13. Cain
13
CAIN
Cain followed the silent observer from the graveyard past the cabin-like houses and frost-crusted gardens that made up the outskirts of the Capital. There was nothing remarkable about the man’s appearance. He seemed middle-aged and wore a nondistinct black coat very much like Cain’s own. He blended effortlessly, changing his gait and posture to match whatever crowd he was moving with. A part of Cain admired his quarry’s craft, while another part cursed it as he summoned up all his skills to keep up with the silent man.
It was a long pursuit, and the bustling streets were tinted blue with Powered lamps under the evening sun by the time they neared the city’s central port. Walking along the docks, Cain wondered if they were heading to Gladdis’s house. But the silent man took a different turn and entered the port’s popular food street instead. Cain avoided this area—too many pickpockets hovering to prey on newcomers looking for a peck after a long sea journey. Half of the broad street was taken up with food stalls, the smell of spices from all over the world mixing in a strange yet mouthwatering bouquet that never failed to slow the movement of the crowd. Cain struggled around pedestrians who stopped without warning to buy or even just smell the food, but the silent man walked on as if nothing had changed.
Then, without slowing his pace, the man looked over his shoulder. They almost met eyes, but Cain managed to sidestep into a tented food stall, nearly knocking over the smoking grill. His spectacles slipped off, but Cain reflexively caught them before they could hit the ground. The silent man looked ahead again and walked on. The startled Cassian woman in the stall selling the mysterious skewered meats shouted in an unfamiliar language, but Cain could tell that it was likely curses. He put his spectacles back on, apologized in what few words he knew in one of the Cassian languages, and quickly left the stall.
There was quite a lot of distance between them now. Still, Cain doggedly pursued the man, going against the river of the crowd. People bumped into him and occasionally he had to fight through an especially thick eddy of passersby, but the man from the graveyard moved as if he was melting and flowing through the crowd, almost as if he could predict the motion of every person within the current. Did he know he was being followed? If he did, thought Cain grimly, he could have shaken Cain ages ago. Cain felt a swell of anxiety every time the silent man turned a corner. Was this where he would lose him? Or worse, would the man be standing there, facing him, expecting him?
Something in Cain’s guts whispered that if Gladdis had a killer doing her bidding, it would be a man like this.
They had reached a remote end of the city docks when the man finally stopped, miles away from the nicer side of town where Gladdis’s house was. The man went inside a run-down house, and after making sure no one was watching, Cain approached the house himself. He crept around the side, looking for an alternate entrance, afraid at any moment he would turn around to find the silent man staring at him with piercing eyes.
Cain spotted a ventilation window that opened into the basement, but not only was it too small, it was also locked shut.
Suddenly, the door to the front creaked open again. Cain dropped to the ground in the alley. From where he lay, he could see the man walking away from the building and back toward the market. Cain sighed.
The dagger he had used to stab Devadas of the Ministry had never been returned to him, and he felt its absence keenly. Were there other people inside the house? It would be prudent to retreat and come back later, but perhaps this was the perfect time to break in, as he was sure the silent man at least was not there. Cain intuited that the man was not one he could win against in a fight or fool with his wits. Despite the cold, he could feel nervous sweat soaking his tunic.
Cain got up, tiptoed to the front, and looked closely at the door. There was a large lock attached to the latch, one that looked more like the kind that would be used in a warehouse, and one that Cain was certain hadn’t been there a moment ago. The silent man must have put it there. Cain looked around again before taking two pins out of his pocket and sliding them into the keyhole of the lock. A lock like this, that could be opened only from the outside, suggested that there was no one inside. Within a few moments, he had picked the lock and stepped inside the house.
It looked like an ordinary, working-class house inside, exactly what you would expect from how it looked on the outside. The living room had lime-painted walls and the attached kitchen was narrow. On the second floor would likely be two bedrooms, perhaps a third.
Just in case there was someone there, Cain took off his shoes and carried them in one hand as he explored the ground floor. The place was covered in dust. In the living room there was an old, large, red rug, but no other furniture. There was nothing at all in the kitchen either. He checked the outhouse in the backyard. There was no smell. No sign that anyone lived in the house.
Cain went back into the house with less caution. Up the steps were two rooms after all, and neither of them had beds or wardrobes. In one was a shelf with a small plate about the size of his palm with a candle that had been burned almost to a stump. The sun had set. Cain prodded his coat and made sure he had his flint box with him. He took the dish and candle.
He sat at the bottom of the stairs and thought about where he might look next. It occurred to him that despite there being a ventilation window outside, he had seen no steps leading down to a basement. He got up and looked for an entrance in the back lot. Nothing.
Back in the living room, he noticed again the only piece of furniture in the whole house, the red rug. There was no dust about its edges. Cain peeled the rug back, revealing a trapdoor. He hesitated for a second, then lit the candle with his flint. He opened the trapdoor and descended.
The smell of mold pierced his nostrils. In the corner of the basement was a wooden box, about as long as he was tall. Fienna’s coffin this morning flashed in his mind. He moved the candle closer to it. The planks of the box were unpainted. There were holes along the edge where it had once been nailed shut.
His answers must be inside this box—answers as to why Fienna had been murdered, and what, exactly, the Ministry of Intelligence was after.
He carefully opened the lid.
Inside was another box, this one wrapped in chains. A coffin made of lead. Cain had never seen a Power generator with his own eyes, but the soft violet light seeping out of it could be from nothing else. He gently pressed the right leg of his spectacles in place with his hand and bent over to look at the writing engraved on the coffin, a low hum reaching his ears as he did so. THE 25TH LEGION, CLASS 4 POWER GENERATOR, FREDERIKA. There was a griffin engraved on the coffin as well. It was perhaps the symbol of the Twenty-Fifth Legion.
A military Power generator. Cain remembered what Septima had said about a Power generator going missing in Arland.
All generators belonged to the Empire. Everyone knew this. It was common for a large private business to license the use of Power generators to assist in the running of a factory or farm, but there was a strict application process and each generator had a designated sorcerer-engineer attached, with unannounced inspections by the Office of Truth inquisitors. What lay before Cain was a military Power generator to boot. There was no explanation as to why it would be in the basement of a civilian house, other than that it had been stolen.
Just looking at this box might constitute a crime.
He closed the wooden lid. The answers he’d been hoping for had not all been inside the box. In fact, it only contained more questions. The candle on the plate went out, and the sudden tang of smoke reached his nose. Cain felt his way out of the basement and opened the trapdoor. Thankfully, he was still alone. He returned the nub of the candle to its place on the shelf on the second floor, slipped out of the building, relocked the door, and made his way into the night.
The Power generator. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why did Gladdis have it—if the person he’d followed was indeed Gladdis’s man? And why did she bring it into the Capital? How did a merchant, however rich and well-connected, even manage to get ahold of it? And what did any of this have to do with Fienna?
He wondered whether he should tell Septima of what he saw today. If Septima got wind that a Power generator stolen by provincial rebel forces was hidden in the heart of the Empire, the Ministry of Intelligence—and the Office of Truth that controlled the use of all Power generators—would turn the city upside down looking for the culprits, and Gladdis would either go into hiding or be caught. Then the case would be beyond Cain’s reach. He would never know what Gladdis had been trying to do or why Fienna had died. Compared to the interests of the Ministry of Intelligence, the Office of Truth, and the rebel movement, Fienna’s death wouldn’t even amount to an afterthought.
The Capital was the most powerful city in the world. In contrast, Fienna was only a worker at a small dye shop. People died every day. Compared to the immensity of the Capital, Fienna’s death was a negligible one. She would be forgotten soon. Such things were inevitable in this city of millions. His heart felt the heavy grip again.
Cain, however, remembered. The Arlanders at the funeral also remembered. And more than anyone else, the culprit remembered. Whether it was Gladdis or the silent man or anyone else who had killed Fienna, Cain would not allow them to forget.
But if something happened to him—which felt more and more likely with every new secret he uncovered—there would be no one to do something about what he’d just learned. These secrets were too big for him to shoulder alone. He thought of Arienne. As a sorcerer, she was the closest thing to an expert that Cain knew. Had she left already? Maybe she had even been caught. But his meeting with Septima wasn’t until midnight, so he had time. He made his way to Lucretia’s.