He had just decided to go inland along one of the Skidwrack’s many branching creeks instead and see what a dollop of London fog would look like poured out in an abandoned bit of woods when a sailor heading down the pier elbowed past him with a sharp whack to the ribs, muttering “woolgathering landlubbers” in a not-specially-quiet voice as he went along. But Hugo didn’t hear the words at all, because he had felt the crunch between his shirt and his vest. The sailor’s elbow had cracked the glass box like an eggshell.
Immediately, rills of fog began to seep out of his pocket.
Hugo reached in, hoping against hope that the blow had merely knocked the lid open a bit. But he could feel the crack that spanned the glass dome and the cold, almost viscous smog that was issuing forth. He stumbled off the pier and into an alley, trailing fog behind him, and untied the kerchief from his neck. He folded the kerchief twice, took the box from his pocket, wincing at the break across the lid, and wrapped it tightly, even though he was certain that if three layers of cotton were nowhere near enough to keep a particular out (a thing he knew well from experience), they wouldn’t be enough to hold one in, either.
And they weren’t. The fog kept seeping free, and once it had escaped the confines of the round glass box, it pooled and began to thicken, rising like bread dough on the banks of the Skidwrack. Hugo cursed.
His instructions had warned him not to put the fog into anything other than the container it was in, but something more had to be done, and fast. He unwrapped the kerchief again and set it on the ground with the box sitting in the center. Trying ineffectually to wave away the pooling, thickening fog so that he could see what he was doing, Hugo opened his bag and took out the small crock of pitch. Reluctantly, he smeared a dollop of pitch tar along the length of the fissure, then tore a bit of rag from his old shirt and pressed the fabric against the tar, gluing it down fast. Then he rewrapped the whole thing and stood with the parcel in his palm to examine the results. The seep of fog drifting down had slowed, but it did not stop.
He cursed again, pocketed the wrapped box, and put his torch together as quickly as he could. Hugo struck a match and lit the pitchy rag at the top, then ventured out into the street again.
The particular was already spreading across the river and rolling up the banks. All around him, the busy waterside district was beginning to react to the sudden change in conditions, but so far the voices he could hear were more bemused than worried. The fog hadn’t risen quite enough to turn the day to night; even before his desperate pitch-and-rag patch job, it had been leaching out of his pocket much more slowly than it had done when he’d opened the container properly the night before. But already the air was suffused with the fug, the daylight having to work hard to filter through the thickening yellow-gray, and if the particular behaved like it did last night, congealing and expanding, mounting to the heights of the houses and beyond . . . well, in that case, the midday darkness was coming, and then there would be panic.
Hugo took a moment to remember where he was and plan a route; then he navigated carefully to the Deacon and Morvengarde office where he’d placed his order.
He lost his way twice and detoured three times to help others who’d misplaced the familiar streets of the Harbors in the smog, so it took him an hour to get there. The air was thick and dark by the time he opened the door and stepped into the warmth and light of the office to find the same young woman who’d helped him place his order sitting at the desk.
The woman wore fog glasses, but they were pushed up on her forehead as she worked. Hugo pushed his up too and closed the door on the darkness.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Hugo held up the broken box, from which yellow fog was still seeping. “The container is broken, and I can’t put the fog back. How quickly can I get a replacement?”
The woman took the box gingerly and examined it. “We didn’t ship it to you this way, did we?”
“Well, no. It was in my pocket and someone ran into me.”
“I thought as much.” The clerk eyed the miasma leaking sluggishly out and pooling on the office floor, then held out the box. “Take this outside, please, and I’ll write up the order for you.” And she named a price almost as high as the amount Hugo had paid to get the fog in the first place.
He stared, shocked. “I can’t afford that.”
“Then I’m afraid you can’t have another container.”
“But the fog won’t stay in anymore! The city’s drowning in it. These people aren’t accustomed to this sort of fog. They’ll go out of their minds!”
She made a condescending face. “Hardly our fault, as you admit you broke the container yourself.”
He dredged up a memory of the enclosure that had come with the box. “But the paper in the parcel said not to hesitate to contact Deacon and Morvengarde if they—it—you—can be of further assistance!”
“Which you have done. Good on you.” She coughed delicately, then again, but much less daintily. The fog he’d brought in with him was beginning to fill the room.
Hugo stared, then sputtered, “I’ll—I’ll tell them it came from you! I’ll tell the papers, the mayor—”
The clerk shrugged. “We have no liability here. We only sell the fog. It’s up to the buyer to be responsible with it. In fact . . .” She turned to a cabinet behind the desk and took a paper from it. “Yes, here’s
