The kid shrugged. “No idea. I think he’s a myth, meself,” he confided. “The government trying to stir things up and distract us from the real issues—it being an election year and all. Get your copy here! Know the news before your friends! Be the one with all the answers!”
“Ah. I had forgotten. An election year…”
The kid scrunched up his face. “Yeah … what rock have you been living under?”
“No rock. Why would the government do that? Make trouble that makes news?”
“So they can pin it on some poor Ninth Classer, clear the books of yet another crime, and better prove the incumbents deserve reelection.”
Marion nodded sagely. “An intriguing idea.”
“It’s not just an idea—it happens all the time. Just open your eyes.”
Marion grumbled assent. “Pity about the roses.”
“Really?” The boy blinked at him. “Lady Vanmoer’s one hard-nosed bitch, you ask me. Never tips for delivery, never has a polite word for anyone. I wish they’d gotten her prize roses, too. The ones inside the gate.”
Marion straightened a little.
“The Festival of Flowers is coming up shortly. It would be a bitter pill to swallow if the repeat grand champion can’t even enter…”
“Ironic, yes,” Marion agreed, refolding his paper to tuck beneath his arm. “Here,” he said, withdrawing another coin to give to the boy. “A tip from someone completely unlike Lady Vanmoer.”
The boy grinned and pocketed the tip gladly. “See, you’re the type who should be leading this country of ours—you’re a right good chap, you are!”
Marion just ducked his head and, lengthening his stride, sought out the quiet of a public seat in the park to be alone with his newspaper. And his thoughts.
A leader of the country? He very nearly laughed at the idea.
Very nearly.
Holgate
There was a thickness to the atmosphere—a particular way the air clung to a body in Holgate. Moisture rested like dew, sparkling on the worn and rounded stones of the compound’s outer wall and dripping in wandering streaks into moss and spongy grasses growing along the wall’s base.
A black slime had begun to film over the stonework of the main bridge and water hissed along the wagon’s wheels as they made their way over the narrowest part of the lake by which Holgate sat.
The Tester sat atop the carriage with the driver, his head moving from side to side as he examined the compound he had ventured out from only a few days before. Even the Wraiths clinging to the carriage’s corners straightened as the horses whisked them underneath the arching entranceway.
Within the walled sanctuary of Holgate they removed their hats and Jordan jumped, seeing the way the light gleamed along their ragged-looking heads and made the remaining wisps of silver hair glimmer. They never bothered to tug their hats back into place. In Holgate there was no flinch, no fear.
The Wraiths were home.
The carriage came to a stop in a courtyard of sorts, modest storefronts and houses running parallel to the wall’s interior and then hopping narrow streets and alleyways to form blocks of businesses and residences. It was far smaller a space than Philadelphia’s Hill, Jordan noted, and cramped, but it was also an area someone could easily get lost in.
Ahead of them the Wraiths leaped from their perches on the carriage’s corners and pulled wide the carriage doors for the Councilman. A step slid out from the carriage’s belly and the Councilman, Lord Stevenson, descended onto the cobblestone street. He tugged out a handkerchief and held it to his nose as the Tester climbed down from beside the driver.
“Do you smell it?” he asked the taller man.
The Tester nodded. “Someone is Drawing Down without repercussions and making the walls weep.”
“I can very nearly wring water from my handkerchief just by exposing it to the air,” Stevenson complained. “And the lake. The lake is low.”
The Tester nodded slowly, turning to look at the imposing building in the compound’s center with its broad walls and sweeping height.
Jordan counted a miraculous sixteen stories, including a tower that threatened to punch a hole in the sky pulling up high above even those.
“I’d rather the lake be low,” the Tester said with a wary look back the way they had come, “than overflow and mingle with a high storm surge. We would be at their mercy…” He signaled to the gatekeeper and he signaled to another man who released a large handle on a spinning mechanism. There was an awful grating of metal skimming stone as a portcullis was lowered to lock them all inside Holgate.
Stevenson smiled. “The Merrow would never make it this far up. And the other Wildkin are so disorganized as to pose no threat,” he said with a laugh. “We are as safe as we can be—”
“—locked in a compound with nearly a hundred angry prisoners we’ve allowed to be tortured,” the Tester added.
Stevenson blanched. “Not tortured. Made. We have the Wraiths. Wardens. And the town watch. And the Maker.”
“The Maker would only buy us time if we tossed him to the magickers he’s Made. They’d rip him apart.”
“At least we know he serves multiple purposes…” Stevenson glanced about and shouted to one of the watchmen. “You there! Escort those to be Made to Processing.”
A large man shuffled forward, propped his rifle against the nearest wall, and removed the sword from his belt. “Now, none of you’s gonna try ’en give me any trouble, right? Y’hear?”
The occupants of the wagon nodded dully, grunting as they watched the Tester hand the key to the watchman. Only a few minutes within Holgate’s walls and already they were damp and dreary, more ragged than their time on the roads had made them.
They faced the main building as the key turned in the lock. Over his shoulder he said, “Tether them. I want no trouble.” Two other watchmen stepped up and nearly stepped back when the Wraiths came forward to assist. “I’ll root out this new trouble,” the Tester muttered. “I’ll have no bread of mine soggy, no toast points limp with damp…”
Stevenson nodded. “An odd set of priorities you have, but understandable. Do you think it’s one freshly Made?”
“Does it matter?” the Tester asked. “It’s a Witch that is testing its bounds. I’ll have none of it.”
Philadelphia
“I did not expect—”
“—so many people, young sir?” Jonathan asked, eyeing the crowd that had gathered on the edge of the meadow. “You are quite the curiosity. You have always been more focused on friends than fighting.”
A touch of fog still crawled along their ankles, swirling away to create a far stranger atmosphere than Rowen had hoped for.
“I do have a reputation for throwing parties more frequently than punches…”
Men raised their arms when they saw him—and a few aimed rude gestures in his direction, too. “Seems like a nearly fair mix,” Rowen muttered, pushing his heels in the horse’s sides to urge it forward onto the site of the duel.
Edward stood across the meadow with a few of his closest followers, watching Rowen and Jonathan ride in. He nodded sharply at his fellow duelist, his eyes sharp and hard as flint.
“He wants to kill me,” Rowen noted, returning the nod.
“I daresay that is the goal of this particular exercise, sir.”
“Thank you, Jonathan, very reassuring. May we yet recall I suggested first blood?”
“Sir. Do remember that shooting a man is a reasonably simple act merely requiring a steady hand, a clear eye, and—in most cases—some premeditation. You are quite capable in this regard. You are also no slouch with a sword. I have seen you fence quite well.”
“You have also seen me fence quite poorly.”
Jonathan cleared his throat. “This too is true. But I feel that today your skill and luck will meet and yield the opportunity you so need. Be steady, be strong. Be brave. And kill the obnoxious prick for what he said about Miss Jordan’s parentage and morality.”
Rowen blinked at him and nodded, smiling grimly. “I shall endeavor to do just that.”
Rowen slid from his saddle and grabbed both sets of reins as Jonathan dismounted more carefully, his hands quickly going to the saddlebags. He withdrew the pistol box and looked at Rowen, his eyes bright. “We will wait until the last moment possible to load. The air is quite sticky and we do not want a misfire.”
Kenneth appeared, a bit worse for wear as a result of the wildness of the night before. “I shall wish you good luck and sharp aim now, Rowen,” he said, reaching out to shake his friend’s hand. He paused, though, switching something from one hand to the other.
Rowen raised an eyebrow.
“Oh. Yes. I have been asked to hold the money,” Kenneth explained.
“The money?”
“Yes.” Kenneth cleared his throat and looked away a moment. “Yes, it seems this is quite the event to place a wager on.”
“Indeed?”
Kenneth nodded.
“And how are the odds?” Rowen asked, the words coming slowly.
“Nearly equal,” Kenneth assured.
“Nearly?”
Kenneth’s gaze flicked to Rowen’s and then away again. “A few more betting against you than for you, but that is how these things go…” Before Rowen could say another word Kenneth flung up his hand and, waving to someone across the meadow whom Rowen had not seen wave first, jogged away.
Jonathan was beside him. “They are betting on you,” he said.
“And betting against me,” Rowen added.
“Do not worry about your naysayers—or your supporters. Now is not the time for worry at all,” Jonathan said, brushing Rowen’s shoulders as if he were brushing them clean before a grand entrance to a ball.
Rowen took the pistol, a grave look on his face. “Remember what I asked. If I need to be finished—”
“I will not hesitate if the time comes,” Jonathan assured.
“Excellent.” Rowen walked to the meadow’s center, boots rustling through the small blue flowers. “Forget-me-nots,” he muttered. The dew slicked his boots, bringing them to a gloss so high the sun sparked across their detailing and glittered across his belt and buckle. The scabbard whispered against his hip, flashing like an automaton’s tail, flicking back and forth with each stride he took.
He paused before his opponent, his pistol’s muzzle in the air, and they both weighed each other: their manner and motivation, the sharpness of their eyes and attitudes.
A third man joined them, by his outfit a judge of one of the outlying circuit courts. “I am Lord Michaelson. I will tell you when to stop, when to turn, and when to shoot. And if there is a need, I will tell you when to switch to sabers.” He glanced at them both solemnly. “I will be the sole determiner of the match’s outcome and my word will be taken as law. Are we quite clear?”
“Quite,” Rowen agreed.
“As clear as a stormlight crystal,” Lord Edward added.
“Then turn your backs to each other and prepare to pace off. You will stride in time to my count. You will go to a distance of ten paces and await the command to turn and fire. At that point, turn, take aim, and discharge your weapon.” He paused briefly before saying, “You may pace off.”
They measured the distance stride by stride and when Rowen heard the count of ten, he stopped in the dewy grass and waited for the next command.
“You may turn and—”
BOOM!
Rowen felt the ball cut past him, his hair stirring in its wake as he brought down his pistol’s muzzle and fired. The blast rocked the pistol in his hand and he stood, silent and awash in the blowback of gunpowder and spark, stunned as the other man dropped to the ground.
Rowen stared, his jaw hanging loose, as men scrambled to kneel or crouch beside his fallen opponent. Rowen was already stumbling back as the judge crossed the distance to Lord Edward, leaned over, and reached out a tentative hand to touch the fallen man’s neck.
Jonathan was beside Rowen. “Sir, it is time to depart.” He took Rowen’s hand in his to gently remove the pistol from his grasp.
Rowen nodded dully as the judge rose and announced, “We have a victor—Rowen Burchette.”
And then Rowen and Jonathan ran to the horses, mounting and speeding away from the scene of the crime—for crime was what it was even in the meadow just beyond the city limits—their lives ruined and nothing but a black mark and whatever was in their stuffed saddlebags to their names.
Holgate
Bran set down his pen, hearing someone again knocking at his door. Standing by the corner of his desk, Meg peered up at him from beneath a tumble of platinum curls, pausing as she rearranged his loose papers. Recognizing one particular sheet, he fought the impulse to snatch it away, recalling that Meggie could not yet read and that was the main reason she was allowed to shuffle her way through his often grim writings. Once she began to make out his scrawling words she would be kept from this task as well. And likely still be too young to help amidst the horrors of the laboratory and tower top …
The pounding came once more, this time followed by an insistent voice saying, “Good Maker … The boys, they say … Please come to the door, good sir.”
He pushed back his chair and reached forward to pat Meggie’s head. “Let them lie,” he instructed with a glance to the remaining papers. “Relax for a moment,” he added. He watched as she ambled obediently away before he opened the peephole in his door and found himself face-to-face with the gigantic watchman from the other evening.
The man looked down, eyes shifting and shining with nerves. “There’s another something here for you, good Maker. Something the boys say wants to be in your keeping. I say, leave it lie, but they tell me it won’t. Not still at least. Never have seen the like of it, they say…”
The door groaned open and Bran saw a burlap bag hanging at arm’s length from the man’s boulder-sized fist.
“Won’t stay in the ground, they say.” The bag trembled in his huge outstretched hand, his knuckles clenched and white. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust for all but this one, it seems. But mind, sir, is clean as such things can be. White as snow. Picked to perfection as if it lay in the desert a solid year. Though seems to me it’s been not yet a month … It’s not natural.”
“Quit your muttering and hand the blasted thing to me.”
“Aye, sir—as you wish, sir.” He ducked his head and thrust the bag into Bran’s chest, backing away hurriedly and only nodding a brief bow before he spun on his heel and loped down the hallway.
Bran stepped back into the library, hands wrapped round the thing in the bag. It was not heavy—maybe the weight of a bowl, with a dome like a bowl’s bottom … Not large, either, he realized, locking the door back and striding to his desk.
He set the bag down on the slanting face of his desk, catching it as it tried to roll away. Hands resting on either side of the thing in the bag, he shifted the fabric away from what it contained, revealing the white curve of bone.
His hands dropped away from it as the fabric settled and he realized what the object was that had set the burly guard to trembling.
Empty eye sockets peered at him from a child’s hollow skull.
Sybil.
The water in the horn cup on his desk rippled and splashed and Bran was torn between the small horror in his hands and the weird way of the nearest water.
The sound of small feet on the wooden floor stirred Bran to action and he jerked the burlap back over the impossibly clean skull, tucking the bag’s ends away to hide the cruel proof of his most recent failure.
Philadelphia
Chloe stood before the Council, her head raised, her hands clasped before her, a chain hanging between the manacles connecting her wrists. The bandana that usually kept her hair from her face had never been returned once they all had examined the absence of her ear. In some places they had begun identifying people by printing their fingers—or so she had heard. But here some ideas came into existence
more slowly and some—much faster. As the Council members shuffled their papers, she took a moment to marvel at the hall she stood in.
A mosaic floor showing the subjugation of the natives was underfoot. “Suitably so,” one Councilman was rumored to have said when the mural was nearing completion. She shifted, trying to move her feet off the image of a native whose face was being pressed into the dirt by the foot of a colonist declaring, “A Place for All.”
But her movement attracted attention and there was a whirring and popping noise as two tall automatons took a heavy-footed step forward. They watched her, glass eyes sparkling and yet somehow still dead. She focused her attention on one of them, noting how between the joints of the heavy white flesh that seemed so much like porcelain she could glimpse the clockwork underneath. Gears hummed, wheels and belts shifting and moving to make each giant doll appear a clumsy mimicry of life. In the center of their bare and genderless chests was a single shining crystal. A stormcell.
She glanced from the stormcell of the nearest to its vacant eyes. The last burst of power a Weather Witch had was said to fall into such things, infusing them with eternal light. Just as the Reanimator had mentioned Lady Astraea’s soul being trapped in whichever stormlight’s crystal was nearest her body at the moment of her death.
What was that like, she wondered, to be trapped for all eternity in crystal? Did you remember things? Could you see the outside world? Or were you simply a power source to be siphoned by automatons and stormlights? Did you, at death, become nothing but someone else’s battery?
Perhaps there was no Heaven or Hell, she mused. Only a crystal cage.
Or … Her eyes saw a twinkle of light—like a sudden spark—flare in the crystal of the nearest automaton. Or perhaps that was Hell …
She shuddered.
The men at the Council’s long table were staring at her, Lord Stevenson still noticeably absent, as was her own Lord Astraea. “Are you quite well?” one asked, though from his tone she knew he did not care—he was merely speaking the words. Following proper societal protocol.
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