Chapter 17 #2
Once, Analise considered dressing in her best clothes and taking a walk up to those mansions, to stroll along the streets and gaze at the houses.
But she didn’t own clothes that would be passable; they’d have seen her as an interloper, a possible thief, and she’d probably have been arrested for looking at something nice.
The roof of the Canem Club was surrounded by a wall of bricks, waist high.
There was nothing up there except sunlight; not even a chair, or something Analise could use for one.
She should have gone down to the kitchen before coming up here.
A cup of tea and even a biscuit would have been the perfect accompaniment to an absolutely shit morning.
She sighed, resting her hands on the wall, the bricks sun-warmed, nearly as warm as—
Growling, Analise ripped her hands away and shoved them in her pockets, balling her fingers into fists, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart and the way her tongue had grown thick.
She’d come up here to try and clear her head, and it was now full of a pair of blue-green eyes and a shock of white-blond hair.
The door to the roof creaked open. Analise whirled in fright, unsure of what she’d do if it was Ezra. Throw one of them off the roof, she supposed, but it was Lira, blinking at the light. She held two cups, carrying them over. Analise accepted hers gratefully.
Lira blew on her tea. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘Not really,’ Analise replied. Her tea burnt her throat, but she didn’t care, enjoying the feeling of the liquid scalding a path to her stomach.
Lira nodded off into the distance. ‘I can see my old neighbourhood from here,’ she commented, smiling. ‘I miss it sometimes. The Credges has a certain appeal, but I do miss the streets not being covered in horse shit, piss and drunk men.’
Analise managed a smile. Lira was talking to fill the silence, and for once, Analise didn’t mind.
She needed it, especially now. Her encounter with Ezra sat in her stomach, slowly being drowned in tea.
She couldn’t handle him saying things like that to her, not now, and possibly not ever. She wanted to forget it ever happened.
Lira laughed suddenly, making Analise jolt and spill her tea over the rim of her cup. ‘This one time, Jem and Ezra—’ She broke off, looking horrified.
‘It’s alright,’ Analise said. ‘If your story ends with him getting trampled by a horse or something, please, keep talking.’
Lira’s lips twitched. ‘No, sorry.’
‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this, Lira,’ Analise admitted. ‘Stay here and see him and pretend everything is alright.’
‘No one is asking you to do that,’ Lira said gently. ‘Least of all Ezra. I’m not going to make excuses for him. He deserves your anger, but we need you both—the Order of the Dawn, that is. I need you, as my friend, so please don’t murder him and make my brother arrest you and send you to gaol.’
‘Fine. Tell me about the Order of the Dawn.’
Lira set her cup down on the bricks. ‘The Order is, as Jem said, hundreds of years old. My family has been involved since the beginnings of the Order in London—longer for my mother’s family in China.
Jem and I didn’t have to join though, we were given the choice, but we never questioned it. It’s our duty from God.’
Analise sipped her tea, saying nothing.
‘As soon as I was old enough, I started training, but I’d already been studying the texts for years.’
‘How old were you?’ Analise looked out over the city. A bird soared high above them.
‘Eight when I started studying, twelve when I began training.’
‘Twelve?’ Analise repeated. ‘At twelve I was picking flowers, reading the Book, and flitting about the convent in relative safety while you were learning how to kill demons.’
Lira grinned. ‘Not just demons. Werewolves, vampires, hags … the usual. But the biggest focus has always been demons, in preparation for the Devil’s return to the earth.’
‘You really believe that’s going to happen?’ Analise asked. She set her cup down; her fingers started trembling, so she shoved them in her pockets again. ‘I mean, it’s nothing new to me, but the nuns hardly spent their days preparing for the apocalypse.’
‘No, I guess they didn’t,’ Lira said. ‘But the Church has always known this day would come. That’s why the Order was created. It was a group of monks originally, and gradually spread across the known world.’
‘With the whole world to choose from, Asmael picked London,’ Analise mused. She sighed. ‘I never should have left the convent. I had a place there, even if it didn’t feel like much. I was never going to be a nun, but at least, there, I fit somewhere. I’ve never actually realised that until now.’
‘Life isn’t easy for any of us,’ Lira said. ‘Jem especially. He had to fight to get the Gendarme to accept him because, no matter what they tell you, a halfbreed oriental isn’t who most people in this city want guarding their backs.’
‘And you?’ Analise asked quietly.
‘Owning a bar as a woman is hard enough, let alone …’
‘I’m sorry,’ Analise mumbled. ‘You know none of that bothers me, Lira. It never has. I don’t care where your ancestors came from or what colour your skin is. I’m … unsettled and angry and …’
‘I know. I get it, I do. I’ve been angry half my life.
I was an angry girl living in a white, middle-class neighbourhood where those who could afford it had servants that they treated like pets.
Jem is lighter than me, takes after our father more, and it was easy for him, until people realised he wasn’t as white as them.
That’s why, even though I tease him for it, I’m glad he has Tobias—because Tobias doesn’t care. ’
Analise chewed her lip. ‘The symbol Ezra has on his arm, what is it?’
‘A foo dog,’ Lira said. ‘A guardian. It’s a lion actually, not a dog.
And Ezra is an idiot. They’re supposed to be in a pair, one male, one female.
They’re often statues, and placed either side of the front door of a house.
The male protects the building itself while the female protects what is inside it. ’
‘He said your uncle made him get it.’
‘A tattoo, yes. A foo dog specifically? No, that was all Ezra.’ Lira rolled up her sleeves. Curling around each elbow was an intricately drawn foo dog. ‘He should have gotten two. Like I said, idiot.’
Companionable silence fell between them, before they decided to go in. At the door, Analise paused. ‘Lira,’ she began. ‘What was he like, as a child?’
She didn’t have to say who she meant. Lira looked thoughtful.
‘He smiled a lot. He was happy, I suppose, but more serious than he is now—less shit jokes.’
Analise snorted. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘He and Jem were always together. After he lost his parents, once the shock of it wore off, Jem said he changed. Ezra’s jokes are his mask, Analise.
If everyone is laughing with him, if he is always smiling, no one has any reason to ask if he’s alright.
But,’ she added, her brows turned down, ‘there is only so long someone can wear a mask before it slips right off their face.’
Analise fidgeted with her cup. ‘I think I liked him, Lira. I don’t know if I can forget what he was, or forgive him for it.’ She sighed. ‘I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it—with him.’