The Autumn Republic

The city seemed strange to him when viewed from afar. The red of the fall leaves and gold of the fields seemed to hide the brick smokestacks and warehouses of the Factory District, and Adopest seemed less to him than it had been before. It wasn’t until he had lost the view and entered into the southern parts of the city that he decided why that was so: The Kresim Cathedral no longer dominated the center of the city, standing like a beacon above most of the other buildings.

Adamat noted the wreckage of a dozen churches as his carriage wound through the southern suburbs and then through the Factory District and headed north toward his home. It was four o’clock, the autumn sun already well on its way to the western horizon, when he was dropped at his front door, and he had worked himself into a fury over Claremonte’s men having destroyed all the churches in Adopest.

What right had they? This was not their city. Not their country. And yet no one had opposed them when they pulled the priests from their chapels and murdered them in the streets; when Claremonte’s Privileged had torn down the churches with sorcery, laying waste to every brick.

An illness had settled in Adamat’s gut and he had the horrible feeling that he should have accepted Tamas’s mission to rid the city of Claremonte. Someone had to fight against the bastard.

Cane and hat in hand, Adamat carried his bag up his front steps and set it against the door. He bowed his head. None of that now. Claremonte was in the past. Vetas was in the past. This was the present and now he had to tell Faye about Josep.

He remained there for several moments, trying to find the right words, when the sound reached him-or rather, the lack of it. No voices. No children shouting or playing. No feet on the wood floors. He raised his head and peered in at the front window, but the shades were drawn. Where was his family?

His hands shook as he tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked. He reached into his pocket for the key, only to have it drop from his stiff fingers.

He bent to retrieve the key and heard the scrape of the lock, and the door opened. He looked up.

“Adamat? You’re home, how wonderful!”

Adamat breathed a sigh of relief, feeling his knees wobble. “Hello, Margy.”

The foreman of the biggest textile mill in Adro was a strong woman in her forties with graying hair and a pair of spectacles perched on her thin nose. “Do come in, I was just keeping Faye company for the afternoon. She said she didn’t expect you for… well, for some time.”

“Who’s there?” Adamat heard Faye call from the sitting room.

“I am,” Adamat responded weakly.

“Oh, hold on!”

Adamat came inside and put down his bag and hung his hat and cane by the door. Faye came out of the sitting room and put her hands on Adamat’s shoulders. He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek, and he couldn’t help but see the look of hope as she smiled at him, and then the cloud that passed over her face when he closed the door behind him.

He gave a slight shake of his head.

“Margy,” Faye said, “I’m so sorry to do this, but…”

“Oh, now, don’t be like that. I should get home to my girls anyway. You should be with your husband.”

“I’ll stop the cab,” Adamat said. He went back out into the street and shouted for his carriage to return. A few minutes later and Margy was climbing inside with her umbrella.

Adamat forced a smile and waved as the carriage drove off. Beside him, Faye did the same, and he wondered at her ability to face the world with a stiff spine after all she had been through. They went back inside.

“Margy was telling me she’s going to run for treasurer of her district in the new elections this fall.”

“Where are the children?” Adamat asked.

Faye let herself fall against the wall in the hallway. Adamat touched the plaster beside her, noting how it didn’t match the rest. She’d had someone come and fix the hole there, from where SouSmith had put an assassin’s head through plaster and brick.

“Ricard offered to hire a governess for them full-time,” Faye said. “I took him up on it. They’re off for a walk in the park right now and they’ll be back for dinner in a couple of hours.”

“Is that safe?”

Faye made a quiet noise that seemed halfway between a sigh and a sob, but did not respond.

“That was very kind of him,” Adamat added. They stood in the hallway in silence for several minutes. “I should never have answered that bloody summons,” he finally said. “I would never have gotten involved with this entire thing and-”

“Is Josep dead?” Faye asked.

Adamat tried to work moisture into his mouth. When that failed, he gave a small nod. Better that she not know. It would break her. To know Josep dead was one thing, but to know that he had been twisted by hideous Privileged sorcery into some… creature…

Better that no one ever know.

Faye stared at the floor. She went back into the sitting room and a moment later Adamat heard her muffled sobs. He closed his eyes. How had his life come to this?