gone is gone
I keep thinking of Zako’s letters. The chip of oyster shell he sent. He said he was happe.
I hope he is. I hope he’s safe.
The Glassworks gets even busier in the warmer months, with business growing steadily every year. More ships, trade and orders to fulfil when the seas are favourable, Fivemonth to Ninemonth. I think of Clarion Lovemore, high governor, sailing towards us on clement seas.
The urgent commission for an obscene number of glass roof panes on top of the regular orders this year has pushed the pace from busy to frantic. Everything else is behind.
Our days are long, but time is short.
Clomper and Caney are more stubborn than they are in the cold, though Wagsen’s sent a shearer to rid them of their wool coats.
We’ve crossed a milestone today though. Me and Ruzi and Cordi and Vertie are coming back from delivering the very final batch of coloured-glass roof panes set to grace the Hexagon Hall.
Work on the Hall construction looks a little behind, but that’s nothing to do with us. And the workers there still have four weeks left to get it all finished and installed.
It’s near the end of the day, and two blocks from the Glassworks we hear it’s in uproar. A glimpse through the gates shows at least fifty workers gathered in the yard, shouting angrily up at the wing where Wagsen’s office is.
Thea’s wounds. Have they actually snapped? Months of pressure. Ridiculously long days with barely a break and piddling extra coin to compensate. They’ve fulfilled the most urgent order. Today there should be celebrations. Never thought I’d see them like this. Skøl workers pride themselves on their grace under pressure – taking what’s doled out and making no fuss. Well. This is a fuss and a half.
It’s just a wall of noise. I can’t hear any individual words. Clomper and Caney are spooked and refuse to enter.
“Take the kine down the road to the patch by the barrows,” Ruzi says. It’s one of our Endweek routines, to stretch their legs and let them graze, but I know he wants me out of the way. “I’ll find you after.” He plunges into the throng.
I tether the kine near the patch of grass, but I don’t like to leave them hitched to the wagon. If anything scared them, they’d be off in a heartbeat, dragging the lot. They’re not flighty, but the commotion at the Works has set them on edge.
I sit in the long shadow of the empty cart, leaning against a wheel, watching workers buying provisions for the evening from the barrows opposite.
A man clatters by on a bicycle of all things. I feel the big wooden slats I’m leaning against wobble. Caney doesn’t like bicycles, though thankfully they’re rare.
I get up to reassure him, so I’m hidden behind the cart when Kit walks past.
He looks nothing like himself. He’s wearing a boiler suit – an outfit favoured by Skøl dustmen or builders, with a flat cap low over his eyes, covering his hair. His skin’s barely visible. Just his hands and a slice of face. The boiler suit even covers his neck. A toolbox swings on the hook of one finger. It’s empty as a stage prop. He looks like he might be off to wrangle a generator on the blink or to fix a leaking tap. If my memory worked like most people’s, perhaps I wouldn’t have recognized him.
But I did. And I have to follow. I have to know where he’s going, in his disguise.
“Clomper, stay,” I whisper in one soft ear. “Caney, bide here a while, in the green, green grass.”
It’s very different, tailing Kit on a softly sunlit evening of long limber shadows, as opposed to the drizzling depths of night. At least I don’t have to worry about making a noise, since there’s people everywhere. Kit follows a back route – narrow alleys, sharp corners and the type of cramped, steep flights of steps I usually try to avoid.
I’m winded by the time I realize we’ve reached Rundvaer Square.
It was Fountain Square, before the Cull. The Skøl tore down the Crozoni fountain covered in mermaids and clam shells years ago, but that’s where they’re putting the new Skøl statue they want the high governor to cut the ribbon for. It’s not another cuboid.
She’ll be staying in the Castle Hotel, fronting Rundvaer Square. Just her and her entourage, taking over the whole huge place. It’s the fanciest hotel in town, all elektric, hot water and glass and an army of gold-suited staff.
She’ll be able to gaze over the biggest square in town and admire The Spirit of the New West. He’s a naked man, made from white stone, three times man size, carrying the iron world on his shoulders. Black-iron ocean and gold-inlaid land. Their world. Skøland’s dominion from sea to sea to sea.
Life Is Golden, says his plinth. They’re still painting bits of it in gold.
Kit stops at a bench near the tall stone buildings on the south side of the square, directly in front of a glass-fronted shop with an awning occupying one of the ground floors. A soft, inviting light spills from its windows.
I realize the sun’s calling it a day.
I should get back to Clomper and Caney. Instead, I plunge into the square, peering back to see the place Kit’s stopped by is a fancy fikka house – the kind with waistcoated waiters serving jam-drenched Skølcakes on tiered plates.
Further into the square, I stop at a quiet stall as a pretext to loiter, keeping an eye on Kit’s back at the bench.
A young man leaves the fikka shop – Skøl, tall and golden-haired – stopping to sit at the other end of Kit’s bench.
“What can I get you?” The seller whose stall I’ve been pretend-perusing is a middle-aged woman, pale hair tucked under a broad-brimmed hat, face weathered almost salmon pink.
“Oh…” I focus on her wares. She is selling a kind of fruit, like oranges, if oranges had leathery green skin, and a mixture of woven baskets, tins, twine, copper wire, thread and buttons.
I touch the tips of my fingers to one of the green fruits. “What are these?”
“Oranges.”
“Green oranges?”
“They’re ripe.” She cuts one open with a wicked-looking flick knife, leaves the halves displayed at the front of the pile and wipes her hands on her apron. They’re a deep, glistening orange inside. “Sweet as nectar,” she purrs, flashing a gap-toothed grin of rival sweetness. “Guess where they’re from? Not Skøland. Down south. First fruiting this season. They’ve put in groves and groves in County Shipway. Not as fine as the ones from Skøland, but tasty. Leave them a few days; they’ll be even sweeter.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kit getting up. “Oh – thank you.” I sound like a simpleton. “Are you here much longer?” Darkness is gathering. The lamplighters are doing their rounds.
“Here until ten.”
Kit’s walking off. Now his companion’s getting up too.
“I’ll come back,” I promise, moving to follow them.
The Skøl man has something in his hand. An envelope. It catches what’s left of the waning daylight as he frightens a handful of pigeons into the air.
He’s in Skøl evening wear – low black shoes, pressed grey trousers and a formal jacket with gold thread.
I soon realize they aren’t going far. Kit’s made for the alley between the building with the fikka shop and the neighbouring one to its left. It’s a dead end, filled with shadows and dust-heaps and rats.
Meanwhile, the Skøl man is heading for the steps to the same neighbouring building’s rather grand-looking entrance. He skips jauntily up them as I stop halfway behind a stall selling papers and sweets to pretend an interest. The seller’s occupied, talking to another customer.
I can pick out the patch of Kit-shaped shadow lurking in the alley, but I doubt anyone else could. His head’s tipped back, like he’s searching the narrow band of sky for a sign.
The golden-haired man knocks on the grand-looking door.
Another young man opens it after a moment to take his envelope and admit him. The door shuts.
Not ten seconds later, three more men in rich jackets and shiny shoes are striding up the steps to gain easy admittance.
What are they up to in there? The building gives few clues. Tall columns flank the already elevated front door, to make visitors feel small. Not unusual for old Crozoni architecture. Its creamy stone face spells power and purity. I think the stonework used to carry Crozoni carvings – mermaids perhaps – but they’re gone now. Patches of stone appear cleaner than others. A sign declares it the Sinskill Club, but I’m none the wiser. I edge around the stall and closer to the alley.
Kit’s dim shape’s not there.
Because, I realize half a second later, it’s on the move, suspended between the buildings.
This is where the muscle comes from. Not carrying barrels of ale. Scaling vertical walls, empty toolbox and all. The alley is narrow. He’s braced between the wall of the fikka shop building and the parallel wall on the neighbouring building. A moment later, he’s reached the second level. Then he’s contorting himself though what I can only assume is a window of the Sinskill Club. It’s invisible from my vantage.
Thea’s wounds. That was fast.
I wait, expecting at any moment screams and breaking glass, Kit launching himself back into the thin well of alley air and guns and horror.
All remains as it was.
I watch the shadows of unremarkable passers-by sweeping the ground as they go under each iron-caged elektric lamp, lengthening and contracting like shadows thrown from a sundial, rushing through the day. Time slipping away.
A few more well-dressed men and women are admitted to the Sinskill Club.
I’m about to leave, to head back to Clomper and Caney, when a luxury carriage pulls up in front of the Club. The Life Registry’s gold insignia, two triangles forming an hourglass, is emblazoned on its door.
I hunch into my shoulders as Magistrate Venor steps down. I recognize the arrogant way he carries himself. He’s got his familiar gold-tipped cane as well. The door opens before he reaches the top step.
His driver pulls the carriage along and stays upright on the box, waiting.
I thread back into the square to the orange-seller. Her stall’s under lamplight now, but she’s still wearing her hat.
“How much for the oranges?”
“Copper each.”
I hand her a five-copper piece and try to think of how best to ask. She pops it in her tin.
“What’s eating you, girl?” Her tone isn’t unkind. She’s wrapping five green oranges in brown paper.
“Do you know that building over there?” I point to the stone steps of the Club. Another woman is heading up them. The thick grist-brown plait down her back looks uncannily like Felicity Greave’s. Is it her? She’s in a dress, and I never see Felicity in a dress, let alone a pale formal one. Her hair isn’t so unusual for a Skøl.
“The Sinskill Club? Great and good having their fancy get-togethers. What about it?”
“Looks like the magistrate’s there tonight.”
“Ah. He shows up time to time if they’re having one of their fundraisers. Why they have to dress up and eat five courses before they open their wallets is beyond me – but there you go.” She snorts.
“A fundraiser?” I shake my head. “Raising funds for what?”
“The Sting Trust, maybe. Or another one of those.” She gestures at the looming naked man with his globe. “Or for the Glass Fanny Venor’s building.”
“The Glass Fanny’s cost enough as it is, hasn’t it?” I’m going to tell Cordi the people are calling the Hexagon the Glass Fanny.
“Don’t I know it!” She rearranges a few of her wares. “They could have put elektric lighting like this through the whole centre for the amount they’re spending. It’s the principle. They’ve only put it here because Lovemore’s to stay at the Castle. It’s for show, not to make things better for regular folk. Excuse me.” She stops abruptly to help another customer with some twine. I linger, but her stall’s growing busy, and she’s ignoring me now.
I take my paper package and make for the bench in front of the fikka shop. It’s beyond the nearest circle of lamplight, comfortingly dark.
I should get back to the kine.
Just as I stand, cradling the oranges, the young Skøl man who sat on this very bench beside Kit, the one who went inside the Club dressed to the nines, comes strolling out of the fikka shop. He’s wearing Kit’s boiler suit and carrying a toolbox that’s clearly quite heavy. The same, only not.
He doesn’t notice me staring. He must have jumped from the roof of the Club to the roof of the fikka-shop building to come down and get out unseen. I look back at the fikka-shop door, but can’t see Kit. When I scan the dead-end alley, sure enough, a shadow’s wedged between the walls, fair haring down.
I tread slowly to the alley mouth, but I’ve lost sight of him now.
He doesn’t come. I inch into the gloom, willing my eyes to adjust faster.
A hot hand cups the back of my neck, steering me deeper into the alley and promptly smashing my face into the smooth stone wall. It’s not so smooth as it looks from afar. My cheek and forehead feel a startling constellation of jabs. I drop the package of oranges and fight against crying out. I can’t make a commotion and give Kit away.
“Pick another alley to ply your trade, girl,” a man’s angry voice grits in my ear. “You might see something you regret with those big eyes.” It’s the young Skøl man in the boiler suit. His fingers squeeze tighter into my neck, twisting my body around as I flail at him. I catch his other arm and dislodge the toolbox with a loud clatter. Something spills out. It looks like a Xan artefact. He pulls a fist back to strike me but doesn’t get a chance. I hear Kit’s voice and then Kit’s beside me, between us.
“Hey, no. Stop.”
I could cry from relief. I press into the possessive arm Kit wraps around my shoulders. He nudges me to face him. I am crying, actually – mostly because my face hurts from its close encounter with the wall.
Kit’s wearing a dark-brown robe now, every inch a Registry clerk.
“What did you do?” he hisses at the other man. “You hurt her. F—”
“She was following us.” The Skøl man crouches down to hastily shove the artefact back into the box. It’s a little stone person, I see, edged in places with copper. “Why is she in a weird disguise?”
“These are my normal clothes.”
“She’s my friend, she’s fine,” snaps Kit. “Piss off. You should be halfway home by now.”
“She saw me,” the man says stubbornly.
“You want to lose the rest of the lamps in your garret? Touch her again.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I whisper.
Kit and the other man ignore me, engaged in a wordless glaring match. Then the man puffs out a breath and stalks off.
We linger in the shadowy privacy of the alley. Kit throws back his coarse brown hood to glare at me. He’s very freshly shaven, his cheekbones sharp.
“Mora Dezil, what are you—”
“Was that Glister Reedstone?”
“No.”
My cheek’s grazed – it’s stinging – but the bang wasn’t that hard.
I wipe tear tracks off my face and bend to retrieve my package. “I was just buying these oranges, and I thought I saw you. He hit my face into the wall.”
“I’m sorry. You’re all right to get home, aren’t you? You don’t need me?” He flips the hood back up, then holds my elbow as we leave the mouth of the alley. “Just buying oranges my arse,” he mutters.
Ruzi’s standing beside Clomper and Caney in a puddle of lamplight, looking harried – then furious as he spots me.
“Hell’s teeth, Mora! Where have you been?”
I’ve never seen him so angry. Everyone is furious with me tonight, it seems.
“Ruzi—”
“I’ve been going out of my mind. You left them for hours! What if something happened? If Wagsen wasn’t so distracted, he would have noticed something amiss for sure. Don’t you know how much trouble you could be in? Demoted, back to the floor. S-sold on – or worse.”
Thea’s wounds. Has he been standing here for ages worrying about me like old Father Goose?
“Ruzi. They’re fine.”
“The last thing we need right now is more trouble.”
“What happened?”
“There was an accident.” His anger deflates. “You know that young blower, Faithie Senson?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s mates with Cordi – went to your music night…”
“There was an accident with the lye. Fathie’s been badly burnt over half her face, her hand. They say she might lose sight on one side – that she’s lucky it wasn’t worse. That’s why it all kicked off. Branders have shut it down now.”
My hands are shaking. I brush some hair back from my face, and Ruzi must see the scrape on my cheek.
“What happened there?”
“I tripped and fell.” It’s a terrible excuse.
“You have to get your head out of the clouds, girl.”
“I know.”
“Stop looking for that bloody bird all the time. Gone is gone.”