Page 60 of Only a Monster

‘You can see everything from here,’ Joan said wonderingly. Below, on the street, monsters were popping in and out of existence like soap bubbles. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that. Through the glass dome, the market was laid out in miniature. The guards looked the same as everyone else from this height—their pins too small to see. But Joan could tell where they were from the spaces other people left around them. And, even from up here, Joan could see how the guards had changed the atmosphere of the market. Customers were moving more slowly, heads turned to track them. Sellers were quieter.

‘No one ever comes up onto the roof,’ Ruth said.

‘Because it’s ghastly,’ Aaron said. Someone had put potted plants up here, but they were long dead—withered to silver stems. The parapets were crumbling. He added, conceding, ‘Although, true—it’s a comprehensive view.’

Joan sat on a parapet, facing Ruth and Aaron. ‘We have some news,’ she told Ruth. ‘We spoke to Ying Liu. He confirmed the rumours. Some of the Lius remember another timeline.’

Ruth’s eyes widened. ‘He told you that?’

‘That’s the least of it,’ Aaron said. ‘Your cousin is in possession of contraband from the Monster Court itself. Did you know that?’

‘What?’ Ruth said. ‘No!’

Joan unclasped the gold necklace and leaned over to hand it to Ruth. ‘Gran gave it to me just before she died.’ She hoped Ruth wouldn’t feel hurt that Gran had given her something.

Ruth didn’t look hurt. She looked puzzled. She took the necklace and stretched it out against the bright white sky. She twisted it slightly, making the chain glint.

‘Have you seen it before?’ Joan said. ‘In Gran’s house, maybe? Or did she ever wear it?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. What are these dark patches on the chain? They almost look like stone.’

‘I don’t know,’ Joan said. The question made her feel strangely uneasy. She remembered again how she’d touched the necklace after Gran had died: how, when she’d lifted her fingers, the gold underneath had been dull and dark. That couldn’t be right, though, she thought again. She had to be remembering that wrong.

For some reason another memory came to her then: Ying Liu spreading his fingers to touch those dark patches. The way he’d looked at her searchingly afterward.

‘According to Ying Liu, that’s a key to the Monster Court,’ Aaron said.

Ruth jumped and almost fumbled it, as if he’d told her she was holding a snake.

‘That’s what he told us,’ Joan said.

Ruth’s eyes were huge. ‘This is a key to the Court?’ she said. ‘I don’t understand. How is it even a key? It’s a necklace.’

‘I don’t know,’ Aaron said. ‘But look. The pendant is a sigil. It looks almost like a family chop.’

Ruth held it up again, curiosity apparently overcoming fear. ‘I’ve never seen this sigil. . . .’ She frowned, looking more closely. ‘What is it? A gargoyle? There are knots in its tail.’

‘A chimera of some kind,’ Aaron said. ‘But I’ve never seen it before either.’

Ruth turned the pendant over. There was an indented, stamped image on the underside of the disk. The same creature, standing on a scroll. Joan squinted at the words. Non sibi sed regi. Latin?

‘“Not for self, but for king,”’ Aaron said.

‘Those words don’t belong to any of the twelve families,’ Ruth said.

‘Maybe a lesser family’s chop,’ Aaron said. ‘Or a French family’s.’

‘But there’s no name on it,’ Ruth said.

‘What’s a chop?’ Joan asked.

Aaron reached into his pocket and took out a chain, unhooking it from a buttonhole. Joan had noticed the chain before, but she’d assumed it was for a fob watch. Now she saw that it had a little pendant figurine attached: a mermaid. But not a fairytale mermaid: there was something menacing about the tilt of her head, her clawing hands, the snakelike coil of her tail. It was the same mermaid that had been tattooed on Aaron’s relative. The same outline Joan had seen through Aaron’s wet shirt. The Oliver sigil.

Aaron mimed stamping it against the table and then handed it to Joan. ‘It’s a seal.’

There was a flat gold disk under the mermaid’s tail. It had an etched image of the mermaid along with Aaron’s name in mirrored letters. Son of Edmund, the chop said. Joan made out a Latin phrase: Fidelis ad mortem.

‘Proof of identity,’ Aaron said. ‘Most monsters have one. In my family, we get them when our power stabilises—when we’re confirmed to be Olivers. We’re buried with them when we die.’

---