~ IAN ~

Today, of all days, it rained heavy. The Gods had a wicked humour.

The deluge had started just as they were setting up for the funeral. In the end they’d gathered beneath a hastily-erected gazebo, up on the southern bluff where Captain Mannam had been laid to rest, sitting miserably in wet clothes as the rain beat a rhythm on the canvas around them. Millie clutched tightly to Ian’s hand all the way to the bluff. She wore a borrowed coat, given to her in sympathy by Sergeant Pratley when the rain began.

The ceremony was about two women. Molly Bradshaw and Caroline Ballard were both to be committed to the earth as soon as the words were said and the ground dried. In truth, most of the people were here for Caro. Two jewel-encrusted swords of silver and gold-leaf stood together at the front of the gazebo. One was draped in a garland of posies, in tribute to the memory of a faithful wife died too young. Around the other was a ring of pink bergamots. Molly Bradshaw was a devotee of her faith, and a virgin unpromised. Somehow, Chris had procured death masks from somewhere—though, as he’d been sure to mention in his speech, they were borrowed from the memory of others, and would not be interred with the dead women.

Chris, extravagantly dressed in a soaked-through overcoat of ochre trimmed in gold leaf, began proceedings with a speech, short and primarily concerned with his own wife. Mark Bradshaw harrumphed when his daughter’s name was mentioned, and again when the speech ended without her being mentioned again. Ordinarily, an ordained priest would follow the speech and give the death rites. Not today. Given how Molly had died, the council had decided that it would be inappropriate to invite a priest. Bradshaw had gone so far as threatening to commandeer the Eia, wrest it from its moorings, and take it back to Belaboras, along with every soldier under his command, if any of the church acolytes was invited onto the hill. In their absence, it fell to Edward Ruddingshaw to do the deed.

Master Ruddingshaw was the elder statesman here, born a full three decades before anybody else on the council. The others had signed up to make a name for themselves, but Ruddingshaw had signed up for somewhere to die.

He said as much in his words. “I had thought to be the first, given my advancing years, and yet it falls to me to consign these ladies to the beyond.” Ruddingshaw’s frail voice lacked the gravitas of a good orator. Strangely, the words seemed to ring more true coming from him. “May the Lightness encloak them, and may the God-Mother give them milk from her breast. Their touch has gone from our corporeal earth. Their vessels will carry them through the cold dark. We are taken of them.”

When the old man was finished, and his words had settled, the crowds began to file out. Chris was the first to leave, striding into the rain at almost a run.

The Hookbill was sat in his usual favourite place, at the back of the gathering, playing that game with his deck of cards. Even with all this fresh air, his perfumed odour was overpowering. He glanced at Ian, and for a second their eyes met. The Hookbill seemed to be beckoning him to come over. But Millie had her arm linked with his, and she was pulling him in the opposite direction.

“Don’t be like that,” she cooed, when he tried to extricate himself. “It’s sad. I’m sad.”

Ian nodded silently. “It is a hateful day,” he agreed. Caroline had always liked to talk about the future. Over the years, she’d shared a hundred plans for how she wanted her wedding to go, what she was going to call her children, even the layout of her one-day house. She’d never talked about what would happen when she was gone. Oh, she hadn’t been afraid to discuss the bad side of life. She’d unloaded her demons on Ian between waves of tears when Chris had turned her down. But she behaved as though she expected to live forever.

And she’d been wrong.

He thought back to that last picnic, before the old group came to an end. They’d wandered along the coast a bit, to a sheltered inlet called Fayndel’s Bay. They’d eaten, they’d laughed, they’d swam in the sea. They’d basked in the last of their childish innocence. Ten of them, friends since they were just tiny. How many half-cocked schemes had they concocted? The mere trace of a memory brought a smile to his face. They were destined for great things, all of them. They were going to spread to the breadth of the Unity, conquer every last star, and bring all those distant glories back home. How could anything stop them?

They’d been ten for such a short time after that. Freya Warlin, the little wisp of a girl who had followed Elise around for so long that she’d been assimilated into the group, was the first to die. She’d fallen from a footbridge, just a few days after that last picnic, and hit her head on a rock. She lingered for a while in a coma. By the time she was gone, half of the ten had begun to seek broader horizons.

A few months after that, Dani Carrigan had gone. To think, if that day had gone just a shade differently... but he didn’t like to dwell on it. That way lay ruin, so he’d always heard. Dani was dead. He’d killed her, and it didn’t make a jot of difference what his intentions had been. Dani Carrigan’s parents had seen their daughter buried, the light of their lives extinguished, and no tricky euphemisms to stop him thinking about it would change that fact.

And now Caro was the third.

Of course, there was also Tessa. Caro’s elder sister could well have been dead too. She was a hermit. To Ian, she may as well have disappeared the moment she left Belaboras, but for a time she’d kept contact with her siblings. That, too, had stopped. He’d heard Caro talking to Chris about it, before she got sick.

It was always the women. Funny, that. The men of the group had all made something of themselves. Most of them were here, on Essegena. Armand Heramey was a Governor’s deputy on Arvila. Charlie Ballard held high office on Kelsiern. But of the women, Elise alone still lived in the civilised world. Ian wondered what she was doing right now. He’d told her he wasn’t going with Chris, and she’d swallowed the fiction. Had she cried when she came home and discovered him gone? Had she grieved? Perhaps she’d even started to understand how tiresome she was. She’d be all the better for it if she did.

“I must thank Governor Ballard.” Mark Bradshaw’s silky voice prodded Ian out of his remembrances. “It was so very gracious of him to give my Molly the respect she deserved. Why, he spent almost as much of his speech talking about her as he did his wife.” The sarcasm was palpable.

“What did you expect?” Ian said. “He didn’t know your daughter. What would he have had to say?”

“There was no obligation to make it a shared event. I can bury my own children, and properly eulogise them as well. I’ve been denied the chance at that. And for why? So the Governor can look like he’s in charge. I spit on his politics.”

Behind Mark Bradshaw was a young woman with dark eyes. She was broadly similar to Molly, but her hair was cropped to shoulder-length and the muscles in her arms had twice the definition. Megan Bradshaw, Ian guessed. He’d never met the General’s youngest daughter before. She was looking down at her feet, and wincing at every second sentence her father uttered. Did they not get on, perhaps?

“I don’t think there was any intent to offend,” Ian began, but Bradshaw cut him off.

“Governor Ballard wants to look like the better person, so all the fools on the Council keep kissing his feet. That was the only intent. But I should have suspected as much. I know the type he consorts with. You can tell a lot about a man from the company he keeps, Master Fitzhenry, and he keeps the worst sort.” Bradshaw’s lip curled. “And yes, I do include you in that. I know your secrets.”

He felt himself stiffen. “Whatever you might think you know, I can assure you you’re wrong.”

“Would Miss Carrigan agree with that?” It was a low blow, bringing Dani’s name up. She’d been dead for years—why couldn’t he let her memory rest with her? More to the point, how did he know? The Hookbill had vowed to tell nobody. The Hookbill was always vowing to keep the secrets he figured out, and somehow someone else always came to know. It couldn’t be a coincidence if it happened every time.

Bradshaw turned and walked away abruptly, his daughter close behind him.

“Who does he mean?” Millie asked. She’d been stood beside him so quietly that he’d forgotten she was there. “Who’s Miss Carrigan?”

“Nobody.”

She nuzzled into his shoulder. “She must be somebody, or General Bradshaw wouldn’t have brought her up.”

“Forget about it. Forget that name and never say it. Not once. Not if you value your life.” Millie recoiled, and Ian realised he’d yelled at her. Perhaps I should apologise. But perhaps Millie should keep to her own business.

She ran away sniffling like a little child. It was a relief to be away from her. She was twice as irritating as Elise had ever been, in far less time. Looking around, he saw that Prendergast was still at his cards. The Hookbill must have been the man who told Bradshaw about Dani. Nobody else knew. Not even Chris. Without realising it, Ian found himself looming over the Hookbill, who looked up at him with a casual smile.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” he said, in a softly lilting voice. Today the Hookbill had worn a doublet with silk flowers sewn in, and left his eyes unpainted. It made his face look bare.

“How much did Bradshaw pay you?” Ian had a bit of money saved up from years of frugal living. His wife had called him stingy on more than one occasion, but he just called it being sensible with what he had. It was paying off now. His kitty was fatter than most. If the Hookbill couldn’t be trusted to keep his tongue for honour’s sake alone, perhaps his silence could be bought. “Tell me how much he gave you. I’ll give you twice that if you tell him it was all a lie.”

The Hookbill laughed. “Would that I had been paid. But alas...”

“So you told him for nothing?”

“Master Fitzhenry, you have me wrong. I haven’t once spoken to Mark Bradshaw in any capacity beyond our roles on the council.”

Ian knew that the Hookbill was talking sense, but he was angry, and he had to take that anger out on somebody. “He knows about Dani Carrigan. Explain that.”

“I cannot,” the Hookbill said. “And what is more, I fail to see why I should be obliged to.”

“He found out from somebody.”

“I found out from somebody. The information is out there, no matter how much you deny it. It’s just a matter of how well it’s hidden.”

The Hookbill was talking far too much sense. Ian didn’t like it. Still, his anger was fading away with the word games. “So it wasn’t you who told Bradshaw?”

“My game is staying alive. The secrets I learn are my bargaining power—if I give them away, I lose that chip. People never trust me again. You’re a perfect example of that. And when people don’t trust me, that’s when I lose.”

“So why did you tell me anything?”

At this, the Hookbill couldn’t help but chuckle. Ian clenched his fists tight, which only made the Hookbill laugh harder. “You wouldn’t last a minute in the lion’s den, Master Fitzhenry. If you decided the time had come to betray my trust, you’d be dead within a week. No, I have nothing to fear from you.”

“A knife to the gut is something to fear.”

“Yes,” the Hookbill conceded, “and if I believed you were capable of wielding it I might be scared some. As it is...”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss me,” said Ian. “I’ve killed before.”

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“And it’s destroyed you. You couldn’t take another life even if it would save your dear Caroline’s.”

“Caroline’s dead,” Ian seethed. “We’re here today to bury her.”

The Hookbill stared at Ian, until Ian could take it no more and looked away. “You’re too quick to assume what you see is the truth,” said the Hookbill. “The Gods play their silly games with us, Fitzhenry, and martyrs have a funny way of living on.”

“Caroline didn’t. Everything might have been better now if she had.”

They fell to hush. There was an abandoned cup on a stool nearby, half full of water. Ian snatched it up and drained it into his mouth—and then choked most of it back up. Rain water, of course. It had a dirty taste.

The Hookbill had his cards out. He shuffled them lazily, and handed the pile to Ian.

“What am I doing with these?”

“Deal them out.”

He grabbed the stool by its leg, dragged it over, wiped it dry with his sleeve. The rain had begun to ease up, enough to keep them dry beneath the canvas. “Am I dealing for two?”

“Just one.”

“What game?”

“You don’t need to play a game. Just deal the cards. All of them.”

He took the cards one at a time from the pile in his hand, and placed them one on top of another on the table, pausing every now and then to glance at the Hookbill. He was just watching. When Ian had put the last card down, the Hookbill spoke.

“That’s an impressive stack. You must be well-practiced.”

Ian shook his head. “I have a steady hand, that’s all.”

“Clearly. I wonder, which card was the last one in the pile? Which one ended up on top?” The Hookbill reached for the uppermost card and turned it over. It was one of the Queens, its illustration inked in shades of green—a woman stood on a bridge, clasping the hand of a child. “The Uncrowned Queen,” the Hookbill announced. He scooped up the whole deck and shuffled them again. “My turn.”

Ian turned to go. “I don’t have time for cards.”

“I must insist that you stay.”

There was nothing keeping him there. What could the Hookbill do, if he decided to go? And yet he found himself staying to watch. The Hookbill shuffled expertly, mixing the cards up with an elegance bordering on professional. When he was done, he stacked them on the table, one at a time. Then he turned the top card over.

That same green queen again.

There were eighty-six cards in all, fourteen for each suit and two that belonged to no suit. What were the odds that the same card would come up trumps twice in a row? He couldn’t work out the figures in his head. Something unlikely, no doubt—but it was bound to happen eventually.

Then the Hookbill did the same thing a third time. “Is this a trick?” Ian asked, staring the Uncrowned Queen in her ugly inked face. “They’re all the same.”

“They’re not all the same, Master Fitzhenry. The cards are unique. You can check if you want.”

He did want. He spread the cards out on the stool, each of them face up... and only one of them was a queen without a crown, walking across a bridge with green ink. “I didn’t take you for a magician, Prendergast. This is a good trick. I can’t see how you did it.”

The Hookbill looked him in the eye. “I assure you, there is no trick.”

“You can drop the showman act,” Ian grunted. “You’ve fooled me. I’ll admit that.”

But the Hookbill was insistent. “There is no trick here, Fitzhenry,” he said, his voice low. “None that I can figure, anyway.”

Ian grabbed the cards off the stool. He insisted on doing it again, this time shuffling the deck himself. Whatever the Hookbill said, there was something in the way he was arranging the cards, a sleight of hand to ensure they finished up in the right order. Perhaps there was a subtle mark on the Uncrowned Queen, a smudge or a stain so small that nobody would pay it any mind, but that would let the Hookbill know the correct card was at the end.

Ian had never been good at shuffling cards. He used to practice at the dinner table, as a nipper. He’d even managed to become basically competent. When he’d tried to learn the fancy tricks, he’d ended up dropping the cards everywhere. It wasn’t fun playing cards when half of them were sticky with gravy. His brief education in card cleverness had ended then. His shuffling technique was basic, stilted, but eventually he was happy that they were all thoroughly mixed in.

He was less happy when he turned over the final card, to see that Uncrowned Queen staring back at him. He snatched the card and tore it in two, before the Hookbill could stop him. Then he ripped the pieces, and let them fall like confetti snow to the floor.

The deck was one of a kind, he knew that, a historical artefact. He felt guilty the moment he did it. There was no putting a price on the set, no replacing any lost cards. The Hookbill would be justified in his anger. Instead, he picked up the rest of the pile and began shuffling. “We go again,” he said, with a hint of a smile on his face. What was his game?

“I’m sorry,” said Ian, his face flushing. “I shouldn’t have done that. I got angry.”

The Hookbill smiled and started to place the cards down. “You aren’t the first. These are fickle cards, Master Fitzhenry. They’ve infuriated me before now.”

“I’ll replace the broken one.”

“That won’t be necessary.” At half the deck, the Hookbill stopped. “Pick up the pieces, please, or they’ll blow away.”

He bent down and scooped them up. The grass was wet through, and the scraps were soggy. They could be taped together with enough time, but they’d need to dry off first. And even then it would be impossible to play any games with it. The rip marks and the shiny tape would be a dead giveaway that somebody had the green queen, no matter how stoic their face.

The Hookbill continued to deal the cards out. Before long, he was down to the last few. “Ten remain,” he said. “Nine. Eight.” With each passing card he slowed the pace down, announcing how many were left in his hand and letting the figure sit in the air.

“Seven.”

It was infuriating really. Ian wasn’t a complete dunce, he knew how to count back from ten.

“Six.”

There wasn’t even any need. It made no difference how much the Hookbill hyped things up, he simply couldn’t give a shit what the last card was.

“Five.”

The Uncrowned Queen was in pieces in his hand. Any other outcome was uneventful.

“Four.”

What was he even trying to prove? ‘Your temper broke my magic trick and my special deck of cards, so now I feel the need to show you that I can deal cards normally too’?

“Three. I hope you’re paying attention.”

The phrase rankled him. Elise liked to say it. She’d stop her conversations midway through describing whatever criminally boring thing she’d done, to put on her haughty voice and question him. Just because he yawned or looked away or something.

“Two.”

To his annoyance, he found himself getting excited. Why? Why was he so enthralled of a sudden? His life would be materially no better off for knowing the outcome of this shuffle, and in fact it felt inappropriate on a day like today, yet he could taste anticipation in the saliva pooling on his lips. It felt like the Hookbill’s cards were the only thing of any consequence in the world.

“One.”

The last card. Ian squeezed his fists together, feeling the bits of the Uncrowned Queen digging into his palms. The Hookbill moved his hand slowly towards the pile, oh so slowly. Ian’s monkey brain decided to slow things down even more in his head, so time seemed to stand still. Then, the Hookbill placed the last card, and turned it over.

And there she was, the woman without a crown. She was still stood on the bridge, still holding the girl’s hand, still crossing from lightness to darkness, all in lines of green. The Uncrowned Queen. He could still feel the scraps in his hand, but when he opened his fist nothing fell out.

“This is bullshit. How can that bloody card be there? How is that possible?”

“I wish I had the answers.” The Hookbill’s voice seemed to have dropped an octave. “It defies all the natural laws. I’ve taken the card out of the deck, I’ve ripped it like you did, I’ve even burned it. I’ve made a point of putting it in the middle of the pile, or at the bottom. Even if I separate a different card, and put that one at the top of the pile, when I turn it over it’s still the Uncrowned Queen. Since we got to this world, every single time I’ve run through the deck, this card is the last one.”

Ian was suddenly cold. “That sounds like magic. Real magic, not just illusions.”

“It’s something beyond our explaining,” the Hookbill agreed, sombre. “Exactly what, I can’t say. But it surely isn’t good.”

Ian came thirsty to the Tavern that evening, still hung up on the damned Uncrowned Queen. Millie came wrapped around his arm. She’d been sad when he told her he was leaving, happier when he explained that he’d be back. She wanted to come with him. She hadn’t made any bones about that. But she couldn’t find it in herself to abandon Mistress Snyder. “Whatever would she do without me?” she mused. “I can survive on my own for a few months.”

The condition of her staying behind, however, was that Ian spend as much time with her in this final week before their departure as he could. Leaving the Hookbill, he’d lingered for a little while before the shining headstone that so fatefully bore Caroline’s name. He’d gone as soon as he could tear himself away. If he stayed to look at the grave any longer, he mightn’t ever manage to leave. At once he’d sought Millie out, and found her sat outside her tenement building.

The afternoon had gone before they left her tenement and made for the Tavern.

Sergeant Pratley had eschewed his uniform in favour of plain clothes. That was the first sign that he was here to drink, not to guard Ian. The second sign was the comically large tankard on the table in front of him, full to the peak with cider.

“Sergeant Pratley,” said Ian, as Millie slid into a seat across the booth from Pratley. “I’m glad we could talk.”

“We can always talk, sir,” said Pratley. “But please call me by my name. This ‘Sergeant Pratley’ stuff makes me feel weird—it’s Elmer.”

“Elmer,” Ian repeated.

“Elmer?” Millie asked.

Pratley nodded. “Elmer.”

“Elmer,” said Millie.

“Okay, you can stop saying my name now. You’ve made it feel weird.”

Ian grinned. “Sorry, Elmer. But in fairness, you did ask us to call you ‘Elmer’.”

“Yes, and now I’m realising that it was a bad thing to ask,” said Elmer.

Ian had paid a visit to the bar before spotting Elmer, and had bought only a regular-sized drink from Goodwife Sara. He was regretting that, looking at Elmer’s bounty. “How much did that set you back?”

“Not a copperhead,” Elmer laughed. “I had a grand old time with the waitress’ daughter the other day, went all across the valley with her searching for some toy she lost. Turns out it was under her bed the whole time, but who was to know? That little girl’s of an age where she’s impressed by my putting a coin behind my ear and pretending to find it—helping her look for her stuff is much more fun than telling a bunch of reprobates how to keep you alive. Apparently Áine is permanently in my debt for helping her, or something. Drinks on the house.”

“Should I be concerned that you think my security are reprobates?”

Elmer shrugged. “Nobody’s popped you yet. You’ll probably be fine. And hey, if I’m wrong you won’t exactly be coming to complain to me about it.”

“If I get assassinated on your watch, I’m coming back to haunt you,” said Ian.

“Let’s not talk about these things,” said Millie. “On a day like this.”

Ian took a swig from his pint. “No, of course.” A few tables to the left, he spied Doctor Caerlin drinking with another woman. The younger woman looked to be of a similar age to Millie. “I just need to have a quick word with Sergeant Pratley, Millie. It won’t take a minute. Why don’t you go and introduce yourself to Doctor Caerlin? You might end up with more friends than just the people around this table.”

Millie nodded and shimmied past Ian, making her way slowly towards Tema Caerlin’s table.

“I thought you were using my name now,” said Elmer.

“Not when it’s business,” said Ian. “And this is business.”

“Oh. In that case, I’d best get rid of this.” Elmer slid his huge tankard to the far side of the table. “There. Now, business.”

Ian nodded. “I spoke to the Governor the other day. I’m to go to the Hive. I’d like to have you accompany me.”

Elmer scratched at a non-existent beard. “That’s a long journey. And I’m starting to get settled here.” He took a look past Ian. Ian turned to see what Elmer was peering at, and saw the blonde waitress wiping down an empty tankard behind the bar.

“I thought she was married,” said Ian.

“She was,” Elmer confirmed. “Now she’s not.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you apart from her for too long,” said Ian, “but don’t forget that you’re paid to be my personal security. The Hive can be a dangerous place.”

Elmer sighed. “I’m going whether I want to or not, aren’t I?”

Ian nodded, a smirk on his face. “I’m afraid so.”

“Then count me in. When do we leave?”

“In a week or so,” said Ian. “The technicians need to crunch some numbers before we go. If we give the wrong figures to the Hive, they’ll end up opening a port to the middle of a black hole or something equally disastrous. Hopefully they won’t be too slow about it.”

Elmer smiled. “A week, you say? Plenty of time to make my move, then,” he said, with a wink.

“Just don’t hurt her,” said Ian. “This is the only place to get a drink. I can’t have you getting us both banned.”

All of a sudden, Elmer turned serious. “You wanted to know why I won’t go near the church,” he said. “I think you got a clear enough demonstration. The faith is dangerous, sir.”

“You should have said something,” said Ian.

“You’d have thought I was exaggerating,” said Elmer. “I did try to warn you. Berengue of the lilacs.”

“The note was your doing!”

Elmer nodded. “I hoped you’d see what the church was. There’s a reason the Cleansing ceremony is banned in the Unity. You see now, of course?”

Ian nodded, sombre. “Unfortunately.” Not that it would do Molly Bradshaw much good now.

“They didn’t want me,” said Millie, breaking the mood as she returned to the table.

Ian turned to her. She had a bright smile on her face. “You seem happy about it.”

“Doctor Caerlin’s on a date,” she said, cooing. “Oh, I love seeing people fall in love. I wonder if they’ll let me have a crack at their marriage gowns.”

Ian couldn’t help but laugh. Millie was just as she had been, and the melancholy driven away.

“Come on,” he said. “Drink. The night is young.”

But the night was old when they stumbled home.