“Hold my feet.” I loosed my wingstraps enough to loop one end around a bone post.
If I fell, if Lurai or Sellis let go my feet, I would fall past Ciel, knock her off her perch, and we would keep falling inside the Spire until the end of the world. “Tighter!”
The commotion I made attracted more attention than the fallen child. Behind me, the sound of running feet; above me, whispered words like tradition from the higher tiers; across the Spire, louder murmurs. But I was upside down now, my robes gathered around my waist and my under linens showing pale and undyed as I reached.
“Farther out!” I yelled, and Sellis and Lurai edged closer. I felt Sellis adjust her grip on my ankle and tensed, but she wrapped both hands more firmly, and I stopped dropping. My fingertips grazed Ciel’s hair.
“Reach up, Ciel,” I said as calmly as possible.
The fierce little girl whimpered. Her fingers clamped tighter around the wall of the perch. She looked up at me.
“You can,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt. “Just one hand.”
She shook her head again, but I could see her thinking about it. She knew she must.
Behind and above us, an older voice said, “Let her go. Singers do not fall in the Gyre,” but Moc was whispering, “Please,” softly, not wanting to frighten Ciel or me. I was aware by now that no Singer had jumped into the Gyre and glided over to help. If a novice did not learn to fly the Gyre like a Singer, it seemed they let you fall.
At least in the towers we had tethers for the unsure. Magisters who caught our friends and pulled them back from the clouds. Here, Ciel only had me.
“I won’t let you fall, Ciel.” I whispered it, but she heard.
First one finger, then more peeled away from the wall. They were rubbed with soot, the pads dented from her tight grip. The fingers hovered against the wall as Ciel checked her balance on her other hand, the place where she’d found to plant her feet.
Sturdy for the moment. Her hand shot up and grabbed mine, then slipped, and I clasped it tightly. Her foot slipped farther. She whimpered again. I tightened my grip and gritted my teeth hard.
Ciel swung from my hand, a tiny, winged pendulum. I dangled from the tier. Lurai and Sellis began hauling us both back up.
“If you were Singer-raised,” Sellis muttered. She stopped. “You and your tower-fed bones.”
If I’d been Singer-raised, I’d have been slighter, for certain. But I also wouldn’t have leapt to save a clumsy child.
They pulled, and I held fast to Ciel, and soon I was back on the flat landing of the tier, my ribs and stomach scraped where they’d struck the edge. Ciel grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up and over, then lay next to me, gasping.
“Clumsy,” Sellis said, and stalked away.
Ciel took my hand, and we both looked over the edge of the Gyre, into the dark depths.
Lurai leaned back against a wall, catching his breath. Moc knelt next to his twin. Took her other hand.
The galleries began to clear in earnest.
“Don’t tell,” Ciel said, her voice rough. “I forgot windbeaters sometimes pull the wind, after. I was distracted.”
Moc emphasized every word: “They never did it like that before. That was too much.”
More sabotage from below? “Who shouldn’t hear of this?”
The twins looked at me as if I was cloudtouched. Many Singers had witnessed the fall. Except the council.
“Sellis has already gone to tell Rumul everything.”
Moc grumbled as Ciel watched us. “At least Rumul will play it down. Aunt Viridi would not.”
Ciel shook her head emphatically. “Please don’t tell her. I was clumsy, that’s all. Singers aren’t clumsy. Not in the Gyre.” Her voice did not quaver. She was determined to sound as tough as any Singer. As tough as Wik.
Realization dawned. Aunt Viridi, the older Singer with the silver-streaked hair who had attended my wingtest. A councilwoman. Wik’s mother. The twins and Wik were family.
And yet their larger family, the Spire family, had returned to daily tasks, as if nothing had happened. As if, with everything decided, order and balance had been restored.
I squeezed Ciel’s hand tighter. Saw Moc’s eyes narrow. “What is it?”
“I am not sure yet,” Moc said. He lifted a torn scrap of Ciel’s robe from where it had caught on the ledge. Balled it up in his fist. “But I will find out.”
“We,” I said. “We will find out.”
17. WINDWARD
In the emptied gallery, I got to my knees, then my feet. Ciel clung to my hand.
“Who has charge of the vents? The windbeaters?”
When she didn’t answer, I looked for Moc. He was already disappearing down a ladder. I chased him. I heard Wik call out behind me, but I did not stop. Ciel ran with me, but halted at the landing.
“You’ll be fine,” I said.
She stared down the ladder. Wik appeared behind her, put a hand on her shoulder and dipped his head to me. She let him lift her up and rested her head on his shoulder. Safe.
If I lingered, I would lose track of Moc entirely. I turned and hurried down the ladder.
I caught up to Moc on the next level. Grabbed his robe and held him by it. “Tell me now — what is happening?”
He pawed the air with his fists. “I am trying to find out!” His voice cracked. “Someone is sabotaging the Spire — your wings, the vents! Other things too. It is not over. It is not decided.”
He swung so hard that I dropped him to the floor. He got to his feet and began descending the next ladder.
“Why is no one else asking questions?”
“They don’t see everything Ciel and I do. Some don’t trust us because our aunt is on the council. So they don’t listen to us either.”
I heard truth in his voice. Followed him down into the depths of the Spire. Someone had sabotaged my wings. Someone had tried to hurt Ciel. If I found out why, I might gain better leverage with Rumul. Perhaps I would then have gossip for my father.
We reached the lowest levels, where the windbeaters lived. Bolts of dove-colored silk lined the halls, and silk spiders’ nests clung to corners and to the ceiling. I spotted a loom in an alcove. The walls were covered in carvings. Some bone spurs had been carved so deeply and intricately, they resembled lace and lattice more than walls.
Ahead of me, Moc stepped into the shadows, out of the dimming light.
“They keep busy down here.”
“They make a bunch of things. Wings, nets. The plinths for wingtests. Trade them for goods from the other towers,” he whispered.
Two aged windbeaters leaned out over the Gyre, large wings spread on the floor behind them. They did not turn as we passed.
“What are they doing?” I looked back. One windbeater’s eyes were white, like the skyblind. He was tethered to the floor with bone cleats and long sinew ropes.
“Listening to the wind. Learning to shape it.” Moc didn’t spare them a glance. “Even the injured can do that, if they’re good enough. And if they still have use of their arms and shoulders.”
Moc kept walking until he reached an alcove carved into the thickening outer wall. Strange carvings surrounded the room like pipes. Long stretches of hollowed-out bone rose to the ceiling. Some had pulley ropes run through them, or hinged lids. They looked like a group of rainspouts.
A bent form was working the pipes — a man, judging by the breadth of his shoulders, though his robes hung strangely. He moved as if each gesture brought pain.
The pipe covers snapped open and clicked shut, sounding like Laws chips. The alcove smelled like old bone mixed with fresh air. The man’s fingers stilled. He seemed to be waiting for something.