‘Not usually,’ Jimmy said, rubbing his eyes, ‘but since yesterday there’s been swarms of Gillies all around it.’
I spread the map on the floor between us, and Jimmy described what we were up against. The warehouse, as well as being guarded, was surrounded by a fence, with only one entrance gate. It was too high to scale, the links too tough to cut, and approaching in the open was likely to get us shot.
‘But there is one option, Underqueen.’ Jimmy flashed his wine-stained teeth at me. ‘One way you could get inside without being seen . . . but you’d have to be mad to try it.’
I leaned closer. ‘Let’s assume I’m mad.’
‘All right. You know how bleedin’ cold it’s been lately?’ I nodded. ‘There’s an old service ladder behind the warehouse that leads down to the Thames. Normally you wouldn’t be able to access it, but with the weather being what it is, the river’s frozen in that area.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘You’re not suggesting we walk across the ice?’
‘That is a truly mad idea,’ Maria said, looking impressed.
‘Mad,’ I admitted, ‘but not bad.’
My hands pressed together, so I felt my pulse in my fingertips. I had fought to be Underqueen so I could make decisions, but now I had to trust myself to make the right ones.
‘The ladder comes up near a hidden gap under the fence. Local junkies dug said gap a few years ago,’ Jimmy said. A grubby finger tapped the site on the map. ‘I can send you a local who knows exactly where it is. Mad it may be, but I reckon it’s the only way you’ll get in undetected.’
I was swiftly becoming convinced by the idea. ‘There should be back-to-back Novembertide celebrations; Weaver will have to allow a reprieve from curfew. That will give us plenty of cover,’ I said. Everyone nodded. ‘I say we send in a small, armed team – today. We get into the underground facility, locate this “core”, do as much damage to it as we can – or at the very least find out what the hell it is – and get out of there.’
‘When you say we . . .’ Eliza started.
‘I’ll lead the team.’
Glances were exchanged. ‘Paige,’ Nick said, ‘remember what we agreed. About your staying behind the frontlines.’
‘Dani said I could possess one of the engineers to see inside the facility. I’m better up close.’
‘You haven’t used your gift that way since the scrimmage. If you insist on going, you should ask Warden to train with you today.’
‘He can’t.’
‘Why not?’
I gave him a look that said we would talk about it later. His mouth thinned, but he didn’t push it.
‘I need to show that I’m not just using the syndicate as cannon fodder,’ I said. ‘That I’m happy to put my neck on the line, too. I’m not going to do this like Hector did, from a safe distance. I can’t.’
He didn’t argue any more.
Next up was the matter of who should come with me. Maria volunteered first. Three summoners, so we could call for help from powerful spirits if we needed them, and three other voyants who had taken Warden’s advanced training. A local seer, sent by Jimmy, would help us get in and out.
‘I’m coming, too,’ Nick said.
Eliza nodded. ‘And me. We’re your mollishers.’
‘I can’t risk both of you being captured.’ I considered them. ‘Eliza, I think an oracle would be more useful for this mission. I’m taking Nick. You can coordinate our exit.’
She folded her arms tightly.
‘Right,’ she said.
She had been waiting weeks for a chance to shine, but I couldn’t put her in the team for the sake of it.
‘I will ask Tom to check for portents, Underqueen,’ Glym said. ‘The ?ther may be able to offer us guidance.’
‘And I’ll try to source some explosives in the meantime,’ Maria said. ‘I owe Vance a little pain.’
Morning came, swathed in mist. The sun shone like a silver coin behind its gauze of cloud, and all over London, people were singing parlour songs around their pianos and wishing each other Happy Novembertide. Images of the first Grand Inquisitor, James Ramsay MacDonald, were draped from every building. The Grand Inquisitor of France had been expected for the celebrations, but according to ScionEye he had been taken ill. I would have expected Ménard to be on his deathbed before he missed such an event, especially as his visit had been so heavily publicised, but there was no time to dwell on it.
As the day passed, we prepared for our assignment. Glym, as the commander in charge of recruitment, assembled and briefed an infiltration team. A backup group would be ready to cause a distraction if anything went wrong. I worked out the route across the ice, based on what Jimmy had told us.
Nick was right about my gift. I might need it, and I was badly out of form. I swallowed my pride and tried the golden cord – no answer.
If that was how Warden wanted to play, so be it. Even if he had come, he might have gone straight to Terebell with our plans. I spent a while practising alone, trying to push my spirit into birds. It was late in the day when I successfully possessed a magpie and amused Nick by having the bird perch on his head. Less amusing was the headache that followed.
We set off as dusk fell. The team gathered in the district of Vauxhall, in a closed-down oxygen bar built into the railway arches. Nick handed out second-hand Scion boiler suits.
‘Everything washes up in Old Spitalfields,’ he said, when I shot him a quizzical look. As I zipped mine up, Maria strode in.
‘The bastard trader had sold out of explosives,’ she groused. ‘Because ScionIDE has never been stationed in London, there’s not much military-grade weaponry around.’
I tucked the legs of my suit into my boots. ‘Is that how it works?’
‘It’s the one advantage. If you have krigs nearby, you can steal their equipment. That, in turn, allows rebels to become militarised. You cannibalise one army to create another.’
‘Krigs?’
She waved a hand. ‘Soldiers. It’s from the Swedish word for war, krig. As Nick will know, there are a lot of them in Sweden.’ She grabbed a boiler suit. ‘We’ll just have to use fire.’
Fire was her numen. It would do. We had one other pyromancer with us – the redhead from the Mill cell – along with two capnomancers. They might be able to use smoke to mask us if we needed a quick escape. Jimmy had sent us two augurs, who refused to show their faces, and a waifish seer with the violet-tinged lips of an aster user. Three summoners had also volunteered; the tallest introduced himself as Driscoll. As agreed, none of them said which cells they were from.
We waited to hear from Tom, who had checked with our scrying squad that there were no ill omens in the ?ther, but after an hour, we decided we couldn’t delay any longer. I gathered the infiltration team around me.