“Did he understand what I just said?”
Pedant Lumin laughs. He fishes around in another pocket for more bits of cake, which he feeds to Piskel with soft words. Then he looks up at me. “What do you think?”
In the fey light, his eyes are again so brilliant I’m almost blinded.
“Why do you keep changing?” I ask.
He frowns and I realize it’s the first time I’ve really seen him do so. “I suppose I should have expected that you would see through my attempts at disguise.”
“Why?”
“Because of what you are,” he says. His gaze is mesmerizing, but I can’t tell if that’s because he’s using forbidden magic on me or if it’s something else entirely.
“A witch?” I raise my chin.
“Not so loudly,” he says. “You can still be heard, even in here.” Piskel shakes a finger at me. “But yes. You see through illusion, among other things.”
This time when Pedant Lumin smiles, I see it fully for the first time. It burns me so completely my face reddens. “Other things? What else can witches do?”
He leans forward. “Anything they desire,” he says. The low pulse of his voice makes me clutch the cushion.
He’s close enough to kiss. I’m trying to figure out if I should, if he will, trying not to think about the wrongness of this, when a squeak of protest startles us both. Pedant Lumin sits back so as not to crush Piskel. “Sorry, little man.”
Piskel grumbles and burrows down into his pocket, taking his light with him.
The darkness is a relief. When I speak, I try my best to maintain an even, businesslike tone. “Pedant Lumin, I could have you reported. I should. You are a heretic Architect. The Church and the Empress would reward my family handsomely for one such as you.”
He’s entirely nonplussed by my threats. “But you won’t,” he says.
“What do you mean I won’t?”
“You won’t report me because I’m the only one who can help you.”
“Help me do what?”
“Survive.”
I’m so angry I can feel sparks flying off my fingertips even if I can’t see them. I clench my fists over my knees. “Pedant Lumin, if you’re suggesting—”
He reaches forward, slipping his fingers close enough to touch my fists. Close enough but not quite. Without touching me, somehow he draws off the anger, shapes it, lights it with a single breath. “Hal,” he says softly, holding the energy he’s transformed from me as though it’s a paper lantern. “The name is Hal.”
The rush of emotions is too much. I can’t speak.
“Tell me this,” he says. “How long have you known you were different? Has anyone else ever noticed?”
I’m about to answer but his gaze encourages me to examine his questions. It’s there at the root of me—the inner wisdom he’s seeking. I always knew I wasn’t meant for the Seminary. I thought it was just because I wanted knowledge they didn’t possess. It was that, but . . . there’s more.
A dim memory surfaces of looking with Father at a display of sylphids. Remarkably, they’d been kept alive. We walked through a tunnel engineered to allow us into their enclosure, my small hand clasped in Father’s. But something happened when we reached the middle of the tunnel. The protective field dropped. Suddenly, the sylphids were all around me and I laughed and let them play in my hair and sing to me, even though I couldn’t understand their words. Father didn’t laugh. Refiners came and turned the sylphids into glittering dust. And I wept because I knew they would never have harmed me. And then there was the kobold who bowed to me before he left Miss Marmalade’s . . .
Could it really be true? Everything I’ve been taught, everything I’ve hoped for goes against it. If anyone finds out . . .
“It can’t be,” I whisper. My words are harsh with rising tears. “It just can’t.”
“Why not?” he says gently.
“Because . . .” My voice cracks.
“Miss Nyx . . .” His hand brushes mine. “It is not so horrible as you might imagine. Your fate is still your own if you have the courage to see beyond your fear.”
That straightens my spine a bit. I find voice enough to ask: “But how did it happen? And what do I do?”
“You act as if being a witch is completely unnatural. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wielding magic is normal. What is not normal is how the Empress hoards all of the magic herself, turning it to her own evil designs and persecuting anyone who tries to use it for good. What you do about it is up to you. You can try to hide or you can fight, as we Architects have chosen to do.”
I digest this in silence. Then I freeze.
He senses the change in my demeanor. “What?”
“I think someone pushed me through the field the other day. I think they wanted to see what would happen to me.” I think again of Charles’s horrid smirk and shudder.
“Someone was trying to test you.”
“But why would it matter? What could they gain? And how could they have done it when no one but a fussy woman was standing next to me?”
“The answer to all those questions is simply this: magic. And if you are still unschooled, as I’m quite sure you are, you’re vulnerable. Your power is therefore accessible to any warlock or witch unscrupulous enough to seize it.”
I shrink against the seat. Accessible? Unscrupulous? “But I thought—”
“What? That we are all dead or exiled beyond the walls of this fair City? That only Architects are heretics, as you call us?” A bitter smile thins his lips. “I think you can see that is not the case. Forbidden as it may be, there are still some few of us who practice. And even fewer still who practice for the greater good.”
There’s an edge to his voice, a hidden dagger behind his words. Something wounds him. I can’t help it. “Who are you, really?” I ask.
There’s a breath, a tightening of his expression. How many glamours can one warlock possess?
“Who you see before you,” he says carefully.
“Pedant Lumin.”
He scowls. “Who I am does not matter. What you are, though—that is everything.”
“Why?” I whisper. Why should I matter so much? I am no one. My father is important, perhaps, to Men of Science. I think about my desire to be the first successful female Pedant and nearly laugh out loud. That especially will now be denied me.
“Because you are the catalyst. With your power, all kinds of things are possible. That frightens people, makes them greedy, all sorts of things.”
“But I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know what it
He smiles. “We shall have to remedy that, Miss Nyx.”
I chew my lip, looking at the fading magenta lantern in his hand. I make my decision. “Vespa,” I say.
“Vespa.” He says my name as if it’s a spell or a holy charm, something blessed. The lantern dissolves into magenta butterflies which float lazily around the carriage until they disappear.
Saint Darwin and all his apes! What am I doing? I must not let this happen!
Just then, the carriage lurches to a halt and the driver cries out that we’ve arrived.
Hal opens the door onto the choking stench of Lowtown. It stinks of sewage and tanneries and the ever- present odor of burning bone from the nearby Refinery. He climbs out first, making sure the stairs are stable. Then he gives me his hand. “Miss,” he bows, and that rakish grin tricks a smile from me, no matter how much I’d just sworn myself against it.
Arthur Rackham’s is just along the alley, thank the Ineffable Watchmaker. Bells announce us when I open the door. A thin, bewhiskered man sits at the counter, a jeweler’s monocle over one eye. His mouth is pursed like a prune as he wipes blue grease over the guts of a tarnished, compasslike object.
