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CHAPTER 2
The problem is shockingly easy to see by moonlight. Something about the way the shadows play across the lines and angles of the supports nestled against the new stone structure. It’s almost as if the darkness coaxed the flaw into revealing itself when it thought no one would be looking—which is nonsense.
Observing it from the ground isn’t enough, though. I have to inspect it up close if I’m to justify stopping work tomorrow.
There’s nothing nearby to support my weight other than a stone gargoyle extending three feet from the Sanctum wall. The doglike creature is designed to spew channeled rainwater from its mouth, away from the building. Like most sculptures, it’s supposed to look fierce, but the circular opening between this one’s teeth makes it appear comically surprised. Wind whistling across the mouth creates a shrieking sound, like a housewife who’s spotted a mouse, adding to the effect. With the scaffolds built around it, I have to balance across the statue’s back and stretch out to reach the warped pole. My fingers immediately find a split in the wood which is invisible from every vantage above and below.
Falling Skies, it’shuge. It’s a miracle it hasn’t failed already. Byday, the scaffolds above are crawling with dozens of workers. Had they collapsed, few would have survived the six-story fall onto the stones in various stages of cutting and shaping below.
I angle myself to feel along the length of the crack. The gap is almost as wide as my forearm—too large to simply reinforce with lashing—and the tiny, fresh splinters I encounter mean it’s expanding rapidly. As much trouble as this will cause, I’m relieved to have such a clear answer: The entire scaffold here will have to come down and be reassembled.
Two days of construction, lost. One more reason for the high altum to complain.
A sharp sliver of wood jabs my middle finger, and I reflexively yank my hand back. Blood wells from under the nail as I bring it to my mouth. The coppery taste hits my tongue with startling intensity, but it’s not bleeding that badly. After a few seconds, I raise the wound up to the moonlight to look for any remaining fragments of the splinter. Fortunately, there are none.
My arm, still extended to hold the beam, begins to tremble from bearing so much weight alone. Before I can reach back with the other, a strong gust of wind causes the gargoyle’s whistling to pitch higher and louder, and the shrill screaming sound sends a jolt of lightning down my spine and out to my limbs. All the muscles in my body contract, and my already precarious grip on the pole slips.
Suddenly I’m plunging headfirst toward the stones below, tumbling and twisting as sky and scaffold and Sanctum and moon streak across my vision. An arc of blood splashes the wall in front of me, and in that instant, I think—I know—I’m going to die.
I never thought it would end like this.
My vision fades on the edges, and I arch my back and grab at my throat in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. The otherhand claws at the wall with equal futility until an impact across my stomach rips me open.
Pain is the only thing left in my world. All I can do is wait for the last of my consciousness to drain away.
Until it doesn’t.
My surroundings slowly come back into focus. It takes several seconds for me to understand I’m not lying dead on the ground but dangling about thirty feet above it, the safety line agonizingly tight around my waist. Dazed, I look up to the gargoyle where the rope angles back to the place I’d attached it to the scaffolding on the other side—rather reluctantly, I might add. The whistling sound continues as though it had never changed. Did that horrible shriek come from the statue’s mouth? It had sounded… human. Like someone terrified or about to die, or both. If I wasn’t absolutely positive the noise camebeforeI fell, I would’ve thought it was me who screamed.
There’s no blood on the wall next to me, either, and as I raise my shaking hands into the moonlight, they, too, are clean.
But I’dseenthe blood. I’dfeltit.
I was going to die. I’m not entirely sure I didn’t.
Someone who was dead wouldn’t hurt this much, however. Grunting, I wriggle into a position where I can brace my feet against the stone wall. My leather boots are specially made for climbing, and the ascent is fairly easy, even with trembling hands and bruises forming across my middle. The hardest part is heaving myself over the gargoyle so I can stand and jump back to the woven-reed platform.
I collapse against the smooth limestone of the Sanctum as soon as I’m safe, promising myself never to complain about using a safety line again. As I work the length into a loose coil, I notice my fingertips and nails aren’t ravaged from clawing at the wall. Other than the clotted splinter wound, which has expanded intoa perfectly round bruise, they’re undamaged. Shaking my head, I untie the line from my sore waist and gaze out over the homes and shops which ring the paved area around the Sanctum. Most of my view is blocked by rooftops three and four stories tall. All is quiet but for the scream still echoing in my brain.
Did that sound come from out there?
Throwing the rope over my shoulder, I stand and begin climbing the scaffold to the top of the Sanctum, bothering with ladders only half the time. The uppermost level is even with the main gutter along the edge of the new section’s roof, and the wind snaps and pushes me along the length of the expansion to the far east end, where the leonine form of a chimera watches over his domain.
“Good evening, Pierre,” I say, dropping the coiled line behind the statue. Unlike gargoyles, these serve no purpose but decoration. I name each of them as I watch them take form over several weeks under the master carver, but this one is my favorite so far. Its face resembles that of a snub-nosed bat, with long fangs that curve all the way around its mouth, which is open wide in a snarl. I pat one of the wings stretching vertically from its muscled back and continue speaking, though I’m not silly enough to expect an answer. “Have you seen or heard anything strange tonight?”
From this vantage I can see the entire hill Collis is built on and miles of countryside beyond. My childhood home, Solis Abbey, nestles near the bottom of the southern slope. Beyond it lies the ivy-covered walls of the Selenae Quarter, home to the reclusive religious sect whose members keep the hours of the moon rather than those of the Blessed Sun. A glow too steady to be a bonfire comes from the open plaza in the center of that neighborhood. Even at this distance, the haunting melodies of their midnight hymns reach my ears.
Outside the Quarter, the city is devoid of nighttime revelers, probably in anticipation of the storm, quiet as the dead except for the rapid rhythm of footsteps ricocheting off walls and paving stones. I lean forward, unthinking, to look, and Pierre’s outstretched arm almost seems to point at a lone figure below. A cloaked form—definitely a man—moves too quickly and purposefully to be a drunkard stumbling home from a tavern. The direction he’s moving suggests he came from Madame Emeline’s or another similar establishment, but he almost seems to be runningfromsomething.
As I watch, the shadowed figure darts into a side street, out of sight, and in the quiet that follows, a ghostly voice cries out.
Someone help me. Please.
The words flutter through my head, weightless as moonlight, yet carrying a despair so heavy I struggle to breathe in its wake. What Mother Agnes always called my wayward imagination connects the voice and its pain to the fleeing man. Perhaps he robbed someone, leaving them sobbing and injured in the street. Would the city’s night watchmen find them before the storm, or am I the only one who can help this person? How would I even begin to search for them?
“Go home, little Cat.”
I spin around, heart pounding, pressing my back to the statue. Those words I actuallyheard. Someone speaking that softly would have to be nearby, if not right behind me, but there is only empty air. I search the nearby portico, roof, and scaffolds with wide eyes, unable to find the source of the gravelly whisper even as it continues.
