Even on the tips of her toes, her fingers could just cling to the carved stone above her. With a whispered prayer for strength, she pulled. Biting against the pain scorching through her arms and down her back, she stayed silent. Only when she hauled her knees over the brink did she finally allow herself a low, agonized groan. Her breaths came in pants and her arms hung limp, but she drew the device free with a smile.
She flipped the switch.
The resoundingboomwas so loud, it rocked the fountain to its core. Doors thumped open and windows banged wide. It drew people from every direction, wide-eyed and slack jawed. Already, rumors tumbled from them. Speculation, nothing more. Nobody truly knew its cause.
Though when the green gas twined from the topmost tier, billowing putrid clouds and bringing the rotten smell of eggs and filth along its path, those wagging mouths quickly became hysterical over the onslaught.
“Ack! What the devil?”
“Wake the mayor!”
“Gah! Right before the festival, too! I was so looking forward to it.”
“Find the little demon responsible! It was probably my neighbor’s evil child. Again!”
The relentless stayed and pointed fingers at every ill-behaved person they knew, which were many. The smartest scurried into their homes, sealing every opening closed and tight, speaking no more. The dimmest studied the gas as it neared, allowing it to caress their clothing, puffing around them. The odorous oil seeped into threads and soaked into pores, marking them as outcasts. Because, according to Aline, the oil would not leave, willingly or otherwise, for a month at the least.
Lux grinned, a wicked laugh almost escaping her. When the angered voices began to fade at her back and the Shield finished pouring from the iron gate to investigate, she slipped easily through the abandoned front doors.
Chapter forty-two
Her memories of themayor’s mansion as a child were few and faded, but Lux felt confident in that she couldn’t recall it ever being so dark. Or so quiet. The loss of Colden, the loss of Morana, and, above all, the loss of lifeblood had apparently sent the mayor into confinement. Which meant she would only find him in one part of the house: his study.
Staying close to the walls of the foyer, she hurried around its expanse. She wasn’t sure how long she could count on the Shield to investigate the cause of the nauseating scent currently enveloping the Light Market, so she didn’t waste her time sneaking from alcove to alcove. With every step that landed, she imagined Shaw far beneath her, tied and bloodied, begging for a death that wouldn’t come. At least not for some time. The images spurred her to move faster, even as her chest tightened over what must come next.
Lux had been alone with the mayor in his study only once, and now she was about to break the vow she’d made to herself long ago, to never do so again.
The lamplit halls were silent and empty, but only for so long. A glimmer of white caught her eye. The door to the study neared, a posted guard unmoving before it. She didn’t have another of Aline’s inventions to assist her, and because this guard probably wouldn’t be open to bribery, she utilized the coin in her purse for another purpose.
The silvdan pinged against the far wall, and the Shield immediately hurried to investigate the source of the noise.
Lux waited until the shadows swallowed his frame before trying the gold handle. Locked. No party trick goes unpunished, she supposed. But she didn’t think the Shield would stand guard over an unoccupied room, so she drew in a deep breath—and knocked.
“What?” shouted the muffled voice. “This is my private time! You are not to—”
The door swung in, and the mayor’s watery eyes bulged from their sockets. “Necromancer!” The door swung wider, allowing lamplight to spill outward and bathe her. The guard must have been happily pocketing his coin; he did not reappear.
The mayor’s surprise gave way to rage in the next breath. “Turning yourself in, are you?”
Lux allowed her body to remain lax as Bartleby Tamish dragged her into the room, his fingers clammy against her forearm. “Of a sort.”
The mayor sputtered, moving around her to close the heavy door with a click. “To think I trusted you.” Stalking around his desk, he piled his squat form into the chair. “Sit down.”
Lux forced her legs to obey, and though the chair didn’t swallow her up quite so much as when she was a child of eight, it diminished her spirit just the same. She straightened her spineagainst the smooth-as-butter leather and stretched her neck—only for a memory, grey at its edges, to flutter down upon her like a veil.
“Your parents were found murdered, child. You, with a knife in your hands. How do you think that appears?”
The mayor looked exactly the same. Lined face, wide, parted lips, eyes ever calculating. He rested his arms upon the gleaming desk.
Lucena was silent a bit longer, wringing scrubbed-clean hands above a blood-stained yellow dress, her little body swallowed by the chair in which she had been placed. “It appears that I’ve killed them.”
She’d surprised the old man. He sat back. “Precisely. Do you have a particular reason why? You see, I don’t enjoy locking children away. But I will if I must.”
Her small frame began to shake. “I took too long. They told me they loved me, that they needed me. They told me they had missed me so much. Then they stabbed my heart.” Quivering fingers brushed against the torn fabric of her dress. A shallow wound. One meant to extend much deeper. Though not even she knew how deep it really ran.
“It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have brought them back after they were murdered the first time.”
“I don’t think I can permit you to live after this. After all, your blood was revealed to me from within the lock, and I can’t allow this knowledge to be made public. Ghadra needs its mayor. Itneedsme.” He sighed. “I’m the most important man in the world, and it’s a shame, really, that it must be you or me. Your abilities were the height of useful.”
