The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  “I hear you work at the Spiritus Club.”

  “Well, I work in the building, yes, but they don’t employ me. I show them pieces of paper, and occasionally they buy them.”

  “Fairly seditious pieces of paper, I hear.”

  He chuckled at that. “Yes, sedition is my field of expertise. Your mime-lord is a fellow connoisseur. His Seven Orders system remains the one true masterpiece of the voyant world.”

  Debatable. “How did you find him?”

  “Well, it was really the other way around. He sent me a draft for On the Merits of Unnaturalness when he was about your age. A prodigy if ever I saw one. Possessive, too. Still goes into paroxysms whenever I take on a new client in the I-4 area,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s a talented man—fiercely imaginative. I wonder why he gets himself so worked up about these things.” He paused as the waitron delivered his tray. “Thank you, good sir.” The coffee was poured, thick as mud. “I knew there were risks in publishing such a pamphlet, of course, but I’ve always been a gambler.”

  “You withdrew it,” I said. “After the gang wars.”

  “A symbolic gesture. Too late by then, of course. On the Merits had already been pirated by every halfwit with a printer from here to Harrow, affecting voyants’ mindsets as it went. Literature is our most powerful tool, one Scion has never fully mastered. All they’ve been able to do is sterilize what they put out,” he said. “But we, the creative, must be very careful with seditious writing. Change a word or two, even a single letter, and you change the entire story. It’s a risky business.”

  I stirred rosewater into my saloop. “So you wouldn’t publish anything like that again.”

  “Oh, mercy, don’t tempt me. I’ve been a pauper since the withdrawal. The pamphlet is still alive and well, while the poor scout lives in squalor in his rented garret.” He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes. “Still, I do take a fair cut from every other pamphlet and chapbook that finds its way to the shelves, apart from Mr. Waite’s ‘romances,’ which are—and I think you’ll agree—no loss to me, or indeed, to literature.”

  “They’re not exactly subversive material,” I agreed.

  “No, indeed. No voyant literature is, really, apart from Jaxon’s. It’s only subversive in that it’s in a forbidden genre.” He nodded to a woman at the window. Her chin was tucked against her collar, her face tilted toward her lap. “Isn’t it wonderful, how words and paper can embroil us so? We are witnessing a miracle, dear heart.”

  I looked at the penny dreadful she was hiding under the table; at the way the bibliomancer’s eyes were welded to the printed words, ignoring everything outside them. She wasn’t just paying attention. She was learning. Believing what would seem insane if you heard it on the street.

  The transmission screen above the counter turned white. Every head in the coffeehouse came up. The waitron reached up and turned down the lamps, so the only source of light was from the screen. Two lines of black text had appeared.

  REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN SUSPENDED

  PLEASE STAND BY FOR LIVE INQUISITORIAL BROADCAST

  “Oh, dear,” Alfred murmured.

  An instrumental rendition of the anthem began to play. “Anchored to Thee, O Scion,” the hymn I’d been forced to sing every morning at school. As soon as it ended, the anchor disappeared—and then Frank Weaver took its place.

  The face of the puppet. There it was, staring down at us. The coffeehouse fell silent. The Grand Inquisitor was rarely seen outside the Archon.

  It was hard to tell how old he was. At least fifty, probably older. His face was an oblong, framed by greased sideburns. Hair the color of iron lay flat across the top of his head. Scarlett Burnish was poised and expressive; her lips could soften even the most dreadful tidings. Weaver was her polar opposite. His stiff white collar was fastened under his chin.

  “Denizens of the citadel, this is your Inquisitor.” A cacophony of guttural voices boomed from every speaker in the citadel. “It is with grave news that I waken you to another day in the Scion Citadel of London, the stronghold of the natural order. I have just received word from the Grand Commander that at least eight unnatural fugitives are at large in the citadel.” He lifted a square of black silk and dabbed the spittle from his chin. “Due to circumstances beyond the Archon’s control, these criminals escaped the Tower of London last night and vanished before the Guard Extraordinary was able to apprehend them. Those responsible have been relieved of their public duties.”

  It was thought that Weaver was a being of flesh, but no emotion touched his features. I found myself staring at him, fascinated and repelled by this ventriloquist’s dummy. He was lying about the time of the escape. They must have needed a few days to coordinate their response. “These unnaturals have committed some of the most heinous crimes I have seen in all my years in the Archon. They must not be allowed to remain at large, lest they commit such crimes again. I call upon you, the denizens of London, to ensure that these fugitives are detained. If you suspect a neighbor, or even yourself of unnaturalness, you should report immediately to a Vigile outpost. Clemency will be shown.”

  Sensation drained away. The urge to run screamed through my blood, beating at my frozen muscles.

  “Only five of these criminals have been named at present. We will update the denizens of London once the others have been identified. For the foreseeable future, the Scion Citadel of London will be placed under emergency red-zone security measures while we hunt these fugitives. Please pay close attention to the following photographs. My thanks to you, and to that which keeps the natural order. We will purge this plague together, as we always have. There is no safer place than Scion.”

  And he was gone.

  The slideshow of the fugitives was silent, except for a mechanical voice stating each name and the crimes committed. The first face was Felix Samuel Coombs. The second, Eleanor Nahid. The third, Michael Wren. The fourth, “Ivy”—no surname—with her old haircut, dyed brilliantly blue. That photo was against a grey background rather than the white of Scion’s official database of denizens.

  And the fifth—the most wanted, the face of public enemy number one—was mine.

  Alfred didn’t even pause for breath. He didn’t wait to read my crimes, or to check my face against the woman on the screen. He swept up both our coats, took me by the arm and led me toward the door. Everyone in the coffeehouse was talking by the time the door swung shut.

  “There are voyants in this district that would sell you to the Archon in a heartbeat.” Alfred hurried me along, hardly moving his lips as he spoke. “Buskers and beggars and the like. Your imprisonment could buy them life. Jaxon will know where to hide you,” he said, more to himself than to me, “but reaching I-4 may present a challenge.”

  “I don’t want to—”

  I was about to say go to the Dials, but I stopped myself. What choice did I have? Scion would catch me within hours if I didn’t have a mime-lord’s protection. Jaxon was the only option.

  “I can try the rooftops,” I said instead.

  “No, no. I should never forgive myself if you were caught.”

  This had Nashira’s gloved fingers all over it. Forcing myself to quash the volcano of anger, I buttoned my jacket to the chin and buckled it loosely to hide my waist. Alfred held out an arm. With little choice but to trust him, I let him drape half of his coat around me.

  “Keep your head down. There are no cameras in Grub Street, but they will see you at once outside it.”

  Alfred put up his umbrella and walked briskly, but with no outward sign of a hurry. Every step took us farther from the transmission screen and closer to I-4.

  “Who’s that you got, Alfred?”

  It was the augur who had been sleeping outside the coffeehouse. “Oh, er—just a pretty trinket, old girl.” He pulled me deeper into his coat. “I’m afraid I’m in rather a hurry—but you’ll pop in for a cup of tea in the morning, won’t you?”

  Without waiting for a reply, h
e kept on walking. I could hardly keep up with his strides.

  We slipped under the archway, out of Grub Street and on to the streets of I-5. The night air was frigid. Yet all around us, London was stirring. Denizens spilled out of apartment buildings and oxygen bars in their hundreds to gather around the transmission towers. I didn’t need to feel their auras to tell which ones were voyant—there was terror in their eyes. They buffeted past us as they hurried toward the Lauderdale Tower, where the I-5 screen played the emergency broadcast on repeat. Frank Weaver’s face cast lights across the sky.

  They were pouring from the bars, shouting from the windows. “Weaver! Weaver!” Their roars were blood and thunder. “WEAVER. WEAVER.”

  Too many dreamscapes. Each and every one of these people was pressed flush to my senses: their emotions, their frenzy, the bright flames of auras as they passed. Voyant. Amaurotic. Voyant. A supernova of invisible colors. When a gap emerged in the tide of human bodies, Alfred pulled me off the street and into the doorway of a jerryshop, where I fought to regain control of my sixth sense. He reached into his pocket, took out a handkerchief, and mopped at his brow.

  Away from the crowd, a strange calm came over me. Little by little, I tuned out the æther. All I had to do was focus on my own body: my shallow breaths, my beating heart.

  We waited until a large part of the throng had walked past before moving again. Alfred grasped my arm and strode back on to the street.

  “I’ll take you to the intersection. You can continue to Seven Dials from there.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Oh, you think I should leave you here in I-5? And expose myself to Jaxon’s fury?” He clicked his tongue. “As if I would ever abandon his mollisher to such a fate.”

  We kept to the backstreets as much as we could, away from the crowds and the transmission screens. As we drew closer, we picked up our pace. There was only so much time until the Archon stopped repeating the broadcast. Without the magnetic influence of the screens, the denizens would be all over the citadel, hunting for traitors. I’d heard of vigilante action during red zones.

  By the time we reached the intersection between I-4 and I-5, Alfred was puffing like a locomotive. I was so focused on the border that I didn’t sense an aura until it was too late, and a Vigile stepped out in front of me.

  Knuckles smashed into my stomach, sending me sprawling against the wall. When I got a good look at my assailant, hot fear surged through me. The Vigile pulled out her machine gun and pointed it at my head.

  “Unnatural. Up. Get up!” Making no sudden movements, I rose back to my feet. “Freeze,” the Vigile barked at Alfred, who hadn’t moved. “Hands up!”

  “I am sorry, Vigile, but I think there may have been a mistake,” Alfred said. He was red in the face, but his smile was perfectly congenial. “We were just on our way to see Inquisitor Weaver’s—”

  “Put up your hands.”

  “All right, all right.” Alfred raised his hands. “Aside from having no sense of direction, may I ask what we’ve done amiss?”

  The Vigile ignored him. Beneath her visor, her eyes were darting over us. Sighted eyes. I held still.

  “Jumper,” she whispered.

  There was no greed in her expression. She wasn’t like the Underguards on the train, thrilled with their catch, already picturing the wealth they’d get for a red aura.

  “On your knees,” she barked. “On your knees, unnatural!” I did as she ordered. “Both of you,” she said. With difficulty, Alfred lowered himself to the pavement. “Now, put your hands behind your heads.” We both obeyed. The Vigile took a step back, but the red sight of the gun still hovered at the center of my forehead. I made myself look down the barrel. A finger on a trigger was all that stood between us and the æther.

  “That won’t hide you.” The Vigile pulled off my hat, exposing my white-blonde hair. “You’re going straight to Inquisitor Weaver. Don’t think I won’t send you, murderer.”

  I didn’t dare answer. She may have known the Underguards I’d killed. Maybe she’d been on the scene when they found the second man, driven insane, salivating garbled pleas for death. Satisfied with my silence, the Vigile reached for her transceiver. I looked at Alfred. To my shock, he winked, like he got detained in the street every day.

  “Perhaps,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “I can tempt you with this. You’re a cyathomancer, aren’t you?”

  He held up a small gold cup, about the size of a fist, and raised his eyebrows. “This is 521,” the Vigile said into her transceiver, ignoring him. “Request immediate backup in I-5, subsection 12, Saffron Street east. Suspect 1 is in custody. I repeat, Paige Mahoney is in custody.”

  “You’re unnatural, too, soothsayer,” I said. “You need a numen. Talking into that radio won’t change a thing.”

  The gun jerked back up. “Shut your mouth. Before I put a bullet in it.”

  “How long do you have before they exterminate you? Noose or NiteKind, do you think?”

  “This is 515. Detain suspect until our arrival.”

  “Mind your tongue or I’ll break your legs. We know you can run.” The Vigile reached for the handcuffs at her belt. “Hold out your hands, or I’ll break those, too.”

  Alfred swallowed. The Vigile grabbed my wrists with one hand.

  “Bribes won’t help you,” she said to Alfred. “If I bring this one to Weaver, I’ll be free to buy whatever I like.”

  My vision shook. Red didn’t just come running, but gushing from the Vigile’s nose. As she raised a hand to stanch it, dropping the handcuffs, I pushed my spirit into her body.

  The dreamscape I found was a room full of filing cabinets, lit by stark white lights. This was a clean, precise person. She fitted every thought and memory into a sterile box. It was easy for her to separate what she did at work from her own identity as a clairvoyant. There was color in here, but not a great deal; it had been diluted, washed away by her hatred of herself. In the darkness were her fears, taking the form of specters in her hadal zone: the amorphous figures of other clairvoyants, cruel unnaturals in the shadows.

  I was glad, then, when I took her over.

  At once I could feel the difference in my body. My new heart took up a staccato rhythm. When I looked up, I saw my own corpse. Paige Mahoney was crumpled on the ground, deathly pale, and Alfred was shaking her with both hands.

  “Speak to me,” he was saying. “Not yet, dear heart. Not yet.”

  I stared, transfixed. That was me.

  And I was . . .

  My fist clenched around the transceiver. It was like lifting a dumbbell, but I raised it to my mouth. “This is 521.” My voice came out as a slur. “Suspect has escaped. Heading towards I-6.”

  I could hardly hear the response. The silver cord was drawing my consciousness away from my host. Her eyes were failing to see, rejecting the foreign body behind them. I was a parasite, a leech on her dreamscape.

  And then I was expelled. I opened my eyes and almost head-butted Alfred as I sat up, trembling and sweating. My throat was closed. He slapped me on the back, and I took a gasping breath.

  “Good gracious, Paige—are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I heaved.

  And I was. My head was aching, like a hand had gripped the front part of my skull, but it was a tolerable pain.

  The Vigile lay unconscious, blood leaking from her ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. I pulled her pistol from its holster and pointed it.

  “Don’t shoot her,” Alfred said. “The poor woman is voyant, at the end of the day. Traitor or otherwise.”

  “I won’t.” My temples throbbed. The sight of that bleeding face was ghastly. “Alfred, you can’t tell anyone about this. Not even Jaxon.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  He didn’t.

  I kicked the transceiver from the Vigile’s limp hand and brought my boot down on it. After a moment, I crouched down and pressed two fingers to her neck. A huff of relief escaped me when I felt a pulse ticking
above her red collar.

  “Dials isn’t far,” I said. “I’m going on alone.”

  “If you can make denizens bleed at your command, far be it from me to stand in your way.” Alfred forced a smile, but he was visibly shaken. “Keep to the fog, dear heart, and move swiftly.”

  He left the Vigile and dashed away, his umbrella shielding his face. I went in the opposite direction.

  I kept to the backstreets, looking for an opportunity to climb. I joined a large crowd heading down the Grandway and broke away at the first right turn, into the smaller roads behind Holborn station. The freezing wind made my bruises ache, but I only allowed myself to stop when I reached the concrete playground of Stukeley Street, where Nick had trained me to fight and climb when I was seventeen. There were huge bins and rails and low walls in abundance, and all the buildings were derelict. My bare palms burned as I dragged a bin across the road and climbed on to it to reach a drainpipe. At the top, I hooked my fingers into the gutter and pulled myself on to a flat roof. The muscles in my shoulders screamed. They were screwed up tight, lacking their old flexibility.

  By the time I reached my territory, I was drenched in sweat and hurting all over. I saw the sundial pillar first, rising red-hot from the fog. When I reached the right building, I pounded on the door.

  “Jaxon!”

  There were no lights in the windows. If they weren’t here, there was nowhere else to go. I was sure I could feel a dreamscape.

  I looked over my shoulder. No voyants were on my radar. Seven Dials was abandoned—even the oxygen bar across the street was empty of patrons—but Frank Weaver was still talking in Piccadilly Circus, where the enormous I-4 transmission screen was located.

  Was Jaxon doing this to spite me? I was still his mollisher. Still his dreamwalker. He couldn’t just leave me out here to die.

  Could he?

  Panic set in. The cold was in my face, in my hands, in my head. I was dizzy with it. Then the door opened, and light came pouring out.