Alchemical symbol: Antimony [https://i.imgur.com/7omjkx8.png]

Andra edged away from the wall. Her claws left the stone and she stood, unsupported, on trembling legs, not far from the cellar entrance. From outside came the patter of rain on stone, the grey light of a clouded afternoon, the rich smell of wet earth. She took one small step. And another.

‘You’re getting stronger,’ Mouse said.

Mouse sat cross-legged on the floor. The others were out, except Tick, who crouched in his usual corner, sorting through his pile of metal.

Andra nodded. A few days ago, she couldn’t have stood and walked even this much. She tensed, planning another step, and pain rippled through her gut. She eased herself down to the floor.

Each day she was a little stronger. Soon she would be fit enough to hunt easy prey, dogs and cats, if nothing else. Fresh meat would give her strength, and she could leave, she could return to her rooftop, to her own space, to light and air and most of all, quiet.

She’d lived with humans before, briefly, and that had been bad. The five children were altogether worse, over-flowing the cellar with their constant smell and movement and sheer aggravating noise.

Days of listening to their chatter had at least made human words come more easily to her tongue. The question she wanted to ask was complicated though. ‘You. Boss. Slight. Family?’

Mouse laughed. ‘Not real family. Not sisters.’

Dark-skinned Mouse in no way resembled any of the others, so Andra supposed that must be right — they weren’t related. Though that only deepened the mystery.

‘I had a mama once,’ Mouse said. ‘She died. I guess everyone had family once. I don’t know. They don’t talk about it.’

Andra adjusted the torn blanket round her shoulders, careful not to rip it further. She frowned. The children puzzled her. They lived together something like a lasker kin, yet they weren’t kin — and no lasker would abandon children to fend for themselves. Children were too rare, too precious.

Humans loved their children. She had seen it was so, and besides, even the dumbest animals cared for their young. Yet so many small ones, like these, wandered the streets apparently alone, unwanted, ignored. It was hard to understand. Perhaps humans, unlike lasker, only cared for their own offspring. Like animals.

‘What about you?’ Mouse said. ‘Do you have a family?’

‘Not now.’ Andra waved her hand to the west, to vast distances beyond the enclosing walls. ‘Far away.’

‘And you’re alone here,’ Mouse said slowly. ‘Do all your people have—’ She held up her hands with fingers hooked into claws.

Andra shook her head. Her claws grew from her fingers seamlessly, as if they were part of her flesh, as if they belonged. But they didn’t. ‘This was done.’ Her face twisted. ‘By men.’

‘Oh.’ Mouse’s eyes were very wide. ‘I’m sorry. That must be hard. Everything must be hard.’

Andra looked away. She didn’t want sympathy from small humans. She wanted to kill the people who had done this to her. The ones who caged her; the ones who made her fight beasts in the pit; the ones who hadn’t let her die, had instead changed her into this, this thing that was no longer truly lasker, this unnatural thing without home or kin or hands or hope. This thing that ought to be dead.

‘None of us have real family,’ Mouse said. ‘Boss and Slight and the others, we have to be family for each other. We could be your family too. If you like.’

Andra couldn’t easily read human expressions; Mouse only looked like Mouse, speaking nonsense with such serious confidence, as if it were truth. But it was nonsense. A group of strangers couldn’t be a family. Unless perhaps humans could, in some way only humans understood, which could never include Andra even if she wanted — which she did not.

Of that she was certain. Humans were too strange, too different from lasker. She didn’t understand them. Trying would only bring madness and grief; better to remain herself, and be alone.

Alchemical symbol: Zinc [https://i.imgur.com/db6WC9b.png]

Well past midnight they padded down College Street, wreathed in the fog of their own breath. Not skulking or sneaking, for that would draw attention, but moving quietly and with purpose. Silver Lil led, a coil of rope over her shoulder. Sparrow plodded after her with the bucket.

Zult brought up the rear, his shoulders hunched against the cold silence of the deserted streets and shuttered shops. Other parts of town might be lively with drinkers and dancers, but not here. It was too late for religion, too early for shopkeepers to take deliveries. The loudest sounds were their own.

At the entrance to Temple Square, Lil stopped beneath a gas-lamp. The flickering light caught the silver ring in her nose, the gloss in her long black hair. She signalled them to halt.

Sparrow put the bucket down. The loud clunk of it landing on the paving drew a glare from Lil. Sparrow grinned and shrugged.

Across the empty square rose the vast pale bulk of the Temple, its white marble dome like a cloud brought to earth. Legend had it built by angels in a single night. Nonsense, and yet, seeing it now, knowing what they planned to do, Zult shivered.

He wasn’t a religious man; he’d never visited the Temple, or thought of it all. It was a place for nobles anyhow, and his sort, he imagined, weren’t welcome there, even before the recent troubles. It meant nothing to him, and he’d had no qualms about what they were doing.

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Only now they were here, it was real, and this wasn’t any old building. It was the Temple. It was lords and ladies, saints and hero-knights of old, and if men built it, they’d built with more than stone. The Temple was history and legend made solid.

The warm lump nestled against his chest stirred. He peered inside his coat.

‘What you got there?’ Sparrow hissed.

‘Just the baby.’

The others stared at him.

‘Mama’s sick.’ Zult shifted the baby to a more comfortable position. He was fast asleep. ‘I couldn’t leave him with her.’

‘What if it cries? We’re meant to do this quiet, you idiot. Not wake up the whole damn town.’

‘He won’t cry,’ Zult said.

‘I can’t believe this.’ Sparrow looked to Lil for support.

‘Lemme see,’ Lil said.

Zult opened his coat.

‘Aw. Cute little rat. Gotta name yet?’

‘Nah—’

‘Shut it.’ Sparrow whispered. ‘You hear that?’

Clear on the night air came the regular tread of hob-nailed boots on pavement.

‘Watchman.’ Lil gestured urgently. ‘Get back.’

They huddled in a shopfront, pressed into the deepest shadow. Lil’s hard elbow dug into Zult’s ribs on one side. Sparrow twitched on the other. ‘Of all the bloody stupid—’ he hissed. ‘A baby! What if we have to fight?’

Lil shushed him. The unhurried footsteps approached, closer and closer, and stopped. The watchman stood at the end of the street, under the lamp — and his long shadow touched the paint bucket. The bucket Sparrow had left in the middle of the street.

Zult tensed, his arms locked round the sleeping child. If they were discovered — their orders were to run, not fight. Best to scatter. Sparrow and Lil could take care of themselves. He would run. Even with the baby, he could easily outrun some old watchman.

A lone watchman wouldn’t chase anyhow. He wasn’t paid to risk his life, just to raise the alarm. He’d only shout and ring his bell.

But no shout came. The watchman coughed a hard wet cough, spat, and shuffled away, his footsteps receding into the distance as he continued round the square.

They breathed out as one. Lil gave Sparrow a pointed glare. Sparrow hunched, not meeting Zult’s eyes.

‘Stupid prank anyway,’ Zult muttered under his breath. ‘Painting on walls. We should hang a few bloody prigs for real, then we’d see something.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ Sparrow collected the bucket. ‘Let’s just hurry and get this over with.’

Alchemical symbol: Nickel [https://i.imgur.com/SX7htXR.png]

Nevin hammered on the door. Each pounding blow shook the door, the walls, and possibly the whole building. ‘Open up. It’s Nevin.’

From inside came the shifting of the chest, the scrape of the latch. The door cracked opened. He shoved it wide and barged in. His red cloak swept a small jar off the shelves as he passed; it hit the floorboards and rolled.

Thea retreated, stumbling backward into the stool. ‘What’s wrong?’

Nevin snorted. ‘Don’t waste your innocent act on me.’

Benedict rose from his chair. ‘Can we — can we assist you, sir?’

‘What gets me, what really gets me, is you rubbed my bloody nose in it. Do you think I’m an idiot?’

They stared at him, both the picture of bemused terror.

‘Paint,’ Nevin shouted, and had the satisfaction of seeing Thea jump.

She shrank, trembling and clutching the stool for support. ‘What’s happened?’

Either she was a damn good actor or she really didn’t know. ‘You haven’t heard?’

She shook her head. With her big dark eyes and too-short hair, she looked like a terrified child, an urchin in a dress so miserably stained a maid-servant would scorn it as a floor-rag.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair. He would have paced, but the room was barely two strides across, without considering the furniture. ‘Someone did some painting in the night. On the side wall of the Temple, among other very public places. They painted the hanged man on the bloody Temple.’

Thea’s mouth made a silent oh.

‘And if that wasn’t bad enough, would you like to guess what happened when they tried to scrub off the paint?’

‘Oh,’ she said. She sank onto the stool. ‘Oh no.’

‘A commission.’ Nevin sneered. ‘From a paint factory, was it?’

Thea hugged herself. She was shaking.

Nevin crossed his arms over the cold steel of his breastplate. The vandals couldn’t have chosen a worse target at a worse time. Only a few months ago, hundreds of House Numisma had been massacred at the Temple, shot down in cold blood by Snakes in the pay of House Oryche. This new desecration would have Numisma howling for blood. And Phylaxes and Oryche, both keen to distance themselves from past mistakes, would howl even louder.

Someone must hang for this, and soon. ‘You poor damn fools.’

‘We did nothing wrong, sir,’ Benedict said.

‘You made the damn paint.’

‘Please, Nevin.’ Thea raised her head. ‘Benedict doesn’t know anything. He’s not to blame. It was me. I dealt with the customer.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know names. They were blues, Shepherds. That’s all I know.’

‘Shepherds.’ Nevin only knew they operated in Outwall and stuck to the smuggling business, which didn’t bother anyone except Anemari. ‘That’s something. What else?’

She looked blank.

‘With what I know, I’d be fully justified in arresting the pair of you. Think very hard. My boss wants someone to hang. Help me find whoever’s behind this, and he won’t need to know you were involved.’

‘I can’t,’ Thea said. ‘They’ll know it was me. They’ll kill me.’

‘Well perhaps you should have been more careful who you dealt with.’

She sagged. ‘We needed the money. It was paint, for pity’s sake. How was I to know?’

Nevin didn’t know whether he was more disgusted with her or himself for feeling sorry for her. ‘Do they know where you live?’

Thea straightened. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Then you should be all right. Look Thea, these people are criminals. Today they paint walls, but who knows what they intend. We don’t need another Burning. The city might not survive the next time. Tell me what you know and I’ll see you’re protected.’

Thea took a shuddering breath. ‘Guess I’ll never get the ten forints they owe me.’

Nevin dug into his money pouch, took out twenty forints and slammed them on the table. ‘There. I don’t suppose you know how to remove the paint, do you?’

‘It’s bonded to the stone,’ she said. ‘There are solvents… but the cheapest solution is to chisel it away.’

‘Light defend us.’ Nevin groaned. ‘Talk fast and make it good.’