The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  “Protecting this world from Tenebrous,” Greaves said. Knights at the back were murmuring. The Order’s origins had been lost in mystery for centuries. After a certain point, history became story, and story became shadows on a cave wall. There had been too many battles to fight to wonder why they were being fought at all.

  Just so.

  “And would they?” Greaves said.

  Would they what?

  “Have started their own petty empire,” the Palatine said, his tone innocent, his eyes cold. “Was the King really protecting us ... or just using us to remove the star-crossed lovers who had insulted him so?”

  Would you like to ask him yourself?

  Denizen didn’t know a lot about politics, but he could tell a veiled rebuke when he heard it. So could Greaves; the Palatine’s gaze uneasily flicked to the darkness beyond the door.

  The silence stretched, and Denizen placed a hand over his fractured eye to chance a look at Mercy. She had returned to her form of smoke and silver, the hand that had wielded Vivian’s stone blade held across her chest as if it pained her. That blade—carved from a Malleus hammer—was anathema to a Tenebrous. Denizen wondered how much damage it had done her, wielding it to save him.

  Mocked-By-a-Husband’s teardrop head twisted to regard the Palatine.

  What will happen to the Croits?

  Greaves gave a humorless smile. “We’ll look after them. They are our brothers and sisters, after all. The Order is strengthened by their contribution.”

  It was an optimistic reading of the situation. Some of the Croits had surrendered as soon as it looked like the Redemptress was losing. Others, led by Abucad, had begun helping the Knights as soon as the other hostages were freed.

  A couple had escaped and some had fought on. Those were being ... detained.

  Good, Mercy said drily. Which brings us to our final matter.

  Rout dipped a long arm in the seething darkness of the doorway, withdrawing a long roll of cloth, like a bundled-up carpet. Denizen would have called it black if it wasn’t being held against the gap between realities themselves.

  The Tenebrous laid down the roll of cloth on the floor at the point where miniature carved knights became featureless, eaten stone. It was hard to tell without looking at Rout properly, which Denizen absolutely did not want to do, but did it seem uneasy?

  Denizen Hardwick.

  Denizen swallowed and began to weave his way through the ranks of Knights. Jack was there, and he smiled grimly as Denizen passed. Vivian gave him the smallest nod and Denizen nodded back. Finally, one of the Hephaestus Knights moved aside, like a continental shelf detaching, and Denizen was suddenly standing beside Edifice Greaves with nothing between him and the Forever Court.

  Mocked-By-a-Husband’s jaws split open, revealing row after row of jagged glass teeth. Rout leered its oily leer, and two weeks ago Denizen might have cowered.

  That was then. This was now.

  He took his iron hand away from his iron eye and stared at them—the void-black skein lurking beneath their borrowed forms, animating crystal, flesh, and bone. What was it he had thought, back when he had met his first Tenebrous and Vivian asked him what he had seen?

  Darkness. Living darkness.

  And then Mercy was in front of him, bathing Denizen with her light.

  For your services. For your help. For your valor and your heart ...

  Denizen flushed.

  Thank you.

  Do I ... bow or something? Too late—he was already bowing, and far more gracefully than he believed himself capable. From the looks on some of the Knights’ faces nearest him, they hadn’t believed him capable either.

  I can look cool.

  Mercy indicated the roll of cloth and Denizen knelt, wobbling a little on his exhausted legs. He gripped one of the folds, half expecting something horrible to happen. Snakes. Hidden Tenebrous. I don’t know. Pins. The cloth did feel slightly ... slimy to the touch, as if it hadn’t been woven but grown.

  He threw back a hem and gasped.

  Hammers. A dozen of them, unadorned and bleak, with long wooden hafts and thick iron heads. They weren’t pretty or ornate—except for a dark patina of age, they looked as if they could have been picked up in a hardware shop down the road. But Denizen knew they couldn’t.

  Greaves knelt beside him with a growl of warplate, and then rose, hefting one in each hand. Mocked-By-a-Husband let out an immediate, involuntary hiss, like steam escaping a broken boiler. Mercy drifted backward on some unfelt current, and even Rout’s eyes flicked to the doorway behind it.

  “Where did you ...” The Palatine’s voice held an uncharacteristic hint of awe. The Order jealously guarded their store of ancient hammers, weapons forged in antiquity that could destroy even the most potent of Tenebrous. They were the reason Mallei weren’t allowed to fight alone, and whole cadres had been deployed to retrieve these precious weapons when they were lost. One hammer was a priceless relic.

  And here were twelve—simple, brutal, and in-arguably, unstoppably real. It might have been Denizen’s imagination, but he thought he felt the warping umbra of the Court flicker and diminish, just a little.

  Your most potent weapons, Mercy said. Kept from you in times of war. This ... incident may have shown us we have more work to do—on both sides—before true peace can be achieved, but let the return of these relics be a gesture of respect. Of understanding.

  Denizen was having trouble imagining the destructive potential of one of those hammers combined with the power of a suit of Hephaestus Warplate. By the looks on the Tenebrous’s faces, they were considering the same. Behind him, Denizen could feel the sudden tension of each of the assembled Knights calculating just how quickly they could make it to the bundle on the floor.

  We are not having another battle.

  “Thank you,” he said, stepping in between Greaves and Mercy. “For helping to rescue me. For everything.”

  Mercy inclined her head. You’re welcome. She looked around. Uriel. He isn’t ...

  Denizen shook his head. He’d been filled in a little by Vivian on the way home. Grudgingly, she had admitted that not only had Mercy’s disguise provided their way in to the Shrine, but she had also guided the Knights’ use of the Art of Apertura to Eloquence without laying the burden of transporting them all on Uriel.

  Another new thing.

  It had proved scant comfort. Even Denizen was a little discomfited—although Mercy had shed her Ambrel-form as soon as she could, occasionally a slant of expression would cross that ever-shifting face and Denizen would be suddenly reminded of tears and a sharp point at his throat.

  “He … declined the invitation,” Denizen said. “But I’m sure he’s grateful.”

  Then our business is concluded. For now.

  “Is it?” Greaves was still weighing the hammers in his hands. “I don’t see Malebranche. He told the Croits where to ambush us. The Endless King’s spymaster, working against his daughter. What does that mean for us? For peace?”

  Mercy nodded, light dancing beneath the shimmering curtain of her skin. Malebranche ... yes. Was it pity that made him help her? Or did he see opportunity? A chance to weaken the King, a chance to cultivate a secret, hidden blade in another world? It is no coincidence that the Croits have worn crows for centuries.

  I think, she said, I would prefer to view him as someone who once saw two lovers separated, and desired purely to help.

  “You’ll excuse me if I find that difficult, considering recent events,” Greaves said.

  We are not what we were, Mercy said quietly. Either way, it no longer matters.

  “Doesn’t it?” Greaves said.

  Mercy lifted her good hand, and a single feather fell from her palm. It had been burned black.

  Darkness coiled behind her smile. For the first time, Denizen could see it.

  You mind your house, I’ll mind mine.

  “YOU COULD STAY, YOU know.”

  Denizen Hardwick and Uriel Croit sat on the curb outsi
de Seraphim Row. Denizen had his head tilted back as far as it could go without dislocating something. The sun was warm on his skin, and he felt like he could sit there forever, reminding himself that there was such a thing as wind, and light, and growth.

  His neck hurt. Accidental cauterization was an occupational hazard of being a Knight. He’d have a scar for the rest of his life, and there was the faintest trace of hoarseness in his voice now, as though he were constantly in need of clearing his throat.

  “I can’t,” Uriel said. One of the Knights had used the Bellows Subventum, the Cant of healing, on his fractured rib. Every so often, he’d press his hand against it, as if surprised not to find pain. “Some of the Family want to be Knights. That’s their choice. And it’s been so long since any of us were given a choice at all. But it’s not for me. Not yet.”

  Vivian and Greaves stood farther up the driveway, locked in quiet conversation. Without looking, Denizen knew that Vivian would have one eye on them. She hadn’t moved more than six meters from him since they’d been reunited.

  There were stranger families out there.

  “Then what?” Denizen said.

  “My uncle’s going to help me track down the Croits that fled so we can help them,” Uriel said. “Try and bring our Family properly into the world. But before that ... I’m going to find my sister.”

  Denizen’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought ...”

  Weary determination made Uriel look ten years older than he was. “There’s a chance she’s alive. A small chance, but still. The ... Mercy said she would do whatever she could to locate her. And if she’s in that world, or this world ... I will do anything to bring her back.”

  He let out a long and ragged sigh.

  “Even if it’s just to bury her.”

  He rose to his feet. A black jeep was coming round the corner and, as it idled to a halt, Uriel picked up his bag and approached it.

  Denizen frowned. “You’re going with Greaves?”

  “Just for a little while,” Uriel said. “One thing I have to do before I leave.”

  “Listen,” Denizen said. “If you ever need anything ... you know where we are.” He stuck out his hand. Uriel stared for a moment, like he wasn’t sure what it was for, and then shook it.

  He paused, just for a moment.

  “There is one thing you can do.”

  “What?”

  “Before the battle, I had to spend an hour with ... with Mercy. I had to describe Ambrel to her. We had to build a picture for her to imitate. It ...” Uriel’s voice shook a little before he straightened it out. “It hurt to see it. Copy after copy, and me standing there saying, A little taller, nose a little longer. And I don’t know—maybe she picked up on it, or maybe she was thinking of the hate I had ... have for the Redemptress, but that’s when she told me Ambrel could still be alive and she might be able to help.”

  “But that’s ... good, isn’t it?”

  “Denizen—I saw what She did to my Family, what my Family did to themselves ... all out of some warped sense of obligation. All out of debt. And now I’m right back where I started.” The rage and loss in Uriel’s face made Denizen’s iron eye itch. “Be careful who you think you owe.”

  It was a long and thoughtful walk back up the driveway. When Denizen reached the others, Greaves was smiling, watching the sun in its slow climb over the gargoyles above.

  “I’ve always liked Dublin,” he said. “I don’t visit enough.”

  Vivian had no expression on her face. Neither did Denizen.

  It was an obscene hour in the morning. Denizen had no idea how long he’d been awake. Part of him wanted to go inside and rouse Simon and the others, but he knew they’d immediately want the whole story, and he wasn’t ready for that.

  Greaves held out his hand, and Denizen shook it, trying not to let Frown No. 5 twist his features too much.

  “Well, nothing particularly went to plan,” the Palatine said. “But Mercy seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  “What about the Long Room?” Denizen asked. “Surely people are going to wonder—”

  Greaves waved a hand. “People wonder things all the time. There are currently eighteen theories doing the rounds in various media outlets, ranging from publicity stunt to gas leak. One blogger is very sure that it was aliens. We could go and deny things—Trinity certainly is—but you can’t convince people that nothing happened. I generally find the best course of action is to convince them that everything happened. Several of the best theories were”—he cleared his throat—“suggested by us. None are even a tiny bit close to the truth.”

  “And the Croits?” Vivian asked. Distaste had turned her voice flat and cold.

  “Oh, they’re dying to get sworn in. Safer magic and a chance to strike back at the monsters that ruined their family? People want purpose, and you’d be astonished how easy it is to redirect fanaticism.”

  He said it so casually, as if more than a millennium of misery had turned out to be icing on the cake. Denizen couldn’t help himself. “Things worked out pretty well for you, then?” he said, struggling to keep his tone neutral.

  Greaves gave him a self-satisfied smile. “For us, Denizen. For the Order. Victories are opportunities. If I see a chance to achieve several things at once, why not take it?” His smile grew sharper. “And, speaking of victories, shall we have a discussion about the skills you displayed sending us young Uriel? And fighting the Redemptress?”

  Denizen froze. It had taken every scrap of his fluency with the Cants to keep himself alive. He hadn’t really had time to think about discretion.

  “We don’t need to talk about it now,” Greaves said, turning to Vivian. “Not when I’m seconding Denizen to the Office of the Palatine so we can adequately and ... honestly explore your relationship with the daughter of the Endless King.”

  DON’T BLUSH. DON’T BLUSH.

  “Capital idea,” Vivian said.

  “What?” Greaves and Denizen said together.

  “Office of the Palatine,” Vivian said. “Sounds great. When do I start?”

  “What?”

  Greaves was a master at controlling his expressions, but there was nothing controlled about the outrage on his face. Vivian didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she was staring off into space, ticking off items on her fingers, an uncharacteristically wide-eyed look of innocence on her face.

  “Obviously, you’d have to be deposed first, but I’d wager the revelation that you diverted Order resources in a time of crisis to spying on a thirteen-year-old boy would raise a few eyebrows back at Daybreak. And the job has been offered to me before.”

  “Vivian,” Greaves said, low and dangerous. “You wouldn’t.”

  Vivian looked him dead in the eye, and there was more emotion on the battered facade of Seraphim Row.

  “Edifice Greaves, you know exactly what I do to things that hurt my family.”

  Greaves flinched, and then turned to Denizen, the path of least terrifyingness.

  “And what about you, Denizen? You’re content to stay out here, fighting petty battles?”

  “What can I say?” Denizen replied, giving Greaves his best Malleus face. “I guess I’m just a blunt instrument.”

  Greaves scowled.

  “This conversation isn’t over.” He began to stalk down the driveway. “You’ll have new Knights in the next few weeks. Try to keep them alive this time.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “And I’m reassigning Jack to you. I suspect he’d like to stay.” His gaze held Denizen’s for a moment. “And he’ll give you Grey’s address. If you still want to write to him.”

  “Oh,” Denizen said. “Thank you.”

  The Palatine nodded. “Until next time.”

  “Yep,” Denizen said.

  “Mmm,” Vivian added.

  It was only when the jeep had disappeared round the corner that Denizen turned to his mother.

  “I don’t think he likes us very
much.”

  Denizen had never heard Vivian snigger before. It was a terribly undignified snigger, and Denizen found himself suddenly quite fond of it.

  “My heart bleeds,” she said. “Tea?”

  They went to make tea. The kitchen was deserted and, for a while, Denizen and his mother were lost in the simple ritual of getting cups and saucers and milk. The kettle shrilled and, as the water turned dark, Denizen said what he should have said the night they’d killed the Clockwork Three.

  “I need your help.”

  Vivian put down the kettle.

  “I’m afraid of what I’m able to do,” he continued, watching steam waft from his tea. “The Cants aren’t just words. It’s like they’re alive. I can feel them in my head. Pushing at me. Wanting to be used. There have been so many times where I’ve longed to just cut loose—”

  Even as he spoke, he could feel movement in the back of his head. He had used them more in the last week than ever before, and they seemed to have been strengthened by this, coming closer and closer to the surface.

  “Teach me better control. Help me find out what’s happening to me. Because I can’t do it myself, and I can’t keep walling myself off from it forever. And I want ...”

  He sniffed. He felt very young, and very old, and very, very tired.

  “And I want to be able to talk to you. Talk to you properly. About Dad. And about us.”

  Denizen had seen his mother angry, and he’d seen her ... well, angry was the main one. He’d never seen her at a loss for words.

  Eventually, she spoke. “Do you know why Jack left?”

  “He told me you’d sent him as ... a double agent, or something.”

  She sighed heavily. “He’s very kind. I did, yes. But Greaves believed it was because I was too cold and unfeeling for Jack to follow and … he wasn’t wrong. When Corinne died and Grey … fell, I knew I should have been there for him. For you too, all of you.

  “Jack came to me to talk, after the Three. But his loss was too close to mine. So I did what I always do—I withdrew. I retreated. I’ve never been good at letting people in. Except your father, and that was so natural that I barely felt it happening. One day he was just ... there.”