Hours earlier

Sometimes, Jone wished she could sprout wings and fly. Just so she could get away from it all. The too bright lights. The sour air. The people. She winced. Especially the people. Talis was full of them, churning, pushing, jostling to the top. At any cost. That’s why she wanted to fly most of all. To get away from the people.

The Clangerscourt belltower would have to do for now. No one bothered her there. Why would they, when it’d been boarded up for years? They didn’t need it after they started making clocks you could keep in your house. Progress and all that. Seemed like everyday there was some new thing being made, fixing some trouble, providing some convenience. Square blocks paired down into spheres, rounding off the edges, removing the sharp corners of common sense. How much longer than before the people became outdated, and the machines replaced them as well?

Jone turned her attention down towards the hazy district below her. Chimneys of all sizes rose and fell in a tidal wave of brickery, smoke churning from their tops and staining the sky gray. She fixed her gaze on a particular building. A Vibrata foundry.

“Thought I’d find you up here.” A man stepped up onto the belltower. He stood tall, lean, a body built from labor. Hard lines made hollows of his cheeks, harder eyes set above them, half hidden beneath a worker’s cap. Around one arm was a cloth wrap stained red.

Jone didn’t answer. She didn’t know how, so she chose silence instead, making it her armor. Made her feel impenetrable. Unreadable. Safe.

The man stepped closer, nodding towards the foundry. “Beckett’ll be starting his speech soon.” Again, silence. A cold comfort. He continued anyway. “You best hurry if you wanna catch him. You paid for the information and a good man gives honest work for honest pay, but I don’t believe in over time,” and he turned a hard eye towards her. “So don’t expect me to stall.”

Jone frowned and stood from the bell tower railing, snatching up her fluted chime beside her. “I was just leaving.” She slipped past the man, having no desire to be touched, and stomped down the creaky, wooden steps.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he called after her. “You’d make a fine Union soldier if you joined us. Our beliefs are united, sister!”

“I’m nobody’s sister,” she muttered back, low enough that only she could hear its misery. “Not anymore.”

Outside the winter’s chill felt more real than up in the belltower. Wind and sleet stabbed at her exposed face, the flimsy coat she wore barely fending off even the slightest gale. She had to duck into an alley to escape most of it, slithering past muck and garbage and gods only wished was mud.

Clapperscourt was part of the central foundry district that ran through the heart of Talis, a band of rusted iron squeezing the life out of the city. Buildings were packed tight here, people living on top of one another, huddled like rats in a cage. Mills and forges and foundries sprouted up in the leftover spaces. Jone easily slipped past the wind as she reached her destination.

Beckett and Co. Industries stood emblazoned over a red brick facade, the paint faded and flaking, but the message was clear. Tommas Beckett, the man who’d murdered her brother, owned this building, and he was a fucking dead man tonight.

Once she found a way inside, of course. She scanned the perimeter. A simple wooden fence surrounding the building. Easily scalable. All of the workers were being gathered inside as well, so no one would see her slip inside either. All that was left was getting to the second story window the Union man had pointed out for her. The front row seat to Beckett’s demise. There didn’t look to be any ladders leading up to the roof. Walking through the front door was out of the question. She looked up. The buildings she was hiding between were about the same height as the foundry. Easily climbable.

At least, she hoped. Scampering up the fire escape of one building proved simple enough. She found that inventions made to actually help people were the easiest to use to her advantage. On the rooftops, the wind had picked up again, whipping snow in her eyes, the numbing howl of winter nipping at her ears. She judged the distance between her and the foundry. Fifteen feet at most. She’d jumped underground gorges with wider gaps than that. Easily jumpable. 

So she jumped.

In retrospect, taking a roof to the guts really, really hurt. Especially when you almost lose your grip as well. The air whooshed out of Jone as she slammed against the brickwork, clawing her way up onto the foundry roof. She’d barely missed the edge, most likely from the combination of snow and frozen bird shit she’d slipped on. She fell down gasping, cold air burning in her lungs, but forced herself to get back up. Someone may have seen her, regardless of the weather and she had to keep moving. 

A window gave her the way in. It was unlocked, no doubt with the help of a union spy hiding amidst the workers. Honest work for honest pay indeed. She slithered in, shutting it quietly but keeping it unlocked. A potential exit should she possibly need it. 

A Knight was prowling amidst the grounds, after all.  He was why the info cost such a hefty sum. Union boys were afraid to step up against Beckett directly with a Knight of Her Majesty standing watch. If she was going to get what she wanted, she had to pay for the insurance cost, and premiums were high this time of year.

She stood on a balcony overlooking the fairgrounds where the Vibrata ore was smelted into ingots. The machines were silent now, cooled off in preparation for Beckett’s speech, the last of the workers filing outside. She crept towards a nearby foreman’s box, an elevated room that allowed for direct observation over the workforce,  made for little men with little minds who tattled on their fellows for a few extra coins.

At least the place was warm. Jone rubbed life back into her fingertips as she skulked past, making sure to stay below the windows so she wouldn’t be seen. Passing to the other side of the room, she pressed her back to the door, peaking past the opaque glass with the words, “Alfred Cobbleton, Undersecretary.”  stenciled on the front. Every good dog needed a name, she supposed.

It was not the name, though, that drew her pause. Two dark figures shifted past the glass, and she ducked down, lips pressed tight so she wouldn’t make a sound. They clomped past, further down the adjacent hall in the direction she was aiming to go. Stifling a curse, Jone turned the knob and peered through the crack in the door.

Skimper’s men. Two of them. It was easy to tell with the yellow and green paint they liked to slather on themselves. Adult children playing follow the leader, all color coded accordingly. It was a people thing, she’d come to realize. Always ready to gang up and fight the weaker kids. She would know. She’d done the same thing as a child. Hell, she was still doing it now. At the very least she didn’t need others to make her feel strong. She’d only needed her brother and now she only needed herself.

Skimper’s men were still trouble, though. They stood directly in front of the window she needed for her plan. Charging them would be out of the question. She was small and they were big. Facts were facts. If she fired her fluted chime the noise would alert every thug in the building. She needed a plan, one that was quiet, complex, and quick. Easily doable. 

“Oy, looky there.” One of the thugs jabbed the other with his elbow as Jone stepped out the foreman’s box, eyes swiveling over the place like the tourists she’d seen in Kardiah as a child. “Whatcha doin’ here girly? You lost or somethin’?”

They were looking at her body, not her eyes, which made things easy for Jone. She was looking at the knives strapped to their belts, conveniently unbuckled for quick grabbing. “Looking for Beckett,” she muttered in broken Tannith. People always gave foreigners the benefit of the doubt, especially when it came to guile.

“Probably some Kardish immigrant the stovetop hired,” the other thug said. “You can tell by their tan skin. All them folk are sun kissed down there. Hear they’ll take work for half the pay these days.” the man raised his voice to address Jone. “Beckett’s downstairs. Down. Stairs.”

“Down? Stairs?” she stepped closer, lips pursed in feigned confusion. She’d been told the men of Tanis liked full lips on their women. The trick seemed to work as the men slipped each other a sly look before meandering towards her, hands on their belts, out of sight from the window.

“Or you could keep us company, if you wanted.” The closest of Skimper’s men slid a hand around Jone’s waist, making her skin crawl. “I’ve got a shiny copper piece with your name on it if you behave.” She almost wrinkled her nose. Brothel whores were paid more. Cheap bastards.

“Oh my,” she whispered, pretending to be transfixed by the coin. With a careful hand she reached for it, before the other darted out and snatched the knife out of the thug’s belt. The man barely had a chance to realize what was happening before she buried it in his throat. His eyes went wide as the blood began to pool, letting out a strangled squeak of surprise. She ripped it out, charged, skewering the other man through the guts as she rammed him against the wall, hand over his mouth so he couldn’t scream. She stabbed him over and over, each new hole staining his shirt red, and the strength quickly leaked out of him.

Both men hit the floor with a wet thud. Wiping the blade, Jone stowed away the weapon for later use, slinking back to take the fluted chime she’d hidden behind the foreman’s door. Outside, fat flakes of snow drifted lazily past the window glass, Beckett’s workers crowding about the forum. A wooden podium had been erected in the eastern half, a platform for small men to make themselves feel taller than they should.

Beckett was easily recognizable. He waddled around like some trumped up cock in the henhouse, his clucking entourage all head nodding in agreeable nonsense. It was the Knight, however, that drew Jone’s eye. He was young, about her age she guessed, hair cut in a utilitarian fashion, jawline clean shaven as beget nobleborn society. His black and gold uniform fit well, most likely tailored to his lean, well fed frame. She saw the signature whisteblade belted to his side, gloved hand securely fixed around the grip. So he was expecting trouble. His gaze flitted up towards the window and she ducked down, teeth clenching tight

Had he seen her? She counted to twenty and peeked over again, but the Knight made no sign that he’d been alerted to her presence. The dead men beside her continued to pool their blood onto the floorboards.

“Good morning, everyone!” Beckett’s voice echoed out over the Forum and the crowd grew deathly silent. Jone barely listened. She was too busy getting her Chime ready, checking the clapper, loading the bullet into the pipe, adjusting and readjusting the bottled scope till the focus was just right. She’d only have one shot at this. One shot to get back what Beckett had taken from her.

All she had to do now was wait for the signal. The Union man she’d paid was down there amidst the crowd. The plan was to wait for the spies to rile up the crowd, get things nice and rowdy before he pulled out the big surprise. No one would expect the feint. 

“That’s a crock of shit!” A worker shouted. That was the cue. Jone peeked over the edge. Someone threw a brick at one of the thugs. It struck him in the back of the head and he fell over, clutching at his skull. More of Skimper’s men jostled forward, all eyes looking down instead of up.

Jone took sight of her weapon. The sight of Beckett’s swollen face appeared before her in the scope, his scared little eyes not used to seeing such violence people like him could make. He’d spent too long up in his golden castle, far, far away from reality. Today, however, would be his wakeup call.

“Chime!” The Knight yelled as the Union man came into view, pulling the weapon out of his coat pocket. He pointed it at Beckett, hands sturdy, aim true. He would have easily killed the little lord had the Knight not intervened, but that’s why Jone was there.

As the first shot rang out, she exhaled and pulled the trigger.