Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,103

it didn’t leave her as vulnerable.

There was the sound of footfalls somewhere upstairs.

said Clef.

Sancia took a breath and resumed resting.

Minutes ticked by in the dark. Then there was the sound of a door closing somewhere.

said Clef.

She tried to return to her dozing. This moment alone in the cupboard was invaluable to Sancia, who desperately needed rest, and also frankly needed some time without any stimulation at all: being immersed in so many scrivings was deeply wearying for her.

Clef was doing her a favor, of course, or at least trying to—since the spy would have to be carrying a scrived signal to access the rig, that made it easy for him to identify them. But it didn’t help that he kept telling her all the ones that weren’t the spy.

The sound of footsteps echoed above her.

said Clef.

A door opened somewhere in the basement.

said Clef.

There was a silence, and then the chanting and whispering peaked, and she heard a voice among them: <…I am given rights, given forbearance, because I am chosen, I am allowed, because I am awaited, I am expected, I am NEEDED…>

said Sancia.

said Clef.

Sancia reached out and touched the floor with a bare hand. The wooden boards crackled to life in her mind, one by one—and, eventually, she felt someone slowly walking across them.

A woman—Sancia could tell by the size of the feet, the build of the shoe, the gait. Walking very…cautiously.

said Clef.

The woman walked by the broom cupboard—and even tried the knob, though it was locked. Must be checking everything, thought Sancia. Then, finally, she went to the trapdoor to the rig.

Sancia waited, and waited, and waited, one finger pressed to the floor. Then she felt the reverberations in the wood as the trapdoor shut, then footsteps as she came back—and these footsteps were slightly heavier.

said Sancia.

Sancia waited until the woman had passed, turned the corner, and started up the stairs. Then she silently unlocked and opened the broom cupboard door, and chased after her.

She caught up with the woman on the main floor of the Hypatus Building, exiting through the lobby. It was late afternoon, and the building was quite busy—though Sancia was wearing Dandolo Chartered colors, so she drew no attention. Sancia spied the woman immediately: she was young, hardly older than Sancia herself, a skinny, dark-skinned thing dressed in formal yellow-and-white robes and bearing a large, leather bag.

She was a secretary or assistant, it seemed—and as such, no one paid any attention at all to her.

said Sancia.

Sancia exited the building after the woman and kept her in eyesight, pacing across the Hypatus Building’s front steps and down into the streets. It was dreadfully hot, and foggy and rainy—not the best conditions to be following someone. Most of the streets were too empty for Sancia to feel comfortable making a play for the woman, but when they approached a busy carriage fairway ahead, she saw her chance.

The woman waited along with a small crowd of campo denizens as a train of carriages thundered past. Sancia sidled up, got close, and in a smooth, quick motion that resembled waving away a fly, she dropped the tailing scriving in the woman’s bag.

The carriage train tapered off. The woman, perhaps sensing something, turned to look around, but Sancia was already gone.

Sancia reached into her pocket, grabbed Berenice’s twinned plate, and snapped it in half—her signal that the tag had taken place. Then she pulled out her half of the trailing scriving—a small wooden dowel with a wire tied to it, and a scrived button tied to the end of the wire. The wire was pointing straight at the woman.

said Sancia.

* * *

Sancia was following the woman to the south gates when she saw the carriage—unmarked, stationed about twenty feet away from the gates, with a single figure in the front. She walked up