by Lam, Laura
‘Maybe Maske can stall the sale, and we can use this theatre until the Kymri is fixed?’ I asked. After having our first performance in weeks, I didn’t want to stop.
‘I don’t know. I think it’ll take at least a few months to fix the Kymri. The buyers might not want to hold off that long. I think they plan to turn it back into a private residence.’
I sighed. ‘This is awful.’
‘I know. It will work out, though. It has to.’
The sofa was lumpy and uncomfortable, and I couldn’t settle.
‘Stop being so restless,’ Drystan complained after an hour of this.
‘Sorry. Can’t sleep.’ I feared falling asleep in case I dreamed of the grave robber, or of the clockwork woman in the Museum of Mechanical Antiquities, the flames spreading, shattering the glass display, claiming her.
Drystan sat up, rolling his head side to side until the vertebrae snapped. ‘Me neither.’
We stayed up for a few hours, simply talking to each other. Not about the Kashura Foresters and the Chimaera, or what happened at the Kymri Theatre. We made up silly stories, each of us trying to make our next section all the more outlandish – our way of trying to distract ourselves. By the end of it, we were curled up with laughter until our stomachs hurt.
It was what we needed. To try and forget everything and enjoy each other’s company. Who cared what was outside the small room, with its warm fireplace? It didn’t matter. Not that night.
Under the cover of night, I limped my way to the university hospital. I’d covered myself in false wounds and grime and hunched my back to hint at a life of poor nutrition. I looked just the part of the Penny Rookery ragamuffin.
The university hospital was overcrowded as usual, but quiet at this time of night. A nursing student who had drawn the short straw and had to do a night shift led me to a bed. She checked my wounds and with a subtle, mental push, she thought she tended real wounds rather than dye and cornstarch.
She was the only one in the wards as the other patients slept. Doctors were in the next room, but I sensed they were playing dice to pass the time. I cast my awareness over the patients until I found a suitable candidate.
The nurse settled on the sofa in the corner, pinching the skin of her arms to stay awake.
Sleep, I thought at her. Sleep.
Her head fell to her chest, her body sliding sideways.
Sleep, I thought at the rest of the ward, though my energy ebbed drastically at sending so many into dreamland.
I approached my target. A young man, handsome. Strong jawline. Good teeth. The bed next to his was empty. I picked up the pillow.
I hesitated. I shouldn’t care about what I was about to do. He was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But then, aren’t we all?
Inching closer, I pressed the pillow over his face. He was so deep in his dreams, he barely struggled at all.
Quick. Painless. And I’d sensed the illness in that body I needed. The boy wouldn’t have made it anyway.
As everyone slumbered on, I stole the spare doctor’s clothing from the supply closet and wheeled the boy out of the hospital as everyone slumbered on. The boy’s head bounced awfully as I wheeled him to where I needed to go.
‘Two,’ I whispered.
I awoke with a gasp, cold again despite the blazing fireplace.
Drystan heard me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. ‘Lord and Lady, you’re like ice.’ He rubbed my fingertips. ‘It’s all right. Just a bad dream.’
‘Yes,’ I whispered, still shivering. ‘Just a nightmare.’ A little thread deep within me wondered if it was something more. I told him about both dreams.
‘Well, that’s creepy. Stealing a corpse.’ Drystan sighed and leaned back. ‘Then killing to create another. A psychiatrist would have fun psychoanalyzing that, I’m sure.’
It had been so real – pressing the pillow over the boy’s face. The smell of the antiseptic of the hospital, undercut with the scent of sickness. The way the boy struggled and then went horribly limp.
‘What do you think it means?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ I moved closer against him, still shaking. I couldn’t bear to think about cold, or corpses, or grave robbers. Thoughts were too dangerous, too tangled.
We didn’t say a word, but neither of us slept any more that night.
8
THE OPERATING THEATRE
Neonatal death. Low temperature. Jaundice. Atypical anatomy: tail, caul, ichthyosis. Cause of death: unknown.
— Unsigned medical notes, Royal Snakewood University
The next few days were not filled with good news.
We went to the insurance office first thing in the morning, taking all of our belongings with us and locking up the Spectre Shows Theatre. First, Maske hired a surveyor to assess the extent of the damage to the Kymri Theatre. It was as we feared; the building was sound enough, but it wouldn’t be safe to live in during renovations. Maske tried to find out if the sale of the Spectre Theatre could be delayed for a few months, so we could use it for our shows while the Kymri Theatre was fixed. No such luck; the owners wished to move in immediately.
The biggest problem was an issue with the insurance. While nearly destitute, Maske had had the smallest premium, and in the scant weeks since the duel he had not yet amended it. This meant that the insurance would not pay out. The sale of the Spectre Theatre would cover the damages, but in the meantime . . . we were broke. Again.
Maske found cheap rooms in a tenement in the Penny Rookeries. The walls smelled of mould and the bed frames were more rust than metal. The fireplace in the lounge didn’t draw out the smoke properly until Maske went in to fix it, emerging covered head to toe in soot. We had a decent view of the street and the docks in the distance from the grimy window.
I hadn’t spent much time in the Penny Rookeries, but I knew that this was the area of the city with the most support for the Forester protests. Here, people were so ground down by poverty that they’d support anyone trying to better their lives. I worried for Cyril, who, no longer having a place to stay, went back to the flat by Celestial Square, but came to visit us often. As he walked through the streets completely oblivious, he stood out a mile with his rich clothes. Heads turned and eyes glowered at him as he passed. I’d have to get him to dress down for his visits to us, otherwise he’d soon find himself in trouble. The rich were not welcome in this area.
After the latest attack by the Kashura Foresters, Imachara enforced a sunset curfew.
Personally, I didn’t see how this would dissuade more attacks, and in fact, it might make people more vulnerable. One of the attacks had happened in broad daylight. Those who worked late shifts applied for special dispensation papers, which they had to carry with them after dark.
Some liked the fact that the capital took action, and they complied. Those in the Rookeries who took work when and where they could find it said it was taking away what little freedom they had. Protests grew more frequent. I could hear the chanting from our new room in the afternoons, as they started in the Rookeries and then marched through different neighbourhoods in the city.
We had pamphlets and leaflets shoved through our letter box every day. Blocky letters urged us to protect Ellada. More Chimaera were hiding, and they must leave the island. Many were also wary of immigration from the other islands, claiming it was because there could also be Chimaera there, but mainly because they were xenophobic, afraid that immigrants would steal jobs from Elladans.
‘This is such rubbish,’ Drystan said, crushing a few pamphlets and throwing the ball towards the wastepaper basket in the corner. He missed.
‘Dangerous rubbish, though. It’s nonsense, based on fairy tales and rumours, yet they’re turning people against each other.’ We’d heard of people accusing their neighbours of being Chimaera, based on anything from a sudden stroke of good luck to a patch of dry skin that they insisted was scales. People mistrusted each other, wondered who else wa
s hiding among them. Someone like Tauro would be at high risk, whether they were Chimaera or not. Fear and hatred breeds nothing but more hatred and fear.
‘This isn’t going to stop,’ Drystan said, looking out of the window down to the empty street below. Curfew had just fallen. I wrapped my arms around him and rested my cheek against the side of his neck.
After we’d settled into our small, sad rooms, Maske told us in no uncertain terms that we were not to let our skills go to waste. When we’d first learned magic, we’d done several street shows, and that would be our trade again. Whatever coin people threw into our hats would be our day-to-day spending money. We began practising in the cramped lounge, adapting our stories for the streets. It was a completely different challenge. We couldn’t use wires, and people could crowd around us at all angles. At times, I worried I’d tear my hair out, trying to find ways to make it work.
A few more days passed.
All too soon, it was time to visit the doctor again.
I made the trip alone, brave enough to go to Doctor Pozzi’s without needing Drystan to accompany me. My energy had plummeted again; I could barely keep my eyes open after practice ended. I slept later and later in the mornings, until Drystan would pull the covers away and I’d protest at the sudden cold.
Drystan and Cyan were perfecting their street routine this morning, which they would air for the first time in the afternoon. Cyril was at university, registering for classes and attending his first lecture before visiting Mother in the hospital.
Striding through the cramped streets of Imachara, dodging the fetid puddles and feeling guilty at ignoring the beggars pleading for spare coins, I thought of my brother. I’d not been able to speak much to Cyril in the past few days. He was spending any spare time at the hospital, sitting by Mother’s bedside, hoping she’d wake up. He kept inviting me to go and I kept declining, part of me fearing to see her so small and weak. The other part feared sitting there and her actually waking up, seeing who her daughter had become. I didn’t want to see the revulsion on her face.
The doorman at Pozzi’s building let me in. He knew me by sight now. Heading to Pozzi’s apartments, I knocked on the door, and the Doctor opened it himself. He kept few servants.
‘Good morning, Micah,’ he said, welcoming me inside. My eyes lingered on the cabinet of curiosities as we passed it. How would I be able to distract Pozzi long enough to try and steal some Elixir?
In his consulting room, Pozzi already had the syringe prepared on the table. ‘I’m afraid our visit today will have to be short. I’ve been asked, as a favour, to cover a University class. One of their professors, a colleague I’ve worked with a number of times in the past, has fallen ill and is unable to make it.
‘I’ll be going to the palace after and asking whether the Princess requires any additional entertainment in her confinement to the grounds. They’ve tightened security since the latest attack.’ He paused, as if something had just occurred to him. But I knew that everything he said was calculated. Nothing caught him by surprise. ‘Normally I’d take my assistant, but he’s in a lecture of his own. Do you wish to accompany me to the University? I think you might find it rather intriguing.’
‘You have an assistant?’ I asked, curious.
‘Of course, but he does not often come to my private home. He assists in experiments at my laboratory. Bright young chap, destined for great things.’
‘So today you’re going to a lecture?’
‘It’s an anatomy lesson.’
I suppressed a flinch. My stomach crawled. The thought of seeing a dead body filled me with horror but also a small, sick fascination.
‘I’ll go,’ I said, surprising myself.
‘Wonderful. I know you have your hesitations about doctors, what with how you were treated growing up. Yet medicine is not something that needs to be feared. It is its own sort of magic, I find. You may be more interested than you once supposed.’
I made a noncommittal noise.
Doctor Pozzi picked up the syringe. ‘Hold out your arm and roll up your sleeve, if you please.’
Ice flowed through my veins again.
Doctor Pozzi defied the current fashion of hiring a chauffeur by driving the carriage himself.
‘I went abroad on sabbatical a number of years ago,’ he said, as if I’d asked him a question. ‘Much of my early research into Chimaera was conducted in Byssia and Linde. I’ve grown used to doing things my own way. After I was trapped in the jungle with a missing hand and a stump about to grow septic, once I recovered, I began to chafe at having servants dress me, feed me, and drive me everywhere like a child.’ He’d told me how he lost his hand: a Cyrinx, a large, dark violet cat, had attacked him when he was deep in the Byssian jungle. I had seen one of the cats in the circus. She’d definitely looked at me like I’d make a tasty meal.
In this way, though, I was similar to Pozzi. Even as Iphigenia Laurus I’d been uncomfortable with being treated like a porcelain doll, far preferring to escape and climb scaffolding or trees with my brother.
My thoughts drifted. In the front of the carriage, I watched Pozzi’s clockwork hand move the brass controls of the carriage with ease. The smoke from the exhaust stung my nose.
‘I was grieved to hear about the damage to the Kymri Theatre. I hear you’re staying in the Penny Rookeries until it’s repaired.’ The Doctor clicked his tongue. ‘Not the best part of town – especially with all the civil unrest at the moment. I’ve a spare apartment in the Gilt Quarter, if you’d like to stay there.’
I knew I should be grateful, and flattered. Pozzi had been nothing but polite and kind to me. Yet everything about him reminded me of what my parents had done, and the doctor was wrapped in secrets. He spied on me, and I already felt far too reliant on him. ‘Thank you for the offer, but it’s only temporary, and the Penny Rookeries has an undeserved reputation. Yes, it is a poor area, but hardly dangerous.’
‘At the moment . . . At least until the Foresters grow more proactive. There’s been far too much violence already.’
I wondered if he knew they called themselves the Kashura. ‘Did you lose much in the fire?’ I asked, steering the conversation slightly. He owned many of the collections in the Museum of Mechanical Antiquities. I’d seen his name on placards, months before I’d met him.
He gave me a sidelong glance. ‘I did, but not as much as I would have even a few scant months ago. That museum had been dying a slow death. I had taken out many of my most prized possessions already.’
‘Did you take away the clockwork woman?’ I asked, unsure why my heart lifted in hope. She’d terrified me, when I’d seen her that afternoon with Aenea. Those gears beneath her skin, the way her features would shift into perfect emotions when a little boy put a coin in a slot and pulled levers with different moods. A disembodied head forced to pantomime for the world to see.
He gave a little smile. ‘I did. When did you see her?’
‘Last summer.’
‘I removed her at the end of the summer. Their security wasn’t strong enough any more. She is safe. But a lot of my smaller treasures were lost. Alder clothes, jewellery, some defunct weaponry. A shame.’ His hands tightened on the controls, his only hint of anger.
‘I heard rumours that much of the Vestige weaponry went missing,’ I chanced.
Another sharp glance out of the corner of his eye. ‘Difficult to tell in the wreckage.’
‘But most Vestige doesn’t burn. And if the Foresters have them . . .’
‘Then they won’t know how to use them. The ones in the Museum ran out of power centuries ago. Even if they had power packs, they wouldn’t work. If they did steal them, it was for nothing.’
I was about to ask him more, but we pulled up to the University of Medicine, part of the Royal Snakewood University. I climbed down the steps of the carriage, straightening my suit. Pozzi put his gloves back on, hiding his false hand.
The guard at the gate let us into the courtyard, filled with lush trees and w
alkways. A few patients lounged in the sun, some in wheelchairs and others bandaged. The patients were usually middle-class: bankers or successful businessmen who couldn’t quite afford the private doctors’ surgeries. They’d be seen by the professors of the medical university, or the senior students about to finish their degree.
But many of the poor were also treated here, in a separate wing, by students in their first few years of study. Most of the time this was fine, but sometimes inexperienced students made mistakes. The poor understood the risk. It could be as dangerous as going to a charlatan in the back alleys of my new neighbourhood.
I licked my lips. The university itself would be crawling with nobility, who were the bulk of the students. I feared coming across someone who knew me from my previous life. I wasn’t wearing my Glamour, as I wasn’t performing. Rationally, I knew that it was unlikely. My brother had once run into me by chance at a park in Sicion, and he hadn’t known me until I’d changed my voice closer to my old timbre.
I followed Doctor Pozzi through the labyrinth of corridors, taking his briefcase so as to look more like an assistant. It was heavy, and I wondered what was in it.
We entered the operating theatre. The class was primarily full of young men, though I spied a few women amongst their ranks. They all had notebooks open in front of them, pens and ink at the ready, and though they muttered amongst themselves, their eyes frequently strayed to the metal tank in the middle of the room. It was covered with a cloth. We all knew what was inside.
Doctor Pozzi motioned for me to sit in an empty chair and I did, passing him his briefcase. I had no notebook, no prop to help me pass as studious. The other students looked at me curiously – their stares prickled the back of my neck.
‘Good morning, students. I am the Royal Physician of Imachara, here to cover for the esteemed Doctor Mulberry.’ Low murmurs erupted in the ranks as they realized they were staring at the most powerful doctor in Imachara. He must have been close to this Doctor Mulberry to agree to cover for him. Why else would he have deigned to come here and perform a dissection for student doctors?
