The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  There was a light knock at the door. Slowly, I picked up my gun, checked it for ammo and held it behind my back. With my free hand, I cracked the door open.

  The landlord stood in the corridor, fully dressed, with an antique iron key on a chain around his neck. He never took it off.

  “Morning, miss,” he said.

  I managed a smile. “Don’t you ever sleep, Lem?”

  “Not often. The guests are up at all hours. There’s a séance upstairs,” he added, looking weary. “Making a right racket with the table. You’re looking much better today, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you. Did my friend call?”

  “He’ll be here at nine tonight. Do give me a ring if you need anything.”

  “Thanks. Have a good day.”

  “And you, miss.”

  For a doss-house landlord, he was oddly helpful. I closed the door and locked it.

  At once, the gun slipped from my hand. I sank to the floor and buried my face against my knees.

  After a few minutes I went back into the tiny, airless bathroom, peeled off my nightshirt, and inspected my injuries in the mirror. Most visible were the deep gash above my eye, closed with stitches, and the shallow wound that curved across my cheek. Everything was worn thin, whittled down. My fingernails were flimsy, my skin was sallow, and my ribs and hipbones bulged. The landlord had given me a wary look when he’d brought my first tray of food, eyeing my lacerated hands and black eye. He hadn’t recognized me as the Pale Dreamer, mollisher of his section, protégée of the White Binder.

  As I stepped into the cubicle and turned the dial, darkness crept into my vision. Hot water poured over my shoulders, softening my muscles.

  A door slammed.

  My hand swiped a hidden blade from the soap dish. My body pitched itself from the cubicle, straight against the opposite wall. I concealed myself behind the door, buzzing with adrenaline, holding the blade to my heart.

  It took a few minutes for my heart to slow down. I peeled myself from the wet tiles, slick with sweat and water. Nothing, it’s nothing. Just the séance table upstairs.

  Shaking, I leaned on the sink. My hair hung in damp coils around my face, brittle and dull.

  I looked my reflection in the eye. My body had been treated as property in the colony, dragged and grabbed and beaten by Rephaim and red-jackets. I turned my back to the mirror and ran my fingers over the little threads of scar tissue on my shoulder. XX-59-40. That brand would be there for as long as I lived.

  But I’d survived. I pulled my shirt over the brand again. I had survived, and the Sargas would know it.

  ****

  When I opened the door to Nick for the first time in two days, he gathered me into a gentle embrace, minding my slices and bruises. I’d seen him in so many memories, summoned by Warden’s numen, but they couldn’t come close to the real Nick Nygård.

  “Hey, sötnos.”

  “Hi.”

  We smiled at each other. Small, dour smiles.

  Neither of us spoke. Nick spread our meal on the table while I opened the doors to the small balcony. The wind blew in the smell of Scion’s autumn—gasoline and smoke from buskers’ pit fi res—but the scent from the boxes was so divine I hardly noticed. It was a feast: tiny hot pies packed with chicken and ham, freshly baked bread, golden fries scattered with salt and pepper. Nick pushed a small nutrient capsule across the table.

  “Go on. Not too fast.”

  The pies were glazed with melted butter and poured out a thick, rich sauce when opened. Dutifully, I placed the capsule on my tongue.

  “How’s your arm?” Nick took it in his hands and peered at the circular burn. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not anymore.” And any pain was worth getting rid of that microchip.

  “Keep an eye on it. I know Dani’s good, but she’s not a doctor.” He felt my forehead. “Any headaches?”

  “No more than usual.” I tore a slice of bread into small pieces. “Still nothing on ScionEye.”

  “They’re keeping quiet. Very quiet.”

  We were quiet, too. The sacks under his eyes betrayed the sleep less nights. The wondering. The endless waiting. I clasped my hands around my coffee cup and looked out at the citadel, that rising shat-terbelt of metal, glass, and lights that led up to an endless depth of space. Michael was out there somewhere, probably huddled under a bridge or in a doorway. If he scraped together some money he could sleep in a penny hangover, but the Vigiles checked those places every night, looking to fill their arrest quotas before they returned to their stations.

  “I got this for you.” Nick pushed a handset across the table, identical to the one he’d used at the Tower. “Burner phone. Keep switching the identity modules and Scion won’t be able to trace you.”

  “Where did you get this?” Scion had never manufactured these phones; it had to have been imported.

  “A friend at the Old Spitalfields market. Ideally you would throw the whole phone away, but the traders charge a lot of money for the handsets.” He handed me a small box. “They’re not much good for receiving calls as you’ll have a different number each time, but you can make them. It’s just for emergencies.”

  “Right.” I pocketed the phone. “How was work?”

  “Good. I think.” He palmed the stubble on his jaw, a nervous habit. “If anyone saw me get on that train—”

  “They didn’t.”

  “I was in a Scion uniform.”

  “Nick, Scion’s a big organization. The chances of anyone linking the respectable Dr. Nicklas Nygård to the penal colony are minuscule.” I crowned the bread with butter. “It’d look a hell of a lot more suspicious if you didn’t go back.”

  “I know. And I didn’t train in their universities for all those years so I could give up.” When he saw my face, he forced a smile. “What are you thinking about?”

  “We lost a lot of people at the Tower.” Suddenly I had no appetite. “I told them I’d get them all home.”

  “Stop it, Paige. I’m telling you, you’ll destroy yourself if you think like that. Scion did this, not you.”

  I didn’t answer. Nick knelt beside my chair. “Sweetheart, look at me. Look at me.” I raised my head, met his tired eyes, but the sight of them only deepened the ache. “If it’s anyone’s fault it’s that Rephaite’s, isn’t it? He put you on the train. He let you go.” When I didn’t answer, he wrapped an arm around me. “We’ll find the other prisoners, I promise.”

  We stayed like that for some time. He was right, of course he was right.

  But perhaps there was someone to blame. Someone behind the veil of Scion.

  Had Warden known the train would end up at Westminster, in the belly of the beast? Had he betrayed me at the eleventh hour? He was a Rephaite, after all—a monster, not a man—but I had to trust that he’d done what he could.

  Once we’d eaten, Nick cleared away the leftovers. Another knock at the door had me scrambling for my gun, but Nick held up a hand.

  “It’s okay.” He opened the door. “I called a friend.”

  When Eliza Renton came in, her ringlets lank with rainwater, she didn’t pause to say hello. She rushed straight to the couch with a look that said she was going to sock me in the face, but she ended up yanking me into her arms.

  “Paige, you idiot.” Her voice was thick with anger. “You bloody idiot. Why did you take the Underground that day? You knew there were Underguards—you knew about the checks—”

  “I took a chance. I was stupid.”

  “Why didn’t you just wait for Nick to drive you home? We thought Hector had bumped you off or—or Scion had—”

  “They did.” I patted her back. “But I’m fine.”

  Gently but firmly, Nick detached her from my neck. “Careful. She’s got bruises on bruises.” He steered her to the opposite couch. “I thought more than one of us should hear this, Paige. We need as many allies as we can get.”

  “You have allies,” Eliza snapped. “Jax is worried sick about you, Paige.�
��

  “He didn’t seem too worried when he was throttling me,” I said.

  This was news to her. She looked between us, an exasperated frown clinching her features.

  I drew the curtains. Soon we were sitting on the couches in the gloom, clasping glass cups of saloop from Nick’s flask. It was a creamy infusion of orchid tubers and hot milk, sprinkled with cinnamon, popular in coffeehouses. The taste of it was a comfort after months of biting hunger.

  On the TV screen, one of Burnish’s little raconteurs was on air.

  “Vigile numbers are expected to double in I Cohort over the next few weeks, with the installment of a second prototype Senshield scanner, the only technology known to detect unnaturalness, expected before December. Denizens should expect an increase in the number of spot checks on the Underground, the bus network, and in Scion-authorized taxis. The Underguard division asks that denizens cooperate with the demands of their staff at this time. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear! Now, moving on to this week’s weather.”

  “More Vigiles,” Nick said. “What are they doing?”

  “Trying to find the fugitives,” I said. “I don’t understand why they haven’t said anything.”

  “That might not be the reason. It’s Novembertide in two months,” Eliza pointed out. “They always boost security for that. And this year they’re inviting the Grand Inquisitor of Paris.”

  “Aloys Mynatt was at the Bicentenary—Inquisitor Ménard’s assist ant. If he’s dead, I doubt Ménard will be in a party mood.”

  “They wouldn’t cancel it.”

  “Trust me—if Nashira says ‘cancel it,’ they’ll cancel it.”

  “Who’s Nashira?”

  Such a guileless question. No easy answer. Who was Nashira? A nightmare. A monster. A murderer.

  “Senshield will change everything,” I said, watching the screen. “Has the Unnatural Assembly done anything about it yet?”

  The Unnatural Assembly, made up of the thirty-six mime-lords and mime-queens of the citadel, each of whom was supposed to oversee all syndicate activity in their assigned section. They were all relatively autonomous, but the Underlord, Haymarket Hector, was responsible for convening their meetings.

  “There was some talk in July,” Nick said. “Grub Street sent out messages saying they were aware of the situation, but there’s been nothing since then.”

  “Hector has no idea what to do,” I realized. “Nobody does.”

  “That prototype Senshield isn’t the worst one we’ll see. It can only detect the first three orders, according to the grapevine.”

  The reminder made Eliza look away. She was a medium. Third order. Nick took her hand.

  “You’ll be fine. Dani’s working on a jamming device,” he told me. “Something that will interfere with Senshield. It’s complex work, but she’s smart.”

  Eliza nodded, but her brow was creased. “She thinks it might be ready by February.”

  That wasn’t soon enough, and we all knew it.

  “How did you get to the colony?” I said to Nick. “There must have been incredible security.”

  “Jax had almost given up by August,” Nick admitted. “By that point we were sure you weren’t in London. We had no ransom notes from the other gangs, no evidence that you’d been killed, and there was no sign of you at your father’s apartment. It wasn’t until the Trafalgar Square incident that we had any leads, when you said they’d taken you to Oxford.”

  “You were Jaxon’s only focus after that,” Eliza said, with a pointed look. “He was obsessed with getting you back.”

  It only half surprised me. To Jaxon, losing his prized dreamwalker would have been infuriating, even humiliating—but I still wouldn’t have expected him to risk everything to retrieve me from Scion’s clutches. That was the kind of sacrifice you made for people, not property.

  “At work I tried to find out more about Oxford, but the data was all encrypted,” Nick continued. “It was a few weeks before I was able to get into the head supervisor’s office and use her computer. That took me to a kind of dark Scionet, a part of the network that can’t be accessed by the public. There weren’t many specifics, just that the city of Oxford was a Type A restricted sector, which we knew, and that there was a train station beneath the Archon, which was new to us. There was also a list of names that went back for what looked like hundreds of years. Missing people. Yours was there, close to the bottom of the list.”

  “Dani took it from there,” Eliza said. “She found the access tunnel. Only a unit of specially chosen engineers was allowed in, but she worked out when it would be opened. The train was due for repairs on the thirty-first of August. Jax said that was when we’d go. I stayed to keep an eye on things here.”

  “It’s not like Jax to get his hands dirty,” I said.

  “He cares about you, Paige. He’d do anything to keep us safe. You most of all.”

  It wasn’t true. Eliza had always thought the world of Jaxon Hall—after all, he’d given us a world—but I’d seen too much from him that said otherwise. He was capable of kindness, but he wasn’t kind. He could act like he cared, but it would always be an act. It had taken me years to wake up and see it.

  “That night, after the repairs had been done,” Nick said, “Dani got into the tunnel with a card she’d stolen from one of the unit members. She let us in.”

  “Didn’t anyone recognize you?”

  “They didn’t see us. By the time they put the emissaries on the train, we’d already locked ourselves into a maintenance compartment at the back. The Vigiles had no way to access it, so we were safe for that part of the journey. Then, of course, we had to get off the train.”

  “With sighted Vigiles escorting the emissaries? How the hell did you manage that?”

  “We waited until the emissaries had been taken through the door. A guard on the other side locked it, which left us stranded, but we found an old utility tunnel behind a grate. That took us up on to the street. We got into the Guildhall through a back door.”

  A utility tunnel. If Warden had known about that, he would have been able to leave safely, too. I released a breath. “You’re all off the cot.”

  “We had to get you back, Paige,” Eliza said. “Jax was willing to try anything.”

  “Jax is not stupid. Putting a ragtag group of gangsters on a Scion train without a clue what to expect at the other end is borderline stupid.”

  “Well, maybe he got bored of sitting in the office.”

  “We got you back. That’s what matters.” Nick leaned forward. “Your turn.”

  I looked down at my saloop. “It’s a long story.”

  “Start with the night you were taken,” Eliza said.

  “That’s not where it starts. It starts in 1859.”

  They looked at each other.

  It took a long time. I explained how, in 1859, two races called the Rephaim and the Emim had arrived from the Netherworld—the halfway point between life and death—after the breaking of the ethereal threshold, when the number of drifting spirits had grown too high and thinned the veils between the worlds.

  “Okay,” Eliza said, looking as if she might burst out laughing, “but what are the Rephaim?”

  “I still don’t know. They look like us,” I said, “but their skin looks like metal, and they’re tall. Their eyes are yellowish, but when they feed, they reflect the color of the aura they’ve just fed on.”

  “And the Emim?”

  Words failed me at that. “I’ve never seen one when it wasn’t dark, but . . .” I blew out a breath. “In the colony they called them Buzzers, or rotten giants. Spirits won’t go near them. They feed on human flesh.”

  I hadn’t thought it possible for Nick to be any paler, but he managed.

  I told them about the pact between the Rephaim and the government—protection from the Emim in exchange for voyant slaves—that had led to the establishment of Scion. About the penal colony of Sheol I, built in the ruins of Oxford to act as a
beacon of spirit ual activity, drawing the Emim away from citadels like London. I told them how I’d got on an evening train and been subjected to a spot check. How I’d attacked two Underguards, been pursued from my father’s apartment, been hit with flux by the Overseer. How I’d woken up in the detainment facility.

  I told them how I was given to Arcturus Mesarthim, otherwise known as the Warden—Nashira’s betrothed—to be trained as a soldier. I explained the system of the penal colony, giving them descriptions of each class. The elite red-jackets, who courted the favor of the Rephaim in exchange for their services as soldiers; the performers, cast into the slum, used as a source of aura; the amaur-otic hands, held behind bars when they weren’t being worked to death. I told them how the Rephaim would beat and feed on humans, evicting them if they didn’t pass their tests.

  The drinks turned cold.

  I told them how Seb’s death had pushed me up to the next jacket. How I’d trained on the meadow with Warden. I told them about the deer and the Buzzer in the woods, and about Julian, and about Liss. About our attempt to detain Antoinette Carter in Trafalgar Square, which had resulted in Nick shooting me.

  My throat was starting to ache from talking, but I told the story to the end. Everything but the truth about my relationship with Warden. With every new revelation about the Rephaim, waves of disgust and horror washed over their faces. They wouldn’t understand if I told them how close I’d become to my keeper. I didn’t tell them about the salvia memories, or his music in the chapel, or the time he’d allowed me to enter his dreamscape. From my abridged description, he was a reticent creature with whom I’d rarely spoken, who’d occasionally fed me and finally let me go. Of course, Nick spied the hole in my evidence.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “When you were brought to Trafalgar Square, he could have left you, but he took you back to Sheol. Now you’re saying he helped you?”

  “So I would help him. He tried to overthrow the Sargas in 2039. Nashira tortured him.”

  “And then decided to marry him?”