The Tijervyn Chronicles
Chapter Twenty-Two and Epilogue

story by
Richard Fife

art by
April Herron

Chapter Twenty Two: “Revelation”

Storm clouds had rolled in from the ocean, casting a dank, gray blanket across the early evening sky. With the clouds, the first cool breezes of autumn had blown into the city, sweeping away, even if just for a moment, the seemingly endless heat of the Tijervyn summer.

Markus pulled his coat close against the breeze. He remembered the autumn storms from when he was a child, fierce howling things that tore the shingles off roofs and upended the carts of unfortunate hawkers. He had feared them in his youth. Now, he almost eagerly looked forward to them, a piece of home he had lost at war.

Despite the impending storm, people still filled the streets. The old habit of curfew was finally breaking away as people came to accept that the war was truly over. Perhaps it was also that the days were finally growing shorter, and people had accepted that they could not quite manage to get all of their errands and duties finished in the daylight hours. And once those were done? Well, they were already out past sunset; they might as well stop at the local grogshop or pub.

He moved through the masses. He did not try to blend in with them, but he did not have to. His coat hid what he was, and no one gave him a second glance otherwise. He was a man going about an errand. Nothing more. Some men were dropping off packages or picking up something for dinner. Markus was not so different from them. Only, he was on his way to kill.

He turned off a street, already moving to pull out his grappling hook, but he stopped when he saw a fire escape attached to one of the buildings. The final ladder was counter-balanced to be out of reach while not in use, but that had only anticipated a normal person trying to jump and reach it. Markus did not even have to use all of the strength in his legs to pull the ladder down.

On top of the building, he turned to the south and stared out at Tesma’s tower. The faint blue glow of the building stood out against the clouds, and as he watched, a lightning bolt struck the top of the tower.

“It does that,” a voice said behind him.

He turned to see Kira stepping off the ladder. Gavrial and Vlad were behind her.

“Sometimes,” she continued. “During a real bad storm, it looks like there is just a solid blue line from the tower to the clouds, almost as if it is being touched by Troena himself.”

“What are you doing here?” Markus said.

Vlad gave the tower a worried look. “We’re here to help.”

“Although, from how you slunk off and didn’t come back to the Aviary,” Gavrial said. “I’d almost say you were going to try and do this yourself.”

“I am,” Markus said.

“This isn’t just your fight, Markus,” Kira said. “Nothing has changed except that we know it wasn’t Lector. We still have business with Tesma, too.”

Markus looked back to the tower. “Something has changed Kira. When it was Lector, it was just a crazed meister tormenting us. Tesma is something different.”

“So he has more guards,” Kira said. “And probably more toys that use his lightning. That sounds like more of a reason that you need us, not less.”

“It isn’t about the danger,” Markus said. “It’s about who he is. Lector was just a man. Tesma is a Meister of the Secret.”

He turned back around and saw three confused faces looking at them. Of course they had no clue what that meant. Markus still was not entirely sure himself. He had only met one other Meister of the Secret, and Quintin had not been very forthcoming about exactly what that entailed.

“He could be the secret king of Voxfeld for all I care,” Gavrial said. “He still killed Jak.”

“People die,” Markus said. “Especially in our line of work. You told me that right after Jak died, and you weren’t so eager to hunt him down and get revenge when it happened.”

“That was before he kept messing with us,” Gavrial said. “He’s been picking this fight.”

“With me,” Markus said. “It was always with me. About me. He doesn’t care about a random gang of thieves. In fact, he doesn’t even care that much about me. This is about Tesma and Quintin. I’m just stuck in the middle of it, and that makes it my fight.”

“Ah, but you are our friend,” Vlad said. “And that makes it our fight, too.”

Markus shook his head. “A clever plan isn’t going to work here, Vlad. Tesma would expect that. He has seen how we work. This time, I’m going in alone, and you can’t stop me.”

Vlad shook his head while Gavrial crossed his arms and frowned. Kira, though, walked up to Markus and put a hand on his chest, over his heart.

She looked up into his eyes. “Are you sure?”

At that moment, he wondered. Perhaps they could wait, form a plan, let Tesma be lulled off guard. But no, Tesma would not lower his guard. He would plan, and he would find them again, and he would hurt them again. There simply was no time left.

“Yes,” he said.

He stepped away, and she let her hand fall slowly to her side. He looked at them each one last time, and some part of him wondered if he would ever see them again. This was not an assassination. He would not be so lucky as to catch Tesma asleep in his bed. He was picking a fight, one that he was not entirely sure he could win.

He turned back towards the tower and started running, letting his mechanical legs work to their full extent. He leapt across an alley without losing speed, and kept running across the rooftops and to Tesma’s tower.

* * *

Jaeger sat on a bench and watched the storm roll in from the ocean. The cool wind that carried it pushed down even the heat of the nearby steam engines, although it did not lessen the clamor of airmen scurrying about to secure the large dirigibles that were currently moored at the castle’s dock. There was a polite cough behind him, and Jaeger turned to see Duke Tonniger looking out at the clouds.

“Warwick,” Jaeger said. “How pleasant to see you. It has been some time.”

“Alas, being a duke is not all parties and scandal,” Warwick said. “I’ve only just returned from my estates. Did I miss anything fun?”

“Just a lovely game of intrigue and politics,” Jaeger said. “I thought we nearly had Tesma in a bind, but that daughter of his delivered a rather crushing blow.”

“Is this that new act I heard about?” Warwick said. “The Preservation of Quality of Meisters and Meister-Related Works?”

“The same,” Jaeger said. “It wasn’t the most rousing speech I ever heard, but it played well to the people’s fears. I’m afraid that young Maaike isn’t taking the loss too well, though.”

“So you did strike up an alliance with her?” Warwick sat down next to Jaeger and raised an eyebrow. “Were you mixing business and pleasure again?”

“If you listen to the rumors at court,” Jaeger said.

Warwick laughed. “Using your own reputation as a shield, you sly dog. So tell me, will you continue to work with her?”

Jaeger stared out at the clouds. They were moving fast, and already covered the city. They seemed a fitting reminder that Tijervyn was far from stable. In the blink of an eye, the city, and all of Sentat with it, could be enveloped in a storm.

Warwick’s smile failed and he furrowed his brow. “Jaeger?”

“After Qristina gave her speech, she said something to me in the hall,” Jaeger said. “She knows about the revenant in the city.”

“The entire city knows about the revenant,” Warwick said. “Or at least thinks it does. The rumors floating about the markets would make you think it has been burning down a city block a day since early summer.”

“No, Warwick,” Jaeger said. “This is different. She actually knows. I can tell when a person is repeating a rumor. Her entire speech was condemning revenants, and that might have been a ruse, making us fear a tool she had used in secret, but in the hall . . . I have forgotten my first suspicions of Lady Kanadis. I have pushed them back because I let myself believe in her cause.”

“And you do not anymore?”

“I’m not sure,” Jaeger said. “I thought I could read her. She may have been trained in Voxfeld, but so was I, and I’ve been playing these games far longer. But, perhaps, was I blind by my own surety?”

“Don’t be hard on yourself, Jaeger.” Warwick clapped him on the back. “A pretty face with a sly tongue can sometimes fool even the best of us.”

“You speak as though you have experience,” Jaeger said.

“Perhaps.” The other man grinned then turned. “Ah, speak of Praedin.”

Jaeger looked down the dock and saw Maaike walking towards them, the very image of a prim and proper lady. Her red hair was pulled up today, and her dress, while complimentary to her curves, covered from heel to wrist to neck.

“She is a beauty,” Warwick said, his voice pitched low.

“That she is.” Jaeger stood and turned fully. Aside from the airmen and dockworkers, the three of them were the only ones on the dock.

“Duke Tonniger,” Maaike said. “Might I borrow Count Jaeger for a moment?”

Warwick glanced to Jaeger. “I imagine I can spare some moments of his time. I could use a break from his melancholy.”

Jaeger raised an eyebrow at Warwick before following Maaike back down the dock a ways. Once they were out of earshot of Warwick, she turned around, a pleasant half smile on her face.

“And just what was that about?” she said.

“Duke Tonniger always thinks I’m too serious,” Jaeger said. “It is a chronic disposition brought on by his own whimsical nature.”

“I didn’t mean Tonniger,” she said. “At the Council.”

“Ah,” Jaeger said. “I would have thought you had figured that out already. That, my lady, is what happens when you underestimate an opponent. The meisters out maneuvered us.”

“They out maneuvered you,” she said. “This attempt at undermining them was yours from the start. And the result? You look none the worse while my contacts in Voxfeld think I’m a fool who has trapped several of their meisters in Sentatian politics or else wasted their time in general. Let’s not even get into the various deaths and accidents.”

“What you wanted was a war,” Jaeger said. “Perhaps not one as blatant as what we fought against Adervyn, but a war nonetheless. People die in wars, and mistakes are made.”

“Mistakes lose wars,” Maaike said. “Do you take the fate of Tijervyn and Sentat so lightly? The meisters have redoubled their power with that Act, even without the King’s signature.”

“He actually signed it just this morning,” Jaeger said.

“Even worse,” she said. “They are not just painting themselves as heroes who are saving us from an invasion of revenants and poorly maintained machines, but they have been endorsed by the King besides. Why don’t we just go ahead and hand Tesma the city, while we’re at it.”

“I think you are being a little overdramatic.” Jaeger kept his voice civil, but only because she somehow was managing to seethe vitriol at him while maintaining a placid appearance. Likely, Warwick thought their conversation friendly from his vantage on the bench.

“And I think you are a tired old man who does not see the dire circumstances we are in,” she said. “Direct action is the only chance we have against the meisters.”

“I must admit,” he said. “I am starting to wonder about the meisters as enemies. They are heavy handed, true, but I have to wonder if they are more rightly allies of the city that deserve somewhat better treatment than we have given them. After all, you yourself initially sought alliance with them, and only after Qristina snubbed you did you seek to bring them down.”

“Because I saw the power they wield,” she said. “They are dangerous.”

“And who should wield that power?” he said. “A prince who is easily cowed? A king who nearly has open rebellion on his streets? That is not the way of power, Maaike. Power does not belong in the hands of the weak.”

She took a step back. “That sounds rather treasonous of you.”

“You never have understood my motivations,” he said. “I am not here to protect king or prince or noble. I serve the city.”

“You serve your own cowardice,” she said.

“You serve your own ego,” he said. “All you care about is saving Kanadis from the poverty to which your mother has driven it. You care nothing for who rules in Tijervyn, or if the city is even standing when you’re done.”

Her serenity finally cracked, but Jaeger kept a smile off his face. He knew she had thought her true motives secret, and while Duchess Kanadis had done well to hide the sorry state of her duchy, such a thing could not stay hidden forever.

“I think,” Maaike said. “That our alliance has outlived its usefulness.”

“To both of us,” Jaeger said. “Tread carefully, young Kanadis. Tijervyn is as much a dangerous place as any you have been before.”

“I’m learning that.” She curtseyed and left, some of her placid tranquility regained, but not all.

Jaeger returned to the bench and stared out at the clouds.

“Well then,” Warwick said. “I guess that is over with.”

“You read our lips?”

“A nasty habit I learned years ago.” Warwick laughed. “I’ll be honest, I’m surprised you aren’t more relieved. You can have your sport again and don’t have to deal with that chit anymore.”

Lightning lanced down, striking the top of Tesma’s tower. Jaeger sighed and closed his eyes. “Ah, I have a feeling, my dear friend, that this game has only just begun.”

* * *

Wind screamed in Markus’s ears. Below, the ground rushed past, attempting to move closer while he pulled himself further away. The wench in his grapping hook groaned as he pulled on it with all he had, and then he felt the tingle. It was kind of like the feeling you get just before a static shock, but on a level that he knew would not give him just an annoying sting if it went off.

He glanced below to see the iron spikes that decorated the top of the wall surrounding the Meisters’ Guild. They glowed with the same blue light as the tower, and they were only a few feet below him.

Then they were gone, behind him as the wind continued to howl in his ears. He looked forward in time to see the side of the complex rushing up at him. He twisted and braced his legs out, but he still hit hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. He hung there, suspended about halfway up the tower, dangling from his grappling line. But he was past the wall.

He had considered trying to find his way through the sewers to Gavrial’s hidden entrance, but he had a feeling he would only lose himself in the darkness and sludge. Also, asking Gavrial to guide him was out of the question, and not just because of their last, dramatic farewell. Gavrial would not be content to be just a guide. He would want to then take part in the rest of the business, too. Markus could not risk that.

Once he had his breath back, he looked up to the gargoyle he had managed to latch onto. When he had been standing on the building outside of the wall, he had merely aimed for what seemed to be a high enough spot with likely places for his hook to catch. He was surprised that he managed it in one shot, and only then did he realize the danger of missing. If the line would have fallen across the wall, those spikes would have likely sent their lightning back down the line and into Markus. He could survive one of those balls hitting him, but it still hurt. He did not want to think of how much more lightning would have been sent at him from the wall.

Still, jumping off the highest, nearby building he could find and running the wench has fast as he could had managed to work. And now he was hanging from the side of Tesma’s tower. He pushed himself off the wall just enough to get his feet under him, then scaled up to the nearest window. There was no light inside, and what little he could see seemed to indicate it was an office. He felt around the window but found no means of opening it.

Above, there were other windows he would be able to reach, but all of them had lights. It was either hope they were empty and happened to have windows he could open quietly, or smash through into a dark, unused office. He did not have to consider it long.

He adjusted himself to be standing on the window then jumped back. The force of the jump itself cracked a pane of glass, and he arced back into the darkness some ways before he swung forward. When his feet made contact again, smashing the thick glass as easily as fine porcelain, he felt out through the grappling line to the hook. He was still not quite sure how he knew to make the hook fold out and release, but the line went slack, and the wench engaged.

He landed on a desk in a pile of glass and scattered papers. He rolled off, taking care to not let the glass cut flesh or any of the delicate wires coming from his neck. A few shards scraped against his legs, but he ignored them. They did not cause pain so much as just a sensation.

Once he was up, he took a deep breath and listened. He had surely made quite a bit of noise with that entrance, but if anyone was coming to investigate, they had not raised an alarm yet. He doubted that would last long.

He opened the door slowly and looked out into the hallway. A single meister was walking towards him, a middle-aged man of perhaps middle rank, from the design on his bracer. He gasped in surprise and turned, but Markus launched his grappling hook at the man’s feet, tangling them in the line.

The man started to scream, but stopped when he fell and hit his head hard on the stone floor. Markus pulled him back to the door, and then knelt next to him. The man was still conscious, just dazed, so Markus pulled a bottle from one of the compartments in his leg, uncorked it, and held it under the man’s nose. A moment later, he passed out.

Markus stashed the meister in the office and went back into the hall. Now, he had to find Tesma, and that most likely meant up. With any luck, he was already past any normal security, but he kept his grappling hook attached and a gun drawn just in case.

He had to turn several corners before he found a stairwell, as well as knock out two more meisters. His presence would hardly be unnoticed for long at this rate. He ran up the stairs, pausing at each landing to make sure no one was there to see him, and with every heartbeat he wondered when an alarm would sound through the complex.

He reached the top of the stairs and stepped out into a spacious lobby. Through a set of large windows to the left, he could see a roof that gently slanted down and was already slick with rain now that the storm had broken. Doors lined the wall to the left, each with a desk in front of them, and further down he saw a wide staircase leading even higher. Jasyn had told him once that Tesma’s lab and office were both on the highest floor, and that the man almost never left them. Surely he would be there now.

Footsteps echoed down the stairs above, and Markus ran over to the nearest door and pushed through. He kept it open a crack, and several irritated meisters walked past, coming down from the floor above. Fortunately, none of them were Tesma, although they all did wear high-ranking bracers.

Once they passed, Markus let out a slow breath and looked behind him at the office he had burst into. It was empty, although it had the look of being regularly used. Papers and folios were kept in neat stacks on the desk, and a wine glass sat half full on a table by a circular window to the side of the room. Through the window, Markus could barely make out the shape of Castle Sentat in the storm. Whosever office this was, to afford such a view, they surely had to be in Tesma’s good graces.

Markus started to leave, but something caught his attention. He walked over to the desk and picked up a gear that was sitting to one side. It could not be, could it? He turned the gear over in his hands, and sure enough he saw Quintin’s mark. It was the gear he had lost when he was trying to get Jasyn to fix him. He looked at the papers on the desk, trying to figure whose office he was in. After a few reports, he knew. They were all addressed to Master Meister Qristina Barak. Tesma’s daughter. Why did she have his gear?

He pocketed the gear and peaked back out the door. No one was there, so he went into the lobby and turned to the stairs up. Whatever the reason she had his gear, it did not matter, not right now.

He scaled the stairs, careful to not make any sound. If he was lucky, Tesma would not be expecting him, but Markus did not want to count on luck. He had heard newsboys crying out about the latest, a downtown townhouse being half blown up and attacked by the revenant. Tesma would know he was coming. He would be ready.

The stairs twisted several times, and finally Markus came to a foyer with a small desk set to one side and grand, wooden doors directly across from him. A young boy sitting behind the desk stood up in shock as Markus stepped off the stairs, and Markus leveled his gun on him.

“Not a sound,” Markus said. “Understand?”

The boy shook his head, eyes wide.

“Sit down, put your head on the desk, and your hands on top of your head.”

The boy did as he was told, and Markus passed him, unconcerned. It was time.

He walked up to the doors and kicked them in. Wood splintered under his boot and opened up to a mix of lab, office, and throne room. Strange devices littered a workbench to one side of the room, and papers and ledgers were stacked up on a large desk to the other side. A red carpet led from the door to a raised, stone chair on the opposite side of the room. Other than that, though, the room was empty.

Markus turned back to the boy. “Where is he?”

The boy flinched but did not move.

“Look at me, boy!” Markus cocked his gun. “Where is Tesma?”

The boy looked up, his lip trembling. “I don’t know. He left a while ago, and told me to send away anyone who came calling.”

“Then you are going to keep doing exactly that,” Markus said. “I’ll be inside but I will be listening. If you tell anyone that I’m in here, you are the first person I’m going to shoot. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded weakly, and Markus walked into the office, closing the doors as best he could. They did not latch, but they at least still met up right. With luck, Tesma would not notice, at least until it was too late.

Markus looked through the crack of the door and could see the boy was sitting at his desk, obviously shaken, but not moving. That was good; he would hate to have to shoot an innocent child.

He took a step back, still listening, and waited. How long until Tesma would return? Surely he had not retired for the night already, or else he would have sent the boy away. The man would return, and he would find his death waiting for him.

A sound came from the hallway, much like a sharp intake of breath. Had Tesma returned, and the boy tipped him off with his shock? Markus took a step back towards to door, but it was kicked in before he was halfway there.

The masked man stood in the doorway, shockrod drawn. No, not merely “the masked man” anymore. Tesma stood in the doorway. He twisted a knob on the small device on his belt, and walked slowly into the room.

“I had half hoped you would be ready for me.” Markus holstered his gun, knowing it would do no good, and drew the cane he had picked up on the way. “Now, I can be sure it is you.”

The man did not reply, but instead lunged forward. Markus beat the shockrod away with his cane and tried to land a blow of his own, but the man parried it at the last moment, driving Markus’s cane down to the floor. The man swung again, and Markus had to jump back to not be hit.

Markus swung again, and again was parried. This time he managed to block the shockrod with his cane, but he still had to fall back as the man almost seemed to expect the block and pulled back and lunged again without thought.

This, Markus realized, was not going to be the same as fighting Lector. Lector had been good, but he had been nowhere near this fast. If it was not for Markus’s strength and speed from his mechanical parts, he likely would have been hit already. And even if it touched one of his metal limbs and did not kill him, he had a feeling the shockrod would hurt him enough for the man to then finish Markus off.

Markus ran over to the workbench and threw a chair at the man. He jumped out of the way, and Markus picked up and threw one of the devices from the bench. The man again dodged, but when the device landed a few feet behind him, it exploded in a rain of sparks, and the man stumbled.

Markus threw another device, this one a glass orb with wires running through it and connecting small devices, and this time he aimed it at the man’s feet. Another explosion of sparks nearly blinded him, and he heard the man grunt.

Markus blinked his sight back just in time to see the man lunging at him again. He parried with his cane as the man lunged again and again, attacking from all sides. Markus had no choice but to be driven back, away from the workbench.

The man drove him back to the other side of the office, and Markus picked up the chair he had thrown and threw it again. As the man dodged back, Markus ran over to a large window. He was on the defensive, and he did not have the room to use all of his advantages.

He kicked the window out, latched his grappling hook firmly above the casement, and jumped down to the roof a level below. The wench and his legs softened the fall, and he looked up to the window. The man was there, looking down at him, and then he reached out with the shockrod and touched it to the line.

Markus tried to pull the hook back, but the man was too fast. Blinding pain surged down the line and into Markus’s arm. He heard the grappling hook hit the roof in front of him as he fell to his knees, and the pain faded. He looked up just as the masked man jumped down to the roof and rolled. Markus forced himself up and activated his wench, reeling the line in. The shockrod had been worse than getting hit by those balls, and he was surprised to find he could still move. The back of his neck felt burned, and his entire body, both metal and flesh, felt like he had just been beaten.

But he had more room. If only he could use it. The masked man was standing on guard, shockrod held out like a fencing foil. A blue aura seemed to surround him, seemingly from where the rain hit the shockshield. Markus had hoped the rain would render the device useless, but he had not counted on it. It was time to let this man know what a revenant could do.

He stood up and ran at the masked man as fast as his legs could carry him. His dueling cane rushed down with all of his momentum and strength, whistling like a train at top speed. The man took a step back and raised the shockrod to block, and Markus twisted his wrist slightly. Instead of the shockrod, Markus hit the man’s hand. The dueling cane shattered, just as his last one had, and the man screamed.

The shockrod fell and rolled to the edge, and the man dropped to his knees, cradling his surely broken hand. Markus loomed over him, broken cane still in hand, and raised it up again, the jagged end aimed down like an assassin’s knife.

The man somehow stood up and threw a punch at Markus, and he took a step back. The shockrod was gone, but the man still had the shockshield. Likely it made his punches just as deadly as a touch from the weapon. The man punched and jabbed, and a lucky swipe caught the cane and knocked it free from Markus’s hand, sending it spinning over the edge of the roof.

Markus had hoped it would not come to this. He had no clue what the shockshield would do to him, but he had no choice. The man punched again, and Markus caught the punch in his metal hand.

Blue light filled Markus’s eyes, and the burning feeling in the back of his neck came back a hundred-fold. He could feel the lightning streaming down his arm and filling his metal parts, questing through him as though it was looking for something. At last, it travelled down his leg and foot and left his body. It felt like a lifetime, but it was only the space between two heartbeats.

When the light left his eyes, Markus felt the shingles of the roof under him. He was lying on his back, staring into the rain. He sat up and looked around, and the edge of the roof was a scant foot from his side. He had been standing in the middle of the roof when he caught the punch.

He looked across the roof, and the masked man was on his side. He moved, if only slightly, and Markus wanted to snarl. Even breaking the shockshield had not been enough. Markus would still have to finish the job.

He crawled away from the edge, not trusting his balance, and over to the man. He was groaning, but Markus noticed there was something strange. It seemed too high pitched. He touched the mask slowly, and when he was not shocked, he reached around it with both hands and found the clasps that kept it on. He pulled the mask off and fell backwards.

“You?”

Qristina sneered at him and pushed herself up with on arm but fell back to her side. “Yes me, you monster.”

Markus stood and rubbed his eyes, which still hurt and seemed to cast everything in a blue tint. “Why? Why have you been hunting me? Surely this can’t be to learn how to make a cyborg. They teach it openly in Adervyn. All you’d have to do is go there.”

“I don’t want to learn your filthy Secret, revenant!” She said. “No, from that first night I saw you in Dunny Manor, I’ve known what you were here for, and I had to stop you.”

“From what? Picking up the pieces of my life? I did nothing to you!”

“Do you think I’m a fool?” she said. “I know you came here with that chit, Kanadis, but you are Quintin’s creature, his assassin. I couldn’t let you kill me father. I won’t!”

She attempted to stand, and Markus held his arm out. The blade swung out of it and the tip stopped just in front of Qristina’s throat.

“I did come here to kill Tesma,” Markus said. “But only because I thought he was the masked man tormenting me. Quintin did not send me.”

“You expect me to believe that?” She said. “Don’t waste your breath. Kill me and be done with it, monster.”

Markus looked her in the eye, then took a step back and drew his blade back in. “I made a promise to Quintin. I promised to stay away from Tesma. He told me no good would come of it, and I see that he was right. All I want is to be left alone. I’m no one’s creature, and Quintin would never even dream of sending an assassin.”

Qristina glowered at him. “Why shouldn’t he? He hates my father, fears him even. My father once tried to kill Quintin. He surely longs to return the favor.”

“Quintin would not send an assassin. Because if he did, he’d be no better than Tesma. Or you, for that matter.” Markus looked at her for a moment more then turned and walked to a nearby edge. He turned back to her. “I could kill you right now, then wait up in Tesma’s office and kill him when he returns, or even hunt him down wherever he has gone to ground. You were the only thing here I really feared.”

“Then why don’t you,” she said.

“Because,” he said. “I don’t kill in cold blood. I gave that up when the war ended. Instead, I’m going to let you live. That should be proof enough that I’m not the assassin you think I am.”

She stared at him but did not say a word. He nodded, hoping that he was right, then attached his grappling hook to a nearby gargoyle and jumped off into the night.

* * *

Maaike waited for her porter to open the umbrella before she stepped out of the carriage. It was not raining anymore, but the thundering clouds overhead threatened it. She took the umbrella from the man and indicated that he should wait for her, and then she strode into the Scent District shop.

Inside, various works of silver were displayed in glass cases, from fine dinning utensils to scrollwork that might adorn the top of a column. Gas light played against all of the metal, giving the room an otherworldly feel. On the far side of the shop, where the light was not quite so bright, the silversmith looked at her with leering, beady eyes.

He was a fat man. There was no polite way to say it. He was crude beyond exception as well, despite his profession, which most certainly was not being a simple silversmith. It was his profession, in fact, that made Maaike tolerate the rest, eyes, girth, and demeanor.

“My Lady Vorrena,” he said.

“I am Lady Kanadis here, Mortimyr” she said. “We are no longer in Adervyn, and calling me such could cause people to wonder.”

Mortimyr smiled. “Of course, My Lady Kanadis. I am pleased you have finally deigned to visit.”

She looked around. “I should have sooner. I did not give you that money so that you could go into the fine metals business. Explain yourself.”

“I was not wasteful,” he said. “In fact, my business here has been beneficial to us both. I have access to the materials I need, and I have actually turned a tidy profit, even in this one season of being open. I could give you back your commission on this spot, if you so wished to no longer employ my services.”

She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Of course not, Mortimyr. In fact, your services are why I am here. What progress have you made?”

His smile broadened. “Best not to speak here, my lady. Please, come to the back room.”

She nodded, and Mortimyr led her into a large back room where his kiln and workbench were. He closed the door behind them then flipped back an old rug in the middle of the floor. When he stooped down, he made the worst sorts of noises, and he swore for a few minutes as he worked out a false section of floor. The entire time, he made no excuse for himself, even as he stood up and led her to the workbench, now holding a polished box in his hands.

“I fear that even as I am, gathering the right materials has been hard,” he said. “I must be careful with what I hold back, and few people can give me exactly what I need. The mixture must be just right, you see.”

“Stop apologizing and show me,” she said.

He nodded and opened the box.

“This is it?” she said.

“Yes, my lady. I have been doing as you instructed, working as fast as I could without drawing attention. But the war is still fresh in people’s minds.”

“But this is the hardest part to gather?”

“Yes,” he said. “I could have everything I need to complete even the most complex work in a day, now that I have these.”

Maaike smiled as she looked into the box. There, nestled on a velvet pillow, five silver spikes about the length of her hand played with the flickering light from the lamps.

“Then find the materials,” she said. “I will find the men. We must work quickly.”

Epilogue

Quintin,

I must say, I am not surprised to find you writing to me after all these long years. But, my brother, twenty years has not dulled my mind. I still remember our last parting. Did you presume to think me so daft as to not see your true intentions?

Your aged heart is filled with sadness, you say? I somehow doubt it. Quintin Lazris was never above using a man, even if it destroyed him. How many bodies did you bury, trying to discover the Secret of Silver? How many monsters did you make from half-successes? How many more monsters are now your responsibility now that you have fully succeeded?

As to your warning, I can reply only that you are a blind fool. You? The best suited to guide the Secret? Our master may have doted on you, but he was an old, senile fool that ignored true talent. I am on the verge of harnessing the Secret of Copper, my brother, and where you failed, I will succeed. I shall guide the Secret, and with it, I shall bring about a new age. You saved your city, but have left it to rot and fester with the evil you unleashed upon it. I, though, shall save Sentat from itself. I am not the weak fool you were.

Nor am I blind. I see the knife you sent, and I will not fall victim to it. Your revenant can try his luck with me, and he will feel what true power is. You accuse me of presuming as Kings and Gods? I think it more likely you are scared that I will show the world what a failure the great Quintin Lazris truly is. I am a Meister of the Secret. I am above Kings and Gods.

As to my daughter, know full well that I would sacrifice even her to see my vision fulfilled. I am not the coward you were.

By my hand, the High Meister of The Meister’s Guild of Sentat,

Tesma Barak