The watchmen shouted at him but it was all like an annoying buzz in his ears. He saw the glint of steel as they drew swords and he nudged Ransom into a trot toward the Western Tower’s base.
More watchmen burst down a side street; these were mounted.
Rowen pursed his lips and rubbed his growing beard just a moment before drawing his sword. This was about to get ugly.
They came at him and Ransom danced backward, the most elegant fighting partner Rowen could imagine. But they were pressed in on all sides and he realized they had retreated until they were pinned in an alley, Rowen’s left foot and stirrup nearly knocking on a door. Still holding them back, he assessed his position in relationship to the tower.
If he only …
He slid out of the saddle, using Ransom as a shield, and pushed through the door, locking it behind him.
Standing in the dark building, he bolted the door and caught his breath, nearly laughing at the rising volume of the watchmen shouting outside. If he passed through the back of the building and came out in the next alley …
He heard a click and stiffened as a stormlight came on, flooding the room with light. He shielded his eyes a moment, his sword still in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” someone shouted, and Rowen said, as calmly as he could, hearing watchmen pounding on the door, “Just cutting through.”
“We’ll do the only cutting that’s to be done,” the voice retorted, and the light was lowered so that Rowen could see nine men standing with their backs against the opposite wall. Nine men dressed in mismatched outfits, the fabric worn and the men’s eyes hard.
As one, they drew their swords.
“I need to get to the airship and I want no trouble—” And then he said the only thing on his mind: “Where can I go from here?”
Someone slipped out of the shadows to stand beside him, disarming him neatly. The smell of lavender and spices washed over him and a rough yet distinctly feminine voice whispered in his ear, “You, my pretty young thing,” she said in his ear, “will come with us. Lower your weapons, boys!”
Bran pounded on the door and waited. Then he pounded again. He wanted to see them—wanted to know his girls were safe.
Maude opened the door and stepped back into the library, holding Meg tight to her, her eyes never leaving his face. Bran rushed past them both and fought briefly with the laboratory door before pushing inside. He’d realized there were things he might need if he was to make good their escape from this life of threats and disappointments, and he shuffled through the laboratory, gathering odds and ends and shoving them into his father’s rifleman’s pouch. He grabbed a second bag hanging nearby and put it over his shoulder as well.
He had devised a plan of sorts as he made his way down from the tower’s top. They would board an airship as he’d promised, and leave Making behind forever. He’d never have the immortality he always thought he wanted, but he had the girls. He had love and people to care for who cared for him as well.
Love gave a man a feeling close enough to immortality for Bran’s liking.
He popped open the drawer where he kept the confiscated items from Reckonings. He could use a few in trade to get them where they needed to go. And once he was gone? If he took his main journals Holgate would have no choice but to release the Tanks’ inhabitants. There was no other Maker and no Maker’s apprentice.
There would be no other Weather Witches. There would be no more torture and, although the abolitionists didn’t know about the treatment of Weather Witches, he would change the lives of at least one set of slaves. The entire world on this side of the Western Ocean would have to change. It would end where it began. With him.
The butterflies in the bell jar caught his attention. He would start granting freedom here and now. He lifted the bell jar and then dropped it to the floor. Butterflies soared past him, colorful wings whispering along his face as they sought an exit.
He quickly chose the items he still needed. They would travel light. A jar on the counter began to bubble. And another’s contents rippled with life.
The strange sensation of being watched made the hair on his arms rise up and he turned to where Sybil’s skull sat, covered in the beating wings of butterflies. He had no conscious thought of what he was doing until he picked up the child’s gleaming skull, the butterflies abandoning their eerie ivory perch. “I will find you a place you are finally happy to sleep in death,” he promised, tucking her into the bag at his side.
He strode into the library, slung open his desk drawer, dumped its contents, and withdrew the two journals: the one everyone knew he had and the private one that held his most intimate thoughts.
And fears.
These he slipped into the bag beside the tiny skull.
He crossed the library’s floor to Maude and Meggie and wrapped them in his arms.
That was when he heard the other man.
“Wait.”
Bran froze, looking to Maude.
“Do as he says,” she suggested, her voice strained.
A man stepped out of the shadows and said, “I think it should all end where it began. With you, Bran Marshall.”
Meg wormed out of Maude’s grip and stepped in front of the Maker, her expression indignant, a fire so fierce in her eyes Marion thought she might be capable of melting all of his ice just with her will. “You cannot hurt Papá!”
Marion’s eyebrows shot up. “Papá?” He squinted.
The Maker pushed the girl back behind him, shielding her with his legs and warning, “Do not get involved in this matter, dear little dove…”
Marion said, “Oh. Oh no, I think she is already quite involved in this matter.” He crouched down and smiled the smile he had always used with his little brother. “How old are you, sweet child?”
“Very nearly six,” she answered, peeking warily around her father’s legs.
“So you were Made the same time I was,” Marion whispered, slowly rising back to his full height. “We are like brother and sister—we share a creator. So it is best we are both here—quite the little family—to bear witness to what happens next. Because our world? It’s about to be set right as rain, to be changed. Forever.”
Bran merely looked at him, his eyes as sad as they were dangerous. “You have no idea how right you are.”
“You are coming with me,” Marion said, his eyes flashing. “I have packed your necessities,” he explained, motioning toward a makeshift bag made of a sheet tied together. “It did not take me long,” he mused. “You will not require much as you will not be of this world for long.”
Maude choked, stifling a cry.
“Leave them be,” Bran insisted. “They were no part of your Making—they are innocent in all this. Take me—only leave them be.”
“No, no,” Marion said with a chuckle. “I am not the sort of man to break a family apart.” He grabbed Bran by the arm. “Pick up that bag and move to the door. Make no suspicious moves or I will be forced to”—he shoved Bran forward to grab Meggie instead—“do something to your daughter that would make her believe I, too, am a Maker.”
Meggie cried, looking at her papá, eyes pouring forth tears.
Bran hefted the bag and became as docile as ever he had been. He allowed the man to move his entire family down the hall and the stairs, out and across the main square, and up the many stairs to the Western Tower’s docks. “I have taken the liberty of booking us all passage,” Marion explained. “We shall have one fine family escapade abroad before all the pieces fall the way they should.”