Shadowplay (16 page)

We kept to the darkest parts of the streets.

Drystan and I had taken turns watching Shadow Elwood’s apartments. Cyan came with me a few times and continued her flirtation with the young porter, who had overheard Elwood mentioning he was going to the opera this evening. We decided that this was the night to seek the answers to our questions.

Just in time, we slid into our hiding places. Shadow Kam Elwood appeared in a tuxedo and top hat. Under the street lamp, he tapped a cane against the pavement impatiently as he checked his pocket watch.

The words Maske said at the first séance came to me:
A man checks his pocket watch, counting down the time…

I swallowed. The tapping of the cane reminded me of the ringmaster. The Shadow’s head swiveled from side to side as usual, but he did not see the three of us.

A cab arrived, its engine sputtering in the darkness.

Cyan leaned against a street lamp. She had a whistle in her pocket that sounded like a train, which she would blow three times as a warning. If anyone asked why she was lurking, she was waiting for a sweetheart to meet her and take her dancing after he got off work at any moment.

Drystan hadn’t wanted to involve her at all, but I told him to believe me when I said I thought she was worthy. And Maske trusted her as well. Having her on the lookout would be better than having no one at all.

I could not help worrying for her. I had been raised to believe that a girl alone at night was never safe. That men would automatically assume her a Moonshade and try to purchase her services. Or find her easy prey.

But Cyan was not as easy prey as Iphigenia, daughter of the Laurus family, would have been, especially with the little knife in her pocket.

I took a steadying breath. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Drystan.

“Not entirely, no, but at least this way we’ll have more of an idea of who we’re up against. He knows where we are, but I don’t think he’s reported us to the authorities.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not reported us to someone else.”

“Course not.”

“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered. “We’re a couple of amateurs. He’ll have all manner of ways to know if someone’s been rifling through his possessions, surely.”

“I know a lot of them. I’ve investigated a few people’s personal possessions over the years.” I remembered he had searched through my pack not long after I joined the circus, when the other clowns had stolen it as a joke. He hadn’t told them what he’d found – a dress and a strange figurine of a Kedi, a letter to my brother signed “your sister.” He had kept my secret.

“He could hide them cleverly, or have a cipher, or booby traps, or…” I continued.

Drystan smiled in the dark, and I fought the urge to back away. With his soot-stained face and feral grin, I wondered if I knew him at all. He pressed his palms against his thighs and the smile faded. He was not as fearless as he pretended to be.

“There’s no need to worry because I lifted this from Maske.” He held out a wand-like device made of Alder metal, the end pointed like an insect’s antennae.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s an Eclipse. When it’s switched on, it’ll turn off all other Vestige within a certain radius. Even if he has a Banshee.”

“Lord and Lady,” I breathed. A Banshee was the most advanced Vestige alarm that civilians could buy. I squinted at the Eclipse. “I’ve never even heard of such a thing.” I took it from him delicately. It weighed little more than a feather.

“That’s because it’s highly illegal.”

“Why does Maske have so much illegal Vestige?”

Drystan gave me a look.

I sighed. “Yes, I know. Former card sharp and criminal. But why does he still have it?”

“They’re dead useful. If you had one, would you let it go?” He tucked the Vestige back into his coat pocket. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“I sure hope we don’t regret this,” I muttered. I peeked over the edge of the building. Cyan’s small face tilted toward us for the briefest of moments before she resumed her watch.

Up here, the plan seemed, if possible, even more ill-considered. Once we entered the apartment, Cyan could dart off to the authorities and we would be none the wiser. Half of me wanted to tell Drystan that we weren’t doing this. But we were so close.

Drystan switched on the Eclipse. Its end glowed green, pulsating like a heartbeat. Energy prickled along my skin. Nausea whirred in my stomach. I swallowed, and the feeling passed.

Drystan took out a lock pick roll and jimmied the window open with a screwdriver. It wasn’t the strongest of locks, but then this was not an easy ledge to climb to. The window opened and Drystan peered in.

“I think he does have a Banshee,” he whispered. “But we’re alright with the Eclipse.”

Drystan took off his muddy boots, wedging them into the corner of the windowsill, and I did the same. Drystan crept inside, every muscle poised for flight. But the flat was silent. He made a slow circuit of the room, prowling like a hunting cat, the Eclipse doubling as a quivering torchlight. With a nod, he gestured at me to enter.

I slunk into the room, leaving the window open only a crack. I rubbed my hands against my arms as I glanced about.

Shadow Elwood was messy. This was worrying. He could have done this on purpose, so that if anyone came snooping he would know from one single askew fold of cloth.

Despite the disarray, the trappings of his wealth were obvious. Crystal decanters for brandy on the kitchen island. A rich Arrasian rug beneath our feet. If I were not an escaped noble myself, I’d be tempted to set up a business sniffing out adultery among the Saps, as it seemed to be a lucrative line of work.

I gravitated toward the desk in the corner of the room. There were several framed prints of young children, and a woman half-smiling at the camera, her face tilted upward. A wife? Children?

“His family is dead,” Drystan whispered in my ear, causing me to jump. “Once we figured out his name, I found out a little about him.”

Why hadn’t he told me? “What happened?”

“Wasting sickness. They went abroad to Linde. Elwood stayed here, to work. They caught the illness and never came home.”

Maybe that was why Drystan had kept quiet about it. It was harder to fear and hate someone when you pitied them.

Drystan looked through the other rooms of the house. I rifled through the desk, meticulously keeping every paper where it had been before.

Elwood’s filing system was neat, at least – labeled by last name and date. Sure enough, there was a file marked “Laurus, Iphigenia.” I drew it out with shaking hands.

In it was a page of information on me. Birthplace: unknown. Birthdate: unknown. The stark, black words stared at me accusingly. My parents must have filled this out. The birthdate they had given me was a lie. It was another blow when I thought that they could not hurt me any more.

I read on, rubbing the back of my hand against my nose. It stated the schools had I attended, the lists of tutors. My last recorded height and weight was listed, along with my hair, eye color, and blood type. The notes and observations section was completely blank. I recalled his notebook from when I saw him on the beach by the circus, scribbling and squinting at the canvas tents. I searched the other drawers for it, but Shadow Elwood probably kept it with him at all times. I kept my file out on the desk.

My gaze lingered on a file titled “Chokecherry, Malinda”. Lady Chokecherry. I took it out. Shadow Elwood had been hired by Lord Chokecherry to spy on his wife to see if she was cheating on him. The file was cursory; the sum marked “unpaid”. I held my tongue between my teeth and put the file back. Obviously someone found something for him to land in the papers.

There were so many folders. I searched for the people I knew. There were no other Laurus names but mine. Neither of my parents suspected the other of adultery. Or, they hadn’t hired Elwood. Hornbeam was another absent name. Hawthorne was there, though. Lady Hawthorne had hired Elwood to see if her husband was seeing other ladies while she stayed at the Emerald Bowl to grow her flowers. He had been, at least as of three years ago. I put that folder away with a sigh. Their son, Oswin, was Cyril’s best friend and, for a brief time, a possible future husband of mine. I wondered if he knew about his parents. I peeked in other files of familiar names. It was incredibly nosy of me, but I could not help myself.

The very last folder in the filing cabinet held another surprise. Zhu, Cyan.

“Drystan,” I called, softly, but he did not answer from the other room. I opened the file. Someone had hired Elwood to find her, but there was no name. Her parents? The details of her background were scarce. She was two years older than me, born in Southern Temne, as she’d said. Her mother was a contortionist and tarot reader, and her father was a juggler and fire eater.

The observations section only contained the following: (IL). KT (JM), GD.

I frowned at the letters for a time, and then the blood drained from my face. IL for Iphigenia Laurus. KT could mean Kymri Theatre, JM Jasper Maske, and GD the Glass District. If I read that correctly, then he knew where we were; why had he not told my parents? Or Cyan’s?

I picked up my file and Cyan’s and walked through to the bedroom. Drystan sat on the floor, staring at an open box as if mesmerized.

 I padded toward him. He was looking at a box filled with vials of a black substance, a little syringe, and a long tie for the arm. My heart constricted. Lerium.

Before I could say anything, Drystan looked at me.

“This isn’t Lerium,” he said.

“It’s not?” I said, creeping closer. “What is it?”

He took out a vial, holding it to the light, and I could see that it wasn’t black, but dark green. Its viscous liquid clung to the inside of the glass vial.

He unstopped the vial and took a sniff.

“Drystan!” I hissed.

He gave me a look. “You have to inject it or smoke it to feel anything.”

His condescending tone grated on me. “For Lerium. Maybe not for whatever that is.”

“It doesn’t smell of anything. I have no idea what it is.”

“Look.” Under the dip in the velvet where the vial had been, something glimmered.

Drystan picked up the top layer with the drug vials. Underneath was a blue oval of Penglass set in a Vestige metal frame.

I reached out for it but Drystan snapped my hands away. “Don’t touch it. It’s a Mirror of Moirai.”

No one knew what the Alder had used it for, but it could find people’s locations. Only the constabulary had these, or so I had thought.

Drystan put on his glove and switched on the Vestige mirror. Alder script emerged on the screen, as well as the outline of a hand.

“If someone touches it, it tracks them,” Drystan whispered. “Even a piece of hair will do.”

“Do you think I’m in it?”

“Probably. If Elwood has this, he must know what it is. Explains why he’s the best Shadow in the city, as he claims. Wonder where he got it.”

“Can we… erase my record somehow, if I am in it?”

“I don’t know how it works.”

Neither did I. “We could steal it,” I said.

He looked at me. “He’ll know we took it.”

“We can’t leave it.”

He nodded, wrapping the Mirror of Moirai in a cloth and putting it in his pack.

“What did you find before you came through?” he asked.

I looked at the forgotten files in my lap. I passed the papers to him and he scanned them. “Not a lot here to surprise us, except Miss Cyan here.” He narrowed his eyes.

I crept back to the window. She stood just out of the light of the streetlamp, her hands deep in her pockets, her breath misting in the air. I came back to Drystan. “She hasn’t moved.”

He tapped his teeth together. “I found the drugs here,” he said, tilting his head. I followed his gaze to a large, antique tapestry that would not have been out of place in the public wing of the palace. It depicted a kelpie – a smooth horse the color of green-glass, rising from the ocean, water weeds in its black mane. Dark storm clouds lurked on the horizon. The kelpie’s eyes showed the whites in fear, as though something in the water pursued it. I did not like it.

“A lot of these flats have the same floor plan. I lived in one much like this at university. There was a door here in my bedroom,” he said, pulling the tapestry aside. Sure enough, there was a small alcove and a safe, which Drystan had broken into.

In the safe was where he had found the box of Lerium-like drugs. Inside was another filing cabinet. I rifled through it, taking out other files with the name Chokecherry, Laurus, and Zhu. I scanned Chokecherry’s file first.

“He’s blackmailing his clients,” I said, passing the papers to him.

He whistled low. “Looks like we’re being pursued by a crooked Shadow.”

Ignoring the two other files for the time being, we searched through other folders at random. More than once, it was obvious Elwood fabricated evidence, or withheld vital information. My stomach twisted. Some people had gone to prison or died because of him. People who shouldn’t have. Any guilt about our plan evaporated.

I looked in Cyan’s file, still avoiding my own.

I read aloud: “?C’s parents mentioned a Shai – when they spoke to each other in Temnian, they did not realize I spoke the tongue. If she is a Shai, would make case v. interesting.’” So her parents hired the Shadow. How had they afforded it? Shadows were not cheap.

“What’s a Shai?” I asked Drystan.

“Sounds familiar. Something to do with Temnian mythology.”

“She isn’t… like me, is she?”

Drystan shook his head. “No idea.”

I grunted, still reading.

“Anything else?”

“A lot of it is abbreviated. I don’t know… Something about an event that happened at the circus. Caused her to leave. She ran away two weeks before we left our circus. Can you make anything else of it?” I passed the papers to him and then, with trepidation, picked up the folder with my name on it.