Lila cursed herself. How had she missed it? On a surface that small, no space or symbol would be wasted. She searched her memory—the moon had been waning the last few nights, the sky growing darker. If it was a full moon, that could be weeks away, but if it meant moonless that could be as early as—
“In any case,” said Alucard, handing back both coin and kerchief, “it isn’t happening right now. Good thing, too,” he added, turning to go, and expecting her to follow. “There’s something else you need to see.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Lila had traded the broad avenues of the northern bank for the narrow corridors of the shal, and found herself no longer standing outside a house, but in the ruins of one.
It seemed to have been torn down—no, torn apart, from the inside out. As she trailed Alucard through the remains, Lila noted that the act lacked the air of accident, felt more like a demolition. Which didn’t explain why she was here.
“This way,” said Alucard, leading her through the wreckage. Lila kicked a broken bit of stone out of her path. Amid the debris, she noticed pieces of metal, too small to be structure, a crumpled tea tin, spilling wire and twine. The splintered remains of a sign, the words once broken, soon repaired still legible.
Dread coiled in Lila’s gut. “This place,” she said. “What was it called?”
She knew the answer before he said the name, but it still landed like a dull blow. “Haskin’s.”
Lila groaned. She had been so close.
“And what of the man himself?”
“Doesn’t exist.” Lila cocked a brow. That was a surprise. “Shop seems to have been run by an apprentice—or that’s what they called her. A girl, goes only by Tes. No sign of her, but—just wait—where is it? Ah, here.” Alucard stopped walking suddenly, and Lila drew up short to keep from running into him. He gestured at the space ahead, where the rubble had been cleared. Lila looked. There was nothing there.
“Is this something only you can see?” she ventured.
But Alucard shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just focus. Or, rather, unfocus.”
Lila didn’t understand. She stepped past him, raking her gaze down the air. Still, she didn’t see anything unusual. And then Alucard carefully rounded the space and turned to face her. He looked wrong, like he was standing behind a pane of warping glass.
“What is that?” she murmured, half to herself.
Alucard’s hand flexed, and a breeze kicked up in answer, a current of dust that caught the light, and drew the shape of the mark. She frowned, following its outline to the ground.
“I have a theory,” said Alucard. “I think it’s—”
“A door,” she said.
He actually looked a little disappointed, like he wanted to be the one to say it. “Well, yes. Exactly.”
Lila stared at the echo of the door. She’d been right. The persalis had been damaged. The thief must have brought it here, to be repaired. And either it had been fixed, or someone made a mess while trying. She reached out, as if she could lay her hand against the mark, but her fingers met with no resistance. It was only an echo, a scar left by a spell.
“When did this happen?” she asked grimly.
“Last night, we think,” said Alucard, “or early this morning.”
Lila swore under her breath. If only she had come here, instead of Helarin Way. She’d been so close, and now, she had nothing. The persalis was in the wind now, and whatever clues she might have found destroyed, and whatever happened here in the hours before dawn, whatever answers she might have found—
Lila straightened suddenly.
For a moment, the wreckage disappeared, and she was back on Maris’s ship, the old woman handing her a small glass card. A backward glance, she’d called it.
In case, like me, you find yourself a step behind.
Lila’s hand went to her pocket, before she remembered she’d stashed it in the captain’s quarters. She turned on her heel, and strode out of the rubble.
“Where are you going, Bard?” asked Alucard.
“To fetch something from my ship.”
Part Ten
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN, INTO THE FIRE
I
GREY LONDON
Dead people didn’t hurt this much.
That’s how Tes knew she was alive.
The tavern was dark, the candles all burned out, but the weak dawn light leaked between the shutters, tracing the room in shades of grey instead of black.
She was no longer on a table in the center of the unfamiliar room, but on a makeshift pallet, made from a cushion and a couple benches pushed against the wall. Tes ached from her fingertips to the place she’d been stabbed, and far deeper, in the center of her chest. Like her heart had worked too hard, pumping all that blood, only to lose it.
When she tried to sit up, she felt the pull of stitches down one side, the tender skin drawn taut against the thread. She hissed through her teeth, then eased herself up, closing her eyes against the dizziness until it passed.
Tes tugged up her shirt—which was no longer her own, but a fresh one (and judging by the length of the sleeves and the way the hem skimmed her thighs, it belonged to the man who’d found her)—and studied the wound over her hip. The blade had gone in straight but deep, and must have missed the important parts, but it would definitely leave a scar. Nero was always telling her that scars were sexy (usually right after he came in with a split brow or a fresh scrape) but Tes thought of Calin’s ruined face, and grimaced.
Her curls were loose, falling in her face, but when she tried to pull them back, the movement tugged the stitches, and sent a fresh stab of pain through her side, so she left the wild mass and padded over to the counter, where the contents of her coat had been laid out: the stack of coins, and the doormaker, and Vares.
Only, the owl wasn’t there.
Panic fluttered through her, until she turned and saw the dead bird sitting on a table, in front of the man who’d saved her. He sat slumped forward in a chair, his head resting on his folded arms, and the little owl at his elbow. Tes took a cautious step forward.
Ned Tuttle, that’s what the woman had called him.
It was a weird name, but then, this was a weird place. The farthest world, the one whose magic had been lost. That’s what she’d been told, and yet, here it was, curling quietly around the shoulders of a skinny sleeping man.
The thread wasn’t bright—it emitted only a soft, golden glow—but it was there.
Stranger still, it wasn’t the same thread that had led her here, to this oddly familiar tavern and its odd proprietor. The one she’d seen in the dark had held no color, only a hollow black-and-white glow. The barmaid had had no magic, so it wasn’t hers, but Tes was certain the thread had come from here.
Her gaze drifted, searching the tavern. There was the front door, as well as a set of narrow stairs that led up, perhaps to rooms overhead. But there was a third, one that didn’t lead out onto the street. Tes padded toward it. Tried the handle. Locked. Back home, she could have simply pulled the threads inside the bolt to free it. But she wasn’t home, and things didn’t work by magic here. They were stubborn, and solid, and it was maddening.
Her hand fell from the knob just as something twitched between the wood and the surrounding wall.
A thread. Black-and-white, emitting that impossible glow.
Just like the one she’d seen the night before.
Now that Tes wasn’t bleeding to death, the sight of it tickled her memory. She’d seen its like before, that lightless shine that seemed to eat itself. It reminded her of the shadow that clung to the cabinet in her father’s shop, the one that held the relics of Black London. Even if it wasn’t, she knew better than to handle things she didn’t understand.
She retreated from the floating strand, when suddenly it reached for her. The magic itself twitched forward, shooting toward her with such sudden speed and force that Tes recoiled, staggered back away from the questing thread.
Her heel caught on a chair leg, which scraped against the floor, and Ned’s head shot up, his head swiveling around until he saw her.
He sighed in relief. “Oh good,” he said. “You’re alive.”