Contents
Chapter 19
Overview
Sancia bargains with Crasedes to free Orso and Gregor, then lures him into a Mountain-built trap that only delays him. Crasedes shatters the Mountain and pursues the team. As their escape falters and Orso is wounded, Valeria manifests limited authority near Foundryside, halting Crasedes’s attack. He withdraws, promising the return of midnight.
Summary
From the balconies, Sancia and Berenice witness Crasedes’s massacre. Knowing he senses her, Sancia sends Berenice away with the vital definition and descends to bargain. She reveals Valeria’s proximity and plan, trading this for Orso and Gregor’s release. Crasedes accepts; Orso and Gregor escape while Sancia leads Crasedes deeper into the Mountain.
Sancia opens a concealed chamber—Tribuno’s gaudy “welcome” hall—where the Mountain ecstatically seals Crasedes inside. The reprieve is brief. As Sancia flees through the secret exit, repeated booms culminate in Crasedes breaking free and the Mountain imploding, collapsing the city’s great dome.
Outside, Sancia uses anchoring gear to sling herself to the team’s floating lantern and carriage. Gregor’s plan is underway: a small lexicon in a shielded cask is ramping to call Valeria’s protections near Foundryside. Crasedes closes in, hurling stones; Sancia accelerates the lexicon’s ramping with Berenice’s prompts. Crasedes wounds Orso through the cask, and a wheel snaps, stopping the carriage short of safety.
Crasedes prepares to finish them—until the stones freeze midair. Valeria’s voice asserts absolute permissions within this bounded space; she appears briefly, reverses the barrage, and blasts Crasedes back unharmed but thwarted. Acknowledging midnight’s end, he withdraws into Tevanne’s smoky sky, leaving the team alive but shaken, with Orso gravely injured and the Mountain destroyed.
Who Appears
- Sancia GradoBargains with Crasedes, frees Orso and Gregor, traps Crasedes briefly, accelerates the lexicon, and survives Valeria’s intervention.
- Crasedes MagnusUnleashes power, debates motives, is briefly trapped by the Mountain, destroys it, pursues the team, and is repelled near Foundryside.
- BereniceSecures the definition, aids Sancia in ramping the lexicon, and tends Orso’s gunshot-like wound.
- Orso IgnacioFreed by Crasedes’s bargain; confirms truths under compulsion; later critically wounded during the chase.
- ValeriaManifests limited authority near Foundryside, freezes Crasedes’s attack, and hurls stones back, forcing his retreat.
- Gregor DandoloFreed and evacuated; his plan positions the lexicon outside Foundryside to summon Valeria’s protections.
- The MountainTribuno’s construct ecstatically traps Crasedes, then is destroyed as he breaks free, collapsing the dome.
- ClaudiaHelps pilot the carriage and recover Sancia during the chaotic escape.
- GioDrives the carriage under fire, navigates obstacles, and hauls Sancia in from the lantern.