13 #2
His mind churned as he raced across the city.
Three years ago, the crime of the decade had sent tremors through Carintheum.
The thieves had gone to the gallows, but no one had ever found the treasures—nor named the turncoat.
Three years later, a woman walked free from some inconsequential jail, her past papered up behind an invented crime and her records locked away.
She’d immediately deceived her way into a place he couldn’t follow, and closed the day with enough money to set herself up at a luxurious hotel for a fortnight.
She’d been visiting the prisons. Now he’d found the same arcanic draining in her room as Prima Gloriana had sensed in Carysium Street, that hotbed of grayside crime. The pieces slid together in his mind.
She was part of the Elysius theft. She betrayed them, she knows where the treasures are . . . and now, she’s going to draw her pay.
And he’d be there when she did.
Sunrise hadn’t touched the city when his quarry set out.
She stepped into the mulberry-dark morning, and Felix ghosted after her.
The inner streets were too empty for him to keep a close trail, but she was making for the outskirts.
There, the crowds of laborers would hide him.
He’d dressed plainly in the hope that she’d be heading somewhere dubious.
A spring storm was gathering in glooming banks above Carintheum.
A gale drove hay and papers down the roads like scuttling vermin, and the promise of thunder set an iron edge on the air.
Still, Miss Rosara marched on toward the industrial district.
She’d always walked like a woman with an appointment to keep, but this time, there was something different about her—something like a thoroughbred before the race.
The din of the manufactories closed about him.
Pollution rolled across the air, concealing him as he narrowed the distance.
It was a vile place by all objective measures, where curse dust rose like desert sand and coal crunched underfoot.
Nonetheless, his pace sprang with excitement.
The world felt sharp and keen to the touch.
He saw her round a corner and followed hard on her tracks. He made the turn, half hidden by a crowd of laborers, then plunged into a crowded market alley.
Humanity crushed close about him in the haze of smoke and incense. Marquees rippled and costermongers shouted. Caged crows and kyries joined the din, beating at the bars that hemmed them in. Bottled curses glinted to his right, and a tethered senyx snapped at his ankles as he passed.
He spied Miss Rosara at a ribbon maker’s stall ahead, admiring a blue silk band against her hair. He knew better than to stop; he trusted to the crowds and walked on past, knowing she’d have no reason to—
“I say. Prefect?” called a sweet voice from his left.
Dash it. Felix turned, feigning surprise, then fought his way through the mass toward her.
“Miss Rosara,” he said. “Should I be alarmed to see you here?”
“No less than I ought to be, to happen upon you,” she answered gaily. “On duty, sir?”
“Indeed,” he said, thanking the Pantheon that she’d supplied the excuse for him. “Have you been well?”
Ingenious. Such a turn of conversation.
“As well as ever. In fact . . .”
Her gaze flashed to each side, and she beckoned him closer with a conspiratorial air. He instinctively leaned in as she made to whisper in his ear.
Then she recoiled with an affronted cry. She upset the ribbon maker’s table, and his wares went fluttering into the gutter.
“How dare you, sir!” she exclaimed, loud enough to startle the pigeons from the gutter. “In all my days! I may be poor, but if you think my virtue can be bought, you’re sorely mistaken!”
Felix backed up in alarm as half the street stopped dead. “Whatever do you—”
“You’ll not induce me to such a thing, you scoundrel! Away with you!”
A gaggle of factory girls exchanged hostile looks, and two tall Isran men turned his way. Miss Rosara thrust him aside and strode off. Felix darted after her and seized her wrist.
The next he knew, a reticule had struck him hard about the head. The strap lashed across his eyes, and he stumbled back. Her arm slipped from his grasp. He’d barely caught his balance when the Israns seized him by the elbows from behind.
Damn.
“Keep it to yourself, yesh’ka,” one growled, shoving him into the alley wall. The ribbon maker gave an angry fluster as they trampled his scattered wares.
“Drunk, are ya?” a factory girl snapped. “We ain’t all got the luxury, this time of the morning!”
“Unhand me, for the empire’s sake!” Felix shot back. Aggression coiled fast inside him. She was getting away.
“Ooh. Carinth boy,” a Xanthian woman taunted, shoving him sideways. “Slumming it, are we? Thought you’d take your pick of us?”
“I said unhand me,” he replied, forcing his voice into a low, cool register. “I’m an officer of the prefecture, and she’s a thief.”
“Thief, eh? You can talk, you preening mop—”
That was it. He hadn’t time to talk his way out. He pressed his thumb to a spellwork attachment on his gauntlet. Blinding white light speared out, sending his assailants lurching back, and he took to the wind.
Felix shoved his way out of the crowd and free of the market street. Miss Rosara had a head start, but she was wearing a gown and heeled shoes, whereas he’d trained like an athlete since he was ten. He was at full speed in moments.
Miss Rosara’s skirts whipped away around a corner a hundred feet ahead, and he dashed after her. The distance closed by the second.
Then, his mind sang a warning. She knows she can’t outrun you. She’ll have a trick.
Felix flicked out the monocle Diana had given him and held it up as he ran. He plunged around the corner into an empty street. There were no traps, no curses—but there, dead ahead, was a strange sight. A rough amber square hovered from knee to head height in the street, dimming by the moment.
A curse? A door? Did she climb through it?
Even as he came within ten feet of the square, he knew he had to stop. It could be anything. He couldn’t just leap headfirst into an unknown spell . . .
And then he did.
Felix landed in a world gone wrong. The moment he touched down, his senses lurched off-kilter. The air was stifling, thick as clay. His eyes couldn’t piece together what he saw. He was half conscious of a cavern sunk in glooming twilight, its edges feathering out into darkness, and—
CLANG!
The impact rang from his skull to his teeth. Agony splintered through his head, and he staggered.
Gentle hands caught him from behind. Foreign magic lapped up through his body like the stroke of warm water, washing out pain and wit alike. In a heartbeat, the soft dark tide pulled him under.