The Mime Order (58 page)

“You dare. You’re in league with this turncoat, aren’t you?” the Abbess sneered. “You and your hacks.”

“I am the mistress of ceremonies. And my decision is final.”

Beneath her golden veil, the Abbess’s face drained of emotion. She was stripped of the interim Underqueen’s power now, power she’d stolen from Hector and Cutmouth. Her head turned as she scanned the vault, no doubt for her partner in crime, but the Rag and Bone Man was nowhere to be seen. Her lace-clad hand pulled into a fist over her heart.

Commotion broke out on the other side of the Rose Ring. With a growl, Jaxon shoved away a hireling who had been tending to his wounds. “Get back,” he barked. “I may not be Underlord by Grub Street’s corrupt standards, but I
will
have my due from this day. Get out of my sight.”

The hireling scarpered out of the way of his cane, whimpering apologies. The spectators fell silent, waiting for the defeated mime-lord’s traditional speech.

“The Seven Seals are broken,” was all he said, in a voice almost too soft to hear. But I heard it.

I heard it.

Jaxon Hall was far too proud to watch his former mollisher be crowned Underqueen, but he wouldn’t leave without having the last word. He walked toward the audience, his cane making soft
clinks
against the floor.

“Do you know, my Paige . . . I find that I’m altogether quite proud of you. I truly believed you would stay your hand in the Rose Ring, like the weakling you were when you first came into my service, and walk away without a single death on your conscience.” He stopped in front of me, his face inches from mine. “But no. You have learned, O
my
lovely, to be just like me.” He caught my wrist, squeezing so tightly I felt the blood pumping in my veins, and whispered against my ear, “I will find other allies. Be warned: you have not seen the last of me.”

I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t play his games, not any more. With a smile on his lips, Jaxon drew away.

“So the queen will fight for freedom, and her subjects for survival. But in the end, my Paige, those who seek freedom will only ever find it in the æther.” He touched the blade of his cane to my bleeding cheek. “So enjoy your freedom, when the ashes fall. The theatre of war opens tonight.”

“I look forward to it,” I said.

His smile widened.

They parted to let him through. Not even the most foolhardy mobster dared taunt him as he left: the White Binder, mime-lord of I-4, the man who was almost Underlord. The man to whom I owed so much, who’d been my mentor and my friend; who could have been the man to lead us, if only he’d opened his eyes to the threat in the shadows. I’d never known it was possible to feel so much pain from the bruises and still hurt more inside. Nadine took his coat from his seat and went after him.

At the doorway, Jaxon stopped. He was waiting, I realized. Waiting to see which of his Seven Seals would go with him.

Danica stayed sitting on her chair, arms folded. When I raised my eyebrows at her, she shrugged. She would stay.

Beside me, Nick was hard-faced. Tears swelled into Eliza’s eyes, and she took a shuddering breath, but she didn’t follow him.

They would stay.

But Zeke took a step forward. Then another. He swallowed, hard, and closed his eyes. With no expression, he took his jacket and pulled it over his shoulders. Nick reached for his hand, and he squeezed it once before his fingers slipped away. He gave me a quick, remorseful look, then walked out of the vault after his sister and
Jaxon.
Nadine took his arm as they rounded the corner. Several of the most loyal I-4 footpads and buskers went after him.

Now the adrenaline was wearing off, all sorts of pains were flood-ing through my body. The sight of Nick’s face broke my heart, but this night wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

With a gentle hand, Nick pushed me forward. I walked into the center of the Rose Ring. Minty lifted the crown from the velvet cushion.

“Ready?” she said.

My throat was aching, stopping anything I might have said in return. Carefully, Minty lowered the crown on to my head.

“In the name of Thomas Ebon Merritt, he who founded this syndicate, I crown you Black Moth, Underqueen of the Scion Citadel of London, mime-lord of mime-lords, mime-queen of mime-queens, and resident supreme of I Cohort and the Devil’s Acre. Long may you reign.”

The silence went on. I stood tall, raising my chin.

“Thank you, Minty.” My voice came out too soft.

“Who is your mollisher?”

“I have two. The Red Vision,” I said, “and the Martyred Muse.”

Eliza looked at me, startled. I raised my bloody hands, removed the crown and threw it on to the ash.

Murmurs of confusion followed. Minty looked as if she might say something, but her mouth clamped shut.

“As you can see”—I indicated my blood-stained clothes—“I’m not really in a fit state to be talking for too long. But I owe you an explanation for why I turned on my mime-lord and broke the unwritten rule of this syndicate. Why I risked everything for the opportunity to speak without hindrance. And it wasn’t for a crown, or a throne. It was so that I would have a voice.”

I focused on Nick’s face, and he nodded.

“This syndicate—the SciLo syndicate,” I said, lifting up my voice,
“
is facing threats from the outside, and we’ve ignored them for long enough. We all know that Haymarket Hector ignored them. In a month’s time, Scion aims to have Senshield installed all over the citadel. Walking the streets freely and invisibly, as we always have, will be a thing of the past. If we don’t fight back,” I continued, “we’ll be crushed beneath the anchor. We’ve already been pushed into an underworld, hated and despised, blamed even for
breathing—
but if this continues, if Scion takes another step, there will be no syndicate left by the new decade.”

“Senshield is a Scion-made fabrication, vomited from the bowels of the Archon. Not only is this Underqueen a liar and a cheat,” the Abbess shouted, “but she is also the prime suspect in the murder of our last Underlord. My own glym jack saw her leave the Devil’s Acre with Hector Grinslathe’s blood on her hands!”

The crowd descended into chaos. Some were already on their feet, screaming for my head; others for hard evidence, for proof, for the glym jack himself to come forward and speak.

“You have no evidence of this, Abbess,” the Pearl Queen called out in a withering tone. “The word of an amaurotic, without good evidence to prove their veracity, is rotten. And if you knew that the Pale Dreamer had killed Hector, why have you shielded her for all this time?”

“I believe the claims of those I employ.”

“I ask again. Why did you shield her, when there was ample opportunity to have her convicted at the last meeting of the Assembly?”

“The White Binder convinced me that she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said, spitting out the words. Her smokescreen of soft charm was breaking down. “It seems even his faith in her was misplaced. She is a backstabber and a murderess. I see now that if she could turn on her mime-lord, if she has so little respect for this syndicate’s time-honored traditions, then she
must
be Hector’s murderer. How sad that I overlooked it.”

“
You believe the claims of your employees, Abbess,” I interrupted her, “but I believe in what I’ve seen with my own eyes. And what I’ve seen is tyranny built on a lie: the lie that clairvoyant people are unnatural and dangerous. That we should despise ourselves enough to will ourselves into extinction. They ask us to hand ourselves over to be tortured and executed, and they call it clemency!” I shouted at the crowd, turning to face them. “But Scion itself is the greatest lie in history. A two-hundred-year-old façade for the true government of England. The true inquisitors of clairvoyance.”

“Of whom do you speak, Underqueen?” the Heathen Philosopher asked.

“She speaks of us.”

Every head turned toward the entrance to the vault, and a clamor of shouting and gasping ensued. In the doorway was Arcturus Mesarthim, and at his back were his allies.

“Rephaim,” Ognena Maria murmured.

Courage came rushing back.

“No,” I said. “Ranthen.”

26

Thaumaturge

Eight of them had come. Some of them I hadn’t seen before, all in heavy black silks and velvets and leathers, regally magnificent. Terebell was there, but there were others, too: silver and gold, brass and copper, all with the same chartreuse eyes. In the dim, confined space of the vault, they seemed enormous. And deeply threatening. The crowd surged away from the ring.

“That
is
a Rephaite,” someone said.

“Just like the pamphlet . . .”

“They’ve come to save us . . .”

At least they knew what they were looking at. Warden stepped forward with Terebell. The others formed a semicircle on either side of them.

“You have heard of us”—Warden’s gaze swept along the rows of voyants—“in the pages of a penny dreadful. But we are no work of fiction. For two centuries we have controlled the arm of Scion, let down the anchor in whichever cities we desired and transformed this Citadel into a feeding ground. Your world is not your own, voyants of London.”

“
What is this, Underqueen?” a hireling shouted. “A joke?”

“Clearly,” Didion said, though his eyes were popping, “these are costumes. And this is an elaborate jest.”

“You’re an elaborate jest, Didion,” Jimmy said.

“It’s no jest,” I said.

The group of Rephaim walked toward the dais, parting the voyants. Ivy was with them, trailing behind Pleione, her wrists and ankles blistered with the shadows of restraints. The other three fugitives brought up the rear with Lucida and Errai. Relief surged up inside me. They looked shaken, but they were alive and walking. I stepped down to meet Warden. His gaze darted over me, measuring my injuries.

“They were being held captive at the night parlor, as you suspected,” he murmured. “Ivy insisted on being brought here at once to address the Unnatural Assembly.” His eyebrows lifted as he noticed the Rose Ring, littered with corpses and limbs. “Or . . . what is left of them, in any case.”

I nodded. Warden turned to face the crowd, and the other Ranthen stood on either side of him. In the long silence that followed, I stepped back on to the dais.

Whatever the reason behind the pamphlet being doctored, it had worked to my advantage in the end. There was fear of the Ranthen all around me, but it was mingled with curiosity, even wonder, rather than hostility.

“These are the Rephaim,” I said, “or one faction of them. Their race are the true inquisitors of Scion. They have controlled our government for the last two centuries, directing Weaver and his puppets to suppress and destroy us. This small group of them”—I indicated the eight—“are willing to help us survive. They respect our gifts and our autonomy.” Not quite true. “But there are other Rephaim in the Archon that care nothing for humans. They will enslave all voyants if we let them.”

“This is shameful,” the Abbess said, trying her best to sound disappointed. “Do you take us all for fools?”

“
Hortensia,” Ivy spat, her face contorted, “if anything in this room is shameful, it’s
you
. You and your lies. Our lies.”

The Abbess fell silent.

Under the eyes of every voyant of note in the Scion Citadel of London, Ivy stepped toward the dais. She stood before the spotlight in her dirty clothes and bare feet, her head tilted away from the glare. Dark hair was growing back, but the shape of her scalp was still clearly visible.

“Announce yourself, child,” the Pearl Queen said.

“Divya Jacob. Ivy.” Her gaze dropped. “Most of you won’t know my real face, but I used to go by the name of the Jacobite. Until January this year, I was mollisher for the Rag and Bone Man.”

Some of the II-4 voyants looked shocked; others, outright aggressive. Ivy gripped her right arm with her left hand.

“When I was seventeen, I ran away from Jacob’s Island and worked for a kidsman called Agatha for three years. The Rag and Bone Man watched me for all that time. When I was twenty, he made me his mollisher and asked me to join him on an . . . ‘endeavor,’ as he called it. Said his people were suffering—people like me—and he wanted to make it better.”

I listened in silence. Ivy stood perfectly still, her slender arms folded.

“He was selling voyants to Scion,” she said.

Uproar. I stood.

“Let her speak,” I called.

When there was enough quiet for her to continue, Ivy spoke again. I listened, cold all over.

It couldn’t be. Of all the things I’d imagined, it was the only one that made perfect sense, but my syndicate could not be
that
corrupt. The Unnatural Assembly were lazy, yes, and cruel, but surely not this . . .

“He called it the gray market. He said we were recruiting them
into
the Rag Dolls.” She drew in sharp breaths, looking wildly around at the audience. “But the people I sent to him . . . I never saw them again. I went to Cutmouth, Hector’s mollisher, and reported it to her. She came to see him with a group of bodyguards and asked to see the catacombs, and she found someone in chains.” Her hands dug into her arm, as if she was only just holding herself together. “She said she had to tell Hector. That an operation like that couldn’t go on without his knowledge.”