<Okay…so what? What’s the plan?>
Sancia thought about it. <Claudia and Giovanni mentioned that the Candianos changed up their sachets…>
<The who?>
<The Candianos. One of the four merchant houses.> She pointed north. <See that big dome out there?>
<Like, the really, really, really big one?>
<Yes. That’s the Mountain of the Candianos. They used to be the most powerful merchant house in the world, until Tribuno Candiano went insane.>
<Oh yeah, you mentioned him. They locked him in a tower, right?>
<Supposedly. Anyways, Claudia said they changed their entire sachets up overnight, and no one does that unless something’s gone really wrong. It means chaos and confusion somewhere on the campo, and it’s easiest to steal things during chaos and confusion.> She sighed. <But it’d need to be something big to get us the cash we need.>
<Why not rob that Mountain place? It looks like it’s full of valuable stuff.>
She laughed lowly. <Yeah, no. No one—and I mean no one—has ever broken into the Mountain. You couldn’t break into that place even if you had the wand of Crasedes himself. I hear weird rumors about the Mountain—that it’s haunted or…well. Something worse.>
<So what are you going to do?>
<Figure it out. However I can.> She yawned, stretched out, and lay down on the flat stone roof. <We have a few hours until sunset. I’m going to rest until then.>
<What, you’re going to sleep on a stone roof?>
<Yeah? What’s wrong with that?>
Clef paused. <I get the sense, kid, that you’ve lived in some rough places.>
Sancia lay on the roof, staring up at the sky. She thought about Sark, about her apartment—which, as barren as it was, now seemed like a paradise to her.
<Talk to me, Clef,> she said.
<Huh? About what?>
<Anything. Anything besides what’s going on right now.>
<I see.> He thought about it. <Hmm. Well. There are thirty-seven scrivings currently active within a thousand-foot radius of us. Fourteen of those are interrelated, actively engaged with each other, feeding information or heat or energy back and forth.> His voice grew soft, and a singsong cadence crept into it. <I wish you could see them as I see them. The ones below us are dancing, in a way, seesawing back and forth ever so gently as one hands off heat into a giant block of dense stone, storing it deep in its bones, while another scriving scoops it up and spills the heat across a plate of glass beads, softening them, melting them, until they form a plate of clearest glass…There’s a scrived light on in a bedroom across the street from us. Its light is rosy and soft. Its scrivings stored up all this old candlelight and now they’re slowly letting it leak out a dribble at a time…The light is bouncing, very softly, something’s jostling it. I think a couple is making love on a nearby bed, perhaps…Imagine it—these people sharing their love in light that could be days, weeks, even years old…It’s like making love under starlight, isn’t it?>
Sancia listened to his voice, her eyelids growing heavy.
She was glad to have him here. He was a friend when she had none.
<I wish you could see them as I do, Sancia,> he whispered. <To me, they’re like stars in my mind…>
She slept.
* * *
Sancia did not dream anymore, after the operation. Yet sometimes when she slept her memories returned to her, like bones bubbling up from the depths of a tar pit.
There on the roof, Sancia slept, and remembered.
She remembered the hot sun of the plantations, the bite and slash of the sugarcane leaves. She remembered the taste of old bread and the swarms of stinging flies and the tiny, hard cots in the shoddy huts.
She remembered the smell of shit and urine, festering in an open pit mere yards from where they slept. The sound of whimpering and weeping at night. The panicked cries from the woods as the guards hauled away a woman, or sometimes a man, and did as they pleased with them.
And she remembered the house on the hill, behind the plantation house, where the fancy men from Tevanne had worked.
She remembered the wagon that had trundled away from the house on the hill every day at dusk. And she remembered how the flies had followed that wagon so closely, its contents hidden beneath a thick tarp.
It hadn’t taken long for everyone to realize what was happening. One night, a slave would simply vanish—the next day, the wagon would trundle away from the house on the hill, a horrid reek following it.
Some had whispered that the missing slaves had escaped, but everyone had known this was a lie. Everyone had understood what was happening. Everyone knew about the screams they heard from the house on the hill, always at midnight. Always, always, always at midnight, every night.
Yet they’d been voiceless and helpless. Though they’d outnumbered the Tevannis eight to one on the island, the Tevannis bore armaments of terrifying power. They’d seen what happened when a slave raised a hand against their master, and wanted no part of it.
One night she’d tried to run away. They’d caught her easily. And perhaps because she’d tried to run away, they’d decided that she would be next.
Sancia remembered how the house had smelled. Alcohol and preservatives and putrefaction.
She remembered the white marble table in the middle of the basement, its shackles for her wrists and ankles. The thin, metal plates on the walls, covered with strange symbols, and the bright, sharp screws paired with them.
And she remembered the man down in that basement, short and thin and one eye just a blank socket, and she remembered how he was always dabbing at his brow, wiping away sweat.
She remembered how he’d looked at her, and smiled, and wearily said, “Well. Let’s see if this one works, then.”
That had been the first scriver Sancia had ever met.
She often remembered these things when she slept. And whenever she did, two things happened.
The first was that the scar on the side of her head would ache as if it were not a scar, but a brand.
And the second was that she forced herself to remember the one memory that made her feel safe.
Sancia remembered how everything had burned.
* * *
It was dark when she awoke. The first thing she did was slip her fingers out of her glove and touch the roof of the foundry.
The roof lit up in her mind. She felt the smoke coiling across it, felt the rain puddling at the base of the stacks, felt her own body, tiny and insignificant, pressing against its huge, stone skin. But most important, she felt she was alone. No one up here but her and Clef.
She started moving. She stood up, yawned, and rubbed her eyes.
<Morning,> said Clef. <Or should I say good eveni—>
There was a sharp crack from somewhere in the distance. Then something slammed into her knees, hard.
Sancia toppled over, crying out in surprise. As she did, she looked down and saw a strange, silvery rope was looping around her shins like a snare. She dimly realized that someone out on the rooftops across from her had hurled or fired this rope at her—whatever it was.
She crashed onto the stone roof. <Damn!> said Clef. <We’ve been spotted!>
<No shit!> said Sancia. She tried to start crawling away, but found she couldn’t. The rope suddenly seemed impossibly heavy, as if it were not made of fibers but rather lead, and no matter how she heaved she could barely drag the coil of rope any farther than half an inch.
<It’s scrived to think it’s denser than it actually is!> said Clef. <The more someone tries to move it, the denser it gets!>
<So can we break i—>
She never finished, because then there was a second crack. She looked up in time to see a silvery rope hurtling toward her from a rooftop nearly a block away. It stretched out like someone opening their arms for an embrace before slamming into her chest, knocking her back onto the roof.
She started to heave at it, but stopped. <Wait. Clef, can I accidentally make it so dense that it could crush my chest?>
<It’s a loop, so it’ll distribute the force—somewhat. You could make it so dense that you fall through the roof, though.>
<Shit!> she said. She looked down at the cords—there seemed to be a locking mechanism on the side, awaiting a scrived key. <Do something! Unlock me!>
<I can’t! I’d have to be touching it!>
Sancia tried to pull him out of her shirt, but the second rope kept her arms tied fast to her body. <I can’t reach you!>
<What do we do, what do we do?>
Sancia stared up at the night sky. <I…I don’t…I don’t know.>
They waited there, looking up, the chants of the scrived ropes echoing in Sancia’s ears. Then, after a long while, she heard footsteps coming close. Heavy ones.
The bruised, scratched face of Captain Gregor Dandolo leaned overhead, a huge espringal on his back. He smiled politely. “Good evening again.”
* * *