Days passed. Dill returned each morning to the ivy-tower to practise. He held himself aloft for longer each time, hovering above the centre of the circular roof, with the stone gargoyles shunning him, yet mocking him, and he dreaded the turns he would try to make, and the inevitable tumble to the flagstones that would follow. His hands and knees were constantly grazed, his clothes always dusty and torn. Nobody seemed to notice. The temple staff remained preoccupied with their secret dilemma. Rachel, meanwhile, did not appear. Dill persisted alone.
And then one morning, it came to him.
He was hovering some six feet above the roof, hearing finches twitter among the arches, when he noticed a tiny flower sprouting from a gargoyle’s neck. On impulse he decided to pluck it, and before he knew it had crossed the circle and was holding the flower in his hand. It felt like a trophy. He then moved back and left across the circle, towards another of the stone creatures. It now seemed effortless: he just thought of shifting in a certain direction, and it happened. His heart was racing.
The motions he made with his wings were so subtle he wasn’t even sure what he was doing. He deliberately tried moving to the right and felt himself begin to fall, only just catching himself in time. No: too much thought. He had to relax, let his wings carry him effortlessly. The trick, he discovered, was not to try, but rather just let it happen. Slowly, he banked right and upwards, turning again to bring himself into the centre of the circle. Now higher this time; he ignored the physical motions of his wings and made a tight circle over the tower roof, then up, even higher, to the point where falling would injure him badly. With each new manoeuvre, his confidence grew.
He had it. He could fly.
Dill soared, laughing. He left the gargoyles and the broken arches far below and flew over wedges of pitched slate and chimneys, and out beyond the Rookery Spire. Deepgate stretched before him, soft with morning mist. He sucked in a deep lungful of sweet air, circled the spire, then flew back to gaze triumphantly down at the familiar ivy-tower. The gargoyles now looked tiny, earthbound and ugly, staring out with their fixed grimaces, oblivious to the angel above them.
And then he realized the trapdoor was rattling. Someone was trying to get out onto the roof.
A moment of panic nearly sent him plummeting, but he recovered and managed to control his descent. Dill landed safely, if not particularly elegantly. When he knocked the wooden beam away and pulled open the trapdoor, he was out of breath and shaking.
Rachel stepped out into the sunlight and eyed him suspiciously. “What have you been up to?” she said. Her gaze travelled the length of his scuffed clothing.
“Nothing.”
“Why couldn’t I open that trapdoor?”
He blushed, cheeks and eyes. “I was…exercising.”
She focused on the scuffs on Dill’s breeches. “Exercising?” There was a hint of a smile on her lips. “My brother used to say the same thing.”
Dill felt his eyes bloom pink. He turned and brushed some dust off his clothing. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you anywhere in the temple for ages.”
“I’ve been busy. All this trouble with Devon has left the military in chaos. No one knows which ship is to be refuelled where, which payload is bound for which deck. The warships and regulars in the garrisons have been recalled. There’s even talk of reinstating the reservists.”
“What trouble with Devon?”
She regarded him strangely. “Does no one tell you anything?”
Dill shook his head. He tried to look indifferent, but the last of his elation quickly dissolved into chagrin. “No, I suppose not.”
So Rachel told Dill about the Poisoner’s disappearance and the explosion which had killed the temple guards sent to search his apartment. Now a citywide manhunt was under way. Dill listened with a mixture of wonder and growing shame. The city was not preparing for an attack. The Church hadn’t turned its back on him by failing to involve him. And yet he had broken temple law by learning to fly.
“He was making angelwine,” Rachel explained.
“Like the—”
“Exactly. The Soft Men. A bunch of extra husks turn up, the Church sends temple guards out to speak to Devon, and boom! Six armoured crispies and no sign of the Poisoner.”
“Has the Church—?”
“Yes, Sypes had to make a statement. If the Spine possessed enough emotion to get antsy, they’d be crawling over every chain in Deepgate by now. Angelwine!” She shook her head. “There’s even talk of digging up the Soft Men and asking them what we can expect.”
“Why would—?”
“He’s dying, and dying men get desperate.”
Dill frowned. “Why won’t you—?”
“Let you finish a sentence?” She paused. “I don’t know. Sorry. Go ahead, I won’t interrupt again.”
Dill couldn’t think of anything else to say.
16
MANHUNT
IN THE DAYS that followed, the hunt for Devon showed no sign of abating. Every morning Dill made a circuit of his balcony and watched the airships patrolling low over Deepgate. The city sky buzzed with them. At night, their aether searchlights probed the darkest corners under the waxing moon, while Dill huddled in his cell among his candles and his snails and hoped that, just once, the searchlights would fall on him.
Taking the snails to the kitchen had been a bad idea. Fondelgrue had pounced on them and put them all in a bag. The fat cook had assured Dill that he knew a place where they would be happy, and where Dill would never see them again, but the angel wasn’t convinced. He’d offered to go with Fondelgrue to make sure the snails were all right, but the cook had shooed him away and said don’t worry, they’ll be absolutely fine, very warm, very happy, now sod off. So Dill had found a new place to release his charges—the temple guards’ armour room. There were lots of dark places in there for them to hide.
He’d just completed an evening snail run to the armoury when Rachel burst into his cell and he dropped the book he was reading.
“They’ve got every temple guard in the city out there, knocking at doors, searching houses, questioning everyone, bloodhounds sniffing everywhere, and the third, seventh, and ninth have been recalled from Sandport and the Plantation hill forts to join the search. And they’ve begun reinstating reservists, hundreds of them. There are more soldiers in the city than I’ve seen in years, and yet more are on the way. Have you seen the warships? Sypes has aeronauts out on the decks with sightglasses.”
She paused for a breath. “The nobles are unsettled, and the common folk are moaning like kittens in a bathtub. They can feel a curfew coming, increased taxes. You should hear the talk in the alehouses and penny taverns. Why so many soldiers for a simple manhunt? And why the blazes should they have to pay for it all?”
“Will there be trouble?” Dill asked, still slightly perturbed that she hadn’t knocked.
“Not from the forces,” she said. “The reservists are happy to be earning wages again, and merchants and nobles can afford the extra levy. But the commoners might cause a problem: those who are happy enough for their souls to be saved, and willing enough to attend the executions, but don’t care to dip into their pockets to feed an army of this size.”
She made her way to his balcony door and wandered outside. After a moment he grabbed his book and went to join her.
Shadows reached out from the western rim of the abyss, already cloaking a third of Deepgate. To the east, the streets and homes glittered: chains, roofs, and chimneys turned golden in the sunset, glints of copper and bronze, windows bright as scattered gems. A dozen airships drifted above the city, like scavengers sifting treasure.
“It’s full moon tonight,” Rachel said. “Spine mark the occasion with a night of prayers to Ulcis. They pray the moon will not wane, and that Scar Night doesn’t return.”
“They?”
She shrugged. “Normally I feel easier at full moon, since Carnival keeps herself hidden. The streets at night are reasonably bu
sy, people relax. But tonight…” A warship droned by, close to the temple. Rachel paused and watched it for a while. “Tonight everything feels wrong. They’re leaving farmlands unguarded all along the Coyle, recalling soldiers from as far north as the Shale logging camps and Hollowhill. Too many soldiers for a simple manhunt. Something else is going on. Presbyter Sypes isn’t telling us everything.”
“An attack from the Heshette?”
“No.” She studied the warship a moment longer, then faced him. “The Heshette haven’t been a threat to the city for decades. What are you reading, anyway?”
Dill showed her the book: Battle Flight Strategies for Temple Archons.
She smiled.
“It’s not forbidden,” he said. “I checked.” But he still felt his eyes blush a little.
In the darkness of the den he had built in the nets below Devon’s tower, Mr. Nettle watched the warships pass overhead. Engines thrummed distantly; searchlights divided the night, moving incessantly, like the legs of strange aether gods.
A five-by-four tin sheet and three stout beams salvaged from the shell of a coalgas depository formed the makeshift roof. Rope tied it all together and secured it to the net. The nets here were thick, as they were in all industrial districts, easily strong enough to support the weight of his shelter. He’d ventured out a few times in the past two weeks to stock up on supplies. With nothing to trade, and no time to go scrounging, he’d been forced to steal the food from carts at the Gardenhowe market. He’d filled his water flask from a worker’s pipe near the Scythe, but hadn’t dropped a halfpenny into the slot.
Mr. Nettle’s crimes gnawed at him—his mind kept returning to them like fresh scabs—but they didn’t trouble him like his other dilemma. That one sat in his gut like a brick.
Twelve souls had been harvested—one more was needed. In order to make the angelwine potent, the Poisoner would have to bleed the life from another innocent.
And Mr. Nettle would have to let him do it.
He clenched his teeth and turned over in the net, as though that would somehow ease the pain. Abigail was all that mattered. Abigail, Abigail: he said her name over and over in his mind, using it to drum other thoughts out. Now that he knew where her soul was, he had to let Devon finish composing the elixir. He had to do it, for her.
But Abigail’s voice was always in his thoughts, and she wasn’t happy.
What about the other souls? she asked him. Will they be trapped inside me? Or will I be trapped inside them?
He didn’t want to think about that. How many people would she be?
The ropes beneath him stretched as he twisted over on his stomach and peered into the abyss. The journey down there would be difficult.
Impossible, Abigail insisted. How are you going to climb down? By rope? Are you going to use your grapple and spikes all the way down to the city of Deep? Then what? Will you walk into Ulcis’s palace of chains and demand he release my body?
He didn’t know. Everyone had heard the stories of the folk who’d gone down there. And how no one ever came back.
I’ll find a way.
How?
I don’t know. Maybe he could steal an airship, or scale the edge of the abyss.
Steal an airship? She laughed. Who do you think you are? You’re a scrounger, for God’s sake.
Leave me alone.
Then what about your soul? You are giving up eternity.
An image of Abigail came to him then: at six years old, stamping her foot.
What about his soul? He had been damned from the moment he decided to retrieve his daughter’s body from the abyss. The god of chains did not welcome intrusions. There would be no salvation for Mr. Nettle.
I don’t care, he told her. And he realized that he didn’t. There was solace in damnation. If he was to let Devon murder again, then it was fitting. Necessary.
He’ll bleed them! Her anger made him flinch. How can you let him hurt anyone else? Someone else like me.
Shut up!
A fist closed on his heart. How had he reached this place? What forces had steered him? There had been no choice in his life since Abigail’s death. None. He wasn’t responsible—God was. God was trying to take everything from him, trying to empty him. Trying to beat him down. For a moment he despaired. In the dark of the nets beneath the tower and the city and the airships, he felt small, empty but for the echoes of Abigail’s voice.
Then anger welled, filling the void inside him, pushing back at everything. Anger enough to support a city. He twisted fistfuls of the net, blood pounded in his ears, and he spat into the abyss. So what if another died? He wasn’t holding the knife.
Don’t!
He won’t defeat me.
Abigail would be his victory.
He found himself breathing heavily, and he turned on his back, still clutching the net. The airship had drifted out of sight behind the tower, but another was rumbling closer from the south. High above, a light shone from the tower’s narrow window.
Careless.
Recently, Devon had taken to leaving a light burning at all hours of the night. During their first sweep of the Depression, the temple guard had been unable to force the tower door, so had simply moved on when their bloodhounds had shown no interest in the place. But if Devon thought he was safe, then he was a fool. That light would eventually attract someone’s attention—especially in this neighbourhood. How could the Poisoner be so stupid?
A head popped out of the window and peered up at the sky. Spectacles glinted, disappeared back inside.
Mr. Nettle moved a hand to the handle of his cleaver but kept his eyes fixed on the window.
Suddenly a hammering sound startled him. He sat bolt upright, listening. There was a pause, and then the sound repeated. There could be no mistake; someone was pounding on the door of the Poisoner’s tower.
Carnival watched the airships above from the bough of an old stonewood tree. A bright halo shone through low cloud, but after this night the full moon would begin to wane. Two weeks until Scar Night and hunger had already begun to crawl back into her veins. An empty ache cloyed in her stomach, a discomfort that would build over the days to come—until the darkmoon rose, and she died again.
She tried to ignore the sensation. The night was deliciously cool amid the scent of flowers from the garden beneath. Sweet-thorns, honeyweed, and sprays of jasmine bordered the neat silver lawn around her tree, and brushed the ivy-dark walls beyond.
She often came to this place at night to clear her lungs, to sit up in the tree and listen to the whisper of leaves in the breeze. An old gardener arrived every day at dawn, unlocked the iron grate set in the north wall, locked it shut behind him, and then began his leisurely circuit of the flower beds.
Carnival rarely stayed out until such hours—when the light hurt her eyes—but once or twice she had watched the old man in silence from her perch. She found his calm devotion relaxing; the way he pottered around muttering to himself, hoeing and pruning, enjoying the still of the morning. This was the closest she ever felt to another person in the city.
She avoided the garden on Scar Night.
From his shabby appearance, she doubted he owned the plants he tended. This was a garden to display wealth, and if its owners ever visited this place, it was long after the sun had steamed the dew off the grass and forced Carnival back into hiding.
Now, with the night chilly against her skin and the fragrance of bark and flowers all around her, she gazed up and frowned as a warship thundered overhead, its searchlights cutting through the darkness.
How long was their search going to go on? In the beginning she had studied the airships with mild interest. Had she killed someone important the last Scar Night? The doctor hadn’t seemed to be of particularly high social standing; could he be the relative of some general, some high-ranking priest? Every few decades, usually on the appointment of a new Presbyter, the temple would make a display of hunting her down. Nervous guards patrolled the streets, never looking too closely
into the shadows. Curfews were instigated; the population were shown that something was being done. Usually the charade dwindled after a while, but this search showed no signs of letting up, and it was beginning to grate on her nerves. Those airships were so loud—she cursed every time one of them disturbed her rest. And she began to wonder if she was really the target after all.
The airship turned, low in the sky, its engines hacking and pounding as if its sole purpose was to annoy her. A searchlight swept over the garden, blinding her.
“Damn them!” She twisted her face away. The beam lingered briefly, bleaching the garden, before moving on again. Darkness swamped back over her.
Carnival gripped the branch tightly as her eyes narrowed on the airborne intruder. This was going to have to stop. If they were trying to find her, she was going to make it easier for them.
Lying in the soil below, she spied a three-pronged gardening fork. She leapt from the branch, snapped out her wings, and swooped low across the lawn, snatching up the fork as she passed.
Then she beat a path upwards toward the warship.
Mr. Nettle glanced up again at the tower window. Devon had killed the light. Apparently he’d heard the knocking too.
“Too late,” he hissed through his teeth. “They’ve found you, you old fool.”
Careful not to make a sound, he scrambled from his den to where the net joined one of the tower’s support chains. A nest of rusted girders and heavy plates—broken and welded countless times—sank into the darkness below. With one hand on the stone for balance, he hopped from one chain to the next until he reached a place where he could get a clear view of the tower door.
It was dark, but Mr. Nettle saw two armour-clad figures standing before the tower—temple guards armed with pikes. A bloodhound snuffled about their feet, all floppy ears and saliva. The closer man rapped his pike several times against the door. “Open up,” he called. “Presbyter’s orders.”