Dru Pagliassotti - Clockwork Heart

"I don't know. I heard an explosion. People are saying it's another wireferry."

"On Primus?"

"Higher, I think." Jayce squinted. "I think it's the ferry to Oporphyr Tower."

"Oh, no." Taya closed the keel over her chest and yanked its buckles tight. "Oh, Lady, no. Not another one. Where are the stairs to the roof?"

"Around back." Jayce kept staring up the mountain.

Taya folded her wings and pounded up the stairs, throwing herself off the roof and into the wind with furious abandon.

The diispira nearly swept her into a neighboring building, but a few strong beats of her wings raised her above the roofs and chimneys of Secundus. She kicked down her tailset and swept herself aloft as soon as she could, shooting up between towers and wires with reckless speed, heading toward the wreckage that grew more horrific as she drew closer.

Signalers were already standing on the towers on Primus, wind whipping their hair and clothes around them as their semaphores instructed the icarii about their approach pattern and civic duties.

Wireferry down. Search and rescue. Damage report. Maintenance escort.

Taya tilted and flew toward the other silver-winged searchers who circled the cliffs and rocks that jutted between Yeovil's peak and the top level of Primus. Up on the tower, response flags flapped in the strong winds, confirming the message below.

Wireferry down. Passengers aboard.

She swooped and turned, following the broken line.

Wires hung limp against the cliff, swaying in the wind. Two wireferry towers were bent. The cliff face had been blackened by the explosion. Wreckage was strewn across the rocks.

Taya felt sick, dropping closer to the ground. One of other icarii wing-signaled to her. Cassi.

They teamed up and fell into a criss-cross search pattern. Around them other icarii were doing the same, while another team soared around the damaged ferry tower, then swooped back to report its findings to the workers below. Down on the icarus docks, training wings were being prepared to lift signalers and engineers to the damaged parts of the wireferry. Other icarii would start evacuating the Tower. With the wireferry broken, the only way up or down the peak was going to be by wing.

A shrill whistle announced a find.

The air above the mountainside was a silver, swirling mass of icarii. Taya joined the circle, swooping low enough to confirm the find, then flying back out, sickened.

There wasn't much left of the wireferry car.

She let herself soar upward on a thermal, closing her eyes as soon as she cleared the active airspace.

That could have been Viera and Ariq.

It might still be. She gasped and opened her eyes, searching for the tower's signal flags. They were moving, being reeled around for update.

Two passengers.

She circled, joined by three, then six, other icarii, waiting. The flags kept jerking as more were added. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the house sigils being strung along the line.

Octavus. Forlore.

Taya screamed, tilting her wings down and then folding them close to her body for the long dive to Primus.

Lictors shouted and scrambled out of the way as Taya threw out her wings at the last minute, back-beating dangerously close to estate walls as she dropped onto the wide cobbled street and skidded to a stop. The plaza had been turned into a makeshift operations headquarters, filled with rescue and repair equipment being hauled up by wagons and wireferries. Engineers were poring over a large schematic of the Tower wireferry line, trying to keep the map from flying away in the gusting winds, and signalers were decoding the messages from above, relaying the news to lictors and laborers. Gawkers were held to the side by a line of soldiers running cords across the street.

"What is it?" a lictor demanded, approaching as she locked her wings high. "Another body?"

"I know who set the bomb," she said, shaking with fury. "I know who killed them. Cristof Forlore, Alister's brother. He did it!"

"The exalted?" The lictor stopped, his face registering confusion. "That's impossible."

"It's not impossible! He killed Pins and Alister found out so he killed his brother to keep from being caught!"

"Exalted Forlore is right there," the lictor said, staring at her as if she'd gone mad. He pointed.

Taya spun, her heart leaping for one brief moment as she thought he meant the other Forlore, but it was Cristof who stared at her across the crowd of lictors and workers. For a moment shock emptied his narrow face of expression, and then it twisted with rage. He shouldered past the lictor who was talking to him, striding toward her.

Taya clenched her fists and marched to meet him, shaking with anger.

"You!" Cristof grabbed for her. Taya knocked his hand away and slugged him in the stomach.

"You bastard!" she shouted, as he staggered back a step. "You killed him!"

"I killed him?" Cristof straightened, lunging forward. His fingers wrapped around her harness straps and he shook her until her teeth rattled. "You scheming little—"

Taya rammed her palm up against his jaw, snapping his head back and knocking his glasses askew. His grip loosened and she tore herself away. He grabbed for her again and she ducked under his arm, elbowing him in the ribs. He jerked backward to keep from being slapped by her metal wings.

"Arrest him!" she shouted at the lictors, who were staring at them with slack jaws. "He killed his brother!"

"Arrest her," Cristof demanded, holding his side with one hand and straightening his spectacles with the other. "She's a Torn Card."

To Taya's amazement, the lictors jumped into action, grabbing her arms and flight harness. She twisted.

"Are you crazy? Don't believe him just because he's exalted! He killed his brother! He has books about explosives on his shelves! He murdered Pins!"

"Don't even try to blame your crimes on me," Cristof snarled. "Pins was alive when my men left her. She only died after you heard us talking about her!"

"You're lying!" Taya gasped as the lictors twisted her arms behind her back, beneath the jutting tertiaries of her metal wings. "You think you can get away with this because you're an exalted, but I know the truth, and so did Alister!"

"Strip off her wings and take her to the nearest holding cell," Cristof said, coldly. He rubbed his ribs, glaring at her.

"Any charges?" the nearest lictor asked, locking manacles around her wrists.

"Breaking and entering, and at least one count of murder. I'm sure we'll be able to add more later."

"Ask him about his books! Ask him how he knows Pins, ask him about the wireferry map in his bookshelf!" Taya twisted, but two lictors held her tight. The metal manacles pinched her wrists. "Alister was going to confront him and make him confess, and Cristof killed him for it!"

The lictors yanked her around, marching her off.

"Cristof!" she wailed. "You can't do this!"

The soldiers gave her a sharp shake and dragged her onward.

They marched her to a stationhouse on Primus, unlocked her manacles long enough to remove her armature, and then fastened them back around her wrists and locked her into a cell. Chains ran from her left manacle to a ring in the wall. Taya slumped on the floor, her hands suspended in front of her face, and closed her eyes.

Octavus. Forlore.

The signal flags snapped and waved in her memory, superimposed over the dark wreckage that was all that had been left of the wireferry car.

Her eyes burned and she wiped her face on her sleeve. She was not going to cry. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of making her cry.

Hours passed. She heard voices through the cell door but couldn't make out any words. She stood and stretched a few times, rubbing her aching wrists, then sat against the wall again. The manacles chafed her flesh. For a while she lined up the evidence against Cristof, then thought about Pyke's suspicions about exalteds, then wondered if she'd be given a chance to defend herself at all, then thought about what she should have said to Alister before they'd parted. That just depressed her, so she fumed about Cristof again. Cristof, with all his angry speeches about exalteds and rights, who hadn't paused for a moment to use his caste privilege to force her into silence.