The Mime Order (35 page)

“I’m assuming you were on the Ranthen side,” I said.

“I was. I am.”

“But?”

“You know the end. The Sargas won. The Mothallath were usurped and destroyed, and the Netherworld could sustain us no longer.”

Rephaite faces didn’t lend themselves to grief, but there were times when I thought I could see it in Warden. Small things gave the regret away. The dwindling of the light in his eyes. The slight tilt of his head.

An impulse moved my hand toward his. Seeing it, he curled his fingers into a fist and pulled his arm to the left.

Our gazes jarred for the briefest instant. The back of my neck grew hot. I reached for my glass, as if that was what I’d been doing in the first place, and leaned against the opposite arm of the couch.

“Carry on,” I said.

Warden watched me. I cradled my forehead in one hand, trying to ignore the warmth that bled into my cheeks.

“To save themselves,” he said, “the Ranthen declared loyalty to the Sargas. By that point Procyon was incapable of leadership, and two new members of the Sargas family had risen to take his place. Nashira—one half of this pair—declared that she would take one of the traitors as her blood-consort, to show them that even their leaders would conform to the new order. As ill luck would have it, she chose me.”

Warden
stood and placed his hands on the dusty windowsill. Rain poured down the panes.

I shouldn’t have tried to comfort him. He was a Rephaite, and it was clear that whatever had happened in the Guildhall had been a mistake.

“Nashira was—and still is—the most ambitious of the Rephaim.” When he spoke of her, his eyes burned. “As we could no longer connect to the æther, she said we would have to see if we fared any better on the other side of the veil. We waited for the ethereal threshold to reach its highest ever point before a large party made the crossing in 1859. There, we discovered that we could feed on the link certain humans had with the æther. Where we could survive.”

I shook my head. “And Palmerston’s government just let you in?”

“We could have survived in the shadows, but Nashira was determined that we had to be apex predators, not parasites. We revealed ourselves to Lord Palmerston, telling him that the Emim were demons and we, angels. Almost without question, he surrendered control of the government to Nashira.”

The wings struck off the angels in the churches, making way for the new gods. The statue of Nashira in the House. Gomeisa had been right: we’d made it so easy for them to take control.

“Queen Victoria was allowed to maintain an appearance of power, but she had no more sway over England than a pauper. The death of Prince Albert hastened her departure. On the day he was crowned, their son Edward VII was framed for murder and accused of bringing unnaturalness into the world. And the inquisition into clairvoyance—our establishment of control—began.” He raised his glass. “The rest, as they say, is history. Or modernity, as the case may be.”

We were quiet for some time. Warden emptied his glass, but didn’t let go of it. It was strange to think that his world had always existed alongside this one, unseen and unknowable.

“
All right,” I said. “Now tell me what the Ranthen want. Tell me how you’re different from the Sargas.”

“First and foremost, we do not wish to colonize the corporeal world. That is the foremost desire of the Sargas.”

“But you can’t live in the Netherworld.”

“The Ranthen believe the Netherworld can be restored, but we do not wish it to be isolated from the human world, as it once was. If the threshold can be lowered to a stable level, we wish to have an advisory presence in the human world,” he said. “To prevent the total collapse of the veils.”

I sat up straighter. “What happens if they collapse?”

“It has never happened before,” he said, “but I feel it will end in a cataclysm, as do many other Rephaim. The Sargas aim to bring it about. The Ranthen aim to stop it.”

I watched his face, trying to draw something from it: an emotion, a clue. “Did you agree with Nashira?” I asked. “When you first came here. Did you agree that humans should be subjugated?”

“Yes and no. I believed that you were reckless, destined to destroy both yourselves and the æther with your endless, petty wars. I thought—perhaps naïvely—that you would benefit from our leadership.”

My laugh was a tad sour. “Of course. The mindless moths, drawn to the flame of your wisdom.”

“I do not think like Gomeisa Sargas.” His eyes were cold, but that was nothing new. “Or his relatives. I took no pleasure in the degradation and misery of the penal colony.”

“No. You just went along with it.” I turned my head away. “Seems like some of the Ranthen should just join the Sargas. I find it hard to believe they want to look after us poor defenseless humans.”

“You are right to suspect that motive. Most Rephaim cannot abide living here, as half-things, and many bitterly resent the Sargas for forcing them to stay.” He returned to his seat beside me. “To a creature of sarx, Earth can seem . . . unpleasant.”

“
What do you mean?”

“Everything here is dying. Even your fuels are made of decomposed matter. Humans use death as a means of sustaining life. To most Rephaim, that is an unpleasant thought. They see that as the reason why humans are so bloodthirsty, so violent. Most Ranthen would leave if they had the choice. But the Netherworld is broken, too. Decaying, like the Emim. And so we must stay.”

Another chill. I picked up a ripe pear from the fruit bowl. “So to you,” I said, “this is rotten.”

“We see the rot before it rises.”

I tossed it back into the bowl. “That’s why you wear gloves. So you don’t catch mortality. Why did you want to work with me?”
Or kiss me
, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“I do not believe in Sargas lies,” he said. “You are alive until your dying day, Paige. Do not let their madness into your mind.” Warden didn’t break my gaze. He was in there somewhere, behind those hardened features. “The Ranthen believe, unlike the Sargas, that humans stole our lifeline from us inadvertently—but they do not see humans as their equals. Many of them blame human violence and vanity for their own suffering.”

“You helped me.”

“Do not labor under the illusion that I am a bastion of moral goodness, Paige. That would be a dangerous venture.”

Something snapped inside me. “Trust me,” I said, “I’m not under any illusions about you. You went through my private memories and took things from me that I’d never told anyone. You also kept me captive for six months so I could start a war for you. And now you’re acting like a cold bastard even though I dragged your sorry hide out of a cell.”

“I am indeed.” He inclined his head. “Knowing that, are you willing to continue our alliance?”

At least he didn’t make excuses. “Do you want to explain
why
?”

“
I am a Rephaite.”

As if I could have forgotten. “Right. You’re a Rephaite,” I agreed. “You’re also Ranthen, but you talk about the Ranthen as if you’re not one of them. So what the hell is it that you want, Arcturus Mesarthim?”

“I have many aims. Many desires,” he said. “I aim to bring about a settlement between humans and Rephaim. I aim to restore the Netherworld. But above all, I aim to end Nashira Sargas.”

“You’re taking your sweet time with that.”

“I will be frank with you, Paige. We do not know
how
to overthrow the Sargas. They seem to draw their power from a deeper well than ours,” he said. I’d expected as much, or they would have dispatched the Sargas years ago. “Our original plan was to extinguish both blood-sovereigns and scatter their supporters, but we are not yet strong enough to do this. Instead of toppling their leaders, we must infiltrate their major source of power: Scion.”

“So what do you want from me?”

He leaned back. “We cannot dismantle Scion alone. As you may have noticed, we Rephaim are not particularly generous with our passions,” he said. “We cannot inspire insurrection in the hearts of your people. But a human could. Someone with an intimate knowledge of both the syndicate and the Rephaim. Someone with a powerful gift and a taste for revolution.” When I said nothing, his voice softened. “I do not ask this of you lightly.”

“But I’m the only choice.”

“You are not the only choice. But if I could choose anyone on earth, it would still be you, Paige Mahoney.”

“You chose me to be your prisoner, too,” I said coldly.

“To protect you from having a keeper as cruel and violent as Thuban or Kraz Sargas, yes. I did. And I know it is no excuse for the injustices I did you,” he said. “I know that no matter what explanation I offer, you can never truly forgive me for not letting you go when I had the chance.”

“
I might be able to forgive you. Provided you never give me an order again,” I said. “I can’t forget.”

“As an oneiromancer, I have infinite respect for memory. I would not expect you to forget.”

I brushed my hair behind my ear and crossed my arms, prickling with goose bumps. “Let’s say I do become your associate,” I said. “What will I get in return, apart from your contempt?”

“I have no contempt for you, Paige.”

“You could have fooled me. And getting respect is one thing, but I could have all the respect in the world and no money to buy weapons or numa or food.”

“If you require money,” he said, “that is all the more reason to align yourself with the Ranthen.”

I looked up at him. “How much do you have?”

“Enough.” His eyes glowed. “Did you think we had planned to go against the Sargas without a penny to our names?”

My heart began to pound. “Where have you kept it all?”

“There is an agent working for the Ranthen within the Westminster Archon, who holds the money in a private bank account. An associate of Alsafi, who deemed it best that their name was known only to him. If you can persuade Terebell that you are capable of handling it, and if you promise her your support, she will be your patron.”

I sat back, stunned. All that scraping for coins could be a thing of the past.

“If I become Underqueen,” I said, “we
might
be able to rally the London voyants. But I’ll be up against every mime-lord and mime-queen in this citadel with half an ego and a head on their shoulders.”

“I take it they are all like Jaxon Hall.”

“What, bloodthirsty peacocks? Almost uniformly.”

“Then you must win. They are feasting on their own corpses,
Paige.
If the syndicate is properly governed, I believe it could pose a great threat to the Inquisitor, and to the Sargas. But with a leader like Jaxon Hall, I foresee only blood and revelry—and in the end, destruction.”

Liss’s last card sprang to my mind. I would never know what image had burned in that little fire, and whether it had pointed to victory or defeat.

“I suppose I should not leave the Ranthen waiting.” He rose to his full height. “Do you have another candle?”

“In the drawer.”

Silently, he set up the séance table. When it began, he knelt in the light of the candle and murmured in his own language. Gloss had no discernible words, just a long, flowing series of sounds.

Two psychopomps drifted through the walls. I held very still. They were cryptic spirits, rarely seen outside burial grounds. Warden made a soft sound in his throat. They both flew through the candle flame and took off again, leaving the windows and the mirror covered with a light frost.

“Terebell will meet with me at dawn.” Warden put out the candle. “I must go alone.”

“That’s how your séances work?”

“It is. The psychopomps’ original duty was to guide spirits to the Netherworld, but now that function is obsolete, they do what they can to assist us on this side. They seldom interact with humans, as you may have noticed.”

Jaxon certainly had; he’d been trying to get close to psychopomps for years so he could complete his next pamphlet.

He wasn’t leaving. We watched each other for a minute, not speaking. I remembered the rhythm of his heart against my lips. His naked, callused hands sweeping over my body, cradling me close until the kiss was deep and hungry. Looking at him now, a small part of me wondered if I’d imagined it.

With
the light switched out, all I could hear was my own quiet heartbeat. He was silent as stone. I thought he’d move to the bed, but he stayed where he was. I turned on to my side and rested my head on a cushion. Just for a few hours, I would sleep outside of Jaxon’s grasp.

“Warden.”

“Hm?”

“Why did the amaranth bloom?”

“If I knew,” was his reply, “I would tell you.”

17

Gambler

I hid the red handkerchief in my pillow at the den. I couldn’t be caught with such an incriminating object, but something made me want to hold on to it.

With the Rephaim back in the citadel, it was time to put another piece in motion. To let people know what they were up against. The next day, I went back to Grub Street for the first time since I’d fled with Alfred.

Considering its distinguished position as the only voyant publishing house in London, the Spiritus Club, founded in 1908, was a shabby affair. It considered itself to be the stronghold of creativity among voyants, the beating heart of non-violent mime-crime. Tall and narrow, crammed between a poetry lounge and a printing press, it boasted mock-Tudor half-timbering and a buckled beak of roof, with a heavy green door and dirty bow windows.