“If that’s what they call me.”
I pushed Celia toward him. “Then save her-she needs help, she’s got nowhere to go.”
The Crane looked down at her, then back at me. “And you? What do you need?”
Water ran down my sneer. “Not a damn thing.”
He nodded and dropped to one knee, lowering himself with an extraordinary lack of pretension for one of the most powerful men in the Empire. “Hello, child. People call me the Blue Crane. It’s a funny name, I know. Do you have a name you’d like to share with me?”
The girl cocked her head up at me, as if asking for permission. I patted her lightly on the back. “Celia,” she barked out finally.
The Crane’s eyes lit up in mock wonder. “That’s my favorite name in the world! My whole life I’ve been hoping to meet someone with that name, and now you show up on my doorstep in the dead of night!” Celia looked like she wanted to giggle but didn’t remember quite how. The Crane held out his hand. “Let’s get a cup of tea and you can tell me all about what it’s like being born a Celia. I’m sure it’s very exciting.”
This elicited a slight smile, the first I had seen from her all night. She took the Crane’s palm, and he stood carefully, leading her into the tower. He turned as he headed into the doorway, his eyes offering entry.
“I’ll be back to check on her soon,” I said.
Celia twisted herself around to face me, realizing now that I wasn’t coming. She didn’t speak but her eyes were trembling. My chest was full of fire and I felt a lightness untie itself from my bowels and rise up through my stomach. I sprinted off in the night, leaving the two of them standing there, together, illuminated by the soft light drifting out from the entrance.
I was thinking about the last time I had brought an orphan to the Crane’s while I tried to catch the guardian’s attention. It wasn’t working. I punctuated a string of epithets by tossing a pebble against the gargoyle, but it bounced off without garnering a reaction.
“Why are you doing that?” Wren asked, perched on the innermost wall of the maze.
“Normally he responds.”
“Who?”
“The magic talking monster perched above the doorway, of course.”
Wren had the good sense not to antagonize me further. I sat down beside him, then pulled my tobacco pouch out of my satchel and started rolling a smoke. “Fucking magic. We’d all be better off without it.”
“That’s bullshit,” Wren said, oddly passionate.
“Is it now? Name one good thing that ever came from the Art.”
“The Crane’s ward.”
I lit my cigarette beneath a shielded hand. “Now name another.”
“I’ve heard Frater Hallowell has the touch, and heals people at the church of Prachetas the Matriarch.”
“Frater Hallowell ever heal you?” I asked, breathing low-grade poison into my lungs.
“No.”
“He ever heal anyone you know?”
Wren shook his head.
“Doesn’t really count then, does it?”
“No,” he responded, as usual quick to grasp the point. “Not really.”
“Don’t twist it up in your mind-the two in the Aerie are anomalies, exceptions that prove the rule. Start thinking otherwise and you’ll get yourself into trouble.”
The boy considered that while I finished off my smoke. “How long have you known the Blue Crane?”
“For twenty-five years.”
“Then why won’t he let you into the tower?”
Why indeed? Even on those rare occasions when the Crane hadn’t granted me an audience, his doorman had always animated to reject my plea. If the Aerie’s defenses had fallen into disrepair, it meant the Crane’s health was worse than I thought. I picked up another stone, larger this time, and flung it at the guardian. It had no more effect than the first, and I sat back down.
I poured ice water on my temper. There was still work that needed doing. Wren flipped his legs over the white stone. I did the same and we looked out toward the city.
“I like this labyrinth,” Wren said.
“It’s a maze.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A labyrinth only has one path and ends in the center. A maze has many different paths and ends where you find a way out.”
I rose to greet Celia. Her dress looked soft in the afternoon light and she was smiling. “I’m sorry that you had to wait. I’ve taken over running the Aerie, but I haven’t quite figured out how to operate the guardian yet.” She took my hand gently.
“Who is this here?” she asked. I looked down to see Wren had pulled a snarl across his face. I chalked it up to the perverse instinct common among adolescents when presented with a member of the preferred sex, the root impulse that drives young men to rub mud in the hair of their future betrothed. There were few women walking the streets of Low Town to compare with Celia.
“Wren, this is Celia. Celia, this is Wren. Don’t mind the face-he stepped on a bit of rusty metal yesterday. I think he’s coming down with lockjaw.”
“I’m glad he brought you over, then. We’ll have the Master take a look at it.” Celia’s attempt to win over the boy from his opening offering of irrational dislike proved unsuccessful-if anything his grimace deepened. With a graceful lift of her shoulders Celia turned her attention back toward me. “Still picking up wastrels, I see.”
“He’s more of an apprentice. Are we to continue this discussion in the street, or were you planning on inviting us inside?”
She laughed a little. I could always make her laugh. We climbed to the top of the tower, and Celia walked us into the Crane’s drawing room. “The Master should be here shortly. I alerted him to your arrival before I went to let you in.”
We watched the sun fade through the south window. Wren stood close, his eyes scanning the Crane’s treasures with the intensity of someone whose collected possessions could fit comfortably in a rucksack.
The bedroom door opened and the Crane entered, cheerily but with a stiffness that no good humor could hide. “Back for some clandestine purpose no doubt,” he began, before noticing the child at my hip.
Then his eyes lit up like they used to, and years seemed to shed off him, and I was glad that I had bothered to rustle Wren out of the Earl. “I see you’ve brought a guest. Come over here, child. I’m old, and my sight isn’t what it once was.”
Contra the unfriendliness he’d shown Celia, Wren moved forward without further prompting, and again I was struck by the easy grace the Crane possessed with children. “You’re thinner than a boy your age should be, but then so was your master. Chest like a mop handle. What’s your name?”
“Wren.”
“Wren?” The Crane’s laughter echoed through the room, for once not trailed by a hacking cough. “Wren and Crane! We might as well be brothers! Of course, my namesake is a creature of dignity and poise-while yours is a silly fowl, notable only for its rather aggravating song.”
This wasn’t quite enough to bring a smile to the boy’s face, but it was close, awful close for Wren.
“Well then, Wren. Will you grace us with a tune?”
The boy shook his head.
“Then it seems I shall provide the entertainment.” With a youthful burst of speed he moved to a shelf over the fire and pulled down an old creation of his, a strange-looking instrument halfway between a trumpet and a hunting horn, curling bands of burnished copper capped by pale ivory. “You are certain you won’t indulge your musical talents, young Wren?”
Wren shook his head again furiously.
The Crane shrugged in mock disappointment, then put the thing to his lips and let forth with a full-throated blast. It made a sound like the bellow of a bull, and a kaleidoscope of red and orange sparks erupted from the end, eddying about in the firmament.
Wren brushed at the glittering light that swirled through the air. I had loved that thing as a child-odd that I
