Note: If you haven't read the prequel, Burning Night, you may want to before you get to this chapter. There are some spoilers.
"Then I call this meeting of the Council Privy to Hushed Whispers to order," Benden Tammerlane said, silencing the room. His voice was easily audible, even from the far side of the door.
"I know we're missing faces," Sun'il Tavore said, just as Natalina pushed the door open. "But we can't pull the entire council from their jobs, even for this. Oversight is present, all of the Guild's members are here, and every other interest is represented. What we decide here will be our final word."
It was hard to have anything less than profound respect for Parliament's Speaker, the stately woman who somehow commanded the room just by being in it.
She was thin, her uniformly grey hair was partially artifice, and her bearing was absurdly regal. Every inch a Parliamentarian, she had made herself embody the authority of the City's citizens, and her words carried enormous weight.
Even here, in this council of deadly secrets that deliberately undermined the woman's office.
Natalina scoffed in derision and stepped inside. Her chair scraped along the stone floor just as the Speaker was about to continue, which brought nearly every eye in the room to her.
"Courtesy is expressed in different ways, Speaker Tavore," Natalina said. "Pretty speeches and the formality of the Agora don't belong in a dank basement while we plot sedition."
Sun'il's anger twisted her face, and the woman gripped the table like she was trying to break a piece of it off. "Then what, Mrs Casper, would you regard as a courtesy?"
"Blunt and simple honesty," Natalina replied, as she noisily clanged her chair one more time before she down. "Who are we conspiring to kill?"
As Natalina spoke, she watched Sun'il carefully. She mentally marked the clenched jaw and the slightly pursed lips; little tells of checked emotions that would show as full facial expressions on someone less versed in politics.
"Are you that eager commit the deed, Mrs Casper?" Sun'il asked.
"Still despise courtesy for its own sake, Tavore?" Natalina asked her in response, careful to nettle the woman.
Natalina already knew whose life was held beneath this council's sword.
*****
Two days earlier, on a stormy night that, like every weather, didn't quite reach her new apartment on the fringes of High Central, Natalina awoke to the screech of a whistling kettle.
"Nat?" Argente asked loudly, pushing himself up on the bed and reaching for the wall lamp switch. Despite the light from the moons shining through the wall-sized windows, Argente was nearly blind without daylight or firelight. "What are you doing up?"
Natalina blinked and covered her eyes with her arm, groaning as she sat up.
"Sorry, love," Argente said. "I thought that was you boiling water."
"The kids?" Natalina asked.
Her face fell when she saw the expression on her husband's face. "I've never seen them drink tea if they weren't forced," Argente said.
Natalina moved for the doorway, and stared at the light shining through for a moment. "I think I know who it is. And if I'm right, this might be the second time work has come home."
Natalina opened the door and stepped through. Argente followed, a police truncheon clutched in his hand. Together, the crossed the short hallway into their kitchen.
And at her stove, a tall man in a black coat and a badly weatherworn hat was pouring hot water into a teapot.
"Mrs Casper," Mathias Aranhall said, just as he finished pouring the hot water. It only disturbed Natalina a little to note that when the man put the kettle down, he somehow did so without it making a sound.
"I need your assistance. It's urgent. Where do you keep your tea mugs?"
"What's this about? And how did you get in here?" Argente asked. Natalina couldn't find it in herself to do anything other than point to a nearby cupboard, as the implausibly silent shadow retrieved three mugs, set them down on her marble countertops, and began pouring coffee without making any noise.
"It's work related, love. Argente, can he and I have the study for a little while?" Natalina asked.
Argente scowled, but he nodded. "I'll wait out here, in case the whistle woke up any of the children.
"The coffee is mostly for you, Mister Casper. An apology for the hour," Mathias replied.
******
"Then let me be courteous," Benden Tammerlane said, silencing whatever rebuttal Tavore might have lashed out with. The most dangerous man in this, or nearly any other room, Natalina was intimately acquainted with the ruthlessness of the Lord Captain's mind.
"We have a potential calamity on our hands, and I need a plan for containing it before the night is out. One way or another, Mrs Casper," Benden explained. "You know the name Gerald Raeth?"
Natalina smiled sardonically. There was nothing to be gained for feigning ignorance. Even if she didn't already know the subject of tonight's meeting, the entire City knew the name Gerald Raeth.
Captain of the Midnight Songbird. Apprentice to the Dragon Slayer. The man who stood on a causeway and battled the monster of fire known as the Rider just to save a handful of soldiers. The man had more Golems to his name than the first three invasions combined.
"I'm chief editor of the Riverwash Weekly. I don't think I've released a page in the last week that didn't have his name on it somewhere. He's a popular figure right now. And from what I've gathered from the interviews my staff has done, at least some of it is deserved," Natalina said carefully, pointedly stressing her own expertise on the subject of popular opinion.
Natalina kept her eyes focused on the Lord Captain. So far, things were going according to plan.
*****
"So," Natalina said, as she shut the door to her study. The only saving grace of having this dangerous man in her home was that he was far too quiet to wake her three teenaged children. "Since I'm getting half the sleep that I ought to tonight, what's so important that you need to break into my home in the middle of the night?"
"You should have a sip first," Mathias replied, as he sat down. "Most of the coffee plants were in fields just behind the Last Wall. It might be a couple of years before you get to drink that stuff again."
"It'll be the topic of choice for the rarified conversations of the upper echelons," Natalina said. But she took his advice and raised the mug to take a small sip.
"Of which you're now a part," Mathias pointed out, raising his own cup as if to toast the fact.
The taste surprised her. The bitterness was mild and pleasant, the flavour felt like a full breath of fresh air after working with the printing machinery for an entire day, and there was a subtle sweet note to it that Natalina had never encountered before.
"Burn me, this tastes nothing like that charcoal sludge they serve in high-society galas," Natalina admitted, whistling quietly in disbelief. "How did you manage it?"
"Don't burn the beans, use a clean filter. It isn't airship design," Mathias said. He smiled and shook his head, as if the shadow had just made a joke. "That's part of why I'm here, actually."
"Airships?" Natalina asked.
"Partially. The Council Privy is going to debate the fate of Gerald Raeth tomorrow night, and I need your help."
*****
"Most of it is deserved," Coraline insisted, from the left side of the long table. "An opinion I share with three Secretaries."
"Three?" Benden asked. "Only Varnell and Redgrave have made their appreciation public."
"I'm counting Amelian Rustov, and don't look at me as if you aren't already grooming her to succeed you. The three of them hold Captain Raeth in high esteem."
"Therein lies some of the danger," Sun'il said carefully, as if trying to reason with a tantrum-prone toddler. "The loyalty the military has for him, and the authority he has by that title Tabitha gave him, makes him a uniquely dangerous political force. It isn't beyond his power, right now, to make himself a despot."
"That's a bit of drama, Speaker," one of the newest members of the council said from somewhere on Natalina's left.
"When it comes to politics, Hendrich, you shouldn't underestimate the danger of a cult of personality. If any of these soldiers were asked to raise their swords against him, even if the need for it were obvious, how many would hesitate? How many might even side with a hero they know and trust, over distant authorities and the vague ideal of our republic?" Tavore asked.
Natalina nearly whistled aloud, listening to Tavore's speech. The tone and tenor subtly rose as she spoke, and her oratory alone was enough to silence the dissenting opinions that might have followed.
"Still no courtesy, Tavore?" Natalina asked, forcefully pushing her voice into the silence. "Still giving speeches instead of substance."
"You doubt my words?"
"I doubt anything wrapped up in pretty packages. That's my calling. And now I'm wondering why you're so keen to kill off a war hero," Natalina remarked. "Do we have reason to view Raeth's war record in a different light?"
"We do, and we ought to be," Sun'il insisted, and she drew out a single piece of paper, letting it settle on the table.
"This is the boy's first-year apprentice paper, detailing a pair of dangerous secrets that he uncovered and recklessly presented," Sun'il explained, giving Natalina a predatory smile.
"Courtesy enough, Mrs Casper?"
*****
"On the surface, I like his odds. As a war hero, he's a proven servant of the City. But you wouldn't be here if that was the whole picture," Natalina mused aloud, cradling the mug of coffee in her hands. "What else is there to Crafter a'Loria's final apprentice?"
Natalina could see Mathias flinch as she mentioned Tabitha, and wondered at the depth behind that pain. The relationship between Crafter and Shadow was a complicated one, no matter what dynamic it took on.
"He knows secrets," Mathias admitted.
"Which secrets?" Natalina asked. "And don't be coy. Assume everyone on that council will know."
*****
"He knows 'the' secret," Sun'il said with dramatic finality. She pointed to the paper currently in Benden's hands. "He figured out that the founders had research notes about making The Bore. It's right there, near the bottom of the back page."
"That isn't ink," Coraline noticed, leaning forward in her seat. "Burn me, did he write that with the Craft?"
"He did," Mathias admitted.
"Wait, Mathias, you've already read this?" Benden asked.
"Six years ago. It was just after the Burning Night incident, when I believe this council gave her the first-year papers to try and get a fourth apprentice out of her," Mathias admitted.
"So both you and Tabitha have known about this for the last six years?" Benden asked, his powerful voice reverberating in the confines of the small room housing their meeting.
Natalina held her breath and tried to look only slightly interested as she waited for Mathias to speak. This move was critical, and she wasn't sure the Shadow had the necessary subtlety in him.
"Her decision at the time, in light of Gerald's service, was to defer his fate to this council if she submitted his name for graduation," Mathias said.
Natalina forced herself to suppress a sigh of relief. The man had a distinctive appreciation for subtlety.
"So she kicked this problem down a few years for us? Convenient," Sun'il said, and Natalina covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from sharing her pleasure.
Sun'il just did her a favour.
"What service are you talking about, Mathias?" Benden asked.
*****
"It's going to be important to frame Gerald's secrets appropriately," Natalina mused, as she took in what Mathias had explained to her. She took another sip of the tall shadow's offering and smiled.
"Benden was right, you really are the only person in the City who should be allowed to brew this stuff," Natalina said.
"Most people don't have enough to practice," Mathias shrugged, his thumb rubbing idly against the pommel of his sword.
The hoop was a new design; a rising sun with an embellished corona of fire around it, with a single metal bar serving as the horizon the sun was rising from. The unique insignia of the first officer of the Fury of the Dawn.
"Make sure you wear that sword during our meeting," Natalina said. "The Lord Captain's mind isn't made up yet. And I imagine you would be the first to be told, if that changed."
Mathias only nodded in response, tapping the end of his sword with his finger.
"Now, when Benden asks about the circumstances surrounding your knowledge of Gerald's first year paper, it's absolutely critical you steer the narrative towards Crafter a'Loria's decision to make him her apprentice," Natalina insisted as firmly as she could, relieved when her intensity was met by the dangerous calm the shadow usually displayed.
"And," Natalina added, "we then need to play off his guilt."
*****
"After he wrote his first-year paper, Gerald enlisted and completed basic training. Because he's the kind of apprentice Tabitha willingly took up, his army application test scores put him in the special training program that Secretary Emily Varnell was conducting at the time," Mathias explained. His voice was quiet, forcing everyone else in the room into silence as they listened to him speak.
"Six years ago?" Benden asked.
Natalina studied Benden's expression as carefully as she dared, searching on the Lord Captain's face for the small expressions hinting at how he felt.
"Correct sir," Mathias said.
"Burning heart of the abyss," Benden reflected. "He was one of Varnell's first batch."
"He was," Mathias said. "He trained alongside Lieutenant Elliot Trask, Chief Engineer Caitlin Dremora, and Lieutenant Adrian Keates."
"Still missing in action," Benden muttered.
The room paused for a moment, as Benden mused to himself, seemingly oblivious to even the company he sat with.
"Lord Captain," someone said from the left side of the table.
The left side. Where the six Crafters on the council sat.
"Shut up, Adams," Benden said quietly, his eyes pointed towards the table and his gaze still distant.
Natalina didn't think that the Lord Captain could have shocked her again. Benden Tammerlane had emptied streets and shut down an Orderly precinct just to convince her he was untouchable. And even that expression of power didn't quite have the same shock value as his casual slight to a Crafter.
And not just a Crafter. Lionel Adams was the City's oldest person, by at least half a century old, and a witness of now three invasions. He was, by virtue of his proven restraint, the only permanent member of the Guild's council.
"The Cavilla incident. Mathias, how was the wall held after the outflow pipe was blocked off?" Benden asked.
"Gerald held the wall," Mathias said.
"Then Varnell? Her recruits? Gwendolyn?" Benden asked, his voice surprisingly thick with emotion.
"Yes," Mathias said quietly, gently.
*****
"Captain Raeth isn't out of danger," Natalina said, still playing with her coffee cup long after she had finished drinking it. "Benden needs a small push, but he's military. The ruthless sensibility of killing the captain will weigh heavily against his record, and against the respect Raeth has earned from people Benden admire. You included."
"If my concern were just Benden, I wouldn't be here tonight," Mathias said. "My dilemma is that much of the Council views him as a disturber of the status quo. A destabilizing influence on the City."
"Are they wrong to think so?" Natalina asked.
"Not in the slightest," Mathias admitted, with a rueful smile. "Being a'Loria's apprentice does him no favours in that regard. Neither did Agrias, when she refused to allow his nomination to go forward,"
Natalina chuckled, and set her coffee cup on the nearby desk. "Agrias saved his life with that decision of hers."
Mathias blinked.
From that shadow, it was about as dramatic as a theatrical gasp and a tumbling mug of coffee smashing on the floor.
"How so?"
*****
"Lord Captain," Crafter Lionel Adams said again, his voice quite a bit harsher this time. "This reject's war record, laudable as it is, actually speaks against him. Every time we Craft, we lose a little more of ourselves to the flame. Who knows how much of himself has already been lost."
"Captain Raeth's condition is considered a low risk, according to his evaluator," Benden noted. "I received daily reports from her, despite the heavy action the Songbird saw."
"It's an opinion I share," Mathias added. "As does the squad serving on his ship."
"A squad of soldiers?" Lionel asked.
"Nannies," Agrias growled, speaking for the first time in this meeting. "My best. The shadows that clean up the messes and failures of other evaluators."
"Your best people are comfortable going to war following a reject?" Lionel Adams asked, harshly. "Taking orders following a reject? Oversight following the authority of a reject? Who the burning hell has torched the sense out of your mind, chief?"
Natalina wistfully acknowledged another formidable mind in the oldest person in the City. Lionel Adams was shrewd, to have casually turned Agrias' own arguments against her.
As if, like her, Lionel Adams had expected this conversation.
"Leave this problem to the authority that governs people like Gerald Raeth. Leave this debate to the Guild. Let us weigh, as we always have, if this reject is safe to leave in the City," Crafter Adams said forcefully.
There was a crescendoing murmur that swept across the room like a wave. It created with Sun'il Tavore as she, like any good predator or politician sensing the mood of the mood, timed her next statement perfectly.
"Then let the guild vote, right now," Sun'il said.
"The guild voted already, weeks ago," Natalina spoke up, loudly.
"How so?" Benden asked, but he was grinning as he looked at Natalina.
"They voted with their silence," Natalina reminded them, looking to each member of the room as if to scold them. The silent pause in the conversation was a theatrical note to add to Natalina's next words.
"Their silence, as Oversight declared him unfit for the coat," Natalina finished.
"Then his fate ought to be decided," Lionel began to say, but Natalina cut him off with a laugh.
"No," Natalina said. "It means his fate is outside of the Guild's authority. You have already willingly surrendered it to the other powers of the City. To this council."
Natalina paused again, and looked around the room, with as much malice as she had ever worn on her face. "And if any of you are unwilling to take responsibility for the decision that needs to be made here, I will make it my life's mission to ruin yours. I was not thrown into this council at the point of a sword just to see you fade away like smoke as soon as you might get blood on your hands."
*****
"You'll actually say that to them?" Mathias had asked, with a gentle chuckle. The eminently courteous shadow had made another pot of coffee shortly after Natalina had finished her cup, using another pouch of beans he kept in a coat pocket.
Where he got his wealth of coffee was a mystery that itched at Natalina's mind.
"My job has changed quite a bit since I chose the Council Privy," Natalina explained. "But the essential nature of uncovering secrets and understanding the damage they could cause is the same. And being on this council has given me more weapons than I ever would have had outside of it."
"Does it still sting? Being on this council?" Mathias asked.
Natalina nearly choked on her coffee. The question was sincere, just as everything this dangerous man did was.
But to find this kindness from him was extraordinary.
"It does, but I'm glad for it. I'm more afraid of the day it doesn't sting," Natalina said. "That day will be the day I died inside, and the lord captain won."
"Benden gained nothing from your membership," Mathias said quietly. "He didn't gain an ally. He didn't gain someone he held any more leverage over, or a swing vote on this council. Having you murdered in that holding cell would have been far easier for him."
Natalina smiled sadly. "I know all of that, too. It took years to really believe it, though. Years where I kept expecting him to ask a favour, or threaten my vote one way or another. When he never did, even as we voted to curb the Undercity quotas, or keep the airships out of military control, I finally accepted it."
Natalina set her coffee cup down then and gave Mathias the same hard, grim smile she remembered seeing on the warriors in her life before they went to battle. "But in this meeting, little does he know it, he has an ally in me. As do you. I will help you save Gerald Raeth."
"And first," Natalina added. "I will need to remind the council that it isn't just Gerald they'd be executing."
*****
"Also, we need to consider the future of the City," Natalina said, into the silence of her last threat.
"We are. This reject is a threat to the fragile balance of power in the City," Lionel said. "And be very careful about who you threaten, Mrs Casper. I am not as kind as the Lord Captain."
It was telling that not even Coraline objected to Crafter Adams's blatant reminder of his power. Natalina gulped hard and didn't rise to challenge him further.
But Natalina didn't submit, either. "He is also intrinsically, inseparably linked to Crafter a'Loria's greatest achievement. Captain Raeth doesn't wear a sword because he leads soldiers. He is captain of a ship, one of only two flying ships in the world. Ships that only he fully knows the mechanics and secrets of."
"Captain Durgon is at least as knowledgeable," someone else said, from a few chairs away from Natalina.
She looked over to see Virginia Daspard, the division chief of pipe regulation in the Bureau of Civil Development. Appointed because she learned, through spreadsheet numbers and intuition, how Coldstone was made. And allowed in, when she singlehandedly saved apartment complex by redirecting the outflow into her own control station, permanently burning her hands and face.
"And much less dangerous."
"True," Natalina admitted, tapping her fingers on the table, and hoping Mathias remembered what it meant.
"But does Maxwell know the Gloam is a Craft?" Mathias asked.
The silence that followed the fall shadow's pronouncement was stunning. Natalina actually enjoyed seeing it, smiling a little as the room slowly tried to process the announcement.
"It's in his first year paper," Mathias said. "He goes into some detail, but his reasoning is sound. Tabitha was convinced the same day she read it. As was I."
"The Gloam is a craft?" Sun'il Tavore asked.
"How else could the airships fly?" Coraline asked. "The lift-bags are filled with the Gloam, and set alight. Even a Crafter cannot lift one of those ships with hot air for long."
"You knew?" Lionel Adams asked her.
"Why didn't you know?" Sun'il Tavore asked, her voice ringing in the confines of the small room. Her stare was furious, her mouth stretched back to bare her teeth. "If you have kept this from us for all these years Adams, I promise you my wrath will make you wish for Casper's!"
"This is far from certain, and it isn't a secret the Guild keeps. And this dangerous thinking is even more reason to see that reject removed," Adams responded. Natalina felt a wave of warm, dry air wash across her.
"This dangerous thinking is also critical to the development of an airship fleet," Benden growled. "Let me be clear to all of you about this, we would have lost the Sixth without the Songbird and the Fury."
"But we have roughly fifty more years," Lionel Adams disagreed. "The next invasion is due, but we have time to learn the secrets safely. We can, and ought to, dispense with this danger while we still can."
"I see Gerald's fate linked to these airships," Natalina insisted. She took a deep breath and carried on while she still had everyone's attention. "Only the developers of the airships could tell us confidently if we can even consider dispensing with the ships. So we ought to decide, right now, who will be stewarding their further development."
"That ought to be the military," Benden said. "The ships are military assets, and should be prioritized that way."
"We cannot let the military control building those ships," Sun'il Tavore insisted. "You are already perilously close to running the City already, Lord Captain."
"Agreed," Lionel Adams insisted. "And further, this is not something to be put to a vote. The Guild will not allow it, and will indulge no accommodation on the subject."
All six members of the Guild stood as Lionel spoke. Even Coraline.
"I will have airships," Benden barked, standing out of his chair.
"For the good of the City, you will. But it will not be the army making them," Lionel said. "Is that a problem, Lord Captain?"
Natalina watched with wide, focused eyes. Finally, profoundly, she was witnessing the extent of the Lord Captain's power, as it came up against the Guild.
"It is probably for the best," Benden replied, as he sat back down.
As a body, the six red coats at the left end of the table sat back down as well.
"If not the army, then who?" Benden asked.
"Research?" someone asked. Natalina turned to her right, to look at a senior researcher, Janus Tremelak, opportunistically making his opinion known.
Natalina smiled indulgently, and shook her head. "No. Theo Ratterson runs Research in all but name. You may as well have handed airship development to the Guild."
"Under no burning circumstances," Agrias said. "It's bad enough the ships need a Crafter to fly them."
"Then our only real option is Civil Development," Sun'il said, gesturing towards her right.
"And provide them with more of a stranglehold?" one of the other crafters asked.
"No," Mathias remarked, surprising most of the room.
*****
"There is only one certain way to guarantee Captain Raeth lives through this meeting," Natalina reflected.
She spent a long moment staring at the empty mug, with nothing but the faint smell and the memory of the drink permeating her preoccupied thoughts.
"No vote is ever really certain," Mathias reflected.
Natalina smiled at the thought. "You don't know how right you are. Which means the only guaranteed way is to make sure there is no election over Captain Raeth's fate."
*****
"No," Mathais said, in the manner Natalina had coached him through a few days ago.
"The Airships are going to shift City's balance of power, but we need them. Not developing them isn't an option. The Lord Captain's word on that is the beginning and the end of that argument," Mathias explained, in that slow and disturbingly calm voice of his.
Benden nodded in agreement.
"So the Airships should be built in their own Bureau. They will be built for the army, or for whatever other Bureau might need them. But it would be safest if this new power in the City has its own bureau, with its own representation to safeguard its own interests."
"I concur," Agrias said, her eyes wide and a smile creeping across her lips. "It's a cleaner solution than empowering an existing agency."
"All in favour?" Natalina asked.
It was best to get this done quickly before anyone was given time to reconsider.
Sun'il did a quick hand count and smiled. "Seventeen in favour. That's a majority. We'll push our respective bureaus to begin this soon. As for Gerald Raeth-"
"I nominate Captain Raeth for membership to this council," Natalina cut her off, finally letting her poker face slip as she smiled a vicious smile across the room. "Do I have a second?"
"Seconded," Coraline said from the end of the table. Natalina looked over at her and saw the grateful smile on the crafter's face.
Natalina looked away quickly, unwilling to keep that woman's gaze for long. Looking to Mathias instead, she met his gaze and saw him give a subtle shrug.
"Then the Guild votes," Lionel announced.
"No, Crafter," Natalina insisted. "As we agreed, the Airships are a new interest. And we tied Captain Raeth's fate to the airships. Unless I misread the bylaws, Gerald Raeth is simply a member of this council now."
"What?" Lionel cried out, his anger causing his voice to quiver a little. "Our members must be proven servants, and responsible with dangerous secrets!"
"Are you questioning his war record? His custody of the nature of the Gloam? Because we already went over those," Natalina smirked, enjoying this Crafter's discomfort.
"What the burning hell have you done?" Sun'il Tavore asked.
"Played this council like a fiddle," Benden said, smiling back at Natalina. "And in four hours less than I thought it would take. Mathias, can I trust you to bring Captain Raeth to our next meeting?"
Mathias nodded. "He'll be there."
"Good. Then this meeting is adjourned. The next will be arranged fairly soon, hopefully after the celebrations start," Benden announced, as he rose to his feet. "Mrs Casper, would you walk with me for a bit?"
That made Natalina's grin fade a little, as she saw the Lord Captain so composed. A feeling in the pit of her stomach, one Natalina trusted, told her that she had been played.
*****
The sun was rising in the window, mingling with the firelight of the Spire, before Natalina finally finished explaining her plan to Mathias.
Impressively, Natalina felt more animated than she had in quite a long time. She suspected some of it was the coffee that Mathias had slowly fed her over the hours, but there was a joy in the plot that she was surprised to find she enjoyed.
"It's as sound as any plan we're going to come up with on short notice," Natalina said. "There are no guarantees, and a lot of this depends on Benden's mind not being completely made up."
Mathias tilted his hat up and leaned back in his chair. "The only guarantees in life are the promises we make. Thank you, for your help."
Natalina stood up and stretched. "This isn't for free, you know. My help has a price."
Mathias, to his credit, didn't look surprised. Only slightly disappointed. "Name it. Within reason, it's yours."
"Tell me why you're so keen to keep Captain Raeth alive. Because he honestly is a danger to the order of the City. He upsets the balance of power just by being who he is, and having him attached to airship development will keep him in that dangerous position for years."
Natalina observed Mathias as he nodded, and rested his hand on his hat. "His master changed the City. Very few people will notice or appreciate it, but the four hundred year siege ended the first moment those ships left the ground. The war with the Gloam has started, and the Council Privy is moving to kill that war's best hope."
"And the Lord Captain won't help you in this war?" Natalina asked.
"He will actively oppose it," Mathias admitted. "Which is why I can't rely on his help for this."
Something twinged at Natalina's heart. A dark, angry hope that burned in her mind, twisting happiness and rage together into a vile parody of joy. "Do you think Gerald Raeth can win this war?"
"If it can be won," Mathias said.
"If he kills the Gloam, I'm coming for the Council Privy," Natalina warned Mathias. "I will bury them all beneath the weight of their sins."
"If the Gloam is gone, I won't raise a finger to stop you," Mathias replied.
Natalina spat in her hand and held it out to Mathias. "Then you have my help."
*****
"I am impressed, Mrs Casper," Benden Tammerlane said to her, as they stepped out into the street. Still early in the morning, they passed only a handful of other people.
"How long ago did Mathias approach you for help?" the Lord Captain asked.
"Two days," Natalina admitted.
The Lord Captain nodded, his gaze focused on the street. As usual, it was hard for Natalina to read the City's chief defender, even if the stress of the moment had worn the man a little ragged.
Benden's normally immaculate clothes were wrinkled, and patches of fine dirt splotched a few spots on his coat. His beard was somewhat unkempt, his eyes had deep bags beneath them, and he looked thinner than usual.
"You've been lying dormant for quite some time," Benden Tammerlane noted, "I had at first thought it was drink-induced oblivion, but I suspect your marriage wouldn't have survived that."
Natalina shuddered, remembering the first few months after she had joined the Council Privy. Weeks of stupor and chasing off the inevitable headaches with more drink, a haze of pain and grief muted by the damage she did to her mind in those months. It had taken nearly everything Argente had to pull her from that pit, and Natalina wasn't entirely sure he had forgiven her for having to do it.
It didn't help that Natalina didn't know how to thank him properly.
"Is this really the cause you want to reveal yourself for?" Benden asked.
Natalina took a deep breath, and carefully considered what to say next. Honesty might inspire the Lord Captain to murder her and move against Captain Raeth. But to lie successfully to Benden Tammerlane, you had to cut close to the truth.
Natalina smiled. "Gerald Raeth has upended the order of our world. He frightens you, which I didn't think was possible. But who he is, and what he might do to the City is something you're too afraid of. If it had been up to you, we wouldn't have him or his airships."
She paused before adding, "and that would have been a mistake."
Benden shook his head. "I am glad you took my offer, six years ago. Killing you would have been another mistake. Good day, Mrs Casper."
Natalina stopped to watch the Lord Captain walk away until he reached the end of the street and rounded a corner. She was smiling, and felt excited and invigorated in a way she hadn't since the best moments of her job.
The best moments of the life Benden Tammerlane ended.
"I'll help you fight your war, Raeth," Natalina muttered to herself as she began to march home. "Because as soon as you win yours, I will start to wage mine."