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CHAPTER 48
A rescue effort is underway by the time I get inside the Sanctum. Workers and bystanders dig through the wreckage, searching for survivors, calling the names of friends and loved ones. Heavy stone blocks rest where they landed. Parts of the marble floor are smashed, with cracks running out from the center of the impacts in a sickly imitation of the sun designs so carefully set in place last year. Wooden beams hewn from ancient forests lie broken like matchsticks. Shards of colored glass litter the ground inside and out. All the while, rain pours in from the windows and unknown holes in the roof, trailing in rivers through the wreckage.
The high altum and his assisting priests and brothers don’t even pause for prayers, singing the evening liturgy from memory as they work, providing a haunting sense of hope and beauty in the devastation. Not a single eye is dry when they finish.
It could have been much worse. The rain meant fewer people were working today, and the slow collapse had allowed almost everyone time to run to safety. Almost.
At least three more names will be added to the list on the walltonight. Two men may never walk again. A dozen others will need months to heal from their injuries.
Lambert is right beside me, feverishly pulling pieces of rubble aside, long scratches running up his arms from lifting splintered wood. At some point, my hair cover is used to bind a wound. Oudin is there, too. He works as hard as anyone I see, finding the first of the three bodies. I don’t dare touch any of the dead. Their last thoughts will only haunt my dreams.
Everyone trickles away from the Sanctum as night falls, many to mourn. There’s no energy to start cleaning up the mess or cover the windows now empty of their colorful, intricate designs. The Montcuir brothers are the last to leave, and Oudin scowls as Lambert squeezes my hand in sympathy before slipping quietly away.
I find Remi in the middle of the wreckage, sitting on the remains of the great wheel used to raise heavy loads to the scaffolding platform sixty feet above. Marble and limestone dust coats his skin, making him look like he belongs on a high perch outside, glowering over the whole city with the rest of the statues.
The guilt he feels must be unbearable. I want to shout at him for doing exactly what the magister had told him not to, but what good would that do? Instead, I pick my way across the rubble until I’m within arm’s reach. “Remi?” I whisper. “Let’s go home.”
He turns on me, his face contorted in wrath. “You have a lot of nerve speaking to me right now.”
Blame is the last thing he needs to hear. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. I’m sure your mother’s worried about you.”
Remi clambers down from the broken wheel and faces me. “Why are you here, Cat?”
“I’m here because I care about you,” I say. “Not to gloat. Even master architects make mistakes. You just have to learn from them.”
His green eyes widen. “This ismyfault?”
If he thinks he’s going to turn this around on me like he did Magister Thomas’s imprisonment, he’d better think again. I jab a finger at the stones for the vaulting arches, representing months of precise cutting and shaping, now cracked and broken and unusable. “This is exactly what the master architect forbade you from doing.” Then I raise my arm to point at the splintered remains of the supports above. “Andthatis exactly why!”
Remi wrenches my arm down by the wrist, his expression cold. “There’s something I need to show you.”
He drags me to a side door as I trip and stumble on debris. Instead of going outside as I expect, he pulls me into the staircase leading up into the south tower. I know these steps well enough to tread them with my eyes closed, yet I continuously stub my toes as Remi yanks me relentlessly upward. When we reach the roof level, he leads me to the edge, facing east. The setting sun breaks through on the horizon behind us, painting the clouds with brilliant shades of orange and pink and violet. It would be beautiful, if it weren’t for the destruction that lies under the roof.
“What do you see, Cat?” he spits. The grip on my arm is like an iron shackle while his other hand points to the outer wall.
“Flying buttresses,” I retort. “Meant to support the weight of the ceiling by drawing it outward and down to the ground.” I may not have Remi’s extensive knowledge in building such things, but I understand how they work.
“Correct,” Remi snaps. “Now tell me where it looks like they’ve failed.”
I open my mouth to answer but realize the columns and stone arches are all perfectly straight and undamaged, as is the wall itself. Impossible.
“The other side is the same, before you ask,” says Remi. “All the buttresses were set enough to bear the weight, that was never in question.” He releases my wrist, and I turn to face him, my lips moving in silent confusion. His eyes are full of hurt. “Did you really think I would do something so dangerous?”
“But then what—”
“Made it collapse?” Remi cuts me off. “We were lifting vaulting stones to the platform, arranging them to assemble tomorrow. The wheel was raising the last load when everything began to fall apart. Not even the central beams supporting from above could hold it up. I can’t even imagine how those might be damaged.”
Until I saw the buttresses, I’d assumed Remi’s actions had put strain on them too early, making the walls collapse outward, but they were intact, and he hadn’t even started the arches that would put stress on them. I shake my head. “But what you’re describing is weight the platform should have been able to hold.”
Remi crosses his arms. “And there you have it. The internal support failed.” He lets a long silence draw out before forcing me to acknowledge what he’s saying. “Whose job is it to inspect the scaffolding, Cat?”
Though I’ve hardly eaten all day, I think I’m going to vomit. “Mine,” I whisper.
“Who signed her name to the final schematic drawing, saying it was all in place and safe?” he demands.
“I did.”
“Who told us her work was done enough to spend half hertime running around Pleasure Road chasing ghosts? Who spent the last two days flirting with the provost’s son?”
