to start asking around before the sun went down. Before she would be condemned as a beggar on sight.
She passed another clock tower, a factory that made railway parts, a linens shop. A man at the edge of the market tried to hawk fruit to her, so she must have still looked decent. Decent enough to afford fruit. Her mouth watered. She kept going.
Her shoulder bumped into someone, and she muttered an apology. Paused. The faintest smell wafted toward her. Burned brain dust. Galt always reeked of the drug. A lot of the grafters did.
She looked up. Not Galt, but she knew him, and fear coursed down her spine like lightning. He had the sallow skin of a grafter, dark clothes, knotted cords of hair. Staps. One of Kazen’s men. The one who hadn’t questioned her the night she walked out of the lair.
The smell of the drugs made her eyes water. Pushed her pulse faster. Made her want to scream. Recognition dawned on his face.
She bolted, nearly twisting her ankle when she turned back the way she had come. Staps cursed and ran after her, his calloused fingers brushing her elbow as he tried to grab her.
Sandis pushed her legs as fast as they would go and barreled into a nearby crowd of people, hoping to lose herself among them. Hoping her smaller body would navigate the throng faster than his larger one, like it had with Rone.
A shrill whistle sounded behind her. Not a police whistle. She knew that sound. A cry rippled up her throat and caught on her heavy breath.
Staps wasn’t alone. He wasn’t alone.
Celestial, save me!
But God didn’t listen to sinners.
She ran, battering her swollen feet against the cobblestones until they numbed. A stitch bit her side, then another. Fear bubbled and boiled inside her gut, powering her like a steam engine.
But she wasn’t fast. Not as fast as she used to be. There wasn’t any space to run in Kazen’s lair. She would have to hide.
Sandis’s gaze darted about, anywhere but behind her. People, stands, garbage bins, the linens shop.
She veered for the linens shop, down its side to its back door. Locked. She ran down the next street, nearly barreling into a waiting horse. The thumping of two—three?—sets of feet followed behind her. The sun dipped behind the city wall.
She rushed for the clock tower. Tried its door. Unlocked, bless the Celestial! She ripped it open and ran inside, only to find a small, closed-off room, empty save for a set of stairs.
She took the stairs two at a time. The door slammed open behind her just as she hit the first landing and turned to ascend the next set. A cry escaped her, tearing up her throat as it expelled from her huffing lungs. A door, a door. Please, a door! She hit the fourth flight and grabbed the railing, trying to pull herself up faster, faster. They were almost close enough to grab her. She could hear their breathing over her breathing—
Fifth flight, and a door. She grabbed it, and for a split second thought it was locked. But the old knob gave way under her sweating hands. She shoved the door open.
Cool, smoky air hit her face.
It was all ledge—a winding balcony below the clock face. Meant for maintenance.
Staps and the other two grafters erupted from the door. Sandis ran the length of the platform, searching for another door, another set of stairs. There was no way down. Thudding feet thundered behind her. She grabbed the rail.
Her mind formed the decision in a trice. She stepped over the rail. A gust of air rushed past her, cooling her perspiration. Her teeth chattered. The city was six stories down. A sliver of sun sparkled off her eyelashes.
Her pursuers paused.
The one with a shaved head, Ravis, stepped forward. He eyed her—and his jacket—and put his hands up in mock surrender. “Sandis Gwenwig. Let’s return you home. This is nonsensical.”
Sandis looked away from him, then let go of the rail and fell.
She’d never fallen so far in her life. It was strange. Her stomach rose into her throat, and time moved both too quickly and too slowly. Her mind couldn’t compute the city rising up to meet her. She couldn’t distinguish people, shapes, or sounds. Only that weightless sensation and the beating of her own heart.
Gold pinched her hand. The amarinth didn’t seem to mind the fall, or the wind rushing up at them. She spun it.
Then she hit.
It didn’t hurt. Jumping from a clock tower onto hard cobblestones should hurt, but it didn’t. Her skull didn’t fracture into a thousand pieces. Her bones didn’t break. Her skin didn’t tear. She hit with a heavy sort of pressure, like she was a flying bug and the street was an open hand. Though she held on to the amarinth, the gold loops that weren’t pinned by her fingers continued to spin.
She stared at it. One minute. She had most of it left.
She was alive.
She felt the weight of dozens of eyes and lifted her head. People all around stared at her, gaping, hands pressed to mouths and chests. She hid the amarinth in her coat. Looked up at three grafters staring at her from beneath the clock face of the six-story tower.
A long, deep breath filled her lungs.
Thank you.
Finding her feet, Sandis ran.
Forty seconds later, the amarinth stopped spinning.
Chapter 6
Rone was going to bald early if he didn’t stop trying to pull out his hair.
He’d searched everywhere. Scoured. Even followed the men from the tavern, but they’d led him on a wild-goose chase. Where had she gone? Where had his amarinth gone?
God’s tower, if she sold it . . . he didn’t know what he’d do. Other than pull out his hair.
<
br /> And the city, thanks to its utter lack of courtesy, went about its usual business. As if he hadn’t just lost the most precious thing he’d ever owned and his employment alongside it.
His shoulder ached, as if saying, Good one. Too bad you can’t get rid of me, too.
Rone grumbled and massaged the tight muscles there as he trudged up to the property manager’s office. His means of living was, temporarily, lost, but the rent was still due on both of the flats he paid for—his and his mother’s. At least he still had money in his pockets. More than most. Just not enough to get him and his mother across the border.
He’d figure this out. One way or another, he’d figure this out.
Dropping his hand from his shoulder, he rolled his neck, wincing when it pulled on his old injury. He stepped up to the window and fetched his wallet from his pocket, counting bills.
“Hello, Rone,” the old man inside the window said. He turned away for a moment, then looked back so quickly his head might have flown off his neck. “Rone? What are you doing here?”
Rone looked up. Blew a wavy bit of hair off his forehead. “Check your calendar, Tus.”
“I know it’s the end of the month. But are you sure you want to keep an empty flat? I don’t double up on leases.”
Rone’s hand paused midway to his money stack, the next bill wrinkling between his fingers. The blood drained from his face and neck. “Tus. What do you mean, an empty flat?”
He’d visited his mother two days ago.
Tus’s face fell. “You haven’t heard.”
“Tell me.”
He frowned. “I thought you would have. Unlike her, really. She was carted off to Gerech a couple days ago.”
Rone’s eyes widened. The bills dropped from his hand, and his fingers shot out to grab Tus’s collar. Rone leaned in as close as the windowsill would let him. “What the hell do you mean, Gerech? Who told you? Why?”
Gerech. Also known as Dresberg Prison. Also known as the jail with the highest rollover rate in the country, thanks to too many criminals and not enough cells. That didn’t mean the jailers let people go, of course. Most of them left in coffins.
“Sh-She was accused of theft,” Tus said, shaking, and Rone forced his fingers to open. Tus swallowed and rubbed his collar. “Stole a Noscon headpiece right from the Renad household.”
Rone’s body turned to stone. “What?”
Tus kept going as if he hadn’t heard. “I don’t know how she managed to do it. Security up there is pretty good, I hear. But Ernst isn’t a forgiving man, and . . . well, you know how it goes with rich folk. They’ll spend a fortune to make someone suffer for stealing a penny—”
“A Noscon headpiece,” Rone whispered.
“That’s what I said. Makes no sense. She must have known she wouldn’t be able to sell it without the theft being traced back to her.”
They had blamed his mother. Arrested her right after his visit, if Tus’s timeline was right.
Damn the Celestial to fiery hell. He’d been two-timed. But why? And why had they set up his mother? The blasted woman felt guilt over killing spiders. No one should even know about her connection to him. He’d always been so careful.
Rone slammed a short stack of bills on the sill. “Keep it open. I’ll be back.”
He needed to find the bastard who’d hired him. Didn’t matter that he didn’t have the amarinth. The man responsible for this was going to wish he’d never set eyes on him. Rone clung to that anger, that push to fight. Because if he didn’t, the guilt would devour him alive.
Marald Helg. That was the name of the man who’d hired him to steal the headpiece. It was very possibly a fake name, but then again, Rone used an alias as well. All his past and future employers knew and would know him as Engel Verlad. His true surname, Comf, was far too telling.
But this Helg guy had figured it out. How else would he have known who his mother was?
The more Rone thought about it, the more he realized he should have detected something was wrong. The ease of the mission. The lack of motivation for wanting the headpiece. The client’s home—though it was a large flat with two floors, which denoted wealth, it had been nearly empty. There were marks on the walls where pictures or other ornamentation had once hung. A lack of furniture. Was he moving, or had he sold his belongings? Rone hoped for the latter. He might not find the man if he had moved.
Now that he thought about it, there’d been something off about the client. The glint in Helg’s eye. His tone of voice. He’d looked at Rone differently than others. Like he hated having to hire him.
Rone gritted his teeth until they squeaked from the pressure. He was going to fix this. One way or another, he was going to fix this. His mother was a strong woman. If anyone could make it there . . .
Gerech. His stomach rolled, and not because he’d just leapt a six-foot gap between roofs. Rone had a feeling Gerech Prison wouldn’t take an exchange, even if Rone offered up himself. The guilt hardened into a leaden ball in his stomach. A leaden ball with teeth.
The buildings began to distance themselves from one another, so Rone picked his way down to the street. Hitched a ride on a passing cart. If he found the flat empty, he would figure out a way to get his man. Engel Verlad was known for doing the impossible. Or the near impossible, anyway. And when he found Marald Helg, he would hang him off the clock tower until the man sang for mercy and turned himself in as the true thief.
Even that might not be enough to free his mother.
To make matters worse, it started to rain.
Rone cursed and dropped from the cart, then crossed the street to the nearest eave, as did many others. Bodies pressed up against one another to get out of the downpour, while other, more prepared denizens pulled out umbrellas or newspapers to shield themselves. It was one thing to get wet; it was another to get wet within the first ten minutes of a storm. The drops passed through layer after layer of smoke and pollution before hitting the ground, turning into falling sludge. The only bright side was that after a hearty rainstorm, the air had a semblance of freshness for a day or two. If the rainstorm wasn’t hearty, everything just got dirtier.
Rone groaned and rested his head against the wall behind him. The building was a small laundry for those who could actually afford to pay others to launder their clothes. Rone had come by a few times during his busier months. His mom didn’t like him “wasting” money on such things. “I can do it if you’re too busy. I don’t mind.”
Rone muttered every curse word he knew as the ball in his gut began shredding his intestines.
The folks huddled around him chattered about nothing. A few hurried out, pulling their collars up as high as they could. They talked about how long the rain would last. About being late for their shifts. About the stains on their skirts. Oh, to have such problems. Rone sighed and looked out over their heads, watching the gray rain pelting the gray cobbles. Another, smaller crowd had formed beneath a mobile fish stand—he didn’t envy them. Even if they avoided the rain, they’d stink of fish when they got to wherever they were going. Someone stepped out from around the corner, hawking pieces of scrap metal and cardboard—anything wide and flat enough to keep off the sludge. A few darted across the street to make a purchase.
Rone blinked at the lingering group. Rubbed his eyes. Squinted.
God’s tower, that was her. That was her. Sandis. The thief who’d lifted his amarinth while he saved her neck.
He pushed past some of the huddlers to get a better view, and they happily took his prime spot against the wall. Yes, it was her. Her clothes were the same from before, except they looked dirtier now. She had the hood of her coat pulled up, but kept looking up and down the street, searching for something. Giving Rone a good shot of her face again and again.
Sludgy precipitation forgotten, Rone charged toward her.
Sandis turned too soon and spotted him. Eyes wide, she bolted into the slick street, her dainty shoes slapping against the wet cobbles as she ran.
He
was faster. He gained on her, slowly and surely.
She dashed behind another shop, then down a road packed with flats. Took another sharp turn, and another, buying herself a few extra steps of distance that Rone closed within seconds. They barreled past more people taking refuge beneath eaves. A drop of brownish water hit Rone in the eye. He wiped it off, never slowing. He reached out, and—
His hand snagged her upper arm. She jerked, and they both fell to the road—a packed-dirt one, which meant a mouthful, face full, and everything full of mud. Sandis grunted and twisted in his grip, trying to land a kick. Rone grabbed her ankle.
Her fist hit his face. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, had she not jabbed her knuckle right into his eyeball.
“Damn it!” Rone shouted, letting her go. She scurried to her feet, and he ran after her. They both made it a few paces before he seized her again.
“Let me go!” She twisted her arm out of his grasp. Wily thing.
“Give me back what you took, and maybe I will,” Rone spat. He reached for one of her pockets. She danced out of the way. He really, really didn’t want to hit a woman to get his amarinth back, but this had not been a good day.
“You!” shouted a bystander crouched under the eaves of a nearby flat. “If she says no, she means it! Let her go!”
Rone did not. “It’s not like that. She’s a thief.”
The man and his large friend took a step out from under the eaves.
Rone put his hands up in surrender. Sandis sprinted away.
Rone went the other way, around a flat, and ran across a narrow road to intercept her head-on. He grabbed her shoulders, fingertips digging into her coat.
She struggled. “Please, go away. You can’t be seen with me!”
“Give it back!” He checked another pocket. She tried to elbow him in the face, but he easily moved out of the way.
“I will! I will . . . later.” Her voice went hoarse with desperation. “Please, you have to leave.”
A horse and carriage came galloping down the road, forcing Rone to drag Sandis out of the way before they became trampled meat. Jerking out of his grip the moment he completed the move, she ran in the direction the carriage had come.
Smoke and Summons (Numina Book 1) Page 6
