A man ran down the broad steps of the Justice ministry. He waved his arms over his head. “Don’t go that way! Not safe!”
Venera paused and glanced at him. “You’re one of Bryce’s.”
“That I am, Miss Thrace-Guiles.” Garth half smiled at the man’s bravado; these democrats refused to address people by their titles. Venera didn’t seem to notice, and they had a hurried conversation that Garth couldn’t hear.
“There you are.” He turned to find the preservationist, Thinblood, sauntering up behind him. He grinned at Garth. “You ran off like a startled hare when she came out of the council chamber.”
Garth grunted. Thinblood seemed to have decided he was an old man who needed coddling. It was annoying. He had to admit to himself that it was a relief to have him here, though. The rest of this motley party consisted mostly of Venera’s other freed prisoners and they made for bad company, for much the same reasons as Garth supposed he did. They all looked apprehensive and tired. It didn’t help that their presence at council didn’t seem to have made a dent in Sacrus’s support.
Garth and Thinblood had been talking under an awning across the street when Venera Fanning appeared at the official’s entrance to the council chamber. She backed out slowly, her posture strange. As she emerged further it became clear that she was holding a gun and aiming it at someone. That someone had turned out to be Jacoby Sarto.
Before he knew it Garth was by her side. “What are you doing?” he heard himself shouting. She’d merely grimaced and kept backing up.
“Things didn’t go our way,” she’d said. Past Sarto, the council guards were lining up with their rifles aimed at her. At the same time, the commoners’ doors around the long curve of the building were thrown open. A hoard of people spilled out, some of them fighting openly. Venera’s supporters ran to her side as Bryce’s agents appeared from nowhere to act as crowd control. And then a gasp went up from the watching crowd as Principe Guinevera and Pamela Anseratte pushed the council guards aside and came to stand at Venera’s side.
“The lines have been drawn,” Anseratte said to the council guards. “Sacrus is not on the council’s side. Stand down.”
Reluctantly, the guards lowered their rifles.
Garth leaned close to Venera. “Did he tell them your… secret?” But she shook her head.
Maybe it was having Thinblood’s reassuring hand on his shoulder, but as Venera argued now with Bryce’s spy, the fog of fatigue and pain lifted enough for Garth to begin to wonder about that. Jacoby Sarto had not told the council who Venera really was? That made no sense. Right now Amandera Thrace-Guiles was the darling of the old countries. She was the resurrected victim of Sacrus’s historical arrogance; she was a champion. If Sarto wanted to deflate Sacrus’s opposition all he had to do was reveal that she was a fake.
“Why did she do it?” he wondered aloud. Thinblood laughed.
“You’re trying to second-guess our Amandera?” He shook his head. “She’s got too much fire in her blood, that’s clear enough. Obviously, she saw a chance to take Sarto and she went with it.”
Garth shook his head. “The woman I know wouldn’t see Sarto as a prize to be taken. She’d think him a burden and be happy to be rid of him. And if he’s a prisoner why doesn’t he seem more concerned?” Sarto was standing with his arms crossed, waiting patiently for Venera to finish her conversation. He seemed more to be with her than taken by her. Garth seemed to be the only one who had noticed this.
“Attention!” Venera raised her pistol and for a moment he thought she was about to fire off a round. She already had the attention of everyone in sight, though, and seemed to realize it. “Buridan is under siege!” she cried. “Our ancient house is surrounded by Sacrus’s people. We can’t go back there.”
Garth hurried over. “What are we going to do? They’ve moved faster than we anticipated.”
She nodded grimly. “Apparently, their ground forces are moving to surround the elevator cables—the ones they can get to, that is.”
“Most of our allies are on Greater Spyre,” he said. If Sacrus isolated them up here in the city, they would have to rely on the preservationists, and a few clearheaded leaders such as Moss, to organize the forces down there.
For a moment that thought filled Garth with hope. If Venera was sidelined at this stage, she might be able to avoid being drawn into the heart of the coming conflagration. A checkmated Buridan might survive with honor, no matter who won.
Clearly Venera had no intention of going down that road. “We need to get down there,” she was saying. “Sacrus doesn’t control all the elevators. Pamela, your country’s line, where is it?”
Anseratte shook her head. “It’s two wheels away from here. We might make it, but if Sacrus already has men in the streets they’ve probably taken the axis cable cars as well.”
Guinevera shook his head as well. “Our line comes down about a mile from Carrangate. They’re an old ally of Sacrus. They could use us for target practice on our way down.”
“What about Liris?” It was one of Moss’s men, standing alertly with a proud look in his eye. “Lady, we are the only nation in Spyre that has recently fought a war. There may not be many of us, but…”
She turned a dazzling smile on the man. “Thank you. Yes—but your elevator is above the Fair, isn’t it?”
“And the Fair, m’lady, is six blocks up the wheel, that way.” He pointed off to the left.
“This way!” Venera gestured for Sarto to precede her, then stalked toward the distant pile of buttresses and roofs that was the Fair.
Garth followed, but as the fog of exhaustion and pain slowly lifted from him he found himself considering their chances. It was folly for Venera to involve herself in this war. Sidelined, she might be safe.
Sacrus had known what to reveal about her to draw her fangs, but they had chosen not to reveal it. The only person on this side of the conflict who knew was Garth himself. If word got out, Venera would naturally assume that it was Sacrus’s doing. It would be so simple…
Troubled but determined to follow this thought to its conclusion, Garth put an extra effort into his footsteps and kept up with Venera as she made for the Fair.
Liris perched on the very lip of the abyss. At sunoff the building’s roof was soaked with light, all golds and purple and rose. The sky that opened beyond the battlement was open to all sides; Venera could almost imagine that she was back in the provinces of Meridian where the town wheels were small and manageable and you could fly through the free air whenever you chose. She leaned out, the better to lose herself in the radiance.
Tents had been set up on the rooftop behind her, and Moss was holding court to a wild variety of Spyre dignitaries. They came in all shapes and sizes, masked and unmasked, lords and ladies and diplomats and generalissimos. United by their fear of Sacrus and its allies, they were hastily assembling a battle plan while their tiny armies traveled here from across Greater Spyre. Venera had looked for those armies earlier—but who could spot a dozen men here or there making their way between the mazelike walls of the estates?
It would be an eerie journey, she knew. Garth had shown her the overgrown gates to estates whose windows were slathered with black paint, whose occupants had not been seen in generations. Smoke drifted from their chimneys; someone was home. The soldiers of her alliance might stop at one or two of those gateways and shout and rattle the iron, hoping to find allies within. But there would be no answer, unless it be a rifle shot from behind a wall.
For the first time in days, Venera found herself idle. She was too tired to look for something to do, and so as she gazed out at the endless skies that familiar deep melancholy stole over her. This time, she let it happen.