A Split Worlds Omnibus

by Emma Newman

  The gargoyle had driven it, not her. It had pressed for action, had suggested going to see her and had blurted out far too much when they were together. The gargoyle wanted this and it was a part of him. Did that mean he wanted this?

  Impossible.

  Something must have happened when the gargoyle…came into being. Something had changed it. A traumatic experience could affect the soul. It was the only explanation; he knew the puppets were untrustworthy and needed to be closely policed and his soul would know that too. Something must have warped as it became part of the stone. It wasn’t the soul chain; Ekstrand had checked it.

  He had to make sure the gargoyle didn’t steer anything else.

  “What are we waiting for?” the gargoyle asked. “I want to see this!”

  It seemed excited. They were about to commit a criminal act and it showed no nervousness nor moral difficulty.

  “Are you sure we have everything we need?” he asked Catherine and she nodded.

  “I just need a place high up,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if my bodyguard was watching this through a glass. Are you sure I won’t get into a hell of a lot of trouble?”

  “There is a risk,” he replied, unable to lie. “But I am almost certain they’ll be far more interested in speaking to me than in prosecuting you.”

  She nodded. “Because they’ll want to know why you’d let me do it.”

  “And because they’re trying to kill him,” the gargoyle added. “Or at least they were the last time we saw them.”

  Catherine looked from the gargoyle to him. “Tell me he’s joking.”

  “It’s the truth,” Max said. “But critical circumstances have changed since then. I wouldn’t do this if I was sure I would be killed. I may be an Arbiter but I still have a self-preservation instinct like anyone else.”

  She banged her head gently against the bricks behind her and then groaned. “Let’s get this over with. We’ve come this far and I want to see if it works. And I’m probably never going to have an opportunity to do anything like this ever again.”

  “It’s gonna be great!” The gargoyle drummed its front paws on the ground. “Give the bag to me. Let’s go!”

  Catherine hooked the handle over its lower jaw and then Max led her up the fire escape. He had to take it slowly, with his walking stick hooked over his arm, and she was soon struggling too. The gargoyle made its way up by a different route, its paws too unwieldy for the narrow metal ladder struts. It leapt from corners to wall to handrail to window ledge, reaching the roof of the building first. It had already emptied the contents of the bag and was snuffling at them by the time they reached it.

  “Whoa, great view,” Catherine panted. “I just…need to sit for a moment.”

  Max did too. The majority of the roof was flat and a walkway ran around the edge. The building’s facade extended above the roof line, creating a thick wall at waist height with periodic gaps perfect for spying purposes. He crouched behind it as best he could and looked down into Trafalgar Square. It was cold and the sky was a clear blue and the innocents were hurrying along the pavements as they always had. He watched tourists taking pictures of each other in front of the huge sculpted lions and people lunching together on the steps of the National Gallery. There were fewer pigeons than he remembered.

  “I love it here,” Catherine said. “I walked through a few times but I could never stay very long.”

  “When you ran away,” the gargoyle said.

  She nodded, thoughtful. “That first time we met,” she said to Max. “Why wouldn’t you give me asylum?”

  “That doesn’t exist for puppets,” he replied. “It’s never been necessary.”

  “Are you seriously telling me that no one from the Nether has ever wanted to get out?”

  “Never.”

  “Doesn’t that surprise you?”

  He shook his head. “You people have eternal youth, power, grand houses and an easy life. If we went down there and asked any one of those people if they wanted the same, they’d accept.”

  “If you sold it to them like that, maybe. They wouldn’t if I told them the truth. What’s the point of eternal youth if all you do is sit around and do embroidery or talk about fashion or have endless dinner parties with the same people over and over? No sunshine, no wind, no rain…just endless mist.”

  “But they’ve perfected how to deal with that,” Max said. He knew the Fae lost puppets to illness in the early days after the Treaty, but that hadn’t happened for a long time. His Chapter Master had a theory about magic worked into their anchors by the Fae to protect them but they never got to the bottom of it. It wasn’t considered a priority.

  “All they’ve perfected in the Nether is how to control people and keep everything the way they like it,” Catherine said.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” the gargoyle asked.

  “The Patroons and the bloody Fae.”

  “If we came back tomorrow with a thingymebob from the Sorcerer saying you could leave and never go back, would you take it?” The gargoyle was too interested in her.

  Catherine sighed. “Oh, God, I’d be tempted. A few weeks ago I would have, and never looked back. Now…” She shook her head. “No. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “We should begin,” Max said, aware of the time.

  “Perfect weather,” Catherine said, retrieving the largest box from the pile behind them. “Will said it was raining earlier. Must’ve cleared up.”

  Max watched her tackle the modern packaging and listened to her swear like a mundane. She was different. None of the other people in the Nether he’d ever dealt with would have come up with such an unusual—and mundane—solution to the challenge.

  “You’re sure this will work?”

  “As sure as I can be,” she said as she slid the remote control helicopter from the last of the packaging. “I had a…friend when I lived in Mundanus. He had one of these. He made a payload carrier to fly M&Ms to me.” She smiled to herself. “It made him happy.”

  As Catherine unwrapped batteries and fiddled with a reel of cotton, Max looked up at the statue of Nelson. The statue was still higher than them as the column was so tall but it was easier to see it from where they were.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, pulling a small bundle of fabric from the inside of her coat. “It’ll work. Nelson must have had a really loud voice to be heard over all that cannon fire and yelling.”

  “I’m not worried,” he replied.

  “But it won’t actually be Nelson,” the gargoyle said. “So what difference does it make if the real one was loud?”

  “For an Arbiter’s assistant you don’t know much about Animation Charms,” Catherine said and the gargoyle laughed. It sounded like someone scrubbing the inside of a cement mixer.

  “I’m not—”

  “Going to distract Catherine any further,” Max cut in.

  “It’s nice not being called ‘puppet’ all the time,” she said. “Do you know how this Charm works?”

  Max didn’t want to admit that he didn’t; it wasn’t a good idea to give the puppets any idea of the limits to an Arbiter’s knowledge. “I know the effects.”

  “It’s just wish magic,” she said casually. “Just a narrow form of it, and weak too.” She’d finished unravelling the strip of fabric and an oval phial sat in the palm of her hand. She held it up and the sunlight made the contents sparkle. In fact, there was nothing else in there except sparkling, like a pinch of glitter suspended in a trapped gust of wind. “You can only cast it on one object and it’ll only behave in the way you’d expect it to. I got this for a teddy bear for a…cousin.”

  “Where did you get it from?”

  She tapped the side of her nose. “Trade secret.”

  “The rules of the Treaty dictate you tell me,” Max reminded her.

  “Oh, come on. You say that when I’m about to create a massive breach? Surely we’re off the hook here? I told you about how it works, that has to be enough.”
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  He let it go. If she decided not to help them he couldn’t force her. Even if they took the phial from her he wouldn’t be able to use it and there was no way he would let the gargoyle touch it.

  The gargoyle had been remarkably quiet. It was staring at the phial and grinding its stone teeth together. “Would you be able to use that on a dead body?”

  “Euw!” Catherine’s nose wrinkled as Max realised what the gargoyle was wondering. “That’s gross. I have no idea. You can’t use it on people—living people, that is—I know that. It has to be inanimate and this one can only be cast on something that looks like a person or an animal. There are more powerful ones. I heard Oliver Peonia used one to make some teaspoons dance at a garden party.”

  Petra told them the Sorcerer of Essex was already dead when the magic turned his heart to stone. Could it be possible that the person behind that magic had animated Dante’s corpse to walk in and take his place at the table? The other Sorcerers wouldn’t have noticed at first glance; Petra said his face had been covered in makeup to give him a healthy appearance. The Sorcerers weren’t the most sociable of people and the others would have written off his silence as normal. Before they had a chance to find out what was going on, they were killed.

  But how could that Charm have endured once past the threshold? There were wards against Fae magic. Could the person who killed Dante have found a way to mask it? It led the trail back to London. Who would know where to find Dante? Not even the other Sorcerers would know where he lived. Someone in his household? An apprentice perhaps, someone who had close access to him and also would be able to discover where the Chapters were under Dante’s command. Perhaps the source of the corruption was an apprentice compromised by the Fae.

  “But why?” the gargoyle asked him.

  “Because garden parties in the Nether suck,” Catherine replied, thinking he was asking about the spoons.

  To kill the other Sorcerers, Max thought. Without the Sorcerers to run the Chapters and monitor the weak points between Mundanus and the Nether and Exilium, the Fae could work towards an escape. The puppets would be set free in Mundanus and the Fae would use them to find the best of humanity to become their playthings.

  “Right, it’s ready.”

  Catherine’s announcement refocused his attention. “Do it,” he said. They needed to get an Arbiter and use him to find the Chapter. Quite what he would do afterwards was uncertain, but there was absolutely nothing they could do to find a rogue apprentice without knowing where to start.

  He made sure he and the gargoyle couldn’t be spotted from the square, not wanting to risk being picked off at a distance. If they only saw Catherine, the Arbiter would come to them and then he would reveal his involvement.

  Catherine had tied the phial to a length of cotton attached to the bottom of the helicopter’s landing struts. After switching it on she very carefully used the small control box in her hands to make the craft fly upwards until the phial was hanging beneath it.

  “Well, that’s the first bit done,” she said. “I was worried it would be too heavy. Let me just get the hang of the controls and then I’ll do it.”

  Max watched the tiny craft fly around above the air-conditioning vents and lead lining of the flat roof. Its high-pitched whine was too quiet to be heard from the street or in the offices below. The gargoyle was as enraptured as a child by a spinning top. They’d bought it from a shop Catherine had described as a toyshop for grown-ups. Technology really had been advancing in Mundanus. The last time Max saw a toy plane it had been made of balsa wood and could only be thrown and left to the mercy of the wind.

  “All right, are you really sure you want to do this?” she asked.

  “Yeah! Yeah, do it!” The gargoyle cheered but she was looking at Max.

  He had one last good look around and nodded. “Do it.”

  By manipulating two sticks under her thumbs Cathy steered the helicopter over the edge of the roof and into the air above Trafalgar Square. Max looked down at the tourists and London residents and not one of them was pointing at it. He looked around again for any sign of Arbiters or her bodyguard but there were none. The Arbiters wouldn’t be far away though; it was a busy space that attracted a lot of attention and a lot of people who wouldn’t be missed immediately if they disappeared. Before his Chapter had been destroyed the area around the Roman Baths and the Royal Crescent were regularly patrolled after several tourists disappeared over a summer. The puppets exploited the crowds and used Charms to attract those who were lost. Max wondered if any had been taken in recent weeks.

  “Bollocks,” Cathy muttered and the gargoyle’s claws scraped against the ledge as it gripped it tighter. “This is hard.”

  Max could see the problem. It was hard to gauge the exact distance between them and the statue. The motion of the helicopter was making the phial swing back and forth so when a new approach was made it still missed.

  “Let me have a go,” the gargoyle said.

  “No, I nearly have it,” she replied, biting her lip. “I just need to practise.”

  She made three more attempts, swearing every time she missed and then on the fourth the phial smashed into Nelson’s hat. “Yes!” Catherine yelled. “Gotcha!”

  The sparkles showered over the statue as Catherine brought the helicopter back to land at her feet. As soon as it was switched off she went back to the gargoyle’s side and all three of them watched closely.

  Nothing happened for a few moments and then it looked like Nelson shivered. “Did you see that?” the gargoyle asked.

  “It’s starting to work,” Cathy said and they grinned at each other.

  The gargoyle seemed to be enjoying the illegal activity far too much.

  “Good lord!” A loud voice boomed out from the statue and Nelson’s head moved from left to right as if he’d just woken up. “What the devil am I doing up here?”

  Catherine whooped with joy and the gargoyle clapped her on the back, which made her cry out in pain. As the gargoyle apologised Max watched Nelson hold out his one arm as if he were trying to steady himself, and then he crouched, just like any man would who found himself atop a plinth a hundred feet off the ground.

  “How the deuce did I get up here? I say!” Nelson shouted down at the ground. “You there!” He was pointing at a man posing for a photograph beside one of the lions. “Fetch a ladder!”

  Catherine’s prediction was right—probably because the Charm was manifesting what she’d expected him to be—and his voice was incredibly loud. The tourist looked up and almost fell over when he saw Nelson waving his hat to get his attention.

  In moments all the people around the man were looking up. In seconds almost everybody in Trafalgar Square had stopped and most were pointing at Nelson. In less than a minute over half of them were holding up their phones and pointing them at the animated statue.

  “What are they doing?” Max asked.

  Catherine was flushed with excitement. “They’re filming him!” She clapped her hands. “It’ll be on YouTube in no time!”

  “On what?”

  “On the internet. They’re going to be talking about this on Twitter from London to Los Angeles before the day is out. This is so cool!”

  Max had no idea what Twitter or YouTube were but he knew about the internet; the researchers at the Chapter used it and had mentioned it when briefing him before field trips. It was a giant library of information that anyone could access and it sounded like the events unfolding in front of them were going to be added to it. He had no idea that just anyone could enter information; he thought it was curated by librarians.

  “You never said that would happen.”

  “What the hell did you think would happen?”

  “Are their telephones taking pictures?”

  “Video. Bloody hell, Mr Arbiter, you need to come into the twenty-first century. It’s great here.”

  The gargoyle gave him a worried look. “Lots of people will see it, not just those here.”

 
; “Thousands. Maybe millions,” Catherine said. “It’s priceless.”

  Nelson was getting more and more flustered. Every time he waved his hat the spectators below cheered and waved back, only making him more irate. “Will someone please send a carriage to Admiralty House? Why is no one helping me?”

  If anything was going to set off an Arbiter intervention, it was this. Max couldn’t do anything about what the innocents were doing, but he could stick to the original plan. He took his pocket binoculars from a coat pocket and peeped through a gap to scan the edges of the crowd for Arbiters. It didn’t take long to spot one. Max didn’t recognise him but he was still unmistakably devoid of emotion and not swept up in the roar of the crowd at all.

  The London Arbiter was walking through the crowd, scanning those around him to identify the guilty puppet. He stopped and pulled a phone out of his pocket, looked at it for a moment and then appeared to take a call. The London Chapter was using mobile phones! There was a brief exchange and then he looked straight up at Catherine.

  “Shit!” The gargoyle ducked lower. “They’re onto us.”

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Catherine asked. “Where is he?” She leaned out and looked for the man, who had taken his own binoculars out and was looking up at her. “Oh, I see him.”

  There had to be another, someone who’d seen them on the roof and tipped off the one in the square. Max looked behind them and checked the fire escape but no one was coming up yet. No one had tried to shoot him, at least. Perhaps they didn’t want to risk it with the Duchess of Londinium as a witness.

  Catherine waved at the Arbiter, then pointed to Nelson and gave a thumbs-up.

  “What are you doing?” the gargoyle hissed.

  “I wanted him to know it was us,” she said. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  Max watched the Arbiter stare at them for a few moments and then press a button on his phone. Trained in the rudiments of lip reading, Max focused on the man’s mouth and saw him speak Catherine’s full name.