his evenings with Kacha when he could, and his days staring at the paperwork Bakar had him do, at the strange edicts that poured from him like wine these last weeks. Yet Petri couldn’t be sure that it was just that he was now looking at Bakar with different eyes.
Once this job was done seeing Kacha would become difficult, and he didn’t want difficult; he wanted seeing her to be as easy as breathing. He’d been restless before, chafing at Bakar’s orderly world, but now he wasn’t just restless, he was itching to burst out of the gears Bakar had bound him in.
“Petri?”
“Sorry. Yes, it’s going well enough.” Not the whole truth, no. Bakar couldn’t have seen this in his precious clockwork, and Petri was going to make the most of it. “I’m concentrating on gaining the confidence of one or two before I start to dig.”
“Very wise. Do you have any inklings yet though?”
Petri put down his cup – he was so full of energy it was hard to stop it clattering on the saucer. Kacha, he was going to meet Kacha later, and that seemed all he could think about. “One or two suspicions but nothing solid yet.”
Bakar nodded sagely. “Has anyone asked you why you left the guild?”
“No, not yet.” They hadn’t asked, but he’d heard the whispers and the not-so-quiet murmurs designed for him to hear. Oh yes, and a drunken Vocho speculating with his friends at full volume what a man would have to do to make Eneko forbid his name to be spoken in the guild, or why in hells Kacha would have anything to do with someone who’d been exiled. They’d shut up bloody quick when Kacha walked into the inn, but Vocho still muttered under his breath any time Petri was near. Just as long as Kacha didn’t hear him.
He’d been expecting that, which didn’t make it any easier to bear. He hadn’t expected Kacha not to ask, or for himself to want to spill it all out anyway. And yet he hadn’t – and why was that? Because every time she talked about Eneko, he could see it in her eyes. The way she looked up to him, trusted him. Something soft under all the wisecracking with her brother, under her smooth moves and nonchalant ease with a blade. He wanted to find out what it was, but he didn’t want to have to reveal the shame of his father, cast that shame over a man she clearly thought of as her father, to do it. Everyone has secrets, he thought, and wished he dared speak his aloud. Maybe one day, but not yet.
No matter how he felt his whole life had just spun a full turn on the orrery, changing it beyond recognition, it’d only been a few weeks. A few weeks of hours that seemed too snatched and short to him. Maybe if he could pluck up the courage to kiss her…
“Petri! Have you been listening? By the God’s cogs, man, you’ve not been right ever since you started this. Maybe it was a mistake, dredging up old memories. Maybe you should let someone else do this.”
Petri forced his mind back into the room. Difficult though. Clocks everywhere, ticking and tocking until he wanted to scream. Each tick was slicing seconds off his life, each tock was nailing him to this palace, to his grey little cubicle, his grey little job.
“Absolutely not,” he said as he stood up. He had to get out of this room, out of the palace. “I’m just starting to get somewhere. I promise you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve arranged to meet some of the masters.”
He shut the door behind him with a great wash of relief which he didn’t fully appreciate until he was out of the palace, out of the gardens, away from the constant noise of his life ticking away. Out into Reyes proper, for once feeling part of the colour and noise that surrounded him. He headed down towards the Clockwork God and the docks, to where he’d arranged to meet Kacha.
The streets were crowded tonight, but not so crowded they didn’t make way for a prelate’s man. He looked up at the god, brass all silvered by the moonlight, clicking his way through his preset ritual. Outside the guild, reminding everyone that the guild had bowed to Bakar, that the Clockwork God watched over even them and demanded their truth. Oh, the guild still had respect, still had