Clockwork Heart (14 page)

“What?”

“Stay away from him.” Alister met her eyes. “He knows you overheard him last night. If Cris is involved with the Torn Cards, then you could be in danger. I don't want you to get hurt. That's one thing I could never forgive.”

Taya felt guilty for the warm feeling that filled her.

“I'll avoid him,” she promised.

“Good.” He pushed himself away from the table and took her hand. For a change, his fingers were cold, and she thought she felt them trembling. “Thank you for telling me, and thank you for letting me deal with this myself. Cris and I have our differences, but he means a great deal to me.” He paused. “As do you.”

The warm feeling intensified. Taya stepped back to try to defuse the moment, but Alister wouldn't release her.

“Why do you keep backing away from me?” he asked, holding her hand captive.

She swallowed.

“You're an exalted,” she said, unsteadily. “We're…” She gestured around them with her free hand, trying to indicate the office, the whole situation.

“I know things are confusing right now. But they won't always be like this.” He moved closer, pulling her in. All at once her flight leathers felt too constricting, the harness straps too tight. Her heart hammered and she laid her free hand flat on his chest, meaning to hold him away. She faltered, feeling the hardness beneath his robes. Then she mustered her thoughts and pushed, stepping backward again.

“Not now,” she said, struggling to maintain her dignity. “You're upset.”

“Yes, I am,” Alister agreed, releasing her. “So?”

Taya squared her shoulders. “It just — it doesn't feel right. I might be getting your brother into trouble. You should be angry at me!”

“I'm not. I'm grateful for your warning.” The decatur studied her. Taya flattered herself that he looked disappointed that she'd pushed him away. She certainly was.

But she also knew she was right. To share a first kiss, now, after that kind of news— she didn't want the moment to be tainted by anything bad that might happen afterward.

“Talk to Cristof first,” she pleaded.

Alister sighed, turning and looking out the window again. “Perhaps that's wisest, under the circumstances.”

“Thank you.” She felt a pang of regret as she gazed at his strong profile and watched the morning light gleam in the jewels and gold that caught back his long hair and brightened his neck and hands. The wave tattoo was dark against his cheek. A muscle there tightened as he stood, lost in his own thoughts.

“I do wish you had brought me a pair of skydancing wings, instead of this news.”

“I'm sorry.” Taya took another step backward. “Will you send me a message when you know more?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Fly safely, Taya Swan.”

“I will. You be careful, too, Exalted.”

Chapter Eight

She hadn't lied, and she wasn't breaking her promise. She
was
going to avoid Cristof.

Just not his shop.

She picked up another set of messages from Dispatch and spent an hour and a half delivering them. Then she hid by Cristof's shop and waited until he left on a service call.

Locks in Tertius were notoriously poor, and although he had two on the door, neither posed much challenge. She jimmied them open with her utility knife, grateful that his shop door was hard to see from the street. He would notice, of course, but this was Tertius; break-ins happened all the time.

The dimly lit shop was still filled with whirring and clicking timepieces. Taya went straight to Cristof's desk, searching his papers.

The surface was covered with correspondence and diagrams for clockwork mechanisms. Nothing looked suspicious. She turned to the drawers, hoping to find a torn punch card, maybe, or a half-constructed bomb. Instead, all she found were tools and broken clockwork.

The filing cabinet contained bills, receipts, and work orders. Cristof's filing system was as orderly as his brother's was chaotic. Even his handwriting was neat, each letter tiny and precise. He'd told the truth about getting most of his commissions from Secundus and Primus.

She stepped through the curtains into his living quarters. Shelves of books; a wardrobe; a small, neatly made bed. Bare walls, bare floor— the room was bleak in its simplicity.

She opened his wardrobe and grimaced. Black, black, and black. A spot of brilliance squashed in the back caught her eye. She pushed aside the dark suits and coats, eager to discover what extravagant vice Cristof had concealed in the back of his armoire.

“Oh.” She stared.

It was an exalted's public robe, wrinkled and musty-smelling. Its gems were dull in the dim light, and its gold-and-silver embroidery dark with age. An ivory mask hung by silk cords from the robe's hangar. Taya touched the mask's dusty surface.

The outfit reeked of old secrets and strong emotion. Of something hidden and tainted that Cristof couldn't quite bring himself to discard.

Of guilt, maybe.

She let the rest of the suits fall back into place and closed the wardrobe door. So far she hadn't found anything to warrant breaking in. On the one hand, she was relieved. Alister would be happy if his brother turned out to be innocent. But on the other hand, she couldn't help but hope she'd find something that would excuse her ugly suspicions. If Cristof didn't have anything to hide, she was going to owe him a very humble apology.

She turned to his books. Clockwork, programming, foreign customs, explosives, religion, genealogies and armatures … and weapons, poisons, and anatomy. Her suspicions renewed, Taya found the wireferry map and opened it. Cristof's neat notes indicated the time and distance from station to station. Other numbers were marked, too; notations about damage and repairs.

At the very bottom she pulled out a small bundle of letters and official documents. She crouched and paged through them, handling the old paper with care.

Coroner's Report: Emeline Forlore, Exalted.
The notes were taken in Cristof's small, neat handwriting. She skimmed the medical jargon. Several words stood out. Lacerations. Perforation. Fracture. Hemorrhage.

Emeline Forlore had been thirty-seven when she'd died.

Taya somberly set the report down and moved on to letters signed by Viera, dated twenty-five years ago and written in wide, childish script.
Don't worry, Father says everything will be all right. Give Alister kisses for me. Three more weeks!!! I can hardly wait to see you again. We are painting two rooms for you, you will love them.

A small, clipped obituary. Emeline and Tadeus Forlore. No cause of death given. Survived by sons Cristof, 12, and Alister, 10.

A tabloid-sized page from
The Keyhole Peeper
. Taya had never heard of it before. It was typeset on yellowing paper and dated around the time of Viera's letters.

Exalted Murder/Suicide Cover-Up?

She started reading the article when the shop burst into clamorous noise. She shrieked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The clocks were chiming the hour.

Lady! She folded the article and jammed the bundle back where she'd found it. She'd lost track of time, and she had nothing to show for it except a list of suspicious books, an inconclusive map, and some sad family secrets. She hurried back through the shop, cracking the door open to peer out.

The edge hit Cristof in the face. He swore and recoiled, one hand over his nose. She stared at him, shocked.

“You!” He drew his hand away from his nose and looked at it. Blood ran over his fingertips. “Did you do this?” He pointed a crimson-stained finger at the jimmy marks in his door frame.

“No. I found the door that way, so I came in,” Taya lied, her heart pounding. “Since I didn't see you inside, I was just about to—”

“Give me your knife.”

“What?”

He wiped a fresh trickle of blood from under his nose and held out his stained hand.

“Give me your knife. The one on your harness.”

“Why?” She stepped back, alarmed.

“Because I'm going to match the blade to these marks,” he said, glaring at her. “And if they look alike, I'm going to arrest you for breaking and entering.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” She drew herself up. “I came in to see if you were all right! Someone might have left you hurt. Or tied up.”

“Did you leave me any presents?”

“Presents?” Taya was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. The kinds of presents that start fires,” he growled. “Or maybe just a mutilated punch card.”

“Punch card? If there are any mutilated punch cards in here, they're yours!” she snapped, flushing. “Maybe the lictors will find them tucked inside one of your books about explosives and poison!”

“You did break in!” Cristof crowed, triumphantly.

“I—”

A low, distant boom made them both stop and look up.

An orange glow burned briefly on the side of the mountain far above them, just visible through the sooty haze in the air.

“Lady help us.” Cristof sounded shaken, his face still turned upward. “What have you done?”

Wailing sirens began to sound across the city, calling an emergency.

His face lost color.

“I think it's the ferry to Oporphyr Tower.”

“Oh, no.” Taya turned and ran, sliding her arms into her wings. The
diispira
nearly swept her into a neighboring building, but a few strong beats of her wings raised her above the roofs and chimneys of Tertius.

She kicked down her tailset and swept aloft, shooting between towers and wires with reckless speed as she headed toward the wreckage.

Signalers were already taking their stations on the towers on Primus, the wind whipping their hair and clothes around them. Their semaphores transmitted instructions to the icarii about approach patterns and duties.

Wireferry down. Search and rescue. Damage report. Maintenance escort.

Taya tilted and flew toward the other silver-winged searchers who circled the cliffs and rocks that jutted between Yeovil's peak and the top level of Primus. Up on the tower, response flags flapped in the strong winds, confirming the message below.

Wireferry down. Passengers aboard.

Thick cables hung limp against the cliff, swaying in the wind. Two wireferry towers were bent. The cliff face had been blackened by the explosion. Wreckage was strewn across the rocks.

Taya felt sick, dropping closer to the ground. One of the other icarii wing-signaled to her. Cassi.

They teamed up and fell into a crisscross search pattern. Around them other icarii were doing the same, while another team soared around the damaged ferry tower, then swooped back to report its findings to the workers below. Down on the icarus docks, harnesses were being prepared to lift signalers and engineers to the damaged parts of the wireferry. Other icarii would soon start evacuating the Tower. With the wireferry broken, the only way up or down the peak was going to be by wing.

A shrill whistle announced a find.

The air above the mountainside was a swirling silver mass of icarii. Taya joined the circle, swooping low enough to see for herself.

There wasn't much left of the wireferry car.

Sickened, she let herself soar upward on a thermal, closing her eyes as soon as she cleared the active airspace.

That could have been Viera and Ariq.

It might still be. She opened her eyes, searching for the tower's signal flags. They were moving, being reeled around for update.

Two passengers.

She circled, joined by three, then six, other icarii. The flags kept jerking as more were added. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the house sigils being strung along the line.

Octavus. Forlore.

Taya screamed, tilting her wings down and folding them close to her body for the long dive to Primus.

Lictors shouted and scrambled out of the way as Taya threw out her wings at the last minute, back-beating dangerously close to estate walls as she dropped onto the wide cobbled street and skidded to a stop. The plaza had been turned into a makeshift operations headquarters, filled with rescue and repair equipment being hauled up by wagons and wireferries. Engineers were poring over a large schematic of the Tower wireferry line, trying to keep the map from flying away in the gusting winds, and signalers were decoding the messages from above for the lictors and laborers. Gawkers were held back by a line of soldiers running cords across the street.

“What is it?” a lictor demanded, approaching as she locked her wings high. “Another body?”

“I know who set the bomb,” she said, shaking with fury. “I know who killed them. Cristof Forlore, Alister's brother. He did it!”

“The exalted?” The lictor stopped, his face registering confusion. “That's impossible.”

“It's not impossible! He killed Pins and Alister found out so he killed his brother to keep from being caught!”

“Exalted Forlore is right there,” the lictor said, staring at her as if she'd gone mad. He pointed.

Taya spun, her heart leaping as she thought he meant the other Forlore, but it was Cristof who stared at her across the crowd of lictors and workers. Shock emptied his narrow face of expression, and then it twisted with rage. He shouldered past the lictor who was talking to him, striding toward her.

Taya clenched her fists and marched to meet him, shaking with anger.

“You!” Cristof grabbed for her. Taya knocked his hand away and slugged him in the stomach.

“You bastard!” she shouted, as he staggered back a step. “You killed him!”

“I killed him?” Cristof straightened, lunging forward. His fingers wrapped around her harness straps and he shook her until her teeth rattled. “You scheming little—”

Taya rammed her palm up against his jaw, snapping his head back and knocking his glasses askew. His grip loosened and she tore herself away. He grabbed again and she ducked under his arm, elbowing him in the ribs. He jerked backward to keep from being slapped by her metal wings.

“Arrest him!” she shouted at the lictors, who were staring with slack jaws. “He killed his brother!”

“Arrest her,” Cristof demanded, holding his side with one hand and straightening his spectacles with the other. “She's a Torn Card.”

To Taya's amazement, the lictors jumped into action, grabbing her arms and flight harness. She twisted.

“Are you crazy? Don't believe him just because he's exalted! He killed his brother! He murdered Pins!”

“Don't even try to blame your crimes on me,” Cristof snarled. “Pins was alive when my men left her. She died after
you
heard us talking about her!”

“You're lying!” Taya gasped as the lictors twisted her arms behind her back, beneath the jutting tertiaries of her metal wings. “You think you can get away with this because you're an exalted, but I know the truth, and so did Alister!”

“Strip her wings and take her to the nearest holding cell,” Cristof said, coldly. He rubbed his ribs, glaring at her.

“Charges?” the nearest lictor asked, locking manacles around her wrists.

“At least one count of murder. I'm sure we'll add more later.”

“Ask him how he knows Pins; ask him about the wireferry map in his bookshelf!” Taya twisted, but two lictors held her tight. The metal manacles pinched her wrists. “His brother was going to make him confess, so Cristof killed him!”

The lictors gave her a sharp shake and yanked her around.

“No!” she wailed. “You can't do this!”

They marched her to a stationhouse on Primus, unlocked her manacles long enough to remove her armature, and then fastened them back around her wrists and locked her into a cell. Chains ran from her left manacle to a ring embedded in the wall. Taya slumped on the floor, her hands suspended in front of her face, and closed her eyes.

Octavus. Forlore.
The signal flags snapped and waved in her memory, superimposed over the dark, scattered wreckage of the wireferry car.

Her eyes burned and she wiped her face on her sleeve. She was
not
going to give them the satisfaction of making her cry.

Hours passed. She heard voices through the cell door but couldn't make out any words. She stood and stretched, rubbing her aching wrists, then sat against the wall again. The manacles chafed her flesh. For a while she assembled the evidence against Cristof, then considered Pyke's cynicism about exalteds, then wondered if she'd be given a chance to defend herself at all, then thought about what she should have said to Alister before they'd parted. That just depressed her, so she fumed about Cristof again. Cristof, with all his angry speeches about exalteds and rights, who hadn't paused for a moment to use his caste privilege to force her into captivity.