The Mime Order (47 page)

A hand without living flesh, its fingers pointing to the sky. Red silk surrounds its wrist like a manacle.

Was
that the message? That the red silk handkerchiefs had been placed by the Rag and Bone Man’s hand?

That the crime might just be his undoing?

I pressed my fingers to my temples, piecing the clues together. The Rag and Bone Man must have wanted Hector and Cutmouth to die so that a scrimmage would be called. Somehow he’d got the Abbess on his side, convincing her of his aims to the point that she was willing to kill for him. That he’d given the order and she had held the blade. Their public enmity must be a complete falsehood, a smokescreen to conceal their alliance.

That motive would hold up if the Rag and Bone Man wanted to be Underlord himself. It would have been necessary to get rid of the Underlord—and stop his mollisher taking his place—in order for a scrimmage to be called. But what I didn’t understand was why neither the Rag and Bone Man nor the Abbess would be entering the Rose Ring. Their names hadn’t been listed on the last letter as candidates. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of the vacuum they’d created?

This was where the theory fell to pieces. I needed to talk to Ivy. She might be the last person alive who knew something about this, the final piece in the puzzle. I should have got it out of her that morning on the rooftop terrace, when she’d first admitted to knowing Cutmouth. Now she was locked in an unknown building at the end of a blocked tunnel. There was no chance of getting her out of there without the Abbess noticing something. I could storm the place with the Ranthen, but by the time we got past the tunnel guards, they would have alerted the Abbess and moved the fugitives elsewhere. Or just killed them.

Rain poured down on the pavement. I stayed where I was, wrapped in Wynn’s long coat waiting for a buck cab, numb. After a few minutes, a rusty black car came sliding to a halt in front of me and Nick got out of the back, holding up his arm to shield his eyes.

“
Paige!”

He held open the door. I clambered into the car, drenched.

“We were worried sick when Eliza said you were in Bermondsey.” Nick closed the door and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, shivering. “Whose coat is that? We’ve been driving around looking for you. Where have you been?”

“Jacob’s Island.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Why?”

I couldn’t say it. Zeke, in the driver’s seat, shot me a worried glance before he started the engine. Beside him, Eliza sat with a cellophane-covered painting on her lap, her hair beautifully curled, red tint shining on her lips. She reached between the seats and touched my shoulder.

“We’re on our way to Old Spitalfields,” she said quietly. “Jax wants us to try and get a pitch there. Can this wait?”

“Not long,” I said.

“We won’t be long. Ognena Maria’s easy to deal with.”

Zeke turned on the ancient radio, switching to a music channel before we could hear any of the news. The entrance to Jacob’s Island disappeared into the citadel as the car drove away from II-6, back to the central cohort.

There was nothing I could do for Ivy and the others tonight. Getting her out of that place, wherever it was, would need careful timing. I rested my head against the window, watching the streetlamps flash past the glass.

The car passed several units of night Vigiles. Zeke locked the doors. They seemed to be interrogating passersby. One had his gun pointed at an amaurotic man’s head, while another man was in tears beside him, trying to shove the Vigile’s arm away. I turned to look through the car’s back window. As it rounded the corner, I just saw the Vigile’s baton coming up, and the two men crouched on the pavement with their hands over their heads.

Zeke
parked on Commercial Street, and we walked together to the covered market hall. Old Spitalfields was a far lighter space than the Garden, with a roof made of cast-iron and glass, but most of the traders were amaurotic. Cheap clothes, shoes and jewelry hung from racks, along with fashionable chatelaines for the wealthy. Ognena Maria’s stall, which sold numa hidden inside hearth spaniels and vinaigrettes, was somewhere in the center of the maze. We shouldered our way through hordes of vendors and buyers, keeping an eye out for the mime-queen. Zeke stopped at a tiny stall selling trinkets from the free-world.

“I’ll catch up,” he said to Nick, who nodded.

I kept pace with the other two. “She’d better like this,” Eliza muttered. The harsh light made her face look worn. “You know Ognena Maria, don’t you, Dreamer?”

“Quite well.”

“She’s the one that wanted Dreamer for her section,” Nick said, chuckling. “As her ID card says she lives in I-5, she’s technically an I-5 denizen. Maria and Jaxon disagreed strongly over it.”

Stalls that sold forbidden items were easily recognizable. They had shifty-looking owners and tended to be tucked into the darkest corners of the market halls, close to the exits. I lagged behind, sifting through the wares, hardly seeing them.

Gray market.

I shook myself. By the time I reached the right stall, Eliza, Nick and Ognena Maria were deep in conversation. “. . . exquisite brushwork,” Maria was saying, “and the paints have clearly been selected with care—that subtle coloring is beautiful. You must have a real symbiosis with your muses to produce this sort of work, Martyred Muse. Does it affect your physiology at all?”

There was what word again.
Symbiosis
. “A little, if the muse is irritated, but I can handle it,” Eliza said.

“Admirable. I think I can find room for—” She caught sight of
me.
“Ah, Pale Dreamer. I was just about to offer I-4 a pitch in Old Spitalfields. What do you say?”

“You won’t regret it,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’m happy to sell with Muse, if you don’t mind fugitives on your turf.”

“Oh, it’s an honor to have you.” Maria shook hands with all three of us. “Mind out for Vigiles on your way back. They sometimes come through on their way to the Guild.”

“Thank you, Maria.” Nick pulled down the brim of his hat. “Goodnight.”

“I’ll meet you in a minute,” I said.

With a small nod, he took Eliza’s arm, and they headed back towards the market’s entrance. Ognena Maria placed the canvas under a table, out of sight.

“Maria,” I said, “you were supposed to investigate those red handkerchiefs on Hector’s body, weren’t you?”

“I was, and I did. They were definitely bought from here—the maker puts a hallmark on them—but she sells plenty of them every month.” She sighed. “I suppose we’ll never know.”

I glanced over my shoulder, then drew the hitman’s red handkerchief from my boot and handed it to her. “Is this one of them?”

She turned it over, until her thumb found a tiny stitched cross near one of the corners. “It is.” Her voice was low. “Where did you get this, Pale Dreamer?”

“From a Rag Doll who tried to kill me in I-4.”

“To kill
you
?” When I nodded, Maria’s lips pressed together, and she handed the red silk back to me. “You should burn it. I don’t know a great deal about the Rag and Bone Man, but I do know that you don’t want him hunting you. Have you said anything to the Unnatural Assembly?”

“No.” I crammed the handkerchief back into my boot. “I . . . don’t know if I trust the Abbess.”

“That makes two of us.” She leaned across the table on her
elbows,
twisting the woven ring on her thumb. “You remember she wanted to speak to me, don’t you? That day at the auction? I went to meet her at a neutral house in I-2 that night. She wanted at least five of my voyants, but not to be nightwalkers. Just said she’d pay me handsomely if I’d let them do some moonlighting.”

My chest tightened. “And did you?”

“No. Moonlighting’s always been illegal. I’ll shut my eyes if my voyants do it of their own accord, but I won’t formally allow it.” Maria straightened. “A few of us still have morals.”

“I see you’re not going for Underqueen,” I said. “Did you not think about it?”

“Wouldn’t dare, sweet. I’m surprised there are as many as twenty-five combatants.”

“Why?”

“I won’t say Hector deserved to die in his own parlor,” she said, “but he damaged this syndicate on a level that no other Underlord has managed. None of the Assembly will want to be in charge when Scion brings in Senshield. All our sections will be overrun with gutterlings and beggars and Vigiles. The last thing anyone wants is to put themselves at the prow of a sinking ship.”

“Then we need someone who won’t let the ship sink.”

She laughed. “Like who? Name me one mime-lord or mime-queen that could turn it all around.”

“I can’t.” Needles skittered up my sides. “I sometimes wish I could enter myself, but I’m told mollishers are ineligible.”

Even insinuating this to her was a terrible risk. She’d always seemed like a decent woman, and she had no love for Jaxon, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t go to him with that sort of information. Still, I had to see a reaction. Had to see how a member of the Unnatural Assembly would respond to the thought of a traitor mollisher as Underqueen.

Ognena Maria didn’t react the way I thought she would, though she
did
glance up at me. “There’s no specific rule against it,” she said, “at least to my knowledge. And I’ve been a mime-queen for a decade.”

“But people wouldn’t like it.”

“Honestly, Pale Dreamer, I don’t think anyone would care. Some mollishers are far more skilled than their superiors,” she said. “Look at Jack Hickathrift and the Swan Knight. Both brilliant voyants, organized and reasonably honest, and what do they do? Bow and scrape for lazy, corrupt leaders that probably maimed and swindled their way into those roles. If either of those two were to go for the crown, I’d be cheering their names.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Do you think all of the Assembly feel that way?”

“Oh, no. I’d say that most of them would declare you a traitor and an ingrate. But that’s only because they’re afraid of you.” She placed her hand over mine. “It’d be nice if we got someone competent this year.”

“We can only hope,” I said.

“We’re running low on hope in this citadel.” Her smile disappeared, and she snapped her fingers at her mollisher. “
Pobŭrzaĭ
. I don’t pay you to look pretty.” The woman rolled her eyes.

The car was waiting outside, its headlights blazing through darts of rain. I climbed into the back with Eliza. “Are you going to tell us what’s happened?” she said.

“Wait.” Zeke started the engine. “We shouldn’t talk here. Maria said there were Vigiles all over the place. Primrose Hill is safe enough, isn’t it?”

We all looked to Nick. His eyes were smeared with shadows.

“Half an hour,” he said. “I don’t want to be out this late. Should Jax know about this, Paige?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been out without permission. He might not want to hear it.”

As the car navigated the streets, my mind wandered to dark places.
What
if Ognena Maria
did
pass the information on to Jaxon? It might be safer to stay somewhere else until the scrimmage, but breaking away from him now would only piss him off. I might not even be allowed to take part if we were no longer an allied pair.

Primrose Hill stretched between I-4 and II-4, a rolling green space on a shallow incline. Scion had planted a vast number of oak trees and thousands of primroses here in memory of Inquisitor Mayfield, who had apparently enjoyed a spot of gardening alongside hanging, burning and beheading traitors. This close to November, there were no flowers left. Leaving the car on the street, the four of us trudged up to the crest of the hill, far away from the streetlamps and listening ears, until we reached its highest point. I looked up at the black expanse of sky, just visible between the leaves.

Warden was out there somewhere, keeping his distance. I focused on the golden cord, picturing the pattern of the stars. He could find me tonight if he knew where to look. Until then, I had some news to break.

We stopped in the shadow of a tree and stood in a circle, facing each other. “Go on,” Nick said.

“The Abbess killed Hector and his gang.” I spoke softly. “She just killed Cutmouth, too.”

None of them spoke, but they all stared at me. In hushed tones, I told them what had happened after I’d left Eliza; how I’d found the hidden building down the mail rail, watched Agatha die and run to Cutmouth in time to hear her last words.

“Tattoo,” Eliza repeated. “Did she mean the Rag Doll mark? The skeleton’s handprint?”

“That’s what it’s called?”

“Yeah. All of them have it put here when they join.” She patted her upper right arm. “If they leave the gang, they have to let the Rag and Bone Man burn it off. They’re not allowed to visit a tattoo parlor.”

“
So if she still has the mark, it means she’s still working for him?” Zeke said, eyebrows raised. “The guy she’s supposed to hate?”

“She must be,” I said. “After he shot Agatha, the Monk offered the Abbess lithium for whatever she was about to do. She said didn’t need it because the
symbiosis
was strong.” I looked to Eliza. “What does it mean, that word?”

“Symbiosis?” She frowned. “It’s the relationship between a medium and the spirit that possesses them. If you have good symbiosis, you work together well. I have good symbiosis with Rachel now that I’ve been working with her for a few years,” she said, “but a new muse takes me a while to get used to, so I wind up being sick after the first few possessions. Once symbiosis happens, we reach an . . . understanding. If that makes sense.”

Nick’s face was tight. “The Abbess is a physical medium. Could she have used a spirit to kill Hector?”

Eliza hesitated before she said, “It’s possible that she was possessed when she did it, which would have given her the spirit’s emotions on top of hers. It might have made her faster, too. But she had to get through seven people to kill Hector, then cut off his head. The spirit doesn’t give you any extra physical strength, and the Abbess doesn’t look as if she could take down eight people.”

“Wait, wait.” Zeke held up a hand. “Even if the Abbess
did
kill Hector, why isn’t she entering the scrimmage?”