by M. J. Scott
Simon’s charm was tied to a loop inside the waistband of his trousers. Feeling ill, I gently pulled it free from where the fabric pressed it against his skin. Like mine, it was fashioned from leather and metal, which made my task a little easier. I studied the charm for a moment, feeling its buzz against my skin.
It didn’t feel completely alien. So maybe this had a chance of working. Of course, I had no idea what the charm felt like to Simon, or indeed if he could feel it at all. He wasn’t Fae, after all. While human mages could work glamours and wards, they didn’t do charms as far as I knew. They were a peculiarly Fae thing.
When I was sure the charm wasn’t going to do something odd in protest of being removed from its owner, I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out the hybrid charm I’d fashioned earlier. I plaited the two charms together, trying to hide the metal disc of mine behind the more oval shape of Simon’s. Then, with another whispered plea to whichever deity might be listening, I triggered my charm, after pouring still more power into it in the hope it would last as long as it needed to.
Inside me, I felt the geas buzz with something that felt like approval. I choked back the revulsion that greased my throat in response.
The charm shivered in my hands and suddenly I could only see Simon’s. I could feel the slightly thickened thong under my fingers, but I couldn’t see my charm. So the invisibility part, at least, was working. Now I just had hope that the hear-me would do its part too. And that the look-away would be enough to keep the whole thing safe. Plus the completely unknown factor of whether there would actually be anything for the hear-me to hear.
Too late now. I was out of time. I fastened the charm in place and slid into position on the bed.
“Simon,” I said gently, easing his hand back onto my cast. “Forget.”
His eyes drifted slowly shut for a moment and I dissolved the glamour with a slow breath, releasing him gently.
“Simon?” I said in a more normal voice.
He shook his head for a moment, and then yawned. “Sorry,” he said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. “It’s been a busy day. Now, what were you saying about your arm?”
Relief made my pulse pound in my ears for a moment. It seemed I’d gotten away with it. At least for now.
“I said, I need you to take the cast off,” I said, acting as though there’d been no break in our conversation.
“But why?” he asked.
Before I could answer, the door was flung open and Guy stalked in.
“Because,” Guy said, shooting a “don’t argue” look at Simon, “she’s coming with me.”
“What are you talking about?” Simon said. “She’s in no shape to go anywhere.”
“Nevertheless, we’re leaving. Take off her cast.” Guy folded his arms. He looked tired and tense. I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d just done, but whatever it was, he wasn’t happy about it.
“Where are you going?” Simon asked.
Guy frowned at him. “No time to explain, little brother. Go find Lily. She’ll explain.”
Simon’s face was starting to move from confused to angry. “She’s not working today. Why is she here?”
“She’s seen the light. She’s going to be staying here for a while. Bryony has granted her haven.”
“What? Gods and suns, Guy, what is going on?”
“Talk to Lily,” Guy said shortly. “We have to go.”
“Holly?” Simon said.
“Take it off, please,” I said.
The brothers stared at each other for a long moment, hands bunching, scowling identically. I wondered if I was about to have to break up a fight.
Simon finally shook his head, looking disgusted, and focused his attention on me. “You know you’re doing this against my advice?” he asked. He stood at the end of the bed, holding the slim leather book, which he scribbled his notes into with both hands as if he might prefer to knock some sense into me with it.
I nodded and held out my arm. Despite the roil of guilt and fear in my stomach and my inability to convince myself that this wouldn’t all end in disaster, I would be all too happy to have the cast off. It was heavy. And beneath it, my skin itched. “I know. Take it off.”
Simon looked from me to Guy and shook his head. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“She wants the cast off,” Guy said flatly. “Take it off.”
“And if I refuse?” Simon said.
Guy shrugged. “Then I’ll take her somewhere else. It’s her choice.”
Simon’s face turned stubborn. “This really isn’t a good idea.”
“It’s my decision,” I said, giving my arm a little jerk. I was careful to keep the other arm—the one with the gash from the mirror that I’d bandaged as best I could with a strip of petticoat—back a little. I didn’t know if Simon could sense a minor wound if he wasn’t actually trying to, but I didn’t want to risk it. There was no good explanation for how I’d managed to cut my arm. Simon frowned but bent to the cast. “What’s so important?”
“That’s my business,” Guy said, arms folded against his chest. He looked forbiddingly grim. Simon was braver than me to argue with him.
“Your business or Templar business?” Simon’s gaze shot to me. “Holly? You’re doing this of your own free will, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yes. Don’t worry, he isn’t coercing me.”
“Just as well,” Simon muttered.
He and Guy exchanged another of those inscrutable looks, but Simon didn’t make any more protests. He did something to the cast that made it neatly divide into two parts and lifted it gently from my arm. Then he washed the remaining bits of plaster off my skin and slathered on a strong-smelling salve. I wrinkled my nose. “Thank you.” My arm smelled of garlic or . . . no, not garlic exactly but something stingingly pungent. “What is that stuff?”
“Healer business,” Simon said shortly. “It will help your skin and wake up the muscles. You’ve only had the cast on a few days, but there’s always some wastage.” He fixed me with a stern glance. “So don’t go doing anything stupid. You’ll need to strengthen the arm. Slowly. Your bones are still fragile.”
“I will,” I said, not sure whether I meant yes, I’d let it rest or yes, I’d do something stupid.
Given where Guy and I were headed, the latter seemed almost inevitable. Just wanting to go spy in the Night World was a fair indication of stupidity.
Generally I skirted around its edges as far as possible. The border boroughs provided plenty of jobs for me without getting too deep into the night. But stupid or not, I had need, in this case. If there was any information about where my father was and what he might be plotting to be had, it would be the Night Worlders who knew.
Simon put the jar of salve on the bed, on top of the bag of my things, and then turned to Guy. “Look after her. And be careful. I don’t want to have to come after you.”
“I’m always careful, little brother,” Guy said easily. But there was tension in his neck and shoulders as he shifted against the wall he was leaning on. “You know that.”
“I mean normal-person careful, not Templar careful,” Simon said. “I don’t want to be stitching both of you back together next time I see you.”
“You worry too much,” Guy said. Then he looked at me. “Ready to go?”
HOLLY
Guy didn’t speak as we marched out of St. Giles. I held my breath as we crossed the threshold, half expecting the geas to freeze me in my tracks, but nothing happened.
I didn’t know whether that was because a geas couldn’t do that or because what I was doing now was in some way playing into what Cormen wanted—a thought that didn’t make me any happier about the situation—but at the moment I couldn’t afford to worry too much about it. Right now I had to focus on what I’d agreed with Guy. Somehow find out if it was the Favreaus who were behind the ambushes on the Templars and, if so, who was pulling their strings. And then save my mother and Reggie.
Guy bundled me into the first hack
ney that came along and directed it to Brightown. The hackney clattered along the cobbles, turning right and driving past the Brother House. Guy stared out the small window at the gray stone buildings, sitting so still I wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t turned to stone himself.
But once the Brother House was out of sight, he seemed to remember he wasn’t alone. “Brightown is right, isn’t it? That’s where you live, at the Swallow?”
I nodded slowly, not entirely sure what to say. Guy was outwardly calm, but he was almost vibrating with whatever it was he was suppressing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk an explosion.
Still, best to know what I was dealing with. “It worked, then, whatever it was that you cooked up with Father Cho?” He’d been sketchy on the details of how he was going to get the Abbott General to agree to our plan.
He looked toward the window for a moment, hands flexing where they lay on his thighs. “Yes. As far as the Templars are concerned, I’m no longer a knight.”
“Oh, Guy, no.” I couldn’t help the reaction. What had he done? He’d spent his life serving the order and now he was willing to let them believe he’d abandon them?
“Yes,” he said, still not looking at me. “It was the only way.”
My fingers clasped the chain around my neck. Damn Cormen. Damn him to something worse than hell. Then another thought occurred to me. Exactly how bad were things in the City for Guy to be willing to go so far? My fingers tightened as I shivered slightly. “Will they take you back?”
Guy’s head swiveled back to me. “First things first, Miss Everton. We have a long way to go before we can even think about that.” His voice was cool.
I stared at him. Then nodded. He was right. We had a job to do. Two jobs. I had to think about that, not the man in front of me. I had to stay in control. I had to not let Guy DuCaine get to me. I had to keep the upper hand. “Don’t you think you should call me Holly, given you’re about to start living with me?”
His blue eyes were inscrutable. “If you wish.”
Fine. If he wanted to play it cool, then I could accommodate him. “We need to talk about what happens when we get to the Swallow,” I said. “You haven’t changed your mind about playing my lover?”
He shook his head.
“Good. Then we have to get it right from the start.”
“Yes,” he said. His hands flexed again and he stared down at them for a moment. “Which reminds me. We can’t go straight there. Is there a sigiler in Brightown? A good one?”
“A sigiler?” Nerves curled uneasily in my stomach. “What do you need a sigiler for?”
He held up his hands. “You were right, I won’t get far in the Night World with these. Plus everyone outside the Night World needs to believe I’m an ex-Templar.”
He was going to do something to his tattoos. Oh, Guy, no. This time I managed not to say it out loud. “Isn’t there another way?”
“No. I asked Lady Bryony. She couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t damage my hands. She agreed with you that a glamour was too risky. So, do you know where there’s a sigiler or not?”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my voice sound anything other than professional. “There’s one in Gleaming Street.”
Guy leaned forward and rapped on the hackney wall. When the driver answered, he gave our new destination.
I leaned against the worn leather seat, feeling sick. He was going to change his tattoos. Change the very thing that showed the world who he was. “Was Bryony sure?” I had to ask.
“Yes,” Guy said. “She said they were too old, too deep. I was nineteen when I took my final vows.”
My head twitched toward him. So young. Nineteen. Too young to decide something that would seal the rest of your life. Then again, at nineteen, I’d been forced to put my mother in a sanatorium and then try to figure out how to support her and me without becoming a whore. I didn’t remember feeling particularly young back then. Maybe Guy hadn’t either.
Still, what made a man choose to become a Templar?
I wasn’t entirely sure I understood faith. There’d never seemed to be a God looking out for me particularly. In fact, I suspected, if there were deities up there . . . be it the Lady of Fate or Guy’s God or the more esoteric beings who populated the Fae’s belief system—of whom my understanding was sketchy at best—then I was somehow not on their lists of favored daughters. Surely favorites of the gods didn’t end up in my situation or feel as though betrayal awaited them wherever they turned.
But Guy didn’t share my doubts. He believed in something. He’d shaped his whole life around those beliefs. Even now he was prepared to risk his reputation and the very thing that was the embodiment of his faith to keep pursuing what he believed was the right thing to do.
Not an easy way to live, perhaps.
His face was unreadable as he swayed with the jolts of the hackney. I couldn’t help looking down at his hands. He’d worn those crosses since he was nineteen. From what I knew of him, he was at least a few years past thirty now. They were part of him.
And now, because of the deal we’d made, he was losing that most public symbol of his belief. Permanently.
A fresh wave of anger at my father washed over me. Everyone he touched seemed to end up worse off, and I hated the fact that he’d turned me into his instrument.
Geas or no geas, he and I were going to have a reckoning at the end of this.
GUY
Holly paused on the grimy doorstep of the sigiler’s shop. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I flexed my hands, trying not to think too hard about it, and took another pull on the bottle of whiskey she’d procured for me after the hackney had dropped us near Gleaming Street. She wouldn’t take no for an answer when I’d tried to refuse.
Now I was glad of her insistence. The plan called for me to be drunk and angry when we finally reached the Swallow. That wasn’t going to be difficult. “I’m sure,” I said, and pushed past her to open the door.
The sigiler’s shop was small, sparse, and dimly lit. A short wooden counter was bare except for a small brass bell. In front of it were three plain wooden chairs. Behind it a moth-eaten green velvet curtain cloaked whatever might lie beyond.
The walls were covered with scraps of paper displaying detailed designs in all the colors of the rainbow. I ignored them. I didn’t need a design. I knew what I was here for. I took a breath, trying to ready myself. The place reeked of the incense burning in a black china dish set on a bracket on the wall behind the counter.
The smell didn’t sit well with the whiskey and rage filling my stomach. I sat on the nearest chair and tried not to think.
Thoughts crowded in anyway. I knew the cure for that. More whiskey. I tilted the bottle. The liquor burned my throat, and my stomach twisted. Not from nerves but from revulsion at what was to come.
“You can still change your mind,” Holly said.
“There isn’t any other way.” I jerked my chin at the bell. “Ring.”
As she lifted the bell, the jangling noise grating against my ears, I put the bottle down on the floor. Too much now and I wouldn’t feel what was about to happen. And I needed to feel it.
A few seconds after Holly rang the bell, a short, dark-haired woman appeared from behind the curtain’s folds.
She looked from Holly to me with intelligent black eyes. “Yes?”
“My friend . . .” Holly paused for a moment and looked at me as if asking one last time if I really wanted to go through with this.
I stayed still. Stone.
“My friend has need of your services.”
“Yes?” the woman repeated again. Her voice had a faint lilt. Echoes of the Silk Provinces? Or somewhere even more exotic? I didn’t care. I brushed off the sudden burning wish to be in the hells-damned Silk Provinces, or anywhere away from the City really, and stood. Two steps and my hands were flat on the desk.
“Yes,” I said. “I want to do something with these.”
The woman arch
ed dark eyebrows. “Templar? Templars have their own sigilers.”
I forced myself to shrug. “Was a Templar. Now I’m not. So I don’t give a fuck what they do.”
The eyebrows rose higher, but she didn’t press her point. Good decision.
“What do you want?”
“Something simple,” I said. “They put their goddamned mark on me and the useless healers tell me it can’t be removed, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be remade.” I slashed a finger across my hand, trying not to think about what I was doing. “Black. Whatever you think best . . . as long as it makes it clear I’m not one of theirs anymore.”
Beside me, Holly was very still. Very quiet. But the way she’d folded her arms tightly across her chest spoke volumes. She was unhappy with this turn of events.
Well, that made two of us.
It’s for a good cause, what you swore to do, I reminded myself. And it doesn’t actually change who you are. The last part I was finding hard to believe just now.
The sigiler peered up at me. “You been drinking?”
“A little. Not enough to change anything. Do you want the work or not?” I pulled a gold sovereign from my pocket. More than ample compensation for what I was asking.
She looked at the coin, then at me. The coin vanished into her pocket. “On your head, then,” she said, and beckoned us to come around the counter.
The room she led us to was hardly bigger than the outer one. It reeked of the same incense mixed with the acrid tang of the inks. I remembered that smell from my investiture.
The sigiler told me to sit. Holly hovered in the background at first, and then sat beside me when the woman hissed impatiently at her. The sigiler took my hands in hers, studying them for a long time. Finally she nodded once and let go of me. With neat, precise movements she set out inks and needles. Then she poured some clear liquid from a bottle and swabbed down the back of my hands. The liquid tingled and the smell of herbs and alcohol cut through the other scents.
