I wish Orso were doing this, she thought as she worked. He would be faster. He would be better.
Once the cradle was prepped, Berenice and Sancia started ramping the lexicon. Neither had any doubt that it would work this time. They just stood in their paper-strewn basement and waited, staring at their shabby old lexicon with the messy “FS” imprinted on the top.
Then Sancia heard her voice.
“Is this being received?” she said.
Sancia jumped—but to her surprise, Berenice jumped as well.
“Oh my God,” said Berenice. “Did…did you hear that?”
“I will interpret this reaction,” said Valeria’s voice, “as indication the answer is true.”
“You can hear it too, Ber?” said Sancia.
Berenice looked like she might faint. She rubbed at the side of her head, as if trying to discover exactly how the words had been delivered to her mind. “I hear…something. It’s like I’m hearing it without hearing the sounds…”
“With Tribuno’s definition,” said Valeria, “I am able to alter reality much more directly. Not restricted to talking just to Sancia, with her plate.”
“Then you should be able to help us,” said Sancia. “We got you out, Valeria. We gave you shelter. Now what?”
“Now I have granted you protections. The Maker cannot come close to this area, nor can he affect it. The more I calibrate what permissions I have, the more I can assist you. Give me time to get…settled? True? Upon discovering more of my own situation, I can then know more what to do next.”
Sancia and Berenice exchanged a glance. “Wait,” said Sancia. “Exactly…what are you going to be doing in our basement, again?”
“Are you unaware of our predicament?” said Valeria. “Maker knows where we are. Knows our location, our resources. Though we have protections, we are not truly safe. We can never truly be safe from the Maker—not until he is banished to the death I made for him.” There was a flicker in the air, and Sancia glimpsed her, just for a second—a giant hulking figure wrought of gold, standing behind the lexicon, staring out at them. “We are now under siege, Sancia. We must prepare ourselves.”
* * *
—
Exhausted and shaken, Sancia and Berenice limped out of the basement, Sancia with a large, heavy case in her hand. They found Gio and Claudia kneeling over Orso on a pallet in the center of the library. He looked terrible: discolored, shrunken, sweaty, not like the Orso they knew at all, but a reduced version of him. His shoulder was a mass of red bandages, many of them unsettlingly dark.
“He looks bad,” said Claudia. Her face looked tired and stretched. “The wound is deep. What happened back there?”
“I think Crasedes clipped him with a stone,” said Sancia. “He shot it right through the wine cask like a bolt of lightning.”
“Will he be all right?” asked Berenice.
“Depends on if there’s any stone still in the wound,” said Gio. “If there is…”
There was a silence.
“You need a physiquere,” said Claudia. “We can do a lot of things, but we can’t clean wounds or do surgery.”
“We…We can walk with you to go get one,” said Gio anxiously, “but…”
Sancia could tell where this was going. “But you’ve done enough,” she said.
Claudia and Gio went very still, and she knew she was right: they wanted out, and fast.
“You didn’t ask for this,” said Sancia, sighing with weariness. “You didn’t ask for hierophants and gods and stones hurtling through the air like shooting stars. This is not your fight.” She placed the heavy case on the ground before them. “There.”
“What’s that?” asked Gio.
“Your payment,” said Berenice. “All the Michiel definitions.”
Claudia stared. “All of them?”
“All the ones we have, yeah,” said Sancia.
“I…I thought you would want to keep some, at least,” said Gio.
Sancia shook her head. “Fight’s changed. All of this has changed. The Mountain’s gone, the houses are likely at war, and Crasedes and Valeria are circling one another like duelists. The fight has changed, and we’ve got to change with it.”
* * *
—
Sancia walked Claudia and Gio to the front door. She found Gregor waiting for them, pacing before the windows with a rapier at his side and an espringal over his shoulder. He seemed more like his normal self, but Sancia could tell there was something missing in his eyes…a light, or a spark, or some capacity of attention.
As they approached, he said, “Not this way. Not the front door.”
“Eh?” said Gio. “We can’t go out the front gate?”
He shook his head. “Many saw us enter our compound through that entrance. We’re being watched.”
“Already?” said Sancia.
“I’ve seen them. I recommend you take the back exit.”
“The back exit?” said Claudia. “But…doesn’t that mean we’d have to wade through the shit ditch? Where everyone dumps their latrines?”
“They built a little bridge,” said Gregor. “Over part of it, at least. Would you rather have shit on your shoes or your guts in your lap?”
“Fine, fine…” grumbled Gio. “We know the way. We’ll see ourselves out.” They departed, the case of definitions swinging from Gio’s shoulder.
Sancia joined Gregor at the window. “Who’s watching us?”
“I don’t know. Could be Michiels, or Dandolos. Or it could be simple gawkers, intrigued by what just transpired in the streets.” He pointed at one doorway. “Two men there. And there was a woman, but she’s gone now.”
He fell silent, staring out at the streets with a baleful expression.
“What happened in the Mountain, Gregor?” asked Berenice.
He swallowed hard, his jaw and neck flexing. “Some men tried to kill Orso.”
“And?”
“And I…stopped them.”
They waited for more, but it didn’t come.
“You killed them,” said Sancia.
He nodded. “But when I did…When I did that, I…I suddenly remembered.”