Page 32 of The Song Rising

“I want to come with you,” he said.

“I need you to liaise with Dani. We have to know if she can find out anything more about Senshield, even if it’s just—”

“Paige,” he said, his voice thick, “please.”

When I took a second look, I understood. There were crescents of shadow under his eyes.

“I know why you want to do this,” I said, gentler, “but Vance is on to us, Nick. I need you focused.”

“You think Zeke will make me lose focus.” He shook his head. “Does that mean you’re not focused, either?”

It took me a moment to recognize what he was implying. What he had just implied in front of Eliza. When it sank in, my jaw hardened. Even Nick looked shocked at himself, but it was too late: it was clear from Eliza’s face that she had caught the scent of a secret.

I drifted to the corner of the street, my arms folded. I heard him say “give me a moment” before he came after me.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

“No one else can know.” I spoke quietly. “Nick, I trusted you when I told you about Warden. I need to be able to trustyou, of all people. If I can’t—”

“You can.” He took one of my hands. “I’m sorry. I nearly lost you. I already lost Zeke. I just feel . . . I don’t know. Powerless.” He sighed. “It’s not an excuse.”

Powerlesswas the right word for it. It was how I had felt in the river, and in the warehouse, knowing that Vance had played me right into her hands. I was a queen at the mercy of pawns.

The rickshaw appeared at the end of the street. Nick looked wretched. I had never argued with him, not once, and I didn’t want to start today. “It’s okay.” I squeezed his hand. “Look, if Zeke’s there, I’ll be as kind as I can. And you know I’ll try my best to persuade him to join us.”

He hugged me close. “I know. Take this.” He tucked a heat pack into my pocket. “I’ll talk to Dani now.”

I wrapped my hand around the heat pack as the rickshaw trundled away, but the cold was in my blood. Snow floated around us, catching in my eyelashes and the wispy curls around my temples.

“Paige,” Eliza said, “what did Nick mean, when he asked if it meant you weren’t focused, either?” When I failed to conjure a suitable lie in time, she nudged me in the ribs. “You’d better not have slept with Hickathrift behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Eliza smiled, but it didn’t quite touch her eyes. She knew I was keeping something close to my chest.

A blood-smeared sky greeted us in Covent Garden. Early morning shoppers were out in force, waiting around the stalls and outside shops for the post-Novembertide sales to begin. I smoothed my scarf over my face, watching for any hint of a military presence. I imagined the wind taking my scent right to Vance.

An alarm went off as we crossed a junction. Vigiles were wrestling a weeping augur away from an oxygen bar, cuffing her hands behind her back. We walked as quickly as possible without arousing suspicion, going in the same direction automatically. After all, we both knew where Jack Hickathrift would be. There was only one place the mime-lord of I-4 could reside if he expected to be taken seriously.

Seven Dials had been garlanded with red and white lights for Novembertide, which were being taken down. In mutual, wordless understanding, we walked past the entrance to the den, to the sundial pillar.

I laid a hand on the bone-pale stone. This had been the keystone of our chaotic world, the heart of the syndicate as we had once known it. I had stood before this pillar when Jaxon had made me his mollisher. Eliza circled it in the same way I was, as if to remind herself that it was real. Behind it, on a nearby building, a line of bleached graffiti was just about visible.

BACKSTABBERS NOT WELCOME

Amaurotic workers and shoppers were giving it nervous looks. Our underworld was invisible to the people around us, but it was dangerous to linger. Eliza blew out a breath, reached into her coat, and took out a key. A label hung from it, readingBACK DOORin Jaxon’s elaborate cursive.

We opened the courtyard gate and passed the blossom tree, which had been stripped bare by the winter. In the hallway, we stamped the snow from our boots. As Eliza stepped on to the first-floor landing, her muses flew in and swirled wildly around her aura. Pieter was particularly overjoyed, bouncing around in the æther like a firecracker.

“Guys, it’s okay,” she said, laughing. “Oh, I can’t believe you’re here—I thought Jaxon had taken you!”

I left them to get reacquainted. “Hey, Phil,” I said, when he did a celebratory twirl around me. Pieter gave me a sullen sort of nudge before he returned to his beloved medium.

They couldn’t come back with us. Jaxon had long since bound them to the den, and unless we could find and scour away the blood he had used to tie them here, they were trapped.

On the next floor, I paused outside the door to my old room, feeling as if I had wandered into a museum. When I set foot in it, I found it devoid of everything I had squirrelled away over the three years of my employment. My precious, lovingly curated chest of antiques and curiosities from the black market; the bookshelf full of blacklisted literature and records—all gone. Even the bed was missing. The painted stars on the ceiling were the only evidence that someone had ever lived in here.

An aura brushed against mine. I turned sharply. Jack Hickathrift was standing in the doorway, dressed in a poet shirt that was open to the waist. One hand had been on the knife at his belt, but he let go of it at once.

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