“Maybe instead of paying us,” said Claudia, “you can pay for our passage out of here.”
“We can’t abandon Sancia and Gregor!” said Berenice. “We can’t leave the imperiat in Tomas Ziani’s hands! A man like that…Think of the damage he could do!”
“I am thinking of that,” said Orso. “I can’t stop thinking about it! That’s why I want to get the hell out of here! And as for Sancia and Gregor…”
Berenice stopped and glared at him. “Yes?”
Orso grimaced. “They made their choice. They knew the risks. We all did. Some wind up lucky, and others don’t. We’re survivors of all this, Berenice. The wisest thing to do is just keep surviving.”
She heaved a great sigh. “To think of us hopping aboard a ship and sneaking away in the dead of night…”
“What else are we supposed to do?” said Orso. “We’re just some scrivers, girl! We can’t design our way out of this! The idea is preposterous! Anyways, Sancia and Gregor are smart people, maybe they can find their own way ou—”
They froze as they heard the stone door roll away in the crypt passage beyond. This was troubling—because only Gio had the key, and that was currently sitting in his pocket.
They looked at one another, alarmed. Orso held a finger to his lips. He stood, grabbed a wrench, and gingerly approached the opening of the passageway. He paused—he could hear slow footsteps approaching.
He swallowed, took a breath, and screamed and leapt in front of the passageway, wrench raised over his head.
He skidded to a stop. Standing before him, grim and stone-faced, was a wet, filthy, bloody Sancia Grado.
“Holy hell,” said Orso.
“Sancia!” cried Berenice. She ran to her, but stopped a few feet away. “My…my God. What happened to you?”
Sancia had not yet seemed to notice either of them—she was just staring into the middle distance. But at these words, she slowly blinked and looked at Berenice, meeting her eyes. “What?” she said faintly.
They stared at her. She had a slash on her head, cuts on her forearms, a bruise on her cheek, and crusts of dried blood all over her face and neck…but the worst part about her was her eyes. One eye remained the same, the usual white with dark brown, but the other eye, her right, was flooded with red. It was like she’d received some fierce blow to the side of her head, one that had almost killed her.
Sancia exhaled, then said in a croaking voice, “What a lovely sight you are, Berenice.”
Berenice blushed hugely, turning bright crimson.
“What the hell happened?” demanded Orso. “Where have you been?” He looked at the open door to the crypt. “And how the hell did you get in?”
“I need to sit down,” said Sancia softly. “And I need a drink.”
Berenice helped her into a chair while Gio opened a bottle of cane wine. “Don’t bother with a glass,” whispered Sancia. He popped it open, handed it over to her, and she took a huge swig.
“You look, my girl,” Gio said, “like the shepherd who climbed the mount and saw God’s face in the skies.”
“You’re…not quite wrong there,” she said darkly.
“What happened to you, Sancia?” asked Orso. “What did you see?”
She started talking.
* * *
At some point, the words just ran out. A long, long silence stretched on. And while Berenice, Gio, and Claudia looked pale and shaken, Orso looked like he was about to vomit.
He carefully cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “A…hierophant.”
“Yeah,” said Sancia.
He nodded, trembling. “Estelle Candiano,” he said. “Formerly Ziani…”
“Yes,” said Sancia.
“Was, in some way, behind all of this from the start…”
“Yeah.”
“And now she has murdered her husband…”
“Yeah.”
“And she now intends to become…one of the ancient ones.” Orso spoke like saying the words aloud would make them make more sense.
“I guess it wouldn’t be that ancient if she’s doing it right now,” said Sancia. “But yeah. That’s the sum of it.” She bowed her head. “And Gregor…I think Gregor’s dead. And she has Clef. She has everything. Clef, the imperiat, the box with the voice in it…Everything.”
Orso blinked and stared into a wall. Then he held out a hand and whispered, “Give me that scrumming bottle.”
Sancia handed it over. He took a huge pull from it. Then, legs quaking, he sat down on the floor. “I didn’t think Tribuno would have made those designs,” he said softly. “I suppose I was…right?”
“My question is…can she do it?” said Claudia. “Let’s say she becomes a hierophant. All I’ve heard of them are children’s stories. I thought they were scrumming giants! What do we actually know about what they could do?”
Sancia remembered the vision of Clef’s she’d seen: the thing wrapped in black, standing on the dunes. “They were goddamn monsters,” she rasped. “They were devils. That thing in the box told me as much—they waged a war that turned the land to ash and sand. One could do the same here.”
“Right,” said Orso, shivering. “So. I…I think my first plan is looking pretty good right now. We find a boat. We get on that boat. We take the boat far across the ocean. And then we, I don’t know, keep living for a while. How does that sound?”
“You weren’t listening,” said Sancia lowly. “I told you. She said she wants to become Company Candiano.”
“And what’s the significance of that?” cried Orso. “It’s not like that stands out from the sea of other crazy shit you’ve been saying for the past half hour!”
“Think. I told you—that machine, the voice in the box…”
“This Valeria you spoke to,” said Orso.
“Right.”
Sancia hesitated. This part of her story, she knew, was the most inexplicable, and the most disturbing. “You…you believe me about that, right?” she asked. “About what she said, what she did to me? I know it all sounds insane…”
Orso was still for a long time, thinking. “I have some…ideas about that. But I do believe. Please continue.”
“Okay. So. Valeria told me that the way the hierophants did their ritual,” said Sancia, “you first mark the body holding the spirit, then mark what you wish to transfer it into.”
“I must admit,” said Gio, “that in the course of our projects, it’s grown pretty hard to discern one bit of mystical shit from another.”
“Gio’s right,” said Claudia. “Please clarify how that matters.”
“Remember—right as I took the job for Clef, Candiano Company changed up their sachets, yes?” said Sancia.
“Yeah,” said Gio. “We had to make whole new ones for half the prostitutes in Tevanne.”
“Right. It was a big shift. Nobody knew why it got changed. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. But now, after hearing what she said…I’m thinking that those new sachets are more than just sachets.”
Berenice’s mouth dropped open in horror. “You think the sachets…the little buttons being carried by every single Candiano employee…”
Sancia nodded grimly. “Estelle either issued them, or tampered with them when they went out. I think they double as the markers the hierophants used.”
“Then…then when Estelle starts the ritual,” said Orso, “all the people carrying those sachets with the markers…”
“They all die,” said Sancia. “Maybe a few who set their sachets aside get lucky, but, for all intents and purposes, the whole of Company Candiano dies. All of their minds and souls get invested in Estelle. Who then becomes a hierophant.” She looked at Orso. “We leave and let Estelle do her thing, and all your old coworkers, and all the other thousand some–odd people who work at Company Candiano, even the damned maids, all die a horrible, horrible death.”
For a moment they all just sat there.
“So,” said Sancia. “Yeah. We have to stop her. The voice in the box—Valeria—said she could edit all their tools so they wouldn’t work anymore. But to do that, we need Clef. Which Estelle has. After…after she killed Gregor.” She shook her head. “So. Sorry, Orso. But it seems like we’re going to have to figure out a way to kill your old girlfriend. And we’ve got until midnight to do it.”
Orso and Berenice looked horrified. “Assassinate Estelle Candiano?” said Orso faintly. “On the Candiano campo?”
“I’ve gotten in there before,” said Sancia. “I can do it again.”
“Doing it once,” said Berenice, “actually makes it harder. They’ve got the gates closed, and they know we came in through the canals. All the easy routes will be eliminated. They’ll be ready.”
“But I’m not just a thief anymore,” whispered Sancia, staring into space. “I can do a hell of a lot more than I used to.” She looked around the crypt, her eyes unfocused, like she was seeing many invisible things. “And I think soon I’ll learn how to do a whole lot more…”
“You might be changed,” said Orso. “And you might have escaped Estelle. But you can’t do much against a couple of cohorts of soldiers shooting at you, Sancia. One person, no matter how augmented, can’t fight an army.”