'What the hell are you doing?' Pyke demanded.
'The lictors are looking for you,' Cassi added, looking worried.
Taya sat on the catwalk, her back to the wall, and watched as lictors and icarii worked around her. After she'd told them what had happened, Pyke had flown down to stand guard over the two exalteds and Cassi had gone back upstairs to get help. Now Taya was under arrest, although other than confiscating her wings and making sure she wasn't going to die of blood loss, the lictors were ignoring her.
Being ignored gave her time to think, and her thoughts were haunted by the lictor she'd kicked over the railing. William.
She'd killed an innocent man. No matter how often she reminded herself that it was an accident and that he would have shot Cristof if she hadn't, she couldn't make it feel right. She'd killed a man, and Cristof had killed another, and the thought made her stomach churn.
Within an hour both exalteds were brought back up in rescue harnesses and the lictors’ bodies were retrieved. Alister had drawn his ivory mask back over his face and was exercising his exalted's right to remain mute in public. Cristof had shown the lictors his identification papers and insisted a physician be called to tend to Taya's wound. He'd paused long enough to grab her hand and squeeze it before the lictors had hustled him off. As always, his hands had been cold.
The lictors took them all back to the Tower and put them in separate rooms. Taya gave her statement while a physician cleaned her wound and called for a pair of crutches. The questioning took a long time, and then Lt. Janos Amcathra walked in and she had to tell the whole story over again, searching his impassive Demican face for some sign that he believed her.
Several more hours passed. At last she was allowed to leave, given her wings and escorted by military icarii back to the lictor station on Primus. This time she didn't have to wait in a cell; she sat in a room and read a copy of her statement, then signed it. After a warning that she was grounded until further notice, she was released, wingless.
Cassi and Pyke were waiting for her outside the station.
'We found your note pretty much just as the warning was going out that there'd been an unauthorized flight,' Cassi explained, as they walked down the street. 'By the time we got to the launch docks, it was complete chaos. The lictors had heard about the flight and were telling us there was a suspected terrorist loose, and someone pointed out that your armature was missing, and there was a huge argument over whether or not you were a terrorist or if you'd just been kidnapped by one.'
'We volunteered for one of the search parties and broke away as soon as we could,' Pyke chimed in, as they stopped at the hack station. 'We knew from your note that you'd gone to the Tower, so we searched it and found the tunnel to the Engine.'
'We knew you weren't a terrorist,' Cassi said. 'Pyke, will you get us a coach?'
'Sure.'
'Ask for Gregor,' Taya said, sitting on a bench and setting her crutches next to her. She felt exhausted, emotionally and physically. Pyke nodded and turned to talk to the hackmaster.
'I wish we'd gotten there faster,' Cassi said, looking at Taya's torn and bloodstained flight suit. 'Did that decatur shoot you?'
'No. It was one of the lictors. It was a mistake. He didn't know who I was.' Taya shivered, her guilt over the senseless deaths returning. 'He's dead now. Cristof and I killed them both. They were innocent. They didn't know Alister was a criminal.'
Cassi put an arm over her shoulders. 'It's okay.'
'It's not okay.'
'You didn't have any choice.'
Taya shrugged despondently. Wasn't there always a choice? Maybe she could have put herself between the lictor and Cristof, or —
'Taya, don't eat yourself up over it. You were in danger and you did what you had to do. Nobody's going to blame you for it.'
'Their families will.'
Cassi hugged her, not answering. After a moment, Taya sighed.
'Do you know if Alister and Cristof are under arrest?'
'Nobody is telling us anything. We want the whole story from you as soon as we get home.'
'Deal,' Taya agreed, closing her eyes.
When they got back to the Eyrie, Taya assured the rest of the tenants that she wasn't a terrorist and then headed straight to her room. Cassi and Pyke spent the afternoon with her, bringing up food and talking about what had happened. Pyke left a few times to pick up the broadsheets that were starting to hit the streets, their ink wet and their type poorly set. Large headlines marched across the page, comprised of equal amounts of rumor and guesswork. Taya's father, her sister Katerin, and her new brother-in-law Tomas all came to visit toward nightfall, looking concerned and bringing her the best wishes of her childhood friends on Tertius. She hugged them, grateful for her family's support.
Cristof never showed up.
At last Gwen chased all the visitors away and locked the eyrie up for the night.
Taya fell into a restless sleep, awakening throughout the night to the sound of Cristof's watch steadily ticking on her bed stand.
She felt calmer the next morning, sitting at a breakfast table with her second cup of black tea and a stack of newspapers. The rest of the eyrie had gone to work, and only the famulate staff was left, washing dishes and chattering in the kitchen. Taya had been reading for hours.
The printers must have been up all night. The stories were closer to the truth this morning, and Taya read them all. Nobody had fabricated quotes for her this time. In fact, only the
Courier Regnant bothered to mention her name. The rest of the papers referred to her as only as 'an icarus.'
Alister and Cristof received the bulk of the coverage. Alister's educational and political background was covered at length, and any hope Cristof might have had of continuing to work undercover was dashed by the papers’ scandalized accounts of the exalted who'd scorned his caste to serve the military.
She also read the names and descriptions of the two lictors who'd died. The papers were fair, at least, describing them as dupes who'd become unwitting casualties during the fight. After a moment, Taya tore out the article and put it into her pants pocket. She wasn't sure how she could atone for killing a man, but she was determined to do something. She'd apologize to his family in person, at the very least, and she'd do more if she could.
Making that decision made her feel better, and she was finally able to set her guilt aside for a while as she read.
A small item in the back of one of the less reputable papers made her stop dead. Taya folded the page over and leaned back in her chair to focus on the story.
One of the journalists had managed to dig up the details of the Forlore murder/suicide, and for the first time Taya had access to a full account. She read it with horrified fascination. The article described the elder Forlore's violent madness and his brutal attacks on his wife and children; attacks that had culminated in the argument that had left his wife dead. He'd killed himself immediately afterward.
The two boys, Alister and Cristof, had been found hiding in the cellar, bruised but alive. They'd been put in a hospital for a while to recover and had then been taken in by their aunt and her husband. The names weren't published, but Taya knew who they were. Viera's family.
She lowered the paper and stared into space, thinking about the different ways the two boys had dealt with their father's abuse.
A familiar voice startled her from her absorption.
'Taya?'
