I have seen that happen, boy.’
‘I would never do that.’
‘People fear the feymist, Oliver. They fear it when whatever is behind the curtain seeps its poison across Jackals, changing its victims. They fear an abomination that hasn’t been tested and submitted to the people’s control.’
‘But I am normal,’ Oliver nearly shouted. ‘I’m the same as the rest of you.’
‘You can’t be the same, Oliver. Not after four years inside the feymist curtain. You are the only one who has been inside and lived to return.’
‘I don’t remember those years.’
‘What life is it here for you, Oliver? Your neighbours and friends terrified of your torcless neck, terrified you’ll wake up one day fey and rogue. Show me what you really are and let me conscript you into the Special Guard.’
‘Hundred Locks is my home.’
‘It’s your prison, Oliver. You would be happier among your own kind. Captain Flare would welcome you into the legion like a brother. Bonefire and the other champions of the guard would make you into a hero.’
Oliver remained silent.
‘The common herd worship the Guard, Oliver. There wouldn’t be a tavern in the kingdom you couldn’t walk into and have Jackelians falling over themselves to stand you a drink. And the women, Oliver. You haven’t seen how the women drool over the Special Guard; hang on their every word. You would have Dock Street writers penning your adventures in the legion into myth. All that, and what do you have here?’
‘My freedom,’ said Oliver, quietly.
‘A curious sort of freedom,’ said the sorcerer. ‘And it has come very cheap for you, so far. But the day may not be far off when you find the price of it rises.’
‘I am normal,’ Oliver protested, the words sounding hollow even as he said them. ‘Normal.’
Pullinger and his Department stooge made ready to leave. ‘You’ll slip one day, Oliver. Lose control and reveal yourself. When you do, we’ll be there to bind you. Or stop you.’
Sergeant Cudban shook his head as the two sorcerers left. A row of polished cutlasses and rifles lay on the table in front of him. ‘I admire your spirit, laddie. But are you doing yourself any favours?’
‘You think I should give him what he wants?’
Cudban shrugged. ‘I de nae know if there’s an ounce of fey in your bones, laddie, but that four years inside the feymist curtain is a life sentence as far as they’re concerned. They’ll keep you on the county register till your hair is silver and you’re walking with a stick. It’s no life for you.’
‘It’s not fair.’
‘I knew a Ham Yard detective, laddie; once he took it into his head that you were guilty, you might as well confess to the doomsman and take a shorter sentence, innocent or no. Either way they’d take you.’
‘Even if I’m not fey?’
‘Especially if you’re nae, laddie. Just tell them that old Isambard Kirkhill is sending you messages from beyond the grave – let them put a suicide torc around your neck and stick you in the Special Guard. He wasn’t lying about that. They live like Guardians down in Middlesteel. A bit of light duty protecting the people from the King. Let the heavy crushers like Captain Flare do any real fighting that parliament orders your way. I’ll be reading in The Middlesteel Illustrated about what a fine young champion of the state you are before midwinter.’
But Oliver was not thinking about the Special Guard. He was thinking about Hawklam Asylum; the sibilant venom-words of the Whisperer; what it would be like to be ensnared for the rest of his years in a dark airless cell next door to the inhuman dream walker.
Maybe it was a sixth sense – something within him finally fulfilling the Department of Feymist’s expectations – but Oliver knew something was wrong the moment he opened the back door to Seventy Star Hall. Everything in the lumber-room was as it should be, the jumble of rakes, earthenware pots and old garden boots, the dusty cloth-covered round table.
Despite this, the hairs stood up on Oliver’s neck, a deep sense that things were no longer as they ought to be. Cautiously he left the garden door ajar rather than clunking it shut, and peered into the kitchen. Damson Griggs lay face-down on the kitchen tiles, her blank eyes staring lifeless across the pooling blood. There was a small wood-handled knife from the kitchen drawer embedded in the back of her head. The practical, protective Damson Griggs, the old lady who did not have a single bad bone in her body; snuffed out with the casualness of a garden beetle flattened under a boot.
Oliver choked back a sob. He felt faint, like his soul was being drawn into the sky, his body lifted in the updraft of the death. Then his raw animal instinct for survival kicked in and he was back in the kitchen. Had Damson Griggs come in the back way too, surprising some cracksman stealing the house’s silver plate? Where was his uncle?
Oliver felt a wave of panic rising in his stomach. His uncle should be home; why had he not heard the damson’s cries? He slipped a large knife out of the sharpening block by the porcelain basin, briefly comforted by its heft. Someone coughed outside the kitchen. Oliver tried not to slip on the blood – impossibly brown when it surely should have been red – and he went to look through the crack of the door to the hallway.
There was a man he did not recognize – no, two of them – rifling quickly through the hall’s letters cabinet. They wore black clothes of a cut Oliver had never seen before. Where was his uncle? Oliver gripped the knife tighter, willing himself to move – when a hand clamped over his mouth and his knife arm was seized in a vice-like grip.
It was Harry Stave.
<Oliver>
The voice was in his skull, their guest’s lips still sealed grimly shut.
<Don’t make a sound, Oliver. There are others in the house. Killers. Move your mouth without speaking. I’ll lip-read.>
‘How are you doing this?’ Oliver silently mouthed. ‘Are you a worldsinger? Where’s my uncle?’
<Titus was in the house when I left this morning. Mind echo’s a worldsinger technique, but you’ll not find any purple tattoos on me, old stick.>
‘Who are they?’ Oliver mouthed. ‘What are they doing here?’
<The who is something I would dearly like to know myself. And the what is too complicated a tale for right now.>
‘Are they armed?’ Oliver mouthed.
<Miracle if they’re bleeding not. I need you to run back to the crushers, Oliver, bring back as many constables as you can.>
‘But you…’
<There’s a chance Titus might still be alive upstairs. I’m staying. I’ll fight if I have to, run if it comes to it. Now GO!>
Oliver arrived back at the police station lathered in sweat, his heart hammering inside his chest. Please let the station be manned. Hitting the door latch, he burst in, startling Sergeant Cudban.
