The Shattered City

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Oh, aye. They were sentinels. This was their task — to wait and watch, and be there to rescue their beloved King from the jaws of the seven hells.

  Regardless whether he wanted their help.

  Ashiol sat up high in the wing, legs dangling from the struts that crossed over the stage. From here, he could see every piece of scenery, every scurrying stagehand, and even half the faces of the audience, if he craned his neck. A good position, and one he could leap from at any moment, should the need arise.

  Also, the ceiling above him here was wood, not mirror, which meant he didn’t have to scratch his own skin off to get away from it. ‘I gave you an actual ticket,’ said Poet, amused as he joined him on the wooden strut.

  ‘Seats are too comfortable,’ Ashiol said shortly.

  ‘And besides, you’re hiding.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘I’m not judging you, kitten. As long as you watch my show, I’m satisfied.’

  ‘Well, as long as you’re satisfied.’ Ashiol was bored with the banter. ‘Why are we here, Poet?’

  ‘So I can show off my lambs, of course.’ Poet placed one finger to his lips. ‘The rest is a surprise for you all.’

  Ashiol peered out at the audience. He had a fine view from here of Livilla and Warlord, sitting in a formal box and not speaking to each other. He could practically feel the cold from where he was. ‘Because we all deal so well with surprises.’

  Delphine had chosen the wrong frock for the theatre. It was a fine thing to wear while standing upright, but it slid in all the wrong directions as soon as she was seated. The neckline flopped wrongly, and she had to keep wriggling to stop it completely exposing her breasts.

  Also, the boots she had chosen specifically to hide her knives in were dreadfully uncomfortable. There had been no way to bring her swords, as she refused flat out to wear that ugly brown cloak to the theatre. Macready had helped her conceal them nearby — though he disliked that she wasn’t wearing them.

  Delphine shifted back and forth, not really paying attention to the tumblers and columbines. She had seen it all before. She wanted to walk out of here, taking Rhian with her. No good could come of this.

  Every lamp guttered and went out, making it as dark as the Shambles. Delphine reached out to take Macready’s hand, then remembered they should be battle-ready, and reached down to take hold of her knife hilts instead.

  ‘It’s part of the show,’ Rhian said in a barely perceptible whisper.

  Delphine did not let go of her blades.

  The whispers started. Creepy whispers, children imitating animal noises. Cats, mice, hounds, birds, more predatory beasts. Delphine shivered. The whispers were everywhere. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she became aware of shapes slithering and creeping through the audience, heading for the stage.

  ‘Mesdames, demoiselles, seigneurs,’ said a rich voice, bursting out of the blackness. ‘Pray let me introduce the Bestialia Cabaret!’

  The lamps flared and were lit again in an instant. How had he done that, Poet or the Orphan Princel or whatever he called himself? Had he used animor, or was it a stage trick?

  The stage was crawling with children. They were trained dancers; you could see it in the way they held themselves, in the awful accuracy of their animalistic poses. But children.

  Delphine turned her head, as Rhian and Macready reacted in the same moment to what they saw on stage. ‘What is it?’ she asked in an undertone.

  ‘They are the future,’ said Rhian.

  ‘Poor bastards,’ Macready added.

  Then the song started, building up to a mighty chorus. It seemed familiar in that nagging way of children’s rhymes, as if Delphine had been hearing it for days already. Not that she paid much attention to skipping chants, or children in general.

  She did, however, pay attention when the theatre shook for the first time; the ground was quaking under their feet. ‘What the hells is that?’

  ‘It’s the song,’ said Macready in a grim voice. ‘Feel it?’

  Every time the children’s voices came together, the theatre shook in response. The audience was beginning to notice, hissing and whispering in alarm, but the children’s chorus only rose to drown them out.

  Delphine gripped the arms of her seat, only allowing her muscles to relax once the caterwauling was over, and the children were taking their bows. ‘Is it over?’

  ‘When have you ever known Poet to stop before he went too far?’ grated Macready.

  Sure enough, the children on the stage were still in character as a mess of creatures, all ears and paws and tails. It was grotesque, but no more so than any other Bestialia parade Delphine had ever seen.

  A young demme in a cat costume came forward, one leg dragging as she took her place in the centre of the stage. There was silence for a moment and then she began to sing, a rich adult voice flooding the musette. The old theatre bowed and creaked around them.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Macready said urgently. ‘We need to get everyone out of here.’ Kelpie was shoving her way through the crowds in the pit. Crane was on his feet. Rhian had her hands over her eyes and was making some kind of wretched keening sound.

  The cat demme’s voice rose, impossibly loud and rich around them. Delphine tried to concentrate on the words, looking for some kind of clue about what madness was coming next, but it was just a song, lost love and secret destinies; it could be any song on any day.

  The glass beads of the chandeliers were rattling so loudly they sounded like teeth, but still the song would not be drowned out. Delphine looked up just as a wind whipped through the theatre and half the candles guttered in one go. Cracks appeared like flung ribbons across the mirrored ceiling. Too late, too late to stop it.

  Delphine forgot about swords and knives and animor. As the mirrored ceiling broke open, bringing a storm of broken glass falling straight down on the audience, she just screamed and shielded her eyes.

  Ashiol was fascinated with what Poet had done. Every one of those child performers — his lambs, he called them — had animor under their skin. It was bright in some, skimming close to the surface. With others it was buried deep, not due to fly free for months perhaps, or years. He must have searched far and wide to bring this little gang together.

  Standing above the stage, Ashiol could ignore the music, even as it rattled the rafters under him. He raised himself on the balls of his feet, poised to leap free if he had to, and watched the audience.

  Daylight folk and the Creature Court, mixed up together. Why would Poet do this? What was his plan?

  When the little lame demme began to sing, Ashiol felt a rush of recognition. Her animor wasn’t just close to the surface, it was bubbling free. She was a courtesa waiting to happen, and soon. It would be soon.

  He heard the cracks in the ceiling before he saw them, and oh, fuck: the theatre was coming down around them. Ashiol leaped down into the wings, safe from the blizzard of glass and blood and death, though the scenery was crashing and falling around him. ‘Poet!’ he yelled as darkness and destruction descended. ‘Where are you, you mad bastard?’

  A hand caught his sleeve, pulled him away from the screams and the shaking stage floor. ‘Can you feel it?’ Poet whispered, mouth close to his ear. ‘Can you feel them?’

  Ashiol shook him off. ‘Are we absolutely sure I’m the crazy one of the family?’ Then he did feel it, waves of something else, a different familiarity, so intense and well known that it almost slammed him into the floor. Oh. That.

  Ashiol shaped himself into chimaera and flew out above the audience, ignoring the cries of pain and urgency below him.

  34.

  The city sighed.

  Velody awoke naked and tangled in Garnet’s arms. She ached all over, but in the best possible way. Without moving her body, she reached out with one arm to the shelf by the bed, picked up the polished bronze hand-mirror and held it in front of her mouth, watching her breath pool across the surface. Alive.

  Garnet
stirred against her, his face pressed into her back. He was warm too, undeniably so. No fading today.

  Velody pushed him away and sat up. For a moment she thought her vision had blurred, and then — no. It wasn’t her eyes, it was the house. She could see straight through the wall as if it was no more substantial than a shadow. The crenellations and golden brickwork of the buildings across the street jutted out clearly, visible through the hazy edge of the bakery.

  ‘Garnet, wake up,’ she hissed, jabbing him with her elbow.

  ‘Hmmph?’ He flung out one arm, stretching lazily. ‘We’re real. More real than before. Clever old you. Let’s sleep in.’

  ‘We might be real,’ said Velody. ‘But now Tierce is fading from under us.’

  ‘What?’ That had Garnet’s eyes open at least. ‘Seven hells!’

  ‘Will we die if we lose the city?’ Velody asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Garnet scrabbled at his face with the back of his hand. ‘I think we’re not supposed to be alive. Maybe we took too much from Tierce when you made us real.’ He held his chin out to her. ‘Feel that.’

  She touched him and felt stubble under her fingers. ‘You need to shave. Is this a first for you?’

  ‘Funny demme. First time since I woke up in this shell of a city.’ Garnet stood up, pulling his trews on in a hurry. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be real and alive for long once we lose the city from under our feet. We’re not designed to float through the sky.’

  ‘We have our animor back,’ Velody argued, reaching for her dress. ‘We can fly.’

  ‘Fly where? How far? Do you know how deep into the sky we are? Which direction Aufleur is in?’ Mostly dressed, he looked at her. ‘We have to move fast, I suspect.’

  ‘The room of mirrors?’

  Garnet nodded, then grinned suddenly, his face looking ten years younger, like the mad boy on the balcony all over again. ‘You make a very good point, demoiselle Velody. We can fly.’

  The rush of air through her lungs was incredible. Velody’s whole body glowed with animor and cold as they soared over the flickering city. It was greyer than before and was growing insubstantial. That couldn’t be good. When they landed in the grounds outside the Palazzo, she saw that the trees were colourless, just pale shapes approximating branches. ‘It’s getting worse.’

  ‘So move,’ Garnet said impatiently, already ahead of her, his feet making muffled sounds against the fading pavement.

  Velody caught up with him, matching his pace. They charged through the entrance hall of the Palazzo, statues crumbling into nothingness as Garnet and Velody passed them. Half the walls were missing.

  Her heart beat loudly in her head. She stopped at a window which had once held a view over the whole city. Technically it still did, though half the city was gone. She couldn’t see the docks any more, or Cheapside. Her family’s bakery really was beyond her reach this time.

  It had been lost long ago. It meant nothing.

  Velody drew a deep breath, grateful at least that she could breathe after so long barely existing, and ran after Garnet, who had not waited for her. He flung the doors open and teetered on the threshold of the mirror room, only just stopping himself from falling inside. He turned around, eyes bright against his pale face. ‘Too late.’

  Velody reached him and looked past his narrow frame to see a gaping hole where the mirror room should be. The Palazzo simply broke away, stone wall crumbling into nothingness. Below them was a shadow that barely resembled the ornate gardens that had surrounded the building.

  ‘No,’ she said, breathing hard. Still a luxury to breathe, even if it hurt her chest. ‘There has to be a way out.’

  ‘The mirrors are gone, Velody,’ Garnet barked at her. ‘Everything we were working towards.’

  ‘You were ready to fade away not so long ago,’ she said angrily. ‘Stop giving up! There must be a mirror somewhere in the Palazzo.’

  ‘By all means, I’m sure any other mirror would work just fine,’ Garnet said sarcastically.

  Velody was furious at him. ‘Do you want to argue with me, or do you want to go home? Where’s the ruthless baby-eating torturer who used to rule the Creature Court? I need him right now!’ She turned and ran in the other direction. There was most of a staircase intact and she tore towards it, taking the steps two at a time. Bedchambers. Bedchambers were likely to be higher up. The Duc of Tierce had five daughters, she remembered that much. There had to be mirrors.

  The children were singing again. Velody could hear their voices bright and steady, all around her, getting louder. She had to believe that they were coming from Aufleur. They did not fit in this pale and fading city.

  In the upper corridor, Velody flung doors open until she found a bedchamber that must have belonged to one of Tierce’s many young Ducomtessas. It looked as if a pink lace crinoline had exploded against the furniture and walls. Every available surface was crowded with china shepherdesses and blown glass pigs.

  There were no looking glasses on the walls but when Velody looked up, she saw a vast mirror stretching across the length and breadth of the ceiling. The song grew louder.

  ‘The staircase is gone,’ said Garnet, close to her. ‘And for the record, I hardly ever ate babies.’

  Velody reached out and took his hand, not taking her eyes off the mirrored ceiling. ‘You can clear up that rumour yourself, once we get back.’

  Garnet tipped up his chin, and they watched each other in the mirror.

  Come on, come on. There must be something in there. Some hint of Aufleur. A shadow, a face. A hand. Something other than that wretched song. Velody should be searching the mirror rather than just staring into Garnet’s eyes. ‘He will hate you for bringing me back,’ he reminded her. As if she didn’t know that herself.

  There. Oh, there. As the walls crumbled around them, Velody saw familiar shapes looming in the glass. The Basilica. The mausoleum in the Gardens of Trajus. Oh, saints, the Vittorine Royale. Home, home, home.

  Velody and Garnet fell forward into nothing, into crumbling walls and a city that didn’t exist any more. Into the mirror.

  Hundreds of thousands of Velodys gazed at each other, facing out of so many mirrors. She reached out one hand, and every hand echoed her movement. ‘Garnet!’ she called out, and heard nothing but echoes in response. Where was he? She had been holding his hand, but could not feel him now.

  She started to run, twisting and turning down corridor after corridor of glass and silver and her own face, her own body, her bright green gown and antique buttoned boots.

  ‘Garnet!’

  Velody teetered on a precipice of shining glass, only just preventing herself from falling over the edge into — what? Liquid glass rushed past her ankles and poured down a sheer drop, disappearing into a pool of darkness.

  She stared into its depths, and for a moment she almost saw what she had been looking for, that world beyond the sky. Not Aufleur, with its cathedral roofs and gothic spires. Not Tierce, empty and pale yellow and fading from view. Something else.

  ‘Velody.’ Garnet’s hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her back from the brink. ‘We’re out of time.’

  ‘How do you know?’ She looked at him, really looked at him. ‘What do you know about any of this?’ How was he so sure this was the path home?

  The children were singing, louder and louder, all around them. ‘You didn’t think we were going back without an invitation, did you?’ Garnet let go of her wrist only to take hold of her hand.

  Velody felt a jolt inside her skin, as if her animor wanted to burst free of her body. Garnet tugged her against his chest, and the mirrors exploded around them into a dizzying storm of broken glass.

  The Vittorina Royale was in chaos. People were screaming, hurting, dying all around Delphine. She had lost track of Rhian and the other sentinels in the crush and was half-dragged down a staircase by a crowd of bloodied, frantic theatregoers. It was all she could do not to be swept out through the main doors. Instead, she struggled her
way into the stalls, heading for the stage.

  The theatre was broken. Not just the glass of the mirrored ceiling, or fallen chandeliers. Half of the dress circle had buckled, and one of the formal boxes had caved in.

  Glass had pierced arteries, dug hard into faces and limbs. There was still screaming and crying in the near-darkness, punctuated by coughs and sickening gurgles. Some of the fallen glass had been sharp and large enough to kill. There was dust everywhere, and Delphine all but choked on it.

  Where was the frigging Creature Court? That was what she wanted to know. What was the point of their ridiculous powers if they couldn’t stop things like this, if they couldn’t save people?

  Delphine pulled herself up on the stage and screamed. ‘ASHIOL! POET! WARLORD!’

  Useless bastards.

  ‘Help,’ begged a voice near her. ‘Please, help us!’

  Delphine found her way to a demme who was desperately trying to move a broken stone column away from … oh. A lad, trapped underneath. He was moaning, but it wasn’t a hopeful sound.

  It was too heavy for both of them. The demme was crying softly. ‘Bart,’ she said once. ‘Hold on, please.’

  It was enough to break Delphine’s heart. Her nails scraped the heavy piece of stone as she renewed her efforts to roll the thing off him. It was grainy and strange under her palms, leaving a residue of grit on her skin.

  Then cool hands brushed against hers, and the swish of a familiar cloak. When he spoke though, it was not Macready, but Crane. ‘Delphine, stop,’ he said gently. ‘It crushed his chest. If you move this off him, he’ll die faster.’

  ‘Do it,’ the lad managed in a whisper.

  His friend made a noise of protest.

  ‘Don’t mope about it, Topaz. Just — hurts.’

  The demme rocked back and forth for a moment, then came forward and kissed his forehead, all in a rush.

  Crane and Delphine rolled the stone column aside, and the lad’s air whooshed out of him. It was fast, and then he was gone. The demme, still crying, slipped off into the darkness and away from them.