Succeeding Tanner, Lord Terrence Shop has already ascended to the highest seat of lords by rightful default. He was contested by none of his fellow ministers.
Lord Shop stated to this journalist that the murder of his predecessor was “tragic” and “heinous,” but stressed that his mind was turned wholly to the needs of the nation, and in particular, to Artisans and innocent Craftsmen:
The actions of the earth Charmer are the result of radicalization by the Miners Union, who have washed her brain in their wicked propaganda these past months. But she will be a weapon of the Union no longer. She has already exhibited remorse for her actions and promised to atone and assist in the prosperity of our great Belavere.
Nevertheless, her actions cannot be undone, and our great Lord Tanner lays dead by her hands. For this, I order Miss Clarke a prisoner, and to be punished in ways deserving of an assassin.
Nina Clarke will receive a public lashing beneath the clock tower at midday, and the workers of Belavere City will be ordered to cease operation, so that all who are able may attend.
Long live Belavere.
CHAPTER THIRTEENDONNY
If he fossicked his memory, Donny could dredge up the pictures of Kenton Hill before his sight left him.
It was dull there, in that rendering of Kenton. Shades of brown and gray. Dry grass and soot and tea-colored canals. The cobbles caked over in horse shit. This was what his sight had left him with before it evaporated completely.
As a child, Donny had been most afraid of that moment, when the black edges of the world finally closed in on itself and he was pitched into permanent darkness. What he didn’t know was that blindness wasn’t dark. It was color.
Kenton Hill wasn’t brown and gray. It was gold. It was yellow and bronze and copper. It was the sharp tang of steel and reflecting onyx. It was constantly morphing, prisms of light bursting into kaleidoscopes. Eventually, he’d come to see his memories as dull interpretations.
Donny walked down Main Street and thought Kenton was now pockmarked in gray once more. The smell of burning houses wouldn’t leave the air even now, long after the fires had been smothered. He imagined the cobbles, beneath the salt and ice, still tacky with blood.
Beside him, Otto exhaled smoke into the air, chewing, as he always did, on the end of his cigarette. He was restless, the mechanics of his body givinghim away. His hands couldn’t seem to settle in his pockets or at his sides or even clasped around a lighter and smoke. Donny gripped his sleeve at his elbow and felt him thrum beneath his clothing, like a swarm of hornets.
“What kind of man am I?” he’d asked Donny the night before, holed up in a sorry corner of the pub. “What kind of man falls for a woman like that?”
But they’d all fallen for it. Every one of them. They were each as red-handed and stupid as the next.
And now Kenton had lost its color.
They were on their way to the infirmary, the only place left in Kenton that still bustled. The streets were eerily silent, the bodies cleared away. The remaining clutch of Colsons and their employees left to burn them, or if they wore navy blue, throw back down the hole in Margarite’s in a mash of limbs and buried.
Scottie and Briggs were, at that moment, in Dorser, giving the all-clear to the Kenton refugees to come home. They’d return with food supplies, too. Kenton would rebuild, and its color would return.
Donny clapped Otto on the shoulder. “Don’t pout, old boy,” he said. “You and I are gonna eat like lords tonight. I’ve told Briggs to sneak us some Dorser brandy.”
“Scottie’ll drink the whole lot before it comes topside,” Otto muttered.
“Aye, well that’s why I asked Briggs, didn’t I?”
“Don’t feel much like celebratin’, Donny.” He took his cap off his head to pull at the hair beneath. “Just leave me to my misery, would you? Stop tryin’ to cheer me up.”
But Donny had his own miseries. He could think of nothing worse than yielding to them.
Underfoot, the cobbles turned to brick pavers. The lip of a threshold reared up, and the wails of the infirmary curled in his ear.
The smell of too many bodies in too close a space came over Donny like a wave. The sting of antiseptic, of hot flesh carved open. Donny saw it in shades of vicious red.
The only remaining Kenton doctor was listing off an inventory ofmedicines. “Laudanum, meadowsweet, opium,” he was saying. He heard the scratch of a pencil, the shallow breaths of the orderlies and their clipped steps. They’d filled the clinic with as many beds as could be pilfered from nearby houses, and Donny imagined them lined up as though the wounded men were laid out on a conveyer belt, moaning or snoring or spitting curses through their teeth.
But none were so loud as the man braying from the back corner. “—swear to almighty God I’ll have the lot of you lynched!” he said, and Donny imagined the spittle flying from his lips.
“A fuckin’ break is all I ask for,” Otto muttered at Donny’s side.
“Ain’t none on the horizon,” Donny said, throat stricken. “Come on.”
Otto led Donny right to the epicenter. A cart crashed, and its items scattered over the floor. An orderly named Delta swore. “Lord, give me patience,” she grunted, setting about picking up the items. “I ain’t got the fortitude, Donny! Speak some sense into him, would you?”
