With Fate Conspire (26 page)

She didn’t even know why it had come in the first place, except to disguise the theft of the real Miss Kittering. “How?”

“There’s medicines, but I don’t know how they’re made. Better to be straightforward: beat the changeling, or kick it, or starve it; forcing it underwater can work, or holding it over a fire—”

“I can’t do that!” Eliza exclaimed in horror, cutting off his rambling suggestions. For one fractured instant, her mind tried to imagine dragging the false Louisa down to the kitchen, flinging the pots and saucepans off the top of the range, forcing the screaming young woman into their place.
I wouldn’t live long enough to be arrested.

Whelan shrugged. “If the fairy leaves, they have to give the stolen one back. But it isn’t easy to make them leave.”

“How do you know they have to give the human back? They took Owen, and didn’t leave anyone in his place.”

“True.” Was it her imagination, or did Whelan look troubled? He bent his attention to his fingernails, picking at the ragged edge of one until it broke off. “If you’re clever, then sometimes it works to use trickery instead.”

It said something very unpleasant about Whelan that he suggested drowning and roasting before trickery. “Tell me about that,” Eliza said, trying not to let her relief get the better of her. What followed next might not be any better.

But it was better—if not terribly convincing. “Some say if you can trick the changeling into admitting that ’tisn’t human, then it will be bound to leave.”

“How—by asking it questions that the person should know the answers to?”

He shook his head. “No, they often seem to know quite a lot.” And indeed, Eliza knew, that was true of the false Louisa. Whelan said, “I’ve only heard the one story of this, and I don’t remember it well. But there was a woman with a little child that had been stolen away, and she did something unnatural to confuse it. The thing said it had never seen that in all the centuries of its life, and so showed it was a changeling; and after that, it had to go away.”

A much safer path than attacking Louisa Kittering. But still, a thin thread upon which to hang her hopes. Staring out over the filthy brown waters of the Thames, Eliza said, “And that’s the best you can say?”

“Don’t you be insulting me again, Eliza O’Malley—not when I’ve been as helpful as I can.”

She rather thought he had, and forced herself to murmur an apology. Her heart was still heavy, though, and she couldn’t immediately bring herself to move; instead she sat and watched a ship floating gently into the tight quarters of the Shadwell Basin, where dockworkers more fortunate than Dónall Whelan waited to unload its cargo of rice or tobacco or wine. And when the ship’s stern had passed from view behind the high walls of the closed dock, Whelan spoke again.

“I suppose I’m owing you an apology of my own.”

Startled, Eliza turned back to him. Whelan had hunched down upon his coil of rope, fingers jabbing at its tarred strands. A sharp breeze off the water made them both shiver. “For grabbing my paps?”

His unrepentant laugh said she’d missed the mark. Then Whelan sobered. “No. For doubting what you said, near seven years ago. About fairies in London.”

Eliza was off the rope in an instant, tired feet slamming onto the boards of the wharf. “You’ve seen them?”

“No.” The word struck like the grim blow of an ax. “But I’ve had others come asking for help. From West Ham, out past Mile End. Girls have gone missing, and they say the fairies took them.”

The energy of a heartbeat before drained out of her, its place taken by slow horror. “How many?”

Whelan spread his gnarled hands. “Three? That I know about. There might be more. A girl named Eliza Carter, ten or fifteen years old … I don’t remember the other two. The police looked, I think. But of course they found nothing.” He spat onto the planks, still damp from that morning’s rain. “The police never find anything in the East End, unless it went missing from the West. You could murder a dozen women here and never be caught.”

They certainly hadn’t been able to find Owen. One patronizing fellow had told Mrs. Darragh her son probably ran off to America. Eliza never understood it, how one minute these English could talk about the irrational closeness of the Irish family, and the next assume a young man would abandon the mother and sister who needed him. And was that where they thought Eliza Carter had gone?

West Ham. That was on the very edge of the city, a good five miles from Newgate. But the horse-tram was cheap, and Eliza had the whole day off. It might be worth going out there, to see what she could learn.

But first she had a debt to pay. “On your feet,” Eliza told Whelan. “We’re going to find someone selling potatoes, and some butter to put on them, too; and while we do, you’ll be telling me everything you know about this girl and the others. Starting with where their families live.”

The Goblin Market, Onyx Hall: May 26, 1884

There were fae in the Goblin Market who were very good at stealing secrets.

Dead Rick was not one of them.

But he gave it his best try anyway, knowing it wouldn’t be good enough.
Counting
on it not being good enough. Because when Nadrett asked questions later, the master needed to be satisfied that the story Dead Rick told was true.

So he slipped through the chambers and passages of the Market, making his way toward the one corridor that still led to the rest of the Hall. A lot of fae had to pass through that area, making it the perfect territory for the Market’s biggest buyer and seller of secrets.

When Nadrett asked later, Dead Rick would say, with perfect truth, that he was looking for proof of an alliance between Lacca and Valentin Aspell. The goblin woman no longer had any territory in the Market; if she wanted to survive, she needed help, and about the only thing she had left to sell was the information in her head. So it was reasonable to think she would offer it to Aspell, who traded in such things, in exchange for something that would help her avoid being crushed by Nadrett and Hardface. It was also reasonable to think that Nadrett would be pleased with any faerie who brought him proof of that offer.

Not that Dead Rick was going to succeed. But Nadrett wouldn’t have to question why he tried. For a skriker who was absolute rubbish at lying, it was important to have these things in place beforehand.

A fidgeting sprite stood watch at the edge of Aspell’s territory, no one Dead Rick recognized. Slipping past him was easy; all it took was a charm of concealment, persuading eye and ear there was nothing worth noticing. That was only a doorman, though, not an actual defense. The first layer of that waited in the chamber Dead Rick soon came to, where Aspell’s underlings lounged at their ease on stolen silks, playing cards or talking idly. No dogfighting here, no pit stained with blood; Aspell’s crew was more disciplined than that, if no less ruthless.

Some of these were fae Dead Rick knew. Orlegg, for example, whose thick muscles made him an intimidating enemy. The thrumpin, though, wasn’t half the threat Greymalkin was; her feline nose might not be as sharp as a dog’s, but it was enough to catch his scent on the air. And scent was a good deal harder to charm away than sight or sound.

Dead Rick had optimistically thought he might get past this room, to where the actual guards kept watch. No such luck: Greymalkin’s head came up in swift alert, and then before Dead Rick could decide whether to try and run, they had him.

Orlegg growled impressive threats about breaking his arms, but it was just talk—Dead Rick hoped. Aspell’s minions were disciplined, more so than most in the Goblin Market. They wouldn’t really lay into him until their master gave the order.

And that meant seeing the master.

This was the part that most worried Dead Rick. He didn’t dare ask to see Aspell; people would take notice of that, and while the discipline here also extended to information, he couldn’t trust it wouldn’t get out somehow—maybe on Aspell’s orders. So when Greymalkin asked him what he was doing there, what he had seen, Dead Rick gave the most threatening laugh he could manage, and said, “More than you want to know.”

She swiped his face with her claws, but he smiled through the blood, because one of her companions had gone away with a worried look on his face. When the other faerie came back, he jerked his thumb at the door and said, “Bring him.”

Dead Rick let them drag him; it wouldn’t do to look eager. And for once luck smiled on him, because they shoved him into a chair, bound him in place, and went out again, leaving the skriker alone with Valentin Aspell.

Who studied him with an expression forbidding enough to make Dead Rick hope this wouldn’t turn out to be a fatally bad idea. Aspell’s thin mouth was pinched close, his brows drawn in over sharp green eyes. The wingback chair in which he sat shrouded him partially in shadow, as if it were the hood of a cobra. In a straight-up-and-down fight, Dead Rick would win—he didn’t even think the other faerie was armed—but Aspell knew that, and would never let it come to such a fight. Tied to a chair, with plenty of people just beyond the door, Dead Rick was potentially in a great deal of danger.

So he spoke before Aspell could. “I didn’t see nothing, and I didn’t expect to. I only broke in so I’d ’ave a way to talk to you, private.”

The sharp eyebrows rose. “Oh? There are accepted means of doing so. Violating my territory is not one of them.”

Aspell should have looked ridiculous, dressed as he was. The former Lord Keeper had been imprisoned for a hundred years of sleep, ever since the middle of the last century, and when he awoke he’d been unimpressed with the dreary simplicity and dull color men’s clothing had taken on. He still wore the long, decorated coats of that previous era, usually in a serpentine green, though he’d given up the absurd wigs Dead Rick had seen in old engravings. Seated at the heart of his power, however, Aspell could have worn a pantomime costume and still been terrifying. The skriker had to swallow before answering.

“You’re good, guvner, but you ain’t perfect. I go anywhere near you, I got to assume Nadrett will find out. And if I don’t ’ave a good answer for it, I’m a dead dog. So I’ll tells ’im I wanted to know whether you and Lacca are plotting something, and in the meantime, I tells
you
I’m ’ere to buy information.”

“Of what sort?”

Dead Rick thought he’d managed to intrigue the other faerie, at least a little bit. Intrigue was good; it gave Aspell a reason to keep listening. “Information that gets close to Nadrett. You see why I can’t ’ave ’im finding out about this.”

Aspell settled deeper into the embrace of his chair, one slender hand stroking its arm with an idle motion. “Indeed. Very well; what do you wish to know?”

After leaving the night garden, Dead Rick had decided he had a choice: give up on his absent ally’s mission, or continue pursuing it himself. The former choice would just sink him back down into the pit of helplessness that had trapped him before. The latter might get him killed—but if it didn’t, he might have something valuable enough to buy the help he needed. “I ’ear tell Nadrett’s got a fellow named Chrennois working for ’im. I wants to know more about Chrennois.” Dead Rick paused, licked his dry lips. “What’s the price for answering that?”

His options for payment were limited. Dead Rick didn’t have anything resembling wealth, not since his little store of valuables had been crushed beneath falling stone. That left information—but selling any of Nadrett’s secrets could get him killed. The skriker curled his bound hands into fists and prepared to bargain hard.

Aspell sat in thought long enough to make him squirm. Then an unreadable smile curled one corner of his mouth, and he said, “You intend to betray your master.”

Dead Rick shook his head. “No, I ain’t that ambitious. I just need to know what ’e’s planning, so I can—”

The former lord put up one hand, silencing him immediately. “You needn’t bother denying it. I know you have been in contact with someone, who has asked to you investigate … let us say, certain of Nadrett’s activities.”

It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over him. Dead Rick’s skin jumped, and his hands clenched tight. “’Ow in Mab’s name do you know that?”

This time the smile curved Aspell’s entire mouth, but not pleasantly. “You approach me to buy information, and ask how it is I know things? I will not tell you. All that matters, at least for this conversation, is that I
do
know. But be at ease; I shan’t ask you anything about your master. Instead I want to know about your ally.”

That was safer—maybe. Aspell smelled
intent,
in a way Dead Rick didn’t like. “I ain’t seen ’im in a while,” he said, hedging.

“Do you meet regularly?”

“No, I—” Dead Rick stopped. On the one hand, this was a betrayal of the voice; on the other hand, for all he knew the owner of that voice was dead or gone. On the third hand—he switched to paws—his scant knowledge might not be enough to satisfy Aspell; on the fourth paw, that made it not much of a betrayal.

Making up his mind, he said, “If you already know ’e exists, that’s the dangerous bit, I suppose. I think the cove’s somebody in the Goblin Market—or was.”

“Was?”

“Like I said, I ain’t seen ’im in a while. Think ’e might ’ave died when everything fell. We’ve got a way of signaling when I wants to talk to ’im, but I did that days ago and ain’t ’eard so much as a whisper.”

Aspell frowned. “Where does he speak to you?”

“In—” Dead Rick stopped again. “In my old ’ole,” he said slowly, thinking.
Which is gone. Maybe that’s why I ain’t ’eard back. Could be ’is trick only worked there, or ’e don’t know where to find me now that my ’ole’s gone.

None of which he shared with Aspell. The other faerie asked, “What else do you know about him?”

’E ain’t you, and that’s about all I know for sure.
“’E talks like a gentleman,” Dead Rick said. “But ’e ain’t nobody in the court, I don’t think—I asked ’im what ’e thought of the Queen, anyway, and ’e don’t seem to like ’er much. Knows a bit about the Goblin Market, but I think ’e also knows people in the Academy.”