Thessa took herself to a corner of the shop and grabbed the top one from her stack of books. Taming Nature: The Future of Modern Architecture. It was the book on lightning rods. She flipped it open, half expecting to return it before she left the shop.
The very first page was a technical blueprint of a lightning rod and an explanation for how it worked. It was not, the author claimed, her intention to get rich from her new invention. It was her intent to better civilization. Thessa stared at the device. It was so … simple. A crown, and a thick cable, and a grounding rod. The device was meant to intercept lightning that would otherwise strike the top of a building, and direct it through the cable and harmlessly into the ground.
Thessa’s mouth hung open. She’d witnessed a lightning strike once, when she was a girl. It had blown the entire steeple and a whole wall off a church and set fire to four surrounding buildings. All that power. Could it really be harnessed so simply? It was a thought that begat another: Could she harness it? She borrowed a pencil from the clerk and scribbled in the margins, going so far as to balance on one leg and press the book against her thigh as she drew a diagram.
The next time she checked her pocket watch, nearly a half hour had passed. She was late to meet her driver. She shook her thoughts clear, putting them in order for when she returned to the hotel, then thanked the clerk. She had a promising thread working its way through the back of her head now. Her mind raced at the possibilities – the simple elegance – the madness – of directing lightning through the center of her phoenix channel.
She was nearly to the end of the boardwalk, the crowds thinning out, when she felt someone grab her arm. “Ow! What the pissing–”
“Keep walking. If you scream, I stab.”
Thessa inhaled sharply, looking down to see a knife held in her assailant’s hand, pressed gently against her side just above her hip. Visions of newspaper articles about murdered siliceers floated across her thoughts, and the idea of being slit from crotch to throat almost did cause her to scream. Before she had a chance, however, he directed her sharply into an alley.
“What do you want?” she demanded, trying to get a good look at his face. He was a young man – no one she recognized – wearing a laborer’s tunic and boots. Probably no more than a common thief. “Is it money? Take it.”
“Not from you I don’t,” he said, continuing to prod her along. They took another turn and Thessa realized to her horror that they were quite alone. The street was close by, and people would hear if she screamed, but nobody could see what was going on in this little alley. Her confidence in the safety of the Lampshade Boardwalk was shattered.
She turned to face him, leaping away, trying to wrench her arm from his grasp.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said, tightening his grip. He waved the knife underneath her nose until she stopped struggling. She focused on the blade, wondering if her stack of books was heavy enough to knock it out of his hand. Could she risk it? If he tried anything, she damn well would. “I know you,” he declared.
“You don’t know me,” she spat back. Her immediate fear deepened.
“Yes I do. You’re the girl from the Ivory Forest Glassworks. The prisoner who went missing – Teala.”
“I’ve never heard that name before in my life.” Thessa’s mouth went dry. What were the glassdamned chances of being recognized here of all places?
“Oh yeah?” He suddenly jerked up the sleeve of her jacket to reveal her furnace-scarred arms. “A siliceer, eh? One with a light Grent accent, who looks just like a missing prisoner? Was it the Grappo bastard who got you out? Piss! I don’t even care. You’re going to fetch a good price from Supi Magna.” Thessa moved to pull away again, but when she did he thrust the knife up under her throat.
“If it’s money you want I can pay,” Thessa said quietly.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not going to risk it. I know that Supi Magna has money. Now come on, we’re going…”
Thessa heard a light footstep, then saw a shadow move around the corner of the next alley over. A face appeared over the young man’s shoulder, and then a length of cord dropped around his neck and tightened. His eyes widened, and he turned the knife to lash out at the person behind him. Thessa, suddenly free from his grip, grabbed his wrist to keep him from doing so.
The woman behind him, Thessa realized in shock, was Pari – the very same whose hand she’d helped free, and who’d told her about Filur Magna’s safe. Thessa tossed her books aside, using both hands to keep the young man from fighting back while slowly, surely, Pari strangled him. He clawed at the air, thumped at her face, trying to pull his knife hand out of her grip. She refused to let go. It felt like ages before his struggles flagged and then ceased altogether. Pari kept her cord around his neck for long after he seemed to be unconscious, then dropped him to the ground.
Thessa stared down at him, her heart pounding, her head light and confused as if in a dream. “Is he dead?”
“Sure is,” Pari answered.
“That’s the second time in a week someone has had to kill to protect me.” Thessa’s gaze snapped back up to Pari. The young woman stared back at her coolly, as if the man she’d just murdered was beneath her in every way. “Why … how are you here? Why did you do that?”
“Later,” Pari hissed. “We need to go before someone stumbles on us.”
Thessa nodded quickly and found her books before hurrying out into the street. Pari followed close behind. The two of them wound through the thinning crowd, heading to the edge of the boardwalk, where Thessa spotted her carriage with its purple drapes stitched with the Grappo silic sigil. The driver greeted her politely, opening the door, and Thessa gestured for him to allow Pari to follow.
The two sat in the cool darkness of the carriage for several minutes of silence. The tension in Thessa’s belly was terrible, and she stared across at the laborer.
If Pari understood just how frightened Thessa was at the moment, she did not show it. Pari used one finger to move the drape slightly, watching. “They’ve found the body already,” she said. “They’ll summon the National Guard, but no one is gonna look inside a guild-family carriage.” She let go of the curtain and leaned back, closing her eyes.
Thessa kept her own eyes on the woman. Tall, lanky, with sun-darkened pale skin covered in the rough scars of someone who worked with their back. She was, in this very moment, the scariest person Thessa had ever seen. “What do you want from me?”
Pari opened her eyes, looking genuinely surprised. “Me? Nothing.”
“Then why’d you help me? How’d you even know I was in trouble?”
“The Ivory Forest Glassworks burned down,” Pari said, as if that explained everything. When Thessa didn’t respond to that, she elaborated, “Every laborer that used to work there is down here now, trying to find a job. The Lampshade is one of the best places to get good work, and you got real damn unlucky. Temmen back there spotted you about the same time I did. Figured I knew what was in his head, so I followed.”
Thessa let out a long, shaky breath that she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding in. “But you don’t want anything?”
“Not me.” Pari averted her eyes. “Look, somehow you got out of the prison glassworks. Made friends with the Grappo it seems, and between Glassdancer Demir and Baby Montego, you have some powerful protectors. I know what it’s like to be on that side of a labor camp, and glassdamn me if I was going to let Temmen send you back. He was a piece of shit, and you were kind to me. So that’s it. I’m not going to shake you down. We’re both going to forget this ever happened.” With that, she reached for the door latch.