The drop of blood within its transparent blade glowed more brilliantly with every blast that issued from Cardinal Gustave.
Abelard had forced himself to accept the thought of a priest as traitor, but the Cardinal? There had to be some reason, some explanation.
Abelard shot a worried glance at Ms. Kevarian. Dread command glinted in her eye.
Striking against Gustave was tantamount to heresy. Could stopping a murderer be heretical?
You may have to choose between the city you believe you inhabit, and Alt Coulumb as it exists in truth.
With an urgency born of fear, he left Ms. Kevarian and sprinted toward Cat. Behind him, the embers of the Craftswoman’s jacket burgeoned again into flame.
*
Tara heard Raz Pelham scream, and with a wave of her hand she quenched the fire that consumed him. He slumped, unconscious, but mostly intact. As her mind extinguished the flames, she felt within them inhuman power melded to malevolent human will.
This fire was not born of mortal Craft. Subtle, divine workings gave form and strength to Gustave’s rage: millions of strands of spider silk vibrating like bowed violin strings, their friction creating insatiable flames.
You gave me this power, Cardinal Gustave had said. Of course. Who else would Gustave have asked to build the Craft circle, other than the man he trusted to maintain Justice? What other Craftsman would have done such a thing, in violation of all professional ethics?
“Help me, Tara!” Sweat slicked Denovo’s pale skin and wet the curls of his beard. His arms shook as he blunted Gustave’s attack with power stolen from students and teachers and distant gods. When Tara saw him with closed eyes, he glowed like a neon prayer wheel. She could not have resisted the Cardinal’s fury for more than a few seconds. For all Denovo’s power, he could barely manage it. “He murdered Judge Cabot.”
Yes, Tara thought. With tools you gave him. This would be a neat revenge, and all she had to do was watch.
“I do not murder.” Gustave’s voice was low and dangerous, a hiss of snow in a mountain pass, the omen of an avalanche. “I am an agent of my Lord’s wrath.”
Looking at Gustave was like staring into the heart of the sun. One instant he possessed all colors, the next none, fading to a bruised gray in Tara’s vision.
She could sit back and observe the battle, but Gustave had not yet admitted to the Judge’s murder. Justice was present, though she could not intervene. His confession would save the gargoyles, if any of them survived. “Cardinal,” she shouted, “did you kill Judge Cabot?”
“I killed him. I would kill all who dare plot against Lord Kos.”
Yes. Keep him talking. The more he said, the safer the gargoyles would be. “He wasn’t plotting. He served your god!”
“Gods go mad, as do men. My Lord was sick at heart. When He recovered, He would have known my deeds for true faith. I prevented His desecration.”
“Like you’re doing now? Seizing his power this way—you’ve damaged his corpse more than Seril could have at Her greediest.”
“Tara,” Denovo cried. “Help me. We can defeat him together.”
She ignored him. “Stop, Cardinal. Don’t hurt Kos any more than you have already. He wanted peace between the city and the Guardians.”
“They are vermin!” The word echoed like clashing thunder, but beneath a god’s wrath she heard the weak and railing anger of a very old man. “Flying rats, lurking in the forgotten heights of our city. Should I let them sully my Lord with their claws?”
“You plotted Cabot’s murder for months, ever since you learned what Kos asked him to do. Installing that Craft circle, learning the soul-binding technique. Did you ever ask your god for an explanation, in all that time?”
Tears glimmered in bright wet lines on Gustave’s face. “Why would my Lord give so much to a pack of monsters?”
“He would have told you. You should have trusted him.”
“He would have pitied me for not understanding! My Lord, my Master, my Friend would have pitied me for being unable to love these.” He spat that word down on the Guardians.
“If you really feel that way,” Tara shouted back, “maybe you never loved him in the first place.”
Her heart froze as that sentence left her lips, and she realized it had been exactly the wrong thing to say. Gustave’s ferocity turned upon her. She braced her legs and raised her arms. Fire struck her from on high, and she almost fell.
Almost.
*
Cat was lost. The cosmic high of union with Justice had ebbed, drawing her with it into depths where the world spun in contrary directions and no air reached her lungs when she breathed. Justice’s song twisted her through itself, and she was a note tossed on its immensity like flotsam on a tidal wave. She lay beneath the surface, a drowned woman, and through the shifting black water she saw distorted Abelard approach, backlit by rosy flame.
“Cat!”
His voice fell on ears that did not belong to her, and though she tried to reply, a wall of stone closed up her mouth. Her body was not her own, lent away and the lessee absent.
His face was caught in the writhing shadows of the firefight.
“Cat! The Cardinal’s gone mad!”
She had heard, but memory was such a fragile thing, ephemeral and unreliable as breath.
“That dagger in your hand.” His mouth wide, a gaping pit, yet his eyes were wider. “He draws power through it, from Kos.”
What did he expect her to do? A Blacksuit’s will belonged to Justice, and Justice was silent.
Which, she realized dreamily, was unusual.
Her attention drifted down, and she saw the dagger clutched in fingers that once belonged to her. Abelard wrapped his arm in his robe and struck the crystal blade, but it held and he fell back, a sharp red cut on his forearm where the dagger had sliced through his coarse robe.
“Are you going to let the Cardinal kill Tara? The Guardians? You think he’ll let them live with what they’ve seen, what they know?” He gripped her shoulders, but she did not feel the pressure of his hands. “Help us, Cat.”
*
Fire crisped and consumed Tara’s world, endless, hungry, insensate. She had never fought a god before. If Kos Everburning raised himself against her, she would have perished in an instant. Flush with divine power, Cardinal Gustave still lacked a god’s mastery of the energies he invoked. Even so, Tara buckled beneath the ferocity of his flames.
“Tara!” Denovo’s voice was no longer smooth or collected. She heard fear at its edges. “We can throw him back if we work together.” His mind skittered against the doors of her perception, cool, a refuge from the heat—an invitation to rejoin the link he shared with his lab, to give herself once more to him. “Please. Let me in.”
Without his help, she was going to die. With his help, she would probably die anyway.
But why did Denovo need her? He fought in the God Wars. He knew better than to match deities stroke for stroke. You dodged their power, twisted it against itself, stretched your divine Opponents thin. Cardinal Gustave should have been vulnerable to such tactics, but Denovo seemed desperate for her help, and her surrender.
Was that truly fear she heard in his voice, or the excitement of a con man who feels he has caught his mark?
Tara stood firm against the Cardinal’s assault. As dead Kos’s power pressed against her, she shifted.
Mind, soul, spirit, twisted out of reach. The fire sought her, found her not, and thrashed about, desperate for something to destroy.
As if releasing a bird from her hand, she offered it the seductive tendrils of Denovo’s mind.
Blind, hungry, and mad, the fire accepted.
*