Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) (27 page)

Weiss looked out over the campfires. The Imperial soldiers scurried like ants in the dark. Ants in steel shells, with their mandibles honed killing-sharp. He tried to imagine what it would look like from up here when the order came and they began to swarm.

His voice softer now, Weiss said, “I feel like I’m at the end of all things.”

“Will you die here, then?”

“Sure as hell not planning on it.” Weiss glanced back over his shoulder, toward the shuttered city. “Right now, my men are moving the bombs into place. That’s the end of our obligation to Lodovico. We’ll wait until the attack begins and get out of town, any way we can. Probably find some dead soldiers—or
make
some dead soldiers if we can jump a stray patrol—strip their uniforms and get out undercover. Maybe we’ll steal a boat if the Imperials don’t have the entire harbor barricaded. What’s your way out?”

“If we do not wish to be seen, we will not be seen.”

“So you wanted me to see you,” Weiss said, “when you came up here about an hour ago. But you didn’t say anything.”

Rose offered a slight shrug. “Your light is fading in an interesting way.”

“Light?”

“My vision is not like yours.”

“Just a guess,” he said, “but if I took a peek under that veil of yours, I wouldn’t like what I saw, would I?”

“It would depend,” she told him.

“On what?”

“On how deep you can see.”

Rose drifted a little closer, standing beside him on the wall.

“I was a princess once,” she said.

Weiss gave her a sideways glance. “Sure you were.”

“I was. I ruled from a tower of black glass in a city of burning lights, in the heart of a desert.”

“The Caliphate?”

“Farther than that.” Rose’s gloved fingers, inhumanly long, stroked the battlement. “I dreamed of becoming a queen. So I built my tower high and I built it well.”

“So what happened?”

“I fell.”

Weiss chuckled, humoring her. “Pleasure to meet you, Your Ladyship. So when did that all happen?”

Rose paused, tilting her head.

“The language of time is strange,” she said, “and we are moving in opposite directions.
Long-ago-then
for me,
not-yet-never
for you. What did you mean when you said you feel like you’re at the end of all things?”

Weiss lit another match, then shook it out. He rubbed the stubble on his cheek.

“Hard to explain. It’s not the fear of death. I don’t fear death, never have. I feel pretty much the same way I do about life: I’m indifferent to the whole idea. Besides, I’ve been in nastier spots than this and I came out clean. No, I’m not dying tonight.”

A susurrating rasp drifted from under Sister Rose’s veil.

“What?” Weiss said.

“Nothing. Go on.”

“You ever see an avalanche? It starts a long time before the rocks fall. A slow, drifting slide, and then the thunder. That’s what this feels like. Like things are in motion tonight. Not just here. Everywhere. The world is sliding apart, the pieces all falling in a way that’ll never be put right again, and it’s too late to stop it.”

“And when did it begin, do you think?” Rose asked.

“Maybe twenty years ago, when they murdered Lodovico’s old man and set him on the road to revenge. Maybe longer than that.”

“Everything,” Rose said, “is a reaction. Every choice grows from the consequences of another choice. An ocean of ripples from countless pebbles thrown.”

Weiss struck one last match. He held it up between them, casting a flickering orange glow across Rose’s gray veil.

“It feels like somebody lit a long, slow fuse,” he said. “All these years it’s been quietly sizzling down. And it’s almost at the end.”

“What’s waiting at the end?”

“Same thing that’s waiting at the end of every fuse.”

Weiss tossed the glowing match over the wall. They watched it plummet into the dark, a firefly in the shadows.

“That’s when everything burns.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Storm clouds flowed over Lerautia like a mob of black-winged ravens, blotting out the stars. Kappel stood at the window of the safe house garret, watching lightning crackle in the distance. Fat droplets of rain spat at the window, drawing slow, wet lines as they rolled down the glass.

Nightmare weather
, the Dustman thought and turned to face his men.

They were nine in all, discarding their peasant clothes and tugging on their counterfeit Imperial armor, lacing up boots and cinching sword belts tight. Kappel put his hands on his hips, running over the plan in his mind one last time, and cleared his throat.

“Listen up,” he said. “I don’t need to tell you how important this is. Our one and only chance of success—hopefully earning Weiss’s forgiveness and buying our lives back in the process—is serving up Pope Livia on a silver plate. We’ve got to take her alive and reasonably undamaged.”

“How much is ‘reasonable’?” one of his men snickered. Kappel shut him up with a hard look.

“Now, she’s expecting what she thinks is an Imperial envoy with a military escort. That’s us. I’ll talk her into giving us a tour of the mansion, anything that gets her away from the bulk of her guards. We’ll kill her escorts, stuff a gag in her mouth, and exfiltrate through the nearest window. We hit hard, we hit fast, and if we do this right we’ll be out of town before anyone knows she’s missing.”

Kappel clapped his hands twice, sharp and loud.

“Muster up,” he said. “Let’s go steal a pope.”

*     *     *

Marcello crouched in the cabin of an elegant coach, running his fingers over the smooth brass lock of a sea chest. It opened with a faint metallic pop, the lid sliding up on freshly greased hinges.

Inside, gold ingots piled upon gold ingots in neatly stacked rows, each one stamped with the papal seal. Gold, shining like fire.

Marcello smiled and closed the chest. He hopped down from the coach and spread his eager hands wide, looking from the pillared facade of the library to his gathered band of men on the street. Storm clouds roiled in the night sky above, and a sudden burst of wind spattered icy drops of rain across his sallow cheeks.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m glad the inclement weather didn’t keep you away.”

He’d recruited half of his squad from the less-scrupulous arm of the city militia and the rest from the sort of dive bars frequented by hard men with cheap blades. Not personally, of course—Cotton-Eye Vinz, his usual informant in those circles, had done the hiring for him. One of the sellswords, sporting a long scar along one twisted lip, stepped forward.

“Rain ain’t a problem,” he said. “I’ll swim through piss if you’re payin’ me to do it.”

“That’s the kind of work ethic I truly admire,” Marcello replied over the amused snorts of the man’s comrades.

“So what are we really up against in there?” another asked.

“Five or six severely delusional individuals. They believe they have”—Marcello rolled his eyes—“magic powers. Don’t discount them, though: they’re dangerous, and every last one of them is a known murderer. The most important thing is the girl named Renault. She’ll be easy to spot, the only one of them wearing armor. I need her
alive
. Once you have her, bring her to the city’s prison. The warden owes me a favor, and he knows what to do. He should have a cell ready and waiting.”

“And the rest?”

“Do with the others as you please,” Marcello said, “but in the end, they all need to disappear. Make sure the bodies are never found.”

*     *     *

The door to Felix’s cell chunked open, flooding the tiny box with light. He squinted, eyes stinging, as rough hands undid his bonds and hauled him to his feet. A fresh twist of rope yanked taut around his wrists, binding his hands behind his back, as two silent men in the black livery of House Grimaldi marched him along a dank stone corridor and up a long flight of steps.

Every window in Aita’s family estate had been flung open, curtains rippling with a gust of chill night air. A storm brewed on the horizon, creeping toward the walls of Mirenze and driving the wind ahead of it. It was so cold Felix could see a hint of his breath on the air.
That must be why I’m trembling
, he told himself.

The mansion’s ballroom had been set for a banquet. Servants scurried with trays and mops and dustcloths, making the marble shine and the long feast table a sight to behold. Nothing but the finest for Aita’s party guests.

And there was Aita herself, in a gown of gold that matched the flow of her hair, her heels clicking on the ivory marble as she strode toward him.

“Felix.”

“Aita.” He nodded toward the wall of open windows. “It’s a little cold in here, don’t you think?”

“It needs to be. You’ll see why, shortly. My guests are due to start arriving any minute now. Oh, and so is your rescue attempt.”

He blinked. “My what?”

A sly smile rose to Aita’s lips. She tilted her head, just a bit, the candlelight catching the thin scar along her cheek.

“You’ll see. I am in control of all things. Don’t you know that by now?”

She leaned close and murmured in his ear, “Hope is the greatest of cruelties. Be kind to yourself in your final hours, and let it go. This is the heart of my kingdom. There
is
no hope here.”

She stepped back and gave him an appraising look.

“Goodbye, Felix. It’s time to die.”

*     *     *

Leggieri sat on the floor in his ransacked workshop, gazing at the devastation by candlelight. The Dustmen had followed in Simon’s wake, and what they hadn’t stolen, they’d destroyed out of petty malice. One-of-a-kind prototypes, snapped and shattered. His notes, his pages, sketches born from his dreams, torn to shreds. A lifetime of art and invention, gone.

A length of steel chain rattled as he turned his head. They’d leashed him like a mongrel, one stretch of chain around his left leg and another collaring his throat, keeping him within five feet of his worktable. That was where they’d driven him around the clock, forcing him to build copy after copy of the Infernal Machine. Twelve in all, each one with the power to take hundreds of innocent lives.

He’d wept, once. They beat him until he stopped.

Now they’d finally left him alone for a few hours, allowing him to sleep. But he hadn’t. Not when he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the faces of the dead. He wondered how many would be waiting for him on the other side.

The cellar door jolted open. Weiss marched down the steps with three of his men in tow. He ignored Leggieri, his eyes darting to the nail-studded barrel—its long tube and trigger mechanism set carefully into the lid—and waved the others ahead.

“There it is, last one,” Weiss said. “Take it up.
Careful
, now.”

He looked to Leggieri.

“Last one.”

Leggieri’s head sagged. And Weiss drew a long-bladed knife from his boot. He stood over the artist, studying him.

“You know what that means, right?”

Leggieri nodded.

“You did good work,” Weiss told him, “so I’ll make this quick and clean. You won’t feel a thing, I promise. You earned that.”

“I just hoped,” Leggieri said with a heavy sigh, “that Simon would have been here.”

Weiss tilted his head at him. “You
wanted
to see that freak again? Why?”

“Because, Signore Weiss, your men are ruthless, they are cruel, but they are also very sloppy.”

“Explain yourself.”

Leggieri raised his face, and Weiss almost took a step back. He couldn’t count how many men he’d seen on death’s doorstep—men who knew they were about to meet their end at his hands—and they faced it in all kinds of ways. Some begged, some sobbed, some raged.

Leggieri, though, was placid. Content. Almost…pleased.

“Because they brought an artist the tools of death and paid no attention when little things went missing. Like a length of cord, and some tiny striking flints. And a few fistfuls of powder from each one of the bombs I made for you.”

Weiss looked down. Seeing Leggieri—and seeing the cord in his clenched, trembling fist, running under the workshop table.

“
Get out
,” Weiss screamed at his men, turning to run. “
Get out now—
”

Leggieri smiled as he yanked the cord.

*     *     *

Sister Rose stood beneath the brewing storm clouds, just across the lane from Leggieri’s villa, raindrops spattering her gray lace veil. For a moment, all was silent.

Then thunder rippled and the ground answered with a full-throated shout that shook the street like a rag doll in a bulldog’s teeth. It was the sound of an avalanche, stones tumbling, roaring loud enough to shatter windows as the villa’s roof exploded in a torrent of white-hot fire that lit the night sky brighter than sunlight.

Another sister glided up alongside Rose, both of their lace veils turned upward as they gazed at the spreading blaze.

“I told him,” Rose said, “that his light was fading in an interesting way.”

“This city teems with fading lights,” her companion said.

“It does tonight.”

“Let us harvest offerings to our king.”

They left as one, drifting away, the firestorm at their backs.

*     *     *

Outside the city walls, at Mirenze’s southern gate, heads rose and fingers pointed at the plume of smoke in the sky. Sergeant Reiter, commander of the southern detachment, stalked through the Imperial camp looking for answers.

“Are we fighting? Hey, Klein! Over here. Did you hear that explosion? Are we fighting?”

Klein raced to keep up with Reiter’s long-legged strides. “I don’t know. No word from the western gate. Is that their work? Did they start without us?”

“Gardener’s balls, what happened to waiting until first light? All right, send a courier over to the west gate. Tell them to find out what’s going on.”

“It’ll be twenty minutes before he gets back. What if the western detachment misunderstood the orders and went in ahead of us? They might need flanking support right now!”

Reiter tugged at his close-cropped beard. If he guessed wrong and ordered an assault, he’d be the one ruining General Baum’s carefully laid battle plan. It could break his career.