City of Miracles (The Divine Cities, #3)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

The city is largely electrified now, so the streets are never fully dark. It’s a strange feeling for Sigrud, who knows the shadows better than he knows his own skin. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like how the steam and clouds obscure the moon and stars, yet the moisture traps the artificial light of this modern place, smearing the world above with a muddy orange color.

“Did you say his name?” says the woman. “Did you say it out loud? What is wrong with you? Did you want to get everyone killed?” Sigrud raises a hand like a child trying to answer a question at school. “I feel I must say here,” he says, glancing at the cattle before him, “that I do not really understand what is going on.”

People don’t change. Nations don’t change. They get changed. Reluctantly. And not without a fight.

She puts down the brandy. “If that’s not you, Sigrud,” she says, “I’m going to turn around and start shooting.”

Now how, exactly, did you get in here without alerting any of my security team?” He shrugs. “Quietly.”

Over the next few minutes, she fires the clip empty. All are misses. But each time she fires, she does so with a little more confidence. She fires three more clips, and in the middle of the fourth she finally hits a can. “I did it!” she says, amazed. “I hit it!” “You did,” he says. It was likely not the one she was aiming at, but Sigrud doesn’t take this victory away from her.

Sigrud sighs and closes his eyes, wondering what to do. He was never really a case officer, but he remembers Vinya telling him once: Always tell a source you’ll come back to them. Tell them they’re safe. Tell them whatever they want to hear. Anything. A desperate source will believe the wildest lies.

She looks him over, her face twisted in suspicion and no small amount of revulsion. “How did you survive? How did you live?” “I almost didn’t,” says Sigrud. “I very nearly died. It was like a fever….” “Like a fever!” she says, incredulous. “You should have died instantaneously, not gotten the sniffles!

To acknowledge that you are alone is to be truly alone.

Voshem looks in at his apartments. They’re empty, but he prefers it that way: sometimes he sits back and bathes in the possibilities one could do with such an empty place.

A warm breeze flows across his face. He shakes himself and returns to his work, trying to get that shaft to budge, but it… Squeak. Mads stares. The shaft gives way to his touch as if it were made of soft cheese, bending perfectly. He peers at the shaft. He realizes that what he’s done—however in the hells it is that he’s done it—is very bad, bad enough that the whole damn auto might not work.

“Then…perhaps a Ministry of its own,” says Noor. Someone at the end of the table laughs bitterly. “A Ministry of Miracles,” they say. “What a nightmare!” “The real question,” says Sakthi, “is who shall spearhead this effort?” “True,” says Noor. “Ever since Komayd died—and it sounds like she’s actually dead this time—we have very few people in government with any experience with the Divine.” Another silence. Then, for the second time, all the heads in the room slowly turn to look at Minister Mulaghesh. Mulaghesh’s brow wrinkles as she realizes she’s the center of attention. She drops the cigarillo in shock. Then she sighs and says, “Ah, shit.”

“What’s wrong?” asks Taty. She leans close. “I was ready to die,” he whispers. “You should have let me die.” She sits up. She looks at him, her dark eyes large and sorrowful. “You’re all I have left,” she says. “You’re the only person who was there when I needed you. You’re all I have left now.” Sigrud shuts his eye and sleeps.

The Saypuris stare at the memorial to Ashara Komayd, the benevolent but defamed prime minister who suffered in silence, died tragically, and yet was somehow resurrected to fight for her nation one last time.