The crows saw the whole thing.
The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow, the lanky man with the shockingly ginger beard, the little girl with the straight black hair and shiny black eyes, the giant metal spider.
The plunge into the Skyfaced Clock.
They weren't quite sure what to make of it. Nor did the man who saw through their eyes.
The man who knew the Wretched Arts. The man known in the Republic as Mr. Jones, the personal secretary of the elusive Ezra Squall, who supplied the whole of the Republic with wunder to run their houses and automobiles (much like electricity in certain worlds).
The man known in the Free States as Ezra Squall, The Wundersmith. The orchestrator of the Courage Square Massacre. (The man who single-handedly condemmed all wundersmiths to an eternity of being seen as vessels of pure evil.)
No, Ezra Squall, or Mr. Jones, or The Wundersmith, or whatever else he may be called did not understand exactly what he was seeing; Nor did the President of the Wintersee Republic, who was his boss (and the only one who could force him to her will. She may have been the true orchestrator of the Courage Square Massacre, but the crows could only speculate.)
They could not see what happened after the two entered the traverse to the Free States; Didn't see the candy wrapper masquarade as travel documents; Didn't see the pair's arrival at the Hotel Deucalian; Didn't see them greet the new age.
But they suspected.
And they knew that, for now, the only other Wundersmith in all the worlds had just slipped from their fingers like grains of sand.
For now.
YOU ARE READING
Mogtober 2022
RandomYes, I'm doing the Mogtober thing. It's a Nevermoor thing, don't worry.
