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CHAPTER 2: THE PRISM PACT

The hall to Lord Parlow's study was eerily quiet—not a single servant or mechanical. It might have been luck, but Tabitha Grey knew better. She saw it for what it was. A Spect had already passed through. Perhaps newly apprenticed, with orders to clear a path.

Papered walls were lined with doors and wooden alcoves. Each held a statue more ostentatious than the last. So boastful. So unnecessary.

Careful to keep her gown from swishing, she moved in silence. She was silence. Even the air pressing against her was still. She strode to the far end. Her eyes flicked past each alcove, taking in every detail, lingering over every shadow. Perfect hiding places—perfect for an ambush.

Her skin prickled and she froze mid-step, turning to the left. The alcove beside her was occupied. He wore a mask not so different from the one newly covering her face. They stared at each other for several beats.

"Respect," she murmured, breaking the silence, lifting two fingers to her brow. His half mask was shrouded by the statue beside him. She studied it, studied his build, the outline of his mouth, his posture. He wore the attire of a gentleman, a guest at the ball. She didn't see any prisms on him, but they were there, hidden somewhere. What were his colors, then? His strengths? One look at her neck showed she wielded violet. A heptachrome.

"Respect," he murmured, returning her two-finger salute. His teeth flashed in the darkness—a predator's smile. "My orders are complete. The way is clear." His voice was little more than a whisper.

She nodded and moved towards Parlow's study where she paused, keeping him in her sights. Waiting. "Well?"

He pushed off the wall, offering her a final nod before disappearing down the hallway. She waited a breath longer, then lifted a hand over her necklace and focused her thoughts, coaxing violet from her prisms. The tendrils of light followed her command like wisps of smoke, directed into the door's keyhole. As the snakes of color filled the lock, she sensed its movement and flicked her wrist. An audible click split the silence. She released the light; it disbursed. The last vestiges of color faded from sight. She was in.


***


Conrad Steiner spotted Lord Parlow and went for him, skirting the dancing couples before any other hopefuls pulled him away. His conversation with Tabitha Grey still echoed in his mind.

Parlow noticed his approach and waived him over, sloshing his drink. Light! Was he drunk already?

"Steiner, my fellow! Good to see you!" Parlow gripped his shoulder.

He returned the familiar gesture, offering the drunk lord a smile. "Enjoying yourself, I see?"

"Quite. And you?"

"Oh, quite."

"Good! Good." Parlow downed his drink and motioned for another. A mechanical stepped up—perhaps never having left his side in the first place—with a tray to collect the empty glass. Another appeared with a new one.

Parlow turned. "I'm surprised you left the floor. Plenty of pretty partners to dance with, eh, Steiner? Glad you took my suggestion and agreed to come after all? Much better than hiding away in that townhouse of yours."

He liked his townhouse. And hiding away. "Indeed. You know I like my fun. Wouldn't have missed it."

It was a lie he was happy to perpetuate.

Parlow laughed, letting it boom from his chest. "The last girl looked promising, hmm?" Parlow's eyes danced across the room, searching. He wouldn't find her though. She'd already slipped out. "Quite the bold ensemble if I must say—all dressed in violet? And so young..."

"Miss Webb, you mean?"

"Ah!" Parlow snapped his fingers. "Yes. That's her name. Miss...Webb. Perhaps if I were a bit more sprightly."

"Like that has ever stopped you."

Parlow laughed, throwing his head back. He was widowed six years ago and hadn't bothered to remarry. There were plenty of young women chomping at the bit. His newfound bachelor life suited him well—a little too well.

Parlow steered him away to a corner of the room. "We need to talk."

"I figured. Perhaps a quieter place? Your study?"

"No, no, this will do fine." Parlow hesitated, glancing about before carrying on. "The crown is onto us, I think, for the uprising. Prince Edwin—always with his nose in my business."

"It can be no surprise."

"Yes, well, I had hoped it would take him longer." Parlow frowned. "Most of the rebels were silenced."

"Most," he agreed, "but not all. A few were privy to your involvement. Had you heeded my warning, gone about this in a more resourceful manner..." He let the words go unfinished. "You know what happens when so many are involved."

Parlow had been careless—too careless. It was a shame, really. A shame he hadn't listened to sound advice. Most of Candela's rebels were desperate, struggling to feed their families. Coal miners, especially. Easily manipulated for a sack of coin. Parlow had preyed on that.

"Bah!" Parlow shook his head. "Let them point fingers."

"They might do more than that." He gave Parlow a knowing look, but said no more.

Parlow opened his mouth to respond, but froze, cocking his head. A commotion spread across the dance floor, generating cries of outrage. Couples scattered. "Lord...Lord Parlow! Lord Par—!" A mechanical voice broke through the crowd, drawing their attention. "Make way. I insist you make way!" A sloppy aisle formed as the mechanical servant appeared, coming to a stop before Lord Parlow.

Conrad disguised his amusement, hid his snort and said, "One of your mechanicals, I take it?"

Parlow rounded on the servant, face splotched with irritation. "What the devil?! What is it now? Speak!"

"My lord." The mechanical hesitated, his head swiveling about.

Conrad chuckled. "You know...I think I'll leave you to sort things out. It's been a pleasure, Parlow."

Parlow nodded, grumbling, "These parties are more trouble than they're worth."

"That they are." He gave Parlow a clap on the shoulder and moved away, though not so far that he missed the exchange.

"My...my lord—apologies for the interruption. I came at once..." The mechanical's voice was lifeless, yet, it spoke as if out of breath. A built-in hesitation to make it more...lifelike. A smile tugged on Conrad's lips. Elias Newton did like his little additions.

"Well? Out with it you bothersome lout! You're disturbing my party." Parlow was clearly in a mood. A result of the Reddell Uprising having gone badly. "And this had better be good or I'll shut you down."

"A break-in, my lord. A break-in. Your study. You must come at once."

"A...what? What are you on about?" Parlow's voice fell to a hush. "You're certain? What did they take?"

"Take, my lord? I...I don't know. You must come at once. A break-in..."

"Yes, I know what a break-in means. Damn it all to hell. Well, let's go then."

Conrad glanced over his shoulder as Parlow was swallowed up by the crowd. Well played, Tabby, well played, indeed. He disposed of his glass and strode through the mansion to the entry, where he collected his coat and summoned his coach. It clattered up the drive. The coachman hopped down to greet him.

"Evening, Terrance," he said, returning the greeting.

"Did you have a good time, my lord."

"The very best." A snippet of Tabby's words came back and he chuckled. Nothing for his coachmen to gossip about tonight. No, indeed. Too bad.

"Excellent, sir. Where to?"

"Home, please." Though he preferred Solaris, with its rolling forests. It was more home than his townhouse ever was.

"As you wish." Terrance shut the door and climbed back into position before giving orders to depart.

"Yah!" The driver slapped the reins, spurring the horses into action.

He leaned toward the window, giving Norhaven Hall a final glance before it was swallowed up by its towering walls—walls meant to keep out city rats. "Farewell, old friend," he murmured as they rolled out onto the streets of Chroma. "We had a good run."


***


Lord Parlow's study looked as most studies do. Five tall bookshelves occupied one half of the room in neat rows. Tabitha Grey lingered over them before surveying the rest. There was a cozy, windowed alcove for reading. It overlooked a private garden. A desk took up the room's other half, with a sofa arrangement and fireplace beside it.

"About time." The sound of insect wings fluttered through the air. Nit chirped and landed on her shoulder in the form of a mechanical dragonfly. Nit's gossamer wings were made of glass and shimmered as they caught the light. "I was beginning to Bellieve our mission at an end."

She snorted, sparing Nit an affectionate glance. "It's not at an end until I have my kill." Nit was not capable of forming verbal words, so they spoke through their minds.

"Yes...well...you humans are notorious for failure. Especially when emotion gets in the way."

"What?! When have I ever failed?" She sent another tendril of violet to lock the door behind her. "And when did you become an expert on human nature?"

Nit chirped but ignored the question, instead asking, "Did it work? Will Parlow come?"

"It worked." She moved across the room. The mechanical servant wandering the halls took less than five minutes to manipulate. Three precise clicks of its winding key to disarm it. An additional two to open the back compartment of it's metallic head. She hadn't done much, simply tampered with its clockwork innards, the pieces that made up its mechanical brain.

Parlow's mahogany desk made a bold statement about the man he was. She eyed it before getting started. "The list should be here. We just have to find it." Neat stacks of parchment were piled high on its surface. "They probably signed it before the ball."

The Spectrum hadn't simply ordered Parlow's death. They'd charged her with finding a rumored list, names of prominent Technologists suspected of treasonous behavior. Candela was breaking apart from the inside. Crumbling away like the city they lived in.

Nit launched from her shoulder, taking flight. The sound of metallic gears clicked and clacked. They became a whirling ball of silver and brass, growing larger as their body shimmered and hummed. A prism glowed from within, protected by the tangle of clockwork. The inside of Tabby's wrist itched. She resisted the urge to scratch the prism fleck embedded under her skin, instead leafing through documents on Parlow's desk, ignoring the final moments of Nit's transformation.

A life-sized mechanimal monkey nearly three feet tall landed on the desk. Nit's tail clicked as they regained their balance. "Show off," she muttered, returning to the task at hand.

Nit was neither male nor female, and their voice in her mind had always sounded mechanical in nature. When she'd asked what was preferred—he or she—Nit had simply failed to understand the question. Thenceforth, she'd referred to Nit as they. It felt better than referring to Nit as an it. That was too lifeless for her—too much like an object. So much of the world saw mechanicals as objects without thought or feeling, but she never would.

"I can turn back into a dragonfly if you like," Nit teased. "See how much help I'll be then."

"No, no. A monkey is fine," she mused. "We can put those little monkey fingers of yours to work." She tackled the drawers, pulling out each in turn, careful not to disturb the contents with her gloved hands.

Nit continued leafing through the parchment on the desktop and said, "It's got to be here somewhere."

Under no circumstances could she kill Parlow before she located the document.

A muffled voice halted her progress. She tidied up the desktop, removing all traces of her presence. A moment later, she had a prism dagger in hand. Nit's bronze and silver monkey form leapt from the desk and landed on the rug with a clank. A key rattled in the lock. The signal sent her calmly striding across the room. Lord Parlow's voice was raised. Probably directed at the mechanical she'd tampered with.

Dagger in hand, she reached the bookshelves and moved into the shadows. Nit whirled into motion, clicking as they transformed into something smaller. A bee this time.

The door opened and Parlow barreled in, the mechanical hot on his heels. "What's this, eh?! I thought you said someone broke in?" Parlow's gaze darted about—as if he expected to find the assailant within—roving over the desk several times before he rounded on the mechanical. "It's empty, you dolt! The door was locked."

"I am sorry, my lord. I was certain there was a break-in." The mechanical's head swiveled back and forth—searching, lacking comprehension. She felt a pang of guilt over her manipulation.

"Useless lump of metal," Lord Parlow spat. "Next time you're urged to bother me, do me a favor and turn yourself off instead."

She bristled.

"I am sorry, my lord. I thought—"

"Never mind what you thought! Do you have a brain to think? I thought not."

But Parlow was wrong. Mechanicals did have brains. They were just different than their human counterparts. Made of wiring and electromagnetic coils instead of living tissue. Much easier to manipulate when necessary.

Lord Parlow reached behind the mechanical and clicked its winding key to the left three times. The metal body froze, arms mid-motion. Lifeless. It would remain that way until someone came along to wake the poor thing.

Parlow glanced out into the hallway then entered and locked the door. He went to his desk and opened the bottom drawer. Keeping to the shadows, she watched through Nit's grayscale vision as he reached in and tripped a latch. A hidden drawer. From within, he removed a folded sheet of parchment.

"That explains why we hadn't fount it yet," said Nit.

"Shh!!"

Parlow unfurled the document, studying it, then rose and poured himself a stiff drink. He swirled the contents around the glass and took a sip before returning to his seat. She watched him savor it. The minutes ticked by as the hands on the grandfather clock progressed. The frozen, lifeless mechanical standing beside it was nothing more than a room ornament now. Keeping her breathing steady, she remained motionless, waiting.

Parlow's movements were lazy. He took up a steel-nibbed pen and dipped it into an inkwell. His hand hovered over the parchment, inches from it. There it stayed.

"He hasn't signed it yet?" Nit embodied confusion. "Why?"

"I don't know." She had her suspicions, but that was all. "Signature or not, we're running out of time." The grandfather clock read a quarter past eleven. She had until eleven-thirty. Her grip tightened over the hilt of her dagger. Any moment, someone from below would come looking for the party's host.

Parlow sighed and set the pen down. He downed the remainder of his drink and eyed the list again. He wasn't going to sign it.

"We cannot wait," she said. "It's time. Give me a distraction."

They'd done this plenty, like a well rehearsed skit. Nit jumped into action, clacking against the wall, buzzing loudly in bee form, startling Parlow, whose head snapped toward the window.

She stepped out into the open, flicking her fingers, sending a flash of violet light from her prisms to coat the walls and door of the study. A soundproof barrier cocooning them safely within. No one would hear a single scream.

"Good evening, Lord Parlow."

He gasped and looked up. "You!" he hissed, eyes widening as he took in her violet ensemble and mask.

"Me." A feline smile stretched across her lips. She let her dagger loose. The red prism in its hilt flared to life as it flashed across the room. It sank into Parlow's chest and he cried out. The dolt hadn't even tried to dodge, not that it would have mattered. Prism daggers never missed their mark.

He looked down at it, eyes wide with disbelief, and ripped it away. It clattered to the floor.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." She strode across the room, covering the distance between them.

"No!" The word came out strangled as he reached for the document on the desk, as if he could keep her from it. "No! Help! Someone—"

She retrieved the dagger and slit his throat before he could do more than shout. "Since I'm feeling kind," she whispered, holding his head against her abdomen, watching the color of his secrets rush from his body and stain his white shirt.

Death was inevitable. It followed all life. Came to everyone, eventually. There was no stopping it. She had learned this a long time ago beneath the Temple.

She released Parlow's head and his body slumped forward, coming to rest upon the parchment he hadn't the gall to sign. She took hold of his shoulders and pulled him back, ignoring his head as it flopped to the side. There on the desk was her prize.

She glanced at the dagger in her hand. The red prism had turned dull, its color all but gone. "What a waste," she muttered. Prism daggers never missed, but the red ones only had a single good throw to begin with. Red prisms were the most common option available, but they were also the least powerful and took the longest to charge. Hers would require a full day in the sun tomorrow.

"You have a steady throwing hand," said Nit. "You would have hit him regardless."

"Yes, well, I can't exactly tell the prism when to work, can I?" She cleaned the blade on Parlow's coat before stowing it. "Now...let's see the list." The parchment was splattered with Parlow's blood. She lifted it between her thumb and forefinger and pushed him back into position. He slumped over like a fleshy rag doll.

The Prism Pact. It was written in scrolling font across the top. Several paragraphs beneath it outlined its purpose in aiding Ferrum and Ipsum to overthrow Candela's Traditionalist government and plant Prince Albert on the throne. At the bottom, signatures filled the empty space.

She read through the names and her eyes widened.

"What is it?" Nit asked, buzzing over to land on her shoulder.

"It's Steiner. He's signed it. Conrad Steiner."

"And you're surprised? He's a Technologist, after all."

"I didn't expect him to incriminate himself so openly."

Only one place remained empty. The spot Parlow was meant to sign. Never mind that now. She folded the document and slipped it into her gown.

She glanced around the room before going to a large, gilded mirror hanging on the wall. She studied her reflection, wiping the splatters of blood from her skin, adjusting her hair, tracing the outline of her mask, immediately reminded of the things she'd done to earn it.

Nit buzzed around the lifeless mechanical next to the door, looking it over. "This is Elias Newton's work. Its presence might incriminate him."

"Yes, I already thought of that." She turned from the mirror. Elias had enough to deal with, so she removed the mechanical's winding key and pocketed it. "There can be no question now."

A snap of her fingers released the violet sound barricade from around them. There was one final order of buisness. She went to Parlow's shelves and looked them over, reading the titles.

"You'd better hurry."

"Yes—yes. I'll only be a moment." She stopped at shelf with pocket-sized novels. A particular title caught her eye. And with it, came too many memories.

Laughing voices sounded down the hall. Nit buzzed beside her in warning. She snatched the book and slipped it into a hidden pocket before going to the door. The voices came closer and the handle wiggled. "Papa? Are you in there?" Sofia Parlow. "Papa? Dillon and I have come to collect you. Our guests are eager for cake." They muttered between them. "I saw him come this way earlier," Sofia said to Dillon in hushed tones.

Tabby glanced about the room. Everything was in order. She went to the windowed alcove. Another round of loud knocking followed. "Lord Parlow?" Dillon Richards this time. "Are you in there?" The window was sticky from disuse as she pried it open. The voices on the other side took on a frantic note as knocking turned to pounding. "Papa! Open the door!"

"Ready, Nit?"

Nit had become a sparrow, swooping through the open window, leading the way. She followed, swinging out over the ledge where she hung from her fingertips, gauging the distance between the second floor and the flowerbed below. Not far. She let go. Her boots sank deeply into the soft dirt as her knees absorbed the impact.

From the open window came a racket as Dillon threw his body against the study door. She coaxed more violet from her necklace, all but draining it, and sent the light to the window, flicking her fingers and twisting her wrist. The tendrils latched onto the handle and it swung closed. The last she heard from above was the clatter of the study door bursting open. But they were too late. She was already gone. 

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