There was something too hard-eyed and too shifty about the youths for them to be just a couple of idling apprentices. When Rafe stepped in, they shot out of their chairs as if the seats of their pants had caught fire.
“Shop closed today,” said one, looming over Rafe, hands crooked as if ready to grab Rafe by the collar and bodily throw him out.
“Master’s away,” piped the other. “We’re not taking anything new, but if you have something to pick up?”
Rafe decided to trust his instincts. “I have nothing to give except my peculiar talents, and nothing to pick up except how to join the antimachinists and help rid the city off the king’s mage-made abominations.”
The younger man looked horrified; the larger made to grab Rafe.
“Tsk, tsk. In broad daylight? With a dozen passersby and shopkeepers watching?” Rafe shook his head sorrowfully.
“Who are you?” hissed the younger man. “We weren’t expecting anyone new.”
“I’m a friend of that yellow-haired youngster. He was supposed to wait for me to show, but I guess he got impatient.” Rafe shrugged.
The two relaxed—a little. “If Tris knew you were coming,” said the larger one, an ugly look still in his eyes, “why didn’t he warn us?”
“Ah.” Rafe looked a little ashamed. “I, uh, didn’t want to commit.” He raised his chin defiantly. “You know how it is. I have a family and if the watchmen or the palace guard got wind of my involvement…” He sketched tightening a knot in the air.
“What made you change your mind?” They were still suspicious.
“I lost my scorching job at the shipyards.” Rafe infused his voice with bitterness. “And I want to fight back.”
Come on, you two. You obviously have more brawn then brain, or else you’d be at the meeting inside. Just let me in so I can grab Tristan before the raid!
“Well,” said the younger reluctantly, “they’d be able to vouch for you inside.”
“And if not,” said the larger one, herding Rafe towards the back of the shop, “you’ll have a lot more to worry about than a lost job.” He opened his jacket enough so that Rafe could see the sheathed knives at his belt.
“Fair enough.” Rafe looked unconcerned as he climbed three stairs to a small door. The big man reached around him to unlock it. Rafe endured being crowded and kept his face blank. He was not about to be intimidated by a barrel chest, two knives, and a reek of sweat and onion so strong as to be almost a weapon in and of itself.
The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, and a knife pricked through Rafe’s shirt. “Just remember”—warm animal breath on his neck—“if Tris don’t vouch for you, you’re going to have both your kidneys skewered faster than you can blink.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He hoped Tristan wouldn’t choose today to have a memory malfunction.
The interior was close and shuttered like a funeral house. Rafe was prodded down a short narrow hallway. Irate voices grumbled through a door on the right.
The youth knocked: two short raps, a pause, then two more. A querulous voice called, “Enter!”
They entered a parlor full of dark-upholstered chairs pushed to the walls and lit by gas lamps fed by exposed pipes, just as Tristan finished saying, “…need to be more cautious…”
A girl interrupted him with, “Nonsense! Now that we’ve made then sit up and take notice, we must escalate!” It was the female who had stood on the crippled digger the night of the Brenwood ball, the one Tristan had admired. She was good-looking, in a dark sultry sort of way, with full red lips and glittering black eyes. Her eyebrows arched as she saw Rafe. “Who is
this
?”
“Says he’s a friend of Tris,” grunted the guard.
Tristan spun around and goggled at Rafe, who stared back blandly.
Thanks, kid. Couldn’t you have looked more surprised to see me?
“Hello, Tris,” said Rafe. “I
did
think about it, you see, and here I am.”
There were other three other people in the room: a wizened older man with a face fallen to sagging lines, a short stocky man in dockworkers’ clothing, and a lanky watery-eyed youth who hovered in the background, mouth agape.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “You
know
him, Tris?”
Tristan composed himself. “Yes. Yes, I do. Mahali, everyone, this is my friend Gregor.”
“Mighty glad to meet you.” Rafe directed his most charming smile at the girl.
She scowled back, and stubbed her cigar viciously into an ash-tray. “What were you thinking, Tris? You don’t bring others in without our say-so.”
Tristan hung his head. “Gregor has many, um, talents. I thought he’d be useful.”
“Useful how?” snarled Mahali. The stocky man laid a hand on her arm, which she shook off.
“Now, now. Let’s see what Tris and Gregor have to say for themselves,” said the stocky man. “You forget what an asset Tris has been. He’s earned our trust twice over. Give him a chance to explain.”
Rafe was hard-pressed not to give Tristan a stern glare at this, though Tristan looked miserable and ashamed enough. Unless it was Mahali’s blistering reproof that had him so remorseful. Rafe had not missed the look of mingled adoration and agony that Tristan had given her. It was the sort of expression a spanked puppy might’ve worn.
“So, Gregor, why does Tris think you can help us?” pursued the stocky man, his smile belied by his cold fish eyes.
“I’m a demolitions expert,” replied Rafe promptly. “And after last night’s fiasco, it’s obvious you need one.”
In the silence that followed, Rafe glanced around the room. It was lit by four gas-lamps. There were no candles or mage lights. Good. Any raid would be preceded by a disruption of power, and that was his only chance to get Tristan out without any repercussions.
“What do you mean by ‘fiasco’?” Mahali’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“Well, I’m sorry if it was your baby, but it didn’t go very well, did it?” said Rafe. “You were sitting on a power hub, and the fire didn’t even collapse the buildings around the perimeter, much less touch the ones beyond. Those rich folk five streets up from the station? They didn’t lose power for more than three stages. The nozzle-noses took care of the blaze underground. The fire was over in less than a stage. You call that that a success?” Rafe shook his head.
“We intended this to be warning, no more,” broke in the stocky man.
Mahali gnawed on the inside of her lip and looked sullen. Why was Tristan so besotted with her? Dealing with her dramatics was already wearying, and Rafe had barely met her.
Isabella
never acted like this. Rafe was instantly annoyed at himself for thinking of her.
“So, you think you can waltz in here and start telling us how we ought to run things, is that it?” Mahali spoke through clenched teeth.
“No, of course not,” said Tristan, quickly.
Mahali turned on him, bangles clashing together on her wrist. “It seems to me he’s doing exactly that!” Tristan flinched from her angry expression and stepped closer to Rafe. They were the closest to the door, barring the guard.
Mahali turned to Rafe. “Before we take you on, we need to know that
you
know exactly where we stand. We’ve built this movement from the ground up”—the older man murmured “We?”, which the girl ignored—“we’ve toiled, planned, skulked, schemed, stolen. Don’t think you can come here and start taking things over.”
Rafe let an expression of bemusement linger on his face as her vehemence drove him back, and, incidentally, closer to the door, drawing Tristan with him. “My dear girl, that is the last thing on my mind. I just want—”
As if on cue, the lights went out. Darkness rolled in like an ocean. Rafe took Tristan’s arm and pulled him towards the doorway, muscling aside the youth as he did so. Gasps and a sharp cry of “What was that?” rose up around them. In the distance, a door crashed open and boot steps thudded.
“Raid,” screamed Mahali. “Scorch it all, we’ve been betrayed!”
Tristan was nearly limp, a dead weight in his panic and confusion. Rafe grabbed him by the collar and propelled him out the door. He pushed his cousin down the hall, away from the oncoming guardsmen. “Quick,” he whispered. “We need to get out the back.”
“The kitchen door,” said Tristan as they stumbled together down the dark passage, Rafe’s hand on his elbow.
“No, a window, a side window. They’ll have the back covered.”
Tristan turned left into a room that smelled faintly of oil and grease. Objects crashed as he and Rafe tripped over them on their way to the window. They pried at the black tarp covering the panes; it ripped from the nails holding it down.
Rafe peered out into the street. There were no lights nearby, though the ghostly aura emanating from the still-illuminated buildings several streets away touched everything with soft grays. He swung open the window.
Footsteps pattered behind them. Rafe heaved Tristan up and over the sill. “Jump, and get back home fast as you can.”
The youth with the knife blundered through the doorway. In the half-light, his face was painted with fear, eyes crazed with the emotion. It rose from him in waves, riding the stink from a loosened bladder.
The youth saw Rafe and some of the blindness lifted from his face. A snarl twisted his mouth. “You! Traitor!” He sprang at Rafe, a blind mad pounce that Rafe met with a swing of the nearest weapon to hand—a three-legged stool. It broke upon the youth’s hunched shoulders and head, but the other’s momentum and rage carried him through and he fell upon Rafe, clawing and stabbing. Rafe used the broken leg in his hand to keep the youth’s knife out of reach. The sill jabbed him in the back of his thighs. He could slide out of the youth’s frenzy, sidestep the flailing at his face, but that would mean surrendering his means of escape. Rafe had no intention of being left behind to face either the watchmen or the enraged Mahali.
He shoved the youth away, then jumped up, awkwardly, and sat on the sill. The youth staggered forward again; Rafe planted his boots into the young man’s chest and shoved. As the youth flew backwards, Rafe swiveled around and jumped into the alley.
“Rafe, here,” whispered Tristan. He was huddled against the opposite wall.
“Idiot! Why didn’t you run?”
Tristan raised a finger to his lips. “I hear them, Rafe,” he said, in quiet despair. “They’re all around.” Whistles blew high and long. Yells came from inside the house. White light flashed in bursts from the windows.
“They have light bombs,” whispered Tristan. “And pepper ball rounds and grenades, too, I’ll wager.”
Rafe scanned the alley wall. “Here, I’ll help you up. It’s not too high.” He pulled the shaken prince to his feet, and boosted him up with little cooperation on Tristan’s part. Tristan wavered on the top for one long moment, then disappeared. A crash signaled his landing.
Rafe took a running start at the wall, using the momentum to clamber up and grip the top before he started to slip. He hung there for a few painful tendon-stretching moments, then hauled himself up and over.
His landing was only a little less noisy than Tristan’s. This was the scrap iron dealer’s back lot, suitably filled with sheets of rusty iron, knots of lead and copper piping, and coils of barbed wire.
A cranky, rusty voice called out. “Hie! Who’s out there?” The dealer rushed out, brandishing a crowbar in one hand and swinging a lantern in the other. “Guards, guards! People are escaping over the wall!”
Rafe and Tristan ran. They clambered the low wall that separated the dealer’s back space from his neighbor’s. Everyone used these lots for storage, and they had to maneuver around piles of junk and pull away from jagged corners that snagged and tore. Lights flared in their wake. More shouts joined the dealer’s as other shopkeepers, machinists, and smiths took up the cries, bringing the watchmen ever closer. Whistles dogged them through back lot after back lot.
“Halt, in the King’s name!” Too close—the guard was too close. Rafe turned sharply and pushed Tristan behind a pile of scrap metal. They crouched.
“I’ll distract him,” murmured Rafe in Tristan’s ear. “You head down to the river, and swim away, if you have to. Just don’t let them see you.” He reached in his pocket for the handy flare.
A pop and a hiss came from behind them, as if someone had just uncorked a celebratory bottle of bubbly.
“Your eyes!” Rafe just managed to shield his face, but Tristan was not so lucky. He caught the full brunt of the light bomb, a white light that stabbed through the eyes and up the brain and left jagged blazing cracks in one’s vision for moments after.
Tristan, gasping and clutching at his head, was in no condition to move. Rafe, eyes smarting, peeked from behind his arm, and worried one-handed at the flare.
“Hands out, where I can see them. Now!” The voice was authoritative—and recognizable. Rafe put his arm down and saw that they were surrounded. Lights came on all around the lot. He held out his hands in surrender.
The leader jumped down off a large box. He wore a close-fitting combat suit of shifting shadow colors, a helmet, and a chest plate. Two pistols lay snug in holsters at his belt. The insignia on his helmet was that of a stylized machine in front of the Oakhaven tree.
One of the Guarda Royal. Wil.
“Come out where I can see you. Both of you.”
Rafe put his arm around Tristan’s trembling shoulders and complied.
Wil’s eyes narrowed in recognition behind his protective goggles. Rafe shrugged ruefully. Wil’s gaze jumped to Tristan and his eyebrows shot up. A long silence stretched, and the other guards shifted, changing grips on their rifles, sensing something amiss.
Wil juxtaposed his body between the bedraggled pair and the rest of his guard. “You, Swanson and Small, stay here. The rest of you spread out and see if we missed anyone.”
A ripple of surprise went from face to face, but the men were well-trained. They left and Wil turned to Rafe. “What the scorching hell are you two doing here?”
“Conducting our own investigations,” said Rafe promptly, the lie in his head running just a few words ahead of his lips. “We, er, wanted to see if we could shed some light on this antimachinist business, and when we saw the raid, we thought we’d get a closer look.”
“A closer look? At a raid, with bullets and bombs going every which way?” Wil looked both amazed and exasperated. Rafe didn’t blame him. “That’s a feckless boy’s prank, Rafe! Not to mention that you put your young companion’s life in jeopardy.”