A Gathering of Shadows Read online

  She gave him a sideways look and noted that the satchel was gone. “It’s not your honor that concerns me.”

  “My health, then? No one’s killed me yet.”

  Lila shrugged. “Everyone’s immortal until they’re not.”

  Alucard shook his head. “What a delightfully morbid outlook, Bard.”

  “Besides,” continued Lila, “I’m not particularly worried about your honor or your life, Captain. I was just looking out for my cut.”

  Alucard sighed and swung his arm around her shoulders. “And here I was beginning to think you cared.” He turned to consider the knives on the table in front of them, and chuckled.

  “Most girls covet dresses.”

  “I am not most girls.”

  “Without question.” He gestured at the display. “See anything you like?”

  For a moment, the image in the mirror surged up in Lila mind, sinister and black-eyed and thrumming with power. Lila shook it away, looked over the blades, and nodded at a dagger with a jagged blade.

  “Don’t you have enough knives?”

  “No such thing.”

  He shook his head. “You continue to be a most peculiar creature.” With that, he began to lead her away. “But keep your money in your pockets. We sell to the Black Market of Sasenroche, Bard. We don’t buy from it. That would be very wrong.”

  “You have a skewed moral compass, Alucard.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “What if I stole it?” she asked casually. “Surely it can’t be wrong to steal an item from an illegal market?”

  Alucard choked on a laugh. “You could try, but you’d fail. And you’d probably lose a hand for your effort.”

  “You have too little faith in me.”

  “Faith has nothing to do with it. Notice how the vendors don’t seem particularly concerned about guarding their wares? That’s because the market has been warded.” They were at the edge of the cavern now, and Lila turned back to consider it. She squinted at the stalls. “It’s strong magic,” he continued. “If an object were to leave its stall without permission, the result would be … unpleasant.”

  “What, did you try to steal something once?”

  “I’m not that foolish.”

  “Maybe it’s just a rumor then, meant to scare off thieves.”

  “It’s not,” said Alucard, stepping out of the cavern and into the night. The fog had thickened, and night had fallen in a blanket of cold.

  “How do you know?” pressed Lila, folding her arms in beneath her cloak.

  The captain shrugged. “I suppose …” He hesitated. “I suppose I’ve got a knack for it.”

  “For what?”

  The sapphire glinted in his brow. “Seeing magic.”

  Lila frowned. People spoke of feeling magic, of smelling it, but never of seeing it. Sure, one could see the effects it had on things, the elements it possessed, but never the magic itself. It was like the soul in a body, she supposed. You could see the flesh, the blood, but not the thing it contained.

  Come to think of it, the only time Lila had ever seen magic was the river in Red London, the glow of power emanating from it with a constant crimson light. A source, that’s what Kell had called it. People seemed to believe that that power coursed through everyone and everything. It had never occurred to her that someone could see it out in the world.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “Mm,” he said. He didn’t offer more.

  They moved in silence through the stone maze of streets, and soon all signs of the market were swallowed by the mist. The dark stone of the tunnels tapered into wood as the heart of Sasenroche gave way again to its facade.

  “What about me?” she asked as they reached the port.

  Alucard glanced back. “What about you?”

  “What do you see,” she asked, “when you look at me?”

  She wanted to know the truth. Who was Delilah Bard? What was she? The first was a question she thought she knew the answer to, but the second … she’d tried not to bother with it, but as Kell had pointed out so many times, she shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be alive, for that matter. She bent most of the rules. She broke the rest. And she wanted to know why. How. If she was just a blip in the universe, an anomaly, or something more.

  “Well?” she pressed.

  She half expected Alucard to ignore the question, but at last he turned, squaring himself to her.

  For an instant, his face crinkled. He so rarely frowned that the expression looked wrong on him. There was a long silence, filled only by the thud of Lila’s pulse, as the captain’s dark eyes considered her.

  “Secrets,” he said at last. And then he winked. “Why do you think I let you stay?”

  And Lila knew that if she wanted to know the truth, she’d have to give it, and she wasn’t ready to do that yet, so she forced herself to smile and shrug. “You like the sound of your own voice. I assumed it was so you’d have someone to talk to.”

  He laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. “That, too, Bard. That, too.”

  V

  GREY LONDON

  The city looked positively bleak, shrouded in the dying light, as if everything had been painted over with only black and white, an entire palette dampened to shades of grey. Chimneys sent up plumes of smoke and huddled forms hurried past, shoulders bent against the cold.

  And Kell had never been so happy to be there.

  To be invisible.

  Standing on the narrow road in the shadow of Westminster, he drew a deep breath, despite the hazy, smoke-and-cold-filled air, and relished the feeling. A chill wind cut through and he thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk. He didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t matter.

  There was no place to hide in Red London, not anymore, but he could still carve out space for himself here. He passed a few people on the streets, but no one knew him. No one balked or cringed away. Sure, there had been rumors once, in certain circles, but to most passersby, he was just another stranger. A shadow. A ghost in a city filled with—

  “It’s you.”

  Kell tensed at the voice. He slowed, but didn’t stop, assuming that the words weren’t meant for him, or if they were, then said by mistake.

  “Sir!” the voice called again, and Kell glanced around—not for the source, but for anyone else it might be speaking to. But there was no one nearby, and the word was said with recognition, with knowing.

  His rising mood shuddered and died as he dragged himself to a stop and turned to find a lanky man clutching an armful of papers and staring directly at him, eyes as large as coins. A dark scarf hung around the man’s shoulders, and his clothes weren’t shabby, but they didn’t fit him well; he looked like he’d been stretched out, his face and limbs too long for his suit. His wrists protruded from the cuffs, and on the back of one Kell saw the tail edge of a tattoo.

  A power rune.

  The first time Kell had seen it, he remembered thinking two things. The first was that it was inaccurate, distorted the way a copy of a copy of a copy might be. The second was that it belonged to an Enthusiast, a Grey-worlder who fancied himself a magician.

  Kell hated Enthusiasts.

  “Edward Archibald Tuttle, the third,” said Kell drily.

  The man—Ned—burst into an awkward grin, as if Kell had just delivered the most spectacular news. “You remember me!”

  Kell did. He remembered everyone he did business (or chose not to do business) with. “I don’t have your dirt,” he said, recalling his half-sarcastic promise to bring the man a bag of earth, if he waited for Kell.

  Ned waved it away. “You came back,” he said, hurrying forward. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t, after everything, that is to say, after the horrible business with the pub’s owner—dreadful business—I waited, you know, before it happened, and then after, of course, and still, and I was beginning to wonder, which isn’t the same thing as doubting, mind you, I hadn’t begun to doubt, but no one had seen you, not in
months and months, and now, well, you’re back….”

  Ned finally trailed off, breathless. Kell didn’t know what to say. The man had done enough talking for both of them. A sharp wind cut through, and Ned nearly lost his papers. “Bloody hell, it’s cold,” he said. “Let me get you a drink.”

  He nodded at something behind Kell when he said it, and Kell turned to see a tavern. His eyes widened as he realized where his treacherous feet had taken him. He should have known. The feeling was there, in the ground itself, the subtle pull that only belonged to a fixed point.

  The Stone’s Throw.

  Kell was standing only a few strides from the place where he’d done business, the place where Lila had lived and Barron had died. (He had been back once, when it was all over, but the doors were locked. He’d broken in, but Barron’s body was already gone. He climbed the narrow stairs to Lila’s room at the top, found nothing left but a dark stain on the floor and a map with no markings. He’d taken the map with him, the last trinket he’d ever smuggle. He hadn’t been back since.)

  Kell’s chest ached at the sight of the place. It wasn’t called the Stone’s Throw anymore. It looked the same—felt the same, now that Kell was paying attention—but the sign that hung above the door said THE FIVE POINTS.

  “I really shouldn’t …” he said, frowning at the name.

  “The tavern doesn’t open for another hour,” insisted Ned. “And there’s something I want to show you.” He pulled a key from his pocket, fumbling one of his scrolls in the process. Kell reached out and caught it, but his attention was on the key as Ned slid it into the lock.

  “You own this place?” he said incredulously.

  Ned nodded. “Well, I mean, I didn’t always, but I bought it up, after all that nasty business went down. There was talk of razing it, and it just didn’t seem right, so when it came up for sale, well, I mean, you and I, we both know this place isn’t just a tavern, that’s to say it’s special, got that aura of”—he lowered his voice—“magic …”—and then spoke up again—“about it. And besides, I knew you’d come back. I just knew….”

  Ned went inside as he rambled, and Kell didn’t have much choice but to follow—he could have walked away and left the man prattling, but Ned had waited, had bought the whole damn tavern so he could keep waiting, and there was something to be said for stubborn resolve, so he followed the man in.

  The place was impenetrably dark, and Ned set his scrolls on the nearest table and made his way, half by feel, to the hearth to stoke a fire.

  “The hours are different here now,” he said, piling a few logs into the grate, “because my family doesn’t know, you see, that I’ve taken up the Points, they just wouldn’t understand, they’d say it wasn’t a fitting profession for someone in my position, but they don’t know me, not really. Always been a bit of a stray cat, I suppose. But you don’t care about that, sorry, I just wanted to explain why it was closed up. Different crowd nowadays, too….”

  Ned trailed off, struggling with a piece of flint, and Kell’s gaze drifted from the half-charred logs in the hearth to the unlit lanterns scattered on tabletops and hung from ceiling beams. He sighed, and then, either because he was feeling cold or indulgent, he snapped his fingers; the fire in the hearth burst to life, and Ned staggered back as it crackled with the bluish-white light of enchanted flames before settling into the yellows and reds of more ordinary fire.

  One by one, the lanterns began to glow as well, and Ned straightened and turned, taking in the spreading light of the self-igniting lamps as if Kell had summoned the stars themselves into his tavern.

  He made a sound, a sharp intake of breath, and his eyes went wide: not with fear, or even surprise, but with adoration. With awe. There was something to the man’s unguarded fascination, his unbridled delight at the display, that reminded Kell of the old king. His heart ached. He’d once taken the Enthusiast’s interest as hunger, greed, but perhaps he’d been mistaken. He was nothing like the new King George. No, Ned had the childlike intensity of someone who wanted the world to be stranger than it was, someone who thought they could believe magic into being.

  Ned reached out and rested his hand on one of the lanterns. “It’s warm,” he whispered.

  “Fire generally is,” said Kell, surveying the place. With the infusion of light, he could see that while the outside had stayed the same, inside the Five Points was a different place entirely.

  Curtains had been draped from the ceiling in dark swaths, rising and falling above the tables, which were arranged like spokes on a wheel. Black patterns had been drawn—no, burned—into the wooden tabletops, and Kell guessed they were meant to be symbols of power—though some looked like Ned’s tattoo, vaguely distorted, while others looked entirely made up.

  The Stone’s Throw had always been a place of magic, but the Five Points looked like one. Or at least, like a child’s idea of one.

  There was an air of mystery, of performance, and as Ned shrugged out of his overcoat, Kell saw that he was wearing a black high-collared shirt with glossy onyx buttons. A necklace at his throat bore a five-pointed star, and Kell wondered if that was where the tavern had gotten its name, until he saw the drawing framed on the wall. It was a schematic of the box Kell had had with him when he and Ned first met. The element game with its five grooves.

  Fire, water, earth, air, bone.

  Kell frowned. The diagram was shockingly accurate, down to the grain in the wood. He heard the sound of clinking glasses and saw Ned behind the counter, pulling bottles from the wall. He poured two draughts of something dark, and held one out in offering.

  For a moment, Kell thought of Barron. The bartender had been as broad as Ned was narrow, as gruff as the youth was exuberant. But he’d been as much a part of this place as the wood and stone, and he was dead because of Holland. Because of Kell.

  “Master Kell?” pressed Ned, still holding out the glass.

  He knew he should be going, but he found himself approaching the counter, willing the stool out a few inches before he sat down.

  Show-off, said a voice in his head, and maybe it was right, but the truth was, it had been so long since anyone had looked at him the way Ned did now.

  Kell took up the drink. “What is it you want to show me, Ned?”

  The man beamed at the use of the nickname. “Well, you see,” he said, drawing a box from beneath the bar, “I’ve been practicing.” He set the box on the counter, flicked open the lid, and drew out a smaller parcel from within. Kell had his glass halfway to his lips when he saw what Ned was holding, and promptly set the drink down. It was an element set, just like the one Kell had traded here four months ago. No, it was the same exact element set, from the dark wood sides down to the little bronze clasp.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “Well, I bought it.” Ned set the magician’s board reverently on the counter between them, and slid the clasp, letting the board unfold to reveal the five elements in their grooves. “From that gentleman you sold it to. Wasn’t easy, but we came to an agreement.”

  Great, thought Kell, his mood suddenly cooling. The only thing worse than an ordinary Enthusiast was a wealthy one.

  “I tried to make my own,” Ned continued. “But it wasn’t the same, I’ve never been much good with that kind of thing, you should have seen the chicken scratch of that drawing, before I hired—”

  “Focus,” said Kell, sensing that Ned could wander down mental paths all night.

  “Right,” he said, “so, what I wanted to show you”—he cracked his knuckles dramatically—“was this.”

  Ned tapped the groove containing water, and then brought his hands down flat on the counter. He squinted down at the board, and Kell relaxed as he realized where this was going: nowhere.

  Still, something was different. The last time Ned had tried this, he’d gestured in the air, and spoken some nonsense over the water, as if the words themselves had any power. This time his lips moved, but Kell couldn’t hear what he was sayi
ng. His hands stayed flat, splayed on the counter to either side of the board.

  For a moment, as predicted, nothing happened.

  And then, right as Kell was losing his patience, the water moved. Not much, but a bead seemed to rise slightly from the pool before falling back, sending tiny ripples through the water.

  Sanct.

  Ned stepped back, triumphant, and while he managed to keep his composure, it was clear he wanted to thrust his arms in the air and cheer.

  “Did you see it? Did you see it?” he chanted. And Kell had. It was hardly a dangerous capacity for magic, but it was far more than he had expected. It should have been impossible—for Ned, for any Grey-worlder—but the past few months made him wonder if anything was truly out of bounds. After all, Lila had come from Grey London, and she was … well, but then she was something else entirely.

  Magic has no place in your world, he’d told the king. Not anymore.

  The world is full of cycles. Perhaps our time will come again.

  What was happening? He’d always thought of magic as a fire, each London sitting farther and farther from its heat. Black London had burned up, so near it was to the flame, but Grey London had gone to coals long ago. Was there still somehow a spark? Something to be kindled? Had he accidently blown on the dying flames? Or had Lila?

  “That’s all I’ve been able to manage,” said Ned excitedly. “But with proper training …” He looked at Kell expectantly as he said that, and then quickly down again. “That is, with the right teacher, or at least some guidance …”

  “Ned,” Kell started.

  “Of course, I know you must be busy, in demand, and time is precious …”

  “Edward—” he tried again.

  “But I have something for you,” pressed the man.

  Kell sighed. Why was everyone suddenly so keen to give him gifts?

  “I tried to think about what you said, last time, about how you were only interested in things that mattered, and it took me some time but I think I’ve found something worthy. I’ll go get it.”

  Before Kell could tell him to stop, could explain that whatever it was, he couldn’t take it, the man was out from behind the bar and hurrying into the hall, taking the steps upstairs two at a time.