Making the crossing had been a wretched ordeal for Lucien. He feared the sea, for it was his only weakness. It prevented him from using his mind power, but worse, it terrified him. He couldn’t even swim.
Once in Toriana, a spiteful relation had made public his illegitimacy and the name of his commoner father, rendering Lucien an instant outcast among the blues. He might have used his gift to make a place for himself among the ton through his ability to charm, but instead he walled himself up in Morehaven to learn all he could about the dark arts. For ten years no one but his servants had even acknowledged his existence.
Becoming a deathmage had gained him the entry into society that his unfortunate birth had denied him, and his grateful clients had certainly made him rich, but behind his practiced cynicism Dredmore remained a lonely, wretched pariah. Until the day Connell had driven him through the market and a shaft of sunlight had illuminated the face of a common gel buying peaches. And in that moment, the torrents of passion and longing had flooded Lucien Dredmore’s cold heart, bringing with them the first hope he’d ever known.
It seemed ironic that for all his magic he had been made powerless against me, thanks to my pendant.
The pendant.
Something Harry had said the first time he’d appeared echoed through my thoughts: After twenty years of waiting and watching, I’m here. I’m free. And the curious thing Hedger had spat at him: Without that ginny bauble hanging about her neck she glows like a right black beacon.
If Dredmore were to be believed, I was a spell-breaker. Which meant magic had no power over me, nor could it be used in my presence. It explained why Rina’s teller had been powerless to read for me. The snuffmages’ balls had been rendered useless the moment they came near me. I’d kept Liv from strangling, not by slapping her, but by touching her. By sitting on the bench next to Bridget’s Charles, I’d broken the no-love spell placed on him in France by his mother.
Could it be that simple?
Without that ginny bauble—
Dredmore had been wrong. My parents hadn’t created the pendant to protect me against magic. If I were a spell-breaker, I’d never need that sort of protection.
—ginny bauble—
Something hurt my face, hitting me so hard my teeth chattered.
“You’re not dead,” I heard a hard voice say. “Do you hear me, Kit? Open your eyes this minute, or I swear I’ll kill you.”
I opened one eyelid to see Carina standing over my crate with a lantern. Her hair fell in a tangle about her dirty, bruised face, and blood trickled from a nasty cut across the swollen bridge of her nose. She wore some sort of rough, ragged cloak covered with filth and soot.
As she raised her hand to wallop me again I raised an arm to shield myself. “Stop hitting me, will you?”
“Mother of Christ, you deserve a proper thrashing. And you will get one, the moment we’re out of this mess.” The ferocious anger on her face twisted into grim satisfaction as she put aside the lantern, shoved her hands under my arms, and hauled me out of the crate. “Wrecker’s outside with a cart. Come on.”
The air smelled hot and smoky, and made me cough as Rina dragged me through the darkness. “What’s on fire?”
“Anything that isn’t warded,” she snapped. “So shake your ass.”
As we emerged from the cargo house, I saw three things I couldn’t quite comprehend: Wrecker dressed in soot-stained yellow; a gravecart filled with dead harlots; and the Hill on fire.
“No time to gawk.” Rina jerked my arm as she marched to the back of the cart. “We’ll be lucky to make it out of the city alive.”
I stared at the corpses of a dozen battered gels. All of them I recognized from the Eagle’s Nest. At the top of the pile lay Almira, her apron spattered with blood round a gaping black gash in her abdomen.
I shook my head. “We have to go the police. We have to tell them—”
“The coppers are busy with the blues,” Rina said as she climbed up and wedged herself in a corner before offering me her hand. When I didn’t take it, she swore. “Kit, I swear, I’ll tie you to the back and drag you by the rope—”
“She’s scared,” Almira said, lifting her head a little to glare at me. “We’re not dead, you goose. It’s a ruse—tar and tomato juice—and it itches like sin.”
“Least you’re on top, old woman,” a younger voice complained. “Ouch, Jude, that’s my tit. Get your knee off.”
I climbed up and curled into the corner opposite Rina. “Why are they pretending to be dead?”
“Bunch of Talians locked us up in the Nest before they set fire to it,” she said flatly. “We got out through the old sewers, but if they see any of us I’ve no doubt they’ll try again. Little bastards are nothing if not determined.”
So Rina and the gels had been fleeing for their lives . . . and had ended up at the docks. “How did you know where to find me, and why did you bother to look?”
“An old tunneler met us in the sewer. Said you were in trouble and directed me to the cargo house. I almost didn’t come, you know.” Rina turned her head toward Wrecker. “Take the road that runs through the teller’s quarter. They’ve not burned anything there.”
Setting fire to the great houses on the Hill would have diverted the militia and the police there to do whatever they could; the ton represented Rumsen’s wealthiest and most powerful families. That had left the rest of the city vulnerable. I could even understand why the Reapers had tried to incinerate Rina and her gels; they probably thought I had gone there to seek haven.
But why set the other fires? Why burn the unwarded?
When I asked Rina that, she made a bitter sound. “Sorry to say they’ve not stopped to have tea and chat about it. Too occupied with torching houses and slaughtering innocents, I expect.”
“‘They’ve gone after anyone what don’t have them wardlings, Miss Kit,” Wrecker said over his shoulder. “They’re checking every door and neck.”
“You’re sure that they’re sparing anyone with wardlings?” When he nodded, I felt my stomach clench. Dredmore had been shocked by something Walsh had said about the popular talismans. Something about dreamstone. I looked over at Rina. “We have to stop. I need to find a charm maker.”
“I’m sure you do, and for some very good reason,” my best friend said in a murderously pleasant tone, “but we’re not stopping. Not for you, or wardlings, or even Herself if she suddenly appears and steps in front of the cart. George can be King.”
“Then push me off in the teller’s quarter.” Before Rina could reply I reached for her hand and gripped it. Her fingers felt like ice, and I realized how hard she was trying not to tremble. “Carina, when we first met, when you left my house and went back on the stroll, do you know why I didn’t try to come after you?”
“Sod you, Kit.” She dug her fingernails into my palm. “It’s not the same thing.”
“After everything that had been taken from you, you deserved the right to make your own choices and live your own life, no matter what I thought of it.” I kissed her cheek and whispered, “Time to pay me back, my gel.”
“The Talians want you dead, don’t they?” When I nodded, she swore viciously. “Wrecker, find an alley behind the tellers’ shops. And give Kit two of your blades.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and smiled my thanks as the big man held two of his best knives over his shoulder. “Where are you going from here?”
“Settle, maybe, if we can make it that far before it snows or the Talians catch up. We’ll stop at the lumber camps for provisions, see if we can pick up some trade.” She reached into her pocket and took out a small, bulging reticule, which she thrust in my hands. “There’s enough here to buy yourself a young horse or an old carri. Take it,” she added when I tried to give it back to her. “It’s the chance to change your mind and get the bloody hell out.”
The cart stopped, and before I climbed down I tucked away the blades, reached over, and wrapped my arms round Rina. “I’ll see you again someday, you know.”
She gave me a tight, trembling hug in return. “Not if I see you first, you daft twit.”
Chapter Ten
Once the cart had gone I moved to the end of the alley to check the streets, which appeared empty, and the shopfronts, all of which were dark. Lamplight flickered in some of the windows on the second and third floors, and I noted which of the charm makers was closest to me before retreating back into the alleyway.
Pulling down the fire escape ladders would have alerted anyone within three blocks to my presence, but fortunately most of them had already been lowered. The tellers might have been spared by the Reapers, but none of them seemed to be assuming they were safe.
I climbed up to the second floor over the charm maker’s shop, and leaned over to look through the grimy window into the flat inside. One candle stub burned on the opposite side of the room, and I made out the vague silhouette of an old man wrapped in a blanket.
I tested the window, found it to be locked, and had to tap on it several times before the old man came over and opened it a few inches. “Evening.”
Frightened, angry eyes glared out at me. “What do you want, gel?”
I thought of how to put it. “Can you tell me what happens when a particular stone is charmed?”
“Get stuffed.” The window slammed shut.
“Wait, sir.” I reached in my pocket for Rina’s gift and tapped it against the window. “I can pay you.”
The window remained shut for another minute, then rose just enough for me to squeeze through. “Well? Come on, then, before you’re seen.”
I wriggled through the gap and made a quick if undignified entrance. The flat inside smelled of paper and cabbage, and had almost no furnishings. Great circles of wardlings had been nailed to every wall.
“Thank you, sir.” As soon as I had my feet under me I bobbed a curtsey for good measure. “I am truly sorry to disturb you on such a night.”