by D. K. Fields
From this moment on, we are all living this story.
Audience help us.
Thirty-Two
The final words of the Wayward story stunned everyone at Easterton Coach Station. Or that was how it felt to Cora. In the Commission box, the public gallery and in the voters’ seats, there was only silence, stillness. Even the purple tunics, usually so quick to herd the Audience back into the garbing pavilion to cast their voting stones into the great wooden chest, to remove their masks and robes and become ordinary Fenestirans again, even they were caught in the story’s spell. No one moved. No one seemed to breathe, even.
Apart from the storyteller.
Ruth, still standing on the roof of the Commission coach, dropped to her knees and covered her face. It was over. She had told the Wayward story.
That was like a signal everyone hadn’t known they’d been waiting for. The public gallery erupted in a roar of noise – everyone was talking, no, shouting about what they’d just heard. The purple tunics hovering by the Audience and the constables stationed around the site did the same. Cora had never seen such a thing, but understood what she was witnessing: the truth was finding its audience, at last. The Wayward’s Hook, the tale Ruth told – there was no ignoring it now. The question was, what would the voters choose to do?
Cora had listened to the story from a gig parked not far from Ruth’s coach, sitting on the step passengers used to climb in. The body of the gig gave some protection from the rain that had continued to fall through the story. Cora had smoked so much, the puddle at her feet was littered with bindle ends. It was the relief, relief that even now was coursing through her, making her legs weak. She felt like she’d never get up again, and really, what need was there to get up anyway?
Cora had done what she needed to do: keep Ruth safe so she could tell the Wayward story and share with the Union the choice they faced. Odette had asked what good were stories now, and in Nicholas’s answer were the words that mattered: a story can reach people much further away, people who need to know. And now they did know. There was such suffering in the Wayward tale – the hardship faced by those in the Tear, in the Rusting Mountains and Bordair. How could anyone ignore that?
Ruth’s suffering was there too. She had told Nicholas’s story, which was actually the story of Nicholas. But that was Ruth’s story too, and so it was also Cora’s. Now, it was a story that belonged to the whole Union. The spoked wheel had turned.
Cora got to her feet and stretched her back. There’d be no more election stories for a while. A whole five years. Audience knew what would happen in the meantime, but Cora needed to make some plans. She needed a new job, that was certain, but one that gave her more time for a life of her own. Because there was Serus now, and Ruth. Cora wasn’t alone anymore.
She headed for the Commission coach where Ruth had told the story. From somewhere in the gloom of the rain she caught a sharp trill, a kind of whistle – a bird. She thought of Nicholas playing his pipe and realised why Arrani had sent Ruth that token before she told her son’s story. A sign of trust, good faith, something that spoke of their shared loss of Nicholas. Nicholas Ento. Cora’s nephew.
He had been lost to Cora before she’d even known he existed, but Ruth was a different story. Ruth was here, now, in Fenest. She and Cora had a chance to put the missing years behind them. The election was over. They’d face the future together.
The rain was falling more heavily again, making it hard to see straight. The mud didn’t help her progress, or the deep ruts left by the gigs and coaches. Cora had to keep her gaze on her feet to save falling, and only just got out of the way when a pack of constables hurtled towards her.
‘Clear the way!’ a familiar voice called.
It was Jenkins, leading those carrying the voting chest. Cora pressed herself against a coach to let the constables pass and heard a rhythmic clunk from inside the chest. The voting stones.
The constables were heading for the wall of the coach station, the one opposite where the rest of the election business had been sited. There must be another way in and out, one that the Commission could keep clear for this purpose. A way not even the Torn Galdensuttir or Chambers Arrani had known about. Electoral Affairs ran a tight ship. And once the voting chest left the coach station, who knew where it went? Wherever the chest was bound, the other five from the previous stories would be waiting for it, and someone in the Office of Electoral Affairs would start counting. The results would be known by morning.
Jenkins didn’t see Cora. None of the constables did, and that was for the best. It was time she was going. When the chest had passed out of sight, Cora continued making her way to the Commission coach. Her thoughts were on Nullan. She trusted Electoral Affairs to take the Casker to a stitcher if that’d do any good, and to Pruett’s cold room at Bernswick station if it wouldn’t. The way Nullan had lolled in the constable’s arms as he’d carried her away, Cora suspected the Widow had welcomed the Casker storyteller. Now it was up to Cora to tell Ruth.
But Ruth wasn’t there.
The roof of the Commission coach, where Ruth had told the story, was bare against the grey sky above Easterton. That couldn’t be right. Ruth would wait for Cora there, surely? Though even as Cora thought this, she realised they’d never planned for after the story. Had Ruth gone to find out about Nullan? Her sister wouldn’t have just left. She wouldn’t have. Not left the city. Not like before. She couldn’t have gone—
The door of the Commission coach creaked open.
Cora let out a sigh of relief and stepped towards the coach. ‘Ruth, thank the Audience. For a second there I thought—’
Chief Inspector Sillian climbed out of the coach.
Cora stumbled backwards, only vaguely aware of the muddy puddles splashing water up her legs. ‘What are you—Where’s my sister?’
‘She’s safe,’ Sillian said. ‘For now.’
Despite the rain and the mud of the coach station, the chief inspector looked as pristine as ever. Her dark uniform was spotless, and her hair was slicked into its usual harsh parting, even as Cora was clawing her own hair from her eyes in the gusty showers.
Sillian folded her arms. ‘I bring you a message, Gorderheim.’
‘From who?’
‘From a good friend. A friend of mine and of the Union.’
Cora spat into the mud. ‘Morton.’
‘I see you haven’t completely lost your detective faculties, despite your recent… activities.’
‘Where is Ruth?’ Cora shouted over the rain. The rest of the election business was a rain-blurred mess at the corner of her eye. She and Sillian might as well have been the only people in the coach station. Maybe they were. Maybe that was part of the plan. She couldn’t think straight. Why was this happening now? It didn’t make any sense.
‘The Wayward storyteller is with my friend,’ Sillian said.
‘But why? Ruth’s told the story. What can Morton possibly want with her now?’
‘That is not for me to say.’ Sillian’s voice was as cold as the rain pouring down Cora’s back. ‘There is a coach waiting for you outside the main entrance. A Commission coach. The driver has been instructed to take you to a meeting, and only there. Any tricks and the guard accompanying the driver will cut your throat. Do I make myself clear?’
‘But—’
‘I’d get moving if I were you, Gorderheim. The Lowlander Chambers is not the most patient of people, and you and your sister have already tried that patience sorely.’
Cora ran for the entranceway.
There was barely anyone left inside the coach station. One or two purple tunics watched her race past from the shelter of the abandoned garbing pavilion, but otherwise, she saw no one. The rain had sent everyone scurrying away. She saw the Commission coach that Sillian had said would be waiting. One of the new ones: smaller, lighter. And faster. Let the Partner hear her and let this coach be fast.
The driver appeared to recognise her, as did the woman seated beside him: Sil
lian hadn’t lied about a guard. They said nothing when Cora yanked open the door and got in. The coach began moving before she’d even sat down. Cora kept her face close to the window but she knew where they’d be going.
The Assembly building.
It was on the other side of the city. What might Morton have had done to Ruth on her journey there? Thoughts of torture vied with questions about why Morton had snatched Ruth now. The Wayward story had been told. The election was over, bar the results. But Cora should have kept a closer eye on her sister. After all these weeks of keeping Ruth safe, of everything that had happened, all the others who had died along the way, Cora had failed.
The glass dome of the Assembly came into sight, and Cora tried to ready herself for what lay ahead, though what that could be, she had no idea. All she had with her were her old knuckledusters. If she tried to find help, what might Morton do to Ruth? Cora couldn’t risk it. She had to hear what the Chambers had to say.
The security guards at the Assembly’s main door looked the other way as she barrelled past them. No voice called to her as flew into the entrance hall, no one asked her business, told her she needed an appointment. There was a lad on the desk, one she recognised from previous visits, but he said nothing. There was no one else there, which made the place seem strange, as did the lamps lit to ward off the grey afternoon. No daylight found a way through the grubby glass panes of the dome. Only the masks of the Audience, hung on the walls of the Assembly’s hall, watched Cora from their sightless eyes as she ran up the grand staircase.
Her breath was short and her legs ached, but she had to keep going. At the top of the stairs, she headed down the main corridor to the office where the gilded wooden doors were carved with the crossed spades of the Lowlands. The doors were half open.
For the first time since she’d started running, she stopped, but the creaking floorboards gave her away.
‘No need to hang around out there, Detective,’ said a cheerful voice. One Cora knew well. Though they’d only spoken a handful of times, Cora remembered every word Lowlander Chambers Morton had said to her. Every poisonous word.
Cora pushed the doors wide open so they banged back on the walls, and stepped into Morton’s office.
Thirty-Three
Ruth wasn’t there.
But seated in the chair by the window was Lowlander Chambers Morton.
‘Detective. Good to see you again.’ Morton smiled.
She was talking as if this was a normal meeting, just part of Cora’s work as a detective. As if nothing had changed. She was wearing her brown Chambers robes, but her gold manacles weren’t visible in the low light of the grey afternoon. Here, too, lamps were lit, and the many trailing plants that filled Morton’s office were dull and dead-looking.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ Morton said, indicating the chair opposite hers.
‘Where’s Ruth?’
‘Ah, straight to business. Just like your dear mother. An admirable trait.’ Morton flicked a length of her short, grey bob out of her eyes. ‘Your sister is quite safe. I’ll show you.’
‘What?’
Morton gestured to the window. ‘Just here. You’ll see.’
Cora edged closer to the window, keeping her gaze on Morton who turned to tend one of her plants.
There was a small balcony beyond the window that she hadn’t noticed before.
‘If you step out and look to your right,’ Morton said. ‘You’ll find what you’re looking for.’
‘Don’t move!’ Cora said.
Morton held up her hands in mock defence.
Slowly, Cora stepped onto the balcony. There was another, part of the next office along the corridor, and on it, there was a body.
It was Ruth.
She was lying on her side, facing Cora, her mouth gagged. Her eyes were closed, and there was a bloody mark on her temple. Her hands were bound. Her feet too. Beside her on the balcony stood a Fenestiran woman. She let Cora see the knife she was holding. Short, stubby, but it would do the job.
Cora went back into the office and, in an impotent rage, threw the chair Morton had offered her across the room. Morton didn’t even blink.
‘You’re going to do something for me, Detective.’
‘I’m not a detective anymore,’ Cora said, working hard to keep her voice steady, ‘as you well know.’
Morton waved this away. ‘Old habits. And if you do this little job for me then I’m sure I could put in a word with dear Sillian. You could be back in your office at Bernswick before the end of the week. Plus, your sister would be freed, with no further harm. This I promise you.’
‘What’s the job?’
‘Some light… rearranging, shall we say.’ Morton sat on the arm of her chair. ‘Things have not gone as they were meant to. Your sister wouldn’t stand aside, and now it seems her dreamy tale has made the voters lose their judgement. The exit polls suggest the Wayward have won.’
A small flame of hope ignited inside Cora. The predictions of the pennysheets had been right. The Wayward would take control of the Assembly. Morton’s walls would never be built. The Union would find a way out of the nightmare to come, and they’d do it together.
‘But such things are not set in stone,’ Morton said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Detective, that until the Wheelhouse formally confirms the result tomorrow morning, things can still change. You can change them.’
A laugh escaped Cora’s mouth. ‘You want me to tamper with the votes? Change the result?’
‘Yes,’ Morton said simply. ‘And if you don’t, I will kill your sister.’
They stared at each other for a moment.
‘That’s… ridiculous,’ Cora said at last.
‘You and your sister have left me no choice,’ Morton said. ‘If Ento had stood aside, if your sister had done the same, we wouldn’t be here now.’
‘Why not just have the Commission announce a different result?’ Cora said.
For the first time ever in Cora’s presence, Morton looked shocked.
‘The Commission cannot simply be ordered to do something like that, Detective! They’re the Union’s civil servants. They operate independently of the Assembly. They have to!’
‘I don’t believe you; everyone has their price. Find the right person, offer the right bribe, the results announcement can say whatever you want it to.’
‘You sound so jaded, Detective. If it were that simple, do you really think I’d have gone to all this effort, bringing your sister here, bringing you?’
Cora needed a moment to take this in. Had Ruth been wrong, all this time, about the extent of corruption in Fenest? Wasn’t everyone on the make, only looking out for themselves?
The woman sitting opposite her was. The most corrupt of them all.
‘This is what it comes down to,’ Morton said, earnest now. ‘I need to win this election, and I need that win to look legitimate. When Electoral Affairs open the six voting chests tonight, they need to believe that what they see is the true result.’
‘The pennysheets have already predicted a Wayward win,’ Cora said. ‘A landslide, some are saying.’
‘Oh, come on, Detective! How often are the ’sheets wrong? No one will find another misfire notable. But the Commission – they need to believe the stones.’
‘So why not just change the result yourself?’ Cora said. ‘Or have one of your hired hands do it.’ She gestured to the window, to the woman with the knife on the next balcony. Ruth lying there with a bloodied mark on her temple. Cora needed to get her to a stitcher.
‘Because I don’t know where the voting chests are,’ Morton said.
‘You’re a Chambers! How can you, of all people, not know where the voting chests are taken after each story?’
Morton shrugged. ‘None of us do. Only the most senior people in Electoral Affairs. The constables see the chests moved from the story venues once the votes are cast, but at a certain point in their journey, the constables are r
elieved of their duty and only Electoral Affairs oversee the last stage, taking the chests to the place they’re stored until all six stories have been told. That’s when, and where, the votes are counted.’
Cora was stunned. But she had to hand it to the Office of Electoral Affairs, they ran a tight ship.
‘If you don’t know where the voting chests are,’ Cora said, ‘how do you expect me to find them, let alone break them open and change the election results?’
Morton smiled. ‘You’ll find a way, Detective. You’re resourceful, tenacious – two qualities your mother had but your father lacked. And if you don’t find a way, your sister dies. You’ve seen the others who didn’t do what I asked. The ways they died.’
‘And if I do find a way,’ Cora said, hardly believing what she was saying, ‘what then?’
‘Tomorrow morning, if the Commission announce that the Lowlanders have won the election, Ruth will be on the steps of the Bernswick Division police station by noon. Unharmed. Well,’ Morton smiled, ‘not harmed further. I give you my word.’
‘And why should I believe you?’ Cora said, hearing the desperation in her voice. ‘After all the things you’ve done in this election?’
‘Your mother always trusted me,’ Morton said, ‘and I did well by her. It’s a shame her daughters aren’t so astute as to the ways of the world, but there we are. And let’s be honest, Detective, if you want to see your sister alive, you have no choice but to trust me. Give me the result I need, and you and your sister will be free of all this.’ Morton swept her arm around the room, and Cora knew she meant the Assembly, the Commission, all of it.
‘If I do what you’re asking,’ Cora said, ‘there will be no such thing as free, for anyone. No such thing as safe.’
‘You’re wrong, Cora.’
The sound of Morton saying her name made Cora flinch.
‘A Lowlander-controlled Assembly, with our Perlish allies and those of the Tear who support our aims, will protect the north from the depredations caused by the Tear widening. We will save many people, yourself included.’
