Clockwork Heart (5 page)

“No,” she protested, sensing she was on dangerous ground again.
This man is a test in diplomacy all by himself.
She reached for her armature, pulling it toward her and untying it from the table. The sooner she could get out of here, the better. “I think you'd be foolish to give up your caste. The Lady granted you an exalted rebirth for a reason, and it would be a sin to treat it lightly.”

He fell silent as she slipped on her armature and reached for its buckles.

“Do you like being an icarus?”

“Yes, Exalted.” She tightened the straps. The cut on her shoulder was going to hurt on the way back up, but she was eager to leave. “I wouldn't want to be anything else.”

“Then it would be foolish of the Council to take away your wings at the whim of an angry exalted. The city barely has enough icarii as it is. If you understood how valuable you were to Ondinium, you wouldn't be so intimidated by authority.”

“I have to adjust this outside,” she said, sliding her arms into the wings long enough to lock them into tight-rest close to her body. She lost no time escaping the small, noisy shop but, to her chagrin, Cristof followed.

Outside, light from the gas streetlamps washed the narrow street in black and white. Taya unlocked her wings and spread them out, testing the joints and tilt, making sure the feathers closed and opened correctly. Everything seemed to function.

“Go straight back to your eyrie until you can get your shoulder tended,” Cristof directed.

“I will.” His peremptory tone was grating, especially after he'd made such a fuss over icarii being equal to exalteds. She had to bite back the urge to point out his hypocrisy. “I—”

The clocks in his shop began to chime, a hundred different bells ringing at the same instant.

A loud explosion ripped through the air and the ground trembled.

Taya whipped around and saw flames rising in the distance. She took a step forward.

“Don't!” Cristof snapped.

“They'll need—”

“Others will attend to it.” Cristof grasped her arm. “Your armature is damaged and you've been hurt. You'll only be a danger to yourself and the rescue crew.”

Taya laughed humorlessly and pulled away from him.

“Sorry, Exalted. Equal to equal, I've got a job to do, and I don't have time to argue with you about it.”

He cursed as she ran down the street and lifted her wings to catch the wind.

Chapter Four

The cook at Taya's eyrie brewed tea out of the bitterest black leaves ever exported from Cabiel. Normally the drink was enough to give the twenty or so icarii who lived at the boarding house the jolt they needed to face the day, but this morning Taya yawned over her cup and wondered if she could get away with going back to bed for a few more hours. Her muscles ached, her cuts throbbed, and her wings were in the smith's shop being repaired.

“Hey, Taya!” Pyke burst in, waving a newspaper. “You're awake!”

“Barely.” She shifted as he sat next to her and spread out the pages of
The Watchman
. The ink smelled fresh, and Pyke's fingers were smeared with black as he stabbed at the headline that blazed across the front page.

TERRORISM!

Torn Cards Attack Wireferry, Refinery

Night of Horror!

Taya frowned and skipped down the stack of headers to the story.

“You're in there,” Pyke said, pointing. “Both of us get a mention, but you're the hero, see?”

“I don't remember seeing any reporters there.” She read further, then gasped. “Look! They quoted me! I never said that!”

Pyke laughed and read the paragraph aloud.

“‘I was only doing my duty,' the modest icarus said. ‘I'm grateful that Lady Octavus and her son are safe and that I was given this chance to serve my city.' Like you wouldn't have said that if they'd asked.”

“I don't think Taya would have used that ‘serve my city' line,” Cassilta said, breezing in and dropping into a chair at their table. “It sounds fake.”

“It's all fake,” Taya protested. “The only person I talked to was a lictor, and that was just to give him my statement.”

“Well, that's the glory of a free press.” Cassi grinned at her. “It's free to make up anything it wants.”

“You should be flattered,” Pyke grumbled. “Nobody faked an interview with me.”

“You were just as important,” Taya assured him. Without his help, both she and Viera Octavus would have died, or at least been crippled on impact. But only another icarus was likely to realize that.

“I'd love to hear what
you'd
tell the papers, Pyke.” Cassilta pried the cup of tea from Taya's hand and took a sip. “Ick, it's cold. Stay there. I'll get fresh cups.”

“Believe me, I'm not going anywhere.”

“Late night at the wedding?” Pyke leaned back in his chair.

“Not really. But—”

“Don't talk about the wedding until I'm back!” Cassilta shouted across the dining room, balancing three cups in her hands. She wove back through the tables and rejoined them. “Okay. How was it?”

Taya began to tell them about the ceremony. After a few minutes Pyke returned to his paper, leaving the discussion of food and dresses and babies to the two women. She didn't tell them she'd nearly been mugged. She didn't want to hear any lectures about walking alone through Tertius at night.

“Hey, Taya, did you see the fire last night?” Pyke interrupted, peering over the paper. “It wasn't far from your old neighborhood.”

“I saw it.” Taya took a sip of the stomach-dissolving tea to collect her thoughts. “I flew over in case I was needed, but they got everything under control pretty fast.” She'd lingered long enough to report the icarus-hunters to the lictors. They'd promised to look for the three foreigners as soon as they had a chance.

“
The Watchman
says they think it was a bomb. Apparently the stripes are suspicious because the refinery blew up right at the stroke of eleven.”

“Yes, it did.” Taya remembered the clocks ringing the hour in Cristof's shop. “Did they find any bomb parts?”

“Not by the time the paper went to press.” Pyke turned a page. “I'll pick up a copy of the
Evening Dispatch
tonight. Maybe they'll know more by then.”

Taya looked at the ink stains on his fingers and remembered Cristof. She'd thought the repairman's dirty hands had meant he didn't care about cleanliness, but his workshop had been neat, and he'd been annoyed by the mess her bloody hands had made.

And he'd washed his hands as soon as he'd left the room.

So, why had they been dirty in the first place?

Could he have been walking back from the refinery?

No. That was ridiculous. A thousand blessed rebirths did not produce a terrorist. An outcaste, maybe, but not a terrorist.

Although there had been Decatur Neuillan's treason…

“Hey, Taya!” An icarus with her wings folded down walked into the dining room, waving a letter. “Message for you!”

“I'm here.” Taya stood, surprised. Mail was usually kept for icarii at the dispatch office. She took the heavy parchment envelope with curiosity. A large, painted wax seal and gold ribbon held it closed.

“I brought it straight from the Octavus estate.” The icarus grinned. “I was told to put it in your hands. I'm glad you're not out flying messages already.”

“You're Ranelle, aren't you?” Taya remembered the younger girl; she'd been a few classes after Taya's.

“Yes.” The girl looked gratified at being recognized. “That was really amazing, what you did yesterday. Everyone's talking about it. All the fledglings are begging their teachers to run rescue drills today.”

“Thanks.” Embarrassed, Taya turned the envelope over in her hands.

“Well… I'd better get going.” The girl sounded reluctant. “Bye, Taya.”

“Fly safely.”

Taya felt the whole room's eyes on her as she sat back down. She put the letter on the table and stole a glance at her friends.

“You might as well open it here,” Cassi said pragmatically. “Whatever it says, it's going to be all over the eyrie in a matter of minutes.”

“It'll be a thank-you,” Taya guessed, picking up a butter knife and wiping it clean on a napkin. She eased the seal up, unwilling to break such a beautiful object.

The letter was on vellum, inked in three colors; black for the text, red for the proper names, and gold around each capital letter. Cassi gasped, leaning over her shoulder. Neither of them had ever seen such ornate script before.

“Must be nice to have that much time to spend on a letter,” Pyke remarked. Cassi elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh, sorry, the
exalted
didn't have to spend any time on it. Some poor sap of a dedicate clerk did all the work.”

“‘To Taya Icarus, greetings,'” Taya read aloud for her friends. The rest of the dining hall fell silent as everyone listened. Even the cook stood in the doorway, drying a platter. “‘To offer thanksgiving and gratitude for your timely rescue of Exalted Viera Octavus and Exalted Ariq Octavus, and to celebrate perils overcome, you are invited as the guest of honor to Estate Octavus for a formal evening of dinner and dancing.'”

The other icarii in the room broke into applause. Taya turned red, reading further. “Oh, scrap! What am I going to wear?”

Pyke groaned.

“I don't believe that was the first thing to come out of your mouth,” he said with disgust. “How about an observation about the comparative value of dinner and dancing to the life of a wife and a child? Not to mention your own life, which was equally at risk.”

“What would
you
want?” Cassilta asked, scornfully.

“A purse of gold masks,” he replied at once. “Five hundred, a thousand, maybe. Something
useful
. I notice the exalted didn't send me an invitation.”

“Pyke, you're cute but shallow,” Cassi said. “Prestige is a lot more useful than money.”

“Sure. That's what they want you to think. That's how they keep us in line. Prestige won't buy an army. Poor people can't fund a revolution.”

“Cassi!” Taya turned to her friend, mentally running through her limited wardrobe. She was an icarus, for the Lady's sake! She didn't own fancy clothes. “Can I wear my armature? Please tell me I can wear my wings.”

“You can
not
wear your wings,” Cassi said firmly. “Not as the guest of honor. When's the party?”

“Three days from now.”

“No problem. Pyke, tell Dispatch that Taya and I are taking the day off.”

“Why? To go dress shopping? The boss will love that.”

“He will if he wants our caste well-represented in front of the exalteds,” Cassi retorted.

“I'll tell him,” volunteered an icarus from the next table. “Don't worry, nobody's going to fuss. Taya deserves a day off, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Taya said, chewing on her lip as she re-read the invitation. Clothes. She'd never thought about clothes. But a diplomatic envoy would need clothes, right? Oh, Lady, she was going to have to learn how to wear fancy clothes.

“Come on,” Cassi said, standing. “I know exactly who you need to see.”

Several hours later, released from her dress-buying ordeal, Taya fled to a news stall by Gryngoth Plaza. News about the wireferry accident had been pushed aside by last night's refinery bombing.

“You going to buy that, then?” the news seller grumbled as Taya skimmed the headlines.

“No … no, thank you.” Taya handed the paper back to the woman, who took it with a gnarled, ink-stained hand. Taya was reminded once again of Cristof's dirt-stained hands.

It was easy to envision him planting a bomb, his long fingers setting the hands of a timer with painstaking precision and getting dirty as he slipped explosives inside grease-covered machinery. He was outcaste. That meant he was unreliable and quite possibly dangerous. Honest citizens didn't reject their caste and carry around air pistols. He hadn't hesitated to shoot that Demican mugger, had he? He had a violent streak.

Wind disheveled Taya's short, auburn curls and numbed her ears.

On the other hand, he was exalted by birth and by caste, and the brother of a decatur. Could the Lady have let a flawed tool slip through her Forge to be born into a sacred body? Taya wasn't a religious idealist. She knew that accidents happened; that sometimes a good tool could be damaged by careless use. Still, exalteds were usually above reproach.

Usually. Decatur Neuillan was the most recent exception.

Icarii stand outside the traditional caste hierarchy.

“Fine!” Taya slapped a hand on the news counter and straightened. “Let's see if he believes it.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked the old woman. Taya gave her an apologetic wave and strode toward Whitesmith Bridge.

Ondinium's bells tolled noon as she walked down the broad, switchback levels of the bridge, jostled by castemarked citizens and inkless foreigners. The sector gate between Secundus and Tertius was wide open, but the number of lictors guarding it had been increased, and the lines were long. Taya wished she had her wings as she stood in one of the citizens' queues, pulling out her identification papers. The other Ondiniums in line gave her unmarked face a curious glance, then spotted the icarus pin on her lapel and turned back to their own conversations.

Taya had been mistaken for a foreigner before; it was one of the hazards icarii faced when they weren't in harness, especially if they didn't have proper copper skin and dark hair. Taya had inherited her Mareaux-blooded father's auburn hair and pale skin, although she had her mother's dark eyes. Once, when she'd been younger, she'd dyed her hair black to try to fit in. The color had been flat and lifeless against her pale skin, and the dye hadn't set well. Every time she'd washed her hair, the water had turned dark. She'd never repeated the experiment.

The lictor at the gate gave her a close look as she stepped up. He scrutinized her papers, then snapped the wallet shut and handed it back with a polite nod.

“Travel safely, Icarus.”

“Thank you.” She tucked her papers away and stepped into Tertius.

Little differentiated the top of Tertius and the bottom of Secundus; smog and soot darkened both equally. But the lowest sector of the mountain grew flatter as it spread out toward the foothills and rivers below, and it bristled with more chimneys and smokestacks per square mile than anywhere else in the city. The streets grew narrower and dirtier as one traveled deeper into the sector, and the residents, on the whole, became poorer.

Taya had studied other countries to prepare for her diplomat corps examination, and she knew that many foreigners considered Ondinium's capital to be a sulfurous hellhole. They objected to its smog and dirt, to its chimney- and wireferry-filled skyline, to its tightly built streets and buildings, and to its caste system and strict, sometimes ruthless laws. But at the same time they envied her country's material wealth and rich culture; its high rates of education and employment and its low rates of poverty. They coveted Ondinium's technological resources and, most of all, they lusted after its priceless mines of ondium.

Ondinium hadn't sent an army to war in hundreds of years, but it had weathered numerous invasions, and its lictors were among the best-trained security forces in the world. Not even Alzana, Ondinium's most aggressive rival, bothered testing its borders anymore. Now warfare was carried out with spies and thieves instead of soldiers and cannon; with bombs and terrorism instead of armies and sieges.

Taya glanced around, but the site of last night's refinery bombing was obscured by Tertius' high walls and roofs. As a child, she'd spent much of her time climbing those roofs, playing on broken, sooty tiles and watching bright-winged icarii swoop overhead. None of her family or friends had been surprised when she'd taken the Great Examination and been chosen to join the icarii. She'd considered it a dream come true.

She stopped at the stairs that led down from the street to Cristof Forlore's basement shop. Three grubby children, two boys and a girl, were sitting on the steps, trading small chunks of metal.