Page 81

Lyric. It’s Lyric she knows. Lyric she studied on every level and felt—feels—in her chest, bound to with a seed of immanent Silence.

She had to know him to survive, and Singix, she had to learn Singix, too.

In life and death, and if she ever thinks about this, it might finally occur to Iriset that it’s possible she doesn’t have the objectivity to say she’s right about anything. Even apostasy.)

The press of Bittor’s lips is gentle, more like a reminder than passion, and he kisses her sore forehead and cheek and her closed eyelids, then hugs her again.

“Are my grandparents safe?” she asks.

Bittor grimaces. “I practically had to kidnap them, but yes.”

Nodding in relief, she starts to ask more, but Pel’s daughter bursts into the wine shop, panting. “The army is already coming!”

“Everyone out, go home,” Pel commands the few remaining customers stubbornly drinking on the patio.

“We’re supposed to have two more days,” Bittor says.

Iriset leans back. “It’s because Sian mé Sayar is dead.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Bittor says with genuine shock.

Iriset stares, thoughts awhirl. She never heard anyone in the palace say Bittor did it—Lyric assumed.

The murder of one of my small kings must be met with clear fury , he said.

If someone else killed Nielle’s husband, there would be evidence, surely.

Lyric wouldn’t raze a precinct based on a guess or a possible frame.

But Beremé would, if it suited her game. And General Bey, too, Iriset is certain, and could even have done the frame-up himself. If Lyric asked for evidence, between the two of them they could provide it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Pel says. “They believe you did.”

“Or decided you did,” Iriset adds. Iriset’s pulse rocks inside her, a hard, constant tide growing stronger and stronger. Closer and closer. As if Iriset doesn’t act, she might shake apart.

(Forgive her for not realizing what it is—her skin is raw, her senses overwhelmed with force-flavors, she’s afraid and elated both, desperate and numb and so many things that shield her from what, exactly, is growing stronger and stronger. Closer and closer.)

“We have to do something,” Bittor says, glancing out through the shop toward the twilit street. “I do. I started this.”

“Did you?” Iriset asks incredulously.

“Instead of rescuing your father. After you died, I just wanted to make them pay, I wanted them to see what they’d done.”

“They know. The Vertex Seal and his sister, they know now. But you’re right, we should do more.”

“Spread word for people to hide?” Pel suggests. “Cooperation? Don’t give the army a reason to lash out?”

Bittor shakes his head, his cat-eyes glinting. “People will be hurt tonight, even if they all open their doors. Even if they don’t fight back, but only watch.”

Iriset grasps his face and mirrors his gesture from earlier, stroking her thumbs under his eyes. “Bittor, do you want to make another graffiti?”

“What kind?” he asks, as Pel’s daughter cries, “ Yes! ”

“The Little Cat told me to survive, not save him. He told me to make him proud by making a mark, changing something. That’s what you’ve already been doing, and that’s what my giant spider is for.

But listen: It doesn’t have to be all at once.

” Iriset sweeps her gaze between the three of them.

“Little things, and bigger things, all adding up to a real shift in the city. That’s how you redesign anything, but especially something as complicated as the array for an entire empire.

Unknot here and there, until the design is unstable enough to collapse on its own. Rebuild from there.”

Bittor shuts his eyes and leans down. “Something simple, then? Small graffiti and tricks that the army themselves will trigger as they pass?”

“Yes.” She kisses his forehead. Allows her breath to skitter into his hair and ignores the frantic pacing of her heart, the hard opal humming in her chest, breaking down the very last vestiges of Singix Es Sun inside her.

“Can you do that? On the go?” Pel asks. “Dalal couldn’t.”

“Please. She’s good, but she’s not an eighth of the architect I am.” Iriset sticks her nose high, smirking. Bittor laughs and squeezes her shoulders. It’s like he can’t stop touching her to make certain she’s real.

“All right. What do you need?” Pel asks. “We’ve got a lot, and even some design tools in the attic.”

Just then the precinct alarum rings out, a single warning note.

They all startle. Pel’s daughter rushes to the door through the quiet shop. She flings it open as a yell from the street penetrates, but otherwise it’s only the alarum.

“Lisan, run to Fiern, tell him to spread word with you that everyone is to cooperate,” Pel says. “I’ll follow and find Dalal. Tell her to join you…?” She looks at Iriset.

“She should keep her son safe, but we’ll be along one of the bulletin threads if she needs to look.”

Pel’s daughter speeds out and Pel dives through a lattice door into the back room.

Iriset and Bittor follow, and Iriset makes a list of anything that can help while Pel pulls down a ladder and hurries up into the attic.

Iriset grabs a basket to begin stuffing it all in.

The alarum rings harshly, even this deep in the building.

Through the rear, there’s a window into an alley, and the daylight is nearly gone.

A loud noise from the street has Iriset and Bittor twisting to glance out, but Pel’s voice calls down, “I have a bunch of rock salt in big chunks, is that all right?”

“The smaller the better!” Iriset calls back. “Needles would be good, too, and thread. Silk if you have it.”

“Iriset.” Bittor grasps her arm, turning her to face him.

He stands with his back to the door into the wine shop, caught in shadows.

She peers through the gloom at the night-vision glint of his strange, lovely cat-eyes.

“Once, the Little Cat’s daughter asked me what some rebels were rebelling for.

I told her you rebel against something. But I was wrong. It is for —”

Someone shoves open the lattice door into the close quarters and Bittor grunts, jerking forward against Iriset. His eyes catch hers, pupils narrowing to slits, and his hands loosen, slipping down to her elbows where he grips again, and his lashes flutter.

In the sudden blue-silver light, Iriset notices every detail as Bittor’s lips tighten back over his teeth and his nostrils flare, as the tiny muscles across his face spasm.

Bittor grunts again, weaker. She doesn’t understand until his chin drops and her gaze follows it, down to the tip of a force-blade jutting out of his chest. Its metal flickers blue-silver, casting that light up.

A snap of ecstatic force zings toward Iriset, shocking, but then the blade sucks backward and blood splatters down Bittor’s robe; his knees bend and he pitches forward.

Iriset doesn’t watch him fall.

Standing where Bittor used to be, with a vibrating force-blade in hand, is Lyric.