A Face Like Glass (40 page)

Neverfell woke in a small four-poster bed with soft golden covers and strokeable curtains, in a neat, familiar little chamber that smelt of violets. Yes, it was her bedroom in
the Childersin townhouse. Looking across the room, she could even see the outline of a dissected and partly reconstructed mechanical cockerel. They had not given her a new clock, but she could
hardly blame them for that.

There were clothes laid out for her on the chair, and she felt another throb of déjà vu as she saw them. A green dress. Green satin shoes. White crochet gloves with bobbles on
them. Just for a moment it seemed to her that perhaps everything that had happened since her first arrival at the Childersin household had been a dream. Perhaps she had never spilt Wine at the
banquet, never served as a food taster, never been stolen by the Kleptomancer, never knelt by the dying Grand Steward . . .

There was a jug and ewer by the cockerel. She got up, discovering she ached all over, and went to wash her face, then paused before her fingers could ruffle the surface of the water, and instead
peered in to see if she could make out something of her reflection.

No, it had not been a dream. All these events had happened and left their impression on her face. The reflection was indistinct and tremulous, but she could make out the expression of the eyes,
and that was enough. There were other ravages as well, a series of turquoise bruises that were starting to become visible on her forearms and the sides of her hands. She puzzled over these for a
short time, but in the end gave up trying to work out which of her misadventures had caused them.

She dressed, opened the door and stepped out.

‘Ah, Neverfell!’ smiled Maxim Childersin. His family were in their walking garb once again, right down to the toddlers in their pudding caps. ‘Just in time for breakfast. Come,
we are heading to the Morning Room.’

The Morning Room was unchanged, and once again the blue light seemed to wipe the mist from Neverfell’s mind like a hand rubbing condensation from a pane. Her head was clearer than it had
been for days, and yet everything around her seemed distant and strange.

Everything was the same, and nothing was the same, because Neverfell was not the same. The Childersins had not changed, they were as tall and bright and clever as ever. Their jokes were new, but
they still all knew when to laugh, and how to laugh, and how to stop laughing at exactly the same moment.

Only Zouelle seemed to be a little out of tune with the rest. The blonde girl was paler than usual, and there was something a little mechanical about her conversation. She finished her breakfast
before the others and excused herself from the table early, claiming she had a private project that needed to have its runes changed.

At least I can eat what I like now
, Neverfell tried to tell herself, and then found that she could not. Eating reminded her of the Grand Steward, as did everything on the table. Smeared
blobs of marmalade made her think of the ravaged jelly in front of the throne. Even the crystals of the sugar seemed to stare at her with his bleak, unreadable gaze.

‘Neverfell – how are you?’ asked Childersin. ‘You look distracted and concerned. Still a bit out of clock, are we?’

‘I’m sorry. I must be. I feel like the cogs aren’t biting.’ Realizing that she had not been clear, Neverfell hurried to explain. ‘Like a machine. Nothing is turning
right.’

‘You just need time,’ her host told her kindly as he spread marmalade across his toast and sugared his tea. ‘Time with lots of sleep and no duties.’

Somebody jogged the table slightly, and the water in Neverfell’s glass wobbled and bobbed. Suddenly in her mind’s eye she could see a prone body again, translucent blood forming a
pool around it like a liquid window pane. She had to cover her glass with a napkin before she could drive the image from her mind.

‘Master Childersin,’ she exclaimed impulsively, ‘can I go out?’

‘Of course! Borrow one of the carriages and go anywhere you like. But take guards with you at all times. I fear the Enquiry may still harbour designs against you.’

‘No! I mean, thank you, but I don’t mean out into Caverna. You’re going to send people into the overground world, aren’t you? Can I go with them? Just to . . . I just
want to see the sky . . .’

Childersin looked at her for a long moment and let his eyebrows rise in a Face that was half surprised, half amused. ‘What in the world made you think I was sending Cavernans up there?
There is no question of letting the secrets of the Crafts out into the overground, or letting the hoi polloi romp in bringing every disease on the planet.’

‘But your speech yesterday! You said . . . a rich and varied world . . . it could be ours . . .’

‘Yes,’ Childersin answered gently and reasonably, ‘but we do not need to go out there to conquer it, do we? With our wealth it will be easy to hire armies . . .’

Armies
. Yes, he had mentioned armies.

‘You can’t mean that!’ But she knew he did. He did not care if he never saw the ‘rich and varied world’ above ground, as long as he owned it.

‘We will be doing the overground a kindness,’ he answered, returning his attention to his teacup. ‘Right now it is a ghastly patchwork of petty kingdoms with short-lived
monarchs, and in desperate need of a global ruler with centuries’ experience behind him.’

‘It would give the Court a better way of ending feuds too,’ one of the Childersin nephews commented. ‘We could settle arguments through battles overground, where they can do no
harm.’

‘No . . . harm.’ Neverfell could not even feel shock or anger. She could only mouth the two words to herself, wondering if they actually meant the same to everybody else as they did
to her.

‘And when Caverna is capital of the greater world we can expand her, start digging down . . .’

Neverfell stood unsteadily, feeling that she was going to be sick. She remembered the Kleptomancer’s words.

. . .
Caverna herself is getting ready to grow or shift again, which means that everything is about to change
. . .

For a second, she could almost see Caverna as the Kleptomancer did, a murky, monstrous beauty, smiling her fine-fanged smile as she prepared to stretch and grow, shaking out her tunnel-tresses
as they became longer and longer. Perhaps Caverna had already known that such an opportunity was open to her. Neverfell imagined her discarding the Grand Steward like a worn-out toy, and reaching
for a new favourite, a man who could extend her empire and bring her new strength . . . Maxim Childersin.

‘Neverfell!’

She did not heed their calls as she ran from the room.

‘Still a little bit mad . . .’ she heard as the door closed behind her.

Sprinting back along the passages to the main townhouse, Neverfell found that she was having trouble breathing, but not from exertion. Every moment she could remember of her life in Caverna, she
had felt trapped and weighed down by the mountain above her. It had never quite crushed her mind, however, and for the first time she realized that this was because deep down she had always
believed that sooner or later she would escape.
Out
, had been the beat in her heart.
Up and out
.

If Childersin’s plans went ahead, there would be no true ‘out’. In her mind’s eye she saw the little scene in the painting Erstwhile had shown her, but with a stealthy
shadow creeping across the land and extinguishing the sun. Of course the overground would not really be plunged into darkness, but it would become a province of Caverna. Its people would farm and
be farmed like the drudges of the Undercity, robbed of their freedom and forced to serve only the interests of the subterranean city. They would feed the armies of the Court members, dying for
their intrigues like pawns on a chessboard.

Her mind was too full. It would split if it could not spill. She had to find Zouelle, talk to Zouelle. Even as she thought this, she caught sight of the blonde girl ahead of her, opening a
padded door and about to step through.

‘Zouelle –’

‘I am sorry, Neverfell.’ Zouelle paused on the threshold, eyes lowered, a carefully complacent smile on her face. ‘So many new responsibilities for the family, even I find
myself with so little time. I am sure Miss Howlick will be happy to help you if there is a problem.’

‘Zouelle!’ Neverfell felt as if a velvet-coated door had been neatly closed in her face. ‘I . . . I wanted to talk to
you
.’

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ Zouelle turned on her. The smile was still in place. Her tone was still calm, measured and her words had nothing to do with it.
‘Don’t you understand? Not everything is about
you
any more. There are very important things going on. World-changing things. And those of us who have to think to stay alive,
instead of just waving our face at people, are busy.’

‘What’s wrong?’ It came to Neverfell that she had been asking this question of Zouelle over and over almost since their first meeting, and the blonde girl had never answered
it. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Oh, of course something has to have happened.’ Zouelle’s calm tone was crumbling, and glints of bitterness were showing through. ‘It couldn’t just be that
you’re really, really annoying, and that I’m fed up with you. I’ve put up with your blundering, gawking and gushing for ages. And now you’re not my job any more.’

Neverfell’s first impulse was one of disbelieving recoil, and she nearly turned tail to run from the sting of Zouelle’s words. After a couple of breaths, however, she managed to
stand her ground.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘That’s not it. Not all of it, anyway. You’re my friend, Zouelle, and . . . and I think I’m starting
to understand you a little bit. You flutter when you’re upset, and right now you’re trying so hard not to flutter that your Face looks glued on. I know I’m annoying. Of course I
am. But I don’t think you’re annoyed. I think you’re scared.’

‘Well, maybe I’m scared of you!’ retorted Zouelle, the pitch of her voice rising uncontrollably. ‘Everywhere you go there’s trouble, and now you’re back in
this house. Do you think any of us want you here? Why don’t you just leave us alone?’

‘Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’ Neverfell asked in desperation. ‘Is it because I can’t keep secrets? Then don’t tell me what the problem is
– just tell me what I can do to help!’

‘Oh, stop it! You’re always . . . opening boxes with that big-eyed look! You’re never going to find one that isn’t full of poison. Never!’ With that Zouelle stepped
through the door and slammed it.

Neverfell stared at the door, her eyes aching with tears too confused to fall. She felt as if Zouelle had reached up and snapped their friendship in two in front of her face, and she could
hardly breathe for the shock of it.

But we were friends yesterday
, was all she could think, desperately.
Just yesterday she was helping me, looking out for me. What changed? Did I do something wrong?

Even as she thought this, Zouelle’s words came back to her, and stung her hard.

You’re not my job any more.

Perhaps Zouelle had really meant it, after all. Perhaps Zouelle had been ordered by her family to look after Neverfell, and the latter had never been more than a job to her, a tiresome,
difficult, embarrassing job. Now that job was over, and Zouelle had cast her off in haste and distaste, as she might a sodden glove or muddy boot.

The house was suddenly too close for Neverfell, the rooms too neat. Even the jubilant cries of the distant Childersin children as they ran from room to room, playing with the new toys Childersin
had brought back for them, jarred upon her. This was not home.

Maxim Childersin had said she could borrow one of the Childersin carriages to ride where she chose. Nobody stopped her walking out of the townhouse’s front door, though four guards
immediately stepped up to accompany her, and when she spoke to a driver he started readying one of the carriages.

‘Where to, miss?’

Neverfell suddenly felt exhausted. For the first time she understood how Grandible might have felt when he turned his back on the Court. She had believed that nothing would make her want to go
back to the cheese tunnels, but there was an ache in her, an ache to go home. She closed her eyes, and suddenly she could imagine herself back in its dim, reeking passages.

There before her mind’s eye were all the rinds she had painted with vinegar. There the floors she had swept. There the places where she had doused flames or smothered butter flies. She
could almost see the thousands of days she had lost there littering the tunnels like empty eggshells, the meat of them long gone. The old panic crept up on her with panther steps, until she could
feel its breath on the back of her neck.

It isn’t home any more. Where is home?

Struck by inspiration, she opened her eyes.

‘Can you take me to Madame Appeline’s tunnels, please?’

Madame Appeline. Perhaps she could find a haven with the Facesmith, who had talked to her so kindly at their last parting. Neverfell’s spirits immediately struggled to their feet, and even
managed a small punch-drunk caper when at last Madame Appeline’s distinctive front door hoved into view.