Chapter 2
Ezra examined his swollen knuckles. He could hardly believe he’d been reduced to punching people for a living. The sound of breaking bone was almost as satisfying as the sound of coins tumbling into a collection bucket.
The Devil’s Credges was one giant piss, shit and blood-soaked slum.
The sun hid behind a layer of putrid air and smog clung to the tops of buildings.
People lived in an eerie twilight with the potential to swallow the unwary and spit their corpses out in pieces.
Four blocks away, wealthy men’s houses were lined up in a neat row, their brickwork gleaming in the sunlight, no coal soot covering their walls.
Ezra had spent considerable time in the Credges with the Gendarme—and later, with the Unseen. But back then, he’d been separated from the city’s most desperate. Now, he was one of them.
It was becoming easier to imagine that life had belonged to someone else. But every so often, someone would look at him a moment too long, and the eye contact was enough to stir the ghosts he thought he’d buried.
His weekly meetings with Jem were a strange dance, new steps in a friendship that had lasted nearly twenty years.
Jem didn’t understand how Ezra felt. No one could.
He’d tried to talk about it, but in the end, the only solution was to bury himself somewhere the Gendarme wouldn’t find him—the alternative was a rope around his neck.
Sometimes, in his nightmares, he saw his feet dangling, and he cursed whatever god or monster decided he could see death magic.
If the Gendarme were law and order, the Crown’s muscle, then the Unseen were its executioners.
Every witch Ezra captured died for her talent.
In the beginning, he was simply doing his job, enjoying the power of it, but then the dreams started, and he saw their faces every night.
He never knew their names, and that made it worse.
He didn’t even know who he owed apologies to.
When the guilt became too much, he tried to warn them, until he was the one running, and it was too late to avoid the label he may as well have stamped on his own forehead—traitor.
The Gendarme had never hung one of their own. Ezra took satisfaction in knowing, so far, he’d denied them that opportunity. He took pleasure in telling God to get fucked, as well.
Ezra was studying a painting on the wall when Maddog Pierce strode into the room. The man stopped dead, dark eyes narrowed, the lips beneath his moustache thinning.
‘What the fuck are you doing in my office?’ he demanded.
‘You said you wanted to see me?’ Ezra frowned.
Was he about to have his throat cut? Tension flooded his body, the instinct to fight rearing like a beast. He moved away from the painting as the notorious gangster straightened his waistcoat and strolled towards the grand desk.
Maddog chuckled at the look on Ezra’s face.
‘You’re a nervous creature, Tarrenfire,’ he said, easing into his comfortable-looking leather chair. ‘Sit the fuck down.’
Ezra did, watching Maddog as carefully as he dared. Maddog’s real name was Reamon, but Ezra had never heard anyone address him by it. The nickname suited him anyway. He was as mad as a mongrel dog, lean and tall, with a mood more mercurial than the weather.
Maddog ran his fingers over the polished surface of the desk. ‘Think those hands of yours will be ready by the fight?’
Ezra embraced the sting as he made a fist. ‘Should be.’
‘Good.’ Maddog reached into the desk drawer and withdrew a silver cigar case. He took a cigar out, tapped the end of it on the desk, lit up, and the room filled with the scent of burning. ‘Win this one, Tarrenfire.’
‘You told me to throw it the other day.’
‘You heard wrong.’
There was a sharp handsomeness about Maddog Pierce. Thin lips under an aquiline nose, his beard trimmed and neat. He was an immaculate dresser, clothes always pressed and starched. No one would dare relieve Maddog of his pocket watch—or anything.
Ezra knew he was being used, but what was the alternative?
Maddog hated the Gendarme anywhere near his turf, which was probably one of the reasons he hadn’t handed Ezra over.
Sheltering the Crown’s most wanted under his crooked wing was Maddog’s way of shoving a knife between the ribs of the aristocracy and everything they stood for.
‘Fine,’ Ezra said. ‘I’ll win you your fight.’
‘Yes, you will, and you won’t question me again. When I tell you to do something, you do it, understand? It’s been nearly a year since you showed up on my doorstep, hasn’t it? Or have I got that wrong, as well?’
Ezra’s fists clenched. ‘It’s been a year.’
A whole year of living dangerously.
‘Sedition,’ Maddog murmured. ‘It doesn’t bother me, of course.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ezra tensed, sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Maddog chuckled. ‘Two nights. In the meantime, get some sleep—you look worse than my whore of a mother. I want a good show. It’s what the people pay for.’
Ezra rarely left the Canem Club, not free to wander the way he once did.
He allowed the passing crowd to sweep him along, not sure where he was going.
He kept his hat pulled low, covering his distinctive hair, as he followed people along Blackcoln Road before turning towards the wealthier districts.
Perhaps a quick look at his old neighbourhood would be enough to settle the strange restlessness that filled his blood when he woke.
The streets opened into a paved square, the stones glowing, not one speck of horse shit in sight.
On the far side was a troupe of acrobats and fire breathers.
People gasped as a man in a tight red shirt blew a stream of flame into the air.
Ezra watched a little thief slide her grubby hands into a well-dressed man’s pocket before moving on to a woman with a purse dangling from her shoulder.
Those nimble fingers darted in, then out, and the girl slipped away.
Shimmering white light followed her. Ezra’s heart sank.
No, it was a trick of the light, nothing more.
Applause scattered through the watchers. A girl wearing leopard print like a second skin flipped her legs over her head, walking on her hands as a young boy cartwheeled expertly around her and coins tumbled into the top hat.
Ezra lost sight of the pickpocket. He pushed up onto his tiptoes so he was standing a head taller than the crowd. The child’s matted, blonde hair caught a ray of sun pushing through the clouds. She glanced over her skinny shoulder, eyes dark with mischief, then vanished into the nearest alley.
Ezra moved through the crowd like a shadow, steps quick, body liquid, as unnoticed as the thief he stalked. He closed in on the alley, pausing to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers and adjust his collar.
The back of his neck tingled. On the brickwork was the unmistakable smear of magic the size of a young girl’s hand. Ezra swallowed. If he could talk to her before the Gendarme arrived, maybe he could save her, or tell her to run at the least.
At the mouth of the alley, he took a deep breath.
The child was hidden in the shadows. Magic floated through the air around her like a shimmering cloak.
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ Ezra kept his voice low, and gave a small, reassuring smile as he entered the alley. ‘You can come out.’
No response.
‘Where’s your mother?’
A brittle whisper. ‘Dead.’
The answer hit him like a punch. ‘Do you have any—’
‘There she is!’
Ezra cursed under his breath, and threw himself into the shadows as a big man stepped into the alley.
Tobias Marth, newly minted Captain of the Gendarme, going by his fancy badge. He paused, licking his lips, brushing his hands over the gold buttons on his black coat. The royal sigil was visible on his lapel.
Tobias stroked his moustache. ‘Come out, come out, little mouse.’
The child whimpered, pushing herself further into the darkness. Her eyes darted to where Ezra was hiding, and he willed her to look away. He couldn’t believe he’d been so fucking stupid to come here in the first place, then to try and help an unregistered death witch.
A sticky-fingered scrap of a girl was nothing, compared to him.
The ache in his hands wouldn’t stop him fighting his way out of this alley. His fingers brushed the blade tucked against his hip. There was another in his boot. He wasn’t bullet-proof, though.
Tobias frowned, then motioned behind him. Ezra’s stomach clenched when a man with blond hair and bright blue eyes came into view. Jonas Sanderson. One of the best witch-hounds they had; now, anyway.
Fuck it all to hell. There would be no saving the girl, and possibly not himself, but the Unseen couldn’t sniff out their own, and Ezra didn’t have magic. Just a fucking talent for seeing it.
‘Well?’ Tobias demanded.
Jonas glanced into the alley again, and Ezra didn’t dare breathe.
‘She’s at the end.’
More men in black coats rushed into the alley.
The kid was tiny for her age, her bones protruding from skin that was stretched tight over her small frame.
There was no way she could hurt any of them.
There was her magic, but Ezra doubted she knew what to do with it, or even what she had lurking in her veins.
The Gendarme hauled the girl out. She was barefoot, her dress tattered and stained, and she was screeching like a feral cat. Her eyes flickered to Ezra briefly, long enough for him to see the plea, and the accusation, in them.
He didn’t move as the little death witch was dragged away. The girl’s shouts faded, blending with the passing foot traffic and noise.
Ezra stayed where he was until nightfall.