I slowed my steps, letting the excited group pull away in front of me. False hope aside, I could use this. The Filits would be doing everything they could to keep de Florinville away from the seedier parts of town and its grubbier, more dangerous citizens. The citizens, in contrast, would be doing everything they could to get close to him. The ruckus might provide me with the distraction I needed. Heading for the Tolbooth meant I’d be veering dangerously close to the Dark Elf but it might also give me a greater chance of success. It wasn’t just the people up ahead who were feeling hopeful now, I realised.
By the time I reached the front of the Tolbooth, the clamour from Mercat Cross was ricocheting through the streets. I passed more people, all of whom were clearly hoping to catch a glimpse of de Florinville or to beg him for help.
As I passed through the Tolbooth’s entrance, I wondered if the Filits or the Dark Elf had a clue as to what kind of monster they’d unleashed with his walkabout. I shrugged and relaxed my shoulders, before pulling off my baseball cap and approaching the front desk.
‘Hey!’ I chirped, aiming for a light, easy-going manner but with a hint of vacancy in my expression.
The Filit behind the counter glared at me. ‘Whaddya want?’
I knew from Marrock to appreciate that asking for Ange would garner me more trouble than I could handle but I needed to get into the cells. It was the only way I’d find her. ‘I’m here to see my brother.’
The goblin rolled her eyes to indicate just how dumb she thought I was. ‘I’m not bleedin’ psychic,’ she muttered. ‘Whatsisname?’
‘Eric. Eric Quiddle.’
‘Stupid name.’
She had me there. I smiled at her. ‘I’m Erica Quiddle.’
The goblin grunted. Her mouth twitched at the corners as if she were trying very hard not to laugh. It was kind of her to attempt a straight face; it reminded me that while many goblins were gruff, they weren’t all bad. Not every Filit was cut from the same cloth as Ghrashbreg.
I was aiming for ridicule, of course. The dafter I appeared, the less any goblins like the one in front of me would consider me a threat. It’s odd but people are also more likely to believe the unbelievable than the mundane, as if they can’t imagine that you’d make up something outlandish out of thin air.
‘Did your parents not like you or summat?’
My eyes went wide. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Eric and Erica. S’bad enough when your last name is summat like Quiddle, but Eric and Erica?’
‘I don’t know what our parents thought,’ I said in a small voice. ‘We were brought up in an orphanage.’
Sympathy flooded the goblin’s expression, with a hefty sprinkle of guilt at her own words thrown in for good measure. She pursed her lips and scanned the clipboard in front of her. ‘He’s in cell fifty-six,’ she told me. ‘It’s one floor down. There’s no one available to escort you right now though. All spare hands are dealing with the Dark Elf.’ She said this with a derisive sniff and I liked her even more. It had been a while since I’d felt kinship with a goblin.
I wrung my hands. ‘I have to get my rations later. I’m scheduled for two o’clock and you know what’ll happen if I’m late. Please. This is the only chance I have to check up on Eric and make sure he’s alright. He’s such a hothead and I don’t want him to get into even more trouble while he’s here.’
I must have sounded overly whiny because a brief moue of distaste crossed the goblin’s face. She sighed and gestured irritably towards the door leading to the cells. I bobbed my head towards her gratefully and hastily scampered through before she could change her mind.
I’d been in the bowels of the Tolbooth before and every time I told myself I’d never return. A lot of that was to do with the reek of urine, faeces and vomit, mixed with the sweat of terror. Not everyone who ended up in here went to the gallows but the threat of execution – and worse – hung over the inmates’ heads. Even if you were only imprisoned here for a few days for a small misdemeanour, it meant that your card was marked. Once the Filits had your name on their blacklist, they didn’t forget it. I’d prided myself on staying under their radar but obviously that had changed now. I scowled to myself. Half the bloody city probably knew my name by now.
I strode along the narrow corridor, breathing through my mouth. The first few cells were unoccupied but soon pale faces were staring out at me, their expressions entreating me to help them. It was hard living on normal rations outside these walls; living on prisoner rations in here meant balancing on a knife edge between starvation and survival. I bet that Gabriel de Florinville wouldn’t be wandering around here any time soon.
Hearing my footsteps approaching caused a few of the bolder inmates to step up to the bars of their cells. Hands stretched out towards me, attempting to snatch at me. One or two even called out. ‘Hey pretty! Got any food on you? I’ll make it worth your while.’
I closed off my emotions, detaching myself as wholly as I would detach my shadow, and continued walking. When I reached Eric Quiddle’s cell, I glanced in although I didn’t slow my steps. He was curled up in a corner, his chest rising and falling with gentle snores. His infraction was minor, at least in the eyes of the goblins. He’d be released before too long. Probably.
At this point, it was tempting to send off my shadow self to find Ange. Given what little I knew about the circumstances of her arrest, I was sure that she’d be held at the furthest, most secure point in the Tolbooth. The further I got from Eric Quiddle, the harder it would be to explain away my presence if any goblin guards noticed me. But I was still wary of being apart from my shadow for too long after what had happened with de Florinville, and I was conscious that the goblins would probably be conducting sweeps for wraiths after what had happened in the castle. I had to bank on there being only a skeleton crew inside the Tolbooth as the guard at the front had intimated.
Taking care to tread more lightly now, I stayed on the balls of my feet but maintained my speed. When I didn’t see Ange in any of the cells on this floor, I tiptoed down the winding staircase to next one, then the one below that. The further down I went, the more my trepidation increased.
The air grew danker and by the time I reached the deepest part of the Tolbooth basement there was very little light. In the last corridor, lined with more cells, there were only two flickering torches hanging off the wall. Water trickled down between the stones and even in the gloom I could see the sheen of slime clinging to the granite. There was a faint scuttling sound from up ahead: rats. If Ange was down here, her situation was very dire indeed. Only the worst criminals were kept in the worst cells.
Ignoring the shudder that ran down the length of my spine, I pushed on. There was a lump of rags in one cell which, when I stared, moved slightly. At first I thought it might be a human being but when a small questing nose and quivering whiskers pushed out from underneath it, I shook myself and moved on. I didn’t really want to know whether there was a body under those rags as well.
I was almost at the end of the line of cells – and losing hope that Ange was here – when I heard a sharp, feminine cry. Alarmed, I sprinted forward until I saw the shape of a woman through the bars of the last cell but one. We were some distance from the flaming torches; it was so dark at this end that it was difficult to see anything. There was another yelp and the sounds of a scuffle inside the tiny cell. Ange’s terrified face loomed out of the darkness just as another darkness, a deeper darkness, dragged her back. A wraith.
I didn’t waste any time. Abandoning my physical body without a thought, I detached my shadow and darted through the rusty iron bars of the cell. My sight adjusted almost immediately to the shadows. I just had time to see Ange being held against the wall by her throat before I flung myself at the wraith, barrelling into it and knocking it away from her.
It sprang up, facing me, arms aloft and hands curved into claws like some kind of monster. We stared at each other, one shadow to another, neither of us moving an inch or yielding a brea
th. I’d never come across another of my kind before, not face to face like this.
In the end it was Ange who broke the deadlock. She squeaked and scuttled backwards, pressing herself into the corner as if she could escape by merging into the walls. The wraith tilted his head slightly and pointed at her then at himself, as if to indicate possession.
I vehemently shook my head and shifted slightly to shield her from him. For the first time I understood why people found wraiths so menacing. Facing a dark shape, which had no facial features and was nothing more than its own wellspring of midnight black, was genuinely terrifying. I couldn’t read either his expression or his body language – but he couldn’t read mine either.
‘Saiya,’ Ange whispered, recognising my inert body standing just beyond the cell door. ‘Where is Becky? Please tell me she’s safe. Please tell me the goblins don’t have her.’ A ragged sob escaped her lips as if the thought of her daughter in the hands of the Filits was too much to bear.
I couldn’t do anything to soothe her; to answer her would mean abandoning my shadow and returning to my physical body. Even if it were only for a few seconds, the other wraith would be free to do whatever he wanted to her. It didn’t take a genius to recognise that he was here for no reason that I would like.
‘They keep asking me about the Stone. They say I know where it is. They say I have the key.’ Ange’s voice rose as her desperation increased. ‘They can’t get it. If they do, we’re all lost. Help me, Saiya. Help me!’
I sensed rather than saw the wraith fix his attention back on her. Something she had said was important to him. Ghrashbreg and the other goblins had mentioned a stone too but what was it and why would it matter? I needed to find a way to communicate with the wraith but I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.
I raised my hands to use some sort of rudimentary sign language. The wraith stiffened immediately as if I were about to attack him. I shook my head but he jerked towards me, indicating he’d attack me first if I moved again.
In the end, the decision was taken out of both of our hands. Muffled by the stone walls around us, but unmistakable nonetheless, came the sounds of heavy goblin boots hammering towards us from above. There were shouts and garbled yells. Whether an alarm had been tripped or my absence at Eric Quiddle’s cell had been noted was unclear but it was obvious that several goblins were hurtling towards us.
The wraith sprang away, elongating his form and sliding out of the bars to flit down the corridor. I flung my own shadow backwards, merging it with my body.
‘Becky’s fine,’ I hissed at Ange. ‘She’s safe.’
She let out a half-strangled sob before opening her mouth to ask me more. There wasn’t time and I jumped in before she could speak. ‘Why have you been arrested, Ange? I need to know.’
‘They think I know something about this Stone. I don’t know anything! They keep mentioning my family but…’
I held up my palm in warning and she fell silent. A heartbeat later, five swarthy goblins appeared at the far end of the corridor. I fell to my knees in a gesture of submission and pasted on a terrified expression. I was getting pretty adept at playing the role of scared little girl.
‘A wraith,’ I babbled. ‘There was a wraith here.’
The first two goblins pulled out guns before I finished my sentence. ‘Where did it go?’ snarled a third one, her thick accent bellowing across the expanse of corridor.
‘I don’t know! It vanished into thin air. It grabbed me and pulled me down here. It was right in front of me and holding my arm then…’ I swung my eyes around wildly as if expecting the wraith to reappear. As far as I knew he was still cowering in one of the dark and empty cells; as far as I was concerned, he was on his own. I didn’t doubt that he’d been here to end Ange’s life; the question was why. Clearly it had something to do with this damned Stone that everyone kept talking about. Maybe it was some kind of jewel.
The nearest goblin grabbed one of the torches from the wall and thrust it in the direction of the first cell while his buddy waved his gun. I could have told them that shooting a wraith’s shadow wouldn’t do them any good; they’d need something along the lines of the magic that Gabriel de Florinville had employed. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel a great desire to point this out. All that was in my mind was to get out of here before someone like Ghrashbreg decided to show up. He couldn’t be far away.
‘The Gneiss bastards must have sent it,’ spat one of the female goblins from the rear of the group. They jumped to the next cell and frantically waved the torch around. ‘They know.’
‘They can’t know.’
‘They can if someone’s told them. If one of us has betrayed the cause.’
What the hell was going on? Part of me felt as if an abyss of secrets had just opened up at my feet and I was teetering on the edge. Whatever the Filits were up to, they appeared to be close to achieving it. Perhaps that was why they were all so suddenly loose-lipped. I’d seen the proximity of success cause that kind of problem many times before. But whatever this Stone was that they were after, they didn’t have it yet.
I reached out, curling my fingers round one of the rusty bars in front of Ange’s cell ostensibly to help me stand up. The goblins continued their slow search towards me while, unseen by their eyes, Ange reached out and gripped my hand tightly, understanding reflected in her touch.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed in a barely audible whisper.
I nodded and stood up just as the first goblin reached the cell I’d seen the other wraith dart into. A flicker of a shadow caught my eye and, while the goblin jerked his hand into the cell and waved around the torch to search the darkness, the wraith’s form danced across the ceiling and out over the goblins’ heads. I hesitated for a moment, debating what to do. Then I lurched forward, making the goblins stop in alarm and start yelling.
‘Cease! Stay where you are!’
‘With that thing running around?’ I gave a high-pitched shriek. ‘No way! It’s obviously after that prisoner. I want to get as far away from her as possible!’
While the wraith paused in the doorway leading up to the staircase as if watching me, I jogged forward to make it clear that I’d rather be beaten by the goblins than be caught by a wraith. The guards exchanged glances and the wraith disappeared, taking his chance while he could.
‘We need to move the prisoner,’ one muttered. ‘Ghrashbreg will have our heads if anything happens to her before—’
‘I don’t care what you do with her!’ I screeched. ‘Just let me get out of here! I only came to visit my brother and I’ve been accosted by a freaking wraith!’
The lead goblin winced and pointed at me. ‘She’s making my ears bleed. Get her out of here and then get the other woman. We’ll take her up to the ground floor where there’s plenty of light.’
The other goblins blanched; as a simultaneous action, it was quite impressive. ‘But the wraith—’
‘Do it!’ he snarled. I noted that he was staying well back.
Rather than wait to be escorted out, I pushed past the goblins and made for the stairs. They seemed happy enough to let me go. By the time I reached the doorway, satisfied that I’d done enough to have Ange transferred somewhere the wraith couldn’t get to her, they were moving warily in her direction.
I darted up and away before any of them thought to interrogate me further. I might still have more questions than answers but I was getting close to something. Whatever the hell it was.
Chapter Ten
I’d barely stepped out of the Tolbooth when a plan began to form in my mind. It was as risky as a teenage boy in a garden shed with his dad’s old magazines but I was starting to feel virtually untouchable. I only needed to make enough of a diversion and there was a good chance could free Ange.
With the cold afternoon sun shining down, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about the wraith coming after me but, just to be sure, I stayed on the sunny side of the street and occasionally checked the shadows. There was no si
gn of him. I hoped that the goblins were so keen to find out what was inside Ange’s head that they’d keep her safe until I could put my plan into action. She’d been scared, sure, but she hadn’t appeared mistreated. There were no visible signs of torture and these days that counted as a win.
I rounded the corner, sticking my hands in my pockets and humming tunelessly to myself. Then I froze. I’d broken my number one rule and allowed complacency to get the better of me. Less than twenty feet away, surrounded by goblins and humans and staring right at me, was Gabriel de Florinville. His momentary shock was replaced with a look of dark, glittering satisfaction. He pushed away the two nearest goblins and strode towards me.
My default in a fight or flight situation is always flight but for some reason, my feet felt like clay. Move, insisted an urgent voice in my head. Run. My thoughts collided and I finally managed to get my body to obey my will. I turned to leave but it was already too late. De Florinville’s hand shot out and clamped round my arm, swinging me towards him until we were inches apart.
‘Saiya.’ He said my name possessively and an involuntary shiver ran through me. ‘You escaped. You’re alright.’
I tore away my gaze from his, realising that there were several dozen humans and goblins. They included Ghrashbreg, who was staring at me thoughtfully and rubbing his chin, and Rymark, whose eyes were narrowed with deep suspicion.
I glanced at de Florinville. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me for a second. ‘Hi,’ I said weakly. ‘Yeah, I escaped.’
There was a shout from behind. ‘Lord Ghrashbreg!’
My heart sank. I recognised that voice. My dodgy plan was falling apart before it had even started. I watched in dismay as the lead goblin from the Tolbooth’s depths marched towards. ‘There was a wraith in the Tolbooth! It was…’ he paused, apparently realising too late that he had an audience ‘…in the bottom basement.’
Ghrashbreg’s gaze snapped to his underling. ‘What?’ he roared. Members of the crowd gasped in horror and stepped back as if they were about to be attacked by a shadow monster at any moment.