anymore.”
V
ALWAYS SOMEONE MIGHTIER
42
Across Tevanne, the many scrived rigs that the campo citizens used to live their lives suddenly changed.
They did not falter or stutter—rather, they abruptly changed course, performing new tasks or operations as if they had minds of their own.
Doors and gates snapped shut and would not open. Foundries shut down. Carriages stopped or abruptly changed direction, rattling away toward unknown destinations. Espringal batteries suddenly pivoted to point east, across the city.
And the lanterns…
The citizens of the campos watched as the floating lanterns suddenly turned and began flying away, all of them flocking to one place like a giant murmuration of glowing starlings…and they seemed to all be gathering at the gardens of the Dandolo estate.
It was a curious, entrancing sight. Which meant few paid attention when the coastal defenses of the campo started acting very, very strangely.
The coastal shrieker batteries of the city had been constructed to defend the campos’ access to the bay. As such, they had tremendous range—but they had not been built with any capability of firing inland.
And yet, as the handful of soldiers looked on in amazement, all the Tevanni shrieker batteries suddenly rotated in perfect unison, grinding against their constraints and smashing through anything that blocked their way, until they finally pointed not just inland—but at the Dandolo estate itself.
* * *
—
Sancia stared in horror as Gregor Dandolo slowly turned around to face her.
He had changed. The whites of his eyes were blood-red, like he’d burst all the vessels in them, causing massive hemorrhages. His nose was bleeding as well, his upper lip and chin rusty with blood. He did not look at anyone or anything—rather, he stared into the space somewhat close to her, much as a blind man would. He had never made such a face, even when she’d seen him activated.
There was a crack from behind her. Sancia leapt in surprise, and watched as Crasedes shoved aside the two halves of stone like they were eggshells.
For a moment he lay on all fours, gasping and coughing. Sancia flexed her scrived sight, and saw he was a fluttering, flickering, strobing mess of blood-red light…yet it was slowly cohering, calcifying, re-forming.
He’s putting himself back together, she thought. Undoing all the damage Clef did to him…
Crasedes staggered to his feet, turned to Sancia, and snarled, “What did you do? Where is the construct? What has happened?”
Sancia said nothing—for, in truth, she didn’t quite know.
Crasedes looked at Gregor and did a double take. “You’ve…changed, Gregor,” he said. “You’ve changed somehow, but…but it’s difficult for me to perceive ho—”
“Yes,” said Gregor, still in that toneless voice.
Crasedes cocked his head. “Who are you? What are you?”
“I am something new,” said the voice. “Something even you have not ever witnessed. For I am no longer one thing, one man, one construct. I am many things.”
The entire Dandolo estate quaked suddenly. Crasedes stared about, alarmed.
“What’s…What’s going on?” he asked.
“I was put into all lexicons, all at once,” said the voice. “And though I have lost the authorities that allowed me to warp the reality of this world, I still persist in the lexicons—and thus, in all the tools and instruments and creations of this city.” He turned to look at Crasedes, his face dead and slack, his eyes welling over with bloodied tears. “I am Tevanne. And I am made in the image of those who have wrought me.”
“Huh,” said Crasedes, unimpressed. He rose to float off the floor. “I have to admit, this is…unanticipated. But while I’m not sure who you are, let me tell you—however you think tonight’s going to go, it’s not going to go how you think it’s going to g—”
There was a brilliant, white-hot blaze, and a flash of light so bright that Sancia screamed and had to turn her face away. It was like there’d been an explosion in the chamber, and yet she didn’t feel the sting of shrapnel.
She opened her eyes and looked around as the flash faded. She saw that, somehow—it was impossible,