The Mime Order Read online

  Nick came to stand beside me. “How did we let this happen?” he murmured.

  “They keep some of us in the Tower for years before they’re sent down here.”

  He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Do you remember being brought here?”

  “No. I was fluxed.”

  A gust of tiny spots crossed my vision. I raised my fingers to my temple. The amaranth Warden had given me had healed most of the damage to my dreamscape, but a faint sense of malaise hung around my head, and from time to time my vision faltered.

  “We need to get moving,” I said, watching the others climb on to the platform.

  There were two exits: a large elevator, big enough to accommodate several stretchers at a time, and a heavy metal door marked FIRE EXIT. Nick opened it.

  “Looks like we’re taking the stairs,” he said. “Anyone know the layout of the Tower complex?”

  The only landmark I knew was White Tower, the keep and heart of the prison complex, run by an elite security force called the Guard Extraordinary. In the syndicate we called them Ravens: cruel, black-clad Vigiles with a limitless number of torture methods.

  “I do.” Nell raised her hand. “Some of it.”

  “What’s your name?” Nick said.

  “It’s 9. I mean, Nell.” She resembled my friend Liss enough to have fooled the Overseer with a mask and costume—curling black hair, the same sylphlike build—but her face was made of harder lines. Her skin had a deep olive tone, and where Liss’s eyes had been small and very dark, Nell’s were a limpid aqua.

  Nick’s voice softened. “Tell us what you know.”

  “It was ten years ago. They might have changed it.”

  “Anything’s better than nothing.”

  “They didn’t use flux on a few of us,” she said. “I was pretending to be unconscious. If those stairs come up near the elevator doors, I think we’re going to be standing right behind the Traitors’ Gate, but it’ll be locked.”

  “I can deal with locks.” Nadine held up a leather pouch of picks. “And Ravens, if they want a fight.”

  “Don’t get cocky. We’re not fighting.” Nick looked up at the low ceiling. “How many of us are there, Paige?”

  “Twenty-eight,” I said.

  “Let’s move in small groups. We can go up first with Nell. Binder, Diamond, can you keep an eye on—?”

  “I hope very much,” Jaxon said, “that you are not presuming to give me orders, Red Vision.”

  In the blur of getting off the train and finding the platform, I’d scarcely noticed him. He was standing in the shadows, his hand on his cane, straight and bright as a newly lit candle.

  After a moment, Nick flexed his jaw. “I was asking for your help,” he said.

  “I will stay here until you clear a path.” Jaxon sniffed. “You can dirty your hands plucking feathers off the Ravens.”

  I took Nick by the arm. “Of course we can,” he muttered, not quite loudly enough for Jaxon to hear.

  “I’ll watch them,” Zeke said. He hadn’t spoken for the whole train journey. One of his hands was clamped over his shoulder, the other wrapped into a white-knuckled fist.

  Nick swallowed and beckoned to Nell. “Lead the way.”

  Leaving the prisoners, the three of us followed Nell up a flight of steep, winding steps. She was quick as a bird; I found myself struggling to keep up. Every muscle in my legs was burning. Our footfalls were too loud, echoing above and below us. Behind me, Nick’s boot caught on a step. Nadine grabbed his elbow.

  At the top, Nell slowed down and cracked open another door. The distant howl of civil defense sirens came rushing into the passageway. If they knew we were missing, it was only a matter of time until they worked out where we were.

  “All clear,” Nell whispered.

  I took my hunting knife from my backpack. Using guns would draw out every Raven in the keep. Behind me, Nick took out a small gray handset and punched a few keys.

  “Come on, Eliza,” he muttered. “Jävla telefon . . .”

  I glanced at him. “Send her an image.”

  “I have. We need to know how long she’ll be.”

  As Nell had predicted, the entrance to the stairwell was opposite the deactivated elevator. To the right was a wall of enormous bricks, sealed with mortar, and to the left, built under a sweeping stone archway, was Traitors’ Gate: a solemn black construction with a latticed lunette, used as an entrance during the monarch days. We were low down here, too low to be seen from the guard towers. A flight of stone steps stretched beyond the gate, lichen-splotched, with a narrow ramp for stretchers.

  The moon illuminated what little I could see of the White Tower. A high wall stood between the keep and the gate—something we could hide behind. A powerful searchlight beamed from a turret. The sirens roared a single, unbroken note. In Scion, that signaled a major security breach.

  “That’s where the guards live.” Nell pointed to the keep. “They keep the voyants in the Bloody Tower.”

  “Where will the steps take us?” I said.

  “The innermost keep. We have to hurry.”

  As she spoke, a unit of Ravens came marching up the path, directly opposite the gate. We flattened ourselves against the walls. A bead of sweat trembled at Nick’s temple. If they saw that the gate was secure, they might not check it.

  Luck was on our side. The Ravens moved on. Once they were out of sight, I pushed myself from the wall with trembling arms. Nell slid to the ground, swearing under her breath.

  Above our hiding spot, several more sirens joined their voices to the warning. I tried opening the gate, to no avail. The chains were held together with a padlock. Seeing it, Nadine knocked me out of the way and took a tiny flathead screwdriver from her belt. She slid it into the lower half of the keyhole, then pulled out a silver pick.

  “This could take a while.” It was getting hard to hear over the noise. “The pins feel rusty.”

  “We don’t have a while.”

  “Just get the others.” Nadine didn’t take her eyes off the padlock. “We should stay together.”

  As she spoke, Nick held the phone to his ear and whispered, “Muse?” He spoke to Eliza in a low voice. “She’ll be here as soon as she can,” he said to me. “She’s sending Spring-heel’d Jack’s footpads to help us.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes. The footpads should be here sooner.”

  Ten minutes was too long.

  The searchlight moved overhead, searching the innermost keep. Nell drew away from it, her eyes narrowed against the glare. She pushed herself into the corner and folded her arms, breathing through her nose.

  I paced between the walls, checking every brick. If the Ravens were circling the complex, it wouldn’t be long before they came back. We had to open the gate, get the prisoners out of the way, and return the padlock to its place before then. I dug my fingers into the groove between the elevator doors, trying to pry them apart, but they wouldn’t open an inch.

  A few feet away, Nadine took out another pick. She was working at an awkward angle, given that the padlock was on the other side of the gate, but her hands were steady. Zeke emerged from the stairwell with a flock of nervous prisoners at his back. I motioned for him to stay where he was, shaking my head.

  At the gate, Nadine sprang the padlock. We helped her pull the heavy chains from the bars, careful not to let the links make too much noise, and together we pushed open the Traitors’ Gate. It scraped against the gravel, its hinges groaning with disuse, but the sirens drowned out the noise. Nell ran up the steps and beckoned us.

  “They’ll have blocked all the exits,” she said when I was close. “That padlock was the only weak point in this place. We’ll have to climb over the south wall.”

  Climbing. My forte. “Vision, get the others,” I said. “Be ready to run.”

  I crept up the steps, keeping low, my revolver gripped in both hands. Another set of steps led up to one of the towers on either side of the archway. A quick j
ump would take us between two battlements in the adjacent wall, which was much lower than I’d expected. Clearly Scion didn’t expect voyants to get this far in the rare event that they escaped the Bloody Tower. I signaled to Nick to bring the others, then headed up the second set of steps, light-footed, keeping to the shadows. When I reached the gap between the battlements, my chest tightened.

  There it was.

  London.

  Beyond the wall was a steep bank leading to the Thames. To the left was Tower Bridge. If we went right, we’d be able to circle around the complex unseen and reach the main road. Nick took a pouch from his pocket and rubbed chalk between his palms.

  “I’ll go first,” he murmured. “You help the others down. Eliza will be waiting on that road.”

  I looked up at the bridge, scanning for snipers. There were none to be seen, but I sensed three dreamscapes.

  Nick squeezed between the battlements and gripped one in each hand, turning to face the wall. His feet sought purchase against the stone, dislodging small fragments. “Careful,” I said, though I didn’t need to say it. Nick was better at climbing than he was at walking. He shot me a quick smile before lowering himself and dropping the final few feet, falling straight into a crouch.

  It made me uneasy that the wall now stood between us.

  I held out my hands for the first prisoner. Michael was there with Nell, both supporting Ivy. I took her by the elbows, guiding her to the battlements.

  “Up here, Ivy.” I shucked Nick’s coat and buttoned it around her, leaving me in what was left of my white dress. “Give me your hands.”

  With Michael’s help, I got Ivy over the wall. Nick took her narrow hips, carrying her on to the grass. “Michael, get the injured people up here, quickly,” I said, my tone harder than I’d intended. He went to help Felix, who was limping.

  One by one, they went over the wall: Ella, Lotte, then a shaken crystalist, then an augur with a broken wrist. Each one stayed close to where they landed, guarded by Nick and his pistol. As I held out a hand to Michael, he was swept aside by Jaxon. He climbed on to the battlements with ease, tossing his cane over first, then leaned down to whisper in my ear.

  “You have one more chance, O my lovely. Come back to Dials, and I will forget what you said in Sheol I.”

  I stared straight ahead. “Thank you, Jaxon.”

  He leaped down from the battlements, so elegant he almost seemed to glide. I looked back at Michael. Blood was flowing from his cut face, down his neck, soaking his shirt.

  “Go on.” I grasped his wrists. “Just don’t look down.”

  Michael managed to swing a leg over the wall. His fingers dug into my arms.

  A gasp tore from Nell’s throat. A long bloodstain was blossoming through the leg of her trousers, coating her fingers. She looked up at me, her eyes wide with fear. A current coursed through my body.

  “Get down!” I shouted over the sirens. “Get down, now!”

  There was no time for anyone to obey. A torrent of bullets tore through the line of prisoners on the steps.

  Bodies falling, twisting and jerking. A piercing scream. Michael’s wrists slipped through my fingers. I threw myself down behind the balustrade and covered my head with my arms.

  Containment would be paramount: kill on sight, don’t ask questions.

  Nick was roaring my name from below, telling me to move, to jump, but I was paralyzed by fear. My perception narrowed until all I was aware of was my heart and my shallow breathing, and the muffled beat of the guns. Then hands were grasping me, lifting me over the wall, and I was falling.

  The soles of my boots slammed against earth, jarring my legs to the hip, and I was pitched forward a few more feet. With a dull whump and a grunt of pain, another human shape landed beside me. Nell, her teeth clenched tight. She dragged herself along the ground, then to her feet, and limped as fast as she could. I crawled in the same direction until Nick pulled my arm around his neck. I twisted away from him.

  “We have to get them—”

  “Paige, come on!”

  Nadine had made it over the wall, but the other two were still climbing the battlements. A fresh barrage of gunfire from White Tower had the survivors running in all directions. Danica and Zeke jumped, two silhouettes in the glaring moonlight.

  I sensed the sniper above us. A fleeing amaurotic girl went down, her skull blown open like soft fruit. Michael almost tripped over her. The sniper set her sight on him.

  Every nerve in my body burst into red flame. I wrenched my arm from Nick’s grip. With the single drop of strength I still had left, I threw out my spirit and seared right through the sniper’s dreamscape, sending her spirit into the æther and her body over the balustrade. As her empty corpse hit the grass, Michael vaulted over the wall to the riverbank. I screamed his name over the sirens, but he was gone.

  My feet moved faster than my thoughts. The cracks in my dream-scape were widening, like freshly opened wounds.

  We were close to the road now, getting closer, almost there. There were the streetlamps. The guns boomed from the keep. Then the roar of a car engine, and the blue-tinged glare of headlights. Leather under my hands. Engine. Gunfire. A single high-pitched note. Round the corner, over the bridge. And then we were gone into the citadel, like dust into shadow, leaving the sirens to howl in our wake.

  2

  Long Story

  She appeared at 6 A.M. She always did. My hand snatched a revolver from the table. The theme for ScionEye was playing. A sweeping, theatrical composition, based on the twelve chimes of Big Ben.

  I waited.

  There she was. Scarlett Burnish, Grand Raconteur of London, white lace frothing from the top of her black dress. She always looked the same, of course—like some hellish automaton—but on occasion, when some poor denizen had been “killed” or “assaulted” by an unnatural, she could exude manufactured distress. Today, however, she was smiling.

  “Good morning, and welcome to another day in Scion London. Good news as the Guild of Vigilance announces an expansion of its Sunlight division, with at least fifty more officers due to be sworn in this Monday. The Chief of Vigilance has stated that the New Year will bring new challenges to the citadel, and that in these perilous times, it remains critical for the denizens of London to pull together and—”

  I switched it off.

  There was no breaking news. Nothing, I thought, over and over. No faces. No hangings.

  The gun clattered back on to the table. I’d been lying on a couch all night, flinching upright at the softest sound. My muscles were stiff and painful; it took some time to maneuver into a standing position. Every time the ache began to ebb, a fresh wave would come, surging from a jolted bruise or strain. I should be heading for bed, as was my custom at dawn, but I had to get up, just for a minute. A glint of natural light would do me good.

  Once I’d stretched my legs, I switched on the music player in the corner. Billie Holiday’s “Guilty” drifted out. Nick had dropped off a few forbidden records from the den on his way to work, along with the small amount of money he could spare and a pile of books I hadn’t touched. I’d found myself missing Warden’s gramophone. You could get used to being lullabied by the lovelorn crooners of the free world.

  It had been three days since the escape. My new home was a dingy doss-house in I-4, tucked away in a warren of Soho back-streets. Most voyant establishments were ramshackle dumps, hardly fit to live in, but the landlord—a cleidomancer, whom I suspected had opened a doss-house just so he could finger keys for a living—had kept this one free of rodents, if not the creeping damp. He didn’t know who I was, only that I had to be kept out of sight, as I’d been beaten badly by a Vigile and he might still be out looking for me.

  Until we sorted things with Jaxon, I’d have to keep moving between rented rooms, one every week or so. It was already costing a fortune—I was managing, so far, with money Nick had given me—but it was the only way to know for sure that Scion couldn’t track me.

  With
the blinds down, not a single ray of light entered the room. I opened them, just a little. Golden sunshine struck my raw eyes. A pair of amaurotics hurried past on the narrow street below. On the corner, a soothsayer was on the lookout for voyant clients who might fancy a quick reading. If he was desperate, he might risk approaching an amaurotic. Sometimes they got curious; sometimes they were spies. Scion had long since had agents provocateurs on its streets, tempting voyants to give themselves away.

  I closed the blinds again. The room turned black. For six months I’d been nocturnal, my sleeping pattern matched to my Rephaite keeper’s; that wouldn’t change in a hurry. I sank on to the couch, reached for the glass of water on the table and gulped it down with two blue Nightcaps.

  My dreamscape was still fragile. During our confrontation on the stage—when she’d tried to kill me in front of an audience of Scion emissaries—Nashira’s fallen angels had left hairline fissures there, allowing memory to drip into my sleep. The chapel, where Seb had met his end. The chamber in Magdalen. The filthy, twisting slum of the Rookery and Duckett’s psychomanteum, where my face grew monstrous and misshapen and my jaw snapped off, brittle as old ceramic.

  Then Liss, her lips sewn shut with golden thread. Dragged outside to be fed to the Emim, the monsters that had haunted the woods around the colony. Seven bloody cards spun in her wake. I reached for them, straining to see the final card—my future, my conclusion—but as soon as I touched it, it screamed in a tongue of fire. I jerked awake at dusk, drenched from scalp to toe in sweat. My cheeks were damp and burning hot, and my lips tasted of salt.

  Those cards would haunt me for a long time. Liss had predicted my future in six stages: Five of Cups, King of Wands inverted, the Devil, the Lovers, Death inverted, Eight of Swords. But she’d never reached the end of the reading.

  I groped my way to the bathroom and washed down another couple of the painkillers Nick had left for me. I suspected the large gray one was some kind of sedative. Something to ease the tremors, the churning stomach, the need to grip my gun and not let go.