The Shadow Wing

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Certainly,’ Maria said. ‘I thought you would be coming with news for me.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Lydia said, standing up. ‘But I’m working on it.’

  Leaving the office, Lydia turned and raised a hand in goodbye. Maria was sitting behind her gigantic shiny desk looking like exactly what she was, a deadly insect, but Lydia hadn’t been waving to her. Just to her left, shimmering and translucent in the sunlight pouring through the copious glass, Jason raised his hand in return.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Getting back into the offices to collect Jason was always going to be the tricky part of the equation. Lydia had thought about leaving her jacket or a hat or something that she could collect, but she was concerned that it would put Maria on her guard. The woman wasn’t a fool and Lydia wasn’t in the habit of getting comfy in her office.

  Then it occurred to her that all she needed to do was lie.

  She called Maria at six that evening expecting her to still be in the office. She was not disappointed. ‘Twice in one day, what a treat,’ she said. ‘This had better be good.’

  ‘It is,’ Lydia said. ‘But I’d rather discuss it in person.’

  ‘If you insist.’

  * * *

  Maria was working at her desk. There were piles of documents and, although still immaculately made up and with lipstick that looked as fresh as it had in the morning, there was tiredness around Maria’s eyes. Lawyers might have been backed by the devil, but they weren’t enjoying a free ride.

  ‘Have you heard from Alejandro?’

  Maria held her gaze. ‘What kind of question is that?’

  ‘Just interested. And I’m showing sympathy. Asking after your old dad.’

  ‘You are being obnoxious. Deliberately so. Why?’

  Lydia shrugged. ‘Old habits.’

  ‘You said you had something important to share.’

  Maria’s irritation was palpable and Lydia calculated she had exactly zero seconds before she called some of her private security and ejected Lydia from the building. Painfully. ‘There were three replicas made. You’ve got one in the crypt so that leaves another two floating around.’

  Maria placed the top back onto the fountain pen she had been using and placed it neatly beside the pile of documents. ‘I see.’

  Lydia had glanced around the office casually when she had arrived and hadn’t spotted Jason. Since then she hadn’t been able to look away from Maria without it being obvious. She felt a coolness on the back of her neck and hoped, fervently, that it was Jason appearing behind her.

  ‘It’s not in your interests to tell me this. If I didn’t know there were further replicas, you might be able to give me one and keep the real cup for yourself.’

  ‘I’ve agreed to find the cup for you,’ Lydia said, not clarifying that she never agreed to give the cup to Maria. ‘If this alliance is going to work, we need to trust each other’s word.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Maria nodded. ‘I don’t, I must be honest, but perhaps in time.’

  ‘It’s a starting place.’ Her neck was freezing, now, and the urge to look around was almost unbearable. ‘I’ll let you get on. Looks like you’ve got a lot of work. No rest for the wicked.’

  Maria made a little shooing motion with her hand, dismissing Lydia in a practised manner.

  Lydia stood and, as she turned, caught a glimpse of Jason, flimsy and almost entirely see-through in the bright office lighting. A second later and he was flowing into her body, lodging a block of ice in her stomach and seizing her lungs for a terrifying few moments. She couldn’t speak to say ‘goodbye’ so left Maria’s office in silence.

  * * *

  Back at The Fork, Lydia sat with Jason while he recovered his equilibrium. She was tense with anticipation, but didn’t want to rush him. There was no earthly reason for Jason to help her out, after all. Most ghosts would be enjoying a gentle retirement, maybe with a little light poltergeist action just for fun, not hacking into national databases and running around London playing spy.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, once his outline had stopped shaking and his body had solidified again with Lydia’s touch.

  He still didn’t look quite right and Lydia could see that the excursion had cost him. ‘Take your time.’

  He rolled his shoulders, the movement jerky like he had forgotten how to move naturally. ‘After you left, she made a call.’

  Lydia waited, letting Jason marshal his thoughts. ‘She thinks you have it.’

  ‘The cup?’

  ‘Yeah. There was a break-in at her father’s house, just after he “died”.’ Jason made bunny ears on the last word. ‘At the time she didn’t think anything had gone missing, but when you told her the cup in the crypt was a fake, she realised that the real cup might have been the target of the robbery.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell me this?’ Lydia wondered if she had been right and that Maria was setting her a deliberately difficult task, withholding information so that she would fail.

  ‘Because she thinks you took it. Or a Crow, at any rate. That’s what she said to the person on the phone. She commissioned you to find it because she thinks you have it and it’s an opportunity for you to return it without losing face.’ He shrugged. ‘Although she didn’t put it quite like that.’

  ‘Who was it? On the phone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jason said. ‘She didn’t say their name. And she stayed in the room after, working for ages. By the time she went to a meeting, I was too weak to press the buttons on the phone and I couldn’t access the dialling record. Sorry.’

  ‘No, no. Don’t be. You did a brilliant job. This really helps.’ Somebody had broken into Alejandro’s home and, most likely, taken the cup. If it hadn’t been the target, other items would have been taken. So whoever was responsible knew about the cup. ‘Who knew about the cup? Mr Smith, I guess. Although I would have thought he would have pressured Alejandro to hand over the cup as part of his immunity deal and wouldn’t have needed to nick it.’

  ‘What if it was just a random burglary? A thief could have just seen an expensive looking antique and taken it?’

  ‘I bet Alejandro had a lot of other expensive stuff lying around. Seems unlikely that it would be the only thing taken. I’m guessing the Silvers didn’t file a police report? They wouldn’t want any evidence of weakness getting out.’

  Jason nodded. ‘True. So, apart from us, the Silvers, and Smith, who else knows about the cup?’

  ‘The person who made the replicas. We need to find Guillame Chartes.’

  ‘There’s another possibility,’ Jason said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The other Families. I mean, you all put items into the museum for the truce, right? That means the Pearls and the Foxes also know about the cup.’

  * * *

  Lydia didn’t see the Pearls sneaking into Alejandro’s house in order to steal a silver cup. Apart from anything else, they were trapped in their underground realm. It was a strange liminal space which didn’t obey the normal rules of time and one they didn’t seem able to leave. They had descendants all around London, of course, people with varying amounts of Pearl blood and residual magic, but they hadn’t shown any indication of having formed a meaningful hierarchy or purpose. The Pearl Court underground were the powerhouse, and they used children as their emissaries above ground, running errands, luring new playthings like Lucy Bunyan for the pleasure of the king, and, occasionally, following Lydia.

  It was early evening and Lydia hadn’t contacted Fleet during the day. She figured he needed a bit of time to process the latest news about Maddie. And to calm down from his annoyance that she hadn’t told him about it straight away. She would go round, now, and update him immediately on her progress with the cup. She could even tell him about using Jason as a listening device.

  Fleet buzzed her into the flat and then went back to what he was doing. Which was folding a shirt and putting it into a suitcase.

  ‘You’re leaving?’ Lydia’s body
went cold. This was it. The other shoe. Dropping like a stone.

  ‘Only for a little while.’

  ‘How long?’ Lydia had wanted him to stop treating her like a fragile thing that needed constant monitoring, but she hadn’t meant for him to leave her altogether.

  ‘Not sure,’ Fleet was concentrating on packing the case, didn’t look at her. ‘A couple of days. Might be longer, but I hope not.’

  Lydia pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying ‘stay’. Or ‘why now?’.

  Fleet finally turned to look at her. ‘It’s important. I wouldn’t go if it wasn’t.’

  ‘Is it work?’

  ‘Sort of. It might help, but I don’t want to get your hopes up.’

  ‘I’d rather know,’ Lydia said. ‘Aren’t you always telling me that communication is key?’

  He smiled gently. ‘That’s definitely something we need to work on. But right now it’s better if I don’t tell you.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ Lydia said.

  ‘You know you can trust me. Remember that.’

  At the door the panic was sudden and overwhelming. They were hugging, and she pulled away to look at his face. Afraid of what she might find there, but needing the truth. ‘Is this because I didn’t tell you about Maddie?’ She wanted to ask if it was because she had told Paul Fox first, but couldn’t make herself say the words. It would be like conjuring a curse.

  ‘No,’ Fleet said, but his eyes flicked away.

  ‘Go then,’ Lydia said, stepping back. If he didn’t go, now, she was going to start crying, and that wasn’t going to improve matters.

  He looked anguished. ‘You must understand-’

  ‘I don’t,’ Lydia said. All she could feel was the abandonment. This was why you shouldn’t trust other people, rely on them. They only let you down in the end. What had Jason said about ‘everybody leaving?’. Turned out, some left earlier than others.

  ‘This isn’t about us,’ Fleet tried again. ‘I swear I’m not running out on you.’

  ‘But you are leaving.’ She refused to make it a question. She couldn’t stand the hope.

  ‘Yes. But it’s just temporary.’

  Lydia wanted to believe him. She reminded herself of all the ways in which Fleet had proved himself to her, proved to be a reliable, loving partner. He had always been on her side. She knew that. She forced a weak smile. ‘Okay. Stay safe.’

  He kissed her, again, and left.

  Lydia closed the door and felt unshed tears hot behind her eyes. Fleet had always had her back. The man had taken a bullet for her. So why was he leaving now?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lydia went for a walk and called Paul Fox on the way. The sky was a uniform grey and a one-eyed pigeon followed her as if hoping for crumbs. She wanted to tell it not to bother. That it ought to look after itself because those it trusted would fly off on a secret mission leaving it to peck for crumbs alone but she was aware she might have been projecting. Just a bit.

  Paul answered. ‘Hello, Little Bird. Always a pleasure.’

  ‘Someone broke into Alejandro’s house and stole the Silver Cup. I think it was a Fox.’

  Paul was quiet for a few beats. ‘Just when I think we’re making progress, you make a baseless accusation like that…’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ Lydia side-stepped an abandoned Styrofoam kebab container. ‘I’m trying to help.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Paul said, his voice dangerously even.

  ‘I’m worried about whoever has the cup. Maria is looking for it. She’s commissioned me, but I’m betting I’m not the only one she has put on the case. She had deep pockets and, as you know, she’s utterly ruthless. If it’s someone in your den, I thought you would want to know. So that you can protect them.’

  ‘She hasn’t got any leads,’ Paul said. ‘Unless you’re running to her with your tall tales.’

  ‘I am not,’ Lydia said. ‘I have no wish to be your enemy. I hope you know that by now.’

  ‘There you go, then,’ Paul said.

  ‘It might have a psychological effect. On whoever is holding it. I’ve encountered enchanted objects before and they made a man go off the deep end. This is a friendly warning to be careful with it.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t run the family. We don’t have an official hierarchy or anything like it. But I will ask around. See if some young cub decided to take a trophy.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s just a friendly warning.’

  * * *

  Lydia didn’t have high hopes that her offering to her ancestors in Camberwell Cemetery would have resulted in some kind of answer, but she headed to the family tomb anyway. The sky was bright blue and she didn’t need her jacket on the walk through the graves. It was peaceful in the cemetery with wide paths and benches and not many people. A man was sitting on a bench with a box of sandwiches and a Thermos and a couple were standing in front of a fresh-looking plot, holding hands in silence, while their small girls ran around the nearby stones shrieking.

  The English weren’t great with death, Lydia thought. Everybody pretended it wasn’t going to happen and, when it did, spoke in hushed tones and anodyne euphemisms. Like it was something unseemly. Or a curse that you could summon by naming it.

  The air at the rise of the hill was thick with the scent of bluebells, which seemed even more rampant than her last visit. Lydia went to the yew tree and peered up through the branches, trying to locate the scrap of black silk she tied there. She couldn’t see it and didn’t feel inclined to climb the tree, again. Once had been enough. A crow landed on the stone surface of the tomb and tilted its head.

  ‘I’ve come for my answer,’ Lydia said, after bobbing her head in greeting. ‘I need to know how to control my power. I wanted to be strong enough to beat Maddie, but now I seem to be misfiring. I keep fainting or being sick. I don’t know if it’s because I have too much power or that I’m not using it right…’ Lydia sank down among the flowers and leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. ‘And I’m so desperate I’m talking to myself.’

  She closed her eyes, feeling her head swim. Not now. She produced her coin and spun it in the air. With her head tipped back against the tree, she watched her coin and let the branches and sky in the background of her vision blur. She focused on the flash of gold as the coin revolved. The image of the crow was in flight and then standing and then in flight, and then the wings seemed to be moving, flapping in time with her heartbeat.

  A black wing was flapping in the tree. Or was it the black silk? Lydia blinked. It was a fledgling taking flight from a nest in the tree. It was no more than a couple of metres from the nest to the top of the tomb where it sat for a moment and then, with an encouraging caw from the waiting adult, fluffed its stubby feathers and made it back up to the tree.

  ‘Is that my answer?’ Lydia asked. ‘Because I don’t get it.’

  That’s when she became aware of something moving in the grass to her right. In the shade of the spreading branches, another fledgling was twitching its wings. It fixed Lydia with one bright and frightened eye and made a clumsy hopping movement. One wing wasn’t opening the way it should, and Lydia realised that it was probably broken. It had fallen when it had tried its first flight. Or the parents had realised it was sick and had shoved it out of the nest to conserve resources for the successful offspring. If this was the answer, then she wished she hadn’t bothered coming back.

  Her heart tugged with sympathy as the young bird tried to spread its wings, the damaged one clinging uselessly at its side. The more she looked, the more clearly Lydia saw. The bird had a wet-looking head and its feathers were dull and patchy. It settled down low in the grass, its small chest heaving. Henry had told her that she should never touch a fledgling. Even when they were on the ground and seemed to be alone, their parents were probably nearby and she would do more harm than good by scooping it up. He had also told her that if one was injured or sick, it was kinder to finish them off with a rock. No
t that she ever had.

  The adult crow was still on the tomb and Lydia could swear it was waiting for her to make a move. ‘I’m not going to do your dirty work for you,’ Lydia said. ‘I can’t.’

  The fledgling was close to death, she could feel it now. Its tiny heart was beating so loud that the sound was filling her ears. Henry had told her that the only way to get strong enough to beat Maddie was to practise. That she had to kill. She had rejected the idea that she had to take from another life in order to save her own, but her own father had told her that her Grandpa Crow had expected Henry to kill Charlie. To become the strongest version of himself. She hadn’t wanted to believe that was the way, but the spirits of her ancestors seemed to be telling her the same thing. Unless she had completely lost her marbles and it was a perfectly ordinary crow waiting for her to leave so it could feed its fledgling.

  Lydia got up to leave. Either way, she knew one thing was certain. She didn’t have what it took, and she wasn’t willing to kill to get it. Which, possible insanity aside, meant there was one essential truth – she was going to die.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Guillame Chartes’ shop in the silver vaults had disappeared, seemingly overnight. With a professional crew of movers and the ability to glamour – or pay – the surrounding businesses to say they had never heard of you, it was perfectly possible. But only with at least one of two things; money or power.

  Lydia searched for him online and asked Jason to do the same. She also forced herself to practise producing coins and trying to move her mug around her desk without touching it while she searched, figuring that every second she wasn’t training was a wasted second.