Daniel Polansky - Low Town

“Johnathan had prior dealings with him. He fit the bill.”

“He was perfect. I hated him as soon as I saw him, wanted him to be behind it, was happy to latch onto what your stone gave me as proof. And of course you were always there with your advice, and to plant the occasional piece of evidence.” I pulled her knife from my satchel and tossed it on the ground. “I take it you’ve got another prepared for Wren.”

Celia glanced at the instrument with which she had sacrificed a pair of children, then looked back up at me casually. “How did you get into the Aerie?”

“The Crown’s Eye has the ability to dispel minor workings. I used Crispin’s to force my way in. You remember Crispin? Or do they all start to blend together?”

“I remember him.”

“Let’s see now. There was Tara, and the Kiren you paid to kidnap her. And Caristiona and Avraham. We’ve already mentioned my old partner. And upstairs the Master took the straight-razor cure rather than face what you’ve become-though I’m not sure suicide adds to your tally.”

Brightfellow stiffened in surprise, but Celia only blinked. “It saddens me very much to hear that.”

“You seem real broken up.”

“I was prepared for it.”

“I guess you were-that’s what all this was for, wasn’t it? Preparing for the Crane’s death. You never took over powering the wards, that was a lie-you can’t, and you knew once the Master died his working would go with him.”

“The Master was a genius,” she said, and a flicker of regret passed over her features. “No one could do what he did. I was forced to seek out alternatives.”

“You mean murdering adolescents.”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“And giving them the plague?”

“An unfortunate requirement of the ritual. Necessary, though unpleasant.”

“For them especially.”

Brightfellow made his entrance into the conversation with gusto. “Why are you telling him this? Kill him, before he ruins everything!”

“No one’s going to do anything rash,” Celia commanded.

“How about you, Brightfellow? You in this for the good of the city? Somehow I hadn’t pegged you for a humanitarian.”

“I don’t care anything about this shithole. Let it burn to the ground.”

“A woman, then?”

He turned away, but I knew the answer.

“What did you think, you’d kill a couple of children and she’d fall madly in love with you?”

“I’m not a fool. I know I don’t mean anything to her. I never meant anything to her, not back in the academy, not ever. She said she needed my help. I couldn’t let her do it alone.” He wasn’t talking to me, but I was the only one listening.

“No one means anything to her. Something broke a long time ago; she didn’t break it, but it doesn’t matter. It can’t be fixed. She talks about Rigus, about Low Town, but it isn’t real to her. People aren’t real to her.”

“You are,” he said. “You’re the only one-and you’ll die for it.”

Celia snapped back to attention. “Johnathan,” she started, but he’d already made his decision.

Four things happened then, more or less simultaneously. Brightfellow brought his arm up to perform some working, but before he could get it off there was the sound of meat sizzling, and the air was hot with burnt flesh. That was the second thing. With the third I took shelter behind Celia, or seemed to.

The fourth happened very quickly, and Celia didn’t notice.

Brightfellow looked at the red expanse that was no longer covered by skin, an aperture deep enough to make out the cream of his rib cage. He swung his head back up to Celia, then pitched forward.

Celia’s hand still glowed with the working that had killed Brightfellow. She began speaking immediately, the body in front of us forgotten as soon as she’d made it. “Before you do anything, before you say anything, there are things you need to hear.” She strayed backward, out of my effective range. “What the Master did, the working he performed, it can’t be duplicated. Do you understand? I didn’t want to use the children, believe me, I didn’t. I spent the last ten years in this damned tower, preparing for today, preparing for Father’s death. I wish I was better.” Her eyes shut, then fluttered open. “By the Firstborn, I wish I was better. But I’m not. With the Master dead, his wards no longer hold. It’s winter now, but once the weather warms-you don’t understand what it will be like if the plague comes back.”

“I remember what it was like. Don’t say that again.”

She sighed in acknowledgment. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

I thought she would continue. When she didn’t I took over. “Why do you need Wren?”

“We needed a child with potential in the Art. They aren’t so easy to find.” Her voice carried the barest trace of apology, but it was so light I might have imagined it. “We didn’t have time to look further afield.”

“And you knew snatching him would drive me after the Blade.”

“Yes.”

I tried to keep how I felt about what she was saying off my face, but I must have failed because her lips closed tight and she snapped at me. “Don’t look at me like that. I could have killed you, you know. I could have set the thing on you at any time or let you freeze in the snow.”

“You’re a peach.” It felt like something had burrowed its way into my brain, a spiny creature that had taken root. The only thing keeping me on my feet was too much breath, and I had to strain to hear Celia, so fierce was the din echoing through my ears. “What happened to you?”

“I appreciate what I’ve traded-I have no illusions. But I won’t let the Master’s work be in vain, I won’t let it go back to the way it was. Ten thousand mothers, twenty thousand fathers, dead stacked like walls, more than you can count in a week’s worth of counting. Summer after summer, year after year. I don’t expect you to forgive me, I can’t imagine anyone would-but come next summer the people of Low Town won’t rot like carrion in the sun.”

“I guess this high up it gets hard to see faces. Dig a child out of the mud and you might do your sums different.”

“I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“Maybe I’m not the altruist you are. I murdered men today-some of them didn’t deserve it.”

“People die,” she said, and there was no arguing that. “I did what I did-I had hoped you would never learn. But it’s too far along to stop it. I won’t let the sacrifices be in vain. I owe them that much. I won’t let anyone stop me, not even you. And you will try, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that day before you left for the war?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Yes.”

“I guess you were wrong. I’m more like you than you thought.”

“No, Celia,” I said, holding up her necklace, the one she’d worn since I’d first met her, the one she’d used to bind her abomination to her soul, the one I’d snatched while she was saving my life a moment earlier. “You aren’t anything like me.”

Her hands flew to her neck. “How… how did you…”

“I’m taking Wren now,” I said, picking him up from the chair and throwing him over my shoulder. I kept the pendant between us. It seemed to squirm in my hand, and had an uncanny warmth.

“He’s fine, he isn’t infected, there’s nothing wrong with him,” she stuttered, her eyes doe wide and fixed on the bauble. “You need to put that down, you don’t understand what that is, you need to-”

I snapped the charm in half. “Too much blood, Celia-too much blood.”

The color drained from her face. A low whistling filled the air, and a gust of wind kicked open the shuttered windows. We stood staring at each other. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.