It took us longer to get through the preternatural forest than Crane. By the time we got to the main dome, the show had already started. Veronica had her iron face back on. It kept her from talking, or asking me questions, at least. When we were almost there she produced the purge mask from an inner pouch and handed it to me. Where the hell had she gotten this? And what was I supposed to do with it? I nodded and tucked it away, then pantomimed a pistol and showed her my empty holster. She shook her head and shrugged. Great.
We made it to a balcony overlooking the main hall of the Algorithm. After the chaos I caused two years ago, Camilla's heart had been moved from the chamber upstairs into this larger, more easily protected space. It had meant a lot of retooling of the machinery, but the Wrights were usually eager for that sort of project. Now that Camilla had reclaimed her heart, though, this room hung empty. The balcony where we perched was above a sloping wall of still clockwork. Veronica crawled to the edge of the balcony and looked over, then signaled for me to come up. I crawled up on my belly and looked down.
Crane was already here, along with a lot of dead Wrights and one very angry angel. After his trick in the greenhouse, I wasn't sure the Wrights were dead, but the effect was the same. They weren't doing anything to help their mistress.
'I put you down once, Ezekiel Crane. I'll do it again,' Camilla spat. She was larger, manifesting sharper wings and a kind of halo that hung in the air behind her back. Her voice reverberated through the hall. The clouds of crows that had swirled menacingly through her body were still there, more numerous. Beside her, Crane looked like a child.
'You've been taking lessons from Mr. Burn, haven't you? Making empty threats.' He raised one hand, like he was conducting an orchestra. 'But you're not to blame. You don't really know what forces are aligned against you.'
'A bitter old man with some clever tricks. A mortal. An outcast.' Camilla sneered. 'I've seen a thousand like you, and I'll see a thousand more. You are one man.'
'One man,' Crane said. 'And an army.'
He lifted his hand higher, and the Wrights rose up, like puppets on their string. They didn't seem to be all there, like sleep walkers or drunks. Crane twisted his hand and they all turned to face the angel.
'You'll need better than that. I could break the meat of your army with my voice.'
'Perhaps. But I don't mean to fight you with them. Just retrieve the crows you've stolen from me.' His voice was getting louder, and I realized that it was coming from every mouth in the room. All those Wrights, speaking as one. 'Give them back, Camilla.'
'Parlor tricks!' Camilla shrieked. She lunged forward. Crane raised his voice in some wordless command.
Camilla burst, the crows fleeing her body like a flock startled from a tree. She howled, and Crane laughed. But they only went so far, still swirling around her in a tight vortex. She was holding them, if incompletely. Pain washed across Crane's face, and he began to sweat.
'Very… interesting,' he said, leaning forward. 'Very persistent.'
Camilla stood perfectly still, her eyes closed in concentration, her mouth open. A battle of wills, bending themselves to the raw material that rippled through Crane's artificial flock of black birds. They stood close, their arms outstretched, the Wrights all around them swaying with the force of the energies channeling through them.
Veronica tapped me on the shoulder without looking my way. She held out three fingers, then two, then one. Then she pointed at the two in the center of the room. When I didn't move she glanced in my direction, her head cocked curiously to one side. Time to make something up.
'Oh, you meant go. I forgot that was the signal. Albert said… never mind.' I hopped down the incline and slid uncomfortably over the tapestry of clockwork to land roughly on the floor. No one looked at me. Probably too absorbed in their little mystic fight to even see me. I cleared my throat and approached the pair.
'This is it!' I yelled, hoping there was someone else in the chamber to hear me. 'This is me, killing you, Crane! Right here!' I pulled out the purge mask and held it like a badge. 'Yeah, that's right. With this! I think.'
There was a loud banging from behind me. I turned and saw Veronica jumping in place. She grabbed her bodice and pulled on it, like she was trying to flash me. Curious. I turned back to the two combatants. They had taken notice of me, watching me from the corners of their eyes. They looked paralyzed, but terrified. By now the patterns of the crows had changed. They weren't so tight to Camilla. Some of them were switching orbits to Crane, passing over him before they returned to Camilla. She was losing them, slowly, inevitably. Her control was imperfect.
It was the mask. They were looking at the mask, not me. I turned it over in my hands. This wasn't the purge mask I had retrieved from Crane's house. He left that as a signal. That one had probably been the original mask, used by whoever came to kill his family. How he had gotten it, how he had even survived that pursuit, was a mystery. Would always be a mystery. But this mask was newly minted. I looked back up at Veronica, now wearing her own iron mask. Just another secret they had uncovered, I suspected. But who was this for? Who was supposed to wear this?
The mask squirmed in my hands. I looked at the back. It had sprouted long, thin tentacles of liquid metal, lashing out hungrily in the air. This was for me. Whatever the Mother had done to me, it was compatible with this ancient technology. What would I become? What could I do, with these joined magics? What had Crane said? Two gods in one man. I looked back up at Veronica. She was watching me. Tense. Ready to pounce.
'This is too much,' I spat. 'Too many people with too many plans.'
I turned to the closest Wright and dragged him around to face me. He was an older man, his loose jowls quivering with Crane's metaphysical voice. I gripped the back of his head with my other hand, and shoved the mask onto his face.
The voices changed.
Not all of them, not even the majority. But the guy I had in my hands, and the couple around him. They fell out of Crane's voice and were silent, then started up on something else. It was familiar, although I hadn't heard it in a while. The voice of the Singer, from the Celestean religion that so many had forgotten. That my family still kept, right up until the end. I stepped back. Behind me, I heard Veronica clambering down the clockwork tapestry.
I had been meant as bait. A third god, something to catch Crane's attention, to draw him away from Camilla. After all, the angel was just a creation of the Celesteans. If their pattern could be introduced to the Algorithm, wouldn't Crane jump at that instead? He would think about it at least. And that moment of distraction was what the Brights had wanted.
So they could snatch Camilla. I looked around and saw them, their operatives, hidden among the Wrights. Moving forward, their mouths closed. And behind me, Veronica, full of rage. And the interference I had introduced into Crane's little chorus had tipped the balance. Camilla was winning, the crows spinning tighter and tighter toward her. She looked at me with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.
'Sorry, love,' I said. 'Can't let that happen. No one gets what they want today.'
I tackled her out from the center of her vortex of crows and rolled. She clattered into pieces as I took her heart away from the support of the crows. Just her arms and chest, and the hollow structure of her head, remained. Much yelling behind me. Crows were flying all over the place.
I picked up the remnants of the girl and ran. I knew a place. The room was in chaos when I left, crows scratching at Wrights, Veronica howling through her iron mask, and above it all the song of the Singer, beautiful and clear.
The shock wore off about two minutes later. Camilla started fighting me in earnest. I put her down on a plinth and wiped the blood from my eyes with a cloth.
'What are you doing, Jacob?' she hissed.
'Running away. I thought that was pretty clear.'
'With me! What the hell are you thinking? Crane will win, now.'
I shook my head. The sounds of battle had died down, but I was pretty sure the Brights were still hunting the old Artificer. Let them tear each other apart.
'The Brights know what they're doing. They know his limits. At the very least, they'll be able to hold him off.
