He blows out a frustrated breath and doesn’t answer immediately, following Atlas into a back alley where they pull their mounts to a stop.
“I don’t have any guarantees,” he says. “Just, like, one little scrap of Gold Town knowledge I picked up.”
I slide gratefully to the solid ground. Shit. My legs are so shaky. How are they so shaky when I just sat there for so long? “Okay, great. Let’s use that. What is it?”
Orion swings a leg over, dismounting with considerably more grace than my awkward tumble. He looks at Atlas, who’s frowning, shaking his head. Clearly not a fan of this plan. Or of me, maybe.
I shake out my sore legs and stand straighter, looking Orion square in the eye. “We made a deal.”
There’s a beat, and then Orion nods, resigned. “You’re right. We did. You got something to cover that Butcher kit? We’ve got a little bit of a walk in front of us, and it’ll be better if you don’t attract notice.”
I grab my rucksack, rummaging around for my long hooded cowl, plus the stimulant tinctures I’d stuffed at the bottom. “Where are we headed to?”
He ties up his mount to a hitching post, his expression grim. “The Old Clock Tower.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
GLAD YOU CAN SEE REASON ON THIS. HAPPY TO LET BANK BUSINESS CONTINUE UNINTERRUPTED WITH ONLY MINIMAL GOLD TOWN OVERSIGHT. LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR PARTNERSHIP.
—TELEGRAM DISPATCH FROM WILLIAM “BLOODY BILL” KILPATRICK TO ELLERD BERK, HIGH WARDEN OF COVENANT (YEAR 2090)
The Old Clock Tower was allegedly one of the first buildings constructed in Covenant, a rough, rectangular structure on the outskirts of Central Parish, maybe six stories high but made taller by the giant clock itself. It’s ringed with buttresses that give it a little more grandiose look, but it’s dull and a bit tarnished in places, dusty all over from disuse. It apparently was the center of activity in this town once, but then everyone flush with paper started developing airships and moving above the skyline, and everything else shifted with it. The mayor. The town staff. Nearly all the resources. They even built a brand-new clock tower over by the greenhouses. A sleeker, more modern-looking one that reaches toward the sky. The Old Clock Tower became a forgottenrelic in the gray, cycling through owners until it was finally bought by some rich skyliner who set it up as a bank.
And, if Orion’s information is right, it’s now also playing host to quite a bit of Gold Town Gang activity.
I stand in the mouth of an alley, about two hundred feet from the big, arched double doors that serve as the main entrance, bouncing from the stimulant tincture I took a little bit ago. Everything inside me is vibrating, even the backs of my eyes, but at least it takes the edge off my thirst and now I’m awake and ready to move.
Maybe a little too ready, actually. If Orion doesn’t point me in a direction to phase pretty soon, I might just come apart at the seams, like someone soldered me together wrong.
He stands in the shadow of one of the buildings looming over us, my goggles slung onto his head so he can scan the Tower and make an entrance plan. I already took a quick look before; a lot of glowing orange people milling around on all levels of the building, taking care of whatever business they have. Orion called it “a bank that only deals in crime.”
Which pretty much sounds like a regular bank to me.
“I don’t know about this, V.” Orion pulls the goggles off his head, handing them back to me. “This is looking dicey. I can’t see a clear, quick avenue in for us.”
I snort, leveling a glare at him. “You’ve broken into skyliner vaults—you can’t break into a lousy duster bank?”
“It tookweeksto plan those jobs. I had schematics and diagrams and contingencies. I had by-the-minute timelines and occasionally even a crew. This is just…” He waves a hand at theTower, sighing. “A mistake waiting to happen. I need time to figure out how to get you in without you or your ‘special gift’ being spotted and bringing half of Trinity down on our asses.”
Time. That’s the one thing I’m not willing to spend right now, not when I’ve already wasted so much of it. It’s been just over a day since Halle and Kelda were taken, and every hour that slips by is another where anything could be happening to them. Hurt, beaten, shackled, scared for their lives, not sure if anyone is coming for them…
Maybe even dead.
No. No, no, no.
Not that thought. Never that thought. It will break me if I let it linger, and a broken killer can’t hunt.
I fidget, the stimulant tincture buzzing through my body as I scan the Old Clock Tower again. Orion said on the way here that either my sisters were being kept in that building or a Gold Towner there would know where they were, but either way, we’d need to get to the top levels, where it was all Gold Town business with no worries about maintaining the banking front.
Or, really,Ijust need to get to the top levels. No one said he needed to be there, too.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, and shrug my cowl onto the alley floor, pulling my mask and hood up over my head.
I hear Orion start to say “Val, no, what are you—” and then the rest is lost to me as I make my move, bursting apart and disappearing.
Strange, but phasing feels easier than normal, like I can go just a bit farther, last just a bit longer, even with the exhaustion and the injuries and the hair of the dog side effects. It leaves a tinglein my muscles that makes me feel strong, similar to the tingle I felt on my skin after that flare of light out on the Plains.
I phase-drift between the shadows of nearby buildings, scanning as I work my way closer and closer, taking stock of the people—Gold Towners, I’m guessing—on guard duty, keeping an eye on windows and doors, playing lookout at the top of the Tower itself. But they don’t see me. You never see a ghost unless the ghost wants you to. There are certainly quite a few people clustered in the upper levels, but I can’t pick up any specifics as far as what any of the rooms are or where might be the best place to get information on Halle and Kelda. Orion might have been able to tell me if I hadn’t up and left him behind, but that’s fine.
