Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,39

have you gotten me mixed up in?

Though she knew she was just as much at fault as he was. He’d been upfront about the job, and she’d still taken it. The money had been too good, and despite all her care and caution, it’d made her stupid.

But she likely wouldn’t have survived this long without Clef. If she hadn’t opened the box, she realized, she’d be trussed up like a hog right now, about to be butchered.

she said to Clef.

said Clef.

Then she heard a rattling sound in the street below. She poked her head back over the edge of the roof.

An unmarked, black scrived carriage was slowly trundling down the tiny mud pathway in the Greens. Such rigs were about as frequent as a yellow striper here—and the sight of it made her uneasy.

Now what?

She watched with growing dread as the carriage approached. Anxious, she pulled off one glove with her teeth and touched a bare palm to the rooftop. It told her of rain, mold, and piles and piles of bird shit, but nothing more—it seemed they were alone up here.

The carriage finally stopped a few buildings down. The door opened, and a man climbed out. He was tall and thin, and not dressed ostentatiously. His posture was stooped—perhaps a man used to sitting, to indoors work. It was hard to see his face in the shifting lights of the floating lanterns, but he had curly locks that looked somewhat reddish.

And clean. Clean hair, clean skin. That gave it away.

He’s campo, she thought. Got to be.

One of the soldiers ran up to the campo man and started talking. The campo man listened and nodded.

And he’s the man running the show. Which meant he was probably the one who’d arranged the trap that had almost gotten her killed.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Who are you, you son of a bitch? Which house do you work for? But she could glean nothing more about him.

The campo man gestured at a rookery building to the left of the clothier’s warehouse—which Sancia didn’t like. But then he did something odd: he peered at the buildings around him, then reached into his pocket and took out something…gold.

She leaned forward slightly, straining to see. It looked like a round, golden device of some kind—like a big, awkward pocket watch, perhaps, slightly larger than his hand.

A tool made of gold, she thought. Like…Clef?

The campo man examined the gold pocket watch, and frowned. He kept looking at the tool, then up and around, and then back at the tool.

asked Sancia.

said Clef.

She heard a shout, this one close, from the rookery to her left—someone crying, “Stop, stop, you can’t just come in here!” She looked up just as the window shutters of one room banged open, about three floors above her, and a glowering man wearing a steel cap stuck his head out.

The man spied Sancia immediately, pointed, and cried, “There! She’s there, on the rooftop, sir!”

Sancia looked back at the campo man in the street below. The campo man looked at the guard in the rookery—and then at her.

Then he held up the golden pocket watch and appeared to hit a button on the side. And everything changed.

* * *

The first thing Sancia noticed was that all of the floating lanterns in the streets below abruptly went dark and fell to the ground.

The other thing was that her mind went suddenly…quiet. A sort of quiet she hadn’t heard in a long, long time, like when you live in the city for years and then spend a night out in the country, and hear simply nothing at night.

said Clef.

He kept talking.

But though she was frantic, Sancia couldn’t help noticing that her abilities had…changed.

Her hand was still pressed to the rooftop—but now it told her nothing. Just silence.

Then she heard the screaming.

* * *

Gregor Dandolo strode through the alley in the Greens, muttering, “Selvo Building, Selvo Building…” as he went. It was harder to find than he’d anticipated, since nothing in the Commons was properly labeled—there were no street names, nor signage of any kind. He needed to hurry—he had to get ahold of