Halle. Her voice is coming from a vent in the ceiling of this room, and I run over to it, climbing on a nearby table to get as close as possible.
“It’s me! I’m here!”
“Val!” Kelda. The relief hits me so sharp I press my hands to my stomach, trying to breathe.
“Where are you?” They sound close, but I can’t see anything through the vent and there’s no telling how their voices may echo and skew where they’re at.
“We’re almost at the top,” Halle calls. “At the roof, I mean. Can you—”
There’s a clang and a shout, cutting her off, and then Kelda screams and I’m running. The quarters here are too cramped, too unfamiliar, making phasing tricky, so I pour on speed as I sprint back to the staircase. I take the steps two at a time, not even slowing as I hit the door and barrel through it, out onto the rooftop of the Gentleman’s Rack.
It’s a wide, open space, perfectly flat, and lit all over by naphtha lamps that blaze with blue-white light. On the far side, spaced in a loose half circle with pulse pistols and rifles drawn, are about a dozen Gold Towners, ready and waiting for me. Have theybeen lurking up here the whole time? Was their plan always to let me in, only to lure me up here?
It doesn’t really matter. Because Halle and Kelda are there, sitting in the middle of them like bait, bound and gagged and clutching at each other. They look exhausted and scared and maybe in need of a steam shower, but they’re unharmed. Kelda swallows a sob, pressing her face into Halle’s back as Halle tries to put her body between Kelda and everyone else. She tilts her chin up bravely and stares me down, a masked figure bedecked in knives, even though there’s tears in her eyes and she’s trembling all over.
I turn my goggles to the woman standing right behind my sisters, both her pulse pistols pointed at their heads. I recognize her; she was in close with Bloody Bill. One of his more trusted lieutenants. “Rough Rory Rhodes. Nice to see you still alive and kicking.”
In my peripheral vision, Halle freezes at the sound of my voice, sucking in a faint, sharp gasp.
Rory Rhodes scowls and cocks the hammers back on both weapons. “Hands up and weapons down, Butcher. Or you know what the consequences will be.”
“You’re the one who should be thinking about consequences, Rory.” My voice comes out in a growl, muffled by my mask so that it hardly even sounds like me. It barely even sounds human.
Which some people might argue I’m not.
“You sure about that?” Rory scoffs and points at a wound up by her collarbone—a deep gash, recent, roughly sutured together. “I saw a few things in that Clock Tower, Butcher. Things I’m pretty certain you’d like to stay secret.”
Shit. Orion was right, damn him. I wasn’t careful, someonesurvived the Clock Tower, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. My gloved fingers tighten into fists. “Dead people are the best at keeping secrets.”
“That’s why I invited a few friends up here tonight.” She nods over her shoulder, and I scan the buildings around us. There are figures on top of them, the flicker of their life signs hovering behind bulky shapes that look like cinematographs in some cases, box cameras in others. “All of them work for the dailies. Plus, quite a few civilians watching from their windows, I suspect. It’s a pretty impressive audience, wouldn’t you say?” Rory grins acidly at me. “Weapons down. No tricks. Or the Butcher’s true nature becomes a top-of-the-reel story across Trinity.”
Everything inside me goes still. For all the hundreds of times I’ve thought about my secret getting out, I never imagined it happening like this. One choice, one stark moment of decision. With so many witnesses, the moment I phase, even once, word will spread. It’s over. The Archangels will come for me. Just thinking that makes me feel cold all over, a fear that’s trapped deep in my bones.
But the alternative… I look at Halle and Kelda. At their twin heartbeats pounding side by side.
It’s not even really a choice, is it? It never was.
Slowly, I put my hands up and step forward, the picture of compliance. Rory nods at two of the other Gold Towners, and they circle around until they’re at my back, nudging me forward with the barrels of their guns. My pulse is thrumming so hard in my ears I can’t even hear my own footsteps on the rusty metal roof. Underneath it, Trinity’s song hums, tense and waiting, although I couldn’t even say what it’s waiting for.
We come to a stop a few feet from Rory and my sisters, and Rory steps forward, undisguised glee on her face as she slowly relieves me of all my visible weapons—Wrath, Reason, and Mercy.
“You thought you were so invincible,” she murmurs. “But Gold Towners always come out on top in the end.” Then she reaches up and rips my goggles and mask off my face, flinging them across the roof.
Kelda cries out, and I stand there, exposed, as my sisters take in the sight of me, clad in the blood-spattered uniform of the Butcher. Truly laid bare for what I really am. I see the realization settle into their eyes and the lines of their faces. I don’t know what to say to them in this moment. But, at the same time, I still feel like I should say something.
“Hey.” My voice comes out raspy and choked. “Sorry I’m late.”
Kelda tries to yell something around her gag, struggling toward me, but Halle holds her back, and one of the Gold Towners swings his pulse rifle around to them, shouting at them to stay out of it, to be quiet and this will all be over soon.
I catch Kelda’s eye and shake my head. “Do what they say, smalls. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
Kelda goes still, and Halle holds her close, both of them staring at me, terrified. Whether it’sforme orofme, I don’t know, and it’s pointless to dwell on it. They can hate me or fear me or whatever they want, as long as they’re alive.
“I just need you both to do one thing for me…,” I tell them, unshed tears burning at the backs of my eyes as I steady my breathing to the rhythm of Trinity’s song. Blue-white light haloes the edges of my vision as I twist my arm blade free.
“… close your eyes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
