Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (16 page)

“It’s too risky,” Simon said.

“If they’re on the delegation, it’s likely they’re going to find out sooner or later,” Guy said.

“Find out what?” Fen and I said together.

Simon glared at Guy. “Saskia should leave.”

I folded my arms, prepared to do something drastic if they tried to make me go. “Not a chance. Tell us what, Simon?”

“Bryony?” Simon said, with a note of last-ditch appeal in his voice.

“It’s ultimately your decision,” Bryony said. “But I think you should tell. It might even help the process.”

“What process?” Fen growled.

“It’s not a process, exactly,” Simon said.

If he prevaricated any longer I was going to scream. “Sainted earth, Simon. Just tell us what the hell is going on.”

He looked down at Reggie, seemingly considering something. Then he straightened. “Fine. But if I tell you this, it’s dangerous. So one last chance to change your mind.”

“I think we’re clear on the situation being dangerous,” Fen said. “Tell us.”

Simon’s eyes suddenly looked very blue as he looked at me, and I wondered what he was thinking about. But I was more interested in what he was about to say.

“I think it’s easiest if I just show you.”

Chapter Ten

S
ASKIA

“Let
me guess,” Fen said. “This has something to do with you and a vampire.”

“What?” The exclamation left my mouth before I could stop it. “Simon?” I took a step toward him. Guy put a hand on my shoulder.

“Well?” Fen asked.

Behind him, Holly was watching carefully, as though she was not exactly sure what he might do. Bryony had an equally concerned expression, though one hand still rested gently on Reggie’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” I mouthed at Holly. She shook her head and pushed past Fen, coming to stand between him and my brother.

Fen stayed silent, his gaze fixed on Simon over Holly’s head. His eyes glittered—too green, too sharp. He looked almost feral.

“Simon? What’s he talking about?” I asked.

Simon shrugged. “I said, I’d show you. Guy, can you bring Reggie?”

“I’ll carry her,” Fen said sharply.

Holly stepped closer to him, her hand lifted as though to touch him. Fen flinched away. “I said I’ll do it.”

“It’s safer if Guy does,” Bryony said. “That potion you took can be unpredictable.”

That news didn’t seem to improve Fen’s mood any. “How?” he gritted out.

“Sometimes it keeps people going for a few hours and then it knocks them out cold. Where they stand. It’s probably better if you aren’t carrying Regina if that happens.”

Fen’s lip curled, but he stepped aside. Guy picked Reggie up as though she weighed no more than a kitten. He held her as gently as Fen had, worry frosting his eyes as he looked down at her still face. He turned from the bed, adjusted his grip. Then he paused. “Don’t we need charms?”

Charms? For what? And for that matter, why the hell did everybody else in this room seem to know what was going on except for Fen and me? “Why would we need charms?”

“The only people who know about this are in this room,” Simon said.

For the first time, I realized that no one else had come to help Simon and Bryony. Normally there would be others—prentices, orderlies, other healers—watching and learning and assisting as needed. But nobody had come into the room since we’d entered. Now that I thought about it, I could feel a ward humming gently behind me, sealing the room to prying eyes and ears.

Simon’s or Bryony’s work? If they were worried about being overheard here in St. Giles—which was not only a hospital but a Haven, a place of supposedly inviolate safety—then whatever it was they were hiding was serious indeed.

But I had no idea what it could be. Fen had said something about vampires. But that couldn’t be right.

Holly pressed a charm into my hand, a twisting dangle of glass beads and leather that looked small and simple. But the thread of magic that pulsed from it was complicated.

From the taste of the power, it was Holly’s work. Which meant we couldn’t be going far. Holly’s charms worked spectacularly well when she used them on herself but usually lasted only a short time for others.

“All right,” Simon said when everyone—apart from Lily, Simon, and Bryony—had been handed charms. Holly had tied one of them around Reggie’s wrist as well. Fen had looked at his as though he recognized it and his brows drew down, the anger in his eyes sparking hotter. Obviously he knew what the charm was for.

I couldn’t tell.

“Lily will go first, then Holly will activate the charms for the rest of you.”

Lily faded from sight, which was something I still wasn’t used to, even though I’d seen her do it a number of times. When the last smokelike image of her disappeared completely, Holly did something and everyone else in the room disappeared from view as well. Invisibility charms. Well, that solved that mystery, though it didn’t provide any answers as to why we needed such things within the walls of St. Giles.

After a minute or so, Simon gave the order for us to follow him. How exactly we were going to achieve that when all of us were invisible remained to be seen, but the more immediate problem was how we were all going to be able to leave the room without crashing into one another.

Holly took care of that, making me jump as she brushed past me to take up a position somewhere near the door and issuing instructions for how we were to proceed in a low voice. Bryony left the room first and as she passed me I noticed a tiny, faint glow of light floating in the air roughly at the height her shoulders would be. Follow the invisible Fae.

Holly’s system worked and we set off on a strange, mostly silent journey through hospital corridors that seemed too empty. I wondered if Bryony had given orders for no one to be wandering around for a certain period of time or whether she was using a spell to contain people where they were, but as I had to focus on walking—being invisible was an odd and unsettling sensation that made me prone to tripping over my skirts—I didn’t try and feel for any magic.

Bryony’s light led the way to the back corridors of the hospital, then down into its bowels via a series of staircases I’d never used before. Down and down and down. What exactly had the founders of the hospital been expecting when they built the buildings with several levels belowground?

As we traveled deeper, the notes from the metals in the building grew muffled by the earth that surrounded us . . . except, that is, for the familiar song of iron. That grew steadily stronger as we filed along, until the walls almost pulsed with the sensation. I wondered how Bryony bore it as well as she did. Or
if
she did. As the sensation from the iron grew even stronger, the little flickering orb of light dimmed, until it was only the faintest of sparks.

We turned at a final junction in the seemingly unending tunnels and suddenly the source of the ironsong was apparent. A massive door—warded so heavily it fairly glowed—blocked our path. I stopped in my tracks, heedless of Fen walking behind me, trying to calculate how much the door must have cost.

It was a horribly expensive barrier to whatever lay beyond.

A chill shivered through me. What was worth spending so much on to protect?

I was about to find out. Simon blinked into sight and started working the wards. The door swung open silently to his touch, making me itch to inspect it more closely, to see how it was wrought. To balance such a weight of iron so that it moved so easily was a skill indeed.

Simon beckoned and beside him Lily also faded into view. She stepped through the door and then Bryony and Holly also appeared. Bryony waited by the door, drawing on a pair of slim leather gloves while Holly held out a hand.

“Saskia, then Fen. Come up to me and put the charm in my hand.”

“I can kill a charm.” Fen’s voice was sharp.

“I’d prefer you didn’t waste all my work,” Holly said. She sounded like she was holding on to her temper with both hands as well. “Saskia, you first.”

I did as requested, moving carefully, hoping that I wouldn’t crash into Guy. I’d lost track of where he might be. Fen, I knew, was behind me. I reached Holly, dropped the charm into her hand, and then had to suppress a sigh of relief when I could see myself again. I rubbed my arms, one after the other, both to relieve the chill I felt and to prove to myself that I was indeed all here.

I didn’t envy Holly, who used such charms regularly in her work as a spy. Not being able to see my body was unnerving. I preferred seeing that both my feet were firmly on the floor.

Holly jerked her head toward the door and I walked through. Behind me, Holly said, “Fen?” He didn’t reply. I didn’t look behind me, focusing instead on my surroundings. We stood in another stretch of St. Giles’ seemingly endless tunnels. About fifty feet or so beyond us was another massive door.

More iron. More wards. My chill increased.

Soft footsteps came up behind me. Holly walked past me to stand by Lily and Guy joined her, Reggie still safely in his arms. Fen stopped beside me. I snuck a glance up at him. His eyes still looked too bright as he stared at Reggie. The air around him almost vibrated with his anger. I wanted to touch him, to help with the pain he had to be in, but I didn’t think he’d welcome it right now.

Bryony closed the iron door behind us and the resonance between the iron of each of the doors made the air sing softly around me. I found myself caught by the song, listened to the metals with wonder. I didn’t think I’d ever been in such close proximity to so much iron. My prentice chain warmed around my neck as my power flared in response.

“How can you stand to be down here?” I said to Bryony. Down here, the sense of power that usually surrounded her was muted and she looked pale.

She made a fluid Fae gesture, smoothed the leather gloves. “I can bear it for a little while. As long as I don’t touch the iron directly.”

I wondered how much she was underplaying. Being so close to so much iron had to hurt her. All of the Fae who chose to live in the City had to get used to some degree of discomfort from the iron in the buildings and machines, but that was different from being this close to what must be at least half a ton of iron.

Simon cleared his throat. “Before we go on, there’s something I want to tell you.”

Fen made a sound that was almost a growl. He had to be close to his limits of tolerance as well. Which couldn’t be helping his anger. He was frowning at Simon, his mouth set in a tense line.

I was suddenly reminded that he had grown up in the border boroughs, running half wild in those streets. Part Beast. Part Fae. Surviving. And thriving. He wasn’t the simple pleasure seeker he affected to be, this man. No. He was strong. Powerful in his own right. Not a man to cross.

And probably full of secrets that I didn’t necessarily want to know about.

Much like my brother, it seemed.

When had things gotten so complicated? My head ached, fatigue and apprehension tightening the muscles in my neck and back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know any more, despite my curiosity. Didn’t want to risk having my relationship with Simon altered by what he was about to reveal. He was my brother and I loved him and I wanted things to be easy between us.

But in these times of rising dark, perhaps things could no longer be so black and white. In the half-light, it was never easy to see the truth, after all. But it was important to try.

“Tell us,” I said to Simon.

He nodded and took a few steps closer to Lily, seeking the comfort of her closeness, perhaps. “A few years ago,” he said in his quiet, calm voice, “I was coming here, to St. Giles, very late—or early, perhaps. I found somebody in one of the laneways near the hospital. Injured, horribly burned.”

“One of the Blood?” Fen said.

“Yes.”

I stifled the pained laugh that rose in my throat. Only my brother would do such a thing. He hated the Blood for what they had done to our sister, yes, but his healer oaths would bind him to help anyone who needed it. “You took them into the hospital? Gave them Haven?” Anyone who wanted it had to be granted refuge in any of the Havens in the City.

“He was too far gone to ask for it,” Simon said. “But he managed to say something about being hunted, so I took him down to one of the old disused quarantine wards here in the tunnels. It was too close to dawn to take him anywhere else.”

“Why try to save him? Easier to let him fry,” Fen muttered. I got the impression he would have chosen the latter option.

“I’m a healer,” Simon said. “I had to try. So I worked on him. It was too late to do much. Someone had used silver and holy water on him. The Blood heal fast and the scars were already forming. I did what I could. But he’d been blinded.”

“How do you—” I cut my words off. On second thought, I didn’t know what kinds of torture it would take to blind a vampire. They, like the Fae and the Beasts, heal inhumanly fast. They can survive and heal wounds that would kill a human many times over. To lose his sight, well, the only thing I could think of was that someone had actually gouged out his eyeballs and then burned him with molten silver to seal the wounds. My mouth tasted a sour rush of bile, and I swallowed. Hard.

“So you saved him,” Fen said. “Then what?”

Simon looked toward the door at the end of the corridor. “I couldn’t just send him back out into the world. A blind vampire wouldn’t last long without help, and he said that Lord Lucius was the one who’d hurt him, so there was truly no hope for him if the Blood Court found him.”

“So you kept him? A vampire?” It seemed crazy, even for Simon.

“He asked for Haven. I couldn’t have turned him away.”

“The Blood would not scruple to turn humans away,” Fen said. Guy made what I thought was the start of a nod of agreement before he caught himself and stopped the movement.

“Not if someone had claimed Haven.”

“You believe that?” Fen said incredulously. “Do the Blood even operate a Haven?”

“There are Havens in the Night World.”

“I’d imagine they’re pretty dusty and disused,” Fen retorted. “Anyone fleeing the Night World isn’t going to stick around in that part of the City. If they don’t leave the City entirely.”

“Be that as it may,” Simon said. “How the Night Worlders deal with their supplicants isn’t my concern. How
I
treat anyone who comes to this hospital seeking help is.”