Tim Akers - Heart of Veridon

She was very still, watching me. She didn’t say anything. I took the paper I had gotten from Calvin out of my pocket and lay it on the table between us. She took it, unfolded it, looked at it for a solid minute without speaking. Then she folded it back up and set it on the table again. She sighed.

“Where did you find that?” she asked.

“Friends. Part of my interesting life. Now, I know some of those people. I killed at least one of them, and I’ve seen the body of another. And a third I met at your party. Who are these people, Angela?”

“Wellons,” she said. “Is he the one you killed?”

“No. But I saw him, sure enough. In your house. Sloane, too. But it’s Marcus I killed, on the Glory of Day. And he gave me something.”

“A dirty conscience?”

I smiled. “You know what he gave me, Angela.”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. She stood and crossed to the china cabinet, ran a finger down across the wood inlay.

“Let’s say that I do,” she finally relented. “What does it have to do with what happened up on the Heights?”

“You saw that thing, Angela. Everyone there did. What are they paying those officers to keep quiet? An Angel, ransacking the Manor Tomb? That can’t be good for your reputation.”

“They’re all good boys, Jacob. Good citizens. They know what to keep quiet.”

“But someone will talk. They’ll get drunk, and they’ll talk. And what are they going to say? They saw an Angel. The myths are real. There’s an Angel in Veridon, Angela.”

“What are you doing here, Jacob? There are people trying to pin you for the death of those Guildsmen, you know. And the Summer Girl. And Register Prescott.”

“You know I didn’t kill them.”

“I know you didn’t kill all of them,” she said quietly. She turned to me. Her eyes were worried. “What’s the Angel doing, Jacob. What did it say to you?”

“It was after something, Angela. Something it thought I had. And so was Pedr, and so is the Badge. Something they all think I have. And I’m hoping you can help me with that, Angela, because we both know I don’t have it.”

“Say we do, whatever it is.” She turned again, refused to look at me. “What’s that matter to me?”

“You know I don’t have it. You’re on the Council. Council holds the reins of the Badge. Call them off.”

She leaned against the cabinet and crossed her arms thoughtfully.

“The Council is a complicated place. Maybe the seats pushing the Badge around right now don’t have the whole picture.”

“You’re saying you don’t have a handle on the army outside your door?”

“It’s an interesting question,” she said. She crossed over to the window, looked out over the grounds. You could see the rooftops of the surrounding district, poking out over the wall like distant mountaintops made of shingle and soot. “What they think they know and what they actually know. An interesting question. But let’s crack to the marrow here, Jacob.”

She went back to the cabinet and slid one of the drawers open. There was a lot of business, sliding things around, fussing with fabrics; then she came over and placed the Cog on the table. It whirled like a hurricane, the inner wheels buzzing in near silent period.

“You have it,” I said. I knew she probably did. “So why are they still chasing me?”

“Because this is just a part, Jacob.” Her voice was fragile. I looked up. She held a pistol, a small, ornate piece, its barrel drawing a line to my eye. “Now, slowly, let’s have that piece up on the table. Very. Slowly. And your friend shouldn’t move. For his own sake.”

I complied. Wilson had stiffened at the window, looking sternly at the two of us. Soon as my pistol was on the table, half a dozen Housies came into the room. Harold was there, looking at me with a disapproving eye. He smiled at me tightly. The old guy had a new scar across his face, and it pinched his cheek when he smiled.

“Not what I was expecting,” I said. “Not exactly.”

“Like you said, Jacob. Strange days.” She leaned her head to Harold. “Let’s get this all out of sight. We’ll have to wait until the Badge gets out of the way before we can act.”

“There is the postern gate, ma’am,” he said. “The carriage could be-”

“They’re out there,” I said.

“Yes, Jacob was good enough to come in that way. They’re hiding around the-”

“No,” I said. I nodded to the pocket garden out the window. “They’re out there.”

Everyone turned. A half dozen Badge were scrambling over the hedge wall, shortrifles in hand. They spotted us and raised their weapons. A bullet splintered the window, then there was a fusillade of return fire. The glass fell like a waterfall. I threw myself to the floor.

“Harold! Hold the room!” Angela shrieked. “Jacob, you will come with me. There are depths they wouldn’t dare breach.”

The door behind us cracked with gunfire, wood splintering under incoming fire from the hallway. The Badge had gained the house, it seemed.

“M’Lady, perhaps now is the time for negotiation,” Harold said. Angela spat angrily, wrenched the man’s pistol from his hand and fired out the window.

“Like that, you sot!” She crushed the weapon back into his hands and then looked at me. “Come on.”

Angela swooped by the table, picked up the Cog and then, ignoring the increasingly frantic skirmish around her, levered open a concealed door in the wood panel wall. She disappeared. Shooting a glance at Harold, who was paying desperate attention to the reloading and aiming of his weapon, I slid my revolver off the table and into a pocket. I lost track of Wilson, turned just in time to see him go into the corridor. No one stopped me, so I followed them through the secret door, hoping Wilson didn’t do something rash before I caught up to them.

The corridor was a small space, wooden walls that quickly gave way to unfinished stone. I put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder as soon as I could. He had the knives out, but gave me a nervous look then let me go ahead. Angela was only a little ways ahead, hurrying through the semi-darkness. We passed various listening holes as we went, placed to spy on the house in secret. There was fighting throughout the manor. I smelled smoke once, but it passed, and I didn’t say anything. Angela must surely have noticed.

“I didn’t want it to be like this, I swear. By the Celestes, I swear,” Angela whispered. “Not my intent at all. You’ve armed yourself again, I assume.”

I took the revolver from my coat and cocked the hammer in response. She nodded without looking around.

“Good. May need it. You trust your friend, there? Is he good with those stickers?”

“Good enough, ma’am. As soon as I figure out who to poke.”

She laughed, not a trace of nervousness or fear in her voice. “I never expected them to make such a vulgar play.”

“Who?” I asked.

She paused at a branch in the passage, considering our path. One way led down, the other up. She looked nervously down, then behind us, over my shoulder. I could hear feet, far behind.

“Can’t risk that,” she said. “Some things can’t be put into play.”

We went up.

“Who’s doing this, Angela? You said someone in the Council was pushing the Badge around. Who is it?” I imagined these things happening at the Manor Burn, my family hiding in the walls, my father arming the manservants and bolting the doors. “This is practically war.”

“It does seem a bit much,” Angela said. We were moving quickly up a tight spiral staircase. We passed through another hidden door and were again in the common hallways of the house. The floors here were dusty, but there were windows and sunlight. The fighting below had quieted, but there were still Badge outside. “I may press a formal complaint in the Chamber.”