Before the sky grew dark again, Maalik returned, with Hiroli’s kavik on his heels. Both had the same carvings on their message chips, the fronts marked with Dix’s sigil and the sign for Sinter. The law admonishing two towers to meet before they severed a bridge between them was clear. I’d helped write it, hoping to hold the city together. Now Dix was using it, even after she’d dragged the towers further apart.
On the back of each chip, another message: She’d hear us out, personally. She would see the wonders Hiroli had written about. And she would collect Rumul’s robe and the stolen plates, or Elna would pay the price.
Wik woke the fledges. “I want you to guard this tower with Ceetcee. Don’t come out until you hear one of us whistle Ciel’s windsign.”
Ciel made a face. She reached up and grabbed Wik’s little finger. “You don’t mean guard, Uncle. You mean hide.” She twisted his finger until he whimpered. “I know I’m young. But I can shoot. I flew the Gyre, a little. I’m allowed to try to make things better. Or make sure Dix stays below the clouds.” Her fierce words brought a sad smile to Wik’s face. “Since Moc has no wings, he’ll guard the second tower.”
“Ciel!” Moc protested. But he conceded.
“You should be soaring through the city. Learning. Not hiding in the clouds. But you’ll get hurt in a fight.”
“I am learning,” Ciel said. She tightened the sling on a spear launcher Djonn had made her, based on one of the brass plates’ images. Tested it so that the sling twanged the air.
Wik chuckled. “That makes me more afraid.”
I pulled him away from the twins. “I’ll wait on the bridge with Kirit.”
“I’ll cover you both from the third tower,” Wik said. He stuffed bone spears in his satchel until they rattled like a bone eater. “There’s a watergate about six tiers up. It’s got good vantage points, no matter what tower it is, or once was. If there are tunnels inside leading down to the meadow gate, I’ll try to sneak closer to where Dix will land.” Wik checked his wings.
Kirit put her knives in their sheaths and slipped a bow over her shoulder.
By the fire, Djonn worked on a last-minute adjustment. “We weakened the meadow in the middle, a bit left of center. Used the wingset battens to make it look stronger than it is. If you need to break the platform beneath it, pull out the bone hook. Put weight on it and it collapses.”
“That sounds like a good way to break off negotiations,” Wik said. “Or cause an accident.”
Djonn didn’t seem bothered by the critique. He went back to his drawings. “Consider it a secondary option.”
“If you see too many blackwings, guard here first. If they attack, we’ll drop the meadow.”
“Not until you’re off of it,” Wik said. “I’ll have clear sight of the bridge from the tower.” After a long pause, he said, “With Moc and Ciel.”
At next light, we all sat with Beliak. His color had improved, his temperature too, but he was weak. I touched my forehead to his and looked in his eyes. “I’ll return,” I said. I stood and wrapped Ceetcee in my arms. She would guard him here. I reached into my satchel and pulled out the pieces of my father’s message chips. “Hold these for me?” I swallowed hard.
A heartbeat, two. She bit her lip, but took the markers. “I won’t cry.” Her fist closed on the broken bone. “Bring news that Elna is safe, and that we’re going home.”
“I promise,” I said. My throat closed up. That, or I won’t return.
* * *
Long before there was any sign of the blackwings, the Singers took their positions in the towers and on the bridge. Doran and I rode the gusts above the meadow, searching the clouds for Dix.
Aliati and Djonn waited below.
Doran coughed. “I’ve been hard on you, but I admire your sense of honor, you know. It’s why I selected you as apprentice.”
“How is that?” Mist swirled at our wingtips. I was confused.
“You have principles. They get you in trouble, but people know where you stand.”
The wind whistled around the towers and picked up speed over the meadow. Finally, I said, “I tried not to have them. Tried to gain advantage when I saw weakness.” I weighed each word, wanting to tell him how his duplicity had harmed me. Harmed the city.
He surprised me by laughing loudly. “Nat, we all have principles. Some of us hide them better than others.”
“Another lesson?” It felt like a lifetime since I’d been his apprentice.
“Ambition and leadership fly together. Sometimes you have to trade on your principles to lay groundwork for the future, for the greater good of the city. Often, you have to seem more confident than you are, to hide your doubts.”
I kept silent. The groundwork he’d laid left the city vulnerable and wounded. But compromises weakened it as well. And all the losses from fighting. From not fighting. Allmoons had passed while Laria burned. Had Elna lit a banner in my name?
Around us, towers rose high in the air. A littlemouth pulsed and disappeared on a wall: Ciel, marking her position. Another, on the third tower. Wik. Then two, brighter, for Kirit on the bridge. We were surrounded and guarded by friends.
Aliati whistled “defend,” and I followed the line of her arm to see a dark mark in the clouds, spiraling down. Behind the first flier, four more dots appeared in the clouds.
Five fliers. They held the heights, all the weapons. They didn’t need an enormous force to threaten us.
Meantime, we ten Lawsbreakers had only one advantage: ourselves.
* * *
All too soon, the dark smudges on the cloudscape resolved into Dix, diving hard in the swirling wind, followed by her blackwings, who bore a heavy net.
Descending to the bone bridge to take my place with Kirit, I took a breath and let it out slowly. My heart pounded; my stomach clenched.
Dix’s wings tilted, and her fingers tightened on cams and pulleys, preparing for landing. The heavy net that her guards carried now looked too big to be medicine or food.
As the group slowed over the center of the meadow, Dix circled. The blackwings dropped the net with a thump and took to the air again.
The net wriggled.
“Clouds.” Doran started running towards the net. “Don’t move!” A stray move might kick the bone-hook trigger Ceetcee had planted in the foliage. Might drop the entire field.
“Where is Hiroli?” Dix shouted, still in the air. “I want to see her.”
Moc led Hiroli from the cave on a tether and tied her to the bonefall. He scrambled back up to the cave lip. In the meadow, Doran opened the net and was untangling the figure within. He gently pulled the net from around the wingless woman. She stood with a hand raised, touching the air. White hair. Her cheek was bruised. Her eyes the color of clouds.
Proof of life. Dix had brought Elna here.
Elna’s confused laughter echoed all the way to the bridge.
Overhead, Kirit shot from her hiding place on the towers, heading like an arrow towards the meadow. I leapt from the bridge as all Doran’s plans fell away from me in shards. The reinforced meadow platform creaked in the wind.
Even if she didn’t fall through, Elna couldn’t last long this far down in the clouds. Not after a lifetime in the towers, not as frail as she was. “You have to take her back up!” I shouted. She’d become very ill down here if she stayed.
“Lawsbreakers!” Dix called, ignoring me. “I am here to meet with you under the rules of Sinter. You should know that any harm that befalls me will impact the city immediately. My blackwings will attack the northwest if I do not return by evening.”
Doran straightened, holding Elna’s hand in his, trying to help her to her feet. He looked at Dix, then at me flying towards him, anguished. Aliati adjusted her grip on the knife she held to Djonn’s throat.
Dix and one guard landed three steps from Doran and Elna. I dropped to the ground behind them, already running. Dix barely bothered to furl her wings, leaving them half extended. The night-dark spans flapped in the breeze as she nodded to her nearest guard, who withdrew a bone knife from his robe, and closed the gap to Doran and Elna.
“Of course, you do not have the same kinds of safeguards as I do,” Dix said, even as I screamed, “Knife!” and lunged for Elna. But the guard sank the blade in Doran’s back, twisted hard, and yanked it free.
Dix turned to Aliati as Doran collapsed on the meadow.
Her knife glittered as she held it out. “Kill the artifex, I dare you. I’ll watch.”
Aliati tightened her fingers on her own knife, then lowered it away from Djonn’s skin. She looked at him and shook her head. “No.”
“This ends now!” Kirit shouted. She drew down on Dix, from the air. But she didn’t fire. The blackwings had all taken aim at the net. At the blind woman standing within it. Their bolts aimed at her heart.
With one move, Dix had taken the towers.
Two steps more, and I stepped within the circle of arrows, ignoring them. I took Elna’s hand, slick with blood. Doran’s eyes closed. His hand opened, releasing the knife he’d used to cut the net. He fell unconscious.
“What is it?” Elna whispered. She turned her head wildly, trying to hear. Clicked her tongue, trying to echo. To make sense of the void. “Who is this?”
I held her hand tight. “I’ve got you. You’re all right.” Her fingers closed around mine. But she didn’t stop echoing.
She wasn’t all right. None of us were. Already Dix walked towards Djonn. I had to stop this.
“What do you want, Dix?” I shouted.
The woman smiled, glanced at Kirit, circling in the air, and looked over her shoulder at me. “I want everything. Don’t you?”
I had. Once. I’d wanted the high tier, the council position. Everything. Now, I held my mother’s hand. Elna’s breathing was as loud in my ears as my own heartbeat. She wobbled as Kirit landed beside us and took her other hand.
Elna pulled us both towards her. Whispered, “Don’t hesitate!” And let my hand go.
The blackwing nudged Doran’s body with his foot. Blood rushed from the wound, and Doran, panting, moaned. At the sound, Elna knelt to press her hand, her robe, to Doran’s side, brushing aside the guard’s sodden foot. Kirit helped her. They ignored the blackwing.
The other guards aimed their arrows at me now, and Kirit.
We were nine Lawsbreakers. When we’d stepped out on the meadow, we’d already lost. Elna wavered and sat on the ground. “What is happening?”
“We need to move her higher,” Kirit shouted at the guards. “She’ll die.”
The blackwings stared impassively, and the one who had stabbed Doran wiped his knife on Kirit’s shoulder. I’d seen this guard thrice before, including gaming at Grigrit and being chased by Ezarit after the council fell.
Kirit’s fingers tightened around her knife. Her other hand twitched at Elna’s fingertips. Impasse. The blackwings bows tightened. We could not move.
Dix untied Hiroli. A guard brought forward a new pair of blackwings for the junior councilor and cloud-traitor.
“You were Ezarit’s apprentice,” I said. Every muscle in my body tensed, wanting kill her. If Elna had not been there, held in a cage of arrow points, I would have. We all would have.
Hiroli smiled, tightening her wingstraps. “Dix made a better offer. Ezarit was a trader. I believe she’d understand.”
I grabbed Kirit’s arm in time. Her fingers dug into my skin as well. Together, we each kept the other from striking Hiroli down and putting everyone in danger. Hiroli stepped back farther from us, as Dix finally turned to me and to Kirit.
“We’ll take Elna higher once I see the brass plates. Hiroli says there’s an alcove full of them. Then I’ll take Rumul’s robe and his little killer. My men will take the Singers. For your help, the rest of you can remain in exile here.”
She didn’t know about the Spire base, or what hid within it, because Hiroli hadn’t known. And she only knew about some of the brass plates. We might conceal the rest from her if we were careful.
She began to cross the meadow, the uneven surface giving her trouble. Hiroli walked by her side, steadying her. They pulled Aliati and Djonn with them. When Dix reached the cave entrance, she stood below it, looking up. “A fine shelter, for thieves.”
Hiroli climbed the ridge wall and leapt into the air, circling the meadow, searching for the Singers she knew were missing.
Shadows moved in the cave mouth. Moc, then Ceetcee, blocked the entrance. They aimed bows at Dix. “You cannot come here,” Moc said.
Dix gestured to Elna and laughed. “Even if it means she dies?”
“She would not want this,” Ceetcee said, not looking at me.
“You didn’t come here to make a truce,” Aliati said. “Though you accepted Sinter. You could kill us all here. Tell me why we should not destroy this entrance? We have the means to do it.”
She exaggerated, but the blackwings didn’t know that. Dix laughed. “More brave words, but no action.”
Kirit released my wrist. “Go,” she whispered, her words tight with anger. I took another step away from my mother. “I’ll stay with Elna.” She knelt, putting her knife on the ground, not far from her hand. She cradled my mother’s head and stroked her cheek, humming The Rise, surrounded by blackwings.
I walked across the meadow, towards Dix and the cave. She had us outmatched. We could not fight. We could not run. What could we do?
“You had no intention of honoring Sinter.”
She turned and laughed. “Who’ll know who broke what law if you’re trapped down here?” Dix sounded as if she was explaining a flight lesson, not doling out a death sentence. “You’ll be forgotten, another myth in the clouds.”
Dix’s trick had worked, just like at the wingfight. This time, she hadn’t stopped at slashing a footsling; she’d done much worse to gain advantage.
Dix held out her hand. “A bird away, more blackwings wait. You have no such reinforcement. Bring me the robe and the brass plates and the girl. The one who was so good with the knife.”
Moc’s face went pale. “You won’t have her.” He aimed his bow, until Ceetcee stayed him.
In the meadow, a glow pulsed in time with Kirit’s singing. Littlemouth. I prayed Dix didn’t see it. “What will you do with the plates? No one in the city can read them. Not even you.”
Dix didn’t turn from Moc, but she answered. “Nonsense. You saw their power above the council plinth. That, from just one plate. You saw us rise without wings. No need to wait for a breeze. We’ll use them to make the city better.”
“Not without an artifex. A good one,” I said. “None but Djonn had figured out lighter-than-air.”
Dix colored. “We can train more artifexes. The Singers kept the plates safe for us!” she shouted. “To hide them away is a crime against the city.”
“Singers’ inventions?” Djonn held a plate up, let it catch the light. Dix’s eyes narrowed. “These? Were not created by the Singers. The Singers stole them. Hid them.”
Dix blinked. Her blackwings muttered. “The Singers knew everything,” Dix said quickly, “before you destroyed them and broke the city. You have no right to touch those.”
“Surely you don’t believe that?” Aliati said. She pitched her voice so that everyone on the meadow heard her clearly. “Did Rumul tell you that before Spirefall? Or after, when you were interpreting for him? The Singers destroyed themselves, much like the culture down here did. Just as you will if you continue to mine the towers and reinvent the past. We can prove it.”
Dix looked around her, taking in the towers, the meadow. “What would you have me do? Tell the towers there is no future? That the tiers will stop growing and we’ll live in ever-narrowing spaces until we’re all pushed off?”
“To counter that in time, you’ll need teachers,” I said quietly. “People who understand the plates, the towers, and the myths around them.”
More muttering among the guards.
“You need people who could teach the city how to mold bone again, without weakening the towers,” Ceetcee said. “People who can understand the tools of the past, and pass them on.” She caught my eye. Sometimes the best way to fight is to teach. “Let us return to the northwest quadrant. We’ll teach the city from there.”
Dix’s smile grew. “Ah, the northwest, with their plots. They’ve already argued their support for your group in council.”
Hiroli landed on the meadow, Ciel dangling from a winghook. “I found her!”
Ciel struggled, but once on the ground, Hiroli tightened her grip on the girl.
I spoke fast. “You need that quadrant. You need the artifex. You can’t hold the city without them. We’ll give you the plates.” I pulled two from my satchel. “And we’ll offer ourselves as teachers.”
Djonn coughed and stepped forward. “You can take the plates, but they’re meaningless without me. Let my friends go.”
“No,” Aliati whispered. “She’s not taking you. Or the plates.”
Dix laughed, watching Aliati’s face. “You see how easily you turn on each other? That amused Hiroli. Your integrity.” She spotted the satchel I carried. Out of reflex, I shifted it away from Dix as she said, “Think of how many inventions were nearly lost to myth. We will make Laws about the proper care of such things.”
I knew then that she would take it all, every bit of history, and use it for her own goals, rather than the city’s. Perhaps Doran was right, that the only way forward was to control what Dix saw.
And perhaps, with Dix distracted and Wik still hidden from the guards, Kirit could find a way to get Elna to safety.
Dix reached for the satchel. The brass squares inside knocked together sharply when I grabbed her arm and twisted fast, pinning it behind her, her back to my chest. Now she was between me and the blackwings. She struggled, outraged. “You will not survive this. There’s no way out of here without me. There are Laws—”
“Laws are for the sky, Dix. We are of the clouds.” But even as I spoke, two guards had closed on Kirit and Elna. I relaxed my grip enough to step backwards. “Let me show you now what you don’t know.” Before her blackwings could react, I dragged her inside the cave, past Ceetcee and a stunned Moc. Hiroli rushed to follow.
The blackwings aimed, but Dix held up a hand as she stumbled to keep up with me. “Let him try to show me something new, to prove he’s useful. Otherwise, he’s running out of time.”
“No!” Aliati said. But Ceetcee stilled her.
Across the meadow, Elna lay with her head cradled in Kirit’s lap. Littlemouths glowed softly in the grass beside them. Beside Doran’s body too, now covered in Kirit’s cloak. It took great effort to tear my gaze away from my mother. Would I see her again?
“Family is so very inconvenient, isn’t it?” Dix whispered. I choked on my answer, and she chuckled. “If you show me what the plates mean, I’ll have her taken higher. If she lives long enough. And if you prove to me you have something to teach, perhaps I’ll take you higher too.”
“A promise from you is just words made of wind,” Ceetcee said behind us. I looked back at her. She caught my eye and pointed with her chin across the meadow to the tower where Wik hid. A littlemouth pulsed in the mist. “Defend.”
Wik was prepared to act. Was Kirit? Ceetcee coughed to get her attention. Kirit nodded. She was ready if she got a chance. I spoke loudly to distract Dix and Hiroli. “There are secrets down here that can kill you. Others can help you gain knowledge, and increase your value to the city.”
How could we hand the meadow and its treasures over to Dix? With each step farther into the cave, I recalled Ciel’s shouts at Laria: Murderer! She was that, and more. I gritted my teeth. We all have principles. Doran’s words. Some of us hide them better than others. All I needed was to lure a few of the blackwings into the cave with us, and Wik could take advantage as the others regrouped.
“Many secrets, then?” Dix asked.
I had her interest now. “Like the lighter-than-air. It could take years to understand just one.”
Dix stopped walking. “Then the fewer who see this, the better.” She shouted to the blackwings just coming to the cave entrance, “Stay there. If I do not return, kill the old one. No need for blackwings in here.”
Clouds.
“Only us,” she said. “Until we can determine who will use the secrets best.”
Now that I was committed to this course and trapped within the cave, I had to keep going or risk Elna’s life, and the others’ too. Doran’s need for control was beginning to make more sense: each decision was filled unseen risks.
Moc followed us at a safe distance, humming, causing the end of the tunnel to luminesce. Now or never. “Then I challenge you,” I said, “to look past the inventions, and see the message from the past with clear eyes. See how your actions are repeating a path of destruction that kept this knowledge from us for generations. You believe the Singers were leaders. This is your weakness. You must learn the truth of them.”
“I know all the songs,” she said, tugging to free her arm. “I know the truth.”
I refused to let go. “I’m sure you think you do.”
Moc hummed louder from the door behind me. The littlemouths glowed, and Dix gasped. She turned a slow circle, her face illuminated.
“Living above this all our lives. We would have died without knowing.” She reached for the plates on the walls. The awe in her voice gave me new hope. Perhaps Dix could still love something.
“This is what we are protecting, as our ancestors protected it. Would you fly against this? Would you drain the towers above when the city is so alive, here?”
Was I getting through to her? She scanned the room almost reverently.
“Now you need to see more.” As before, I took her arm and pulled her to the last alcove in the tower, where Hiroli had spent the past days. Quickly now, for Elna. She followed me willingly this time. I showed her the marks on the walls, the bones. “They died defending the people of the city. Would you do the same?”
Dix’s expression was unfathomable. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes reflected the littlemouths’ glow. “I knew I was right. That Rumul was right. The plates are our inheritance. The city needs them. People are willing to die for them.”
Through the mist, on the third tower, I saw a struggle. One guard fell from the tower. Another called for support. Had Wik been captured?
More blackwings circled Kirit and Elna. Djonn and Aliati had been moved to join them. Elna’s eyes were closed, and Kirit stared at the tower where Wik had been. Her hand went to her knife.
I whistled the windsign for “defend.” Kirit repeated it. She shifted Elna in her arms so that if she had the chance, she could lift her and run. And while the guards yelled at her to be quiet, I saw a small littlemouth pulse in the mist, farther from the meadow: the old tower windsign for “justice.” Wik was still out there. Balance. Justice. We would try to take the guards, at least for a moment. Long enough for Kirit to fly Elna away.
“Quiet!” Dix shook her head, staring at the lights. “This is all ours now.”
I swallowed hard. Doran had accused me of planning too many things on the wing, even as he’d done the same. But we’d prepared, and we had no other options. That was the greatest risk of all.