Chapter 26
Present Day
There had been a change in the city since Wake lured me through Baffin’s door. I noted it in a disengaged way, absorbing a series of subtleties that, together, cast the impressions and rhythm of city life into a tenser, more ominous light.
There were fewer pedestrians on the streets, and fewer smiles on the faces of those I did see.
No governesses walked children home down the riverbanks in bows and lace.
There were soldiers at the feet of the bridges, and though the traffic slowed in their presence, there was no honking, no shouting.
The liveliest scene we glimpsed was a crowd at a corner around a collection of newsboys, who were doing a roaring trade despite the later hour.
Harden glanced at the boys and the stacks of papers in their carts, but we did not stop.
The scent of rotting fruit drifted to me as we slipped in the back door of The Three Trees. Harden beckoned me down a side passage then a stair into the cellar, where multiple voices sounded.
I blinked. The cellars were round-topped and extensive, larger than the establishment itself.
They were also full of people—bustling people, running people, wounded people, talking people.
A girl darted past with no less than six rifles burdening her arms and an old man deftly stitched a gash on the face of a crying, younger man, who despite his tears stood straight-backed under the light of an oil lamp.
The lamp ignited the scar-like threads of a Gaslamp Entwined—a relatively new breed, as far as my kinfolk went, and the result of two centuries of selective breeding by the Guild.
There were tables laden with supplies, rows of well-lived-in bunks, and even rows of drying laundry off in a corner. An old woman perched near these lines, a pair of woven bassinettes at her side—complete with one visible, chubby infant foot—and a pile of mending at her feet.
“Oh, I see,” I said tonelessly, standing amid the bustle. “This is a Separatist hideaway.”
Harden nudged me forward with a gentle hand on my back, passing me off to a matronly older woman. “Can you look after her, Maggie? I think she’s in shock. I’ve got to—”
“Go.” The woman Maggie waved him off and bundled me away. “Come, dove, what’s your name?”
“Ottilie,” I said. I craned to look back at Harden, but he had his back to me, speaking urgently with several other people.
I submitted myself to Maggie’s ministrations, which extended to wrapping me in a blanket and depositing me on a bunk with a cup of tea.
The tea grew cold as I watched the chaos. I glimpsed Harden several more times, but always in passing. He caught my gaze, here in concern, there in distraction.
His attention, or lack of, felt distant and unremarkable.
All I could think of was Lewis, and the pall of the subdued city above lingered over me like a fog.
I remembered Lewis bundling me out of the cellar—saving me, ostensibly, to deliver me right into the hands of Madge. What was he even doing in Harrow?
Harden had to know something more. Eventually I rose to find him, setting my blanket aside. As I did, I noticed a table nearby. It was scattered with random items, including a number of pamphlets.
I picked up the closest and surveyed its bold lettering. ‘CITIZENS OF HARROW RISE: A CALL TO ARMS’ shouted out from the page, along with a depiction of an Entwined man—shirtless and covered with threads—strangling a fainting human woman.
I tossed the paper back down in disgust. It landed next to another pamphlet, which declared in similar fashion, ‘ACT NOW OR WAIT FOR THIS,’ followed by a sketch of Entwined conquerors in the double-breasted, low-collared uniforms of the Old Empire treading screaming humans, including children, underfoot.
I took in the entirety of the table. There were half a dozen different pamphlets, all Zealot propaganda, represented here. All looked virtually new, right off the press. One was tucked between the pages of today’s newspaper.
I remembered the crowds around the newsboys, and clenched my teeth.
Baffin had to know about this. Perhaps, he had even initiated it, in some underhanded way.
Like my death by Zealot.
“Who the hell are you?” A voice snapped me from my reverie as a large frame loomed over me.
I was not in the frame of mind to be threatened, but I was also exhausted. I raised fighting fists only to find one wrist grabbed by a large man, built and dressed like a longshoreman. He crowded me back towards the bunks.
“Harden brought me,” I said, jerking in his grasp, then forcing myself to relax a margin. This was one of Harden’s comrades. This was a mistake, and I had no patience or energy for a confrontation, let alone the repercussions.
I flicked a glance around, looking for the motherly Maggie, but she was absent.
The man squeezed my wrist, making my fingers shudder into claws and my anger spark. “Never heard of the bloke. Get over here, you fucking spy—”
The pain of his hold broke through my reservations. I executed a crude but nonetheless effective twist and snap which left my attacker staggering backwards with a dislocated elbow—past the stunned Harden.
“Right,” Harden said, stepping between the two of us and ushering me aside as Maggie reappeared to take charge of the now howling man. “That was Jasper. He is a bull-headed bastard and deserved that. Mag?”
“Got him,” Maggie said, prodding the half-crumpled Jasper back. Around us people stared, but activity continued.
Over by the laundry, the old woman absently rocked one of the bassinettes with a foot as the baby began to fuss.
Harden led me back to the bunks. I sank back down, feeling utterly drained.
“I’ve no desire to be dramatic,” I muttered to Harden. “But this is all rather much. Did you see those pamphlets?”
He gave a halfway nod. “We’ve been discussing them. They’re not the first, of course, but the city will be papered with this latest run by tonight. The Zealots have escalated.”
“I would have been the main feature,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. Then, beset by sudden memory, I looked up again. “She was a Separatist. She told me, Incarnadine did. Did you know?”
Harden glanced across the room as if looking for someone, his expression inscrutable. “That’s… interesting.”
“Did you know?” I repeated.
“I didn’t,” he said with emphasis. “But I am not the head of this operation.”
That raised the question of just what role he did play in the Separatists, besides smuggling, but there were too many other things on my mind to chase it just then.
“What about Lewis? Did you know he is in Harrow, with the Guild?”
Harden shook his head. “No. But he could’ve caught us, and he didn’t, so take that as you will. He let us go—met my eyes and all.”
I stared at Harden without really seeing him. “So, he may not have sold me out. Perhaps he just arrived, and was intercepted. I didn’t see him at Golden House.”
“Could be.” Harden shrugged. His expression shifted at my mention of Golden House, but he stayed on topic. “I’ll find him and sort this out.”
I refocused on the Separatist, rallying now that I had a purpose in sight. “I should do it.”
“No, right now you need to tell me everything,” he corrected. “I received your message, but it was vague.”
I frowned at him. “What message?”
“The mage who tried to Leech the life from me,” Harden said. “Called himself Wake and demanded I hand over that box you and Stoke brought in.”
I clapped my hands over my mouth. “Oh, no. Harden, I’m so sorry—”
“As I said, I got your message,” he cut in. He looked at me hard, not unkindly, but as if I were the piece of a puzzle that refused to click into place. “Good thing I didn’t believe he’d actually release you once he had the box.”
It was my turn to stare. “What?”
“I gave him the box, in exchange for your being let loose,” Harden clarified.
I shot to my feet. “Pardon me?”
Harden’s brows rose high. “What am I missing here?”
I pressed a hand over my eyes, trying and failing to think. I heard him start to ask another question, and threw up my other hand to silence him. “Just… Just stop. Wait. You had the box?”
He nodded. “Mr. Stoke gave it to me for safekeeping.”
Slowly, I sat back down. Mr. Stoke had fled with the artifact. He had left me to face Mr. Wake alone, even after Mr. Wake attacked him and ransacked the office.
He had abandoned me.
The hurt of that met with the reality of Mr. Stoke’s death in a blinding wave of emotion. I was unseated, unmoored, lost to the maelstrom. There were excuses in that tumult, frail hopes and explanations that tried and failed to soften the blow.
“I sent Mr. Wake to you because I hoped you might be a match for him. He is a Silver, too,” I heard myself explaining, though I neglected to note just how powerful I suspected Wake was.
I was trying to excuse my actions, not dig my grave deeper.
“I was in desperation for my life and… I am sorry. I did not know you had the box. When did Mr. Stoke give it to you?”
“I’m flattered you thought me his match.” Harden was still watching me, but with more concern now. “Mr. Stoke left it at the mirror shop, hidden behind the counter. I found it soon after our last meeting. I didn’t see Stoke, so I can’t rightly say when he left it.”
“Was there a note?”
Harden nodded. “No explanation, though. Just asked me to hold the thing, and I would be well compensated.”
“Yet when Mr. Wake showed up, you handed it right over?” I clarified.
“Of course I did. Stoke is dead, that was all over the papers. And you had vanished. Why not trade some old wooden box for your life? Didn’t turn out quite so simple, but I found you in time.”
I opened my mouth to ask something further, but no words presented themselves. Instead, I lost myself in my own head for a long, long moment.
I came out of my fugue when Harden took my hand. He peeled it off my chest, where I had unconsciously clamped an arm across my ribs, as if trying to hold myself together.