“A . . . a thimble?”
“That’s right,” I say in my gentlest raspy voice. “Do you know what it’s for?”
She hesitates. “Protection?”
“Yes and no.” I extend my hand slowly, palm up. “It is a symbol. It was given to me by someone who wanted me to be safe.” This isn’t strictly true since I borrowed it surreptitiously but it makes a good story. “I am giving it to you. You have my protection.”
For a moment she glimpses the pain in my eyes and she senses the truth. It is a trick I learned from Father Lorin, how to show someone your soul. A much better trick than taking my hood off, since she might then sound the alarm. This way she doesn’t know who I am, has nothing to tell others, but she can see I mean her no harm.
Slowly she takes the thimble, the hunch lifting from her shoulder as Lucinda’s shadowy, silent frame nods encouragingly, and Grippy smiles, inadvertently showing both those chilling teeth. The leering thugs shouldn’t help either, but she can sense she’s off the chopping block because she straightens a little more. She hasn’t cracked under the stress of serving the world’s darkest. She can sense that we’re different.
“Is she well?” I repeat.
“Yes, sir,” she says slowly. “I mean, not exactly well, but she keeps busy.”
“My apologies, Astrid, for alarming you,” I say quietly. “We needed to verify some information with the prisoner before our patrol, but wanted to grab an extra snack before heading out. Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with this house and got a bit turned around while we were pillaging this pantry.” I pause, letting her process this information. “We were having a bit of an argument when you happened along. You can see why I wouldn’t want my compatriots to know? It’s embarrassing. Perhaps you can set us on the right path?”
Of course I know this house almost as well as I know Lord Bailey’s, but nobody needs to know that. Instead, I’ve given her an opportunity to be useful and then make her excuses and retreat. I know she’s going to help before she knows it herself.
“Yes, Lord.” The tremble in her voice says she’s still scared, but gaining confidence. “Let me just. . .” She quickly fills her basket with fruits and cheeses. “This way, Lord.”
As she leads us through the kitchens, we do our best imitation of a returning Nightshade squad. I limp and Lucinda swaggers. Grippy slouches along behind Lucinda, leering at the staff, blood still on his lips and face, canines glinting. There’s enough prejudice this side of the mountains to post his race right up there with Nightshades, and after a quick glance in our direction the kitchen staff take to their work with extra dedication.
Selwin’s house is more silent than I would have expected. True, the red tapestries and carpets muffle footfalls and absorb the noise of closing doors, but still I would have expected more sound. Sentries in the gatehouse should be hailing passers-by or clanking up the wooden stairs to peer over the house wall. Shadowboys should be provisioning themselves from courtyard stores. Servants should be scurrying about the house, or clanking soapy dishes from a late-morning clean up.
But all is quiet.
Through a gap in the curtains, I can see only one sentry behind gates that are barred and silent. He’s collapsed on a stool and staring sullenly into the nothingness of a silent city.
Astrid leads us through another set of doors and finally stops timidly. She points down a long, tall corridor lit dimly with oil lamps. “Please, sir, I am supposed to be taking this fruit to the dining room. I am already several minutes late. She’s in the Merchant’s Gallery.”
“Astrid.” My voices halts her retreat as surely as if I’d grabbed her sleeve as she tried to slip past me. “Are my brothers all dining?”
“I d-don’t think so, sir,” she stutters. “Something important happened late last night on the other side of the river. Many of them went to inspect it.”
I grin beneath my hood and step out of her way. “Your discretion will be rewarded. Thank you, Astrid.”
She seems confused about the word ‘discretion’ until Grippy puts a finger to his lips.
“Leave us now,” I say quietly, glad that this is what she wants to do anyways, “and I will protect your shadow.”
She obeys, skirts rustling, still holding Carmen’s pewter thimble.
When she is gone, I creep quietly down the hallway, noting side rooms and display alcoves along the way. I motion for Grippy and Lucinda to check these side rooms while I listen at the grand door to the Merchant’s Gallery.
Silence.
I push it open slowly, feel the weight of it as I slip into the giant room. To the left and right are more shadowed alcoves, potential hiding places, should I need them. I can feel my overwrought heart throbbing in my chest. The Merchant’s Gallery is dark, with its shades drawn, though I can hear the rain again as it splatters against the tall windows.
I also hear the unique sound of Lucinda trying to be stealthy behind me, like a bear trying to sneak up on a mouse. Soon she’s practically breathing down my neck. “My room’s clear. Pile of parchments on a desk and some chairs,” she whispers.
I ignore Lucinda, eyes locked on my target, breath stopped in my throat.
There is a giant, square cage ahead, so large it appears to have been built inside the room. It contains a small pallet for sleeping in one corner and a chamber pot in the adjacent corner that smells like it doesn’t get emptied enough.
Carmen, on the other side of the ten-pace cage, sits in the only beam of sunlight to sneak past the heavy curtains. It lights up her red hair like a flame.
She’s sewing. Not beautiful, fancy things made of velvet, lace, and fine fabrics. Rather, she’s doing a pile of mundane tasks for the sake of doing something. Mending socks, undergarments, and servant clothing. Cutting unsalvageables into rags. Staving off reality. She purses her lips as she works, fingers as deft and lively as I remember them.
I remind my heart to beat and my lungs to breathe. She is alive. She is moving. It hurts to see her working at ugly rags in an iron cage instead of fine fabrics at a proper workbench, but she is alive.
“Uh, Teacup?” Lucinda whispers. She shifts her weight and a board creaks.
“You can stop skulking, Jimmy,” Carmen says, setting aside a mended serving vest and picking up a rent blouse. “I know you’ve been staring at me all day again.”
I don’t say anything, fearing my words might come out hoarse and desperate.
This is the moment. This is the split-second increment that winnows the cautious living from the eager dead. I let it pass in silence, though my soul screams.
Behind Carmen, a breath of air ripples across the window curtains.
Nothing more.
“Jimmy?”
The lower walls are equally shrouded in tapestry or curtain, and I can’t be sure someone else isn’t watching. So I wait, listening for any movement or breath aside from Carmen’s. There are entrances to the Merchant’s Gallery on the first, second, and third floors. From Tom’s model, the narrow, floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows behind these curtains open on the slate-tiled roofs of lower-slope merchant houses. Another possible exit if things get dicey.
Carmen puts her sewing down. One hand grips a pair of sewing shears half-hidden in the folds of her tattered skirt. “How close is he, Jimmy?”
She speaks like she’s accustomed to months of unseen guards. Pan’s Beard. This would have broken me. I hate being watched, and I hate even more to think of her like this.
“Too close?” she asks. Her voice is hoarse, just like in my nightmares. “You’re going to kill me first, aren’t you?”
Silence.
“He’s here, isn’t he, Jimmy? In the house? I can feel him.”
Silence.
“Isn’t he?” she roars, the pain of long months coming out in hoarseness of voice and the quiet desperation of having to hide behind her anger. Her flame is dying. I can feel it as she speaks.
“I’ve heard the servants talking,” she screams into the
silence. “I’ve heard you’re losing men. I’ve heard you’re pulling out. Gods damn you, Jimmy! You and your worthless trap!”
The wind shifts in the manor house, likely from a door opening somewhere. Stale air pushes past me, rippling this old, soft shadowcloak. My hood flutters once.
Carmen sniffs the air. Her face softens. “Daddy?” she whispers. She begins to cry. “Daddy, I thought you were dead.”
At this, there is a faint rustling from the upper gallery. I hear steps, ghost-prints on Selwin’s rich carpets. I pull Lucinda further back into the shadows of the entry.
The light footfall continues along the balcony and away, until the window curtain jumps once and opens more. It sings as a slender silhouette descends, haloed by the additional light.
We pull farther back, sideways to the shadows, daring only to listen.
“Daddy?” A younger voice curls around the world, full of disdain. I recognize the voice, though I’ve only heard it a few times. It’s a voice that sounds like Carmen’s, but it isn’t. It’s a voice carved of bitterness.
I look. I can’t help looking.
Rose’s flat, red hair is disheveled. She’s favoring her left side. She limps along the outside of the cage from one end to the other and posts herself against the bars, unconcerned that Carmen is coiled like a cornered toothmouse. In contrast, Rose’s posture is broken and loose, dangling like the thin, steel chain attached to a manacle on her left hand. She coughs.
“You think Jimmy’d bring me here if Daddy were still alive?”
Carmen doesn’t put the scissors down, but she’s not so careful to hide them in her skirts as she was before. “Ah. You’re back.”
“I’ve been back.” Rose rattles the chain and manacle. “Wearing the price of failure.”
Carmen ignores the manacle. “Is that my dress?” she asks, matter-of-fact. “The one from Deepwinter’s Eve? The one that won me this patronage?” Carmen gestures bitterly to the sumptuous surroundings.
“No,” Rose lies.
“Is that what’s left of my dress?” Carmen says with more feeling.
“Maybe,” Rose admits softly.
Sitting in the lone beam of sunlight, Carmen’s face shows the tug-of-war inside her head. Horror. Pleasure. Sadness. “You were supposed to take him away from Ector and keep him safe. You were supposed to protect him.”
“And he was supposed to forget about you,” Rose retorts. She rubs her thigh where I stabbed myself.
There’s definitely a smile on Carmen’s face now. “I was right. He doesn’t forget. He is coming.”
“Of course he is.” Rose finally shows some emotion, grabs the bars and looks behind her, searching the shadows. “It’s the only reason you’re worth anything to them,” she hisses, “so you have to go. Now! Before he gets here.”
“No.”
“Listen, princess,” Rose begs, “You’ve got to get out of here. Teamus Steeps knows what he’s getting into. He’s put the entire city on the edge of a riot. When it blows, the gods themselves will run for cover.”
Rose is shaking. She drops one hand, grappling for something in a hidden pocket while taking the enormous lock on the cage with her other. She tips the lock up and props it on her knee where the lonely sun-shaft will illuminate its interior.
“You’re leaving,” she says. “Right now.” She fumbles with the lock but can’t keep her lockpicks steady. “They’ll torture you in front of him. They’ll pull your entrails out through your nose. You have no idea the trouble he’s caused.”
Carmen ignores Rose’s pleas, her own voice bitter in the shadow where she now stands. “If I leave, they’ll kill him. He’ll hang around here looking for me until they catch him. He won’t leave without me. He keeps his promises.”
“That’s the least of your worries, princess.” Rose slams her lockpicks into the lock in a way that should break them and ruin the lock, but instead it clicks open. She throws the lock on the floor and swings open the gate. “Get out!” she whispers. “I will tell him you’ve gone. I’ll tell him you are safe and bring him to you.”
“You can’t have him, Sister,” Carmen says quietly, not moving, not believing. “You can take anything you want from me, but you can’t have Teamus.” Carmen crouches, holding the scissors like a sword, ready to fight for this last shred of dignity.
Rose stomps her left foot, forgetting. I feel the pain in my own leg.
“Pan’s beard,” Rose says. “You don’t both have to die.” Her manacled hand touches the spot on her thigh again, tenderly, like one tests a festering wound.
That’s when I know I’ve made a mistake. Something jumps between Rose and me, like sparks from a grinding stone. I smell the bitter ash of burnt metal on manor-top.
Rose knows.
She leaps forward to defend the open cage door, reaching for her stone knife, before I can make it halfway to Carmen. She holds the jagged edge of it in front of her, and I can see she has damaged it by hacking through her wrist chain.
Another spark jumps between us, growing into a steady stream. Red pulls at the flying sparks.
I feel pain in the back of my head, and pain in my leg as well. It centers me, and I know she feels it, too. She reels backward as I stumble forward.
“Teacup,” Carmen says. It’s not a gasp of surprise. It’s the quiet recognition of an inevitability. I feel her voice in my chest just as I remember it, complete with the note of hope so few of us in Lower Ector have. I want to stare at her, hold her, and tell her I have a plan, but I need to focus, or this will all end badly. Carmen understands.
“Come with us, Rose,” I say quietly. “We have a way out.”
Wind shifts in the house again as Wisteria feels the magic. She knows I have found her daughters. She is coming.
Rose snarls, still trying to channel the bones of the earth through me as she steps forward, knife in hand. “There is no way out, Teamus. Only death. I was a fool to believe anything else.”
I ignore Rose’s words, too, because I suddenly understand what Yessy was saying about swimming in the butter. I can feel the earth through Rose’s feet, and the sky wide open above her head. I ignore my own place in the world and raise my hands to match hers, one for stone and one for sky.
Rose grunts and staggers, nearly dropping her knife, trying at the same time to pull stone and sky through me. The disharmonic echoes of Redemption Alley are still here, bouncing between us, our hands both caught in the honey trap. No way forward, no way back. The magic has no place to go. Shards of white-hot glass break off sideways to pierce the corners of my mind. They splinter the room into pieces of the rainbow in their effort to escape.
I am in two places. I can see myself from across the room.
I am in four places. I can see her again pinning me to the floor in Redemption Alley.
I am in eight places, screaming in pain as I deliver a child, this woman that holds power with me. Wysteria’s child.
I am in sixteen places . . . as the world unravels.
Vaguely, I hear someone clapping from the balcony above.
NINETEEN
“Ah. Mr. Steeps,” says a voice that is as thin as a witch’s breath and thick as a mountain. “Such a performance.”
I can’t see the speaker well through the echoes of magic, but his shoulders are massive, his pallor the color of a glistening maggot. A Dreadlord, and his power and menace exceed anything I’ve seen before. Behind him, his familiar dances like a bitter shadow upon the red tapestry.
“I knew you’d come,” he says, “but I didn’t think you’d nearly succeed.” His paleness seems to shine in the darkness, a once-attractive face burned cruel by ambition and framed by unkempt beard and hair. “Old Pale Tom would be the proudest mentor this side of the seven rivers.”
His lip lifts as he whistles, showing pale, white teeth and pale, white gums. His whistle pierces the entire manor, carried on the thread of shadow that reminds me of Wisteria.
The sound of chairs scraping in adjacent ro
oms fills my ears. From Rose’s eyes I can see Lucinda spin to face another Dreadlord, the one from Redemption Alley. With his injured foot, his two-legged saunter looks more like an upright slither. My thoughts echo Rose’s.
Jimmy the snake, stalks the night.
Jimmy the snake, glistens white.
Jimmy the . . .
Focus!
He’s cutting off our retreat. Two shadowboys flank him. Jimmy grins at me, white lips pulling away from white teeth and white gums. He hasn’t bothered to remove Lucinda’s dagger from his back or her sword from his shoulder. The weapons stick out like needles in a pincushion from his white, bone-like skin. This skin seems to be crawling up the blades, trying to swallow them whole. Jimmy himself seems less substantial than before, though he’s substantial enough to block our retreat.
I hold Rose at bay, and she me, both pulling at the power, both of us watching the spectacle unfold through our shared four eyes.
‘Shades and their lackeys trickle in from other parts of the enormous house as well, tossing white, linen napkins over the banister as they draw their weapons. Some of them have crumbs in their beards. Lucinda backs into the center of the room, toward me, though going back-to-back isn’t really going to help. These aren’t wolves, and they don’t have to close the distance to finish us. To emphasize this thought, the gallery’s upper balcony is slowly filled with bowmen.
I count my obstacles out of habit. Four bowmen. Six apprentices, or shadowboys. Six ‘Shades in inky-black shadowcloaks on the second level, with dark hoods designed to swallow a Nightshade’s identity. Another three in plainclothes armor. And two maggot-faced Dreadlords.
There is an undeniable hierarchy to the group. A glimpse of Jimmy, even with his maimed foot, would strike fear into any sane person’s mind, but the man on the balcony would freeze that fear and shatter it into a cloud of tiny, choking shards. He stands like a king, in perfect acceptance of his own unnatural state.
“You’d have made a fine Dreadlord, Mr. Steeps,” he says.
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