The Iron Wyrm Affair

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Everything was cheap here. Including human life.

  Already the sky was hazed – not nearly enough; the light speared through her skull. This would be so much easier after dusk.

  It would be easier for Gippius too. So Emma blinked furiously, did not lift her handkerchief to her nose, and kept the subtle threads of glamour blending together. Some few of the slightly sorcerous on the street glanced at her once or twice, but she was Prime and they were merely sparks. They would not see what she truly was unless she willed it.

  A venous network of alleys had grown around Thrawl, slumping tenements festooned with sagging laundry hung on lines despite the coal dust, refuse packed into corners. Children screamed and ran about, playing some game that made sense only to them, the slurring drawl of the Eastron End already evident in their joyous accents. Malnourished but agile, they were more problematic than the adults – sometimes a child’s gaze would pierce a glamour where even an Adept’s could not.

  She found the rat’s nest of alleyways she was looking for, and plunged into welcome gloom. Some doors hung ajar, shadows flitting through them; a colourless vapour of gin and hopelessness rose. A baby cried, wheedling and insistent, somewhere in the depths of a building. A man crouched on a low step in front of a battered, dispirited wooden door. Muffled cries were heard from inside, and the man’s eyes followed Emma’s shadow as he peeled his nails with a short, wicked knife, taking care to palm the filthy clippings up to his mouth as an insurance against charming.

  At the far end of the alley the abortionist’s door, studded with iron nails, grimaced. Emma braced herself and strode for it, her boots slipping a little against the crust coating the alley floor. No wonder Gippius had sunk into this quarter of the city – few constables would brave this hole.

  Few sorcerers would, even.

  Invisible strings quivered under the surface of the visible. The cameo warmed at her throat, and the ætheric protections in Gippius’s walls resonated slightly.

  That is not a good sign. The door had no knob; she simply focused – and stepped through, a shivering curtain of glamour sparking and fizzing as her will shunted the river of charm and charter aside.

  Gippius was quick and deadly, but he was not native. In his country, she would be the sorcerous stranger, and the resultant struggle might have had a different outcome. As it was, she flung out a hand, the Cossack who did a Shield’s duty for Konstantin stumbled back into a mound of clothing waiting for the ragpickers, and Emma’s other gloved hand made a curious tracing motion as she spoke a minor Word. Witchlight flared, and Konstantin Gippius stumbled back, clutching at his throat. A single line of chant, low and vicious, poured from Emma’s mouth, a fierce hurtful thrill of sorcery spilling through her, and the Cossack shrieked as ætheric bonds snapped into place over him.

  The chant faded into the humming of live sorcery. Emma climbed to her feet, brushing off her dress. The Cossack’s shriek was cut short on a gurgle; she grimaced and made certain her bonnet was straight. The huge glass jars filling every shelf chattered and clattered together, the abominations inside twitching as dark, pudgy Gippius thrashed on the trash-strewn floor. He was turning a most amazing shade of purple.

  “Behave yourself,” she said sternly, and flicked her fingers, releasing the silencing.

  Gippius’s throat swelled with sound. Sorcery flashed towards her; she batted the venomous yellow darting coils aside and tightened her gloved fist, humming a low sustained note. The silencing clamped down again, the cameo a spot of scorch against her chest. “I said behave yourself, Gippius! Or I shall choke you to death and go a-traipsing through your house for what I wish.”

  Spluttering, the Russian thrashed. His boots drummed the floor. When she judged she had perhaps expressed her seriousness in terms he could comprehend, she fractionally loosened her hold once again.

  The abominations in the jars moved too, slopping their baths of amber solution against dusty glass. Tiny piping cries echoed, their large heads and tiny malformed bodies twitching. Metal clinked – some of them had been Altered. Gippius’s science was inefficient, and disgusting as well.

  It is a very good thing I have a strong stomach. Emma eyed Gippius as he lay quiescent, glaring balefully. Greasy black hair hung in strings, sawdust from his rolling about griming the curls. A crimson spark lit in the backs of his pupils, but quickly dimmed and was extinguished as his face grew more and more plummy.

  She eased the constriction, in increments. It took a good long while for his tortured gasps to even out, and the Cossack moaned to one side. Emma spent the time eyeing the jar-living abominations, examining the filthy curtain drawn to mark the entrance to Gippius’s surgery, the low sullen light of malformed witchballs sparking orange as they bobbed in cheap lantern-cages. The stove in the corner glowed sullenly as well, and the large pot bubbling atop it reeked of cabbage.

  When she judged it safe enough, and further judged she had Konstantin’s entire attention, she drew the protection disc and its broken ribbon from her skirt pocket.

  “Now,” she said quietly, for it did not do to shout if there was no need, “I am about to question you, Konstantin Serafimovitch. If you do not have proper answers – or if I even suspect any impropriety such as dishonesty in your answers – first I will kill your Cossack. If you continue to be remiss, I shall shatter all your jars. If you are still remiss, I shall be forced to make things very unpleasant for your corpus.” She paused, let him absorb this. “And I do not have to cease when you expire, either.”

  Now he was moaning as well. The counterpoint of male agony was almost musical.

  She began working her gloves off, finger by finger, though her flesh crawled at the thought of touching anything in this hole with bare flesh. “Now. Let us start with this protection charm.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tea and Data

  Newspaper clippings scattered over the table, turned this way and that as he tested connections between them. Two volumes of the Encylopaedie stood open as well, a further three stacked on the chair, and he paced between the fireplace and the window. More papers, covered with his cramped handwriting, fluttered as he passed the table. The desk was snowed under with a drift of notes and more volumes.

  Occasionally he stopped, running his hands through thinning hair. His pipe had long since gone out.

  “The connections,” he muttered, several times. “I must have more data!”

  He had endured the visit from Mr Finch, interrupting his research with idiocy about linens and a valet, and further endured the measuring-charms and queries of the footman chosen to do valet duty. His freshly laundered linens, sent by an obliging Grayson, had been delivered and stowed away. Then, thankfully, they had left him in peace – what peace there was, for he was beginning to be sorely pressed.

  The door resounded under a series of knocks, and when it opened, the Shield took in the explosion of paper and Clare’s pacing. “Tea,” he said, the single word as colourless as it was possible for a syllable to be. His mouth turned down at the corners, and he was actually grey under his copper hue. “In the conservatory.”

  “That’s not where she takes her tea!” Clare cried, turning in a jerky half-circle. “I know that much! I am engaged on deducing much more. But there’s one piece, one critical piece – or maybe more than one. I cannot tell. I must have more data!”

  Mikal’s features betrayed no surprise. Just that grey, set monotone. “My Prima takes her tea in her study, but you are a guest, and the conservatory is made avail—”

  Clare halted, staring at him. “My God, man, you look dreadful.”

  The Shield’s head dipped, a fractional nod. “Thank you. Tea, mentath. Come along.”

  “Why do you—” Clare stopped short. His head cocked, the chain of deduction enfolding. “Surely you are not so worried for Miss Bannon’s safety that you—”

  “Tea,” Mikal repeated, and retreated into the hall, pulling the door to but not latching it. Which effectively halted the conversatio
n, though only until Clare could exit his suite.

  Unfortunately the Shield had taken that into account, and was at the other end of the hall before Clare could gather himself. He led Clare through the house, always just at the end of a hall or at the bottom of stairs, and did not slacken the pace until Clare stepped into the largish conservatory’s pearly glow. A thin dusting of rain streaked the glass walls, rippling panes held in filigreed wrought-iron, charter symbols falling through the metal like golden oil. The day had turned grey-haze, but the collection of potted plants and small, ruthlessly pruned larger bushes – orange, lemon, lime, false lime, rosemary, bay laurel, and the like – still drank in the light greedily. The north end was given to straggling, rank, baneful plants – rue, pennyroyal, nightshade, wolfsbane, nettle, hadthorn, and more. East and west held common herbs – feverfew, a few mint species, chamomile, costmary and other culinary and common-charm plants. The south end was given to exotics – a tomato plant, green unripe fruit hanging on charter-charm-reinforced green stems, orchids Clare could not name, a small planter of fiery scarlet tulips, a dwarf rose whose petals were a velvety purple very close to black. Each was covered by a crystalline dome of sorcery, ringing with thin, gentle sounds when the atmosphere inside stirred the leaves – a quite pleasant sound, like faraway bells.

  To properly examine every plant would take perhaps an hour and a half. Here was another unexpected richness. It was not the sort of room Clare would expect to find Miss Bannon in, and his estimation of her character went through a sharp change as a result. Which led him down several interesting and troubling roads all at once.

  The furniture was white-painted wicker, the chairs cushioned with rich blue velvet. A snow-white cloth trimmed in scallops of blue lace covered the tabletop, the service was burnished to within an inch of its silvery life, and a full tea was arranged on three tiers, the shimmer of a keeping charm visible over it. The air was alive with sorcery.

  Mikal prowled near the northern end of the sunroom, pacing, his boots soundless on the mellow-glowing, satiny wooden floor. The light picked out red highlights in his dark hair, stroked the nap of his velvet coat, and made his colour even more sickly.

  The housekeeper, her black crêpe rustling, hovered over the table bobbing a tiny curtsey. Her cap was placed so precisely he half expected it to bow as well. Her round face lit with genuine pleasure, and not a single lock of dark hair was out of place. Her indenture collar glowed. “Bonjour, Monsieur Clare! Tea is generally mine, madame prefers it so. Shall I pour for you?”

  He could very well pour for himself. But here was another opportunity for deduction and questioning. “I would be delighted, Madame Noyon. Please, join me. It seems Mr Mikal doesn’t care for tea.”

  “He never does. Madame would make him sit, but he is not likely to now.” Her plump nervous hands moved, and Clare laid a private bet with himself about which chair she would prefer him in.

  “How often does Miss Bannon leave him behind to fret, then?”

  That earned him a solemn French glance. Her collar flashed, and her daggered jet earrings swung. “Monsieur.” Sudden, icy politeness. She indicated the chair he had chosen, and at least his instincts were not off.

  “Very well. I am only concerned for Miss Bannon’s safety, Madame Noyon.”

  “Well.” Slightly mollified, she began the ritual of tea with an ease that spoke of long practice. She made an abortive movement for the milk, and he deduced Miss Bannon habitually took some, and was often otherwise occupied while Madame Noyon poured. Some of the savouries appeared to be favoured by his absent hostess, too. “You have no need to fear, monsieur. Our madame is the finest sorcerer in Londinium. When she says a thing is to be done, pouf! It is done.”

  Touching faith. He added a few more links to the chain of deduction. “She rescued you, did she not?”

  “Ma foi, she rescued us all! Lemon?”

  “No, thank you. Rescued you all?”

  “Finch, he was thief. Catherine, she was Without Reference, as you Anglais say. Wilbur in the stables, he was—”

  Mikal was suddenly across the table, yellow eyes glowing. “Enough. The domestics are no interest of yours, mentath.”

  Madame Noyon gasped, her hand to her mouth. The tea service rattled slightly, the table underneath it responding to a feral current.

  “You could sit and have tea,” Clare returned, mildly enough. “The more I know, Mr Mikal, the more help I am to your mistress. A mentath is useless without data.”

  “You are worse than useless anyway.” The Shield’s graven face had lost even more colour. “If she is harmed while I am forced to sit—”

  “Monseiur le bouclie.” Madame Noyon tapped the teapot with the lemon knife. “You are in very bad manners. Monsieur Clare is our guest, and madame left instructions. You sit, or pace, but do not loaf about table like vulture!”

  Clare watched as the Shield’s face congested, suffusing with a ghastly flush before the man turned on his booted heel and glided away towards the north end. The rain intensified, spattering glass and iron, the charter symbols sending up small wisps of fog as cold water touched them.

  Madame Noyon swallowed, audibly. Her fingers trembled slightly before she firmed her mouth and put on a bright expression. “Madame returns soon, monsieur. Eat, eat. You are thin like Mr Finch, you must eat.”

  Clare certainly intended to. His landlady’s teas were nowhere near as grand, and only a fool would let his digestion be troubled.

  Yet he pushed his chair back and rose. He approached the north end of the conservatory, his hands clasped behind his back and the slap of rain intensifying again. Rivulets slid their cold fingers over the glass.

  “Mr Mikal.” He hoped his tone was not overly familiar – or overly distant. Dealing with this messiness was so difficult. “I beg your pardon, sir. I do not intend to be a burden, and my intent in questioning about Miss Bannon is purely so I may assist her in whatever way necessary, to the best of my ability. I may be useless, and own no sorcery, but I am striving to become less useless, and I very much crave your assistance in that endeavour.”

  Mikal had come to a stop, his head down, staring at a thorn-spiked, venomous-looking plant in a low earthenware pot. His shoulders hunched, as if expecting a blow, but straightened just as swiftly.

  Clare retreated to the tea table. But halfway through his second scone, Mikal dropped into the chair across from him. Madame Noyon’s eyebrows nested in her hairline, but she poured for him too. The Shield’s face did not ease and his colour did not return. He was still grey as the rain.

  But he drank his tea, staring up over Clare’s head at an infinitely receding point, and Clare was hard pressed not to feel…

  … well, extremely pleased.

  Chapter Eleven

  Unpleasantness is Not Over

  I must reach home. The bright blood welling beneath her gloved hand clasped to her ribs splattered her skirt, and she was no doubt leaving a trail a mile wide. Ætheric strings quivered; the effort to mislead the parties searching for her consumed most of her waning strength. Why is there never a hansom?

  She could barely hail one as it was, bleeding so badly. Not to mention a respectable driver might not stop, even if her glamour held. Another fiery pang rolled through her as the æther twisted, a screaming rush of air almost touching her disarranged curls, and for a moment the effort of blurring what an onlooker would see almost failed. Fresh hot claret slid between her fingers.

  If not for her corset stays, she might well have been a dead woman. They had turned the knife a fraction, slowing it, and the man attacking her had died of a burst of raw shrieking sorcerous power. Konstantin had not lied; he had given her all the information she could reasonably suppose he had. But those who had engaged the services of one of the actual rooftop assassins – Charles Knigsbury was at least one of his names, a flashboy who had procured the protection from the abortionist on his own account – had also thought to ensure said assassin would not open his lips to one Emma
Bannon.

  Or indeed, to anyone.

  The sorcery she had used on the small, rat-faced flashboy still stinking of gunpowder and terror had triggered a larger explosion of hurtful magic; Knigsbury’s body had literally shredded itself to pieces, and a fine cloud of mist-boiled blood had coated the inside of his stinking Dorset Alley doss. The resultant ætheric confusion had allowed her to slip away, but moments later she had felt the passage of an invisible bird of prey, and deduced the flashboy was bait of a different sort.

  Well, I did think to spring a trap or two today. An unsteady, hitching noise escaped her; she reached out blindly and braced herself against a soot-laden brick wall. It looked vaguely familiar, a corner she saw almost every day, albeit usually through a carriage window. The rain intensified, threading through her glamour with tiny cold trickles, and she was well on her way to looking like a drowned cat.

  A drowned, bleeding cat. Her knees buckled.

  Emma, this will not do. Stand up! The snap of command was not hers. For a moment she was in the girls’ dormer at the Collegia again, her hair shorn and her skin smarting from the scrubbing, an orphan among the bigger girls who knew what to do and where to go – and how to bully the newcomer. And Prima Grinaud, the high magistrix of the younger classes, wasp-waisted and severe in her black watered silk, snapping sharply whenever Emma cried. Stop that noise. Collegia sorceresses do not snivel.

  And little Emma had learned. Unfortunately, all that learning now seemed likely to pour out on to a filthy Londinium street.

  No, not filthy. There’s the hedge. I am nearly home. Instead of brick, her free hand scraped the laurel hedge, washed with rain and glowing green even through the assault of smoke. Was it smoke? It certainly clouded her vision, but she smelled nothing but the familiar wet stone and Londinium coal stink.