heart thudding in his chest all the while.
What had become of Mia?
What chance did they have without her?
And if she’d succeeded at the Crown of the Moon, what had she become?
“Thou had best be certain, Mercurio,” Adonai murmured.
“I’m certain,” the old man replied.
“If thou dost lead me on a merry chase and my sis—”
“I was bishop of this city for almost a year,” he whispered. “And I brokered information for the Church for fifteen years before that out of my store. My eyes are everywhere. Scaeva hasn’t moved Marielle from the first Rib since he brought her there. She’s imprisoned somewhere within his estate.”
“Jonnen, too?” Sidonius asked.
“Fucksakes, yes,” Mercurio said. “The boy is with his father.”
“Which means we have to kill his father to get him back,” Bladesinger murmured.
“You’re jesting, aren’t you?” the old man muttered. “We’d have no chance of pulling off a miracle like that, even without that godsblood inside him. But Scaeva throws a traditional grand gala every truedark in his palazzo. The finest of Godsgrave society will be there. Senators, praetors, generals, the best of the marrowborn. If we’re careful, we can work our way in through that noise and crush. Jonnen’s a nine-year-old boy. He’ll be abed at some stage. We wait in the dark and snatch him from his crib.”
“Marielle comes not second after Scaeva’s whelp,” Adonai said.
“We move slow ’til we have the boy,” Mercurio said. “Then you and I move quick to get Marielle while Sid and Bladesinger get Jonnen to safety.”
“Not here be I for thy little Crow’s brother, Mercurio,” Adonai snapped. “Mia hath fallen at the Crown, for all we know. I seek my sister love, none other.”
“We’re not leaving without the weaver,” Mercurio said. “You have my word. But there’s one captain in this company, Adonai. And I’m giving the orders aboard this ship.”
“Boat,” Bladesinger murmured from the gondola’s bow.
Mercurio sighed, tired in his bones. “Everyone’s a critic.”
They made berth at a busy pier near the forum. The Ribs loomed to the south, the great gravebone expanses stretching high into the night. In their hollowed innards, the marrowborn of the city made their homes—their apartments carved within the bone itself. Status was conferred by proximity to the first Rib, where the Senate and consul traditionally lived during their tenures of power. But Mercurio’s rumor network had informed him that in the last two weeks, Scaeva had ordered the upper apartments vacated and the Senate relocated back to their palazzi in the marrowborn quarter; it seemed the imperator of Itreya would have none above him in his new world order. The old man had heard more disturbing rumors, too. Whispers of a shadow creeping over the metropolis, even before truedark fell. Talk of dissenters being taken in the nevernight, men and women simply disappearing, never to be heard of again. Talk of the Senate being disbanded, talk of iron fists in velvet gloves. Mercurio knew it would have been bad enough if absolute power had been handed to an ordinary man. But to give it to a man like Julius Scaeva, a man steeped in murder and brutality and now swollen with the power and malevolence of a fallen god …
Looking at the city around him, the old bishop shook his head.
What the fuck did they expect?
The quartet made their way through crowded streets, over the Bridge of Laws and Bridge of Hosts, under a triumphal arch and into a vast and crowded courtyard. To the south stood the Basilica Grande, the city’s greatest cathedral. It was wrought in stained glass and polished marble, archways and spires lit by a thousand arkemical globes, trying in vain to banish the night above. Behind the basilica loomed one of Godsgrave’s ten War Walkers. The mekwerk giant resembled an Itreyan soldier made of iron, standing silent vigil over the city below. But it was unfueled and unmanned—the ancient guardians only to be operated in times of absolute crisis.
In the courtyard’s heart, surrounded by the faithful, stood a statue of almighty Aa. The Everseeing loomed fifty feet tall, his naked sword held out to the horizon, three burning globes in one upturned palm. Mia had torn that edifice to rubble during the truedark massacre, but Scaeva had ordered it rebuilt at his own personal expense.
As Mercurio led his band through the streets, the old bishop noted the countless legionaries, the Luminatii in gravebone platemail and crimson cloaks. The cobbles were packed with revelers in their beautiful masks, bright and garish and O, so loud.