They rounded a corner, and the 52nd Street Bridge came into view. The street lamps illuminated a ghastly scene, and Amaranthe paused in the shadows.
Black smoke poured from a collision site. Two steam carriages had struck each other at the base of the bridge, one painted in imperial black and gold, the other nondescript. Another of the emperor’s vehicles had crashed through the rail of the bridge, and wobbled tenuously, the front half hanging out over the frozen river twenty feet below. The bodies of imperial soldiers-no, the emperor’s personal guard-littered the blood-smeared street.
“We’re too late,” Amaranthe whispered.
“What was the emperor doing out in the middle of the night?” Maldynado asked.
She touched the communication stone in her pocket. “I bet someone on Larocka’s payroll talked him into coming out. Let’s see if he’s…” She gulped, unable to finish the sentence. She did not want to see Sespian’s broken body on the street.
Despite the late hour, the noise had drawn a crowd from nearby tenements. A handful of enforcers struggled to establish barricades on either side of the bridge, but this had just happened and few men had arrived. Reinforcements would show up shortly, but perhaps Amaranthe could sneak close enough to investigate the crash first.
“Books, come with me, please. The rest of you, a distraction would be good.”
“What kind of distraction?” Maldynado asked.
“The kind where you do something creative to keep the enforcers from noticing us snooping.”
“Creative, eh?” Maldynado tossed a speculative look at his comrades.
Afraid to wonder, Amaranthe grabbed Books and angled toward the river. They passed between two street lamps and skidded down the snowy bank. She flailed but caught her balance on the ice. Books landed on his butt. She paused long enough to help him up, then ran and slid for the closest of the two piers anchored in the river.
Black against the starry sky, the truss bridge loomed overhead. Steam screeched, another vehicle approaching. A truck delivering more enforcers, probably.
Amaranthe clambered up the cement block, but hesitated when she looked up at the steel supports.
“Maybe you should wait down here,” she told Books.
“I’m coming,” he said.
She shrugged. One vertical and two diagonal steel beams rose from the concrete, and she took one of the diagonals. The angle made the climb doable, and she soon peered over the floor of the bridge. The tottering steam carriage wobbled to her left with the two crashed vehicles at the base to her right.
“Yo, when’s this bridge gonna be cleared?” Maldynado’s voice came from the crowd.
Feeling exposed under the starlight, Amaranthe hoped her distraction was forthcoming. She grabbed the rail and pulled herself over.
All the doors of the tottering carriage were open, and one hung from a sole hinge. The front of the vehicle was smashed. The driver had been thrown free.
Steel clashed at the base of the bridge. Maldynado had engaged a pair of enforcers in a sword fight. Amaranthe didn’t see Basilard or Akstyr.
She knelt near the driver’s body, her hand resting on the ground. Cooling blood puddled on the sand-covered ice and dampened her fingers. That didn’t startle her, but the man’s slit throat did. The crash hadn’t killed him; a dagger had.
As she eased around him toward a second body, her fingers brushed broken glass. She plucked up several shards, some curved, some straight.
Behind her, Books lumbered onto the bridge.
“Stop them!” someone cried.
Amaranthe’s head jerked up. Someone must have spotted them.
“They’re stealing our truck!”
Steam squealed from the enforcer vehicle, and it lurched into motion. She almost laughed. She hadn’t been spotted; the enforcers were yelling at Maldynado and the others. Metal crunched, the sound rising over the shouts of the enforcers and the crowd. Whoever was driving the stolen truck had crashed it into another arriving vehicle. Cries of “idiot!” punctuated baser profanities.
“We’ll have to rescue them from jail in the morning,” Books muttered.
Amaranthe slipped the glass shards into a pocket. “Look around. We won’t have much time before someone notices us.”
She slipped down the bridge where more inert bodies sprawled. The fallen all wore imperial uniforms. There was no sign of enemy dead. In fact, there was hardly any sign of a fight at all. She checked body after body, each neatly dispatched. Despite the earlier gunfire she’d heard, these men had all been killed by blades.
It seemed inconceivable that even skilled assassins could so unequivocally dispatch Sespian’s guard, who would have been doubly alert after a crash…
Amaranthe crouched beside one of the last bodies. Moisture-blood-saturated a guard’s black uniform. A dagger stuck into the chest to the hilt.
After a moment of hesitation, Amaranthe tugged it free. Even coated in blood, even in the dim light from the street lamps, she recognized it. Sicarius’s black dagger.
“Who’s up there?” someone called.
This time, the enforcers were looking at her.
“Corporal Tennil,” Books said.
“There’s no…” Hand on the hilt of a sword, one of the enforcers stepped forward.
“Time to go,” Amaranthe whispered.
She stuck the dagger in her belt and scrambled for the side of the bridge. This time, she made Books go first, afraid he would get caught if she didn’t.
Two enforcers pounded toward them. Lamplight glinted on a steel blade.
“Hurry!” she urged.
As soon as Books’s head dipped out of view, Amaranthe slithered over the side. A sword whistled down from above but glanced off the railing.
Her foot missed the beam on her first groping stab, and she almost fell. She found a foothold on the second attempt and released her hand just before an enforcer boot crushed it.
Sliding more than climbing, she made the bottom in seconds. Books landed at the same time with a grunt.
“Next time, I’ll just wait on the-”
Crossbow quarrels clinked into the ice at their feet. She grabbed his arm, dragged him under the bridge, and raced out the other side. They clung to the deep shadows near the bank and didn’t climb up until they were out of crossbow range.
Several blocks later, with the shouts fading behind, Amaranthe finally paused under a street lamp. She pulled out the dagger and held it beneath the light. Yes, it was definitely Sicarius’s weapon, the one she had left in Hollowcrest’s office. Someone was trying to frame him.
“I didn’t see the emperor’s body,” Books said.
“No, there’s still hope.” Amaranthe removed the shards of glass from her pocket.
“Broken vials?” Books picked up a concave piece and sniffed. “Liquid smoke.”
“What’s that?”
“I remember a science professor trying to make some once. It’s a Kendorian concoction that tears your eyes and makes it hard to breathe. They probably modified crossbows to shoot the vials. It’s extremely expensive to make, but that wouldn’t be a problem for Larocka.”
“That’s why the soldiers were dispatched so easily.”
“They must have kidnapped Sespian,” Books said.
“Yes, of course. The note said…” She stopped. Crazy times or not, she could not give away Sicarius’s secret. “The emperor was to be taken somewhere and burned alive.”
“But where?” Books asked.
“There’s no way to…” A silvery bump on one of the shards of glass drew her eye. She squinted and rubbed it with her thumb. Molten steel that had hardened. She had seen it all over the scrapyard at the Oak Iron Smelter. She handed the piece to Books. “Looks like they prepped in a smelter. There was one on that list of businesses Larocka owns, wasn’t there?”