Exalted Murder/Suicide Cover-Up?
She started to read the article when the shop burst into clamorous noise. Taya shrieked, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The clocks were chiming the hour.
Lady! She folded the article and jammed the bundle back where she'd found it. She'd lost track of time, and she had nothing to show for her search except a list of suspicious books, an inconclusive map, and some sad family secrets.
She wrapped her borrowed cloak around her and hurried back through the shop, cracking the door open to slip through.
The edge of the door hit Cristof in the face. He swore and recoiled, one hand over his nose.
"Oh." Taya stared at him, shocked.
"You!" He drew his hand away from his nose and looked at it. Blood ran over his fingertips. "Did you do this?" He pointed a crimson-stained finger at the jimmy marks in his door frame.
"No. I found the door that way, so I walked in," Taya lied, her heart pounding. "I didn't see you inside, so I was just leaving—"
"Give me your knife."
"What?"
He wiped a fresh trickle of blood from under his nose and held out his stained hand.
"Give me your knife. The one on your harness."
"Why?" She stepped back, alarmed.
"Because I'm going to match the blade to these marks," he said, glaring at her. "And if they look alike, I'm going to call the lictors and have you arrested for breaking and entering."
"Don't be ridiculous." She drew herself up. "I walked in to see if you were all right! Someone might have left you hurt, or tied up."
"Did you leave me any presents?"
"Presents?" Taya was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. The kinds of presents that start fires," he growled. "Or maybe just a mutilated punch card."
"Punch card? If there are any mutilated punch cards in here, they're yours!" she snapped, flushing. "Maybe the lictors will find them tucked inside all your books about explosives and poison!"
"You did break in!" Cristof crowed, triumphantly.
"I—"
A low, distant boom made both of them stop and look up.
An orange glow burned briefly on the side of the mountain far above them, just visible through the sooty haze in the air.
"Lady help us." Cristof sounded shaken, his face still turned upward. "What have you done?"
"My wings." Taya turned and ran, swearing at herself for leaving her wings behind while she was on duty.
Two minutes later, wailing sirens began to sound across the city, calling an emergency. Taya ran faster, pushing and shoving past the gawkers who stood in the streets and lined the bridges, staring up the mountain.
Jayce was standing in front of his shop when she reached Secundus. Taya dashed past him and grabbed her wings, dragging them outside. She stripped off the cloak and left it on the sooty cobblestones.
"What happened?" she asked, thrusting her arms through the armature and grabbing straps and buckles. Icarii were already circling overhead, summoned by the sirens to offer emergency assistance.
"I don't know. I heard an explosion. People are saying it's another wireferry."
"On Primus?"
"Higher, I think." Jayce squinted. "I think it's the ferry to Oporphyr Tower."
"Oh, no." Taya closed the keel over her chest and yanked its buckles tight. "Oh, Lady, no. Not another one. Where are the stairs to the roof?"
"Around back." Jayce kept staring up the mountain.
Taya folded her wings and pounded up the stairs, throwing herself off the roof and into the wind with furious abandon.
The diispira nearly swept her into a neighboring building, but a few strong beats of her wings raised her above the roofs and chimneys of Secundus. She kicked down her tailset and swept herself aloft as soon as she could, shooting up between towers and wires with reckless speed, heading toward the wreckage that grew more horrific as she drew closer.
Signalers were already standing on the towers on Primus, wind whipping their hair and clothes around them as their semaphores instructed the icarii about their approach pattern and civic duties.
Wireferry down. Search and rescue. Damage report. Maintenance escort.
Taya tilted and flew toward the other silver-winged searchers who circled the cliffs and rocks that jutted between Yeovil's peak and the top level of Primus. Up on the tower, response flags flapped in the strong winds, confirming the message below.
Wireferry down. Passengers aboard.
She swooped and turned, following the broken line.
Wires hung limp against the cliff, swaying in the wind. Two wireferry towers were bent. The cliff face had been blackened by the explosion. Wreckage was strewn across the rocks.
Taya felt sick, dropping closer to the ground. One of other icarii wing-signaled to her. Cassi.
They teamed up and fell into a criss-cross search pattern. Around them other icarii were doing the same, while another team soared around the damaged ferry tower, then swooped back to report its findings to the workers below. Down on the icarus docks, training wings were being prepared to lift signalers and engineers to the damaged parts of the wireferry. Other icarii would start evacuating the Tower. With the wireferry broken, the only way up or down the peak was going to be by wing.
A shrill whistle announced a find.
The air above the mountainside was a silver, swirling mass of icarii. Taya joined the circle, swooping low enough to confirm the find, then flying back out, sickened.
There wasn't much left of the wireferry car.
She let herself soar upward on a thermal, closing her eyes as soon as she cleared the active airspace.
That could have been Viera and Ariq.
It might still be. She gasped and opened her eyes, searching for the tower's signal flags. They were moving, being reeled around for update.
Two passengers.
She circled, joined by three, then six, other icarii, waiting. The flags kept jerking as more were added. Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the house sigils being strung along the line.
Octavus. Forlore.
Taya screamed, tilting her wings down and then folding them close to her body for the long dive to Primus.
Lictors shouted and scrambled out of the way as Taya threw out her wings at the last minute, back-beating dangerously close to estate walls as she dropped onto the wide cobbled street and skidded to a stop. The plaza had been turned into a makeshift operations headquarters, filled with rescue and repair equipment being hauled up by wagons and wireferries. Engineers were poring over a large schematic of the Tower wireferry line, trying to keep the map from flying away in the gusting winds, and signalers were decoding the messages from above, relaying the news to lictors and laborers. Gawkers were held to the side by a line of soldiers running cords across the street.
"What is it?" a lictor demanded, approaching as she locked her wings high. "Another body?"
"I know who set the bomb," she said, shaking with fury. "I know who killed them. Cristof Forlore, Alister's brother. He did it!"
"The exalted?" The lictor stopped, his face registering confusion. "That's impossible."
"It's not impossible! He killed Pins and Alister found out so he killed his brother to keep from being caught!"
"Exalted Forlore is right there," the lictor said, staring at her as if she'd gone mad. He pointed.
Taya spun, her heart leaping for one brief moment as she thought he meant the other Forlore, but it was Cristof who stared at her across the crowd of lictors and workers. For a moment shock emptied his narrow face of expression, and then it twisted with rage. He shouldered past the lictor who was talking to him, striding toward her.