Page 63 of The Song Rising

“Do you have Senshield scanners in this citadel?”

“Not yet,” Hari said. “You have the prototypes in the capital, don’t you? Are they as bad as they sound?”

“Worse,” I said. “And they’re not prototypes now.” I glanced at him. “You don’t seem worried.”

“Ah, I doubt they’ll bring them north for a while. It’s people in the capital who matter. Scion wants them to feel safe.”

A humorless smile touched my lips. “People don’t feel safe up here?”

“Well, let’s see how you feel. If you end up believing there’s “no safer place’ than Manchester.”

He stopped the car on a street of red-brick buildings, most of which housed shabby establishments selling food: hot-water-crust pies, bone broth and fresh bread, pickled tripe. The snow had been swept on to the pavement and trampled into slush. I could just make out a rusted sign readingESSEX STREET. When I opened the car door, a thick miasma scratched the back of my throat and spread a foul taste over my tongue. With my sleeve over my mouth, I followed Hari into a cookshop on the corner, the Red Rose, which promised traditional food from Lancashire. He led us through a warm interior, up a flight of stairs in the back, and through an unmarked door to the apartment above.

We gathered in a dimly lit hallway. “Welcome to the safe house.” Hari drew several chains across the door. “Don’t go back outside without a respirator. I’ve got a few spare.”

He showed us all to our rooms. While the others were placed on the second floor, with Maria and Eliza sharing the larger room, I was led up a flight of cramped stairs to the attic.

“And here’s yours,” he said. The floor creaked under our feet. “It’s not much, but it’s cozy. Bathroom’s down the hall if you want a wash. I’ll contact the Scuttling Queen for you.”

“No need for that.” I dropped my backpack onto the floor. “We might want local help at some point, but we should start searching for—”

“You can’t do anything here without being introduced to her.”

“What if I do?”

Hari blinked. “You can’t.” When I raised my eyebrows, he shook his head, looking uneasy. “You just can’t. She needs to know what’s going on in her citadel. If she finds out a voyant leader from London is on her turf without her permission, there’ll be trouble.”

I supposed I would expect the same, were our situations reversed. “How quickly will she get back to you?”

“When she chooses to.”

“I can’t wait long, Hari.”

“You can’t rush her.” He grimaced at my barely concealed frustration. “I’ll get her to see you soon, don’t worry.”

He closed the door. The attic was small, furnished with nothing but a bed, a clock, and a lamp. I left my snow-encrusted outerwear to dry over the radiator and sat beside it, warming my fingers. Every joint in my body felt stiff and rusted.

We needed to be out searching for Jonathan Cassidy, or sizing up the factories, trying to locate the one that made scanners. Anything might be happening in London while I waited for this Scuttling Queen to contemplate her schedule. This felt like trying to get an audience with Haymarket Hector again. I had grown too accustomed to the Underqueen’s power, to being able to walk where I chose without announcing myself. Here in Manchester, I had no such privilege.

Something made me focus on the golden cord. For the first time in months, I couldn’t feel Warden at all—not even his silence. Usually, I was aware of him in the same way I was aware of my own breathing, not noticing it unless something was wrong. Now he was gone.

Eliza appeared in a loose-fitting sweater with two mugs of tea, steering my thoughts away from him.

“Mind if I join you?”

I patted the floor in invitation. In our more carefree days in Seven Dials, I had always liked to sit and talk with Eliza in the evening.

We huddled up to the radiator, sipping the tea. “Paige,” she said, “the village—the Emim . . . is that going to keep happening now?”

“Unless the Ranthen know a way to stop it. Or unless Scion builds another colony.” I blew lightly on the tea. “We’re caught between being torn apart by monsters, or being ruled by them.”

“The Ranthen will have a solution. They know more about the æther than we do.” She pressed her sock-clad feet to the radiator. “I was thinking about the séance the whole way here. You never told me you saw ScionIDE, too.”

“When I was six, in Dublin. I don’t remember much of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’d have shown you, in the séance,” I said, “but you heard Warden. I was too young for the memory to be useful.”

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