After much fretting and feeding, Mei faked needing a nap and ended up sleeping till sundown. When she woke, the others had moved on to other tasks - Dwayne and Maggie were studying, Lady Pol and Fran were sorting through the Tower’s finances, and Rodion was cleaning - so none of them saw her grab her weapons and cloak then slip out.

  The nap had been inconvenient, she’d planned to head out long before dark, but between the mountain of food Rodion had made and the stress of last night, she wasn’t surprised that she’d needed it. At least, it made her fresh and ready to find her brother.

  Exiting the Parvenue Quarter, crossing Boscage, and traversing Bradsbridge got Mei through the city gates and up to the edge of the grid of long pale tenement buildings that was the Wesen Quarter. Much like the empty-eyed husks she’d seen in Yumma, these buildings felt dead since everyone who was awake was either working or hanging out at the many cafes lining the street dividing this quarter from the Vanurian. Unlike Yumma, the streets here were lit and were even paved with the same smooth stone that covered Tarpan’s drive, which Mei could step soundlessly past the doors while casting a shadow across them.

  Mei was quiet but the quarter wasn’t. The persistent rhythms of construction - hammering, clanging, shouting - echoed off the sides of its buildings. Mei followed them four blocks east and to a hole in the tenement grid, a hundred wir by hundred square now occupied by a partially built brick spire about thirty wir tall and forty wir wide. Ducking into an alley, Mei found cover before anyone below could see her then settled in to watch.

  The site was as busy as a hive. Workers took bricks off their pallets and hauled them over to piles that other workers used ropes to lift into the waiting hands of a team of bricklayers working to raise the spire. Below the brick work, carpenters took logs, cut them into planks and rails, and then hammered them into place. Aside from the workers, there were overseers pointing and shouting and mercenaries guarding.

  As Dwayne had reported as Mei ate, the site’s workers were a mix of Wesen and Vanurian - most of the carpenters and bricklayers were the latter and most of the rest the former - and the pace they kept was frenetic. Not all of the workers could keep up. A brick carrier tripped, sending his load clattering to the ground. Immediately, an overseer was there to scream in his face to pick it up or “else his master would hear of it and take it out on your worthless darkie hide.” Akunna’s plan to free these people made sense, but that wasn’t why Mei had come.

  She turned her attention to the mercenaries, examining height, hair cut, hair color, gait, posture, and when she could, their faces. Even at this distance, Mei was able to eliminate half of them, but the remaining one would require a close and careful watch. She was only able to eliminated three more mercenaries when an awrock-drawn cart carrying an iron cauldron large enough to hold ten people rumbled onto the site. Leaving the driver behind, four people in bright green cloaks dropped down onto the muddy ground. Two turned to the cauldron, raised their arms, and the heavy cauldron lifted itself out of the cart while the other two waited. A quick inspection of all four revealed that none of them were Huan; he wasn’t a mage and the other two were a young woman with russet-colored hair and Colin Fletcher.

  Mei’s lips flattened. Maggie and Dwayne had told her about last night, how Colin had tried to start a riot on Sanford’s front lawn. It was bad enough that Dean Bruce’s College was involved at all, but the fact that he’d stood with Maggie on that Harvest Ball stage and acted like nothing was wrong was galling.

  Mei was still wrestling with her anger when a young man in a blue scarf and bearing a long curved sword at his hip, sauntered out of the spire and right up to Colin and Russet Hair. Mei’s breath stopped. There was no sign of the magic knives, but there was no mistaking that smirk. That was Huan. He was here.

  Seventeen guards. Five overseers. Four mages.

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  That was all that stood between Mei and her brother. And she was all she had: the spy had left a message in pudding that they wouldn’t help any more, Lady Pol was too busy, Odette too unknown, Francesca wasn’t suited, Dwayne had his examination coming up, and Maggie was helping him study. As an Imperial, Mei couldn’t sneak in and hide among the bare-faced workers, but she couldn’t just attack because that would create chaos that her brother would use to escape.

  Seventeen guards. Five overseers. Four mages. One Mei. This wouldn’t work. She had to take out Granite first.

  Mei tensed. Behind her, shoe leather had hit road pavement, meaning two people were approaching from behind. Thieves would be quieter, assassins would be faster, so these had to be…

  Mei turned around and asked, “What are you two doing here?”

  Charlie looked surprised.

  Odette shrugged. “I’m just the guide.” She held out a hand to the scrytive. “Pay up.”

  Charlie scowled. “You’re the lover of our next Royal Sorcerer?”

  “A bet’s a bet. Pay up.”

  Charlie slapped a pair of coins into her hand. “There.”

  Odette grinned. “Thank you very much. Now, I’ve some business in the quarter next door so I’ll see you back at the house, Mei.”

  “Vulture.” Charlie joined Mei at her end of the alley. “How have you been?”

  Mei’s throat closed. She turned away.

  “Ah. Well, I see you found Huan.” Charlie nodded towards the site. “That’s him, right? The fellow with the sword?”

  “Why?” asked Mei. “You won’t do anything.”

  Charlie sighed. “I’m sorry for not helping. You must understand that my authority is granted by the Chamber and where its reach ends so does mine. It sounds you don’t have that problem.”

  Mei glared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you did Sen Jerome’s. Even they couldn’t cover up all the noise you made escaping, and it was also the first place I’d look for him given that night.” Charlie watched Huan take Colin and Russet Hair on a tour around the site. His jaw worked before he said, “I should have expected it.”

  Mei turned away. “You disapprove.”

  “Yes, but-”

  “I had to try.”

  “I know, but-”

  “He’s my brother!” Mei pointed. “He’s the only family I have left.”

  “And what was your plan tonight?” Charlie asked. “Go down there, grab him, whisk him out of the city?”

  “It was, but…” Mei winced. This was going to hurt. “That wouldn’t work. Dean Bruce has her hooks in him.”

  “Dean Bruce?” Charlie grabbed Mei by the shoulders. “Dean Roberta Bruce? That’s who’s behind all this? Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Charlie released her and turned to stare at her brother. “So how will you pry her loose? Shoot her?”

  “No.” Mei shrugged her rifle case on more securely. “My friends would get in trouble.”

  “Ah, because it could only be you. Say you take her down some other way, what happens to Huan?”

  Mei looked down. “We leave.”

  “So he can escape the consequences of his actions. Again.”

  “We won’t bother anyone.”

  “It’s not you who-” Charlie sucked in a breath then blew it out. “I’m not here to fight you. I’m here to inform you that Wagner and I have been keeping our eyes on the local windsong messengers.”

  Mei frowned. “Why?”

  “Because we can’t help you directly, but we can keep them safe. As a result, we heard that an unknown windsong has been seen transporting materials on and off river.”

  Mei’s eyes widened. “Delma.”

  Charlie nodded. “Unfortunately, the Brad falls under the Exchange’s jurisdiction so we have no idea where the boats went, but-”

  “The Magisterium.”

  “What?”

  “I tracked one there.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Of course you did. At any rate, she’s transported a lot so both Wagner and I think something big is about to happen.”

  Mei glanced at the spire. “That will not be done soon.”

  Charlie’s eyes flicked to it. “What is it?”

  “A Miasmatic Distribution Spire.”

  “A what?”

  Mei shrugged. “Maggie said it can spread any sort of gaseous fluid over a wide area. We don’t know what or why.” She glanced at Charlie. “What do you think is about to happen?”

  Charlie shook his head. “We have no idea.”

  Mei thought about it. “There is one thing happening soon.”

  Charlie gasped. “The Qe Master’s Exam.”

  Mei nodded. “We’ll be prepared. Anything else?”

  Charlie smiled. “Would you like to come down to my cabin?”

  Mei stared.

  “Jens and I want to get away for a while, and I thought it might be good for you too, to be away from all this.”

  Charlie’s cabin was deep in the forests south of Bradford, where she could wander around, stalk a few local animals before they hid for the winter, breath fresh clean air, be free.

  Which she wouldn’t actually be because she’d have abandoned her responsibilities.

  She shook her head.

  Charlie nodded. “Well, the offer’s always open. Good luck with your brother.”

  Dancing in Autumn's Rain to Amazon which means another edit pass, writing a blurb, and getting a cover made. I plan to post a new chapter here by July, assuming nothing else goes wrong.