Magpie's Song

by Allison Pang

  Relief floods through my muddled head at this final confirmation. They’re safe. Ghost is safe. A flutter of giddiness makes me bold, and I roll my eyes at the man. “Not likely. I doubt the Inquestors will be any better at finding imaginary conspirators than they are at finding imaginary clockwork dragons.”

  The High Inquestor grows very still, and I know the barb has hit. But for that one moment I don’t care, and I stare up at him, unflinching. Let them be afraid for once.

  “Get her cleaned up,” the High Inquestor snaps, kicking me in the side so that I’m left gasping like a fish. “An example must be made, and I intend to use her.”

  My consciousness is already beginning to fade, and I catch one last glimpse of Molly, her mouth pinched tight and terrible, before I slip into darkness.

  People line the streets, judging me with bold, curious eyes. My vision is fogged and blurry, and the street jolts beneath my feet, threatening to upend me with mischievous intent. Why is the ground moving?

  Somewhere, a bell is jingling madly, and the tinny sound fills my ears until I’m sure they’re about to burst. The more I attempt to cover my head, the louder they ring. But it drowns out the jeers and the cries of disgust being hurled in my direction, punctuated by the occasional rock or rotting vegetable.

  And so I let them ring, watching my boots as they slip over the mud-encrusted cobblestones. I’ve been allowed to keep the shift, though the corset is long gone.

  The Inquestors do not even pretend to make this act sacred as they have the others. I’m going out of turn. Not as a blessed sacrifice but as a criminal.

  The path to the Pits has never seemed so long, but before I realize it, the procession has halted and I stand before the thick metal gates where the High Inquestor waits. I can barely focus through my fever haze. The hood of my cloak has blown off, exposing my nearly bald scalp.Behind me, the wretched sobs of the Rotters hang quiet. The High Inquestor raises his gloved hand to silence the crowd, but it isn’t necessary. One look at me has turned this from procession to spectacle.

  There are Moon Children in the crowd, mostly hidden, but my eyes are drawn to them. The townsfolk will not meet my gaze, but the Moon Children do, and it satisfies me that they, at least, understand. A sudden movement attracts my attention, revealing Josephine upon the nearest rooftop. She raises her fist to her heart, but we both know she won’t risk her people for me. Not when this was the plan all along. Of Rory there is no sign at all.

  I bite my lip when I see Lucian by the gates, his face shadowed beneath his cloak. He leans heavily upon a cane, and I glance away quickly, though all I want to do is shout at him, Where is Ghost? and beg him to save me despite everything.

  But no answers are forthcoming. The Tithers prod me forward, separating me from the group. Will they shove me inside without preamble?

  Ah, but no. The show is not finished without drawing at least some blood. My arms are lifted above me and tied to the pole in front of the gates. I look beyond the metal bars, but all I see are shadows. I stare at them as the charges against me are read.

  Murderer. Conspirator. Disturber of the peace. Thief. Forger.

  There’s no point in contesting the charges. They’re true, after all. The High Inquestor makes a show of inspecting the brand on my neck, scratching the number down in the Tithe roster. I cannot help but wonder how many Moon Children are on there, how many numbers.

  I barely register the chill in the air when my shift is torn open to hang from my waist, exposing my flesh to the gawkers. Some turn from me. In pity or disgust, I don’t know. Others make eager sounds as the whip is uncoiled.

  The High Inquestor pauses as he glances down at me, his eyes narrowing when he sees the panel upon my chest. “And just what is this?”

  My upper lip curls, and for a moment I don’t know if I’m going to spit at him or sob, but it doesn’t matter because the familiar singsong voice of Mad Brianna cuts through the crowd like a crooked knife.

  “The sparrow’s flown the coop and left the fox behind, a hidden mask wrapped in bitterness and brine . . .” The old woman hunches her way into the space before us, her eyes rolling wildly until they land on me. “The key,” she mumbles. “The key in the lee of the lock of the note. He’ll break your heart to give us hope. When the Mother Clock sings, the dragon takes wing.”

  I stare at her in confusion, her words sliding past me in a haze.

  The High Inquestor motions impatiently at the Tithers, their wands crackling with sudden power. “Enough of this nonsense. Begone or suffer her fate, as well.”

  Mad Brianna cackles and whirls upon him, laughing even as she is dragged away. “Meridion will fall if you bury the moon. IronHeart’s flight is Meridion’s doo—”

  Her words cut off with a gurgle as one of the Tithers slams her into the cobblestones. Her legs twitch once and she doesn’t move again.

  I let out a scream, an ugly sound of rage and horror and pure spite as I struggle against my bindings. Adoptive or not, she’s the only mother I’ve ever known.

  The High Inquestor prods at the panel with a meaty finger, smirking when I try to bite him. “IronHeart? Is that what you fancy yourself? How quaintly pathetic.” He waves his hand as though nothing even happened. “Ten lashes for murder. Two for each additional charge.”

  The silence bites me with its quiet anticipation.

  Crack.

  It starts with a sting. A biting fly. A pinprick of tiny focus, nearly negligible in its importance. My breath hitches, and exquisite fire spreads between my shoulder blades.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  I whimper.

  Crack.

  My skin splits. I am a chrysalis of flesh, a butterfly of bones ready to escape.

  Crack.

  My body spasms, and the bells at my wrist jingle, discordant and brittle. A hot flush of tears waters in my eyes.

  Crack.

  By the end of it, blood fills my mouth from where I’ve bitten through my lower lip. I’ve retreated into myself, standing outside my own body, watching the crimson stripes ooze over my back.

  From within my chest, the clockwork heart thrums, stuttering with each impact. Out of the corner of my weeping eyes, I see Ghost, struggling in Lucian’s arms, his mouth contorted in fury.

  “. . . ags . . . will . . . come for you . . .”

  And then he’s gone, swept away in the crowd.

  Not forgotten. I’m not forgotten.

  The words repeat themselves in a litany in my mind, breaking the cadence of the whip like the rhythmic rush of the sea as it speeds toward the shore before pulling away again to leave me aching and hollow.

  Somehow that small bit of knowledge that he’s here makes the rest of it easier to bear. Everything we’ve done has not been in vain. Josephine. Chancellor Davis. Lucian. Ghost. The actors are onstage, and they know their parts, just as I know mine.

  The jeers of the crowd have grown quiet, and the only sound is the low moan escaping my throat. The High Inquestor gives me a satisfied nod. I’m roughly untied from the pole, but I make no move to cover myself.

  He barks something at the other bird-faced Inquestors. Their batons crackle with electricity, and the airship above us roars to life as the cranks and pulleys are rotated at the top of the gates. The crowd behind us backs away before the gates are opened; only the boldest remain when the Tithers snap at them to leave.

  The High Inquestor has me pulled to the side, allowing the procession to enter first. The newly diagnosed hide behind their masks, their porcelain faces serene, eyes darting with fear. One of them shivers, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. They file through the gates, the white of their cloaks turning orange in the guttering sconces lining the tunnel wall beyond the gates. The flames illuminate their passage with solid certainty.

  When the last of them disappears into the maw of the Pits, the High Inquestor turns toward me. I expect him to say something snide and smug. Inquestor Caskers surely would have.

  His gaze
alights upon my half-naked form, but he doesn’t leer. He merely removes his crimson cloak to drape it over my shoulders. I yelp as the heavy wool slides over my open wounds. Sinking to my knees, I vomit at his feet.

  The Inquestor helps me up, his fingers rubbing over my stubbled scalp as though I am some sort of pet dog. His hand lingers at the nape of my neck, twisting at Sparrow’s necklace. Without a word, he snaps it.

  The crystals scatter upon the cobblestones like green glass tears, bouncing with sad sighs. The fight drains out of me as this last connection with the surface is severed.

  Now he smirks, his mouth lowering to my ear mockingly. “I hope my cloak comes in handy down there. I shall enjoy the thought of you keeping yourself warm with it, IronHeart.”

  I think of Sparrow lying dead in the alley behind the Conundrum. Archivist Chaunders burned and broken in the Salt Temple. Mad Brianna, still and cold upon the cobblestones. Lady Lydia staring at me from behind her corpse-like eyes. Moon Children hiding in the shadows with hollow faces and hollow futures.

  A soft laugh escapes my lips, but it carries through the quiet like a hammer against an anvil, the heated promise of a blade being forged. For them, I will carry this burden. For them, I will find the truth of it all.

  “It’s not your cloak that will keep me warm,” I say softly, and the truth behind the words rings with a fierce clarity, a secret hope burning beneath my breast giving me new strength.

  He stares, eyes shuttering at my insolence as though he doesn’t know what to make of it. And then he shoves me through the gates, closing them swiftly behind me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Well, it’s a been a longer ride than I would have liked to get us here, but here we are at last.

  Special thanks to Danielle Poiesz, editor par excellence and one of my dear friends. I’m so happy to have the privilege of working with you.

  To my family. I’m not sure what else really needs to be said. I’d be lost without you, and I’m beyond grateful for your presence in my life.

  In no particular order, thanks to the following people who have helped me out over the last several years, both with this book and other assorted shenanigans: PJ Schnyder, for advice and comforting conversations; Debbie Bliemel, for her continued support and less comforting (but just as important) conversations; Jim Moore, for taking my phone calls and talking me down off ledges that none of us should have to tread; Tonia Laird, for beta reading and being an overall awesome person; Staci Myers, because we have an angel and a vampire story to write one day and I miss them terribly; Jess Haines, for a massive amount of advice selflessly shared; Jaime Wyman Reddy, fellow author spoonie and supporter; and of course, Aimo, my dearest partner in crime and a constant source of support, amusement, and dirty pictures.

  Keep reading for a special sneak peek

  at an early, unedited draft of

  Magpie’s Fall

  the second book in

  The IronHeart Chronicles

  by

  Allison Pang

  Sing a song of sixpence, a penny for your thoughts.

  Roll a ball of red thread, to untangle all the knots.

  Tie me up and tie me down, the better for which to hang.

  Let me dangle without regret, like no song I ever sang.

  CHAPTER 1

  I am in the Pits.

  This narrow thought fills me until I’m shaking so hard I can hardly stand upright as I stumble along the dark passage. My breath compresses with each numb step, and I hold it in even as my lungs burn because I’ll shatter if I let it out.

  The last several days are nothing but a blur in my memory: Allowing myself to be captured by Lord Balthazaar and turned over to the Inquestors. My head shaved. The Tithe procession. Being whipped in Market Square. But then the image of Josephine and the other Moon Children saluting me from the rooftops flashes sharp in my mind. I allowed myself to be sacrificed in a final effort to find out just what secrets lie beneath the city of BrightStone, secrets that might just grant us access to Meridion and a destiny beyond what we’d become.

  And Ghost . . . I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to keep the memory from falling out. Despite all the rest of it, there is still that perfect moment etched in my mind of him fighting to get to me through the crowd, Lucian holding him back for his own good.

  For all my brave words and bold proclamations about what I hoped to accomplish down here, the reality is already far grimmer than I’d hoped. That I’d volunteered for such a thing is my fault, I suppose, but just knowing that at least one person didn’t see me as a means to an end is comforting beyond measure. And now here I am.

  Wherever here is . . .

  Everything is perfectly still when I stop, even the plague-ridden procession, which seems to have halted in unison behind me. I strain to see beyond the flickering glow of the few torches lining the walls ahead of us, but my eyes may never adjust in pitch-black like this. It’s silent, too. I’m not sure what else I was expecting, but the only sound is the pulse of my blood pounding rabbit-quick in my ears.

  I let out a half sob and lick my cracked lips. “Keep it together, Mags,” I mumble. My survival depends on not losing my head.

  A few of the Rotters huddle together, terrified. “Moon Child . . . help us . . . Where do we go?”

  “Only one way to go.” I struggle to get the words out as I stagger past them, their masked faces deceptively serene, but I have no answers. Moon Child or not, I’ve certainly never been here before, and no Moon Child has ever returned from the Pits to tell us what happens once we pass through the gates. I have the advantage of having studied a few old maps of the salt mines, but my brain is jumbled, searing from the pain of the wounds on my back, making it hard for me to remember.

  In the end, I just keep pressing forward, and they follow me anyway. What else can they do?

  There is no sign of where to go, just stretch after stretch of pale rock and a slanting tunnel leading deeper into the underground. Whatever natural light was let in by the gates has long since vanished so these meager torches are all we have to guide us.

  The very air seems to press down upon me, the stone closing in with terrible finality. As someone who spent most of her life upon the rooftops, the idea of being trapped down here makes me whimper.

  “Hello?” I try to call into the darkness. But my voice is a scratchy shadow of itself, hardly more than a whisper. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and the stink of fear hangs heavy on my skin.

  I attempt to shrug out of the Tithe cloak, but it’s stuck to my back. The shiver of pain that rewards me when I give an experimental wriggle indicates I’ll most likely black out if I keep trying to rid myself of it.

  I take a slow, deep breath. The fabric has the acrid stench of salt on it, but it masks the perfumed scent of the Inquestor who’d worn the cloak before me. I’m grateful for that much, even if the dust sets me to sneezing. I cough, trying to fill the silence with something.

  Mayhap it’s all a dream and you’ll wake up in your bed at Molly’s, a fine supper waiting and a warm fireplace.

  It feels near enough to make me weep.

  “Moon Child?”

  The voice startles me out of my woolgathering. On instinct, I grab the nearest torch, heedless of the way the hot oil leaks from the cloth to slicken my hand, and turn to look at the Rotters behind me. A few of them moan.

  “Aye? Who—” I begin as fire splits my spine. I cry out and sink to my knees, my legs shaking.

  One of the Rotters crouches beside me. “Are you all right?” She pulls her mask back to reveal a face clearly struck by the Rot—light bruising around her eyes and lips cracked with sores. She had been pretty once, I can tell, with a delicate bone structure. She looks young, some unfortunate crofter’s daughter perhaps, given the relative roughness of her hands. And yet, she seems familiar.

  I blink, suddenly recognizing her from the Salt Temple. She is the girl who’d been with the bird-masked Inquestor in the back room when Lucian a
nd I had gone to see Archivist Chaunders. If she remembers me, I cannot tell.

  “Hurts,” I mutter, though in some ways, the ache in my heart is far worse than the lashes on my back.

  She reaches out as though to take my arm and then thinks better of it. “If we can find some water . . .”

  “Why does it matter?” one of the others snaps. “We’re all dead anyway.”

  Another moan arises from the group, someone giving voice to a coughing fit that leaves them curled upon the ground.

  “That doesn’t mean we should just give up,” the girl says. “Surely there must be a way . . .” She looks at me with a hopeful sort of despair. “Is it true what the fortune-teller said? Are you IronHeart?”

  I shake my head. “Do I look like a dragon to you? Some chosen one intended to break down Meridian rule? I’m just a scapegoat for a herd of sacrificial cows, eating their so-called sins,” I say, shuddering against the fire licking over my shoulders when the cloak slips slightly.

  My throat bobs as I struggle to swallow, swollen and hoarse, and my thoughts patter like rain in my head. How do I tell them? What do I tell them?

  That the Rot has nothing more to do with sin than the wind? That the Inquestors have been purposely injecting innocent citizens with a plague so virulent that the city has been forced to quarantine the infected below ground? That the floating city of Meridion may have been the source of the plague to begin with?

  It feels as though I’ve been keeping secrets for so long that I’m not sure it even matters anymore. Dead men tell no tales and all that. Besides, the truth isn’t usually kind. The whole reason I am down here is to gather evidence of all those things, and I am in no shape to field questions from the others just now.