Tarnished City

by Vic James

  The downstairs hallway opened directly into the living room-cum-office where Renie was. Abi heard the girl shriek as several men, judging by the sound of their boots, burst into the house.

  As Abi’s fingers closed around her phone she heard a barked instruction from below: ‘Check upstairs.’

  ‘There ain’t nobody here,’ Renie yelled. ‘Just me. Three of yer for a kid? You’re so brave.’

  Then a yelp, as one of them struck her.

  It went against her every instinct not to rush to Renie’s aid, but Abi didn’t wait. She’d be no use to Renie arrested alongside her. She heaved up the sash window and climbed through, teetering on the sill outside to yank it back down so her exit wasn’t instantly obvious.

  If she jumped down, she’d be in the back garden with no way out, so she tested the strength of the guttering and swung herself up. The window was a dormer, its jut of tiles lying below the main roof ridge. Abi straddled it, hoping she was concealed from the sight of anyone in the road out front. She inhaled deeply to try and calm her breathing. What was going on inside the house? If they hurt Renie, Abi would never forgive herself.

  Security must have had some lead to this place. Did they also know about the men of the Twelve Bore in Dalston? She couldn’t be sure, but it plainly wouldn’t be wise to go there straight away. Her options were dwindling fast.

  Abi stifled a gasp as the sash rattled up beneath her. She couldn’t see the speaker, but he must have thrust his head out because his words floated up clearly.

  ‘Nah, upstairs is clear. Someone’s been living here, there’s a camp bed. But only one. Maybe the kid. If not, then whoever it is, they’re not here right now. Let’s leave someone out front to watch for them.’

  The window frame rasped partway down, and the man was gone.

  Abi waited a few moments, then rolled as carefully as she could onto her front and wriggled up to the ridge line. Who had Renie, and where were they taking her? The street lighting was in front of the house, while the gardens behind were in darkness, so she shouldn’t be seen.

  She recognized him immediately, the sodium lighting fuzzing off his shorn scalp. Luke’s nemesis: Kessler. In front of him, two black-clad men were marching Renie between them. They were so big and she so little that her feet barely touched the ground as they dragged her down the pathway.

  Waiting in the street were three vehicles: an anonymous black sedan, a van that could only be a prisoner transport vehicle, and behind it, a standard Security squad car. The two men shoved Renie against the van, then wrenched her arms back to handcuff them and roughly patted her down.

  As they dragged open the side of the van to shove her in, Abi glimpsed movement and heard a distressed bellow that could only have been Wesley. The van slammed shut.

  So they’d already been to Dalston, and rounded everyone up. Did they have Midsummer? Abi didn’t see how Security could arrest an Equal, so she must not have been there when Kessler and his team arrived. She would surely have stopped them otherwise.

  Kessler bent to speak to the patrol car’s driver, and an officer climbed out of the back to take up position along the street. From there, he could watch the house. He had a gun, Abi noticed. A proper one, not a stun gun. Kessler and his crew were trading up.

  Then the vehicles were gone and Abi was left alone, pressed against the roof. She gave it five minutes to make sure the watchman would stay where he was, before she slid down the tiles and back through the window. She grabbed the coat containing the last of the money she’d taken from Kyneston, and her phone charger. Who knew how long she might need to run for, or who was left to help.

  Then it was out of the window again, and a short drop into the garden. She went over the fence into the neighbouring garden, down the side alley between that house and the next, and took off at a rapid walk south to Victoria Park. There’d be few people there to overhear her.

  She sat down on a tree stump in a wooded area by the children’s playground and pulled out her phone. There were only four numbers stored in it, and they belonged to the only four people who could help: Faiers, Midsummer, Jenner and Armeria Tresco. Which should she call?

  She drew a deep breath before hitting the keypad. And the minute the phone connected and she heard that reassuring voice, Abi felt calmer. She could do this. Not everything was lost.

  They arranged to meet that evening, four hours from now, on the other side of the city. Abi decided to walk, crossing over onto the Thames’ south bank. In Rotherhithe she dumped her coat in a charity bin and bought a new one off a market stall. Down a side street she found a small hairdresser’s shop with no customers and a TV tuned to the sports channel. If the owner didn’t keep up with the news, they’d hopefully miss it if Abi became a ‘person of interest’ and her photo was shared by the media.

  After considering a super-short cut, Abi decided it would be better to have something to hide behind, so forked out for extensions. She grimaced in the mirror at the effect: on the run, with porn-star hair. But at least she looked different. This was about staying free.

  The proprietor turfed her out and shut up for the night, and Abi couldn’t put off her meeting any longer. Nor did she want to. Hopefully for a few hours she would have respite from the nightmare of the past night and day – and at the end of it, a plan for what to do next.

  Westminster Bridge would have been the most direct route, but because it led to parliament, she skirted it, continuing to Lambeth. Even at a distance, she could see the House of Light illuminating the night sky with its flickering radiance.

  London’s burning, she thought. Burning with the Skill of the Equals. Could it ever be put out?

  Crossing at Lambeth Bridge, she followed Horseferry Road. And then she was at the back wall of Aston House.

  It seemed the height of folly, but when they’d spoken earlier, Jenner had argued that his family’s new residence would be the safest place in all London. ‘There are seven hundred and seventy-five rooms,’ he told her. ‘We’re only using about thirty. You could probably move in and live here for years with no one noticing. It gets you off the streets, and in here there’s no Security and no surveillance. Besides, Father and Bouda are at Westminster. Most likely, Mother and I will be the only ones home – and your sister and Libby, of course. I might be able to bring Daisy to you when Libby’s sleeping.’

  She felt a painful ache at the thought of Daisy. Abi would give anything just to see her little sister and hug her tight. She followed the wall, hat on and head down. As the hour began to strike in Aston’s clock tower, she reached the doorway Jenner had mentioned. From the street, it looked long disused. But Abi had barely given the softest of knocks before it opened, and there he was. Pale face, warm freckles, and that wide, anxious smile.

  ‘Come in quickly,’ he said. ‘No one saw you?’

  Abi shook her head and squeezed through. Inside was a tangle of overgrown shrubs and grasses, newly hacked back to make a path. Once she was in, he refastened the door quickly with a padlock and drew an iron bar across.

  ‘This was always a commoner residence,’ he explained, seeing her surprise. ‘So there’s no residual Skillful protection. Mother has layered some family wards onto the central part of the house, the bit we’re using, but Silyen’s not been around much so no one’s done the boundaries. Mother just got a chap to put new locks on anything that looked like a door or gate. I swear no one else knows this door is even here.’ He slipped the key into his pocket. ‘Now let me look at you. Oh, Abi.’

  He reached for her and pulled her hard against him. As she let herself relax into his arms, Abi wished she had allowed herself to do this earlier. To come to him like this, despite the turmoil they had both endured in the weeks since they were last together at Highwithel.

  ‘I saw you, you know,’ she said, resting her chin on his chest and looking up at him. ‘At the Queen’s Chapel. The head. That awful speech – did your father make you say all that?’

  Jenner looked mortified. Abi laug
hed, and stretched up to kiss him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

  ‘Where have you been for the past month?’ he asked. ‘What’s been going on? I thought you’d given up on me.’

  ‘I thought you’d want me to.’ Abi paused. ‘You’re an heir, now. How does it feel?’

  She reached for his right hand, and inspected the signet ring on the little finger. It bore the Parva emblem: the salamander.

  ‘I burn not shine,’ she murmured, remembering her conversation about the family motto with Silyen Jardine in Kyneston’s library. ‘I think that fits you rather well, don’t you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He sounded annoyed and Abi could have kicked herself. She had meant only that unlike entitled Gavar, and eccentric Silyen, Jenner was steady, not showy. But he might have taken it as a reference to his lack of Skill. How much harder it must be for him, no longer in obscurity at Kyneston, but thrust among the most powerful Equals of the land. She’d imagined his new eminence would make things easier for him, but it struck her now that it might merely have made it worse.

  She’d be no good at putting that into words, of course. So she squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek contritely.

  He led her through a thicket of rhododendrons towards the rear of Aston House, and even though she was familiar with Kyneston, it was an imposing sight. Everyone knew the grand frontage that dominated the Mall, but you never saw the back. The front facade was just one side of a vast quadrangle. She truly could lose herself in here, Abi thought – and the idea was so very tempting.

  ‘This way,’ Jenner said, leading her by the hand. They went through an archway in the rear wing and emerged in an inner courtyard. It was square and massive; two tiers of windows, of which only a few were lit, lined every side of the quadrangle. On the outer frontage, not visible from here, was the balcony from which Gavar Jardine had leapt. And beyond that sat the defaced royal statue to which she and Renie had given Whittam Jardine’s face.

  Abi’s skin prickled. Here she was, in the Jardine home itself. Whittam slept here. Gavar too – and presumably Bouda, now that they were married.

  As if sensing her unease, Jenner squeezed her fingers. ‘Nearly there.’

  He put an arm round her as two servants crossed the quad, bearing trays with empty dishes, their silver covers rolling gently. The servants never once turned their heads. Perhaps they were house-slaves brought up from Kyneston. You learned to ignore a lot there.

  Then they were inside a warmly lit, richly carpeted corridor, with elaborately carved wooden doors leading off the length of it. Abi felt more exposed in here than outside. What if they were to meet Thalia Jardine? The Equal would be sure to recognize her.

  So she was grateful when Jenner turned into a quieter corridor and paused outside a door.

  ‘We’ll sort it all out,’ he said.

  He opened the door and motioned Abi inside, stepping in behind her.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, Abi saw that there was already someone there, sitting in an armchair.

  Lord Whittam Jardine.

  Horrified, she turned to try and bundle Jenner back out. Perhaps Whittam wouldn’t recognize her. Perhaps he’d think she was just another commoner trollop dragged in for a night of fun by one of his sons.

  But Jenner was stood in front of the door, turning a key in the lock. He looked up when she thumped his shoulder, panicked and afraid, and caught her wrists in one hand. With the other, he reached out and stroked her cheek.

  ‘You’ll be with your brother,’ he said gently. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? Just as I am now finally equal with mine.’

  Then he turned her around to face his father.

  ‘No!’ Abi said, struggling. ‘No, Jenner.’ But he held her tight.

  Whittam prowled over. Abi had never been close to him before, and she recoiled. Power and cruelty rolled off him in waves. He grabbed her face between his thick fingers, and they gripped Abi’s cheekbones like a vice. She felt suddenly, terrifyingly fragile. One squeeze of that hand and she would break irreparably.

  ‘She’s young,’ Whittam said sceptically.

  ‘Nineteen,’ Jenner supplied. ‘Nearly twenty. But her brother was only seventeen when he killed Zelston.’

  ‘True.’ Whittam released Abi, but continued to pad around her. ‘They were obviously part of the same network. Corrupted together. After her brother’s Condemnation, she fled from Kyneston, knowing that she would surely be discovered next. She made her way up to Riverhead to plan the next move in their campaign of unrest and intimidation.’

  ‘What?’ Abi wasn’t sure what she was hearing. ‘Jenner, you know where I was. You were there with us.’

  ‘Yes, you went first to Highwithel, to Meilyr,’ Jenner said, gripping her arm a little more tightly behind her back. There was a robotic quality to his voice, as if reciting something he had learned by rote. ‘Meilyr, who openly confessed to stirring commoner revolt. You and he decided that you should go to Riverhead, to try and succeed where your brother had failed in Millmoor. Poor, besotted Dina Matravers, who could never deny Meilyr anything, agreed to help. You decided that when you shut down the slavetown, she would lure her sister up.’

  ‘Jenner, no.’ Abi tried to shake herself free. ‘What are you saying? You know none of that’s true.’

  She cried out as Whittam Jardine backhanded her across the face.

  ‘Stupid girl,’ he said. ‘Truth isn’t what happened, it’s what people will believe happened. I managed to get rid of that deluded little bitch, Bodina, without arousing her sister’s suspicions. But recasting her as a tragic bit-part player leaves me with no leading lady in this drama.

  ‘There are women among those we detained, of course. But the best tales are those that require the least embellishment. So it was perfect when my middle son, newly awoken to his responsibilities as a parliamentarian and heir, came to me after your phone call. He said he’d found me a new Angel of the North. Yes, I think you’ll fill the role admirably – just in time for the finale.’

  It was a nightmare that had rushed over her so fast Abi could barely comprehend it. She twisted around to look at Jenner. Tried to lift her hands to him, but he still held them as tight as the cuffs had gripped Renie.

  ‘Is he making you say this? Jenner, please, this isn’t you.’ ‘I’m an heir now, Abi. For the first time I know how much my family really values me. And Father says that with Crovan able to strip Skill, it’ll only be a matter of time before he can restore it, too. I did tell you all, at Highwithel, that there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for that.’

  ‘I loved you.’ It was both truth and accusation.

  ‘And I cared for you too,’ Jenner said, a soft, sad smile on that lovely mouth. ‘But I think I can do better than a commoner girl, don’t you? Besides, you’ll be Condemned alongside your brother. You’ll be together. So it’s what you wanted, too, in a way.’

  ‘Condemned?’ Lord Jardine barked with laughter, and Abi trembled to hear it. ‘You know how this story ends, Jenner. With Friday’s Blood Fair. Enough of this maudlin nonsense.’

  Terrified, Abi jerked her head to see if Jenner would protest, but Lord Jardine was already between them. He pressed those thick fingers to her forehead and Abi went down into a darkness that held no mercy.

  25

  Luke

  ‘Yet another helicopter. How tiresome,’ said Jules, with a sarcastic drawl. ‘I blame you, Luke. We had a nice, quiet life before you turned up.’

  Luke rolled his eyes at his friend, but his heart was racing. The first chopper that came had brought Meilyr, Dina and Abi. The second, Silyen Jardine. Who would this be?

  He fidgeted in his armchair, unable to continue reading the book in his hand – a mouldering account of the castle and the Crovan family. He’d trawled every shelf in the library for anything that might tell him more about what had happened that night at the Last Door. He was confident in his deduction abo
ut Coira’s identity. But given that his life – and hers – would depend on them both being able to walk safely out of the door again, he needed to discover all that he could. Something that he couldn’t put his finger on was nagging at him.

  ‘It’s a woman,’ Jules announced. ‘Alone.’

  Just as they had previously, the guests stampeded onto the landing and staircase to watch for the new arrival. Left in peace, Luke forced his eyes over the relevant paragraphs one more time. What was he not understanding?

  One bloody year eight centuries ago, when Scotland’s mormaer earls vied for power, a king-presumptive and his son were murdered beneath their own roof by a treacherous guest. So the mormaer Crovan set about ensuring that no one would do the same to him.

  The Door of Hours and the Last Door were crafted. Only the castle’s lord or its heir could grant guests safe passage back to the world outside. Far from making the Crovans pariahs, this made it a mark of good faith to visit the castle, and many negotiations between rival parties were held there. That was what Jackson had been relying on, Luke thought sadly, as he closed the book. If only Crovan had been as honourable as his medieval ancestors.

  He tucked the volume down the side of the chair, and went to join the others watching for the new arrival. But he’d already missed her, because as he reached the door Jules barged back in past him. His friend went straight through to the adjoining billiard room, where a bottle stood chilling in an ice bucket ready for champagne o’clock. Julian’s throat worked as he drank deeply, then he slammed the bottle down, belched, and wiped his mouth.

  ‘Jules?’

  ‘The bitch.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who is she?’ someone else asked. The rest of the guests had followed Julian back in from the landing, all as curious as Luke at his violent response.

  ‘She’s the reason I’m here,’ Jules snarled, drawing another glug. ‘She’s my girlfriend’s older sister, Heir Astrid Halfdan.’

  Bottle in hand, he stormed out of the room.