The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  Iris could imagine Egg, the bird prince, squawking about the camp, ownerless.

  “Thank goodness they’re both okay.” After dabbing a tear from her eye, she recalled the last moment she and Granny saw each other. “Jinn, about those strange things Granny said to me before we had her taken home. That I would have kidnapped her if those men hadn’t—”

  He shook his head. “She must have been confused. She was in a human exhibition as a child. Put on display and gawked at for the amusement of the English. What she went through in her childhood, needless to say, would have been traumatic. Sometimes you get details mixed up when you remember traumatic experiences.”

  “No, something’s not right about this,” Iris insisted. “There’s something she knows that I don’t.” She put her hand to her heart, trying to find the right words. “Something about me.”

  “That you were once a kidnapper?” Jinn shook her head. “Iris—”

  “I’m over fifty years old at least!” Iris reminded him. “Isn’t anything possible?”

  Bellerose’s guard had known her too. She’d called Iris “Isoke.” There was much more to her mystery than she realized.

  “Shadows of the past…,” Jinn whispered.

  “More like demons.” Placing both feet on her bed, she drew up her knees again.

  “Enough.” Jinn gripped her shoulder. “If you start worrying like that, you won’t be able to stop, you know that. Just look at what’s right in front of you. The pieces will fall into place.”

  But what was in front of Jinn? An immortal witch? A monster?

  “Jinn…” She chose her words carefully. “Aren’t you… Aren’t you scared of me? Everything that I am… Everything that I could be. Everything you’ve found out. Doesn’t it scare you even a little bit?”

  “Not at all,” Jinn answered without skipping a beat. “You’re Iris. That’s enough for me. I’ll stay right here until it’s enough for you.”

  Her chest began to swell with so much emotion, it almost overtook her. For one fleeting moment, she wanted to fall into his arms and cry. Instead, she lifted her head. And upon seeing his strength, his honesty, she gave him an exhausted smile.

  Jinn looked at the clock behind him. “It’s almost six. I’ll bet the other teams are already at Wilton’s. We need to go. But before that, there’s something I need to pass along to you.”

  Iris tilted her head, confused. “Pass along?”

  Jinn flicked his head at the white box on her bed. “Granny’s parting gift. She still wants you to have it.” Jinn must have noticed the hitch in Iris’s inhale because he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “And there’s also a message she told me to give you.”

  Iris held her breath, waiting.

  “ ‘No matter what happened in the past and no matter what will happen in the future, I will always love you.’ That’s what she said.”

  Jinn looked deeply into her eyes, the hand on her shoulder providing a warmth that seemed to come from two people: both himself and the woman she still considered to be her closest friend. She breathed in deeply, letting the revelation of it sink into her bones.

  Inside the box was a beautiful new set of clothes. Hand-sewn with experience and love. Worth thousands more than what she could have ever gotten in any stupid dress shop.

  “Granny… thank you,” she whispered, placing her hand on his, just for a moment, before a twitch of his fingers sent a wave of fluttering embarrassment through her.

  “I’ll save it for later,” she said. There was no telling what was awaiting her. She didn’t want to ruin Granny’s hard work. “Let’s wake up Max and go.”

  To Wilton’s Music Hall.

  21

  TEAM IRIS AND TEAM HAWKINS—as Irisinwardly called his band of three—passed the old man at the entrance, who ushered them in with a bow. The crowd Iris had seen that morning was gone. The Committee’s doing?

  Much smaller than Astley’s, Wilton’s still thrilled with a respectable amount of red velvet seats and a brass-colored balcony that stretched along the rectangular space. The sunset-orange lighting added a mystic feel to the thin columns and the painted walls.

  Iris had her bolero blades in a large embroidered work bag Cherice had “picked up” for her on their way back to the club. She held it close to her, dreading the moment when she’d have to loosen the cord strings. Max had entered first—which is why a fight erupted immediately once he spotted Barry Bately at the front of the hall, leaning against a seat and smoking a cigarette.

  “Bately,” Max said, his fists ready. “So it’s true. You really are in this mess…”

  Just before leaving Club Uriel, Adam had given them names to memorize. Important information before the first round. But some of the names had caused a shock:

  Adam Temple (England)

  Maximo Morales, Iris Marlow, Jinn

  Riccardo Benini (I taly)

  Freddy Frasier, Blake Sanders, Kyle Leakes

  Boris Bosch (Germany)

  Lawrence Hawkins, Jacob Josefiub, Cherice Winterbottom

  Gerolt Van der Ven (Belgium)

  Gram, Jacques

  Albert Cortez (Spain)

  Mary White, Henry Whittle, Lucille Bouffant

  Violet Bellerose (France)

  Rin, Martin Leclaire, Robert Staunch

  Luis Cordiero (Portugal)

  Barry Bately, Torrence Cairnes, Doug Waters

  “Whittle?” Max had said, rushing over. “Of the Whittle’s Whittles?”

  On the back was written details of their abilities.

  But another name had turned Max’s expression dark. “Bately. That bastard would sell his own sister to the highest bidder. Iris—” Max was very serious. “Be careful of him.”

  And now there Bately stood inside the music hall, lazily tilting his head to the side and running a hand over his shaved brown head. He gave a salute. “So you’ve joined the freak show too. Good to see you, mate. Cheers!”

  Max and Cherice started barreling toward him.

  “Stop!” Iris caught them by the crooks of their arms. Every time Bately spoke, it caused her heart to hammer harder against her chest. And Bately seemed to know it. He relished it.

  “Why?” Hawkins stalked down the center aisle as Jacob hung back, watching his friends warily. “Whatever beating he gets, he deserves.”

  The mercenary chuckled. “Still mad I used my mojo on you and Jake a while ago, eh?”

  “You know I’m mad because of more than that.”

  “Aye, shaddap,” came a slow, deep voice next to Bately. “Show’s about to start.”

  A man in a purple hat with sagging jowls sat next to Bately’s empty seat, his cigarette balanced upon his lips. The Exploding Man.

  “What kind of mad reunion is this?” Iris said as an exasperated laugh escaped her lips.

  A mad one, for sure: leaning against the leftmost wall was the girl from the auction house. Iris’s blood froze at the sight of her yellow veil, her black coat. Her rivers of braids.

  Madame Bellerose’s guard. She had survived the fire. Iris’s throat tightened, and she wasn’t sure if it was in relief or fear.

  “Now, now,” said the doorman, who walked in after them. “There will be no fighting here at Wilton’s Music Hall. Not without dire consequences.”

  The old doorman was an employee of Club Uriel. He had to be, based on his wicked, knowing smile. “Take your seat, take your seat, and wait for the show to begin.”

  Two men identically dressed like detectives strode into the hall and took their seats in unison, completely in sync right down to crossing their legs. Iris’s head was starting to ache.

  Stretching out his neck, Max took a seat to the right, several rows behind Bately, and didn’t take his eyes off his old acquaintance who had betrayed them and caused Chadwick’s death. Cherice’s little body shook as she sat down next to Hawkins and Jacob with a huff.

  But Iris kept her eyes on Bellerose’s guard.

  “Come,” Jinn touched the s
mall of her back and went to sit next to Max. In her aisle seat, Iris tore her eyes away from the girl and scoped out the rest of the hall.

  Near the very back, a cigarette smoked between a man’s long, spindly fingers, but because he kept his head downturned, Iris couldn’t see his face. His stringy gray hair mopped his shoulders from underneath a black top hat. His pale, frigid-looking hands peeked out from his long, dark gray jacket, which he kept buttoned to the very top of its lapels. If it weren’t for the cigarette still sturdily in his grasp, Iris would have thought he was sleeping. Or dead. Perhaps undead if his pallor was any indication.

  Next to him was a man of Iris’s skin tone, but he looked to be a priest. A priest? Involved in this insanity? There wasn’t any end to the surprises. She could tell by his white collar and black robes that he was Catholic. She could see only the side of his face—a side riddled with scars.

  White collar and black robes. Iris flashed back to the man who’d been shot earlier that day at Club Uriel… and the figure in black robes and a white collar who’d disappeared behind the doorframe after shooting him.

  She shivered. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

  “Mr. Whittle, it seems that we’re the last team to arrive.”

  Whittle? Iris whipped around and found a fidgety blond girl who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen standing next to the boy Iris had seen at Whittle’s toy shop.

  “Oi.” Max couldn’t nudge her as Jinn was sitting between them. But he’d gotten Iris’s attention nonetheless. “Henry Whittle, right?”

  Light brown hair. Silver eyeglasses. Newsboy cap. Surly expression. It was him—the toymaker’s grandson and heir to the Whittles’ debt. Iris could guess why the cash prize would be appealing to him, but such a young boy taking part in this tournament… Her stomach churned.

  But worse still was seeing the old woman behind him.

  “Goodness me, everyone’s looking!” The old woman appeared thrilled by that, though she could barely straighten her back to see the rest of them through her clouded brown eyes. After a series of coughs, she brushed back a few strands of gray hair and turned to the young girl. “Mary, my bag.”

  Mary seemed to have forgotten she was carrying a small burlap sack. The sound of her name jolted her back from the sights of the music hall.

  “Oh, uh…” Mary sounded as bashful as she looked, squirming and staring at her feet. Her French braid stretched down her back, tied in a blue ribbon. “I-I’ll hold on to it for now.” With how tightly her hands gripped the bag to keep from trembling, her decision wasn’t a surprise.

  As the final, strange team took their seats, Iris turned to Jinn. “What do you think?”

  But Jinn didn’t respond. Instead, he was staring oddly at the man with stringy gray hair, the man who seemed all too peacefully unaware of or uninterested in anyone’s presence. Jinn stared at the cigarette in his hands and swallowed a sudden, deep breath before shaking his head.

  “No,” Jinn whispered to himself mysteriously, shaking his head before concentrating on the stage. “It couldn’t be.” He didn’t elaborate.

  Moments after all teams were settled, the curtains spread apart, giving way to an explosion of white smoke and the earsplitting shriek of a woman in terror. It gave the group a start, though Max seemed thrilled, leaning over his knees with a big grin, awaiting the spectacle. Maybe a bit of theater was needed to ease the mounting tension.

  Once the smoke cleared, a woman with loose blond hair in a yellow dress appeared before them, lying woefully on the stage with the back of her hand pressed against her forehead.

  For a moment, it seemed like the woman had “died.” But gradually, with gentle movements, she began to stir, staring at her rosy hands in wonder.

  “I, fair Alice, who thought I was not long for this world, have escaped the clutches of death!” The woman felt her heartbeat. “I am alive! What is this mercy that has rescued me from the ferry headed for the underworld?”

  “Her acting’s as bad as ours.” Iris smirked, nudging Jinn in the ribs. “Remember that ‘Bolero of Blades’ script Coolie scrapped?”

  Jinn grimaced. “I try not to.”

  “I kind of had fun improvising it with Max the other day, though.”

  “What?” Max and Jinn both said at the same time but for different reasons. Max seemed to perk up at the sound of his name even if he hadn’t heard the context while Jinn responded to Iris’s offhand remark with an awkwardly stiff expression.

  “Shush.” From her seat behind Max, Cherice put a finger to her lips. “Quit the chatter.” She punched Iris in the shoulder a little too hard to get the message across.

  “I said, what is this mercy that has rescued me?” The actress looked annoyed. Iris couldn’t imagine she was part of the club or the Committee. The poor thing looked like every other struggling actress in the city, taking whatever role she could get. Iris hoped they paid her a pretty penny to be part of this terrible show.

  The sound of thunder. Iris knew from stage experience that someone in the fly rails was shaking a thin sheet of metal to produce the sound. A trapdoor on the stage opened and, rising out of the black square hole in the floor—

  Iris’s blood ran cold.

  “It’s him,” she whispered, just as Jinn’s and Max’s bodies tensed next to her.

  Fool.

  Jinn’s hand instinctively reached for the brown sack he’d placed on the floor at his feet, the sack Iris knew carried his weapons. But she touched his arm to stop him. Fool didn’t seem interested in any kind of mayhem, at least not yet. The actress wasn’t at all stirred by his presence. He was part of the play. The man had kept his mask, top hat, and black cloak, so Iris could only assume that he was playing the role of himself.

  Then again, isn’t this all theater? Iris asked herself as the stage settled and Fool bowed deeply to his scant audience.

  Fool’s harlequin smile flashed dangerously underneath the gold lighting.

  “Was it a mercy, my dear Alice?” Fool spoke in his usual musical tone, always on the verge of laughter. “But then that would suggest that such a thing as mercy exists in this cruel modern world of power and hubris. No, Alice, what saved you was fate.”

  The actress gasped too loudly, as if she was afraid the audience couldn’t hear her. She was clearly new at this. “Fate? But who are you, dear sir?”

  “I am Fool.” He introduced himself with another bow, much like he did the night the Sparrow twins attacked Iris, Max, and Jinn. “And you, my dear little rabbit, are chosen.”

  Well, he was a better actor than she was at any rate. Perhaps because he wasn’t acting.

  It was then that the theater’s fly rail system sprang to life. Another explosion of white smoke. Then, with the combined workings of ropes and sandbags, the actress was soaring through the air, screaming in both terror and joy. Iris caught glimpses of the stagehands holding the ropes off to the side behind the drawn curtains.

  “What is this?” the actress cried. “I can fly! But how is such a thing possible?”

  “Of course it is possible, young Alice. Were you not at the South Kensington Exhibition on June the second, ten years past? Were you not changed by the mystical explosion that transformed others? Of course you can fly, Alice. You were chosen for a grand destiny.”

  The ropes set the actress down, and after unhooking herself, she collapsed at Fool’s feet. “Oh, the mysterious explosion that wrought such a terrible destiny upon me! Oh, the sorrowful decision I made that day to visit the fair, the day that changed my fate forever!”

  Fool crouched down next to her, lifting her face up with a white-gloved finger. “Not terrible, my dear, but glorious. For with your new abilities, you, who’ve been poor and destitute since you were born, now have a chance to begin a new chapter in your life—one of wealth and fortune. But—” he added upon seeing signs of hope on the actress’s face. “You can only do so if you participate in the game.”

  The actress blinked innocently. “Game?”r />
  “The Tournament of Freaks.”

  From the fly rails dropped seven majestic banners. Each looked like a coat of arms, but each bore its own color and had its own animal caged within the heraldic shield.

  A wolf on a black banner.

  A boar on a violet banner.

  A stag on a green banner.

  A swan on a gold banner.

  A bear on an orange banner.

  A chameleon on a blue banner.

  And a ram on a blood-red banner. The same ram drawn upon the plaque in Iris’s room.

  “Under one of these seven banners must you fight if you are to claim your prize of unbridled riches.” Fool swept his arms across the stage. “Each banner represents a Patron from the esteemed Club Uriel. And you will be their champions. Seven teams of, at the most, three in number. Three rounds in which you will battle for supremacy. The winners of the first two rounds will receive an irreplaceable advantage for the third, after which only one winner will emerge. Whichever team wins the tournament will receive riches that will last them a lifetime. Simple, yes?”

  The actress stood and glanced around the stage, taking in the banners with what was supposed to be an expression of horror and awe but to Iris looked more like constipation. “But what are the rules of this strange game?”

  “Rules?” With two strides of his long spider legs, Fool leaned into the actress, lowering himself to her eye level before holding up his fingers. “There are but three.”

  This is what Iris had been waiting for. She listened carefully.

  “Rule one: The battles to be fought between the teams are to take place within the jurisdictions chosen by the Patrons. In the meantime, champions are not to attempt to leave the city of London of their own volition until the game is complete. Any attempt to flee the game will result in very disastrous consequences.”

  Iris shivered, getting his message loud and clear. Well, Coolie’s Astley run was a month. After that, they were heading back down to continental Europe. Iris hoped the tournament would finish and she could learn the truth about herself before Granny was taken from her.