Dust briefly admired their cleverness. Even if he could wrest a weapon from Asrafil's control, he could not shoot at Ariane. Not without risking his own metal skin. And even if he blocked her at the air lock, Ariane in her armor could tear her way inside.
"Open the gate," he murmured. "Throw down the bridge. Or it will go ill in the end for those within."
Perceval's hands tightened on the railing, paling across the knuckles, a blue flush visible between. The metal creaked under her grasp.
"She'll come to us," Dust said. "And if you do not join me, we will die at her, or her angel's, hand."
"You're the devil of the stairs," Perceval said. "And if I begin climbing at your word, Jacob Dust, I will never climb to the end."
That devil smiled: a slight man, unassuming, his hands knotted in the pockets of his beautiful coat. "Would that be so terrible? It's a purpose, after all. To climb and climb in pursuit of the stars. To climb in pursuit of God."
"It's a terrible purpose," she said, but he noticed that her fingers curled open atop the rail.
There was something to be said for the word of the Chief Engineer. Caitlin spoke, or sent a message, and mysteriously things got accomplished. The warrant for Arianrhod's detention was an example. Caitlin summoned a functionary, the thing was sworn out and thumbprinted, and then it was sent to be set before a judge.
Likewise, once Tristen was found, they reclaimed him in short order. Caitlin insisted on coming with them in the flesh, so he might see her with his own eyes, now that the corneas were healed. That accomplished, Benedick went with his brother to find clothing, and the women were left in a waiting room.
And so Rien found herself alone with Caitlin Conn. And because she could, she sat against the wall and watched the Chief Engineer stare at her hands and pick at her thumbnails, vanishing the way Means learned to vanish.
Or so she thought.
But Caitlin glanced up, and caught her staring, and with a hesitant smile got up and came across the floor to settle beside Rien. "We'll get her back," she said, and put a hand not on Rien's knee, but beside it.
Rien thought she was speaking to comfort herself as much as to comfort Rien, and found that, in itself, strangely ... well, comforting. Someone else was worried for Perceval. Someone else was invested in bringing her home.
Perceval had people. Which was something for Rien to envy.
She looked over at Caitlin, who was staring at her knees, and blurted entirely the wrong thing. She knew it was the wrong thing when she said it, and the words hung in front of her mouth, so bright she could almost see them, shimmering beyond recall. "Your picture is nailed facing the wall in Rule."
Caitlin looked up, licked her lips, glanced down, and finally met Rien's eyes square. "How many such portraits are there?"
"Three."
"Then yes, one of them is mine."
"And the other two?" Rien knew she was pushing her luck. But Caitlin seemed inclined to let her, just watching her face alertly, her eyebrows pushing toward a furrow in the center. Self-consciously, Rien smoothed her palms over her denuded scalp. It felt odd, the skin slightly sticky. Tristen had looked the oddest, like a boiled egg, even his milk-white eyelashes missing.
"Cynric," Caitlin said, after a long pause. "And Caithness. My sisters." She looked around for an escape, or failing that a pot of coffee. "Dead," she said, when her eyes were no longer on Rien.
"How?"
"Does it matter?"
"I don't know," Rien answered. "You tell me. They don't teach us history in Rule."
"Especially not the history of the Conn family." Caitlin
stood, and began to pace. She had a jerky, bobbing stride,
like a bantam hen—direct and purposeful. "We tried to
get rid of Dad," she said. "Do you need to know why?"
"Unless it's pertinent, I can probably extrapolate." Rien got it out with enough deadpan élan that Caitlin glanced at her twice to confirm it was meant to be funny.
Then she grinned, folded her arms, and settled back against the wall. "Thank God your mother didn't have the raising of you."
"Or my father?"
"I didn't say that." Caitlin shrugged. "Your father and I have a lot of history between us."
"And a lot of bad blood."
"And some good blood." She paused again, and this time Rien was smart enough to shut up and let her search out the words at her own place. "A lot of family blood." Her mouth did a complicated thing, and she said, "He executed Cynric."
"Benedick?"
"Beheaded her. On our father's orders."
Rien looked at her fingers, blue around the nails. She looked at the way the light fell on Caitlin's hair and through her eyes, the shadows on her skin the same color. So Caitlin slept with her sister's killer. Who was also her brother.
For political expedience?
For love?
Rien tried to imagine why she would give herself to anyone who hurt Perceval, but she couldn't get past the image of Perceval in chains, the coils of blood groping across her back in denial. Rien swallowed, and realized she had been doing it so much her throat hurt. Thinking of Arianrhod, and contracts, she said, "Did he do everything your father ordered?"
"No." Caitlin came back and sat beside her again, shoulder to shoulder. "I'm alive. And so, after a fashion, is Cynric."
Rien considered that from several angles, before deciding that when you had no information, the only stupid question was the one you didn't ask. "What do you mean?"
From the corner of her eye, Rien could see Caitlin's half-smile. "My father ate Caithness," she said. "And would have eaten Cynric, too, but some of her was already gone when he got there. I don't know if he noticed."
"Because Benedick rescued it?"
"Because Benedick looked the other way when we hid it in a common household appliance," Caitlin said. "But like a broken angel, you can't fit a whole human being in a machine that small."
"But you can fit all of Hero Ng in a peach? That doesn't make sense."
The Chief Engineer's smile, now that she turned it toward Rien, was sad. "Do you think you have all of Hero Ng in there?"
Rien shook her head, a tiny vibration, and asked him. How would I know? he answered. As far as he was concerned, this was all of him there was.
"So feeding the fruit to the resurrectees?"
Caitlin spread her hands: not helplessness, resignation. "At least they will be more useful zombies." She cleared her throat. "Maybe, who knows, maybe they'll grow to fill the space. You know, about Arianrhod—"
"Please don't make me defend why I distrust her," Rien said, eyes trained on the floor until the pressure of Caitlin's gaze made her raise them. "She may have named me for herself, but she also named me nothing."
Caitlin reached out again, and still didn't quite manage to touch her. She coughed and said, "Rien. Would you be my child?"
Somehow, Rien's hand had pressed to her throat, and she could feel her own heart beating against her fingertips. "I don't understand."
And Caitlin actually blanched, sharp white under her freckles, and then flushed pale blue. "I mean I'd adopt you."
"I would be honored," Rien said, the words—again— flown before she thought them through. So after an awkward hesitation, she had to say, "I'm Benedick's daughter. So is Perceval."
"She's coming home."
Caitlin's flat certainty stopped Rien cold. She twisted her fingers together and leaned her forearms on her thighs.
"1 hope so," said Rien.
"Come on," Caitlin said. "We need to fetch the men, and find that layabout angel, and get moving. The world isn't saving itself, you know."
Perceval had nothing to do except watch Ariane climb, so she watched, and wondered for how long she could remain resolute. Dust wore at her, his arguments and his veiled threats, the distasteful, trickling fire in her veins. He whispered in her ear, promises of fidelity and partnership that she believed, with all her heart.