The Phoenix Thief

FIVE

DARK STREAKS SPREAD through the fabric of Kilter's sleeve and the front of his coat. Crying out, he jerked himself from the broken panes of the clock, but only to catch sight of the Girl's mangled wing. He staggered backwards, and the torn canvas and snapped wood swept the shattered glass across the bellroom floor. Then the pain caught up with him, and he fell to his knees again as shouting rose from below.

"Spy!"

"Inquisitors, get up there! Riflemen, cover all exits!"

"Send word to the Chancellor!"

Footsteps pounded, metal clattered, and yelled orders to surrender echoed up the stairs.

"Lay down your weapons! The Warehouse is surrounded and your accomplice is captured – you have nowhere to go!"

Glittering pieces of glass sank into Kilter's hands as he crawled from the broken clock face. Half of him fought desperately to do something – anything – to protect Dmal and the Girl. But instinct won. In a wild, blind struggle, he clawed the Girl off himself and scrambled up the ladder to collapse onto his workroom floor, between the trapdoor and his satchel. Red-stained woodshavings stuck all over him as he tried to shut the trapdoor. But the sight of the Inquisitors rushing into the room below, swarming the Girl, stopped him short. Before he could get control of himself again, the trapdoor was shoved open. Grey figures burst in.

They latched onto everything like rats on a trash heap, grabbing fistfuls of tools and supplies from the floor, snapping the ropes holding the many little flying machines hanging from the ceiling, and pouncing upon the worktable. A polished foot struck Kilter's satchel where it lay a few feet from him, and scrounged food scattered across the floor to be ground between the boards by clattering, thick-soled boots. His notebook, too, skittered out of the satchel at the blow, and it was kicked and stepped on before one pair of gloved hands swept it up with a bark-like shout.

Kilter had no chance to even get to his feet. Grey surrounded him, locked onto his wrists, clamped over his mouth.

"You're under arrest, young man, for espionage and treason against the Chancellor and the city of Istravol! Cooperation will serve to your favor."

It was just like the alley all over again. All the noise, the shouting, the red, and the glare of firelight. The familiarity of it all shook Kilter almost as badly as the rough hands of the Watchmen did as they dragged him down the clock tower, through the machinery of the engine-fire lit Warehouse, and into a darker, metal-bound area of the building he'd never seen before. But this time it was worse.

He remembered what he was losing.

They threw him into a room made of metal bars and cold stone floor, the air thick with the smell of metal, smoke, and something hard and bitter. Two of the Inquisitors held him down as a third inspected the gashes on his arm and chest. With a firm, steady hands he whisked the bits of glass from Kilter's palms and bound the deeper wound on his arm before proclaiming the rest of his injuries "superficial" – as if that strange word would somehow comfort Kilter. Then the heavy door clanged shut and he was left alone in the dark, with only two Sentries standing by a lantern at the beginning of a corridor a stone's throw away.

Anger roared at him to fling himself at the door and demand the departing Watchmen let him out and give back the Girl. But it wouldn't have done any good, and he doubted he could get to his feet, anyway. He was little more than throbbing pain and shaking limbs. He was sweating, too, now.

A tiny moan escaped him as he drew his bandaged arm against his chest. The wooden thumb affixed to his hand bumped against his collarbone, cold and unfeeling. With a cry, he grabbed it with his other, good hand, tore open the straps, and flung it across the little room. He wanted to yell, scream out at the darkness so everyone could hear, in words as horrible and cutting as the pain in his arm.