Sing Down the Stars (The Celestine Series Book 1)

by L. J. Hatton

  Bull did exactly that, but he was hesitant and confused, like he didn’t know why he was doing it. Tuck didn’t move at all.

  “We’ll scream,” I said, standing beside Winnie.

  “Holler to high heaven out here, and only the devil will hear, princess.”

  Winnie’s fingers pulsed at her side, readying a five-count the way we did to cue an act. I knew exactly what she was thinking. When she hit one, we were going to run. Tuck couldn’t chase us both, and from his size, even following one of us would be a chore.

  I reached for my pack, and Xerxes with it.

  Winnie’s little finger folded down, followed by the one next to it, and the next . . .

  “Why don’t you be good girls and come along,” Tuck said. “No sense arguing with your elders, eh?”

  I don’t think he realized his friend was gone.

  Winnie’s thumb tucked into her fist, and—

  “Cue!” I shouted.

  She swung her pack straight at Tuck’s face. Mine caught him in the gut, where his flesh met Xerxes’ metal hide, and he fell to his knees. We were off and out the door, passing Bull, who didn’t pay us any mind at all.

  “Wha—” I began.

  “Questions later,” Winnie insisted. She yanked my wrist.

  The streets had been given over to nighttime vermin scavenging trash and scraps by moonlight. Dogs with their ribs showing under mangy fur patrolled the bridge. Cats chased rats that were nearly their own size.

  There was no one out here to help us.

  Behind us, someone ran with heavy steps, moving much quicker than I would have thought Tuck capable.

  “I’d say it’s a good time to find out how well my father made that rebreather,” I said. “Get back to the river!”

  We slid down the sloped bank toward the water. I made the mistake of looking back and saw Tuck skidding clumsily down the path we’d taken, towing Bull along with him.

  The river took my breath away. It had been cold before, but now a thin crust of ice had formed near the shore. The freeze crept up the stripes on my dress; my father’s coat turned cumbersome, making each step more difficult.

  “D-d-deeper,” Winnie chattered. Her sweater was full of water, dragging her down. “We need—”

  She was choked off when she was grabbed from behind; I was lifted in the next instant.

  “That wasn’t very smart.” Tuck let go, and I fell shivering onto the ground. Winnie landed beside me. “And bad things happen to stupid dolly girls who wander where they don’t belong.”

  “Do something,” Winnie rasped.

  “I’m trying,” I whispered back, but all I got was one pitiful, short-lived flare in the sky that would be used for wishing if anyone saw it.

  “Let go!” Winnie shouted when Tuck reached to pull her off the ground. She turned her attention to Bull. “Don’t let him hurt us. Stop—”

  Tuck slapped her sideways so hard he split her lip. “You two are more trouble than you’re worth. I think we ought to right the balance.”

  We were on a warehouse floor with our hands tied to a central beam behind us. We’d been blindfolded and hadn’t seen where Bull and Tuck took us, but it had to be the water district. I could hear boat bells as they rang in the narrows.

  The men must have been squatters. A burning pile of trash on a clear patch of cement floor was as close as they had to a furnace. The way Tuck kept looking at us made my insides squirm.

  “You little lovelies are going to more than make up for what Bull ’n’ me lost these last months,” he said.

  He reached for my leg, and Winnie kicked him in the side of the head, where his ear had already swelled up like a piece of cauliflower. He fell, cursing as dark spittle ran from the corner of his mouth. He drew back to hit her, but Bull caught his arm.

  “Don’t go damaging the merchandise. One of these little bits has a rich daddy somewhere, and black-and-blue ain’t the image we want him to see.” Bull didn’t speak often, but he was obviously the one with more authority. Tuck didn’t have the patience to think things through.

  Tuck spat out a mouthful of thick spit and blood.

  “We’re not rich,” I said, desperately trying to convince them we weren’t worth keeping.

  “Nice try, princess,” Bull said. “But hardscrabbles don’t carry the kind of tech you girls have. Where’d it ship from? The Sundowns in Seoul? Helsinki? Ah—doesn’t matter. I know where it’s going.”

  Of course he’d want to sell it. My father’s inventions were unique; each piece was worth a fortune.

  “We stole all of that,” I said. “I’m a carnie girl. We both are.”

  “You’re a quick thinker, I’ll give you that, but you’ve no part here. Soon as I figure out who you belong to, I’ll sell you back to your poor mother to ease her mind.”

  “My mother’s dead,” I said.

  “Good to know.” Bull smiled. The three teeth that weren’t green were missing. “Makes you worth more to your old man, I’m sure. Me and Tuck’ll be much obliged for the pay—obliged enough to slip through the mountains and out of this backward pit for good.”

  “Through the mountains” was a common goal for people who thought life was easier on the other side of the ridge, where the tech restrictions were lighter. There were glass towers there, and buildings that rose above the clouds. There were companies that made components for my father, and implemented his designs as practical devices. I’d been there—it was where the wardens came from. That’s why we lived on the train.

  A loud metal clang sounded from the table in the center of the room where the men had piled the things they took from us, and then more cursing as Tuck jumped, shaking his hand, with Xerxes’ beak clamped around his fingers.

  Knowing how powerful Xerxes was at any size, I was surprised Tuck could still use the hand at all. Xerxes sprang backward into the air and hovered, growling as loudly as his reduced mass allowed.

  Tuck took a swipe with a pry bar; Xerxes slapped him with a wing, leaving him with a gash above his eye. The golem swiveled his head, taking in the whole room and pausing on me and Winnie, before rocketing through one of the many holes in the ceiling that he was small enough to fit through.

  Tuck stormed across the room, pry bar in hand, and raised it like a bludgeon. Bull plucked it out of his grip before he could bring it down.

  “They’re no good dead.”

  “What about that one?” Tuck asked, pointing at Winnie. He had a look in his eye, a dark, hungry want.

  “If Daddy’s not interested, she’s worth her weight in the Chapels, but the Abbess don’t pay if you break her.”

  My stomach flipped.

  An abbess was what people around here called a madam. Bull’s backup plan was to sell us in the red-light district. Such things were illegal, of course, but the kind of illegal that shouldn’t be seen more than shouldn’t be done. Those who could stop it were more concerned with watching the skies for ships than watching the streets for trouble.

  The fire went out in Winnie’s eyes. When she opened her mouth, no sound came out, not even a sob. She drew her feet up and leaned closer to me, so I shifted as near as my tied hands would let me, until I wanted to scream from the ropes burning my skin.

  “Leave her alone!” I snapped, but Tuck lumbered forward. He ripped Winnie’s sleeve, revealing scars I’d never seen. She wore long sleeves when she wasn’t in costume, and inside the tank, her skin was covered in moss and makeup. The more severe marks passed out of sight around the back of her shoulder.

  Tuck wasn’t fazed in the least. He reached for the neck of her sweater, and she balled herself up tighter.

  “There’s a warden after us! If he finds us, he’ll find you!” It was a gamble that either man believed the Commission was a danger to them, but I was desperate—and it worked. Tuck released Winnie’s sweater; he st
ood up, crouching over us.

  “What’s that?”

  “You want to know who we’re running from? Too bad. You’ll never see them coming, and you know why, but you’ll see the hounds. Same as we did. You know The Show?”

  “Course.”

  “We’re carnie girls. We got boarded, so we grabbed what we could carry, and ran.”

  “Leave off,” Bull said. His piggy little eyes narrowed, and his face turned very serious, as he pulled Tuck away.

  “She’s lyin’,” Tuck spat.

  “I’m not! They’re searching for anyone who made it off the train before she blew. We heard what happens to people who get found, so we hid.”

  “And what’re a couple of Kewpie dolls worth to a warden?”

  “Roma’s my father. Leave my friend alone, or when the one chasing me asks why I won’t talk, I’ll tell him it’s because of you, and you can try and convince him otherwise.”

  Bull shoved Tuck to get him away from us.

  “I said leave off. If these little bits are who and what she claims, you don’t want nobody finding your prints on either one of ’em.” Bull set Winnie upright, then put his filthy coat around her shoulders.

  “See for yourself. My father’s marks are on the tech you took.”

  Bull dragged Tuck to the table, where they continued to argue. Tuck was still nursing his sore head, but Bull had one of my father’s inventions in his hands, pointing to something on the side.

  “I don’t care what you think those scratches mean! I’m not listening to fairy tales about people who can fly over the countryside and call up earthquakes or fire spouts on a wish. I found ’em. I’m owed one of the pair!”

  If it was as easy as wishing, I’d have been rewarded with some small show of power to scare them into letting us go. I held my breath and pulled as hard as I could, imagining a firestorm beating down upon the warehouse roof, but no stars fell. A door in the back blew open, slamming against the inner wall as a random gust of wind swirled through the room, but I was powerless.

  “There’s unnatural happenings ’round The Show and those who call it home,” Bull said, shuddering when the door slammed shut again. “If anyone can attract trouble, it’s that lot. I’m heading for the station house. You fetch the Abbess. If no one knows this mark, then princess or not, we’ll chuck both over for the trouble, but I’m not risking my neck if this one’s telling the truth. Fair?”

  “Fair,” Tuck said, but he didn’t seem too happy about it.

  He unwound his scarf, came toward us, and grabbed me by my hair, pulling up until I tried to scream. Once my mouth was open, he stuffed the scarf inside, then tied the ends off tight around the back of my head.

  Bull tied a rag around Winnie’s mouth, but I doubted she’d be saying much anyway. She’d gone back to being mute, and I didn’t want to think about why. I had never imagined she’d experienced anything that could leave scars like those.

  “Douse the lights, and get gone,” Bull said.

  Winnie and I were left in the dark, with no way to call for help and no way out.

  CHAPTER 10

  My arm fell numb from Winnie leaning against it, and it stayed that way while the rats came out of the walls to investigate our presence. They were better company than Bull and Tuck, but they were also more skittish. Eventually the back door creaked, and a parade of lights rolled into the room, scattering the rats.

  Creeper lights.

  Specifically, the creepers from the backstreet café. Uneven, glowing cords dripped down from the ceiling as the placard-climbers dropped in through the roof. We were miles from the shops—there was no way the lights could have found us, and no reason they would have tried.

  I nudged Winnie with my shoulder.

  One of the creepers butted my leg to get my attention. Creepers were dedicated entertainment machines, but this one raised its front legs and brought them in front of its lantern-face to tell me: Shield your eyes.

  They weren’t real words, or at least there wasn’t a voice speaking them. The warning was a thought put into my mind from outside.

  I looked at Winnie and squeezed my eyes shut, to cue her to do the same. A second later, there was a flash of heat; the ropes around my wrists disintegrated.

  “Did you do that?” I asked the creeper, once I’d opened my eyes and removed my gag. It put its front legs down and danced with its companions. There were two patches of ash on the ground from the ropes.

  “Penn, what’s going on?” Winnie was talking again, and rubbing her raw wrists.

  “I have no idea.”

  The creepers were acting so out of character that I would have believed my father sent them if we hadn’t been so close to danger. Had he known where we were, my father wouldn’t have left us alone in that warehouse, with the threat of Tuck and Bull returning at any moment.

  Even that moment.

  The door creaked again, and the creepers fled, dousing their lights as they went. The climbers retreated into the rafters.

  With a group approaching, the best odds would be for me and Winnie to abandon our tech and hide, but there wasn’t enough racket for a group. If it was only Tuck and Bull, we had a better chance letting them think nothing had changed. We could find out if someone from the Commission was on the way, and I had a chance to save Bijou and the rest of my father’s work from the table.

  We sat down, with our hands behind our backs and the rags around our faces.

  “Got two here for you,” said Tuck’s voice. “One belongs to Bull, but he ain’t here.”

  “Well?” A woman’s gravelly voice. “Let’s see them. Wasting my time don’t raise their value.”

  The closest lamp turned on. I blinked up toward the light and saw a woman with spindly arms and splotchy skin. She stood with a hunch, wearing rags that barely qualified as clothes. There was a strange quality to her skin, like a candle flame cast through colored scarves to form unnatural shadows.

  “Those scars’ll drop the price,” she said, taking Winnie’s chin in her hand. “What’s the other one’s tale?”

  “Runaway with a dead family,” Tuck said.

  “That true?” the woman asked me, with a sharp tug on my hair to pull my face into the light.

  I shook my head as fast as I could, but found myself unable to look away from the Abbess’s surprisingly clear eyes. Memories of The Show swirled through me, dragging up names and faces to go with them—everyone from my father and sisters to the stagehands. Something was pulling them out like a magnet pulls iron. The experience lasted seconds, but I felt drained by the end, and the whole time the Abbess’s eyes moved from side to side at REM speed.

  “Nasty little liar, that one,” Tuck said, and slapped me, sparking lights behind my eyes.

  When I looked back up, the Abbess sort of flickered, creating the illusion of a second face beneath the first.

  “No one’s gonna miss ’er, Abbess.”

  The ghostly second face disappeared, leaving only the horrible, dispassionate one.

  “She’ll need a scrub to get the dust off, but we can deal.” The Abbess nodded absently.

  They moved to the far side of the warehouse to settle on a price.

  Winnie and I crawled off, not wanting to risk casting our shadows if we stood up too close to the lamp that Tuck had lit. As we neared my father’s tech, the creepers came out of hiding. They swarmed the table, putting everything back into our bags.

  “Tell me I’m not dreaming this,” Winnie said.

  “If you are, then so am I.”

  The machines were efficient. The one that had been their spokesman came forward again. It tapped my arm, then jabbed its front leg upward.

  Klok waved at us from the rafters, where he and Jermay both sat straddling the beams. Jermay raised his hand, bending his little finger toward me. The peculiar blue tint to his eyes was
heightened in the shadows, sparking off with frozen lightning that made me wonder if there wasn’t actually a bit of magic trapped inside them. We could certainly use it.

  I wiggled my pinkie back at him.

  Birdie ran across to join them, sure-footed as only someone accustomed to the Jeseks’ high wire could be. Klok took her hands and lowered her on his hydraulic arms until she was close enough to the table to drop onto it. She didn’t make a sound.

  “How’d you find us?” I whispered to Birdie.

  “Xerxes homed in on Klok, then these guys showed up. We followed,” she said, passing our bags to a tangle of climbing lights beside her. “Let’s go.”

  Jermay took the bags from the climbers, letting Xerxes wriggle back into my pack before he slung it over his shoulders, and started for the vented window they’d used to sneak in.

  Birdie grabbed Klok’s wrists. A bundle of climbers reached for Winnie, wrapping tight around her, then they zipped up into the ceiling, hoisting her onto the rafter behind Jermay. When Klok returned for me, the oddly communicative creeper raised its leg to wave good-bye.

  From overhead, I could see how much hair the Abbess was missing, and the way that the wisps hardly covered her scabby scalp heightened the flickering outline around her edges. Up there, it was clear how truly buglike Tuck’s body was. It was also from midair that I saw lights flood in through the windows. Two here-but-not holograms appeared, neither of which was Evie’s man. One was much older; the other looked a lot like Rye, only he’d traded his apron for a silver jacket.

  “Five on high,” he said. “No one on the . . . Jenny? How . . . What happened to you?”

  He stared, shocked at Winnie’s disheveled appearance. He even sounded concerned.

  Someone must have reprimanded him on his end of the transmission because Rye looked off to the side, then continued. “Take the building,” he said.

  “What’s that?” The Abbess startled. Floodlights cut through her thin dress, casting the shape of her skeletal body against the cloth.

  A low rumbling shook the whole building with the impact of machine-tread on stone.