Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,76

attackers find us at all?”

“That’s simple,” said the girl. “They found you because they were following me.”

He stared at her. “You, Miss Berenice? What makes you say that?”

She pointed up. Gregor and Sancia slowly looked up at the ceiling. “Oh,” said Gregor quietly.

The roof of the carriage sported three large, ragged holes, and one bolt point was lodged in it as well. “I assume you wondered why two of them split off from the main attack force,” said Berenice. “They chased me for a block or so, but left when they heard the screaming.” She glanced backward at Sancia. “There was a lot of screaming, it seemed.”

“What makes you so sure they were following you?” said Gregor.

“They certainly knew which carriage to shoot at,” said Berenice.

“I see. But how did they know to follow you to begin with? Certainly they couldn’t have followed you all the way from the inner Dandolo enclaves.”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Berenice. “But this was planned. They intended to kill all of us at once, I suspect. Everyone involved…” She trailed off.

“Involved with me,” said Sancia quietly. “With the box.”

“Yes.”

“Everyone involved…” said Gregor. “Orso’s back at the campo?”

“Yes,” said the girl. “So he should be safe.”

Gregor peered out the window. “But if you go high enough over a campo wall,” he said, “you don’t trigger any of its warding scrivings—do you?” He looked back at Sancia. “That’s what you did at the waterfront, correct?”

She shrugged. “Basically?”

He looked at Berenice. “So if you have a rig that can allow you to fly, you can sail right over all the campo walls—and no one would ever know you’d done it.”

“Damn,” Berenice said quietly. She pressed the accelerating lever farther forward. The carriage sped up. Then she cleared her throat. “You back there,” she said.

“Me?” said Sancia.

“Yes. There’s a bag at your feet. Inside is a strip of metal with two tabs at the ends. Let me know when you find it.”

Sancia rummaged around in the satchel in the passenger seat. She found the strip of metal quickly, and recognized a few of the sigils on the back.

“Got it,” she said. “It’s twinned, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Berenice.

“How’d you know that?” asked Gregor.

“I, uh, used a scriving like this to blow up your waterfront,” said Sancia.

Gregor scowled and shook his head.

“I need you to tear off both tabs,” said the girl. “And then I need you to scratch a word on the back of it—not the side with the scrivings, that’ll ruin the rig.”

Sancia tore the tabs off. “Scratch something in it? With, like, a knife?”

“Yes,” said Berenice.

Gregor handed Sancia his stiletto. “What word?” he asked.

“Run.”

* * *

Alone in his workshop, Orso Ignacio reviewed the ledger page he’d hidden among his scriving materials.

He’d concealed it quite cleverly, he thought. Much like his door, he’d scrived the book to sense his blood, so that only he (or someone with a lot of his blood) could read it. The instant he touched a hand to the covers, a slot in the spine opened up, and he could slip out the page hidden inside.

A page that was covered with figures. Extremely bad figures, he now thought as he reviewed it. Amounts he’d pilfered from this department or that department, jobs and tasks that had been paid for but did not really exist. Discovering any one of these figures would lead to serious charges. But discovering all of them…

I got stupid, he thought, sighing. The idea of that key was too good. And now…

Then there was a tinny ping! noise from his desk.

He sat up, dug through the papers, and found the twinned plate.

One tab had popped off. He stared at it. That means Dandolo has found the thief.

He watched the plate closely. Then, to his dismay, there was another ping! The second tab popped off.

“Oh shit,” he moaned. “Oh God.” This meant that Dandolo had the thief—and the thief had the key.

Which meant he was going to have to start calling in favors. Favors he desperately did not wish to call in.

But before he could move, something strange happened.

The plate twitched. He turned it over, and saw that something was happening to the back.

Someone was writing there, gouging letters deep into the metal, and it was not Berenice’s clear, perfect script. This was harsh and jagged, and it spelled out one word.

“Run?” said Orso, perplexed. He scratched his head. Why would Berenice message him to run?

He looked around his workshop, and he didn’t see anything he needed to