As the Zoo’s master of “communications”, Aelius was the one to face the Seer in the Docklands and request they drop their vendetta now that the Zoo knew the truth. It was not a long visit. The Oracles were stalwart; Gedeon Ravenswood had broken the Principles, and they would have Ilsa’s life in compensation. Nothing Aelius said could talk them out of trying to claim it.
“But I suppose there’s good news,” said Aelius wryly. “Their own stubborn traditionalism means the truth of Gedeon’s misdeeds still remains between us and the Docklands. Theirs to know, everyone else’s not to, and all that nonsense.”
“Great,” Ilsa whispered to Fyfe. “So the rebels are looking for we don’t know what for we don’t know what purpose that probably involves revenge and overthrowing us, the Oracles only want to kill me – guess that’s something to be thankful for – and the Fortunatae want to wipe out my family and dissolve Camden, and have done a champion job of getting the rest to put their differences aside and work together to destroy us. But least no one’s worried Gedeon’s gonna kidnap them too. Then we’d really be in trouble.” Fyfe didn’t laugh and Ilsa didn’t blame him. It wasn’t funny. “I don’t get it. We got wolves and barricades all ’round the border, right? So why let any Oracles in at all? Why let anyone in?”
“Trade,” said Fyfe. “It’s the only thing that’s sacred in this city. The threat of losing it is perhaps what keeps the Principles working. We’re free to close our borders, but if we did, the Docklands would almost certainly close theirs to us. And the Oracles have possession of the docks, of course. They don’t have the numbers or, ah… care to manage them, so the rest of us pay them a share to do our own business. It’s how they stay solvent despite the vemanta crisis. We trade with all the factions.” He smiled wryly. “We’re all doing so much violence, swindling one another at the Trade House is almost a good-natured pastime.”
When they weren’t trying to get a step ahead of the rebels or bargain with the Docklands, it was mainly trade that kept the lieutenants busy, because just weeks before, it had been Hester’s job. There was still a faction to manage, and the unfortunate irony was that managing it without Gedeon left little time for finding Gedeon, even if they hadn’t exhausted all their ideas.
They were so stretched that they even begrudgingly called on Eliot, if only for the most menial and innocuous tasks. It left Ilsa truly on her own in her search for clues to Gedeon’s whereabouts, but Eliot had given her a new lead.
It was many days after learning of the Sorcerer and her brother, that Ilsa finally cornered Cassia. Fyfe had told her that she had a small laboratory of her own, and that she had been spending a lot of time there recently. Unfortunately, its location did not appeal. The hidden room in Hester’s chambers was one type of horror, but it wasn’t where Ilsa’s fear came from; it wasn’t an attic.
Cassia’s lab was a narrow, bare space in the servants’ quarters, with dark floorboards, white walls, and a small lattice window looking onto the roof. On a wooden bench along one wall was a neat succession of flasks and beakers, and opposite, two shelves of orderly, labelled jars. A glass-fronted cabinet at the far end housed what looked like completed concoctions. There was none of the clutter, or the appeal, of Fyfe’s larger, eclectic space downstairs.
Cassia was stood by the open window, frowning into a book. A breeze was making a lock of black hair dance across her shoulder, but if she had noticed, she didn’t mind. Ilsa fixed her eyes on that window – through which she could fly away if she needed to – and rapped lightly on the open door.
“Oh, hello,” Cassia said. She looked neither pleased nor uncomfortable to see her, but instead folded her book closed and turned to a large round flask on the bench. It contained a transparent liquid of the palest green, and underneath, a tiny flame bloomed from thin air.
“D’you do that?” Ilsa gasped.
“Hmm? Oh, that.” Cassia snapped her fingers and a small flame erupted at her fingertips. She shook it out like she would a match. “I’ve been slaving over this potion for four days, and everyone who has come up here has marvelled at that flame, perhaps the most basic bit of corporeal magic. Changelings.”
“What is it?” asked Ilsa.
“It’s supposed to be a truth serum. Hester asked me to try and make one up after that Oracle Eliot captured was so uncooperative, but even a specialist potion master would struggle with the formula, and I’m nothing of the sort.” They shared a glance at the fact that Hester had asked anyone to do anything other than wheel her back to bed. “I’ve been testing it on myself and all I’ve managed to do is induce hallucinations. Oren came by this morning and found me arguing with an empty chair.” Her words became quieter and more mumbled as she spoke, and Ilsa wondered who Cassia had thought was with her.
“D’you make all them potions?” she asked instead, gesturing to the cabinet. One of them was the syrupy magenta sleeping draft Cassia had once given her. A crate on the bottom shelf read ANTIDOTES, which struck Ilsa as wise.
“Well, the Zoo could hardly let a Sorcerer into their ranks and not put her to work. I prefer corporeal magic to this stuff, but I like to be of use.”
“But Fyfe makes potions too, don’t he?”
“He does,” Cassia said with a pensive tilt of her head, “and he’s a remarkable chemist, but he always needs a little of my help. I imbue my potions with something Fyfe can’t replicate on his own. Certain substances and ingredients are strong receptors, but they do very little by themselves. They can only perform magic” –
