The window?
Already moving forward, Finch squeezed the trigger. The roar of the Lewden Special. A thick splintering sound from the bookcase opposite. He’d missed.
The figure leapt. Closing the distance, Finch leapt with him. A circle of green light had appeared. Rimmed with fiery gold. Shot through the middle with purest black. The figure went through the circle—and Finch went too, slamming into the shadow’s back. Grabbing hold of the shoulders. Gun still in his hand.
The blackness extended. Past the floor.
Gasped, screamed. Overcome by the sense of falling. Held on to the figure, which was trying to throw him off. Finch’s face felt like it was burning. The blackness was absolute.
Falling into the throat of a skery. Falling into nothing. Falling through the window. To their deaths. His stomach kept dropping and dropping. He kept screaming and screaming.
And still they fell.
Nothing lost.
All lost.
THURSDAY
I: Why do you hate Partials?
F: I don’t hate them.
I: We all have a job to do.
F: I don’t like cameras.
I: Where did you go during the party?
F: Nowhere. Home. I went home.
I: You were seen on the street after curfew. By a Partial.
F: It was someone else. No. No. Please. Don’t! [sounds of weeping] I didn’t go anywhere. I don’t remember.
I: Who was it? Stark? The Lady in Blue? Bliss? Someone else?
F: All of them. None of them. Doesn’t matter what answer I give. Your answer is always the fucking same.
I: I can make you remember.
1
Light. Blinding him. They both fell heavy and sprawling across some unforgiving surface. Gun skittered out of his hand. A shooting pain in his left leg, ribs. Cried out. Lost his grip on the man’s shoulders. Every scrap of skin crawled. As if he’d passed through a cloud of hornets. Spasmed for a moment, his muscles not obeying his commands. Brain on fire. Worse than the skery. Came to rest gasping. Rough stones with something soft between them. An intense clapping sound rose up. Faded.
The other man rolled to the side. Started to get up. Finch reached out. Caught a booted foot. Pulled the man back down toward him. He opened his eyes just a slit against the terrible light. Saw the man’s face.
“Bliss! Bliss!” Finch hissed. Still in the grip of darkness. He dragged Bliss closer as the man kicked, struggling to get free. Jumped on top of him. Punched him in the kidneys. Once. Twice. Three times. Knuckles aching. Bliss grunted. Finch delivered an elbow across the face, through Bliss’s guard. Bliss went limp. Saw the man’s eyelids flutter, his eyes almost roll back into his head.
Finch got up, staggering. What did you do to me? Keening. Kicked Bliss in the ribs. A bark of distress and Bliss curled onto his side.
Meant to launch another kick, but was brought up short. The ground around them had caught his attention. Dull red tiles. Yellow-green weeds thrusting up between them.
Looked up. In a sudden panic, he realized that the terrible light was the sun. He stood in the middle of an empty courtyard. A rusted, crumbling fountain. Blank azure-amber eyes of some long-dead hero astride a rusting horse. Mottled brown fish spouting air beside him.
Above the wall facing him: the looming white dome of one of the camps. Took a quick glance behind. The green shimmer of the two towers just visible through an archway leading out. A flock of pigeons circling. The clapping sound.
He was between the Spit and the Religious Quarter.
On the other side of the bay from his apartment.
The sun was out.
In the middle of the night.
Finch began to shake. Fought down nausea.
Said, gasping the words, “What the fuck did you do, Bliss?” Almost couldn’t stop saying it. Taste of grit in his mouth. Skin still twitching.
Bliss raised his head, still on his side. Through blood-greased teeth: “Don’t be frightened. We went through a door. Like any other door.”
Finch kicked Bliss again for that. This time he didn’t cry out, just lay there. Found his gun. Squatting beside Bliss, Finch shoved the muzzle against the man’s left cheek. Forced Bliss’s face against the stone.
“Answer my questions. Answer them without any bullshit,” voice calmer than he felt.
This wasn’t the first time he’d put a gun to someone’s face. But he was threatening a man who, in his former life, had made speeches and led parades. A man now reduced to snooping in apartments after dark.
“I’ll answer them! Stop hitting me.” Startling bloodshot white of Bliss’s eye trying to look up at Finch from that extreme angle. Face already darkening with bruises like a stormy sky.
“Get up,” Finch said. He pulled the smaller man to his feet by one arm. Looked around. Two exits. The archway behind him. Another on the far side. Didn’t trust the broken windows blinding him with the sun. Anyone could be watching.
Finch dragged Bliss into the darkness of the nearest archway. The contrast of shadows after the extreme light almost left him blind again. Black sunspots everywhere.
Pushed Bliss up against a whitewashed wall turned gray. Bricks exposed through the mortar like dark red teeth in a rotting mouth. Got close to Bliss so he could force the gun under the man’s jaw. Pinned him to the wall with a fist wrapped around his shirt collar.
His hands were steady now. Shock hadn’t set in yet. Maybe it never would.
Bliss was wheezing from the pressure of the Lewden Special against his windpipe. Trying to swallow.
“Now. Tell me what just happened.” He eased up on Bliss’s throat.
Bliss coughed. Managed, in a hollow voice, “Like I said, nothing to panic about. We just went through a door.”
Something switched on in Finch. Stark threatening him. Heretic and the skery. Falling through darkness with Bliss like moving through the doors on the Spit, like traveling through the gullet of a skery large as a behemoth.
Smashed Bliss across the face with the Lewden. Felt a satisfying give as metal met flesh and laid open Bliss’s right cheek. Bliss made a sound more like surprise than pain. Began to slump but Finch held him up. Blood flowed down the side of Bliss’s face. Spattered onto his shoulder. Another puzzled sound. Like he couldn’t believe Finch was doing this to him.
“You already said it was a door, Bliss. Tell me something new.”
Bliss’s head drooped toward his chest. Finch slapped him lightly.
“Stay with me, Bliss,” Finch said. Released his grip on Bliss’s collar. “Here.” Handed him his handkerchief. “Keep it.”
“Thanks,” Bliss said, with more than a hint of something deadly behind the word. He held the handkerchief to his face, the gray-white soon soaked with red.
“If you tell me enough I’ll let you go,” Finch said. Tried to sound reasonable. As reasonable as he could while he kept the gun trained on Bliss. Truth was, he didn’t know what he was going to do with Bliss. Or to him.
After a moment, Bliss said in a dull tone, “We went through a door to another part of the city. Across a kind of bridge.”
“That’s how you escaped the first time. There was no hidden exit.”
“No, there wasn’t,” Bliss said.
“It was night just a few minutes ago.” Couldn’t keep the confusion from his voice.