Foundryside

The soles of her boots touched earth, and she started to run.

"But the fire was you as well?"
Sancia shrugged. "Shit got out of hand."

"You're

The soles of her boots touched earth, and she started to run.

"But the fire was you as well?"
Sancia shrugged. "Shit got out of hand."

"You're a . . . a . . .
A What?
"A . . . " She swallowed. "A key."
I'm a key. Yes. I didn't really think that was under dispute.

That's what scriving is. Reality doesn't matter. If you can change something's mind enough, it'll believe whatever reality you choose.

I don't know what the hell to do, Clef. I want to run, but I've nowhere to run to.

"I want your client," he said. "Very much so. If you can give him to me."
"In what condition? You want his name, his head, or what?"

“Foundryside. The closest thing Sancia had to a home.”

“Foundryside. The closest thing Sancia had to a home.”

“Four walled-off little city-states, all crammed into Tevanne, all wildly different regions with their own schools, their own living quarters, their own marketplaces, their own cultures. These merchant house enclaves—the campos—took up about 80 percent of Tevanne.”

“But if you didn’t work for a house, or weren’t affiliated with them—in other words, if you were poor, lame, uneducated, or just the wrong sort of person—then you lived in the remaining 20 percent of Tevanne: a wandering, crooked ribbon of streets and city squares and in-between places—the Commons.”

“He could tell which one of them was Antonin right away, because the man’s clothes were clean, his skin unblemished, his thin hair combed neatly back, and he was hugely, hugely fat—a rarity in the Commons.”

“Gregor took stock of the situation. The taverna was now mostly empty except for the moaning guards—and the large, fat man trying to hide behind a chair.”

“Tevanne, a huge dome that reminded her of a fat, swollen tick, sitting in the center of the Candiano campo.”

“Gregor stared at the painting—especially at the woman in the chair, and the fat infant. His gaze lingered on the baby. That is how she still thinks of me, he thought. Despite all my deeds and scars and accomplishments, I am still a fat, gurgling infant to her, bouncing in her lap.”

“She was not like Torino Morsini, head of Morsini House, who was hugely fat and often hugely drunk, and usually spent his time trying to stuff his aged candle into every nubile girl on his campo.”

”The foundries did that first," said Sancia. "Apparently that was where they first experimented with gravity, just so they could get all their machines to move around and work better."
"Clever stuff."
"Kind of. I hear it didn’t go totally flawlessly at the start, and a few scrivers accidentally quintupled their gravity or something."
"Meaning? "
"Meaning they got crushed into a vaguely flesh-like object about as thick as an iron pan."
"Okay, maybe not so clever.”

"...And I have come home to bring to this city the very thing I am delivering you to."
"And what is that?"
"Justice," he said simply.
Her mouth fell open. "What? Are you serious?"
"As serious," he said as the carriage turned, "as the grave."
Sancia laughed, incredulous. "Oh, as simple as that? Just like dropping off a package? 'Here, friends--have some Justice! That's the dumbest damned thing I've ever heard!"

And whoever made that thing is . . . good.”
“Damned good,” said Orso. “Amazingly good. That’s top-rate work, there! I feel sure if someone was that good in this city, we’d all know about it. Everyone would be lining up to lick his candle, I’ve no doubt!”