She looked up, her heart leaping. Cristof stood in the dining room doorway, holding a black leather bag.
'Cris!' Taya set the paper face-down and reached for her crutches.
'Wait. Don't get up.' He started across the room.
'Now, don't you plan to sit there and talk all day,' Gwen said tartly, appearing behind him in the doorway. 'I'm paying you to fix my clock, not bother my tenants.'
'You won't have to pay me anything, if you'll just leave me alone for a while,' Cristof shot back over his shoulder.
'Hmph.' Gwen gave Taya a long look, her eyebrows rising. Taya nodded. 'All right, clockwright, but you two stay downstairs. I don't allow tenants to bring outsiders to their rooms. This is a boardinghouse, not a brothel.'
'Don't be ridiculous.' Cristof said over his shoulder, then stopped by the table and looked down at Taya. She was smiling. 'What's so amusing?'
'Did you really come here to fix the clock?'
'I found your landlady's service request in my mail last night.' He set the bag down. 'How are you?'
'Bandaged and grounded. The physicians gave me these awful crutches and some medicine to dull the pain and told me no more crash landings for a month or two.'
'But you're going to be well?'
'They said they wouldn't need to amputate.'
'That's good. May I join you?'
'Of course. I was hoping you'd come by yesterday. I was worried about you.'
He pulled out a chair and sat, giving her a searching look. Taya met it, assessing him in turn.
He'd replaced his lost glasses with an older pair, judging from their battered wire arms. The cut across his jaw had become a narrow, scabbing red line. Other than that, he looked the same as ever, his angular body enclosed once more in a crow-black suit, his ragged hair in disarray from the long walk up to the eyrie.
'They kept me for questioning until midnight,' he said, at last. 'Alister's in jail. He didn't say anything for hours, and then he began to confess everything.'
'I read a little about it.'
'He admitted to killing Pins and Caster. He also took the blame for the two lictors. He said they wouldn't have attacked us if he hadn't misled them.' Cristof's expression tightened. 'There's going to be an inquiry into their deaths.'
Taya met his eyes and saw her guilt reflected there. It wasn't reassuring, but she felt better knowing that she wasn't alone.
'What about Viera's wireferry? Did he do that?'
'No. He said it was a coincidence. I have to believe him. It doesn't make any sense for him to work with the Cards.'
'Are you sure it was sabotaged by the Cards?'
'They left their usual torn copper punch card close to the vandalized girders.'
'What about the bombing that night? The refinery fire?'
'Alister says he didn't have anything to do with that, either.' Frustration passed over Cristof's sharp features. 'I hate coincidences. Still, it could have been the Torn Cards again. We didn't find a card in the initial search, but it might show up during repairs.'
'I'm glad Alister didn't try to kill Viera. That's something, at least.'
'Hmm.' Cristof's lips tightened.
Taya reached out and took one of his hands. 'Are you holding up all right?'
He closed his eyes a moment.
'They'll execute him. The Council won't forgive him for killing a decatur.'
'Can he bargain?' Taya thought of Neuillan's blinding and exile and wondered if Alister would consider that any better. But Cristof shook his head, looking troubled.
'I don't see how. The laws are clear.'
'I'm sorry.'
'So am I.' He paused. 'Viera isn't. She wants him dead.'
Taya nodded. It wasn't hard to imagine how furious Viera must be, finding out her husband had been killed by her cousin, instead of both of them dying in the same tragedy. She searched for something reassuring to say.
'You know, she's still angry and grieving. But she's not heartless. She'll change her mind, in time.'
'Maybe. But it won't matter.' He drew his hand back. 'We talked last night. I thought I owed it to her to tell her what we'd discovered. But she got so angry that I had to leave. I couldn't stand hearing her shouting that she wanted him dead. Even after everything, I don't want him to die. Again.'
'Of course you don't,' Taya said, quietly. 'If you did, you wouldn't be human.'
'He tried to kill me.'
'I don't think he was thinking straight.'
Cristof leaned back in the chair and massaged his forehead. Lines of tension ran vertically down his brow and bracketed his mouth. 'I wonder if he's ever thought straight. Sometimes I think there's some kind of poison in our blood. Alister's just like our father. Charming, charismatic, and violent.'
Taya bit her lip.
'And the worst part is, it doesn't make any sense,' he continued. 'He didn't have to kill anyone. Pins didn't know who was buying the Engine cards, and Caster's vote might not have swayed the entire Council. Alister was powerful. He was building up a following among the decaturs. Why couldn't he wait? Even if the vote had gone against him, he would have had years to get his program accepted.'
'I don't think his ideas would ever have been accepted,' Taya protested. 'He thought people could be controlled, like little analytical engines he could program to do whatever he wanted.'
'He was always good at getting his way. But up until now, he'd never done anything to hurt anybody. I thought his ambition meant he was a natural leader. I let him take over the estate because I thought he'd do a better job than I would.'
'Don't start blaming yourself,' Taya chided him. 'You're not responsible for your brother's decisions.'
'What if my decisions affected his?'
'You can't start thinking that way. It'll make you go crazy.'
'Crazy's already in my blood.'
Taya frowned. Cristof needed shaking out of his black mood before it overwhelmed him.
'That's stupid,' she snapped. 'You're not crazy. You're nothing like Alister. For one thing, you aren't charming, charismatic, or violent.'
Cristof's distant gaze snapped back to her. She lifted her chin.
'You're a slagging pain in the tailset and sometimes, very rarely, you show signs of being a little sweet. But you're not crazy.'
He stared at her, several expressions warring on his face. At last he settled for a crooked, humorless smile.
'Only very rarely?'
'At best.'
'I see.' He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Forgive me. I'm talking too much about myself. I didn't mean to come here and complain.'
Taya leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees.
'I want to help. You know that, right?'
'Yes.'
'So I'm not going to let you waste your time being bitter and self-pitying.'
'Is that what I'm doing?'
'Pretty close.' She dropped a hand on his leg. 'Look, you did the right thing. And Alister did, too, by confessing. Now he's going to need you. He's all alone in that cell, facing execution, and he's going to need his older brother to support him. That's all you can do for him now, so if you love him, do it.'
