“Dad got too ill to go out. He was in his sixties, giving himself all sorts of bugs on the streets. I took his usual stake. A woman approached me and asked for a reading.” She ran her thumb over the tops of her cards. “I was nine. I didn’t realize she was NVD.”

Julian shook his head. “How long were you in the Tower?”

“Four years. They put me on the waterboard a few times, tried to make me tell them where my parents were. I said I didn’t know.”

This couldn’t be making her feel better. “What about you, Julian?” I said.

“Morden. IV-6.”

“That’s the smallest section, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s why the syndicate doesn’t bother with it. I had a little group, but we didn’t do mime-crime. Just the odd séance.”

I felt a bitter pang of loss. I wanted my group.

Julian soon succumbed to his exhaustion. The fuel ran lower and lower on the Sterno. Liss watched it to the end. I pretended to sleep, but all I could think about was Bone Season XVIII. So many people must have died. Their families would never have been told. There would have been no trials, no appeals. The injustice of it made me sick. No wonder Liss was so afraid to fight.

That was when the siren sounded.

Julian jerked awake. The noise cranked and creaked, working itself up like heaving bellows, before it let out a scream. My body reacted at once: a prickling at my legs, a thumping heart.

Footsteps thundered through the passages. Julian peeled back the rag door. Three red-jackets ran past, one carrying a powerful torch. Liss opened her eyes, perfectly still.

“They have knives,” Julian said.

Liss pushed herself into the corner of the shack. She picked up her deck of cards, scooped an arm around her knees, and put her head down. “You have to go,” she said. “Now.”

“Come with us,” I said. “Just sneak into one of the residences. You’re not safe in—”

“Do you want to get a slating from Aludra? Or the Warden?” She glared up at us. “I’ve been doing this for ten years. Get out of here.”

We exchanged glances. We were already late. I didn’t know what Warden would do to me, but we both knew how violent Aludra Chertan was. She might just kill him this time. We ducked out of the shack and ran like hell.

10 The Message

10

The Message