CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Stolen memories. An unexpected companion.

The street was called Gutter Lane, a name that William thought wholly fitting with his surroundings. He glanced around with distaste, noting the rubbish piled up against the buildings, the huge rats that scurried through the shadows, fighting one another for whatever scraps they could find.

“Are you sure this is the place?” he asked Corrigan. They were standing before an abandoned shop. The windows had been boarded up, a huge red cross painted onto the thick planks. William glanced nervously to either side. He’d always hated the dark.

“Course I’m sure,” said Corrigan. “You said Gutter Lane. And this is the only fey building on the street.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“So … what now?”

Corrigan shrugged. “Why are you asking me? You’re the man with the plan. I’m just along for the fun of it. I defer to your experience,” he added with a bow.

William bit his lip. The only plan he had was to pretend to be Cavanagh. And if this Croth had already met the man, then obviously everything would go badly wrong. But he wasn’t about to admit that to Corrigan, especially when the piskie was being so sarcastic.

Instead, he leaned forward and knocked on the door. He did it louder than he intended to, the sound echoing up and down the street. A dog started barking.

“Why don’t you just shout?” said Corrigan. “Wake everyone else up as well.”

A small hatch in the door slid open. Two yellow eyes glared at William.

“Yes? What?” snapped the unseen figure.

“Uh, we’re here to see Croth?”

“Why?”

“Because we have an appointment,” said William, praying his ruse would work.

“What’s your name?”

“Cavanagh.”

There was a pause. The eyes flicked downward. “Do you know you’ve got a piskie stuck to your boot?”

“Oh, most amusing,” snapped Corrigan. “Yes, quite the comedian, aren’t you? Do you want this gold or not?”

The hatch slammed shut, and the door was pulled open by what William had no hesitation in labeling the ugliest creatures he had ever seen. Croth—if this was, in fact, Croth—had a face that was a mass of warts and flaking skin. His yellow eyes flicked around constantly, shivering in their eye sockets as if he couldn’t seem to keep them still. He had long, thick arms that trailed to the ground, and his knuckles were covered in calluses from the constant rubbing as he walked. William swallowed nervously, resisting the urge to back away.

“Ugly beggar, aren’t you?” asked Corrigan.

“Speak for yourself, runt. I’m considered quite the catch among a certain type of female.”

“What type is that? The blind?”

Corrigan strolled past the creature’s knobby legs as he said this. The creature glared down at him but didn’t try to stop the piskie from entering. William took this as an encouraging sign.

“Are you Croth?” asked William.

“Maybe. Let’s see the color of your purse and we’ll know for sure.”

William held up the small pouch he had found on Cavanagh’s desk. Croth snatched it from his hand and brought it up to his bulbous nose, sniffing deeply.

“Good enough. Come on.”

He stood aside, and William stepped into the shop. He hesitated and looked around. You couldn’t really call it a shop. Not anymore. The room was a ruin. Broken shelves lay in pieces across the dusty floor. What had once been a shop counter was now lying on the floor split in two. Rather worryingly, an axe was buried deep in the wood right where the break was. Shards of glass crunched underfoot as William turned in a slow circle.

“What happened in here?” he asked.

“Hmm?” Croth looked puzzled for a moment, then his brow cleared and he smiled, revealing green and black teeth. “Oh, the mess. Nah, that was just a bit of a party, that was. Come on. Follow me.”

Croth turned and disappeared through a door at the back of the shop. William hurried over to Corrigan, who was testing the edge of the axe.

“Do you think we can trust him?” whispered William.

Corrigan looked up. “No. But then I’m a cynical soul, me. Let’s just see what Cavanagh thought he’d found and get out of here. I don’t like the smell.”

William and Corrigan followed Croth through the door, finding themselves in a short corridor. Strange lights emanated from the room at the end of the passage, flickering over the walls in constantly shifting patterns. They cautiously approached the doorway. Corrigan pulled himself up William’s clothes to sit on his shoulder. William wondered if the piskie was scared. He certainly was.

No, he corrected himself. That was the William Emily thought she knew. This was the brave William, the William who didn’t need anyone or anything. This William wasn’t afraid of some flickering lights.

He squared his shoulders and stepped through the door.

His steps faltered immediately. William’s eyes widened, and he stared around in amazement.

They were in a huge space, a warehouse of some kind. The vast floor was lined with shelves that receded into the far distance. On these shelves, crammed in as tightly as possible, were thousands of strange, bulbous creatures about the same size as William’s head. His face wrinkled in disgust. They looked like fat gray ticks. Their tiny legs waved uselessly in the air, lifted from the ground by their bulbous, stretched bodies.

“Nostalgae,” whispered Corrigan.

“What?”

“Nostalgae. They feed on memories, hold them inside their bodies. But I’ve never seen so many of them….”

Frowning, William stepped forward to investigate the closest of the creatures. Sure enough, the flickering light came from moving images that were somehow on the inside of the nostalgae. The one closest to William showed a young woman and a small child in a park. The woman smiled at William, but he realized that if these were memories, then she was actually smiling at whoever’s memory this was. He moved to the next one. It showed a street littered with corpses. The bodies were covered in black pustules that wept blood and pus. The image was from low to the ground, and William realized that whoever this memory was taken from was probably dying, crawling along the ground because he or she was too weak to stand up.

He looked away. “This is disgusting,” he said angrily.

“You’ll hear no argument from me,” muttered Corrigan.

“Over here,” called Croth.

William looked over to see that Croth had brought a nostalgae over to a small table in the center of the huge room.

William moved over to the table and stared into the body of the creature.

The image before him was that of a forest. The owner of the memory was walking along a path through the trees. The image shifted as he looked upward, and William could see the full moon between the tree branches. The owner of the memory entered a clearing, and inside the clearing was a large, grass-covered mound. He approached it—

The image froze, then started from the beginning once again.

William looked at Croth, confused. “Is that it?”

“That’s it. A memory from the Prophet.”

William frowned. This wasn’t what Cavanagh had talked about in his diary. His contact had said the Prophet could maybe help him in his search for the Raven King, but Croth seemed to think that Cavanagh just wanted to see one of the Prophet’s memories. That didn’t help them at all. How were they supposed to find out who the Prophet was from this?

“This isn’t what I asked for,” said William.

Croth frowned. “Your representative said you wanted to see something taken from the Prophet. That’s exactly what this is.”

“That’s not good enough,” said William. “Bring us another one.”

“But you’ve already seen this one,” complained Croth.

“That could have been taken from anybody. Show us something that proves it’s from the Prophet. Something specific to him.”

Croth muttered under his breath, but he grabbed the nostalgae and disappeared between the shelves.

“What are you doing?” whispered Corrigan.

“We have to find out who this Prophet is. I think that’s what Cavanagh was going to do.”

“And how was he going to get the information?”

“I have no idea.”

Croth appeared from the shadows and dropped another nostalgae onto the table. “Here you go. This one is from inside Elfhame. So you know I’m not tricking you.”

William and Corrigan both leaned forward. The pictures inside the nostalgae showed some kind of royal court. An elegant fey woman sat on a dark wooden throne that was carved into the wall behind her. She looked down at the owner of the memory and said something. The image shifted as the person turned to look out over a sea of assembled fey creatures. The expressions on the fey changed, some of them laughing, some of them nodding, and Will realized this was because the Prophet must be speaking. The fey burst into silent applause, then the image restarted again.

“Happy?”

Far from it, thought William. The memory still didn’t bring them any closer to finding out who this Prophet was.

“I’ll be truthful with you,” said Corrigan. “We actually need to speak to the Prophet himself, not sniff through his memories like scavengers.”

“You want to meet him? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s my best supplier. I can’t just tell you where he is. How do I know you won’t poach him from me? I’d go out of business.”

“Your best supplier?” William glanced around the room once again. “How many of these are his?” asked William.

“About a third.”

“A third? How long have you been …” William hesitated, unsure how to put it.

“Harvesting his memories? A few hundred years. Give or take a decade.”

“A few hundred?” asked Corrigan in surprise. “Then he’s fey?”

Croth frowned. “Enough talking. I’ve given you what you paid for. Now get out.”

“We just need to speak to him,” said William. “He might know something that could help us.”

“You’re wasting your breath. I don’t even know where he is. I always deal with his handler.”

“His handler? You make him sound like an animal,” said William angrily.

“You’re not far off it, boy. Now get out. Before I eat you.”

“Is that supposed to scare us?” snapped William.

“No. But this is,” said Croth. He opened his mouth, baring his teeth at them. But to William’s horror, Croth’s mouth kept on opening, revealing a darkened maw that gave off the stench of rotten meat. William stumbled back in fear as Croth’s lower jaw dropped to his chest.

“Now get out!” he shouted, and his voice was so loud the floorboards vibrated under William’s feet.

“I think we should go now,” whispered Corrigan.

“I was thinking the same thing,” said William, backing slowly away.

Croth watched them go. He gave his head a violent shake, causing his jaw to swing to and fro like a pendulum. Then he jerked his neck back, and the jaw snapped into its normal position.

When Will reached the corridor leading to the front shop, he put some speed into his steps. He pulled the door open and stumbled gratefully into the warm night air. He listened for a second to make sure Croth wasn’t about to come charging after them, then flopped down onto the pavement.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” he said.

“Let me see that piece of paper you took from Cavanagh’s desk,” ordered Corrigan.

William fished around in his jacket for the piece of paper he had found and handed it Corrigan.

“‘Got an appointment with a fey called Croth,’” Corrigan read. “‘(Or to give him his full name, Second Pardoned Lord Bataus Croth of the Everleaning Scry.) Gutter Lane. Vitay has told Croth I want to see something by the Prophet. He tells me that if I use his name, Croth will talk to me and that I will find what I’m after. I hope this is so.’”

Corrigan stopped reading and looked at William.

“You really are a fool, you know that?”

“What?”

“If you’d just shown me this, instead of trying to do everything yourself—” Corrigan broke off, muttering beneath his breath. He hopped down from William’s shoulder and turned back to the shop.

“Where are you going?”

“Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Corrigan disappeared inside the shop.

William waited, scuffing at the cobbles with his feet.

“Hello again,” said an amused voice.

William surged to his feet and spun around, twisting his feet together and falling onto his backside in the middle of the street. He was rather taken aback to find Katerina standing above him, shaking with silent laughter.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to give you such a scare.”

“You didn’t,” snapped William, pushing himself to his feet. He looked around for the others, wondering what Emily would have to say about his sneaking off on his own.

“It’s just me,” said Katerina.

William frowned. “Just you? What? How did you find me?”

“I saw you sneak out and decided to follow you.”

“But … why?” William repeated. “Why didn’t you just wake the others?”

Katerina shrugged. “One of my hunches,” she said. “I get them every now and then. I know better than to ignore them.” She smiled. “They usually take me to where the action is.”

A terrific roar of anger spilled out of the shop. William and Katerina whirled around just in time to see Corrigan come sprinting through the door, a large pouch clutched tightly to his chest. He didn’t even pause when he saw Katerina. He just threw the pouch to William and then carried on straight past them.

William caught the small bag. He and Katerina glanced at each other, then turned and ran after the piskie as he sprinted along Gutter Lane and turned onto the next street. As they drew level with him, William scooped him up.

“Keep running,” panted the piskie.

William did as he was told. They kept going until they saw the dark waters of the Thames glinting in the night up ahead. Only then did they slow down for breath. William collapsed against a building, breathing deeply. “What … what was all that about?”

Corrigan glared at Katerina. “What’s she doing here?”

“She is making sure you don’t get him into any trouble,” said Katerina, indicating William with a nod of her head.

“Oh, is that right, is it?”

“Yes.”

William cleared his throat. “Corrigan? What happened?”

Corrigan tore his gaze away from Katerina. “That note you found on Cavanagh’s desk. His contact had supplied him with Croth’s real name. His fey name.”

“So?”

“So, if you know a fey’s true name you can force him to tell you the truth.”

William straightened up. “Really?”

“Aye, really.”

“So did you ask him about the Prophet?”

“Aye.”

“And did he tell you who he was?”

“No. He really doesn’t know.”

William deflated. “Oh.”

Corrigan broke into a sly grin. “But he did tell me where to find his handler.”