She scoffed, walking to the window to look down into the crowded street and across to the park kitty-corner from the hotel. She already knew the catch. She didn’t know if she could truly rebuild and improve upon Kastora’s design. Even undertaking such a project made her a player in a wider game that included spies and assassins. The Grappo were barely a guild-family, holding on to a mere fraction of the wealth and prestige of the Magna or Vorcien or Dorlani. She thought about that newspaper article from a couple of weeks ago, and the Ossan siliceers found brutally murdered in the Tien.
The catch was she might end up like that.
Thessa’s attention was drawn back to the street, where her narrow line of sight revealed that something beyond the usual traffic was happening on the other side of the park. She frowned, peering in that direction, noting that the pedestrians just below her window were clearing out quickly. She heard someone shout. Another shout followed it, then another. A woman screamed, and began running.
“What the piss…” she muttered to herself.
She was three floors up in a hotel and yet the animal instinct deep in her chest wanted her to flee to higher ground. She grabbed the windowsill, watching that movement on the next street over. A young woman dressed like a common laborer dashed into sight, paused to shout behind her, then turned and hurled a brick through the window of a fancy shop. Another laborer followed her, then another. Within moments the street was filled with them – winging stones at shops, chasing down well-dressed pedestrians and knocking them into the ditch.
Thessa ran to the door and out into the hallway, where she found a young woman in the uniform of a hotel porter. Like the other porters’, her pinkie finger was painted purple to show her allegiance to the Grappo, but unlike them she wore a belt with a sword and pistol. She must have been in her mid-twenties, with the dark olive skin of a native Ossan and short-cropped black hair. She had hard eyes and a pretty face, her delicate features marred by a scar that ran from her right cheekbone down to her jawline.
After so many days stuck in the prison, watching Magna guards prowl the wall, the mere sight of a guild-family enforcer caused a knot in Thessa’s stomach. She pushed through it. “Something is happening outside.”
The woman inhaled sharply and scowled. “I know.”
“Should I … do anything?” Thessa asked, taken off guard by the nonchalance with which the enforcer spoke.
The woman scratched between her eyes and shook her head. “Lady Foleer, I presume?”
“Right.”
“I’m Tirana Kirkovik, the Hyacinth’s master-at-arms.” She gestured for Thessa to follow and walked down to a door, where they stepped out onto a balcony. The shouts and screams were louder out here, and Thessa could hear the sound of shattering glass from down the street. Tirana remained back from the edge of the balcony and craned her head to see. “They’ve been rioting back and forth through the Assembly District since this morning.”
“Who are they?” Thessa asked. Tirana’s cool helped take the edge off Thessa’s worry, but she still had that urge to flee.
“The price of low-resonance forgeglass tripled last night,” Tirana said, “and three of the major teamsters unions went on strike the moment word got around.”
“It tripled?” Thessa asked, her eyes widening. “That doesn’t happen. It’s not possible. There are mechanisms in place – laws – to keep the prices consistent.”
“You’re a siliceer, right? I don’t know the particulars, but a few large shipments of cindersand went missing. Combine that with the Ivory Forest Glassworks burning to the ground a few days ago, and speculation has gone through the roof. You’d understand it better than I would.”
“It burned to the ground?” Thessa echoed. She felt a pang of guilt. Beyond being grateful for being out of there, she’d done her best not to think of that damned place since escaping. “I didn’t know. Did they … did the siliceers get out?”
“Only a few casualties,” Tirana said. If she had any idea that it was Montego who set the fire, she gave no indication.
Thessa stifled a sigh of relief. She didn’t need more death on her conscience. A sound cut through the afternoon – a falcon’s distinct cry – and she felt her ears prick up. She turned to the sky for half a moment, searching for the bird, part of her wishing it were Ekhi but knowing that wasn’t possible. She brought herself back down to the streets below. “What do we do? Is the hotel protected?” The rioters were getting closer now. A carriage was pushed over half a block away, the occupants dragged out and beaten by the angry mob.
“Master Demir is dealing with it.”
Realization was slow to dawn, but when it did Thessa’s breath was snatched from her. “Is he going to kill them?” she choked. No answer was forthcoming. Thessa swallowed her bile and left the master-at-arms on the balcony, hurrying through the hotel halls and down into the foyer. Guests and porters alike crowded in the lobby, milling anxiously, and Thessa had to push through a cordon of enforcers that stood between the guests and the front door.
Just outside, lounging on the purple carpet that went down the steps to the street, was Demir. He was alone, a bottle of wine sitting on the step next to him. His jacket was unbuttoned, his tunic unlaced at the neck and both sleeves rolled up. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, and the silic sigils on both his hands were hard to miss, as was the assortment of glassdancer eggs sitting on the steps below.
“It’s probably best if you stay inside,” he said, his gaze on the approaching rioters.
“I don’t want you to kill anyone,” Thessa told him. Her heart flipped in her chest, and she wondered if it was the first time anyone had ever been brazen enough to say that to a glassdancer.
Demir looked up in surprise. “I don’t intend to.”
“Then what is this?” Thessa looked pointedly at the glassdancer eggs.
“A warning.” As he spoke, the closest of the rioters finally reached the street below them. There were six or seven, carrying massive chisels that they used to tear up cobbles. Three of them ran to a nearby coach and cut the horses loose, then upended the vehicle. When they finished, they turned toward Demir and Thessa and began to approach. They’d halved the distance when one grabbed the other two by the sleeves and said something. They all three stared at Demir for several moments before turning away.
“There is,” Demir said, raising his left hand so that the glassdancer sigil pointed toward her, “some advantage to being branded a killer.”
The same thing happened again and again. Rioters poured into the street by the dozens, some of them coming as close as the carriage drop-off at the bottom of the hotel stairs before leaving well enough alone. All around the hotel, shop windows were being smashed, guild-family enforcers clashing with the rioters with cudgels and swords, but the violence seemed to stay away from Demir as if he exuded a bubble of calm around him.
“Would you kill them if they ignored the warning?” Thessa asked, sinking to sit on the stair next to Demir. He took a swig of wine, his eyes not leaving the scene. Despite his casual demeanor, up close Thessa could see that his pupils were dilated, his muscles tense.
“I hope we don’t have to find out.” He sniffed at the air. “Someone has set a fire. Piss and shit, the damned fools. They’ll bring out the Cinders that way.”
“Tirana said that they’re rioting because the price of forgeglass tripled overnight.”
Demir gave her a long, significant glance. “That’s what I heard too. So glassdamned sudden. Is there any precedent?”