Page 14 of The Song Rising

I hit the first key, lighting up the screen. My thumb hovered over the next number. Before I could press it, I replaced the burner and put my head down. Even if he was alive, Scion would have tapped his phone line. He had to forget me. I had to forget him. That was how it had to be.

3

Judgment

“The Underqueen’s court recognizes Divya Jacob, a chiromancer of the second order, also known as the Jacobite. Miss Jacob, you stand accused of a most abominable crime: assisting the Rag and Bone Man and his network in the capture and sale of clairvoyants to Scion, resulting in their detainment, enslavement, and, in some cases, death, in the penal colony of Sheol I. Tell us how you plead, and the æther will determine the truth of your words.”

The Pearl Queen, leading the proceedings, was standing on the stage in a suit of black velvet and pearl embroidery, a dainty pillbox hat perched on her hair. Seated behind her, I was also dressed more elegantly than usual: a shirt of ivory silk with long, belled sleeves; beautifully cut trousers; and a sleeveless jacket of crimson velvet, richly embroidered with gold roses and fleur-de-lis. My curls were arranged in a sort of ordered chaos around my shoulders, and my face was painted. I felt like a doll on display.

Ivy stood before the stage in a moth-eaten blazer. One sleeve hung empty where her left arm had been folded into a sling. The other was bound to a brazier by a length of lapis-blue ribbon.

“Guilty.”

Minty Wolfson’s pen scratched in the record book, which looked as if no one had touched it in a century. Apparently, all syndicate trials had to be chronicled for posterity.

“Miss Jacob, please tell the court about your involvement with the Rag and Bone Man.”

I hadn’t seen Ivy since the scrimmage. She had been staying in a cell north of the river, kept in her own room to prevent revenge attacks. She had gained a little weight, and her hair, which had been shorn off in the colony, was coming through soft and dark.

With composure, she repeated the story she had told at the scrimmage of how she had been taken in by the Rag and Bone Man, made his mollisher, and ordered to send him talented voyants for “employment.”

He had vanished after the scrimmage, as had all his allies. Ivy was the loose end. Our last clue as to where he might have gone.

We were in another neglected building, a music hall near Whitechapel that had been closed down for showing free-world films. The high commanders and my mollishers were fanned out in seats on either side of mine, listening to Ivy describe the voyants’ suspicious disappearances. Errai Sarin stood in a corner at the back of the hall, while above us, in the gallery, were eighteen observers, who would report the trial to the rest of the syndicate.

“You observed that these voyants were disappearing, and you became worried. You tipped off Cutmouth, who was mollisher supreme at the time,” the Pearl Queen said, in her clear, fluting voice. “You must have thought her trustworthy. Will you describe your relationship?”

“We were close. Once,” Ivy said. “There was a time when we couldn’t have lived without each other.”

“You were lovers.”

“Objection, Pearl Queen,” Minty piped up. “That is your insinuation. The accused has no obligation to—”

“I don’t mind,” Ivy said. “She fell in love with Hector when she joined the Underbodies, but yes. Before that, we were lovers.”

Minty shot the Pearl Queen an exasperated look, but noted down the information.

They combed through Cutmouth’s investigation of the Camden Catacombs, the imprisoned voyants she had found there, and her report to Haymarket Hector. How Hector’s lust for easy gold had persuaded him to join the gray market instead of suppressing it.

My gaze flitted toward Errai, who wore all black, as the Ranthen usually did. I knew he had little patience for syndicate politics, but I felt his scrutiny. He would report every word of the trial to Terebell.

“Were you aware that the missing voyants were being sold to Scion for your master’s financial gain?”

“No,” Ivy said.

Minty continued scribbling as if her hand would drop off.

“Who else was involved in the ring?”

“The Abbess, obviously. Faceless, the Bully-Rook, the Wicked Lady, the Winter Queen, Jenny Greenteeth, and Bloody Knuckles. Some of their mollishers, too. Not Halfpenny,” she added. “He didn’t know about it.”

A small relief. Halfpenny was well-liked, and I hadn’t wanted the evidence to force me into banishing him.

“At any point,” the Pearl Queen said, “did you see the White Binder, mime-lord of I-4, associate with the group?”

“No.”

Murmurs from the gallery. I gripped the arms of my chair.

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