The cooling, longernights and the subtle hint of frost in the air always welcomed the Festival of Demons.
On the proceeding days, Leena watched as lights lit up the winding streets, stretching from here to New Algaraa District, then all the way to the bricked factories in Ridgeways. She could smell the hints of kerosene mixed with the oils from frying food that permeated the streets, and the resulting smoke caused a thin mist to weave between the roads. Every block would already be teeming with caravans selling services and wares: doughnuts fried to golden perfection, fortune-tellers decked in scarves, palm-readers, fire-eaters and jugglers, perfumers who swore to be able to bottle desire.
Night had not yet fallen, but she could see the revelers making their way down to the festival through her bedroom window. They dressed in masks to hide their identities, ranging from grotesque depictions of demons with snarling faces to coquettish ones with exaggerated red lips and crimson cheeks. She saw a man wearing the long flowing garb of the Saints as he tried to hail a hackney, an idol swinging from a chain on his chest, reminding her with ashudder of the Black Coat whose throat had been slit by St. Silas. She knew that this man, unlike the rest of the revelers, would not join the festivities, instead spending the night in prayer in one of the cathedrals.
Every year Leena wondered how this once-holy festival—a way for the Mors to celebrate the Saints’ triumphant massacre of the demons—had turned into an excuse to get roaring drunk and pursue every form of debauchery known to man. She knew the history—back when Golborne was a tiny settlement that herded sheep, any misfortune that had befallen it was blamed on the demons.A child dying young from pox? A mind turned with madness? Lustful thoughts?All demon-cursed.
Then the Saints cropped up, offering blessings, curing the ill, and—most important—banishing the demons. Nowadays, Leena thought wryly, instead of blaming demons for their misfortunes, people often looked toward the aristos.
A note delivered by Mrs. Van told Leena that the Saint required her presence for the festivities. It had been a week since the Black Coat’s death, and Leena would be seeing Rami tomorrow. She could bear a night with the Saint for that.
The housekeeper had laid out her garments—a stiff high-collared dress in a shade of emerald green with a simple half mask, in the form of a skull, that revealed her mouth.
One of Leena’s earliest childhood memories was attending the festival with Baba and Rami. Algaraans often wore their traditional dress—the only time it was not frowned upon by Morish society—and Leena usually wore a long, loose kaftan with a delicately embroidered belt. When Mrs. Van left, rather than reach for the petticoats, garters, and whalebone corset, Leena found the white kaftan her father had bought for her birthday years ago.
Wearing the dress felt like home—a return to another life, to another Leena with far less worries. She tied the golden-flossed belt around her waist, then loosened her long curls until they felldown her back. She observed the effects in the mirror, unsure whether Sweeper’s Cough had left any lasting traces on her face.
Her eyes, she thought, would always remain the same: brown like her mother’s, large like her father’s, speaking of other lands, like her blood. The rest of her—the cheekbones that rose high above her lips, the mouth that had a tendency to quicken into a smile as much as a frown—hadn’t altered much. She wanted—Leena could not suppress the thought quickly enough—to look more carefree. And yet, even in the mirror, she looked burdened.
She pinched her cheeks before setting the mask carefully over her face.
—
Leena and St. Silas stepped out of the carriage in New Algaraa District.
Night had descended and the revelers were in full swing. Leena stood for a moment taking in the scene before her. Children weaved through the throng holding ribbons with cutouts of paper demons. A young man started playing a fiddle, the music filling the crowd with an excited buzz. The juxtaposition of bright colors coupled with the demonic disguises gave the festival an enchanted aura.
Ahead of her, a woman wearing a bone-white mask began dancing to the music, and a man in a smiling demon disguise joined her. Leena paused to watch for a moment, until the dance became wild and sensuous. Then she turned away quickly, feeling embarrassed without knowing why.
She focused on following her employer, his decisive gait cutting through the crowded street with ease. Like her, he didn’t wear a demon disguise but a mask with lupine eyes that left the contours of his sharp jaw exposed. He hadn’t shared his purpose in attending the festival with Leena, despite her questions in the carriage. Nor had he chided her for her change of outfit.
He led her away from the revelers, toward a cathedral that stoodfrowning over the festivities. It had been left abandoned for years, the structure weak, the roof caving in. In the quiet courtyard, the noise had dimmed to a low hum, the stone walls and the sullen statues of the Saints guarding them from view.
A man stood beside a bronze sculpture of the Saint of Silence.
Another Black Coat.
He didn’t wear a mask. His watchful eyes were pinched over his bulbous nose; his frame was large, the muscles stretching the fabric of his jacket. He hadn’t noticed them yet, although he kept turning to peer over his shoulder uneasily.
St. Silas’s hand on her elbow stopped her by the iron gates just before they entered the courtyard. “That is Basil Richards. Do you see a ghost by him?”
By now, she knew there was no point questioning St. Silas’s motives.
Leena trained her eyes on the courtyard. Yes, there was a flickering of movement directly behind the Black Coat: a gaunt man dressed in the striped uniform of the incarcerated.
Leena nodded at the Saint and reached for her copper coins as the phantom prisoner eased away from the Black Coat and drifted toward her, but she didn’t strike them together yet.
As the phantom approached, she could see he was clearly Algaraan, his brown skin no fainter after death. When he turned around, she noticed a knife buried deep in his spine. Leena tried as best she could to describe him to St. Silas. “There are initials on the knife inserted into his back—B.R?”
“Basil Richards keeps busy, I see,” St. Silas murmured, his smile thin, eyes alert on the nothingness beside her. “Good.” He turned back to Leena. “Anything else?”
“There’s also inking on the prisoner’s wrist.” Leena paused, assessing the phantom slowly. The ghost watched her with searching eyes. “No, not inking. A brand—” Her breath hitched when she saw the seven brutal letters burned into his skin.“The Wake,”she whispered.
St. Silas’s head tilted toward her as if in confirmation. “Ah.”
He stepped toward the entrance, but Leena moved to stand in his way. Her pulse thrummed in her neck. Waves of images flashed through her mind—of Mama pleading with Leena to save her father from the Wake.
St. Silas took in her defiant eyes, the harsh tilt to her chin. “You want to question Basil about the Wake?”
