Shadowcloaks

by Benjamin Hewett

  The thugs hold me so tightly their fingers seem to ignore my flesh, gripping the bones themselves. I should be more slippery, but these men have lived in my basement for months, have learned to call this place home, after a fashion. I’ve lost that advantage.

  I try words instead, though my voice is broken. “He was teaching me to think like them, to infiltrate them. He was teaching me to protect our family.”

  These are the wrong words.

  “Who pulled you from the riverfront, you whore?” Satchab screams, ripping another book from the shelf and hurling it to the floor. “Who gutted the sot bedding you on a pallet of fish scales and salt? We are your family! We—”

  Tom interrupts Satchab’s tirade with a steely smile, and a voice that not even Satchab can ignore. He, the First ‘Shade of Eastmarch, speaks with power and peace. “You aren’t that woman, Wisteria. He has no claim on you. No one does.”

  There is a smile on his face, a serene expression of peace. Tom is ready for death, and for him there is hope in it. He has deprived Eastmarch of a real Dreadlord for another decade. It took Satchab three years to tune me to the humming of magic, and Satchab has always said I was a rare find, and that Tom was besotted with me from the start. “You and Tom fit together perfectly,” Satchab always said. “The perfect Dreadlord.”

  Tom has taken that from them. They cannot trust me now, not with tears running down my cheeks, and Satchab, it seems, never did trust Tom. With us both gone—and they must kill us—I cannot see it any other way. They are without an anchor in Eastmarch, the power of their rings dwindling with each of Marzden’s croaky, lifeless breaths.

  Both magii gone, useless in the blink of an eye. The thought gives me hope, too. There always was a way out, as Tom had guessed.

  “When did you know for sure?” Tom asks Satchab calmly, as if interviewing him for some never-to-be-written memoire.

  “When I found your sanctuary.”

  “My heart is my sanctuary.”

  Satchab’s chuckle has a cruel ring to it. “You’ve always been a good liar, Tom. I liked that about you. But . . .” Satchab reaches into his cloak and places a fistful of shards on the bookshelf in place of the book he has just thrown to the floor. Alabaster shards. White and beautifully polished, except for the jagged edges. “A single candle holder is a bit harder to find than an altar, but I knew what to look for.”

  Tom doesn’t respond.

  “You won’t be bringing ‘light to the darkness’ anymore, Nightshade,” Satchab hisses. His words twist around the title, as if seeking to drive a weapon deeper.

  Tom sighs and shrugs. “I never did bring much light into the world. So you entered my home?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Interesting. And you know this place holds no protection for me?”

  Satchab gives Tom a patronizing look. “You think I would face you in your own home?”

  “But you would face Wisteria in hers?”

  “Her invitation was permanent, and open.”

  Tom looks at me, a sad and knowing look. “Wys, I warned you.”

  “What was I supposed to do?” It makes me angry that he can have all this peace inside, that he has been able to hide so much from me and the children. “I’ve seen you bathing in the blood of innocents. I’ve seen you execute Marzden’s contracts. I . . . How can you be a Paladin? We’re sworn to kill Pan’s children.”

  “Loopholes within loopholes,” Tom chuckles. “Oaths can’t make a man kill himself. And technically, only a Dreadlord must kill Pan’s children. The rest of us can ‘wait in the darkness’ as long as we want.”

  “Thomas!” I feel hot tears on my cheek. “Don’t mince words with me.”

  A shadow passes over his face, seeing me cry. His smile is gone. “My light is barely a whisper of smoke now, but I still have it.”

  His words are only for me, I think, and perhaps for this whisper of the future in my head now, this thief and scrambler.

  Tom is speaking quietly. “Pan doesn’t abandon the evil, Wys.” He shudders, no doubt remembering past deeds. “He is there every time we turn away from our worst choices. He is even there when we try to turn away. And as my oath prevents me from turning away, I will do the next best thing. I will try.”

  “You will fail,” Satchab says quietly.

  Tom ignores him. “Do the Nightshades of Eastmarch draw power from their Dreadlord? I will rob them of that power. Do they oppress the people with their secret dealings? I will share their secrets to the world. My friends are men with pure souls who will—”

  “Pure souls.” Satchab’s lips curl as he interrupts Tom. “I doubt it. I’ve met them.” He tosses a set of crumpled parchments to the floor. “Your alabaster is gone, Tom. Your friends have forgotten you, and I’ve intercepted your letters. Your plans are wiped clean.” Satchab sweeps the alabaster shards from the bookshelf, knocking down another book in the process.

  “My plans are only just beginning,” Tom says evenly. “I’ve seen the future. I’ve seen what becomes of you. You can’t stop me from killing Marzden.”

  If Satchab is shaken, he doesn’t show it. Officially, the dark brothers have always ascribed fortune-reading to clever tricks and lucky guesswork, a skill they themselves have perfected. “Your plans are at an end.”

  “Then kill us now, Satchab. Release us from these mortal coils.”

  “Release you?” Satchab shouts. “Do you even understand your oaths? Your soul is bound to the ring you wore, Paladin or not! This was your time to drink and celebrate.”

  Satchab pulls another book and throws it, this time at me. It slams into my face, the wooden binding splitting my lip. Blood wells out, drips from my chin. The men hold me too tightly to do anything but feel. Feel. Feel. I reach for Tom’s power and watch his eyes go foggy.

  Please, Wisteria. Not this, Tom begs in my mind. We’ll never kill them all that way. I need to think.

  I can feel his anger at seeing me hurt, relish in it, but I cut him from my thoughts. He’s right. We’ll never kill them all, and we need to kill them all, or they will take the baby. Take her and give her to another stable, raise her up just like they raised me, magii and slave. Where our older child is, I do not know. Tom will not tell me.

  The book on the floor, with my blood dripping on it, does bother Tom. He snarls, struggles, and lashes out. “Stop pulling books from my shelf, Satchab. Finish your work here. Kill us and be done.”

  Bletchly grins. “Hurt her,” he says wickedly.

  Satchab grins too, nodding. From what I know, this may be the first time they’ve seen him angry, in all their years of patrolling Eastmarch for profitable contracts. They like the taste of it.

  Satchab’s hand rests on the final book on the bookshelf. “Just this last one, then.” He watches Tom’s eye twitch in anger, frustration. He throws the final book to the floor and spits on it. “To Hell with you, Tom.” He strides toward me with purpose, drawing out a jagged, green knife. “I’m not afraid of you, Leblanc, or your plans.”

  Tom looks at me. Not at the jagged, green knife that will gut me. He only uses this particular expression when I’m missing something important, eyebrow slightly raised. His fear and anger are gone. Now there are squint-wrinkles about his eyes and a tightness in the face that says, “Get ready.”

  The shelf that once held the Paladin books makes a clicking sound. Its left side rises an inch, as if on a lever.

  “If you don’t fear me, Satchab,” Tom says, “then you don’t understand me.”

  I hear metal beads dribbling out from hollowed tunnels in the wood, pinging off of shelves beneath, falling to die on the rug or roll forever across the stone. Something he said to my sister after the remodel catches in my mind. “Don’t ever pull all the books off this shelf.”

  Satchab turns back to look. “Springs and gears and parlor tricks won’t save you, Tom.”

  “They don’t need to save me.”

  The metal beads roll through channels cut out in the walls and
shelving, spill in small oceans over their banks. I know we need to run, but we’re all frozen in place, mesmerized. Tom’s work has that effect on people. The way he moves, the way his toys move. Fluidity and grace and . . .

  The sound of rolling beads lessens and stops. The hollow, wooden shelf bounds away from the wall, thrown by springs and catches that are now offset by absent weight. The shelf next to it collapses. Books and vials fall to the floor, books thumping against the sturdy planking, tiny vials shattering and mixing. The next shelf falls. And the next. And the next. All around the room a spiraling wave of falling books, trinkets, and chemicals. As each next lower row of shelves fall, the room shudders, like some boulder unsticking from the mountain.

  “Kill them!” Satchab shouts, but it is too late.

  The entire room accelerates downward, pulled away from its lofty perch at the top of the manor by some unseen force, device, magic, or natural order. For a moment the books, the bearings, and the people float, legs windmilling in place. The room slams through a barrier, and then another, and then another. It lurches one more time and ceases to fall.

  The men holding me are thrown off balance and I rip free, rolling into a crouch. Satchab’s sturdy legs buckle and he slams to the rug. A shadowman crumples, legs broken. Even Tom falls, though he is the first to rise.

  Nightshades and shadowboys rush him as one.

  The room is awash in paper. Books begin to burn where they have been touched by my poisons. The putrid smoke chokes the room and the flames grow quickly. So much wood. So much dry wood.

  I can run. He wants me to run. Where light from the hallways and fancy décor used to show through, there are only solid, black stones. Bedrock or footings. In this chaos, I can climb out of this pit. I have the ribbon-and-claw grapple everyone thinks is ornamental. I can make sure no one else makes it out alive. This is what Tom has planned. It’s what he wants.

  But I see the flaw in his plan. There is only one way to keep them from coming here year after year . . . trying to make a foothold, hunting me, hunting our daughters. And I don’t want him to die. He is my better half. I want to stay with him.

  There is only one way to do this.

  I am the first to reach him. The stone knife trembles in my hand as I dive forward, slashing sideways at the man next to me. His body turns to wet clay, soul torn away. He doesn’t crumble to dust like a magii.

  But I will. I draw power through Tom as I dive upon his knife. It enters my chest like ice.

  Tom’s face goes white with horror, realizing too late what I have done, realizing he has trusted me too much, forgotten that my aim is perfect.

  Time slows as my body turns to dusky clay.

  “I serve you now, Dreadlord,” I say as the white creeps up his arm. “Remember our daughters.”

  My body shatters. I am a winter hurricane. I can see everything, touch everything. There is no give-and-take of magii to slow us down. Only Tom’s will. He is safe. We are safe. Our daughters are safe.

  Satchab’s green-glass knife shatters on Tom’s skin as it turns white and stone-hard. Satchab’s expletive turns to a gurgle as Tom punches straight through the black-leather armor. Though Satchab is dying, Tom is the one in true agony.

  The part of me that isn’t me, the part of my mind that is the little thief, closes its eyes. I laugh. Closed eyelids won’t make this scene any less vivid for him. I can see it, and I want this little whisper to see it, too. I love Tom, and this memory proves he loves me. The little thief begs to move on, but I hold him here to watch the mechanical storm of springs and gears that pales against the storm of blood and bone that follows it.

  When it is done only Tom remains, half-alive, kneeling in prayer on a pile of my ash, cradling my golden ring. The ring that this little mind-whisper has brought back to me.

  “Please,” Tom says.

  “Please, no,” he begs. “Please, no.”

  “It was supposed to be you, Wys.”

  Tears track his dirty face, trickling onto the pile of ash and stone knife I used to be. I caress his face, a northern breeze that can no longer speak.

  “Please,” another voice says in my head.

  The little thief’s voice.

  “Please let me pass. I love her. I love your daughter.”

  I am torn. I feel his power growing. I feel Tom’s mantle settling upon him, the mantle of a Dreadlord. In another day or two he will own this city. I can crush him now. I can end this plague on Eastmarch.

  But he loves my daughter. My oldest daughter. The one Tom hid from me. The one Tom will give my ring to. I press his face into the stone and make him understand what I want.

  “Let me go,” he whispers quietly, though he can barely get the breath out, “and I will.”

  I feel the power in his words as he recovers his oath-ring from the stone floor, can feel the Oaken Throne of Eastmarch taking him slowly.

  If I had tears I would weep again.

  EIGHTEEN

  Grippy’s face is white as he helps me up. There’s a greyish-green bruise blooming on the side of his face.

  “Faster, o’man.” he says. His claw digs into my arm as we disengage. “I hannow desire to have me face pressed o’gainst the stone o’gain.”

  I look him in the eyes, though he’s a slight bit taller than me. “You’re safe now, Grippy.”

  He breaks his gaze first, turns to look to his men. Lucinda supports one of them while the other vomits. Her face is covered in book ash. “What happened?” she asks as we gather atop a pile of rubble.

  “She has daughters,” I say. “She’s letting us pass.”

  “Who?” Lucinda asks, straightening as the thug takes back his own weight.

  “Carmen’s mother.”

  Lucinda shakes her head. “You’re not making any sense, Teacup. Carmen’s mother has been gone for decades.”

  I close my mouth. There isn’t time to explain, and I’m not sure I understand it well enough, anyways. But Carmen’s mother won’t be gone until Tom is gone, until whatever binds them to this earth is destroyed. I hope that something isn’t me.

  Grippy nudges me toward the solid, stone wall, anxious to be away. The only exit is a smashed door thirty feet up, with little purchase for climbing. Grippy snorts, handing me a rope. “Prolly the end o’ the line, eh, o’man?”

  I grin at him, to bolster them all, and throw the rope over my shoulder. Even without Yessy’s new gloves I could have made the climb, but this is much faster.

  The gloves are snug to my hands, like a second skin, and the tiny bristles seem to suck themselves into the stone so I can climb straight up without working the chinks.

  “I ne’er knew,” Grippy whistles quietly. “Wouldna bothered to hide my valuables, had I.”

  I tie off the rope and drop the end down to the rest of them. Grippy’s thugs struggle the most, but they make it up. We leave the rope secured for our retreat.

  The door leads to a cramped staircase that opens for a queenpence, like the skin-padded door from the sewer into Tom’s lair. Here, though, the door opens into a second basement cellar, and compared to Wisteria, the remaining traps and obstacles are simple. Rather than disabling them, I mark them, explaining each quietly to Lucinda and Grippy as we pass, in case we get separated on our way out.

  The cellar gives way to servants’ quarters. Lucinda ties her hair way back and pulls the bloodstained shadowcloak hood over her eyes so only her pale, white cheeks show. The cloak absorbs the sound of her movement and stores it away. I do the same with the cloak Barkus handed me. It smells of lavender and funny and the hem drags on the floor, but the first servant we meet flinches at seeing it and she doesn’t ask questions.

  “The cellar . . . my lord . . . I didn’t expect . . .”

  “I was hungry,” I growl, trying to make my voice as imposing as possible. It comes out as a squeak regardless. I grab an apple from a barrel and take a bite, careful to keep my face hidden in the shadows of my hood.

  “I’m s-s-sorry the fo
od in the dining hall wasn’t to your liking,” she stammers. “Is there anything I c-c-can do better?”

  “Yer food is fine,” Grippy says, grabbing a sausage. He raises an eyebrow, which has the cultivated effect of lifting his lip a little to expose a goblin canine. “It’s the crowds we c’naw abide.”

  The servant’s eyes flit to Lucinda’s frame, to the two thugs, and then to Grippy crammed into this narrow cellar all lined with shelves, and she looks confused. To her, we are a crowd.

  “Never mind what we’re doing down here,” I snap. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you’ll not to tell my brothers, either.”

  “No . . . No, I wouldn’t dream of it.” She’s trembling, alone in a poorly lit cellar with five Nightshades, all of them intently staring at her.

  I step a little closer. “Actually, we wanted to talk to you.” My voice sounds raspy when it comes out, the tension in my body binding up my throat.

  Her face is white, her hands straight and stiff at her side. “M-me, sir?” She can barely find her tongue.

  I step back as much as possible in the narrow space, though this means jostling Lucinda, and I show my palms in a gesture I hope looks magnanimous. My voice is still raspy, but I can’t seem to fix that. “Have you seen the prisoner this morning?” I ask, trying to be less intimidating. “Is she well? My brothers aren’t always as gentle as they should be.”

  She seems confused as to what I’m asking, and afraid for being confused. “Please,” she says quietly. “I’ve no quarrel with either master. I will do what I’m told.”

  This isn’t working. She’s too scared to be useful, and the longer we delay down here, the more dangerous it becomes for all of us.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Astrid.”

  “Listen, Astrid.” I reach slowly into my pocket and remove the Carmen’s pewter thimble, the one I found in Lucinda’s apartment. “Do you know what this is?”