by Laura Lam
I sighed, annoyed. I made to pull myself up, but before I knew it, my damp hands slipped and I fell twenty feet through midair. I had enough time to be surprised and angry at myself and try to twist for a better landing before I hit the wooden stage.
I landed with a sickening thump. For a second, I felt fine. And then: pain. I had landed on my side, my hip on fire. At least I hadn’t landed on the arm I had broken. My head rang. I was winded and couldn’t cry for help. I lay sprawled on the stage, hoping someone would come and find me.
Pain warped time. At some point, I heard footsteps. A cool hand rested on my forehead.
“Sam?” Cyan asked. “Are you alright?”
I couldn’t remember who Sam was. I mumbled something.
“What happened? Did you fall?”
I blinked. It was so bright.
“Are you hurt?”
Was I? I couldn’t tell. “Dunno,” I managed to mutter.
“I’m going to help you up. If something hurts, tell me.”
“Everything hurts.”
She pressed her hands along my spine. “Have you hurt your back?”
I considered. “No. It’s more my side.”
“Good.” She made comforting noises, and slowly, she helped me into a sitting position. The ringing in my ears faded, but nausea roiled in my stomach.
“I’m alright,” I said. And I was. Just very, very sore. I rolled over onto my uninjured side and lifted my shirt, pulling away the waistband to my trousers. I would have quite the bruise.
More than the ache in my side, my head throbbed anew as I realized she had no reason to come to the theatre at this time of day.
“How d’you know I was hurt?”
“I thought I’d walk around. My legs had stiffened from reading for so long.”
I moved a little and grimaced. Maybe I hit my head as well, for I seemed to lose my good sense as I said, “Oh, that’s bollocks, Cyan, and you know it.”
She coughed. “Alright, it is. I was reading in my room and I had the strangest feeling that you were hurt.” She fiddled with a bead in her hair. “So… So I came down to see.”
I blinked at her. “Maybe you’re a psychic.”
She laughed, but it sounded nervous. “What happened? Did you fall?”
“I did.”
She looked up. “From… from the gridiron?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a good twenty feet or more. Nothing’s broken?”
She helped me stand. I took a few cautious steps around the stage. “I seem to be alright.”
“You were lucky.”
“Looks like.”
“Sam.”
I glanced up at her serious tone. “Yes?”
“I know you followed me yesterday.”
I froze. How did she know?
“It’s alright. I don’t blame you. I’d have followed me, too.” She grinned, a little wickedly. “You look quite pretty in a dress.”
I coughed again. Pain still thrummed through my body. “Thank you. I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I want you to know…” She trailed off, her fingers worrying a bead in her hair. “I want you to know that I’m not out to get you. I’m just trying to find my own way. And you have a Shadow after you. And I have a feeling one might be after me. Maybe even the same one.”
I blinked.
“I know, it seems unlikely.”
“How do you know a Shadow is after you?”
“I don’t, not really. Oli went to the circus, after we spoke. He spoke to my parents to try and make amends. I didn’t ask him to, but it’s the sort of fellow he is.” She smiled sadly. “My parents did want me back, but wouldn’t tell him anything. He asked some other circus folk, and they told him my parents hired a Shadow. I don’t know why, but I think it might be Elwood. I want to find out for sure.”
I felt as though my head was stuffed full of spider webs. “Cyan, why are your parents after you?”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
I waited.
“I let them down. I scared them. But I’m no threat to you. And I want to get rid of him. You and Amon must be planning something. I wanted you to know that I’m in. We need to get rid of him.”
I hurt too much to think straight. I still didn’t know if I could trust her, and I didn’t like that she wouldn’t tell me what she had done. Then again, I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with her either.
“Sam.” Her dark eyes bored into mine. “Please. You can trust me.”
I looked at her, as if I could see straight into her. “How do I know that?”
“Because your Glamour doesn’t work on me. I’ve seen yours and Amon’s true faces from the first day. You have reddish brown hair. Greenish eyes. Amon’s blonde, with blue eyes. I know who you really are.”
With a shaking hand, I reached to my chest and turned off the Glamour. Cyan smiled at me.
“That’s better. Before, I’d sometimes see both – it’d look really strange.” She exhaled in relief.
I had to trust her. After all, she was in that vision I had in Twisting the Aces – she performed magic with Drystan, both of them smiling from ear to ear. I wanted to believe in that vision.
Convincing Drystan proved to be another matter. I convinced him that while we were in the theatre, we could turn off the Glamours. There was no point wasting the power when Cyan knew our secret.
And eventually, Drystan too realized we needed all the help we could get.
13
NIGHT ERRANDS
“There is always the chance that darkness can conquer the light. The sun and the moon may light the sky with their love, but the darkness of the universe is wide and deep. Styx may find a way to snuff the stars one by one and to wrap the sun and the moon in its sable embrace.”
The Aphelion.
We shadows of the Shadow dressed all in black.
I shrugged into the dark shirt, wondering if I should have left the Linde corset off. In the darkness, Cyan might not see the small proof that I was not entirely male. But there was a chance, and so the corset remained, my skin itching beneath the linen.
Drystan and I tied dark rags around our faces.
Cyan waited for us on the roof. She wore a dark Elladan dress and an old coat of Maske’s as opposed to her customary tunic. A plaited crown framed her face.
“I still don’t see why I have to stand guard. It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?”
“Of course not. Are you an acrobat?” I asked.
“Are you?” she countered, derisive.
My pride smarted. “Yes,” I said. Her eyebrows shot up.
I bent down and then lifted my legs into a handstand. The arm I had broken was slightly weaker than the other, but my balance was perfect. I hadn’t lost much of my strength from the circus. Drystan I still exercised almost every day up in the loft.
“Nice trick. Where’d you learn it?”
Even upside-down, I noted Drystan’s suspicious glance. “I taught myself. Mostly.” I came back to standing.
Cyan half-smiled. “Not bad.” She flipped head over feet. Her skirts slid up, giving us a glimpse of petticoats and pantaloons and her shiny, low-heeled city boots. Her form was perfect, even wearing a corset.
We gaped at her.
“Honestly, you two. I grew up in the circus. But I’ll keep watch. I’d probably come up with better stories than you two to keep us all out of prison.”
“Probably,” Drystan agreed affably, though he was a wicked liar when he chose to be. “Let’s be about our business.” His breath fogged in the cold air.
We shimmied down the drainpipe rather than risking the creaky front door. The metal of the drainpipe was so cold I worried my skin would stick to it. The air was crisp enough to snow.
Once on the ground, I rubbed my hands together. Clouds all but obscured the half moon. Cyan landed beside me with a swift puff of breath. Drystan landed without a sound.
We kept to the
darkest parts of the streets.
Drystan and I had taken turns watching Shadow Elwood’s apartments. Cyan came with me a few times and continued her flirtation with the young porter, who had overheard Elwood mentioning he was going to the opera this evening. We decided that this was the night to seek the answers to our questions.
Just in time, we slid into our hiding places. Shadow Kam Elwood appeared in a tuxedo and top hat. Under the street lamp, he tapped a cane against the pavement impatiently as he checked his pocket watch.
The words Maske said at the first séance came to me: A man checks his pocket watch, counting down the time…
I swallowed. The tapping of the cane reminded me of the ringmaster. The Shadow’s head swiveled from side to side as usual, but he did not see the three of us.
A cab arrived, its engine sputtering in the darkness.
Cyan leaned against a street lamp. She had a whistle in her pocket that sounded like a train, which she would blow three times as a warning. If anyone asked why she was lurking, she was waiting for a sweetheart to meet her and take her dancing after he got off work at any moment.
Drystan hadn’t wanted to involve her at all, but I told him to believe me when I said I thought she was worthy. And Maske trusted her as well. Having her on the lookout would be better than having no one at all.
I could not help worrying for her. I had been raised to believe that a girl alone at night was never safe. That men would automatically assume her a Moonshade and try to purchase her services. Or find her easy prey.
But Cyan was not as easy prey as Iphigenia, daughter of the Laurus family, would have been, especially with the little knife in her pocket.
I took a steadying breath. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Drystan.
“Not entirely, no, but at least this way we’ll have more of an idea of who we’re up against. He knows where we are, but I don’t think he’s reported us to the authorities.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not reported us to someone else.”
“Course not.”
“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered. “We’re a couple of amateurs. He’ll have all manner of ways to know if someone’s been rifling through his possessions, surely.”
“I know a lot of them. I’ve investigated a few people’s personal possessions over the years.” I remembered he had searched through my pack not long after I joined the circus, when the other clowns had stolen it as a joke. He hadn’t told them what he’d found – a dress and a strange figurine of a Kedi, a letter to my brother signed “your sister.” He had kept my secret.
“He could hide them cleverly, or have a cipher, or booby traps, or…” I continued.
Drystan smiled in the dark, and I fought the urge to back away. With his soot-stained face and feral grin, I wondered if I knew him at all. He pressed his palms against his thighs and the smile faded. He was not as fearless as he pretended to be.
“There’s no need to worry because I lifted this from Maske.” He held out a wand-like device made of Alder metal, the end pointed like an insect’s antennae.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s an Eclipse. When it’s switched on, it’ll turn off all other Vestige within a certain radius. Even if he has a Banshee.”
“Lord and Lady,” I breathed. A Banshee was the most advanced Vestige alarm that civilians could buy. I squinted at the Eclipse. “I’ve never even heard of such a thing.” I took it from him delicately. It weighed little more than a feather.
“That’s because it’s highly illegal.”
“Why does Maske have so much illegal Vestige?”
Drystan gave me a look.
I sighed. “Yes, I know. Former card sharp and criminal. But why does he still have it?”
“They’re dead useful. If you had one, would you let it go?” He tucked the Vestige back into his coat pocket. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“I sure hope we don’t regret this,” I muttered. I peeked over the edge of the building. Cyan’s small face tilted toward us for the briefest of moments before she resumed her watch.
Up here, the plan seemed, if possible, even more ill-considered. Once we entered the apartment, Cyan could dart off to the authorities and we would be none the wiser. Half of me wanted to tell Drystan that we weren’t doing this. But we were so close.
Drystan switched on the Eclipse. Its end glowed green, pulsating like a heartbeat. Energy prickled along my skin. Nausea whirred in my stomach. I swallowed, and the feeling passed.
Drystan took out a lock pick roll and jimmied the window open with a screwdriver. It wasn’t the strongest of locks, but then this was not an easy ledge to climb to. The window opened and Drystan peered in.
“I think he does have a Banshee,” he whispered. “But we’re alright with the Eclipse.”
Drystan took off his muddy boots, wedging them into the corner of the windowsill, and I did the same. Drystan crept inside, every muscle poised for flight. But the flat was silent. He made a slow circuit of the room, prowling like a hunting cat, the Eclipse doubling as a quivering torchlight. With a nod, he gestured at me to enter.
I slunk into the room, leaving the window open only a crack. I rubbed my hands against my arms as I glanced about.
Shadow Elwood was messy. This was worrying. He could have done this on purpose, so that if anyone came snooping he would know from one single askew fold of cloth.
Despite the disarray, the trappings of his wealth were obvious. Crystal decanters for brandy on the kitchen island. A rich Arrasian rug beneath our feet. If I were not an escaped noble myself, I’d be tempted to set up a business sniffing out adultery among the Saps, as it seemed to be a lucrative line of work.
I gravitated toward the desk in the corner of the room. There were several framed prints of young children, and a woman half-smiling at the camera, her face tilted upward. A wife? Children?
“His family is dead,” Drystan whispered in my ear, causing me to jump. “Once we figured out his name, I found out a little about him.”
Why hadn’t he told me? “What happened?”
“Wasting sickness. They went abroad to Linde. Elwood stayed here, to work. They caught the illness and never came home.”
Maybe that was why Drystan had kept quiet about it. It was harder to fear and hate someone when you pitied them.
Drystan looked through the other rooms of the house. I rifled through the desk, meticulously keeping every paper where it had been before.
Elwood’s filing system was neat, at least – labeled by last name and date. Sure enough, there was a file marked “Laurus, Iphigenia.” I drew it out with shaking hands.
In it was a page of information on me. Birthplace: unknown. Birthdate: unknown. The stark, black words stared at me accusingly. My parents must have filled this out. The birthdate they had given me was a lie. It was another blow when I thought that they could not hurt me any more.
I read on, rubbing the back of my hand against my nose. It stated the schools had I attended, the lists of tutors. My last recorded height and weight was listed, along with my hair, eye color, and blood type. The notes and observations section was completely blank. I recalled his notebook from when I saw him on the beach by the circus, scribbling and squinting at the canvas tents. I searched the other drawers for it, but Shadow Elwood probably kept it with him at all times. I kept my file out on the desk.
My gaze lingered on a file titled “Chokecherry, Malinda”. Lady Chokecherry. I took it out. Shadow Elwood had been hired by Lord Chokecherry to spy on his wife to see if she was cheating on him. The file was cursory; the sum marked “unpaid”. I held my tongue between my teeth and put the file back. Obviously someone found something for him to land in the papers.
There were so many folders. I searched for the people I knew. There were no other Laurus names but mine. Neither of my parents suspected the other of adultery. Or, they hadn’t hired Elwood. Hornbeam was another absent name. Hawthorne was there, though. Lady Hawthorne had hired Elwo
od to see if her husband was seeing other ladies while she stayed at the Emerald Bowl to grow her flowers. He had been, at least as of three years ago. I put that folder away with a sigh. Their son, Oswin, was Cyril’s best friend and, for a brief time, a possible future husband of mine. I wondered if he knew about his parents. I peeked in other files of familiar names. It was incredibly nosy of me, but I could not help myself.
The very last folder in the filing cabinet held another surprise. Zhu, Cyan.
“Drystan,” I called, softly, but he did not answer from the other room. I opened the file. Someone had hired Elwood to find her, but there was no name. Her parents? The details of her background were scarce. She was two years older than me, born in Southern Temne, as she’d said. Her mother was a contortionist and tarot reader, and her father was a juggler and fire eater.
The observations section only contained the following: (IL). KT (JM), GD.
I frowned at the letters for a time, and then the blood drained from my face. IL for Iphigenia Laurus. KT could mean Kymri Theatre, JM Jasper Maske, and GD the Glass District. If I read that correctly, then he knew where we were; why had he not told my parents? Or Cyan’s?
I picked up my file and Cyan’s and walked through to the bedroom. Drystan sat on the floor, staring at an open box as if mesmerized.
I padded toward him. He was looking at a box filled with vials of a black substance, a little syringe, and a long tie for the arm. My heart constricted. Lerium.
Before I could say anything, Drystan looked at me.
“This isn’t Lerium,” he said.
“It’s not?” I said, creeping closer. “What is it?”
He took out a vial, holding it to the light, and I could see that it wasn’t black, but dark green. Its viscous liquid clung to the inside of the glass vial.
He unstopped the vial and took a sniff.
“Drystan!” I hissed.
He gave me a look. “You have to inject it or smoke it to feel anything.”
His condescending tone grated on me. “For Lerium. Maybe not for whatever that is.”
“It doesn’t smell of anything. I have no idea what it is.”
“Look.” Under the dip in the velvet where the vial had been, something glimmered.