By the Weeping Gate

See, here?

This house here in Breakwater, this one, by the Weeping Gate where men and women come to wait and weep for those lost to the sea. This house is very fine, given the notoriety of the canton in which it resides; indeed, given the notoriety of its inhabitants.

The front stairs are swept daily by the girl who tends to such things (more of Nel later); the façade is cleverly created, a parquetry of stones coloured from cream through to ochre, some look as red as rubies, all creating a mosaic of florals and vines (the latter use malachite tiles).

There is nothing like it anywhere else in the port city and there are uncharitable souls who whisper its existence is owed solely to the artisans’ truck with magic. The windows are always clean and shine like crystals, but none may see inside due to the heavy brocade drapes hung within.

Come to the door, look at its intricacies, all carved from ebony, bas-relief mermaids and sirens, perched upon jagged rocks with the sea throwing itself against those ragged angles. The knocker is surprisingly plain, as if some tiny attempt at good taste was made; it’s merely brass (highly polished, of course), with a slight ripple pattern so it looks something like a piece of rope.

The house was not built by its current occupants—they have shifted into it, grown like a kind of hermit crab into a new shell—but by a sea captain who quickly made then lost his fortune to the ocean and its serpents and pirates, its storms and violent eddies, its whirlpools and deceptive coasts with rocks sewn just beneath the surface. After that, another man purchased it, an ill-famed prelate with no flock, who spent his days delving into dark mysteries, talking to spirits and trying to create soul clocks so that, if he might not live forever, he could at least access another lifetime. His departure from the city was encouraged by a nervous populace. The abode lay dormant and lonely for several years until this woman came along.

Dalita.

Tall and striking with jet-black hair, skin the colour of wheat, and eyes like brown stones. She dragged behind her three small daughters, their features enough like hers and distinct enough from each others’ to say they had different fathers. No one knew whether she bought the property or simply set up shop there—a lawyer did descend a few weeks after her presence was noticed, but by then her business was well-established (it took only a week).

The solicitor rapped the knocker, peremptorily, a look of displeasure on his face and entered when the door was whisked open. He came out some time later, features quite changed and set in what seemed an unfamiliar arrangement of happiness. He walked somewhat stiffly, now, but this did not seem to bother him at all. He became a regular visitor and was content to leave Dalita to her affairs (and her offspring, who continued to increase in number), and if his wallet was a little heavier and his balls a little lighter each time he left, then so much the better.

For all its decorative glory, the house does not have a delightful marine aspect. Perhaps that is unfair. By peeking out one window, inching one’s body sharply to the left and pressing one’s face hard against the glass, one might see, through the tight arch of the Weeping Gate, a sliver of water. It is, it must be said, a strip of the peculiarly unclean, slightly greasy liquid that lines the port, infected by humanity and its waste. But then, no one who ventures this far comes for the sea view.

The house has no wrought iron fence, nor tiny enclosed garden; it simply sits cheek by jowl with its street, which is muddy in times of rain, dusty in times without. The cries of the gulls are not faint here, nor is the smell of fresh, drying or dying fish.

Once inside, however, incense and perfume, a heady opiate mix, negates any piscine odours (and others more personal, leisure-related), and anyone setting foot in the spectacular red entrance hall will immediately lose hold of their fears or concerns. The richness of the decor and the beauty of the girls, their charm, their smiles, their voices (coached to pitch low and light), combine to wash away all imperatives but one. After a single visit, even the most nervous of trader, wheelwright, tailor, sailor, princeling, or clergyman—in short, anyone who can scrape up Dalita’s hefty fee—will be content to wander the requisite dark alleyways to the house by the Weeping Gate.

And in truth, with time the locale became strangely safer—mariners keen to earn extra coin were easily recruited to run interference in the streets. Thieves and ruffians learned quickly not to trouble those walking in a certain direction with a particular gait, lest they find themselves faced with consequences they did not wish to bear. The longshoremen were known on occasion to shift some of the more inconvenient street-side debris further away from the house. No need to scare the punters.

Gradually, Dalita’s clientele increased, and soon enough she took fewer habitués herself, becoming fussier, more miserly, with her favours. But as each daughter came of reasonable age, so too did the number of employees of the house; firstly Silva, then the twins Yara and Nane, then Carin, next Iskha, then Tallinn, and finally Kizzy.

Asha was kept aside, held back for finer things.

And Nel, too, was kept aside, banished to the kitchens.

Iskha, taking her fate in her own hands, ran away and should not have been seen again.

Nel has never feared the streets. They always felt more welcoming than the woman’s house—she does not think of Dalita as her mother, possibly because she has never been encouraged to do so.

Nel is plain, astonishingly so—perhaps Dalita might have forgiven her if she had been ugly, for that would have been one thing or the other, but as plain as she is, Nel seems almost . . . nothing. A blank upon which looks did not imprint. Perhaps this causes the most offence—the other daughters all have some version of their mother’s allure, enhanced cunningly with pastes and powders, dresses and corsets, all to make the best impression in the eye of the beholder.

But Nel . . . on the occasions her sisters tried to make her up, make her over, it seemed as if the colours they layered upon her face had no effect at all, merely sat on her skin effecting no more of an impression than the merest hint of a breeze. The lacy pink tea gown dangled listlessly on her as if it, too, could find nothing on which to take. Her hair, similarly, would neither kink nor wave even after a full night wrapped tight in rag curlers. When let loose, it simply hung to her shoulders in thick straight lengths, neither brown nor black nor blond, but an unremarkable mix of all three. Of middling height, with middling grey eyes, she was a middling sort of girl and blended into her surroundings as well as a chameleon might.

She’d found in the avenues, the alleys, the seldom-used thoroughfares, the hidden ways through, a kind of home and a kinship with those who inhabited those places. Similarly invisible they recognised a fellow shadow. Some took the trouble to help. Not attracting the eye meant not attracting attention and there was safety in this. Mother Magnus, the cunning woman, showed her smidges of magic to help dampen the sound of her footsteps, to make darker shades cling to her as camouflage. Lil’bit, the cleverest thief, taught her how difficult locks might be encouraged to open, even though she did not indulge this new-found talent for nefarious purposes. Every little bit of knowledge was stored away, if not used immediately.

But the streets had become less welcoming in the past few months, the gloom seemed darker and deeper, the night silences heavier, and she was never sure now what she might find when she went abroad, either on ways of packed earth or cobbles.

Nel had found the first girl.

She’d gone to buy the week’s coal, dragging the newly cleaned little red tin wagon behind (Dalita always insisted it be pristine no matter that the coal filthed it up within moments). Nel was always there earlier than Bilson’s Coal Yard opened, but she knew how to subvert the lock on the rickety wooden gates, and Mr Bilson was happy for her to leave the small bag of brass bits and quarter-golds in a tiny niche beside the back door of the building.

Nel let herself in, every bump of the wagon on the ground making a loud protest against the quiet of the dawn, but it kept her company. She made her way over to the huge scuttle (the height of one man, the length of two and the width of three) with its metal lid and rolled the thing open to find a face staring back at her. As she looked harder into the dim space she could see a body carelessly laid across a bed of black, bare but for its dusting of coal, an expression of eternal bewilderment on the dead girl’s face.

The Constable, fat and red-faced, was terribly cross with Nel because she couldn’t tell him who had done this thing—which was going to make his job difficult. He normally dealt with nothing more than theft, and drunk and disorderlies, He studiously ignored runaways, vowing that they would return whenever hungry enough. He quietly took his bribes from those who ran the underbelly of the city—they were terribly good at self-regulation, which he appreciated. Any bodies that were the result of the criminal machinations tended to disappear. He did not have to deal with them. This . . . this was something new.

“I didn’t see anyone,” she said for the third time. “I just found her.”

“And what are you doing out so early?” he demanded.

She rolled her eyes. “Buying the coal for the house; and Madame Dalita will be looking for me by now.”

At the mention of her mother’s name, the Constable had realised that he didn’t need to detain her any longer.

Everyone hoped this murder was simply an aberration, but no. There had been five others since—or, at least, five who had been found. Nel had seen two of them, but only from a distance as they were hastily taken away to avoid public panic. One from the fountain in the city square (which was round), one from the garden at the bottom of the old Fenton House (deserted for many years), another in the orchard belonging to the widow Hendry on the outskirts of the city, yet another on the steps of the city hall and the final one tied to the prow of the largest ship in port, a caravel belonging to the Antiphon Trading Company. The young woman was wrapped around the figurehead as if holding on for dear life.

The girls were all poor, mostly without family, but very, very lovely, once upon a time. It didn’t matter, however, when they were lifeless and lying on the marble slabs of the Breakwater Mortuary, wrapped in black cloth so their souls couldn’t see to get out. All waiting for the coffins paid for by the city council—penniless girls, yes, but nothing puts more of a fright into folk than the idea of the restless dead. Those who in life had been destitute and dispossessed, when improperly buried, seemed to be more disagreeable, disgruntled, and disturbing as revenants. So the council of ten, made up of four members of the finest families, three of the richest traders, two of the most vociferous clergymen, and the Viceroy, reached into their deep pockets and stumped up for properly-made coffins and decent burials.

The Viceroy began to make noises, after girl number two, found in the fountain—people drank that water!—and so the Constable was given two helpers to aid in his investigations. Unfortunately, the need to spend time in taverns asking questions also meant the under-constables found themselves unable to resist the temptation of drinking whilst working and managed, by sheer effort, to not help very much at all. The Constable traipsed daily to the Viceroy’s office, a hang-dog expression on his face, head sinking lower and lower into the setting of his shoulders, so much so that people wondered if it might simply disappear and he would cut peepholes in his chest so he could see out. He stood quietly while the Viceroy yelled.

Nel had watched with interest some of the Viceroy’s performances.

He was in his seeming mid-forties, a handsome blond man with a poet’s soft blue eyes. Tall and well-made, he dressed with care and splendour, which set him apart from the previous Viceroy. He raged at the Constable. He ranted at the council members. He looked splendid doing it. He spoke gently to those who had lost daughters and paid out a blood-price to those who asked, even though, as people commented approvingly, it was not his place to do so. And he attended at the funerals of the murdered girls, eulogising each and every one, warmly praising the power of their youth and beauty, and lamenting their loss.

When Nel had first appeared at the door to the council chamber bearing her mother’s initial missive, he had paused in his tirade at the Constable and given a vague smile. Now he did not bother, as if her plainness made his eyes slide away and he could no longer notice her. She wondered if he thought the notes floated to him all by themselves. Indeed, her approach excited so little attention that she often watched him unheeded, caught his unguarded expressions and was surprised by those times when it seemed his face was not his own, but a mask set loosely atop another. Nel would shake her head, knowing her eyes deceived her.

She would clear her throat and he would stop what he was doing—whether it be reading, writing, making decrees or fiddling with the large yellow crystal he sometimes wore as a pin in his cravat—stretch forth his very fine hand with its manicured nails for her to place the letter onto his pale, lineless palm. That fascinated her, the blank slate of flesh, as if he had neither past nor future. As if he had simply appeared in the world as he had appeared in Breakwater, six months prior, bearing all the right letters with all the right seals. Accompanied only by two potato-faced men, who spoke seldom and then in monosyllabic grunts, he tidily ousted the incumbent Viceroy—a man known for his indolence, drinking, fondness for young flesh and payments made under the table—in a coup that had delighted and surprised the citizens.

He was terribly good at organising things and wonderfully talented at shouting down opposition, so the city began to run smoothly for the first time in many a year. Grumbles about his dictatorial style gave way to admiring nods as the mail began to arrive in a timely manner, providores were obliged to clean up their kitchens, and slack or shoddy workmanship incurred painfully large fines.

When Dalita initially sent her on this errand (having waited in vain for the new Viceroy to attend her establishment), Nel wondered at the woman touting for business. She thought perhaps Dalita feared the man’s next target would be to root out moral corruption and the like—he seemed the type. How else could one explain his absence from the house by the Weeping Gate? Dalita’s product spoke for itself, attracted buyers and created its own momentum, and would have done so even without the little bewitching touches such as enchanted whispers blown across a crowded marketplace, and tiny ensorcelled chains of love-daisies slipped into pockets and baskets.

Eventually, though, Nel realised that this was something more than a simple marketing ploy; this was higher stakes. Dalita was offering something for a more permanent purchase, not merely a short-term rental.

Dalita was planning to move up in society.

At the outset, Nel simply waited for the Viceroy to sniff and snort, and send her out of the chamber with laughter echoing in her ears; but he did no such thing. He read the note, opened the locket which had weighted down the billet-doux and stared at the miniature portrait of Asha for a while, then gave a nod, and the words ‘I will consider this proposition.’

She duly reported to her mother, who sat back on a padded recamier, with a well-satisfied look and a gleam in her eye. The speed with which this business-like courtship has proceeded surprises no one.

Now Nel visits the Viceroy every second morning or so with some wedding-related query. He does not give her a direct answer, but sends one of his men with a written reply in the afternoon.

What he does give Nel are his traditional sennight gifts for the bride-to-be (whom he has never met), one for each day of the week before the wedding.

These are strange, gaudy things that seem to have begun life as something else. A rusty iron coin, set in a fine filigree and hung on a thick gold chain. A rag doll dressed in a robe of impossible finery and carefully crafted miniature shoes, but the doll itself smells . . . wrong, musty, a little dead. A bracelet of old, discoloured beads, restrung on a length of rope of wrought silver. A brass ring with a piece of pink coral atop it. A shard of green, green glass set in a gilt frame as if it is a painting. A mourning broach dented and tarnished, the hair inside ancient, dry, and dusty, but a new stout pin has been affixed to the thing so it won’t fall away. And finally, today, the earrings.

They are large, uncut dirty-looking diamonds, stones only an expert would recognise (and Dalita is such a one).

They hang from simple silver hooks.

They are ugly and the Viceroy insists his bride wear them for their upcoming wedding.

The attic stretches the length of the house. It is populated by six beds, narrow wooden things, but with fat soft mattresses and thick eiderdown duvets, satin coverlets and as many pillows as might be accommodated. To one side of each bed is a free-standing wardrobe, plain yellow pine lightly lacquered, barely able to be closed for the wealth of attire stuffed within: day frocks, evening gowns, costumes for clients with more particular needs, wisps of peignoirs for those who prefer fewer hindrances to their endeavours. To the other, bedside tables overflowing with jewellery, hair decorations, stockings, knickers, protective amulets, random votives, powders, paints, and perfumes. Nel’s thin pallet is in the kitchen, piled high with her sisters’ cast-off quilts.

There is a space, too, where bed, wardrobe, and table no longer reside, but the marks of their feet are still visible. A gentle reminder of Iskha who always talked of running away and one day did. A space haunted by the glances the other girls give it, and by the presence of one of whom they now speak rarely and then only in whispers for fear their mother might hear. A space filled with yearning.

The wooden floors are covered with rugs of thickly woven silk—only naked feet may tread on these, so all the footwear for the ladies of Dalita’s establishment is kept in the room, which takes up half the tiny entry hall to the attic (the other half is a curtained-off bathroom), and is lined with shelves stashed with rows and rows of all manner of shoes: slippers, boots, heeled creations, sandals of gold and silver leather, complex constructions of ribbons and bows that must applied to the foot using an equally complex equation of order and folds to ensure the wearer can walk.

Against the back wall of the long room is the shrine: one large bed with four posts, big enough to accommodate three fully-grown adults, and hung with thickly embroidered tapestries to cut out the light when beauty sleep is a must. On either side of the bed rests a wardrobe, mahogany these, also tightly packed. To the left of this suite is a dressing table, complete with a stool, cushioned lest the buttocks of the chosen one be bruised. On the tabletop, rows and reams and streams of necklaces, bracelets; droplets of earrings, and finger rings, all a’sparkle like a tiny universe of stars carelessly strewn. And amongst this are pots and bottles (carved of crystal in various shades), palettes and brushes to apply all the colours required to highlight eyes, emphasise cheekbones, give lips more pout than Nature intended, and an oil (expensive, rare) to make black hair shine like wet obsidian.

This is the space laid out for Dalita’s special darling, her most beautiful child, the loveliest of them all; the one, Dalita believes, who most resembles her.

Asha’s mane falls below her waist, its ends tickling the tops of her thighs when she stands; Nel, when she is not in the kitchen, spends many hours washing it, rubbing oil into it, washing it once more, then brushing it, brushing it again until it glistens.

Asha’s eyes are just a little too large (like a doll’s), and hazel, and in the company of men, frequently cast down as Dalita has taught her. Her skin is the colour of butter with a marked sheen—again, Nel spends many hours rubbing this skin with creams that contain tiny flecks of gold and silver. Asha’s face is the shape of a heart, her nose pert and straight and her mouth an inviting purple blossom, lips always moist. She is secure in her position, in the knowledge that she’s destined for something more. It does not make her unkind.

She is Dalita’s gem, her pearl, her sole unspoiled child, for Dalita has greater plans for this daughter. Asha remains untouched and unbroken, a prize to go to the highest of highs. And at the moment, she is not in the room, which is awash with the noise of young women waking and dressing, bickering and bonding.

“Don’t pull so!”

“Oh, hush.”

“You’re never so rough with Asha,” whines Nane. Yara, sitting opposite her, nods, “No, never so rough.”

“I’m not rough,” protests Nel, “but you will let clients mess up your hair like this. Honestly, it’s a bird’s nest—what do they do?”

“Naught you’ll ever know about.” Nane laughs and pokes her tongue out. Nel catches sight of it in the mirror and tugs harder on the black tresses, smiling when her sister howls. Yara sniggers and earns a kick from her twin.

From one of the beds comes a growl. Silva sits up and glares. “Shut up, you lot. Some of us are trying to get our beauty sleep.’”

“Some need it more than others,” replies Tallinn silkily and a barrage of giggles and pillows explodes from Silva’s bed. Her aim is excellent and her ability to throw in more than one direction at once is impressive. Only Nel is safe. As if the sisters know Dalita’s treatment of the plain one is more than enough torment for anyone, they are always tender to their kitchen sister.

“There.” Nel draws the silver-backed brush through the now-smooth locks one last time, smiling at their lustre with contentment. “Hurry, Yara, you’re next, before Asha comes.”

“Oh, yes, Asha’s big entrance. Gods forbid she ever slip quietly into a room.” Kizzy rolls out of bed and slides to the floor, a look of discontent painted on her porcelain face. She is rounder than her sisters, scrumptious and cuddly, and the youngest; as such she instinctively knows she should be the one who is spoilt, but Asha’s pre-eminence has deprived her of this and she it resents it daily.

Yara slips into the spot vacated by her twin, and lets her eyes close, feline, as the brush begins its work. Yara is as neat as Nane is untidy; with their faces so alike it’s hard to believe that their natures are so different. Nane is robust, hoydenish; Yara is sleek, almost virginal (something truly precluded by her occupation, but the impression is more than enough to satisfy a particular kind of client).

“Someone help me with these stays,” howls Carin. “Gods, Nel, can’t you be more careful when you wash these things? You’ve shrunk my corset!” She struggles with the garment, tugging it this way and that, straining the tying ribbons until they threaten to snap. Nel puts down the brush and makes her way over the wildly struggling sister.

Calmly, she bats Carin’s hands away and adjusts the corset, shifting a fold of fabric here, straightening a caught-up hem there, and finally pulling the ties into alignment and deftly doing them up. She pats her sister’s face and kisses her cheek.

“I think you’ll find the corset is the same size and you’re one who’s changed. How long since—”

“Oh, no!” Carin wails. “Not again.”

“You’re so careless,” says Tallinn, rippling a frilly green day dress over her head. “Mother will make you keep this one—she said so last time.”

Carin slumps to her bed, head hung low, face covered with her hands. But she doesn’t cry—none of Dalita’s girls are given to tears for they redden eyes, puff up faces, coarsen complexions, and fill sinuses with unpleasant fluids; no one looks charming thus.

“Maybe,” she mumbles through her fingers. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?”

“And what life for it?” snarls Kizzy. “What life?”

Nel looks at the youngest and frowns, putting a finger to her lips. “Hush now, hush, Carin. We’ll take care of it, don’t worry. Dalita doesn’t need to know.”

“Maybe,” says Carin, “Maybe I could find Iskha?”

Carin’s expression of hope hurts Nel’s heart. She wonders if her other sisters suspect. “I could go to stay with her? Do you think, Nel? Could we find her?”

“I think I’ll make the appointment for next week. Mother Magnus will take care of it. Just keep your food down for a few more days, and give me one of those broaches the fat little Constable gave you last week.’”

“What for?” demands Carin, affronted that any of her trinkets might be taken. Nel rolls her eyes.

“You have to pay for her services somehow and what money do you think I have?” she asks tartly. Carin subsides and reaches into the top drawer of her bedside table to pull out a square mother-of-pearl container filled with things that shine. She hands Nel a cameo, engraved with the head of Medusa, lovely and serpentine, then insists, “Could you find her, Nel?”

“I think she wanted to get away and if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.” Nel pats her shoulder and returns to Yara’s hair, which she gives a final cursory brush and twists into a tightly elegant chignon. “Now, all of you, neat and tidy! Lest she come looking and find you wanting.”

As if summoned, Dalita appears, with all the imposing poise of an empress. Her eyes sweep the room, finding nothing to complain about, all daughters dressed and coiffed, paints applied to faces, potions and perfumes to skin. In her hands (strangely square, mannish, very capable, ruthless—what might those hands not do?) is a box, ancient, highly polished, yet with its wood cracking under the weight of years, a gold clasp holding it shut. It is almost four of the afternoon and the clients will soon come a’knocking, but first there is this to be done, this important thing before tomorrow.

Behind her stands Asha, quietly dignified, her wedding dress, a great white confection, glowing in a ray of last sun pouring through the skylight above. Taught by her mother, she knows how to always present herself in the best possible way; she knows everything there is to know about lighting, position, composure, posture, how to dominate a room from the moment you entered to the moment you left.

One senses, however, that she is not at full power, that she has dimmed herself for this practise run; she conserves her energy until she needs to glow.

The dress—the result of seven seamstresses sewing sleeplessly for seven nights—is rather like a wedding cake, with its lace and frills, its layers and embellishments. Shiny white, reflecting with so many hand-sewn crystals it almost hurts the eyes. It is the first time she’s seen it and Nel thinks it looks like a suit of armour.

No one but Dalita is to have the honour of preparing Asha for her wedding day, for Dalita trusts no one but herself. She certainly knows her craft: Asha is breathtaking; her sisters, even Kizzy (slightly green) stare in admiration and longing, and not a little envy.

Upon Asha’s hair—which has been carefully coiffed, bouffed, backcombed, woven, plaited, twisted, tied and knotted and sculpted like spun black sugar—is a fringe tiara, a framework of gold-wrought wire. From it flows a veil of silk gossamer, spider-spun, almost to the floor, but somehow incomplete. The headdress fans across the crown of her head like a peacock’s tail, with seven fine, hollow spikes as part of the structure, yet there is no adornment, none of the gems one might expect.

Dalita looks over her shoulder, gives Asha leave to move into the centre of the attic so she is encircled by her sisters (not Nel, though; Nel falls back, knowing her place is not there, and stands against a wall, quiet as a shadow-mouse). Dalita’s fingers clutch at the casket, fumble with excitement as she flicks the clasp.

“This box,” she says, pauses, struggles. “This has not been opened for forty years, not since your grandmother wed. What is inside is a gift to the bride that only a family can give: protection and a dowry against the future.”

She lifts the lid and offers the contents to Silva, then Tallinn, then Yara, then Nane, then Kizzy, and finally Carin; she herself retrieves the last item. Apiece, they hold what looks like a very long hatpin (the length of a hand), topped with a gemstone, each a different colour. Dalita takes her diamond-tipped pin and approaches Asha; carefully she inserts it into the middle spindle of the headpiece. “Long life to you, my daughter. Bring your family prosperity and pride.”

All the sisters do the same, and soon a rainbow arcs across Asha’s tiara: blue, red, green, purple, orange, pink, and the diamond, clear as light.

The earrings from Asha’s betrothed hang like clumps of dirty water at her ears. Dalita adjusts her daughter’s hair, just a little, to try to cover the offending ornaments. She frowns, making mental note to ensure the ’do is tweaked just-so on the morrow.

Dalita surveys her other daughters, does not speak, but merely waves a hand.

To a woman, they traipse out of the attic and down the stairs, past the two floors of the house where each bedroom is equipped with a sturdy bed, themed decorations, and a discrete bathing corner, down to the three parlours on the ground floor, where they will drape themselves over chairs and long sofas. Yara and Nane will pull back the curtains in the front windows and settle themselves on the padded seats to watch for oncoming visitors, and smile and wave, welcoming the regulars and drawing new customers in. Kizzy and Tallinn will ensure the drinks trolley in each room is fully stocked and all the heavy crystal glasses of varying shape and sort and size are ready. Silva will hover to open the front door upon the third knock (always the third, any less is too hasty, any more too tardy—three is just enough to sharpen a client’s anticipation, but not enough to stretch his or her patience). Carin will wait with her, ready to take coats and hats and canes and carefully put them away in the walk-in cupboard by the door. Tomorrow, they will have the day off, but not tonight.

“You,” says Dalita, pointing a finger at Nel, but not looking at her. Nel wonders if the woman suspects. “Take this to the Viceroy.”

Nel nods, pocketing the letter.

“But first help your sister out of that dress.” Dalita’s need to control extends only to the construction, not the deconstruction, of an illusion.

Nel nods again, although she knows this is neither required nor expected.

Dalita turns, her burgundy gown whispering, and lightly touches Asha’s creamy cheek. She catches sight of herself in one of the mirrors hung on either side of the doorway and pauses, struck. Nel wonders how many nights the woman spends before her own reflection, watching the years converge upon her skin and begin to decay her beauty. Dalita shakes her head, closes her eyes for a moment, then leaves. Both girls let their breath go as soon as they hear her heels on the stairs.

“Is it heavy?” Nel asks. Asha nods gingerly so as not to dislodge the work of art on her head. Nel begins with the headdress, unclasping the veil first of all and tenderly draping it across the nearest bed. Then the tiara, laid beside it.

“Is he handsome? Up close?” Asha asks unexpectedly.

Nel pauses in the task of unbuttoning the two hundred tiny pearl buttons running down the back of the gown. Nel wonders if she should tell her about the times when she fancied the Viceroy seemed other, but decides against it. “Yes. You’ve seen him from the window.”

“But that’s not close up. Is he nice? You’ve spoken with him.”

“No, I’ve delivered things to him and that’s different.” She considers. “He seems . . . determined. He knows what he wants. He is polite.”

Asha sighs. “I suppose it’s the best I can hope for.”

Nel hugs her sister, pressing her plain pale cheek against Asha’s butter-rose one. They are silent then, knowing that Asha has already had the best that can be hoped for in the house by the Weeping Gate.

Mother Magnus works and lives in a long narrow room, a forgotten roofed area, a lacuna between two larger buildings. Her bed and washroom are at the back, her workshop and store at the front; a ramshackle kitchen divides the spaces. To look at, Magnus is anyone’s idea of a witch, hunchbacked and bent, a shuffling gait, one side of her face a mess of scars, the other still quite smooth. Her hair, though, defies expectation; it is silver-white, long, soft, luxuriant, and hints at a different past. She smells like lavender.

Nel picks up bottle and jars, then puts them down. She flicks through the yellowed hand-written recipe and spell pages Magnus sells, stacked in boxes on a bench. She shifts back and forth impatiently while waiting, batting at the dried plants hanging from the low ceiling.

“Stand still before I hex you, child.” The woman’s voice is sweet, mellifluous and deep.

“I’ll be late. Yet another letter to the bridegroom.”

“Can’t hurry magic, girl. Hurried magic is messy magic. Messy magic is dangerous magic.” Mother Magnus points to the corrugated side of her face, then turns back to the mortar and pestle, attending to the task of grinding herbs with a particular intensity. Nel will ask her, one day, what happened, but she knows that now is not the time. The cunning woman’s back is eloquent in its deflection of enquiries. There is a dry rustling as the crushed ingredients are shepherded into the neck of a small bottle, then a glug as a purple liquid is poured in after. Magnus stoppers the flask and seals it with black wax. She hands it to Nel, who, in return, counts five quarter-golds in her wrinkled palm.

“My thanks, Mother,” says Nel. A tisane for Asha, to help with conception. Dalita is determined that her daughter will be embedded in the Viceroy’s life as soon as possible.

Nel finds herself staring at the ruined side of Magnus’ face and, without thought, she blurts, “Does my mother ever come to you?”

Magnus shakes her head. If the question surprises her she does not show it. “Never. Although if ever there was a woman I thought would seek me out, it’s her.”

“Why?” Nel thinks she knows the answer.

Magnus grins. “Why, for a cure against woman’s mortal enemy.”

“Time.” Nel nods, smiles a little; is thankful she doesn’t have to worry about having beauty to lose.

“If ever I thought there was a woman who would want potions—if ever there was a woman I thought would seek a soul clock or some such . . . ”

“A soul clock?”

“Steals the life—the youth more particularly, and all that goes with it. Done right, it will give you another lifetime, perhaps.”

“Perhaps?”

“I’ve never seen it done right.” Magnus rubs at her own face and turns away. She will not say more. “Night, Nel.”

Nel is out of the street and heading up towards the finer part of Breakwater, where the houses rest at the feet of the mountains, when she remembers she neglected to mention Carin and her needs. No matter. There will be plenty of time after tomorrow.

The Viceroy, in preparation for his wedding, is not at the council chambers this day. Running of the city has been suspended as the townsfolk anticipate the celebration to come and no one has any complaint. The taverns have opened their doors and libations are free—courtesy of the Viceroy’s fat wallet—and the brothels similarly are offering their services gratis (not Dalita’s girls, though—there is no promise of a change of life for them). There is much laughter in the streets and good-natured camaraderie; petty arguments have been suspended, debts and obligations forgiven and forgotten, at least for a few days. A carousing city relaxes, lowers its guard.

As the afternoon shades to an evening-lilac, Nel finds the iron gate of the Viceroy’s mansion secured. From her pocket she draws out a lockpick (a gift from Lil’bit), and has the lock clicking merrily in a trice. She slips in and wanders along the path, which rises slightly as it makes its way towards the white plaster and granite edifice. A mansion of twenty bedrooms for a single man and his two men servants. And soon, Asha; and soon Asha will have children. Nel dreams that she might leave the house by the Weeping Gate and look after Asha’s babies.

The trail winds its way through the overgrown grounds of the house, which are somewhat tropical; the air here is hot and damp. There is the smell of rotting vegetation and something else. Nel thinks the garden needs work and wonders that a man who so generously spreads his fortune across his citizens, who is so concerned with an organised and tidy city, takes no such care in his own home. In the foliage, behind the trees and bushes, things move and her spine twitches with the weight of gazes she cannot see. Nel picks up her pace.

The stone stairs of the mansion are off-white (no one washes and sweeps this stoop) and in places cracks make deep veins where dirt has infiltrated, looking like black blood. Nel tiptoes over them, and towards the front entrance. She raises her hand and knocks—which causes the door to swing open.

“Hello?” she calls.

There is only silence. She steps into the wide entry hall. The floor is covered with a black and white chess pattern of tiles; dual staircases climb the walls, to the left and right of a strangely placed fireplace, where only cold ashes shift in the slight breeze that has snuck in behind her. To her left and right are double doors, ornately carved, painted dove-grey with gold filigree decorations around the handles. Nel chooses the left. The parlour is empty, silent, and filled with stale air. She wanders through and finds another door, a single one this time. She pushes it open: a room lined with books and at the far end, two chairs (with curved armrests, slender legs and threadbare cushioning) wait, each with a large silver pan in front. In the pans is dust: two heaped piles of grey particles. On closer inspection, there is dirt, too, and what look like flakes of snake skin. On a delicate table between, two pewter ewers, filled with water and beside the chairs, a mound of clothes: the livery worn by the Viceroy’s two attendants.

Nel slips a hand into her pocket and rubs at the thick paper of Dalita’s note. Her heart does not hammer, but its rhythm has become more certain, like a punctuation of every second she remains here. She backs away, turns, and sees something she missed before: a curtained alcove. There is the sound of a latch rattling, a handle turning and now her heart kicks like a startled horse. Without a thought, she slips behind the hanging and holds her breath.

The space is small, containing only her, a slim crowded shelf and a chest, a sea chest, not closed, with fabric spilling out. Nel reaches down and pulls at one of the rags; it’s a dress, aged, dirty, with smears of coal dust across the skirt. Another dress, and another. All old, well-worn, as if by someone who could not afford to replace it; eleven in all. On the shelf, bottles. Phials half the length of her hand; she counts twelve and only one is empty. The others swirl with a roiling red-grey mist that seems to push against the very glass as if to get out.

Her attention is drawn away by footsteps. Footsteps and muttering; nothing intelligible, but determined. She puts an eye to the split between the curtains and watches the Viceroy pace, his back to her, to the chairs and their pannikins and pitchers. He kneels, grunting and groaning like a grandfather and pours the contents of a jug into a pan, whispering all the while.

A mist rises, swirling into a tall tower that takes on the shape of a man. The Viceroy moves to the other pan and, while the first thing is coalescing and firming, begins the process anew. He lifts his head and Nel sees his face in profile: the Viceroy, yes, with all the peaks and valleys of the features she knows, but old, so much older than he has presented himself. Furrows in a skin blotched with age and malign intent. Nel, understanding her time is short, slips out of the alcove and through the open door.

Her mouth is dry as paper, her throat closed over as she sneaks from the house. A sudden breeze pulls the door from her numb grip and slams it. Nel is used to little magics, the tiny enchantments to help things along, the harmless brushes of conjuring; what the Viceroy has done—is doing—is beyond her understanding. She runs down the cracked steps, behind her she hears the front door pushed back against the facade of the house, and two sets of stumbling feet, as if their owners have just woken. Nel darts into the undergrowth, fear of what she knows is chasing her greater than that which she imagines might be lurking in the garden. She tiptoes through dank detritus, glances over her shoulder and in the process trips over an ill-covered lump, wrapped in a mouldering blanket.

The smell of something else is worst here, right by this thing, this cylinder-shaped thing that feels soft and giving beneath her shaking hands. Before she summons the courage to unwrap it, however, the sound of footsteps grows louder, more confident, rushing through the leaf-litter, following her tracks. The moment before they appear, the Viceroy’s golems, there is a whisper and a sigh—no, whispers and sighs—and Nel is surrounded by grey, wispy women, made wan by death. Through them she can just make out the potato-faced minions, their heads moving back and forth, back and forth like confused bloodhounds. They cannot see her; the women have shielded her. The men servants shuffle off, back towards the path and the house.

Nel soughs her thanks, but the girls do not reply, merely watch her with sad, sad eyes. She glances at them, at the swirling number of them, trying to fix their features in her memory, until her eye lights on a face she knows too well. One for whom she packed a knapsack with warm clothing and food and drink; for whom, not six months since, she’d silently unlocked the door and watched as the other disappeared into the fog of the early morning. One she’d thought free of Breakwater and the house by the Weeping Gate.

She runs to her mother, not to the Constable, not any of the other council members. She runs to her mother, with the spectre of Iskha at her heels. To Dalita because she is the most powerful being Nel has ever known. No matter that there is no love there, Dalita loves Asha and Dalita will not allow her chosen daughter to be harmed.

Nel, propelled forward by the force of Dalita’s large hands, keeps her balance until the final few steps. Then she trips and sprawls.

Her fall is broken by damp fabric; felt, soaked with water. There is the sharp, briny smell of salt.

“You will not ruin this for me!” Dalita howls like a cat impaled upon a hot poker. Her rage, her disbelief, when Nel told her what she had seen, what she feared, was something to behold.

At first Nel thought it directed towards the Viceroy, then a ringing blow to her head and a second to her face made her reconsider. While she was disoriented, her mother grabbed her by the hair and dragged her, half-crawling, half-walking through the house, then into the kitchen and down to the cellar. Nel was unsure what enraged the woman most: the idea that Nel might endanger the wedding or that she had helped Iskha flee.

“Liar! Ingrate! Knave! Bitch!”

Dalita threw open another door, in the floor—a sub-cellar.

And the terrible truth of this place is becoming clear, after Nel’s drear hours in the dank dark room: this place is tidal.

There is a gap at the base of one wall, she can see, where the sea comes in, but there’s no hope of escape: there is a crosshatch of bars across the opening. The water is rising, rising, rising.

Wailing and shouting have not helped—no one can hear her through the cold thick rock of the walls and ceiling. Anyway, her sisters are all a’flap with celebrations—there was no pause for them in the evening, business as usual, but today they wear wedding finery and act the dutiful daughters even though the streets will be filled with people who sneer and laugh at them behind their backs.

The hours have done nothing but make Nel colder, to bring her closer to despair; her teeth chatter, she shakes so badly she can no longer stand and beat at the wood of the trapdoor, which is sodden, but not soft, not rotten. Her hands are bruised and fingers bloody from that hopeless endeavour. There is no lock which she might finagle into compliance.

And the water has continued to rise mercilessly; inevitably; inexorably.

A wash of waves pushes Nel, and her bluish lips and nose scrape against the rock-carved ceiling. She tastes salt and metal; she smells mildew and death. In moments, the sea will replace the last tiny pocket of air and she will drown. It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

With this realisation she feels her body suddenly very heavy, her spirit suddenly very light. She ceases to fight, ceases trying to stay afloat, gives herself up to the water, and she bobs about, heedless as seaweed. The tide pushes against her again, once, twice, thrice and she feels this is the end.

Hands.

Hands, strong and insistent, many of them; and voices, crying, angry, relieved. Many voices, all at once and Nel is hauled upwards. Behind her the trapdoor is slammed back into place, the bolt shot as loud as a lightning strike.

And her sisters, all her sisters but one—but two—gather around her, clamouring, demanding, groaning with fear and relief, wanting to know what happened, where has she been, was this why she missed the wedding.

And she tells them, choking on seawater and bile and vomit; shivering and shaking and desperately trying to pull her soul—which she so recently was preparing to let go—back into her body.

And they believe her; they believe her because she has never lied and because they know their mother and the length, breadth, and height of her ambitions.

Nel hopes Asha is safe, that there is time.

‘The Viceroy insisted they pay their respects to the morgue dead after the ceremony, while the city feasts.’

The mortuary, thinks Nel, so full of lost souls and spent lives, of untapped power. And as they sit there, the seven of them, they hear in the distance the sonorous clang of the death-bell. Not a rhythmic beating, but a desperate clamour, a cacophony. A cry for help. It stills them, voices, faces, hands trying to dry Nel off. It stills their hearts and their minds for precious seconds. And then they run, all of them, even Nel in a halting, stuttering fashion.

They run up the stairs, through empty rooms. They tumble down the front steps like kittens released from a box; they process through the cobbled streets, fast and fleet and trailing diaphanous fabrics and long tresses behind them like banners. They run through the night streets like glorious, terrified ghosts, flashing past windows and open doors, glowing in the lamplight as they pass from shadow to light and back again.

Not far from their destination, the air is split by a rumbling and the lash of a whip; they are almost run over by a black carriage and four, ebony plumes waving in the air. In a blinking moment, Nel glimpses the Viceroy slumped inside, his white wedding attire bloodied and torn, his true age writ large upon his face. Then the conveyance is gone, on towards the city gates, and the sight gives wings to Nel’s feet.

The sisters run until they merge with the gathering crowd outside Breakwater’s black marble and cardinal brick mortuary, threading their way through folk who, minutes ago, were celebrating all unawares.

Upwards the girls rush, pushing past the fat Constable and his slack-jawed deputies, along corridors embedded with the smell of death: mortification and preservation. Finally they crowd into a room, the room where all will one day go, lined with alabaster tables, each bordered with gutters and silver tubes leading to channels in the floor, stained rusty with all the years of bodily fluids. A room laid out not unlike their own attic sanctum. A room with windows set very high in the walls so no gawkers might peek at the frailty of the dead.

A room with a roughly drawn scarlet circle laid out before them, a star etched inside it with a bottle at eleven of its twelve points. Bottles filled with a churning red-grey mist, some fallen on their side as if collateral victims of a struggle, but none of them broken; none but the empty one lying beside Asha, who is draped across one of the tables.

Her wedding gown is worse for wear, and her tiara is askew and missing some of its pins. As the sisters approach, they notice her makeup has smudged and run, the lip wax is smeared, the kohl and mascara lie in lines across her face, her eyes seemingly bruised by the mess of dark smudges. One earlobe is torn and bloody, its earring gone.

The others stop; these are steps they cannot take. But Nel continues, her feet bare and muddy (her shoes lost in the depths of the sub-cellar), her dress saturated and still dripping on the cold marmoreal floor. Her soles jerk with the shock of being cut—glancing down, she sees shards of yellow, the crystal the Viceroy once wore, now destroyed. She notices that her sister still breathes laboriously, crimson vapour travelling on the exhalation. Nel gathers her up, heedless of the heart’s blood spilling from the tear in her chest. Nel leans close and catches Asha’s last words, “I can see Iskha.”

As her sister relaxes into death, Nel lets her lie back down. She arranges Asha’s limbs and clothing, gently closes her lids over staring eyes, tries to tidy the wildly dishevelled tresses. Clenched in Asha’s right hand is one of the missing pins, the diamond-tipped one. Its long thin shaft is covered with rapidly congealing blood. Nel does not believe this is her sister’s and she wraps the spindle in a piece of fabric torn from the wedding dress and buries it deep in her own pocket.

She then notices, around Asha’s body, an aura, a silver shimmer that pours off the dead skin; a voice in her head says no, but she ignores it and touches once more the morbid flesh.

There is nothing. No bolt of lightning, no arching pain, neither scream nor shout nor moan. Nothing, but a kind of itch, across her scalp and her own skin, her own face. Nothing that hurts, nor is even uncomfortable, but simply the sensation of a change creeping on, slowly.

“A soul clock,” says Mother Magnus, her voice tunnelling through the dim front parlour of the house by the Weeping Gate. All the rooms have been dark for some weeks, all business dealings postponed, all noises hushed. Nel stands, staring out through the gap in the thick curtains. The view of the street has not changed, although there is a carriage waiting, not too fine, not too ordinary, simply one that will draw no attention. She lets the old woman reel out her explanation. Nel occasionally asks questions and wonders if the cunning woman should have—or did—notice the signs.

“Why girls? Why not boys?”

“Vanity? Convenience? Soft skin? Who looks for lost girls of suspect morals?”

“And Asha? Why Asha?” Nel’s voice trembles but does not break.

“Who was more beautiful than Asha?”

Nel realises she is wringing her hands; she shakes them, stills them.

“He was aging—I saw him. I think he was getting desperate. He was getting sloppy, stopped bothering to hide them.” Nel rubs her face, still getting used to it. “I wonder what he’ll do now, where he’ll go.”

“Like I said, hen, you can track him with this, if it’s his blood.”

Nel nods, because she is sure. She wants to be sure. She takes the item from Magnus. “He won’t recognise you, but it will be harder for you to hide.”

“I know,” says Nel, skin all goose bumps at the thought of being seen. “What about the other ones?” the old woman asks.

Nel turns. Mother Magnus is pointing to the eleven bottles, now empty. Nel hopes the wisps of souls will forgive her. It will not be long, she tells them in her heart, and prays Iskha will intercede for her.

“Home,” she says. ‘They went home.’

Upstairs, Nel can hear her mother’s ruckus and she takes her leave of the cunning woman. Dalita, having disappeared after being given news of her darling’s demise, was found hours later screaming at the Viceroy’s mansion, yelling obscenities at the top of her lungs, banging at the doors and breaking the windows with anything she could find to hand. She has been a’bed ever since.

The first time she opened her eyes and saw Nel she recoiled, gibbering. Now she will take food only from this daughter’s hands.

For it is Nel, but not Nel alone.

The plain daughter is transformed. She is not the great and terrible beauty Asha was, but something of the dead sister has passed over to her.

Her hair is now a decided black, her eyes are larger, but still grey. Her mouth has blossomed into something that demands attention, and her figure has filled out, hips and breasts growing wider, just a little, and waist pinching in without the aid of a corset. She is dressed in Asha’s clothes for her own no longer fit.

She is a different girl, touched somehow by the magic left on Asha’s skin. She is no longer a girl who can live in the shadows, and she feels this loss. Nel no longer feels safe for there is nowhere she can hide from the gaze of those who would drink her in.

This morning, dressed in a grey velvet travelling dress (once Asha’s favourite), a beaded purse hanging from one wrist, and a black lacquer fan which, when open, shows mermaids and sailors, on the other, she gives instructions to Carin, who insists upon interrupting.

“And what do we do,” asks Carin (now rounder than she was and determined to become rounder still), “when she asks for you? When she refuses to eat?”

“Mix a little of the valerian in her food, it keeps her calm. Tell her I am doing what I must and she needs to be patient.” Nel pulls on kid gloves fastened with jet buttons.

“When will you come home?”

“When it is done.”

Her single carpetbag waits by the doorway. When she is in the shadowy confines of the carriage, when she can feel the rock and sway of the vehicle and knows they are beyond the city’s boundaries, Nel will take the diamond-topped spindle from her reticule. She will place it on her palm and wait to see which way it spins, until it finds the direction she must follow.

Nel takes a deep breath, steeling herself to step outside, to move through the world and be seen.

See here? See this girl?

She is a very fine girl indeed.