Even from this distance, Mouth could hear Derek’s hectoring voice from inside the paint factory, though she couldn’t make out any words. Then an exchange of gunfire. What if Mouth just ran toward the Palace right now and slipped inside while everyone in a uniform was distracted? The Xiosphanti authorities would grow exponentially dumber as the crisis grew out of control. She could still do this.
No way Mouth could leave without the Invention. She could see herself pulling it off a shelf inside that vault, hoisting it, tucking it under one arm. The Invention would make sense of everything, justify all the walls of shit.
Just as Mouth was getting up the nerve to run headlong into the temperate zone, she heard a noise that was so loud it had no other characteristics besides loudness. She lost her balance and crashed halfway out the window. Then Mouth saw a coil of smoke rising up from a few blocks away: Derek’s bombs had gone off early.
As the police stormed the disused paint factory where the Uprising had holed up, the sound of gunfire became more continuous and drowned any further shouts. Someone turned and saw Mouth looking down at them. A bullet caromed off the wall nearby, and Mouth turned and ran back the way she’d come.
A tower of smoke still undulated, a deeper ash gray against the night sky. Mouth heard Derek’s voice one last time, some shout of defiance that ended midsyllable with another chorus of gunshots that descanted on the ones closer at hand.
This was not going to work out.
Mouth heard voices from the stairway. Cops, coming up to search this building. Mouth shrank against the wall, staying low, until they reached her, and then she stabbed one in the leg with her longest knife and elbowed the other in the neck. They both went down, and Mouth helped herself to the nightstick that the one with the leg injury was carrying. She left both cops unconscious but alive, and then a third officer came up the stairs. Mouth swung the nightstick, and the officer ducked, leaving herself open to the knife in Mouth’s other hand. Mouth stabbed the cop’s thigh and arm in quick succession, trying to avoid any arteries, and then drove the woman’s head into the wall.
The musty smell of blood unsettled Mouth’s stomach, already queasy from paint fumes, and she missed a stair. This staircase was arranged in a spiral, around a central pillar, because everything had to be circular in this stupid town. Mouth slid down the stairs on one leg, around the next curve, and spotted the two cops coming up the stairs before they saw her. She left them in a heap, leaning against the inside of the stairwell.
By the time Mouth reached the street, she had other people’s blood all over her. Her whole body ached from the exertion, but also from the draining away of her righteous purpose. She kept trying to tamp down the awareness that she’d blown it, the Palace job had ended before it even started, those smug bastards still had custody of Mouth’s heritage. She should just let the police take her, because where could she go now? She took a breath as she pushed through the building’s front door and forced herself to keep walking.
When the rattling came from beneath her and around her, Mouth mistook it for another weapon. Then she stuck her head out and saw the metal sheaths coming off all the nearby windows. She muttered a quick thanks to the Elementals, and then lost herself in the swarm of people in coveralls and neat suits who had erupted into the streets, on their way to work.
Nothing stopped the Xiosphanti rank and file from keeping the gears revolving, not even a citywide emergency. Mouth couldn’t help thinking of those sculptures on the side of the building, with their bulging red eyes and slanted grins. She pulled out that stupid Xiosphanti hat, squished it down onto her head, and stayed low inside a group of farmwheel bureaucrats as they pushed past the police cordons.
* * *
The Low Road sat empty, except for a few cups and plates, and the dust caught in the light from the big front window. No sign of the Resourceful Couriers. Mouth went about searching for clues, but just then Alyssa came up from the cellar, with her backpack and Mouth’s. “There you are,” she said. “The other Couriers left already. Things got too hot around here.”
“You should have gone with them,” Mouth grunted and took her backpack from Alyssa.
“If I had, we might have left town without you. And I couldn’t just leave you. I promised.” She looked closer. “Oh shit, you’re covered with blood.”
“Not mine.”
Mouth let her backpack fall long enough to fold her arms around Alyssa, who leaned against her bloody torso. She felt warm, and her cheek was soft against Mouth’s shoulder. But her body was tense.
“I should have let Omar stop you. I was sure you must be dead. Shit, I thought we were dead, a few times. They’ve been dragging people in the streets for even looking unusual, let alone foreign.”
“This town knows how to throw a party,” Mouth said.
Alyssa didn’t laugh. When Mouth pulled away, Alyssa had a wan expression, like when she’d said she was ready to retire from smuggling.
“So, did you get it? Your artifact from the Palace vault?”
“No. Didn’t even get close.” Just saying this aloud gave Mouth a barbed knot inside her chest. “They probably have a hundred items that they plundered from other cultures sitting inside that vault, and nobody even bothers to look at any of it.”
“I’m sorry.” Then Alyssa looked over her shoulder. “We’d better join the others.”
Xiosphant felt like a whole different city. Everywhere Mouth looked, police lorries blocked every major intersection, and people blurted instructions into megaphones until all their voices merged into a shrill din. The air tasted different: cordite, static electricity, and the tang of pepper spray instead of the usual starchy turpentine fug.
The sky had already flashed blue and red, and a few chimes had rung by the time they managed to reach the Illyrian Parlour, where the other Resourceful Couriers were fidgeting.
The marmot, Cyrus, had curled up on a plump cushion in the corner and was squinting at all of these intruders, flexing his snout.
“There she is.” Omar was on his feet, coming toward them. “Time for an explanation. First you start spouting political slogans, and then this whole town loses what little mind it ever had. We damn near got skinned alive out there. What have you been playing at? I’m still tempted to leave you behind.”
Mouth hadn’t managed to think of a good lie. “Uh … I didn’t get involved in politics. I swear. It wasn’t that. It’s just … You know how I was raised by nomads?”
“You only mention that fact every time I see you,” Omar said.
“Well, they’re all dead. Nothing left of them. Nothing to show that we were ever here, except for me, and you might have noticed I’m not looking too durable. But I got wind that there was … an artifact locked inside the Palace vault. The last surviving trace of the Citizens. I wanted to try and snag it. And it went kind of bad.”
Omar was already rolling his big brown eyes, like he didn’t have time for this idiocy. Which was a good sign. “Just promise me this was a one-time foul.”
“I promise,” Mouth said. “I had to try. I failed. If I live long enough, I’ll put this behind me.”
Omar shrugged, and was about to say something else, like driving home the message that Mouth was on probation now, or this could never happen again. But just then, the proprietor emerged from some inner room with cups of spiced coffee, leaves floating on top. Hernan was wearing a plain dark suit instead of the silk brocade he had last time.
“So, I trust we have a deal.” Hernan handed the coffees around, with a little smile. “I show you another route out of town, a disused mining track big enough for you and your vehicle. And you bring along one of my employees, who’s drawn some undue attention from the local law enforcement. Plus her friend.”
“Sure,” Omar said. “If they can pull their weight. Then yes.”
Hernan gestured, and two girls stepped forward out of the back room. One was Bianca, who glared at Mouth, as if Mouth could somehow be to blame for everything falling apart. Eyes like broken weapons, shoulders sagging under the weight of her big rucksack. Mouth tried to say something, but she wouldn’t reply.
The other girl Hernan ushered forward was the mute, the one who’d followed Mouth around. She looked at Mouth as if she was seeing pure evil for the first time ever.
Mouth looked at Alyssa, who just shrugged, as if reminding her that she was lucky to be here at all.
Hernan was talking about the two girls, both of whom looked about the same age as Yulya, and he mentioned the name Sophie. Mouth looked at the mute girl again and realized: this was Bianca’s dead friend, except not so dead. Bianca had said this girl was some kind of saint, with both a pure heart and a brilliant mind. But that perfect dead girl was standing here, watching Mouth with the worst expression anyone had ever aimed at her.