The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

“You what, you dirty augur?”

  There was a crunch as he was hit right on the nose. The nearest voyants stamped and jeered. Palmists were good with their fists. The acultomancer fell into the table, then lunged forward with a roar. Blood flashed across the carpet. The second palmist smashed a duo of spirits into his assailant’s face, only to be hit in the throat with a sharpened awl. Her scream was drowned by choking, and by the crowd’s cheering.

  “Anyone else?” the acultomancer roared.

  A lone whisperer raised her voice. “You think you’re a big man, don’t you, needle boy? Compensating for your tiny pinprick?” Laughter rose everywhere.

  “Say that again, hisser”—he flicked another awl into his hand—“and this might just put a pinprick in your heart.”

  He shoved a table over as he left. Eliza shook her head and went back behind the curtain. How could I ever hope to unite this rabble? How could anyone?

  The mess was cleared away. Business as usual. I’d sold three watches and a finger-sized hourglass by the time Zeke came back, his vintage glasses clouded by the heat. I took him behind the curtains to Eliza. “Did you hear about the fight with the palmists?” he said.

  “We saw it.”

  “There was another one near the coffee stand. The Crowbars and the Threadbare Company again.”

  “Idiots.” Eliza gulped down half her coffee. “Did you find any adrenaline?”

  “They’re out,” he said. “Sorry.”

  She was swaying on her feet. “Take a break.” I took the paperwork from her hand.

  “I’ll come back. Just keep selling.”

  “Half an hour.” Zeke grasped her shoulders and moved her away from the stall. “No arguing, okay?”

  “Fine, fine, but you two have to get your facts straight,” she said, exasperated. “Philippe was Brabançon-born, but he was from the Duchy of Brabant. Brabançon is not a place. And Rachel used liquor balsamicum when she helped her father. Do not say ‘balsamic vinegar’ again, Paige, or I swear on the æther I will break a vase over your head.”

  She picked up her knitted bag and was gone. Zeke and I looked at each other. “Skellet bell?” he said.

  “Go for it.”

  I searched through the box. It was a heavy, hand-held bell, once used for medieval funeral processions. As I unwrapped it, Nadine slammed a creel of wares down on the table. I stared at the full basket.

  “You didn’t sell anything?”

  “Unsurprisingly,” she said, “nobody wants table junk.”

  “They’re not going to want it if you call it ‘table junk.’ ” I picked up one of the skulls, checking it for breaks, but there was nothing aesthetically wrong with it. “You have to make them tempting.”

  “Tempting? ‘Oh, hello, madam—would you like to buy the skull of some plague-addled fourteenth-century churl for the price of a year’s rent?’ Yeah, that’s sex appeal.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to argue with her; instead, I handed her the bell. With pursed lips, she walked out in front of the stall and rang a single note, startling a sensor. The sound made at least fifty people look up.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, do you remember your mortality?” She held out a rose to the sensor, who laughed nervously. “It’s so easy to forget, isn’t it, when you live alongside death? But even voyants die.”

  “Sometimes,” Zeke said, “you need a gentle reminder. He aquí, the lost masterpieces of Europe!” He swept a hand towards the paintings. “Pieter Claesz, Rachel Ruysch, Philippe de Champaigne!”

  “Roll up, roll up for the sale of the month!” Nadine rang the bell. “Don’t forget death—it won’t forget you!”

  Soon we’d attracted a large crowd. Nadine described the species of butterflies in the frames, lavished praise on the largest painting, and demonstrated the speed of the sand in the hourglasses. Zeke spent the time charming people with stories of his years in Oaxaca. They clung to him like flies to honey, desperate for tales of a country beyond Scion’s influence. The free-world was a paradise in their eyes, a place where voyants could find peace. A few noticed Nadine’s accent, too, but she changed the subject if they asked. Zeke handed out the flowers while she did the talking and I took the cash, keeping my head down.

  Most of the listeners bought a trinket or two. I counted coins in silence. It was as if Sheol I had never happened.

  Yellow-jacket, I thought to myself.

  ****

  Eliza didn’t return for two hours. When she did, she looked gray. “Anything?”

  “Everything.” I nodded to the empty table, exhausted. “Pieter’s painting went to I-3, and I’ve got two traders interested in the Ruysch.”

  “Great.”

  She took a rose from a vase and fastened it to her hair. The ringlets were falling out. “Did you get any sleep?” I said, hoisting yet another crate on to the table.

  “Where do you think I’ve been?”

  I watched her. She slid back into her chair and stared blankly at her work.

  The fake Ruysch sold to a group of Welsh botanomancers. At quarter to five, I was ready to go. The NVD came on duty at five during the autumn and winter, and Jaxon had insisted that I didn’t spend more than a few hours at the market.

  “I’m off,” I said to Nadine. “Are you all right to carry on?”

  “If you can get Eliza back down here.”

  I’d thought she was right behind me, but she was nowhere to be seen. “I’ll try.”

  “If you don’t find her, keep an ear out for the phone booth. I might need to call you.” Nadine scraped a hand through her hair. “I hate this.”

  My head ached from hours of noise and concentration. Near the exit, I spotted a stall selling metallic numa: needles, small blades, bowls for cottabomancy. The metallurgist looked up when I approached.

  “Hello,” he said, frowning. “You’re no soothsayer.”

  “Just a passing trader.” I unclipped the chain from around my neck, trying to ignore the twinge of unease. “How much would you give for this?”

  “Give it ’ere.” I placed Warden’s pendant in his palm. He squeezed a jeweler’s loupe against his eye and held it up to the light. “What’s this made of, love?”

  “Silver, I think.”

  “Weird charge coming off it, in’t there? Like a numen. Never heard of a necklace being a numen, though.”

  “It repels poltergeists,” I said.

  He almost dropped the loupe. “You what?”

  “Well, so I was told. I haven’t tested it.” A sigh escaped him, somewhere between relief and dismay. “But say it did repel ’geists—how much would you give me for it?”

  “Hard to say. If it’s silver, then a thousand, give or take.”

  My face fell. “Only a thousand?”

  “I’d give you a few hundred for your average chunk of silver. A thousand seems reasonable for a chunk of silver that gets rid of ’geists.”

  “Spirits like the Ripper,” I pointed out. “That must be worth a lot more than a grand.”

  “All due respect, miss, I don’t know what macer’s tricks have been used on this. The metal ain’t silver, and it ain’t gold. I’d need to take it away and give it a closer look. If the metal’s proper and it works, and I can understand exactly why it works, I could give you a fair bit more.” He handed the necklace back to me. “Depends if you want to part with it for a bit.”

  It was true that Warden had given me the necklace, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t have wanted me to sell it. “Keep it,” he’d said. Not “it’s yours.” Not “do what you like with it . ” This wasn’t something I should throw at a stranger.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “As you like.”

  The next customer was getting fidgety. I pulled back the curtain and made my way back up the tunnel.

  “I thought you might be here, Dreamer.”

  I spun to face Cutmouth with a blade in my hand. Her elbow rested on a crate of supplies. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and as much of a s
mile as her lips would allow.

  “How’s the face?” she said.

  “Still better than yours, I think.”

  “Oh, I rather like my scar.” Her thumb pulled along its length, lip to chin. “You must be pretty busy keeping out of Scion’s way. I’m getting a bit sick of seeing your face on every screen.”

  Her face was lined with cruelty, but I tried to see what she was beneath that smokescreen. A young woman, alone in the world, who’d found a harbor in the arms of the Underlord. Perhaps she’d been like me once, safe with a family. Perhaps she’d sought freedom in the syndicate.

  After a moment, during which we stared each other out, I tucked the blade back into my belt. “Cutmouth,” I said, “drop the act for a minute.”

  She cocked her head. “Act?”

  “The mollisher act.” I kept eye contact. “Does Hector really not care about anything Scion is doing? Does he think he’ll survive it all just because he’s the Underlord? He’s voyant. A soothsayer, at that. Senshield will—”

  “Are you frightened of Frank Weaver, Dreamer?”

  “You’re in denial,” I said. “And if you stay with Hector, you’ll be dead within the year.”

  “Hector,” she snapped, “will be Underlord for the rest of his life. And when he dies, I’ll be there to take over.” Just for a moment, the scarred face looked naked and vulnerable. “You should know the feeling. What else do we mollishers do it for, Dreamer, if not the love of a mime-lord?”

  “I do it for myself,” I said.

  Her mouth twisted. “Well, it’s not getting you far. You’re still a useless bit of Binder’s furniture.” She took something from her back pocket and wrapped her fist around it, concealing it from view. “But you might be good for something. Tell me where Ivy Jacob is hiding.”

  I tensed. “Ivy?”

  “Yes, Ivy. The girl whose face is on the same screens as yours every day,” she spat, circling me. “Where is she?”

  “How should I know?” I said. If the Underlord’s mollisher was looking for Ivy in particular, she had to be in deep shit. “You think all of Scion’s most wanted know each other personally?”

  The briefest flicker of uncertainty crossed her face, but it didn’t last. She glanced at the doorway to the market, then set an empty gaze on me. “If you won’t tell me,” she said, “I’ll still find out.”

  I saw the knife a second too late. Her hands were stronger than mine. One clapped over my lips and shoved me into the wall, cutting off my shout before it could be heard. The blade flashed across the inside of my elbow, and the lip of a vial pressed against my skin.

  Blood was her numen. If she was any good, she could use a bit of mine to find out certain things about me: my past, my future. As soon as the pain registered, my spirit whipped out. Cutmouth reeled away from me with a scream of agony. I got a glimpse of the inside of her mind: an empty shipyard, light at the center, dark at the edges, rotten boats floating on greenish water. In the second she was disoriented, I knocked the vial from her hand and wrenched her arm behind her back until I felt the joint in her shoulder strain.

  “Trying to spy on me, haematomancer?” Blood was weeping from my cut. I gritted my teeth, keeping her in the hold. “Tell Hector to keep his nose out of other people’s business. I’ll break your arm next time.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Cutmouth slammed her head into my nose, knocking me back a step, and took off at a dead run. The vial was in pieces on the floor, along with a spatter of my blood. I took a cloth from my pocket and picked up the mess.

  Why the hell was she so concerned about Ivy in particular? Was Hector after her? She’d said she wasn’t a syndie . . .

  Keeping a hand clamped over my cut arm, I made my way back through the shop. Once I was out on the street, I kicked a bollard, flushed with anger. I had the stamina to sell hourglasses and paintings, but I couldn’t think of how to rouse the syndicate. I’d have to go behind Jaxon’s back—that much was clear—but how to gain support? How to get the message out?

  Nadine and Zeke wouldn’t last long at the market without Eliza. I glanced into some of our local haunts—Neal’s Yard, Slingsby Place, Shaftesbury Avenue—but she was nowhere to be seen. It took a minute to reach the den, where her painting room was empty. That was strange. She must have gone back to the market. I locked the front door, showered and changed into my nightshirt. Once I’d dabbed some fibrin gel onto my arm, I sat on my bed and took out my knife.

  Ever since Jaxon had employed me, I’d kept my savings hidden in my room. I unpicked a few stitches and extracted a roll of money. Then, carefully, I counted it.

  There wasn’t enough.

  I scraped my fingers through my hair. With this cash, if I was very lucky, I could buy a tiny room in VI Cohort and use it as a den. Nothing more. Jaxon had always paid well, but not well enough for any of us to be financially independent of him. He made quite sure of that. We’d always have to spend a good half of our wages on little things for the section, things that picked at our income: couriers, spirits, supplies for the den. Any money we made ourselves was handed to Jaxon to be redistributed.

  There was no other choice but to stay here. I wouldn’t last more than a few weeks on this.

  Several of the muses had drifted from the painting room upstairs. They were hovering at my door in a pointed manner. “We sold yours, Pieter,” I called. “And yours, Rachel.”

  The æther quivered.

  “Don’t worry, Phil, it’ll sell. You’re a luxury.”

  I could sense his doubt. Philippe was prone to melancholia. The trio lingered, drawn to my aura like flies to a lamp, but I shooed them back to the painting room. They were always restless when Eliza was away.

  Outside, the night was drawing in. I carried out the checks—lights off, curtains drawn, windows locked—then returned to bed and slotted my bare legs under the covers.

  As usual, Danica was silent upstairs. The only sound was Jaxon’s record player sighing out Fauré’s “Elegy.” I listened to it, remembering the gramophone at Magdalen. I thought of how Warden had often sat in silence in his chair, gazing at the flames, alone with his wine and whatever thoughts had lived in that desolate dream scape. I remembered the gentle precision of his touch as he’d tended to my injured cheek, the same hands on the organ, his fingers tracing my lips, framing my face in the gloom of the Guildhall.

  I opened my eyes and fixed a hard gaze on the ceiling.

  This had to stop.

  I reached up to one of the shelves and switched on the Lanterna Magica. There was already a slide inside, left there since the day I was taken. I angled the mirror toward the ceiling, directing a beam of light through the painted glass, and a scarlet field of poppies appeared. This was the slide Jaxon had always used when I was dreamwalking. It was so detailed you could almost believe it was real, and that the ceiling opened out into my dreamscape. As if the axis of the earth had tilted, tipping me into my own mind.

  But my dreamscape was different now. This was the dreamscape of before. A relic of another time.

  I flicked through a box of slides until I found one that Jaxon had shown me when I was about seventeen, when I’d first confessed my interest in Scion’s history. An old photographic slide, hand-painted. Fine black text read THE DESTRUCTION OF OXFORD BY FIRE, SEPTEMBER 1859. As I focused the lens, a familiar skyline materialized.

  Black smoke choked its streets. Fire whipped at its towers. Hellfire. I looked up at it for what seemed like hours, and drifted off to sleep with Sheol I on fire above me.

  8

  On the Devil’s Acre

  “Paige.”

  Not again. It couldn’t be time for the night-bell yet. I shifted on to my back, uncomfortably hot.

  “Warden?”

  A chuckle answered, and when I opened my eyes, it was Jaxon looking down at me. “No, my sleeping walker, you’re not in that dreadful slum any longer.” A strange smell hung on his breath, eclipsed by the scents of white mecks and tobacco. “What
time did you return here, darling?”

  It took a few moments to remember where and when I was. The den, yes. London.

  “When you said.” My voice lolled behind my thoughts. “About five.”

  “Was Eliza here?”

  “No.” I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight o’clock. A courier informed me that there is still no sign of her at the market.” He straightened. “You sleep, my lovely. I shall wake you if the situation escalates.”

  The door closed, and he was gone. I dropped my head back into the pillow.

  The next time I woke, the room was pitch-black and someone was shouting. Two people. I reached for the lamp and crouched on the mattress, ready to spring out of bed and sprint to the bolthole.

  “. . . selfish, we wouldn’t have—”

  That was Nadine. I held still, listening, but her voice wasn’t raised in panic. She sounded angry.

  I followed the raised voices to the floor below, where I found Zeke and Nadine, still in their market finery, and a trembling Eliza. Her hair was a mess of wet tangles, her eyes puffy.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Ask her,” Nadine snarled. A bruise was swelling on her left cheek. “Ask her, go on!”

  Eliza wouldn’t meet my eye. Even Zeke was looking at her with something like exasperation. His lower lip looked like a split grape.

  “Hector came to the market with the Underbodies, all steaming drunk. He started asking us questions about the paintings. We argued with four different traders, all convinced we were selling fakes.” With a wince, he reached for his side. “Long story short, to please the traders, Hector confiscated the Champaigne so they could have it examined. They took all the rest of our wares, too. We tried to stop them, but—”

  “It was nine to two,” I said, but my heart was sinking. “You couldn’t have stopped them.”

  This was a delicate situation. Philippe was going to hit rock bottom when he found out his painting had been stolen, but that was the least of our problems if any local traders twigged that we sold forgeries. We’d always been careful to sell them to smugglers, who couldn’t give two hoots that they were fake, or to traveling dealers who were unlikely to come back. If we were discovered, Jaxon would flip his lid.