Chapter 49
The sconces’ dim white light weakly bounced against the cloud of dust and fell away. The bed was a rusted frame, the wool mattress a shapeless, rotten mess, and the floor beneath the bed was no longer stone. It was a formless void. A black, empty space, like a becalmed lake on a moonless night.
My nose itched. The dust was still thick enough that the shadowed man looked as if he were a ghost rising from the water, emerging from a thick gray fog.
Shadowed hands gripped the stone floor. A shadowed face. A man lifted himself out of darkness.
My first thought was, Finn! Followed quickly by the realization that if it were Finn, I’d likely be fighting for my life. Hadn’t he left a note saying he’d try to kill me again?
It was barely after sunrise, a full day since the Smiths had destroyed Hell Gate. Maybe . . .
I bit the inside of my cheek.
It wasn’t Finn. I would’ve recognized his voice.
My second thought was that I was finally going to meet the monster under the bed. I’d heard this was how he traveled. Considering Last was afraid of him, he had to be dangerous.
I inched toward the door, keeping myself turned toward the bed, with my hands out. I may not have a weapon, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fight.
The man coughed. Banged his head on the metal bed frame. Swore and then finally yanked himself out from under the bed.
It wasn’t Finn. It wasn’t the monster under the bed. It was. . .
“Harry?”
The slipshot was covered in dust, ash, and black streaks. His clothing was singed, wrinkled, and half of one of his pant legs had burned off.
Slipshots weren’t what anyone would call attractive.
Being born from murder and greed, they had twisted mouths, crooked noses, eyes that were too big, ears that were too small, and strangely fluid bodies that could slip into cracks and crevices a creature their size should never be able to fit into.
I once saw a slipshot squeeze between two metal bars that were spaced only three inches apart, which led me to the conclusion their bones weren’t solid.
Or maybe, like Rou, they could shift between solid, liquid, and vapor.
I don’t know. Slipshots are notoriously cagey about their makeup.
“Thought I recognized that sneeze,” Harry said, grinning as I relaxed my stance.
Slipshots didn’t mind murdering. In fact, it was one of their favorite things to do.
But Harry was one of the older slipshots and had mellowed with age.
But although he’d stopped indiscriminate killings, he hadn’t stopped stealing.
I narrowed my eyes on the box in his hands.
It was the size of a thick paperback and made from cherry wood.
The last time I’d seen it, it’d been hidden beneath the floorboards, under my bed, in my bedroom at Hell Gate.
I never kept anything in life that I’d regret losing.
I also never kept anything that would link me, without a doubt, to Finn.
No pictures. No letters. No buttons. No jewelry.
No receipts or expired subway cards or movie tickets.
But in that box, I did have a dried daisy chain, a sliver of mica, and a pebble.
With them was a scrap of the blanket I’d supposedly been wrapped in when I was brought to Hell Gate and the note telling Jagger my name.
Rou had given them to me when I’d become a nine.
There was also a ticket to the Broadway show Justice, Griff, and I went to years ago.
The box also used to hold the button I’d stolen from the Bards, but I’d given that to Finn.
Other than that, I’d hidden the objects of power I’d taken from the Bard mansion in it.
The comb of discernment and the “take in event of emergency” vial.
“Why do you have my box?”
When I asked, Harry’s face turned greenish gray—the color of fear in a slipshot—and then his eyes flashed. His expression was transparent, and I read exactly what he was thinking. Kill her now and keep the box, or give her the box and kill her later.
But then Harry noted something in my face, and his expression shifted again.
Cagey. Self-preservation. Fear.
I knew without looking in the mirror across the room that I looked like Jagger right before he tore someone’s leg off and ate it while they screamed.
If Harry gave Jagger that box, he would ask me what the contents meant. I’d tell him. He’d learn all the secrets I was trying to hide. I should’ve burned the contents years ago.
“Give it to me.” My voice echoed against the stone, and Harry flinched.
“That’s what I was going to do, wasn’t it? You should be thanking me, not looking like you’re going to do murder before breakfast. I didn’t steal it. I saved it.” He glanced at me to see how I was taking his revelation. “Saved it for you.”
I held out my hand.
He tilted his head, and, maybe realizing that since I hadn’t killed him yet, I probably wasn’t going to, he asked, “What’ll you give me for it?”
“Nothing. It’s mine.”
He shook his head mournfully. “But Mari, if I hadn’t been in your room when the fireball came, it would’ve burned up. Seeing as you’re the greatest lockpick Hell Gate has ever had, you’ll understand the value of just compensation for stolen—I mean, rescued goods.”
I tapped my foot against the stone floor.
My blood burned. It always burned. There was a deep, hungry urge that pushed me to take the box and then dismember Harry limb by limb while all the slipshots watched, so none of them would try to steal from me again.
It was what Jagger would do, and the craving was hot and sticky.
I stared at Harry, and his face went green again.
“Or I could give it to you. As a gift. Did I mention how much I like your new form? We all think so. Your last ones were too soft. Too humanish. This one, you look like a real creature of Hell Gate. You do Hell Gate proud.” He flinched. “Here it is.”
He tossed the box to me, and I caught it. The wood was hot, like it’d absorbed the Smiths’ flames. Harry scrambled toward the door.
“Wait—”
He stopped at the threshold and glanced back.
“Why were you in my bedroom?” I smiled so my question wouldn’t sound threatening, but I think it had the opposite effect. “Harry?”
He gripped the rusted door, and a few flecks fell to the floor. “I’m a slipshot.”
“Who told you to search my room? Steal from me?”
“No one. I’m a slipshot.” His face took on an irritated expression as if I’d insulted him. “I do what I want. I steal what I want. What’s in the box?”
I smiled. Nice try. “Do you always travel under beds? Is the monster under the bed a slipshot?”
Harry scoffed. “That weak prankster? Ha. He’s so pathetic he can only frighten children. Don’t insult me. Besides, he owes me fifty dollars and a grapefruit.”
I frowned.
Harry shrugged. “Long story.”
“Right. Can anyone travel under beds?” I’d always thought only the monster could.
“Don’t know. Slipshots can. Don’t know if you can. Try it.”
I narrowed my eyes on him, warning him not to try anything funny while my back was turned. I crouched down next to the frame and pressed my hand to the stone floor. Nothing happened. The void was gone.
“How do I open it?”
Harry frowned. “If you want to know, you’ll have to give me something. I’m not a tour guide.”
I took a breath. Thought about it. Then I opened my box and pulled out the glass vial. “How about an object of power?”
I tilted the vial and let the gold flecks sparkle in the sconces’ light.
Harry hid a greedy slipshot grin and feigned disinterest. “Maybe. Looks cheap. What’s it do?”
“Don’t know. It’s a Bard thing.”
Harry weighed this news. It was a gamble.
It was an object of power, but its power was unknown.
Slipshots liked to know the value of things.
The more valuable it was, the more they wanted it.
However, value was subjective. It was based entirely on how much someone else wanted a thing.
He considered my expression. He knew I wanted the box, which meant I also wanted the things inside it.
He nodded at the vial. “Deal. Give it to me.”
I clasped the vial in my fist. “Tell me first.”
“No. Give it to me first.”
I raised an eyebrow. Did he think I was a baby slipshot born yesterday?
“Fine. You knock three times and say, ‘Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.’”
“Really?”
“I don’t make the rules—I just abide by them.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right.”
He stepped back into the room and held out his hand. “Deal’s done.”
I shook my head. “I’m testing it first.”
By the gleam in Harry’s eyes, I knew he’d tried to pull one over on me.
He grinned as I knocked on the stone floor.
“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
The bed didn’t shake, and the stone didn’t move.
“Nice try. What’s the real key?”
Harry gave me his “it was worth a shot” look. He’d almost traded something for nothing.
“Knock three times and say, ‘Good night, sleep tight, time for me to give a fright.’”
I tried again, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, the stone beneath the bed dissolved and became a black void. I let out a shocked laugh.
“Can I go anywhere?”
“Dunno. It’s easy to get lost down there. The bottom of one bed looks just like the bottom of another, and some of them are locked.”
“How’d you know this was the asylum?”
“The figments. Their legs are dangling from the ceiling. Some of them are tied to the underside of the beds. Sick place. Sick Wards. Friggin’ conjurers.” He shuddered. “Are we done?”
“How do you lock your bed?”
He puffed out his cheeks and stared at the vial.
“Harry?” I rolled the vial in my hand, letting the liquid catch the light.
“The usual. Ward it.”
Ah. Easy.
Creatures and humans alike had been warding things for millennia.
Humans used prayer, blessed objects, holy water, fire—all sorts of things.
Creatures used bones, blood, sticks, and stones.
It was something beings had always done.
You could find wards at the mouths of caves from twenty-five thousand years ago, skulls and bones laid out in particular patterns. Warding wasn’t anything new.
I dropped the vial in his hand. “Deal’s done.”
Faster than the eye could track, he flicked his fingers, and the vial disappeared into a hidden pocket. He gave me a cheeky grin, reached out, and tugged on my braid. “Knew you wouldn’t murder your favorite slipshot. Not today, at least. You’re a thief, like us.”
I knocked his hand away, and he saluted me.
“By the way, I’m glad you’re a mine. You’re stronger now.
Stronger for Hell Gate. I saw the Smith there just now—he had murder in his eyes.
I heard you killed him and he wants to kill you back.
” He narrowed his eyes and said in a conspiratorial voice, “If I were you, what I’d do is steal his heart.
Then, when you got it, you can keep it, or you can eat it. ”
I stared at him, my skin going cold at the mention of Finn stalking the burned grounds of Hell Gate.
He shrugged again. “That’s my advice. You might not win in a fair fight against the Smith, but who said we fight fair? You could win with a trick. A lie.”
He left, and I stared for a moment at the empty door. Then I slowly opened my box.
I let out a surprised laugh. Harry had taken his own advice. He’d won with a trick. The comb of discernment was gone.
I shook my head. I wouldn’t catch him today. He’d be long gone and hiding out.
I sighed and dumped the box’s contents onto the stone.
Then I pulled one of the sconces’ candles from the wall and held the conjured flame to the dried daisies.
The candle sparked, and the petals caught fire, releasing a sweet, herby scent.
The flame flared and consumed the flowers.
Within seconds, the fire had burned out, and all that was left of the daisy chain Finn had woven me was a pile of ash.
I took the mica and crumbled it in my hand.
It fell to pieces, flaking in bits of glitter.
Then I took a deep breath and blew the mica and the ashes away.
The only thing left of Finn was the small pebble. It was pink and round and had been the dot of the “i” on the word “Hi.”
I walked to the bed frame, gripping the pebble so tightly it left an imprint in my palm. Then I opened my hand and dropped the pebble into the void. I waited to hear the soft plink of it hitting ground, but nothing happened.
When I looked up, Rou was standing in the doorway. She frowned at the abyss under the bed.
“Found a spot?”
I nodded. “Looks like it.”
“Well, good enough. I’ll send the slipshots out today to procure us some furniture.” She gave my wrinkled outfit a hard stare. “And some clothing. But in the meantime . . .”
My stomach sank. I knew that look. I wasn’t getting any sleep, and I wasn’t getting any breakfast. “Yes?”
“The Clark girl. The female conjurer who looks like a rabid badger, all skin and bone and claws and teeth? That one’s here for you.
She and Jagger took over my kitchen, kicked me out, and when they were finished, he was rubbing his hands, satisfied.
I’ll tell you something, Mari. No one sends me out of my kitchen.
Even if I only claimed it this morning.” She pursed her lips.
“The porridge burned, and if that skin-and-bones Clark thinks I’ll cook her another breakfast, she has something to learn. ”
I shook my head. “Last’s here? But I already spent a day with the Clarks this week. And the Bards. I’m free—”
“A mine is never free. What’s wrong with you?
You had your freedom. That’s done. Go on.
Jagger’ll want to speak with you before you go.
” She clicked her tongue and then patted my arm.
“Be sure to have a coffee. That girl looks like she’ll thrust a conjured knife under your fifth rib if she suspects you’re tired.
” When I yawned at the word “tired,” she pinched my arm. “Two coffees.”
I smiled. “All right. Two.”
She patted my arm again. Then, looking at the bed frame, she said, “Before you sleep in here, you might want to seal that hole. You never know what’ll come crawling out from under your bed if you don’t.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “Or come sneaking into your dreams.”
I left to find Jagger, coffee, and Last.