“And how should we be certain a force-quake wouldn’t disrupt the bridges and ribbons while it erases graffiti?”
The banter feels rehearsed, like the Mirror Generals intend this argument to be public, perhaps to teach the miransomething, or place the foundation of an argument they’ll later make. Iriset is eager to answer anyway: A good architect can pinpoint certain frequencies in flow and rising, and therefore target the stick of graffiti but not the clutch of a bridge.
Menna, the Architect of the Seal, lifts her voice and says much the same. “However,” she adds, “such a thing might not be done over the entire city—a specific neighborhood or precinct only.”
“That would not do, for is the graffiti not popping up ineveryprecinct?” Lapis widens her blackened eyes almost comically.
“Indeed,” Bey says, “though there are patterns to it, in timing and revelation. We believe the instigator is centered in the Saltbath. After the first incident, the next three were equidistant from a point near the south canyon of Saltbath.”
Amaranth calls, “Isn’t the Saltbath where the Little Cat was captured?”
“It is,” General Bey says. “I believe, again, given the timing and the nature of the art, one of the ringleaders is likely to be Bittor méra Tesmose, granted mercy these two quads ago.”
Iriset lowers her eyes immediately at hearing his name, lest any reaction be noted.
“This discord is well spread,” Beremé mé Adora says. A silver-and-black mask pinches her sharp nose, dyed-leather vines crawling up between her brows to arc across her forehead in twisting spikes and spirals, spreading over her temples like buffalo horns. Her eyes are unmasked, piercing and mirané brown. “And unconnected to any known cults. Interestingly, I heard, General, that much of the graffiti depicts a non-mirané woman embracing an alliraptor.”
“Embracing,” Lapis says, pretending to be scandalized. The general remains standing between the seated Iriset and Lyric.
“Oh my,” Iriset murmurs.
“Is it not what you witnessed, Singix?” calls Amaranth.
Lifting her face, she tells the Moon-Eater’s Mistress, “It was spectacular, Your Glory. The woman sat with the creature and tamed it, and she kissed its scales and it… unraveled.” Iriset says the word almost like a question, as if maybe it’s the wrong choice, though she knows it is not.
Several bodies away, Diaa of Moonshadow sets her cup of wine down stiffly. “That Silk person was no Holy Syr.”
“In memory it may be that she becomes more dangerous than she was alive,” the Vertex Seal says. He wears no mask, and the only paint on his face is silver dots placed among the black freckles on his cheek and temple to appear like bright little shadows. If only he realized it had been that very Silk who told him he need wear no mask, who had admired his freckles.
“Apostasy,” Menna declares.
Lapis raises her cup again. “To Aharté and the Glorious Vow.”
Iriset dislikes the toast but does her part.
Once everyone shares a sip of wine and passes their cups to the person on their left, Hehet méra Davith says, “I noticed something curious about the copies of the graffiti presented to the council,” and there are a few murmurs of protest from miran who wish the subject turned.
“Do tell,” Lapis encourages.
“There is one repeated motif wherein the woman—Silk, presumably—uses what must be a design stylus to draw wings on the alliraptor as if to give it flight. In this one, the woman wears no cloth mask, but bears quite a resemblance to Iriset mé Isidor.”
Iriset widens her eyes, glad there’s no need to hide her surprise. How did Amaranth not think Iriset needed to know thisdetail? It’s unbelievably frustrating that she and Bittor can’t coordinate! She looks to Lyric, who does not appear surprised, but only grim.
“Even more evidence to tie the rebellion to the Little Cat and Bittor méra Tesmose,” General Bey says, as if that’s all that matters.
Amaranth finally speaks up again. “I wonder if any of you have seen the most recent graffiti from today, princes?”
“From the Design precinct, Your Glory?” Iumeri Selk, the Seal guard commander, asks.
“That’s right,” she almost purrs, and Iriset braces herself for whatever Amaranth is about to say. “It depicts Silk—very much like Iriset—together with a man, maybe Bittor méra Tesmose himself. They smile with teeth like an alliraptor, then they kiss, and a star map appears around them, then Silk devours the man. Isn’t that odd?”
Most of those gathered murmur and frown, but Iriset stares down at her fizzing wine. This is a message for her. Finally! Bittor realized a way to reach out to her.
Iriset remembers that star map. She’d been playing with it because her mother had asked her father once if the Cloud Kings knew what the stars were made of, because their castles were so much nearer. Isidor couldn’t answer, because he’d left his family when he was so young, but the stars became a connection between them. Iriset designed a star map out of the four forces, a pretty display that could be charged like a force-lamp and set to glow. It was intended as a gift for her father the year Iriset turned sixteen.
“Perhaps he wants everyone to know his relationship with Silk, that he is her voice in the city? That they act as one?” Amaranth muses for the entire hall.
Iriset is grateful for her full-face mask. She hides her hands under the table and grips her knees. She understands the message. The trigger for the star map had been set into a necklace of knotted yarn and hematite, and she was wearing it the first time she kissed Bittor. She’d kissed him out of grief and the desperate need to be distracted, cheered up, before she faced her father. The kiss had triggered the design. As stars burst around them, Iriset had cried harder, thinking her mother wouldn’t approve of her little girl making out with a thief from the undermarket. But Bittor had reacted to the map with awe.
