“Cutmouth and I didn’t know exactly what was happening. All we knew was that voyants were disappearing and we were making money. I was terrified of him,” she said. “The only thing that got me through it was choosing the voyants we’d sell.”
“How did you choose?” I said quietly.
Ivy shook her head. “What do you—?”
“How did you choose which voyants to sell, Ivy?”
To her credit, she didn’t flinch. “When Cutmouth and I picked, we sent murderers and kidsmen. Violent thieves and thugs. People who’d hurt others for pleasure or coin.”
“What about the Abbess?” I said, nodding to her. “Did you ever see this woman with them?”
“Yes. She often visited. Her night parlor is just a cover,” Ivy said, staring her out. “She lures them into her den and pumps them full of pink aster and wine before she sells them to—”
“Lies!” the Abbess barked at once, over the shouts of outrage.
“But the Rag and Bone Man wasn’t finished with me,” Ivy shouted back, her skin tinged with a flush of rage. “One night, he called me to these catacombs and stuck me in the neck with a syringe full of flux. When I woke up, I was in the Tower. He must have guessed it was me that reported him.” She managed a grim smile. “Poetic justice.”
My vision was beginning to darken. The girl who’d been beaten and broken and tortured in the colony had most likely helped to send a good portion of the prisoners to the same place.
“So you were in London when the Underlord died.” There was a deep crease across Ognena Maria’s forehead. “Were you privy to any details?”
“No. A few days after Hector was killed, I found Cutmouth and she told me it was the Abbess who did it. Cutmouth saw her in the Devil’s Acre, cutting up Magtooth’s face with a butcher’s knife.”
Cries of horror. “How do you suppose that I killed eight people, alone?” the Abbess sneered. “How very convenient that the Jacobite gives her testimony with only a dead witness to prove it.”
Ivy looked up. “What?”
“Yes, Jacobite. Your fellow vile augur, Cutmouth, is dead.”
Grief wrote itself in small print on Ivy. She gripped her arms until her fingertips bruised marks into her skin.
“Her name was Chelsea Neves,” she said, “and without her, I can’t prove a word of this.”
“Perhaps I can.”
If the nerves of the audience were half-frayed by the presence of the Rephaim, they would be in pieces now. They surged toward the walls as Wynn and Vern of Jacob’s Island walked into the vault, Wynn with the sachet of sage around her neck. Ivy let out a weak groan before she threw her arms around Vern, who held her to his chest without a word.
Wynn kept striding until she reached the middle of the ring. She looked down at the Wicked Lady with disgust and kicked her corpse’s arm out of the way.
“If the Underqueen will accept another vile augur’s testimony,” she said, inclining her head to me, “I shall give it.”
“Another vile augur? No resident of Jacob’s Island shall give testimony before the Unnatural Assembly,” Didion spluttered. “None but the palmists may speak before us. This cannot be allowed, Underqueen!”
“Go ahead, Wynn.” I beckoned her. “Tell us what you know.”
“A masked assassin arrived in Savory Dock, where Chelsea Neves was hiding from the syndicate, on the morning that she died. The guard said to me that the interim Underqueen had sent this person on her business. Apparently,” she shouted over the rising protests, “her business was to cut open Chelsea’s throat and slice her poor face apart!”
“These accusations are grotesque. Hector was my dearest friend, and although I had no idea whatsoever of this supposed betrayal, I could never have killed his mollisher. If you’ll excuse me, good people of London, I’ll be returning to my parlor to mourn in peace.” The Abbess swept around and started to leave with two of her voyants in tow. “I have suffered enough of this false queen and her ravings.”
“No, Abbess,” I said softly. “You haven’t.” All that could be heard was the ring of my footfalls on the dais. The Ranthen parted to let me stand between them. “Under the First Code of this syndicate, I’m charging you with the murders of Hector Grinslathe, Chelsea Neves, and their seven associates: Magtooth, Slabnose, Bloatface, Slipfinger, Roundhead, the Underhand, and the Undertaker.” Another few steps. “I’m also charging you with abduction, voyant trafficking, sending hitmen to a rival section, and high treason. You’ll be placed under house arrest in your parlor to await trial by the Unnatural Assembly.”
There were shocked faces all around the vault.
The Abbess laughed into the silence. “And with what authority do you charge me? We are the lawless of London. What prison cell will you throw me in? Or will you kill me now and throw my corpse into Flower and Dean Street? What kind of Underqueen will you be?”
“I hope I can be a just one,” I said.
“Just? Where is the justice here? Where is your evidence, bantam queen?”
“You, Abbess. You’re the evidence. You,” I said to a courier, who jumped to attention, “could you check the Wicked Lady’s right arm?”
“Yes, Underqueen.”
Trembling, he knelt beside the body, unbuttoned her right cuff and pushed up the sleeve. I watched the color drain out of the Abbess’s face, the tilting of her hand toward her arm. As soon as the Wicked Lady’s shoulder was exposed, a grim smile touched my lips.
A tattoo of a skeletal hand, rendered in simple black and white. The courier swallowed. Ognena Maria stepped forward, crouching down to look closer.
“That’s a Rag Doll mark,” she concluded.
“Yes,” I said. “The same ink that’s on her, and on him”—I pointed to Bramble Briar and Hangman’s corpses—“and on every other mime-lord, mime-queen and mollisher who was helping her in the ring, because all of them were working for the Rag and Bone Man. All of them were in on this . . . gray market.” I looked up at the Abbess, now so pale she looked half a skeleton herself. “Let’s see that arm, Abbess.”
Her teeth were clenched. She took a step backward, away from the crowd and the evidence in the ring. Faces were darkening. Eyes hardening.
“Arrest her,” I said.
And they obeyed. Jimmy O’Goblin, Jack Hickathrift, and Ognena Maria reacted at once, as did every remaining courier, footpad, and hireling from I-4.
The Abbess stared at them, then looked over her shoulder. There were no Rag Dolls left in the crowd. Even her own associates had vanished. The Rag and Bone Man had abandoned his assassin.
It took a moment for the Abbess to realize that she was on her own. In an instant of strange clarity, I saw the tiny, shifting details of her features as if under a microscope. Her lips pulling back over her teeth. Wisps of hair across her face, strangely delicate against the backdrop of volcanic rage.
And a monster rose up from the floor at her feet.
It was a poltergeist I didn’t know, and one I didn’t want to know. That was my last thought before it hit me.
“Here,” the Abbess called, “is Hector’s true murderer.”
An explosion in the æther blew me backward off my feet, right back on to the dais. The air was slammed from my lungs, freezing on its way out of my body. A white cloud burst from my lips. I was pinned against the stage curtains, held up by an unseen hand.
Panic closed my throat and racked my limbs. I was the little girl on the field again. This poltergeist’s apport took no clear form; it manifested as a wall of weight against my body.
The poltergeist circled the vault once, as though it were taking a good look at the crowd. It soared past the chandelier, extinguishing every candle. Lanterns guttered. Chairs and tables rattled. Spirits and guardian angels cowered in its wake. Below me, several of the Ranthen had seized up, letting out keens of agony that sent goose bumps rippling down my back. Warden was among them. Pain broke through the mask of his features, pain that I felt in my own chest. The Abbess stood with her hand
aimed toward me, her face contorted with the effort of controlling the thing.
Then it was as if a wire had snapped. She slid to the floor, catching herself on her hands. Above us, the poltergeist melted into the ceiling. The grip relaxed, and I fell, landing in a crouch on the dais.
The spotlight cart flickered. In the guttering light, I climbed back to my feet. Across my neckline, faint silver marks were branching out like veins from where the pendant glowed like an ember.
The golden cord vibrated so harshly that I felt it in my bones. Warden was gripping his shoulder, his right hand flexing in and out of a fist. Just from the look on his face, I knew he was in agony. Four of the other Ranthen were in the same state, including Terebell.
I stood tall.
The Abbess stared at me, and I saw her lips form the word “impossible.” With a snarl, she took a revolver from her jacket and aimed it at my heart.
My vision tunnelled; my reactions failed me. All I did was half-raise my hands. The gun went off. The bullet missed me by a hair’s breadth.
The Abbess kept on shooting as she backed out of the vault, but the Ranthen shielded me with their bodies. Warden took three in quick succession and fell back against the stage, his hand clamped over his chest. Turning wildly, like a cornered animal, the Abbess blasted back fifteen voyants with spools and fired her gun twice more, detaching a curtain rail from the ceiling. Red drapes billowed down on the top of the nearest voyants’ heads.
The next bullet hit Ivy, throwing her against the floor. I heard myself shout. The Abbess started to laugh.
And a gun went off, but it wasn’t hers.
The bullet hit her just under the ribcage. Two more shots finished her off, one each from Tom the Rhymer and Ognena Maria, head and heart. The Abbess collapsed into the red velvet, dead.
I took in a deep, gulping breath. Blood seeped from the hole in the Abbess’s temple. Nick’s knuckles were white on the pistol.
My ears rang with the sound of the three gunshots. At my side, Nick seemed to come to his senses. He grasped my arm, helping me to my feet. “Paige.” He held my head between his hands, bone-pale. “Paige, that poltergeist . . . I’ve never felt anything like it . . .”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, drained. “Please, just . . . get Ivy and Warden and the others patched up.”
He squeezed my elbow and made his way to Warden, who was pushing himself up on his arms. The remaining members of the Unnatural Assembly, along with their mollishers and mobsters, were looking to me to make sense of this madness, but words failed me. Jaxon would have known how to explain, but I’d never been much of a storyteller. And this was one hell of a strange story.
This was the cream of London’s crop. There could be hundreds, if not thousands more with loyalty to these leaders.
“So, Underqueen,” Ognena Maria finally said, “here we are. You seem to have won the day. And cleared your name.”
“What will you do with this one?” A masked trader nodded to Ivy, who didn’t so much as raise her head.
“There won’t be any punishment without a trial. A full investigation needs to be conducted, starting with a thorough search of the Abbess’s night parlor,” I said. “Any volunteers?”
“I’ll take my people,” Ognena Maria said. “I know where it is.” She whistled to her hirelings, and they followed her from the vault.
“Underqueen,” said a footpad, sweeping off his hat, “the penny dreadful told a great tale of these creatures, but are they to be feared or worshipped?”
“Feared,” Errai rumbled.
Lucida tilted her head. “Or worshipped. We will not reject tribute.”
“Feared,” I said, giving her a hard look, “and certainly not worshipped.” Black crept into my vision. “Scion can have their natural order. The White Binder can keep his Seven Orders of Clairvoyance. And because our actions will speak loud and clear to Scion, who would never listen to our words . . . ours will be the Mime Order.”
With those words, my vision failed me.
After that, I’ve no idea what happened.
****
I was no longer the Pale Dreamer, mollisher of I-4. No longer a songbird in Jaxon’s gilded cage. Now I was Black Moth, Underqueen, and still the most wanted person in Scion. Safe inside my dream-scape, I curled up in the poppy anemones, drenched in the warm blood of rebirth.
The damage to my dreamscape wasn’t so bad this time. A few chinks in my mental armor. My body had endured far more than my dreamscape.
When I broke from the shadows, I was lying on a rug, my head pillowed by a coat. My blood-stained clothes had been peeled off. A kerosene lamp sat to my right. The warmth stopped me from shivering, but my bruises ached in a draft.
I coughed.
A searing pain ripped through my ribs and shot bolts into the back of my head. Other pains flared up all over the place, erupting from my knuckles and my legs and the point where my neck met my shoulder. A scream shot up my throat and came out as a weak groan. When the throbbing stopped, I didn’t dare move again.
Jaxon wouldn’t wake up in much pain. A light headache. A bruise or two. He’d already be making plans to pull the syndicate out from under me.
Let him try.
Outside, London would be rippling with the repercussions of my victory. I sensed the Rag and Bone Man wouldn’t just accept defeat. He would be preparing for vengeance now.
They must have wanted one of their own to lead the syndicate. Probably the Wicked Lady, given what she’d seemed to know. A handful of mime-lords and mime-queens had been employed to get rid of me, to ensure that she won. She’d been nothing but a pawn in his plan. By killing her, and not dying myself, I’d flung a spanner into their plans. The Rag and Bone Man would want retribution. He’d left his lackey to die alone.
After a while, which could have been an hour or a minute, a silhouette emerged from the stage curtains. I tensed, reaching for a knife that wasn’t there, but it was Warden who came into the light of the kerosene lamp.
“Good evening, Underqueen,” he said, eyes burning.
I sank back into the coat. “Not feeling that regal.”
As soon as I spoke, a line of fire jumped from my jaw to my ear.
“I must confess,” Warden said, “that you do not look particularly majestic at this time. Nonetheless, you are Underqueen of the Mime Order.” He sat down beside me and clasped his hands. “An interesting name.”
“What time is it?” I touched my hand to the side of my face. “Are you all right?”
“Bullets do no lasting harm to Rephaim. It has been two hours since the scrimmage ended,” he said. “Dr. Nygård will not be pleased that you are awake.”
“Let’s not tell him, then.” With difficulty, I drank from the canteen of water he handed me. It tasted of blood. “Tell me you have amaranth.”
“Sadly not. Dr. Nygård has gone to Seven Dials to collect your possessions, and I quote, ‘before Jaxon can sell them.’ They plan to join Ognena Maria and search the Abbess’s parlor for any evidence of the Rag and Bone Man’s involvement.”
Nick had good sense, and the foresight I should have expected from an oracle. “They won’t find anything,” I said. “The Abbess was just a vessel for his poltergeist. He’ll be back.”
“And you will be ready.”
I looked up at him. “It was that poltergeist, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” His hands clasped a little more tightly. “An old enemy.”
“Then how could the Abbess have controlled it?”
“That creature obeys Nashira alone. She would have had to command it to comply with the orders of another.”
The implication settled over me. That the gray market might not be between the syndicate and Scion. That it might be a direct pipeline to the Rephaim. The world was suddenly too big for the cramped little cup of pain inside my skull, and I closed my eyes to block it out. I could think about this when I was clear-headed. If I thought about it now, I’d crack.
I risk
ed a glance into the antique mirror propped against the nearest wall, framed with gilt. My face looked awful—grazes and bruises, swollen lip—but the wound along my jaw was the worst by far, worse than anything Jaxon had left. Black darts shot through a red and swollen cut.
“It was a clean wound,” Warden said. “It may not scar.”
I found I didn’t care either way. If this came to war, scars of all kinds were on the horizon.
Farther down the aisle, three sleeping shapes were curled under blankets. Nell, Felix, and Jos, huddled together, the way people had slept in the Rookery to ward off the cold. “They were whitewashed,” Warden said. “They remember nothing of what happened at the parlor.”
“No chance of knowing how the Rag and Bone Man got them to change the pamphlet, then.” I looked past them. Ivy sat on the stage, her thin arms bare, staring up at the ceiling. “How is she?”
Warden looked at her, too. “The bullet had been extracted. Dr. Nygård said that the true pain is in her heart.”
“Cutmouth.” I sighed, making my ribs ache. “I know she’s been through hell, but I don’t know if I can forgive her for what she did.”
“You ought not to be hard on her for acting out of fear.”
It was true. Ivy might have sent countless people to the penal colony, but adding to her guilt would never undo her actions. I took another sip from the canteen. “Where are the Ranthen?”
“They have retreated to a safe house close to the Old Nichol. They leave to spread the word of your victory tomorrow.” He paused. “Several voyants were whispering that you are a . . . thaumaturge. They can see no other explanation for how you withstood the poltergeist.”
Jaxon had used that word for me before, always in jest. It was whispered by the handful of voyants that worshipped what they called the zeitgeist, the spirit that had supposedly created the æther. The faithful didn’t use thaumaturge lightly. It referred to someone touched by the zeitgeist itself, someone with unprecedented mastery of the æther’s secrets.
“They don’t know about this.” I picked open the top of my shirt. The pendant was cool, but the vein-like marks still spread out from beneath it. “This is the thaumaturge.”