Alister's furnishings looked up-to-date, too, which fitted her evolving mental image of him. He'd decorate the way he lived, she thought, looking around. Always looking for something new. The only thing that didn't fit was the parlor's neatness. Alister's office had been a mess. But then, he hadn't had servants in Oporphyr Tower to pick up after him.
She leaned back in the leather chair by the fire and sighed, cradling the glass between her cold fingers. A long-case clock ticked by the door. Had Cristof taken care of it? Her eyes moved to the mantel. It was bare.
Maybe that's where the clock Cristof repaired would have sat.
The clock that had been destroyed along with the wireferry and its two passengers.
Suddenly restless, Taya stood and left the room, walking down the hall. More paintings hung along the walls. She stopped to study one that depicted two icarii in flight and remembered Alister's joke about skydancing. He'd pretended he'd never heard of it, but Cristof's story and this painting proved otherwise. Had he been taught by some icarus girl who'd been flattered by the attentions of a handsome young exalted? Had he flown with a mask over his face, or, surrounded by icarii, had he dared to take it off and hope that nobody on the ground would look up and see the waves on his cheeks?
Her anger at his lies was fading. She stepped back to look at the other paintings. They could have belonged to a complete stranger.
I didn't know him
, she thought with resignation.
I'm sorry he's gone, but I wonder if I would have liked him, once I'd figured out who he was?
Maybe not.
She turned, then started as she realized she was being watched. Cristof stood at the end of the hall, his pale eyes fixed on her. He'd taken off his greatcoat, and his dark suit blended in with the hall's shadows. Only his white cuffs and collar stood out.
"I got tired of sitting in the parlor."
"You look pensive."
"I was just looking at this painting." She gestured to the icarii. "The artist did a good job."
"You can have it, if you want."
"No! No, that's all right." She didn't want anything of Alister's in her little eyrie apartment. "I live with icarii. I don't need paintings of them on my walls."
"I didn't mean to leave you for so long. The staff had a lot of questions."
"What will happen to them now?"
"They can stay here until I decide what to do with the house." He walked forward. "Alister's office is upstairs. Are you done with your drink?"
"Yes." She followed him as several clocks began to toll, all at the same time. Five in the afternoon. "Did you take care of Alister's clocks?"
"Usually." He glanced back at her as he started up a flight of stairs. "Is your landlady going to fix hers?"
"I don't know."
"If she doesn't, you should buy an accurate clock for yourself."
"Clocks are too expensive for an icarus."
"I thought you earned a reasonable salary."
"I do all right, considering the Council takes care of my food and housing and provides me with a uniform and armature. But a clock would just be a luxury. There are plenty of public clocks I can look at, and the church bells, of course."
"Are you saving your money for something important?"
The question surprised her. It seemed intrusive, although she didn't have any reason not to answer. "Retirement, I guess. I don't know. I don't need much to be happy. Just a few friends, my wings, and the sky."
"That sounds like a good way to live."
"It is. Although seeing the way you exalteds live makes me feel a little deprived." She looked around. "My room is going to seem awfully bare when I go back to it."
"I have nothing for you to envy."
She remembered his spartan living quarters. "But you don't have to live like that. Don't you like paintings, or comfortable chairs, or nice furniture?"
"I live on Tertius. I don't want to attract thieves."
"So why not move to Secundus and be more comfortable? You told me you had money."
"Maybe I'm like an icarus. I don't need much to be happy."
"Are you? Happy?"
His shoulder twitched, and he turned as he reached the top of the stairs. Late afternoon light from one of the second-story windows ran in a bright bar across his face.
"I was happier before my brother died."
"I'm sorry." She touched his sleeve as she joined him. "I mean, are you satisfied with the way you live? Don't you ever feel left out, seeing all the things Alister and Viera own?"
"I chose to walk away from all that." Looking ill at ease, he disengaged his arm and pushed up his glasses. "Alister's office is the door behind you. I'm sure it's a mess."
She pushed open the door and gave a sad laugh, looking around. Cristof had guessed correctly. Alister incorporated his floor filing system at home as well as in the Tower. She picked her way inside, setting her wine glass on a bookshelf.
"I can't believe he got anything done like this."
"Somehow he managed." Cristof followed her inside, making his way to the desk. "I assume he learned how to read this mess the same way he learned how to read the holes on a punch card."
"He joked about it, the first time I met him."
"He joked about a lot of things." Cristof looked around, his expression unreadable. "I'll go through his desk. I think that the important part of this disarray will be in the glass-fronted cabinet over there, where he kept his programs. Why don't you start there?"
Taya nodded and squeezed around a pile of books to get to the cabinet. She reached for the door, then paused.
"Is the cabinet supposed to be locked?"
"Oh, of course. He kept his Council programs in there. Do you need me to pry it open?" Cristof started to reach for his pocket, then frowned. "I have a small repair kit in my coat downstairs. It has a screwdriver."
"No, the door's unlocked. That's why I asked." Taya pushed the doors aside, revealing shelves full of long, labeled boxes. Unlike the rest of his filing system, this one was obviously alphabetical. Three boxes were missing from the "C" section. Marks in the dust on the shelves indicated that they had been removed recently.
"There's a program missing. Clockwork Heart, I'll bet."
"What?" Cristof joined her. "Maybe his team took it. This might have been the copy they were running last night."
"How would they have gotten it?"
"I'll check with Mitta." They both stood shoulder-to-shoulder, reading the labels off the other boxes.
"Well, at least he didn't keep the Labyrinth program in here," Taya said.
"He wouldn't be that careless." Cristof closed the cabinet door and glanced at the lock. "It wasn't forced." He shrugged. "Either he took it or his team did. Maybe he was still tinkering with it down at the lab, since it was coming up for vote in Council."
They continued the search, each settling down with a separate stack of papers. Several times Taya looked up to catch Cristof staring at nothing, his thin face tight and miserable. She didn't say anything, and after a few minutes he always started working again, rubbing his eyes.
The sight depressed her. For brief moments at a time she could forget about the deaths, but their memory always returned, casting a pall over everything. Even though his irascibility exasperated her, she had to respect the way Cristof kept pushing forward. It would have been easier for him to just give up and grieve.
Work's therapeutic.
If only he weren't so stubborn about hiding his feelings.
She sighed.
"What's wrong?" Cristof turned, his face almost invisible in the shadows that stretched across the room. Taya realized she'd been straining to see the papers in front of her for the last ten minutes or so. The sun had set below the mountains.