Oh sacred bleeding fuck this was not what I needed. People were starting to stare at us, attracted by Hugo’s voice, which was getting louder as he went. In a moment or two, some of those ladies would have strolled themselves over within earshot. I said, “Look, all you had to do was say no.” I got up and left as quick as I could. Hugo could tell the ladies anything he wanted, but I wasn’t going to talk to them.
Felix
Someone was sobbing.
I was standing in a room with padded walls and a flagstone floor. My cravat was off, and my coat and boots. My sleeves were rolled up to my elbows. My rings were still on my hands, and they were sticky with blood.
Not my blood.
There was a man crouched on the floor, his hands over his face.
He was sobbing.
It was his blood.
I was in the Red Room of the Two-Headed Beast, and I had only a fever-dream memory of how I’d gotten here. I had no idea what I’d said to this man to get him in this room with me, no idea if I’d lied or told the truth.
It hardly mattered either way, and my arousal was an almost nauseous pain at the pit of my stomach.
It happened like this. Too many times, it had happened like this, the fury burning itself out and leaving me with nothing but a handful of ashes and the sick knowledge of my own evil. But before, at least I’d remembered how I got to this burned out desolation.
At least I’d remembered what I’d done.
My last clear memory—I cast back, and then flinched away from it as if it were some physical thing that could be evaded. Hitting Mildmay, taking the worst and most savage kind of pleasure in watching him stagger, in seeing the blood vivid red on his face. Wanting to do it again. Wanting him screaming, wanting him sobbing at my feet the way this unknown man was sobbing now.
I’d sent him away. At least I could say that much for myself.
Yes, sent him away and picked a random victim instead. How very noble.
I closed my eyes, my hands cramping shut on a racking shudder. And what could I say, to Mildmay or to Gideon or to this man bleeding on the floor of the Red Room? I’m sorry? Could there be anything more pathetically, ludicrously inadequate?
I crouched down laboriously, my entire groin throbbing with arousal turning fast to agony, and laid a hand gently on the man’s shoulder, asking, “Have I broken any bones?”
He recoiled from me so violently he rolled himself over. “No more, please. Please, m’lord, please don’t.”
I pressed my bloody beringed hands against my mouth, fighting the way that every indrawn breath wanted to become a scream. The man was an experienced martyr—the red silk cravat crumpled beside him was proof enough of that, and he bore a very old tarquin’s mark on his left shoulder blade—and I had reduced him to this? Reduced him to begging for mercy like—
Please don’t, Malkar—please!
I don’t want to. Lorenzo, please don’t make me.
I’ll be good, Keeper! I swear by all the powers! I’ll be good! Please don’t!
I twisted, falling from my crouch to my hands and knees, and vomited. I hadn’t eaten all day; there was nothing to come up but bitterest bile. The spasm wrenched at me regardless. Finally, panting and dizzy, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and staggered to my feet; my victim was still hunched tight, still sobbing.
No matter how much I wanted to, I had lost the right to be gentle with him, to be kind. I washed my hands like the thaumaturgical automata said to have been built in Cymellune before it sank, put my coat and boots back on. Arrogance was a poor shield, but it was all I had. I pulled it about me before I left the room and climbed the stairs to tell the bartender to send someone to deal with the mess in the Red Room.
And to assure him I would not be returning to the Two-Headed Beast.
Mildmay
And of course the first fucking words out of Septimus Wilder’s mouth were, “What happened to you?”
“I walked into a door.”
“Wicked doors you got in this place,” was all he said, and I was even grateful to him for letting it go, that’s what a sorry piece of shit I was.
I told him about what Cardenio’d said and pulled the paper with the address on it out of my pocket.
“Hey, wait. What makes you think I want that?”
“Figured you could use it to earn your keep,” I said.
“Nothing doing. I ain’t playing errand boy for you.”
“Just for Kolkhis.”
He gave me a glare you could’ve used to kill rats. “That’s between me and her.”
“’Course it is. But, see, I can’t go.”
“Well, why the fuck not?”
“Oh, I dunno. ’Cause they’ll be dragging me out of the Sim a decad from now?”
“You got down to Ruthven just fine.”
“I brought my own insurance. Which I can’t do talking to a necromancer.”
“Ain’t enough brass on your balls?”
“Fuck you. I ain’t starting no witch-hunts. ’Sides which, no necromancer’s gonna talk to me with a Cabaline hearing every word.” And Kethe spare me from myself, I couldn’t keep from adding, “You may be stupid, but I ain’t.”
That hit him square between the eyes. I’d known it would, along of knowing exactly how Kolkhis worked. He came back fast, though, faster than I could’ve: “Funny. That ain’t how it looks from where I’m standing.”
Oh, that’s just ’cause you ain’t seen what you’re standing on. I said, “She fucking you yet?”
“Kethe’s cock! What kind of question is that?”
She was, then. “Don’t think she cares.”
“Why? ’Cause she’s still pining for you?”
“No. Because she never cares, okay? You can lie to yourself like I did, but she won’t care and she never will.”
“She doesn’t care about you, you mean.”
“You think you’re any different?”
“Least I’m not fucking hideous.”
“So she’s fucking you for your looks?”
“No!” He caught himself short on whatever he’d been going to say, and I finally did the smart thing and shut my fucking mouth.
There was this long silence while we both thought of a septad different nasty things to say and didn’t say ’em, and finally, Septimus said, “Fuck it. I’ll go with you.”
I gave him the hairy eyeball. He said, “Look. I’ve got better things to be doing than coming up here every damn night. So if you won’t go without a babysitter . . . or ain’t I good enough for you?”
“Oh, no, you’re just fucking perfect. But when d’you think . . . you want to go now?”
He’d opened the secret door and was waiting for me. “She’s a necromancer. It ain’t like she won’t be up.”
It didn’t make Septimus like me better when I told him we couldn’t use the Arcane. We went by the roofs instead, and I took it slow and careful like somebody’s granny instead of the hot shit cat burglar I used to be. We kept to neutral routes and did what we could to stay low. Too many people on the roofs I didn’t want to meet, starting with Margot and ending with Rindleshin—and I didn’t notice Septimus arguing, neither, although he had plenty to say about how slow I was moving.
We came down the Mousetrap in Scaffelgreen. Septimus quit mouthing off about then, and I didn’t ask if he’d ever done the Mousetrap before. What with one thing and another, I figured I’d stomped his pride about as flat as I needed to, and it wasn’t like I was enjoying myself anyway. Mousetrap’s no joke even with two good legs. But we made it down and nobody broke his stupid neck and Septimus didn’t even give me lip about helping with Jashuki.
The ninth hour of the night ain’t no good time to be wandering around Scaffelgreen. It’s when the apprentice sangermen practice, for one thing—the sangermen say Madame Sanguette never flirts except after the septad-night. The Mousetrap is practically in the ketches’ laps—it’s part of why people use it, because you can’t go hang around at the bottom and wait
for the guy you particularly want to have words with. Septimus kind of twitched every time we heard the blade of the sanguette thump home, and I wasn’t no better.
And then of course there’s all the other people got business in Scaffelgreen at the wrong end of the night, and even with Vey Coruscant dead, there was still plenty of shit you’d sleep better not knowing about. Me and Septimus stuck to the shadows like we were glued there, and we let anybody who wanted it have the right of way. I figured maybe Septimus wasn’t stupid.
At least Augusta Fenris’s house wasn’t far from the Theater. Nice little cul-de-sac, granite facing and iron bars everywhere. And sure enough, the house at the end of Barbary Close had lights burning. One way up at the top of the house, and another in the front room. You didn’t put out a sign if you were a necromancer—and if you were any good you didn’t need to— but that lit front room told them as needed to know that you were open for business.
“Well, now what?” Septimus said, cross and snarky. “Shall we knock?”
“I ain’t about to try sneaking up on a necromancer,” I said. I climbed the steps—pretending like fuck that I was only leaning on Jashuki because it would make Rinaldo happy—and used the knocker. And I got to say the look Septimus gave me was worth it.
Door got answered pretty quick. A Norvenan lady, tall and big-boned, the way they are, like it’s true what they say, that they’re all descended from Brunhilde. I knew she wasn’t the necromancer right off. She was wearing a sort of pale lemony colored dress, and her hands were perfect. A lady’s hands, not a hocus’s.
She looked at me and Septimus, and the frown she’d already been wearing got a bunch heavier. “What do you want?” Little bit of an accent—enough to say she wasn’t born in Mélusine.
“Can we speak to Mrs. Fenris please?” I said, careful as I could.
“On what business?”
Powers and saints. “I’d like to talk to her about Jen—about Miss Dawnlight.”
Oh, it was the wrong fucking thing to say, wrong like the Queen of Swords. “We aren’t talking to anyone about Miss Dawnlight. You want to know about her, you get her out of prison and ask her yourself.” And she slammed the door in my face.
“That went well,” Septimus said.
“Shut up.” I could’ve kept that door from closing, and it’d taken a lot out of my self-control not to do it.
He gave me a moment, then said, “So what now? You wanna try sneaking?”
“Oh powers,” I said. I was too tired even to be mad. “I s’pose we’d better give it a—”
Thump and jingle and lanternlight out on Forsythia Street, and me and Septimus were off the stoop and into the alleyway between Mrs. Fenris’s house and its left-hand neighbor before either of us knew we were moving.
“Maybe we won’t try sneaking,” Septimus said once the Dogs had gone past. Some parts of Scaffelgreen are too fucking respectable for their own good.
“Fuck this for a teapot,” I said—which was what Geburon the cook said when something went so wrong there was nothing to do but throw it out and start over. “Let’s go home, and I’ll think of something else in the morning.”
“You sure?”
"Yeah, I’m fucking sure. C’mon.”
“The Mousetrap again?” He was trying to sound like he didn’t care.
“I won’t make it,” I said. Because who was I trying to fool, anyway? “But the Bittersweet ain’t far.”
And the Bittersweet’s easy—so long as you ain’t got nobody hanging around who particularly wants to have words with you. We got up it okay, and started back up the city, still doing okay, although my leg was letting me know about it. And then this voice says, slow and drawling, “Well, I’ll be fucked,” and I was already reaching for my knife, thinking, oh fuck it’s Rindleshin, when it finished, “if it ain’t Septimus Wilder.”
“Conroy Blackhand,” Septimus said, his voice nice and level like he wanted to kill something.
“Who’s your friend, Sep? Danny off crying somewhere ’cause you gave him the push?” He swung down onto the roof with us. Big, was all I could see, and I didn’t suppose I needed to know much more than that. “Or have I got it backwards, and it’s Danny given you the push, and this is some molly-toy you’ve picked up on the rebound? What d’you think, Eris?”
“Oh fuck,” Septimus said, only just loud enough that I could hear him. “Can you run?”
“No,” I said back, the same way.
“Fuck,” said Septimus, no louder but with teeth in it.
“Danny Charlock give Septimus Wilder the push? Never happen,” said another voice, and three more guys dropped down onto the roof. We’d walked right into ’em, and you don’t need to think I was feeling good about it. Stupid, Milly-Fox. Stupid stupid stupid. And being out of practice ain’t no excuse.
“So who is your little friend?” said Conroy Blackhand. I remembered a loudmouth little kid named Connie Blacksmith— remembered him on account of having had to put the fear of the almighty powers into him to get him to shut the fuck up—but powers and saints, he’d been doing some growing since then. And he must’ve been talking to Jenny about names.
“None of your business, Con,” Septimus said, but he knew as well as I did it wasn’t going to do us no good.
Conroy Blackhand said to me, “Has he fucked you yet, sweetheart? Fast and hard up against a wall? We seen you limping.”
They all laughed like he’d said something funny.
He was getting closer than I liked, too. I flipped my knife open, said, “I ain’t his type. And you ain’t mine, Connie Blacksmith, so back the fuck off.”
They had a dark lantern, and that got it open in a hurry, while Septimus said very quietly beside me, “Kethe fuck me upside down.”
Conroy Blackhand was staring at me like I was the blood-dripping ghost of King John Cordelius. “You must remember me, sweetheart,” I said and smiled at him.
He did back up, so him and his goons were in a tight little bunch. And it took him a second to get words out: “What’re you doing with Mildmay the Fox, Septimus?”
“Well, like he said, he ain’t my type. So what d’you think we’re doing? Connie?”
“Asking for trouble,” said the guy named Eris. He had a knife, too, and from the way he was moving sideways, trying to spread our target out, he might even know what to do with it.
Four on two wouldn’t’ve been so bad if I hadn’t been lame. Fuck, if I hadn’t been lame, I could’ve taken ’em myself. Or just lost myself in the roofs, which would’ve been easier and less messy. But there I was, lame and tired, too, and there wasn’t nothing fancy left up my sleeve, neither.
Septimus said, “You know, we don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, I think we do,” Conroy said. He was starting to grin, and I wished I’d hit him harder back when he was Connie Blacksmith. A lot harder. “I think I owe it to Mildmay the Fox.”
“You are such a fucking piece of shit,” Septimus said, kind of admiringly. And then he let out this yell—powers and saints, it was like a cat going through a mangle—and jumped Conroy so fast and so hard that he actually took him down.
I did the only thing that was going to make any difference. Closed my knife and threw it, hard, at the dark lantern. Broke the glass, which was nice. Startled the guy holding it into letting go, which was better. And somehow on the way down, the flame died, which was exactly what I wanted. I was over there in two strides, swung Jashuki hard into the nearest set of ribs, and burned my fingers a little getting my knife back. But while I was ducked down, I heard the guy I’d hit land a punch on one of the other goons. So I just slid out of the way, up onto the next roof nearer the Mirador, and waited.
I was backing Septimus to figure it out before any of them goons, and I was right. They were still fighting and hollering and carrying on when Septimus joined me on my piece of roof and said, “However fast you can go, I think now’s a good time.”
“Okay,” I said.
I couldn?
??t run, and we fucking well proved it, because Connie Blacksmith and his goons caught on about two steps and a drainpipe shy of where it wouldn’t have done them no good, and we spent the last couple hours of the night in the nastiest game of hide-and-seek I’d had to play for a while—me thinking to myself how a couple indictions back, I would’ve got out of that mess by just slitting Connie’s stupid throat, and are you sure this is an improvement, Milly-Fox?
But we could hide better than they could seek, and we saw dawn from the gilded roof of the Banke Haarien’s Mélusine branch, which fronted on the Plaza del’Archimago. We were both filthy and bruised and bleeding from scratches we couldn’t remember getting. But we were alive and pretty much in one piece.
“Shit,” I said, panting. “Some babysitter you turned out to be.”
Septimus Wilder tried to glare at me, and burst out laughing.
Mehitabel
I knew from the moment the wizards started their procession into the Hall of the Chimeras the next morning that something was horribly wrong. Something had happened. I glanced up at Stephen; from the complete blankness of his face, he had noticed it, too, and didn’t like it.
I knew the disaster when I saw it. Felix Harrowgate’s hard white face and blazing eyes were unmistakable signposts. I was just thinking, I should have known Felix was in this up to his neck, when I got a good look at Mildmay.
His expression told me nothing, but the ugly, scabbed-over welts on his right cheek told their tale as loud as shouting. Felix had hit him.
Court proceeded normally, if rather uneasily. I was acutely conscious of Felix and Mildmay halfway along the Hall of the Chimeras, and everyone seemed more fidgety than normal. Stephen refused to be rushed, or even to admit knowledge of the problem, and I had to admire his nerve.
As soon as Stephen had left, I started for the door. All around me, the gossip sprang into life, and the only way I could have avoided hearing bits of it would have been to stop my ears and run.
“. . . Felix looking like death . . . went to Simon Barrister, that’s what I heard . . . that poor mute wizard . . . so he gets dumped by his piece of Imperial ass . . . the Fox tried to protect Lord Gideon and Lord Felix struck him aside like he wasn’t there . . . never trusted . . . pitched a screaming fit in the middle of the Welkin Vault . . . see Lord Tomcat on the prowl again, you mark my words . . .”