As suddenly as it began, the sound moved up and out past the top of the Spire and faded away.
When they could stand again, the Singers whispered to one another in worried tones.
A bone horn sounded atop the Spire, and I heard distant klaxons sound in the city.
“Moc,” I whispered, “what just happened?”
Already on his way to the ladders, Moc spun on his soft foot wraps. “We’ve got to get up top to watch!”
I must have looked confused, because he grabbed my arm and began to pull. “This is a big one. The Singers will tell the Magisters and the city leaders what the city wants at Conclave. It’s going to be crowded up there.”
All the air went from my lungs. Conclave. Elna had said that when the Singers took Naton, it was for a Conclave. It had been a long time since the last roar of this magnitude. Usually there were only rumbles and rumors of rumbles.
I could still feel lingering vibrations in my bones. Neither rumble nor rumor: the city had made a sound as if the world was ending.
From down the passage, someone yelled Moc’s name, and my slight companion skittered off again.
I was left alone in a swirl of activity. Everyone knew where they needed to be. Except for Kirit Spire. Conclave hadn’t been covered in the novitiates’ class. Sellis and Wik hadn’t instructed me on where to go, what to do. Once again, I did not belong. I was the sole still body in a whirl of motion.
Tower children were schooled in a version of what happened when the city roared. That information was all I had to guide me now. Singers had recorded the codex of sounds the city had made over generations, ever since we rose through the clouds. When the city roared, the Singers weighed a new chip, from a piece of tower knocked loose by the sound. The bigger the roar, the bigger the piece. If none had been disturbed, they cut one from the lowest tier themselves, sized carefully to chronicle the sound for the future. They bound these in the codex.
Then they balanced the roar through Conclave.
Once, Florian, our Magister at Densira, had told us how the city had roared twice in his own childhood. He’d turned sallow as he described the second Conclave, the desperation of the adults around him.
“Weren’t you grateful for the Lawsbreakers, Florian?” Sidra had asked. Sidra’s father had lectured us about Lawsbreakers a few days before. We’d learned that even those who defied the tower had their purpose in the city.
Florian had coughed. “We were grateful. Their duty meant that the city was appeased and didn’t roar again for many years.” But his face was still sallow, still drawn. He’d lost someone; he was still afraid.
I remembered now that he’d toyed with a thin bone marker at his wrist: a Lawsbreak of his own, though a small one.
When he’d gathered himself, Florian explained what came after a roar, doing his job as our Magister. He spoke of how those who lived at the margins, those who broke Laws, would be called into service to the city. That the Singers would come, weigh their crimes by the bone chips they carried, and take the ones they needed away.
As I remembered, I felt as shaken as Florian had been. I’d broken Laws. I broke Bethalial and Trespass. Worse. I still wore those markers on my wrist. I was sure no one had forgotten.
If the need was great, would they come for me too?
No, I thought, they needed me in other ways. They’d said so. Still, I couldn’t help the fear rising in my gut. Elna said Naton hadn’t been given Lawsmarkers at first. She’d said that until the Singer handed them to her once Naton was gone, she’d had no knowledge of his crimes.
If the need was great enough. That had been an enormous roar. I looked around, desperate for ways to make myself useful. No one said a word to me. They moved around me as if I was in the way.
That was the last thing I wanted to be. I did not want one of the Singers who disagreed with my training to find a reason to add to the appeasement.
The novitiates’ tier emptied. The birds scattered by the noise had not returned.
A tug at my sleeve. Ciel stood close.
“I’ll show you where to watch.”
I could have said no. I could have hunkered down in the shadows and waited for Conclave to end. But I choose to follow Ciel to the Spire’s apex and watch, like a Singer.
* * *
Atop the Spire, the city’s councilors gathered. The craft and trade representatives arrived as Ciel dragged me up the last rope ladder, for there were no risers carved into the top of the Spire. You had to fly up, or scramble.
Ciel tucked herself behind a spur of bone near the ledge, her wings unfurled for safety. I tried not to cling to her hand: I had not been wearing my wings when the roar began. The wind whipped the robes of the assembled, and those on the ledges below, looking up through the Spire, watching.
Two Singers rode a gust of wind up and out of the Spire, carrying something between them. Metal gleamed in the sunlight. Those watching whispered; a brief sound, louder than the wind.
“The scales.” Ciel pointed at the gleam. I leaned to get a better look. The Singers flew a small circuit of the Spire’s ledge and landed carefully. They anchored the base of what they carried to the ledge: a brass plate, very old, wrapped with spidersilk, tied to nearby bone cleats. Magister Florian hadn’t said the scales were so big. Or made of metal.
A spike of bone stuck up from the plate, bound there by a metal hasp. From where I crouched, it was hard to see the mechanism. A metal basket wobbled on each side of the spike. The baskets teetered and swung until the councilors, crafters, traders, and Singers gathered around to shield the scales from the wind.
A Singer drew a bone chip from a carry sack the size of a baby. Bigger. He raised it high, so that everyone might see, then placed it in the basket closest to the edge of the tower. The scale dipped. City representatives muttered among themselves. They turned to the horizons of the city.
I looked too. At first, all I saw was sky. The wide-open blue made my heart leap. The sky was a drink of cold water. The warm sun, a balm. I had missed both so.
Then I saw them.
All around the Spire, gray-winged Singers approached, bearing nets.
The two Singers who’d carried the scale stood. One was Rumul. The other was the woman with hair as brass-colored as Ciel’s.
The arriving Singers dropped their nets on the ledge but did not untie them. Inside, I saw hands and feet, a curled back. No wings. I could hear someone weeping. The bodies were robed in white. Many lay still.
The net closest to us wriggled as its occupant turned, dark curls falling away from a face. I sucked in my breath. Those looked like Nat’s curls. Nat, alive?
Not Nat. Please no, I whispered to the city.
Brown eyes peered from the net, sun-spotted olive skin below the dark curls. Not Nat. Someone older. My relief was short-lived. That was someone’s Nat, I knew.
Beyond the Spire, a man circled wildly, shouting as he flew near two Singers carrying a net with an older woman in it. I couldn’t hear what he said from where I stood, but amazingly, Ciel heard. “He wants to challenge for his wife,” the girl whispered, wide-eyed.
I looked across the gap, past the couple, and saw the edges of the nearby towers rippling with what looked like motes of dust from here: belongings being thrown from nearby towers. Citizens were jettisoning anything that might skirt the limits of Singer patience if another appeasement was required.
My fear for Nat transformed. Rumul’s threat against my mother seized my throat. Surely she wouldn’t be one of the citizens caught up so? Not after I had signed myself over?