been so caught up in the fate of Garnet to notice, but yes: Delphine was wearing a tailored tunic of chainmail that gleamed with skysilver. She stank of it, the animor of the metal hitting the back of Velody’s throat harshly enough to make her gag.
‘Delphine,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’
There were rumblings from the sky. Delphine glanced up, then darted a smile at Velody. ‘I’ve been getting prepared, of course. Want to see?’
She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled fiercely, and suddenly the stench of skysilver was everywhere, surrounding them, and Velody could hardly breathe.
An army marched into the Forum. Dozens and dozens of men and women, dressed for a fancy party, armed with skysilver swords and daggers. A very specific feeling rolled off them all. Sentinels. Somehow, Delphine had created dozens of sentinels all at once.
Ashiol started to laugh, gleeful and utterly genuine.
Warlord and Lennoc flew overhead, shining in Lord form and surrounded by their courtesi. Everyone was ready for the battle.
They were, in fact, united against their enemy. All of them except Velody.
‘It’s all right,’ Rhian said calmly. She reached out and gave Velody’s hand a reassuring pat. ‘It will all make sense soon.’
Light blazed from the sky, fierce and hot, drawn into a single powerful thread that shot over their heads and burst through the roof of the Basilica, blasting into the ground some way past it. Velody leaped into the air, flew over the heads of Delphine and her army, and skidded roughly on the paving stones of the avenue just beyond them.
The light from the sky was channelling ferociously into the Lake of Follies. The water boiled and frothed under the heat and gave off huge waves of steam.
Shapes formed in the steam. Great winged shapes, and there was no way to know what they were, except that they were not friends. Shape after shape clambered out of the lake and lurched in the direction of Delphine’s army.
Saints and angels.
For one shocked and quiet moment, Velody had a strong memory all over again of her brother telling her about seeing angels in the steam. Devils made of dust. Saints made of clockwork. What on earth made me think that the angels might be on our side?
More light poured from the sky and the last water of the Lake of Follies gave up the ghost into one huge cloud of steam. It formed several distinct shapes and, yes, angels. There was no other word for them. Except, possibly, death.
49
Ashiol had never seen the use of Delphine before this. An army of sentinels, brought into being because no one had told her it was impossible. There was no time to stop and admire her now. The sentinels were under attack from the steam angels, and there were fracture lines cracking across the sky, glowing in fierce shades of orange, red and gold.
‘Let me go,’ Garnet yelled from where he was still chained to the statue of Iustitia, surrounded by salamanders. A glowing skybolt crashed into the tiled portico behind him, and the groove it made in the ground bubbled with molten skysilver. ‘For the love of Aufleur. Let me fight.’
‘How are we supposed to know what side you would fight on?’ Poet snapped back.
Another skybolt arced over their heads and Ashiol threw animor at it, forcing it to explode before it got too close.
‘You expect us to have mercy on you, Garnet?’ he said. ‘You picked the wrong people to ask.’
The steam angels swarmed towards them. The salamanders skittered forward and burst into bright flame, which kept the angels away for a little while at least. But they circled around, darting this way and that, actively looking for a break in the salamander fire.
‘Seems it’s you they want,’ Ashiol said to Garnet.
‘All the more reason to let me go,’ Garnet replied.
It turned out as Ashiol had known it would, with him standing at the foot of the statue of Iustitia, protecting Garnet from the angels. They smelled like animor and rain, and there were other scents in there too, of familiar skin that made his head muzzy.
One of them cried out as he slashed at her — her, of course it was a woman — with his chimaera claws, and for a moment her steam blurred thin and he saw a familiar face within. No, not that. No hallucinations of lovers past, not today.
Ashiol lost focus for just long enough to enable the second angel to climb onto the statue of Iustitia, her