by Dave Rudden
Vivian Hardwick took a long and ragged breath.
“Denizen,” she whispered, “I’m not your aunt. I’m your mother.”
“YOU WERE TWO,” she said, “and I was just a few years into Knighthood. I worked out of Seraphim Row, but we didn’t live there—we had a little house nearby. Soren…your father…wasn’t a Knight, but he was a good man. So sweet. So funny. You have his hair. He hoped you’d have my height.”
She gazed down at the destroyed portraits.
“The Hardwicks have always been Knights. We were born for this duty—raised for it. Soren didn’t like the danger of what I did, but he loved me. He knew how important my duty was to me, and I think in a way he was strangely proud of what I did. At least at first.”
Her voice hardened. “And then the Clockwork Three came. Agents of misery, nourished by suffering. We were in Galway dealing with a Breach when they took Christopher from right under our noses.
“That’s how they work—jackals circling, picking you off when you’re distracted. They took Christopher, and a week later Lisa went missing as well. Missing. The Three were taking my comrades alive, and we had no idea why.”
“They were trying to make a thrall,” Denizen said distantly. “Grey said it wasn’t a…it wasn’t a perfect process.”
Vivian nodded slowly. “My comrades didn’t survive it. When Adebayo was taken, Soren wanted me to quit. He wanted us to run.”
She shook her head. “You don’t quit being a Knight. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. I’m a Hardwick. We don’t quit; we don’t stop. More than that, though, I wanted the Three. After what they did to Lisa, to Chris, to dear Adebayo…
“And when I refused him he went to my Malleus, John Carsing. I think he thought he could convince him to talk to me. The fool. The damned, damned fool.
“The Three found them together. I don’t think they even cared who Soren was. Just a toy to play with for a while. A plaything to them…but everything to me.”
Vivian stared straight ahead, each word an effort, as if dredging the memories from some deep, unpleasant sea.
“I was at home with you when I got the phone call from Carsing’s widow. She was the director of an orphanage on Achill Island. A good woman and…strong, to be the partner of a Knight for so many years. She’d been waiting for a similar phone call herself for a long time, I imagine. Funny. I’d always thought it would be Soren getting that call instead of me.”
Vivian took a deep breath. “The man I loved was dead, and it was my fault. I brought him into these shadows—and then there was you, this sweet little child. Perfect and innocent and free of my world. I brought you to Director Carsing. I put you in her arms, I kissed you on the forehead, and I prayed that when it came to your thirteenth birthday, you would be your father’s son and not mine. Then I went to my death.”
“What happened?” Denizen asked.
The words had to be forced out past a lump in his throat. His eyes stung. How could she have done this? She’d walked away from her family and chosen—chosen—a life of danger and battle and death. He’d never had a choice. Vivian had taken that away from him.
“I became relentless,” she said, her fingers curling into fists. “They would have killed you in a heartbeat just to dig the knife a little deeper…but I never gave them the chance. I hunted them, and in turn they hunted me. We followed each other through all the dark corners of the world, and every night they would come to me in dreams. Oh, what we’ll give you! Oh, what we’ll show you if you let us in! One night, they came too close.” Her smile was grim. “And I showed them fire.
“I bled them and I broke them and I drove them back into the dark. I have never screamed Cants with such rage. I fed the power with everything I had—my hope, my love, my hate, everything. Fuel for the fire. I was young then, thought that I wouldn’t need a Malleus’s hammer to end them for good if I gave them…” She looked down at her hands. “If I gave them everything.
“When it was over…I wanted to come back. But I’d lived so long with this rage, made it such a part of me…How could I go back to you? You were just a little boy with his face and his smile, and I had died along with your father.”
“The torn-out page in the Book of Rust—” Denizen began.
“Mine,” she said. “A note to you for when I didn’t come back.”
“But why?” Denizen said helplessly. It was the only question left—the only one that mattered. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why keep it a secret?”
Vivian closed her eyes. In a way, she must have been waiting a long time for this question as well.
“I honestly…I don’t know. I’ve spent so long hoping that you wouldn’t have a connection to the Tenebrae. You could have been anything—gone anywhere. Walked in the light like everyone else. And with the kind of life I’ve been living, I really didn’t think I’d get this far. The battles, the pain, the danger…
“On your birthday, when your power manifested, all I could think of was how I got your father killed. God, I was so angry that night. I thought after your training I could find you a posting somewhere safe, somewhere away from danger. Maybe even drive you away entirely. Why would you want anything to do with a cold and distant aunt?”
“That’s your excuse?” Denizen was shaking with rage. “Protecting me? Or trying to get yourself killed so you wouldn’t have to deal with me?”
“That’s not—”
“That’s exactly it,” he snarled. “You wanted revenge, so you tossed me aside and went after the Three. What— Did you think it was braver to go and die instead of looking after your son? What would my…what would my father think about—”
“Don’t,” Vivian snapped. “Just don’t. I did what I thought was right. The only thing I thought I could do. If I stayed, I would have…I would have grieved, Denizen. I didn’t want that. I wanted to fight.”
Fire. Light erupted from Denizen’s eyes, howling for release, the color and sound of hate. He stared at this woman, this warrior, his mother, and all he wanted to do was strike her down.
And she did nothing. Just stared at him with eyes the very same shade as his.
Vivian had abandoned him. She had given in to the inferno in her soul, let it boil out and eat her until she was nothing more than an automaton powered by its heat. A life lived hunting for death—hunting for some escape from pain.
Doing her level best to get murdered rather than be his mother.
The power still coiled and flickered in his stomach. He could just feed his anger to it, let it scour him clean until he was nothing more than iron and fire lashing out at the world. Had it worked for her? Did she feel better now? No wonder she let the Cost crawl up her skin. The dead iron must be a relief.
What did you hold on to when something hurt this much?
“Duty,” Denizen Hardwick said, the light fading from his eyes.
“What?”
“This is…this is too big for me. I can’t…” Breath hissed from between his teeth. “You and I can wait. We have a duty to perform.”
His glare made Vivian take a step backward. “That’s your thing, right? Duty?”
“Denizen,” she said softly. “I should go, not you. I told you, I won’t—”
“No,” he said. “This is what you gave me up for, right? You’re weak. You’re tired. And these are the things that killed my father. We both go, or I leave you here.”
He watched her shoulders tense and wondered how long it had been since anyone had spoken to the esteemed Malleus Vivian Hardwick that way. It wasn’t an empty threat. Right now he was just waiting for something to deserve the firestorm in his heart.
“We still need to figure out how to take on the Three and free Mercy,” Vivian said. “I tried contacting the Order. Breaches are opening all over the world. It’s starting. Soon we won’t be able to contain it. We need to free Mercy, but we don’t have a hammer.”
Look at her, a cruel voice in Denizen’s head whispered, taking refuge in the work ag
ain.
“You’re right,” came a clipped voice from the doorway. They both turned in shock.
Abigail stood there, feet spread, her birthday crossbow held tight to her chest. Her pajamas fluttered in the breeze from the open door. Beside her, Darcie had her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat. Both their faces were streaked with tears.
Abigail’s voice was steady. “But I know where you can get one.”
LIGHTNING SPLIT THE sky above Os Reges Point.
Denizen wondered if there were always storms here, out in the wildness of the ocean. Violence eternal in sea and sky.
The feel of the Tenebrae was everywhere—in the greasiness of the air, the staccato snarl of the thunder.
“We ran,” Abigail said, and there was anger in her voice. “We ran while Jack and D’Aubigny fought.”
They sat cross-legged on the stone, bundled in coats and hats. Abigail’s face was barely visible behind a thick woolen scarf. Darcie had agreed to stay behind and look after Simon and Jack, but Abigail had refused to be anywhere else but at the Hardwicks’ side.
“I wanted to stay, but Jack made me promise to get Darcie out. We made it to the street and just…wandered until finally we circled back, hoping maybe that you’d returned or that someone had survived.
“We thought they might have followed us, but by the looks of things they were too concerned with destroying the place. They weren’t even pretending to be human anymore—snapping at each other, snarling…ticking.”
Denizen shivered and not from the rain. More than anything, it was the unpredictability of the Clockwork Three that frightened him. Maybe they had crossed over to this world with a plan, but now they were little more than beasts, destroying everything around them.
Not that it mattered if Mercy wasn’t freed soon.
Denizen glanced over at where Vivian—his mother—stood, arms thrown wide to the storm. She wore the same armor she had when Denizen had first been brought to Seraphim Row. Rain glistened on the dull iron warplate. Her white cloak fluttered around her shoulders, and she’d drawn up its hood to frame her gaunt features. Power radiated off her like heat from a flame. The air was heavy with imminent threat.
“Denizen, I—” Abigail began.
With effort, Denizen dragged his gaze away from his mother. “Yes?”
“I wish we’d had a chance to get to know each other properly before all this,” she said. “But just in case something happens tonight—”
Denizen cut her off. “No. I mean, I know.”
He couldn’t see her mouth, but he knew Abigail was smiling. She leaned over and squeezed his hand through his glove. “And besides,” she said airily, “to die in the service of the Order is the greatest of all honors.”
Denizen stared at her. “Seriously?”
“God, no,” she said. “Are you insane?”
“Will you two please be quiet?” Vivian said, before turning back to the body of the Emissary. It was still slumped where it had fallen a few nights before, its arms flung wide, the helm empty and gathering rain.
Crossing the summit to join her, Denizen stared down at the hammer impaling the Emissary’s chest. He hadn’t looked at it properly before—being slightly more concerned about the giant warrior it was attached to—but now he examined the hammer closely.
Vivian’s weapon had looked old. This one looked ancient. It bore the same resemblance to Vivian’s hammer as a saber-toothed tiger did to a house cat, its head an immense block of chipped stone, its handle black wood from some long-extinct tree. It looked primeval, a weapon barely built for a human at all.
Vivian threw back her head and light speared out to burn the sky. Just as before, Denizen felt the Tenebrae intrude, called forth by Vivian’s words.
He couldn’t see the stars, but he was sure that they once again sharpened—points of white fire in the sky. The wind howled louder, then died away as if afraid to touch what Vivian was bringing forth.
The Emissary rose to its feet like an avalanche in reverse, darkness threading through its joints. The great helm tilted to snuffle at the air, its fingers—fat as tank shells—reaching up to claw the sky.
Its voice was a riptide snarl.
Where is my—
“Shut up,” Vivian snapped in a voice like a drill sergeant. Denizen flinched. Abigail reflexively stood to attention.
The Emissary’s voice rang out again, deep and hollow and thick with rage.
WHERE IS MY—
“Shut. Up,” Vivian said, stepping forward and rapping the knuckles of her gauntlet smartly on its chest. Denizen winced. “You put away your sword. You set it aside. Whatever. I don’t have time for ritual today.”
The giant rocked a little on its heels. Its massive hands clenched into fists.
Malleus Hardwick, it said eventually. It has been a while.
“Yes,” she said. “And I missed you too. Now listen. We know what was taken from the Endless King. If we return it to you, will these attacks on our borders cease?”
The Emissary nodded with a creak. Deliver the thieves to us. The King will want them. Want to punish. Want to hurt.
“No,” said Vivian. “They’re mine.”
The Emissary took a step forward. It seemed like the whole world shook. The thieves will be ours.
Vivian stared dispassionately into its empty helm. “No. This is the business of the Order. I have my own score to settle with—”
“Vivian!” Denizen snapped. His mother turned to him in shock. “Let him have them! Can you not just…just leave it? Can you not just forget about revenge for one second? What are you going to do that’s worse than him?”
The giant stared at them impassively.
Denizen stepped forward and spoke. “Emissary.”
The Tenebrous’s head swung in his direction. It reminded Denizen of the bulls that had sometimes grazed in the fields behind Crosscaper. They would blink at him with deep and sleepy regard, angling giant heads to stare at him first with one eye, then the other.
He had known instinctively—even without the multiple warnings handed down by teachers—that were he to hop the fence, it would take the bulls a long time to even realize he was there, but when they did they’d hit him as hard as the world.
“You can have the thieves,” he said hurriedly, unwilling to look into the darkness of the helm for too long. “Do what you like with them. We’ll free the King’s daughter.”
Vivian’s eyes bored into him, but he ignored her. With a sighing of rust, the Emissary nodded once more.
“One last thing,” Vivian said. She wrapped both hands round the handle of the hammer and pulled.
The Emissary’s roar drowned out the storm. It staggered as the hammer came free from its chest, followed by a spray of arterial dark. Metal shrieked, and the Tenebrous fell to its knees, a massive hand held to its heart. Its breath came in hollow gasps, like a tide seeping through secret caves. The hammer fit Vivian’s hands as if it had always been there. She strode away without looking back.
—
AS PLANS WENT, Denizen’s was simple.
Vivian’s first Cant hit the closed gates of Crosscaper like a runaway freight train. Ancient wood warped and bent, steel bands ringing like a struck bell. The night shivered in the wake of the power—echoes bouncing off the far distant hills. Denizen wouldn’t have been surprised if they heard it all the way on the mainland.
The gates drooped on their hinges. Resplendent in her rain-slicked warplate, Vivian raised her gauntlets and drew in a deep breath, preparing to strike again.
“No,” Denizen said, pushing past her. “Let me.”
Mercy hadn’t gifted him with power. She’d given him understanding.
The power of the Tenebrae wasn’t some quick fix or bottomless well of magic to be drawn on—if it were, the Knights wouldn’t need swords at all.
Mercy’s gift hummed between his thoughts like static electricity. It wasn’t about raw power. It was about focus. It was about placing your finger o
n the scales, about expending the minimum amount of effort for the maximum gain.
Denizen let the power of the Tenebrae climb his spine in a seething tide and with a muttered syllable spat fire into his hand. He rolled it between his palms, drawing it out into twin darts of light. A flick of his wrist sent both arcing toward the hinges. Metal glowed red and came apart. With a groan, the gates’ own weight dragged them forward to land heavily in the dirt.
Vivian raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he said innocently. She didn’t reply.
Beside them, Abigail Falx had removed her cap to let her black hair shine in the moonlight. Her slim rapier gleamed at her side, and her sleek crossbow was in her hands. The hammer at Vivian’s waist didn’t reflect the light at all.
As they strode toward the orphanage, Denizen’s heart began to pound. It wasn’t quite fear and it wasn’t quite excitement, but some strange, headachey mix of the two.
He hadn’t let the power subside—it throbbed in time with his heartbeat, prickling along his limbs, making his fingers twitch and tingle. There was a saber hanging at his waist, but he hadn’t drawn it. Why would he, when he could just reach out and—
No. Not yet. When the Three revealed themselves…then he could cut loose. Power crackled eagerly through the vaults of his mind.
They stepped across the gates. Glancing up at the foreboding face of Crosscaper, Denizen was struck once again by that feeling of smallness, as if someone had replaced the landscape of his childhood with something just a little more threadbare.
There was a figure waiting for them in its shadow.
“I told them you’d be back.”
The rain had soaked Grey’s shirt to his skin and plastered his hair to his scalp. He must have been standing out there for a long time. Denizen wondered whether the Three had just left him there like a discarded toy.
Or a guard dog.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” the Knight said. He was holding Vivian’s hammer in his hands. It didn’t suit him.
“Graham,” Vivian said calmly, “put that down.”
