With Fate Conspire (20 page)

It was hard going, in water that deep; the brickwork was slick below his feet, and Nadrett had them walking upstream. Dead Rick hoped it wasn’t raining outside, and watched the water in the dim faerie light, ready to flee if he saw it rise. It remained steady, and when they’d gotten some distance away from the Market, Nadrett stopped.

“Tell them,” he said to Nithen.

The fetch grinned. In the scant light, he looked even more cadaverous than usual. His voice echoed weirdly over the sound of the water, making his words hard to understand. “So there’s stories of a ghost in these sewers. Every year on this night, for a couple of years now. We’re going to hunt it down.”

Gresh looked confused. “But it ain’t All ’Allows’ Eve.”

Old Gadling smacked him on the back of his head. Nithen said, “Ghosts can appear at any time. The night they died, for example. This isn’t an All Hallows’ Eve ride, us sweeping away ghosts with the dawn; we don’t want this ghost going anywhere.”

“We’re going to capture it,” Nadrett said.

Dead Rick’s eyes went back to the sprite’s heavy case, which Gadling had taken control of. The water came nearly to the thrumpin’s waist, but he didn’t seem to care; the stocky faerie balanced the case on his head and waded through without apparent trouble. There were ways of capturing ghosts, but none of them—so far as Dead Rick knew—required anything so bulky.

He’d see what it was soon enough. “Where’s the ghost?”

“That’s what you’re ’ere to find out,” Nadrett said. He let out three more will-o’-the-wisps, then gestured ahead, and Dead Rick saw dark shadows along the walls ahead, openings into the smaller sewers that connected to this main trunk. “Start looking.”

That seemed to be directed at him, Gresh, and Nithen. Old Gadling braced his feet and served as a stand while the sprite unlatched the case. And Nadrett, of course, could not be bothered to help. Dead Rick went without complaint. He wanted to be the one to find the ghost—and maybe warn it to flee.

Iron shivered against his senses as he went, not hurting him, but palpably there. They were close to the Underground works, where navvies labored day and night to build the railway’s final extension; no tracks had been laid yet, let alone trains run along them, but there were spades, mattocks, nails for the bracing beams, carts to bring cement and drag the spoil out. The doom of the Onyx Hall, less than a hundred feet away.

Right, left, or straight. Dead Rick went left, climbing the slick bricks to enter the smaller tunnel. The flow here was neither so deep nor so fast, but that was at best a mixed blessing; without the force of the water to scour material away, the passage was much fouler. Dead Rick held his breath as best he could and peered ahead, searching for the telltale flicker of a ghost.

A dead tosher, most like,
he thought. People didn’t seem to be leaving ghosts as often as they once did. Or maybe ghosts, like fae, were being worn away by the changes in the world. All he knew was that Gresh complained every year about the loss of the old All Hallows’ Eve ride—an event he missed far more than May Day in Moor Fields—but the inability of the fae to sweep away weak ghosts each year, as they used to do, hadn’t left London neck-deep in phantoms. Maybe some Academy scholar was trying to answer that very question, and Nadrett intended to sell this ghost to him.

Another fork. The side passages were narrower still, barely large enough for Dead Rick to fit through. He didn’t want to go down them. But he was a skriker, a death omen, and instinct led him left.

He didn’t have to go far. Mist floated in the air ahead, where no mist should be; then it eddied as if turning to face him, and took more solid form.

Dead Rick found himself staring. This was no tosher. Nor was it a recent ghost. He didn’t need memories to know that knee breeches had gone out of style generations ago for anybody who wasn’t some rich swell’s footman. And footmen didn’t carry themselves the way this figure did.

It was a young man, slender of build, with the habitual dignity of a gentleman. He seemed relieved to see Dead Rick. “Oh! Thank goodness you found me. I seem to have gotten lost.”

Dead Rick was too startled to prevent his will-o’-the-wisp from streaking away. He hadn’t put on a glamour; despite his human form, he was clearly a faerie. And yet this ghost seemed completely unsurprised. Was it because he was dead, and therefore accustomed to strange things? Or had he seen fae before?

The ghost glowed faintly, just enough for Dead Rick to make him out. The skriker said, “What do you mean, lost?”

A laugh almost as faint as the light answered him. “I mean that unless I am
very
much mistaken—addled by death, perhaps—I ought to be in the Onyx Hall. But I haven’t seen so much as a bit of black stone in four years, now. Am I in a cesspit?”

The quality of the echoes changed. Dead Rick cursed. The wisp hadn’t bolted; it had gone to fetch Nadrett. They could take simple commands well enough.

Whoever this ghost was, Dead Rick wasn’t inclined to help Nadrett capture him. “Look, you’ve got to get out of ’ere. Go back to wherever you came from.”

“I’m sorry?” The phantom drifted closer, cocking his head to one side as if that would help. “I couldn’t quite understand you.”

Because Dead Rick had spoken quietly, not wanting the untrustworthy echoes to carry his words to Nadrett. He grimaced and flapped his hands, trying to shoo the ghost back, but the young man peered as if he could not quite see, either.
Of course not, because I ain’t glowing.

Then it was too late. “Out of the way, dog.”

When he didn’t move, a hand seized the back of his waistcoat and yanked, dropping him onto his arse in the built-up muck. Nadrett shoved him against the sewer wall, then stopped, staring at the ghost. In the light of the gathered wisps, Dead Rick saw a wondering and unpleasant smile twist Nadrett’s lips. “Well, well. Ain’t
this
an interesting surprise. Evening, milord—out for a walk, are we?”

The ghost frowned. “Do I know you?”

More hands, grabbing Dead Rick under the arms; with slime and shit greasing the passage, Gadling was able to pull him out with only the most casual effort. “If you remember much, you might,” Nadrett said. “Though after this long—a century? No, more—I’ll be surprised if you do. Don’t much matter either way. Chrennois, get to it.”

Nadrett moved out of the way. Dead Rick, climbing to his feet, saw the sprite go to the mouth of the ghost’s tunnel with something in his hands. A box, about the size of a man’s head but wider, with flexible canvas sides that allowed him to extend the front forward. Two silver-rimmed lenses were set into that front board, winking clean brilliance in the dim light.

Wary, but not yet afraid, the ghost said, “What is that?”

Dead Rick answered him silently, held frozen by sudden, half-formed understanding.
It’s a camera.

Lunar caustic, satyr’s bile. Nadrett
was
doing something with photography—or rather, this French faerie was, on his behalf. Were they about to open a passage to Faerie? In the filthy sewers of London? Dead Rick tensed, unsure what he was going to do, but ready to do something.

Chrennois peered through an opening in the top of the box, then pulled a lever set into the side. With a most peculiar noise—halfway between a moan and a
huh
of surprise—the ghost vanished.

It didn’t even fade; it simply blinked out of existence. The figure of the young man disappeared, leaving behind only faint wisps of phantasmal substance, which dissipated before they could fall to the sludge below. Those weren’t even gone yet when Nadrett demanded, “Did it work?”

The sprite shrugged, collapsing the front of his camera back into the rest of the body. “I’ll have to develop the plate to be certain. But he went
somewhere;
it seems likely.”

“Good.”

There was no mistaking the malicious pleasure in Nadrett’s voice. For the camera’s work, or the capture of that ghost in particular? Maybe both. He’d clearly recognized the young man, and just as clearly didn’t like him. That alone was enough to make Dead Rick feel sorry for the unknown phantom. But he couldn’t regret the fellow’s imprisonment too much, because it had just handed Dead Rick another piece of the puzzle.

Now if only he could figure out what it
meant
.

There was certainly no sign of a passage to Faerie. Were Nadrett and Chrennois planning on using the ghost in some fashion, later on? Or was this a test of the photography concept, a stepping-stone on the way to something greater? Dead Rick had no idea; what little he knew about science came by way of the mortal and faerie inventions that occasionally appeared in the Goblin Market. But the voice, he was willing to bet, would know more.

For one unpleasant moment he thought he’d given his intentions away, when Nadrett turned without warning on him and Gadling. In a voice colder than ice, the master said, “You don’t tell nobody about this. Understand? First one to open ’is mouth gets an iron knife through the eye.”

“Nobody,” Gadling said, and Dead Rick echoed him. Nadrett hadn’t guessed his thoughts; it was just the master’s usual vicious caution. Probably he had some hold over Gadling, as he did over Dead Rick, more fearsome than even an iron knife. Nadrett wouldn’t have brought anyone out here he didn’t think he could threaten into silence.

Which meant Gresh and Nithen, too. Half-considering a test of his theory, Dead Rick said, “You want me to go find the other two?”

Nadrett shook his head. “I’ve got no more use for them tonight. They can find their own way back.”

Praed Street, Paddington: May 7, 1884

The nearness of freedom made Cyma brave.

By tomorrow morning, she would be free of Nadrett’s control. No longer dependent upon him for bread or a place within the Onyx Hall; gone where he was unlikely to track her. Free of the Goblin Market, with its grasping, hateful ways. She wasn’t like the rest of them, happy to kidnap humans and tear away their voices and dreams, seeing people as little more than things to either be used or feared. Cyma had been a lady once, in a far-off court, and had come to London because she wanted to live closer to the mortal world, to bask in their bright warmth. She adored the city, in ways fae like Nadrett could never understand.

Soon, it would be hers.

Before that happened, though, she was determined to face the demon.

The building to which her steps led her was entirely innocuous. Twenty years of London smoke had darkened its low walls to the same drab, black-streaked shade as everything around it, but Cyma knew it was only her imagination that gave the stone a sinister cast.

The threat came not from the building, but from what lay below.

She hesitated on the corner of the street opposite, nervous hands twirling her parasol. A dozen times she’d thought of doing this, and a dozen times her fear had gotten the better of her. Philosophers might extol the virtue of confronting one’s fears, but Cyma was generally happy to live without that particular virtue. Yet morbid curiosity compelled her, every time she passed near one of these innocuous low buildings, so that she wasted precious minutes of her protected time standing on corners like this one, arguing with herself.

This is your last chance to see. Starting tomorrow, you need never fear it again; but you should face it once before that happens. So you will know.

Gripping her parasol like a weapon, Cyma crossed the busy street and went inside.

The morning rush had ended; only two people stood in the queue ahead of her, and they made their purchases quickly. Far too soon, she reached the counter, and stood blinking at a posted sign full of names and numbers.

“Where are you going?” the fellow behind the counter asked, not bothering to hide his bored annoyance with her delay.

She must look like a country lady come to the city for the first time. Cyma sat on the impulse to tell the rude young man that she’d lived in London longer than his grandfather had been alive, and scanned the list of destinations. “Ah—Mansion House, please.”

“Single or return?”

Flustered, she asked, “What’s the difference?”

He looked as if she’d asked what the difference was between night and day. “Are you coming back to Paddington later today?”

“Oh—no, I only want to go to the City.”

“Single, then. First class? That’ll be a shilling.” He accepted the half-crown she gave him—a real coin for once, not faerie gold—and gave her a shilling and sixpence and a paper ticket in return. “Across the bridge to the opposite platform. First-class carriages are marked by a sign. Thank you.”

She was too unnerved by this entire experience to give him the set-down his rudeness deserved. Clutching her coins and ticket, parasol tucked under her arm, Cyma ventured deeper into the Praed Street station.

No amount of telling herself there was absolutely no danger would erase her fear. Iron, iron, everywhere she looked; iron fixtures for the gaslights, iron railings on the stairs, an iron bridge crossing over the iron tracks below. With tithed bread in her stomach, none of it could harm her directly, not unless she flung herself from the bridge as a train approached. But these were not the ordinary trains that had been around for ages; these ran underground.

These were the trains destroying the Onyx Hall.

She crossed the bridge with her breath held, and descended the stairs on the opposite side without touching the rail. People ranged themselves along the platform, with third-class undesirables at the far end; many read newspapers, hardly attending to their surroundings, as if this were nothing out of the ordinary. Cyma took a deep breath, grimacing at the damp, foul air, and tried to mimic their behavior.

An attempt that failed the moment she heard the rumble of an approaching train.
I will hold my ground,
Cyma thought, even as the platform began to tremble beneath her feet—but her nerve broke the moment the engine came thundering into the station.

It might have been some terrible black beast out of legend, belching steam and smoke, its wheels screeching along the rails like the cry of a great raptor stooping for the kill. An enormous weight of iron, moving as if it were alive, radiating the heat of Hell itself—Cyma’s hands ached, and she realized she was pressing them flat against the wall, in the arched brick alcove where she’d instinctively retreated. The only thing preventing her from bolting for the stairs was the irrational, inarguable conviction that if she moved, the creature would
see
her.