Kissandra Vorcien
Kissandra Vorcien, also called Kizzie by her friends, is a member of the Vorcien guild-family. She is the bastard daughter of Stutd Vorcien, which lends her a small measure of guild-family privileges, including the right to tattoo a small Vorcien family silic sigil on her right hand. She dreams of being legitimized, though her father has made it quite clear that he does not like the practice. Instead, she works as an experienced Vorcien family enforcer, though she is not by nature violent and knows the role is an expendable one. Kizzie has a minor talent for glassdancing, making her capable of sensing the presence of glassdancers and capable of moving tiny pieces of common glass with great concentration. She has a reputation for being trustworthy and honest, and she is loyal to both her family and her friends.
Kizzie was childhood friends of both Demir Grappo and Baby Montego, spending lots of time at the Hyacinth Hotel, where Adriana Grappo treated her with a kindness that her own family never gave her. She and Montego were also teenage sweethearts, though that relationship ended abruptly, and they have been estranged for fifteen years.
STORY
Kissandra Vorcien spent two weeks tracking down a stolen Vorcien shipment of cindersand before she finds it in a warehouse in the Castle District. After discovering that the Castle Hill Garroters were responsible for the theft, she infiltrates their hideout, killing their leader Iasmos and his sisters Figgis and Dorry. After sending the cindersand back to her father's clients on Butcher Street, she runs into Demir Grappo, who tells her he got permission from her older half-brother Capric Vorcien to borrow her for a particular job, though he admits that Capric does not know what the details are. Demir wants her to investigate her father's death, finding the last five killers who were never caught. He gives her permission to mete out justice as needs be and gives her a piece of high-resonance shackleglass to gain confessions from them. Kizzie asks if Baby Montego is in town, and Demir confirms that he will not make them work together since he knows they are estranged, but she might see him around. Kizzie, realizing that she wants closure with Montego after not speaking to him for fifteen years, agrees to take the job.
Kizzie first looks for witnesses of the crime, going to Madame-under-Magna in Assembly Square. Madame-under-Magna, despite being the foremost peddler of information, refuses to tell Kizzie anything, saying the Cinders had already purchased her silence. However, Kizzie gets around the agreement by asking certain questions that the old woman can answer. Madame-under-Magna tells her that Torlani the Breadman was another witness, and Kizzie goes to ask him questions. At first, he thinks she is a Vorcien extortionist, but when he learns that she is working for Demir, he softens and willingly tells her what he dared not tell the Cinders: that one of the killers was Churian Dorlani.
Kizzie goes after Churian by bribing his mistress into letting her into their apartment. She questions Churian with the shackleglass, and he admits that did kill Adriana Grappo, but he was simply following orders from his grandmother Aelia Dorlani. Kizzie suddenly realizes the danger of this information, since Aelia is a member of the Inner Assembly. Churian also tells her that it is unlikely that Aelia orchestrated the entire plot since Glissandi Magna was another one of the killers, and his grandmother had no authority over Magna guild-family members. Kizzie makes Churian swear to leave Ossa at once and flee to Marn, never to return.
Unable to meet with Glissandi directly, Kizzie goes to the High Vorcien Club to get some information about her. From Veterixi Jorn, she learns that Glissandi's reputation is impeccable because she keeps her business secret and she always has two Purnian bodyguards with her. Veterixi also warns Kizzie that her eldest brother Sibrial Vorcien is still very angry with her for not lying to the magistrate about his carriage accident that broke a child's leg, so she should leave before he finds her at the club. Unfortunately, Sibrial does see her, and in a drunken rage, he threatens to kill her, striking her several times with his hammerglass-tipped cane. She uses her sorcery to hover a small bead of glass near his throat, intending to shove it into his artery if necessary, but upon realizing that he could kill her before Capric or anyone else could intervene, she changes tactics. She reminds Sibrial that Montego is back in Ossa, and news of her death in the papers would draw the world-famous cudgelist down on top of him. Her half-brother reluctantly leaves, and Kizzie sends a note to Glissandi, saying she knows who Glissandi killed and telling her to meet up at the Palmora Pub the following night.
At the Lampshade Boardwalk, Kizzie watches Glissandi arrives with a purse of money, thinking she simply needed to bribe a would-be blackmailer. However, Kizzie begins asking questions about Adriana, Glissandi signals her bodyguards to attack. Kizzie kills them with the use of forgeglass and chases after Glissandi, telling a group of witness sailors that Glissandi had stolen her bag. After catching Glissandi, she uses a piece of shackleglass to question her once more. Glissandi tries to resist the sorcery before biting off her own tongue to keep her secrets safe. As Glissandi dies, Kizzie notices her looking at someone and turns to see an exceptionally tall man staring watching them both. Kizzie flees in fear, ducking back into the Palmora Pub and jumping down a service hatch so she can spy on the Tall Man from beneath the boardwalk. The man sighs before returning to Glissandi's body, and Kizzie flees when she can no longer hear the man's footsteps.
Kizzie reports her findings to Demir, including the only real commonality between all the killers: their membership in a Fulgurist Society called the Glass Knife. He finds the news of her investigation disturbing and tells her to back out if the investigation becomes too dangerous. She then quickly leaves the Hyacinth Hotel before she can accidentally run into Montego, not quite ready to see him yet. On her way out, she runs into Gorian, who tells her that her father wants to see her. In turn, she asks Gorian to look for national guard reports on the Glass Knife and to dig up anything on someone that matches the Tall Man's description.
When she sees her father, Kizzie gives him the same report she gave Demir. Interested in her findings, Father Vorcien asks that she continue working for the Grappo as he is personally invested in finding out what happened to Adriana. Additionally, Father Vorcien wants Kizzie to bring him news of Demir's phoenix channel. She almost refuses, not wanting to spy on her friend, but her father informs her that if Demir successfully creates a phoenix channel and Kizzie brings news of it to him, he will legitimize her. Deeply desiring this, Kizzie agrees.
Gorian brings Kizzie a partial list of the known Glass Knife members and reports that the Fulgurist Society has been involved in many instances of mysterious disappearances, corruption, murder, other bizarre accusations, and lots of cover-ups. In exchange for the information, Gorian asks that she explain her estrangement from Montego. Kizzie admits that she and Montego were teenage sweethearts, and once, her older brother Sibrial caught them making love under a tree on Family Hill. Sibrial tried to drag Kizzie away by her hair, scolding her for debasing herself by sleeping with a provincial orphan, so Montego defended her, beating Sibrial almost to death despite the fact that Sibrial was much older and armed while Montego was only fourteen and completely naked. Kizzie dragged her brother home, and together they concocted a story about him getting attacked by gangsters from the Slag. Gorian recalls the Vorcien organizing the national guard to search for those "dozen" ruffians but never finding them. Sibrial forbid Kizzie from ever seeing Montego again, and she, believing it would be a terrible blow to her family's reputation if she did see him again, agreed, and the lovers had not spoken in fifteen years.
Finding Agrippo Stavri's on the list of members she got from Gorian, Kizzie goes to the Bingham Brawler's Club after learning that General Stavri and his senior officers are there for a drink before making their appearance before the Inner Assembly. However, at the club, she finds everyone dead, including General Stavri and Agrippo, all killed by a glassdancer in a matter of moments. Using a piece of skyglass to steady her nerves, she searches Agrippo's body and finds a bundle of letters in his pocket. She then leaves the building, sounding the alarm. As the nearby national guardsmen arrive, she spots the Tall Man staring at her. She blends into the crowd to get away from him after sensing that he is not a glassdancer and thus was not responsible for the murders, but his appearance at two mysterious death scenes could not be a coincidence. Looking through Agrippo's letters, she finds one postmarked the day of Adriana's death, which reports that "the deed was done" with some other language suggesting that the writer helped kill Adriana because Agrippo was blackmailing them. She recognizes the handwriting but cannot remember from where.
To follow up on the letter, Kizzie breaks into the Stavri family estate and looks through Agrippo's study. In a copy of Turio's Sapphic Compendium, she finds other letters from the person Agrippo blackmailed and realizes that he had been blackmailing her brother Capric. She also finds what he had been blackmailed with: a military order to sack Holikan on behalf of Demir, written in Capric's own handwriting. Realizing her family's betrayal of Demir, Kizzie decides to side with her family and not confront Capric to mete out Demir's justice. Instead, she immediately reports the deed to her father. Father Vorcien is shocked that Capric helped kill Adriana, but he tells her the information about Aelia and the Glass Knife will give them leverage over the Dorlani Family. He also warns her that telling Demir would result in a guild-family war, and they should prevent that. He tells her to find the last two killers and report to him first. However, feeling guilty that Capric will never be punished for his involvement in Adriana's death, she sends the military order written in Capric's handwriting to Breenen Alvari at the Hyacinth Hotel by way of anonymous courier, believing that Demir would seek his own revenge against Capric with the carefully plotting of a politician.
Unfortunately, upon receiving the anonymous tip, Demir acts rashly and rushes to the High Vorcien Club to face Capric, questioning him with shackleglass before challenging him to a duel. They are arrested by the Cinders before they can kill each other, and Father Vorcien asks Demir to marry Kizzie to patch up the rift between the Vorcien and the Grappo. Demir reluctantly agrees. When he tells Montego, the cudgelist admits that he would not get in the way of anything that would strengthen the Grappo, but he would leave the city should Demir marry Kizzie. Demir then realizes that Father Vorcien is pulling strings to put a rift between him and Montego, so he vows to break the marriage contract if possible, a feat more easily done since Father Vorcien did not put the marriage agreement in writing.
While Kizzie reads through the Vorcien spy reports on the Glass Knife, she learns about Capric and Demir's duel, but she then gets a note from Gorian, who says he has tracked down the Tall Man. The next day, she goes to Watchhouse #187 to find that Gorian arranged an actual meeting between them. During the meeting, the Tall Man tells her to stop all Vorcien investigation into Adriana's death or else there would be consequences. Not taking the threat seriously, Kizzie refuses. She asks about the Glass Knife, and he simply tells her that to look deeper into the matter would be unwise. To prove the seriousness of his threat, the Tall Man kills everyone in the watchhouse, including Gorian, leaving Kizzie alone with the corpses. Kizzie flees and finds her father's carriage, stopping it and reporting to him everything she just witnessed. He tells Diaguni to clean up the mess at the watchhouse since they were clients of the Vorcien and reassures Kizzie that he will take care of hunting down the Tall Man. In the meantime, he wants her to keep working with the Grappo and even ingratiate herself with Demir. She asks about the guild-family feud, but reassures her that it has been taken care of, though he does not tell her about her impending marriage contract.
Realizing that her investigation had suddenly become much more dangerous, Kizzie decides to put her pride aside and ask for Montego's help. She goes to the Hyacinth Hotel, worried that Demir has fired her and that Grappo will reject her if they find out she is a Vorcien. However, after learning of her identity, the concierge's desk tells her that Demir left instructions for the staff to give her every service, and they direct her to Montego in the hotel's gymnasium. Seeing his impressive feats of strength, she remembers all the lies in the newspapers that reported about him growing fat and lazy in his retirement, but she admits to herself she knew her Montego would never do that, and her long-buried emotions toward Montego return. When he notices her cheering him, he bluntly states that she has been avoiding him. She admits that she had not been ready to see him again. Misunderstanding her hurt, he apologizes beating up her half-brother in front of her, but she corrects him, saying she was so ashamed for never contacting him again because she was worried about what her family would do if they ever discovered what Montego had done. Instead, she covered it all up like Sibrial asked, and she never reached out to Montego again. She thought he would be angry at her for such a betrayal, but Montego reassures her he is not because she simply acted in her family's best interests. He also admits he was a coward for never reaching out to her either, though he explains he has wanted to beat Sibrial to a pulp again many times over the years when hearing how his treatment of Kizzie grew worse. After realizing how they had both been acting like scared children, they embrace. Kizzie then explains she needs his help, and she apologizes for being so much of a coward that it took the Tall Man killing her friends in Watchhouse #187 before she approached him. She also promises she is not manipulating him, and he agrees to help her get to Aelia, explaining he has a grudge against the Dorlani anyway for killing Adriana and their attack against him at the hotel.
They make a plan to stop Aelia's carriage on her way home from the Assembly by causing a distraction. From the top a tree, Kizzie drops the bodies of the Dorlani enforcers he killed on top of the carriage, startling Aelia's guards long enough for her and Montego to kill them all. Aelia aims a pistol at Montego until she realizes who he is, and Kizzie wrenches the gun from her hand. Montego accuses Aelia of the information Kizzie gathered during her interrogation of Churian, and instead of answering, Aelia insults Montego and threatens to crush the Grappo, completely ignoring Kizzie. When Montego threatens to use shackleglass on her and then drown her, Aelia confesses to the crime. She also tells them about Aristanes, that she was simply following his orders, and that if they wanted more information, they could find the mastermind at the Zorlian Mansion. Montego offers a final threat to Aelia before he and Kizzie leave. Kizzie's hands tremble from the shock of having just attacked an Inner Assembly member, so Montego holds her hand to steady her. She asks if he truly intended to take down the Dorlani's army of enforcers himself, like he threatened, and Montego admits that he was bluffing but could probably still get very far.
At the abandoned Zorlian Mansion, Kizzie and Montego see that there are renovations underway, suggesting someone has been living there. Montego offers Kizzie an expensive piece of high resonance forgeglass to use in the case of an emergency, and they approach the workers, who all have Glass Knife tattoos on the backs of their hands. Several workers try to block their entrance and send them away, but they push past them. A man appears at the door and claims to be Aristanes' majordomo. He knows exactly who Kizzie and Montego are, and he invites them in. As they walk through the maze-like hallways of the mansion, Montego threats to kill him if he does not take them to Aristanes quickly, and the majordomo reassures him that it will not take long. As they enter an office, Kizzie realizes that the majordomo is Aristanes.
Despite their threats, Aristanes remains calm and stalls the conversation until the Tall Man arrives. Kizzie reflexively shoots him, which distracts her long enough for Aristanes to escape through a trapdoor. The Tall Man then begins removing his damaged flesh covering to reveal his monstrous form underneath. As Kizzie backs away in shock, Montego attacks the Yuglid with his cane. As the creature removes more of its flesh covering, Kizzie screams to run, and they bolt down the endless hallways. The Tall Man and dozens of Glass Knife acolytes follow them, cornering them in a room. Montego suggests Kizzie slip through the bars on the window to go get help, but she refuses to leave him alone, so he asks her to keep the acolytes off his back as he fights the Tall Man, and Kizzie slips the high-resonance forgeglass earring on to do so. After an arduous battle against dozens of acolytes, she turns in horror to see the Tall Man, who claims he just killed Montego and that his people the Yuglid will sing songs to remember his fighting prowess. However, moments later, Montego gets up and slits the creature's throat with Kizzie's fallen stiletto before ripping its head off and claiming he will sing his own songs. Despite the morbid situation, Montego asks Kizzie out for tea sometime before collapsing from blood loss. Kizzie puts her cheek against his mouth to ensure he is breathing before saying she would like to go with him for tea.
Sometime later, Sumala Volos finds the two of them lying wounded amidst the Glass Knife acolytes' corpses. Kizzie asks for help, and Professor Volos agrees only after seeing Montego fighting to stay alive. However, Aristanes approaches her, threatening her harm if she interferes, though she eventually chases him off with talk of her sister ruining his plans should he harm her. Professor Volos then hauls Montego and Kizzie into her cart. Kizzie asks Professor Volos what she is, and Professor Volos only responds with "a gentlewoman scientist" before taking them to her lab for surgery.
Relationships
Family
Spouses
Siblings
Sibrial Vorcien
(half-brother)
Children
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
