Kess spent most of the next day pored over ledgers and books she’d had Liam retrieve from Draven’s safe box. What she saw there shocked her—Forgebrand was a civil group as Draven had suggested, and most of its funds had remained untouched for years, propped up by generous donations of a guild of craftsmen who called themselves Mariel’s Smiths. These men would take cuts of their everyday profits and donate them to Forgebrand—only Forgebrand had done nothing with that money until recently.

  The ledgers did change, however, around the time Kess had met Draven. For whatever reason, funds had been slowly funneled into survival supplies, food, and the purchasing of multiple underground warehouses that Kess couldn’t figure out a purpose for. Were they preparing for some kind of disaster?

  The oddities didn’t stop there. In the last six months, the funds had shifted away from survival supplies and into a series of odd hires—that of independent fighters and weaponsmiths, as well as the half-baked prototypes of Fulminant weapons the Councilman had mentioned in the square that night. Something had changed and forced Draven to hire for war instead of peace—but what? Kess searched for half the day but couldn’t find an answer.

  Worse still, no one could give her a solid answer about Forgebrand’s current leadership or goals. It seemed that Kess had inherited Forgebrand in name only, and even those like Peet who had been friendly with her in the past were reluctant to give any straight answers. Eventually, exhausted and feverish, she gave up and sought Arlette, who’d been demanding a meeting since Kess had returned with Rowan.

  Kess’s fever from burnout hadn’t gone away, nor did it improve. In fact, nothing she did short of sitting in ice cold water could cool her to a satisfactory level. She was jumpy and anxious about it. It was easy to assume that it was stress, but even during quiet moments, the telltale snaking lines of her Fulminancy crept up and down her body. Kess was out of ideas, so she simply let her Fulminancy do what it chose to do—consequences be damned.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t make her meeting with Arlette any easier.

  A tendril of Fulminancy crept down her arm as she entered Arlette’s office, and something came flying at Kess’s face. She reacted automatically and caught a heavy ledger, which would have easily broken her nose if she hadn’t cheated to catch it with her powers in time. Rowan gave her an apologetic glance, looking like he’d rather be elsewhere.

  “Can you turn that cloudspawned rubbish off?” Arlette demanded. Kess lowered the book, frowning. She’d left little charred marks in the book’s spine where she’d caught it. She was not, in fact, sure that she could turn it off, so she tried changing the subject instead.

  “Do you want to discuss my acquisition of Forgebrand, Arlette, or are you content to let me do as I please with it?” she asked.

  “You told Eamon last night that you didn’t want it,” she said. She sat at her desk with her customary regality, though the boots on the desk ruined the image a bit.

  “That can easily change,” Kess replied coolly. Arlette stared her down, something dangerous in her gaze.

  It really is a shame that I’m terrible at playing politics, she thought. But there was a bigger problem; even Kess wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with Forgebrand just yet, and the lack of information wasn’t making it easier to decide.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Arlette said, ignoring Kess’s threat. “We station them around the lower city to get rid of the Witchblade patrols. People are disappearing, and food along with it. I want guards on those warehouses or we’re not going to survive Floodstorm season at this rate—trust me, I’ve done the math.”

  “That will get them killed,” Kess protested.

  “Well, you did just fine,” Arlette said, raising her eyebrows.

  “Yes, because I’m—“ she hesitated, tongue hung on the word. Fulminant. Lately, her powers were becoming a part of her, but she wasn’t sure she was willing to accept that part of her just yet.

  “What, Kess?”Arlette said, her voice quiet, with a mocking ring to it. “Fulminant? Just like the patrols kidnapping and murdering our city?” Kess flushed. “Then I suggest you keep your mouth shut and let those of us who aren’t destroying the Downhill discuss what to do with the forces Draven left us.”

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  “He didn’t leave them to us,” Rowan said from his usual corner in the office. “He left them to her, Arlette. Eamon and I both read the will.”

  “I don’t care if he left them to a flying monkey, Rowan. It’s only right that we use it to take back what’s ours.”

  “By what?” Kess demanded, tossing the ledger on the floor with a slam. “Getting what few allies we have killed? Those patrols were nothing to dismiss. It took two of us and a hell of a lot of power to take them out, and even then it was close. You don’t even know why food is going missing. Maybe it’s people Downhill—”

  “Oh? So now we’re admitting that you’re a little different from the other Fulminancers around the city, are we? I wouldn’t take two against eight odds, and yet you managed.”

  “Rowan asked me to work with my Fulminancy,” Kess said, voice rising. “You knew about it. And now it’s a problem for you? Or are you just bothered that you can’t use me as a weapon?”

  Her heart raced as her words echoed across the room. Arlette stared at her, something calculating in her gaze.

  “I’m not discussing your use as a weapon,” Arlette said, voice calm. “I’m discussing the use of your men to get those Witchblades out of my city in a controlled fashion, since you’re only willing to do it when it least suits the rest of us.”

  Kess sat down again and crossed her arms. “They’ll be killed.”

  “People die in war, Kess.”

  “Then we shouldn’t start a war,” Kess replied, eyes on the floor.

  “And what do you think attacking multiple Blueblade patrols and rescuing their charges does?”

  Kess said nothing. Her actions had always had consequences. This time was no different. By saving the men and women in those carts, she might well have condemned more than that.

  Arlette’s sigh cut through the silence. “They were planning a civil war long before last night, though.”

  “We don’t have any proof,” Rowan said. “If we react too strongly, it might create one.”

  “Which is probably exactly what they want,” Kess added. “But what good would a war do the Uphill? They have complete control over the Downhill anyway, and locking it down tighter would just create unrest. What they had with fighting rings and sashes was working. Why mess with a good social system?”

  Rowan watched her thoughtfully from his corner, though Kess wasn’t sure she was qualified to discuss any of this.

  “Why else would young men of fighting age be disappearing?” Arlette asked. “There’s no other reason. They’ve obviously been conscripted.”

  Kess frowned at that. “It’s not just young men, though, it’s—“

  “Your group of refugees wasn’t like the others,” Arlette said. “I’ve been running the numbers, and an overwhelmingly large proportion of the people disappearing Downhill are young men of fighting age—Fulminancers and Duds alike.” She seemed to calm a bit as she discussed the numbers. “They’re obviously up to something. What I can’t figure out yet, is what?”

  She paused, then stood and retrieved the ledger from the floor, giving Kess an apologetic look. “We’ll discuss it later. There’s another way we can figure out what they’re doing without any major acts of war, for now. How close are the two of you to any of the Seats?” she asked, looking at Rowan. He frowned, eyes on the ceiling.

  “Not very. It’s been slow going with my background and Kess’s…lack of.”

  “And how quickly can that change?”

  Rowan shared a look with Kess. He shrugged. “Maybe a few weeks? We’d have to get lucky.”

  “Make the luck happen, Rowan,” Arlette said, setting the ledger back on her desk. “Two Seats are open, but neither are up for grabs. One is Mariel’s, and that one won’t be filled until someone drags her rotting corpse out of the city. Other is the opposing Seat, and that hasn’t been filled since before any of us were born.” She eyed the spine of the ledger where Kess had left a mark, then Kess, something souring in her gaze.

  “I have contact with one of the few Fulminant Forgebrand members,” she continued. “If we get him into a Seat, we secure a voice in the Council, however small it is.”

  Rowan watched Kess from across the room, uncertainty in his gaze. She knew it was a mirror of her own. “But that would require one of the Seats to be killed,” Rowan said carefully.

  “And?” Arlette asked, holding his gaze. “I’m not sure if the two of you forgot while you were flirting at parties, but every policy that cloudspawned Council comes up with is designed to control and persecute the rest of us down here. Every last one of them is our enemy, whether we’re fighting a war on paper or in person.”

  “Arlette, you have dozens of former Uphill residents living in this house,” Kess said, uncomfortable. Arlette smiled, but it didn’t meet her eyes. Her hand fell to her sword hilt, always present on her hip.

  “And we’ll see where their loyalties lie when this is all over,” she said. She got to her feet. “The two of you have another event this week. I suggest you prepare.”

  With that, she swept from the room, and the door shut with a click behind her. Kess rested her elbows on her knees, putting her head in her hands. She felt cooler, at least.

  “This is getting too complicated,” she muttered.

  “It always does,” Rowan replied.

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