Deep Space Blues: Coin Isle Swing Vol 2
Prologue. All In
The Blue Hour is out of crystal, and Jace Keller is out of Crowns.
Gemma swears the man across the table is holding nothing.
So Jace pushes in every chip he has, and then the one thing he can't afford to lose.
The sail.
Chapter 1. The Sail
The Sail — Chapter 1
The Laurel Salon is a private card club near the top of Crown Spire, the Dominion's gold station high above Aurica. Outside its long window, two porters carry a big patched red sail down the pier.
[Picture: red sail]
Jace Keller: That's my sail.
[Picture: red sail]
Vittor Lisk: It was your sail, Mr. Keller. Now it's the most expensive tablecloth on Crown Spire. Sit, please. The wine's free. It's only the cards that cost.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The man across the table is an Ashen with polished horns capped in gold and a coat of dark blue velvet. He turns a small silver token over in his gloved fingers. A plain black ring sits on his left hand.
[Picture: silver token]
Gemma Drury: He had a pair of fours, Red. I stood behind that dealer for three hours and watched every card he dealt.
Vittor Lisk: And yet, four kings. Cards are like people, Miss Drury. They change when nobody's looking.
[Picture: four kings]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: I was looking.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: You said he had nothing, Drury. I'm the one who threw in the sail.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Don't be nice to me. I'll cry on his carpet, and it looks expensive.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar comes back from the bar with a little stack of silver in his hand. He's smiling.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
Ottar Brack: I bet the waiter five Marks you'd put the sail in. He said nobody's that stupid.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
Jace Keller: You bet against me?
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: I bet on you, kid. I've just known you longer than the waiter has.
[Picture: character Vittor Lisk smug]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The salon doors bang open. A barefoot girl with messy red hair marches across the thick carpet with a little white drone bobbing beside her. Three nobles put down their cards to stare.
Edie Marlowe: Jace! Two men in green coats took our sail off the mast. Edie told them no. They said it was paperwork.
Vittor Lisk: You must be the mechanic. Shoes are usually required in the salon, but I'll make an exception for anyone who frightens my porters.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Let me be plain, since it's late. I don't want your sail. I want a job done, and the sail is how I know you'll finish it.
Vittor Lisk: There's a man on Lucrece named Edmond Corbel, Keeper of the Night Vaults at the Treasury. He copied the Regent's seal, wrote himself some very official orders, and moved sixty thousand Crowns of Treasury gold into vault 112 at the Stone Vaults.
Ottar Brack: And how does a man in a card club on Crown Spire know what's sitting in a vault on Lucrece?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Corbel has a partner, a customs man. He comes up for the licence hearings, drinks at my tables, loses, and brags to cheer himself up. Men who lose always talk. And they always come back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: So go tell somebody.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: I sell what people tell me, Mr. Keller. The Regent's people will pay well for this, but they'll want proof, and that means rooftops and locks and men with knives. I don't do rooftops.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: What's it pay?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Your sail back, five hundred Crowns, and one small fee. Corbel keeps a little stone key in that vault, carved with rings. I sold it to him once when I needed cash, and I'd like it back.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: And if we say no?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Then the sail stays a tablecloth, and your ship stays on my pier. I don't make threats, Mr. Keller. I just tell people the odds.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace looks out the window. His sail is disappearing into a storeroom at the end of the pier.
[Picture: red sail]
Gemma Drury: We can't fly, Red. He isn't giving us a choice. He's just being nice about it.
[Picture: red sail]
Jace Keller: We're in. Why us, though?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: My guests have names to lose. And I just watched you bet your sail on Miss Drury's word. A man like that finishes things.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Start with the forger, a little Cogling in the Scrivener Quarter on Coin Isle named Nib Fettle. Find him before Corbel decides to tidy up.
On the way out, Ottar leans down to Jace's ear.
Ottar Brack: Never trust a man who wins at cards and smiles about it.
Jace Keller: You just won five Marks and you're smiling.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: That was a bet, kid. You can't stack a waiter.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Four days later, the Blue Hour comes down to Lucrece, an ocean world of island cities, under a grey sail borrowed from Lisk's porters. It's two sizes too small.
The woman at the corner tea room says the little forger hasn't slept at home all week. He sleeps on the roofs now, because somebody keeps knocking on his door at night.
Gemma Drury: A forger who sleeps on roofs. He's either very scared or very romantic.
Ottar Brack: Scared. A romantic man sleeps near the kitchen.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Edie slept on roofs all the time on Sump. You can see everybody coming, and the stars are closer. Also, bells.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Across the canal, little bells start ringing, coming closer fast. A tiny man comes over the next roof at a sprint, his brass eye flashing in the lamplight.
Nib Fettle: Move! They've got dogs!
Jace Keller: Nib Fettle?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: Depends who's asking and how fast you run!
[Picture: previous speaker]
WARNING SHEET. WIRE HOUND. Danger low. Union-made guard dog. It obeys whoever holds its whistle. Lose the whistle and it bites everybody.
[Picture: stamp low]
Two dog-shaped machines of brass ribs and steel wire come over the ridge behind him, red lenses glowing, a little brass bell swinging under each chin. Two men in grey coats run after them.
[Picture: wire hound front]
[Picture: wire hound front]
Nib jumps the gap to the next roof and doesn't make it. His fingers catch the gutter on the far side, and the tiles start to slide.
Jace jumps after him and lands flat on his stomach. Gemma lands beside him with her tail out for balance. Each of them grabs one of Nib's wrists.
Nib Fettle: Don't drop me! These are very valuable hands!
Gemma Drury: So are mine, Specs. Kick your feet.
Jace Keller: On three. One...
They don't wait for three. They haul him up over the gutter, and all three roll onto the tiles as the first hound lands on the roof behind them.
The hounds circle them with their steel jaws clicking. Across the roof, one of the two men lifts a brass whistle to his mouth.
[Picture: brass whistle]
Edie Marlowe: Oh! Brakka hounds. Union-made. You can tell by the bells.
[Picture: brass whistle]
Jace Keller: Kid, this is a bad time for a lesson.
[Picture: brass whistle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: It's not a lesson. It's a whistle.
[Picture: brass whistle]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie hops up onto a chimney pot, puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles one long, rising note. Both hounds stop dead, fold their wire legs and sit.
Edie Marlowe: Good dogs! Your owners are bad men, though. That's not your fault.
The man blows his own whistle, hard. The hounds look at him, look back at Edie, and stay sitting.
Edie Marlowe: Sump kids learn the whistles before they learn to read. Edie learned both the same week.
Behind the two men, a huge one-armed Gorr steps out from behind a chimney and rests his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Ottar Brack: Evening, gentlemen.
The men look at the sitting hounds, the old knight and the hand cannon on Jace's hip. Then they run, jumping roof to roof until they're gone. Edie whistles two short notes, and the hounds trot off the other way.
Nib's workshop is one narrow room above a closed shop, packed with paper, pens and seal stamps. He locks the door four times before he'll say a word.
Nib Fettle: The Regent's seal is the best thing I've ever made. Three rings, a crown, and a border of laurel leaves so fine you need a glass to count them. I counted all two hundred and twelve.
[Picture: seal stamp]
Nib Fettle: And now men with dogs want me dead, so maybe it was a mistake. But as art? Perfect.
[Picture: seal stamp]
Gemma Drury: Who paid you, Specs?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: A man in a mask, who talked to me like I was a dog that could write. But he wore a gold ring with a little key on it, and only one man on Lucrece wears that ring. Edmond Corbel.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He taps his brass eye. Its tiny lenses click, very pleased with themselves.
Gemma Drury: If he stamped your seal on Treasury orders, can you prove it's a copy?
Nib Fettle: Every artist signs his work. I sign mine where nobody looks. There's a tiny gap in the third ring of every seal I've ever cut. You'd need my eye to find it, or a good glass and a week.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: It's been three months. Why send the dogs now?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: Last week the masked man came back for one more paper. A letter from a Compact raid captain, ordering his men to rob the Stone Vaults through the water gate. It even thanks some Union sailors in Brassport for their help.
[Picture: raid letter]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: It's for the night before the Treasury count, which is two nights from now. Once I'd written it, I knew too much. So, dogs.
[Picture: raid letter]
Gemma Drury: So he fills a private vault with Treasury gold, and then fake raiders rob it. The Compact and the Union take the blame, and the gold's gone for good.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: And the one man who can prove the orders were forged gets chased off a roof.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: I'll tell a judge all of it. I've got rules, you know. I don't forge debt papers. A forged debt paper sent my sister to the work camps on Belvair.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma stops looking around the room. She looks at him instead.
Gemma Drury: I burned a vault full of debt papers once. On the Night Bazaar.
Nib Fettle: The Counting House fire? That was you? Every forger in the galaxy heard about that. Half of us cried. Some of those were beautiful forgeries.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: All right, I'm yours. Keep me alive till a judge hears me.
Edie has been standing very close to Nib for a while, staring into his brass eye.
Edie Marlowe: Five lenses. And a focus ring that turns all by itself. Rufus, look!
[Picture: rufus]
Nib Fettle: Nobody ever looks! They all just ask if it hurts. The fifth lens is for finding lies in contracts. Can I keep her?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Nobody keeps her. She just shows up.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Your third lock was sad, so Edie mended it while everybody was talking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: So. We've got a witness. Tomorrow we need to get into a vault, and Red's never even been inside a bank.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I've been inside a bank.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: As a customer?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: We go tomorrow.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 2. Three Hundred and Twelve
Three Hundred and Twelve — Chapter 2
The Stone Vaults are a tall grey island in the Vault Reefs, south of Coin Isle. Its cliffs are full of round iron doors, each with a number painted over it.
A tall woman crosses the cool stone hall toward them with heavy steps. She wears steel plate over a brass frame, a warhammer on her belt and a gold amulet at her throat.
Gisele Marchant: Gisele Marchant, chief of guards. You're not clients. Real clients don't stare at the ceiling.
Jace Keller: It's a nice ceiling.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: It's a rock. What do you want?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: A look at the order book for vault 112.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: No.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: You haven't heard the nice version yet, Chief.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: I've heard every version. The nice one, the crying one and the one with a knife. I don't open a vault or a book without leave from the bankers.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Her eyes move to Ottar's faded pale blue tunic, and they stay there.
Gisele Marchant: That's an Order tunic.
Ottar Brack: Thirty years, ma'am. It still fits. Mostly.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Then maybe you can tell me something. One of our vaults has scratched every night for a week, from the inside. The renter hasn't come in for two years, and the bankers say leave it shut.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: There's frost on the door every morning. I've worked on this island eight years, and it's never once been cold here.
Ottar goes very still.
Jace Keller: We've seen cold like that. On Hush.
Gisele Marchant: Nobody goes to Hush.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: We did. It was very dark, and there was a lady who'd been asleep for a hundred and seventy years. Edie liked her a lot.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Here's my offer. You open vault three hundred and twelve, you look, and you shut it again, and nobody writes anything down. Then you can read the order book for 112. Read. Not touch.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Why not send your own guards?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: My guards write everything down. I trained them to. And the renter took the only key.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Chief Marchant. Are you asking a thief to pick a lock in your bank?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: I'm going to look the other way while you do it. It'll be my first time, so be quick in case I'm bad at it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Two hundred steps down, a figure of polished steel steps out of an alcove and lowers a long halberd across the corridor.
[Picture: vault guardian front]
WARNING SHEET. VAULT GUARDIAN. Danger medium. Bound to one seal and one door. Carry the seal or don't come any closer.
[Picture: stamp medium]
It has no face, only a smooth gold mask with one slot for its eyes. A heavy iron lock is built into the middle of its chest.
[Picture: vault guardian front]
Edie Marlowe: Hello, tall. You're very shiny. Who polishes you? Does it tickle?
Gisele Marchant: It doesn't talk back. It's bound to the bank's seal. Whoever carries the seal walks past. Everybody else gets the sharp end.
[Picture: previous speaker]
She lifts the gold amulet from her throat. The guardian raises its halberd and steps back into its alcove.
[Picture: vault guardian front]
At the end of the corridor, the scratching vault's iron door is white with frost. A young guard named Tomas stands beside it with a lamp, trying hard not to look at it. From inside comes a slow scratching, like long fingers dragging over stone.
[Picture: frost]
Ottar Brack: Lamps. Every lamp on this level, right here, before anybody opens that door.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: lantern]
Gemma Drury: Cold lock, old lock. Look the other way, Chief.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: lantern]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: I'm looking at the ceiling. It's a very nice rock.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: lantern]
[Picture: previous speaker]
The lock clicks. The door swings open, and cold rolls out over their boots. Inside, crates of black crystal are stacked to the ceiling, white with frost. In the middle of the floor, the stone has split open in a long black crack.
[Picture: frost]
WARNING SHEET. DARK REACHER. Danger high. Lives in cracks in the ground and reaches out twenty feet. The Order marks its cracks with red stones. Keep a lamp lit.
[Picture: stamp high]
Two long black arms slide up out of the crack. They're thin and see-through, with frost running down them, and each hand has four long fingers.
[Picture: frost]
[Picture: dark reacher front]
One black hand shoots out through the doorway and closes around Tomas's ankle. It yanks him off his feet and drags him across the frost toward the crack.
Gemma Drury: Grandpa! Light!
Ottar walks straight into the vault with a lamp held high. Gold light pours over the crates, and both black arms flinch away from it.
Ottar Brack: Let go of the boy.
The hand opens. Gemma grabs Tomas by the collar and hauls him backwards out the door, both of them sliding on the frost.
Edie Marlowe: Lamps! Everybody give Edie lamps!
They line every lamp on the level along the crack. The black arms slide back into the dark, the scratching stops, and Gemma locks the door again.
[Picture: lamp glow]
Gisele Marchant: Ten years in the navy. I fought pirates, raiders and one very angry admiral. I never saw a hand do that.
[Picture: lamp glow]
Gisele Marchant: Tomas, you're taking tomorrow off. Don't argue. It's a rule. I just made it.
[Picture: lamp glow]
Ottar Brack: It lives in cracks. The Order calls them reachers, and we mark their cracks with red stones. Keep the lamps lit in there. Always.
[Picture: lamp glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: In a bank vault, though? Why here?
[Picture: lamp glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Black crystal calls them, ma'am. Two years of it sitting in a box, and something came up through the rock to see what it was.
[Picture: lamp glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Through my floor.
[Picture: lamp glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Through anybody's. Write to the Order. Tell them Ottar Brack said hurry.
[Picture: lamp glow]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele is pale, but she keeps her word and opens the order book. The line for the scratching vault has no name in it, only a ring pressed into black wax, plain and round. Gemma looks at it a moment longer than anyone else.
[Picture: order book]
The entries for vault 112 show thirty-six chests of gold, all brought in at night, every order stamped with the Regent's seal in red. Nib climbs onto the stool and puts his brass eye an inch from the seal.
[Picture: treasury order]
Nib Fettle: Third ring. Look, right there, the little gap. That's my gap!
[Picture: treasury order]
Nib Fettle: Which means they'll probably hang me. But look how clean it is.
[Picture: treasury order]
Gisele Marchant: A forged order. In my book.
[Picture: treasury order]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: The bank promises secrecy to the renter of vault 112. That renter is a false name, and I don't keep promises to people who don't exist. Come on. I want to see what a forgery buys.
Gisele turns her master key, and the round door swings open. Treasury chests are stacked to the ceiling, and the open ones are packed with gold bars.
Edie Marlowe: Edie didn't know gold came in walls.
On a shelf by the door sits a small velvet box. Gemma lifts the lid with one finger. Inside, on old blue cloth, lies a little grey stone key carved all over with rings.
Jace Keller: So. Navy, Chief?
Gisele Marchant: Ten years. Deck marine. Why?
Jace Keller: You hold that hammer like you've hit a lot of people with it.
Gisele Marchant: Mostly pirates. A few pilots.
Behind her, Gemma's gloved fingers lift the key out of the box and close the lid without a sound. On Edie's belt, her little radio starts to hum, so softly that only Edie notices.
Gisele has just locked the vault again when a thick-set man in a grey customs coat comes down the corridor with four marines. He has a red beard, a big easy smile and a small black notebook in his breast pocket.
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
Hugo Mercer: Gisele! My favorite chief of guards! Hugo Mercer, customs, everybody. Just a routine look. And who are all you lovely people?
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
Jace Keller: Jace Keller. Pilot.
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Hugo Mercer: A pilot! Wonderful. Keller, with two Ls?
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
[Picture: previous speaker]
He slaps Jace on the back and writes it down. Then he spots the little Cogling hiding behind Ottar's leg, and his smile stops moving.
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
Hugo Mercer: Well, look at that eye. There's a paper out on a forger with a brass one, you know.
[Picture: character Nib Fettle afraid]
Nib Fettle: Lots of people have brass eyes! They're very fashionable this year!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Hugo Mercer: Marines. Take the little fellow.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele steps into the middle of the corridor and sets her tall shield down on the stone between the marines and Nib with a clang.
Gisele Marchant: No. You can inspect my halls, Hugo. You can't arrest a guest of this bank inside its vaults without the bank's leave. Down here, that's me.
Hugo looks at the shield, the warhammer and the huge one-armed knight behind it. His marines look at Hugo. Then he laughs, very loudly, and throws an arm around Jace.
Hugo Mercer: Rules are rules! Love a woman who knows her rules!
He slaps Jace on the back again, hard and friendly. On his other side, Gemma's fingers slide the black notebook out of his breast pocket and into her jacket.
Hugo marches his marines out, whistling. Down by the dock, Gemma sets two things on a crate, a little grey stone key and a small black notebook.
[Picture: key box]
Jace Keller: She trusted us, Drury.
[Picture: key box]
Gemma Drury: She trusted us with the gold, Red. I didn't touch a single bar.
[Picture: key box]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Hugo saw Specs. He'll go running to Corbel.
[Picture: key box]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: He'll tell Corbel the forger's with us. He won't tell him he lost his notebook. Men like Hugo never tell the boss they lost the list.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Then Corbel calls the whole thing off.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: He can't, Grandpa. The count's the day after tomorrow. Either that vault's empty tomorrow night, or he hangs.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: There's a note folded in the back from the raid boss. He signs with a T and spells "gate" with two Es.
[Picture: notebook]
Nib Fettle: Bad spelling is the easiest hand in the world to copy. You just have to stop caring.
[Picture: notebook]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: And on the last page, still smudged, "Jace Keller, pilot, ask about his licence."
[Picture: notebook]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I'm in a notebook.
[Picture: notebook]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma turns back to the front page, and her face goes still.
[Picture: notebook]
Gemma Drury: Thirty-one names, Red. Union sailors in Brassport. And at the top, in his best writing, "Arrest the morning after the robbery."
[Picture: notebook]
Ottar Brack: Thirty-one men who've never been near a vault. Then tomorrow night, we get there first.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 3. The Water Gate
The Water Gate — Chapter 3
The next afternoon, there's a chalk map of the Stone Vaults on an old sail cloth in the Blue Hour's cargo hold. Gisele Marchant sits on a crate that's too small for her, and her armour scrapes the ceiling every time she leans forward.
Gisele Marchant: Before anybody asks, I'm here because my bank is getting robbed tonight. And my bankers would rather lose sixty thousand Crowns than admit a forged order got past them.
Nib Fettle: Why don't we just go to the Treasury? Tell them everything. They have judges. I love judges.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Corbel is the Treasury. At night, anyway. Who do you think opens the letters?
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Hand them proof, and it ends up in his drawer. We need him caught holding the gold, in front of people nobody can buy.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: That's my guards. I've got six I'd trust with my life. I'd even trust them with your money.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Problem one. Corbel won't be there. The raid boss's note says he'll be at a Treasury dinner tonight, with forty people who'll swear he never left his chair.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Nib Fettle: So we write him a better note.
[Picture: forged note]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: In T's own terrible hand. "Lift won't take your key. Come down yourself or we sail empty."
[Picture: forged note]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: He'll come. A man with sixty thousand reasons always comes. If that gold isn't on the water tonight, the count finds it missing tomorrow, and his name is on every order.
[Picture: forged note]
Edie Marlowe: The note says the lift's broken, so Edie breaks the lift. Then it's not a lie. It's news.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Problem two. Twelve hired men, a fast barge and the open sea behind them. Six guards come down the stairs, and those men sail off with the gold.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: There's an iron gate at the sea end of the tunnel. It drops on a chain, but it takes a strong man on the lever.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: I've got one good arm. That's plenty for a lever.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Chief, what's behind the big round door in the tunnel wall? The really old one, with the dials.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: The main vault. The Treasury keeps its reserve in there. And the thing that guards it.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: The Treasury built four giant guard machines, and one stands at that vault's front door. Twenty feet of gold plate. Last year somebody tried to change its orders, and ever since it thinks everyone near a vault door is a thief. My guards, the clerks, me.
Edie Marlowe: And if somebody opened the old door into the tunnel?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: It would come through and grab everyone near it. Everyone, Miss Marlowe.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Everyone's the idea.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar looks at her for a long moment, then starts to laugh, low and slow.
Ottar Brack: I like the kid's plans. They always sound worse than mine. Then they work.
Jace Keller: So. Kid's on the lift and the old door. Big man's on the sea gate. The chief waits at the top of the stairs with her six guards, and Specs stays up there too.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: And you and me?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: We lie on the walkway over the dock and watch. When Corbel's got his hands on the gold, I go down and keep him talking.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: You? Talking? Red, you say "hi" and then you look at people.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Every plan's good till the first punch, kid. After that it's just a list of what you meant to do.
[Picture: previous speaker]
On Edie's belt, the little radio is humming again. She taps it twice and frowns.
[Picture: radio hum]
Edie Marlowe: It's been humming since the vault. It's the same hum as on Hush, only closer. Edie took it apart twice.
[Picture: radio hum]
Jace Keller: Later, kid.
[Picture: radio hum]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Under the island, the sea runs in through a long stone tunnel to a dock lit by a few lamps. A huge iron gate hangs open at the tunnel's mouth, and an old round vault door with brass dials is set into the rock.
At one bell after midnight, a long flat barge slides in from the reef with no lamps lit. Twelve men in orange sashes tie it up at the dock and wait by the freight lift.
The lift doesn't come down. Edie took a part out of it at sundown. Up on an iron walkway in the dark, Jace and Gemma lie flat and watch.
Gemma Drury: Compact raiders wear orange. These ones are wearing it like a costume. That one's sash still has the shop tag on it.
Jace Keller: Quiet, Drury.
[Picture: previous speaker]
A little rowing boat comes in through the gate. Out steps a tall, lean man in a dark blue Treasury coat, with a lamp and a leather folder. On his right hand, a gold ring with a tiny key on it catches the light.
Edmond Corbel: Which of you wrote me that note? Never mind. I don't care who here can write.
He puts his gold key in the lift's lock and turns it twice. The lift doesn't move.
Edmond Corbel: Then carry them down the stairs. You're paid by the chest, aren't you? That's what people like you are for.
An hour later, the barge sits low in the water under a load of gold chests. Corbel stands at the edge of the dock with his lamp held high, ticking off each chest in his folder.
Edmond Corbel: Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Careful with that one. It's worth more than your village.
He opens the last chest himself and lifts out a gold bar to check the Treasury stamp. Up in the dark, Gemma counts along on her fingers.
Gemma Drury: That's the last one, Red. One more minute and he's back in his boat.
Jace Keller: Then I'd better go say hi.
Jace swings down off the walkway and drops onto the dock right in front of the lamp, red cloak and all.
Jace Keller: Evening. Nice gold. Is it yours?
Twelve hired men pull out knives and short swords. Corbel doesn't move. He looks at Jace the way he'd look at a stain on his coat.
Edmond Corbel: The pilot. Hugo told me about you. Red cloak, no licence, and he travels with a forger.
Edmond Corbel: I'll be quick, because it's cold down here. A thousand Crowns to walk back up those stairs and forget tonight. Each. Your friends as well.
Gemma drops down beside Jace without a sound.
Jace Keller: And thirty-one sailors go to jail.
Edmond Corbel: Thirty-one men who mend rope for a living. It's a very fair price for them. I've done the sums.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Yeah. I'm bad at sums.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edmond Corbel: Then you're two thieves on a dock with stolen gold, and nobody will ask how you drowned. Kill them. Quietly. Sound carries over water.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The hired men rush them. Jace jumps onto the barge and fights from the top of the gold chests, his cutlass in one hand and a gold bar in the other, knocking men off into the water.
Gemma ducks under a swinging blade and slices through a man's belt. His trousers drop around his ankles.
Gemma Drury: Sorry! You'll want a new costume anyway!
Corbel climbs into his rowing boat, still clutching his gold bar and his folder, and pushes off for the sea gate.
Jace Keller: Big man! The gate!
At the far end of the tunnel, Ottar throws his whole weight on an iron lever. The huge gate crashes down into the sea right in front of Corbel's boat.
Ottar Brack: Nobody leaves the table till the plates are clean!
The hired men in the water are already climbing back onto the dock, and the crew is badly outnumbered. Jace grabs the radio off his belt.
Jace Keller: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Kid. Now.
Edie Marlowe: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Opening! Everybody hold on to something that isn't a door!
WARNING SHEET. TREASURY COLOSSUS. Danger very high. Twenty feet of gold plate built to guard one door. Since last year, it thinks everyone is a thief.
[Picture: stamp very high]
The old round vault door groans open. Something huge ducks through it, a giant figure of gold-plated steel twenty feet tall, with fists the size of barrels and one long glowing slit for an eye.
[Picture: treasury colossus front]
The colossus wades into the water beside the dock. One huge hand comes down flat on four hired men at once and pins them to the stones.
The other hand plucks Corbel out of his rowing boat, gold bar, folder and all. Then it reaches across and scoops up Jace as well.
Jace Keller: Hey! I'm the good guy!
Edmond Corbel: Put me down! I am the Keeper of the Night Vaults!
Gemma is flat on the dock with one giant gold finger resting on her tail.
Gemma Drury: Red! It's sitting on my tail!
Edie Marlowe: ◉ ▂▄▆█ It's got Edie by the foot. Turns out she counts as everyone.
Lamps come pouring down the stairs. Gisele marches onto the dock with six guards behind her and her hammer up, and Nib runs after them holding a lamp over his head.
The colossus stands perfectly still, with Edmond Corbel in one fist and Jace Keller in the other. Gisele swings the old vault door shut and turns her key in the lock.
[Picture: treasury colossus front]
Gisele Marchant: Door's safe. Stand down.
The colossus lets go of the hired men, Gemma's tail and Edie's foot, and Gisele's guards start tying up the men in sashes. The two big fists stay shut.
[Picture: treasury colossus front]
Jace Keller: Chief?
[Picture: gold bar]
Gisele Marchant: It won't let go of anyone who's holding vault gold, Keller.
[Picture: gold bar]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace looks down. In the fight he picked up a gold bar to hit someone with, and he's still holding it.
[Picture: gold bar]
Edie Marlowe: Jace. Hand.
[Picture: gold bar]
Jace lets go of the gold bar. The colossus opens its fist, and he falls straight into the sea.
[Picture: splash]
[Picture: treasury colossus front]
Gisele Marchant: Drop it, Corbel.
[Picture: splash]
Edmond Corbel: This is Treasury gold, and I am the Treasury.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Then you can hang there until the Treasury comes and gets you.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Corbel's leather folder slips out of the giant fist and lands on the dock. Nib picks it up and flips it open under his lamp.
[Picture: folder]
Nib Fettle: There it is! The raid captain's letter, the one I forged for him. Third ring, little gap. He's been carrying it around like a packed lunch.
[Picture: raid letter]
Gemma Drury: And here's what his friend Hugo had planned for the morning. Thirty-one names.
[Picture: notebook]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Edmond Corbel. The guards of the Stone Vaults are holding you for the robbery of vault 112.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Technically, the statue's holding him.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar reaches down into the water and hauls Jace out by the back of his cloak.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
Jace Keller: Nobody say anything.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
Ottar Brack: Wasn't going to, kid. I'll just tell it in every bar from here to Vigil.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Best night we've had in a month.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: You're soaking wet, and a statue arrested you.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: Like I said.
[Picture: character Gisele Marchant amused]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Chapter 4. Swing
Swing — Chapter 4
Morning on Coin Isle. The white city climbs its hill to the gold domes of the Treasury, and the harbour is full of sails.
Treasury guards walk two men down the long pier in cuffs. One is tall and neat in a dark blue coat. The other is red-faced and talking the whole way.
Hugo Mercer: I want it written down that I was very helpful! Somebody write it down! Doesn't anybody here carry a notebook?
[Picture: notebook]
Corbel stops beside the red cloak. He doesn't look at Jace. He looks at a spot just past him.
Edmond Corbel: You'll fly cargo for coppers until the day you die, Keller.
Jace Keller: Probably. Sounds nice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
The guards walk them on. Down the harbour, a Union freighter casts off with its whole crew up on deck. Not one of the thirty-one names in Hugo's notebook is going to jail.
A few of the sailors wave at the red cloak on the pier. They have no idea why. They just like the look of him.
Nib comes running down the pier in a clean waistcoat, waving a paper with a big Treasury stamp on it.
[Picture: pardon]
Nib Fettle: A pardon! Well, half of one. The other half comes after the trial. I tell the court everything, and they forget all about the seal.
[Picture: pardon]
Nib Fettle: I'm going to tell them about the laurel leaves, too. All two hundred and twelve.
Gisele walks up behind him in full armour. She hasn't slept, and she doesn't seem to mind.
Gisele Marchant: Corbel's in a Treasury cell. Hugo cried twice before breakfast. I'd call that a good night.
Gemma Drury: So! Let's talk about the finder's fee.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: The banks of Tally Ring pay a fee on every Crown of gold that gets saved. The arrest was made by the bank's guards. So the fee goes to the bank.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: We found the gold!
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: In my bank. Rules.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: How much was the fee?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: You don't want to know.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace Keller: I want to know.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gisele Marchant: Six thousand Crowns.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma sits down on a mooring post and puts her face in her hands.
Ottar Brack: Well. We weren't using it.
Gisele Marchant: The Treasury counted vault 112 this morning. Thirty-six chests of gold, and one empty velvet box on a shelf.
[Picture: velvet box empty]
[Picture: previous speaker]
She looks at Gemma, who suddenly finds the sky very interesting.
[Picture: velvet box empty]
Gisele Marchant: They asked me what was in the box. I told them I didn't know. That's true. I was talking to a pilot about hammers.
[Picture: velvet box empty]
Gisele Marchant: It wasn't on any order, so nobody can report it missing. And you dragged Tomas out of three hundred and twelve. We're square.
Gisele Marchant: One more thing. A Treasury clerk is on his way down the pier. He wants to thank the captain of the Blue Hour, pay him a small reward and see his helm licence.
Down the pier, a small man in a Treasury coat is walking toward them with a purse in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
[Picture: purse]
Gemma Drury: Red. He's got a purse.
[Picture: purse]
Jace Keller: He's got a clipboard.
[Picture: previous speaker]
They look at each other.
Jace Keller: Kid. Start the helm.
Edie Marlowe: Edie started it at "licence."
[Picture: previous speaker]
The Blue Hour pulls away from the pier under its little grey sail. Nib runs along the edge beside it and throws a folded paper onto the deck.
[Picture: licence]
Nib Fettle: A present! A helm licence for the Blue Hour! It's better than real. The real ones have mistakes in them!
[Picture: licence]
Gisele Marchant: I didn't see that either. Don't come back, Keller. I mean that kindly.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Out in open space, the Blue Hour rides the current back toward Crown Spire. Jace unfolds Nib's licence on the console.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
It's perfect. The seal is right, the signatures are right, and there's even a faded coffee ring on one corner, the way real ones always have.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
Edie Marlowe: Last time somebody offered you one of those, you said no.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
Jace Keller: He was trying to bribe me. This one's a present.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: A forged licence is just a fine you haven't paid yet, kid.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Jace folds the licence, puts it in the drawer under the console and shuts it. He doesn't say what he's going to do with it.
[Picture: licence]
[Picture: radio hum]
Gemma Drury: You were a lovely distraction in that vault, Red. It's time you learned the other half.
[Picture: radio hum]
Jace Keller: I don't need the other half.
[Picture: radio hum]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: Everybody needs the other half.
[Picture: radio hum]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma holds her jacket open like a market stall. It has twelve pockets inside, and a few of them are fake.
Gemma Drury: One of these has a Crown in it. Find it, and you can keep it.
Jace goes through every pocket very carefully. He finds a lock pick, a button, a copper Bit and a lot of lint. No Crown.
When he looks up, Gemma is holding his flight goggles up beside her face. His forehead is bare.
Gemma Drury: Lesson two's next week, Red.
Jace Keller: What's lesson two?
Gemma Drury: Getting them back.
Four days later, on Crown Spire. The Laurel Salon is quiet in the afternoon. Vittor Lisk sits at his window table, shuffling a deck of cards with one hand.
Vittor Lisk: Mr. Keller. Miss Drury. All of you. The whole station is talking about a gold statue on Lucrece that arrested a Keeper of the Treasury. I did hope it was you.
Jace Keller: It was mostly the statue.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma sets the little stone key down on the green cloth. Lisk looks at it without touching it. His smile doesn't change, but the hand shuffling the cards goes still.
[Picture: stone key]
Vittor Lisk: Thank you. It's just as I left it.
[Picture: stone key]
Vittor Lisk: Your sail is on the pier, cleaned and aired. And here are your five hundred Crowns, less storage. Fourteen days in my best room, at thirty-five Crowns a day.
Gemma Drury: That's four hundred and ninety.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: You're very quick, Miss Drury.
[Picture: previous speaker]
He slides ten gold Crowns across the table.
[Picture: ten crowns]
Jace Keller: You charged us rent on our own sail.
[Picture: ten crowns]
Vittor Lisk: On my sail, Mr. Keller. It was mine until a minute ago.
[Picture: ten crowns]
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: And the proof you were going to sell the Regent's people? Corbel's in a cell. Everybody knows.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: I sold it to them the morning after. They like to hear things before the harbour does.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: So you got paid twice.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Three times. Don't forget the storage.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Gemma Drury: What does a man like you want with a rock?
[Picture: previous speaker]
Vittor Lisk: Sentiment, Miss Drury. It comes from Oldmark. So do I.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Ten Crowns. That's two small crystals, or one crystal and a sack of onions.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Edie Marlowe: Crystals. The helm's hungry.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Ottar Brack: Eat first, kid. The helm can wait a day. I can't.
[Picture: previous speaker]
Out on the gold pier, salon porters haul the big patched red sail back up the Blue Hour's mast. Edie rides up with it, barefoot, waving at nobody.
Ottar takes a line in his one hand and pulls. The red sail drops open and fills with blue light from the current.
Edie Marlowe: Hello, sail! Did you miss us? The grey one was so boring.
At the helm, Jace rests his hand on the brass chair and smiles.
Edie Marlowe: Oh. The hum stopped.
Jace Keller: Told you it'd fix itself.
Edie Marlowe: It didn't fix itself. It hummed all week, ever since the vault, and now it's just stopped.
Gemma looks back at the salon's long window. Lisk is standing in it, turning the little stone key over in his gloved fingers.
The dock radio crackles as the Blue Hour pulls away from the pier.
Vittor Lisk: ◉ ▂▄▆█ Mr. Keller. I may have more work for you. You're good at doing the right thing. It's rarer than you'd think.
Jace turns the radio off. The red sail fills, and the Blue Hour slides out into open space with ten Crowns aboard.