The Mime Order (23 page)

“Be careful, Paige.” Jaxon’s face was losing color again. “You are treading a very fine line.”

“Am I? Or am I crossing yours?”

That did it. Jaxon shoved me into the cabinet with one arm, pinning me against the shelves. He was much stronger than he looked. A tall jar of sleeping pills smashed against the floorboards. “Jaxon!” Nick barked, but this was between mime-lord and moll-isher. His right hand gripped my arm, where the poltergeist’s mark was burned into my skin.

“Listen to me now, O my lovely. I will
not
have my mollisher raving in the streets like some Bedleem unfortunate. Especially not now that I am considering taking control of this citadel.” There was a triangle of lines between his eyebrows. “Do you think the good people of London would support me, Paige, if I were seen to be believing some madman’s tale of giants and walking corpses? Why do you think I stopped you from telling the Abbess? Do you think they would take our word for it, darling, or would they laugh and call us fools?”

“Is that it, Jax? All these years later and you’re still worried about people laughing at you?”

He smiled an empty smile.

“I consider myself a generous man, but this is your last chance. You can stay with me and reap the benefits of I-4’s protection, or you can take your chances out there, where no one will listen. Where they will string you up for Hector’s murder. The only reason you are not dead already, O my lovely, is because of
my
good word. My declaration of your innocence. Put one toe out of line, and I will
have
you dragged before the Unnatural Assembly so you can show them that scar.”

“You wouldn’t, I said.”

“You have no idea what I would do to keep London from war.” With a last flex of his fingers, he let go of my arm. “I will have someone paint over the sundials to keep them from being recognized. But know this, Paige: you can be the Underlord’s mol lisher, or you can be carrion for crows. If you choose the latter, I will let it be known that you are fair game. Just as I did before you returned to the Seals. After all, if you are not the Pale Dreamer . . . who are you?”

He left. I kicked my basket of trinkets from the market, knocking it over, and sat with my head in my good hand. Nick crouched opposite me and grasped my upper arm.

“Paige?”

“It could
strengthen
the syndicate.” I took a deep breath. “If we could just convince them . . .”

“Maybe, if you found proof of the Rephs, but the truth would end the syndicate as we know it. You want to turn it into a force for good. Jaxon isn’t interested in ‘good.’ He wants to sit on his throne and gather spirits and be king of the citadel until he dies. That is all he cares about. But an Underlord’s mollisher has power, too. You could change things, Paige.”

“Jax would always stop me. A mollisher isn’t an Underlord—he’d just make me his special errand girl. Only an Underlord could change everything.”

“Or an Underqueen,” Nick said, with a brief laugh. “We haven’t had an Underqueen in a long time.”

Slowly, I raised my gaze to his. The smile slid from his lips.

“I couldn’t,” I murmured. “Could I?”

I watched him. He stood up and braced his hands on the windowsill, and looked down at the courtyard. “Mollishers are never eligible. Their loyalty can’t be questioned in a scrimmage.”

“
Is it against the rules?”

“Probably. If a mollisher goes against their mime-lord, it marks them as a turncoat. It’s never happened, not in the whole history of the syndicate. Would you follow a backstabber?”

“I’d rather follow one than walk in front of one.”

“Don’t be smart. This is serious.”

“Fine. Yes, I’d work for a backstabber if she knew the truth about Scion. If she wanted to expose it, to stop the systematic
murder
of clairvoyants—”

“They don’t
care
about Scion’s corruption. They’re all like Jaxon. Even the ones who seem kind. I’m telling you, they’d bleed their own sections dry if it meant they had full pockets. You have no money to pay them all. And you’ve seen Jaxon, getting us to do the dirty work while he smokes and drinks absinthe. You really think people like him will command an army for you? Put their precious lives at risk for you?”

“I don’t know. But maybe I should find out.” I sighed. “Say I
was
to apply. Would you be my mollisher?”

His face twitched.

“I would,” he said, “because I care about you. But I don’t want you to do it, Paige. At best you’ll be a traitor Underqueen. At worst you’ll lose and wind up getting killed. If you wait two years, Jaxon will give you the section anyway. Is there any wisdom in waiting?”

“In two years it will be too late. We’re weeks away from Senshield, and the Rephaim might have taken their next colony. We need to strike
now
. Besides,” I said, “Jaxon won’t retire in two years. All he’s trying to do is keep me quiet. Pat my head with one hand while he chains me with the other.”

“Is it worth the risk of losing?”

“People died to get me out of Sheol,” I said quietly. “People like us are dying every day. If I hide in the shadows while this continues, I’m spitting at their memories.”

“
Then you’d better make sure you’re prepared for the consequences.” Nick stood. “I’ll calm him down. You’d better unpack.”

He closed the door gently behind him.

It might be the only choice. Painting the sundials wouldn’t hold back the Rephaim for long. To transform the London syndicate into an army that could stand against them, I would have to think bigger. Become not just a mollisher, not just a mime-queen, but the Underqueen of the Scion Citadel of London. I had to have a voice too loud to silence.

After a minute, I started to gather up the things I’d scattered across the floor: nineteenth-century newspaper clippings, brooches, antique numa—and a third edition of
On the Merits of Unnaturalness
, confiscated from a busker who had been mocking it in Soho.
By an Obscure Writer
, it read.

Words give wings even to those who have been stamped upon, broken beyond all hope of repair.

There were ways to raise my voice. I took out my phone, slotted a new module into the back, and dialed the number Felix had given me.

11

Urban Legend

“A what?”

Nell looked almost impressed by my sudden display of insanity. Her hair had been cut so it fell just past her chin; what was left was ironed straight and dyed at least ten shades of orange. With cinder glasses and glossy black lipstick, she was unrecognizable.

Dawn hadn’t yet broken, but the five of us were already huddled on the rooftop terrace of one of Camden’s independent oxygen bars. Curving screens divided the tables. The buskers’ music from the market below was enough to ward off eavesdroppers.

“You heard me,” I said. “A penny dreadful.”

On my left, Felix shook his head. His chosen disguise was one of the filtering masks they wore in the north and parts of the East End, which left only his eyes uncovered. “You want to tell a
story
about the Rephaim?” His voice was muffled. “Like it’s not real?”

“Exactly.
On the Merits of Unnaturalness
made the syndicate what it is today,” I said, keeping my voice low. “It completely revolutionized
the
way we think about clairvoyance. Just by putting his thoughts on paper, one obscure writer changed everything. Why can’t we?”

Felix held his mask away from his mouth. “Okay,” he said, “but that was a pamphlet. You’re suggesting a penny dreadful. A cut-price horror story for people with too much time on their hands.”

“I used to read
Marvelous Songbirds for Sale
. You know, the one about the orthinomancer who’s a gutterling and sells talking birds,” Jos said, “but my kidsman found my stash and threw them all in a pit fire.” He wasn’t on Scion’s radar yet, but Nell had bundled him up in a scarf and hat anyway.

“Good. That stuff will rot your brain.” There were rings under Nell’s eyes. “And Grub Street pumps it out at a rate of knots.”

“I just don’t know if we should make it a horror,” Felix continued. “What if people think it’s fiction?”

“How do you kill a vampire?” I asked. Felix struck me as the sort of guy who pretended he read Nostradamus in the evenings, but kept a battered copy of
The Mysteries of Jacob’s Island
between the pages.

“With garlic and sunlight,” he said. Bingo.

“But they don’t exist,” I said, trying not to smile. “How do you know?”

“Because I read it in—” He flushed. “Fine, fine. I might have read a couple of penny dreadfuls when I was Jos’s age, but—”

“I’m thirteen,” Jos groused.

“—can’t we just write a serious pamphlet? Or something like a handbook?”

“Oh, great. The Rephaim will be shaking in their boots over Felix Coombs and his
handbook
,” Nell said, deadpan.

His lips pursed. “I’m serious. Binder could help you, couldn’t he, Paige?”

“He doesn’t like rivals. And the difference between a pamphlet and a penny dreadful is that pamphlets claim to tell the truth. Penny
dreadfuls
don’t. We can’t just shout about the Rephs in the street,” I said. “A penny dreadful will turn them into an urban legend.”

“What good will that do?” Nell rubbed the skin between her eyebrows. “If we never prove it—”

“We’re not trying to prove anything. We’re trying to
warn
the syndicate.”

Opposite me, Ivy was hunched over an untouched cup of saloop, her breath steaming from below a pair of round, gold-framed sunglasses. The distinguishing feature in her photo—the bright blue hair—had already been shorn away. Bony fingers tapped the table, their knuckles raw with calluses. She hadn’t said a word since my arrival, nor looked up from her saloop. She’d been treated like dirt by her Rephaite keeper. Those wounds wouldn’t heal easily.

“We should do it,” Jos said. “Paige is right. Who’s going to listen to us if we say it’s real?”

“You’re all off the cot. You know that?” When she saw our faces, Nell clicked her tongue. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to do most of the writing.”

“Why you?” I said.

“I got a job on the silks at the Fleapit. We can use the box office to write.” She took a few gulps of cola. “I reckon I can knock a decent story together. Jos can help me smooth it out.”

Jos’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Well, you’re the expert.” She stifled a yawn. “We’ll get working on it tomorrow. Today, I mean.”

Some of the tension bled from my neck and shoulders. There was no way I could work on a penny dreadful for days without Jaxon picking up on it. “It might be best to write two copies in case one gets lost. And make sure you include the pollen of the poppy anemone,” I said. “That’s how they can be destroyed.”

“Can you buy it on the black market?”

“Maybe.” I had a feeling it wouldn’t be there, but black-market
traders
could get hold of almost anything. “How soon do you think you can get it done?”

“Give us a week. Where should we send it when it’s finished?”

“Leave it at the Minister’s Cat gambling-house in Soho. I know one of the croupiers there—Babs. She works from five to midnight all week. Make sure you seal it.” I sat back. “How’s Agatha treating you?”

Jos pulled a face. “I don’t like her that much. She wants me to start singing in the market.”

“The food she gives us is terrible,” Felix added.

“Stop it,” Ivy snapped, emerging from her silence so suddenly that Jos flinched. “What’s wrong with you? She’s hiding us from Rags and feeding us with money from her own pocket. Whatever she’s given us, it’s all she can afford. And it’s a damn sight better than what the Rephaim made us eat. When they let us eat.”

There was a brief silence before Jos mumbled an apology. Felix turned pink at the ears.

“Agatha’s all right. Staying with her is cheaper than a doss-house.” Nell scraped a hand through her hair. A forked scar caught the light, sweeping from the corner of her left eye to her earlobe. It was too pale to be recent. “Hey, who are you betting on in the scrimmage, Paige?”

“Yeah.” Felix leaned toward me, rubbing his hands. “Is Binder going for it?”

“Naturally,” I said.

“So if he wins, you’ll be mollisher supreme.” Nell’s gaze was piercing. “I think you’d do a decent job as the Underlord’s moll, you know. You got us all out of the colony, didn’t you?”

“Julian and Liss did a lot to help. And the Warden.”

“You got everyone on to the train. You got us all to keep fighting at the end. Besides, you’re the only survivor who might be able to get the Unnatural Assembly to do something.”

“Like anyone will, after what happened to Hector,” Felix said. “Who do you think did it?”

“
His mollisher,” Nell said. “I always thought she adored him, but if she didn’t do it, why wasn’t she there?”

“Because she knew she’d be judged for it, no matter how much that lecherous, drunken bastard deserved it.” All eyes turned to Ivy, who’d choked out the words as if they were barbs in her throat. “He gave Cutmouth that scar, you know. Got blind drunk one night and did it with one of his knives. She hated his guts.”