Sancia grumbled for a moment, a cloud of irritation and frustration at the back of Berenice’s mind.
Berenice stared into the flowing dark waters, her heart jittering in her ribs.
Berenice fretted for a moment, trying not to listen to the fresh chorus of despairing moans from the Commons behind her.
said Sancia,
Berenice turned her back on the soldiers, stepped into the shadow of an alley, and cautiously took out the imperiat. Even in the night gloom, its gold seemed to shine so brightly that it made her deeply nervous.
Yet as she studied it with both her and Sancia’s perspectives, she suddenly began to understand it, with one lever allowing you to pick and choose which scriving you wished to dampen, and another that would determine how much you wished to dampen it…
Berenice stuck her head around the corner to peer at the bridge over the canal. An armored carriage was slowly rattling its way out into the Commons.
Berenice looked back down at the imperiat and adjusted one lever, moving it back and forth until the little golden plate in the center of the rig displayed the strings that told a scrived carriage’s wheels whether it was going up- or downhill.
She took a breath, braced herself, and pressed the switch.
Instantly, the scrived carriage slowed…and then, to the tremendous alarm of all the soldiers around it, it began rolling backward, back into the Dandolo campo, as if it weren’t placed on a very flat bridge over a muddy canal but was instead on a sharp incline, sloping back past the walls.
Berenice watched as the soldiers abandoned their posts and gave chase, waving their arms and helplessly screaming, “Stop! Stop!” The big carriage caromed off one gate and rocketed back through the walls, out of sight.
said Berenice.
There was a loud crash and a smattering of screams.
said Sancia.
Berenice stowed the imperiat away, ran to the edge of the canal, and waited to confirm that the soldiers were gone. Then, with a whimper of fear and disgust, she sat down on the edge, slipped her feet in, and lowered herself into the filthy waters.
She felt her skin crawl as the water rose past her shoulders. she said.
Berenice clamped her eyes shut and lowered herself into the fetid waters.
Sancia was right—the little bundles of logic all around them glowed even through her eyelids. But she could barely think about this with all this water around her, pressing in on her from all sides, invading every part of her—and she was just stuck there, drifting into the black, blind and helpless…
said Sancia.
She listened to Sancia’s words, echoing in the depths of her thoughts.
Then she had the strangest feeling in the world.
It was as if Sancia were embracing her, enveloping her, like she was becoming lost in