by layers of silk, but his bare neck was vulnerable, draped with loops of long, gold-wrapped black hair.
She steeled herself and pressed the knife blade against Alister's carotid artery.
'Let go of me, Alister.'
The decatur's left hand shot out and grabbed her wrist before she could move. He stood, his grip tightening as he forced her arm up and aside, over her left shoulder.
'Taya—'
She jerked herself around, spinning all the way to her left. Her wings screeched over the metal face of the Great Engine, and then the metal feathers sprang free, slapping Alister across the face and chest. He swore and released her, more startled than injured.
She dropped to her left knee, gasping as her wound sent a fresh pulse of pain shooting through her leg, and slashed behind her with the knife.
The blade slammed harmlessly into Alister's leather boots, but the impact was enough to make him hop backward.
'Stop that! You're being foolish!'
She looked down. A square basket of tin Engine cards sat on the platform — Clockwork Heart, she presumed. She shoved it sideways and it hit the metal guardrail.
'No!' Alister dropped to his knees and grabbed the basket.
For a moment they knelt shoulder-to-shoulder, yanking the basket back and forth as the tin cards inside jingled against each other. Then Taya jammed her knife into the side of the basket and sawed the blade down through the woven reeds, ripping out one of the corners.
Slick metal cards poured out of the ragged hole, tumbling down into the chasm.
'Scrap!' Alister grabbed the basket and tore it from her grasp before all of its contents could vanish into the depths. She slashed at his wrist. He slid the basket behind him and sprang to his feet.
Taya tried to do the same. Pain skewered her and she dropped back to her knees, tears stinging her eyes.
'Now look what you've done,' Alister growled, reaching down. He snatched the knife from her suddenly weak hand and put it into his jacket pocket. 'You're bleeding to death and you're still trying to fight me.'
'Nobody bleeds to death from a calf wound,' she gasped. She was almost certain she was right, but Lady, she'd never been shot before, and her calf hurt like Forgefire. She looked down through the grillwork.
The incandescent lights flashed off a small mass of moving metal that was crawling up the side of the Great Engine.
She blinked.
'Take off your armature.'
She looked up.
'No.'
'Take it off or I cut it off.' Alister reached down and grabbed her arm. 'I need to see that wound, and I can't get a good look with your tailset in the way. If the bullet left any leather or padding under the skin, your leg could get infected.'
She looked up at him. His expression was a picture of concern, as if she hadn't just foiled his plan to penetrate the Great Engine.
'Why do you care?'
'You still don't understand, do you? I'm trying to take care of you — you and Cristof both. But you aren't making it easy.'
'What about Caster Octavus?' she asked. 'Were you taking care of Viera when you killed him?'
'I—' He looked away, distressed. 'I'm sorry about that. Caster was in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
'You murdered him!'
The exalted sank into a crouch, facing her. She pulled her arm back and he let it slip out of his grasp.
'I'd intended to get on the wireferry alone. But at the last minute, Caster hopped on with me, wanting to talk about the Clockwork Heart vote.'
'You could have waited.'
'No, I couldn't have. The alarm was set, and I couldn't pull the clock open and disarm the bomb while Caster was standing there arguing with me, could I? Besides, it was obvious from what you'd said that Cristof was close to discovering me. I had to do something drastic to knock his investigation off its cables.'
'So you framed him for your murder?'
'I left the possibility open. I wired the bomb into the clock in the hope that it would implicate him. I knew if the lictors arrested Cris, it would keep him off my trail. I've always intended to show up again to clear his name.'
She swallowed. 'But why did you kill Octavus? Couldn't you have taken him prisoner?'
'It was hard enough to climb out of the car on my own. I couldn't have done it carrying another man. I knocked him out, though. He didn't feel any pain.'
Taya shuddered, thinking of the body parts in the wreckage.
The body parts….
She looked at Alister again, filled with cold fury. 'No. You needed
Caster. If you'd been on the ferry alone, there wouldn't have been any blood found in the wreckage. Everyone would have known you weren't dead.'
His green eyes shifted, and in that moment she knew.
He was still lying. Even now he was trying to charm her, trying to convince her that all the deaths in his mad scheme had been accidents.
But he'd known exactly what he'd been doing when he'd gotten on that ferry car with Caster. Not only would Viera's husband provide the gore for the search team, his dissenting vote would be removed from the Council chambers. The decatur's murder had been deliberate.
'You're a monster,' she spat. She grabbed the railing with one hand and pulled herself up, ignoring the pain in her leg.
The flash on the side of the Engine caught her eye again. It was closer now. She squinted, then spun, turning her back to it.
She had no idea how he'd managed it, but somehow Cristof was climbing up the shifting, floating, cliff-like face of the Great Engine, his ondium wings strapped in a bundle on his back.
'How did you get out of the car in time?' she demanded.
Alister's expression seemed colder now. He wasn't trying to charm her anymore.
'It's easy to reprogram a wireferry driver. I had it pause at a maintenance tower for a minute, just long enough to swing out and climb down.'
'And you hid on the mountain for two days?'
'Hiding from the rescue teams by day and traveling at dusk and dawn.' Alister shrugged. 'I've done some hiking before, although I hadn't anticipated how cold it would get at night.'
'You hiked in your public robes.'
'Of course not.' He smiled. 'I had climbing gear and supplies hidden by the maintenance tower. After Neuillan was arrested, I realized a wise decatur needs to be able to drop out of sight at a moment's notice.'
'Emelie said you helped Neuillan avoid the loyalty program.' She dredged its name out of her memory. 'Refinery. Is that true?'
'She must have been mistaken.'
'She seemed pretty certain.' Taya gave him a steady look. 'You were working with Neuillan, weren't you? Did you know Cristof helped catch him?'
'In his role as a lictor's spy?' Amazingly, Alister seemed as disapproving as Viera had been. 'Cris shouldn't have gotten involved. Neuillan took good care of us when we were orphaned. Arresting him was poor thanks.'
'Was he really a traitor?'
