“So, ‘Hire: 4,’ there was no other indication what that might mean?”
I looked over at the paper. Emily had her finger over the second to last line, just above where Tomb was listed as the Council Approval.
“No idea. I think it might have been spelled out, rather than the number.”
“Because the rest of these names, with the exception of Wellons, are all common criminals.”
“Right. So?”
“I don’t know Sloane. Never heard of him before this mess. And I know everyone in the crime market. Is Angela the kind of girl who hangs out with criminals?”
“Gods, no. Not her particular social circle.”
“I didn’t think so. So someone else made the contacts.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“Jacob. Four.”
I looked at her, and it hit me. I was a fucking idiot.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” I said. Matthew Four was an old friend of the Families, and probably the first criminal I’d ever met. He provided Veridon’s rich with whatever gray market items they needed, without disturbing the social fabric of their expensive parties. If Angela needed to hire a bunch of roughs, of course she’d go to Matthew. “Godsdamn it, Em.”
“I’ll forgive you. But he seems like someone worth talking to.”
“Yeah, yeah. And he might know who gave you that music box, too.”
“I thought we decided it was Tomb’s doing. Getting you up there, trapping you.”
“Oh, she had her part in it. Sure. But other forces intervened. The angel, for one, in the form of the Summer Girl. And the gun. Someone sent that to me, either as a warning or a threat.”
“Do you think it was the actual pistol, the one from the Glory?”
“I don’t know that it matters. Someone was telling me that they know what happened up there, that night, they know what I did to Marcus. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“You told me,” she said.
“Is that what happened, Em? Did you mail me a secret package, then send your angelic minion to kill me before I figured it out?” I grinned a little grin.
She laughed and leaned back, resting on her elbows, kicking her boots out over the water. She arched her back and smiled.
“Yes, darling, you have me. I’m the secret angel minion killer. I’ve been in the business of killing my friends with secret angel minions since I was a wee child. My father, you see, was heavily involved in the sale and maintenance of secret angel minions.”
I smiled and twisted to look at her. My arm brushed the warm strength of her belly. Her eyes flashed.
“You’re a ridiculous woman,” I said.
“Perhaps.”
We sat there for a moment, quietly. The water beneath us was very still, the stone cold.
“So,” Emily said. “What now.”
“I’m going to talk to Matthew. See if I can find out where the package came from. What happened to that girl.”
She flashed her dark eyes down to my hands, the holster on my belt, then settled on my face.
“And me?”
“You? I think you should stay here. Watch this.” I set the Cog on the pier between us. “Wilson will be back.”
“Sooner or later.” She pulled her hair from its knot, let it fall as sunshine cascaded across her face and down her neck. Her body was stretched, the muscles taut beneath the soft comfort of her dress. She smiled at my distraction.
“I think I’m going to take a bath,” she said quietly. “I’m in desperate need.”
I stood awkwardly and busied myself with my belt, fitting the holster more comfortably.
“I’ll, uh. Be back,” I said. She laughed, a delightful lilt that glanced down my spine and stuck in my bones. “Watch the Cog.”
“Attentively,” she called to my retreating back.
Behind me I could hear fabric falling, water splashing. I closed my eyes and hurried out.
I got Emily’s laughter out of my head by walking. I stitched my way across the city, crossing bridges and riding carriages, climbing the gentle avenues that led up to higher terraces or descended to the city’s lower districts closer to the river, traveling randomly to lose the image of her stepping into the water, her dress falling away, hair loose as the water rose up her legs, the warm hum of the frictionlamp the only light on her skin.
I sighed and signaled for the busser to pull over. I was where I needed to be, where the guy I wanted to talk to was most likely to be found. I got out of the carriage, paid, and lost myself in the crowd. Plenty of crowd, even this time of night, here in the Three Bells. In other parts of the city, this many people on the street was usually the preamble to a riot. Three Bells, though, this is just what happened at night. Drinking, carousing, art. I used to be comfortable in this crowd.
The crowd slowed around the BlackIron Theater. The show was getting ready to start, and folks were trying to sneak in before the gate closed. I edged my way around the logjam until I was standing by the reserved gate. Reserve ticketholders arrived when they wanted to, sat where they wanted to. Trick was, reserve tickets couldn’t be bought. Something you had to be born into. I went up to the gate.
“Evening, sir,” said the well pressed guard behind the iron bars. He looked over my clothes with little respect. “This gate is for reserved seats. Main entrance is that way.”
“I’m familiar with the arrangement. I’ll be claiming the Burn seats this evening.”
“Ah. I don’t know that I’m acquainted with your claim, sir.”
“My claim? Should I bleed out a little nobility for you? Or are you unfamiliar with the Family Burn? We have a tower, don’t we, right over that goddamn hill. Would you like a tour of the grounds, perhaps, a short walk through the Deep Furnace? Would that suffice? Sir?”
The man had gone pleasantly white. “Ah, no, no. What I mean, sir, is that the Family Burn is here frequently. Just the other night. And, ah, I am… I know them all, sir.”
I tilted my chin, hooked my thumb in the loop on my holster in the traditional dueling stance of the Families, and stared him down.
“I am Jacob Hastings Burn, first son of Alexander, formerly of the Highship Fastidious.”
His face fell. He looked me over again, trying to decide if he could turn me down based on my history, my unsure place in the complicated world of obligation and honor that ruled among the Families.
“No weapons in the theater, sir?” It was a desperate try.
“Bullshit. Every father’s son in there has his iron. Don’t think to lock me out on that.”
He looked down, fiddled with the baubles on his cuffs, worried the corners of a program that he had picked up.
“So what’s the show, friend?” I asked.
“ The Ascension of Camilla.”
“Swell.” I stuck my hand out for the program. “Let’s see it.”
He looked at the program in his hand, deflated, and handed it to me through the bars. With a clatter he slid the gate open and showed me inside.
“This way, sir.”
“I know the way.” I shouldered him aside and disappeared into the velvet darkness of the theater. The BlackIron was a remarkably complicated building. A complicated entertainment, really, but it served to show off the city’s extravagant innovation. It was a majestically conceited engine.
The main hall was cool and dark when I slipped inside. The show had started, and the terraced rows of booths were bathed in the reflected light of the stage. It was just enough light to find my way. I spent a lot of time here in the fragile days of my youth, but it had been a while. I stood by the entrance while my eyes adjusted, scanning the rows of booths. Matthew Four put in an appearance at the BlackIron almost every night. He was in the business of being available to the Families. Probably the first criminal I had ever met.
Tonight’s story was of young and imperfect Camilla, and her being raised by the Church of the Algorithm. It was one of the thinner propagandas, but the trappings were remarkable. Unlike the more primitive theaters, the stage of the BlackIron was at an angle, slightly steeper than the terraced seats of the audience. There were dozens of trapdoors and metal tracks, whipping cables of wire and rope gathered up by pulleys, all of it painted black to give the impression of a blank slate, the empty table of storytelling.