The Weaver put on an ashamed look and spread his hands. “Milady’s quite right, gentlemen. We’ll table that discussion for later, I think.”
He glanced at Ashes, and the boy could have sworn he winked.
Their conversation lapsed into idler talk. Ashes, uncertain of his place in the hierarchy and wary of annoying his employer, listened more than he spoke, trying instead to understand the people around him.
Denizens, in his experience, did not differ from one another much. On the whole they were proud, sneering folk whose foremost survival skill was calling for police. And a great many things threatened their survival: children with overlarge clothes and soot on their faces were first among them. Ashes’s existence in their clean world made them uncomfortable.
Jack was . . . not that way. He laughed easily. He seemed genuinely interested whenever Ashes spoke. And he was clever enough to tease a smile out of Juliana, and even got a faint smirk from William now and then.
Juliana reminded him of the Denizens he’d known, but in the way a tiger can be reminiscent of a tomcat. She was more Ivorish than her husband—more Ivorish than anyone Ashes had ever met, in fact. Refined, poised, perfectly in control of herself. She made Denizens look like children trying out grown-up clothing. Her Ivory blood fit her in a way it did not fit other people.
William was simply odd. Alien in every way possible. He spoke when he was spoken to, or when he had a relevant thought, but not otherwise. He did not ask questions or make jokes. The Wisp listened, and watched, and ate when he remembered to.
There was one other strange detail about them, something Ashes couldn’t quite put his finger on. He teased at the thought for several minutes when, finally, it struck him: no one was watching him. They paid attention to him, certainly, but not in the way he was used to. They were not watching the way he handled the silver. They did not eye him warily when he reached for a biscuit. They gave no sign that his presence at their table worried or unnerved them. He was a guest. He was welcome.
YOU’RE late, facefaker,” Annie growled.
Ashes frowned as he entered Annie’s house. He could still feel the delicate weight of Jack’s construct over his face. “How’d you know?”
“No one else stupid enough to bang on my door after dark,” the woman said flatly. “You seem to be making a habit of it.”
“I’ll put a stop to that, then.”
“See that you do,” Annie said, and hobbled away. “Take off that damned ring as well. My house, you don’t wear nothing but your face on your face. No exceptions.”
Ashes obeyed, following after Annie at a respectful distance. “There’s no supper left,” she said.
“Didn’t expect any. How’s Blimey?”
“Like conversating with a rock,” Annie replied. “He’s just my kind of dinner party.”
Something twisted in Ashes’s core. Blimey was many things, but “quiet” only appeared on the list when he was scared or sullen.
“I’ll leave him to you,” the old woman said, pointing toward the stairs.
“I reckon we’ve some talking to do first,” Ashes said carefully. “Concerning our rent.”
“Terms is fixed, facefaker,” Annie snapped. “You try to sweet-talk me and I’ll throw you out in the street ’fore you can say Please, miss, don’t throw me out in the street.”
“I’m not aiming to sweet-talk you, Annie,” Ashes said. He dug in his coat and pulled out a phial of aether that had, until this morning, belonged to Elleander Bloom. “I’ve got a payment.”
Annie’s eyes locked onto the phial with the speed and hunger of a predator. Too late, she tried to compose her face. “What’m I supposed to think this is?”
“No sense faking like you don’t know,” Ashes said. “Let’s skip to where we talk about how much it’s worth.”
“Where the hell’d you come across one of them?”
“I’m a dastardly clever pickpocket, Annie.” Ashes gave her his best confident smile. “I could steal out of the Ladies’ own skirts, they figured to walk Teranis for a day.”
“That’s a poor joke,” Annie said darkly. “And what’re you looking to buy with it, pray?”
“More time,” Ashes said. “Six months, and you’ll thank me for giving you an opportunity to rob me blind.”
“Ha!” It was a profoundly humorless laugh, almost a bark. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Annie—”
“Not for all the money in Teranis, boy,” Annie said firmly. “You and your friend will be out of my home come the new year.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ashes said. “I know Ragged’s a danger, but with this—”
“I’ve more worries than Hiram Ragged on my mind, boy,” Annie snapped. “New year. Term’s fixed.”
Ashes ground his teeth. “Fine. This is my rent until then. And I want better food for Blimey.”
“You’ll pay me that for meat?”
“I want him to be happy while we’re here,” Ashes said. “Give him the best you can. And he gets run of your library.”
Annie scoffed. “That’s a deal. I’ve no library to speak of.”
“Don’t play that to me. You got books in here somewhere.”
“And what’s giving you that impression?”
“What d’you do all day, Annie? For trade, I mean.”
Annie glared at him and said, with a straight face, “Prostitutin’.”
Ashes looked at her. Annie looked back.
“All right,” he said. “Fine, if you say. But you do it all from here. You’re always here, or near enough to always as makes no difference. There’s nobody sits around their house all day without they have something they like. You seem the sort to read.”
“Sometimes I knit.”
“And sometimes I shit, but it’s not how I spend my days.” Ashes locked eyes with her. “Run of your library, Annie. Term’s fixed.”
Annie’s mouth worked for several seconds. Finally, she said, “Very well. Meat for the boy when I can spare it, and he gets run of my books—one of them at a time, and if he damages the singlest page, I’ll have it out from him in work and weeping. Blood, too, if I feel that way.”
“Deal.”
Blimey was asleep when he arrived in their room. Quietly, Ashes prepared to bed down, bundling his coat to make a pillow, and felt eyes on him.
“Mornin’,” Blimey muttered.
“Still evening, actually, Blimes.” Ashes grinned weakly.
“I saved you some supper,” Blimey said, reaching under the thin blanket. He produced a thin crust of bread. It looked hard enough to be used in self-defense in an emergency.
A small lump formed in Ashes’s throat. “Aren’t you just the very finest,” he said.
“It’s not much,” Blimey said. “There was tripe, too, but I figured Annie wouldn’t want me sneaking and my fingers aren’t very quick—”
“Don’t you worry none, mate.” Ashes pulled Juliana’s Ivorish food out of his pockets, peeling off the greasy cloth he’d wrapped it in. “Seems we got each other the same present.”
Blimey’s eyes widened. He snatched the food from Ashes quick as winking, and tore into it fiercely. “Roast beef!” he breathed in wonder. “And cheese!”
Ashes looked at him curiously. “You know roast beef?”
“Read about it,” Blimey said, very quickly. He ripped a chunk of the meat off and chewed it for several seconds, savoring. “Where’d you find this?”
“Nicked it,” Ashes said immediately. Everything in him rebelled at the thought of telling Blimey how he’d been feasting with three Denizens while Blimey had eaten supper at Batty Annie’s table. “Jack wanted to see if I could get inside some Ivory’s servants’ quarters. Figures it’ll be handy for me.”
Blimey nodded, plainly absorbed in his food. “How’d it go?”
“Brilliant, of course,” Ashes said. “Walked in and out easy as breathing.”
“Did he let you wear a Glamour?”
“Eh,” A
shes said. He pulled the ring out of his pocket and slipped it over his finger. The construct settled gently on his face. “Can you say uncle to that?”
“Face of Kindness, that’s brilliant,” Blimey said. “Can I . . . ?”
“Course,” Ashes said.
Blimey put the ring on reverently. The Ivorish face formed around his features, obscuring the mismatched details of his natural face beneath a handsome, clean, curly-haired illusion. His expression remained the same, wide-eyed and delighted.
“Did it work? Am I different?”
“Like a proper Ivory lad, mate,” Ashes said. A shadow passed over Blimey’s face at the words. He handed the ring back, looking faintly perturbed.
“Thanks,” he said, not meeting Ashes’s eyes. “He let you keep it?”
“He said it’d be useful.” Jack had also said that he had no desire to rescue Ashes from the police because he’d been picked up after curfew; police were keen on “troublemakers,” and the face in the ring looked as far from troublemaker as you could get without being sainted.
“What about teaching you?” Blimey asked. “He still going to do that?”
“Started already,” Ashes said, grinning widely. “I can’t do nothing just yet, but give me time.”
“That’s brilliant as anything.” Blimey grinned through a bite of cheese and beef. “You’re learning magic!”
“Eh.” Ashes tried to grin, but the expression faded off his face before it took hold. What good would magic be in four months when Annie threw them out?
They couldn’t stay in Burroughside; Ragged would find them. They couldn’t live in Lyonshire or Yson or any of the other posh boroughs; leasing a room required an iron name, and only Denizens had those.
He would need a solution, and soon.
“I talked with Annie tonight,” Ashes said, eager to get away from thoughts of the future. “She’ll let you read her books some, so long as you promise you’ll not harm them.”
Blimey shuddered. “Course not.”
“And I’ll try to bring you some later, right? I need you to keep bringing me words.” Ashes smiled. “You got anything for me?”
“Oh, erm . . . no,” Blimey admitted. “Not tonight.”
Ashes nodded as though this were perfectly understandable, though it bothered him more than a little. Blimey never stopped reading. He was more upset than he was letting on. “Well, that’s no problem,” he said. “Actually, that’s brilliant, ’cause I brought a word for you instead.”
Blimey perked up.
“You ever heard of immolated?” Ashes asked.
Blimey blinked. “That’s—oh, erm, it’s burned alive, right?” He shut his eyes in concentration. “Eh, that’s it. Kill something by burning it.”
Unsavory people . . .
“Well, bloody and damn, Blimey, I’m impressed,” Ashes said quickly. “I thought I’d have you with that one.”
“Got to get up earlier than that to pull one over on me,” Blimey said proudly.
“Guess I do,” Ashes said.
Not long after, Blimey’s soft snores indicated that he had fallen asleep. Ashes lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He longed to sleep, but it wouldn’t come; he couldn’t stop thinking.
Ashes had seen someone burned alive once. Two years ago, when he’d been part of Mari’s crew. The dominant crew back then called themselves the Bone Collectors. They were more than forty strong, and their leader was a vicious, one-eyed boy named Robb Scars.
Someone had told Ragged the Collectors were planning a coup. So Ragged went to the old warehouse where the Bone Collectors lived, walked past forty gutter-rats who’d been planning to kill him, grabbed Robb Scars by the neck, and returned to Ragged House. Bruisemaker Eve was canceled so that Burroughside could watch the one-eyed boy blacken and char until there was nothing left but sooty bones.
No one had been allowed to leave. Ragged wanted everyone to know what happened when you tried to stab him in the back.
Ashes couldn’t be certain, but his gut said Tremaine had made Mr. Ragged’s false face. And Jack thought the same, if his look at dinner was anything to go on. Perhaps someone else had wanted Tremaine dead, but it seemed far more likely that Ragged himself was responsible. But why?
Was Ragged scared?
Ashes’s face had been hidden when he escaped, so Ragged had no way of knowing who had taken his hat, or how they’d known it existed. Naturally, he would assume he’d been betrayed, and Tremaine was the likeliest candidate—Ashes would bet anything that the only person Ragged had trusted with the secret was Carapace. Burning Tremaine was a message to whoever had worked with him: I’ll come for you if you show yourself. Ragged could have killed the Artificer quietly, but setting fire to him on Galway Street was distinctly not quiet. Ragged wanted the thief too frightened to do anything. Too frightened to try blackmail, or pawning, or . . .
Ashes sat up. He looked at Blimey, fast asleep on the bed, and then dug under the desk to find Ragged’s hat. He checked his pocket for the Denizen-face ring. He stood.
If Ragged wanted the theft kept quiet, there was no doubt that Ashes’s best move was to make it known, preferably to someone Ragged feared. Someone who could use the information against him—perhaps even oust him from Burroughside before the end of the year . . .
Ashes needed to see Bonnie the Lass.
THE Lass. Bonnie Ne’er-do-well. Stonejaw’s Iron.
They called her the Undercity Queen, too; her castle, the Court of the Lass, was a crumbling warehouse in south Boreas. It hunched over a bend of the River Lethe, and, infrequently, if you stood close enough, you might hear the distinctive, heavy splash and cut-short scream of someone who had unwisely tested Bonnie’s temper.
Bonnie’s location was no secret. The police knew where to find her; the criminals knew where to find her; even those Ivory Lords whose business interests occasionally ran counter to the finer points of the law knew where to find her. This had yet to cause a problem for the Lass. Though she was often the victim of sordid rumors designed to tarnish her reputation, Bonnie had a comfortable working relationship with the local constabulary. They understood that certain disputes were the sort that should be resolved privately between individuals, without the complications that might arise when the law got involved. And, because they were so understanding, the police of southern Boreas often found themselves the blessed recipients of an anonymous donation of money, and never worried about their families when they left home.
Of such things are kingdoms built.
Ashes had never tried for an audience with the Lass; he didn’t even know anyone who had. If the Lass wanted to speak to you, you were brought to her. Circumventing that established tradition was a frightening proposition at best. The Lass was fair, but she didn’t suffer fools.
Fortunately, Ashes had an ace up his sleeve.
The door to the Court of the Lass was guarded by two surly men, both of whom looked to have a bit of bull in their ancestry. Ashes decided to keep this observation to himself; it wouldn’t do to irritate Bonnie’s doormen. He decided to take off the ring before they saw him, as well. The Court was one of the few places where it would be better to look like a scoundrel than an Ivorish ponce.
Ashes got within five feet of the door before one held out a hand and said, “Hold it there.”
“Fine evening, innit?” he said with more calmness than he felt. “I’m here to see the Lass.”
“She expecting you?”
Ashes smiled winningly. “She’ll be pleased to see me.”
The second guard eyed him cannily. “Sounds an awful lot like ‘no,’ ” he said.
Ashes grinned again, hoping that he looked nonthreatening. “I’ve got something she wants,” he said. “Something she wants very badly. I ent armed.” He spread his hands, letting the hat dangle casually from his fingers.
“You’re pissing in the wrong stream, pygmy,” said the first. “There’s nobody comes through this door without the Lass intends to see h
im.”
“Do I look like I could threaten Bonnie the Lass?”
“You don’t look like you could threaten the rats living under your bed,” the guard replied. “Dun’t change it. You’ll get through this door over our corpses.”
Ashes bit down on his tongue, but his hand wasn’t played yet. “Look, mate, I’m a friend of hers—”
“That’s likely,” one scoffed. “Except all Bonnie’s friends are big enough to hold a pistol without falling sideways.”
“A friend of a friend,” Ashes corrected. “There’s a girl I met, says she works for Bonnie. Bright red hair. Likes to climb into places and get shot. I saved her life.”
The guards exchanged a glance. Ashes felt a brief thrill of exaltation—the girl had been telling the truth, then. They would have to let him in now, surely.
The man on the left took a step toward Ashes and laid a meaty hand on his shoulder. “Word of advice, pygmy,” he said. “If you’re going to lie about knowing someone on the inside, pick some’un who exists.”
His fist connected hard and fast with Ashes’s temple. Stars erupted in the boy’s eyes. Ashes staggered to the side, and the world tilted violently, and he felt his elbows connect with the street. At some point after that his head struck the stone. Everything spun harder.
“Go con someone stupider,” the guard said. “Don’t let me catch you here again, understand? The People don’t con the People.”
Ashes’s ears were ringing. He fought his way to his feet and clenched his jaw. He brushed the dust off his hat and started to put it on. Then he thought better of it; if the guards saw him use the Glamour, he’d be lucky to keep his head, much less the hat. They’d take the construct from him, pass it off as their own find, and toss him in the river. He needed to speak to Bonnie herself.
“Right, then,” he said. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Sorry to have bothered you, sir,” the guard corrected.
Ashes scowled and walked away without another word. One of the guards muttered something to his friend; they both laughed harshly. Ashes had the distinct sense that he had just been made into a joke.
The Facefaker's Game Page 13