Orphans of the Tide

by Struan Murray

  Anna stopped kicking her heels, and looked at her lap. Her mouth twitched.

  Ellie looked at Seth, a tiny ember of hope flaring in her chest. ‘But this isn’t the only copy of the diary.’

  Seth frowned. ‘You said all the other copies were confiscated by the Inquisition. Where would they have put them?’

  Ellie thought for a moment. ‘Maybe they’re in the Inquisitorial Keep?’

  Seth’s lips paled.

  ‘I’ve seen Inquisitors in all sorts of places lately,’ said Anna. ‘There are all these big buildings around the City that I’d always thought no one used, because their windows were boarded up and their doors were locked tight, only lately they’ve been swarming with Inquisitors and guardsmen.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that too,’ said Ellie. ‘Their doors have shiny silver locks.’

  ‘If I was an Inquisitor, and I wanted to keep something safe,’ Anna continued, ‘I’d put it in a boring-looking building where no one would suspect forbidden things were hidden.’

  ‘But we don’t know how many of these buildings there are,’ said Ellie. ‘Or where they all are.’

  ‘Yeah, but we could find out,’ said Anna.

  ‘How? There are only three of us and we’ve got no time.’

  Anna waved a hand dismissively. ‘The orphans’ll find them all in an afternoon. Then we can break into them, one after the other, until we find the other diaries.’

  ‘Break in?’ Ellie exclaimed. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘I can do it!’ said Seth and Anna in unison, then turned to each other.

  ‘You?’ said Anna, appalled. ‘You can’t go outside – everyone wants to kill you.’

  ‘I can be stealthy – I could break into a building easily.’

  ‘Yeah, unless you get attacked by a glass of water. Or the voices in your head make you start screaming.’

  ‘Those voices are the sea,’ said Seth, touching his head. ‘And they’re not so bad since I figured out how to control the water.’

  ‘But what do you know about being stealthy?’ Anna said. ‘You just turned up, like, yesterday, stinking of whale guts, and now you’re acting like you’re some sort of expert thief.’

  Seth pointed up at the library. ‘I can figure it out – I’ve been stuck in here for ages with nothing to do but read. I’m probably the smartest person in the City now.’

  Anna blew a curl of hair from her face. ‘Oh, you’re so full of –’

  ‘Shut up, both of you,’ said Ellie. Anna and Seth fell silent. ‘Anna, it’s a good idea to use the orphans to find all the buildings. Let’s start with that.’

  Anna nodded fiercely and marched towards the front door, while Seth stuck his face back in Hestermeyer’s diary. Ellie looked at them both, and felt the knot in her chest loosen a tiny bit more.

  ~

  Ellie spent the next morning and afternoon wandering the streets alone until her legs ached. The City was unnaturally quiet. There was no cheerful haggling at the market stalls, and far fewer children than usual. The ones she did see were hiding in doorways, playing half-hearted games of dice. The only happy faces she saw all day were Fry and Ibnet’s, who waved to her from the roof of a courthouse, overjoyed at being enlisted to help, even if they had no idea what it was about.

  As Ellie walked, she examined the buildings, looking for boarded-up windows and silver locks on doors. Finally, on Erskine Street, she passed a large group of men standing outside a tall, empty-looking house secured by a heavy, silver lock. They were animated and angry and seemed to have been drinking. They were yelling up at the building.

  ‘The Enemy has destroyed my livelihood!’ a fisherman cried, his hand wrapped up in bandages and his beard singed.

  ‘Do your jobs, you fools!’

  ‘Why haven’t you caught him yet?’

  They yelled until their faces were beetroot-red. Then, the silver lock rattled and the doors swung open. Five Inquisitors walked out and the men scattered in all directions. One of them tripped and fell and was dragged inside the building.

  Her heart beating in her throat, Ellie fished out a map of the City from her pocket and marked an X in pencil on Erskine Street.

  She wanted to spend the whole day searching, but had to return to the workshop several times to let Castion’s sailors in. After the fire at the Oystery, dozens of oyster-catchers had been pulled from the sea, their copper shells warped and blackened, their crablike legs twisted. Now they’d been brought to the workshop, so that it resembled a battlefield, strewn with the bodies of mechanical creatures.

  ‘Poor little things,’ said Anna, reaching out and waggling one of the legs of an oyster-catcher. The end snapped off in her hand, and she winced and patted the machine in apology.

  The sun had set, and the three of them had gathered in the workshop. Between Ellie, Anna and the orphans, they’d found eight Inquisitorial strongholds scattered across the City. They were all unremarkable buildings, on quiet streets. There was one in the Salvation Markets, and another not far from Orphanage Street itself. There was one nestled among the mansions of the Merchant Guilds and another right by the sea, near the Warrens.

  Seth spread out a map of the City and floor plans of the buildings, which Ellie had pulled from the library. An oil lamp sat at one corner, bathing the maps orange.

  Seth picked up one of the floor plans. ‘How do you even have these?’

  ‘My mum,’ Ellie said. ‘She wanted to completely rebuild the sewer system. She had plans drawn up of almost every building in the City.’

  They stared at the layouts of the strongholds. Ellie had hoped it would be obvious which of the buildings might contain the confiscated diaries, but the plans offered no clues. All eight of them were big, with thick walls and narrow corridors.

  ‘So,’ said Anna, ‘we’ve got tonight and tomorrow night before Hargrath comes back, so all we have to do is break into four each night.’

  ‘Anna, the chances of us getting caught breaking into just one of these buildings are high enough,’ said Ellie.

  Seth began toying with one of the broken oyster-catchers. ‘What if we watch them tonight, and try to figure out which one gets used the most?’

  ‘We can’t watch all eight at the same time,’ Anna said. ‘It’s too dangerous for the orphans to be outside after curfew.’

  Ellie sat back, exhausted. ‘I didn’t think there would be so many. We can’t search them all – there’s not enough time.’

  Seth fumbled and nearly dropped the oyster-catcher he was holding.

  ‘Please don’t make them any more broken,’ Ellie pleaded.

  Seth grimaced. ‘Sorry.’ He examined the machine. ‘What’s wrong with this one anyway? It doesn’t look burnt at all.’

  Ellie reached for the oyster-catcher. Sure enough, it had only one small scorch mark on its copper shell. She wound the handle in its back, but it still didn’t work. She bit her lip and shook it slightly. There was a faint rattling from inside.

  ‘Ellie, what should we do?’ Seth asked.

  ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking,’ she said.

  She picked up a screwdriver and prised open the panel on the oyster-catcher’s belly. After a moment of prodding around she found something hard trapped between the cogs. She grabbed a long pair of tweezers from her pocket and pushed them inside. Seconds later, she plucked out a beautiful, silver pearl.

  ‘Do you know what a pearl is?’ she said, holding out the glimmering sphere for Anna and Seth to see. ‘It’s an oyster’s way of protecting itself. If a tiny parasite gets inside the shell, the oyster builds this shiny coating round it, so the parasite can’t hurt it. Isn’t that amazing? It takes something horrible and dangerous, and turns it into something beautiful.’

  She held the pearl up to the lamplight, rotating it slowly. It looked like the moon in miniature.

  ‘I wish I could do that to the Enemy,’ she said.

  She looked at Seth, who gave her an uncertain smile, then back at the little pearl. Strange,
how secretive the pearl was, tucked inside its oyster shell. You’d never know something so beautiful was hidden in there from the outside.

  A vague idea niggled at the back of Ellie’s mind. She looked at Seth again, and tried to chase the idea through her swirling thoughts. But just as she was on the cusp of grasping it, someone knocked insistently at the door.

  ‘Ellie?’ came a voice from outside. ‘Ellie, it’s me.’

  ‘Castion,’ Ellie whispered.

  Seth rushed off to the basement, and Anna hurriedly gathered up the maps and floor plans, and hid Hestermeyer’s diary. Ellie unbolted the doors and Castion hobbled in from the darkness, carrying a large burlap sack. His usually magnificent red velvet coat seemed drab, like it had been soaked in the rain and not dried properly. As he stepped into the lamplight Ellie caught sight of his face. He looked older than she’d ever seen him; she could have sworn there was more grey in his beard, more lines beneath his eyes.

  ‘Forgive my late visit,’ he said. ‘Oh, hello, Anna,’ he added, and gave a small bow.

  ‘Sir, is everything all right?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Oh no, nothing to drink for me, thanks,’ said Castion distractedly, looking round the workshop. ‘I think this is the last of them,’ he said, passing over the sack of blackened oyster-catchers.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ellie said.

  Castion nudged a stool out from under a workbench with his narwhal-tusk cane, and sat down with a sigh.

  Ellie shared a worried glance with Anna. ‘Is something the matter, sir? Are you okay?’

  Castion grimaced as he readjusted his mechanical leg. ‘You know, I’m not sure. Once upon a time, I would have come to your mother for advice. Now . . . the City is lacking in wise people to talk to.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ellie felt a weird twist of surprise. Did Castion want her advice? She wasn’t sure she had ever given an adult advice before. She looked at Anna, then jerked her head meaningfully towards the door. Anna frowned rebelliously.

  ‘Aren’t you on potato-peeling duty tonight?’ Ellie said loudly, and Anna scowled and slouched from the workshop.

  An awkward silence filled the air. Ellie felt stiff and unsure what to do with her hands.

  ‘I can’t stop seeing it,’ he said. ‘When I close my eyes, I keep imagining the destruction . . .’ His eyelids flickered, and for a moment he almost seemed afraid.

  Ellie frowned. Lord Castion wasn’t afraid of anything – there were rumours he’d once leapt on to a flaming ship to rescue his sailors, after an entire barrel of whale oil had caught fire; that he’d weathered more storms than any other whale lord, and faced down every fearsome creature of the sea. The only time she’d seen him look so frightened was when she’d asked him if he’d ever seen the Enemy. She remembered the distant, pained look in his eyes, like a child recalling a nightmare. It was the same look he wore now.

  ‘You’ve seen it,’ Ellie said. ‘You saw the Enemy, the day Hestermeyer died.’

  Castion nodded.

  But the Enemy had been destroyed that day, at the top of the Clocktower of St Angelos, when Hargrath lost his arm. So the only way Castion could have seen it was if he had been there too. Which meant . . .

  ‘Sir,’ Ellie asked. ‘Did you use to be an Inquisitor?’

  Castion was silent, long enough for Ellie to know the truth. Her heart thudded hard in her ears. ‘That’s how you really lost your leg, isn’t it? The Enemy took it.’

  He let out a sigh. ‘You are your mother’s daughter,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s how I lost it – the same day Hargrath lost his arm. I had only joined the Inquisition a year earlier. I was patrolling with Killian – sorry, Hargrath – and five others, when we saw Claude Hestermeyer at the top of the clocktower, looking down at us. Hargrath ran in first. He was actually smiling. We were so young; we thought we were about to become heroes. I raced after him. I wanted to reach Claude first.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted to help.’

  ‘Were you and Hestermeyer friends, sir?’ said Ellie.

  Castion gave her a pained smile. ‘Dear friends. We studied together at the university, if you can imagine me in a library,’ he added, with a small, forced laugh. ‘But I dreamed of slaying monsters, so I joined the Inquisition.’

  ‘What was Hestermeyer like?’

  ‘Exceptionally kind. We grew apart after I left the university, and further still after Peter Lambeth died. When I found out Claude was the Vessel, I thought . . .’ He tapped his cane against the floorboards. ‘I thought somehow I could save him. I even found him once, days before he died, hiding in the sewers. I pleaded with him to turn himself in, before it was too late. He didn’t listen. The next time I saw him, on top of the clocktower, it was too late. I ran up the staircase. I found Hargrath in two pieces, and the rest of my friends all dead. And Claude Hestermeyer, well, he wasn’t there any more, just the Enemy. We fought. I won. I don’t know how. When I woke up I was on the surgeon’s table, and my leg was gone. I knew I wanted nothing to do with the Enemy – not even to speak of it. So I told the High Inquisitor it was Hargrath who’d killed it. He wanted so much to be a saint, it seemed for the best.’

  He was silent a long time. ‘I hope you never see it,’ he said finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I hope you never do.’

  ‘Sir, why did you think that you could save Hestermeyer?’

  Castion grimaced. ‘Because I had to. I felt like it was my fault, for not realizing sooner that he was in pain. I thought, maybe, if he saw me, he would remember the good man he’d been, not the evil he’d become. That if I could give him something real to hold on to, like the memory of our friendship, then the Enemy couldn’t claim him. But I was foolish. It was too late for him – the moment he became the Vessel, he was doomed.’

  Ellie’s chest tightened painfully.

  ‘But then,’ Castion continued, ‘over the years, I have sometimes caught myself wondering . . . Why did the Enemy choose Claude? He was filled with sadness and guilt after Peter Lambeth died. Is that the weakness the Enemy exploited? How it wormed its way into his soul? I wonder sometimes – if I had been a better friend to Claude after Peter died, maybe it would have been different? And these days, with the Enemy among us once again . . . it’s all I can think about.’

  Castion leaned forward on his stool, staring at the ground.

  Ellie took a deep breath. ‘Sir . . . have you read Hestermeyer’s diary?’ she asked. ‘Maybe it would help you to feel better about what happened.’

  ‘The diary?’ Castion looked up sharply. For a moment Ellie thought he might chastise her for even mentioning it, but he just shook his head. ‘I tried. I was one of the Inquisitors who went to collect Claude’s things from the university. It was awful, going into his office after he was gone.’

  Ellie’s heart was so loud she could hardly hear her thoughts. ‘So you took the diary?’

  ‘Yes. His diary, his papers, all his belongings. There wasn’t much.’

  ‘Where did you take them?’

  ‘An Inquisitorial building,’ Castion said distantly, lost in memory. ‘Where the possessions of all the Vessels are kept. I tried to read the diary first. I thought it would help me remember my friend. I sat on the edge of the waterfront, listening to the gentle waves. And I tried to read it, but . . . I couldn’t. Not without seeing that thing in the clocktower.’

  He put a hand to his mouth, his brow crumpling. ‘Poor Claude. So I handed his belongings over. My last act as an Inquisitor. I resigned the next day. It wasn’t long after that I met your mother, and she made me this.’ He tapped his cane against his metal leg. ‘She was a great comfort. My life started to get better from that point.’

  Castion’s eyes were wet. Ellie swallowed, rolling the hard little pearl between her fingers. ‘You still remember him, though, from before he was the Vessel?’

  ‘Yes,’ he smiled.

  ‘Just like you remember my mum from before –’

  Cast
ion reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Yes.’

  Ellie felt the heavy weight of Castion’s hand. ‘Maybe it’s okay to let your happy memories cover up the bad ones,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should concentrate on the good memories, until the painful ones get worn away.’

  Castion rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. ‘Yes, yes, I should. Thank you, Hannah,’ he said, then gave a sad laugh. ‘I mean Ellie. You’re right, thank you.’

  He glanced round at the hospital of broken oyster-catchers, then blinked down at the sack he’d brought with him. ‘I hope you aren’t working too hard,’ he said, an edge of worry in his voice. ‘You look –’

  ‘Tired? I am,’ Ellie said. She had grown even paler since asking for Finn’s help the day before at the Tower of the Serpent. She could feel the hot lines of exhaustion under her eyes, like curls of ash. ‘But I’m okay,’ she lied.

  Castion smiled weakly and stood up, nudging his stool back under the workbench. He bowed to her. ‘You let me know if there’s anything more I can do to help,’ he said, inclining his head towards the oyster-catchers.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ellie, and Castion strode from the workshop.

  Ellie found herself breathing heavily. She clattered over to the door of the basement, and banged on it hard. A moment later, Seth appeared.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I know where the diaries are.’

  The Other Forty-five

  Only one of the Inquisitorial strongholds was next to the sea, like Castion had mentioned. When Ellie pulled out the plans, they found a map of a three-storey building. The largest room was at the back of the second floor, and was probably the best place to keep paper documents.

  The building was next to the Warrens, right on the Salvation Waterfront. It wasn’t near any entrances to the sewers, so they would have to approach it in the open, sticking to the darkest alleyways. The front door would probably be guarded, but fortunately the plans showed that the lowest floor of the building was below sea level, and accessible by a submerged staircase. Ellie had an idea for how to get in that way.