The Devil's in the Wind

Chapter Thirty-Five

              Getting into the Church of Barter was no easy task this morning. Due to its position near the Exchange and the Beurscanal, its roof didn't conjoin any others, and its entrances were already surrounded by guards when Natalia and Inej arrived. But this was their job; to find the hidden places, the corners and cracks where no one thought to look.

   No weapons would be allowed inside the Church of Barter during the auction, so Jesper's rifle was secured to Inej's back. They waited out of sight until Inej spotted a group of stadwatch grunts rolling a cart full of lumber toward the church's huge double doors. There was a second group of guys right behind them.

   'Watch me,' Inej whispered.

   Inej waited until the cart had rolled to a stop, then tucked her hood into her tunic so it would not trail on the ground and slipped beneath the cart. She latched herself onto the axle, her body bare inches above the cobblestones, and let them wheel her directly down the center aisle. Natalia followed her the second the other cart got close enough. Before they reached the altar, Natalia dropped and rolled between the pews, narrowly missing the cart's wheels. Inej—who was already there – gave her a congratulatory smile.

   The floor was cold stone under her belly as Natalia crawled the width of the church, right behind Inej, then they waited at the end of the aisle and darted behind one of the columns of the western arcade. They moved from column to column, then slipped into the nave that would lead them to the thumb chapels. Once more Natalia and Inej dropped into a crawl so that they could use the pews in the nave as cover. Nat didn't know where the guards might be patrolling, and she had no desire to be caught simply wandering the church.

   They reached the first chapel, then climbed the stairs to the orange chapel above. Its altar was rendered in gold but built to resemble crates of oranges and other exotic fruits. It framed a DeKappel oil that showed a family of merchants dressed in black, cradled in Ghezen's hand, hovering over a citrus grove.

   Natalia scaled the altar after Inej and launched herself up to the chapel's dome, clinging to it so she was hanging nearly upside down, right next to Inej. Natalia was wobbly. Once they reached the center of the cupola, Inej wedged her back against the little dome that crowned the larger dome like a hat, Natalia followed course. Though Natalia doubted they could be heard here, Inej waited until the sounds of sawing and hammering from the cathedral began, then positioned her foot in front of one of the slender glass windows that gave light to the chapel and kicked. On the second attempt, the glass fractured, spilling outward. Inej covered her hand with her sleeve to clear away the excess shards and edged out onto the top of the dome. Nat followed. Inej latched a climbing line to the window and rappelled down the dome's side to the roof of the nave, where she left Jesper's rifle.

   They were atop Ghezen's thumb. The morning mist had started to burn away, and Natalia could feel the day would be a hot one. They followed the thumb back to the steeply gabled spires of the main cathedral and began to climb once more.

   This was the highest part of the church, but the terrain was familiar, and that made for easier going. Nat and Inej planted the explosives Kaz had described as their "insurance" in the locations the two girls and Wylan had agreed upon while mapping the cathedral. Only in Kaz's mind could chaos count for security. The bombs were meant to be noisy but would do little damage. Still, if something went wrong and a distraction was needed, they would be there.

   When they were done, they both took up perches in one of the metalwork pockets that overlooked the apse and the vast nave of the cathedral. Here, Natalia's view of the proceedings would be obstructed by nothing but a series of wide slats and the mesh screen between them.