But then, there it was again. The nagging sensation that someone’s eyes were on her. It was strong, more than a learned mechanism or a relic of her pickpocketing days. It was tugging her gaze to an alley across the street, a barely there space between terraced houses. Ilsa squinted into the dark, but didn’t stop. If she made it to the end of this street, perhaps she could take to the skies without a militia hawk sighting her.
But now the presence was ahead of her. For a split second, Ilsa was tempted to face whatever watched her head-on, drunk as she was on the half-dozen foolish things she’d already done that night. But she tamped down the reckless instinct and retreated to the only place left to go: another alley, this one leading back towards…
At the end of a tunnel of black was the multicoloured glow of a thousand lamps, the carefree flicker of wings flapping and skirts twirling. She was being herded towards the party. Back towards the militia who were seeking her. Another instinct, this one more sure, made her stop in the tunnel and put her hands on her hips.
“Captain Fowler.”
A black form flickered at the very corner of her vision, and when she turned, there was the Wraith, arms folded, impassive expression belied by the glint of humour in his eyes. He was dressed head to toe in black, the hood of his long coat thrown back and a bandolier of knives strapped across his broad chest. More weapons dripped from his belt. Ilsa couldn’t recall what the Principles had to say about walking about armed, but she doubted it was good.
“How’d you recognise me?” she huffed.
“Your eyes, of course.” He nodded towards the High Street. “My eyesight is far stronger than a Changeling’s. I saw you on the roof from across the street.”
“And I s’pose they’ve roped you in to bring me back home?” she snapped, knowing better by now than to try and make a break for it.
Fowler looked over his shoulder, back in the direction Ilsa had come. “You were about to cross paths with your bloodhounds. They’re on the scent trail of a pair of gloves that have mysteriously found their way up a tree half a mile west of here.” He reached into his coat and produced something Ilsa recognised. It was her bag, the one she’d been carrying the night Martha had died. The night he’d saved her life. It had had her gloves in it. “You’re in the clear. For now.”
He held the bag out and Ilsa took it, fingers closing on the worn, faded velvet. She ran a thumb over the repair she had done on one corner with the red cotton thread she used for alterations on her stage costume. It was all she’d had. Funny, how she only noticed how tattered it was now.
“So you just went and broke the Principles, all over me sneaking out?” she said, holding the purse behind her back, where she couldn’t see it.
“Which Principles did I break?”
“You ain’t allowed to use your magic outside the Wraith quarter.” Ilsa shot a glance at the party. A group of men with tankards of ale were joking and laughing mere feet from her and the Wraith, but shrouded as they were in shadow – and drunk as the men appeared to be – they hadn’t noticed them.
The flash of humour returned in the captain’s grey eyes. He reached a hand into the collar of his shirt and drew out a chain. On the end was a silver coin embossed with a bird’s skull and crossed arrows. “I belong to the Order of Shadows. We’re exempt from the Principles, and from their protection.”
The Order of Shadows. Mercenaries. Assassins. Ilsa was reminded that Fowler had only saved her life because he’d been paid to do so. If the Docklands had hired him first, would he have slain her in that fish market alongside Martha?
“You’re saying if I clawed your chest open, right here and now, no one would stop me?”
“No one would stop you,” he conceded. He took a step closer, shifting so that his body filled the whole tunnel, and slipped a blade from his wrist into his palm. It was a pathetic, dull-looking thing compared to the weapons decorating his belt and chest. As he held it up, Ilsa saw why: it was her blade. It had also been in her bag. “Just as no one could stop me cutting your throat in time. But the Zoo would have its vengeance, and likewise the Order take care of their own.”
Ilsa reached out and snatched the knife from him. He let her; she was under no illusion that she’d been quicker than him. “Go through all my things, did you?”
“Curiosity is a force of habit.”
Ilsa folded the knife and put it away. She had drawn it several times in the Otherworld, and used it once – against a lecherous drunkard who had flung her against an alley wall and let his hands roam where they pleased.
“And you ain’t gonna ask me what a Changeling’s carrying a blade for?” she asked, thinking of that night. She hadn’t been afraid of the man, she’d been afraid of her urge to shift and of what might happen if she did. Her gaze drifted out to the party, where Millie was still enjoying the attention showing off her magic had earned her.
“Something to do with her impeccable foresight?” said Fowler. “A blade is only as good as its backup. The same is true for claws, I imagine.”
Ilsa glanced at the Wraith’s dozen backup blades, remembered him throwing one at an Oracle’s chest with
