Chester shook his head. ‘Mr Ashworth was a strange man. Sometimes he’d go away for months without telling anyone – he’d head off to study new Musical developments in Weser City, or he’d go foraging northward for new types of wood to make his instruments.’
‘So even if the shop was locked up for months –’
‘– the neighbours might not see anything odd about it,’ Chester said. ‘We might be the first people to set foot in the shop since …’ He wet his lips, stunned by the horror of the scene. ‘Since whoever did this to Mr Ashworth.’
‘We’d better get out of here,’ Dot said. ‘In case they come back.’
‘But if this happened weeks ago …’
‘They might have set security spells.’
Chester tensed. Dot was right. When they’d unlocked the door, or when he’d been foolish enough to light the sorcery lamp … any of those actions might have triggered a remote alarm globe. Mr Ashworth’s attacker might already know they were here.
They hurried back into the main shopfront. Fighting the urge to run, Chester thought about the risks they’d already taken to be here. He couldn’t leave with nothing! He unlocked the front window display, fingers trembling a little, and grabbed Goldenleaf from its perch. He had only a moment to relish the feel of the fiddle against his skin – that familiar old friend, with the waiting hum of its strings – before Dot slammed an empty fiddle case onto the countertop.
‘Hurry,’ she said, voice low.
Chester snatched a packet of spare strings from a display rack. He pocketed the strings, placed the fiddle and bow into the case, then closed the lid and buckled it up. Just as he was clicking the final buckle into place, the front door flew open.
A figure stood silhouetted in the gloom of the alleyway. The figure took a slow step forwards – and suddenly Chester’s mind was back in Hamelin as he and Sam had fled through the cornfields. As a Songshaper had pointed a gun at his head. The same Songshaper who stood before him now.
It was Nathaniel Glaucon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Susannah left the post office with a lightness in her step, with Sam and Travis trailing behind her. The city of Thrace stank as badly as usual – rotting rubbish, overflowing drains, a sweaty morass of human bodies – but in an odd way, it reminded her of home. As a fishing port, Delos was home to its fair share of unpleasant smells.
Chester had grown up here. It was a strange thought. She imagined him as a child, laughing and playing in these tangled streets. He might have run errands in the market, or scampered through the nearby alleyways …
As she thought of Chester, the lightness in her faded. She could picture him here, his dark eyes marked by an innocence so different from the cynicism in Travis or the hardness in Sam … Or the ruthlessness she tasted in herself.
For Chester, a song was more than just music. More than melody or rhythm, sound or beat or the silence in between. It was air. It was food and water, life itself. He inhaled each note as though it might fill his belly, soak through his skin and paint his bones with starlight.
In a way, Susannah envied him. She had never been a musical girl. Growing up poor on the docks, she’d never had the chance. Her father was a sailor and Susannah’s first love was the sea. As a child, she had clambered high up the masts of ships in harbour. She had learnt to scamper up ratlines and swing from the yards, just as Chester had learnt to coax a tune from fiddle strings.
Now, they both found themselves turning those talents to thieving. They had seized the skills they learnt and loved as children and turned them into tools as practical as knives or lamps or lock-picks. There was something cold in that, perhaps. Something hollow.
She remembered Chester at dinner, playing with his stew bowl. He had such long fingers: the fingers of a violinist, fingers that could coax music from a bow, or a song from silence. It was that music that made him useful to the gang. It made him valuable.
It made him vulnerable.
With that thought, Susannah’s breath turned cold. Ever since Chester had arrived, she had tried to avoid thinking about his role in the plan. It was a role she’d set out so long ago, so coldly, so utterly without compassion or emotion. The role was to be filled by a Songshaper who was to be a pawn, to be sacrificed in her final game with the Conservatorium.
But now …
Well, now that Songshaper was Chester and she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go through with her original plan, she knew that now. For over a week she had been in denial, refusing to consider the flaw at the heart of her scheme. To ask Chester to throw his life away … the thought made her chest seize up in a terrible tightness, like the howl of a badly tuned banjo. She knew Chester. She knew him as a person, as a friend. Perhaps, even, as more …
But they were running out of time, and she was out of ideas. She couldn’t think of any other way to achieve her goal in the Conservatorium. How else was she supposed to finish the plan? Only a week left until the auditions … If she postponed the heist, they wouldn’t have another chance for an entire year. She had to find a way to –
‘All right, Captain?’ Sam said.
Susannah blinked, startled. She realised she must have been staring into space and gave him an apologetic look. ‘Just tired, I think.’
Sam frowned a little, as though trying to assess the creases in her eyes. ‘You just looked a little … upset.’
‘I’m fine.’ She hated the snap in her own voice but shook her head sharply to reinforce the tone. She didn’t want to talk about this. She couldn’t afford to talk about it. She would think of something. Another option. Another plan.
There was still time.
‘Where to next, Captain?’ Travis said.
Susannah turned to Travis, grateful for the change in topic. ‘We could kill some time in the market before we meet with the others.’
Travis brightened up. ‘I once met a lovely girl at a market stall – Annie, her name was. Gorgeous blonde hair, all tumbling over her shoulders while she sold hot sausages to the riffraff …’ He sighed. ‘Shame her voice was as shrill as an off-key viola.’
‘No one’s good enough for you, are they?’
‘Oh, it’s not like that,’ Travis said. ‘I can’t expect every girl to meet my own standard of perfection.’ He gestured down at his own impeccable outfit and winked at her. ‘I mean, can you imagine the girl who could live up to this?’
The market square was hot and dusty but thankfully smelt of fruit and sausages rather than rubbish. They bought a loaf of bread, so fresh that steam rose from its insides when they cracked it open. It was sweet – laced with sugar and currants – and the taste made Susannah’s tongue tingle with pleasure.
After a moment, she realised that Sam wasn’t eating. He was surveying the crowd with narrowed eyes, his limbs as tense as trip-wires.
‘Sam?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’
He didn’t answer. For a moment she feared it was the music of the nearby busker, manipulating Sam’s emotions. But she was sure it was only music, not Music with a capital ‘M’. And besides, the tune was upbeat and cheerful – if Sam’s behaviour was down to melodic interference, shouldn’t he be smiling and bouncing around in response?
No, it wasn’t the music. Something else was wrong.
She touched his arm lightly, trying not to startle him. ‘Sam? What do you see?’
Sam’s eyes were fixed on a figure in the crowd. Susannah followed his gaze, frowning, and settled on a man in an olive-green coat. A neatly trimmed goatee curled below his lip, and he wore a silver pendant in the shape of a nautilus shell. Songshaper.
‘Nathaniel Glaucon,’ Sam hissed.
‘Who?’
‘The Shaper that chased us out of Hamelin,’ Sam said. ‘Damn near put a bullet in Chester’s head.’
Susannah stiffened. Her body was tense and alert, now – ready to charge, or pounce, or flee. Survival instinct flooded her veins, screaming at her to run for it …
But she c
ouldn’t run. Two members of her gang were still here, somewhere in the sprawling mass of the city. She was their captain and she was their friend. She wouldn’t leave them. And until she knew the Songshaper’s purpose here, she wouldn’t let this danger out of her sight.
The marketplace bustled around her, a sea of shouts and clanks and the sizzle of roasting corncobs. Susannah followed Nathaniel, who wove through the crowd like an expert, dodging and weaving through groups of passing shoppers. He moved ever closer to the edge of the square, shifting in the direction of a particular side street …
‘He’s not here to go shopping,’ Susannah said, pausing a moment for the others to catch up. ‘He’s looking for something.’
Or someone, her mind added.
Susannah stamped down on that thought and countered her panic with another dash forwards. For a moment she lost sight of him as he slipped into the crowd, just another shadow in a tangled knot of limbs. ‘Where …?’
‘That way,’ Travis pointed. He was taller than her by at least a foot and he peered over the heads of the bustling shoppers. ‘Down that street to the right.’
They hurried after the Songshaper, ducking and weaving through the crowd. People swore as Susannah shoved past, but she waved them off with a muffled apology. After almost a minute of elbows, protests and assorted curses, she was funnelled by the crowd into the side street.
‘Down there, Captain!’ Travis called, somewhere in the crowd behind her. ‘To your left, just near –’
His voice was drowned out in the rush. Susannah cursed under her breath. They were too close to the market and it was nearing noon, the busiest time of the day, when local workers swarmed to purchase lunch from the stalls.
She pushed into the side street, where the crowds mercifully thinned. This street was narrow but mostly deserted. The main source of life was a row of rubbish bins, buzzing with the wing-beats of tiny black insects.
‘I assume this isn’t a popular shopping area,’ Travis said in distaste, holding his nose as they passed a doorway.
They reached the end of the street and peered around the corner. Susannah spotted the Songshaper immediately: a lone silhouette against the bricks of the next alleyway.
‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘This way.’
She peeked into passing windows, studying the types of shops in the area. Taxidermist, embroiderer, glass blower … These weren’t popular mainstream shops, like bakeries or tailors. They were curiosities, mostly, selling odds and ends and offering peculiar services. Such shopkeepers couldn’t afford the rent in more popular areas.
Susannah couldn’t imagine an instrument shop in this part of the city. Were they barking up the wrong tree? Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Nathaniel Glaucon was in Thrace; perhaps he wasn’t looking for Chester after all …
Up ahead, Nathaniel vanished through a doorway.
Susannah turned to the others, the question on her lips.
‘Don’t reckon there’d be an instrument shop down there, Captain,’ Sam said, frowning. ‘In all them shadows. How’s it supposed to get any customers?’
‘Perhaps it isn’t an instrument shop,’ Travis said. ‘It could be a secret meeting place for Songshapers or something. Perhaps he’s sending a message to his superiors in Weser.’
The others gave him incredulous looks.
‘What?’ Travis said. ‘It could be.’
Susannah shook her head. ‘Well, only one way to find out.’
A minute later she stood in front of the shop. Dust clung like skin to the window, but she could still make out the shapes inside. A clarinet, a banjo, a gleaming silver triangle. Above the door, a faded old sign read Ashworth’s Emporium.
‘I’m going to kill them,’ she muttered. ‘Both of them.’
‘Is this where Chester used to work?’ Travis said.
She nodded.
‘Well, I can hardly imagine it had many customers, down here in –’
He was cut off by a shout inside the building. They froze. Susannah looked through the window and saw two figures: Dot and Chester, posed defensively behind the counter …
Nathaniel Glaucon stepped into her line of sight.
‘Well, boy,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’
Susannah held her breath and listened. The shop door was partially ajar, allowing the indoor conversation to trickle out onto the street. Sam moved towards the door but Susannah held up a hand to halt him. If they simply barged inside, Nathaniel might shoot someone in the chaos. They needed time to think, to assess their options …
Chester clutched a fiddle case to his chest defensively, like a father protecting his baby. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, boy.’ Nathaniel stepped forwards. Glass crunched beneath his boots. ‘Did you really think you’d get away so easily?’
‘What have you done to Mr Ashworth?’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Ashworth! The man who owned this shop, you –’
Nathaniel Glaucon glanced around the shop, as though noticing his surroundings for the first time. ‘This? You think I had anything to do with this?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh no, boy. I have no interest in this shop. This is the first time in my life I’ve set foot in the place.’
‘Then how did you know I’d be here?’
‘Because it’s my duty, boy.’ Nathaniel pulled a sphere from his cloak. ‘I’m here to bring a fugitive to justice.’
His fingers stroked the glass surface, coaxing out a quiet gold shine. A faint trickle of light concentrated in its centre. A swirl of golden smoke rose from the globe, fizzling and hissing, as its tendrils melted into the shape of a familiar face.
Susannah stared at it, horrified. This globe wasn’t just a radar designed to pick up illegal connections to the Song. This device was personalised. It was programmed to locate a specific person.
Chester.
‘Do you like it?’ Nathaniel said. ‘An impressive little device, is it not? And right now it is screaming through my fingertips that my target is right here in this room …’
‘That’s a locator globe!’ Dot’s voice was high, but she sounded more excited than afraid. ‘They’re not supposed to exist! It’s impossible to lock a tracking device onto a single soul’s melody – there’s too much interference from the Song!’
‘Oh, it’s possible.’ Nathaniel took another step forwards. Even through the dusty window, Susannah could make out his smirk. ‘Quite a recent invention, but certainly possible.’
He drew a pistol from his belt and aimed it straight at Chester’s head.
‘And do you know what else is possible?’ He flicked off the safety catch. ‘Ensuring that justice is done.’
Susannah jerked to action. ‘Go, go, go!’
There was a terrible bang as the pistol fired, so sharp and shocking that Susannah’s head jolted backwards as the sound slapped her ears.
Sam was onto Nathaniel in an instant, knocking him to the floor, his beefy hands wrapping around the Songshaper’s throat. Dot was shouting, stumbling aside with a cry of outrage. But in that moment, Susannah was barely aware of them. She staggered forwards, her entire body so tense that she felt ready to shatter. In the aftermath of that gunshot blast, all that mattered was Chester. Where is he? Where is he?
He couldn’t be …
Then she saw him. He stood behind the wrestling figures, his arms still tight around the fiddle case. He was pale with shock, but still standing. Still alive. Susannah let out a breath – more of a cry, really – when she spotted the bullet hole in the wall.
It had been close. Too close.
‘Captain!’ Dot said. ‘How’d you find us?’
Nathaniel Glaucon gave a furious screech, thrashing wildly as Sam threw his own weight upon Nathaniel’s heaving chest. The pistol skittered across the floor; Travis scooped it up with a cry of triumph. Nathaniel kicked and writhed, snarling like a feral dog, but it was no use. He was trapped. He pursed his lips to hum a melody but Sam slapp
ed a hand across his mouth.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Sam growled.
Nathaniel’s eyes widened in recognition. ‘You!’ he managed, muffled by Sam’s coarse fingers.
‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘Me. And I thought we’d sorted it out last time that I don’t like you shooting holes in my friends?’
From the corner of her eye, Susannah saw the flicker of surprise in Chester’s face. She was a little startled herself by the venom in Sam’s voice – and, more strikingly, to hear him refer to Chester as a ‘friend’.
Sam pressed harder on the Songshaper’s mouth then nodded at Susannah. ‘All yours, Captain.’
‘Thank you, Sam.’ She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. ‘You did well.’
Susannah stepped forwards to survey their captive, who still clutched at the locator globe in his hand. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to kick him.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Let’s say you’re telling the truth and that globe really can pinpoint Chester’s location. You’ve been hunting him ever since he escaped in Hamelin. But that was over two weeks ago. Why’s it taken you so long to find him?’
Nathaniel spat out something angry, but the sound was muffled by the flesh of Sam’s palm. Sam loosened his grip a little, allowing the Songshaper’s words to leak between his fingers.
‘What was that?’ Susannah said.
‘I said the globe can’t just locate anyone on a whim! You need a sample of their Musical residue.’
‘Musical residue?’
Nathaniel just glared at her.
‘Dot, do you know what he’s on about?’
‘People leave Musical traces, Captain,’ Dot said. ‘If you play music somewhere regularly, and you’ve got a gift for Songshaping, you can leave a trace of your own natural melody behind.’ She waved a hand, struggling to explain. ‘It’s like when you live in a house for years and you leave your own touches in the design, in the paintwork, in the furniture …’
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