“I did not ask,” I said with the barest, humorless smile. “I am sure you are aware of a Rogue element in the city.”
“I am,” he admitted. He glanced out from under the trees, checking our surroundings. “I am expected back at the dig, soon. We should meet again.”
“Yes! Yes. Tonight?” I said, perhaps a bit quickly. The way he had spoken sounded too vague—I wanted to secure a meeting. “The fountains before the temple, in the city center.”
He hesitated, looking as if he were about to decline. Thento my relief, he said, “I will be there, but it may be very late.”
“Very well. I will bring a book.” I smiled at him and, finally, he smiled back. That smile threatened to disassemble me all over again. It was warm and sweet and a little distracted, leaving me longing for more of his focus, more of his attention. For his admiration.
I disliked myself for it. I was young and naive enough to be besotted, yet old and aware enough to recognize the folly of that condition.
He touched his helmet. “I will see you tonight, Ottilie,” he said, and left me.
For the sake of the present narrative I will pause at this juncture, but let me assure you, dear reader—this is a tale to which I will swiftly return.
Present Day
There had been a change in the city since Wake lured me through Baffin’s door. I noted it in a disengaged way, absorbing a series of subtleties that, together, cast the impressions and rhythm of city life into a tenser, more ominous light.
There were fewer pedestrians on the streets, and fewer smiles on the faces of those I did see. No governesses walked children home down the riverbanks in bows and lace. There were soldiers at the feet of the bridges, and though the traffic slowed in their presence, there was no honking, no shouting. The liveliest scene we glimpsed was a crowd at a corner around a collection of newsboys, who were doing a roaring trade despite the later hour.
Harden glanced at the boys and the stacks of papers in their carts, but we did not stop.
The scent of rotting fruit drifted to me as we slipped in the back door of The Three Trees. Harden beckoned me down a side passage then a stair into the cellar, where multiple voices sounded.
I blinked. The cellars were round-topped and extensive, larger than the establishment itself. They were also full of people—bustling people, running people, wounded people, talking people. A girl darted past with no less than six riflesburdening her arms and an old man deftly stitched a gash on the face of a crying, younger man, who despite his tears stood straight-backed under the light of an oil lamp. The lamp ignited the scar-like threads of a Gaslamp Entwined—a relatively new breed, as far as my kinfolk went, and the result of two centuries of selective breeding by the Guild.
There were tables laden with supplies, rows of well-lived-in bunks, and even rows of drying laundry off in a corner. An old woman perched near these lines, a pair of woven bassinettes at her side—complete with one visible, chubby infant foot—and a pile of mending at her feet.
“Oh, I see,” I said tonelessly, standing amid the bustle. “This is a Separatist hideaway.”
Harden nudged me forward with a gentle hand on my back, passing me off to a matronly older woman. “Can you look after her, Maggie? I think she’s in shock. I’ve got to—”
“Go.” The woman Maggie waved him off and bundled me away. “Come, dove, what’s your name?”
“Ottilie,” I said. I craned to look back at Harden, but he had his back to me, speaking urgently with several other people.
I submitted myself to Maggie’s ministrations, which extended to wrapping me in a blanket and depositing me on a bunk with a cup of tea.
The tea grew cold as I watched the chaos. I glimpsed Harden several more times, but always in passing. He caught my gaze, here in concern, there in distraction.
His attention, or lack of, felt distant and unremarkable. All I could think of was Lewis, and the pall of the subdued city above lingered over me like a fog. I remembered Lewis bundling me out of the cellar—saving me, ostensibly, to deliver me right into the hands of Madge. What was he even doing in Harrow?
Harden had to know something more. Eventually I rose to find him, setting my blanket aside. As I did, I noticed a table nearby. It was scattered with random items, including a number of pamphlets.
I picked up the closest and surveyed its bold lettering. ‘CITIZENS OF HARROW RISE: A CALL TO ARMS’shouted out from the page, along with a depiction of anEntwined man—shirtless and covered with threads—strangling a fainting human woman.
I tossed the paper back down in disgust. It landed next to another pamphlet, which declared in similar fashion, ‘ACT NOW OR WAIT FOR THIS,’ followed by a sketch of Entwined conquerors in the double-breasted, low-collared uniforms of the Old Empire treading screaming humans, including children, underfoot.
I took in the entirety of the table. There were half a dozen different pamphlets, all Zealot propaganda, represented here. All looked virtually new, right off the press. One was tucked between the pages of today’s newspaper.
I remembered the crowds around the newsboys, and clenched my teeth.
Baffin had to know about this. Perhaps, he had even initiated it, in some underhanded way.
Like my death by Zealot.
“Who the hell are you?” A voice snapped me from my reverie as a large frame loomed over me.
