In the Shadow of Lightning

29

National Guard watchhouses were one of the most ubiquitous sights in the Ossan capital. There were hundreds of them, seemingly one on every corner, and they housed the closest thing that Ossa had to a proper police force. They were all made of a utilitarian red brick with white signs that listed their watchhouse number, and more often than not a pair of National Guardsmen in their sharp gray uniforms with auraglass buttons and bearskin hats patrolling out front. In Kizzie’s experience, the National Guard did little actual policing. Their primary role was to enforce the Assembly’s will – quell riots, defend the capital, keep the people in line. Their secondary role was to act as unofficial enforcers for whichever guild-family paid their wages.

Kizzie jogged up the stairs to Watchhouse 187, on a narrow street on the edge of the Slag, nodding to the two guardsmen posted outside. It was a small building, jammed between two factories, with a main room, a few holding cells, and a bunkhouse on the second floor.

“Kizzie!” Gorian greeted her as she came through the door. Gorian sat at a card table with three other guardsmen, who all called her name in greeting. Kizzie returned the hellos and set a bottle of Nasuud whiskey on the card table. She might not pay their wages, but keeping 187 in good booze had made her very popular on this street. A chorus of thank-yous followed, and Kizzie jerked her head at Gorian. “Give me a moment,” he told his companions, stubbing out a cigarette and joining her as she warmed her hands by the little potbellied stove in the corner.

“What’s this I’m hearing about a riot in the Assembly District?” she asked.

“Something about godglass prices riling up the teamsters unions,” Gorian responded. “They’ve got us on standby in case they need us to break some skulls, but I imagine the Cinders will cut down a few hundred of them and that’ll be the last of it. How did things go with your dad?” he asked.

So it was true. A riot in the Assembly District felt ominous, but Kizzie couldn’t quite place why. “Not terribly,” Kizzie responded. She moved on from that quickly, not wishing to dwell on the tiny bit of guilt that had settled in her stomach at the thought of selling out Demir’s secret project in exchange for legitimization. “How about you? Did you get me a membership roll for the Glass Knife?”

Gorian glanced over his shoulder at his companions. “We should talk outside.”

Kizzie allowed him to move their conversation back out into the cold, just to one side of the front steps of the watchhouse, where they could talk quietly without being overheard. Once they were alone, he spoke in a low voice. “There’s a couple of things,” he said. “First off, I actually got a nibble about that tall man you described to me. You know those siliceers that have been dropping dead?”

“You mean murdered and thrown in the Tien?” Kizzie asked. “It’s been all over the papers for weeks.”

“Yeah.” Gorian lowered his voice even further. “There’s a rumor going around that there’s a secret sorcery war going on between the guild-families, and that the killer is working for one of the guild-families.”

Kizzie had heard no such thing, which was strange because rumors like that were almost always started by loose-lipped enforcers. She should have been among the first to hear it. Then again, she was out of favor and had been for several months. Nobody told her anything unless she asked. “A secret sorcery war is a very dangerous thing.”

“Agreed, but to be honest I can’t even confirm that it exists.” Gorian made the face he always did when he was about to feed her information that was even less reliable than usual. “I was pulling some of those reports just after we spoke, trying to jog my memory, and I came across three different eyewitnesses that testified to seeing a very tall, bald Purnian near the site of the attacks. There’s no conclusive evidence, and the guardsmen assigned to investigate haven’t been able to bring him in.”

A shiver went down Kizzie’s back. That couldn’t be a coincidence. The man must be a guild-family agent. But which family? Dorlani? Magna? He hadn’t moved to help Glissandi. Kizzie’s thoughts were suddenly everywhere at once, trying to connect the dots between Adriana’s death, this purported sorcery war, and the phoenix channel that her father had told her about just hours ago. That had to be it, right? If Adriana had entered a secret sorcery war that the Grappo weren’t actually equipped to fight, it must have gotten her killed. But who, ultimately, gave the order?

“That’s more valuable than you realize,” she told Gorian. “I’m going to have to get you another bottle of whiskey.”

“Hold that thought, because I haven’t even gotten to the Glass Knife yet.”

“Go on.”

Gorian looked around once again. He was normally quite brazen in the way he spoke and acted, and the fact that he was looking over his shoulder caused Kizzie to frown. “Out with it,” she said. What could spook him about a Fulgurist Society membership list?

Gorian seemed to choose his words carefully. “You know how you occasionally hear rumors about a Fulgurist Society? Back-page sort of stuff; sensationalism and the like.”

“Yeah,” Kizzie snorted. “They’re never true. It’s always some member who kills a mistress on the club grounds, or experiments with high-resonance dazeglass and runs naked into the street. All the really good gossip is hogwash.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”

“What do you mean? What has the Glass Knife done that I haven’t heard before?”

“It’s the usual rumors, you know?” Gorian said reluctantly. “Pacts with demons; mixing fearglass with shackleglass and eating people; human sacrifice.”

Kizzie fixed Gorian with her best expression of doubt. “You expect me to believe any of that is true?” Kizzie didn’t think much of the guild-family higher-ups. As much as she wanted to be one of their number, she had firsthand knowledge of how they lived and almost every single one of them was a spoiled, oversexed, overglassed fool. Perhaps Glissandi Magna was a bit mad, but there was no way Kizzie could believe she’d gotten involved in some death cult.

Then again, she did chew off her own tongue and commit suicide to avoid naming her masters.

Gorian threw up his hands. “Of course none of it’s true. But rumors usually don’t stick around for long. They hit the papers, people talk about them, then the world moves on. The Glass Knife, though … the confidential reports attached to their name are full of mysterious disappearances and bizarre accusations. Lots of cover-ups and recurring weirdness. Just gives me the creeps.”

“Come on,” Kizzie said, finally losing patience. “Hand over the membership list.”

There was a little glimmer in Gorian’s eye. “It’s going to cost you. More than a bottle of whiskey.”

Kizzie reached into her pocket for a thick roll of banknotes. Whatever it was, Demir could afford it. “How much?”

“Promise you won’t be mad?” Gorian asked.

“Why would I be mad? I know how these things work, and you and I have been friends for a long time.” She frowned at Gorian. He was acting pretty strangely about this whole thing and she didn’t like it.

“I don’t want money,” he replied. “I want a story.”

“What kind of a story?” Kizzie asked, bemused.

Gorian rubbed his hands together and gave her a long, considering look. “I heard Baby Montego’s back in town and you’re working at the Hyacinth Hotel.”

Kizzie’s amusement disappeared and she held up a finger warningly. “Careful.”

“Look Kizzie, people may have forgotten that you and Montego were sweethearts before he became famous. I haven’t. If I’m gonna stick my neck into this Glass Knife business, I want something more personal than cash. I want to know what happened between you and Montego. What was the falling-out? Why are you hunting for killers? Why aren’t you Kissandra Vorcien-Montego right now?”

“I’ll find the list myself,” Kizzie said flatly, turning to go. The very mention of Montego made her hackles go up. She walked briskly to the street and was several dozen paces from the watchhouse when Gorian caught up to her.

“Hey, hey,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cross the line. The Montego thing has always driven me crazy. You fell out with someone who went on to become one of the most famous people in the world. That’s not just a story, it’s a story.”

“You want me to gossip to you. About myself?” Kizzie turned to Gorian.

“It’s not gossip. I just want to know what happened. I won’t tell a soul, I swear. Personal curiosity only. Look, the Glass Knife membership list is in my pocket. I’ll hand it over right now if you just tell me.”

Kizzie considered this for a few moments. Having that list might give her suspects for Adriana’s murder, or it might just be a massive waste of time. It was all she had right now, and the list would probably save her days of work. Gorian had, she admitted to herself, always been trustworthy. He might be corrupt, but like Madame-under-Magna, his corruption was businesslike. If he said he wouldn’t repeat it, he would keep his word.

“Gah!” she exclaimed, and jerked her head to step off to the side of the street. She then stared at the ground, ordering her thoughts, digging up memories that she’d long tried to suppress. “I’ve never told anyone this,” she said quietly.

“It’ll never be repeated,” Gorian said, placing his hand over his heart.

Kizzie almost kept it to herself, but the idea of saving several days’ worth of work was too tempting. Aside from helping Demir himself, Father Vorcien had also promised that she’d get back into his good graces if she found out the killers. It was just a story, right? It was, she realized, also the first time anyone had ever asked.

“Fine. You know the big chatter oak up on Family Hill?”

“Sure.”

“Sibrial caught me and Montego down in the roots one day. We were kids, you know, and Sibrial dragged me out of there by my hair screaming about how even his bastard sister defiled herself by lying with a provincial lowborn like Montego.” Kizzie hurried on, feeling a rush of adrenaline from saying it out loud for the first time. “Montego came to my defense, and Sibrial hit him with his cane hard enough to stagger a horse.” She tapped the bridge of her nose. “Right between the eyes. I’m told you can still see the scar.”

Gorian’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“It just made Montego angry. Sibrial – a grown man with a cane sword and decades of boxing and fencing lessons – got the absolute shit beaten out of him by a naked fourteen-year-old.”

To her satisfaction, Gorian actually gasped.

Kizzie added, “Montego broke both of Sibrial’s arms. Shattered three ribs and cracked four more. I had to beg Montego to spare his life. He didn’t want to. This was before he was Baby, right? If anyone found out he’d attacked a guild-family heir he would have been executed. But if he did kill Sibrial, we would have been found out.” Kizzie played the memory back through her head, still seeing it as vividly as if it had happened yesterday. “I half carried, half dragged Sibrial back home, where we concocted a story about him getting jumped by a street gang in the Slag.”

“Glassdamn, I remember that!”

“Keep your voice down,” Kizzie told him.

Gorian looked genuinely shocked and Kizzie hoped he would keep his damned word. He whispered, “I remember that. They had the National Guard looking for that gang for weeks.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t twenty gang members he valiantly held off at sword point. It was Montego. Naked and alone.”

“And that’s why Sibrial hates you so much,” Gorian said softly.

“Yeah. I was the only witness to his greatest humiliation.”

“And Sibrial never said a word about Montego.”

“If he had,” Kizzie explained, “he would have outed himself. The revenge of seeing Montego executed would not have compared to the humiliation of being beaten half to death by a kid. I’m sure if Montego had never made anything out of himself Sibrial might have one day had his revenge. Instead, Montego became Baby Montego, the most accomplished killer in the Ossan Empire. Now hand me that list.”

“Glassdamn,” Gorian said again, shaking his head. “That is something else. Yeah, of course. Here.” He dug in his pocket and removed a piece of paper, which he thrust into her hands. It had a few dozen names on it in Gorian’s messy handwriting. She scanned them, shocked at a few, amused by some, and unsurprised by many.

“Is this it?” she asked.

Gorian grimaced. “Maybe. Maybe not. Those lists are rarely complete, since they’re made from rumors and surveillance rather than by the Society itself.”

“You might have mentioned that,” Kizzie grumbled. She felt naked after telling that story, a little worm of regret working its way through her belly. “Remember what I said. You repeat that to anyone…”

“Hey, I gave my word. I respect you, Kizzie, and even if I didn’t, do you think I’m gonna gossip about Sibrial or Montego? Either of them could eat me for breakfast.” His eyes widened slightly. “Montego perhaps literally.”

“Keep that in mind,” Kizzie said. “Thanks again for the list. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”