Taya's leg hurt too much for her to muster a smile, but she gripped his hand briefly, reassuringly.
"I know. But I'll be all right, and it'll be faster." She glanced over his shoulder at Alister. "You know, before all this, he kept pestering me to bring him a pair of wings. I bet if I had, he would have kept them and gotten up here a lot faster after the accident."
Cristof nodded and straightened, walking around her to begin working on the wings again. Each bent feather he removed was bundled with his broken armature, the whole thing kept from floating away by the safety line tied to his harness.
"What happened when you fell?" she asked, after a moment. "I was afraid you were going to float to the bottom of the mountain."
"I hit a crosswire and hung on for dear life."
Her lips curved at his sour, self-deprecating tone. It seemed like something reassuringly familiar in this whole bizarre situation.
"Then what happened?"
"I sat there and panicked for a while. It seems I do panic, under the right circumstances. Then I screwed up enough courage to start moving. I was closer to the Engine than to the walls, so that's the way I went. I was hoping to find a platform, but there wasn't anything there. I could see one above me, though, and the Engine didn't look too hard to climb, so that's what I did. All that ondium you put into my suit helped. When I got to the next catwalk, I bundled up my wings and began unscrewing every counterweight attached to the catwalk floor that I could find. At first I thought I could make myself light enough to float back up to you and Alister, but then I realized that if I did that, I wouldn't be able to control my ascent, so I just counterweighted myself enough for an easy climb."
"That was smart," Taya said, looking over her shoulder. Her strained muscles twinged, and she winced and rolled her shoulders, looking forward once more.
"I have moments of lucidity," he said, dryly. "When I'm not falling to my death."
"I wanted to go after you, but Alister wouldn't let me."
"I know."
"I feel bad about it. You came after me when you heard shooting."
"That was not one of my moments of lucidity."
She laughed, remembering his awkward plummet.
"It was brave, Cristof. It was really brave."
He made an impatient sound and stepped back. "All right, I think we're done. Unless the mechanism itself took damage, you should be able to fly in that."
Taya lifted a hand, and Cristof helped her to her feet. She stood, favoring her injured leg, and brushed his blood-smeared face. She wanted to kiss him again, but not here, not with Alister so close. Instead she looked into his eyes, hoping he could read her impulse. "Thank you."
He shrugged, looking down at his suit and pulling open a pocket. "We'd better give you more counterweight. It'll make walking up the stairs easier, and I need to be heavier so Alister can't throw me around."
"You don't really think he'll fight you when I'm gone, do you?" Taya took the metal bars from him and began sliding them into her suit pockets and harness slots.
"He might, but—"
"Ready to fly?" Alister interrupted, striding back. He picked up his discarded robes, looking unperturbed by the missing fabric, and slid them over his shoulders. "I still think this is unwise, Cris."
Cristof waited until Taya signaled that she was light enough, then turned to his brother. "You have less faith in Taya than I do."
"Maybe I just care more."
"Are you going to be all right with him?" Taya asked, looking from one to the other.
"If you leave, there will be nobody to stop me from killing him and calling you a traitor," Alister warned her.
"He's not going to kill me, Taya. Go."
Taya delayed another moment, but she knew she had no choice. She had to trust that Cristof knew what he was doing, just as he trusted her. Pushing back her misgivings, she limped to the edge of the gear. Alister started to move toward her, but Cristof stepped between them, his utility knife in his hand.
Giving them one last look, Taya slid her arms into her wings and tested them. Everything opened and closed correctly. She crouched, flinching with pain, and kicked off.
Strained muscles and her wounded leg made her flight awkward and slow. She caught thermals and glided as often as she could. She was worried about what Alister and Cristof were doing, but she didn't dare push herself into a faster flight.
She had almost reached the top of the Engine Room when she saw two other icarii sweeping back and forth across the face of the Engine.
She tilted her wings to acknowledge them and made an effort to fly up to the topmost catwalk. There she let herself collide with the rail, sliding one arm loose to grab it and clamber over. She fell to the floor, whimpering. Tears of pain streaked her face and she shrugged out of her wings to wipe them away.
The two icarii landed next to her, locking their wings and pulling off their flight goggles.
"What the hell are you doing?" Pyke demanded.
"The lictors are looking for you," Cassi added, looking worried.
Taya sat on the catwalk, her back to the wall, and watched as lictors and icarii worked around her. After she'd told them what had happened, Pyke had flown down to stand guard over the two exalteds and Cassi had gone back upstairs to get help. Now Taya was under arrest, although other than confiscating her wings and making sure she wasn't going to die of blood loss, the lictors were ignoring her.
Being ignored gave her time to think, and her thoughts were haunted by the lictor she'd kicked over the railing. William.
She'd killed an innocent man. No matter how often she reminded herself that it was an accident and that he would have shot Cristof if she hadn't, she couldn't make it feel right. She'd killed a man, and Cristof had killed another, and the thought made her stomach churn.
Within an hour both exalteds were brought back up in rescue harnesses and the lictors’ bodies were retrieved. Alister had drawn his ivory mask back over his face and was exercising his exalted's right to remain mute in public. Cristof had shown the lictors his identification papers and insisted a physician be called to tend to Taya's wound. He'd paused long enough to grab her hand and squeeze it before the lictors had hustled him off. As always, his hands had been cold.
The lictors took them all back to the Tower and put them in separate rooms. Taya gave her statement while a physician cleaned her wound and called for a pair of crutches. The questioning took a long time, and then Lt. Janos Amcathra walked in and she had to tell the whole story over again, searching his impassive Demican face for some sign that he believed her.
Several more hours passed. At last she was allowed to leave, given her wings and escorted by military icarii back to the lictor station on Primus. This time she didn't have to wait in a cell; she sat in a room and read a copy of her statement, then signed it. After a warning that she was grounded until further notice, she was released, wingless.
Cassi and Pyke were waiting for her outside the station.
"We found your note pretty much just as the warning was going out that there'd been an unauthorized flight," Cassi explained, as they walked down the street. "By the time we got to the launch docks, it was complete chaos. The lictors had heard about the flight and were telling us there was a suspected terrorist loose, and someone pointed out that your armature was missing, and there was a huge argument over whether or not you were a terrorist or if you'd just been kidnapped by one."