by Dave Rudden
Ow.
Denizen reached down to massage his knee where he had banged it against the edge of Simon’s bed. The other boy didn’t notice, sleepily rearranging his blankets back over his head. Through unspoken agreement, Simon had not staked out his own room. He had just dragged a bed into Denizen’s.
The Clockwork Three had taken their toll on everyone. Simon claimed to have put those dark weeks trapped in Crosscaper behind him, but Denizen spent long nights listening to his friend tossing and turning, lost in bad dreams.
Now, however, possibly due to the excitement of meeting Edifice Greaves and consuming half of the Goshawk’s larders, he was quietly snoring to himself. Denizen was another matter. He couldn’t sit still, let alone sleep. He’d managed to ding himself off every piece of furniture in his room, despite having perfect night vision. His head felt full of fireflies and jittery lightning.
Surely that can’t have been it.
Not that things hadn’t happened. They had definitely happened. Mercy had just casually walked in—or floated in, Denizen supposed—and dropped the biggest metaphorical bombshell in the history of the Order.
Peace.
Not a single Knight had spoken on their way out of Retreat. Vivian had dropped Denizen home and turned on her heel to go right back out of the door again. Nobody had bothered to inform him as to what it might mean—at least that’s consistent, he thought sourly—but he could guess.
Peace. Even the chance of it, even the chance of a conversation about it ...
But that wasn’t why Denizen was pacing. Peace was a huge thing. Crucial. Imperative. World-changing, even.
She didn’t even look at me.
But why would she? Denizen wasn’t an idiot. He knew it wasn’t like they were just going to hang out. He’d read enough fantasy books to know that diplomacy didn’t mean honesty and conversation. It meant fancy dinners, watching betrayal flash behind people’s eyes, and not trusting Grand Viziers.
Some of that wasn’t transferable to the real world; Denizen had actually been betrayed six months ago and that person had just looked terrified and nauseous. Betrayal hadn’t moved behind their eyes, or peeked out from their ears or anything.
Denizen made a mental note to find out if Mercy had any Grand Viziers, and then a further mental note to tell her to get rid of them if she did.
That’s if I get to talk to her at all.
Denizen’s window caved in.
The glass took an age to come apart, each splinter twinkling sharp and limned with an eldritch blue glow. The light made something beautiful out of each shard—a snowflake, a sapphire—and for a second Denizen just stared, which was exactly the wrong thing to do when fragments of glass were hurtling toward your face.
And then he blinked, and saw it didn’t matter.
Cradled in cerulean light, each sliver spun slow and lazy through the air, saving Denizen from a lifetime of eye patches and facial scars. He stepped carefully round the mist of particles still sluggishly breathing across the room and looked out the window.
Mercy glimmered on the far side of the street.
He couldn’t use the front door—Vivian had come back earlier and might still be prowling around. That left ...
A really terrible idea.
The Art of Apertura wasn’t so much a set of syllables as it was the suck of a gale through a broken window. It was a Cant designed to wound the universe, ripping a hole between here and there with a fall through the freezing, numbing black water of the Tenebrae in between. As with most Higher Cants, it was as useful as it was dangerous. Knights only spoke it as a last resort.
Which means I really shouldn’t use it as an elevator.
Skin crinkled and cooled as Denizen hooked his fingers before him and pulled, opening a yawn of shadow in the air. His fluency eased the Cost, but the universe’s knee-jerk reaction to the insult of his power would not be defied, and Denizen still felt the prickle as his blood ran through veins suddenly stiff and cold. You’re getting used to that feeling, a part of him whispered, but Denizen had already stepped forward before logic and rationality could fully catch up.
Eyes scrunched shut.
There are darknesses we’re not meant to see through.
Breath held.
There are waters too cold to drink.
Cold like a slap, like a scalpel, like a hammer. A hard tug on the iron of his palms and then—
Denizen managed not to stumble as frigid water became hard tarmac, the clinging nightstuff of the Tenebrae hissing away from his limbs in streamers of black smoke. He had been immersed for less than a second, and yet it was a struggle not to draw on his fire to burn away the chill.
Impressive, Mercy murmured. She was barely a sketch in the air, just a sweep of lines in the shape of a girl. If anyone glanced at her from the wrong angle, they wouldn’t see her at all.
The right angle, of course, being from his bedroom window.
“Hi,” Denizen said. Right, that’s all I’m planning to say, is it? He took a deep breath. “You broke my window.” Nailed it.
I wanted to wake you, she said, and then suddenly dipped closer. I stopped the glass. Are you hurt?
“No,” Denizen said quickly. “No, I’m fine.” He winced, glancing back to the window. “But Simon—”
Mercy crooked her hand, and Denizen saw blue light and glass shards puff outward from the window, their trajectory suddenly reversed. That would at least save Simon’s feet in the case of a late-night run to the bathroom.
Although he’d probably have more questions about why I and the windowpane have both disappeared.
In fact, now that Denizen thought about it, he could suddenly think of all sorts of people who would question what exactly he and Mercy thought they were doing.
“This is a terrible idea,” Denizen said, staring at Seraphim Row’s great doors as if Vivian were about to burst through them with her hammer raised. “We should—”
Get out of here, Mercy finished. You’re right.
—
SERAPHIM ROW MASQUERADED AS the Embassy of Adumbral—a country barely larger than its own passport, the home of Daybreak, the Order’s ancestral keep—hidden among other, real embassies with flags and gold plaques on the doors.
Denizen sometimes wondered if some of them were fronts as well, and whether other societies lurked behind an air of respectability. The Knights could hardly be Dublin’s only secret.
What he was mostly worrying about was someone stumbling into a thirteen-year-old boy walking alongside a shimmering blueprint, a tracery-girl, the shape of the street behind her bent and warped like something seen through water.
Denizen pointed at a blocky town house.
“Most of the embassies close at five … ?”
A wrought-iron gate led to its backyard, held shut with a padlock. Excellent protection against trespassers, no doubt. Unless they’re me, Denizen thought, a trifle smugly, until Mercy passed an ephemeral hand through the padlock and it clicked open to fall to the ground. She shot him a look that was half admonishing, half amused.
I’m a visiting dignitary, Denizen Hardwick. I can’t be leaving property damage in my wake.
She had a point. Someone was going to come to unlock this gate in the morning, and that would be difficult if it had been melted in half.
Mercy drifted into the garden beyond, Denizen following sheepishly. When they were hidden from the street, she let out a sigh as faint as the parting of clouds and her luminescence grew. Miniature starbursts climbed her spine, a nuclear crescendo that painted the overhanging trees and grass a rich silver. Denizen’s breath plumed in the sudden wintry air, an echo of the cold that had gripped Crosscaper the first time they met.
That’s better, she murmured. Keeping myself hidden, keeping myself subtle ... that’s an effort.
An effort she had obviously relaxed. As the light exhaled from her form, so did the alien feel of the Tenebrae. Softer than the raw assault of the Forever Court, the air still thrummed with
her power.
Mercy glitched and blurred in Denizen’s vision. He tasted snow, then tin, then something that might have been flowers. The rustle of the wind bent into a thousand whispers, speaking a language that, if he strained, he felt he could almost understand….
He shook his head.
This is better, she said. We can speak here.
“Yes,” said Denizen. “Yep. Mmm.”
Silence eddied the grass.
How could somebody have spent their entire life reading books and then, at a moment this crucial, have absolutely no words in their head? Denizen had weighed a thousand times the handful of sentences they’d shared. He’d barely managed to get out of that conversation alive—figuratively and literally—so no wonder he was terrified to start another one.
Just stare at the ground.
How have you—
“I looked for you,” he said suddenly, and winced as his voice chose precisely that moment to crack. “I mean, in books.”
She nodded. Did you find anything?
“No,” Denizen said. “And then I ... I stopped looking. It felt weird. Like I wouldn’t be learning about you from you? I’d be getting whatever the writer thought.” He gave an awkward shrug. “It didn’t feel right.”
He looked up. Mercy had a hand over her mouth.
“What?” he said, flushing.
Nothing, she said. It’s just ... you’re very sweet.
“Marmph,” Denizen said, blushing so hard his vocal cords fused.
My father has kept me a secret for a very long time, she said, half to herself. Even his closest servants were bound only to refer to me in half-truths. The mercy, as if I were a hidden trinket. She shook her head. He is ... overprotective.
“Yeah,” Denizen said without thinking. “We noticed.”
It took a second for his brain to catch up with his mouth. He began to stammer an apology, but by then she was already laughing, great peals that washed up like ice water against the garden’s walls.
Denizen couldn’t help it. He started laughing too—thin shoulders shaking, hand clasped over his mouth so the sound didn’t escape.
It was the wrong place to be laughing. It was the wrong time to be laughing and the wrong thing to be laughing about. The Clockwork Three were dead, but their evil remained—the people they had hurt, the lives they had ruined. The Three fed on misery. What they had caused in the months since their destruction would have kept them sated for a long time.
But just for a moment ... it felt good to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he said, after a final snigger. “We shouldn’t ...”
No, she said. But laughter is too scarce in my father’s Court.
“Is he ...” Denizen wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase it.
Is he as terrible as all the stories say?
Denizen nodded.
Her smile was sad. He is the King.
She didn’t seem willing to say anything more, staring up instead at the cloud-buried sky.
The last place I saw you there were stars, she said. I’ve only ever seen them from the Tenebrae. It was lovely to stand underneath them, feel their light on my light. She frowned. Once I’d gotten out of the basement.
“Oh yeah,” Denizen said. “Sorry about that.”
It wasn’t your fault, she said. Do you miss them?
“The stars?” Denizen said. “I do, actually. They’re the only thing I really miss from Crosscaper. I’d already read all the books. And Simon came with me, so ...”
Simon?
“My friend,” Denizen said. “He was in Crosscaper when you were there, hiding from the Three.”
Is he all right?
There was such simple concern in her voice. He smiled weakly. “Yeah, I think so. We’re all a bit ... I think he’s doing OK.”
He must be strong, she said. I saw what the place had become.
Frost had made the grass stiff and brittle, weighing down the leaves above.
The Three had nested. I knew only the limits of my cage, Mercy said, and there was remembered pain in her voice. But my jailer walked the corridors for me. He told me stories even as he trapped me, and he brought me books when I wept.
Grey. The Three had made a thrall of him, but even as they took away his will he had still been fighting, bringing kindness into the dark.
Denizen swallowed, but the swallowing wasn’t enough, and he caught himself before he hiccuped for breath.
“Sorry,” he said. “Could you—”
Had he really been laughing a second ago? When people had laid down their lives for him? When Grey would be fine if the Three hadn’t come after—
Mercy still continued blithely, even as her words made splinters of Denizen’s heart.
I think he wanted someone to talk to. What they had done to him, the horror ...
“Could you not—”
Jack swaying in a puddle of candlelight, holding something small in his arms.
Grey’s hand a malformed claw of clockwork.
The unfamiliar look of terror on Abigail’s face.
…must have felt so alone—
“Stop,” Denizen said, and the grass crisped beneath his feet. His skin flashed gold, like the sun slipping through clouds, and Mercy darted away from its heat. Unearthly frost melted in a heartbeat to fall between them as rain.
“Sorry,” Denizen said in a haunted voice. “Sorry, I—”
He felt sick. Of course you do, a voice whispered. That’s what they do to the world.
Mercy looked at him as if she could read the thoughts in his head. Her light folded in on itself once more, until she was just a drift of lines in the air, a shape he wasn’t at the right angle to see.
Then she wasn’t there at all.
ONE THING SIMON HAYES had become very good at over the last six months was falling. His limbs curled protectively round himself like tumbleweed, and he didn’t so much hit the ground as bounce off it into a standing position once again.
“Good,” Darcie called, sitting cross-legged on the grass. “Both of you. Denizen—great punch.”
“Yeah, Denizen,” Simon said wryly. “I’ve always thought my nose would look slightly better to the left.”
“Sorry,” Denizen said. His fist ached. All of him ached, actually, the bone-weary throb of worry and fatigue. “I guess I’m just a little distracted.”
“When I’m distracted, I tend to miss,” Simon said, but his smile robbed the words of any sharpness. “You OK?”
Haven’t slept. Hate everything. She just disappeared. But why wouldn’t she? Stupid me getting feelings everywhere ...
Denizen shrugged as nonchalantly as his tense shoulders would allow. “I’m fine. Definitely. Want to go again?”
“Nope,” Simon said. “Abigail?”
Abigail was staring at the back door.
“Is Vivian coming?” she said. “Sorry, Darcie. I just—”
“Not at all,” the Lux said. Simon and Denizen were novices to physical combat, but Abigail was anything but, and it took Vivian to push her beyond her limits. “She’s been gone since this morning. I guess maybe with the—”
“Circus in town?”
Edifice Greaves stood in the back doorway. For someone who liked to make a grand entrance, he knew how to move quietly. Vivian would have disapproved of the Neophytes’ inattention, but, considering who was doing the sneaking around, that disapproval would probably have had to join the line.
The Palatine grinned.
“Sorry. I let myself in.” He held up a set of keys the size of Denizen’s head. “Access all areas.” A deep breath strained the stripes of his expensive shirt, as if he’d never tasted fresh air before. “Every time I get buried under a mountain of paperwork—requisitions, budgets—I like to get out. Be hands-on. Remind myself what we’re actually doing.”
As if on cue, something in his suit pocket buzzed. With the flourish of a magician releasing a flock of doves, Greaves withdrew it, pressed a button, and deposited it back.
>
“That would be the people who don’t like me doing that. Oh well. How are we all getting on?”
All those hours discussing the possible motives of Edifice Greaves suddenly paid off. The Neophytes closed ranks as neatly as a Roman phalanx.
“Fantastic,” Simon said. “I think my concussions have bruises.”
“I gave him those concussions,” Abigail said proudly, and then frowned. “Should we have told someone about that?”
“About ... what ... ?”
“Simon. That’s not funny.”
“Children,” Darcie said patiently. “It’s an honor, Palatine. I daresay you could favor us with some solid advice.”
And he did.
“Simon, I’ve been the same height since I was nine. You know what you need? Tae kwon do. All about the reach.”
For hours.
“You’ve heard the one about the parakeet and the spinster? No? Well, I’ll be stripped of all titles if I tell it to you, but ... Also, when you start laughing, that’s when I’m going to hit you, so be ready.”
It was Darcie’s skepticism that went first. Abigail was so focused on trying to slip a fist or a foot past Greaves’s defenses that it wasn’t clear whether she was actually listening to anyone. And though Denizen held out for as long as he could, and Simon did the same out of solidarity ...
Greaves was an extremely charming human.
“My family? Always Knights. And always on the front lines too. There are lots of ways to serve the Order, but we went for the dirtiest fights, the last-ditch battles.”
They sat on the grass. Denizen could hear the tremoring ache of his muscles, but it was a good, clean exhaustion—a world away from the dulling fatigue of a sleepless night. He’d even managed to keep a lid on the Cants while they trained, and he didn’t have the energy left to wonder whether that was down to Vivian’s warnings or because Greaves had a knack for teaching that his mother didn’t.
Greaves looked around at Seraphim Row. “I always think of the barrier between worlds as a river, not a wall. In some places, the river is thin and shallow, and Tenebrous are able to ford it easily. In others, it’s too wide and deep.”
The Palatine was plucking blades of grass and laying them one by one on the knee of his black suit. He hadn’t mentioned the Concilium. He hadn’t mentioned Mercy. He hadn’t spoken to them like children or held back any information. Nothing calculated. Nothing political.