Authors: Samantha Shannon
I walked over to the balcony, my arms folded. There was the second problem. The only thing money couldn’t buy was respect. I wasn’t a mime-queen. Without Jaxon, I wasn’t even a mollisher.
There were rules. If Nick and I were to form our own gang in another section, we’d have to seek permission from the mime-lord or mime-queen there. The Underlord would have to give his blessing, which he almost never did. If we did it anyway, we’d have our throats cut, as would anyone we’d been foolish or selfish enough to employ.
If I returned to the Seven Seals on the other hand, Jaxon would welcome me back with an open wallet and a dance for joy. If I refused to work for him, I’d not only lose every drop of respect I’d ever had, but I’d also become a pariah in the syndicate, shunned by other voyants. And if Frank Weaver put a bounty on my head, those voyants would be falling over themselves to sell me out to the Archon.
Jaxon hadn’t explicitly said that he wouldn’t help me work against the Rephaim, but I’d seen things in him that I couldn’t unsee. Maybe it had taken him beating me senseless in Trafalgar Square or throttling me on the meadow before I’d got the message that Jaxon Hall was a dangerous man, and he wasn’t above hurting his own.
Yet he might be my only hope of having a voice in the syndicate. Maybe my best chance was to move back to Seven Dials and keep my head down, as I always had. Because if there was one thing more dangerous than having Jaxon Hall as a boss, it was having him as an enemy.
Frustrated, I turned away from the window. I couldn’t stay in here forever. Now that I was healed, I should go to Seven Dials and face him.
No. Not yet. First I should go to Camden, where Ivy had said she would go. I wanted to make sure she’d made it.
My
bag of clothes hung on the back of the door. I took it into the bathroom, where I stood in front of the mirror and set about disguising myself. I belted on a black woolen coat, turned the collar up to cover my neck, and tugged a peaked hat over my hair. If I ducked my head, my dark lips were hidden by the bloodred cravat draped around my neck.
Warden’s gift to me—a sublimed pendant, able to deflect malicious spirits—was hanging from the bedpost. I pulled the chain around my neck and held the wings between my fingers. The metalwork was like filigree, complex and delicate. An item like this would be valuable on the streets, where some of London’s most notorious murderers still wandered in their spirit forms.
Once I had loved throwing myself into the labyrinth of London, loved living on its corruption. Once I wouldn’t have thought twice about going outside, even with the NVD roaming the streets. I’d kept a handle on my double life, as many voyants did. It was easy enough to slip past Scion’s security unnoticed: avoid streets with cameras, keep a safe distance from sighted guards, don’t stop walking. Head down, eyes open, as Nick had always taught me. But I knew now that I lived in a façade, and that puppet masters dwelled in the shadows.
I almost lost my nerve. But then I looked at the couch where I’d lain crippled with terror every morning and night, waiting for Scion to break down the door, and I knew that if I didn’t go out now, I’d never go out again. I pushed up the window and swung my legs on to the fire escape.
Cold wind clawed at my face. For a minute, I just stayed there, paralyzed with dread.
Freedom. This was what it looked like.
The first tremor hit me. I gripped the windowsill, pulling my legs back. The room was safe. I shouldn’t leave it.
But the streets were my life. I’d fought tooth and nail to get back
to
this, shed blood for it. With clammy hands, I turned and took hold of the ladder, taking each step as though it were my last.
As soon as my boots touched asphalt, I looked over my shoulder, reaching for the æther. A couple of mediums stood beside a phone booth, talking in low voices, one wearing dark glasses. Neither of them looked at me.
Camden was a good forty minutes’ walk. My fingers worked under my cap, tucking every strand of blonde away.
People brushed past, talking and laughing. I thought about all the times I’d walked through London. Had I ever stopped to look at someone’s face? Unlikely. Why should anybody look at me?
I headed out to the main road, where engines roared and headlights blazed. The buck cabs were all in use, and no unlicensed rickshaws stopped for me. White cabs, white velotaxis, white pedicabs with patent black seats. White triple-decker buses with curving black windows. Buildings loomed above me, all neon glow and banners bearing anchors, and skyscrapers that seemed to touch the stars. Everything was too bright, too loud, too fast. I was used to streets with no electric lights, devoid of noise pollution. This world seemed mad in comparison. My sordid, sacred SciLo, my prison and my home.
Piccadilly Circus soon came into my line of sight. Hard to miss, with those gargantuan screens stacked high on the buildings, showing off an electronic spectrum of advertising and information and propaganda. The hot spots were held by Brekkabox and Floxy, the commercial bigwigs, while smaller screens showed off the latest data pad programs: Eye Spy, Busk Trust, KillKlock—all for helping denizens spot, avoid, or entertain themselves at the expense of unnaturals. One wide monitor scrolled through a series of security alerts from Scion: BEWARE OF CIVIL INATTENTION. NIGHT VIGILES ARE NOW ON DUTY IN THE CAPITAL. ALERT THE GUILD OF VIGI- LANCE IF YOU SUSPECT UNNATURAL BEHAVIOR. PLEASE STAND BY FOR
PUBLIC
SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENTS. The clamor was incredible: snatches of music, engines, sirens, talking and shouting, voices from the screens and the throaty rattle of the rickshaw rank. Glym jacks stood under lamp posts, holding their green lanterns, offering protection from lurking unnaturals. I headed toward the rickshaws.
An amaurotic woman stood in front of me, a cream coat folded over her arm. A Burnish-style dress, ruched red velvet, was molded to her figure. She had a phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear.
“. . . be
stupid
, it’s just a phase! No, I’m just off to the O
2
bar. Might be able to catch that hanging.”
She climbed into a rickshaw, laughing. I waited by the railing, my fist clenched around the metal.
The next rickshaw to arrive was mine. They were electric-assist pedicabs with a lightweight, closed cab behind the driver, able to take one or two passengers. I clambered in.
“Camden Market, please,” I said, using my best English accent. If they were looking for me, they’d be looking for a brogue.
The rickshaw cut through I Cohort, heading north to II-4. I kept well back in the seat. This was risky, but there was something exhilarating about the ride. My blood rushed in my veins. Here I was, riding through the very heart of SciLo, bold as brass, and no one seemed to notice. Fifteen minutes later, I was stepping off the rick and groping in my pocket for the fare.
Camden Town, the nexus of II-4, was its own small world, where amaurotics and voyants jostled in an oasis of color and dance music. Hawkers came every few days on the canal, bringing merchandise and food from other citadels. Costermongers sold numa and aster, hidden inside fruit. It was a hotbed of illegal activity, as safe a place as any for a fugitive. The clairvoyant night Vigiles had never exposed this market; a lot of them relied on its trade, and a hell of a lot more
still
spent time here when they were off-duty. It was home to the only underground cinema in the citadel, the Fleapit, one of its many risqué attractions.
I set off toward the lock, past tattoo parlors, oxygen bars, and racks of cheap cravats and watches. Soon I happened upon Camden Hippodrome: luxury dress shop by day, discothèque by night. A man with a lemon-yellow ponytail stood outside. I knew he was a sensor before I got close: the voyants here often colored their hair or nails to match their auras, though you’d only get the link if you were sighted. I stopped in front of him.
“Are you busy?”
He glanced at me. “Depends. You a local?”
“No. I’m the Pale Dreamer,” I said. “Mollisher of I-4.”
With that, he turned his head away. “Busy.”
Eyebrows raised, I stood my ground. His face was carefully blank. Most voyants would have jumped to attention at the sound of the word
mollisher
. I gave him a hard push with my spirit, making him yelp.
“What the fuck are you playing at?”
“I’m busy, too, sensor.” I grabbed him by the collar, keeping my spirit close enough to his dreamscape to make him feel nervous. “And I don’t have time for games.”
“I’m not playing any. You’re not a moll anymore,” he spat. “Word is that you and Binder have had a disagreement, Pale Dreamer.”
“Is it, now?” I tried to sound unmoved. “Well, you must have heard that wrong, sensor. The White Binder and I don’t disagree. Now, do you
really
want to risk a slating, or do you want to help me?”
His eyes narrowed a little, assessing me. They were shielded by yellow contact lenses.
“Get on with it, then,” he said.
“I’m looking for Agatha’s Boutique.”
He jerked his collar from my grip. “It’s in the Stables Market, past
the
lock. Ask for a blood diamond and she’ll help you out.” He folded his copiously tattooed forearms. Skeletons were the theme, wrapping his muscles in painted bone. “Anything else?”
“Not right now.” I let go of his collar. “Thanks for your help.”
He grunted. I resisted giving him another push as I walked past, heading for the lock.
Doing that had been risky. If he’d been a Rag Doll, he wouldn’t have let me push him around. They were the dominant gang here, one of the few to have invented their own distinctive “uniform”: pinstriped blazers and bracelets made of rat bones, as well as the colored hair. Their mime-lord’s name was whispered throughout II-4, but only a handful of people had ever laid lamps on the elusive Rag and Bone Man.
Jaxon must have put word out on the street that I was no longer his mollisher. He was already destabilizing my position in the syndicate, trying to force me back to him. I should have known he wouldn’t wait long.
I smelled Camden Lock as soon as I got close. Narrowboats floated on the scummy green water, their sides coated with algae and old paint, each manned by a costermonger. “Buy, buy,” they shouted. “Strings for your boots, two quid for ten!” “Hot pies, toss or buy!” “Five bob for an apple and white!” “Chestnuts baked fresh, a note for a score!”
My ears pricked at that one. The boat was a deep red, trimmed with plum and swirls of gold. It must have been beautiful once, but now the paint was peeling and faded, the stern disfigured by anti-Scion graffiti. Chestnuts roasted away on a stove, scored with X-shaped cuts through which the innards peeped.
When I approached, the costermonger smiled down at me with crooked teeth. The glow of the stove scorched in her eyes beneath the brim of her bowler hat.
“A score for you, little ma’am?”
“
Please.” I handed her some money. “I’m trying to find Agatha’s Boutique. I was told it was near here. Any idea?”
“Right round the corner. There’s a hawker selling saloop that way. You’ll hear her when you’re close.” She filled a paper cone with chestnuts and smothered them with butter and coarse salt. “Here you are.”
I picked at my chestnuts as I traversed the market, letting myself soak up the atmosphere of humans going about their business. There had been none of this vigorous energy in Sheol I, where voices had been whispers and movements had been quiet. Night was the most dangerous time for voyants, when the NVD were on the prowl, but it was also the time when our gifts were at their strongest, when the urge to be active smoldered inside us—and, like the moths we were, we just had to emerge.
The boutique’s windows glistened with fake gemstones. Outside was a girl selling saloop, a petite botanomancer with orchids in her sky-blue hair. I sidled past her.
A bell tinkled above the door. The owner—a bony, elderly woman, wrapped in a white lace shawl—didn’t look up when I came in. To match her aura, she’d gone fluorescent green in the extreme: green hair in a razor cut, green nails, green mascara, and green lipstick. A speaking medium.
“What can I do for you, love?”
To an amaurotic she would have sounded like a chain-smoker, but I knew that rasp was from a throat ill-treated by spirits. I closed the door.
“A blood diamond, please.”
She studied me. I tried to imagine what I’d look like if I colored myself to match my red aura.
“You must be the Pale Dreamer. Come on down,” she croaked. “They’re expecting you.”
The woman led me to a rickety staircase, hidden behind a rotating
curio
cabinet. She had a persistent, carving cough, like a chunk of raw meat was stuck in her windpipe. It wouldn’t be long before she became mute. Some speaking mediums cut their tongues out just to stop the spirits using them.
“Call me Agatha,” she said. “This here is the bolthole of II-4. Haven’t used it in years, of course. Camden voyants scatter all over the place when there’s a scare.”
I followed her into a cellar, which was lit by a single lamp. The walls were crammed with penny dreadfuls and dusty ornaments. Two mattresses vied for the remaining space, covered by patchwork quilts. Ivy was asleep on a pile of cushions, skin and bones in a button-down shirt.
“Don’t wake her.” Agatha crouched down and stroked her head. “She needs her rest, poor lamb.”
Three more voyants shared the second mattress, all with the Sheol look: dead eyes, hollow bellies, faint auras. At least they had clean clothes. Nell was in the middle.
“So you got away from the Tower,” she said. “We should get a badge for surviving that.”
In the penal colony I’d hardly spoken to Nell. “How’s your leg?”
“Just a scratch. I expected more from the Guard Extraordinary. More like the Guard Mediocre, really.” She still winced when she touched it. “You know these two troublemakers, don’t you?”
One of her companions was the julker boy I’d once helped in Sheol I. He was brown-eyed and dark-skinned, wearing baggy dungarees over his shirt, and his head was tucked under Nell’s arm. The fourth survivor was Felix, nervous-looking and a little too thin for his height, with a shock of black hair and a smattering of freckles. He’d been instrumental in delivering messages during the rebellion.