“Boars,” Saskia said shortly. “They’re all over at the moment.Just keeping order,supposedly. Making sure we’resafe from lawbreakers.But the only real way to be safe? Stay out of their way. Of late, people say they’re a law unto themselves. And there have been… accidents.”
The bruises along Emma’s arms prickled, as though the Boars’ fingers were still pressed into the flesh.
“But I thought they were the City’s guard?”
“You could call them mercenaries, I suppose. The City uses the Boars like a security force, but they’re not part of any house. They just turned up centuries ago, apparently. Millennia after the City and the houses first came into being. And no one seems to knowwhere they came from. The Boars answer only to the City itself. Or”—Saskia leaned forward—“to whoever has enough coin, apparently. Although that’s a thing it’s best not to whisper on a moonless night.”
Emma had not been afraid enough, on that street with the sun sinking below the horizon. That was clear. Now, thinking of the way the Boar had clawed through the air to get to her, Emma’s body felt like a violin string tautened to snapping point. It had been so close. If it had not been for the messenger pulling her out of the way—
“There, love.” Nancy was patting her arm. “You’ve got that token of protection, don’t forget. Everyone’s just a little jumpy right now.”
“That’s what the Sister said.” Emma thought back. “That things here were… unstable.”
“Unstable’s right. It’s all whispers and disappearances, recently.” Saskia lowered her voice. “People’re saying things in the market. That the barrier between the mortal world and ours is strangely thin all of a sudden. That the City’s power is—slipping.”
“Fools of people,” Nancy said. “That’s dangerous talk. You just focus on staying out of the way of those patrols. Get our Emma to the Library without running nose-first into trouble, hmm?”
Saskia waved her away. “I will if she can keep up. Come on, new girl.”
She strode from the house. Emma scurried in her wake, eyes flicking round for patrols of cold-eyed Boars at every corner. But the streets were almost deserted. The statues of Wessex College turned miter-hatted heads to watch them pass. The Night City’s strange light chased over the cobbles of the High Street. It wasfamiliar and strange at the same time. Emma felt in her pocket for the slip of parchment the Judge had given her. The token of protection kept her safe from the Boars as long as she had it, he had said. Perhaps she could let go of feeling afraid. Just for now.
After all, there was so much else to take in. The wondrous lights of the Night City, dancing across the buildings. The moon high over college spires. The few passersby, huddled into heavy parkas against the cold. At that last sight, Emma had a new thought.
“Hey.” Emma trotted to keep up with Saskia. “How come you’re dressed like that? Not like the others?”
Saskia scowled, tugging the cuffs of her leather jacket over her hands. “Well, I can’t please everyone. You think I care if you don’t like how I look, new girl?”
She stalked ahead, and Emma felt a pang in her stomach. Five minutes into a conversation, and she was already a failure. She scurried after Saskia.
“No—I just meant, why are you dressed like modern people?”
Saskia’s shoulders unwound. Her back began to look slightly more friendly.
“At the Court, it was all cloaks and tunics.” Emma smoothed her hands over her own borrowed cloak. Underneath, the tailor’s gown felt none the fresher after a night sleeping on bones and leaves. “But you, you’re—”
“Modern?” Saskia said, with a wry smile. “Nice of you to say. I’ve been in the City forty years, nearly. I mostly have to steal these from mortal secondhand shops now. Eighties punk was a long time ago. The City is stuck in some nightmare Renaissance perma-loop. The hose and the doublets. The curtsying.”
Emma tried to think it out. “Is it because they’ve always hadmagic? They never had to keep up with technology, so their world… didn’t change?”
“Dead on. And immortals don’t like change much, I’ve found. Even in fashion. Time moves slower for them.”
As if by agreement, their feet drifted to a halt at the top of a bridge. Emma looked across the once-familiar river, the bridges, the colleges lining the banks. Now the lights of the Night City played over them all.
“My theory is, there used to be more flow between the mortal world and ours. Back when people really believed in magic. And as that belief drained away, the Night City shut up on itself…”
“And stayed as it was?”
“That’s immortals for you. A mishmash of olde worlde nonsense, and no sign they want to update. You won’t find such a thing as a union anywhere about. Forget constitutional monarchy, or having a vote. Feudal fairyland here has the political sophistication of a bucket.”
She nudged Emma’s leg with a combat-booted foot and grinned. “Come on, new girl, don’t look so grim. There aren’t many things that make up for the bad here. But the Library is one of them.”
She raised reverent eyes to the far end of the bridge, where the Library’s dome glowed in the moonlight. Their feet crunched down the shadowed path toward it.
“I’ve been there before. As a mortal.”
“Then you haven’t really been.” A smile like a wisp of smoke curled across Saskia’s face.
She tapped one of the Library doors. It swung open under her touch. Emma was about to protest about locks and security cameras, then stopped herself. Human rules no longer applied.
