The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  “I’m not sure yet. Just keep an ear out for the phone booth.”

  Nick reclined against the chimney. My stomach was alive with nerves, but I unfolded the serviette and picked at the crystalized ginger inside.

  In the distance, Big Ben began to chime out five o’clock. The SVD would be returning to their barracks for their twelve hours’ rest by now. All across the citadel, their sighted, clairvoyant counterparts would be taking up their posts. Determination settled over me. It was dark enough to begin the search.

  “Paige,” Nick said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, but with all that’s happened . . . it never seemed to be the right time.” The contours of his face grew deeper. “I told Zeke. When Warden took you away. I was distraught, and he was with me for a long time, and—” He coughed. “Well, it just came out.”

  His right hand was shaking. I covered it with mine.

  “And?”

  The corners of his mouth turned up, just a little. “He said he felt the same.”

  Behind my ribs, there was the briefest falter in my heartbeat. Nick watched me with a deep groove between his eyebrows. I leaned across the space between us and kissed his cold cheek.

  “You deserve it,” I said softly. “More than anyone, Nick Nygård.”

  A wide smile answered mine. He wrapped both arms around me and held me close, and a rich laugh rang through his whole body. The sound glowed like an ember in my chest.

  “I’m happy, sötnos,” he said. “For the first time in years, I feel like it could be all right. Everything.” He rested his chin on the top of my head. “That’s delusional, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely. But if you’re both delusional together, you’ll be fine.”

  His heart was beating fast against my ear, as if he’d run for years to reach this state of mind. “We can’t tell Jaxon,” he said, very quietly. “You’ll keep it secret, won’t you?”

  “You know I will.” Jaxon had always forbidden us from having relationships—said with a suitable measure of disgust—lasting more than a night. He’d blow a gasket at the thought of a relationship within his own gang. Given how unpredictable he’d been of late, he might even turf them both out.

  We stole back through the garret window and stepped over Eliza’s scattered paint palettes. The outline of a horse had been sketched out on the canvas. “Jax got her a new muse,” Nick said. “George Frederick Watts, the Victorian painter.”

  “There’s something wrong. She’s not herself.”

  “I asked her about it, and she said she had a friend who was ill.”

  “‘The Seven Seals do not have friends. Only those who would break us, and those who can’t,’” I said, quoting Jaxon.

  “Exactly. I think she’s seeing someone.”

  “Maybe.” Eliza was often approached by other voyants, usually from gangs that didn’t have Jaxon’s stringent rules on commitment. “But who? She never has any time to herself.”

  “Good point.”

  Nick and I parted ways on the second-floor landing. As he headed down the stairs, I noticed that the way he held himself had changed. His shoulders were relaxed, his face free of tension. He almost had a spring in his step.

  Had I given the impression that I wanted him to be alone? He must have felt so guilty all this time, thinking I’d be hurt, that I might still love him in some deep vault of my heart. I knew what he was like, for ever trying to lift people’s happiness on to his shoulders. There was no need for it this time. I would always adore him, but what we had was more than enough.

  The others were still talking and laughing on the other side of the door, but I’d never felt less like joining them. It hurt that Nick had to hide this one source of comfort from Jaxon. Danica wouldn’t be there, either, but she generally got away with it. I, on the other hand, was expected to be at Jaxon’s side whenever he desired my presence. To soothe his wounds, to boost his ego, to follow his orders to the letter.

  Frankly, I had better things to do.

  I crouched beside the bed, where my backpack was hidden behind my trunk of market trinkets. All my possessions were still tucked into the side pocket. I searched until my fingers closed around two tiny vials, each smaller than my little finger. A scroll dangled from the red ribbon that bound them together. I unraveled it to find a note, written in a familiar hand.

  Until next time, Paige Mahoney.

  One of the vials was brimful with a lambent, yellow-green liquid. Ectoplasm, the blood of Rephaim.

  When the other vial caught the light, kindling its coy glow, I knew exactly what it was. Relief welled up inside me, so pure and strong I laughed out loud. I sank on to the carpet, bared my arm, and tipped the precious vial of amaranth on to the poltergeist’s mark.

  Warmth flowered underneath the stone-cold skin. The twisted wound cracked open, like old paint. As I circled my finger over it, it washed away, leaving my skin smooth as buttermilk.

  And just like that, Jaxon could no longer blacken my name before the Unnatural Assembly.

  But Warden needed this vial. Wherever he was, he would suffer for his sacrifice.

  Until next time, Paige Mahoney.

  Next time would be now.

  12

  Fool’s Errand

  London—beautiful, immortal London—has never been a “city” in the simplest sense of the word. It was, and is, a living, breathing thing, a stone leviathan that harbors secrets underneath its scales. It guards them covetously, hiding them deep within its body; only the mad or the worthy can find them. It was into these ageless places that I might yet have to venture to find Warden.

  He had been looking for me; it made sense that he should have been abducted from my district. They couldn’t have taken him far. Even if they had knocked him out, he was a conspicuous load to carry.

  While Jaxon and the others drank themselves senseless next door, I lay on my bed and set the oxygen mask over my mouth. With my eyes closed, I reached as far as I could out of my body without leaving it. The dislocation wasn’t smooth; more like trying to tear a thick, coarse piece of fabric. I’d let myself get rusty. When I finally felt the æther, it was singing with dreamscapes and spirits, as it always was in the inner citadel.

  Toward the end of my time with him my sixth sense had been perfectly tuned to Warden’s presence, to the point that I had some sense of his emotions. Now there was nothing.

  They’d taken him too far. I sat up and pulled off the mask, frustrated. My limit was one mile. Beyond that, I couldn’t sense a thing.

  It would take a long time to cover the whole citadel alone, and I’d have to be alert for Vigiles. I owed Terebell a debt, but paying it could cost me my life. And Warden’s, if I failed to find him. His captors—if there were captors—might even have taken him out of London. Smuggled him across the channel, perhaps, or just killed him and sold him to a black-market taxidermist. I’d heard of stranger things.

  Out of options, I threw on my cravat and hat. As I got to the windowsill, I looked again at the ectoplasm.

  Warden wasn’t the type to spell out his intentions, but he wouldn’t have planted such a thing in my backpack without purpose. I pushed the stopper from the second vial and knocked it back. It shocked my teeth like a mouthful of iced water, leaving an aftertaste of metal.

  At once, everything sharpened. The vial slipped from my fingers and bounced off the carpet. It had the opposite effect to alcohol on my sixth sense, jolting it into hyperactivity. I felt the motions of the spirits upstairs like finger-strokes; felt the dreamscapes and the auras of the others like bright lights through the wall, screaming their emotions at me. I was a conductor, flowing with energy. I caught the wall, sick and breathless, my head whirling.

  On an impulse, I submerged my sight into my dreamscape. As a dream-form, I cut my way through the overgrown poppy anemones, searching for any clue, any difference. Dusk had fallen in my mind. The flowers tangled around my knees, brilliantly red beneath the night sky. Each petal was edged with chartreuse light, as if
my mind was bioluminescent. A breach between the clouds let in a single ray of light from the æther, illuminating my sunlit zone.

  And there it was. Golden light was streaming from the center of my mind and blazing a path into the æther, well beyond the range of my spirit.

  His blood had made him visible.

  When I jerked out of my dreamscape, my hands were sweating and trembling. I threw the backpack over my shoulders and flung open the window, leaving it ajar, before I climbed the back of the den and broke into a run across the rooftops.

  It was as easy as reading an internal compass. Instinctual, as though this were a path I’d walked before. I had a feeling that if I were sighted, I’d be able to see the cord with my naked eyes, like an arrow pointing me to him. Across streets, between buildings, over rooftops and under fences. I followed the call, avoiding the Vigiles, ducking into alleys and scrambling over walls. By the time I reached the edge of I-4 and climbed into a rickshaw, I knew he was close. Less than a mile. And when the rickshaw crossed into II-4, I could almost see the beacon in the æther, beckoning me to a familiar district.

  Warden was in Camden.

  ****

  The market was as hectic as ever when I arrived. It was easy to blend in with the crowd. I still walked with my head down and one hand on the pistol in my pocket. The Rag Dolls would tolerate a rival mollisher’s presence if they caught wind of it, but they wouldn’t let me run around unchecked. I had to get this done before the ectoplasm left my system.

  As I dashed down Camden High Street, I spied Jos, wearing a peaked cap over his cornrows, perched like a curious bird on a statue of Lord Palmerston. A whisperer stood beside him, playing a slow tune on her piccolo while Jos sang in a delicate voice. A large crowd watched in reverent silence. Polyglots sang best in their own, true language—Glossolalia, the Rephaite tongue—but they could make the most grisly street ballad sound beautiful.

  Five ravens feasted on a winter’s day,

  On the White Keep’s highest tower, so they say,

  When the coffin carried the queen.

  Not one raven chose to leave the fray

  While the queen turned cold down Frogmore-way,

  And the widow wore snow-white on the day

  That London was in mourning.

  Five ravens feasted on a summer’s day

  On the White Keep’s highest tower, so they say,

  When the king fled from his throne.

  Every raven turned and flew away

  While the blood turned cold down Whitechapel-way,

  “He was stained,” they claimed, “by the Ripper’s blade

  He is our king no more.”

  At the end of the song, the crowd clapped and tossed coins at them both. Jos caught them in his hat, and the girl took a bow as the audience dispersed. The pair of them scrambled for the remaining coins and shoved them into their pockets. The girl ran off. When he spotted me, Jos waved me over.

  “Hello, you,” I said, and he smiled. “Who was that?”

  “Just someone I busk with.” He jumped down from the statue. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m looking for someone.” I pushed my icy hands into my pockets. “Where are the others?”

  “Ivy’s at the bolthole. I think Felix is out working, too. Nell said she’d meet me to get dinner—she gets wages for doing the silks now,” he added, “but she didn’t show up.”

  “Why does Nell need to buy you dinner? Is Agatha not feeding you?”

  “She gives us rice milk and bloaters.” Jos looked sick at the thought. “I give the bloaters to her cat. I know it’s better than what the Rephs gave us, like Ivy said, but I’m sure she could afford something else. She has a huge slice of pie and a whole spice cake every night.”

  Bloaters were awful. Nasty little fish from the canal, all guts and eyeballs. He was right: Agatha must be able to feed them something better than that, given all the coin they gave her.

  Jos walked with me through the market, tipping his hat to the odd gutterling. I tried the golden cord again, but it was trembling now, difficult to pin down. All I knew was that Warden was close.

  “Where are you going to look for this person?” Jos asked.

  “I don’t know yet.” I scanned the nearest buildings. “How’s Agatha treating you, aside from the food?”

  “She’s kind to Ivy, but she’s quite strict with the rest of us. If we don’t bring back fifty pounds a night, we don’t have supper. Most of the soothsayers are too scared to busk now, thinking they might be arrested.”

  If only I had more money, I could get them all out of there. “How’s the writing going?”

  “We’re nearly finished. Nell is brilliant,” he said. “She could be a psychographer.”

  “What’s the story about?”

  “It’s . . . well, it’s sort of our story. About a Bone Season and all the humans escaping and the Rephaim coming to hunt them, but a few of them helping us, too.” His dark eyes peeked up at me. “We made Liss the main character. As a tribute. Do you think that’s okay?”

  A tight knot pushed into my throat. Liss, the unsung hero of the slum, who had got me through those first few weeks. Liss, who had suffered every wrong with dignity. Liss, whose life had been cut short before she could break free.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think it’s okay.”

  Jos looked better for the reassurance. As we walked, I cast my eye toward the beggars of this district, huddled in doorways with their threadbare blankets and half-empty tins.

  Jaxon must have been like that once. Perhaps he’d spent his nights in Camden, lingering around the costermongers, hoping for a bite of hot food or a coin to buy a drink. I could almost see him: a thin, pale boy with hair he cut himself, angry and bitter, loathing himself and what circumstance had done to him. A boy who begged for books and pens as often as he did for coin. A boy with arms torn to ribbons by fingernails, plotting his escape from poverty.

  But he’d made a name for himself in the end, unlike the beggars died on his streets. Any empathy he’d had for them—if ever—was gone.

  In the Stables Market, I spent a few pounds on a cup of saloop, a hot penny pie, and a wedge of spice cake for Jos. He ate voraciously as we walked, hardly speaking. I thought of what Jaxon would say if he knew I was spending my wages on spice cakes for fugitive street singers (“What an abysmal waste of good coin, O my lovely”), then decided I didn’t care.

  I grasped the cord again. It was pointing to an enormous building that loomed over the market. A derelict, by the looks of it, though the red brick was in good condition.

  “You said you were looking for someone,” Jos said quietly. “Is it one of the other survivors?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” I nodded to the building. “What’s that place for?”

  “It’s called the Interchange. Nobody’s been allowed in there since I’ve been in II-4.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure, but Agatha’s gutterlings think it’s the Rag Dolls’ den. There’s a door to get into it, but they always have a guard. Nobody goes in the Interchange except them. You won’t try and break in there, will you?” Jos said, looking worried. “Nobody’s allowed. The Rag and Bone Man’s orders.”

  “Have you ever seen this famous Rag and Bone Man?”

  “No. The Rag Dolls tell the district what to do.”

  “How?”

  “They call all the kidsmen and the séance-masters to a meeting and get them to spread the word. They send the dates with their gutterlings. My friend Rin said she had to take a reply from Agatha to their ringleader once. Chiffon, her name is, short for La Chiffonnière. She’s the one who gets the orders from Rags.”

  “His mollisher,” I said, remembering the Unnatural Assembly’s meeting. The Lord Costermonger had said that La Chiffonnière ruled this district.

  “I think so.”

  Interesting. La chiffonnière sounded French, but it wasn’t a word I’d come across at school. “I might have a word wi
th this Chiffon if I see her,” I said. “How do I reach the door?”

  Jos pointed. “Just go through the market and up the set of steps. There’s a big sign. Another lot of steps on your left will take you to the door. The gutterlings dared someone to sneak down to it once. They never saw him again.”

  “Great.” I took a deep breath. “I need to go, Jos. You should try and find Nell.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said. “I can help. Agatha will only send me out to sing again.”

  “You’re still under Scion’s radar,” I said. “Do you want your face to be all over London?”

  “You’ve stayed out of their way, haven’t you? And you need someone to keep a lookout while you’re searching,” he said earnestly. “What if the Rag and Bone Man comes?”

  My instinct told me to say no, but he had a point. “You have to do exactly as I say. Even if I tell you to leave me behind if there’s danger,” I said. “If I tell you to go, you run for it and find Nell. Promise me, Jos.”

  “I promise.”

  ****

  The arching sign must once have spelled out a name, but the years had picked the words apart. Instead of CAMDEN INTERCHANGE, it now read CA N I T CHANGE. A graffito of an inverted Scion anchor cut through the middle, and a question mark had been added at the end. Jos and I walked around the side of it until we reached the back.

  “You never told me who you were looking for.” Jos stepped lightly, hardly making a sound. “It’s the Warden, isn’t it?” When I nodded, he grinned. “The others won’t be happy.”

  “We need some Rephaim on our side. He helped Liss,” I reminded him. “He’ll help us, too.”

  “I think he helped a lot of people. We just didn’t see it.”

  He was right on that. Warden had certainly helped me, bringing me food and refusing to raise a hand to me, at great risk to his position.

  The yard was deadly quiet. A few abandoned cars were parked on the cobblestones outside the Interchange: a derelict building, shaped like an upside-down “T,” that overlooked a quiet part of the market. The whole place was boarded up; planks had even been hammered over the doors. There was no light whatsoever. Even if I somehow wormed my way inside, the interior might be fitted with alarms to prevent squatters.