“Whassis?” he says. He swings to look at us, his eye hideously magnified by his monocle. Next to him on the counter squats a small jar with a lid that looks a bit like a grinning mouth. I suppress a shiver of disgust.
“A missive for you, from Pedant Malcolm Nyx, Head of the Museum of Unnatural History and my father,” I say. I’m pleased at how steadily I manage to say it. Hal wanders over to a wall of shelves.
Arthur Rackham nods, grumbling. He puts down the thing he’s working on and fingers a greasy rag before taking the letter. The neverseal sighs as he breaks it open. He unrolls the letter and reads it so slowly that I join Hal.
“Do you see?” he whispers.
I notice that the wall is blurry, rather like his glamour has been at times.
“Look beyond,” he says.
The usual sorts of permissible antiquities are here—soap dishes, soup tureens, tarnished spoons, chamber pots, and moldering portraits. I look beyond them,
I reach through the illusion (for so it must be) and smudge one vial with a fingertip.
“Careful.” Hal looks as though he wants to grab my hand, but he doesn’t.
“This is a hexshop, isn’t it?”
He nods slightly.
I’ve heard rumors of such places, shops where heretics and the desperate go to obtain forbidden magics. Naturally, I’ve never been to such a place before and I can’t imagine why my father would send me here now. What does my father, a Rational Man of Science, want in a place like this?
Rackham clears his throat and we return to the counter. The strange silver object near Rackham’s hand trembles. One of its delicate arms sweeps toward me, pointing like a compass finding its true north.
The old man stares at the quivering needle and then up at me. His eyes narrow and an ugly grin splits his face. He looks rather like the jacklanterns people still carve for the Carnival of Saints.
“You tell your ole dad that what he’s looking for is right in front of him. If you make it that far.”
“I beg your pardon?” I say.
The letter begins to unravel in a hiss of spitting green sparks between us and I can’t help but jump.
When I look up, Rackham is staring at me. I feel as though I’ve once again opened Father’s office door and the Waste is stirring, stirring in the strongbox on the desk, sand spilled from an hourglass waiting to spell doom.
He reaches forward and grips my wrist. I’d almost swear the dark jar chuckles at me. “You know very well what I mean, witch!” He spits the last word as though it’s a curse.
“Here now,” Hal says. “Unhand her this instant!”
I struggle against the man’s greasy grip. All I can think is that I want to be free, that this man is hurting me and therefore deserves harm himself. Before I realize what’s happening, heat crackles in my wrist. An invisible tentacle of energy snaps and Rackham yelps and releases me.
I cover my surprise with a smirk and we make our way out, only to be confronted by a group of ruffians firmly intent on subduing us. Their faces are hard; their eyes gleaming. I don’t know if they’ve been summoned or simply take us for easy marks. Hal brushes my elbow with his fingertips as they approach. Even through coat and sleeve, his touch is like a divining rod striking a deeply imbedded river far beneath my skin.
I’m in trouble, both from within and without.
CHAPTER 10
Syrus may have been a Gatherer, but finding a witch in a city that forbade magic was quite a bit different than finding midnight morels. He had searched for many days, not sure how to identify the witch he sought. He chewed at a toothpick he’d swiped from a gin palace, swaggering down an alley toward a hexshop he knew. It would never do to look out of place or afraid here. He hoped Rackham would have some information that might lead him in the proper direction in exchange for the cursed toad. Perhaps there’d be enough coin for a pork pie, to boot.
Dark figures clotted the alley ahead not far from the hexshop door. It looked as though some rookery thugs had gotten the notion of a payday off some Uptowners. Syrus crept closer. Crates stacked by a permanently sealed door afforded cover and vantage. He spat out his toothpick and climbed them as quietly as he could, but his foot slipped on a broken slat. He peeped out from under a line of sad, gray laundry, heart crowding his throat. But all attention was focused on the two beleagured Uptowners—no one heard.
He started so hard then that he nearly fell off the box. For the girl in the ring was none other than the one whose stolen toad he kept in his patched coat pocket. A Pedant stood beside her, bristling, his gaze defiant. What were they doing in Lowtown, at a hexshop of all places? Any Uptowner with any sense would never come here, even in what passed for daylight in this place. Syrus withdrew his pipe and loaded it.
The leader of the rookery said something Syrus couldn’t quite catch before he tried to seize the girl. Syrus aimed and blew. His dart caught the ruffian right in the web between thumb and forefinger. The leader howled, plucking at the barbed dart once before he slid to the slimy stones. The others moved in. Syrus considered using the Architect’s summoning stone that nestled close to the toad, but he had no idea whether the man would come.
Then the Pedant lifted his hands and Syrus saw the stone was unnecessary. Syrus’s eyes widened as the Pedant shaped a rapier from the shadows, a long blade of darkness that dissected the very air as the Pedant swiped at his foes. Though shadow may have produced it, the cuts it made drew real blood. Around the Pedant blazed a tiny light—a wee will-o’-the-wisp, by the looks of it—who bit and threw curses at his foes with gusto. The Pedant was an Architect, perhaps the very one he had encountered earlier, though he couldn’t be sure.
The girl cast about, as though she sought either a weapon or victim. Syrus blew another dart at a ruffian who was losing his resolve with the leader down and thus moved too slowly. The dart sent him to the stones with others who moaned of their injuries. The last two decided to flee. The girl looked up and her eyes met Syrus’s over the edge of the tall crate.
“You!” she shouted.
The Pedant looked in his direction, his eyes flashing blue lightning. Syrus cringed.
“Come,” the Architect said. “With this much magic discharged, I’m surprised the Raven Guard isn’t on us already. And those ruffians and Rackham, presumably”—he glanced at the still-closed door nearby—“will report us for certain. Best we thank our young benefactor there and get out of here.”
“But he stole my toad!”
Syrus was surprised she didn’t stamp her foot when she said it. What a prat.
“I’m sure if he had it, he’d return it,” the Architect said, looking meaningfully toward Syrus. Syrus had the grace to blush, but then his mouth firmed. He wouldn’t return anything to a girl so stuck up, so obviously ungrateful. He and his people had saved her once and he’d helped save her again. Now all his people were dead and he alone remained. And she was still worried about a silly toad?
“We must hurry,” the Architect implored. The will o’ the wisp floated about them, making frantic gestures of escape.
“But, Hal . . .”
He placed his hand on her arm and she went silent. “There’s no time,” he said.
With one last glower over her shoulder at Syrus, the girl let the Architect usher her from the alley.
Syrus climbed down off the crates once the alley was completely still again. Rackham had never once come out of his shop during the entire affair. Which meant either he was behind the ordeal or too cowardly to get involved. Syrus sighed. He took the toad out of his inner chest pocket. What little light was in the dim alley gathered in its carnelian eyes.
