“Funny,” the professor murmured, “but I despise grave robbers and don’t hide the fact. Yet, it’s how I began. Stealing from the grave of my own grandfather.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve ten minutes—less now—to make it to the roof. Let us hurry.”
“What’s going on?” Cade asked.
The professor laughed. “The opposition is making its move.”
There was no time to ask questions. The professor sprinted off across the mill floor, and if she wanted answers, she had to follow. Cade looked just as perplexed as she felt.
They hurried after him, Karigan glad of the distraction the professor presented, a reprieve from dwelling on the . . . on the kiss. Just thinking of it warmed her cheeks. At the stairwell they each grabbed a taper and ran up the stairs, their feet clattering on the steps like a platoon of soldiers. They passed the landing that led to the artifact room, continued up past another landing with the door yawning open to who-knew-what. She had never explored beyond the third floor and was curious, but the professor’s pace did not waver. When they reached the fifth floor, the professor dove through the doorway, and Karigan found herself pursuing his shadow.
They emerged into another expansive mill floor, largely empty but for a few chests and crates piled in the center of the room. The professor walked over to a rope that dangled from the ceiling. He waited for Karigan and Cade to join him.
“We need to extinguish all but one of the tapers,” he said, “and the one will stay here on the floor at dimmest glow.”
When this was done, he said, “I don’t believe I need to remind you to remain silent, but I will anyway. Most likely we’d not be heard, but sound can carry in odd ways, and I’d rather not take a chance.”
He pulled down on the rope hanging from the ceiling and a ladder descended, unfolding to full length as it came. It must have been well-oiled for it did not make a single creak or groan. It seemed to Karigan another clever innovation of this time.
At the top of the ladder there was a trap door. The professor climbed, worked a mechanism in the door and carefully pushed it open. Again, it moved silently. Damp, cool air curled down through the opening. The professor beckoned Karigan and Cade to follow.
Karigan left behind the dim amber light pooling on the floor beneath her and climbed more by feel than sight. When she reached the opening and poked her head out, she saw the dirty skies had cleared enough to permit moonlight to guide her. She crawled onto the roof, rusted metal hard and rough on her hands and knees.
Rising to her feet, she patted dust off her trousers. Despite the professor’s urgency, all was quiet. What was supposed to happen at two hour? Karigan was distracted by the unusual vantage point the roof presented. She observed first not the sea of stars overhead, but the rivers of misty street lamps below, their glow spread and warped by the fog that snaked along at ground level. She was drawn toward the edge of the roof. At first she’d thought it flat, but it had a subtle slant, perhaps to shed rainfall and snowmelt into the canal below.
The reflection of street lamps glimmered in the canals. Other lights spread far out into the night and there was beauty in it. Beauty in a city where she’d found so little. The inventions of these people—her descendents—were almost like magic, able to do marvelous things, like the city streets lit up at night, or the mechanical man in the professor’s chronosphere. Some of it was magic. Harnessed etherea, as in the chronosphere. Somehow the empire had learned to meld magic and machine.
A dog bayed in the distance and Cade came up beside her. He took her arm and drew her away from the edge.
“Someone might see your silhouette against the stars,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing her ear. She trembled.
He released her. She steadied herself with a deep breath, and silently berated herself for her carelessness. She should know better, but the city seemed, for all its light, asleep, abandoned. Who would be up so late to chance sighting her?
Inspectors, she answered herself, and the view of those hundreds of street lamps burning away the dark of night became much less enchanting than they had been just a moment ago.
The professor gazed off in the direction of what she guessed to be the Old City. There were few lights in that direction, only tiny dots of illumination that gleamed across the river, but mostly it was dark. She discerned the mount as a hulk rising against the starscape of the sky.
What was the professor waiting for? What did he expect to happen?
The clanging of bells made her jump. From the many towers of the mill complexes, the hour pealed out. Two tollings for two hour. Karigan yawned as the bells reminded her she was up well past bedtime.
Even after the resonance of the bells lingered on the air and then faded out, the professor waited, head cocked, but nothing changed. Eventually he shrugged and indicated they should climb back down into the mill. No one spoke until the professor, last on the ladder, closed the trap door after him and descended to the mill floor.
“What did you expect to see?” Cade asked, brightening each taper.
“I wasn’t sure I expected to see anything or hear anything. Actually, I hoped to hear nothing, because it was supposed to happen at two, right on the bell.”
“What was supposed to happen at two?” Cade asked, an edge to his voice.
Karigan thought it interesting the professor kept things even from Cade.
“Oh, we’ve done a little something—or at least I hope we have—to slow down Silk’s drill project. If we have succeeded, I am sure it will be the talk of town tomorrow. You’ll hear the rumors.”