Queen of faces, p.9
Queen of Faces, page 9
But none of those felt right. And I didn’t see how any of this could help protect my mind.
Maybe I just needed to work my basics harder. So, I practised my Nudging defence for hours, along with my Codex, which I tested on the local pigeons. I met Carriwitch twice at the flooded restaurant. Each time, he opened the book to the halfway mark. ‘Full or empty?’ he asked.
When I couldn’t answer, he Nudged me to sit in the water. I shivered and reviewed my notes, but still, I couldn’t stand. The grey skin on my shoulder had spread down my torso, drawing a line of decay all the way to my waist. My joints ached in a dozen places, and my limbs felt weak.
After hours of gruelling work, I had nothing. With one day left before I started at Paragon, I was desperate for a distraction. Something that wasn’t about Nudging, or Westyn’s stupid riddle. So, I took a tram up the mountain, leaning out of a window as it climbed the slope of Mount Elwar. The uneven cobbles became orderly stones in Midtown, and finally smooth tarmac on the streets of Hightown. I hopped on to the pavement, making my way past wine shops and salons to the only store here I cared about.
When I stepped inside Eminent Forms, it looked like a painting. The main shopping floor stood four storeys high, covered with filigree gold and marble. Models balanced on glittering chandeliers and swung from invisible wires. The sun shone through curving skylights, casting the building in an ethereal glow.
The shoppers looked even more breathtaking. Square-jawed men laughed and shook hands, muscles bulging under their tailored suits. Tall, slender women chatted in circles, flecks of silver woven into their eyes.
I pulled down my raincoat hood, concealing my features. In this room, even an average face stuck out like a fly in chowder.
Near the end of the store, two star-woven bodies stood on a pedestal, royal and ageless, eyes full of glittering light. Living miracles wreathed into human shapes. One of them was tall and pale and vaguely Caimorian, like most of the faces here. The other had dark brown skin you might find in Kshatra, with a heavy jaw and an enigmatic gender. One of its ears was missing, an injury that wouldn’t mend for another half-century at least. Star-woven forms could regrow almost anything, but the big ones took time. A lifetime, more often than not.
The second body’s price was less than a tenth of the other. I scowled.
I passed a Humdrum guard, a pistol holstered at his waist, and my mind drifted to theft again, if things got truly desperate. I dismissed the ridiculous notion. The papers speculated there were members of the Eldritch Guard here as well, disguised as civilians. Given the recent Commonplace attacks, it made sense. No one had ever stolen a body from this place. A few rogue mages had tried last year, and they hadn’t even made it two steps before being vaporised. This place was almost as well guarded as Paragon. It was pointless to even contemplate.
I went to the back of the store and strode down a concrete staircase. They’d sell cheaper bodies here – ones with non-fatal diseases or used ones tossed aside when they aged too much for Hightown.
When I emerged, my body stiffened. My breath stuck in my throat like concrete.
An army of Edgars stretched before me, filling the shelves of an underground warehouse. They hung from countless hooks, lifeless and uniform. Other cheap models were on display as well, but none as numerous as mine.
Many of the shoppers wore Edgars as well. A hundred twins milled about on the stone floor, young and old, tall and short. Bodies that had aged for decades, and ones younger than mine. A twisted mirror of myself, shattered and multiplied.
This is you, Edgar, Clementine’s voice whispered in my head. The real you.
It was all wrong.
The cheapest price tag I could see was a hundred thousand pounds: a beaten-up Alice, the feminine version of an Edgar. Clementine or Carriwitch, my boss didn’t matter. I would never earn that much. Not in a year.
The air grew colder. My chest tightened, like a python was squeezing my ribs. Blood rushed in my ears.
I ran back up the steps, tripping over my feet, and staggered out of the store. My lungs gasped for breath, and the sun glared in my face.
As I stumbled on to the street, my shoe caught on a storm drain. I tipped forward and slammed into the road, my sweaty palms skidding on the tarmac. My head spun. A deafening noise blared in my ears, and in my panicked state, it took me a moment to realise what it was. A horn. I looked up.
A black buggy shot towards me down the street, swerving out of control. The driver wrestled the wheel, his eyes panicked, but the vehicle didn’t slow down. Tyres screeched on the pavement, and a woman screamed.
Before I could blink, the car was on top of me.
i dreamed of Samuel. he stood in my dorm room, entwined with my replacement, mashing his lips with hers. I lay before them, missing my right hand, thrashing as my blood soaked into the carpet.
Samuel only spared me a glance.
‘You never came home,’ he said. ‘Why did you never come home?’
He kissed the impostor again, and his words echoed in my mind. Never, never, never. They drowned out my thoughts, choking me from within. Never, never, never.
A fist banged on the door, and my eyes snapped open. I lay in a cold bubble bath, my limbs splayed out like a butchered cow. A numbing chill seeped into my muscles.
The front door smashed open, and the bald man from the gambling den stomped into my filthy apartment. The Commonplace thug I’d cheated at cards yesterday. He brandished a crowbar, and a Voidsteel stud dangled from his left ear. Three others stepped in behind him, clutching knives and baseball bats.
I yawned and sank back into the bubbles. ‘Evening, gentlemen. How can I help you?’
The bald man pointed a pistol at me. I stared at the black sphinxes tattooed on his hands.
‘Money,’ said the bald man. ‘Where’s the money you stole?’
I’d sung, and now they danced for me. They were almost too easy to manipulate. After my visit to Samuel this morning, I’d spent the afternoon cheating at cards a second time with these Commonplace goons, making it painfully obvious. They had tailed me back here for a private chat, the sort that ended in an unmarked grave.
‘Give us the money,’ said the bald man, ‘and we might not pull out your insides.’
I pointed to an empty plate of oysters on the floor. ‘I spent all your money on snacks,’ I said, pouting. ‘I’d offer you one, but I just ran out.’
Angry murmurs from the back of the room. Hands clenching over weapons.
‘You’re with Paragon.’
‘Was with Paragon,’ I said. ‘Now I’m nothing more than a rat in the basement. Just like you fine gentlemen.’
‘You freaks always have money. If I cut you open, you’ll bleed gold.’
This Humdrum was just another bigot, terrified of anything he couldn’t fit into his tiny skull. Maybe he hated all magic. Maybe he just hated Paragon. It didn’t really matter.
‘But there are millions of us,’ he hissed. ‘Your time is coming.’ The other Black Arrows drew closer. Another dozen stood outside in the rain, men and women carrying guns and knives. One or two of them might even be mages. And I still lacked my sword.
‘Your money’s gone,’ I said. ‘My money’s in the cabinet. Second shelf.’
The bald man snapped his fingers, and one of his flunkies stepped to the cabinet. I gazed over the swarm of thugs and pictured their faces morphing. I blinked, and saw them as Khaiovhe, the unstoppable monster who had killed my father. I blinked again, and they became the dead thief, the freak who had sliced my hand off. Simple fool. Itching rage swelled in my body, making my skin crawl.
Talk them down, said the Samuel in my head. For their sake, not yours.
I smiled at the bald gunman. ‘By the way,’ I said. ‘That’s a lovely earring.’
I staggered through the rain, clutching a bloody earring in my fist. Night had fallen over Elmidde, and the streets of Lowtown had emptied in the roaring thunderstorm.
Raindrops ran down my bare chest, washing blood off my corded muscles. The cobblestones felt like ice under my feet. I’d barely escaped the apartment with just my life and a pair of corduroy trousers. I could hardly go back for my shoes. Not without a bullet in my brain.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to clean the bathroom any more.
The streets in Lowtown felt like prison corridors, a labyrinth of wood and crumbling brick that seemed to narrow with every step.
I wandered for a minute, or an hour, through some corner of the city I couldn’t remember. Finally, I slumped down under an iron streetlamp, shivering. Raindrops coated my skin, glistening in the dim lamplight. Someone had spattered graffiti on the far wall: a falling black sphinx, pierced through the heart by a dark arrow, with blotchy words written underneath. Even gods drown. Commonplace’s motto, and their symbol. A twisted mirror of Paragon’s emblem.
Then all the streetlamps went out at once. I flinched, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.
When the lights flickered back on, a man stood on the lamp-post across the street. An older, bearded man with a pencil tucked behind his ear.
Headmaster Carriwitch. The Eldritch Guard’s former chief, my mother’s political rival, and the eldest mage in the Eight Oceans. The shrivelled cad was actually smiling, as if expecting applause. He jumped down to the street, and his blue robes flapped around him, revealing a thick black scroll strapped to his chest, sealed shut with a Voidsteel lock and wrapped with indigo leather.
The Aeon Scroll. My mother had told me stories about that document, and the mysteries within. Reading it would give you unyielding power, or teach you the oldest secrets of the oceans. Carriwitch might no longer be chief, but the Eldritch Guard still trusted him a great deal, if he was carrying that.
A dark blue envelope floated from his pocket and laid itself on the wet stones beside me. I ignored it. He pulled a paper bag from his pocket, miraculously dry in the rain, and plucked a tiny biscuit out of it, offering one to me. Shortbread. When I scowled at him, he popped it into his mouth, beaming.
‘[] [],’ he said. ‘Great to see you.’
His voice was a screeching burst of static. I flinched, clenching my teeth. ‘What did you say?’
‘[],’ he said, speaking static again. ‘Your first name.’
‘Spell it,’ I said.
Carriwitch spoke, his lips forming letters. Each sound made sense on its own, but strung together, they slipped from my memory, scrambling my thoughts like eggs. I shook my head.
‘A memory block,’ said Carriwitch. ‘Standard issue with Ousting. My apologies.’
My mother, showing her boundless generosity.
‘Have you decided on a new name?’
I scowled. Everyone kept asking me that. ‘It’s a work in progress,’ I said. ‘Why are you here?’
Carriwitch straightened himself. ‘I’ve been following you for three hours.’ He mentioned it casually, like an errand on his daily list.
‘Are you going to arrest me? Throw a tracer on me? Illegal combat magic, attempted murder. All that rubbish.’
‘There were seventeen Black Arrows in that building.’
I shrugged.
Carriwitch half-smiled at me. ‘After most Oustings, the nobility will place a tracer on you for ten years, to prevent you from committing illegal magic.’
I froze.
‘I intervened. The mages in charge of your Ousting were persuaded otherwise. No one is tracking your Pith.’
‘Why?’
‘Because talent should be nurtured, not wasted in a poorhouse.’ His eyes glinted. ‘So, let me make you an offer.’
‘An offer?’
‘I thought you might lend me a hand.’ He smiled, then launched into a lecture. I could become an assassin for him, an illegal mercenary to battle Commonplace in secret. For my troubles, he would pay me increasing bounties, all detailed in his flashy dark envelope.
‘Do you take me for a half-wit?’ I scowled. ‘After you sent my father to his death, the Eldritch Guard fired you. You’re trying to wriggle back into the game.’
‘Professor Ebbridge was a dear friend. I knew him quite well.’
That makes one of us. Our father–daughter relationship had been a long series of expensive gifts, punctuated by the occasional story from his time at Paragon. He knew his students better than me. Unlike my mother, he had never judged me for any of my countless mishaps. You had to care about someone to judge them.
‘Forgive me,’ said Carriwitch, ‘I know your bond was complicated.’
Shrivelled old rat. I swallowed, my chest tight. ‘They fired you. And now you want back in. Grandpa’s feeling bored up at Paragon, so he wants to sit in the big chair again. Even if it means hiring illegal mages. If Paragon catches us, you’ll deny we ever met, and you’re probably expecting most of us to die. Why would I ever take that offer?’
‘Because you’re seventeen,’ said Carriwitch. ‘A noble can be Ousted if they are eighteen or younger. This means you will have one chance to take back your place in the [] family. To take back your name.’
I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter how strong I am. My mother needs to approve every Ousting attempt, and she won’t let me try.’
Carriwitch flashed his infuriating half-smile. ‘She will if you do her a favour.’
‘A favour?’
‘You just need to kill someone for her. A woman that your mother hates and fears more than anyone else.’ He leaned close. ‘Khaiovhe.’
My mind went blank. ‘The Black Wraith is dead. She exploded herself in that dam.’ After burning down half of Shenten, and my father: her own former professor. After exposing our world to the Humdrums.
‘Terribly sorry,’ said Carriwitch. ‘She’s alive. And according to our spies, she’s put herself in charge of Commonplace.’
A wave of dizziness crashed over me. For a long moment, I just sat there in the darkness, shivering as raindrops pattered on my hair. My nails scraped the cobblestones.
‘The Black Wraith,’ I said, ‘is alive? And running Commonplace?’
‘Afraid so,’ said Carriwitch. ‘Why do you think your mother’s been so obsessed with them?’
‘She knows?’ My mind reeled. And she kept it from me. Just like my father’s funeral.
‘Since the beginning,’ said the headmaster. ‘Your mother has been hunting her for years. As have I.’ He nibbled another shortbread cookie.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Now it’s all making sense. The Black Wraith was your student. Your mistake. Then you failed to catch her when she went mad. That’s why they demoted you.’ I waggled a finger at him. ‘You’re trying to resurrect your honour.’ My mother had long suspected he was up to something, but she’d never been able to prove it.
‘It’s not just for me,’ said Carriwitch. ‘Do you know where Admiral [] visits every week?’
I shrugged. ‘Casino? Mental ward? Opium den?’
‘Darius Park,’ said Carriwitch. ‘Where she first met your father. She plants daffodils under the tree where they kissed.’
My stomach twinged. I didn’t know my mother was still capable of gestures like that. In the violent maelstrom of her grief, I hadn’t even visited his grave. I’d put off the task, week after week, until it had quietly slipped from my errand list.
‘If you kill Khaiovhe, the woman who burned her husband, Admiral [] will accept your challenge. You can Oust the person who replaced you. You can win your life back.’
I laughed. ‘You sent twelve mages after the Black Wraith. One of them was my father, who taught her everything she knew. She sent them all back in a flour sack. If the Eldritch Guard catches me, they’ll throw me in prison,’ I said. ‘If Commonplace catches me, they’ll torture me to death. It’s a terrible plan.’
‘Indeed.’ Carriwitch glanced down at my blood-soaked shirt. ‘Do you have a better one?’
I laughed, shivering. ‘Dying of hypothermia would be a better plan.’
‘You wouldn’t have to fight alone.’ A folder opened itself in front of me. ‘You’d have help.’
It was a person’s file. A mage who’d just signed on with the professor. Some witless girl in an Edgar, who’d failed the Paragon screening three times in a row.
Then I saw her Codex.
Rainbow Veil: Whisper, creates visual illusions in a short range
Visual illusions. And the girl had no other magic to speak of. Then there was the night she’d been recruited: the same night I’d been out on patrol. It was her. The body thief. The unhinged girl who’d shot Samuel, who’d cut off my hand. Carriwitch hadn’t killed her, he’d hired her.
My hands shook. She was pathetic. A three-time failure, a former scullery maid from the country. And I’d lost to her. In the heat of battle, I’d failed to protect Samuel, and she’d taken everything from me.
The little idiot needed to burn. An act my mother would enjoy almost as much as I would. Not as much as Khaiovhe’s scalp, mind you, but this Anabelle Gage had maimed our family’s property. Two million pounds’ worth. Gage’s head would be sugar in her tea.
‘What’s your game?’ I said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You saw the two of us fight. You know what she is to me. Aren’t you concerned I’ll step on her baby toes? Why not put me with your other hired mages? Why not leave us separate?’
‘My other mercenaries are overseas,’ said Carriwitch. ‘If I leave her alone, she’ll get shot within a week. If I leave you alone, you’ll burn down half the city. And then get shot.’
I batted my lashes. ‘You think I could burn down half a city?’
‘Ana has potential, but she’s blunt as a butter knife. You can sharpen her.’ He half-smiled. ‘Besides, I think you’ll work well together. An old man’s intuition.’
With the girl’s test scores this low, I was tempted to just kill the fool and move on. But the girl had landed a hit on me and caught Carriwitch’s eye in the process. She had potential, real power in that Whisper Codex. With the right carving, the girl could be an excellent pawn. A bit dull, perhaps, but useful, until it broke. That was an opportunity.
