“Too long since I’ve oiled the hinges,” he muttered.
The secret door opened into the back of the shop. Jack steered Ashes skillfully through the building, expositing on the functions of the arcane tools and the locations of several hidden doors as they went.
The first floor functioned as both storefront and concealed living space. Someone entering through the front door would find a cramped room with a check counter and several shelves, on which could be found a few selected samples of the Rehl Company’s handiwork; these were notably shabbier and sparser than the items Ashes had seen in Jack’s workshop. Behind this room was a comfortably appointed sitting room with a weathered table and several neatly collected ledgers, where Jack could negotiate commissioned work; as the only room in the building with a fireplace, it doubled as a living room when the shop was closed. It also sported at least one hidden door, which connected to a kitchen and dining room and a small library. Jack admitted baldly that only two of the books in the last room belonged to him; the others were all William’s and “dry enough to set a fire in your brain.”
From the library they ascended a curving staircase to the second floor, which Ashes recognized quickly: the southerly end was the sitting room with the great window; in the back was the clean room where he’d woken after his misadventure in the sewers. Jack identified it as William’s surgery.
“Avoid it at all costs unless you’re invited,” he warned. “Will’s particular about where he puts things; it’s more than your life’s worth to move anything without permission. And the smell is abominable.”
“Why’ve you got a surgery?”
“For when I need to save foolish young thieves from their poor decisions. Call it a hobby.”
The attic Jack showed him next would have been cramped even if it had been empty, and it was decidedly not empty. The place could only be described as suffocated; even the air seemed reluctant to move around for fear it would get trapped in a tight corner and die there. This state of paralyzing constriction came as a result of the apparatus in the center of the attic; Jack called it the light distillery. It was constructed primarily of glass and iron, twisted into unlikely shapes and complex curves ending in a glass sphere half full of gold-tinted aether.
“Pity it’s so dreary today,” Jack said as they exited the garret. “Otherwise we could stay and watch until we got a bit of light in. It’s worth seeing once or twice, very pretty.”
“Eh?”
“The distillery harvests sunlight.” Jack pointed toward the ceiling. “The apparatus treats the light so it can mix with aether, which we can use for constructs.”
“You said you don’t need liquid light, though,” Ashes pointed out.
“I don’t,” Jack admitted. “But the Guild of Artificers remains blissfully unaware of the fact, and I should like to keep it that way.”
They descended to Jack’s workshop in the basement, which Jack warned was not to be mentioned or hinted at or even thought about very loudly outside the shop. Despite its vast size, it took very little time to explore: Jack flatly refused to let Ashes inspect every Anchor, as some were fragile, others were for sale, and all were expensive. “I’d rather we not tempt you to old habits,” Jack said. “Doubly so when your habits are not particularly old.”
The last stop of the tour was Jack’s second workshop, which he referred to acidly as his “cave of necessary evils.” It was nestled on the first floor, and exploring it took more time than all the rest combined: Jack insisted on explaining the function and proper handling of every tool he used—or, rather, didn’t use. Despite being able to shape light with his bare hands, Jack owned four pairs of Gilder-gloves: heavy, thick things lined with metal, which ostensibly made Artifice available to any dullard with working fingers. He also kept a vast and polished array of alchemical implements for mixing the liquid light he did not need, glass-tipped needles for binding constructs to Anchors, and various eyepieces for use in studying and dissecting constructs. Jack had Ashes try each one on in turn while they studied an old construct fashioned to look like an exotic bird. One lens reduced the bird to multiple streaks of deep red and shocking violet; another made the skin of the construct invisible, so that Ashes could see its fragile and incomplete skeleton; still another let him see thin silvery veins outlined on the construct’s outermost layer. Jack identified these as active aether lines, and pointed out how the thickest lines met at the core of the illusion, forming a dense, twisted knot.
After what felt like several hours, they adjourned to the sitting room upstairs. Raindrops clung to the outside of the great window; the world outside was gray and sodden, but the rain had stopped. The city had grown darker, and Ashes noted with some surprise that it was well into the afternoon.
“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Jack asked. “Even in the rain.” He sat in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the window. “I’ve lived here my whole life. Stepped away from time to time, but she always brings you back. There’s no place like it.”
“Jack?”
The voice came from the hall. Ashes turned to see the newcomer, and the bottom fell out of his stomach.
“Juliana, love,” Jack said. “Come in.”
Ashes had seen Ivorish women. He had even seen beautiful women. He had not realized until this moment that they had all been imitators, frail shadows. He had not seen beauty or grace yet, because he had not seen her.
The lady at the door had smooth and delicate features, as if she had been crafted from glass; chocolate-dark hair, eyes the cool gray of a morning mist. Her skin was full-blooded Ivory; it didn’t gleam, like the Lords and Ladies were said to, but it seemed luminous all the same. She wore a faded lilac dress of extraordinarily modest cut, showing barely more than her neck. He had seen nothing so sensual in his entire life.
Ashes realized he was staring, and could not think why he should stop.
“We missed you for tea,” the Lady said. She set a hand carefully on Jack’s shoulder and pressed her lips softly to his cheek.
“Slipped my mind,” Jack said. His eyes flicked at Ashes.
Juliana straightened and followed Jack’s gaze. Ashes’s head became wobbly and clouded as the woman’s eyes found him. His tongue seemed thick in his mouth.
“You didn’t tell me we had company,” Juliana chided. “You’re making poor hosts of us, Jack! Did you offer him lunch?”
“It’s all right, ma’am,” Ashes said awkwardly. “I—I didn’t notice, really.”
It was quite true. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d had multiple meals in a day. He knew in a vague sense that Denizens ate more than that, but it was like knowing the sea was “rather large.”
“I hope you’ll forgive us all the same,” she said. She smiled apologetically. “My name is Juliana Rehl.”
“Ashes, ma’am.”
“Will you stay for supper?”
“I—ahm—” He glanced at Jack. The Artificer was watching him, but Ashes couldn’t read anything from the man’s stare. Was he supposed to say yes? He ought to get back to Annie’s house. Blimey would be wondering where he was. It would be dark soon; Annie was at the edge of Burroughside, so he needn’t worry about Ravagers, but the city police didn’t take kindly to curfew-breakers with no iron names. And anyway, Ashes wasn’t part of Jack’s company; he was only here for a little while. There was no sense in getting tied up with these people.
“I do insist,” she said, still smiling.
“Yeah, all right,” he said, before his brain caught up with him.
Ashes liked to think he had a good card-player’s face. He was difficult to surprise; even when something shocked him, he could mask his expression with admirable quickness.
When he entered the dining room, he caught his breath, and it was all he could do to keep his jaw from falling open.
Supper was a dirty necessity in Burroughside. Typically it was rotted, maggoty, crumbly, torn, or stolen. Even on good nights, Ashes and Blimey had never eaten well.
In their vocabulary, a feast was any meal with enough bread for both of them to eat.
This was not a feast. This was a festival of food.
Multiple dishes—a bowl of apples, two loaves of bread, a roast ham, turtle soup, and something green and leafy he didn’t recognize—all within reaching distance and filled to bursting. He noticed several plates and, beside them, more silver than a human could possibly use at one meal. Why were there so many forks? The only reasonable conclusion was that they were decorative. Rich folk loved to decorate.
The food was arrayed on a long table of dark, rich wood Ashes had never seen before; it was smooth to the touch, soft as cloth. The chairs, which numbered a full dozen, were made of the same stuff. Ashes found himself running his fingers over it.
“My,” Jack said, surveying the supper. “She must like you. She’s got out the nice silver.” He looked sidelong at Ashes. “Do me a favor and don’t nick any of it, all right?”
Ashes smiled thinly, barely aware of Jack’s joke. Could he eat all of this?
They sat; Ashes found himself to Jack’s left, directly across from Juliana. William had taken up a solitary position two seats away from the rest of the group; Ashes hadn’t noticed him entering, and that had only a little to do with William’s quiet nature. A copper lieutenant could have walked into the room and Ashes would have missed it, with his attention split equally between the glorious supper and the Artificer’s wife.
His eyes flicked around the table, taking note of everyone’s posture and behavior. He decided his best hope here was imitation; Denizens had rules for their language that numbered in the hundreds, so the rules for eating had to be nearly as complex. He straightened his back a little, and folded his hands only half a second after the others.
“Thanks and praise to the Makers for their bounty,” Jack intoned. He had closed his eyes, and everyone else had, too, apparently at some private signal. Ashes stared at them, baffled. Prayer? About food?
“Amen,” Juliana said.
“Thanks and praise to the Faces for their gifts. For ingenuity, for joy.”
“Amen.”
“Thanks and praise to the Kindly Ones, the Queens.” A shadow crossed Jack’s face at these words, and flickered away quickly as it had come.
“Amen.”
Jack opened his eyes and caught Ashes staring. Ashes felt he ought to blush, but he was still too confused.
“Right, then,” Jack said. “Dig in.”
Ashes hesitated, wanting to be sure he wouldn’t make a fool of himself. Jack began eating immediately, as vigorously as if he had not eaten in weeks. Juliana was far more composed, using her knife and one of the innumerable forks to carve her food into manageable bites, chewing each one deliberately before she cut away the next. William, just as deliberately, was carving his food into evenly sized squares, and it didn’t look like he intended to eat until he’d completed the project.
After several agonizing moments, Ashes tore into his food. He kept himself from looking like a savage, but only just.
“Where is young Synder this evening?” William asked as he sawed a portion of his meat into a perfect square. “I would have expected her to burst through solid walls in her haste to meet your new student.”
“Holiday with her parents,” Jack replied between bites. “And a bit of time off to work on her passage project. Our genius won’t be rejoining us for near a month.”
Juliana’s mouth tilted downward, just a little; Ashes would have missed it entirely if he hadn’t been so focused on her face.
“A month of peace?” William looked up from his cutting. “Perhaps the gods of this city are merciful.”
Jack scoffed. “I’m sure you’ll still feel that way in a week, and decidedly won’t be trudging through the house humming dirges because no one’s given you any half-decent riddles.”
William delicately placed a square of meat in his mouth and chewed. Jack smirked.
“What’s a passage project?” Ashes asked.
“Guild of Artificer nonsense,” Jack said. “A waste of my time and hers, but what can you do?” He paused, taking a sip of his wine. “She’s putting together a construct for the Guild to evaluate, to determine whether she can advance to the next level of study. I told her to keep it simple and straightforward, nothing too ostentatious . . .”
William let out a quick breath—Ashes guessed it was what passed for a chuckle by the Wisp’s standards. “That certainly seems the sort of advice she would follow.”
Jack smirked again. “I almost hope she ignores it. Can you imagine? It would be so satisfying to see her shove their whole way of thinking up their pompous”—he glanced at Ashes, and seemed to think very quickly—“noses.”
Ashes snorted, barely covering the sound with his hand. Juliana’s face went tight for just a moment, and she eyed Jack imperiously.
“In any case,” Jack said, as if the air had not abruptly turned tense, “she’s out for some time. And I haven’t mentioned Ashes to her yet—or anyone, in fact. As far as anyone outside this room is concerned, Ashes does not exist.”
William nodded as if this was an entirely expected pronouncement. Juliana looked a little less calm. Her eyes flicked to Ashes; he could have sworn there was concern there, or nervousness, but only for a moment. Her face calmed almost immediately, like she’d put on a mask.
“It’s a pity not to exist,” Juliana said warmly. “Tell us about yourself, Ashes. Where are you from?”
Ashes glanced at Jack, who tilted his head slightly forward. “Burroughside, ma’am.”
“Are you indeed?” she said, with either genuine interest or the best imitation Ashes had ever heard. She gave no sign of distaste or horror. “How long did you live there?”
“Three years,” Ashes said. “Ma’am.”
“What of before that?” she pressed. “Where did you grow up?”
Ashes blinked. “I’m rasa, miss.”
Confusion flickered over Juliana’s face. Jack leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. She retained her composure—no noise, no look of shock—but Ashes could tell he’d surprised her. Had she never heard of rasa?
“And you’re studying Artifice?” she continued, as if she hadn’t missed a beat.
Ashes hesitated, confused by the question.
The Weaver cut in. “He’ll be with us a while.” He smiled, looking Juliana in the eye. Something passed between them, a message Ashes couldn’t interpret. “Any new and interesting stories from you, William? I thirst for entertainment.”
William waited three seconds after he had finished chewing to answer. Ashes made a note of that, in case it was some kind of unspoken requirement. He also noticed that everyone was staring at William as they awaited an answer, and swiftly made one of the bread rolls disappear in his jacket.
“Courtly gossip has struck upon a drought of late,” William said carefully. “It seems most of the relevant scandals have run their course.”
Jack snorted indelicately. “None of the young lords and ladies making dramatic declarations? No one caught carousing in Yson? They can’t go twenty minutes without doing something.”
“It is a slow season,” William replied coolly.
“Come now, William,” Juliana teased. “You have something, or you wouldn’t be teasing us this way.”
William inclined his head. “Lord Edgecombe was absent at Lyonscourt today. It is his third sequential failure to attend.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “That’s interesting, given Ashes and I saw his carriage today.”
“One of his stewards, no doubt. They’re practically heirs. Lord Edgecombe himself has been laid low—my most conservative sources guess he has been ill.” William’s lips tilted upward. “Syphilis, specifically.”
Jack frowned. “With his money? He could afford a witch-favor, even for something that sensitive.”
“I deduced the same.” William rubbed his chin and met Jack’s eyes. “There are fringe theories that he has lost his ring.”
>
Jack nodded calmly, but Ashes sensed the man tense, like pressing down on a spring. There was a light in his eyes. “Has he petitioned the Queens?”
“Quietly indeed, if he has.” William paused in the act of spearing another bite of meat.
Jack grinned at Ashes, whose eyes were traveling between the two men in confused fascination. “I’m afraid we’ve lost the boy, Will.”
William turned to face Ashes. “Lord Edgecombe is one of the High Ivories of Lyonshire.”
Ashes nodded. “I know’m.” Ashes’s encounters with police always ended in bruises, but coppers in Edgecombe’s colors were famously brutal; one had to be very stupid or very desperate to try anything untoward in Lyonshire Harcourt. “Why would it matter if he hasn’t got a ring?”
“Every High Ivory family has a set of glass rings,” Jack explained. “They represent legitimacy. Importance.”
“No Ivory is seen in public without one,” William said.
“But it’s just a ring?”
Jack smirked. “Of course it’s not just a ring, lad. Folk recognize the High Ivories because they can light up a dank alleyway with their faces. That’s Artifice if anything is.”
“Glass is quite a powerful Anchor,” William added. “It has the lowest rate of construct decay. The only substance that can hold more light is gold.”
Juliana’s mouth turned down a fraction of an inch, as though she had something to say. She caught Ashes looking at her, and the expression flickered away as cleanly as if it had never been there.
“The final thought,” William continued, “is that he is being cautious. You recall his pet Artificer, a Mr. Tremaine? He was immolated on Galway Street two nights ago.”
“Sounds as though he was fraternizing with some unsavory people,” Jack said. Ashes saw the man’s eyes flick toward him, but the look only lasted a moment.
“What’s immolated?” Ashes asked.
Juliana spoke in her crisp, clear voice. “I think that will be more than enough talk of that, gentlemen.”
Ashes almost protested out of habit, but a look at Juliana’s face stilled the instinct. The Lady’s expression was streaked with a cold, bottled anger. Her eyes were fixed on Jack.
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