Academ's Fury
Chapter 30~31
Chapter 30
Tavi didn't know quite what it was that made him decide to head for the Craft Lane at the base of the mountain crowned by the Citadel high above. It was far from the elegant celebrations and garden parties of the streets that rose above the rest of the city. No jeweler's shop or goldsmith would be found there. Craft Lane was inhabited by those who worked with their hands for a living-blacksmiths, farriers, carters, weavers, bakers, masons, butchers, vendors, carpenters, and cobblers. By the standards in the countryside, any one of the households there was extremely prosperous, and yet Craft Lane was still poor compared to the Citizens Lanes above them, and the ascending ranks of the nobility that followed.
But what Craft Lane lacked in extravagance, it made up for in enthusiasm. For folk who toiled every day to earn their keep, the celebration at Wintersend was one of the most anticipated times of the year, and great effort went into the planning of celebrations. As a consequence, there was literally no hour of the day or night that some (if not all) of Craft Lane would be host to street gatherings where food, drink, music, dance, and games ran with a constant, merry roar.
Tavi had dressed in his darkest clothes, and wore his old green cloak with its hood pulled forward to hide his face. Upon reaching Garden Lane, he studied it for a moment with a kind of half-amused dismay. The celebrations were running in full swing, with furylamps brightening night to near day. He could hear at least three different groups of musicians playing, and numerous areas along the crowded streets had been marked out on the cobblestones with chalk to reserve space for the dancers who whirled and reeled through their steps.
Tavi wandered down the Lane, looking up only occasionally. He focused his attention on what his ears and his nose told him of his surroundings, then at the intersection with Southlane he abruptly stopped.
The first thing he noticed about the background was the difference in music. Rather than instruments, there was a small vocal ensemble singing a complex air that rang down the street with merry energy. At the same time, the overwhelming scent of baking sweetbread flooded his senses and made his mouth water. He hadn't eaten in hours and hours, and he looked up to stare hungrily at the baker's shop, which by all rights should have been locked up and quiet, and was instead turning out sweetbread and pastries by the bushel.
Tavi glanced around him, ducked to one side of the road and between two of the shops, and found a box to stand on. He used it to reach up for the top of the windowsill, and with a carefully directed explosion of effort, he heaved himself up, grabbing at the eaves of the roof and hauling himself swiftly up to the rooftop. Once there, he was able to turn and spring lightly from that roof to the next, which offered a split level that rose another story into the air. Tavi scaled that as well, then started down Crafter Lane, springing lightly from one closely spaced rooftop to the next, his eyes and ears and nose open.
A sudden quivering excitement filled him for no reason whatsoever, and Tavi abruptly felt certain that his instincts had not led him astray. He found a pocket of deep shadows behind a chimney and slipped into it, crouching into cautious immobility.
He didn't have long to wait. There was a flicker of motion on the far side of Crafter Lane, and Tavi saw a cloaked and hooded figure gliding over the rooftops just as lightly and quietly as he. He felt his lips tighten into a grin. He recognized the grey cloak, the flowing motion. Once again, he had found the Black Cat.
The figure eased up to the edge of the roof to stare down at the vocalists, then dropped into a relaxed crouch, hands reaching down to rest his fingers lightly on the rooftop. Beneath the cloak's hood, the Cat's head tilted to one side, and he went completely still, evidently fascinated by the singers. Tavi watched the Cat in turn, an odd and nagging sense of recognition stirring briefly. Then the Cat rose and ghosted down to the next rooftop, his covered face turned toward the bakery, with its tables piled high with fresh, steaming sweetbread while a red-cheeked matron did a brisk business selling the loaves. A quality of tension, of hunger, entered the Cat's movements, and he vanished over the far side of the building upon which he stood.
Tavi waited until the Cat was out of sight, then rose and leapt to the roof of the bakery. He found another dark spot to conceal his presence just as the dark-cloaked Cat emerged from between the two buildings across the street and walked calmly through the crowded street, feet shuffling in a rhythmic step or two as he passed the vocal ensemble. The Cat slowed his steps by a fraction and passed the table just as the matron behind the table turned to deposit small silver coins into a strongbox. The Cat's cloak twitched as he passed the table, and if Tavi hadn't been watching carefully he would never have seen the loaf vanish under the thief's cloak.
The Cat never missed a step, sliding into the space between the bakery and the cobbler's shop beside it and walking quietly and quickly down the alleyway.
Tavi rose and padded silently along the rooftop, reaching to his belt for the heavy coil of tough, flexible cord looped through it. He dropped the open loop at the end of the lariat clear of his fingertips, and opened the loop wider with the practiced, expert motions his hands had learned through years of dealing with the large, stubborn, aggressive rams of his uncle's mountain sheep. It was a long throw and from a difficult angle, but he crouched by the edge of the roof and flicked the lariat in a circle before sending it sharply down.
The loop in the lariat settled around the Cat's hooded head. The thief darted to one side, and managed to get two fingers under the loop before Tavi could snap the line tight. Tavi planted his feet and hauled hard on the line.
The line hauled the Cat from his feet and sent him stumbling to one side.
Tavi whipped the cord twice around the bricks of the bakery's chimney, slapped it through a herder's loop in a familiar blur of motion, then slid down the roof to drop to the alley, landing in a crouch that bounced into a leap that carried him into the Black Cat's back. He hit hard, driving the Cat into the wall with a breath-stealing slam.
The Cat's foot smashed down hard on his toes, and if he hadn't been wearing heavy leather boots, it might have broken them. Tavi snarled, "Hold still," and hauled at the rope, trying to keep his opponent from finding his balance. There was a rasping sound and a knife whipped at the hand Tavi had on the rope. He jerked his fingers clear, and the knife bit hard into the tightened lariat. The cord was too tough to part at a single blow, but the Cat reached up with his free hand to steady the rope and finish the cut.
The lariat parted. Tavi slammed the Cat against the wall again, seized the wrist of the thief's knife hand and banged it hard against the bakery's stone wall. The knife tumbled free. Tavi drove the heel of his hand into the base of the Cat's neck, through the heavy cloak, a stunning blow. The Cat staggered. Tavi whirled and threw the thief facedown to the ground, landing on his back and twisting one slender arm up far behind him, holding the Cat in place.
"Hold still," Tavi snarled. "I'm not with the civic legion. I just want to talk to you."
The Black Cat abruptly stopped struggling, and something about the quality of that stillness made him think it was due to startled surprise. The Black Cat eased away the tension in the muscles that quivered against Tavi, and they softened abruptly.
Tavi blinked down at his captive and then tore the hood back from the Black Cat's head.
A mane of fine, silvery white curls fell free of the cloak, framing the pale, smooth curve of a young woman's cheek and full, wine-dark lips. Her eyes, slightly canted at their corners, were a brilliant shade of green identical to Tavi's own, and her expression was one of utter surprise. "Aleran?" she panted.
"Kitai," Tavi breathed. "You're the Black Cat?"
She turned her head as much as she could to look up at him, her wide eyes visible even in the dimness of the alley. Tavi stared down at her for a long moment, his stomach muscles suddenly fluttering with excited energy. He became acutely conscious of the lean, strong limbs of the young Marat woman beneath him, the too-warm fever heat of her skin, and the way that her own breathing had not slowed, though she had ceased to struggle against him. He slowly released her wrist, and she just as slowly withdrew her arm from between their bodies.
Tavi shivered and leaned a little closer, drawing in a breath through his nose. Strands of fine hair tickled his lips. Kitai smelled of many scents, faint perfumes likely stolen from expensive boutiques, the fresh warmth of still-warm sweetbread and, beneath that, of heather and clean winter wind. Even as he moved, she turned her head toward him as well, her temple brushing his chin, her breath warm on his throat. Her eyes slid almost closed.
"Well," she murmured after another moment. "You have me, Aleran. Either do something with me or let me up."
Tavi felt his face flare into a fiery blush, and he hurriedly pushed his arms down and lifted his weight from Kitai. The Marat girl looked up at him without moving for a moment, her mouth curled into a little smirk, before she rose with a thoughtless, feline grace to her own feet. She looked around for a moment and spotted her ill-gotten loaf of sweetbread on the ground, crushed during their struggle.
"Now look what you've done," she complained. "You've destroyed my dinner, Aleran." She frowned and stared at him for a moment, annoyance nickering in her eyes as she looked him up and down, then stood directly before him with her hands on her hips. Tavi blinked mildly at her expression and stared down at her. "You've grown," she accused him. "You're taller."
"It's been two years," Tavi said.
Kitai made a faint, disgusted sound. Beneath the cloak she wore a man's tunic of dark, expensive silk, hand-stitched with Forcian nightflowers, heavy, Legion-issue leather trousers, and fine leather shoes that would have cost a small fortune. The Marat girl had changed as well, and though she was obviously little taller than before, she had developed in other, extremely interesting ways, and Tavi had to force himself not to stare at the pale slice of smooth flesh revealed by the neckline of the tunic. Her cheek had a reddened patch of abraded flesh sharing space with a steadily darkening bruise, where Tavi had first slammed her into the wall. There was a similar mark upon her throat, though it was slender and precise, from where Tavi's lariat had caught her.
If she felt any pain, it didn't show. She regarded Tavi with intelligent, defiant eyes, and said, "Doroga said you would do this to me."
"Do what?" Tavi asked.
"Grow," she said. Her eyes raked him up and down, and she seemed to feel no compunction at all about staring at him. "Become stronger."
"Um," Tavi said. "I'm sorry?"
She glowered at him, and looked around until she spotted her knife. She reclaimed it, and Tavi saw that the blade was inlaid with gold and silver, the handle set with a design of amber and amethysts, and would probably have cost him a full year's worth of the modest monthly stipend Gaius permitted him. More jewelry glittered at her throat, on both wrists and in one ear, and Tavi gloomily estimated that the value of the goods she had stolen would probably merit her execution should she be captured by the authorities.
"Kitai," he said. "What in the world are you doing here?"
"Starving," she snapped. She poked at the ruined loaf with the tip of her shoe. "Thanks to you, Aleran."
Tavi shook his head. "What were you doing before that?"
"Not starving," she said with a sniff.
"Crows, Kitai. Why did you come here?"
Her lips pressed together for a moment before she answered. "To stand Watch."
"Uh. What?"
"I am Watching," she snapped. "Don't you know anything?"
"I'm starting to think that I don't," Tavi said. "Watching what?"
Kitai rolled her eyes in a gesture that conveyed both annoyance and contempt. "You, fool." She narrowed her eyes. "But what were you doing on that roof? Why did you attack me?"
"I didn't know it was you," Tavi said. "I was trying to catch the thief called the Black Cat. I suppose I did."
Kitai's eyes narrowed. "The One sometimes blesses even idiots with good fortune, Aleran." She folded her arms. "You have found me. What do you want?"
Tavi chewed on his lip, thinking. It was dangerous for Kitai to be in Alera at all, much less in the capital. The Realm's experiences with other races upon Carna had invariably been tense, hostile, and violent. When the Marat had wiped out Princeps Gaius Septimus's Legion at the First Battle of Calderon, they had created an entire generation of widows and orphans and bereaved families. And since the Crown Legion had been recruited from Alera Imperia, there were thousands, tens of thousands of individuals in this city with a bitter grudge against the Marat.
Kitai, because of her athletic build, pale skin, and hair-and especially because of her exotically slanted eyes-would be recognized immediately as one of the barbarians from the east. Given all that she had stolen (and the humiliation she had inflicted upon the civic legion in the process), she would never see the inside of a jail or a court of law. If seen, she would probably be seized by an angry mob and stoned, hanged, or burned on the spot, while the civic legion looked the other way.
Tavi's neglected stomach gurgled a complaint, and he sighed. "First thing," he said, "I'm going to get us both some food. Will you wait here for me?"
Kitai arched an eyebrow. "You think I cannot steal food for myself?"
"I'm not going to steal it," Tavi said. "Think of it as an apology for ruining your sweetbread."
Kitai frowned at that for a moment, then nodded cautiously and said, "Very well."
He had just enough money to purchase a couple of heavy wildfowl drumsticks, a loaf of sweetbread, and a flagon of apple cider. He took them back into the dim alley, where Kitai waited in patient stillness. Tavi passed her a drumstick and broke the loaf in half, then let her choose one. Then he leaned back against the wall, standing beside her, and got down to the serious business of eating.
Evidently, Kitai was at least as ravenous as Tavi, and they demolished meat and bread alike in moments. Tavi took a long drink from the flask and offered the rest to Kitai.
The Marat girl drank and wiped her mouth with one sleeve, then turned to Tavi, exotic eyes glittering. She dropped the empty flask and studied him while she licked the crumbs and grease from her fingers. Tavi found it fascinating, and waited in silence for a moment.
Kitai gave him a slow smile. "Yes, Aleran?" she asked. "Is there something you want?"
Tavi blinked and coughed, looking away before he started blushing again. He reminded himself sternly of what was at stake and that he did not dare allow himself to be distracted when it could cost so many people their lives. The terrifying weight of his responsibility drove away thoughts of Kitai's fingers and mouth, replacing them with twisting anxiety. "Yes, actually," he said. "I need your help."
Kitai's playful little smile vanished, and she peered at him, her expression curious, even concerned. "With what?"
"Breaking into a building," he said. "I need to learn how you've managed to get around all the security precautions in the places you have raided."
Kitai frowned at him. "For what reason?"
"A man is locked inside a prison tower. I need to get him out of the Grey Tower without tripping any furycrafted alarms and without anyone seeing us. Oh, and we need to do it so that no one knows that he's missing for at least a quarter of an hour."
Kitai took that in stride. "Will it be dangerous?"
"Very," Tavi said. "If we're caught, they will imprison or kill us both."
Kitai nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Then we must not be caught."
"Or fail," Tavi said. "Kitai, this could be important. Not just for me, but for all of Alera."
"Why?" she asked.
Tavi furrowed his brow. "We don't have much time for explanations. How much do you know about Aleran politics?"
"I know that you people are all insane," Kitai said.
Despite himself, a low bark of laughter flew from his lips. "I can see how you'd think that," Tavi said. "Do you need a reason other than insanity, then?"
"I prefer it," Kitai said.
Tavi considered it for a moment, then said, "The man who is locked away is my friend. He was put there for defending me."
Kitai stared at him for a moment and nodded. "Reason enough," she said.
"You'll help me?"
"Yes, Aleran," she answered. She studied his features with thoughtful eyes. "I will help you."
He nodded seriously. "Thank you."
Her teeth shone white in the dim alley. "Do not thank me. Not until you see what we must do to enter this tower."
Chapter 31
Tavi stared across an enormous span of empty air at the Grey Tower, and his heart pounded with what some people might characterize as abject terror.
It was not difficult to find someone who would tell Tavi where to find the Grey Tower. He simply asked a civic legionare with a little too much good cheer showing in his reddened nose and nearly flammable breath, explaining that he was visiting from out of town and would like to see it. The legionare had been obliging and friendly, and given Tavi directions made only marginally unintelligible by all the mushy, slurred S sounds. After that, Tavi and Kitai slipped through the streets of the capital, taking care to avoid the more energetic celebrations like the ones on Crafter Lane.
Now, they stood atop an aqueduct that carried water from a wellspring in the mountains outside the capital to run through the great green bowl of fields and steadholts that surrounded the city. There the aqueduct diverted into a dozen offshoots that directed clean water to reservoirs around the city. From where they stood, Tavi could look down the almost imperceptible slope of the aqueduct, where it passed over entire neighborhoods, its stately arches holding up the stone trough, gurgling water a constant babble as he and Kitai paced steadily forward. Only a few hundred yards ahead, the aqueduct swept past the headquarters and barracks of the civic legion upon the one side and the Grey Tower upon the other.
Kitai glanced over her shoulder at him, her steps never slowing, walking with perfect confidence despite the evening breezes and the narrow, water-slicked stone footing of the aqueduct's rim. "Do you need me to slow down?"
"No," Tavi said irritably. He focused on their destination, trying not to think about how easy it would be to fall to a humiliating death. "Just keep going."
Kitai shrugged, a small, smug smile playing on her lips, and turned away from him again.
Tavi studied the Tower as they approached it. It was a surprisingly simple-looking building. It didn't look terribly towerlike, either. Tavi had imagined something suitably elegant and grim, maybe something bleak and straight and menacing, where the prisoners would be lucky to be able to throw themselves off the top of the tower to fall to humiliating deaths of their own. Instead, the building looked little different than the Legion barracks nearby. It was taller, and featured very narrow windows, and there were fewer doors in evidence. There was a wide lawn around the tower and a palisade around the lawn. Guards were in evidence at the gate in the fence, at the front doors to the building, and patrolling around the exterior of the fence.
"It looks... nice," Tavi murmured. "Really rather pleasant."
"There is no pleasant prison," Kitai replied. She abruptly stopped, and Tavi nearly bumped disastrously into her. He recovered his balance and glowered at her as another group of wandering singers passed on the street beneath the aqueduct they stood upon. Each member of the group held a candle as they walked, performing one of the traditional airs of the holiday.
Kitai watched the group closely as they passed.
"You like the music?"
"You all sing wrong," Kitai said, eyes curious and intent. "You don't do it properly."
"Why do you say that?"
She flipped a hand irritably. "Among my people, you sing the song on your lips. Sometimes many songs together. Everyone who sings weaves their song with the ones already there. At least three of them, or it is hardly worth the trouble. But you Alerans only sing one. And you all sing it the same way." She shook her head, her expression baffled. "All the practice you need to do that must bore your folk to death."
Tavi grinned. "But do you like the results?"
Kitai watched the group pass out of sight, and her voice was wistful. "You don't do it properly."
She started moving again, and Tavi followed her until they had drawn even with the Grey Tower. Tavi looked over the edge of the stone aqueduct. There was a good fifty-foot drop to the boot-packed, hardened earth of a Legion training field that butted up against the wall around the Tower. A fresh spring wind whipped down from the mountains, cold and swift, and Tavi had to lean back to keep from swaying off the edge and into a fall. He forced his eyes to remain on the roof of the tower, instead of looking down.
"That's got to be fifty feet," he told Kitai quietly. "Not even you could jump that."
"True," Kitai said. She cast her cloak back from her arms and opened a large, heavy pouch of Marat-worked leather. She drew out a coil of greyish, almost metallic-looking rope.
Tavi watched, frowning. "Is that more of that rope made from Iceman hair?"
"Yes," she replied. Her hand dipped into her pouch again, and came out with three simple metal hooks. She slid them together, small grooves and tabs locking the hooks' spines together, and linked them solidly with a piece of leather cord, so that the hooks reached out with steely fingers in a circle around the spine.
"That grappling hook isn't Marat-made," Tavi said.
"No. An Aleran thief had it. I watched him rob a house one night."
"And stole it from him?"
Kitai smiled, fingers flying as they knotted the cord to the hook. "The One teaches us that what one gives to others, one receives in return." She flashed him a sharp-toothed grin, and said, "Get down, Aleran."
Tavi dropped to one knee just as Kitai raised the hook and whirled it in a circle, letting out the line and gathering speed. It didn't take her long. Four circles, five, and she let out a hiss and flung the hook and the line across the distance to the roof. Metal clinked faintly on stone.
Kitai began drawing the cord in, very slowly and carefully. The rope suddenly tightened, and she continued to lean back, steadily increasing the pressure. "Here," she said. "In the pouch. There is a metal spike there, a hammer."
Tavi slipped his hand into the pouch and found them. The spike had an open ring set into the butt end, and Tavi grasped its use at once. He knelt with the spike and the hammer. He took off his cloak and folded it a few times, then drove the spike carefully into the stone of the aqueduct, the cloth muffling the sound of the hammerblows. Tavi drove it in at an angle opposite the pull of the rope, and when he was finished he glanced up to find Kitai looking down at the spike with approval.
She passed him the end of the Marat rope, and Tavi threaded it through the eye on the end of the spike. He took in the last few feet very slowly, with Kitai careful to keep the pressure against the grappling hook, until he was able to lean his full weight against it, holding it in place.
Kitai nodded sharply and her hands flew through another knot, one Tavi was not familiar with. She tied off the rope, using the knot to draw it tight and to tighten it even more before she released it, leaned back, and nodded to Tavi.
The boy released the rope slowly. It made a faint, strong thrumming sound, and stretched out between the aqueduct and the Tower, glistening like spider silk in the ambient radiance of the city's thousands upon thousands of furylamps. "So," he said. "We cross on the rope to avoid the earth and wood furies in the lawn. Right?"
"Yes," Kitai said.
"That's going to leave wind furies on watch around the roof," he said. "And it looks like there might be a gargoyle at either end. See, those lumps there'?"
Kitai frowned. "What is this, gargoyle?"
"It's an earth fury," Tavi explained. "A statue that is able to perceive and to move. They're not very fast, but they are strong."
"They will try to harm us?"
"Probably," Tavi said quietly. "They'll respond to movement on the roof."
"Then we must not touch foot to the roof, yes?"
Tavi nodded. "It might work. But I don't see how else we're going to get inside but the door on the roof. There are guards at all the lower doors."
"Give me your cloak," Kitai said.
Tavi passed it over to her. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing to the wind furies," she said. She slipped her cloak off and thrust them both into the cold current of water running through the aqueduct, soaking them. Then she opened another pouch and drew out a heavy ?wooden canister, which proved to be full of salt. She started spreading it heavily over the damp cloaks.
Tavi watched that, frowning. "I know salt is painful to wind furies," he said. "But does that actually work?"
Kitai paused and gave him an even look. Then she glanced down at her clothing and jewelry and back up to Tavi.
He lifted his hands. "All right, all right. If you say so."
She rose a moment later and tossed him the cloak. Tavi caught it, and drew the wet, sodden mass on. Kitai did the same. "Are you ready, Aleran?"
"Ready for what?" Tavi asked. "I'm still not sure how we're going to get in without touching down on the roof."
Kitai nodded at the narrow windows on the topmost floor. "I will go in through there. Wait until I am all the way across before you start. The rope is not designed to hold two."
"Better let me go first," Tavi said. "I'm heavier. If it's going to collapse, it will be for me."
Kitai frowned at him, but nodded. She gestured to the rope, and said, "Go on. Leave me space to work when I get there."
Tavi nodded, then turned to look at the slender rope stretching across to the Grey Tower. He swallowed and felt his fingers trembling. But he forced himself to move, sliding over to the rope and taking it in his hands. He let himself drop down, head toward the Grey Tower, hands on the rope, his heels crossed in an X to hold up his legs. The wind blew, the rope quivered, and Tavi prayed that the grappling hook would not slip from its purchase. Then, as carefully and smoothly as he could, he started pulling himself over the gap to the Grey Tower. He glanced back once to see Kitai watching him, her eyes glittering with mischief, one hand covering her mouth without really hiding the amusement on it.
Tavi forced himself to concentrate on his task, upon the steady, sure motion of arms and legs and fingers and hands. He did not hurry, but moved with deliberate caution until he had crossed the gap. He was able to spot a window ledge, and dropped his feet carefully down to rest on it until he was sure it would hold his weight. Then he stepped more firmly onto the ledge and looked back at Kitai, one hand steadying himself on the rope.
The Marat girl did not lower herself to the rope as he had. Instead, she simply stepped out onto it as though it were as wide and steady as a crossbeam of heavy timber. Her arms akimbo, she moved with a kind of casual arrogance for the deadly drop beneath her, crossed the rope in a third the time it had taken Tavi, and hopped down, turning in midair and landed with her heels steady on the ledge beside him.
Tavi stared at her for a moment. She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Yes?"
He shook his head. "Where did you learn that?"
"Rope walking?" she asked.
"Yes. That was... impressive."
"It is a whelp's game. We all play it when we are young." She grinned. "I was better at it when I was younger. I could have run along it." She turned to the window and peered through the glass. "A hall. I see no one."
Tavi looked. "I don't either," he said. He drew his knife from his belt and tested the edges of the glass over the window. It was a single pane, crafted directly into the stone. "We'll have to break it," he told Kitai.
She nodded sharply, then drew a roll of some kind of thick cloth from another pouch. She rolled it out with a flick, then drew out a small bottle and opened it. There was a sharp stench as she poured some kind of thick, oily substance onto her palm and smeared it all over her window. She hurriedly scrubbed the substance from her skin with the cloth, then frowned, her lips moving.
"What are you doing?" Tavi asked.
"Counting," she replied. "You'll make me lose my place." She went on that way for another minute or so, then flattened the cloth against the window, where it adhered almost instantly. Kitai smoothed the cloth out as much as she could, waited a moment more, then drew her knife and brought the rounded hilt sharply down onto the glass in a short, precise blow.
The glass broke with a crunching snap. Kitai hit it again, in several different places, and drew the cloth out slowly. The window glass, Tavi saw, stuck to the cloth. Kitai then took the portion of the cloth she had wiped her hand upon and pressed it to the wall beside the window, where it clung as strongly as it had to the glass.
She glanced at Tavi as she broke off a few jagged pieces of glass the cloth had missed, dropped them, then bent nimbly and slid through the window and into the Grey Tower.
Tavi shook his head and made his way over to the next window, carefully holding the rope as he did it. He felt clumsy and slow in comparison to the Marat girl, which was vaguely annoying. But at the same time, he took a real sense of pleasure in seeing her ability and confidence. Like himself, she had no furycraft of her own, but it was clear to him that she did not think herself disadvantaged. And she had reason not to, having spent the last several months sneering at furycrafted security measures and defeating them with intelligence and skill.
Tavi filed away that trick with the adhesive and the cloth for future reference and slid inside to drop into a crouch beside Kitai.
They were in a hallway, one side lined with windows, the other with heavy wooden doors. Tavi crossed to the nearest door and tested the handle. "Locked," he reported in a whisper, and dipped a hand into his own belt pouch. He drew out a roll of leather containing several small tools.
"What are you doing?" Kitai whispered.
"Unlocking," he replied. He slipped the tools into the keyhole, closed his eyes, and felt his way through the lock's mechanism. A moment later, he locked his grip on the tools and twisted slightly, springing the lock open.
Tavi opened the door on a small and barren bedchamber. There was a bed, a chair, a chamber pot, and nothing else but smooth stone walls.
"A cell," he murmured, and closed the door again.
Kitai plucked the tools from his hand and stared at them, then at him. "How?" she asked.
"I've been learning this kind of thing," Tavi replied. "I can show you later. How did you steal all of that without learning how to open a lock?"
"I stole the keys," Kitai said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Tavi muttered. "Come on."
They went down the hall, and Tavi checked every door. Each room was the same-drab, plain, and empty. "He must not be on this floor," Tavi murmured, as they reached the end of the hall. There was a door there, and Tavi opened it, to reveal a stairway curling down, lit by dim orange furylamps. Sound would bounce merrily around the stairs, and Tavi made a motion cautioning Kitai to silence, before slipping out the door and to the stairs. He hadn't gone down more than three or four when he heard the sound of song ringing through the tower below, another Wintersend round, though this one performed with the benefit of far more drink than practice.
Tavi grinned and moved a little more quickly. If the guards were that raucous below, it would be a far simpler matter to move around the tower.
They took the stairs to the next floor, and Tavi opened the door on the landing, only to find another row of holding rooms just as there had been on the top floor. They left that one to slip down one floor more, when Kitai suddenly seized Tavi's shoulder, the tight grip of her fingers a warning.
Then just below him was the sound of a heavy door bolt opening, and men's voices speaking to one another. Tavi froze. Their footsteps started down the stairs toward the singing.
Tavi waited until they were gone before stealing down the rest of the stairs, struggling to keep his excitement from making him sloppy. He handled the lock on the door to the stairway as easily as the others and opened it onto a very different area than on the floors above.
Though still furnished very plainly, the whole floor was given over to a single, large suite. There was an enormous bath, several bookshelves complete with simple couches and chairs upon which to sit while reading, a table for four where food might be served, and a large bed-all of which were behind a heavy grid of steel bars with a single door. The windows were likewise barred.
"Told you I'm fine," said a heavy, tired voice, from somewhere beneath a large lump under the bed's covers. "Just need to rest."
"Max," Tavi hissed.
Max, his short hair still damp and plastered to his head, sat bolt upright in bed, and his jaw dropped open. "Tavi? How the crows did you get in here? What the crows are you doing here?"
"Breaking you out," Tavi said. He crossed to the barred door, while Kitai left the stairway door open a crack and stood watch. He started on the lock.
"Don't bother," Max said. "It's on the table on the north wall."
Tavi looked around, spotted the key, and fetched it. "Not terribly secure of them."
"Anyone who winds up in this cell is being held by politics more than anything," Max said. "The bars are just for show." He grimaced. "Plus furycrafting doesn't work in here."
"Poor baby, no furycrafting," Tavi said, taking the key to the lock. "Come on. Get dressed and let's go."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No. We need you, Max."
"Tavi," Max said. "Don't be insane. I don't know how you got in here, but-"
"Aleran," Kitai hissed. "We have little time before dawn." She turned her head to Tavi, and her hood had fallen back from her face. "We must leave, with or without him."
"Who is that?" Max asked. He blinked. "She's a Marat."
"That's Kitai. Kitai, this is Max."
"She's Marat," Max breathed.
Kitai arched a pale brow, and asked Tavi, "Is he slow in the head?"
"There are days when I think so," Tavi replied. He entered the cell and went to Max's side. "Come on. Look, we can't let that idiot Brencis send the entire Realm into chaos. We get you out of here. We go down into the Deeps and come up near the palace and get you to Killian without anyone being the wiser. You get back to work and help my aunt."
"Fleeing custody is a Realm offense," Max said. "They could hang me for it. More to the point, they could hang you for helping me. And great bloody furies, Tavi, you're doing it with a Marat at your side."
"Don't mention Kitai to Killian and Miles. We'll fix the rest of it," Tavi said.
"How?"
"I don't know. Not yet. But we will, Max. A lot of people could get hurt if this situation goes out of control."
"Can't be done," Max said. "Tavi, you might have gotten in here, but the craftings to block the way out are twice as thick and strong. They'll sense anything I try to do, and-"
Tavi picked up a pair of loose linen trousers and flung them at Max's head. "Put these on. We got in here without using any furies at all. We'll go out the same way."
Max stared at Tavi for a second, skeptical. "How?"
Kitai made a disgusted sound. "Everyone here thinks nothing can happen without sorcery, Aleran. I say it again. You are all mad."
Tavi turned to Max, and said, "Max, you saved my life once already tonight. But I need more of your help. And I swear to you that once my family is safe, I will do everything in my power to help make sure that you are not punished for it."
"Everything in your power, huh?" Max said.
"I know. It isn't much."
Max regarded Tavi evenly for a second, then swung his legs down to the side of the bed and put on the linen trousers. "It's enough for me." He let out a hiss of discomfort as he rose, unsteady on his feet. "Sorry. They healed the wounds, but I'm still pretty stiff."
Tavi stuffed the bed's pillows under the blankets in a vague Max-sized lump, then got a shoulder under his friend's arm for support. With luck, the guards would leave "Max" to sleep in peace for hours before they noticed that the prisoner was no longer in his cell. They left, and Tavi locked the cell behind them and replaced the key.
"Tavi," Max mumbled, as they went up the stairs again, Kitai pacing along behind them. "I've never had a friend who would do something like this for me. Thank you."
"Heh," Tavi said. "Don't thank me until you see how we're going to leave."
Tavi didn't know quite what it was that made him decide to head for the Craft Lane at the base of the mountain crowned by the Citadel high above. It was far from the elegant celebrations and garden parties of the streets that rose above the rest of the city. No jeweler's shop or goldsmith would be found there. Craft Lane was inhabited by those who worked with their hands for a living-blacksmiths, farriers, carters, weavers, bakers, masons, butchers, vendors, carpenters, and cobblers. By the standards in the countryside, any one of the households there was extremely prosperous, and yet Craft Lane was still poor compared to the Citizens Lanes above them, and the ascending ranks of the nobility that followed.
But what Craft Lane lacked in extravagance, it made up for in enthusiasm. For folk who toiled every day to earn their keep, the celebration at Wintersend was one of the most anticipated times of the year, and great effort went into the planning of celebrations. As a consequence, there was literally no hour of the day or night that some (if not all) of Craft Lane would be host to street gatherings where food, drink, music, dance, and games ran with a constant, merry roar.
Tavi had dressed in his darkest clothes, and wore his old green cloak with its hood pulled forward to hide his face. Upon reaching Garden Lane, he studied it for a moment with a kind of half-amused dismay. The celebrations were running in full swing, with furylamps brightening night to near day. He could hear at least three different groups of musicians playing, and numerous areas along the crowded streets had been marked out on the cobblestones with chalk to reserve space for the dancers who whirled and reeled through their steps.
Tavi wandered down the Lane, looking up only occasionally. He focused his attention on what his ears and his nose told him of his surroundings, then at the intersection with Southlane he abruptly stopped.
The first thing he noticed about the background was the difference in music. Rather than instruments, there was a small vocal ensemble singing a complex air that rang down the street with merry energy. At the same time, the overwhelming scent of baking sweetbread flooded his senses and made his mouth water. He hadn't eaten in hours and hours, and he looked up to stare hungrily at the baker's shop, which by all rights should have been locked up and quiet, and was instead turning out sweetbread and pastries by the bushel.
Tavi glanced around him, ducked to one side of the road and between two of the shops, and found a box to stand on. He used it to reach up for the top of the windowsill, and with a carefully directed explosion of effort, he heaved himself up, grabbing at the eaves of the roof and hauling himself swiftly up to the rooftop. Once there, he was able to turn and spring lightly from that roof to the next, which offered a split level that rose another story into the air. Tavi scaled that as well, then started down Crafter Lane, springing lightly from one closely spaced rooftop to the next, his eyes and ears and nose open.
A sudden quivering excitement filled him for no reason whatsoever, and Tavi abruptly felt certain that his instincts had not led him astray. He found a pocket of deep shadows behind a chimney and slipped into it, crouching into cautious immobility.
He didn't have long to wait. There was a flicker of motion on the far side of Crafter Lane, and Tavi saw a cloaked and hooded figure gliding over the rooftops just as lightly and quietly as he. He felt his lips tighten into a grin. He recognized the grey cloak, the flowing motion. Once again, he had found the Black Cat.
The figure eased up to the edge of the roof to stare down at the vocalists, then dropped into a relaxed crouch, hands reaching down to rest his fingers lightly on the rooftop. Beneath the cloak's hood, the Cat's head tilted to one side, and he went completely still, evidently fascinated by the singers. Tavi watched the Cat in turn, an odd and nagging sense of recognition stirring briefly. Then the Cat rose and ghosted down to the next rooftop, his covered face turned toward the bakery, with its tables piled high with fresh, steaming sweetbread while a red-cheeked matron did a brisk business selling the loaves. A quality of tension, of hunger, entered the Cat's movements, and he vanished over the far side of the building upon which he stood.
Tavi waited until the Cat was out of sight, then rose and leapt to the roof of the bakery. He found another dark spot to conceal his presence just as the dark-cloaked Cat emerged from between the two buildings across the street and walked calmly through the crowded street, feet shuffling in a rhythmic step or two as he passed the vocal ensemble. The Cat slowed his steps by a fraction and passed the table just as the matron behind the table turned to deposit small silver coins into a strongbox. The Cat's cloak twitched as he passed the table, and if Tavi hadn't been watching carefully he would never have seen the loaf vanish under the thief's cloak.
The Cat never missed a step, sliding into the space between the bakery and the cobbler's shop beside it and walking quietly and quickly down the alleyway.
Tavi rose and padded silently along the rooftop, reaching to his belt for the heavy coil of tough, flexible cord looped through it. He dropped the open loop at the end of the lariat clear of his fingertips, and opened the loop wider with the practiced, expert motions his hands had learned through years of dealing with the large, stubborn, aggressive rams of his uncle's mountain sheep. It was a long throw and from a difficult angle, but he crouched by the edge of the roof and flicked the lariat in a circle before sending it sharply down.
The loop in the lariat settled around the Cat's hooded head. The thief darted to one side, and managed to get two fingers under the loop before Tavi could snap the line tight. Tavi planted his feet and hauled hard on the line.
The line hauled the Cat from his feet and sent him stumbling to one side.
Tavi whipped the cord twice around the bricks of the bakery's chimney, slapped it through a herder's loop in a familiar blur of motion, then slid down the roof to drop to the alley, landing in a crouch that bounced into a leap that carried him into the Black Cat's back. He hit hard, driving the Cat into the wall with a breath-stealing slam.
The Cat's foot smashed down hard on his toes, and if he hadn't been wearing heavy leather boots, it might have broken them. Tavi snarled, "Hold still," and hauled at the rope, trying to keep his opponent from finding his balance. There was a rasping sound and a knife whipped at the hand Tavi had on the rope. He jerked his fingers clear, and the knife bit hard into the tightened lariat. The cord was too tough to part at a single blow, but the Cat reached up with his free hand to steady the rope and finish the cut.
The lariat parted. Tavi slammed the Cat against the wall again, seized the wrist of the thief's knife hand and banged it hard against the bakery's stone wall. The knife tumbled free. Tavi drove the heel of his hand into the base of the Cat's neck, through the heavy cloak, a stunning blow. The Cat staggered. Tavi whirled and threw the thief facedown to the ground, landing on his back and twisting one slender arm up far behind him, holding the Cat in place.
"Hold still," Tavi snarled. "I'm not with the civic legion. I just want to talk to you."
The Black Cat abruptly stopped struggling, and something about the quality of that stillness made him think it was due to startled surprise. The Black Cat eased away the tension in the muscles that quivered against Tavi, and they softened abruptly.
Tavi blinked down at his captive and then tore the hood back from the Black Cat's head.
A mane of fine, silvery white curls fell free of the cloak, framing the pale, smooth curve of a young woman's cheek and full, wine-dark lips. Her eyes, slightly canted at their corners, were a brilliant shade of green identical to Tavi's own, and her expression was one of utter surprise. "Aleran?" she panted.
"Kitai," Tavi breathed. "You're the Black Cat?"
She turned her head as much as she could to look up at him, her wide eyes visible even in the dimness of the alley. Tavi stared down at her for a long moment, his stomach muscles suddenly fluttering with excited energy. He became acutely conscious of the lean, strong limbs of the young Marat woman beneath him, the too-warm fever heat of her skin, and the way that her own breathing had not slowed, though she had ceased to struggle against him. He slowly released her wrist, and she just as slowly withdrew her arm from between their bodies.
Tavi shivered and leaned a little closer, drawing in a breath through his nose. Strands of fine hair tickled his lips. Kitai smelled of many scents, faint perfumes likely stolen from expensive boutiques, the fresh warmth of still-warm sweetbread and, beneath that, of heather and clean winter wind. Even as he moved, she turned her head toward him as well, her temple brushing his chin, her breath warm on his throat. Her eyes slid almost closed.
"Well," she murmured after another moment. "You have me, Aleran. Either do something with me or let me up."
Tavi felt his face flare into a fiery blush, and he hurriedly pushed his arms down and lifted his weight from Kitai. The Marat girl looked up at him without moving for a moment, her mouth curled into a little smirk, before she rose with a thoughtless, feline grace to her own feet. She looked around for a moment and spotted her ill-gotten loaf of sweetbread on the ground, crushed during their struggle.
"Now look what you've done," she complained. "You've destroyed my dinner, Aleran." She frowned and stared at him for a moment, annoyance nickering in her eyes as she looked him up and down, then stood directly before him with her hands on her hips. Tavi blinked mildly at her expression and stared down at her. "You've grown," she accused him. "You're taller."
"It's been two years," Tavi said.
Kitai made a faint, disgusted sound. Beneath the cloak she wore a man's tunic of dark, expensive silk, hand-stitched with Forcian nightflowers, heavy, Legion-issue leather trousers, and fine leather shoes that would have cost a small fortune. The Marat girl had changed as well, and though she was obviously little taller than before, she had developed in other, extremely interesting ways, and Tavi had to force himself not to stare at the pale slice of smooth flesh revealed by the neckline of the tunic. Her cheek had a reddened patch of abraded flesh sharing space with a steadily darkening bruise, where Tavi had first slammed her into the wall. There was a similar mark upon her throat, though it was slender and precise, from where Tavi's lariat had caught her.
If she felt any pain, it didn't show. She regarded Tavi with intelligent, defiant eyes, and said, "Doroga said you would do this to me."
"Do what?" Tavi asked.
"Grow," she said. Her eyes raked him up and down, and she seemed to feel no compunction at all about staring at him. "Become stronger."
"Um," Tavi said. "I'm sorry?"
She glowered at him, and looked around until she spotted her knife. She reclaimed it, and Tavi saw that the blade was inlaid with gold and silver, the handle set with a design of amber and amethysts, and would probably have cost him a full year's worth of the modest monthly stipend Gaius permitted him. More jewelry glittered at her throat, on both wrists and in one ear, and Tavi gloomily estimated that the value of the goods she had stolen would probably merit her execution should she be captured by the authorities.
"Kitai," he said. "What in the world are you doing here?"
"Starving," she snapped. She poked at the ruined loaf with the tip of her shoe. "Thanks to you, Aleran."
Tavi shook his head. "What were you doing before that?"
"Not starving," she said with a sniff.
"Crows, Kitai. Why did you come here?"
Her lips pressed together for a moment before she answered. "To stand Watch."
"Uh. What?"
"I am Watching," she snapped. "Don't you know anything?"
"I'm starting to think that I don't," Tavi said. "Watching what?"
Kitai rolled her eyes in a gesture that conveyed both annoyance and contempt. "You, fool." She narrowed her eyes. "But what were you doing on that roof? Why did you attack me?"
"I didn't know it was you," Tavi said. "I was trying to catch the thief called the Black Cat. I suppose I did."
Kitai's eyes narrowed. "The One sometimes blesses even idiots with good fortune, Aleran." She folded her arms. "You have found me. What do you want?"
Tavi chewed on his lip, thinking. It was dangerous for Kitai to be in Alera at all, much less in the capital. The Realm's experiences with other races upon Carna had invariably been tense, hostile, and violent. When the Marat had wiped out Princeps Gaius Septimus's Legion at the First Battle of Calderon, they had created an entire generation of widows and orphans and bereaved families. And since the Crown Legion had been recruited from Alera Imperia, there were thousands, tens of thousands of individuals in this city with a bitter grudge against the Marat.
Kitai, because of her athletic build, pale skin, and hair-and especially because of her exotically slanted eyes-would be recognized immediately as one of the barbarians from the east. Given all that she had stolen (and the humiliation she had inflicted upon the civic legion in the process), she would never see the inside of a jail or a court of law. If seen, she would probably be seized by an angry mob and stoned, hanged, or burned on the spot, while the civic legion looked the other way.
Tavi's neglected stomach gurgled a complaint, and he sighed. "First thing," he said, "I'm going to get us both some food. Will you wait here for me?"
Kitai arched an eyebrow. "You think I cannot steal food for myself?"
"I'm not going to steal it," Tavi said. "Think of it as an apology for ruining your sweetbread."
Kitai frowned at that for a moment, then nodded cautiously and said, "Very well."
He had just enough money to purchase a couple of heavy wildfowl drumsticks, a loaf of sweetbread, and a flagon of apple cider. He took them back into the dim alley, where Kitai waited in patient stillness. Tavi passed her a drumstick and broke the loaf in half, then let her choose one. Then he leaned back against the wall, standing beside her, and got down to the serious business of eating.
Evidently, Kitai was at least as ravenous as Tavi, and they demolished meat and bread alike in moments. Tavi took a long drink from the flask and offered the rest to Kitai.
The Marat girl drank and wiped her mouth with one sleeve, then turned to Tavi, exotic eyes glittering. She dropped the empty flask and studied him while she licked the crumbs and grease from her fingers. Tavi found it fascinating, and waited in silence for a moment.
Kitai gave him a slow smile. "Yes, Aleran?" she asked. "Is there something you want?"
Tavi blinked and coughed, looking away before he started blushing again. He reminded himself sternly of what was at stake and that he did not dare allow himself to be distracted when it could cost so many people their lives. The terrifying weight of his responsibility drove away thoughts of Kitai's fingers and mouth, replacing them with twisting anxiety. "Yes, actually," he said. "I need your help."
Kitai's playful little smile vanished, and she peered at him, her expression curious, even concerned. "With what?"
"Breaking into a building," he said. "I need to learn how you've managed to get around all the security precautions in the places you have raided."
Kitai frowned at him. "For what reason?"
"A man is locked inside a prison tower. I need to get him out of the Grey Tower without tripping any furycrafted alarms and without anyone seeing us. Oh, and we need to do it so that no one knows that he's missing for at least a quarter of an hour."
Kitai took that in stride. "Will it be dangerous?"
"Very," Tavi said. "If we're caught, they will imprison or kill us both."
Kitai nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Then we must not be caught."
"Or fail," Tavi said. "Kitai, this could be important. Not just for me, but for all of Alera."
"Why?" she asked.
Tavi furrowed his brow. "We don't have much time for explanations. How much do you know about Aleran politics?"
"I know that you people are all insane," Kitai said.
Despite himself, a low bark of laughter flew from his lips. "I can see how you'd think that," Tavi said. "Do you need a reason other than insanity, then?"
"I prefer it," Kitai said.
Tavi considered it for a moment, then said, "The man who is locked away is my friend. He was put there for defending me."
Kitai stared at him for a moment and nodded. "Reason enough," she said.
"You'll help me?"
"Yes, Aleran," she answered. She studied his features with thoughtful eyes. "I will help you."
He nodded seriously. "Thank you."
Her teeth shone white in the dim alley. "Do not thank me. Not until you see what we must do to enter this tower."
Chapter 31
Tavi stared across an enormous span of empty air at the Grey Tower, and his heart pounded with what some people might characterize as abject terror.
It was not difficult to find someone who would tell Tavi where to find the Grey Tower. He simply asked a civic legionare with a little too much good cheer showing in his reddened nose and nearly flammable breath, explaining that he was visiting from out of town and would like to see it. The legionare had been obliging and friendly, and given Tavi directions made only marginally unintelligible by all the mushy, slurred S sounds. After that, Tavi and Kitai slipped through the streets of the capital, taking care to avoid the more energetic celebrations like the ones on Crafter Lane.
Now, they stood atop an aqueduct that carried water from a wellspring in the mountains outside the capital to run through the great green bowl of fields and steadholts that surrounded the city. There the aqueduct diverted into a dozen offshoots that directed clean water to reservoirs around the city. From where they stood, Tavi could look down the almost imperceptible slope of the aqueduct, where it passed over entire neighborhoods, its stately arches holding up the stone trough, gurgling water a constant babble as he and Kitai paced steadily forward. Only a few hundred yards ahead, the aqueduct swept past the headquarters and barracks of the civic legion upon the one side and the Grey Tower upon the other.
Kitai glanced over her shoulder at him, her steps never slowing, walking with perfect confidence despite the evening breezes and the narrow, water-slicked stone footing of the aqueduct's rim. "Do you need me to slow down?"
"No," Tavi said irritably. He focused on their destination, trying not to think about how easy it would be to fall to a humiliating death. "Just keep going."
Kitai shrugged, a small, smug smile playing on her lips, and turned away from him again.
Tavi studied the Tower as they approached it. It was a surprisingly simple-looking building. It didn't look terribly towerlike, either. Tavi had imagined something suitably elegant and grim, maybe something bleak and straight and menacing, where the prisoners would be lucky to be able to throw themselves off the top of the tower to fall to humiliating deaths of their own. Instead, the building looked little different than the Legion barracks nearby. It was taller, and featured very narrow windows, and there were fewer doors in evidence. There was a wide lawn around the tower and a palisade around the lawn. Guards were in evidence at the gate in the fence, at the front doors to the building, and patrolling around the exterior of the fence.
"It looks... nice," Tavi murmured. "Really rather pleasant."
"There is no pleasant prison," Kitai replied. She abruptly stopped, and Tavi nearly bumped disastrously into her. He recovered his balance and glowered at her as another group of wandering singers passed on the street beneath the aqueduct they stood upon. Each member of the group held a candle as they walked, performing one of the traditional airs of the holiday.
Kitai watched the group closely as they passed.
"You like the music?"
"You all sing wrong," Kitai said, eyes curious and intent. "You don't do it properly."
"Why do you say that?"
She flipped a hand irritably. "Among my people, you sing the song on your lips. Sometimes many songs together. Everyone who sings weaves their song with the ones already there. At least three of them, or it is hardly worth the trouble. But you Alerans only sing one. And you all sing it the same way." She shook her head, her expression baffled. "All the practice you need to do that must bore your folk to death."
Tavi grinned. "But do you like the results?"
Kitai watched the group pass out of sight, and her voice was wistful. "You don't do it properly."
She started moving again, and Tavi followed her until they had drawn even with the Grey Tower. Tavi looked over the edge of the stone aqueduct. There was a good fifty-foot drop to the boot-packed, hardened earth of a Legion training field that butted up against the wall around the Tower. A fresh spring wind whipped down from the mountains, cold and swift, and Tavi had to lean back to keep from swaying off the edge and into a fall. He forced his eyes to remain on the roof of the tower, instead of looking down.
"That's got to be fifty feet," he told Kitai quietly. "Not even you could jump that."
"True," Kitai said. She cast her cloak back from her arms and opened a large, heavy pouch of Marat-worked leather. She drew out a coil of greyish, almost metallic-looking rope.
Tavi watched, frowning. "Is that more of that rope made from Iceman hair?"
"Yes," she replied. Her hand dipped into her pouch again, and came out with three simple metal hooks. She slid them together, small grooves and tabs locking the hooks' spines together, and linked them solidly with a piece of leather cord, so that the hooks reached out with steely fingers in a circle around the spine.
"That grappling hook isn't Marat-made," Tavi said.
"No. An Aleran thief had it. I watched him rob a house one night."
"And stole it from him?"
Kitai smiled, fingers flying as they knotted the cord to the hook. "The One teaches us that what one gives to others, one receives in return." She flashed him a sharp-toothed grin, and said, "Get down, Aleran."
Tavi dropped to one knee just as Kitai raised the hook and whirled it in a circle, letting out the line and gathering speed. It didn't take her long. Four circles, five, and she let out a hiss and flung the hook and the line across the distance to the roof. Metal clinked faintly on stone.
Kitai began drawing the cord in, very slowly and carefully. The rope suddenly tightened, and she continued to lean back, steadily increasing the pressure. "Here," she said. "In the pouch. There is a metal spike there, a hammer."
Tavi slipped his hand into the pouch and found them. The spike had an open ring set into the butt end, and Tavi grasped its use at once. He knelt with the spike and the hammer. He took off his cloak and folded it a few times, then drove the spike carefully into the stone of the aqueduct, the cloth muffling the sound of the hammerblows. Tavi drove it in at an angle opposite the pull of the rope, and when he was finished he glanced up to find Kitai looking down at the spike with approval.
She passed him the end of the Marat rope, and Tavi threaded it through the eye on the end of the spike. He took in the last few feet very slowly, with Kitai careful to keep the pressure against the grappling hook, until he was able to lean his full weight against it, holding it in place.
Kitai nodded sharply and her hands flew through another knot, one Tavi was not familiar with. She tied off the rope, using the knot to draw it tight and to tighten it even more before she released it, leaned back, and nodded to Tavi.
The boy released the rope slowly. It made a faint, strong thrumming sound, and stretched out between the aqueduct and the Tower, glistening like spider silk in the ambient radiance of the city's thousands upon thousands of furylamps. "So," he said. "We cross on the rope to avoid the earth and wood furies in the lawn. Right?"
"Yes," Kitai said.
"That's going to leave wind furies on watch around the roof," he said. "And it looks like there might be a gargoyle at either end. See, those lumps there'?"
Kitai frowned. "What is this, gargoyle?"
"It's an earth fury," Tavi explained. "A statue that is able to perceive and to move. They're not very fast, but they are strong."
"They will try to harm us?"
"Probably," Tavi said quietly. "They'll respond to movement on the roof."
"Then we must not touch foot to the roof, yes?"
Tavi nodded. "It might work. But I don't see how else we're going to get inside but the door on the roof. There are guards at all the lower doors."
"Give me your cloak," Kitai said.
Tavi passed it over to her. "What are you doing?"
"Seeing to the wind furies," she said. She slipped her cloak off and thrust them both into the cold current of water running through the aqueduct, soaking them. Then she opened another pouch and drew out a heavy ?wooden canister, which proved to be full of salt. She started spreading it heavily over the damp cloaks.
Tavi watched that, frowning. "I know salt is painful to wind furies," he said. "But does that actually work?"
Kitai paused and gave him an even look. Then she glanced down at her clothing and jewelry and back up to Tavi.
He lifted his hands. "All right, all right. If you say so."
She rose a moment later and tossed him the cloak. Tavi caught it, and drew the wet, sodden mass on. Kitai did the same. "Are you ready, Aleran?"
"Ready for what?" Tavi asked. "I'm still not sure how we're going to get in without touching down on the roof."
Kitai nodded at the narrow windows on the topmost floor. "I will go in through there. Wait until I am all the way across before you start. The rope is not designed to hold two."
"Better let me go first," Tavi said. "I'm heavier. If it's going to collapse, it will be for me."
Kitai frowned at him, but nodded. She gestured to the rope, and said, "Go on. Leave me space to work when I get there."
Tavi nodded, then turned to look at the slender rope stretching across to the Grey Tower. He swallowed and felt his fingers trembling. But he forced himself to move, sliding over to the rope and taking it in his hands. He let himself drop down, head toward the Grey Tower, hands on the rope, his heels crossed in an X to hold up his legs. The wind blew, the rope quivered, and Tavi prayed that the grappling hook would not slip from its purchase. Then, as carefully and smoothly as he could, he started pulling himself over the gap to the Grey Tower. He glanced back once to see Kitai watching him, her eyes glittering with mischief, one hand covering her mouth without really hiding the amusement on it.
Tavi forced himself to concentrate on his task, upon the steady, sure motion of arms and legs and fingers and hands. He did not hurry, but moved with deliberate caution until he had crossed the gap. He was able to spot a window ledge, and dropped his feet carefully down to rest on it until he was sure it would hold his weight. Then he stepped more firmly onto the ledge and looked back at Kitai, one hand steadying himself on the rope.
The Marat girl did not lower herself to the rope as he had. Instead, she simply stepped out onto it as though it were as wide and steady as a crossbeam of heavy timber. Her arms akimbo, she moved with a kind of casual arrogance for the deadly drop beneath her, crossed the rope in a third the time it had taken Tavi, and hopped down, turning in midair and landed with her heels steady on the ledge beside him.
Tavi stared at her for a moment. She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Yes?"
He shook his head. "Where did you learn that?"
"Rope walking?" she asked.
"Yes. That was... impressive."
"It is a whelp's game. We all play it when we are young." She grinned. "I was better at it when I was younger. I could have run along it." She turned to the window and peered through the glass. "A hall. I see no one."
Tavi looked. "I don't either," he said. He drew his knife from his belt and tested the edges of the glass over the window. It was a single pane, crafted directly into the stone. "We'll have to break it," he told Kitai.
She nodded sharply, then drew a roll of some kind of thick cloth from another pouch. She rolled it out with a flick, then drew out a small bottle and opened it. There was a sharp stench as she poured some kind of thick, oily substance onto her palm and smeared it all over her window. She hurriedly scrubbed the substance from her skin with the cloth, then frowned, her lips moving.
"What are you doing?" Tavi asked.
"Counting," she replied. "You'll make me lose my place." She went on that way for another minute or so, then flattened the cloth against the window, where it adhered almost instantly. Kitai smoothed the cloth out as much as she could, waited a moment more, then drew her knife and brought the rounded hilt sharply down onto the glass in a short, precise blow.
The glass broke with a crunching snap. Kitai hit it again, in several different places, and drew the cloth out slowly. The window glass, Tavi saw, stuck to the cloth. Kitai then took the portion of the cloth she had wiped her hand upon and pressed it to the wall beside the window, where it clung as strongly as it had to the glass.
She glanced at Tavi as she broke off a few jagged pieces of glass the cloth had missed, dropped them, then bent nimbly and slid through the window and into the Grey Tower.
Tavi shook his head and made his way over to the next window, carefully holding the rope as he did it. He felt clumsy and slow in comparison to the Marat girl, which was vaguely annoying. But at the same time, he took a real sense of pleasure in seeing her ability and confidence. Like himself, she had no furycraft of her own, but it was clear to him that she did not think herself disadvantaged. And she had reason not to, having spent the last several months sneering at furycrafted security measures and defeating them with intelligence and skill.
Tavi filed away that trick with the adhesive and the cloth for future reference and slid inside to drop into a crouch beside Kitai.
They were in a hallway, one side lined with windows, the other with heavy wooden doors. Tavi crossed to the nearest door and tested the handle. "Locked," he reported in a whisper, and dipped a hand into his own belt pouch. He drew out a roll of leather containing several small tools.
"What are you doing?" Kitai whispered.
"Unlocking," he replied. He slipped the tools into the keyhole, closed his eyes, and felt his way through the lock's mechanism. A moment later, he locked his grip on the tools and twisted slightly, springing the lock open.
Tavi opened the door on a small and barren bedchamber. There was a bed, a chair, a chamber pot, and nothing else but smooth stone walls.
"A cell," he murmured, and closed the door again.
Kitai plucked the tools from his hand and stared at them, then at him. "How?" she asked.
"I've been learning this kind of thing," Tavi replied. "I can show you later. How did you steal all of that without learning how to open a lock?"
"I stole the keys," Kitai said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Tavi muttered. "Come on."
They went down the hall, and Tavi checked every door. Each room was the same-drab, plain, and empty. "He must not be on this floor," Tavi murmured, as they reached the end of the hall. There was a door there, and Tavi opened it, to reveal a stairway curling down, lit by dim orange furylamps. Sound would bounce merrily around the stairs, and Tavi made a motion cautioning Kitai to silence, before slipping out the door and to the stairs. He hadn't gone down more than three or four when he heard the sound of song ringing through the tower below, another Wintersend round, though this one performed with the benefit of far more drink than practice.
Tavi grinned and moved a little more quickly. If the guards were that raucous below, it would be a far simpler matter to move around the tower.
They took the stairs to the next floor, and Tavi opened the door on the landing, only to find another row of holding rooms just as there had been on the top floor. They left that one to slip down one floor more, when Kitai suddenly seized Tavi's shoulder, the tight grip of her fingers a warning.
Then just below him was the sound of a heavy door bolt opening, and men's voices speaking to one another. Tavi froze. Their footsteps started down the stairs toward the singing.
Tavi waited until they were gone before stealing down the rest of the stairs, struggling to keep his excitement from making him sloppy. He handled the lock on the door to the stairway as easily as the others and opened it onto a very different area than on the floors above.
Though still furnished very plainly, the whole floor was given over to a single, large suite. There was an enormous bath, several bookshelves complete with simple couches and chairs upon which to sit while reading, a table for four where food might be served, and a large bed-all of which were behind a heavy grid of steel bars with a single door. The windows were likewise barred.
"Told you I'm fine," said a heavy, tired voice, from somewhere beneath a large lump under the bed's covers. "Just need to rest."
"Max," Tavi hissed.
Max, his short hair still damp and plastered to his head, sat bolt upright in bed, and his jaw dropped open. "Tavi? How the crows did you get in here? What the crows are you doing here?"
"Breaking you out," Tavi said. He crossed to the barred door, while Kitai left the stairway door open a crack and stood watch. He started on the lock.
"Don't bother," Max said. "It's on the table on the north wall."
Tavi looked around, spotted the key, and fetched it. "Not terribly secure of them."
"Anyone who winds up in this cell is being held by politics more than anything," Max said. "The bars are just for show." He grimaced. "Plus furycrafting doesn't work in here."
"Poor baby, no furycrafting," Tavi said, taking the key to the lock. "Come on. Get dressed and let's go."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No. We need you, Max."
"Tavi," Max said. "Don't be insane. I don't know how you got in here, but-"
"Aleran," Kitai hissed. "We have little time before dawn." She turned her head to Tavi, and her hood had fallen back from her face. "We must leave, with or without him."
"Who is that?" Max asked. He blinked. "She's a Marat."
"That's Kitai. Kitai, this is Max."
"She's Marat," Max breathed.
Kitai arched a pale brow, and asked Tavi, "Is he slow in the head?"
"There are days when I think so," Tavi replied. He entered the cell and went to Max's side. "Come on. Look, we can't let that idiot Brencis send the entire Realm into chaos. We get you out of here. We go down into the Deeps and come up near the palace and get you to Killian without anyone being the wiser. You get back to work and help my aunt."
"Fleeing custody is a Realm offense," Max said. "They could hang me for it. More to the point, they could hang you for helping me. And great bloody furies, Tavi, you're doing it with a Marat at your side."
"Don't mention Kitai to Killian and Miles. We'll fix the rest of it," Tavi said.
"How?"
"I don't know. Not yet. But we will, Max. A lot of people could get hurt if this situation goes out of control."
"Can't be done," Max said. "Tavi, you might have gotten in here, but the craftings to block the way out are twice as thick and strong. They'll sense anything I try to do, and-"
Tavi picked up a pair of loose linen trousers and flung them at Max's head. "Put these on. We got in here without using any furies at all. We'll go out the same way."
Max stared at Tavi for a second, skeptical. "How?"
Kitai made a disgusted sound. "Everyone here thinks nothing can happen without sorcery, Aleran. I say it again. You are all mad."
Tavi turned to Max, and said, "Max, you saved my life once already tonight. But I need more of your help. And I swear to you that once my family is safe, I will do everything in my power to help make sure that you are not punished for it."
"Everything in your power, huh?" Max said.
"I know. It isn't much."
Max regarded Tavi evenly for a second, then swung his legs down to the side of the bed and put on the linen trousers. "It's enough for me." He let out a hiss of discomfort as he rose, unsteady on his feet. "Sorry. They healed the wounds, but I'm still pretty stiff."
Tavi stuffed the bed's pillows under the blankets in a vague Max-sized lump, then got a shoulder under his friend's arm for support. With luck, the guards would leave "Max" to sleep in peace for hours before they noticed that the prisoner was no longer in his cell. They left, and Tavi locked the cell behind them and replaced the key.
"Tavi," Max mumbled, as they went up the stairs again, Kitai pacing along behind them. "I've never had a friend who would do something like this for me. Thank you."
"Heh," Tavi said. "Don't thank me until you see how we're going to leave."
