by Rabia Gale
Take it away, she begged the light, and pitiless and judging, the light did.
Arabella emerged on the other side, gasping for air she did not need. Her feet sank through stone. The steps rippled under her like the waves of the sea. It took several moments to drag herself up them.
At the top, Arabella stretched out both arms, whole and pearly, in front of her. She turned them this way and that. No corruption marred her substance. With a sigh of relief, Arabella turned her attention to the great oaken door, dark with age and banded with iron.
Best to get it over with quickly. Arabella squared her shoulders and let herself fall through the wood.
For an instant, the compressed weight of ages pressed down on her. All the hymns ever sung in this space tugged at her hearing; the myriad tastes of every prayer—salt and sweet and bitter and sour—slid across her tongue as she entered the cathedral itself.
After all the ferocity and fire, Arabella was taken aback to find the place inside was silent and still, shrouded in night. The ceilings vaulted high above, their carvings and paintings hidden from sight. The cracked uneven floor stretched ahead of her down the nave and to the darkened altar at the very end.
Arabella didn’t think it right for a ghost to approach it. She stole down to the right instead, to the Chamber of Saints.
This odd place, with its nooks and corners and angled walls, was full of dark grey statues. Arabella made her way by memory to that of her own patron saint, Margrethe, who watched over maidens and mothers alike.
She stared up at the worn grey statue on its plinth. The stone itself was magic-imbued marble; it glowed softly, limning the saint’s outstretched arms, simple gown, bare feet, and kind features. Margrethe appeared to be reaching down to her, palms out in welcome. Her smile was young and merry, her glimmering eyes ageless and wise.
She seemed to promise sanctuary, comfort, hope. Arabella’s eyes stung and her throat had closed up. She had given so little thought to her patron saint last autumn, picking Margrethe only because the other debutantes did. Margrethe was the acceptable patron for marriageable girls and young matrons, but looking at the depth of kindness in her stone face, Arabella thought what a disservice she had done to both herself and the saint.
With a choked cry, Arabella flung herself down at the foot of the plinth. She huddled there and prayed, only half-articulated, but with fervor.
Trey found her there not long after. She raised her head as his footsteps rang, sharp and quick, in the silent cathedral. When he entered the Chamber, accompanied by three runic lights, he looked around at the statues, right hand raised in a reverent gesture.
His left hand was empty. The sword was gone.
She didn’t ask if he had won. She could tell in the set of his shoulders, the fire still alight in his eyes.
Arabella stayed on the floor, knees up to her chest and her arms tight around them, as Trey approached. He stopped and dangled a small grey bag in front of her, stitched with leaf-green embroidery.
Arabella sat up straight, eyes widening.
Trey squatted, one knee on the floor. They were almost face to face. In his other hand, he held up a wooden counter. The number 13 was scored into it.
A jolt of recognition went through Arabella. “Harry,” she whispered.
“Indeed. The boy got scared when he realized where you had been and what you had done. Do you remember?”
Memories rose up like a tide: Harry’s haggard face, her own anxious sympathy, the sudden blazing idea, the grim determination that followed. The itch of coarse wool against her skin, the heaviness of the cloak on her shoulders. Creeping down the stairs, careful to skip the step that creaked. Easing the back door behind her, easing into the twilight. “Yes!”
“Do you remember the pawnbroker’s name or direction?” Trey queried. “Can you take me?” His posture was taut, poised for action.
Arabella eyed him, wondering if that inner fire was as consuming, as scorching, as it looked from the outside. “Of course, but…”
“But?” His brows drew together.
“Trey, it’s still the middle of the night.”
“So it is!” His brow cleared, but his tone was surprised. And then he gave a cracking yawn, only mostly hidden behind a polite hand.
He badly needed his rest. Arabella felt strangely protective of his wellbeing, laughable since he’d just shown he could handle himself quite fine.
“Come.” She rose to her feet. “The pawnshop will still be there in the morning. Let’s go home.”
He copied her movement, murmuring, “Let’s go home? Not thinking of moving in, are you?”
The solicitous feeling vanished entirely. “As if I have any desire to spend more time than necessary in your cellar.”
“Oh, but it’s such a nice cellar.”
There could be no other reply to his inappropriate levity but dignified silence. Arabella made hers as haughty as she could.
Trey leaned away from her in exaggerated astonishment. “Brr,” he said cheerfully. “It’s gotten chilly in here.”
Jesting in church? He was really, thought Arabella, shaking her head, quite hopeless.
Chapter Five
Trey took a gulp of scalding black coffee, and gave the overcast sky a baleful look. His eyelids felt heavy and gritty.
Morning had come too early again.
It was a good thing he planned to intimidate, because no one would believe that he was anything other than a rogue. He had woken up to Arabella’s inexpertly suppressed impatience filling his entire house. He hadn’t even given himself time to shave, merely thrown on clothes from the disreputable side of his wardrobe. His hair was untidy, his chin stubbled, and no one would mistake the coarse jacket and trousers for anything belonging to a gentleman.
And now he stood under an awning in an undesirable part of town, bitter coffee his only fortification against the biting wind that was winter’s last assault on Lumen. The place behind him styled itself as a bakery, but Trey had eschewed the stale buns and hard cakes he suspected were days old.
“I trust you slept well?” inquired Arabella, all solicitude.
Trey made a noncommittal noise. It was too early for conversation. Not even the shock of cold water on his face during his hurried dressing had cleared his fogged brain.
The ghost at his side, of course, suffered from no such discomforts. She wore a sunny yellow dress this morning, the same color as her front door. A chip hat with blue flowers and yellow ribbons perched on her head. She beamed out at a world that could not see her to appreciate it. The chilly gusts which knifed into him disturbed neither the folds of her skirt nor her happy mood.
“I see that you are one of those people who are always cross before breakfast,” said Arabella kindly. “I won’t bother you until you’ve sorted yourself out.”
She was, Trey suspected, one of those bothersome people who rose with the sun, a smile on their faces, ready to sing with the birds. Saints, he was glad he would never have to live with one.
Once he got Arabella’s spirit out of his house, that was.
He grudgingly admitted that she looked better this morning, glowing a healthy color. Her mangled arm from last night was back to normal. If she looked the slightest bit more faded than yesterday morning, it was no cause for alarm just yet. She’d only been out of her body for less than two days.
It occurred to him that this was the first time he’d ever concerned himself so much with a spirit’s wellbeing. More and more he was finding himself in Hilda’s role.
It didn’t suit him at all. They needed to find another spirit seer to plug the holes the Great Incursion had left in the Phantasm Bureau.
In secret official reports, it was only referred to as an incursion. Such a small, innocuous, and understated word for what could have so easily been a catastrophe for more than just the survivors of the Phantasm Bureau.
He took another swig of coffee. Arabella’s nose wrinkled.
“Don’t like coffee?” Trey i
nquired, eyebrows raised.
“It smells heavenly, but it tastes so horrid.”
After today, he wouldn’t ever again have to share living quarters with someone who didn’t appreciate coffee. The thought cheered him up somewhat. As the fog inside his head cleared, Trey acknowledged that it was, perhaps, time to go on with the day.
He drained the last drops and caught the eye of a serving boy lurking inside the food shop. The child scurried out, took the mug, and hopped right back in, out of the cold. No doubt he thought the customer had a screw loose, standing out in the wind, talking to himself.
Trey checked to make sure he was still in possession of his pocket watch and money pouch. He suspected the denizens of this neighborhood made a little profit on the side from petty larceny.
This foul tangle of streets was known on paper as the Fleet, but popularly referred to as the Fleece in recognition of what its inhabitants did to the innocents who ventured in like so many sheep. Gaming hells, pawnshops, and money lenders all jostled elbows, while more nefarious activities took place in underground cellars: drugs smuggled in from the fallen Goblin Empire; elven girls bought and sold; illegal magical practices, from hexes to necromancy.
Amazing that such a place existed around the skirts of All Saints’. Trey had friends in the Home Office who would have cheerfully watched this whole district burn—and tossed a log or two on the blaze themselves.
How in the world had Arabella Trent got herself mixed up with this place? And what on earth had she given up besides a sapphire ring? She was lucky she hadn’t ended up on a barge down the Teme, into the Channel, and headed for the continent.
The object of his speculation showed no sign that any such misgivings had crossed her mind. But then, this was the girl who rescued stray kittens.
“Still no movement.” Arabella’s gaze was fixed on the shop across the street. It was tucked under its roof, as if hiding from too close an examination. The window glass was smudged and dirty; a mess of grimy objects was on display behind it. The door was thick wood, with one window set, like a malevolent eye, in the middle.
The sign had stayed stubbornly turned to Closed for upwards of half an hour. What was the matter with the pawnbroker? Didn’t he have customers to overcharge and underpay?
The longer Trey stayed here, the higher his chances of turning into an ice block. “I’m going to take a look.”
Arabella glided beside him as he crossed the cobbled street to the shop. The place looked even worse close up. One of the items in the window turned out to be a stuffed crocodile head, sadly falling apart.
“Of all the shady places in this district,” he commented, “and you had to pick the shadiest pawnshop of them all. What were you thinking?”
Arabella locked gazes with the crocodile and gave a delicate shudder. “No one else would do business with me,” she said simply.
“And well they shouldn’t. Anyone can see you’re underage, and completely green.”
“Well,” Arabella addressed the crocodile, “I thought this establishment was at least a bit respectable, since I saw Lord Atwater coming out of it.”
Trey couldn’t stop himself from throwing an incredulous look at her. “What?”
“Lord Atwater,” explained Arabella, “is a Member of Parliament and a friend of Lady Holmstead’s.”
“I know who he is.” Lord Atwater had also been a cabinet minister. He still showed a keen interest in the Internal Affairs division, which oversaw the Phantasm Bureau, of the Foreign Office.
He was also a friend of Trey’s supervisor.
“Atwater has plenty of blunt of his own. Why would he visit a seedy pawnshop in the Fleece? Are you sure about this, Arabella?”
“It was he,” she said, with serene confidence. “You see, I talked to him about Lady Holmstead’s orphanage at Viola’s—that, is Lady Stanhope’s—breakfast two weeks ago.”
Trey couldn’t keep his lips from twitching at the thought of the famously well-mannered MP being talked at by the redoubtable Miss Trent. “How much did you get out of him?”
“Two hundred pounds.” Arabella looked as self-satisfied as a cat.
Trey let out a low whistle of admiration. She flashed him a bright smile, all dimples on charming display. The sight disturbed him more than he would have liked.
No flirting with impressionable debutantes. Back to business, Trey. He rapped on the door.
“Wait!” Arabella lifted her hand. Her gloves matched her cheery dress. “Shouldn’t we decide what you’re going to tell him? You should say that you’re looking for a birthday gift for your sister! And she likes sapphires and you were thinking of jewelry—”
“No one will believe I’m scouring pawnshops for an expensive gift,” said Trey solemnly. “Unless I mean to steal it.”
Arabella examined him. “Your aspect is rather villainous this morning,” she agreed. “You should strive to look more pleasant.”
“Never. Otherwise, I might find myself expected to help any number of chits standing appealingly by the street. One is more than enough for me.” Having heard no answer, Trey knocked again, louder this time.
“But what will you say to get him to give you back my ring?”
“Only that I have come to reclaim your property. I have the token and he should’ve known better than to do business with you in the first place. And if that doesn’t work, I shall glare at him in my scariest way.” Trey tried the door handle. To his surprise, the door opened with a half-hearted tinkle from a lonely bell.
Arabella gave a merry laugh. “I should dearly love to see it. Perhaps I can breathe down his neck till he relents. That sort of thing always unnerves people in books.”
“I shouldn’t encourage you to haunt people, but I’ll make an exception this time.” Trey peered into an interior so gloomy, it looked like the place sunlight went to die.
It was also spectacularly cluttered, rather like the drawing room of an émigré goblin family. Trey edged into the chamber, Arabella drifting in behind him. In spite of his caution, he bumped into a table with slender gilt legs. The china on it rattled alarmingly and a cloud of dust flew up. Trey sneezed.
“Bless you,” said Arabella. She was already halfway across the room, examining a display cabinet entirely full of cross china cats.
Trey turned his head and found himself staring at a bedraggled stuffed owl with glass eyes. “I know how you feel,” he told it. “I’m the same way in the mornings.” The owl didn’t respond.
Arabella leaned over a scarred wooden counter, her eyes narrowed in frowning concentration as she attempted to ring the bell. Her fingers misted through the handle.
Trey threaded his way over to her, past a pedestal bearing a goblin-made tea pot, a worn chair swathed in shawls and lace, and a friendly gathering of brass-bound sea trunks. The tea pot was a surprise—he couldn’t imagine what kind of hardship would induce a goblin to give up so precious a family heirloom.
At the counter, Arabella finally managed to solidify her fingers enough to grasp the handle. Her pleased expression gave away to chagrin when she realized she couldn’t actually lift the thing. Trey bit back a chuckle with difficulty.
“Allow me,” he began, then checked.
There was a faint but unmistakable feel in the air. A chill both gentle and alien caressed his cheek and tingled against his lips.
It was the scent of the Shadow Lands.
“What—?” began Arabella, as protective runes shone around both her and Trey. Trey gestured for silence, Sorrow already in his left hand. He moved around the counter and jerked aside the tattered velvet curtain into a back room.
It wasn’t so much a scent that assaulted him as mingled pressure and temperature. Ice and fire seemed to strike his skin. That alone told him what had happened, but the rigid corpse on the floor, pale and drained, rimmed with hoar, confirmed it.
A ghoul had been here.
Arabella was a warm, anxious presence behind him. “Is it Mr. Gibbs?”
Trey cast a quick probe around the room, detecting no phantasms nor any traps they might’ve left behind. Any portals into the Shadow Lands had long since closed.
There were no traces to follow.
He dropped to his knees beside the corpse, noting the wide staring eyes and fixed grimace. The man had been unlovely in life, with a greasy fringe of hair, bad teeth, and pocked face. Death had not been kinder to him. His skin was shrunken tight against his bones and his limbs were in an inelegant sprawl.
“This the man?” Trey asked Arabella, not looking at her.
“Yes.” She sounded shaken, but she hadn’t lost her senses over it. Good, she wasn’t prone to the vapors.
Trey knew what he would find, but he checked anyway. There was no life left in the man at all. Ghouls were too thorough—and greedy. And even if his spirit had lingered, Trey knew that it would be mute and unresponsive, blank eyes focused on inward horrors it could not escape.
“What did this?” Arabella asked softly.
“A ghoul.” He didn’t add one of the nastiest phantasms in the Shadow Lands. The God-Father knew she’d already had enough horrible experiences from this adventure to give her bad dreams for a while.
Arabella slipped past him, her skirt sparking against his hand. She didn’t seem to notice it, her gaze traveling the shelves and surfaces.
Trey followed the direction of her stare. “Looks like our Mr. Gibbs wasn’t content with just flirting with lawlessness.” He stood and scanned the jars and bottles. What he recognized was all potent, used in foul magic, and strictly forbidden in Vaeland. “Mermaid scales. Pegasus blood. The excise men will have a field day with this.”
None of the contraband was from the Shadow Lands. Trey should’ve been relieved by this, but the sight only increased his tension.
“Bileflower,” Arabella murmured to herself, paler than he had seen her yet. The jar she paused at was small and unlabeled, full of blackish-purple ooze. Darker shapes floated in it.
Trey gave her a sharp look. “Not the kind of thing I’d expect a debutante to know.”
Arabella blinked at him. “Oh. Well, I come from Umbrax, after all.”
