When Cassia had cast her magic, Ilsa closed Bill’s eyes, folded his hands atop his chest, and wiped the blood from his face. Was there something else he would want? A token for the afterlife? An instruction for the coroner? No; it was her, and not Bill, who was not ready, so Ilsa blinked back her tears and cast about the room. Bill’s coat hung on a hook by the door, his paisley scarf draped over it. She had found the scarf in the auditorium, left behind by a punter, and had wrapped it in paper and given it to Bill for his birthday one year. As she took it off the hook and folded it small, she tried not to think of Bill hanging it there, oblivious to the fact he would never wear it again. She tried not to think of what happened after. Then she nodded to Cassia that she was ready, and with the scarf tucked under Ilsa’s arm, they made their way back out into the street.
The sleet continued, but she no longer felt the cold. A different kind of numbness had taken hold.
The two girls stood side by side in the street, their third companion nowhere to be seen. In the dark and the sleet, no passer-by seemed to notice the gun, or the blood.
“P’raps they fought,” Ilsa said. “P’raps…”
“Oren can take care of himself.” Cassia nodded to the knife still in Ilsa’s hand. “And they’re not armed. I just hope—”
At that moment, Oren emerged from the alley. They ran for him. Cassia took him by the shoulders and looked him up and down. He was clearly unharmed, but there was something dull in his expression.
“Who…” began Cassia, but he shook his head.
“I couldn’t look,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t stop them. They wouldn’t let me.”
“A Whisperer,” said Cassia.
“A what?”
“The Whitechapel faction. They can read minds. Manipulate thoughts.”
Ilsa drew a breath as Eliot’s words came back to her. They can wipe a mind clean and refill it with whatever, and whomever, they choose.
“They… got in your head?” she said, shivering.
“They were too quick. They had me before…” He trailed off, and reached a hand into his inside breast pocket. He produced a knife; unremarkable at first glance, and dull with blood. “Cassia, they dropped this.”
Cassia took the dagger and held it delicately in both hands for them all to see. The light of a nearby streetlamp just illuminated a column of symbols along the hilt. They looked like the letters of a foreign alphabet.
Oren and Cassia exchanged a meaningful look.
“What’s it mean?”
“It means this belongs to one of the Fortunatae,” said Cassia. “It means we might know who’s behind the Sorcerer rebellion.”
11
For the second time in days, Ilsa was washing off blood.
She sat with her knees pulled up to her chin in a bathtub that was still magically steaming and clean after thirty minutes. It was a good thing too – Cassia knocked every once in a while, and Ilsa would tell her five more minutes. She needed the bath; needed to focus on nothing but the water hugging her, the solid sides of the tub keeping her from the world beyond.
But this time, when Ilsa dismissed her, Cassia let herself in anyway, only to hover hesitantly by the door.
“You gonna talk to me now?” Ilsa tried to keep the bite out of her tone and failed. Neither Cassia nor Oren had explained what the Fortunatae was, or what it meant. Every time she asked, they had looked at her pityingly and hurried her along. Truthfully, Ilsa knew she was only clinging to her irritation to stop other feelings from surfacing; to keep herself from thinking about Martha, and about Bill.
Cassia came and perched on the edge of the tub, her back to her. “You mustn’t blame yourself for what happened to that man. It was our fault. Perhaps we couldn’t have predicted what happened, but we ought to have been more prepared for everything the Oracles might do at least. But I promise, Ilsa, we shan’t let anyone else you care about be harmed.”
Ilsa made a mental list of the people she knew. The other girls at her boarding house. The performers from the variety show. If the Oracles looked at her life, was there anyone they would think to target the way they had Bill? The answer was all too clear. “There ain’t no one else.”
“Oh.” Cassia lapsed into silence, and Ilsa couldn’t blame her. What did you say to someone who had lost their last friend? Ilsa hugged her knees tighter to her chest and rested her head on them as she fought back tears.
“Will you stay?” Cassia said.
Ilsa looked up. Cassia was watching her hesitantly.
“You’re not a prisoner, Ilsa. None of us want to keep you here against your will. But we do want to protect you, and we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe if you stay. Besides, it sounds an awful lot like…”
She trailed off, but Ilsa knew what she meant to say.
“Like I ain’t got nothing left to go back to.”
Nothing left to lose. The desire to run – to put everything she had learned back in a box and close the lid – was still there, but Ilsa saw it for what it was now. She was afraid of feeling unmoored and out of her depth. She couldn’t be the cleverest and the quickest in a world she knew nothing about.
She needed to learn. And fast.
“I’ll stay,” she said, “but I got a condition.”
Cassia frowned, but nodded.
“I want to know about the Fortunatae.”
“Alright.”
“Right now.”
“But…” Concern flickered across Cassia’s face. “I thought, with everything we’ve thrown at you – about Gedeon, the Oracles, our history…”
“You already tried to coddle me once and now Mr Blume is dead,” Ilsa
