“Not for sale,” answered Kell, then corrected himself, “Not for you.”
Ned shoved up from his stool and turned to go, but Kell wasn’t done with him yet.
“If I brought you your dirt,” he said, “what would you give me for it?”
He watched the Enthusiast freeze in his steps. “Name your price.”
“My price?” Kell didn’t smuggle trinkets between worlds for the money. Money changed. What would he do with shillings in Red London? And pounds? He’d have better luck burning them than trying to buy anything with them in the White alleys. He supposed he could spend the money here, but what ever would he spend it on? No, Kell was playing a different game. “I don’t want your money,” he said. “I want something that matters. Something you don’t want to lose.”
Ned nodded hastily. “Fine. Stay here and I’ll—”
“Not tonight,” said Kell.
“Then when?”
Kell shrugged. “Within the month.”
“You expect me to sit here and wait?”
“I don’t expect you to do anything,” said Kell with a shrug. It was cruel, he knew, but he wanted to see how far the Enthusiast was willing to go. And if his resolve held firm and he were here next month, decided Kell, he would bring the man his bag of earth. “Run along now.”
Ned’s mouth opened and closed, and then he huffed, and trudged off, nearly knocking into a small, bespectacled man on his way out.
Kell plucked the bit of bone out of the air and returned it to its box as the bespectacled man approached the now-vacant stool.
“What was that about?” he asked, taking the seat.
“Nothing of bother,” said Kell.
“Is that for me?” asked the man, nodding at the game box.
Kell nodded and offered it to the Collector, who lifted it gingerly from his hand. He let the gentleman fiddle with it, then proceeded to show him how it worked. The Collector’s eyes widened. “Splendid, splendid.”
And then the man dug into his pocket and withdrew a folded kerchief. It made a thud when he set it on the counter. Kell reached out and unwrapped the parcel to find a glimmering silver box with a miniature crank on the side.
A music box. Kell smiled to himself.
They had music in Red London, and music boxes, too, but most of theirs played by enchantment, not cog, and Kell was rather taken by the effort that went into the little machines. So much of the Grey world was clunky, but now and then its lack of magic led to ingenuity. Take its music boxes. A complex but elegant design. So many parts, so much work, all to create a little tune.
“Do you need me to explain it to you?” asked the Collector.
Kell shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “I have several.”
The man’s brow knit. “Will it still do?”
Kell nodded and began to fold the kerchief over the trinket to keep it safe.
“Don’t you want to hear it?”
Kell did, but not here in the dingy little tavern, where the sound could not be savored. Besides, it was time to go home.
He left the Collector at the counter, tinkering with the child’s game—marveling at the way that neither the melted ice nor the sand spilled out of their grooves, no matter how he shook the box—and stepped out into the night. Kell made his way toward the Thames, listening to the sounds of the city around him, the nearby carriages and faraway cries, some in pleasure, some in pain (though they were still nothing compared to the screams that carried through White London). The river soon came into sight, a streak of black in the night as church bells rang out in the distance, eight of them in all.
Time to go.
He reached the brick wall of a shop that faced the water, and stopped in its shadow, pushing up his sleeve. His arm had started to ache from the first two cuts, but he drew out his knife and carved a third, touching his fingers first to the blood and then to the wall.
One of the cords around his throat held a red lin, like the one King George had returned to him that afternoon, and he took hold of the coin and pressed it to the blood on the bricks.
“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s go home.” He often found himself speaking to the magic. Not commanding, simply conversing. Magic was a living thing—that, everyone knew—but to Kell it felt like more, like a friend, like family. It was, after all, a part of him (much more than it was a part of most) and he couldn’t help feeling like it knew what he was saying, what he was feeling, not only when he summoned it, but always, in every heartbeat and every breath.
He was, after all, Antari.
And Antari could speak to blood. To life. To magic itself. The first and final element, the one that lived in all and was of none.
He could feel the magic stir against his palm, the brick wall warming and cooling at the same time with it, and Kell hesitated, waiting to see if it would answer without being asked. But it held, waiting for him to give voice to his command. Elemental magic may speak any tongue, but Antari magic—true magic, blood magic—spoke one, and only one. Kell flexed his fingers on the wall.