“A lot of this would be easier if we had access to the Foundryside library, in fact,” said Berenice, wiping sweat from her face. “I can think of at least forty designs that would make all this easier. Recovering access to it is critical.”
“Which we can’t do now,” said Orso, “since I’ve no doubt Ofelia’s spies would go whisper in Crasedes’s ear the second we stroll through the door.”
“We’ll get it back,” said Sancia. “After tonight.”
“Yeah, and…then me and Gio are out,” said Claudia.
“I did not enjoy my brief contact with the hierophantic before,” said Gio, “and if any of what you’re claiming is true, I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it this time.”
As they finished their work, Orso slowly realized he was doing little more than supervising. In the space of three short years, all of his people—Claudia and Gio, Sancia and Berenice—had turned into magnificent scrivers. They barely needed his help.
Even though he was worried, terrified, and anxious about tonight, he couldn’t help but feel a queer sort of elation as he watched them put the finishing touches on everything and load it into the carriage. It took him a while to realize it was pride.
This is what scriving is supposed to be like, he thought. This is what Tevanne is supposed to be like. His heart sank a little. And it’s what it was going to be…until all this happened…
His eye strayed to Sancia and Berenice, and a familiar worry crept up his back. Both of them had flourished, but…but Sancia looked strangely old these days, and worn. He told himself it was because of her old life—growing up in the plantations wore out your body before you’d even had much of a chance to use it—but still, he worried.
Have I stolen her youth? Or is it something…else?
Then the door of the workshop burst open and Gregor walked in, holding a large leather sack that smelled quite gamy. “I have brought the butchered monkey corpses,” he said.
“That’s the last bit!” Orso clapped his hands, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a paper mask resembling the head of a lamb. He stuffed it on his face. “Let’s have us a goddamn parade, folks.”
16
Masked and wearing a few gestures at costumes, the Foundrysiders, Gio, and Claudia piled onto their carriage and rode off through the streets of the Commons, which were already filling up with revelers. The partygoers quickly saw their parade carriage—and the giant cask of wine situated in the back—and the people cried out, clapped their hands, and began to follow.
“I do hope,” said Gregor as he nosed the carriage through the crowded streets, “that we don’t put any of these people in danger.”
“Carnival’s always dangerous,” said Orso. “Any Tevanni worth their wine knows that. Pass out in your own sick, and bang, dead. Dangerous!”
Sancia peered out at the skies. It was close to sunset now.
“Do let us know,” said Gio from the back of the carriage, “if you see any hierophants about.”
She glanced at the crowd, and saw at least a dozen Papa Monsoons dancing behind them. “That might be harder than you think.”
They passed through the Foundryside neighborhoods, and the Lamplands—whose celebrations were especially jovial, since they were quite a bit richer than everywhere else—and then they finally saw the crumbling outer walls of what had once been the Candiano campo. Now it was little more than masonry and rubble about ten feet high. Commoners had apparently started using the stacks of stones as seats for plays and performances, like a long, endless amphitheater, and a few jugglers and pipe bands were dancing and playing for them.
Sancia felt a curious despair at the sight of the walls. Did I do that? Did I really?
They wound farther into what had once been the outer reaches of the campo, followed by a train of people clapping, singing, dancing—and following their wine.
“I believe now would be a good time for the lanterns,” shouted Gregor.
“Got it,” said Berenice. She reached into the depths of the back of the carriage and pulled a handle.
Instantly, dozens of small floating lanterns popped into shape and lit up with bright, colored lights, pink and orange and purple. They drifted into the skies for a few dozen feet until finally the lines attaching them to the back of the carriage pulled them taut, and they followed the carriage through the streets like a school of luminescent fish. The crowd oohed and aahed, though Sancia frankly wasn’t sure why. Plenty of parade carriages did this. She guessed they were pretty drunk already.
Then she saw the enclave walls ahead, leading to the abandoned Candiano campo core—and behind that, the Mountain.
Sancia’s heart skipped at the sight of it. She actually hadn’t been able to see it much from where their offices were located. Once it had been the grandest, biggest building in all of Tevanne, but now it looked like a giant black apple that someone had taken a bite out of and left to rot. She could still see exposed floors and supports and struts and beams from here. The memory of that night, and all its wild chaos and terror, made her break out in a sweat.
And then she felt strangely sad. The Mountain, after all, had been a massive rig of its own—one Tribuno Candiano had engineered to act as an artificial mind to lure in any hierophants he thought might be hiding in the world. She and Clef had spoken to the thing, and it had seemed desperate and lonely to her. A poor fate, she thought, to be damaged in such a way, and left to stand empty for years and years, possibly still sentient, still waiting.
“It’s bigger than I remember,” said Gregor softly beside her. He looked rattled, his eyes wide and his face stiff. She realized he was reliving what he had done there that night, or what he could remember of what he’d done.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
His expression grew closed and bitter. “How could I even know?” he said. He spoke no more as they drove to the walls.
* * *
—
Sancia flexed her scrived sight as they neared the walls. The walls themselves lit up with scrivings—they’d been convinced to be preternaturally tall and thick—but she was looking for something specific.
Finally she saw it: a small, winding canal—or what was left of one, since the water had dried up to a fetid dribble since the night of the Mountain. Sancia peered closer and saw a scrived metal portcullis below the walls, one that had been built to allow the canal to flow in and out of the enclave.
She looked up at the espringal batteries along the enclave walls, sitting still and hunched like storks along a riverbed. “That way,” she said, pointing toward them.