anything could be happening at home in Aufleur.
38
‘You should be in the sky,’ said the little demme, looking clearly at Ashiol with Lysandor’s eyes. He was unnerved by her. Children in the Creature Court were wrong somehow pieces of two separate worlds that should not fit together.
‘I know,’ he told her. ‘It’s a long nox ahead of us, though.’
‘It’s the last,’ she said, her voice freakishly adult.
He gave her a second look at that. ‘Are you their Seer?’
‘Bazeppe doesn’t have Seers, or sentinels, we have no need —’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘You have your saints; much good they are doing you now.’
‘They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do,’ the little demme told him, and then pouted. ‘I want a pastry. Do you have pastries?’
‘No,’ he said, rocking back on his heels. ‘I’m not much use, am I?’
‘Not much,’ she agreed frankly. ‘Papa always made it sound like you were something special. I thought you’d be taller.’
There was a sound behind them: a creaking wheeze and a slow, familiar ticking sound, then another, and another.
Lucia clapped her hands. ‘They’re back!’ she said delightedly.
Ashiol turned to see the clockwork saints on their feet again, slowly moving, rotating their joints to allow the dust to pour free from them. ‘Amazing,’ he said.
‘There!’ roared Peg. ‘That bleeding sky can’t keep us down for long, can it?’
Had the plan of Priest and the dust devils failed so easily?
‘Don’t go near them,’ Ashiol warned.
‘We don’t have to,’ she said, giving him an odd look. ‘Time to give our fighters a break from the battle!’
She made several rapid-fire gestures at the clockwork saints, who returned her signs and took off, out of the door and into the nox sky.
‘You trust them very easily,’ Ashiol said in surprise.
Peg gave him an unfriendly look. ‘The only traitor we’ve ever had in this Court was your man Priest. He’s gone now. His attempt failed. Back to normal.’
Ashiol looked up to the rafters where Kelpie and the silversmith, Bett, were mending the skysilver layer in the roof. Kelpie seemed relaxed, laughing as they secured the panels. How long was it since she had been asked to do something that was of practical use and not in some way degrading to her sense of honour?
‘Where do they come from?’ he muttered.
‘Silly,’ said Lucia. ‘The saints come from the same place as animor.’
To prove her point, she shaped herself into a small pile of puppies and cuddled back down onto her blanket.
Ashiol stared at her for a long time. In the many years since he had first tangled with the Creature Court of Aufleur, he had never once thought to ask where animor came from.
A great shout went up across the sky. ‘It’s the saints. The saints are back!’
Celeste laughed delightedly. She threw back her head to look at Velody. ‘It’s all right now,’ she said.
The clockwork saints, a dozen or more of them, came tearing through the sky. Velody hovered there and watched as they caught skybolts and fought light tendrils with dazzling precision. ‘They’re good,’ she agreed.
‘Thank the angels. Now Lysandor can go back to Lucia,’ Celeste said.
Indeed, several of the Lords and Court were flying back to the Emporium, many of them nursing injuries. Velody saw Lysandor among them, waving at Celeste as he went.
‘They’re just going to leave the saints up here?’
‘Of course. They’re far better at fighting the sky than we are.’ Celeste blasted a cloudburst with her animor and it exploded close enough that a wave of cold air swept over them both. ‘I usually stay out here most of the nox. Power and Majesty, you know. It’s expected. But we can hold the sky with only one or two of the Court attending me and the saints at any one time.’
The sky had been raging only a few moments ago, but now it seemed clear.
‘Is that it?’ Velody asked. ‘Is it over?’
‘Seems to be,’ said Celeste, and frowned. ‘That’s odd.’
The clockwork sentinels in the sky all drifted together in a formation and started to fly down towards the Emporium.
‘Hey, come back,’ Celeste yelled at them. ‘You’re not off duty yet. The sky could bubble again.’ She tried making her command signs at them, but not one even turned its head in her direction.
Velody felt a sudden cold wash of premonition. ‘We have to —’
An explosion rocked the sky. Skybolts flew from the hands and eyes of the clockwork saints, striking the Emporium roof in one controlled blast. The building crumpled under the