Chapter Five Simran
Chapter Five
Simran
Isadora Delaney was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She should have had the world. If she hadn’t been an incarnate, she really could have been somebody.
Source: Transcription of speech at the funeral of Isadora Delaney, by Lara Atwater
Archivist’s Ruling: For retention as evidence of treason. Interrogation advised.
Senior Archivist’s Ruling: Atwater is a known incarnate (The Laidly Wyrm). No interrogation required at this time. Document earmarked for disposal, review in 12 months.
The wind was roaring, rain lashing down.
The stagecoach carrying Simran and Hari to Gore stopped at a roadside inn, and thirteen passengers dressed in greatcoats and shawls and bonnets tumbled into the muggy heat of the dining room.
They’d be back on the road as soon as the worst of the storm cleared, so Simran ordered some bread and cheese, which was the best she could afford.
She’d desperately needed the limni ink she’d stolen.
Tattooing was an art and paid well—but Simran was not a traditional tattooist, with a gift for skin and art.
She was a scribe through and through. When she drew limni ink into her needles, it was her intent that tangled with the ink and made something useful out of it.
“Shit at art, good at magic” was how she described herself, and it was no more or less than the truth. No limni ink meant no meaningful work.
Being far from her scriptorium meant no work too, but there was no avoiding that.
The stagecoach had jolted angrily through the rolling countryside like a bucking horse.
Simran’s lower back still ached, and Hari was perched on his barstool with his head in his hands, chewing an aniseed sweet to settle his stomach.
“Bloody coaches,” he muttered. “One day we’re going to be rich and get better transport.
A gilded carriage with ten white horses or something that never jolts. ”
“Sure,” said Simran. “That sounds realistic. Eat your sandwich.”
“I don’t want to eat maggoty cheese.”
“Then don’t,” Simran said, poking the back of his head with a fingertip. “Starve to death. I don’t care.”
The cheese was maggoty. Some people considered that a delicacy, but Simran liked her food dead before she ate it. She stole one of Hari’s sweets from his pocket and sucked at it desultorily as she pondered the twinged muscles in her back and the stranger twinge in her chest.
There was a tug inside her, urging her back to London. There was nothing in the smoky inn to distract her from it. The tug was a tale, and the tug was the knight, with her sly, knowing smile.
The tug was going to be the death of her.
Our tale hasn’t begun yet, Simran reminded herself. But it was cold comfort. It was going to, after all. Seeing the knight—the knight seeing her—had set the clock ticking.
“Will you go and see your parents?” Hari asked. “They’d like it.”
Simran pointedly said nothing.
Hari sighed. “Uncle doesn’t write to you every week because he hates you.”
“No,” said Simran. “I know he loves me. That isn’t the point.”
The door creaked open, bringing the storm in with it.
The wind groaned, and the rain splattered on the rough wooden floorboards, heralding a line of figures who glided in.
Simran saw their shadows first, and some bone-deep instinct made her body tense and her blood run cold. Slowly, she raised her head.
Witch hunters.
She watched them glide by, in their copatain hats polished to a keen shine, their doublets starched flat and stiff.
Simran sat about as stiffly on her stool, stomach curdling with more than nausea or hunger.
Oh, Simran knew the shape of a witch hunter. They were bruisers and opportunists. They didn’t just hunt witches, no—any monster that required capturing or killing was their business. They were functional, a necessity for trolls under bridges and corpses rising from graves with overly sharp teeth.
They had to be here for her. She thought of her knight again; that sly, knowing smile turning to horror. That name on the knight’s lips.
Isadora.
Of course there were witch hunters looking for her. She should have expected it. She was an incarnate, and her tale had begun. Someone would be seeking her out. Maybe the knight Vina had sent them. Why wouldn’t she? She couldn’t kill Simran if she couldn’t find her.
When was the stagecoach driver going to call them all back? Simran looked out the window. The rain was still pouring. She couldn’t use magic here without drawing the witch hunters like bloodhounds to a hare, and her pistol would do her little more good.
“I’m going,” Simran said under her breath to Hari.
She didn’t wait for him to respond. Taking advantage of the milling crowd of travelers, she slid from the stool and headed toward the back of the inn.
The tables were full, and it was hard to weave around them.
Her hip knocked into one, and a man’s ale spilled.
He swore, and Simran muttered, “Sorry, sorry.”
Someone was following her. There were footsteps behind her. Not Hari’s footsteps; she knew those like her own. This was a heavy tread in heavy boots.
There was another door beyond some busy tables.
She went through it out into a courtyard, green and hazy under heavily falling rain.
There were low stone walls, cracked with age, and a few wooden tables moss-touched and damp.
There was no cover in the courtyard, but beyond it were rolling green fields, patchy with bushes of gorse.
She jumped the wall and crouched low in the bushes, belly to the muddy ground, mist cloying the air and giving her cover.
The door creaked open, and through a crack in the stone, Simran saw Hari.
Hari stumbled breathlessly out the door, straightened his greatcoat, and fished a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket.
He must have run to catch up with her. He didn’t look at her as he fumbled into his pocket again for a match, cigarette caught between his lips.
His hands trembled. He struck the match once, twice, cupping the lit flame in his palm to stop the rain and wind from putting it out.
He lit the cigarette. A second later, the door slammed open and a witch hunter emerged.
“Oi,” said the witch hunter. “Come over here.”
“Can’t a man smoke a cigarette in peace anymore?” Hari asked, affronted.
“I know what you are,” the witch hunter said. He stomped across the muddy ground and grasped Hari roughly by the arm. Hari almost dropped his cigarette.
“Let me go!” Hari said, voice going high.
“You’ll bloody wait, boy.”
Simran lurched up to her knees, rage boiling up in her blood. As she looked over the wall, she saw Hari’s free hand go behind his back abruptly. His hand behind him opened up, palm bare, fingers stretched out. Hold.
She froze. Slowly, she lowered herself back down.
Another figure emerged. A woman in a scholar’s robe, high-collared, a chain hung with ink vials and a quill at her waist. An archivist.
“I’ve got him here, ma’am,” the witch hunter called proudly.
She walked over unhurriedly and fished a monocle from her clothing, placing it over her right eye. The monocle was golden, but the lens over the eye was a prism, fracturing rain and light like a diamond. She peered at Hari.
“He isn’t a witch, never mind an incarnate,” the woman said. She didn’t sound posh the way Simran had expected an archivist would. Her voice was all London, and oddly musical. “And we’re looking for a woman, Jones. Honestly. Whatever made you think he was the one?”
“I smelled one, ma’am,” the witch hunter said, eyes narrowed. “I followed my nose.” Simran saw his nostrils flare, but the rain and the tobacco smoke seemed to be enough to block the scent of Simran’s tale from reaching his nose.
A sigh. “Well, your nose has clearly led you astray.”
He scowled. “There’s other work I could be doing,” he muttered. “Work where I’d be appreciated. Scads of witches running off into the ancient forest, each worth a good sack of silver, and here I am with you, being judged by a paper-pusher.”
The woman’s expression cooled, and her voice with it.
“Head inside, Jones. Test your nose again there.”
As the witch hunter, grumbling, released Hari, the archivist turned to Hari and said cordially, “I’m sorry. For your troubles.”
Simran realized with a start that the archivist was as brown as she and Hari were. Unusual for their kind. They were usually Isle stock through and through, white as paper.
There was a clink of coin. The witch hunter and the archivist turned and went back into the inn.
A pause.
“You can come out now, Sim. I don’t think they’re coming back.”
Simran stood and met Hari’s eyes.
“How did you know what to do?” Simran asked. “Distracting the witch hunter with smoke—I wouldn’t have thought of it.”
“You think I’d live this long with a witch and not make sure I knew how to scare off a witch hunter? Come on, Sim. I can’t fight the way you can, but I can at least get us out of trouble,” Hari remarked, stubbing the cigarette out with his boot. “What should we be doing?”
Simran thought of walking back through that inn to the front entrance. They could perhaps sneak around the inn to the stagecoach, but the rain was still pouring furiously and the witch hunters were inside, looking for her.
“Hiding,” said Simran. “Or walking. We—I—can’t risk them catching me.”
“It sounded to me like they’re not just looking for a witch. They’re looking for an incarnate,” Hari said carefully. “And that can’t be you.”
There was a way for Simran to wend to safety through this conversation.
She could see it. She had a knack of traps and thread.
It’s my bad luck to be here when they’re looking for an incarnate.
But witch hunters… it’s in the name, isn’t it?
I can’t risk them scenting me out. Let’s wait here for now. Trust me, Hari.
Instead, she looked away.
“If you go in you won’t face any trouble,” said Simran.