I hoped I was right. I needed to be right.
One foot caught, then the other. I landed, sort of, hanging upside down by my ankles. The underbridge breeze swung me back and forth precariously.
The bridge wobbled as Wik landed and hauled me onto the span.
I brushed off his attempts to help inspect my wingstraps.
By feel, I could tell that both straps had been stressed with something sharp. Someone wanted me to fall far enough that I never came back.
Sellis’s eyes were wide in the sere predawn light. “I couldn’t turn,” she gasped, shaking. When Wik held out his hand, she shucked out of her own wings and they checked those wingstraps. They were stressed too, though not as badly. The grips had been weakened as well.
“Where did our new training wings come from?” she asked.
Wik was ashen; his tattoos, almost phosphorescent. The clip he gave to his words chilled me further. “The windbeaters sent new pairs up for the night fliers.”
“Windbeaters?” Sellis looked shocked. “But why would they ever — Rumul will — How dare…” She fell silent, shivering and looking, in the dim light, much younger and more afraid than I’d ever seen her. She caught me watching, but did not glare or flinch.
Finally, Wik spoke again. “Windbeaters. The Spire is in conflict.”
Sellis looked at Wik, then at me. “Please. We must return quickly. Tell the council. Before more Singers fall.”
16. GYRE
Wik had produced a sewing kit from a hidden pocket in his sleeve. He dampened a translucent cord with spit, then threaded it through the eye of a thick bone needle. He patched the break with sinew. When he finished, I tested the strap. It felt solid enough for a short flight.
Sellis paced, eager to fly once her wings were patched. Her need to make sure Rumul knew what had happened, and why, was palpable in the darkness.
“We will pursue what happened,” Wik promised, when I asked him to elaborate on the windbeaters’ actions. “Not now. We must do things carefully.”
Not now. Tradition. Carefully. Wik’s discipline took patience. I had little to spare.
We flew the short span of night to the Spire. Sellis and I clung to wall hooks outside while Wik worked the gate. We were at a higher tier than the one Nat and I had tried to break into at Allmoons.
A predawn gust cut around the Spire cold and loud. The gate ground open just as sunlight tinged the horizon’s dark clouds. We crawled through and emerged on a windbeater tier.
Wik pointed for us to climb back to our tiers, but I planted my feet. I wanted to stay, to confront the windbeaters. To find my father.
He shook his head emphatically. “Too dangerous,” he whispered. “In case they’re targeting someone.”
“Why would they do that?” I was still chilled by the near catastrophe.
Sellis looked like she was too, her usual haughtiness banished. She hesitated beside me, desperate to know more about the windbeaters’ intent before reporting to Rumul.
“They can’t fly anymore, but they can still meddle,” she whispered.
I sat down on the tier floor, stubborn. I refused to move.
Wik’s face turned stony. He was unused to being questioned by his charges.
Sellis shifted from one foot to the other, then sat down beside me.
I returned Wik’s gaze. “If we may not talk to them because we are not yet Singers, then you must ask them why.”
Wik groaned. When we still refused to move, he went to wake and interrogate a windbeater, one he said he could trust.
As he walked away, Sellis stared at me, her eyes wide. “Novices don’t question Singers.” She didn’t look at all comfortable with what we’d done. But she wasn’t scolding me.
“We’ll get an answer, at least.” I hoped I was right.
“It wasn’t personal,” Wik whispered when he returned. “They couldn’t know who would fly those wings.”
“Rumul needs to know.” Sellis rose, picked up her nightwings, and hurried to the ladders.
Wik watched her go, but I kept my eyes on him. “Why?”
“A few windbeaters have become open to trading favors, though it is not often done,” Wik said. “In return for gossip from uptower. Your father, for one.”
“And trying to murder Singers?”
“Rarely. They are trying to influence something.” He seemed unfazed, which made me want to shake him. I balled my fists and focused on breathing while he continued, “I can’t tell who is behind this. I will find out.”
Influence. Meddling. That was what Singers called someone almost dying. I was not comforted, but I let Wik nudge me back uptower while I continued to ponder.
My father traded in gossip.
I could find a way to use that.
The next afternoon, the dining alcove rumbled with gossip, but not the kind that my father would need. A windbeater had fallen, tragically, into the Gyre.
“Who?” I asked Sellis.
“An old crone who thought she’d outsmart the council,” she replied. Her chin was up; her confidence had returned. Her hands were folded neatly on the table. She’d downed her meal with relish.
A crone. Not my father. Still, retribution came fast in the Spire. I vowed silently that this would not be my fate.
In the days after, as we continued to train, we saw windbeaters below, practicing wind shifts, as usual. The situation seemed to have settled. But I could not convince Sellis to let me go downtower again. She went so far as to post Lurai by my alcove. It was an honor, she said. An acolyte.
My refusal to obey Wik had alarmed someone, and Sellis was making sure I didn’t venture anywhere on my own. I waited for any chance to go back down to the windbeaters’ tier, but I was never alone.
We worked on Singer skills, checking our wings well each time. We studied advanced echoing. Sellis and I flew blindfolded. Wik and I practiced skymouth calls atop the tower and on the wing.
We fought more now, testing the younger novices or being tested ourselves against older, just-turned Singers. Bone-knife cuts and bruises from the walls of the Gyre laced my arms, legs, and face like Singer tattoos. Sellis was equally marked.
Some days, the wind patterns were too strong, too complex for us. I bent a batten when I crashed into a gallery. Skidded onto the tier. Sellis fell so far that she had to climb back up on the ladders outside the Gyre.
She was skittish when she finally made it back to our tier.
“I almost fell beyond the windbeaters. That’s forbidden. They caught me with a hook.”
“What did you see?” I asked.
“They are preparing rot gas below.” At my confusion, she added, “The windbeaters throw flaming balls of it into the Gyre during a challenge if it’s going too slow.”
We began to hear new rumors in the dining alcove, murmurs of arguments in council, of Rumul yelling at someone in his alcove.
Even Moc didn’t know what was happening. “Something big,” he said, peering over the edge of the Gyre.
Windbeaters gathered by the vents below, practicing new patterns with their huge silk wings.
The Spire’s quiet passages clotted with groups of gray-robed Singers who talked almost silently and scattered when approached. I tried to find Wik, or Rumul, but they spent their days on the council tier. By the next morning, Sellis did not appear at breakfast.
“Ciel”—I caught the girl as she sped along the passage—“what has happened now?”
She wordlessly pointed to the Gyre, just as the gusts within rose to a howl. There was so much wind, pushed and funneled through the Spire’s abyss so fast, that things not tied down near the balconies began to be pulled into the funnel. A few pieces of silk flew out through the apex. Singers and novices alike ran to grab precious objects and secrete them away.