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your own life, which was equally at risk.”
    â€œWhat would you want?” Cassilta asked, scornfully.
    â€œA purse of gold masks,” he replied at once. “Five hundred, a thousand, maybe. Something useful . I notice the exalted didn’t send me an invitation.”
    â€œPyke, you’re cute but shallow,” Cassi said. “Prestige is a lot more useful than money.”
    â€œSure. That’s what they want you to think. That’s how they keep us in line. Prestige won’t buy an army. Poor people can’t fund a revolution.”
    â€œCassi!” Taya turned to her friend, mentally running through her limited wardrobe. She was an icarus, for the Lady’s sake! She didn’t own fancy clothes. “Can I wear my armature? Please tell me I can wear my wings.”
    â€œYou can not wear your wings,” Cassi said firmly. “Not as the guest of honor. When’s the party?”
    â€œThree days from now.”
    â€œNo problem. Pyke, tell Dispatch that Taya and I are taking the day off.”
    â€œWhy? To go dress shopping? The boss will love that.”
    â€œHe will if he wants our caste well-represented in front of the exalteds,” Cassi retorted.
    â€œI’ll tell him,” volunteered an icarus from the next table. “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to fuss. Taya deserves a day off, anyway.”
    â€œThanks,” Taya said, chewing on her lip as she re-read the invitation. Clothes. She’d never thought about clothes. But a diplomatic envoy would need clothes, right? Oh, Lady, she was going to have to learn how to wear fancy clothes.
    â€œCome on,” Cassi said, standing. “I know exactly who you need to see.”
    Several hours later, released from her dress-buying ordeal, Taya fled to a news stall by Gryngoth Plaza. News about the wireferry accident had been pushed aside by last night’s refinery bombing.
    â€œYou going to buy that, then?” the news seller grumbled as Taya skimmed the headlines.
    â€œNo … no, thank you.” Taya handed the paper back to the woman, who took it with a gnarled, ink-stained hand. Taya was reminded once again of Cristof’s dirt-stained hands.
    It was easy to envision him planting a bomb, his long fingers setting the hands of a timer with painstaking precision and getting dirty as he slipped explosives inside grease-covered machinery. He was outcaste. That meant he was unreliable and quite possibly dangerous. Honest citizens didn’t reject their caste and carry around air pistols. He hadn’t hesitated to shoot that Demican mugger, had he? He had a violent streak.
    Wind disheveled Taya’s short, auburn curls and numbed her ears.
    On the other hand, he was exalted by birth and by caste, and the brother of a decatur. Could the Lady have let a flawed tool slip through her Forge to be born into a sacred body? Taya wasn’t a religious idealist. She knew that accidents happened; that sometimes a good tool could be damaged by careless use. Still, exalteds were usually above reproach.
    Usually. Decatur Neuillan was the most recent exception.
    Icarii stand outside the traditional caste hierarchy.
    â€œFine!” Taya slapped a hand on the news counter and straightened. “Let’s see if he believes it.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?” asked the old woman. Taya gave her an apologetic wave and strode toward Whitesmith Bridge.
    Ondinium’s bells tolled noon as she walked down the broad, switchback levels of the bridge, jostled by castemarked citizens and inkless foreigners. The sector gate between Secundus and Tertius was wide open, but the number of lictors guarding it had been increased, and the lines were long. Taya wished she had her wings as she stood in one of the citizens’ queues, pulling out her identification papers. The other Ondiniums in line gave her unmarked face a curious glance, then spotted the icarus pin on her lapel and turned back to