The Midnight Court

by Jane Kindred

  Vasily tightened his arms around me, thinking I was cold. As the motion pushed up my sleeve, the violet charge of our combined radiance jumped from his arm to mine, and I found my whole being tingling with it. We would be in Heaven tomorrow, where we were almost certainly headed for a fatal rendezvous. Just as I wanted to say good-bye to Ola before we were separated from each other forever, I needed to say good-bye to Vasily, and there was one language between us we both understood without words.

  I unbuttoned my flannel shirt and shrugged it off as Vasily loosened his arms around me, watching me with a gentle fire deep within his eyes.

  I whispered the words I’d once uttered to set us irrevocably on this path: “Share your heat with me.”

  The fire quickened in his eyes and his voice became gruffer than usual. “I don’t have any protection.”

  I colored slightly. “Belphagor went to the druggist. I’ve been taking a pill.”

  Before he could recover from his surprise, I pushed up the cotton T-shirt that was the only one he wore even in winter and pressed myself against him, sending the radiant aurora skipping along every surface where we touched. He traced my flesh, watching the strange violet light follow his finger. On the first ride we’d taken together on this route, his fire had healed the hole torn in me by my cousin’s sword.

  Now he filled the empty hollow where Ola had been torn from me as surely as her unborn cousin had been torn from my sister for whom she’d been named. I wept softly as we rode the waves of our radiance, and I could feel the wetness on his own cheeks as he kissed me, hot tears that turned to steam. I held him while he poured his sorrow and despair into me, as he’d poured out his grief over the loss of Belphagor the first time we came together. I could feel that, too, even now—how desperately he missed what they’d shared. If circumstances were different, I knew Vasily would have forgiven Belphagor anything. If only they’d had time. If only we had found our daughter.

  We grieved together and whispered our good-byes with our bodies, making peace with what was to come, and at last we fell asleep in the waning glow of an unlikely alliance of the opposing cardinal elements of water and fire.

  When we arrived in the southern Siberian city of Irkutsk, we had to board yet another train, the local Circum-Baikal rail that took tourists up along the shore of the frozen lake and through the old railway’s many tunnels. Here at Lake Baikal, the Heavens touched the world of Man.

  At one of the tunnels, the few winter tourists were encouraged to get out and walk, exploring the impressive construction through the layers of rock. Vasily and I trailed the group, and when their attention was occupied by their surroundings, he showed me the gap in the wall that went unnoticed unless one was looking for it. We passed through and disappeared into the dark, ancient tunnel only cross-dimensional tourists ever saw.

  Vasily used his breath to light the way. I’d forgotten this, having been in a drugged stupor and a state of shock when we’d descended the winding stone staircase—only three years ago, though it seemed like a lifetime.

  As we climbed, he exhaled rings of glowing vapor as if smoking a pipe, though the heat was coming from deep inside him. The stairs seemed to go on forever, closing in from behind with the passage’s claustrophobic magic as we ascended. It was designed to confound and even sicken those who might find it by sheer chance, ensuring they would never make it to the top. The ascent itself, of course, was an illusion, as there was no literal vertical climb to the realm of Heaven, as if it were situated above the sky. It was, as the syla might put it, always there, merely unseen.

  When we reached the landing where Vasily expected the portal to be, he paused and turned about as if lost. “It ought to be here. I don’t understand.”

  “Belphagor said The Brimstone had burned down. Could they have closed it from above when they rebuilt?”

  “Shit. I’d forgotten.” His eyes glowed with worry behind his glasses. “Bel must know other portals…but I’ve only ever used this one.”

  I thought for a moment while we stood in the disorienting absence of direction. “Helga sent me to another one. I’m not sure how to find it from below, but it was in the storm drain at the end of a long street in the eastern end of Raqia.”

  “A storm drain? We ought to be able to see the light filtering down from the street.” He turned in a slow circle, already apparently losing his bearings—such was the danger of this place’s magic. Then he took my hand, leading me decisively toward a passage to our right. I saw nothing, but Vasily swore there was a barely perceptible difference in the level of illumination. The only illumination I saw was what he emitted.

  We walked for what seemed like hours. It could easily have been days, or only a moment. The passage of time in this place was more confounding than that of the syla’s Unseen World.

  At last Vasily pointed toward the edge of the ceiling over a curve we were approaching. “There. That thread of light. That could be it.”

  I wasn’t sure I saw anything, but as we drew closer, I found it easier to see my way, as if the passage was becoming gradually lighter. He stopped and pointed it out again, standing almost directly beneath whatever he was seeing, but I shook my head.

  “You’re too short.” Without warning, he lifted me with his firm hands around my waist, holding me aloft as if I were a ballerina. At my new eye level was a long, flat plank of ice, just high enough to be covering the opening of a storm drain. Light indeed was somewhere behind it.

  I put out my gloved hand. “It’s frozen. It must be the snow piled against the drain.”

  Vasily lowered me to the ground and reached up, feeling along the ledge that had hidden the opening from me. He took a utility knife from his pocket and began jabbing it at the ice like a flat pick, loosening shaved bits that sprinkled down over us like snow. He pounded at it steadily and methodically, but he seemed to be making little progress.

  “Why don’t you use your heat?” I suggested, and he laughed at the simple solution that hadn’t occurred to him.

  Vasily bent down and kissed the side of my neck above my scarf, imparting some of that heat to me with a touch that made me shiver. He took his knife and held it to his tongue until the metal glowed. When he resumed his picking with the red-hot knife, the ice began to melt, trickling down over the stone in a steady stream.

  When he’d melted all the solid ice away, he stretched his arm farther across the ledge and brushed at the loose snow packed behind it. All at once, a rush of cold air struck us and the low light of a celestial afternoon was clearly visible above. Vasily boosted me up with the same effortless grip around my waist that made me wish we’d had more time on the train, and I scrambled through and climbed out onto an empty street in Raqia.

  The space was tight for Vasily’s broad chest and shoulders, but after removing his coat, he managed to get through. We stood beside each other in the snow, staring at the seemingly deserted street. Now that we were in, we had no plan for how to proceed. I wondered if we ought to wait below for the others, but Vasily explained the stairs wouldn’t remain in the same apparent place for long and we’d have to find the portal all over again.

  Helga’s apartment wasn’t far. Though I was certain to receive a poor reception if I brought Vasily to it, there was a chance she might have heard or seen something of Ola. Whatever unfriendly welcome we might receive was worth the possibility of news.

  On the block where Helga’s building stood, I hesitated, uncertain which was hers. A curtain moved in one of the windows above, and after a moment the sash was thrown open. A harried-looking woman peered down at us.

  “We have no bread. Go on. Beg somewhere else.”

  “We’re not beggars. We’re looking for Helga…” I paused, ashamed as I realized I’d never known her father’s name. We’d called her only by her intimate given name, as though servants were unworthy of the common respect of a patronymic or a family name. The window slammed shut, and I stared up at the closed curtain in surprise. Perhaps my bad manners had offe
nded her.

  In a moment, however, one of the unmarked doors opened, and the woman glanced nervously up and down the street. She pulled her shawl over her head and drew it tight against the cold. “Haven’t you heard, then?” She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you up from Arcadia?”

  I opened my mouth to deny it, but Vasily stopped me. “We’ve come from the southern lands.” Arcadia was the capital of Vilon, often referred to as the southern lands, but the phrase was also a euphemism for the world of Man.

  “You’ve come too late.” She kept her voice low. “The queen has issued a warrant for her arrest for anti-celestial activities. She’s gone into hiding.” The woman nodded at my widened eyes, as if agreeing with my expression. “We were all shocked. The Ophanim Guard came to take her to the camps, but someone had tipped her off and she was already gone.” She perused the street once more. “Word is she may have gone north to join the Makhon cell in Zevul.” She pulled her shawl down low. “I’m sorry, now, but you’ll have to move on. It doesn’t look good, you standing in the street. You don’t want to be picked up for loitering or soliciting.” She stepped back without another word and closed the door.

  Speechless, I exchanged a look of astonishment with Vasily. What could Helga possibly have done to earn Aeval’s attention?

  He regarded the closed door with a frown. “Raqia’s changed. Of course, I’ve never been to the respectable end before.” He sighed. “I suppose she’s right. We shouldn’t linger.” A light snowfall had begun, and he smudged a flake across my cheek.

  Something fluttered under my eye and I blinked and ducked my head instinctively, thinking something had flown at me. Vasily was staring at me strangely.

  “What?” I brushed at my face, my nerves spiking with anxiety.

  He held his bare palm to my cheek—he rarely bothered with gloves or mittens—and the source of the fluttering became clear. Our radiance was visible in Heaven. Though it wasn’t the brilliant aurora our touch produced in the world of Man, a distinct, pale lavender glow wavered like a field of static electricity in the dark. There was no mistaking it.

  I clasped my mittened hand around Vasily’s bare one on my cheek. “I told you I’d seen it in Heaven.” I brought his warm palm to my lips, placing a kiss in the center and watching the feathery luminescence.

  Vasily shivered and snatched his hand away. “Don’t. You’ll drive me mad.” He gave me a rueful grin. “I’m sure the good folk of reformed Raqia would be alarmed if I ravaged you in the street.” He examined his hand once more, turning it about as if he might see his own radiance. “How is it possible?”

  I shrugged, covering a shiver of my own as I tried to put the image out of my head of being ravaged by him in the street. “How are we possible at all?”

  Vasily put his hand in mine again. “Let’s get you to the market so you can buy your potions.” He shook his head as he observed me, a slight glimmer of flame in his eyes giving away his own preoccupation. “Even in those clothes, you look like an angel.”

  It wasn’t the marketplace I remembered. The Demon Market had been a lively gathering place at any time of year, with vendors of every description and hawkers at every intersection. Games of dice and cards had spilled onto the sidewalks among the kiosks and curtained tents, and musicians had played for money on the street corners, while ladies of the evening called provocative greetings to male patrons of the marketplace—whether it was evening or not.

  There was none of that here now. The stalls were orderly and quiet, and they seemed to belong to only vendors of practical things, such as dry goods, textiles, and household services. We found a booth selling fresh meat pies, and Vasily bought one for each of us.

  He crossed the vendor’s palm with crystal after he’d already paid for the pastries. “We’re looking for…salves and elixirs. Do you know where we might find any?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.” The vendor eyed our unmarked coats. “You’re not Fallen. What would decent Host be doing in Raqia?”

  “We are not Host.” Vasily took off his spectacles for full effect as he flashed the red of his eyes.

  “Could’ve fooled me.” He eyed me suspiciously as I ate my pie. “Though it isn’t wise to be practicing folkery on the street.”

  “Folkery?”

  “Peasant magic,” he snapped. “Watch your eyes.” The vendor looked us over once more, again lingering on me. “You’ve been below.”

  Vasily put his spectacles back on and folded his arms. “So?”

  “Should’ve stayed.” He leaned over the ledge of his stall and muttered as he glanced about. “North end of Lethe. Where The Brimstone used to be.”

  Vasily nodded grimly. “I know it.”

  “They can set you up with your badges.” He tapped his own on his sleeve. “You’ll need them if you intend to remain in the Firmament.”

  Vasily thanked him and we hurried away.

  Lethe was the last street between the border of Raqia and Elysium proper. It was where I’d first met Belphagor in our fateful game of wingcasting. He’d beaten me effortlessly, taking every crystal facet I had. I wasn’t a novice to the cards, but I’d never made it to the master table before that night, and I hadn’t known whom I was up against. It was also there at the wingcasting table that Helga had found me to tell me my family was dead.

  On the site where The Brimstone used to sit was a much smaller, unassuming building of brick. A sign hung over the door announcing we’d come to the apothecary. Vasily looked sad as he lifted the latch and stepped inside.

  An elderly demon, his age a sure indicator he’d spent many years in the world of Man, stooped over the counter, measuring powder into a jar. He adjusted his wire spectacles and observed us, paying particular attention to me.

  “We’ve come from the southern lands,” said Vasily. “A vendor in the markets mentioned you were the place to go for our badges.”

  He barked his reply with a harsh voice. “Her Supernal Majesty’s Admiralty is the place to go for your badges. But then you’d be arrested for violating Queen’s Order Five-Twenty-One.”

  “What’s Queen’s Order Five-Twenty-One?”

  “That the Fallen abstain from the world of Man.” He chuckled to himself. “Don’t know what you’d call Fallen that never fall.” He rang a bell on the counter. “Lively!”

  I jumped at the unexpected shout, while a mousy demon girl hurried from the back room and dropped the apothecary a halfhearted curtsy.

  “Take the lady’s and the gentleman’s coats in back.” He winked at us. “She’s nimble with a thimble.” He chuckled again as she slipped our coats from our shoulders.

  I peeled off my icy mittens and shoved them in the pockets before she scurried away.

  Pushing up his spectacles, the old man squinted at me for a moment while we stood awkwardly before the counter. “And I suppose you expect to be taken for a demon bitch.” He snorted at my expression. “It’s not meant as an insult, my good woman, just a technical term. It’s not as if we’re Host, after all, putting on airs. We recognize our animal nature.”

  I looked helplessly at Vasily, no idea what to say to this, but the old man continued while he took bottles down from his shelves and checked labels.

  “Don’t waste my time denying you’re Host. Anyone can see it. That’s why you’ve come. I won’t ask what foolish situation you’ve gotten yourself into that hiding among the chattel race in Queen Aeval’s Heaven seems like a good idea to you. I don’t care.” He set an empty vial on the counter next to the items he’d selected and glanced at Vasily. “Though I expect this tall, fiery buck is good enough in the sack to make an angel do foolish things.”

  “That’s enough,” snapped Vasily. “We’re just here to do business.”

  “Business. Business.” The man muttered to himself as he measured liquids into the vial. When it was filled, he screwed a metal cap onto it and slid it across the counter to me with his finger on the top. “For my investment in you
r business—” He paused, and his eyes fell on my signet ring. “I’ll take that.”

  Too late, I hid my hand behind my back. The blue celestine was a symbol of the House of Arkhangel’sk and a protective charm against the elemental firespirits who served the crown. I’d meant to keep the ring in my pocket and had forgotten. “No. I need it.”

  The apothecary shrugged. “That’s the price.”

  Vasily was outraged. “Then we’ll go somewhere else.”

  “There is nowhere else.”

  The girl returned with our coats emblazoned on the arms with red and black pentacles.

  The elder demon gave an exaggerated click of his tongue. “Lively’s done the work already. If you won’t pay, I suppose I’ll just have to keep your coats for her trouble.” He jerked his head at the girl to take them away, and gave Vasily a vulgar wink. “I expect you keep her warm enough.”

  With a sigh, I brought my hand from behind my back and slipped the ring off my finger.

  Vasily grabbed my hand. “No, Nazkia.”

  “We need the glamour.”

  His eyes were flickering. “We need to keep you safe from the Seraphim.”

  “It’s not going to matter.”

  “I’ll give you twenty facets,” he offered the demon, an outrageous sum the man couldn’t have earned in a month, but the demon shook his head stubbornly.

  I pulled my hand from Vasily’s and handed over the ring. This was a suicide mission, after all. I wouldn’t be needing it much longer.

  “That’s for the vial,” said the demon, taking his finger from the lid as he pocketed the ring. “I’ll take twenty facets for the badges.”

  Vasily grabbed our coats and pushed mine onto my shoulders. With a glower, he shoved his arms into his own and pulled a pouch from his inside pocket. He shook twenty facets into his palm.

  The demon sighed. “Should’ve looked in the pockets, Lively. I keep telling you.”

  After I’d shrugged into my coat, I picked up the vial and turned it about. A dark, greenish liquid sparkled inside it. “How much do I take?”