The young sniper saw it, too. Lowered the rifle. Stood up. Walked stiff-legged past Finch’s father and out into the hall. Like a dog trying to make itself bigger.

Finch saw his father turn and aim at the back of the sniper’s head. Saw him struggle with the decision. Then lower the gun and lock the door.

For a moment, Finch didn’t want to come out from under the chair. Didn’t know this person who looked like his father.

6

Finch headed back to the station. Wyte’s death lodged like a heavy stone in his throat. Constricting his breath. Making him reckless.

A mob came at him out of nowhere, around a corner. Broke around him like a summer storm. A torrent of shouting. Of sweat and dirt and fear. The armbands of a long-dead neighborhood militia reborn. Some dared to show the rebels’ blue band on their arms. Sensing that their time had come. Had it? Finch didn’t know. So many camp uniforms he began to wonder if the gray caps had released them just to create chaos. To somehow obscure what was going to happen. Focused on some objective other than him. Or they didn’t like the look of him. Numb. Staring straight ahead. Gun in its holster, sword in his right hand.

Ambergris come alive again, but into tribes, not a city. Finch wondered what old scores would be settled first.

Less than a quarter mile from the station, a shuddering thud and crack rumbled through the world. A series of them, from everywhere. Some near, some distant. Followed by silence. The sounds jolted Finch out of a walking trance. The shock reverberated in his bones.

Had the towers unleashed their weapon again? Couldn’t confirm that. Couldn’t see the towers from there. Hidden by the dirty green marble of old luxury hotels taken over by lichen and flanked by tall trees with yellowing leaves. People leaned out of windows on the fourth, the fifth floors, holding flags and shouting. Pointing to the northeast, the northwest.

In the street, a tiny old woman in a faded flower dress. A grubby boy gnawing on a shriveled apple stood beside her. Three Partials staring at the sky. All waiting for the next blow.

But there was no green light. No second series of explosions.

Instead, a curling trail of black smoke began to rise into that perfect blue sky. Finch recognized it. Had seen it before when a rebel bomb left a signal to the rest of the city. Heard shouts and screams rising like the smoke. Muffled. Distant. Disguised.

Had an odd premonition. An awful tightness in his stomach.

Finch began to run toward the smoke. Past wounded storefronts. Past the abandoned wooden box and scissors of a sidewalk barber. Past a huge red drug mushroom whose shade snuffed out the sky, the gentle sighing of its gills both ominous and calming.

He crossed onto Albumuth Boulevard, and approached the station.