Page 119 of The Mask Falling

“We could ask the perdues to postpone the journey.”

“It’s fine.”

I poured the milk into a pan and set it over the stove. While it heated up, I took my first dose of medicine in capsule form.

“I never did say how impressed I was,” I said.

“Hm?”

“That you made the link between the perdues and Versailles. I would never have realized the significance of the silver chandelier or the jewelery. You did.” I shot him a glance. “I said we’d make a decent syndie of you. Didn’t take you long to prove me right.”

“I credit my mentor.”

I smiled.

The sun threw a copper-backed glow through the windows. I cooked a square meal for the journey. Ivy emerged with a yawn at five, wearing leggings and another sleeveless top, and spooned a couple of poached eggs from the pan I had left simmering. She wore a delicate chain around her neck.

“Paige,” she said, “you’re going to boil in that thing.”

I frowned down at my sweater. “It was cold in the carrières.”

“This is a mining tunnel, though. It could be warm. Maybe wear layers?”

“I’ll do that. Help yourself.” I slid a rack of buttered toast in her direction. “Ready for this?”

“Yeah. Kind of looking forward to it, actually.”

“That makes one of us.”

“I liked being underground,” Ivy admitted. “I was terrified at first, but I came to like it. Mostly I was out with the mudlarks on the riverbank, but even when I was in the storm drains, it was sort of exciting. Scavenged a lot of interesting stuff.” She pulled the chain from her neck and showed me the thin gold band on it. “This is my favorite. Sixteenth-century posy ring.”

“Oh, that’s gorgeous.”

She handed it over. The initialsEandSwere scored inside, along with an inscription too faded to make out. I showed it to Arcturus, who leaned in to examine it over my shoulder.

“You find them now and again on the riverbank. They have little poems or inscriptions carved on their insides, though you can’t usually read them,” Ivy said. “They’re love tokens.”

Arcturus studied the ring. Without looking at him, I knew his expression would be the same as it was when he played the organ or listened to the record player—a soft, open curiosity, overlaid with intense focus. When I returned the posy ring to Ivy, she looped its chain back over her head.

“There were lots of things like that, from a time before Scion. I loved finding them,” she said. “When I first got out, it was the world above that seemed more frightening.” She tucked the ring under her top. “Not that there aren’t dangers underground. And I doubt it’s much fun on your own. The toshers always work in pairs, just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

“The stuff of nightmares, surface dweller,” she purred. “Beware the wild swine of the sewers, glutted on the flesh of innocents—and rats just as big, runnin” in swarms that’ll strip a laggard bare as a pulled tooth.”

Her grin made me smile. I had never seen her this light-hearted. “I’ll watch out for those, then.”

We finished our food and prepared to leave. I found a thin black shirt to go under my sweater, then pulled my oilskin over my layers, laced on a pair of steel-capped boots, and secured my wrist brace. Lastly, I clipped the tiny camera to the collar of my sweater, so it could almost pass as a button.

The world beneath the streets had transfigured Ivy. It had taken the clay of her and fired it into sturdy ceramic. I already knew it would have the reverse effect on me.

Arcturus waited by the door in his usual attire. “Shouldn’t you wear something waterproof ?” I asked him.

“The cold and damp do not affect me.”

I sheathed my stiletto. “If you say so.”

Ivy stepped into the parlor, now clad in fishing waders and her oilskin, a waterproof pack slung over her shoulder. A crowbar hung at her side. She looked quizzically at Arcturus.

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