The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  “Got time for a reading?”

  She rubbed the bridge of her broad nose. “If you’ve got coin for it.”

  I handed her the meager change in my pocket. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  It was enough for her to buy another few glasses of mecks. “Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

  Her deep voice held the remnant of an accent. I sat down in the booth and clasped my hands. She pulled a velveteen curtain along its rail until we couldn’t be seen by the gamblers.

  “You’re an astragalomancer,” I said. Her fingernails were painted white, dotted with black. There were flecks of white above her eyes, too. She took two small dice from her sleeve. Knucklebones, flecked with ink.

  “Now, here’s how this works,” she said, holding one up between her thumb and index finger. “Not all ’stragas work the same way I do—most of them do some really complicated shit with answers on paper—but I keep it very simple. You ask five questions and I’ll give you five answers. They might be vague, but you’ll have to deal with it. Give me your hand.”

  I did, and she grasped it—then dropped it like it was a frayed wire. “You’re cold,” she said, giving me a suspicious look.

  At first I didn’t realize what she meant—if anything my hands were uncomfortably warm—then I opened my palm and remembered. “Sorry.” I spread my fingers, showing her the cuts. “Poltergeist. They’re about ten years old.”

  She shook her head. “It’s like shaking hands with a corpse. Give me the other one.”

  The scars had always been a bit cooler than the rest of me, but I’d never known anyone to react like that to my touch. She took my right hand instead, holding the dice in her free palm.

  “Right,” she said, relaxing. “Ask your questions.”

  I didn’t miss a beat: “Who killed the Underlord?”

  “Dangerous question. Make it better. The æther won’t just deliver a name like a vending machine.”

  I paused, mulling it over. “Did Cutmouth kill the Underlord?”

  The dice rolled across the table. A two and a two. The soothsayer lifted her empty hand to her temple.

  “Scales,” she said, in that strange monotone Liss had used during my reading. “One side of the scale is full of blood, weighing it down. Four figures stand around the scales—two on one side, two on the other.”

  “Right. Does that answer the question?”

  “I said it would be vague. In my experience, the scales usually point toward truth. So you’ve got two people who are on the right side of the truth and two who aren’t,” she said. “You should get it. The æther’s response to a question is for the querent’s understanding only.”

  If the æther had a personality, I decided, it would be a smug bastard.

  “Next question, then,” I said. “Did Cutmouth kill the Underlord?” “You just asked that.”

  “I’m asking it again.”

  “Are you testing my abilities, jumper?” She didn’t seem insulted; just vaguely amused.

  “I might be,” I said. “I’ve seen more than one charlatan in here. How do I know this isn’t a rainbow ruse?”

  So she did it again. A two and a two. I repeated the question once more and got the same answer. The soothsayer took a few gulps of mecks.

  “Please, enough. I get the same damn image every time. And you’ve only got two more questions.”

  There were so many I wanted to ask, particularly about Warden, but I had to be careful. “Say I wanted to know about a group of people, but I didn’t want to say who they were,” I began.

  “So long as you know who you’re talking about, that should work. You’re the querent. I’m just the channel.”

  My fingers tapped the table. “How does . . . the one who lives underground . . . know about the puppet masters?”

  It was clumsy, but it had to sound like nonsense to this stranger. From her expression, she’d heard stranger things. The dice rolled across the table and stilled next to my hand, both showing a single dot.

  “A hand without living flesh, its fingers pointing to the sky. Red silk surrounds its wrist like a manacle. The hand snatches white feathers from the ground. Two fingers break away, but it keeps snatching.”

  She shook her head, took another gulp of her drink.

  “Meaning?” I said, trying not to sound exasperated.

  “No idea what the hand is. Red silk is likely blood, or death. Or neither,” she added. No wonder soothsayers had so much trouble making money. “White feathers . . . plucked from a bird, perhaps. They could represent parts of a whole. Or exist as symbols on their own.” A vein stood out along the middle of her forehead. “Last question. I’m getting tired.”

  I was silent for a while, trying to think of something that could point me in the right direction—until I remembered Liss, and that reading she’d done for me.

  “Who is the King of Wands?”

  She smiled. “You’ve been to see a cartomancer, haven’t you?”

  I didn’t answer. Talking about Liss would only bring back the pain of her death. The soothsayer flicked the two dice up with her thumb and caught them in the same hand. A two and a five.

  “Seven,” she said, slamming them down on the table. “That’s it.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “No vision?”

  “Sometimes the number’s enough. Remember the way they’re divided, too,” she said. “A two and a five is different from, say, a three and a four. One or the other of the two numbers is usually particularly significant.” Her hand jerked out of its own accord, bowling over her glass of white mecks and sending the dice on to the floor. “And that’s it. When I start spilling drinks, it’s time to stop. I know it seems shady, but there’s meaning in the madness.”

  “I believe you.” And I did. No matter how confusing her gift had seemed, I sensed Liss would be right about everything. Even if I didn’t understand everything yet.

  “Don’t worry about it too much. Nothing you can do about your future, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t know about that.” I stood. “Thank you.”

  “If you ever need another reading, you know where to find me.”

  “No, thanks. But I’ll send people I know in your direction.”

  The soothsayer nodded, nursing her forehead with one hand. I swept the curtain aside and left the booth. My gut was a cradle of snakes.

  Babs was back at the bar, freckled and cheerful, pouring the players drinks from a bottle of blood mecks that looked older than she was. Some said the monarchy was still alive and well in Babs: she was a self-declared queen of chin music. She raised a hand when she saw me.

  “Pale Dreamer,” she exclaimed. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How are you?”

  “Could be better, Babs.” I sat on one of the wooden stools. “I’m told you have a package for me.”

  “Oh, yes, I have.” She rummaged under the counter. “Favor from a beau, is it?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “You know the Binder wouldn’t allow that.”

  “Cold as a dead fish on a tomb, that man. You know he’s stopped the lottery, don’t you?”

  “Since when?”

  “Back in August. Nobody was happy, but I suppose he was generous to do it in the first place.”

  Interesting. “You’re busy tonight.”

  “Oh, I know. We’ve been taking bets on the outcome of the scrimmage. Bless old Hector for dying. We were struggling to get patrons in here for a while,” she said. “Gillies used to come, but not so much any more. Scion’s got them too scared to sneak out of their barracks after hours.”

  “Why?”

  “Beatings. They’re losing patience with this fugitive situation, saying the Gillies must be hiding their own kind.” She glanced up at me. “Speaking of fugitives, you’ve been the talk of the house for a fair few moons. They’ve been taking bets on you being the one who bumped off Hector.”

  Of course they had. “And what do you think?”

  She s
norted. “I’ve known you for two years, love. I can’t imagine you pulling off someone’s head. No, I reckon it was Cutmouth. I mean, if it wasn’t, why hasn’t she come forward to claim the crown?”

  “Because she knows she’s a suspect.”

  “She wouldn’t care a jot, that girl. She wasn’t too bad without Hector pulling her strings. Came in here quite often for a game with one of her girlfriends.” With a smile, Babs handed me a thick manila envelope. “Here, love. I haven’t laid a lamp on it, sure as I’m a sensor.”

  “Thank you.” I still checked that the seal was intact before I tucked it into my jacket. “I’m a bit short, Babs. I’ll pay you when I get my wages.”

  “Instead of coin, humor me with a game. There’s some couriers over there that need a good thrashing.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Where?”

  “Middle table. They’re in most nights.”

  “Which section do they play for?”

  “I-2. They’re civil enough, but they win a bit too often, if you know what I mean. Hey, remember when your lot took Magtooth down a peg?” she laughed. “Ah, that was a good night. Seeing him cough up all that money he’d bet on himself . . .”

  All of us had been in hysterics that night. It seemed a hollow victory now Magtooth was dead.

  A small group of the Abbess’s people sat around the table she’d indicated, all involved in a game of tarocchi. They wore the rich, dark velvets and satins favored by her close associates, embellished with lace sleeves and delicate silver jewelry. I recognized the redhead from the Juditheon auction, lounging on the edge of the table, looking over the fan of cards in her hand.

  “Maybe next time,” I started to say—then stiffened. One of the players had a head of bright blue hair and wore Rag Doll pinstripes on his sleeveless waistcoat. A bracelet of small bones hung around one wrist. On his right upper arm was a small tattoo of a skeleton’s hand, ivory-white, outlined in black, its fingers reaching upward to his shoulder.

  A hand without living flesh, its fingers pointing to the sky. I glanced back at the booth, but the soothsayer was gone.

  “That’s a Rag Doll,” I said quietly.

  Babs glanced up. “Hm? Oh, so it is. The Nightingales are always playing friendly games with other sections. They’ve had a long rivalry with the Wicked Lady’s people.” She poured me a glass of white mecks. “Though I must say, I’m surprised they’d stoop to playing with a Rag Doll. He must have paid good money to enter their tournament. Binder’s still all right with other gangs stopping here, isn’t he? I can kick them out if it displeases him.”

  “No. They’re fine.” My heart still drummed a little too hard. “Do you know why the Abbess hates their mime-lord so much?”

  “This might surprise you, but I’ve never heard.”

  It did surprise me. I was wearing my cravat, but I kept my face turned away from the Rag Doll. “What’s that symbol on his arm?”

  “All the Dolls have it. Looks shit, doesn’t it?”

  I cracked a smile at that. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drink.”

  “All right.” She reached over the bar to embrace me. “You be careful, Dreamer. The streets aren’t very kind these days.”

  I crossed the room and shut myself into another booth, where I took out the pages of the manuscript and smoothed them out. Two copies. Nell had done well to get them to me so quickly.

  They’d called it The Rephaite Revelation. The writing was economic, clearly scrawled in a rush by torchlight, but penny dreadfuls weren’t supposed to be masterpieces. It described the unholy triangle of Scion, the Rephaim, and the Emim. It went into gory detail about the penal colony and explained the trafficking that had gone on for two hundred years. Most importantly, it told them how to destroy a Rephaite. They’d come up with the idea of coating a blade in anemone nectar, or using a blowpipe to aim its pollen into the eyes.

  It was all told through the eyes of 1, a poor card-reader, snatched from the streets and thrown into a nightmare. The sketches didn’t show her face, but she had black ringlets, like Liss. I flicked through to the last pages. In the end, this Liss broke free of the colony and rallied London to the defense of voyant-kind. She did what the real Liss hadn’t had the chance to do.

  She was alive in the pages of the truth. I shoved the envelope back into my jacket and pushed the curtain aside.

  The Rag Doll had disappeared from the gambling-house. As I passed the I-2 gamblers, I stopped and rapped on their table. They looked up, startled. The redhead stubbed out her aster and stood.

  “Pale Dreamer,” she said huskily. Half of her face was concealed by a complex lace mask. “Can we help you?”

  I folded my arms. “Binder told you at the meeting that Cutmouth sometimes came in here. Did you follow up on that lead?”

  “Oh, yes,” one of the men said, not taking his eyes off his cards. “Unfortunately we found nothing of use. A few of these people had seen her in here, but she hasn’t come back since.”

  “Right.” Lazy bastards. “Any reason you’re playing with Dolls?”

  “He challenged us. And insulted our lady. We told him to put his money where his mouth was.” One of the other women, an augur, blew lilac smoke at me. “Do you want to challenge us, Pale Dreamer?”

  The redhead threw a card at her. “Stop it. This isn’t our turf.” She touched a hand to my arm. “The Abbess is grateful for your understanding, and for the White Binder’s. We hope that this can be resolved.”

  “Don’t we all,” I said, and turned away.

  Babs was still behind the bar with another croupier, roaring with laughter at something he’d said. I left through the front door, making a bell ring.

  I walked faster than usual. Warden’s rent was due tomorrow morning; I had to see him now, or the landlord would come knocking on his door.

  My heart pounded as I made my way back through Soho, keeping to the quietest backstreets. The back of my neck tingled. At this time of night, the residential areas were eerie and deserted; their voyants were all in the heart of the district, gambling or trading gossip.

  I was almost at the doss-house when two dreamscapes closed in on me, and a punch in the face knocked me right off my feet.

  16

  Flower and Flesh

  A bag descended over my head. My arms were wrenched out on either side of me. I arched my back and strained my right hand towards my belt, reaching for my hunting knife with a scream of anger.

  Something hard struck the back of my skull, setting off an explosion of colors behind my eyes. A hand clamped over the lower half of my face. I felt myself being dragged along like a ragpicker’s cart, the asphalt carving up my knees.

  “So terribly sorry to do this, Pale Dreamer”—a rough voice—“but I’m afraid you know too much.”

  They carried me around a corner. The taste of iron coated the roof of my mouth. Blood was slinking toward the back of my throat, making me gag. Panic stopped my breath. Unless they were planning to kill me here, they had to be taking me to a car. I tried to scream again—some of Jaxon’s employees would be nearby, most of whom would help me if they thought there might be a reward in it—but the bag only pressed harder over my lips. Blue lamplight seeped through it.

  “Now, Pale Dreamer, here’s what we want you to do.” A serrated knife bit into the side of my neck. “Tell us where you took the creature, and we shall reconsider cutting your throat.”

  “What creature?” I spat out.

  “The one you stole from the catacombs. Pretty eyes, like jack-lights. Shall we jog your memory?”

  Another punch, this time in the small of my back, sent me reeling against a wall. My spirit seemed to spring awake; it slashed at the nearest dreamscape. One of the attackers gave a shout, and his knife clattered to the ground near my boots. Blind, I snatched it up and pointed it in the direction of the two dreamscapes, my muscles quivering.

  “You won’t find him,” I said.

  “Won’t we?”

  An aug
ur and a sensor. I tore off the bag. The sensor was exceptionally tall and slim, while the augur was petite. Both of them wore black clothes, with those painted, grinning masks, and carried carving knives.

  “It’s the Rag and Bone Man who wants me dead, I take it,” I said, taking a step away from them.

  “Clever of you to have found his sanctuary.” The auger pointed a silenced pistol at me. “Far too clever for your own good, Pale Dreamer.”

  I lunged at her, taking her down at the waist. Her pistol went off somewhere near my right knee. She clawed at me with her free hand while I kept her left wrist pinned to the ground, forcing the gun away from my body.

  The second assailant came for me with a knife. I got in a kick to his stomach, winding him. The woman took the opportunity to roll me on to my back and hold down my hands with her knees. The mask tilted to one side as she pressed the pistol to the center of my forehead.

  Hot pressure rose behind my eyes, and I felt myself being sucked from my body, bone and spirit tearing far away from one another as I jumped. I pulled against it, but it was an impulse, mechanical. It was kill or be killed. My spirit cut through her mind, throwing her spirit right out of her body. A heartbeat later, the corpse slumped on top of me. The man screamed a name through the slot of his mask. He bunched his fists in my jacket, dragged me out from under the woman, and smashed my back against the wall. I caught his wrist and forced it back, cracking bone, so his knuckles almost kissed his forearm.

  A knife stabbed up, aiming for my stomach. I jerked away just in time; the tip of the blade nicked my side. Before he could stab again, I thumped my knee between his thighs. A huff of hot breath came through the mask, past my ear. My fingers let go of his injured wrist and took hold of the knife hand instead. I bit down as hard as I could on his arm, so I felt the bite’s weight in the roots of my teeth. He screamed a searing insult in my ear, but kept a rigid hold on me until my teeth punctured skin and my mouth filled with the taste of pennies.

  I knew myself too well to use my spirit again. My head was pounding, my vision prickling at the edges. The second his left hand loosened its grip, I delivered a hard kick to the front of his leg and rammed my free fist into his solar plexus. The damaged leg buckled under his weight. My shoulders slid from his grasp, and I was free.