Sophie shook her head. “Not a weapon. Weather.” She kept walking.
Mouth kept getting lost in this fake grid, and felt immobilized by lightsickness. But at last they came to the roofing plant, and the wire cage around George the Bank’s office.
“Mouth! Never thought I’d see your ugly face again.” George got out of his chair and opened some dark water. “How did you make it back here? And who’s that hiding behind you?”
“This is Sophie,” Mouth gestured. “A lot has happened. So, uh, I was hoping for some scratch. We left a lot of valuable gear with you when we had to leave town last time. Now I’m back for a while, and I want to get set up.” Speaking Xiosphanti again felt like the return of an old toothache. She had to bite her tongue to get the right verb constructions for George (manager) and herself (barbarian).
“Well, I almost feel like you owe me money, rather than the other way around,” George said. “You left me in a raw bitch of a situation when you skipped town. They were arresting anyone who might have shaken hands with you vagrants. But also, you’re trying to call in a favor that someone already used up. Your friend Alyssa made the exact same argument, and I gave her all that I could spare.”
“Alyssa came here? How long ago?”
You might as well have stuffed Mouth into a cannon and shot her over the city.
“I think it was four shutter-cycles ago.” George shrugged. “Eight Honesty after Pink.”
“I thought she was dead. I can’t believe she survived that fiasco.”
“She said the same thing about you. Like you’d gone into the night to die.”
“We all went into the night to die. Some of us were better at it than others.”
“Can’t tell you where she is now. Don’t know if you saw the rubble, but we had a cyclone. It swooped down, wrecked a couple city blocks, and then dispersed.” George sighed, even though this devastation was probably good for the roofing business. “And meanwhile, things in Xiosphant have gotten somewhat complicated, politically.”
“Have we ever had a conversation where you didn’t say that?”
George took another sip of dark water, and seemed to be debating whether it was worth throwing away some money just to get Mouth out of his office.
“Here.” He handed Mouth a wad of food dollars, infrastructure chits, and a few other types of cash. Mouth also found a big hat and a Xiosphanti poncho that would cover her scarred head and strange clothes—maybe the exact same items that Mouth had worn before. And Sophie picked up a lacy fringe to pin around her ankles.
“Consider this a retainer,” George said. “I might have a job for you pretty soon, so check back.”
Mouth started to thank him, but then saw the face at the center of one of the food dollars. Not the best likeness, but they’d captured the eyes pretty well. Hold the dollar one way, she seemed to gaze at Mouth like she believed that they would transform this town together. Look at the money from a higher angle, and she looked furious at Mouth’s betrayal. You could follow the entire course of their relationship, just by moving a dollar around.
Bianca.
“Our new vice regent,” George said. “I told you: complicated. Whole new government.”
Mouth showed the money to Sophie, who swayed like she might faint, or drop to her knees. Cloak moving up in the back, just a little. She stared into those eyes, and seemed to have a whole different dialogue with them than Mouth. Then Sophie looked up and saw George studying her too, trying to guess what this was about. She straightened up and cleansed all emotion from her face.
“I have to go see her,” Sophie said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.” Mouth gestured at George. “Like the man said, it’s complicated.”
“It’s Bianca.”
“Let’s just take this one step at a time. If I can find Alyssa, she can give us the—”
George looked out his window and cursed. “Hide. Hide now!” He gestured for Mouth and Sophie to get behind the row of filing cabinets, with the info crystals where Mouth had first learned about the Palace vault, with the Invention.
“So good to see you and your friends,” George was saying to a visitor. “Want some dark water?”
“George, this is not a social call, and I don’t appreciate seeing you drink during business time. The work is behind schedule.” It was a man’s voice, with a slight Argelan accent. Mouth took a moment to identify the speaker, whom she hadn’t heard speaking Xiosphanti before. “We don’t want to have to play rough.”
“Dash, don’t be like that. Your new Palace roof is going to be beautiful, made of wrought iron. People will wonder if you had it fabbed somehow.” Mouth had never heard George sound so upset, not even when she’d quoted a political slogan by accident. No, not upset. Terrified. George was terror-stricken. Mouth didn’t much care what happened to George, but this still made her nauseous. “I mean. We’re also overbooked, thanks to all the cyclone damage. And we’re doing this job for you guys for free.”
“You’re not doing it for free, George. You’re doing your patriotic duty. When you say things like that, I feel as though you don’t appreciate the honor we’re giving you.”
Sophie moved forward, to do something. Confront Dash? Punch him, the way she did Reynold that one time? Strangle him with her tentacles? Mouth got in her way and whispered, “Not now. Not here.” Sophie hunched down again.
“Of course, we’re honored,” George said. “Such an honor.”
The next thing Mouth heard was a loud crack, followed by George making a sound like a starving baby.
“So,” Dash said over George’s wailing. “The way I understand, your facility is just qualified to receive infrastructure chits. Am I right? Great. So the only way you can get other types of money is through private arrangements.” George let out a high gasp. Dash continued: “Y’know, I wonder if somebody should look into that. Make sure it’s all on the level.”
“If you were going to threaten me with a currency fraud investigation…” George panted. “Why did you have to break my leg?”
You could hear in Dash’s voice that he was flipping his hands. “I don’t know. Nostalgia, mostly. Or maybe homesickness. Plus, pain drives the message home.” His footsteps moved away, then stopped. “Oh, one more thing. I heard you had a visit from a mutual friend.”
“She—ahhh. Wanted my help. I didn’t.”
“Next time you meet an enemy of the state, tell me. Of course, Alyssa’s been handled. We built her a special dungeon under the Palace. So romantic, just like those storybooks I used to love. Okay, see you, George.”
Alyssa had never seemed so free as the last time Mouth had seen her, and now she was in some ironically “romantic” dungeon. Mouth found herself desperately wishing she was still able to inflict harm.
Mouth and Sophie waited until they were sure Dash was gone, then rushed out and tried to help set George’s broken leg. “Just go,” he hissed. “I’ll be fine. Clean break. Go. Never come back.”
So they took their money, including the food dollars with the haunting eyes, and left. Now, with Mouth’s big hat and Sophie’s hood, they both looked fully ridiculous.
“We have to rescue Bianca,” Sophie said when they got out on the street. “It’s obvious they’re holding her prisoner in the Palace. Using her as a figurehead while Dash and his goons run everything.”
“Keep your voice down.” Words that Mouth never expected to say to Sophie. “I don’t know what’s going on, and neither do you. But now we know where Alyssa is. I learned the hard way, breaking into that Palace is impossible, but I bet anything this new dungeon is a different matter. They probably built it adjacent to the sewers.”
Sophie stared at Mouth, maybe thinking that Mouth would rescue Alyssa and let Bianca rot, for selfish reasons. There was a nugget of truth to this.
“Just let me talk to Alyssa first,” Mouth said. “We need more information. Please just hang tight for now.”
Sophie started to argue, then just shrugged and said, “Okay. Go see your friend. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re not going to try and see Bianca?”
“No, of course not. Go do what you have to do.”
So Mouth left Sophie hiding in an air vent on a redbrick tower, and hoped for the best.
SOPHIE
Bianca has learned this way of flexing her wrist joint when she listens, and her eyes draw closer as her nose wrinkles. She perches on a wooden chaise with gold leaf, with a crimson gown hanging off one shoulder, and a tiny glass of some fluky green spirit sitting on a side table next to her. Dash is here, talking to her about the delays in finishing the new Palace roof, and she’s giving him an exasperated look.
“This is important. We need a stronger roof, before the next cyclone comes over the Young Father and just rips everything apart,” she says.