“On the contrary. I keep my hands quite dirty. Part of the job. But you’re right, I wouldn’t let myself get where you are. So.” He kept his clockwork face neutral, wouldn’t look at the gun. “What now?”
“I want to be clear about this. I appreciate what you’ve done for me. Took me in, watched out for me. Gave a fuck when no one else would. But I think this was one too far. I don’t want you as an enemy, Valentine. But I think I’m done with having you as a friend.”
“Not the best move, Jacob. It’s a different world, without my protection. Where would you be right now, if I hadn’t put you on that zep with Marcus? You wouldn’t have known anything was up, and the Council could have plucked you off the street without a word of trouble. You’d be dead, and you wouldn’t even know why.”
“Maybe. Would’ve saved me a hell of a lot of trouble. No, boss, this is it. Pull it over.”
He banged on the carriage roof and we pulled over. I kept my gun on Valentine as we got out. Wilson left Cacher with a healthy set of new scars. We backed into an alley, the two thugs on top watching us go. Valentine smiled and waved.
“Good luck, Jacob. And stay out of my sight for a little while.”
“I’ll probably be dead, boss. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
We slipped away. A second later the carriage started up. When it was gone we ran, keeping buildings between us and the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in, and dusk settled with the sound of distant thunder rolling down the Reine, echoing off the city’s high walls.
Someone had been in my room. No real surprise. They had torn through the rest of the city looking for me, I suppose someone along the way might have stopped in to my rented quarters up here on the Torch’, to see if I’d left anything important behind. Their mistake. I didn’t own anything important. That was the key to my life. Mobility, emotional and physical.
The bed had been taken down and cut open, scattering little curls of excelsior across the wood floor. All my drawers had been opened, the cabinets pulled apart. I didn’t keep a lot of things, but everything I kept was in a pile on the floor.
“You need a woman in your life,” Wilson said. “People shouldn’t live like this.”
“Shut up, bug,” I said. I kicked a path through the room, then locked the door. The only light was the lightning flicker coming in through the massive river-side window that took up one wall.
“You shouldn’t call me that. Bug. I thought better of you than that.”
“It’s been a shitty day. I can be unexpectedly cruel, on days like this.”
“Well,” Wilson collapsed onto the shredded bed, puffing up a cloud of wood shavings. “Let’s try to focus that cruelty. We have need of it.”
“This isn’t about revenge. For me at least. If it was just revenge I’d have burned out long ago.”
“So, what? You’re going in because you love the girl?”
“Let’s not be stupid, Wilson.” I closed all the drawers, opened the curtains wide. The rain was really coming down. Hell of a storm. “I’m doing this because it’s what I should do. It’s what I’d want done, if I were in there.”
“So loving the girl has nothing to do with it.”
I sighed. I wasn’t going to tell him about Emily, about her job with the Families. It wasn’t worth the argument.
“Fuck off, bug,” I said quietly.
He laughed a genuine laugh, the kind of laugh I didn’t expect from him. He lay on my bed with his spider arms splayed out, his hands laced behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
“So what are we doing, Jacob Burn? You got us up on the Torch’ well enough. How much harder is it going to be to get in the Academy?”
“Very much harder.” I tossed a revolver and a box of shells I had picked up down on the bed, along with the box of shells Valentine had given me for Emily’s shotgun. I wanted something to eat. I started rummaging through the detritus of my house, to see if I’d left anything, anything that hadn’t spoiled. “The facility that my dad was talking about, I think I know where that might be.”
“From your days in the Academy?”
“The very days. Places we weren’t allowed to go, hallways that always had guards and locked doors. I didn’t think much about it at the time.”
“How do we know your father is telling us the truth?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well. He’s betrayed you how many times in the last two weeks?”
“Twice. Once to Angela. And I’m counting the original betrayal, with the PilotEngine. I think that one will always count, no matter how long ago it was.” I found some crackers. They were stale.
“Right, so, how do we know he isn’t going for three? He told you about Emily, about where she was. How do we know he isn’t dealing you to the other faction in the Council?”
“Oh, I’m sure he is. I’m sure he and Angela gave me that information on the off chance I slipped away. I’ve proven so elusive, you know.” I sat down on the bed and crunched my way through a messy stack of crackers. “I’m a dangerous man, Wilson.”
“And they’re going to contact the rest of the Council, to let them know you’re coming?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s necessary. They knew we’d figure it out, eventually. Knew we’d figure out where she was. They’re waiting.”
“So this is a trap?”
“Oh, gods, yes.”
“Then what the hell are we doing?”
“What they expect. Right up to the moment we do exactly what they don’t expect,” I said.
“Which is?”
“Well,” I rubbed my eyes and looked down at Wilson. He looked terrible, in his burned clothes and charred skin. “I was hoping you had an idea.”
“Oh, no. I got you out of the Dome. That was my daring rescue. This is your show, Jacob, my boy.”
“Yeah. Well.” I stood up and crossed to the window. “It’s going to have to be a hell of a thing.”
I watched a zepliner dashing in for the docks high above us. Lightning flashed along its sides, glimmering against the pale skin of the anti-ballast. The crew was on the main deck, hauling line and securing cargo. It looked like they were crashing, though I knew better. The docks were just above us, behind the stone walls of the Torch’.
“I know how it’ll happen,” I said.
“They’ll fill us with lead and burn our bodies on the signal fire?” Wilson asked.
“You’re a good guy to have around, Wilson. A real damn pick-me-up.”
He chuckled. “You have a plan.”
“No, no. But I have an idea.”
“Good enough.” He sat up and munched forlornly at a cracker I had dropped. He grimaced, set the cracker down, and looked around the room. “I’m getting tired of waiting.”
“Yeah, me too.” I packed up the revolver, threw Emily’s shotgun over my shoulder and shoved my way through the pile of junk to my front door. “Let’s get this over with.”
“You gonna tell me how we’re going to do this?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” I said. “I don’t believe me.”
Chapter Seventeen
Getting in was easy. I’d been visiting the Academy since I was a starry-eyed kid, spent the best five years of my life in its walls. The Academy and the base were one structure, sealed in stone walls and guard patrols. I had snuck out a hundred times, and snuck back in, with a bottle or a girl.
The streets were empty, but I didn’t know if Sloane and his friends had cleared the residents in anticipation of our approach, or if it was just the weather. Either way, it was creepy. Space had always been tight on the Torch’. The only way I knew this place was crowded, herds of people squeezing through the tunnel-like streets, the narrow walkways that leapt across the many cracks and crevices in the hard stone foundation of the Torchlight. It was never empty, never quiet.
The rain made it worse. The lead skies had opened up, and it felt like the river Dunje was pouring between the buildings. The cobbles were several inches deep with cold water. Even though I walked down the middle of the street, the buildings to either side were hazy and gray.