answers. I must speak to them, turn this tide.”
Speak to them? Marasi thought. As you did earlier? That speech hadn’t shown any particular sense of empathy.
Rusts, had that only been this afternoon? Checking the governor’s ornate desk clock, she found it was almost two—so the governor’s speech had technically been yesterday. She probably shouldn’t have looked at the time; seeing exactly how late it was merely reminded her of her own exhaustion. It was like an angry creditor pounding on her door; she’d be able to ignore it for only so long.
“Tell Aradel,” the governor mused, “not to stop the people from converging here at the mansion, but he is to beat down any looters in other parts of the city. Put the fear of the sword into them. I’ll need a force of constables here, of course, to keep the masses who come to me in check, but I do want to speak to them. This will be a night for history to be made.”
“Sir,” Marasi said. “I know a thing or two about the mentality of crowds, if you wish—”
Someone outside called for Innate, and he stood in the middle of Marasi’s sentence. He shoved the writ toward her, sealed with his stamp, then marched out to deal with the questions.
Marasi watched him go with a sigh. Hopefully Wayne and that kandra woman would be able to assure his safety. She’d happily see Innate incarcerated someday, but she didn’t wish him dead. His assassination would be, among other things, terrible for city morale.
She stored the writ beside her pistol in her purse, then walked from the room and slipped through the hallway, where many of the cabinet members were giving orders to aides and accepting cups of steaming black tea from household staff. Wayne lounged in a corner, feet up on an end table and spinning an expensive gold-and-mahogany pen between his fingers. Harmony knew where he’d stolen that.
Unfortunately, her motor needed a refueling, so she’d have to use more mundane methods to run the writ to Aradel. She found the footman and ordered a carriage.
The haggard footman, however, shook his head. “It will be a few minutes, miss, before I can dredge up a coach. The executive staff have half the cabs in the city running notes for them, and on a night like this one no less…” He glanced meaningfully toward the open door. Outside, the porch lights barely penetrated the mists. They curled and danced, almost timid. Tiny wisps would creep into the entry hall, then vanish almost immediately like steam over a stove.
“I will wait,” Marasi said. “Thank you.”
He seemed pleased by her response; perhaps others had been less understanding. As he was called away, Marasi idled in the doorway, staring into the mists. That orange haze over the city wasn’t normal. Fires were burning out there. If they were lucky, those flames would only be massed lanterns and torches, not buildings.
Standing there strongly reminded her of something that she couldn’t put her finger on. She shook her head and walked back into the mansion with half a mind to find Wayne and see what he thought of recent events. In the large sitting room beyond the entryway, she passed a weary serving man scrubbing the wooden floor. The bloodstains were stubborn, it appeared. The man had already discreetly rolled the rug up against the wall for disposal.
Marasi passed him and, changing her mind about finding Wayne, instead walked down the stairs toward the hidden chamber. A city close to breaking, she thought as she reached the bottom. This has happened before.
In the confined space, the air still smelled of the soap that had been used to clean up the blood. The empty saferoom had a quiet, scholastic feel about it, with all those books on the walls. There was no overhead lighting, just the lamps, shaded a soft red-orange. She walked around the room, noting the many volumes of the full Words of Founding when she passed it on the wall. The leather-bound books seemed pristine, and on a whim, she pulled the first one out and checked it. The pages were uncut, as sometimes happened in new books. This volume had obviously never been read.
Long ago the Survivor had pushed a city to the brink of destruction, then channeled that fury into a rebellion that had overthrown a millennium-long dictatorship. Every student learned of those days, but Marasi had read the detailed accounts, including of the night when it had all come