“It is.” I pushed myself to my feet and looked at my right hand. At some point during the conflict I’d lost my little finger, though I hadn’t felt it. Now the pain began to throb abysmally.
I looked at the fallen Yatsill. “I couldn’t kill him.”
“You didn’t need to—he threw himself onto your blade.”
“But Clarissa, I had to kill him in order to protect you, but something in me prevented it. I was battling myself as much as I was battling him.”
“Good. You’ll have no more Jack the Ripper delusions, then!”
I gave a grunted agreement, but I was puzzled. My inner conflict had been far deeper than I could put into words and had felt somehow unnatural, as if my hesitancy hadn’t been wholly of my own volition.
I moaned as the pain in my hand grew worse, then shook my head to clear my muddled thoughts and asked, “Why, Clarissa? Why attack you?”
“I have no idea. Stay here—I’ll fetch my medical pack.”
My friend, as a Magician, had been trained to treat wounds using Ptallaya’s various herbs, many of which possessed remarkable healing properties. She now brought some from the house and applied them to my hand and lacerated cheek, fastening them against my skin with an adhesive leaf. Immediately, the pain was numbed.
“Your first duelling scar,” she murmured, “and your finger will quickly grow back.”
“Grow back?” I echoed. “How is that possible?”
“The miracle of Ptallaya. Remain here and rest. I’m going to report this atrocity. Shall I fetch you something to drink?”
I nodded wearily.
After treating her own wound and supplying me with a bottle of water from our kitchen, she mounted the autocarriage and drove off. I sat down and leaned against the wall of the fountain. The dead creature was sprawled nearby, still transfixed by my sword. Its blood seeped between the hard cobble-like shells, exactly as Mademoiselle Clattersmash’s had in my vision. All of a sudden, I was trembling violently, and, partly out of shock, partly at sheer relief at having survived, I began to giggle like a madman.
° °
I was still half-dazed and using the wall of the fountain for support when a convoy of steam-vehicles came panting into the square. Clarissa and Father Mordant Reverie disembarked from the first, Lord Upright Brittleback and Mr. Sepik from the second, and Colonel Momentous Spearjab and two guardsmen from the third. I straightened and greeted them all as they gathered around the corpse.
“I’d just delivered our sick chaps to the Magicians when I heard,” Spearjab said to me. “Harrumph! Are you injured?”
“Only slightly.”
“Humph! Humph! I understand the three Aristocrats were after Miss Stark. What!”
“Yes.”
Lord Brittleback exclaimed, “What a bloody mess!” He addressed Spearjab. “Are all your guardsmen accounted for, old fruit?”
“They are indeed, Prime Minister—harrumph!—and my troops are Working Class, not jolly old Aristocrats like the assailants!”
“Ah, yes, of course!” Brittleback responded. “I don’t understand it. The Yatsill are not violent. And the fact that Miss Stark is of the Aristocracy makes it even more incredible. Attacking one of our own? It’s bloody impossible!”
“Apparently not,” I put in.
Clarissa said, “Perhaps they were supporters of Yarvis Thayne and blame me for his murder.”
“They were acting on orders, I know that much,” I offered. “And if they supported Yarvis Thayne, then they must also support Yissil Froon.”
Father Mordant Reverie shook his head. “If you’re proposing that Yissil Froon might be behind this, I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms. He’s one of my most respected Magicians, and the eldest of us all. If anything, your suspicion suggests two hidden forces at work in the city, one supporting the dissonance and responsible for the murder of Thayne, the other against it and the source of the attack on Miss Stark.”
“Or a single force whose motives are rather more complex than we can currently guess,” Clarissa suggested.
“Is there any discontent among the Aristocrats?” I asked.
The prime minister gave an awkward shrug—a gesture that didn’t come easily to a Yatsill. “The Workers are restless, but not the Aristocracy.”
“There’s a problem with the Working Class?” Clarissa asked. “How so?”
“They are becoming increasingly uppity. The glassmakers have ceased work completely and I’ve received reports of widespread carelessness and disobedience. It’s bloody inconvenient and, to be perfectly frank, I’m not quite sure what to do about it. But that’s all beside the point.” He thought a moment, before addressing Spearjab again. “Colonel, I want you to instigate a search for the two surviving assassins.”