“That sounds useless to me,” Emma said frankly. “I can’t see what the Night City would want with it.”
Saskia waved a bone at her. The peacock’s talon was still attached, gnarled and crispy. Emma was not going to wonder what it would taste like. She shoveled another spoonful of rice into her mouth.
“Mortals, especially the ones at the University, they feed on the power of the Night City without even knowing. They get knowledge, power, all of the good stuff. And in exchange, the City feeds on the mortals. On their vitality—the thing it’s our job to gather. That gives the City more power, and the next mortals feed upon that power—and so on.”
“Symbiosis,” said Emma, and Saskia and Nancy looked rather blank. “Host and parasite live in mutually beneficial balance. You see it a lot in nature.”
“A scientist among us,” said Saskia with an ironic bow over her plate. “We’re honored.”
Nancy scraped her bowl clean. “And one with a token of protection, no less.”
Saskia whistled. “That’s rare enough. You’ve got diplomatic immunity, new girl. You can get up to all sorts of trouble now.”
“Then how about starting with a proper drink?” Nancy grinned. “I stowed a bottle of firefly brandy in the fire scuttle last solstice.”
There was no harm in it.
Sprawling with the other two on the sofas by the fire, Emma meant to feel strong. She took a swig for it being a day she had not died, and another for the thousand years she did not want to think of. But then she had to swallow away the Boar lurking in an alley, and the red coats that came swarming from the dark corners of hermind, every one wearing Jasper’s face. Sip by sip, she drowned them all.
Someone had carved a row of foxes above the fireplace, Emma noticed. Each with a swooping tail wrapped around the next, so they were linked together. Linked, or chained? In a thousand years, that might be her. Sitting in just such a line, too changed by centuries trapped in the House of Foxes to break free.
She could not bear it. She would not.
She rounded on Saskia and Nancy. “But how can youstandit? The Court is all golden halls and parties and feasts, but we have to work hundreds of years for something that wasn’t even our fault? Do you not see how unfair it is, the whole Night City?”
Saskia gave her a strange look. “Yes, we’re workers. And yes, that means the deal we get is unfair. Did you really find the mortal world so different? I’m not sure England can have changed much since I was mortal, but I’m happy to be proved wrong. I never found out what happened to Thatcher once I was gone.”
“Dead,” said Emma. A light glinted in Saskia’s eyes.
“Of natural causes,” Emma hastened to add. “I think.”
“Oh. Well.” Saskia was downcast only for a moment. “I would have preferred deposed over dead, anyhow. Still, you’re not wrong about the Court. Bunch of gilded bladders bumping into each other. The Upper Houses swan around, intriguing and subjecting each other to their poetry. They’re not stuck with any work, or tied to just one beast form, like us. They get to play with the higher magics too. No collars, of course.” She flicked the silver band at her neck.
“They’re nobles, love.” Nancy laid a hand on Emma’s arm. “The lords and ladies, and their households and servants. The Citygranted them their power a long time ago, and they’ve a lot of it. They swear oaths to the City, but not like ours.”
“Their oaths’ll promise loyalty, but never labor.” Saskia snorted viciously. “Still, as long as we pay our dues and don’t dirty their hems, they’re happy not to think much about us. The Lower Houses work for a living.”
“But not at Court,” Emma guessed.
“Exactly. And there’s a reason for that. Think of the Night City as like—a layer, almost, over the mortal world. We share the same space as them—the same streets, the same river, the same college buildings—right on top of them, but they can’t see us.”
“But at night? Some mortals saw me.”
“They get glimpses. But it’s like they’re on the other side of a thick veil.”
“Only we get to see the full glory of the Night City.” Nancy clasped her brandy glass reverently.
“Or the horror.” Saskia ducked Nancy’s swat with a grin. “But the Court is different. It’s underground, beneath the mortal streets. And it wouldn’t show on any mortal map, or turn up under the spades of mortal diggers. In the mortal world, that space does not exist. It’s pure Night City. It’s the source. Imagine it as a generator, powering the whole layer of the Night City above ground. Which means?” She raised her brows at Emma in challenge.
Memories unglued themselves from the blur in Emma’s mind. In most environments, the organisms that secured closest access to a power source—like the sun, or water—tended to be the strongest.
“The closer you are to the heart of the City’s power… the more important you are?”
Saskia clinked her glass, grinning. “Yes, new girl. That’s what the Court is about. Upper Houses only, a few City favorites and hangers-on. Most other citizens, and all of the Lower Houses, have to find places outside the Court. Above ground, mixed in among the mortal spaces.”
Emma remembered the alley at the entrance to the House of Foxes, choked with the bins and smells of restaurants that mortal Emma had known well: the late-night chip shop she’d dragged Julia to after nights out; the discount pizza takeaway; the vegan bakery her mother had loved when she visited.
“There are places above ground that are just for City folk, though.” Nancy picked out a plump date. “Pockets, like secret rooms. Mortals can’t see ’em or wander in. There’s bits of the Library—and Saskia, we have to take her to the night market—”
