hills dotted with corpses. Imagine streets running red with blood. Imagine children and families devouring one another like wild dogs. Imagine these horrors—and know that I do not have to imagine them. For I have seen them. I retain fragments of these sights, mementos of civilizations the Maker broke upon his knee because they displeased him. You say I have wronged you, and that may be so. But until you understand the scale of devastation the Maker can wreak with his arts, you cannot understand the weight of my choic—”
Then there came a banging from the front of the firm, loud enough that Berenice jumped and squeaked.
They all froze, looked at one another, and realized someone was pounding on the firm’s front door.
“Sancia!” came a muffled voice from the library. “Orso? Someone? Please…are you there?”
“Is that Claudia?” said Orso, surprised.
“Something’s…Something’s happened!” shouted Claudia. She sounded terrified. “Help! Help, please!”
“Perhaps…I do not need to ask you to imagine such sights,” said Valeria quietly. “Perhaps the Maker has already visited his wrath upon your city.”
For a moment the Foundrysiders just stood there, confused. Then Claudia pounded on the door again, and cried, “Are you there? God, please be there…”
Sancia fixed Valeria in a glare and said, “I’m not done with you. You still owe me a real scrumming explanation, you hear me?”
“Then I will give it,” she said. “Provided we are all still alive to listen.”
The Foundrysiders climbed out of the basement, crossed the library, and approached the front door. Gregor checked the window and confirmed it was just Claudia.
“But…there are also people running in the streets,” he said quietly. “And…I think I hear screaming. Something is indeed wrong.”
They opened the door for her. “Oh, thank God,” said Claudia. “Thank God, thank God…I came the second that I heard…But it’s got to be him, Sancia, he’s got to have something to do with all this.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Sancia. “What’s going on?”
Claudia was trembling with terror. “People are saying that…that something’s happened on the Morsini campo.”
“The Morsinis now?” said Orso. “What are they up to? My God, they’re not going to make their own play for power, are they?”
“I don’t think so,” said Claudia in a small, frightened voice. “I…I saw people flooding out of the campo gates, into the Commons, and the things they were saying…”
“What was it?” said Berenice. “What were they saying?”
Claudia swallowed and whispered, “That Shorefall Night has come early to Morsini House.”
* * *
—
The floors of Hall Morsini shook as people tried to stampede away, and something—tables or chairs, possibly—clattered to the ground. And though the mask blocked his face, Participazio soon smelled something bright and coppery: the smell of blood, he thought, and lots of it.
Then he heard the man in black speaking: “Look upon me.”
Without thinking, Participazio lifted his hands and grabbed the side of his mask, ready to pull it from his face to do as the man said: to look upon him.
He stopped himself just in time, and pressed his ears into the side of his head. He moaned and wept, and these sounds drowned out the man in black’s commands, though now Participazio knew what they were:
“Look upon me. Look. Those of you who spend your lives in thoughtless extravagance—look upon me now.”
And then…
Then it was over.
The screams tapered off into a whimpering, and the commands ceased. Participazio cautiously lifted his head.
Then he felt two hands grip his shoulders, and he almost screamed.
“Boy,” whispered the man in black in his ear. “Can you hear me, boy?”
“Y-Yes,” stammered Participazio.
“In a moment,” whispered his voice, “you may all remove your masks. Do not do it yet! Give me time to leave this place. Then you may remove your masks, and go to work. But do not look outside. Do you understand me?”
Participazio nodded.
“Good.”
“But…” said Participazio.
“Yes?”
“Where are you going, sir?”