Ramp seemed tense. Tara liked that.
“Give them to me.”
The deal, calligraphed in Tara’s own hand, signed in Altemoc’s blood, floated past hovering gargoyles, to the bench. The Judge cleared her throat, produced reading glasses from her breast pocket, donned them, and scanned the deal.
“Speaking of irregular, Ms. Abernathy.”
“I understand your hesitation, Your Honor, but I assure you the document’s legitimate.”
“No payment involved?”
“Altemoc’s Concern has an unorthodox structure, Your Honor. They do not seek repayment from the direct beneficiaries of their dispensations.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, really, but the fact remains: that document represents a transfer of assets from the Two Serpents Group to the Church of Seril Undying.”
“Very well,” the Judge said, and a spring unwound between Tara’s shoulder blades. “Ms. Abernathy, how are you supporting yourself outside the circle? You aren’t strong enough to fight Alt Coulumb’s interdict by yourself.”
She allowed herself a smile. “That brings us the next matter I wanted to discuss. Your Honor, Ms. Mains, dear guests”—that last addressed to the skyspires arrayed around them—“I’m afraid you are all trespassing.”
*
The fight’s pause let Daphne-under-shells think again, let her reclaim her mind from the machine. She felt a sudden tension when Tara spoke, the grinding of ill-meshed gears, the music of a dying engine.
The Judge frowned. “Go on.”
“Your Honor,” Tara said, “those assets represent airspace rights over Alt Coulumb, which have been the subject of tangled courtroom challenges for fifty years. You see, the sky above Alt Coulumb belongs to Seril. Kos claimed it after She died, but the King in Red of Dresediel Lex registered a competing claim based on salvage rights from Seril’s presumed corpse. With this transfer, that salvage claim has been formally relinquished; the King in Red’s airspace rights devolve to Seril. And now”—and the grin Daphne knew Tara thought she was hiding grew wider—“now Kos has dropped his competing claim.”
Lightning stripped and squared the circle. Thunder rolled.
“Your Honor, Seril Undying owns these skies, and She doesn’t care for your presence here—or the spires’ either.” Light trailed Tara’s finger as she gestured toward the crystal towers.
“Are you threatening the court, Ms. Abernathy?” The Judge’s voice was the voice of ages.
“Not at all. In fact, I believe the Lady is offering these spires’ owners, and the court itself, temporary tenancy agreements as we speak. Some might call the rent She’s demanding extortionate, but wait until we put this space on the open market. Trust me: the Alt Coulumb real estate market is absurd, and my client now holds rights to several hundred cubic miles of fresh territory. Ms. Ramp. Ms. Mains.” The moon pulsed with rage. The bonds that held the gargoyles shattered; their stone healed. Their eyes were bonfires within gems. The Blacksuits in midair unfroze, and the healed hosts of Justice assembled in arrays. The cop slipped from Daphne’s claws as if she were made of light. “If you’d like to continue your assault on my client, feel free. She’s feeling a bit more battle ready at the moment.”
What answer could Daphne give, or the machine outside her? The court itself acknowledged Seril’s rights to the sky. Easier to move the world without a lever than fight the court from within.
Tara had won.
But Daphne heard slow applause and recognized Ramp’s voice.
“Neatly done, Ms. Abernathy. But would you please refrain from declaring premature victory? It’s a bad habit.”
The machine in Daphne moved again.
*
Tara was caught by surprise. So was the Judge. The monster with Daphne’s face pointed, and lightning leapt from her to the paper that bore Tara’s seal, and Altemoc’s.
The document smoked—the bond of ownership unraveling as Daphne attacked the contract, the ownership trail of Seril’s sky. After decades of Craftwork wrangling, how could Kos renounce his claim?
Tara blocked, reinforcing the deal with Kos’s own testimony, with moonlit records in city stone, with the organic glyphs of Alt Coulumb’s streets: the God’s claim assumed His Lady’s death, but She was very much alive. His certainty stood as a wall against Daphne’s spears.
The spears became vines, became water, became worms that wriggled into Tara’s mind. Perhaps the spirit who called herself Seril was not the same as the Goddess who died?