The Mime Order (62 page)

“This is the fate that will befall them all.” Nashira watched me
with
that mockery of a smile. “It can end tomorrow if you turn back now.”

A hollow sound clattered from my host’s throat, something that might have passed for a laugh.

Voyants, do you hear me?

“It will end,” I said, “when there are no Rephaim left on this side of the veil. When you rot with the rest of your world. The moths are out of the box, Nashira. Tomorrow, we will be at war.”

A word that most syndicate voyants would never use. Even
gang war
didn’t have quite the same weight as that word when it stood alone.

Do you hear me?

“War.” Nashira’s face was blank. “You have threatened us with your thieves and thugs before, yet still we have seen nothing. Your threats are empty.” She paced past me with silent footsteps, back to the windows that looked over Westminster Bridge. “I would almost believe that this syndicate of yours did not exist, were it not for the steady stream of voyants we have received from the Unnatural Assembly over the years.”

Do you hear me?

“The gray market was never supposed to exist,” the enemy continued, “but I confess, it has had its uses over the years. The voyants we received through that channel were always far more powerful than those that Scion plucked from the street. The Rag and Bone Man has been our ally for many years, along with the Abbess, Haymarket Hector and the Wicked Lady.”

“Three of those four are dead.” My vision flickered. “Looks like you’ll have to make some new friends.”

“Oh, I but I have an old one.” Nashira didn’t smile. “A very old ally. One who returned to me at two o’clock this morning, after twenty long years of estrangement. One who does not recognize you as Underqueen, despite your . . . association.” She turned away,
looking
out of the windows. “Miss Burnish, summon him. 40 ought to meet our mutual friend in person.”

Scarlett Burnish walked across the room, as swift and poised as she was in the studio, and opened the double doors. A sound echoed through the hallway beyond. The clink of metal against marble.

And when he arrived, I knew his face.

Yes, I knew it very well.

Words, my walker . . . words are everything. Words give wings even to those who have been stamped upon, broken beyond all hope of repair . . .

No words. No wings.

Dance and fall
.

Like a puppet. All those years of dancing.

The doors swung open. I looked up, knowing the mistake I’d made, knowing what a fool I’d been to trust, to care, to let him live.

“You,” I whispered.

“Yes.” His hands were gloved in silk. “Me, O my lovely.”

THE SEVEN ORDERS OF CLAIRVOYANCE

—According to
On The Merits of Unnaturalness
—

Glossary

The slang used by clairvoyants in
The Mime Order
is loosely based on words used in the criminal underworld of London in the nineteenth century, with some amendments to meaning or usage. Other words have been invented by the author or taken from modern English or transliterated Hebrew.

Æther
: [noun] The spirit realm, accessible by clairvoyants.

Amaranth
: [noun] A flower that grows in the Netherworld. Its essence helps to heal spiritual injuries.

Amaurotic
: [noun
or
adjective] Non-clairvoyant.

Bone Season
: [noun] The decadal harvest of clairvoyant humans, organ-ised by Scion in order to appease the Rephaim.

Boundling
: [noun] A spirit that obeys a binder.

Brogue
: [noun] An ethnic slur for an Irish person. Generally agreed to have originated from the name for an Irish accent, but may also be a result of an anti-Scion rebellion in Belfast; from “Belfast rogue.”

Buck cab
: [noun] A cab that accepts voyant clients. Many buck cabbies are employed by the syndicate.

Busking
: [noun] Cash-in-hand clairvoyance. Most buskers offer to read fortunes for money. Not permitted within the clairvoyant crime syndicate unless the busker pays the local mime-lord or mime-queen a certain percentage of their earnings.

Chair-
warmer
: [noun] A useless, vapid person whose job is to look attractive.