7

THREE DAYS LATER and I’m sick to the teeth of the smell of tea and cakes, the feel of soapy water, and the lamentations of crakes. I can hear them from the scullery. Every now and then one stands up and orates at length to the unfortunate crowd, after which he bows to their scattered applause. Personally, I think they’d be better served by plates broken over their heads than by hand-claps.

And if I’m correct, more than a few of their recent verses make mockery at my House’s expense. Crakes—always biting the hand that feeds. Ilven used to tell me that my hatred of poetry and poets had more to do with being forced to study under our House crake than with the actual quality of the verse, and that one day I would see the beauty in what they did. Somehow I doubt that.

“Firell?” A head pops around the doorway. It’s the day-shift waitress, a low-Lam girl everyone calls Perkins. She has a narrow nose in a moonish face, and her eyes are wide and dark as winter storms.

“Yes?”

“Can you pick up a table for me? Charl has all the outside tables so he’s too busy.”

Of course he’s busy. It’s market day, and the place is packed from floor to wall. I dry my hands on my apron and squint at her. “I’ve never served a table in my life. Why can’t you do it?”

“I—just can’t.” Perkins huffs and blows a loose strand of dirty blond hair from her flushed cheeks. “Please, all you have to do is take his order and bring it to him, I swear. And he tips well, so you’ll get a bit for your troubles.”

It must be some regular that she can’t face. And a bit is nothing to sniff at. “Fine. I’ll do it.” I take off the stained scullery apron and hang it on a peg. “Just point me to him.”

“Thanks, Firell. I’ll owe you one.”

After checking my dress to make sure that it’s serviceable, I follow Perkins into the chaos of the Crake’s interior. Poets are clustered about high tables scribbling away or angrily gesticulating at each other as they argue some fine point of meter and rhyme. Perkins points to one of the low tables near the door and its single occupant. Unusual enough in this crowded place that he would have a table to himself.

His back is to us, and all I can see of him is that he’s wearing a fine black coat and that his long dark hair is loose, falling over his shoulders in a sleek wave. One of the better-groomed crakes then. A wide-brimmed hat is on the table next to his elbow—an odd fashion choice on this windy day.

I squeeze my way between the tables and chairs, muttering excuse mes until I reach his table. He’s bowed over a notebook, his quill flying over the cream pages. This close to him the air feels stretched and tight. Uncomfortable.

“Sir? Can I get you something to drink?”

He answers while he writes. “Water, please, and a redbush tea, no honey.” He looks up then, and I recognize him.

He’s the bat from the promenade. The one who held me to him so that Owen wouldn’t see me, who sparked with magic and smelled of white soap and musk. A little shiver runs through my center.

I can’t remember his name, but he’s from House Sandwalker, that much I know.

The bat frowns. “Pelim Felicita?” he says. “I thought it was you I saw—”

I drop to a crouch so that I’m level with his face. “Shut up!” I hiss at him, then change my tone. “Please, don’t say a word.” I glance around to see if anyone heard him or noticed what happened, but the crakes are deep in their own worlds.

If he turns me over to the sharif, if he tells my family that I’m here— No. I will not go back. Desperate to guarantee his silence, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll pretend you never saw me.” Then I put both hands over my mouth and damn myself for a fool.

He stares at me.

Slowly, I lower my hands and grip the edge of his table. Dizziness is rushing up inside me, making my head light. Then he drops one white hand over mine and draws my hand closer to him, pinning my palm to the table.

The subtle prickle of his magic wars with my building nausea, and shivers run up my arms.

He leans closer, and I can see the tips of his fangs when he speaks. “Whatever I want?” He sounds amused. The flicker of magic dances between our skin.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, and try to pull my hand free, but he grabs my wrist and keeps me there.

He smiles. The fangs are more obvious than ever. “I know you didn’t.” He releases my hand and I almost land flat on my bottom. “Are you free five days from now, in the evening, I mean?”

“What—I—yes, I suppose so.” I stand, jerking my dress straight. Fury is now replacing the terror and I glare at him.

“Don’t be like that,” he says. “I’m inviting you to a party.”

A party. “Are you insane? I can’t go to a party. What if someone sees me?”

“Trust me on this, no one will recognize you at this particular social event.”

My mouth drops open in disbelief. “I’ll just fetch your tea,” I say.

He grins in response, and I can feel him watching me as I thread my way to the counter and give Mrs. Danningbread the order.

She peers at me. “Why are you up front here—”

I point at the bat.

“Oh,” she says with a sniff. “Perkins needs to get over her little prejudice very, very quickly. I can’t have that sort of nonsense. They’re citizens, whether she likes it or not.”

The bat is back to scribbling in his book. Perhaps he’s hoping to become a crake in his own house. Stranger things have happened. I lean my elbow on the counter and wonder what I’m going to say to him. The wood is warm and satin smooth under my elbow and I fight the desire to just lay my head down on the counter and start screaming at the mess of my life.

If I agree to go to this party of his, then Gris alone knows what I’m letting myself in for. On the other hand, I really don’t want him going to my mother, or worse yet, Owen, and informing them that I’m still alive, working in a tea and cake shop and looking like a cheap whore. Argh. I grit my teeth.

“Here you go, dear.” Mrs. Danningbread puts a small tea urn and bowl on my tray, and a glass of fresh-pumped water. I set my shoulders and carry the drinks to him.

“If I go to this little … social event of yours,” I say as I set down his bowl and pour the tea in a smooth arc, “can I be sure that this thing between us is clear, or will I have to spend the rest of my life running at your beck and call?”

He smiles thinly. “It wasn’t meant to make a slave of you.”

I arch an eyebrow in answer. He holds my future in his hands, and he knows it.

The bat sighs and rubs a hand over his face. When he looks at me again, I see that he’s slid the third eyelids down, and his eyes are milky white and expressionless. “You have my word that it will be just this one time,” he says softly.

“Fine. Five days’ time.”

The bat smiles again and he looks genuinely happy. I realize then that he can’t be much older than me—he’s maybe seventeen or eighteen and not yet well versed in schooling his face. The third eyelids recede a little and I can just make out the edge of his indigo pupils. “I’ll see you then, Felicita.”

“It’s Firell.”

He nods. “Can I meet you here?”

Well I certainly don’t want him knowing where I live. “That will have to do. What time?”

“About eight?” He sounds so uncertain that I almost feel sorry for him. Then I want to start laughing because I have just agreed to accompany a bat to a party. I wonder if this counts as stepping out.

I will the damn bat to leave so that I can get back to the bowls piling up in the kitchen. Perhaps he’s something like a Lammer Reader, able to see emotion, because he drinks quickly, scribbles a bit more, and then picks up his hat and his letters-bag and heads for the door. He’s left coins on the table, and already I can see he’s paid double—a fair tip indeed. He pauses at the counter and hands Danningbread a small envelope. Danningbread nods and puts the note into her apron pocket.

It’s only after he leaves that I remember his name: Jannik.

When I’m back in the safety of the scullery, I lean against the wall and bury my face in my hanging apron. I scrunch the damp material up against my cheeks. A choked noise escapes me, something between a laugh and a sob. This day better not get any worse.

*   *   *

THE NEXT MORNING DRAGS, leaving my hands still and my mind too busy. After my first day of work, Nala left me to find my own way there and back, and mostly, I haven’t managed to get myself too lost. I’ve seen Esta once, sat with Lilya and Nala while they talked and made supper, and spotted a gangling low-Lammer youth leaving the house, his coat over his shoulder. Of the infamous Dash, there has been no sign.

I’m not even sure if he exists. Perhaps he’s just some bogeyman that the Whelk Streeters use to keep the other gangs of squatters at bay. Whatever, it seems to work. Dash’s name is like a pass-letter, and people melt out of your way if they know you’re one of his.

And I will be one of his, I tell myself. Lilya says that as long as I’m putting brass in the bowl, he’ll be happy enough. I hope she’s right.

Mrs. Danningbread comes into the back room. “It’s quiet,” she says. “You go on and take a seat outside with some tea.” It’s true, we seem to have hit a mid-morning slump and I haven’t had to wash a teabowl for a good few minutes. Everything is clean, the dishes scrubbed down to creamy white, stacked up and drying. I wipe my hands on a mangy-looking tea towel and untie my apron.

Charl, the low-Lammer boy who works alternate days, is sitting down at one of the outside tables enjoying a bowl of steaming tea. There are two plates set out before him, both with a thick slice of dark cake. He nods at the other chair and pushes the second plate over for me. Flustered, I take a seat.

The cake is a heavy chocolate, soaked in brandy and covered in clotted cream and berries. It’s so rich that I have to eat it slowly, savoring every cream-covered sweet sliver.

“You’re one of Dash’s,” says Charl. He’s never spoken to me before.

I nod, even though I’m not exactly certain that I am. Even if Dash accepts me, I still have to make myself indispensable in some way, prove myself to Lils. I’ve already worked out that stern, unsmiling Lilya is the paste that holds Whelk Street together. She seems to know everyone and everything: all the best places to steal bruised fruit and where to scrounge the last of the half-rotten vegetables off the barrows. She even knows how to climb the cliff for eggs, and without her, I think the Whelk Streeters would starve. She’s hard and dry as ship’s tack though. Luckily, she’s tempered by Nala, who softens some of her brusqueness.

Charl swallows a huge forkful of cake, seemingly without chewing. “My mate says there’s poisonink down at the dock, waiting to head upriver. You let Dash know to meet us at the usual.” He sips his tea and stares at me.

“Um,” I say. “I—I haven’t seen him around, but I’ll let Lils know.”

He nods. “That’ll do. Now eat your cake.”

A black carriage rattles past us, drawn by a bevy of dark unicorns. Their cloven hooves clatter on the stone, and they swing their heavy horns back as they shake their heads.

“Bloody show-offs,” says Charl. “Can’t bloody use nillies like normal folk. Have to rub everyone’s face in it. More money than they ought to have.”

“Who is it?” I don’t recognize the carriage, and there is no House insignia on the door.

“Gris-damned bats,” he says, before spitting on the ground. “Think they own the bloody city nowadays. New money, new power. But still the same as the old lot. No better than mucking House Lams.”

The coachman flicks his whip over the backs of the unis, and they pull away, forcing the other, smaller carriages out of their path. The back of the coach glints like black oil spilled on water. Bats. I shiver, remembering the feel of Jannik’s magic ghosting over my skin. The smell of musk and soap, and the way his hair brushed against my neck as he hid me from my brother. He’s ugly, I have to remind myself. He’s pale and skinny and he lives on nilly-blood.

I wonder if it’s his coach, if he’s inside there now, watching me. My mouth goes dry, my palms sweaty. All day I’ve been trying not to think of this damned party I’m supposed to attend, but it’s hanging over me. Anything could happen. All I know of Jannik is what I’ve gleaned from two chance meetings. For all I know, once he has me at his party I’ll be caught and trotted back to my family’s home. Why not—after all, the bats need to find ways to sweeten their relationships with the Great Houses. For all the talk of equality, everyone knows the bat Houses continue in Pelimburg on our sufferance only. A step in the wrong direction and the three vampire Houses could lose everything.

I’m being ridiculous. If he wanted to curry favor with my family, he could have merely tipped them off that I’m here at the Crake.

There’s something else that he wants from me, and I’ll be damned as a Saint who told a bad future if I know what it is.

A moment later, I spot a familiar bird’s nest of red hair. Nala trots up the wide sidewalk, her hands full of leashes. She’s walking a collection of dragon-dogs. They are tall and thin, with high, sloping shoulders and long jaws with wolfish teeth. People move quickly out of her way. She doesn’t stop when she sees me, but she flashes a white smile and sort of waves her fist a little. The dogs strain on the leather and pull her onward.

Bemused, I wave back.

*   *   *

THE TOWNSPEOPLE ARE SHUTTING UP SHOP, and street children are picking through the garbage on the sidewalks. I try to avoid the gangs—I’m still nervous after my attack—so I take the wide central road, where the street theaters are busy packing up now that the last shows are done for the day. As I rush through the homeward-bound crowds, someone yells my name. Or at least, the name I’ve stolen.

My heart jumps, and I try to pretend I didn’t hear the shout.

“Firell! Oi, you! The girl in blue. Kitty-girl!”

Gris-damn it all. I turn slowly. My heart is doing double-time. I can feel how the blood has drained from my face. My skin is cold.

A tall, skinny young man is waving at me. He’s standing at a street-theater wagon. Is this the infamous Dash? I doubt it, I’m sure I’ve seen this one leaving the Whelk Street house, and he’s a mild, gangling sort of person. With my breathing as steady as I can hold it, I smooth down my skirts and walk toward him.

He’s got a friendly face and hair in a long ragged cut. Low-Lammer, for sure. “You’re the new girl?” he says as I draw closer.

I nod.

“Verrel.” He pulls a bag of tobacco from his paint-spattered jacket and begins to roll himself a ’grit. His fingers are deft and fast. “Smoke?”

“N-no thanks.” Verrel is one of the Whelk Streeters, and relief warms my skin. Lilya said he keeps to his own time, out chasing skirts and keeping the pubs in business. When he’s not playing at being a theater boy. Everything she’s told me about him makes him sound like a reprobate, but instead, he comes across as affable and charming. Perhaps he is all three, and then he will have been well named after the infamous progenitor of House Ives. It’s even possible that he’s some bastard cousin to the current Ives’ line, saddled with a name like that.

Verrel shakes his head and licks the paper closed, his tongue darting smoothly. After he’s lit it and taken a long suck on the smoke, he cocks his head at me, as friendly as if he were one of my brother’s dragon-dogs.

“Lils described you pretty good.” He grins. “You’re heading back?”

Before I can even answer, he’s rummaging in his pockets again. “I’m going to be late, got a night show. We have candle-lanterns and everything.”

“I see.” I don’t, not really. I’ve never paid Hob street theater much mind. He’s so excited that he doesn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm.

“Here then, there you are,” he says to the small brown paper packet he’s finally retrieved from his bulging pockets. “Give them to Esta for me, will ya?”

The packet smells sweet and minty, and inside it are hard roundish lumps.

“Humbugs,” he says. “Tell her not to set any Lammers on fire, and I’ll take her out for cakes when I get my day off.”

“Oh, oh—yes. I’ll do that.” I shove the packet into my little tote.

He grins and takes another long drag. “Poor thing,” he says. “Not much of a girlhood if there’s no one giving you sweets and toys.”

I try to picture sullen little Esta ever playing with dolls or wooden and ivory blocks. It seems unlikely.

“Nice meeting you,” he says, just as a Hob, portly and covered in greasepaint and wearing a voluminous fake beard, yells at him to stop chatting up the lasses. “Say hey to the rest.” He touches his hand to his ragged hair in a friendly salute and turns back to packing up the sets.

I stand there for a moment, thoughts swirling through my head, then trot on toward home.

*   *   *

BACK AT THE SQUAT, Lils is crouched in the washroom, wearing nothing but a graying shift, while Esta pours jugs of water over her head. Lils’s hair is still tightly pinned up. It makes no sense. Wordlessly, I hand Esta the crumpled, sticky packet. She scowls.

“From Verrel,” I tell her, but she doesn’t say anything back, just fishes out one striped golden-brown sweet and pops it into her mouth.

Uncertain, I stand there, waiting for a chance to give Lils the message.

Lils wipes water from her face and glares at me. “What do you want?” Her shift is wet, clinging to her body and almost see-through. She looks vulnerable, like a hermit crab changing shells.

“Oh … uh … I have a message from Charl at the Crake—”

“I know who he is. What does the little chancer want?” She touches her damp hair, then looks to Esta. “Another bucket, need to be sure it’s wet all the way through before I let it down.”

Esta goes to fetch another bucket, leaving us alone.

“The message is for Dash,” I mumble.

Lils snorts. “Give me it.”

“Something about poisonink, and meet Charl at the usual.” I spread my hands in apology. “He didn’t say much.”

Her brow wrinkles into a frown, then after a moment’s thought, she nods. “I’ll let Dash know, sure enough,” she says. “Verrel spotted him down at Market Way earlier.” Lils squints at me. “His Flashness’ll be pleased to hear that bit of news, right enough.”

“So he’ll let me stay?”

“Can’t right say.” She turns away. “Depends on if you got what he wants.” Lils turns her back to me and begins to pull hairpins loose, slowly, one by one, setting them out neatly before her.

For a moment I can smell the meadows behind my house, the must of nillies and leather. A childhood recollection of trying to follow Owen on a hunt, of a fall made nightmarish by the passing of years. The crack of bone, followed by almost unbelievable pain. I remember sweat sticking my dress to my skin, and how my arm throbbed, hardly feeling like it belonged to me. Walking home alone across the heath because Owen did not want to stop his chase.

Water splashes on the tiles, spattering my boots and dress as Lils dumps a bucket over her loosened curls.

I am back in the present, and I frown at the memory as it slips back to where it belongs, hidden and best forgotten.

If I’ve got what Dash wants?

My heart flutters, and I will it to slow. Just what exactly does she mean by that, I wonder.