by Dave Rudden
‘Oh?’ Grey said, his shoulders set in a familiar fighting stance. The boy flicked the sweat from his face, eyes as blue as Abigail’s above an aquiline nose and a jaw like the butt of a spear.
‘You’re the traitor.’
The word breathed around the room, as rank as an imminent Breach. Traitor. The word didn’t get much use in the Order. Their war was as black and white as a war could possibly be. Tenebrous didn’t see humans as collaborators. They saw them as food.
Grey’s arms had folded. No trace of fire moved through the pewter paleness of his arms, but it must have been there all the same.
Food, or a toy to be played with.
‘I heard about you,’ Matt continued, and something ugly broke the surface of his voice. ‘You turned on your cadre. Got one of them killed. That’s why you’re here. As …’ He frowned. ‘Punishment. Or –’
He looked around, as if for suggestions or support, but Neophytes were turning away or looking annoyed. Maybe they didn’t believe him, or maybe they were keeping their mouths shut out of respect.
Hadn’t Abigail kept quiet too?
‘He’s right,’ Grey said quietly. ‘I am a traitor. Was. Am. It’s not the kind of thing that ever washes off. A year ago, three Tenebrous enthralled me. Made me act against my will.’
Gasps echoed round the chamber, but Abigail’s teeth were clenched. Oh, she had been told about the Three forcing themselves into his head. She knew he hadn’t been in control of himself, that nobody blamed him, that he blamed himself.
‘I thought I was invincible,’ he said. ‘On good days. And then on bad days I looked at the Cost, and I looked at my scars, and I thought, When I die, it will mean something. That it’ll be … poetry.’
He lifted his hands. ‘I’m the only Knight who wears gloves in Daybreak. I can imagine you were wondering why.’
Grey tore off his left glove to reveal a hand of iron caught somewhere between clockwork and a claw – a snarl of gears and pins and shafts knotted to form a palm, fingers curled in on themselves like a dying spider.
The chamber was suddenly very quiet. Matt looked sick.
‘A Tenebrous reached into me and did something no Tenebrous had ever done before. Maybe they’ll never do it again – I don’t know. And neither do you. They take their forms and their powers from what they see, and they have a whole damned multiverse to draw on.
‘That’s what we’re at war with.’
He forced the glove over the broken machinery of his hand.
‘I can teach you, but not prepare you. I can train you, but training only takes you to the edge of the darkness, and not a single step more. That’s what I am. I’m a lesson that we are not invincible. That there are things that cannot be prepared for, and may not be survived.’
NO. Abigail’s heritage coursed through her in whips of molten gold. She’d based her life on the opposite. She’d turned herself into a weapon precisely so that, when the moment came, all that time and energy and training would keep her and those she cared for safe. And he stood there, saying that it was all for nothing?
It was why she hadn’t fought him earlier, played into their old games of question-and-attack. It was why she had listened to Denizen and Darcie mourn the comrade they had lost, but never spoken of it herself.
Knights were supposed to do their best. All the Order asked of you was everything, and all it gave you in return was the knowledge that you’d done all you could. And through some secret flaw, or weakness, or inattention, Grey had let in the dark, and Abigail’s new family had paid for it.
‘Spar,’ Grey said tiredly, and the tableau began to move. Abigail suddenly found herself face to face with Simon, looking more like a crow than ever, sweat-soaked hair already feathering in the heat.
She brought up her hands half-heartedly.
‘Do you believe that?’ she said. ‘What Grey said?’
‘I’ve a better question,’ Simon hissed. ‘Where’s Denizen?’
5
A Better Question
There’s a special kind of waking when you know you’re late.
Denizen was out of bed and three steps across the room before his brain realized he was conscious. I’m late. I’m late. I’m late. He didn’t have to check his phone. He knew exactly what time it was. It was late. It was late o’clock. Knowing him, it was twenty-five past late, and now adrenalin was spiking harder in him than it ever had during combat.
It’s my first day and I’m late. I’m trying not to stand out and I’m late. I’m late I’m late I’mlateI’mlateI’mlate –
The thoughts scudded into a panicked rhythm as he lost four seconds, blindly staring into an empty wardrobe, another two spinning in a circle with his brain sparking nothing-thoughts, until he remembered he hadn’t unpacked –
– IthoughtI’dhavetimeinthemorningI’mlate –
– and blizzarded himself into his clothes as quickly as possible. Vivian had bought them just for the occasion: white cotton, light, perfect for training and running and being late, late, latelatelatelate –
He left his room at a run.
As if being a disgrace to his friends, his lineage and the entire Order of the Borrowed Dark wasn’t enough, Denizen soon found that the shoes were a size too big. He discovered this after one came off mid-gallop and he had to rush back for it, lest he disgrace all of the above and be doing it in his socks as well.
It was then that he realized that he had no idea where he was going. Why do I never pay attention to what people are saying? One stone corridor looked much the same as the other, and Denizen fell into a sort of panicked back-and-forth dance. Am I even running in the right direction? He might have been making the situation worse rather than better like he always did, but would it have been too much trouble for them to maybe put up a sign?
OK. Calm.
‘Lost?’
And it wasn’t the accent, deep and smooth as a Tube tunnel, and it wasn’t the rich tone of confidence and camaraderie. Denizen knew who was speaking simply because it was the absolute last voice Denizen wanted to hear, and that was a category with a lot of competition.
Turn round.
No.
You have to eventually.
Slowly, still thrumming with adrenalin, Denizen turned, inclining his head in what could have been mistaken for a nod of respect, but was actually an attempt to hide an involuntary grimace.
‘Palatine.’
Edifice Greaves smiled. ‘Denizen Hardwick. Welcome to Daybreak.’
Denizen had spent his childhood inside fantasy books, and they’d imprinted certain expectations in him as to what heroic secret societies were like. What he hadn’t realized was that, just as you needed heroes, you also needed someone like Edifice Greaves.
‘Disorientating, isn’t it?’ Greaves said, swaying aside to let a group of Knights pass.
Oh now there are Knights, Denizen thought, and briefly wondered if Greaves had ordered these corridors cleared so he wouldn’t have anyone to ask for directions, which told you just about everything you needed to know about the Palatine.
‘It’s actually part of the design,’ he said, tapping the folder he held against the wall. ‘Dead ends, false staircases – anything to confuse possible invaders.’
‘Oh,’ Denizen said warily, trying to surreptitiously back away. ‘Cool. I actually have to …’
‘Get to training?’
This time the grimace was unavoidable. He’d been hoping to slink away and do his best to find the others, or maybe just lose himself in these corridors forever. But now Denizen was trapped in more ways than one: continue to be latelatelatelate or accept help from Edifice Greaves.
It wasn’t that Greaves was evil. He wasn’t. He ran the Order. He made things work. If front-line Knights like Vivian were the teeth of the gear, then Greaves was the bar that made the great gear spin. He was tall and he was handsome, and charm hung about him like an invisible cloud. That was a stupid reason for Denizen not to like someone, but experience
had taught him that Greaves’s effortless charisma was as mechanical a strategy as Daybreak’s confusing layout.
The Palatine grinned. ‘Follow me.’
Greaves swept past Denizen – I was going the right way! – to tap a recessed button beside a pair of doors. They hissed open – A lift! I was so far away from the right way – and, with a sweep of his hand, Greaves indicated the tiny, lamplit rectangle within.
They rose in silence, maybe because Greaves was simply helping a wayward Neophyte, maybe because he sensed Denizen’s mistrust, or maybe because he was biding his time until Denizen lowered his guard.
Who knew? Denizen had never learned to play chess. He couldn’t remember how half the pieces moved and he was too busy thinking about making the right move now than trying to make it half a game away.
He couldn’t imagine how good you’d have to be to play chess with people.
‘Sorry, Palatine, are you sure this is the way?’
Greaves’s smile did nothing to comfort him.
‘Don’t you trust me? And stop worrying. The Master of Neophytes is hardly going to punish you if you’re with me.’
I’m not with you, Denizen thought acidly, and then stiffened. Oh God – who’s our tutor? I’m already behind.
Finally, the doors slid open to reveal a simple wooden staircase. Greaves bounded up the steps, placing one hand on the door above.
‘Right through here.’
And grudgingly Denizen followed him into the dazzling Adumbral sun.
Stars burst against his eyes, and Denizen swayed against a wind eagerly trying to sweep him up into the sky, which was suddenly a lot closer than it had been previously. His stomach made a spirited attempt to get back down the stairs, but only made it as far as his toes.
‘We’re … we’re …’
‘A long way up,’ Greaves said with relish, rapping his knuckles against a huge pane of glass so hard that Denizen flinched, as if that impact might send the whole tower tumbling down. Though his vision was still silvered and teary, he could now see that they were at the summit of Daybreak just beneath the swell of stone that formed the … top bit. They should have told us it was a lighthouse. I would have read up if I’d known it was a lighthouse.
Greaves looked right at home, because he always looked at home and also, Denizen realized, because he actually was. This was the seat of the Palatine – maybe you couldn’t help but be confident with a whole country laid out before you. Greaves leaned out into the sun and drew a massive breath, sun shining on the delicate frosting of grey in his black beard. Had those grey hairs been there before?
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
No idea. I’m not looking down. The sun had turned Greaves’s skin the rich brown of new-tilled earth. By comparison, Denizen could already feel his beginning to crinkle. He fixed the Palatine with Frown No. 9 – You Are Making Fun Of Me.
‘I can’t help but notice,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘that this isn’t the Neophytes’ first training session.’
‘There it is,’ Greaves said. ‘You’re an odd reversal of your mother, you know that? Vivian Hardwick has never had a thought she didn’t instantly state, and with you it’s all going on beneath the surface.’
Maybe this wouldn’t be so different from regular school, after all. Everything he’d been through since Crosscaper, and Denizen was still at the mercy of an adult amusing themselves. ‘Why am I here? What do you want?’
‘I want to know what you’re capable of. Really. If you cut loose.’
They were the wrong words to say. Denizen was tired. He was stressed. He’d been led on a wild-goose chase by a person he thoroughly disliked and it hadn’t even had the good grace to be downhill. The candlewards were very far away; there was a taste of Tenebrae in the air and, even without all that, the power within needed no excuse at all to raise its head.
‘Denizen … I saw you.’
Coils of flame snaked through Denizen’s stomach, climbing every beat of his heart, reaching out cautious tendrils to probe the fortifications he and Vivian had built.
‘You threw Cants against that creature the Croits worshipped with a confidence and variety far beyond your years.’
Confidence? It wasn’t how he’d felt at the time. The Redemptress of the Croits hadn’t deserved her death, and he’d done his best to stop it, despite seventy-eight separate desires to burn her to ash.
‘You have great power, Denizen …’
Vivian’s tutelage had helped, showing him how to shape a fortress of ice and resolve, compressed blue-black like coal forced to diamond. And yet … Fire – gleaming at every keyhole and knocking at every door, and Denizen was both the walls’ only guard and the enemy’s man inside. He wanted to give in. He wanted to cut loose. He wanted …
‘And I have absolutely no need of it.’
‘What?’ said Denizen, jerked out of his reverie. ‘You don’t?’
Greaves raised an eyebrow.
‘You used your power with a dexterity I’ve never seen … and it doesn’t interest me a jot. Do you know why?’
Denizen really didn’t. The Hardwicks had sought to keep his fluency in the Cants a secret because Greaves had never seen an opportunity he didn’t take with both hands – and because of who exactly had given them to him.
‘The average Knight – if there is such a thing – learns maybe ten Cants,’ Greaves continued, ‘enough to get the job done. There are no prizes for showing off. Not in battle. Not with the Cost.’
Another of Vivian’s controlling techniques – the walls of his inner fortress may have been ice, but their core was iron and consequence. Denizen’s fluency eased the Cost a little, but he suffered it all the same.
‘So I’m wondering, in your expert opinion, if the twenty-four Neophytes currently training in Daybreak had your … insight, how much of the city do you think they could take out? All at once. Cost be damned.’
Denizen didn’t have to think. He knew. Sometimes it was all he could do not to see the world as overlapping patterns of devastation, as if it had already happened and all he had to do was say the word.
‘There are a few variables,’ he muttered, ‘but you’re talking a third of the city. Maybe more.’
Greaves whistled. ‘That’s a lot.’
Denizen didn’t say anything.
‘And the entire Order? Say, a thousand Knights?’
Denizen looked out on the stunning vista – the gnarls of forest, the mountain peaks – and imagined a second sun building below the first, tearing apart street after street, tumbling buildings aside in smoke and cinder.
‘Why are you asking me this?’
‘Because it isn’t enough,’ Greaves growled. His shoulders slumped in a sigh, as if the admission had drained him. ‘It never has been. We train and we fight and we die and it doesn’t change anything.’
For a second, Denizen really wanted to believe the look of honest frustration in his eyes.
‘Do you think being a Palatine is all budgets? Do you know how many letters of condolence I have to write? Knights die, and I have to console with one hand and order coffins with the other. And that’s just us. When the war spills over into the real world, it’s me that has to clean it up. Anonymous donations, diverted funds … orphanages. They’re a vested interest.’
He folded his arms.
‘And all of it a holding action. All of it wading through the shallows, waiting for the tsunami to strike.’
His fingers tightened on the balcony rail.
‘And then the Clockwork Three introduced Mercy to the world,’ he said, ‘and you two had a conversation.’
And there it was. The information Denizen had been trying to keep redacted. The one piece of contraband he’d desperately tried to leave behind.
‘It didn’t take much to figure out,’ Greaves said. ‘Half the Order would well believe it was Vivian Hardwick who pulled our fat from the fire that night, but it was the daughter of the Endless King, wasn’t it? She taught you th
e Cants so you could free her from the Three.’
‘That’s …’ Denizen’s mind was working furiously. ‘One way of putting it?’
And it was. It didn’t incorporate Simon trapped in an orphanage diseased by misery, or Grey being twisted into a weapon against those he held dear. It didn’t allow for the heartbreaking story of what Vivian Hardwick had suffered, or the sight of Corinne D’Aubigny dead in Fuller Jack’s arms.
And it certainly didn’t account for Mercy.
Denizen could have exhausted his considerable vocabulary describing the Endless King’s daughter and never come close to describing a single second of her ever-shifting form. And his words gave out entirely when they came to describing their late-night walks through Dublin, or the first time she had giggled through a human throat.
And, against all the advice of his best friend and common sense and to the utter horror of his mother, Denizen had managed to develop a crush on her.
‘You saved her, and she came back to thank you, and for the first time in history a Tenebrous talked of peace. Of peace.’
There was nothing in the rules about having feelings for a Tenebrous. Presumably nobody had been that stupid before. Second, Vivian Hardwick’s feelings about his feelings had been made perfectly clear. Hammers had been involved. Third …
Third, it had been six months. Six months since Mercy had made the whole world about her and him, and then not spoken to him since.
‘And it didn’t happen.’ Greaves pushed back against the rail in frustration. ‘The Croits took that chance from us … but I saw it. Just for a second, I saw an end to this cold war that has slowly eaten our people for a thousand years. And, if another chance comes, we will be ready.’
Denizen had had enough. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You,’ Greaves said. ‘I don’t care if you could cut your way through a dozen Redemptresses. I don’t care if you were immune from the Cost and we could just drop you into a Breach like a holy hand-grenade. There is a connection between you two, and our best chance for peace is not bleeding out pointlessly on a Dublin street.’ His voice was stern. ‘You’re going to serve the Order in a different way.’