“None of the bigger outlets will touch it,” Olivia said impatiently. “Look at these letters. They’d be scared stiff. In fact, if we publish any of this, we might as well kiss goodbye to the nice media internships we were looking forward to.”
“So what do we do with it, then?” Mus grinned. He already knew the answer.
Olivia smiled, impish as ever. “What we always do. We publish.”
CHAPTER 34
The next moonrise found Emma in the night market, humming with satisfaction. The University had imploded. The student paper had never flown from stacks so quickly. Students stood in doorways, waving copies. Academics gathered in conclaves of tattered knitwear, dissecting details. Expensive cars with silent engines flew up from London, spilling dark-suited government advisers and lawyers who hounded the offices of the University chancellor. But the paper would not back down. It had published three special editions and counting. Pickup on social media was moderate, at first. And then the first national outlet had caved. After sending its own fact-checkers to the student paper’s offices, where the evidence boxes were closely guarded, it ran an article verifying the claims. The internet fell upon the stories with slavering fervor.
Emma had run through the streets, picking up every discarded sheet of newsprint she could find. She burned with triumph at every page. Two more national papers had joined the first. The Turnbulls’ fall was public. And yes, it might be a small ripple, for now. Only a few stories had made it to print; and those not the most lurid inthe records room. But Emma could picture the future. The shamefaced paparazzi walks in front of family castles. The cars sold, the helipads shut down. Turnbulls leaving courtrooms, heads bowed, chased by whispers that would not cease. The shame. The pain. The justice.
“Lady fox. A sight to gladden my heart.”
Emma looked up. Robin leaned against the sugarsmith’s stall, all curly beard and mischief.
“I have news.” Robin tossed the stall keeper a coin. A large one, Emma noticed. And his tunic was far finer than any she had seen him wear before. There were pearls embroidered on the velvet. But the tree of the Night City was missing.
“That’s not a messenger’s tunic.” A long-lurking suspicion surfaced. “But you’ve never really been just a messenger, have you? What messenger would be given secrets the Night City would not even trust to its Court?”
Robin took a twinkling sugar bluebell from the stall keeper, presented it to Emma, and steered her to another stall.
“None can match your cunning, lady fox. It was, perhaps, convenient for me to wear the uniform. Messengers go everywhere: unseen, unremarked. Unremarkable. A useful costume to carry out my work. I am sent to handle matters that require… discretion.”
“You mean you’re a spy,” said Emma, savoring her bluebell. It tasted of spring mornings. “And a good one, I suspect.”
“I believe the mortal term is ‘spymaster.’” He bowed. “And the Night City has given no complaint of my services.”
“So what is this ‘news’?”
His whisper was warm in her ear. “I have your escape.”
The words sent spirals of shock down her spine.
“A lordling recently displeased the Night City and was sent to the mortal realm.”
“I heard,” said Emma dazedly. “For a week and a day.”
She had not wanted hope to break her. So she had told herself that spreading the Turnbulls’ secrets could be justice enough for her. That if Robin’s promise of escape never came true, she might live a satisfied life with her sisters in the House of Foxes, hunting her enemies from the shadows. But it had always been a lie. Now her escape was before her, she felt her hunger for it. Tasted it, like the sugar on her tongue.
“Of course you heard,” said Robin approvingly. “You know how to listen and observe. Do you know how rare that talent is? You are wasted in the mortal realms. If you stayed here, I’d have a job for you. But no matter.” He sketched a square in the air. “The lordling was sent through a door like this. A hole in the veil between the mortal realm and ours, if you like. But one with a special attribute. Those who pass through it emerge as mortals. It was built in days gone by, when ‘playing mortal’ was a favorite amusement of the Upper Houses.” He grinned. “A moon’s worth of mischief, and then they might return through the door to our world, and be mortal no more. Now it is forbidden. The door is heavily guarded. Any approaching without the Night City’s warrant would be torn apart by the gatekeeper.”
“I do not think I’d like that,” said Emma carefully.
“Nor I. So you will be granted a boon. In exchange for your reward—the entire sum—you will be permitted to pass through this door. Just once, and in one direction. To become mortal. You will be given a token to let you through.”
“Like my token of protection?”
“A good deal shinier than that, O diamond on the slipper of dawn.”
“So where is it, this door?”
“Beneath that extraordinary-looking mortal bridge. The wooden monstrosity.”
“The Mathematical Bridge, you mean?” Emma had always liked that bridge. It had supposedly been built with no nails or bolts at all. The whole structure, impossibly, was held together by mathematical perfection alone.
Robin shuddered. “Mathematics. Another monstrous creation of the mortal mind. An affront to the beauty of mystery.”
Though she loved all things quantitative, Emma let that pass. Escape filled her mind. “So when will it happen?”
