of Tavin’s cloak and gave it a jerk. He blinked at her.
“I reckon,” she said coldly, “we all know how it ends.”
Then she let go and set off to cross Third Market.
It was a long, silent, stifling walk back to the fifth tier. But as Fie led the way down the final set of grimy stairs, she caught on to how close the Hawk had kept to her, now warding her back each step of the way.
Fie didn’t know how she felt about that.
Almost over. In a few hours, this would all be over. The prince would be safe, Pa’s oath would be kept, and she’d never again need to fear riders in the night.
A few hours, and then no more roads would end like her ma’s had.
They’d just hit the muddy fifth-tier street when murmurs and cries swept down through its straggling crowd. A beggar pointed back behind them. Fie turned.
“Here we go,” Tavin said.
When, not if.
Four city tiers above, a black string of smoke trailed from the Floating Fortress’s plague beacon.
* * *
They left the shrine near sundown, copper sunlight striping shadows down the street as Fie slung her mask about her neck.
“Here.” Hangdog held out a fistful of fresh mint leaves. “Found some in Fourth Market.”
“Thanks.” She shook long-withered leaves from her mask beak and stuffed the new ones in. “Run into any trouble?”
An odd look crossed his face before it blanked. “Nary a bit. You?”
She strapped on her mask, taking a deep whiff of mint as the world narrowed to what she could see through the eyeholes. “Naught worth mentioning.”
Yet another half-truth. But she’d have plenty of time to mull it over once the lordlings were gone.
They ran into no disputes with the water-lifts this time. The attendants’ ashen faces said the sooner the Crows took the sinners, the better. One tier after another they ascended, market crowds splitting before the Crows’ grim procession with a sober, furious hush.
The final water-lift released them into a waiting line of Hawk guards on the tiled lane of the first tier. Walls of snowy marble and iridescent glassblack towered around them, plaited into green-roofed mansions and pavilions where the soft trickle of fountains whispered through stone and shadow. Vivid painted tiles bordered each household’s foundations, layer upon layer detailing generations of Peacock-caste achievements.
The Hawks fell into step at their flanks as they marched up the tight coil of the first tier and past gentry mansions, each more absurdly ornate than the last, until at last the great round black eye of the open reservoir drew into sight. The Floating Fortress sat no more than a man’s height above the Fan, stilted on thick columns that jutted from the water’s surface.
The Fan itself flowed direct under the fortress and into the massive well, and as Fie followed their wagon up a limestone slope, she saw no sign of the reservoir’s bottom. Rumor said it reached all the way down to the fifth tier. At the top it fed the canals, spilling out into the blue-tiled chutes that cut down the city’s tiers. Tavin had been right: the view was best from up here, a grand mosaic of jewel-toned roof tiles and lush gardens tumbling down the tiers.
The dying sun sent odd whorls across the sea-green walls of the Floating Fortress as the wagon neared. Fie tilted her head, wondering if it was a trick of her glassblack, until a gold hue burst across one shimmer. The walls had been painted in enamel and gold dust.
A hot lump rose in her throat as she thought of every time Pa had passed his dinner to her. Every time she’d made herself sick on moldered panbread or chewed a fistful of mint just to keep from thinking about the hunger, just to hold out until the next viatik.
“There’s Governor Kuvimir,” Prince Jasimir whispered, relief flashing through his voice like gold dust.
Sure enough, a man watched them approach from the balcony of a courtyard ahead, his neck and chest glinting with the necklace-plate bearing the governor’s fantailed insignia. A peculiar wrench wrung Fie’s gut.
Almost over.
She found a stray thread to pick at. The wagon rolled on.
The walkway curled upward, leading to a marble bridge that stretched betwixt earth and fortress, over the rushing water where river met reservoir. Jade statues of the dead Peacock gods lined the railings. Governor Kuvimir still waited above the courtyard at the other end, clutching the balustrade with both fists.
Fie’s sandal-nails gave a particular horrid whine as she set