The Mime Order

by Samantha Shannon

  “Oh, I’m sure they’d let it slide.” He twirled his pipe between his fingers. “I hope Minty will see its potential, but this sort of writing could cause Scion to come down on us like so many bricks.”

  “The Club kept On the Merits secret.”

  “For a while. Scion knows all about it now. It was only a matter of time until a Vigile showed them.” He looked down at the pages, stroking his small chin. “There’s enough material here for a novella, though that would be much harder to distribute. And a penny dreadful would be read on the spot. May I take these pages for Minty to peruse?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. I shall call you with her verdict in a few hours. How should I contact you?”

  “The I-4 phone booth.”

  “Very good.” His damp eyes rested on mine. “Tell me, Paige—truthfully, now. Is there even a slither of truth in here?”

  “No. It’s all just fiction, Alfred.”

  He looked at me for some time.

  “All right, then. I’ll be in touch.” Without getting up, Alfred took my hand between his large, warm ones and shook it. “Thank you, Paige. I hope to see you again soon.”

  “I’ll let the writers know you’re vouching for them.”

  “All right, dear heart. But do tell them from me: not a word to the Binder, or we’ll all be in for the high jump.” He slid the pages into a drawer. “I shall give these to Minty as soon as she’s finished writing. Stay safe, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t.

  ****

  The sun burned a deep autumn gold. My next destination was Raconteur Street, where Jaxon had heard of unregistered pickpockets targeting amaurotics (“They’re stealing from our hapless victims, O my lovely, and I don’t like it one bit”). None of the others were available to deal with it. If I wanted my next pay packet, I’d have to do as I was told. I didn’t have the Ranthen’s patronage just yet.

  Alfred called himself a gambler. Maybe I was, too, though I hadn’t made a penny from the risks I was taking. If Jaxon found out I’d been seeing Warden—in any capacity—his rage would be incandescent.

  There was no sign of the pickpockets, though I could see a few of ours at work. If the offending voyants were here, this would be the perfect opportunity for them to strike. Across the inner citadel, amau-rotics were flooding into the vast department stores, buying stacks upon stacks of gifts for Novembertide. It was the most important festival on the Scion calendar, celebrating the formal opening of the Scion Citadel of London at the end of November in 1929. Red glass lanterns were strung between the streets, while tiny white lights, smaller than snowflakes, cascaded from windowsills and snaked in perfect spirals around lampposts. Vast painted banners of previous Grand Inquisitors hung from the largest buildings. The crowds were dotted with students handing out posies of red, white and black flowers.

  Would my father celebrate alone this year? I pictured him at the table in the gray light of morning, reading his newspaper, with my face staring back at him from the front page. I’d been a disappointment to him from the moment I’d turned my back on the University, but I was far beyond that now.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A woman’s plea reached my ears. “Please, Commandant, I just want to get home.”

  An enormous, armored black vehicle was parked on the side of the street, marked with SUNLIGHT VIGILANCE DIVISION and the anchor, in the sun. I stepped behind a lamppost and pulled down the peak of my cap, straining to see what had happened. It was rare for the Vigiles to bring out military vehicles, as most of their army was stationed overseas. They’d patrolled the streets of every citadel during the Molly Riots, when Scion had declared martial law and put ScionIDE soldiers in the central cohort.

  A young woman had been detained. Her hands were cuffed in front of her, and she had the wary, panicked look of someone who knew they were in trouble.

  “You claim to have arrived in 2058,” the Vigile commandant was saying. One of his underlings stood by with a data pad. “Can you prove that?”

  “Yes, I have my papers,” the woman stammered, her Irish accent clear as a bell. She was about my height, though her hair was a darker blonde than mine had ever been, and she wore the crisp red uniform of a paramedic. I could tell from here that she was amaurotic. And a few months pregnant. “I’m from Belfast,” she continued when the commandant didn’t speak. “I came here to work. There’s no work left in the north of Ireland, not now that—”

  The Vigile hit her.

  The impact radiated through the crowd like a shock wave. He hadn’t just slapped her, but punched her in the jaw, hard enough to snap her head around. Sunlight Vigiles never used brutality.

  The woman slipped on the ice and fell, twisting at the last moment to spare her rounded stomach. Blood leaked from her mouth, on to her palm. When she saw it, she let out a cry of shock. The commandant walked around her. “No one wants to hear your lies, Miss Mahoney.”

  My heart lurched.

  “You brought your unnaturalness to my shores. If I had it my way,” he barked, “we wouldn’t employ brogues at all. Especially not dirty, unnatural farm girls.”

  “I’m from a Scion citadel! Can’t you see I’m not her? Are you blind?”

  “Who’s the father?” He pressed his pistol to her stomach, eliciting gasps from the crowd. “Felix Coombs? Julian Amesbury?”

  Julian.

  Instinctively, I looked up at the nearest transmission screen. A new face had been added to the cycle of preternatural fugitives. Deep brown eyes and skin, bald, with a rigid set to his jaw. Julian Amesbury, guilty of high treason, sedition, and arson. If they didn’t have him, he must be alive. Surely.

  “Who?” The woman shielded the bump with her arms, pushing herself back with her heels. “Please, I don’t know who you’re talking about . . .”

  Murmurs passed through the spectators. I could hear them from here: “Shouldn’t do this here,” “not for the daytime,” “inconsiderate.” They wanted unnaturals gone, these people, but not while they were doing their shopping. To them, we were litter being taken to the landfill.

  The woman was hauled to her feet by his lackeys. Her cheek was already an enraged red, her eyes brimming with tears. “You’re all mad,” she choked out. “I’m not Paige Mahoney! Can’t you see yourselves?”

  She was strapped, weeping and thrashing, on to a stretcher in the paddy wagon by a female Vigile. “Move along,” the commandant roared, startling the onlookers, who expected courtesy from daytime Vigiles. “Any of you know any brogue immigrants, you can tell them to get ready for questioning. And don’t think you can hide them in your homes, or you’ll go to the gallows with them.”

  He climbed into a second paddy wagon. “This is wrong,” someone called out. A young, amaurotic man, bright-eyed with outrage. “She isn’t Paige Mahoney. You can’t just arrest an innocent woman in broad—”

  Another Vigile struck him with her baton, right at the front of his skull. He crashed into the pavement, his hands raised to protect himself.

  A stunned silence fell over the crowd. When there were no more voices of dissent, the Vigile beckoned to her squad. As the man pushed himself on to his elbows and spat out two teeth, the onlookers surged away from him. His nose was bloody. I could only watch as the paddy wagon and its armored escort drove away, feeling as if the world and all its walls were crashing down on top of me. I had the insane urge to run after them or send my spirit into a Vigile’s dreamscape, but what good would that do?

  The realization of my powerlessness choked me. Before anyone could notice that the real Paige Mahoney was standing in the vicinity, I raced into the backstreets. Black hair, a cravat and a pair of contacts wouldn’t hide me for much longer.

  I knew London in a way they didn’t. How to wear the shadows like a hood over my eyes. How to pass unseen, even in broad daylight. How to ebb away into the night. Its map was as familiar to me as my own hands. While I had that advantage, they w
ouldn’t find me.

  I had to believe it.

  When I reached the door of the den, it took three tries to get my key into the lock. In the hallway, Nadine was sitting on the stairs, polishing her violin. She looked up, frowning.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Gillies.” I drew the chain across.

  Nadine stood. “The Punishers?” She stared. “I saw them on ScionEye. Are they coming here?”

  “No. Not Punishers.” I swallowed the thickness in my throat, the acid taste of dread. “Are the others here?”

  “No. Zeke’s with Nick. I told him not to go out today . . .”

  She rushed through the door, heading for the phone booth. I ran up the stairs, sick to my stomach.

  During the Molly Riots, anyone with an Irish surname, or whom Scion proclaimed to look Irish, had been subjected to endless spot checks and interrogations. That poor woman, whose only mistake was to be in the wrong place and from the wrong country, might well be dead by sunrise. And unless I gave myself in, putting everything else in jeopardy, there was nothing I could do to save her.

  The snake of guilt tightened its coils. I sat on my bed and squeezed my knees between my arms, drawing myself inward. If Nashira’s puppets meant to force me out with brute force, they wouldn’t succeed.

  A rapping came against the wall. Jaxon Hall demanded an audience. The shadows under my eyes were more like crevices now—he’d know something was wrong at once—but I had to face the beast at some point.

  My mime-lord lay on the chaise longue like a statue, eyes half-open, his face warmed by the golden light outside. Empty wine bottles crowded the coffee table, and every ashtray was brimful of ashes. I stood in the doorway, wondering once again how long it had been since he’d last gone outside.

  “Afternoon,” I said.

  “Indeed it is. A chill sort of afternoon. Would that be because the winter is drawing ever closer, and with it, the scrimmage?” He took a swig of absinthe from the bottle. “Did you check for the pickpockets?”

  “They weren’t there.”

  “What have you been doing for the other two hours?”

  “Collecting money from the night parlors,” I said. “I thought we should get it all in before the scrimmage.”

  “Oh, don’t think, darling, it’s a dreary habit. But do put the money on my desk.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off me. I reached into my pocket and laid a wad of my own precious notes on his desk. Jaxon picked them up and counted.

  “You could do better, but this will get us through the month. Here.” With a clumsy flourish, he took about a third of the bundle, popped it into an envelope and handed it back to me. “For your troubles.” Bloodshot eyes peered at me. “What the devil happened to your face?”

  “Hitmen.”

  That woke him up. “Whose hitmen?” He stood, almost knocking a glass off the table. “In my territory?”

  “Rag Dolls,” I said. “I dealt with them. They should still be on Silver Place, if you send someone to look.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Last night.”

  “On your way back from your training.” When I nodded, he snatched a lighter from his desk. “I will have to speak to the Abbess about this.” He stuck a cigar between his teeth, lighting it after four attempts. “Do you have any idea why the Rag and Bone Man would target you, Paige?”

  “No idea,” I lied. Slowly, I sat down on the couch. “Jax, what do you know about him?”

  “Next to nothing.” His expression was pensive. “Not even what sort of voyant he is, though his name implies osteomancy. In all my years as a mime-lord, I haven’t seen him once. He lives a wretched sort of subterranean existence, shunning all human contact, speaking only through his mollishers. I suppose he became a mime-lord during Jed Bickford’s reign.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Mollishers?”

  “He does keep the Unnatural Assembly posted on his section’s changes. He’s had three mollishers that I know of. I never heard the first one’s name, but the second was called the Jacobite, and the most recent is La Chiffonnière. She became mollisher in February this year.”

  February. That was around the time I was captured. “What would make him want to change mollishers?”

  “Oh, heaven alone knows. Perhaps he or she did something to annoy him.” He pulled a glass ashtray across the desk. “Tell me, Paige—have you heard from the local ventriloquists?”

  “Who?”

  “The Rephaim, darling.”

  “You’re interested?”

  “I don’t particularly want to know what the Rephaim are doing, and I still have no intention of doing anything about their presence. I merely asked if you had heard from them.”

  I wet my lips. “No. Nothing.”

  “Good. Then we have no distractions.”

  “Depends what you mean by ‘distractions,’” I said tersely. “The Vigiles are going to interrogate all the Irish settlers this week. They seem to think the brogues are conspiring to hide me.”

  “The Grand Commander must be aching for new ways to waste time. Now, on to more important matters. Come out to the courtyard with me.”

  Of course. Mass arrests and beatings meant nothing to Jaxon Hall. Did he ever acknowledge Scion, or was it all just background noise to him?

  The courtyard at the back of the den was one of my favorite places in all of London: a triangle of tranquility, paved with smooth white stone. Two small trees grew from circles of soil, and Nadine kept the wrought-iron planter-boxes overflowing with flowers. Jaxon sat down on the bench and dropped his extinguished cigar into one of them.

  “Do you know the rules of the scrimmage, Paige?”

  “I know it’s close combat.”

  “The fight is based on the rather brutal medieval tradition of mêlée. You will find yourself engaged in a series of small battles within the so-called ‘Rose Ring.’” He closed his eyes, soaking up the sun. “You must be wary of those whose numa can also be wielded as weapons: axinomancers, macharomancersd and aichmomancers in particular. Another point of note is that using amaurotic tactics to end any of your battles—stabbing someone with an ordinary blade, for example—is called a ‘rotten ploy.’ At one point it was forbidden, but nowadays it’s perfectly acceptable, so long as it’s carried out with enough flair.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Enough flair ? Is that what the syndicate wants from its Underlord?”

  “Would you follow someone with no hint of panache, darling? Besides, the scrimmage would be bland without a little bloodletting, and amaurotic weapons are perfectly adequate for that.”

  “What about guns?”

  “Oh, yes—no firearms permitted. It’s considered slightly unfair that a wonderful candidate could make a misstep and be shot dead.” He tapped his cane. “We have another, vital advantage, you and I. At any time, we can fight together. Only a mime-lord and mollisher pair may do this.”

  “Do most participants fight in pairs?”

  “All but the independent candidates, who have more to prove. What I suggest, for the purpose of ensuring that both of us survive—”

  “Survive?” I frowned. “I thought—”

  “Don’t be naïve. The rules do state that the aim is to stun, but there are always deaths during a scrimmage. What I suggest,” he continued, “is that we both learn a little more about our gifts. That way, we will be able to anticipate and read each other’s movements as we fight.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. Jaxon had no idea that my gift had matured as much as it had.

  “All right.” I leaned against the blossom tree. “Well, you know about mine.”

  “Don’t tell me you learned nothing in the colony.”

  “I was a slave, Jax, not an apprentice.”

  “Come now. Don’t tell me my mollisher didn’t try and learn more about her gift.” There was a hungry glint in his eye. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t mastered possession.”

  Possession wa
s something I fully intended to use at the scrimmage; if I didn’t show Jaxon now, he’d only find out later.

  For a while there were no hosts to be seen. Finally, a bird flickered overhead, gone in a blink. I made the jump.

  It was easy to take control of this body, with its fragile, lilac dreamscape; not so easy when I found myself soaring on the whims of the wind, with nothing to stop me plummeting into the asphalt. Deep inside me was a trembling—the bird’s consciousness—but I focused, quashing its spirit. This wouldn’t be like it was with the butterfly. This time I would spread my wings. I squeezed myself into the new bones, as if I were pulling on clothes that were too small, and slammed my wings downward, lifting my light body. Vertigo overwhelmed me.

  But the sky was peaceful. Quiet. Not like the violent, bloody citadel. In the sky there was no Scion. The birds refused the anchor’s call. Past the encroaching evening, a ribbon of color still lay across the horizon: rosy coral, soft yellow, palest pink. Other birds were flocking around me, twisting and soaring, turning and folding in a unison that seemed impossible. They swirled like rain on their way to roost. There was a pulse between these birds, as if they shared a single dreamscape. As if they had a web of golden cords between them.

  My silver cord pulled at my spirit. I turned away from the flock and swept back down to the courtyard. Clumsily, I flapped my way to Jaxon’s other shoulder, opened my beak, and chirruped in his ear.

  He was still laughing his delight when I snapped back into my own body and took in a gasp of air. The starling teetered on the bench, looking drunk. I’d fallen right into Jaxon’s arms.

  “Wonderful!”

  I extricated myself from Jaxon’s grip and dabbed the sweat from my forehead. My heart was palpitating, stiffening my airways.

  “You really are extraordinary, O my lovely. I knew I put your gift two orders above mine for a reason, just as I knew you’d turn a bad experience to your advantage. That Rephaite must have taught you a great deal. I owe him a debt. You can even do it without that cumbersome oxygen mask.”

  “For about thirty seconds.” Darkness clouded my vision.

  “That’s thirty seconds longer than you could do it before. You’ve made progress, Paige, which is more than you made with me. Would it that I could send the rest of the gang to sharpen their skills. Oh, the place sounds like a boot camp for clairvoyants. A whetstone for the spirit. Send them all, I say.” He led me back to the bench and sat me down. “The only problem I foresee with possession is the fact that your body is left vulnerable. Perhaps wait until the finale to use it, when there are only one or two opponents left.”