The Facefaker's Game

by Chandler J. Birch

  Ashes read the move in the twitch of the man’s muscles. He was quick enough to get away, probably, but even now the glass ring made his body treacherous. He didn’t dare trust it. And knives were useless at a distance. Ragged would have to get very close—

  It all went through his head in a flicker. Ashes leaned forward and twisted at the waist, and Ragged’s knife went through his shoulder. The metal bit into him, pain bright and sharp as a lit match in a lightless room. The cloud around his mind broke for just a moment.

  “I am Mr. bloody Smoke,” he snarled, and lunged forward. He caught Ragged’s hand with both of his and, unthinking, shoved the man’s fingers into his mouth. He felt the cool glass against his teeth, and clenched his jaw.

  Ragged screamed. Warm blood burst into Ashes’s mouth, and shards of glass. The jagged edges cut his mouth, his tongue. Ragged yanked his hand back, howling, swearing: a wretched gash lay across his ring finger, halfway through to the bone. Ashes spat a bloody glob on the floor and smiled widely, letting the dawn light dance over his red smile.

  “Am I still entertaining?”

  “I’ll kill you—”

  Jack rose up behind the man, grabbed him by the throat, and threw him to the ground. Ragged thrashed briefly, and the Weaver lay a foot heavily on his chest.

  “You know it’s possible,” Jack said in a low growl, “to kick someone’s skull hard enough that their brain bursts? Like an overripe plum. So I’m going to recommend that you act very, very nice to me.”

  “I will see you gutted like a pig,” Ragged swore.

  Jack looked at him judiciously, then pulled a clear glass phial from within his jacket. This he dropped to the ground, where the glass shattered. Clear liquid splashed on Ragged’s face. The man started screaming again, clawing at Jack’s leg with both his hands, heedless of the bloody mess his finger had become.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Jack said levelly.

  Ragged stopped thrashing. He lay perfectly still.

  “Face of Kindness,” Ashes said. “You killed him.”

  Jack laughed harshly. “I doubt it, unless he’s got quite an obscure allergy. Very swift, very localized anesthetic. He’ll wake in a few hours with perhaps the most terrific headache of his life.”

  Ashes nodded woozily. With the haze of Ragged’s ring gone, he was becoming much more aware of the blood seeping out of his shoulder, and the bruises and cuts he’d earned tonight.

  “Glad you cottoned to those clues I was throwing out,” Jack said. “Took your bloody time about it, though.”

  “You couldn’t have just told me?”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me,” Jack said plainly. “Hell, you’d’ve seen some kind of trap and run off.”

  Ashes scowled, and failed to find a counterargument; most of his mental processes seemed to be rusting over with every passing moment. “What’ll we do with him?” he asked.

  “Lord Trevilian’s police will be delighted to take him under their roof, I expect,” Jack said, nudging Ragged’s unconscious body to make certain the man was asleep. “Particularly since he’ll have so many letters recommending him so highly. His father’s will bear quite a lot of weight.”

  Ashes looked at him quizzically. Jack gave a wicked smile. “The Ivory Lords are expressly forbidden from interfering in the business of other districts. Installing your son as governor in the next neighborhood over would be frowned upon. Severely.”

  Ashes looked at the sleeping form of Mr. Ragged, and imagined him spending the rest of his days in a cell. He nodded, unsmiling. “Good.”

  They left Ragged House an hour later. Jasin hobbled along beside them. She was hardly recognizable, covered as she was in bruises, cuts, and burns. The most noticeable difference was in her demeanor. She moved slowly, but her eyes never stopped flicking from side to side. The brazen girl who’d defied Mr. Ragged was long gone. Ragged had removed her, with almost surgical skill, in less than two days’ time.

  Mr. Ragged was even more unrecognizable. Ashes had colored the man’s face a thick shade of brown, torn and shredded his fine clothing, and Stitched horrendous-looking scars and welts over every visible portion of his body. It was a necessary lie; he didn’t dare let Burroughside see Ragged helpless. They would kill him, and the Ivories would not take the offense lightly. Better to avoid the whole thing.

  That was how Ashes found himself helping Jack carry Ragged through the streets like a tragic martyr, with Mr. Smoke’s most vocal supporter limping quietly beside him. Ashes couldn’t focus on either fact. He couldn’t even bring himself to care about the merciless flashes of pain that accompanied his every step.

  Blimey had not been in Ragged House. They had searched it twice over, looked in every room, opened every door and cabinet and closet. Jack had looked it over with his seeing-stone, and found no hidden passages or false walls. He had admitted, too, that the architecture of Ragged House didn’t lend itself to the intricacies his shop made use of.

  It hadn’t come as a surprise. The truth had struck Ashes well before they’d found Jasin: Ragged hadn’t known Mr. Smoke’s real identity until Ashes arrived on his doorstep. He hadn’t tracked Blimey down, or captured him. His friend was simply gone.

  Vanished, he thought bitterly.

  It was a small comfort to think that Ragged would rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life. Even Lord Edgecombe’s funds couldn’t prevent that, so long as Lord Trevilian found out about it first. The Lord Premier’s judgment would take priority. Courtesy of the documents Jack had tucked in his coat pocket, Ragged’s secret would soon see him to the inside of a tightly barred cell. Ashes could feel pride, once he stopped feeling ashamed.

  They were halfway to Lyonshire when Jasin stopped and looked at them. “I’ll be going now.” Her voice was raw and cracked.

  Ashes nodded. “Mr. Smoke told me he’s—he’s sorry for what happened to you,” Ashes told her. “Really sorry.”

  Jasin met his eyes and smiled weakly. “Course he is. He’s sorry for lots of things, I reckon. Sorry he involved us. Sorry we got caught. Sorry some of us got hurt.”

  “All those things,” Ashes said. “I think he—he wishes he could’ve done it different. Better.”

  “Everybody does, eventually.” Jasin shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll blub awhile. But . . . well, there’s nothing comes for free, is there? Tell him that. When you see him.” She stepped forward and gave him an awkward, unexpected hug. Surprised, Ashes hugged her back. After a moment, she released him, and limped away without looking back.

  “You found yourself quite a disciple, Ashes,” Jack said.

  Ashes rounded on him, something monstrous rising up in his chest. “Don’t,” he snarled. “Don’t joke about her.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Well—good,” Ashes said. The girl had already disappeared into the twisting, slimy maze of ruinous streets. Burroughside had taken her back. “She deserved better.”

  Jack shrugged. “Perhaps. But she didn’t seem disappointed to me.”

  The Weaver and his apprentice brought Hiram Ragged to the Lyonshire police and left him there, after explaining how they’d found him drunk and babbling in the gutters that morning on the way to their work. The police had no reason to disbelieve, and wouldn’t, until the construct they had foisted on him dissipated—revealing the face of Burroughside’s governor and a pile of solicitations, debts, blackmail, and incriminating documents in his pockets, all marked with Lord Edgecombe’s personal seal. They must have thought themselves very clever.

  Their construct did not fool the woman standing across the street. Lord Edgecombe had sent her the moment he realized the whelp had escaped. As insurance, he had said. A precaution.

  She had not needed to clarify his meaning.

  When the Artificer and the boy were out of sight, she approached the watch-house boldly and entered by the front door. The man at the desk inside recognized her immediately.

  “Madam,” he said, leaping to his feet and snapping
out a hasty salute. “Is there anything—?”

  “No,” she said curtly. “Be about your business.”

  The man obeyed with admirable swiftness. She did not smile—though it was tempting—and strode briskly toward the holding cells.

  Hiram Ragged, the most significant in a long string of her master’s youthful indiscretions, lay motionless on the stone floor of a cell. She did not have the patience to let him wake gently. She reached through the bars and slapped him.

  Ragged’s eyes opened slowly. He sat up.

  “So he sent you,” he said.

  “Your father is a man of his word,” she murmured. “These days, at least.”

  “My efforts did not sway him, then.”

  “Is your memory clouded, Hiram? I seem to recall him saying the only way to atone for your brothers’ blood was to succeed in this.”

  “I needed more time,” Hiram said. “Better resources. Better opportunities.”

  “Luxuries,” the woman spat. “Advantages you did not earn.”

  “I earned them!”

  “Slaughtering your kin when they are hardly old enough to walk does not constitute earning, Hiram,” she said venomously. “Would that one of them had lived, instead of you.”

  “They were nothing,” Ragged snarled, his eyes going wild. “I should have grown up in that house. I proved it. I even fooled you.”

  “No longer,” she said. “You cost milord two heirs. I will not pretend to be disappointed that this task fell to me.”

  She left a minute later, her lord’s letters stowed safely in her coat. Ragged screamed and swore at her from his cell, though she paid him no mind. His screams stopped all at once. By the time she reached the door, Hiram Ragged was dead.

  OH. Hello.”

  “Hello, Syn,” Ashes said, settling onto the bench beside her.

  She gave no further response, but the construct in front of her—a delicate crystalline swan the size of Ashes’s hand—began to flux brighter, and the light around Synder took on a gray tinge.

  “Syn,” Ashes began, “look, I don’t know how to start this, but I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve snapped at you.”

  The miniature swan flickered, turning briefly red. “You’re not wrong,” Synder said, voice tight.

  “I was just . . .” Ashes swallowed. “Look, I don’t have a good excuse. And I’m sorry.”

  Synder said nothing as she Wove more light into the construct. Ashes bit his tongue, uncertain if he should press on.

  A minute passed. Two. The swan under Synder’s fingers became more defined and detailed.

  Synder felt no burden to continue the conversation, then. “I need to ask you something,” Ashes said.

  “I thought you might,” Synder said softly.

  “It’s about Blimey. He’s gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “That’s because I’m not,” Synder said. “He told me.”

  Anger ignited in Ashes’s chest. “And you didn’t think to tell me?” he said, voice tight.

  “I came to tell you right away,” Synder said coolly. “But, if I recall, you didn’t want me to say another word. I’d said enough, apparently.”

  The hot anger went out in an instant, replaced with the feeling of ice in his belly. “You were trying to tell me then.”

  “Correct,” Synder said.

  “Did you try to stop him?”

  “He was already gone by the time I found out,” Synder said. “I went to Annie’s that night to talk to him. About what you’d said, about what I’d said. I didn’t want to get between you.”

  “Then how—”

  “He left a note,” Synder went on, sliding a folded slip of paper out of her pocket. “Two of them, actually. One for me, one for you.”

  She handed it to him. It was torn at the edges. Blimey must have ripped it out of one of his books. Ashes’s hunched over it as he laid it flat against the table. He mouthed the words silently to himself.

  Ashes,

  I’m sorry to tell you this way, but I didn’t think I’d be able to do it in person. I’m leaving.

  I don’t want you to think it’s because I’m angry. I’m not—well, I am a little. But that’s not why. I’ve discovered something about myself. Something important, I think. I want to learn more about it, and I can’t do that here.

  You kept me safe when no one else could, or would. Thank you for that.

  Blimey

  Ashes bit his lip.

  “Have you read this?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” Synder said. “It’s private.”

  “Did he tell you anything? Why he left?”

  “Nothing at all specific,” Synder said, pursing her lips. “That he’d found something out and wanted to know more.”

  “I’ve got to—”

  “No, you haven’t got to do anything,” Synder said firmly. She set the construct on the worktable and bound it to one of the temporary Anchors. “I don’t think he wants to be followed, Ashes. He’s clever enough to cover his tracks, too. Annie didn’t even know that he’d left.” She looked at him ruefully. “And Teranis isn’t small.”

  Ashes’s jaw clenched. “He should’ve stayed. Should’ve talked with me about it.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Synder said. “You don’t know him like you think you do, Ashes.”

  Ashes’s cheeks grew hot. “I—”

  “I’m not trying to insult you,” she said wearily. “I’m not even trying to say that you mistreated him. You sacrificed for Nathaniel. You were his friend when he needed it. But—I think he was tired of being told he wasn’t allowed to do anything. You weren’t the only ambitious one living in Annie’s basement, you know?”

  “So you’re saying you think he should’ve left,” Ashes said. His words were clipped, curt.

  “No,” she said. “Not necessarily. I think he’s in danger outside. I think there’s a chance he could get hurt. But . . . I understand why he left. I understand why he would want to test himself without you being there to catch him.”

  Ashes looked away from her. He felt betrayed. Misunderstood. Blimey couldn’t survive out in the world; that was why Ashes took him in in the first place.

  “He’s more capable than you give him credit for,” Synder said gently. “You’ll be surprised.”

  No I won’t, Ashes thought, but instead he nodded. “Eh,” he said. “Maybe I will be.”

  They both looked up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later Candlestick Jack swept into the workshop, looking as handsome and confident as ever. He showed no sign of having fought off a stonebreed. The first stop he and Ashes had made on the way home had been to a witch on Rasping Way, whom Jack had visited before. The crone’s fees had been just as absurd as Jack predicted, but the Weaver paid it without blinking. Ashes’s shoulder itched fiercely, and his legs searched eagerly for ways to betray him, but that was the worst of it.

  “Evening, Jack,” Synder said brightly. “I hear you’ve been having adventures without me. I’m pretty sure that’s a breach of contract.”

  Jack lifted an eyebrow. “I’m sure we’ll find time to address that later. Aren’t you behind deadline for that little bird?”

  “I would be if I Wove as slowly as you do.”

  “Ha very ha,” Jack said. His eyes fell on Ashes. In the months Ashes had known him, the Artificer had never looked so solemn. “Ashes, I think I owe you a drink. A drink and a long talk.”

  “If you have questions, now’s the time.” Jack set two beers at the table, then seated himself directly opposite Ashes. He looked remarkably relaxed. Ashes, for his part, felt remarkably small here, surrounded by surly men whose primary mode of communication seemed to be subvocal grunts. The Iron Barrel was sparsely populated at this hour of the night, and the people sitting here seemed more than content to keep themselves to themselves.

  “When did you figure it out?” Ashes asked. “About me. And the . . . wh
at I can do.”

  “Wrong question,” Jack said. “I figured it out when you told Ragged to go to hell and near bit his finger off. But I’ve suspected it ever since you beat me at cards.”

  Ashes stared at him flatly. “You figured I had magic that hasn’t been seen in centuries because I beat you at cards?” he asked quietly.

  “I’ve never really struggled with self-esteem,” Jack said with a wink. “Nothing short of eldritch power can keep me off my game.”

  Ashes’s brow furrowed. “But I could Stitch without being—” He paused. “You bastard. You tuned me that first day, didn’t you? You Stitched my face and it tuned me.”

  “Guilty,” Jack admitted. “Sloppy of me, if I wanted to make certain you were a Glamourist, but I couldn’t afford to let you think I’d swindled you somehow. You needed to believe you were an Artificer.”

  “Why’d you keep it a secret from me?”

  Jack took a slow drink. “Before I answer that, there’re things you’ve got to understand about Artifice. About the Artisans.” Jack gazed into his cup for a moment, as if staring into a magic mirror. At last, he said, “Glamour’s old magic, lad. Older and more powerful than what I can do on my best day. But it’s also . . . mysterious. Tricky. It’s difficult to nail down, because—”

  “Because it’s mind magic,” Ashes interrupted.

  Jack’s eyebrow peaked. “Have you been cheating?”

  “It was something Synder said a while ago,” Ashes said. “Artifice isn’t just about light. Elsewise, why would Stitchers and Weavers be any different? They don’t just change light. They’re changing how people see the world. Weaving’s the obvious one, just putting light in different places so it looks changed. Like putting a mask on. Stitching changes—I think Stitching changes you, only it’s not real. It just looks like you’re manipulating the light.” Ashes bit his lip. “And the only other way I could think to change the way something looks is to change the way people see it.”