kemi’s baton was out before Tom half knew what she was doing. The door thunked on it and then wrenched open again, because the scrap was moving too fast to care. The deadbolt chain strained taut, rattling.
The air went light and wild, warming as it thinned. Etheric. The first verses of poetry dropped from the prefect’s lips. He glanced at her sharply; he could parse the prepositions, some of the noun endings – the vocative callings-on strung through every spell, calm and respectful, repetitive – everything that tied-together, everything in-between anything of substance. He recognized no clairvoyant invocation.
It was static mona stirring round them; unlike, rather than belike. Feeling tingled back into his cheeks, and he realized he was sweating under his coat. The air was warmer than you’d expect, even sigiled.
Frost glittered on the chain. He saw got a glimpse of it in the chill morning light before the thing shattered.
He was wide-eyed, something like a smile on his lips, when she turned to him solemn and brusque. Raising a red eyebrow, he nodded once – sharply – and stood only a moment as Nkemi shouldered through, cat-quiet grace transformed; there was a sour taste in his mouth as he took it in, thud thud thud. The baton gripped in her small hand, her field warm and organized around her, steel-toed spinewolf brigk.
There wasn’t time. He shook it away, half-turning. He caught a glimpse over his shoulder of the recluse’s room, of piles on piles of books. Of a cot with dirty sheets neatly tucked in, like a crimp might do.
Tom pushed it for all it was worth, which wasn’t much. He didn’t worry about sound; there was no worrying. Halfway up the sixth flight, he cursed vividly through clenched teeth and spittle, stopping with one hand braced against the wall. He made a fist of it and slammed it against the wood, biting back angry tears.
He was panting and blowing, and had stumbled twice, when he finally got to the top. His shin still stung where he’d tripped and banged it on the jutting edge of a stair. The tenements were poorly-heated, but the chill outside still hit him in a blast, the wind prickling at his eyes and ruffling his hair, tugging at the hem of his coat.
Sickly-sweet Morley-Ogden again. He breathed it in deep, steadied himself. The rendering house ahead, a bulky shape with stacks – not so impossibly high, anymore – spilling darkening smoke.
The morning drew on; you could hear calls, now, from the river. Shapes of cranes, great bent spider-legs; other, more distant buildings, jutting up smokestacks against the lightening sky. You could see the sun up here – pale, watery – banishing the smog like the river banished wastewater. Close enough to the edge, Tom could see her, stretching out and carving a grey path through the grey city. It shimmered silvery like a ribbon.
He’d never been up to the roof. He didn’t have much of a chance to look at the flat grey expanse of it, broken up with bulky crumbling chimneys, racks where natt still hung drying sheets, clinging to the last of the warmth before Achtus and Ophus would freeze them solid. They billowed and snapped in the breeze.
Light sparked off a head of tangled red hair, a small heavyset man with his arms full. The tatty dark shawl draped round his shoulders fluttered as he stumbled over the rooftop.
Another shape, darker, bulkier with a coat on, darted after him.
Tom filled his lungs with the cutting-cold air, coughed. Gritting his teeth, he threw himself into motion again, staggering after the prefect. He could not catch up; there was no point trying, but he tried anyway. A tingling dark pressed at his vision. The world was a blur, and all he could hear was the huff of his breath.
“I don’t want any trouble, brigk!” He heard a thin voice call, half-swallowed by wheezing and the wind.
A woman’s shriek, cut off abruptly.
It wasn’t Nkemi’s, but it was strangely familiar. Tom’s eyes snapped wide; he was slumped sideways against a crumbled chimney, catching his breath. Swallowing dryly, he forced his eyes to focus against the sharp light.
It was the bookseller. Vellum, they called him, he remembered.
Tom couldn’t know what he was looking at, at first. Nkemi was nearby, still – the scrap was near the gap between one building and the next – there was movement, and he thought there was something tangled in the scrap’s arms, held down with surprising strength.
He saw a flash of wide dark eyes, a pale face. The wind rippled through mottled skirts, tangled loose a few strands of curly dark hair. A clay pot lay on its side nearby, spilling out dark water. The scrap’s hand was clamped over her mouth.
“Mum!” Came a small voice from behind. Then: “Mister Brooke?”
Tom threw a wide-eyed look over his shoulder, the breath still in his lungs. Reggie Marks, he remembered. Greta Marks’ son. The lad stood at the entrance to the stairwell, frozen in place. A year older, Tom thought, oddly disconnected. A little taller. Was he ten by now?
The lad was staring at his mum and Vellum. When he finally tore his eyes away, it was to look at Nkemi, ashen-pale and terrified; then he locked eyes with Tom. “Mister Thomas?”
He took a step out. No, Tom wanted to say, shit, no – he held out a leather-gloved hand – the lad came close enough to feel the brush of his field and froze, all the blood draining from his face.
Tom’s lips moved, but nothing came out.
“I don’t know who you are, madam brigk,” pronounced the scrap, “but another step and we’re both going off.”