The Hush (13 page)

‘Poor things,' Dot said.

‘So you just broke in and released the horses?' Chester said sceptically. ‘How? I've seen the security that folks put on their pegasi stables …'

‘We went in through the Hush,' Susannah said, ‘and we rode out on the pegasi.'

Chester stared at her.

The Hush.

And suddenly, he wasn't so sure she was lying.

The Hush explained everything. It made sense, didn't it? It explained how the Nightfall Gang could infiltrate the most tightly guarded buildings, how they could sneak into banks and mansions without anybody noticing, how they escaped with the loot, unseen and unheard, like ghosts in the night …

Chester stared at them. Could it really be true? For almost a year now, he had heard tales of the Nightfall Gang. They'd even had a song renamed in their honour – ‘The Nightfall Duet'. All across the country, he'd seen the growing panic as aristocrats installed bars on their windows and increased the security of important buildings. If this really was the Nightfall Gang, he was in the presence of legends.

And they wanted him to join them.

‘What …?' Chester wet his lips. ‘What do you want me for?'

Susannah gave a slow smile. It wasn't a happy smile. It was a hungry smile. ‘Well,' she said, ‘we're planning a rather special heist. And for this heist, we need an unlicensed Songshaper.' She raised her head a little, and looked right into Chester's eyes. ‘One who's never been to the Conservatorium in Weser City.'

‘I'm not trained.'

‘Good,' Susannah said. ‘That's the point. We have a very special target in mind and we need someone who won't be recognised there. Someone to go in undercover.'

Chester stared at her, his stomach tightening. Surely, she couldn't mean …

‘We're going to rob the Conservatorium,' Susannah said. ‘We're going to fleece those scoundrels for all they're worth.' She gave him a long, hard look. ‘But for our plan to work, we need a man on the inside.'

‘Me?' Chester said, mouth as dry as newspaper. ‘You want
me
to sneak into the Conservatorium?'

‘Oh no,' Susannah said. ‘We don't want you to sneak in.'

There was a pause.

‘We want you to audition.'

Chester laughed. He couldn't help it. The sound bubbled up inside him, panicky and shocked. Him? Audition for the Conservatorium?

The room was quiet. Chester stared between the gang members, waiting for someone to admit to the joke. Dot looked away and Travis made no attempt to meet his gaze.

‘You're joking, right?' Chester said.

Silence.

Susannah gave him a serious look. ‘We need someone inside the Conservatorium, Chester. We only get one shot at this. They only hold auditions once a year and they're just under three weeks away. Do you think you're up to it?'

Chester stared back at her, stunned. He didn't know what to think. Hell, he didn't know what to feel. Six months ago his answer would have been
Yes, yes, yes!
He'd always dreamed of attending the Conservatorium. Of learning to craft true music and turning it into Music. Of playing sorcery into lamps, and songs into the night …

Of becoming a Songshaper.

But now? Now, he didn't have time for selfish whims.
His father was still missing and Chester had to find him. Even if the auditions were only weeks away, the job itself might take longer. For all he knew, it might take months. And what if he was caught? It could even cost Chester his life. Then who would look for his father?

Chester took a deep breath. ‘I've got another job already.'

‘What?'

‘My father's missing – his name's Wyatt Hays. He vanished from his bed and I can't … I mean …' He shook his head. ‘Look, I have to find him.'

The others threw each other startled glances. Chester looked between them and a chill passed across his skin. They knew something. They knew something about the vanishings.

‘You know what happened to my father?'

‘A lot of things might've happened to your father,' Susannah said carefully. ‘He might have abandoned you. He might've interrupted a burglary and been dragged off. Or maybe –'

‘He used to be a soldier,' Chester said. ‘A conscript, in the War of the Prairie. And when my mother died, he raised me on his own. He worked whatever jobs he could get, just to keep a roof over our heads. More than anything, he believed in family.' Chester hesitated. ‘He would never just abandon me. And I … I can't abandon him.'

‘Perhaps he –'

‘He was having nightmares,' Chester said. ‘Fevers and bad dreams, for days before it happened. And in his sleep, he kept talking about the Hush.'

Susannah blinked, but didn't move. No one spoke.

‘I didn't know what the word meant,' Chester said. ‘Not until I met Sam and he dragged me into this place.'

Silence.

Unexpectedly, it was Dot who finally spoke. Her voice still sounded light and lilting, but with a more cautious edge to it now. ‘What happens to the vanished ones is officially a mystery,' she said. ‘Originally, I was working on a theory that it was an imbalance in the sorcery levels in the atmosphere, which interfered with the natural Musical tuning of human flesh, but –'

‘You
were
working on a theory?' Chester said. ‘So you're not working on it anymore.'

Dot opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she shook her head. ‘No, not anymore.'

‘Because you found out what's really going on?'

‘That's enough,' Susannah said sharply. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and her shirt slipped back down to cover her wound. ‘You haven't earned our trust yet, Chester Hays.'

‘You know what happened to my father.'

‘Maybe.' Susannah met his glare with a cool expression. ‘Maybe not. But I don't see why we should share our most valuable information with a boy who refuses to help with our plan.'

‘You can't trick me into helping you,' Chester said. ‘For all I know, you could be lying. That's what you do, isn't it? You scam people – con them – and steal from them. You're nothing but a bunch of –'

‘Thieves?'

‘Exactly.' Chester stepped into the room. ‘A few days ago, I turned up in Hamelin with a fiddle in my hands and a hope of finding my father. Now what've I got? No fiddle, a bullet-hole in my arm, and a bunch of near-death experiences – all because of your gang. And now you want me to risk my neck again, just so you can nick some jewels from the Conservatori–'

‘The Conservatorium,' Susannah said, ‘is responsible for what happened to your father.'

Chester fell silent. He stared at her, mouth slightly open as it hung off the broken last word of his tirade.

‘This job isn't just to steal jewels, Chester,' Susannah said. ‘It's about justice. You're not the only person who's been hurt by these vanishings.'

‘You lost someone too?'

‘Something like that.'

Chester felt a tense sort of tangle in his stomach. He took a deep breath. ‘If I prove myself, you'll tell me everything?'

‘Of course.'

‘And you'll treat me like a full member of your gang? Not just some tag-along for everyone to kick at?'

‘Of course.' Susannah hopped down from the bed. She was remarkably steady on her feet, despite the injury. ‘If you want to be part of our gang, though, you'd be well served to start addressing your captain with a little more respect.'

There was a long pause.

Chester lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, Captain.'

The word felt odd on his tongue. ‘Captain' was a common title among only three groups in Melorian
society: sailors, guards, and thieving gangs. Chester had never belonged to any of these groups. The rigid hierarchy of the gang would take some getting used to.

‘Well then,' Susannah said, ‘Welcome to the Nightfall Gang.'

They shook hands. Susannah's hand was warm and slender and Chester found himself gripping it a moment longer than necessary. He fumbled backwards, silently cursing his own awkwardness.

This wasn't just an ordinary young woman. This was the captain of the Nightfall Gang. This echoship belonged to the most famous group of outlaws in the country.

And now, he was one of them.

Susannah stepped into the driver's cabin, her mind churning. Once the swirls of black water had drained away, Sam had boarded up the broken window with a sheet of metal. The other windows glinted, slick with the song of a moonless night.

‘So,' she said eventually. ‘You all right?'

Sam nodded. ‘The doc fixed you up?'

‘Yeah. I've had worse.' Susannah pressed a finger to her torso. Her wound had already begun to scab over, stitched together by the Musical strength of Travis's injections. ‘Another set of jabs tonight and one in the morning and I'll be right by tomorrow evening.'

The injectable healing tunes were shockingly expensive but Susannah had insisted that the
Cavatina
be well
stocked. In such a dangerous line of work, the medicine was worth its weight in gold.

Sam adjusted the wheel a little, turning the ship more sharply westward. On the sorcery map, the town of Linus blinked up ahead. ‘Lucky it was you not me.'

Susannah didn't respond. How could she? After what the Songshapers had done to Sam, he reacted badly to the mere presence of Music, let alone having a melody – even if it was a healing melody – pumped into his flesh …

She stared at the nearest window. Her reflection stared back at her, with tangled red hair and a face pale with blood loss. The injections would heal her quickly, she knew – but her wound was only a bullet hole. There were other kinds of wounds … wounds that couldn't be healed so easily.

Her gaze slipped across to Sam. The older boy sat tense and quiet, his fingers tight on the steering wheel. Susannah would never admit it aloud – least of all to Sam himself – but he had been acting … strangely. More strangely than usual. He had been reckless lately: always the first to charge into danger, to throw his life on the line. And it wasn't just the recklessness of a boy protecting his friends. It was the recklessness of someone who didn't care anymore. Almost like he was past caring, past suffering. Almost like he just wanted it all to end.

‘Are you all right, Sam?' she said quietly.

‘I already said, I ain't hurt. New kid got shot, not me.'

‘I wasn't talking about that.'

Sam looked at her. His eyes were blank: pale blue, almost eerie.

‘Sometimes …' Susannah took a deep breath, then
shook her head. ‘We're so close, Sam. So close to getting justice.'

‘I know that, Captain. Only thing keeps me going, some days.' Sam twiddled the wheel, spinning them deeper into the dark. ‘It's getting worse, though. Like a slow sickness. Every day it hurts a bit more.'

Susannah glanced up at the sorcery lamps on the ceiling. ‘I've asked Dot to change all the lamps on the ship – are you saying they're still not –'

‘They're better,' Sam cut her off. ‘But it still ain't like living before, Captain. I can still feel it in my head. All the time. Just the Music, running over and over and over …' He stared into the darkness. ‘I'm gonna be the one who takes 'em down, you know. Whatever it takes.'

Susannah watched him for a long moment, disquieted. She didn't know what to say. Finally, she wet her lips. ‘What do you think of our new recruit?'

‘He's a Songshaper, Captain. I don't trust scum like that.'

‘You know why we need him.'

‘Don't mean I gotta like it,' Sam said. ‘My pa used to say that tossing your rope before you make a loop don't catch a calf.'

‘What the hell does that mean?'

‘It means we'd be damn fools to get ahead of ourselves.'

‘Dammit, Sam, we don't have time for this! In a few weeks, it'll be too late to –'

‘So what?' There was anger in Sam's voice now, and he stood up with a flare of ice in his eyes. ‘That don't make it right to risk everything we've worked for.'

Susannah opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. There was something … unsettling … in Sam's anger. His muscles clenched, quivering slightly, as though his entire body was a spring about to unleash.

‘I've done everything you've asked of me, Captain,' Sam said. ‘But even you can't ask me to trust a damn Songshaper.'

‘But we have to –'

Sam slammed a fist on the bench.

Without thinking, Susannah threw up a hand to defend herself. She knew that Sam would never hurt her if he was in his right mind. But the lamps were swinging overhead, and a thousand cogs and wheels on the ship were spinning with sorcery. In this wild wash of melody, Sam's mind would be anything but right …

‘Sam,' she said. ‘Sam, it's me.'

Silence.

And then, one muscle at a time, his entire body seemed to collapse in on itself. He sat back down and slumped against the wheel, his breath ragged. Susannah watched, her heart in her throat, as the unnatural fury died in his eyes.

‘It's all right, Sam,' she whispered. ‘It's all right.'

‘No.' The word was almost a growl. ‘No, Captain, it ain't.'

Susannah reached slowly into her pocket. She retrieved a tiny lantern, stained with the familiar orange hue of Dot's magic, and held it up cautiously for him to take. ‘Do you want …?'

He nodded.

Susannah pressed her fingers to the glass bauble, flaring its sorcery into life. It was one of Dot's special lanterns, enchanted with a calming melody, and hopefully its tune would help. Sam took it from her with shaking fingers and clutched it like a lifeline, his breath still ragged.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, sounding broken. ‘Damn it all, I'm sorry.'

‘It's not your fault,' Susannah said. ‘It's
their
fault. They're the ones who did this to you. And in just a few weeks, we can finally make them pay.'

‘By working with one of them?' Sam shook his head. ‘No. There's gotta be another way. We'll wait another year, if we've got to. We'll find some kid who's good at music, and
we'll
train him up. Not a kid who's already got Music in his veins.'

Silence.

‘Dot's a Songshaper,' Susannah said quietly.

‘That's different. She got rejected by the rest of 'em. Makes her an outsider, like us. And besides, she never –'

‘Has Chester ever hurt you?' Susannah said.

Sam hesitated. ‘No.'

‘Was he trained at the Conservatorium?'

‘No.'

‘So he's not really one of them, is he? He's probably just some street kid, trained by another bunch of criminals.'

Sam stared down at the bauble in his hand. His breaths were slower now, lulled by the throb of the lantern's melody. ‘He says he ain't been trained at all.'

Susannah shook her head. ‘That's impossible. How else could he connect to the Song?'

‘Maybe he's just a natural.'

‘It doesn't work like that!'

‘Well, I'm not the expert, am I? Go talk to Dot about it.'