Page 66 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘Did you notice anything strange, when you were with Mori?’ she said.

‘He and Kuroda were fighting. I couldn’t tell why. He made out like it was nothing, but …’ Thaniel shook his head. ‘He looked scared, but he wouldn’t tell me what was happening. Then my contract at the legation started. I’ve not seen him since.’

‘You know I really would like to hear what was going on,’ Akiko said. ‘I don’t have to use your name, you can be an anonymous source.’

‘I can’t, I’m diplomatic staff. Anyone who was there would work out who I was. Kuroda included.’

‘We could pay.’

‘I can’t,’ he said again.

‘Only you seem very worried, for someone who claims to hardly know the man. If something bad is going on and we print this, it might help. The injunction won’t hold if Kuroda’s using it to cover something illegal.’

Thaniel had to clench his hands. She was right, perhaps it would help, but Kuroda would know who the source was instantly. One telegram to Whitehall, and Thaniel was in an asylum forever, and Six would be sent God knew where. ‘I don’t really know him,’ he said. ‘I’m just surprised.’

She leaned across and gave him her card and an encouraging look, but she didn’t push any more.

‘What I find interesting is that it’s not just Keita and Takiko,’ Arinori murmured. ‘People are disappearing all over the place. Half the pamphleteers in Tokyo are suddenly missing. A shedload of scientists, too. There are injunction papers everywhere.’

‘I had someone come in the other day looking for his wife,’ Thaniel agreed, desperately glad to be even slightly off the topic of Mori. ‘She’s a physicist.’

‘A woman physicist?’ Arinori said doubtfully. ‘Like a pretend one?’

Akiko hit him.

‘A rich white woman,’ Thaniel explained.

‘Oh! You mean Grace Matsumoto, don’t you? I didn’t know she’d gone missing – what’s happened?’

‘Her husband doesn’t know. Someone came after him with a baseball bat when he tried to find out.’

‘Someone went after Baron Matsumoto with a baseball bat?’

Thaniel nodded. ‘He was shaken up.’

‘Kuroda’s going to go full tyrant any day now,’ Arinori growled.

Thaniel had to look out of the window. His reflection was older than he was. A police cordon and a court order. They couldn’t be dead. Mori wouldn’t have done that. Not without saying something.

Only, if he were going to do something like that, he would absolutely do it without saying anything. Thaniel would have lifted him bodily back onto a ship straight to England if he’d got so much as an inkling of it.

He didn’t know he had been sitting with his hand pressed over his mouth until Arinori leaned forward and brushed his arm.

‘Are you all right?’ Arinori said quietly.

He said something incoherent about the electricity hurting his teeth.

They were rounding a bend, which brought the horses into view through the window. One of them was chafing. He frowned when he saw a spark. Blue light trailed from the tips of their ears and the edges of the reins. He watched it for a while, not sure if he was seeing a reflection or something real.

One of the horses reared and the carriage swung hard.

The door snapped open by itself and flung him out. He landed in the road, which hurt less than it could have, because they hadn’t reached the cobblestone stretch yet, but his head smacked into the base of a telegraph pole. Through bursts of white, he saw the carriage jack-knife. Everything seemed to hang still for a long time. Later, he could remember how the silver studs on the harnesses were winking in the blue fire that trailed the horses’ ears and tails, and the odd stormlight behind the clouds that wasn’t quite lightning. He dragged himself up and ran to catch the nearest set of reins. The driver yelled at him to get back, but though he saw it, a flash of orange, he didn’t hear it. He didn’t remember hearing anything. He put his arms up to catch the horse’s blinkered eyes and then snatched the reins to drag it back down. He pulled open the buckles on the harness until the first horse was free to run, then the other. They crashed past and charged down the road, hooves still sparking, blue fire in their tails. He stood still in the road and began to feel the bruises down his side and the sting in his hands. When he looked down, there were strap marks across his palms from the reins. A silver noise was still whining inside his head.

The carriage was on its side. The door was facing upward opened and Akiko climbed out, then turned back to help Arinori. They both looked all right, if thrown about. Arinori scooped her close and breathed through her hair for a moment, his gloved fingertips on the nape of her neck. Thaniel looked away.

‘So we’re all walking from here then,’ Arinori said cheerily, though there was a brittle edge in his voice. ‘Honestly, Steepleton you idiot; what sort of madman runs towards a panicking horse?’

Thaniel shook his head, because it had been pure force of habit. For years, if anything dangerous was even in view on the horizon, Mori had navigated it to one side. He had gone towards that horse as if it couldn’t kill him because he had been certain that it couldn’t, even with its hooves six inches away from his face. But it could have. Mori wasn’t watching him anymore.