Scar Night

12

The Poison Kitchens

While Dill waited for Rachel Hael in the schoolroom, he struggled with a question.

How do I dismiss her?

After all, she had been given no choice in the matter either. Presbyter Sypes had thrust her upon him. An overseer who wasn’t a proper scholar, a teacher who couldn’t be bothered to teach him, a Spine Adept who encouraged him to break Church law—nothing about her made any sense. She was supposed to be teaching him about poisons today, but was, of course, late.

She was probably still in bed.

The Presbyter had crumpled over his desk before the dusty wall of books, and lay there snoring. A fly traced lazy circles around his head. There always seemed to be flies around the old man, and Dill had been watching this one for an hour. Occasionally it settled on the Presbyter’s ink-stained fingers or mottled scalp, until he twitched and it buzzed away for another circuit. Shafts of sunlight lanced down from the high windows, seething with dust. Full of the scent of ink and beeswax, the air hung like syrup on Dill’s wings.

The hand of the clock on the wall clunked a minute further from nine, but seemed no closer to eleven. It felt like he’d been waiting here for days already.

Dill stared at the book he was supposed to be reading,A Hierarchy of Bell Keepers, and he sighed. All the books in the schoolroom were like this: dry, dense, and reassuringly dull. Each possessed an authoritative weight he found oddly comforting, and yet he hadn’t been able to finish a sentence today.

Yesterday’s illicit flight still plagued him. Why had she encouraged him to fly? Not just encouraged, bullied . Rachel Hael was a bully. She was a bad influence. She was complicating his life.

Where was she?

Clunk. The clock hand took another tiny step into the wide gulf before eleven. The fly droned past his head. Dill swiped, and missed. For a while, he stared blankly up at the windows and imagined himself flying past them in golden armour, setting off to some distant battle.

The next Sending was tomorrow, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Borelock would still be furious with him. Had they repaired the archon yet, or would the pillar stand empty? Empty, but full of accusation: a monument to his incompetence, his failure, standing tall before the remaining ninety-eight archons, and before the Herald himself.

Sparks of pink nipped through Dill’s eyes.

Rachel’s arrival at the temple seemed to have triggered his bad luck. First the fallen archon, then the flight. He steered the path of his thoughts away before his eyes took firm hold of it. The Presbyter would never discover what had happened if they both kept quiet. He could put the incident behind him. A life of temple service stretched like a winding river before him. To navigate it without foundering meant following the currents of temple law. Dill nodded slowly to himself. When Presbyter Sypes woke up he would tell the old man he didn’t need an overseer. He would insist. All for the best.

Plates of blue sky shone high in the schoolroom windows, cool and distant.

Where was she?

For Dill’s introduction to the art of poisons, the assassin had arranged for Alexander Devon himself, the head of Military Science, to be present. Dill had met Devon once, years ago: a charming fellow with lively eyes and a warm smile despite his wounded skin. The Poisoner had smuggled him some sweets when the Presbyter wasn’t looking: Glassberry drops that stained Dill’s tongue purple for four days, and a bag of Acidsnaps that he had hidden on his balcony. The rooks had stolen those, whereupon he’d spent hours throwing stones at them until the priests had shrieked at him to stop. They claimed he’d broken a dozen windows, but it was more like eight.

The clock hand clunked again. Now it seemed to be moving backwards. Presbyter Sypes snorted, and mumbled something under his breath before settling back to his snoring.

Dill forced his attention back to his book.

The schoolroom door creaked open and Rachel peeked in. “Come on. Don’t wake him.” She beckoned, and disappeared behind the door.

Dill looked over at the Presbyter, then at the clock. He rose and followed her.

* * * *

Paintings of past presbyters, grim in their black cassocks, lined the wood-panelled corridor. Without exception, the old priests glared down at him with disdain, as if they knew exactly what Dill was up to and didn’t approve. Gasoliers hissed yellow tongues of flame that smelled like burning cherries.

“Devon’s waiting for us,” she said, hurrying ahead.

Dill ran to catch up. “Listen…”

“He’s in the kitchen. Again.”

“I’ve been thinking—”

“He can’t come here without whisking someone off to his vats. Annoys the hell out of Fogwill.” She smiled. “Which is the whole point. Devon could requisition staff from anywhere in Deepgate, but no, he harvests Fogwill’s own little patch. Bet you the Adjunct is on his way. Defending all those strapping young men from the Poisoner’s clutches. Gods below, I don’t know which one of them is worse. At least with Fogwill they have some choice in the matter.”

Dill noticed bandages on Rachel’s left hand. Her leathers had been burned across one side, her hair singed. She looked exhausted. “What happened to you?” he asked.

She waved her hand. “Same old stuff. Listen, when you meet Devon, don’t drink anything he offers you. He’s got a very strange sense of humour.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You didn’t drink from that little black phial I gave you, did you?”

“Uh, no. Rachel, I want to—”

“Good, don’t. Did you read the book?”

“Well—”

“Here we are, come on, hurry.”

A steep staircase led down to the lower banquet hall, the Blue Hall, where the temple guard took their meals. Breakfast had finished at nine and swarms of white-suited waiters were clearing cutlery and crockery from long tables, mopping up, and stacking chairs against the wall. Adjunct Crumb was already there. The fat priest glistened among his staff, a mirage of robes and jewels directing the cleaning-up operation, getting in everyone’s way.

“Adjunct,” Rachel greeted him as they approached.

The Adjunct flinched. “You? Why are you here?”

“Meeting Devon.”

“Well, he isn’t here. Look at this mess, look at the carpet. Why can’t our temple guards eat with their mouths closed?” A waiter collecting platters of pie rinds and pigskin from a nearby table grabbed his attention. “You, what are you doing? Don’t pile them up like that, you’re spilling food everywhere….”

“Trouble with the grunts, Fogwill?”

Dill wheeled to see Devon approaching from the kitchen, and his breath caught.How can he still be alive? The Poisoner’s wounds had worsened since their last meeting. Dry blood crusted the corners of his eyes and mouth. Skin peeled and blistered in a dozen places. Dark stains bruised his tweed jacket. Red and grinning, his head looked like a parboiled skull gleefully fleeing Fondelgrue’s kitchen before it had been fully cooked. A skinny kitchen porter followed him, peered at them over Devon’s shoulders.

“I would lend you some of mine,” Devon said, “but they refuse to wear the uniforms. Too tight, hellish chafing, I’m told. Apparently, you never seem to order them the correct size.”

“I’ve been looking for you.” Adjunct Crumb’s eyes kept flitting between Devon and the porter. “They told me you were recruiting staff again.”

“The tenth time this year,” Devon replied. “For some reason, they never remain in my service for long. Perhaps the work is too much for them.”

“What work is that exactly?”

Devon’s grin widened. “I shall not bore you with the details.”

Adjunct Crumb flushed. All of his jewels rustled. “Would you care to join me for tea?” he asked. “There are some small matters I’d like to discuss with you.”

Devon removed his spectacles and cleaned blood from them with a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket. “I should love to, but sadly I must decline. I have been summoned to perform a service for the Church.” He returned the spectacles to his nose and arched his eyebrows. “By the Spine, no less. Our new archon is to be instructed in the use of poisons. I thought a tour of our facility might prove enlightening.”

“Of course.”

A tour? Dill shot a look at Rachel, but she ignored his glance. She hadn’t mentioned a tour. How could he possibly visit the Poison Kitchens? That meant he’d have to leave the temple and walk through the city, and Presbyter Sypes would never permit that. There had to be some mistake. He looked to Adjunct Crumb for help, but the fat priest’s attention remained fixed on Devon.

“If you will excuse me,” Devon said, “the sooner I get this fellow back to the lab, the sooner he can be put to some use.”

The Adjunct’s flush appeared to deepen. “What use would that be?”

Devon leaned closer and gave him a conspiratorial wink, a trickle of tawny fluid curling around the eye. “If I told them beforehand, I would never get anyone to take the job.” He bowed. “Please, excuse us.” He turned to Rachel and Dill. “Shall we?”

“Just a moment,” Rachel said. She lifted a strip of pigskin from a platter on the nearest table, tore it into three, and then slipped a piece into each of the tubes at her belt. She plugged the tubes again quickly, and said, “Well, it was going to waste.”

Dill thought he saw the bamboo containers shiver.

“How wonderfully gruesome,” Devon said.

They left the Blue Hall by way of a vaulted passageway that curved around the eastern side of the temple towards the Gatebridge. Arched stained-glass windows in the outer wall threw colourful fans across the flagstones.

“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Rachel said to Devon.

“My pleasure,” he replied. “We can’t have our angel ignorant of Deepgate’s grandest export.” Taut skin stretched and cracked around the corners of his mouth.

A side door led them to the exterior end of the Sanctum corridor. The broken archon, Dill noted, had not yet been repaired. The porter opened the temple doors for them, and they stepped out into sunlight.

For every step forward Dill took, he glanced back twice at the temple. Armies of gargoyles crowded its black walls. Spires, pinnacles, and battlements rose to impossible heights. Glass sparkled like shattered rainbows. And, all around, the city curved upwards in a great bowl of stone and iron towards the abyss rim. The chains shimmered behind a veil of watery air. Dill kept his head low, ashamed of his frost-coloured eyes.

At the end of the bridge they veered right and plunged into the tangled lanes of Bridgeview. Here the city lapped the moat of chains around the temple itself and, finding no more space to expand out, swelled upwards. The very rich bunched themselves here: their townhouses brawled for space, abandoning the passages between them to permanent shadow. To allow the privileged to walk in sunlight, walkways had been constructed high above the lanes: slender platforms of silkwood swung leisurely from one balcony to the next, like bunting. The tallest and oldest dwellings overhung the temple moat, while those behind, as though jealous of this prime position, leaned in as close as the width of the walkways in some places. Often it seemed that a resident could reach out his hand to knock on his opposite neighbour’s window.

“Doesn’t your family own a house here?” Devon asked Rachel.

“West of here,” Rachel said. “If it’s still standing. I haven’t been there in years.”

“I was sorry to hear about your father—a fine general. I apologize for missing the Sending.”

“I’m sure you must have been very busy.”

“Work never stops.”

For once Dill was thankful for the gloom: it suited his mood. Of them all, only the porter seemed to share his dismay at being outside. The young man walked along all hunched, hands stuffed in his pockets, while Devon strode ahead with alacrity, his head high, and Rachel kept pace with him as lithely as a cat. Dill shuffled behind them and peered sideways at everything from the corners of his white eyes.

Tiny windows pitted the walls—only servants occupied the lower levels, and glass was expensive. Most of them were thick with grime or cobwebs, but occasionally Dill caught glimpses of the rooms beyond: gold-striped wallpaper, musty furniture, glazed figurines on a shelf. He heard a woman singing from an open window, where the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out.



The crabs he bought,

On Sandport dock,

He paid for more than once.



He glanced in there, but saw nothing more than a flash of an apron tied around a broad waist. Rachel, Devon, and the porter ploughed ahead, oblivious to such sights and sounds. More than once, Dill found himself racing to catch up.

Although the cobbles ran seamlessly between opposing buildings, the foundations beneath were supported by vast webs of chain. Deepgate’s engineers had constructed Bridgeview to some ancient, unfathomable design. Wrapped in ironwork, the narrow lanes spread out in a sinuous, organic fashion, weaving and curving, dipping and rising, like burrows tunnelled by mice.

They left one alley and followed the course of another for some time, before tacking back to continue their progress in the same general direction. So far they hadn’t encountered another soul, but just as Dill was beginning to believe he might remain undetected, a door flew open and a little boy burst from one of the houses and almost collided with him.

The lad, plump and pug-nosed, gawped at Dill. Dill gawped back until Rachel called out for him to hurry up. The boy yelped, and bolted back inside his home.

“Don’t let it bother you.” Devon grinned ghoulishly. “Happens to me all the time.”

When Dill next glanced over his shoulder, there were two children following them. The boy had returned, joined now by a little girl with red shoes and red ribbons in her hair. On being observed, they squealed and scampered behind some steps, peering over them with wide eyes. Rachel gave Dill a resigned look.

“We’d better take the road through Gardenhowe,” Devon said. “They’re still clearing up the mess in Lilley.” He arched his eyebrows at Rachel. “Oberhammer’s planetarium came loose last night. They tell me it rolled a mile through Applecross before it hit a foundation chain and leapt clear over the Scythe.”

“I heard,” Rachel said.

“Punched a hole clean through a factory owner’s house on the other side. Poor fellow was at the temple this morning, cursing the Spine to Iril and looking for compensation.”

“I’m sure the Spine will find him some other accommodation.”

To Dill, the Poisoner’s laugh seemed forced.

Pink blossoms dabbed the trees in Gardenhowe and lay in soft clumps beneath them. The two children had now become four. They kept a safe distance behind, giggling, flapping their arms, and kicking up showers of petals. When Rachel tried to shoo them away, they scattered behind the nearest trees.

It was early afternoon as they neared the Scythe. Gardenhowe grew denser, the buildings more substantial. Ash darkened flint walls. Heavily corroded chains and girders divided the sky into blue triangles. The lane narrowed, rose, and came to an end at a high wall between two towering roundhouses. A faded sign bearing the crest of Deepgate’s Department of Military Science sagged over a small red door.

“Here we are,” Devon said. “And not before time.” He gestured behind them.

Dill looked over his shoulder. Eight children now stood in a line at the end of the lane, flapping their arms.

“They appear to be multiplying exponentially,” Devon said. “At this rate the neighbourhood will be overrun by dusk.”

The door opened to reveal a wooden platform hemmed by a rusty balustrade. A rope bridge dipped steeply away from it and rose again to approach the main gates of the Poison Kitchens, some three hundred yards distant. The bridge spanned a section of open abyss that curved away on either side like a black river running through the city. Monstrous foundation chains spanned the yawning gap. Obese and soot-blackened, Deepgate’s Department of Military Science looked like a giant cauldron in which great chimneys and iron funnels boiled and steamed. Smoke poured from its roof and flares of burning gas erupted with distant roars. Gantries bristled underneath the structure, serving as airship docks. Dill spied the shadowy hulk of a warship tethered to one of them and edged closer to the balustrade to get a better look. The porter sank further into his pockets.

The rope bridge wobbled when they stepped onto it.

“Is it safe?” Dill asked.

“Certainly,” Devon replied, “provided you do not fall off.”

They soon descended below the level of the buildings rising on either side of the gap. A confusion of lead pipes connected the factories and dwellings to the city’s water and sewage systems. Nets hung everywhere: billows of hemp, dappled by shafts of daylight from above, sagged beneath the adjacent streets. These nets kept discarded rubbish and the occasional drunk or attempted suicide from plunging into the abyss. Ulcis did not welcome the living into his realm, no matter how briefly they remained alive there.

“The domain of scroungers,” Devon said, noting Dill’s interest. “You would be amazed at the sort of things they dredge from those nets.”

Rachel was studying one of the foundation chains extending above the rope bridge. “Callis forged those chains?” she asked.

“Among other things.” Devon glanced at Dill, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “The machine he used to quarry the ores and then fuse these links still lies at the base of Blackthrone. Our warships rediscovered it some time ago. Priests call it The Tooth of God.” He snorted. “You should hear their claims. The relic is waiting, watching over us, as though it possessed consciousness, sentience even.”

“You don’t agree?” Rachel asked.

“More cogs than cognisance, I think. Ancient, yes, and vast, as large as our facility here, but it is mechanical nevertheless. It once harvested metals from Blackthrone and brought them across the Deadsands to Deepgate. Now it sits derelict in the shadow of the mountain. The Heshette use it like a citadel. Can you imagine? A whole community of people, living and rutting inside like animals?”

“So you don’t believe Blackthrone was once Ulcis’s throne?”

“The mountain is unique, certainly. The ores it disgorged are singular, its very presence poisons the land around it for hundreds of leagues, but if it was ever a throne, then it was a damned uncomfortable one.” He paused. “But I do believe part of the legend to be true: that Blackthrone fell from the sky.”

Rachel looked surprised.

“Why not? You have seen falling stars—I believe the mountain was such an object.”

“What about the Tooth?” Rachel asked. “Could that have fallen too?”

“Now, that,” Devon replied, “is more of a mystery. The Church remains curiously reticent on the subject. I believe they wish us to forget about that machine altogether. Odd, don’t you think?”

Sounds of both furnace and machinery grew louder as they approached the Poison Kitchens. The air was pungent, heavy with drifting ash from the funnels. A foul-smelling residue coated the planks underfoot: they kicked up clouds of it with each step. By the time they reached the main gates, Dill’s feathers and clothing were filthy.

The Poisoner himself seemed undisturbed by the noxious air. He waved them through into a lobby which might once have been opulent, but had now been defiled by ash. Black footprints ruined its richly patterned carpet; aether lamps popped and fizzed on the walls.

Devon drew the kitchen porter aside, and opened the nearest side door for him. “Down there, left, one hundred yards, left again, right, third door on the right, up the stairs, second landing, fourth door on the left. Supervisor’s office. He will find you a mask and show you what to do. Got all that?”

The young man looked blankly at him.

“Shoo,” Devon said.

The porter hurried off.

“I do hope he lasts longer than the others,” Devon said. “It takes an age to properly screen workers, and I have barely enough to man the forges as it is.” He led Rachel and Dill on through a different door.

Heat and noise engulfed them, and Dill’s eyes widened. The chamber stretched into the far distance. Dozens of huge, barrel-shaped furnaces squatted in rows along the factory floor. Workers fed the fiery mouths from a line of coal hoppers that inched along rails running down the centre. Pipes as ample as temple spires rose from these furnaces and disappeared into a canopy of girders and catwalks high above. Narrower pipes snaked and branched around them like creepers, and valves blew jets of flame at intervals. Steam hissed and the furnaces roared, smothering the shouts of the workers, the constant scrape of shovels and the persistent slow rumble of the iron wheels of the coal train. Dill felt the floor shuddering beneath his feet.

“Fuel,” Devon shouted.

They followed the line of hoppers through the chamber. Sweaty, soot-faced men greeted the Poisoner with nods and the occasional grin, pausing further in their work when they noticed the angel. At each furnace door they passed, heat blasted Dill’s face and wings, snatching loose feathers and sending them spiralling into the heights.

Through a door at the far end of the furnace chamber they entered the relative quiet of an equipment locker. Dill’s ears still rang from the fuel room, and his skin felt raw.

Devon snatched a couple of strange-looking masks from a row of hooks on the wall and handed one each to Dill and Rachel. Tubes dangled like squid tentacles from their mouthpieces.

“To protect your lungs,” he explained, pulling on his own mask. “We proceed through dangerous rooms now.”

The next room was half the size of the furnace chamber. Its floor dropped away immediately and they rattled along a catwalk above lines of open vats. Milky liquids bubbled within; curls of steam rose towards them. Squid-masked technicians in grease-stained smocks adjusted valves, inspected dials, while others stood on ladders to remove scum from the boiling liquids with their oar-like poles.

Devon paused to inspect the work going on below. “Acids, alkalis, and ammoniates,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

“Weapons?” Rachel asked.

“The most basic. These components will burn lungs, skin”—Devon glanced at Dill—“feathers.”

Dill eyed the contents of the vats through the scratched glass visor of his mask. The air he sucked through the fibrous tubes tasted sour and vaguely metallic. His legs felt unsteady on the rickety catwalk. It would be very easy for someone to lean over too far.

At the door to the next chamber, Devon paused briefly. “Research room,” he said. “Do not remove your masks, and please touch nothing.”

They entered a laboratory, smaller again in size than the previous rooms. Glass beakers and tubes crowded wide workspaces. The chemists here wore smocks as filthy and spattered as butchers’ aprons. Engrossed in their work, they ignored the visitors as they poured and measured, mixed solutions, and scribbled occasional notes in huge ledgers. Racks and racks of stoppered glass tubes filled an enormous wooden carousel positioned in the middle of the room.

Dill approached the carousel and noticed that each tube held a few drops of red liquid.

“What are those?” Rachel asked, a moment later.

“Diseases,” Devon said.

Dill held his breath.

“Some induce fevers, rashes, influenza, jaundice, anaemia. We have solutions here to encourage infection, weaken bones, elicit welts and sores, or even precipitate sterility and hereditary mutation.”

“Sterility?” Rachel stood wide-eyed. “Hereditary mutation?”

“This is still a new science, and mostly we use poisons. But some derivatives of what you see here have already been tested in the field.”

“Against the tribes?”

“The idea appals you?”

Her gaze moved across the racks. “I knew about the poisons, but these diseases…they seem cruel, unnatural.”

Devon laughed behind his mask. “Nature is cruel—and are we not part of nature? Nothing we do can ever be unnatural, because our will is a product of nature, and thus natural.” He turned to Dill. “What do you think? Do you object to the use of our knowledge in this manner?”

Dill said, “I think that some things are best left to God.”

The Poisoner clapped his hands together. “Of course,” he said, tipping his head. “You are quite correct. Now, please, let me show you the core of my work.” He pulled some gloves from a drawer, similar to those the workers wore, and handed them to Rachel and Dill. “If you would be kind enough to put these on, we will proceed to the poison rooms.”

The first room was not what Dill had expected. The smell of brine hung heavy in the air. Pale green light rippled across the floor from banks of aquariums set into the walls. Devon removed his breathing mask, as did Dill and Rachel after a moment’s hesitation. They wandered before the tanks and gaped at the monsters behind the glass.

“The most deadly poisons,” Devon explained, “are harvested from those creatures found in the seas of this world.” He stopped before a tank. Yellow and green banded serpents writhed within. “Tap snakes, from the Ordan reef. One bite contains enough poison to kill half a hundred men.”

Dill watched the sea snakes wiggle back and forth above the sand. Unconsciously, he pressed a gloved hand against the glass. One of the snakes struck at it and he snatched his hand away.

“Here”—Devon pointed to the next tank—“among this coral, if you look closely you might be able to discern a parrot octopus. He is watching us now.”

A large black eye, ringed with blue, peered unblinking from the coral.

“More intelligent than cats,” Devon said, “and able to survive outside of water for a short time. We caught this fellow making nightly excursions around the room, until we sealed him in. He had a taste for the hammer shrimp over in the feeding tanks.”

Dill glanced nervously at the floor around him, wondering what else might have escaped its tank.

They walked the length of the chamber with Devon stopping at each aquarium to explain its contents. Dill learned of the vicious blisters caused by creepfish spines, and the slow, painful deaths endured by fishermen bitten by widow eels caught in their nets. He marvelled at the pale, globular jellyfish with their ghostly showers of tendrils. There were huge slugs with mottled blue skin, various anemones, brightly coloured gelatinous things of indeterminable shape, and armoured creatures like centipedes bristling with spikes.

At the end of the room, Devon lifted a curtain and they ducked through to yet another area packed with glass tanks. This chamber was brighter, but smelt musty; the air choked with sawdust. Pillars of sunlight dropped from high skylights, revealing dark shapes hunched behind the glass. In one corner of the room, a shelved alcove held bolts of fine cloth, one of which lay spread over a nearby table.

“Arthropods,” Devon explained. “Most of the poisons we extract here are less potent. However, they have their uses. A lingering death is sometimes more desirable than a swift one.” He glanced at Rachel. “The incident with Captain Mooreshank on the Towerbrack Peninsula springs to mind.”

She nodded.

Devon went on. “We are just learning to infuse spider poison into the silk of its cousin. Garments made from such fine material are beautiful but deadly.” He smiled. “Profitable too, we hope.”

Another curtain led to the third poison room. Damp heat fell on them as they pushed through to a vast conservatory. Green light filtered down through towering ferns, and a light mist sprayed from pipes in the roof. The air was dense with rich, tropical smells.

“Flora,” Devon said. “Touch nothing. Some thorns can pierce the protective gloves. Be careful of your wings.”

They edged through lilting orchids with waxy leaves, past creepers twisted around weeping trunks, vines spotted with pale flowers which hung like rope. Sweat trickled down Dill’s neck.

“These plants come from the Fringes: Loom and the Volcanic Isles beyond the Yellow Sea,” Devon said. “Some very rare specimens among them—very fragile.”

Something rustled amid a clump of leaves. Rachel reached for her sword, but Devon stopped her. “A catrap,” he said. “The plant senses our presence. They entice their prey near by shaking, to simulate the sound of a small creature moving through the undergrowth. Poisonous thorns around the base of the plant ensure that whatever predators come to inspect the noise do not leave. Dead creatures enrich the soil around catraps, and the smell of rotting flesh attracts yet more prey.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Rachel murmured.

Devon tilted his head and regarded her through the top of his spectacles. “In nature, deceit is a common method of ensuring one’s food supply.”

Beyond this conservatory, he led them into the cool interior of a high thin tower. A spiral of narrow steps protruded from the circular walls, rising to dizzy heights. Shelves cut into the stone followed the stairway upwards, each one packed with hundreds of murky bottles. To one side, a huge workbench brimmed with beakers, tubes, and flasks of coloured liquids and powders. There were also mortars and pestles of various sizes, brass burners, and clamps beside a stack of metal cages in which rats scratched and scampered.

“Here we combine and test our poisons,” Devon said.

“You use rats?” Rachel asked.

“Initially.”

Dill’s eyes followed the staircase up and up. It seemed to have no end.

“How many poisons are kept here?” he asked.

“Why, all of them,” Devon replied, dismissing the shelves with a wave of his hand. “Now, my friends, I must conclude our tour, sadly. I have an important experiment to finish this afternoon.” He gave them a warm, red smile. “But please, do not hesitate to return, should you wish to gain more intimate knowledge of my work.”

* * * *

Some time later, Dill and Rachel sat on the platform overlooking the Poison Kitchens and watched the ash from its chimneys drift into the abyss. A faint, rhythmic clanking sounded over the divide. Rachel’s legs dangled between the bars of the balustrade. She peeled large flakes of rust from its iron rails and sent them spinning into darkness. “What do you think is down there?” she asked suddenly.

Dill gave her a puzzled look. “Ulcis, of course,” he said. “The city of Deep.”

“You really believe that? Everything they say? The city of the dead? The Ziggurat? The Garden of Bones? An army waiting to reclaim Heaven?”

“Don’t you?”

“I used to.” She brushed a finger over the flaking ironwork. “Now I’m not sure. Everyone seems to be waiting for something better, even if that means waiting to die. But that doesn’t mean there is something better, does it?” She looked at him, then quickly away. “The Spine act as the hand of God, but I don’t think even tempered assassins can hear Him. The closer I get to them, my colleagues, the more uncomfortable that makes me.”

Dill swallowed. She hadn’t even been properly trained? “You didn’t let them temper you?” he ventured.

She let out a long breath. “God, don’t you think I want them to? To be free of all this. It’s like a physical pain.” She pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead. “But it’s not up to me. My brother is head of the house now, and he won’t sign the consent document. He wants to punish me because I can do what he never could. I can kill, up close, and live with it. Stick a knife in a man and watch him bleed.” She grunted. “In a way that makes me even more of a monster than Carnival. They say she wounds herself after every kill she makes, hurts herself to ease her suffering.”

Dill frowned. “Wouldn’t that cause even more pain?”

“There are different kinds of pain,” Rachel said. “Sometimes one can blot out the other.” She scowled at her bandaged hands. “All my scars were given to me by others. I don’t need to inflict my own, never have. So maybe I don’t deserve to be tempered. We yearn for the needles because it’s death without the fear of death.” She laughed: a hard, brittle sound. “The Spine should be hunting me instead of her.”

Dill studied Rachel’s bandages and felt uneasy. “You fought her?”

Rachel shrugged.

“Where did she come from?”

“Straight from Iril, if you believe the priests. A demon sent to harvest souls for the Maze. Others claim she came from out of the abyss with Callis and the Ninety-Nine. When the angelwine finally wore off, she began killing to sustain herself.” She stared hard into the abyss. “I used to believe those stories about her were exaggerated, I believed that Carnival killed but she didn’t really take souls. I thought she was as mortal as you or me. But I’ve seen too many husks left after Scar Nights, and I’ve seen the way she moves: she’s too fast, too strong. And her eyes…so much rage, hunger. Always black.”

“Can you stop her?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then why do you try?”

A bitter smile. “I’m Spine.”

They were silent for a while. The flames above the Poison Kitchens roared intermittently, blazing brightly then diminishing. Fat gouts of smoke rose from the funnels, swelled, and fell again as ash. Beyond, the sun was sinking towards the abyss rim. Through the haze of pollution, the sky looked bruised and sick.

Rachel detached another sliver of rust and threw it into the darkness. “There have been expeditions, you know, down there.”

That surprised him. “Into the abyss?”

“Secret ones. Unknown to the temple. People have stolen airships, made balloons, strange winged things, all sorts of contraptions. Gone down there.”

“What happened to them?”

“They never returned.”

Dill stared into the depths. Even here in the evening light, the darkness of the abyss unnerved him. Rachel continued to throw flakes of rust, watching them dance below like tiny leaves. Across the gulf facing them a siren sounded and a warship disengaged from its refuelling berth beneath the Poison Kitchens. It floated gently down, then nudged its way out of the shadows and into the wide gap, tugged by guide ropes. He heard the distant sound of pulleys cranking and the shouts of dockhands. Then the great ship broke free and burned skywards with a deep roar, climbing steadily until it rose above the cranes and chains and pillars of smoke.

They watched the ship turn slowly, black against the sunset.

Rachel stood up and leaned out over the balustrade. Iron creaked under her weight. “If I fell over would you catch me?” she asked. She lifted her feet, supporting her weight on her stomach.

Dill got to his feet. “I can’t fly very well.”

“Would you try to save me?” She leaned further out. The banister creaked again.

He took a step towards her. “Please, it doesn’t look safe.”

“Would you try, even if you knew you couldn’t pull me back?”

“Yes.”

Rachel leaned back and put her feet on the ground, but she didn’t turn to face him. “Maybe you would,” she said softly.