She gave each of them a bit of silver. It was more money than she needed to give, but it put to rest any objections that the two might have about carrying Kaile. Old Jibb still wouldn’t look at her, though.
Luce climbed into the first wheelbarrow. Kaile followed, and Shade quickly and silently came last. Kaile sat in the middle, the sailor and the shadow to either side. Neither of the wheelbarrow pushers seemed to notice Shade at all—either because they couldn’t see her, or because they were too busy not noticing Kaile by willful effort.
Cymbat settled himself into the second wheelbarrow, still grumbling unintelligible things.
Without a word, the wheelbarrow pushers set off. Old Jibb set a steady pace despite his spring-shaped leg.
“These two are from Broken Wall,” said Luce, her voice low.
Kaile nodded.
“They know you,” said Luce, “but they think you’re a dead thing.”
Kaile nodded again.
Luce snorted. “No tip for either of them—especially since I’ve already overpaid.”
Kaile shook her head. “Not their fault,” she whispered. “It was nice of them to come to my funeral.”
“If you say so,” said Luce.
The carriages climbed up the ravine and passed through the Broken Wall neighborhood, each familiar landmark made unfamiliar in the dark and the fog. They followed the winding and uneven Southside roads to the Fiddleway gatehouse, which always stood open. They passed under the gatehouse and onto the bridge.
The vast length of the Fiddleway stretched out over the River and connected the two halves of Zombay. Houses and shops lined the sides of it, and the Clock Tower stood over all the rest. Kaile could see the clock glowing through the fog above them. She saw lights flicker in a few house windows. She saw no one else out on the street.
This clearly bothered Luce. “Someone should be out here,” the sailor said in an angry, worried way. “That boy with the glass harpsichord should be out here. It’s his shift tonight. The flood is coming. We should have at least one musician playing at all times. Here I am, sailing off into the fog to bring us more auditionable material just so we can have every possible musician on deck, and now I find the bridge empty and silent. This isn’t right. And I could swear I just heard a scraping sound. I should be hearing music, and instead I hear unpleasant scraping sounds. Did you catch that?”
Kaile listened, but she couldn’t hear either music or unpleasant scraping sounds—only the metal-rimmed wheels of the wheelbarrow carriage as they fought with the road surface and found every bump.
“This is the place,” Luce said loudly. “Drop us off here.”
The wheelbarrows stopped beside a grand-looking house across the street from the Clock Tower. Kaile had seen the house many times, but she hadn’t ever noticed it before. This close to the clock it was difficult to notice anything other than the clock.
The clockface showed a stained-glass landscape and thick glass clouds to match the actual weather. A glass moon passed through the clouds to show the time.
It was late. Kaile rarely ever stayed up so late, and this particular day had been both full and strange, but somehow she wasn’t tired. She felt as alert as a plucked string—though she also felt out of tune, and hungry. Her stomach complained.
Luce dismounted from the wheelbarrow. Kaile followed, and Shade came after.
The sailor gave her thanks to Brunip and Old Jibb, but she didn’t offer either one of them a tip for their trouble. They both hurried away into Southside without complaint.
Kaile watched them go.
Luce took a key from around her neck and unlocked the great wooden door of the grand-looking house. “Come in, come in,” she said. “Cymbat won’t come near the entrance while your shadow stands nearby, and we’ve been out here in the clammy weather for long enough. Come in.”
The inside of the house looked warm and well lit. Shade darted in first. Kaile followed. The grumbling drummer crept inside eventually. Luce came last.
The Beglicane house was large for a bridge home—large enough to have a full entrance hall with a sweeping double staircase carved in red stone. Cracks cut across the painted plaster walls and faded murals, but it still looked like a stately and respectable place. Candles burned in mirrored sconces on every wall.
“Welcome to the Beglicane estate,” said Luce. “Pegomancy Beglicane built this place a few hundred years back, when she grew tired of life as a pirate queen. She couldn’t set foot on either side of the city, so she stormed the bridge, built the very largest house, and started the Fiddleway’s sanctuary tradition. The Guard still can’t place anyone in irons if they’re standing on the bridge, and that was all her doing.” She looked around, still seeming worried and disgruntled. “Where is everyone? Cymbat, find our guest something to eat. I can hear her stomach grumbling. I’ll go check in with the Master upstairs.”
Cymbat disappeared through a side door. Luce climbed the stairs quickly, her strides swallowing three steps apiece.
Kaile closed her eyes and took in a slow breath. She was welcome here. For the very first time since her funeral, she had been made welcome. She stood in a warm, dry place, far from the Kneecap and far from the hayloft she had woken up in. She soaked up this feeling and tried not to think about Old Jibb rushing off, bouncing with the uneven rhythm of his spring-shaped leg. She tried not to think about Brunip’s bulk jogging alongside. Two familiar pieces of her own neighborhood had hurried away from her, and she tried not to think about that.
The drummer emerged with a small loaf of bread and a glass of very light ale. He didn’t give them to Kaile. He set them on the floor nearby and backed away.
“Um, thanks,” said Kaile. She picked them up. Shade reached out a tentative hand and took the shadows of the bread and glass.
Cymbat gave a yelp and hurried away again, leaving Kaile alone with her shadow.
This isn’t nearly as good as Broken Wall bread, Shade whispered, chewing.
“Not nearly,” Kaile agreed. Whoever had baked it hadn’t bothered to cut gills in the top, so the finished loaf looked lumpy and awkward. It also tasted like dust and paper. She devoured it anyway. The light ale was refreshing, at least—though of course Mother’s brew tasted very much better.
“They want me to audition,” she said aloud, tasting the idea. “They want me to play for the bridge.”
I hope you get to, Shade whispered. But you probably won’t.
“What makes you say that?” Kaile demanded. “I played a tune that every bridge musician heard. I chased a ghoulish thing away with a counting song.”
An annoying counting song, said Shade.
“That was the point. That’s why it worked.”
This will be different.
“How?” Kaile asked, but Shade finished the crumbs of her shadow-bread in silence and then changed the subject.
I wonder where that ghoulish thing is.
“It’s probably still on the Kneecap,” said Kaile. “No passing barge will give it a lift, not willingly. It’ll pace around and sing to itself until the River rises and puts the drowned things back to bed.”
You don’t know that, said Shade. You have no way of knowing that. You’re just making up something comforting.
“Of course I am,” Kaile admitted. “But it won’t work if you point out that that’s what I’m doing.”
I can’t help it, said Shade. I hear the flummery and bluster in your voice, and I can’t help but point it out. I always have—you just never paid attention before. Go back to ignoring me if you’d rather.
Kaile had been feeling rather confident about her audition, but Shade made that confidence collapse like a soufflé stabbed with a sharp stick. Kaile felt an ache where confidence used to be.
“Go away,” she snapped. “Get away from me. Go cower in some little patch of candlelight.”
Kaile stalked away from her shadow and pretended to look at the wall murals. Most of them showed idyllic scenes of drifting barges. None of
them showed the noise and smoke of piracy. Kaile supposed that the old pirate queen had had enough noise and smoke by the time she built this house.
She did not see Shade leave, but when she looked around, Shade was already gone.
Kaile felt one pure moment of nameless panic. It surprised her. She should have felt relieved to get a bit of a break from her shadow’s disparaging whispers. She told herself to feel relieved. Instead she searched the room, looking for Shade.
Kaile barely noticed when Luce Strumgut descended the staircase.
“Time for your audition,” the sailor said. “Nibbledy, the Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels, will hear you now.”
Kaile laughed a nervous laugh. “Nibbledy?”
Luce gave her a look that could cut glass. “That’s his name,” she said. “Don’t laugh at it. Don’t think of it as cute. You really mustn’t think of him as cute. And speak softly in his company. Don’t shout. He can hear you. He can hear everything. He can listen to a jig with one ear, a dirge with the other, and then play a third tune entirely. He’s the Master, and he isn’t cute.”
“Okay,” said Kaile. “He isn’t cute. And he wants me to audition tonight? Right now?”
“Yes indeed,” said Luce. “Right now. As you may have heard me mention once or several times, there’s a flood coming. The Master says it won’t come tonight, which is some comfort—especially since that boy with the ridiculous glass contraption, who should be playing tonight, is nowhere to be heard—but even so, we haven’t time for pissing and whistling. We need musicians. If you’re willing to come and play, then you should do so now.”
Kaile followed Luce up the long staircase. She looked once behind her and saw several shadows, but none of them was hers.
Twelfth Verse
THE THIRD FLOOR OF the Beglicane estate was a single music hall. Curved walls and arches captured sound and held it humming. Instruments rested on stands and shelves, carefully stored at the far end of the room.
In the very center of the music hall stood a dais, and on that platform stood the Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels.
He was small, very small, and entirely hairless. He wore a fine coat, well tailored. His head seemed large for his body, and his eyes very large for his face. Kaile thought that he looked like an infant—but one with long ears that came to sharp little points.
He’s an imp, she realized—someone Changed as an infant child. He might be many years or centuries older than she was.
Nibbledy the imp looked adorable. He looked like the Snotfish had looked, when the Snotfish was still a sweet little boy (before he became the Snotfish). Kaile tried not to grin. She tried to be respectful and respectable in the way she stood, and stared, and almost grinned.
Three other musicians stood behind Master Nibbledy. Two of them held fiddles—a smiling woman with wild gray hair, and a younger man with wide shoulders, a thick neck, and very large hands. Kaile recognized them both. The two of them had played at Grandfather’s funeral.
The third musician was the youngest of the three—though clearly much older than Kaile. She held no instrument, and looked like a singer. She also looked sour. Her mouth puckered to a small, unpleasant point.
“The fiddlers are Murt and the Lady,” Luce explained in a whisper. “They duel every day for the role of First Fiddler, but so far neither has won it. The Lady is a descendant of House Beglicane, so this house technically belongs to her. And the singer’s name is Bombasta. Those three will stand witness. Cymbat won’t come upstairs at the moment, so we’ll just leave him be.”
The imp seemed to ignore everyone. He focused his absolute attention on the floor in front of him, as though that spot of floor was the only thing that mattered or could ever matter.
He’s listening, Kaile realized. She wasn’t sure what he was listening to, exactly. She strained her own ears, trying to hear what he heard.
Luce cleared her throat. “Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels, I present Kaile, granddaughter to Korinth, who hopes to audition for Korinth’s place on the Fiddleway Bridge. I will stand as sponsor.”
The Master looked up. He focused his full attention on Kaile with wide and solemn eyes. He nodded.
Kaile no longer felt the urge to grin.
“Instrument?” the Master asked. His voice had a very high register, but it was solemn all the same.
Kaile held up her flute.
The Master held out his own hand. Kaile approached and reluctantly handed over her flute.
Master Nibbledy squinted. He put the instrument to one eye like it was a thin telescope. Then he held it up to one ear and tapped it with a fingernail.
“Made out of bone,” Murt the fiddler pointed out. “You’d get a cleaner sound from metal, and a warmer sound from wood. No reason to use bone when there are better-sounding options.”
“The very oldest instruments in the world are carved from bone,” said the Lady. “They might remember much.”
“Maybe the urchin stole that flute from the Reliquary,” said Bombasta the singer. Her voice affected a Northside accent, and each of her words shot out like a poke in the eye.
“I did not!” Kaile protested, too loudly. Everyone winced. “I didn’t,” she said, much more quietly.
The Master returned her flute. His face held no expression that Kaile knew how to read.
Luce came to stand beside the Master. Kaile noticed that their shadows overlapped as though huddling and whispering together.
The sailor spoke, almost chanting, almost singing. “From this hall and this house a musician can hear the Fiddleway Bridge. She can hear it in those who cross. She can hear it in those who live and move in the houses and shops. She can hear it in the tocks and ticks of the Clock Tower. She can hear it as the bridge sways in wind and water. She can hear it in the hum and whispers of shadows. Heed your shadow.”
Luce paused to glance at Kaile’s feet. Kaile swallowed. She looked over her shoulder to look for Shade, but Shade was not anywhere in the room.
“A musician of the Fiddleway can hear and match the rhythms of the bridge,” Luce went on. “In times of flood, every musician will gather and play for the bridge. In times of smoke and blood, every musician will stand in the midst of battle and play for the bridge. In times of earthquake, every musician will remain here to hold the bridge together. All of this will be asked of you.”
The Master looked at Kaile with his wide eyes, waiting. The fiddlers looked at her with hopeful faces. The singer looked scornful, though she also looked as though that expression might be permanent.
Kaile swallowed against a dry, dusty feeling in her throat. She nodded.
“Listen,” said the Master. Kaile listened. She tried to hear the rhythm of the bridge.
“It’s late,” she quietly complained. “No one’s crossing the bridge. There isn’t much to hear.”
“There is,” Luce whispered. “There always is. Match your tune to the bridge, and the city around it, and the River below. Keep them together. Keep them in the same song.”
The Master held up one hand for silence. Then he turned and pointed to the Lady. She took up her fiddle and she played. Notes flew from her like weapons, like knives and darts, like the bared teeth of hunting jites—even though the Lady seemed to Kaile like a kind and squishy sort of person.
Master Nibbledy pointed to Murt. The other fiddler began to play. His fingers were thick. They looked as precise as heavy wooden clubs. But those thick fingers played like raindrops, or like dance steps at a wedding. The dancing notes were also weapons, and the two fiddlers dueled each other. Their duel filled the music hall. Kaile’s ears almost caught how they also matched the echoing rhythm of the Fiddleway Bridge.
The Master waved his hand as though wiping a windowpane clean. The duel ended in a draw. All of their duels ended in a draw, apparently.
The Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels pointed at Kaile.
She took a breath, and then another one. She felt entirely alone, an
d as anxiously eager as Mother always seemed to feel on Inspection Day. She tried not to think about Inspection Day, or Mother.
Kaile took up her flute. At first she tried to play one of Grandfather’s favorite tunes, because she was auditioning for the right to play in Grandfather’s place. But the flute resisted. It pushed each note sideways and into the only music it was ever willing to play—the same song she had played while stranded on the Kneecap, the same song that had severed her shadow from herself. She played it a third time, but this time she felt clumsy. This time the notes stumbled one after the other, unable to line up or coalesce. Kaile thought she could hear the low creak and thrumming of the bridge, but she couldn’t quite play alongside it.
The song came to an end. Kaile lowered her flute.
There was silence. In that silence the Master shook his head. His wide and solemn eyes narrowed. The Snotfish used to put on a similar look right before he pitched a raging fit. Kaile wondered how old the Master really was, and how many years of impish experience he had had to sharpen his own raging fits. Kaile winced and braced herself.
Master Nibbledy turned and left the room. Each footstep struck the floor as though trying to drive holes into it. Then he was gone.
Kaile stood in a small puddle of silence and disappointment.
Bombasta sighed. “In the old days we threw failed musicians into the River, to keep their discord from spreading and shaking the whole bridge down.”
“Hush up,” said the Lady. “I don’t think that is really true.” She gave Kaile a look that was probably meant to be kind and consoling, but it looked more like pity to Kaile.
“Her shadow isn’t with her,” said Murt. “I can hear some potential, and we do need more musicians, but she won’t be any help to the bridge if she can’t hear it properly.”
Luce took Kaile’s hand and led her away. “Come with me,” she said. “Let’s find you a room for the night. This place has plenty of them.”
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