The warrens of Undertown were a nightmarish maze, legendary for their sheer impenetrability. The city’s bowels were so twisted that had Morgause been a living being, it would have surely died of complications.
Down, down, down we went, into that impossible, stinking labyrinth. More than once, I knocked my head upon a low-hanging pipe, much to the amusement of my new monosyllabic guide.
Colridge & Smythe controlled much within the city of Morgause… but the bank would never truly control what it didn’t fully respect. Goblins who fell on hard times certainly weren’t going to ask Ol’ Smythe for help—how could they, when the bank rarely let them through its doors for anything other than janitorial work?
No, indeed. When the goblin miners and lamplighters and beggars of Morgause needed more help than meagre Goblintown could provide, they went to their own powerful institution—and its reach was far greater than any banker probably knew. Goblins, after all, were everywhere in the city.
Many people in Morgause scoffed at the notion of an organised goblin underworld. But what they didn’t believe in could still definitely hurt them.
We travelled for the better part of an hour before my boots finally scraped against raw stone. Above me, I heard the hammering heart of Morgause—the enormous steam vents which thrummed with the city’s lifeblood. Before me, I heard a riot of voices—dozens upon dozens of them, in a jumbled, lawless mess.
Someone yanked the black sack from my head… and suddenly, I was a child all over again.
I stood within a large patchwork tent, erected within the confines of a roughly hewn cavern. Dozens of swaying lanterns cast feeble light across the wild tent. Shadows danced merrily among the many red-eyed goblin-folk before me—a gathered host of the most long-lived scoundrels that Morgause had ever known. I shuffled in my spot, duly intimidated by the dangerous dignitaries in front of me.
Before me sat the Underlords, in the heart of their place of power. And from the looks of it, court was in full session.
I’d stood in front of the Underlords only twice in my life—before the uniform and the puffed up pride and the terrible realisations which soon followed. As a child, I’d understood that the Underlords were dangerous people, but I’d looked upon them with a mixture of fear and awe. They were, in their own way, somewhat glamorous.
Now that I was an adult, the shimmering glamour had fled. Underneath it was the cold, hard understanding that these goblins were like smiling, trained barghests. They were good at killing, good at hurting people, good at controlling everything they touched. If ever I convinced them I was troublesome, their smiles would drop, and they would tear me into little pieces.
But they were definitely capable of giving me the things I needed.
There were five Underlords here today—more than I remembered from my youth, though I still recognised a few of them. Each of them kept their own demesne within the court, surrounded by their preferred comforts and hangers-on as they conducted business.
The notorious Archrogue Highprofit currently reclined upon a hand-carved bed, bedecked with silken sheets and a rainbow of decadent curtains. He was every bit the green-skinned, red eyed Morgause goblin I was. Highprofit had doubled in size since I had last seen him; I wasn’t surprised, given that he was missing his entire right leg from the knee down. Technically, he had a wooden leg which he could use at his leisure—but he was well past middle-aged now, and he had declared his intention to fully enjoy the comforts available to him in his twilight years. Today, a gaggle of goblin ladies hand-fed him, while another attendant massaged at the stump of his knee.
The archrogue was the closest thing the Underlords had to royalty—his great-great-grandfather was the man who’d first united the disparate criminal goblins of Morgause beneath one banner. Highprofit himself had pulled off a truly legendary score in his youth, though it had ultimately cost him his leg. He never allowed anyone to forget that it was his crew and his plan that had once breached the vaults of Colridge & Smythe. A stolen bust of Colridge stood proudly on display beside Highprofit’s bed—now improved with the addition of a wig and a painted-on moustache. If I wanted money, then Highprofit could lend it to me… at a very steep rate of interest.
Not very far away from Highprofit, Ginny Glazier batted at tossed teacups, swinging her rusty crowbar with frightening precision. The shattered remnants of vases, plates, and porcelain statues surrounded her. Her shock of black hair was tied back into a practical ponytail, but there was a wild look in her red eyes. She wore a weathered leather jacket over a grime-stained jumpsuit; neither one completely concealed the black tattoos which snaked up from her collar and along her throat. Ginny was close to my age, and I remembered her dimly from our mutual childhood. Never one for subtlety, she had started her illustrious criminal career by smashing in shop windows in busy districts and taking what she liked.
It wasn’t about the things she stole. Ginny had admitted that to me one night, as we huddled together in front of a stove in Goblintown. She didn’t want those things for their own sake—she simply wanted to know that she had taken them from the people who would never normally sell them to us. She wanted to break what mattered to them, to force them to acknowledge her existence. Even as a little girl, Ginny had burned with a wild, deep-seated anger that sometimes frightened me. I understood it better, now that I was older; she’d simply seen everything a bit more clearly than I had, at the time. The forced misery and the unfairness and the lack of opportunity had festered within her, until she’d finally found her version of an outlet for it.
There was a certain charisma in that open rage of hers. Ginny’s current entourage looked at her with a strange, bewitched sort of loyalty in their eyes. Hoots of satisfied laughter rose as her crowbar came down upon a shining crystal goblet, spraying the floor with glimmering shards.
If I needed someone who specialised more in breaking than entering, I suspected I knew who to go to. But I wasn’t strictly certain that I wanted to risk Ginny turning that famous fury upon me when she realised who I was.
The last Underlord I recognised was the infamous Gentleman Sharper. The stylish goblin had reclined himself in a hammock, strung up between two transplanted marble pillars. I was perhaps unduly proud of my captain’s hat and my heavily patchwork coat—but Sharper’s greatcoat, with its gleaming brass buttons, made me feel like a guttersnipe by comparison. Sharper wore a highwayman’s hat pulled down over his eyes as he watched his hangers-on, who sat at a bevy of lordly tables nearby. The goblins that surrounded him played high-stakes games with stacks of gems, bank notes, deeds, and other illicit goods piled high.
Gentleman Sharper was a legendary gambler, and an even shrewder businessman. Everyone who was anyone knew that Sharper ran the Cinderhouse—a high-stakes gambling hell that never set up in the same place twice. Once upon a time—or so the story went—he had forcibly settled a bloody turf war between the Hammerton gang and the Steel Street toughs by inviting both leaders to the Cinderhouse for a very special, very final game of roulette. The incident had earned him an instant invitation to join the Underlords. Ever since then, people said, Sharper had accumulated so much money and so many favours that he might as well have been a faerie.
Almost every goblin in Morgause wanted to be Gentleman Sharper… and those who didn’t want to be him were probably lying.
By now, my guide had left me among a small crowd of fellow supplicants. I was far from the only desperate goblin in need today; in fact, Morgause had a way of manufacturing desperate goblins, much as it manufactured weapons and warships. I was a bit taller than the average goblin, but I still had to crane my neck to peer over the rest of my fellows as I turned my attention to the last two Underlords, both of whom were utter strangers to me.
The sheer size of the next Underlord drew my eye. He was a sturdy-shouldered, bull-necked, rust-skinned giant of a goblin. As I listened in on the ruckus, I heard someone address him as Kura Coal. Kura’s clothing seemed strangely familiar to me, though it was ragged and worn. It was only after a good five minutes of study that I realised his coat had been stitched together from the bloodied uniforms of grims. The jacket made a striking statement: Neither Kura Coal nor his people feared Ol’ Smythe’s reach.
Kura had settled himself on a raised chair overlooking a sparring match; a pair of chained barghests lazed beside him, chewing on meaty bones. Other goblins crowded around to watch the match, passing bets and cheering on their fighter of choice. The commentary surrounding me suggested that this was a sanctioned duel. Kura Coal, I deciphered, was to the Underlords as Mr Strahl was to my ship—he had taken on the job of maintaining order here, at least partially through violence. Had I needed some muscle, Kura Coal might have been my best option… but I was obviously hoping that it wouldn’t come to that.
The last of the Underlords lounged upon a truly massive divan of laughable proportions. Several goblins with lacquered fans chatted idly next to her while she painted her nails. I muttered an inquiry to the goblin in front of me in line, and learned that she was properly addressed as Abbess Boblin. The abbess was a woman of stunning beauty—and she clearly knew it well. Her midnight black hair piled atop her head in a lady’s braided bun. A tailored, gold filigree corset openly hugged her figure; the only thing the abbess wore atop it was a strand of expensive pearls. A theatrical porcelain half-mask adorned her face, setting off the yellow streaks in her rich olive green skin. Big, golden eyes peered out from that half-mask with keen interest.
Abbess Boblin, I was told, ran the Cadmey—an ‘institution’ for wayward souls who hoped to learn the fine art of companionship. She had her finger on the pulse of the city’s courtesans and their respective establishments… a position which also gave her access to a surprising amount of information. Like Gentleman Sharper, the abbess had managed to stretch her influence into parts of the city which normally wouldn’t welcome goblins. If I had good information to barter—or perhaps a pretty face—the abbess would be willing to hear me out.
I observed the Underlords for the better part of a loud, tumultuous hour, turning my options over in my mind. Which Underlord would have the means to secure me an entire fuel tank of aether? My gut told me I would have the most luck with either Highprofit or Gentleman Sharper, but I knew it was a big ask. No rational goblin would volunteer to nick aether in the middle of a shortage like this.
At the end of the day, the Underlords were just like any other insular criminal family, balancing their power and control against a certain amount of community goodwill. I was no longer a part of their community—which meant that they’d almost certainly be gouging me for the help. As a captain with my own ship, I had a few bargaining chips on my side that many of the other goblins here didn’t… but I was also about to ask them for the means with which to flee Morgause entirely.
This was going to go hard for me. But one way or another, Miss Hawkins was about to dive straight into trouble… and I intended to make sure she had a ship to fly her out of it again. In fact, I intended to fly her straight back to Pelaeia.
Slowly, the rough sketch of a plan fell into place in my mind. Eventually the burly goblin who’d been wrangling the line nudged me along to an area near the centre of the tent, where I could easily reach any one of the Underlords’ seats.
“Which Underlord is the goblin seein’?” he asked me shortly.
“All of them,” I declared. The other goblin blinked owlishly.
If there’s one thing a good fool knows, it’s this: Grand gestures can accomplish a lot. Granted, they might accomplish your instant, painful demise… but either way, you’re bound to get a reaction.
I squared my shoulders and stepped forward, slapping on my best, most charming smile. “My fair Underlords!” I called out.
I had to force my voice over the chaotic din—but I’d spent years now shouting orders into the wind, and I had the lungs to do it.
I earned a few curious looks from the assembled company within the tent, along with some disdainful sneers. Importantly, however, I saw the Underlords turn their heads towards me. Some of them looked intrigued. Some of them looked ready to gut me. But all of them looked at me.
Though I’d been expecting it, the weight of all those important eyes threw me off balance for a moment. Five ruthless, powerful criminals had now taken an interest in me—here at the centre of their domain, where I was utterly at their mercy. The cunning words I’d been planning curled up and died on my tongue. Sweat trickled down my spine, and I cleared my throat hesitantly, searching for my voice again.
“Um,” I greeted them. “Er. Hello.”
I know. Hardly a masterstroke of inspiring rhetoric.
Silence slowly fell within the tent, stretching out into a painful pause. Then—all at once—the Underlords burst out laughing.
Ginny howled. The archrogue wheezed. Kura guffawed. Sharper slapped a hand against the table in front of him, wiping tears from his eyes. The abbess tittered with her attendants. Every other goblin in the room soon followed suit. The sound was deafening.
I smiled nervously and laughed with them. My cheeks heated with embarrassment.
“This one o’ Sharper’s jokes?” Ginny asked.
“Nah,” Sharper said with a chuckle. “Sharper’s people can stitch more’n a few words together!”
“He’s a pretty one,” the abbess purred. She twirled a strand of pearls with her finger, looking at me like a piece of meat—barely different from the way the Archrogue looked at the morsels on his gilded platter.
“The lady is as gracious as she is stunning,” I flattered her. I offered the Abbess a courtly bow, sweeping my hat in a rakish manner. The gesture earned me a few more laughs. “I am deeply honoured to—"
“Wot?” Ginny interrupted. She cocked her head to the side. “Anyone understand wot he’s sayin’?” She emphasised the thick local accent on purpose. I tried to speak a few more times—but each time I opened my mouth, she interrupted with another “Wot? Hmm?”
She wasn’t alone. Kura had left his bloody-minded audience and panting duellists in order to come closer. “Wot’s with all the fancy talk?” the hulking goblin asked.
“Ginny don’t know,” Ginny called out. She grinned at me patronisingly. A spark of niggling recognition twinkled in her eyes, but didn’t fully coalesce. “Oi, Sharper! Underlords still needs a jester?”
Gentleman Sharper rose from his hammock, sauntering over to get a better look at me. I was struck by how thin he was—a veritable scarecrow of a goblin swimming in his coat. He had a swagger to him, an air of confidence that I normally saw in young, cocky outflyer aces. As he came closer, I realised that I was just a few inches taller than he was. Somehow, it didn’t matter—Sharper still managed to look down his nose at me. In fact, the closer he stalked, the more nervous I became. There was a coiled energy about him, like a serpent ready to strike.
Sharper grinned lazily. “Sure,” he cracked. “Underlords still needs a jester. Funniest fing Sharper’s seen all week. Like a barghest walkin’ on its back legs, tryin’ t’dance. The Underlords ‘elp goblins down ‘ere. An’ who is him, talkin’ like a fancy toff?”
I flinched, despite myself. Some part of me still didn’t feel comfortable claiming any part of who I’d once been. I wasn’t ashamed of being a Coalditch goblin… but I was ashamed at how quickly I had left it all behind. Putting on my old accent now felt akin to a masquerade—an attempt to score cheap points which I hadn’t rightly earned.
But I’d come to the Underlords, after all. And the Underlords weren’t going to offer their help to the goblin who’d spent two decades and change reading poetry with Physicker Holloway.
I drew in a deep breath. “Cap’n William Blair comes to ask help from the Underlords—” I started.
“Cap’n?” Ginny repeated with a laugh.
“What sorta name’s William Blah?” Kura rumbled. He cracked his neck with a tilt of his blocky head.
“Rubbish,” Sharper spat. “That ain’t no goblin name.” He leaned in towards me, still shuffling an old deck of cards between his nimble fingers.
“William Blair don’t belong ’ere,” the archrogue wheezed at me.
My pulse quickened self-consciously. The situation was quickly sliding through my fingers.
Thankfully, I always do my best work under pressure.
“A goblin always goes where they doesn’t belong, now don’t they?” I replied. “So’s, if William Blair don’t belong ‘ere… then William Blair do belong.”
The gathered Underlords contemplated this witticism. Sharper’s smile grew hard-edged. Ginny and Kura shrugged, faintly mollified by my logic. The abbess leaned her chin into her palm, considering me enigmatically. The archrogue scratched thoughtfully at his stump.
“Fancy tongue has William Blair,” the abbess said. She offered me a smile. “Let’s hear what William has to say.”
Sharper held my eyes. Without turning, he casually drew a pistol from his coat, levelling it behind him at one of the goblins at his card table—and pulled the trigger.
A loud gunshot cracked through the air. Hardened goblins skittered back in surprise, reaching instinctively for their weapons.
The goblin screamed and flopped to the ground, clutching at his chest. Within moments, Kura’s thugs had grabbed the thrashing victim, dragging him towards the barghests, who perked up with eager hunger. Meanwhile, half a dozen scavengers descended upon the table to snatch up the unfortunate goblin’s blood-spattered winnings.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Sharper holstered the pistol and turned to march towards the empty chair. He dragged it over to the centre of the tent, offering it to me with a gallant, overly-generous sweep of his hat.
Hot, fresh blood dripped from the chair.
There was another brief shriek from the corner with the barghests—and then, a terrible crunch. No further cries followed.
I swallowed hard, and took the proffered seat. “Um,” I rasped, before I could think better of it. “Why—”
“Rat was takin’ money from Ol’ Smythe,” Sharper explained, loudly enough for the rest of the tent to hear him. “Sharper was goin’ to kill ‘im tomorrow anyway. Goblins all knows what happens to rats who turns on their kin, now don’t they?” He smiled at me with far too much pleasantry. The words were meant to be an open threat. I offered him a shaky nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“Time fer the goblin to states his business,” Sharper finished mildly. “What’s he want from the Underlords?”
Kura’s barghests continued consuming their grisly meal. I tried to focus on the goblins in front of me, as best I could.
You knew who you were coming to, I reminded myself. At least they’re more honest about who they are than the Imperium ever was.
I took a deep breath, and dusted off the life that I’d abandoned.
“William Blair needs a favour,” I said. “William comes to beg fer the Underlords’ help.”
Ginny’s red eyes sharpened upon me. She took a few steps forward, reaching out with her crowbar to lift my chin. The metal was cold upon my skin. “William was one of Old-Hand Nypper’s brats, wasn’t he?” she said.
“Fer a time,” I agreed. “Coalditch district.” I didn’t dare remind Ginny of the times we’d shared stale honey cakes. That was far in the past now, and I’d still stolen away on an Imperial ship without so much as a word of goodbye. Emotion stirred somewhere behind her bright eyes, but I didn’t know how to read it. At least, I thought, she hadn’t tried to feed me her crowbar yet.
“William is military,” Kura said. He looked me up and down with a keen gaze; it was a very Strahl-like assessment. “Too uptight fer the Goldies. William is a Bluejacket.”
“William served Avalon,” I said. I tried to keep my voice clear and calm, but shame crept into my voice nonetheless. “Imperial Navy. Two years, ‘afore it all fell to pieces.”
“William looks like a lifer,” Kura grumbled. I wasn’t sure it was meant to be a compliment.
“William has a good crew,” I answered, by way of explanation.
“Not so good, if William’s come here beggin’ fer help,” Sharper pointed out. He strolled over to the archrogue’s table to nick an apple, crunching into it casually. The noise was indistinguishable from the sound of the barghests at Kura’s seat.
I wanted to defend my crew—I was the one who’d dragged us into this mess, from start to finish. But I swallowed the arguments down. I was here to get the Rose out of Morgause. That was more valuable than trying to win an argument most people would soon forget anyway.
I bowed my head instead. “The Lady’s love is fickle,” I said.
Sharper fixed me with a curious look over his stolen apple. Something about the reply had caught his casual interest. “So it is,” he agreed. “William loves ‘er back, then?”
I inclined my head at him. “Sometimes, the Lady is fair winds,” I said. “Sometimes, She’s the storm. But William’s still alive, so he won’t ask fer more.”
Sharper chuckled. The sound put me on edge—but he waved the apple at me graciously. “So see how sweet She is today,” he told me. “What favour does William ask?”
I drew in a breath. “Crew’s out of aether, an’ we needs to leave soon—maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow,” I explained. “No one’s sellin’, even if we has the money. So… fuel’s what we need. William gets fuel in time, an’ one of the Underlords gets any favour they asks for, at least six months from now.”
“N’whys should the Underlords trust that William Blair won’t scarper once he gets his fuel?” Sharper demanded.
“William’s word as a cap’n an’ a gent,” I offered.
I felt the scepticism in the gathered Underlords. Already, I was losing their interest.
A pair of arms settled onto my shoulders from behind. The abbess’s pearls rattled, and a few strands of her hair tickled my neck. “Not good ’nough,” she murmured in my ear.
“Then as a goblin?” I ventured.
“No goblin wears a blue coat,” Kura muttered disdainfully.
“Then William’s honour as a fool,” I declared.
That drew a contemplative silence. Religious appeals among goblins were admittedly scarce—but not unheard of. For some reason, I noticed, several of the Underlords glanced towards Sharper.
Sharper tossed his apple into the corner with the barghests. He pulled out his deck again with a slow, unsettling smile, shuffling it from hand to hand. He fanned the cards out before me with one hand, letting the other hand fall back to his side. “Go ahead then,” he told me. “Let William pick—”
I didn’t let him finish.
It might be that a smarter man would have waited. But I’ve never claimed to be smart. All of my life, I’d honed my instincts so that I could make the sort of split-second decisions which so often make the difference between life and death. Those instincts had told me—screamed at me—that my best and only chance of making it out of here with what I wanted was to pick a card now, with absolute unflinching confidence.
I snatched a card from the deck at random, holding it out to the goblin in front of me.
Sharper drew his gun with the exact same swiftness, pointing the barrel directly at my forehead.
All at once, my rational brain caught up to those split-second instincts. Gentleman Sharper had reached for his gun just a breath before I had gone for the card. He hadn’t just been asking me to pick a card; he’d been about to offer me a deadly game, just like the one he’d forced upon the two gangs at his gambling hell in his apocryphal rise to power. Probably, he’d meant to test how desperate I was, instead of testing just how stupid I was.
I didn’t even know which card he’d wanted me to choose. All I knew was that the wrong card meant I was a very dead goblin.
Gentleman Sharper considered the card that I held out to him…
And then, he laughed.
He plucked the card from my fingers and held it up for everyone to see. The Underlords and their spectators leaned in with bated breath, waiting curiously for his judgement.
“William’s honour as a fool!” Gentleman Sharper declared. “So it is!”
I stared at the card, still halfway stunned at my own carelessness. A faded red and orange figure rode across its surface, mounted upon a fiery steed. I’d drawn the Knight of Summer—a court card from the suit which most people associated with the Lady of Fools. In fact, the Knight of Summer was sometimes called the Lady’s errand-boy.
A strange, confusing shiver ran through my body, starting at the crown of my head and working its way down to my toes. For a moment, I felt almost detached from myself, wondering if I had wildly misunderstood some crucial fact which underpinned my world.
I’d always joked that the Lady of Fools and I had an understanding—that I endured Her unfortunate pranks in return for a favour now and then. But as I stood there looking at the Knight of Summer… for just a second, I believed. And suddenly, I wasn’t so sure that I’d been fully joking. Maybe, I thought, I had believed it on some level, all along.
The shiver passed. As it did, it took my hubris with it.
The Lady of Fools had better things to do than to meddle with the affairs of one insignificant goblin. I’d been lucky. There’d been about a quarter chance that I might draw a Summer card, and I had done it. Fortune had saved me, where my instincts had failed me.
The archrogue considered the card with a contemplative hum. “William could have cheated,” he observed offhandedly.
“In front of Sharper?” the abbess tittered with amusement. “Then William ought to be an Underlord.” She patted one of my cheeks, before releasing me and departing back for her divan.
“Now Ginny remembers William,” Ginny murmured. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I had to work to suppress my wince.
Kura made a thoughtful rumbling noise in his chest. “Dangerous business,” he said. “An entire tank of aether. The Iron Guard shoots aether thieves on sight, even when supplies ain’t short. Ol’ Smythe’s toughs don’t play over aether, neither.”
I forced my brain to work again—though the thoughts came slow and sluggish, pushing through thick molasses. I couldn’t waste the dangerous chance that I’d been given. “That’s… exactly why William came to these fine Underlords,” I managed hoarsely. “No one else could do it. But Archrogue Highprofit gives Ol’ Smythe the laugh, an’ the Lady of Fools kisses Gentleman Sharper to bed every night. An’ no one with a mind dares get on Ginny’s bad side. The Underlords ain’t scared o’ nothin’.”
In my experience, flattery goes an awful long way—even among hardened criminals. Maybe especially among hardened criminals.
The abbess laughed. It was a pleasant, bell-like sound—one which I suspected she had carefully cultivated. “Such smooth words, William,” she said slyly. “Did he drink honey ‘afore he came to court?”
Abbess Boblin knew exactly what I was up to. But her smile told me she was perfectly happy to let me continue. I offered her a shaky grin.
“Every goblin knows Underlords can spit in ol’ Smythe’s eye an’ get away with it,” I observed. “The blue sky’s the limit… as long as a goblin can pay.” I spread my hands. “William knows it’s true.”
An entire tent full of goblins watched the spectacle with keen interest. I’d thrown down a gauntlet… and an opportunity. Any Underlord who pulled this off would be able to tell a story on par with the archrogue’s heist on Ol’ Smythe. If the Underlords turned me down, on the other hand, it would look as though they were too scared of the city’s rich and powerful to do much more than thumb their noses at them. I knew it was a weak play, gambling on their pride—but at the moment, it was the best approach I had.
“William Blair’s smuggled goods through the Sirocco Isles,” I said with pride. “William stole a pineapple from the Ebon Warden an’ a convict from the noose in Lyonesse. William’s favours have worth.” The pineapple theft was lost on most of the goblins present, but Highprofit grinned at the mention—he clearly knew how absurdly expensive the fruit could be.
Ginny rapped her crowbar against the floor. The tap, tap, tap of iron on stone echoed loudly through the tent, with slowly growing intensity. The fire in her eyes had landed upon me, burning at my skin. “No,” she bit out shortly. “Ginny won’t help William Blair.” The name dropped from her lips in an open sneer.
I tried not to let the guilt show on my face—and probably failed.
Abbess Boblin tapped the closed end of a fan against her chin, as another silk-draped goblin woman whispered in her ear. Her eyes flickered over to Gentleman Sharper, and I realised that the two of them were probably closely allied. “Abbess Boblin would be willing,” she mused. “But Boblin works with information, and not aether. This lies outside of Boblin’s purview.”
Kura Coal leaned back into his seat, flexing his fingers into his palms with silent agitation. Kura didn’t want to take me up on my offer—he’d been the first to observe just how dangerous my request would be. But he also knew that all eyes were upon the Underlords now… and even more than the rest of them, he couldn’t afford to look weak.
The archrogue spoke next, before Kura could be forced to make his decision. “William gives his Oath,” the Underlord offered magnanimously, “an’ Archrogue Highprofit gives him his dream. The archrogue will do the impossible.” He smiled, slow and smug, and a devious twinkle entered his eyes. “Again.”
The word ‘Oath’ nearly made my stomach revolt.
I probably should have been expecting it—but I hadn’t. When I’d been growing up in Coalditch, people there just didn’t ask each other to swear Oaths; it wasn’t done. Oaths were a weapon used against us by powerful people. Goblins, in particular, treated Oaths with a cultural and religious disgust. The Lady of Fools disdained the use of Oaths, and rarely kept company with Noble Gallant.
But the Underlords were a different sort entirely than the miners and shop owners and pickpockets in Goblintown. The games that the Underlords played were high stakes… and in at least a few respects, they’d picked up the habits of Morgause’s powerful elites.
“An Oath for Kura Coal.” Kura relaxed upon his throne as he spoke the words. “A full tank of aether, in return.”
I blinked, dragged back from my growing nausea by the other Underlord’s declaration. Belatedly, I realised that my horror must have shown upon my face as Archrogue Highprofit asked for an Oath. Kura had decided I was unwilling to pay that price—which made it safe for him to make the same offer.
And maybe, I thought sickly, he was right.
The sheer unfairness of it all assaulted me. For the longest time now, I had struggled to do the right thing, no matter how complicated or confusing or hopeless that seemed. In return—within the last few days, in particular—I had been mocked and spat upon and taken advantage of by everyone I met.
Why should I be asked again to put my soul in hock, in order to repair the wrongs that others had committed?
Dimly, I became aware of Gentleman Sharper, still standing only a few feet away from me. He’d narrowed his eyes in my direction, still flicking the Knight of Summer between his fingers. He was the only Underlord who hadn’t yet spoken.
I straightened abruptly and turned to face him.
“A promise for Gentleman Sharper,” I offered quietly.
The last Underlord fixed me with a searching gaze. His eyes were cold on my skin as he weighed and dissected me for his own inscrutable purposes. I knew that he wouldn’t agree out of generosity… but out of them all, he was the only genuinely religious man present. If he had any interest in a favour from me, then he wouldn’t be inclined to ask for an Oath as payment.
Give me this much, Lady, I prayed silently. I’m certain I’ll be foolish again tomorrow, for your entertainment.
Gentleman Sharper inclined his head abruptly. “The Lady hates Oaths,” he said. “An’ Sharper won’t lose Her love for just one favour. A promise for Sharper—made with the heart an’ not with honour.” His eyes bored into me. “Is that the sort of promise William offers?”
I let out a long breath. Gratitude suffused me, though I knew I’d later regret this moment. Gentleman Sharper had a specific use in mind for me, I knew… and it was almost certainly going to be a favour that weighed on my soul forever, just as much as a broken Oath might have done.
But if that was the price for peace in Pelaeia, then I was willing to pay it.
“A promise that William believes in,” I agreed softly. “From the heart.”
Gentleman Sharper held up the card, drawing my eyes back to the faded figure upon it. “When this card finds William,” he said, “he’ll be comin’ right back to Morgause to settle accounts with Gentleman Sharper. On William’s word as a fool… aye?” He tucked the card neatly into his vest pocket, with a dangerous glint in his red eyes.
I nodded mutely, trying not to glance at the bargests still chewing loudly in the corner.
“Well then,” Gentleman Sharper said. “William Blair an’ Sharper is in business. He needs his aether by tomorrow?”
I knew I was making a deal that I shouldn’t… but the time for second thoughts had long since passed. If I’d wanted out, I should have decided that before I’d ever thrown a coin in Gella’s cup.
“Soonest is best,” I answered. “But William can’t stay here any longer than a day.” I still had no idea what exactly we’d be running from… but one way or another, I was going to make sure that Miss Hawkins survived long enough to get back on my boat and go back to Pelaeia.
Sharper shrugged, as though the prospect of procuring an entire tank of aether in just one day barely bothered him. “Sharper calls in some debts,” he said absently. “William returns to his ship to wait.”
Even some of the other Underlords offered Sharper an assessing look, at that. But Gentleman Sharper was, after all, the best gambler that Morgause had ever known. If he was bluffing, then no one here was skilled enough to call it.
Sharper whirled in place and headed for his table. There, he spoke a few quiet words to another goblin, who scurried off to do his will.
“Next goblin!” yelled one of Kura’s toughs, gesturing at the line of petitioners behind me.
It was as close to a dismissal as I’d get.
Even as I turned away on shaky legs, however, Abbess Boblin gestured me over with a single crook of her finger.
I didn’t dare to refuse her. I walked over to her divan, still trembling faintly as I knelt before her. She offered me her hand, and I kissed the air above her knuckles obligingly.
Abbess Boblin smiled coyly. She turned her hand to take mine and gave it a discreet tug, indicating that I should sit down next to her on the divan. “You said you go by Captain William Blair, didn’t you?” she asked. Her accent had shifted abruptly to one more commonly heard in the upper-class districts. I blinked at her.
“I… do,” I confirmed slowly. My tongue felt thick in my mouth as I spoke the way I’d done for twenty years now. “Why?”
Abbess Boblin watched me with a faintly predatory gaze. “There’s a one-eyed gentleman spreading money around topside, asking if you’re in town,” she said. “Apparently, you’re wanted for thievery in New Havenshire.”
I groaned and pressed my hand to my forehead.
The abbess laughed. “I suppose you do know him, then,” she said. “The ladies tell me he goes by the name of Barsby.” She patted my cheek. “Gentleman Sharper won’t be having his favour if your past catches up with you so quickly. Be a dear, William Blair, and survive the next few days.”