Tobiat nodded. “Secrets.”
“But what if that’s wrong? What if secrets are destroying the city?” I traced the carving with a finger. Tucked it into my robe.
“Fear Singers. Sing. Fear.”
Sure. The towers refrained from fighting because they were afraid of the Singers. I could see that. But Tobiat shook his head, frustrated. That wasn’t what he’d meant. “Do you mean to say that the Singers are afraid?”
A bob of the head. A cackle.
“They’re part of the city, not something separate,” I murmured. “We have forgotten.”
“Maybe, maybe,” said Tobiat. He singsonged, “City punishes those who forget.”
What else had we forgotten? How much more could the city lose if Rumul remained unchecked?
We returned to the hideout, Tobiat munching on some gristle he’d pulled from a pocket. I turned over thoughts in my mind, frustrated from the search.
How many generations ago had Lith fallen? Recently enough to haunt the city. How could we keep tragedy from happening again without resorting to Singer methods? Were the stories and songs true? How would I fly away from here in time to meet Wik?
I had one good wing, a needle and awl. Battens.
I spotted Elna’s satchel on the floor and remembered how heavy it had felt. I looked inside. Under the herbs she’d carried when Wik had flown with her, and her sewing box, she’d tucked the silk and the furled, broken wings from the Spire, the ones I’d presented to her.
I began to hum The Rise, softly. Soon, Elna, Nat, and Tobiat fell asleep around me, heads nestled on arms, legs tossed by dreams. Nat snored.
I pulled the silk and wings from Elna’s bag, took a piece of dried goose from our stores, then crawled from the cell and retraced my path until I found my wing and its broken mate. Lifting them, I could see that the tear in the right wing was devastating. There was no repairing the shredded silk, unless I could summon Liras Viit to this broken tower. But I had Nat’s ceremonial wings. One was less damaged than the other.
I could patch his better wing with mine, stitch the stress points and make them whole. I ripped out the seams and dissected his broken wing, pulling the silk from the battens. My fingers lingered on the torn silk, imagining Nat’s wings as they shredded in the Gyre.
Using the tools Tobiat and I had found and Elna’s kit, I patched myself new wings with the silk of both his wings and mine.
I hid what remained, but did not throw it over the edge. Nat was not strong enough to come after me, not yet. He’d want to fly before he was ready. Too soon.
A rustle in the pile of silk and battens I’d pushed into a corner made me jump. A bulge moved. My skin prickled with fear. Perhaps I should have thrown it over.
When I peeled back the silk, I saw nothing. Carefully, I put my hand out. I heard a cheeping sound and saw my dried-goose dinner disappear into an invisible mouth.
The little skymouth. I shuddered, despite myself. A stowaway, and a thief.
No. It was a garbage eater. Perhaps these littlemouths helped the city too.
I carefully laid the silk back over the creature and let it eat undisturbed. Began to hum The Rise again.
I pressed the seams on my wings with the heel of my palm. Tugged at them. They seemed solid. Solid enough to get me to the Spire, at least.
A gust of wind caught the wing’s edge and lifted it. I pulled the straps over my shoulders, tightened them against my aching muscles. No one else to help me. My fingers brushed the lenses’ cold metal. I thought of my father, of Ezarit. Of the bargains they’d made.
I imagined them fighting in the Gyre. Imagined Civik falling, his body breaking. My mother, wounded, a knife cut to her chest. Saw again Terrin’s fall. The young woman who’d challenged Sellis. Nat. Heard the wind in the Gyre, felt the heat from the skymouth’s maw.
My humming had become a keen. I bit it back.
At a scuffling sound from the tunnel, I turned, prepared to face Tobiat. But Nat pulled himself through, lowering himself to a sitting position against the wall. Elna followed.
“You’re going,” Nat said, panting.
“Yes. Right now.” I looked at him, at the wounds I’d caused. Looked at the worry on Elna’s face. I might not have another chance to say it. “I am sorry I fought you.”
He frowned. “I fought you too. But you’re right, what you said before. I made you a Singer. It wasn’t exactly how we’d planned it.”
I could feel my face flush with anger. They’d made a plan but hadn’t figured out a way to share it with me. “I thought you died! I thought I killed you!”
Nat held his hands up. “I’m not fighting you now.” His voice was still tired, and resigned. “Besides, someone from the towers needed to try and fight. Someone needed to fight.”
I took a deep breath and blew my anger away. He was misguided, headstrong, and more than a little right.
“Someone will fight. Me. Once I find Ezarit,” I said, squeezing his hands. “You heal.”
I had to fly. Now. I couldn’t undo what had happened. But I could try to keep it from getting worse. I lifted the lenses. Blew in them to keep the glass from fogging.
Elna coughed. “Hurry,” she said. “The Singers will be out again at dark.”
Her words reminded me that I’d made a bargain too, with Rumul, so long ago. Your Laws, and those of your mother.
Trapped here on Lith, I had forgotten the full consequences of my betrayal.
Ezarit. I fought to keep my hands from shaking. I had to find her before I went to the Spire. I had to make her come to Lith, to hide. If I flew fast enough, I might reach her before Rumul’s people did.
I tightened the last strap as much as I could.
“What if Ezarit won’t listen?” The sadness in my voice surprised me. Ezarit had always done things her own way.
“She fought to keep the Singers from knowing about you; she tried to find a place in a tower that had more power in the city; one that could protect the two of you better than Densira. But Grigrit required an apprentice in order to consider it. She’ll listen.”
I understood a little better now. The bargain she’d made with Doran Grigrit. Her desperation after the wingfight. “She should have told me.”
Elna nodded. “We both should have told you. And each other. I thought my silence would buy your lives.”
The sun began to sink below the clouds, turning the sky pink and red.
Silence. Tradition. Secrets. I’d thought I was keeping Elna and Ezarit safe too. Now we were stranded on Lith. Now I had to hurry.
I stood and tightened my other strap, then stepped through the footsling, ready to fly. The sun was setting as I checked the wind at the balcony, low on the city’s darkest tower. What Elna and Naton had sacrificed for, and Ezarit, and Nat too, I needed to finish. As soon as Ezarit was safe.
I unfurled my new wings, my lopsided, mismatched pair that was everything I was at the moment: stitched together pieces of my friends and family.
As I leapt from our hiding place on Lith, they watched me go. I stuttered in the breeze until I learned to balance on the unmatched, patched wings. If I were attacked, I would not survive it.
The patchwork wings wobbled. My lenses swung on their strap and banged against my collarbone. I reached carefully to still them and my right wing dipped precariously. I fought to right it, twisting my arm up, just as a small tentacle wrapped around my wrist.
“Bone and blood,” I whispered, more startled at the touch than anything. The littlemouth had stowed away with me.
The tiny creature worked its way up my arm and clung to my shoulder. I slipped my hand back into the grip on my right wing. My path straightened immediately, but I still fought for altitude. My neck prickled as the tentacles felt their way forward, dragging the small sack of the skymouth’s body behind it. Its hide was rough and dry, not wet like its bigger, fiercer cousins.