Tarnished City

by Vic James

  For my brother, Jonathan.

  Thank you for doing the numbers-thing,

  so I got to do the words-thing.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue Jenner

  One Luke

  Two Abi

  Three Luke

  Four Abi

  Five Gavar

  Six Silyen

  Seven Luke

  Eight Luke

  Nine Bouda

  Ten Abi

  Eleven Luke

  Twelve Luke

  Thirteen Gavar

  Fourteen Abi

  Fifteen Silyen

  Sixteen Silyen

  Seventeen Bouda

  Eighteen Luke

  Nineteen Abi

  Twenty Gavar

  Twenty-one Luke

  Twenty-two Abi

  Twenty-three Bouda

  Twenty-four Abi

  Twenty-five Luke

  Twenty-six Luke

  Twenty-seven Luke

  Twenty-eight Abi

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Jenner

  Jenner reined his horse to a halt, and it stamped and snorted in the long blue-black shadow of the trees. He’d pushed the stallion hard.

  He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the great house. Kyneston glittered in the darkness. He didn’t think they’d seen him go. He didn’t want any of his family to witness if he succeeded. Or failed.

  This was Abi’s last chance. He couldn’t fail.

  Despite Jenner’s desperate appeal, Father had decreed that Abi and her parents must go to Millmoor, banished to the slavetown because of her brother’s crime. The car would come tomorrow, so Jenner had to get her out tonight.

  He stepped forward and placed his hand against the softly glowing Kyneston wall. The moss tickled his palm, but he pressed harder until he felt the brickwork beneath his fingers. And summoned by his touch, here it came – the flowing, leaping light. It was as if the mortar between the bricks had turned to liquid gold.

  Now Silyen, as the family’s gatekeeper, would know he was here. He didn’t have long.

  Jenner had first met Abi at this wall just seven months ago, when he and Silyen had brought the Hadleys into the estate. Tomorrow, Sil would cast them out again – unless Jenner could do something he had never managed before. As a Jardine, he could wake the gate. Being Skilless, he was unable to open it.

  His heart was in his throat as the molten ironwork took shape. Skill-light flowed upward then unfurled into flowers and vines, fire-feathered birds, and writhing beasts. As a last incandescent loop burned around the family monogram, Jenner marvelled at its beauty. He hadn’t allowed himself to wake the gate for nearly a decade, because it was almost worse than nothing, to be granted this one miracle and no more.

  ‘I remember the year you turned thirteen,’ said a voice right beside him. ‘You hardly left the wall alone. And then you stopped. I always wondered: did Father beat you to keep you away, or did you simply give up?’

  Jenner whipped around, outraged and disbelieving. How had Silyen got here so fast? And how had Jenner not heard him approach?

  ‘Seeing if you’ll fare any better than Leah and baby Libby?’ Silyen asked, because he could always follow up one obnoxious observation with something even worse. ‘It happened right about here, you know. All we need is Gavar, and Abigail herself, and we could have a little reenactment.’

  Jenner lifted his hand off the wall. He flexed his fingers, which itched to slap his little brother. He wasn’t rising to the bait.

  Or was there an opportunity here? Sil was so capricious, you never knew when he might unexpectedly prove obliging.

  ‘How about you open the gate? For Abigail.’

  ‘And defy Father’s wishes?’

  ‘When have Father’s wishes ever meant a damn to you? Or anybody’s wishes, other than your own?’

  ‘Well,’ Sil said pleasantly, ‘seeing as you put it like that . . .’

  His brother dusted off his hands and turned back towards the treeline, where his black horse patiently cropped the grass. Silyen must have been in the woods.

  ‘No, wait! I’m sorry.’ Jenner grabbed Sil’s arm. ‘I’m just all wound up. Please. Abi could have been killed when the East Wing exploded. And now, what’s happening with her brother – she’ll be in shock. Millmoor is the last place she deserves to be.’

  ‘In that case’ – Silyen turned back – ‘have a go at it yourself. It’s what you came out here for, isn’t it? To see if wishing might magically make it happen.’

  His brother’s voice was sing-song, taunting. And only the knowledge that Sil’s Skillful reflexes would protect him stopped Jenner from lashing out.

  ‘Do you work at being this hateful, Silyen, or does it come naturally?’

  ‘There’s only one person you hate, Jenner, and that’s yourself. But don’t let the fact that you have an audience deter you. I’ve watched you try and fail to use Skill your whole life.’

  Jenner hadn’t thought he could yearn to open the gate more then he already did, for Abi. But the furious desire to prove Silyen wrong blazed through him.

  He gripped the wrought ironwork and pulled. As he did, he remembered how he had seen Leah desperately doing the same, all those months ago. He’d arrived just in time to watch Gavar raise his gun and shoot her – an act he’d found incomprehensible at the time, and still did not understand.

  The gate favoured him no more than it had Leah and baby Libby. Despite its deceptive radiance, the ironwork was cool beneath his fingers.

  And it didn’t matter that he had known it would be so. Had known it would be useless. Rage and bitter disappointment welled inside him.

  ‘Satisfied?’ he yelled at Sil, humiliated by his own stupid hope.

  Which was when he felt it trickling inside his wrists, inside his veins. It licked warm along his fingers, as if he held them over flames. It felt as much a part of him as his hot blood.

  Skill.

  Jenner’s head snapped up to stare at his brother, and he saw in Silyen’s dark eyes a tiny flicker of fire reflected from the gate. But his brother’s face didn’t reflect the hope that was surely radiating from Jenner’s own. Sil was frowning.

  Which was when Jenner realized that something was very wrong. The gate still wasn’t opening. Skill might be flowing in his veins, but it was as if his wrists had been slashed and it was pumping straight back out again. Jenner uncurled his fingers to stare at them in disbelief, as if he might see the hot gold dripping from them uselessly.

  He clamped one hand around his wrist, as if to staunch the flow. But he knew it would be futile. And then the warmth ebbed. The last sensation of Skill drained away.

  Silyen was staring at him.

  ‘I thought, maybe . . .’ his brother said. Sil’s tone held none of his earlier malice. It was almost uncertain. He shook his head, wild hair falling to cover his face. ‘You’d better go break the bad news to Abigail and her family.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Jenner breathed. ‘What was that?’

  ‘An experiment.’ Sil raised his chin defiantly. ‘Sometimes experiments don’t work.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Jenner cried. ‘How dare you play with me like this? I’m not one of your experiments. I’m your brother – much though you and Gavar wish it otherwise.’

  ‘I’ve never wished you weren’t my brother,’ Silyen said quietly. ‘And I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry enough to open the gate, so Abi can escape?’

  The contrition left Sil’s face so fast Jenner wondered if it had been there at all.

  ‘Not that sorry, no. You should tell the Hadleys what Father intends. Leave it till the morning, though. I need to hand Luke over to Crovan tonight, and it’d be better if they don’t know until
it’s done. They deserve a night’s sleep – and I don’t want them interfering.’

  Sil whistled for his horse, which trotted over and stood placidly as he swung himself onto its back. His gaze lingered on the wall. Then Silyen twitched the reins in his hand, and was gone.

  Jenner turned to look, too, in case by some final whim of his brother’s the gate was swinging open.

  It wasn’t, of course. Brightness was leaching from it. Birds and beasts fading back into nonexistence. Vines and flowers shrivelling. The brilliance dimming.

  Jenner examined his hands. He’d felt it there, for that fleeting minute. Skill inside him, as vital as blood or breath. How was it possible that he lived and walked and talked without it?

  In that instant, he would have given anything to have it.

  Anything at all.

  When he looked back up, the gate was gone.

  1

  Luke

  They came for Luke that night.

  At that morning’s farce of a trial, Luke had been found guilty of a crime he couldn’t remember but was certain he hadn’t committed. Then Gavar Jardine had dragged him from Kyneston’s East Wing. He’d slung him in here, a small chamber beneath the kitchens.

  It was stone-walled, chilly and unlit. Groping around in the darkness had identified only a thick wooden counter and some empty barrels. The air had a musty sourness that seeped into your skin. Kyneston wasn’t the sort of place to have dungeons, and besides, the Jardines didn’t need to lock people up to restrain them. So this place must be a part of the wine cellars.

  Which meant that close by, life was going on as normal. And Kyneston was still full of hundreds of Equals. So much had happened since the ball where Chancellor Zelston had died: the East Wing’s annihilation and restoration, his own trial, Crovan’s Skillful fight with Jackson and its catastrophic end. The Equals would doubtless linger at the Jardine estate to pick over it all. Slaves would be up and down to the kitchens and cellars regularly, too.

  One of them would have keys for this room. Or could get word to Abi, who could surely find some.

  So Luke had spent the next few hours banging on the door to attract attention. When his fists became sore, he kicked it instead – though he knew better than to imagine he might kick it down. He shouted until he was hoarse, then rested his voice and redoubled his pummelling, before shouting some more.

  But not even this physical commotion was as exhausting as the confusion in his brain. In whatever direction Luke turned his thoughts, he ran into the same dead ends of incomprehension and ignorance.

  Someone had killed Zelston, and it had to be Luke himself. But only the deed was his. Not the intention.

  Doc Jackson had defended him. Yet Jackson was an aristocrat, an Equal, and so had also deceived and betrayed him. Luke’s memories of the past twenty-four hours were a maze in which he wandered, utterly lost.

  As the day wore on and no one came, Luke sagged against the door, drained. Eventually he must have fallen asleep slumped against it. When he woke, it was because the door had been opened from the outside, causing him to spill forward over the boots of someone on the threshold. The person’s identity was hard to make out, thanks to the dazzle of a star-bright light they cupped in one hand.

  ‘I’m not the rescue party,’ said Silyen Jardine. ‘Sorry.’

  Get up, some tiny voice in Luke’s skull urged him. Run.

  But he was shattered, and no part of him obeyed. Neither his leaden legs nor his bruised hands. Luke opened his mouth, but only a croak emerged. The Young Master screwed up his face and slid his feet out from under Luke’s huddled body.

  The Equal folded his fingers and extinguished the light. The next thing Luke knew, Silyen was crouched over him in the darkness, one hand curled in the collar of his now filthy white shirt, the other pressed against his temples. Luke shuddered at the touch. When the Equals were done hurting you on the outside, they could always hurt you some more on the inside.

  But there wasn’t any pain.

  ‘I have questions,’ Silyen whispered. ‘And right now, you’re the best chance I have of finding some answers.’

  The Equal’s cool fingers trailed down the side of Luke’s face. When he gripped Luke’s jaw, for a mad moment Luke thought the boy was going to bend down and kiss him. But it was more intimate and far worse than that. Something inside him writhed and leapt at the Equal’s touch.

  And Silyen must have felt it, too, because that creepily radiant smile lit his face as if he’d conjured back his Skill-light. His hand moved down to Luke’s neck, and Luke’s pulse throbbed beneath the pressure of Silyen’s calloused fingers, as if it might burst and spray them both with bright, arterial blood.

  An image came unbidden into his head of Jackson on all fours in front of the Parliament of Equals, pure light exploding from every pore as Crovan triumphed. Luke closed his eyes against the unbearable memory. But Silyen was so close that Luke couldn’t avoid the feather-trace of his breath as he spoke.

  ‘If you don’t try to escape,’ Silyen Jardine murmured, ‘I won’t let him break you. Not beyond repair.’

  Then the hand disappeared and Luke heard himself groan with relief. He opened his eyes to see Silyen brushing the knees of his jeans as he stood up.

  ‘He’s fit for travel,’ Silyen announced, with his usual brisk carelessness. He was addressing someone who waited further along the dim passageway. ‘I’ll undo Kyneston’s binding at the gate so he’s all yours. Come on, Luke. Don’t keep your new master waiting.’

  The boy offered a slender hand to Luke, who stared at it then turned away and grabbed the door frame for support. Luke wasn’t entirely play-acting as he laboured to pull himself upright, but it gave him a few precious seconds to think.

  New master.

  He had just worked it out, when the person waiting at the end of the corridor lifted a Skill-light of his own and confirmed the deduction. Lord Crovan stood there, looking just as he had when Luke had taken his bag in Kyneston’s Great Hall only a few nights earlier. His overcoat was already buttoned. Fit for travel.

  In just a night and a day, Luke had become a murderer, a defendant, and now a prisoner. In the uproar after Jackson’s duel with this man in a bid to defend him, Luke had barely heard Lord Jardine utter the word that sentenced him. But he remembered it now: Condemned.

  Condemned and passed into the custody of Lord Arailt Crovan, for transportation to the man’s estate of Eilean Dochais, in Scotland. No word spoken of any release. No word of any review of that sentence. You could almost hear the sound of a thrown-away key rattling down a deep well.

  Luke couldn’t allow Crovan to interrogate him. The man’s Skill would discover Luke’s memories of the Club, and put his Millmoor friends in danger.

  Yet Luke needed to know what had really happened at the ball, to clear his name. Not just for his own sake, but for his family’s, too.

  ‘My sisters,’ he said urgently, turning to Silyen. ‘Are they okay? My parents?’

  ‘Going to Millmoor,’ Silyen replied. ‘Safest place for them, in the circumstances.’

  Luke felt winded all over again. Now that he knew what the Equals were capable of, the thought of his family far away from them was a relief. But he knew first-hand the horrors of Millmoor: the risky work, the casual brutality and injustice, the way Daisy’s education and perhaps even her growth would be stunted in that pitiless place.

  ‘Oh,’ Silyen added. ‘The little one stays here. Gavar’s special request.’

  Daisy was staying at Kyneston?

  But Luke was out of time for more questions. Crovan paced down the passageway and stopped in front of Luke, eyeing him with faint distaste.

  ‘Why the delay? I wish to be gone before the rabble wakes to yet another day of gossip and gluttony. You’re mine now, boy. Come with me.’

  Luke bit his lip and followed the man as he led the way back through the dim corridors of the great house. It would be madness to try and run. Even if he escaped Crovan and Sily
en – which was unlikely – there was no way past Kyneston’s wall. He’d be reduced to hiding in the grounds. Perhaps hunting him down would provide the Equals with a day’s sport. Kyneston’s stables certainly held dogs and horses enough for that, and the Master of Hounds would doubtless enjoy it.

  No, the time for escape would be while they were en route. The drive to Scotland would take all day. Surely there would be stops along the way. His brain unhelpfully supplied images of Crovan striding into a motorway service station calling imperiously for coffee. That would certainly cause a diversion.

  Don’t try to escape, Silyen had told him. Well, Luke didn’t plan to start following life advice from Silyen Jardine any time soon.

  The rest of what Silyen had said made little sense. The Young Master had questions – presumably to do with Crovan – whose answers Luke would somehow help him obtain? It was a shame he hadn’t told Luke what the questions were, then.

  They were at the kitchen door of the great house, now. The one used for deliveries, from which, just a few days earlier, Luke had imagined he might smuggle himself into a vehicle and escape back to his friends in Millmoor. Back to the Doc and Angel. The betrayal he’d felt at learning their true identities still gnawed at the core of him.

  A slave opened the kitchen entrance at their approach, and a draught enveloped the three of them as they stepped out into the night. Luke shivered from more than merely the chill. At Crovan’s castle, he might be in a cell. Always cold; always in darkness. There might be a time he looked back fondly on his night in Kyneston’s cellar.

  But no. If he thought like that, then he would be a prisoner in mind as well as body. Broken and afraid. He was going to get out of this. He had to.

  Outside, another slave held open the door of a gleaming vehicle. Its engine was purring and Crovan was already getting in the other side. A third slave held the bridle of Silyen’s tall black horse, and the Young Master swung lightly up into the saddle as the beast pawed and snorted.

  ‘Get in,’ snapped Crovan’s voice from the car’s interior.

  ‘Please tell my family I love them,’ Luke blurted to the slave holding the door. ‘Tell them I’m sorry and I’ll see them again.’