Wren pulled away from him and tried to return to the light and laughter of the party but Shkin barred her way. What did he want with her? He must have been stalking her through the busy gardens, waiting for a moment when he could catch her alone. She felt cold and frightened. Raising her empty tray, she held it in front of her like a shield, but Shkin only laughed. She didn’t like his laugh. She’d preferred it when he was silent and icy.
“Why would I harm you, child?” he asked. “I just want you to do a job for me, the simplest and smallest of jobs. Do you know where your new master keeps his private safe?”
Wren nodded.
“Good girl.” Shkin held up a neat square of paper with a number written on it. “This is the combination. I’d like you to fetch me the Tin Book. I sent a friend for it yesterday, but I hear he met with an accident.”
Wren lowered her tray, thinking of poor Mr. Plovery.
“Don’t look so glum!” Shkin told her. “You’ve stolen it before. Young Fishcake told me all about it.”
“I won’t do it!” Wren said. “You can’t make me!”
“Your poor father,” said Shkin. He twirled the square of paper back into an inner pocket of his graphite-colored evening robe and shrugged faintly. “What a pity, after he came all this way to rescue you!”
Wren couldn’t imagine what he meant—not until he reached into another pocket and brought out a bracelet, which he laid on the tray between them. By the light of lanterns in the nearby trees Wren recognized Dad’s wedding bracelet. She had known it all her life, that loop of red gold with the letters HS and TN entwined. But what was it doing on Cloud 9?
“It’s a trick!” she said. “Fishcake must have described this to you, and you had a replica made…”
“Don’t you think it’s more likely that your dear daddy has come to Brighton to fetch you home?” asked Shkin. “He is a guest of the Shkin Corporation. If you fail in the task I have set you, he’ll die. Rather slowly. So be a good girl and run up to Pennyroyal’s office.”
The gardens were falling quiet. Some of the guests were organizing a search party to look for Davina Twisty, who was lost in the maze. The others shushed them. Moonrise was only a few moments away. The thought of Dad so near made Wren start to cry. How had he come here? How had Shkin found him? And where was Mum? She reached for the bracelet, but Shkin’s conjuror’s hands whisked it away and set the square of paper in its place.
“Do this little thing for me,” he soothed, “and you will be reunited. I’ll send you both home to Vineland in one of my own ships.”
Wren didn’t believe that, but she believed the rest. Dad was in Shkin’s power. If she didn’t do as Shkin asked, he’d be killed. And the worst of it was, it was all her fault: If she hadn’t taken that book in the first place, he would still be safe in Anchorage. So if stealing the book again was the only way to keep him safe a little longer, that was what she would have to do.
“But why me?” she asked. “You must know all sorts of people better at breaking into safes than me…”
“You should have more faith in yourself’ said Shkin. “You are an accomplished burglar, from what I’ve heard. Besides, if you are caught, the crime cannot be connected to me. You were the one who brought the Tin Book here; Pennyroyal will believe that you were simply trying to retrieve it for yourself.”
Wren picked up the paper. The darkness was growing deeper as her fellow slaves moved between the trees, snuffing out the lanterns, but the white square seemed to shine in her hand with a light of its own.
“All right,” she said, her voice shrunk down to a whisper; then, as she put down the tray, “What is it? I ought to know. What is this Tin Book, and why does everybody want it?”
“Not your business,” said Shkin, looking past her toward the horizon. “I can make a profit from it. What more reason do I need? Now go; you have work to do.”
Wren went, running away between the trees as the sacred moon peeked over the horizon. For a few seconds, perfect silence settled over Brighton, for according to the old tradition, wishes made at moonrise on this sacred night were often granted by the Moon Goddess. Pennyroyal’s guests were far too sophisticated to believe such fairy tales, of course, but they bowed their heads regardless, some with shrugs and smiles to show that they were just being ironic but were moved in spite of themselves, remembering the magical MoonFests of their childhood. They wished for love and happiness and yet more wealth, while down in the city Brighton’s artists wished for fame, and her actors for long runs in successful plays, and on the underdecks their slaves and indentured laborers wished for their freedom. And then the silence was ended by a single firework, then another, then a great broadside of rockets and bangers and a clamoring of gongs and bells and kitchen pans loud enough that the goddess herself might hear it as she strolled among her porcelain gardens.
Even if the Green Storm fleet had not already picked up the signal of Brighton’s wireless beacon, they would have been able to home in on the fireworks leaping into the sky above the raft resort. Feathering their steering vanes, the warships swung toward their target, spreading out across the sky while their crews prepared rocket projectors and machine cannon, Tumbler bombs and flocks of raptors, and their fighter escorts, went prowling ahead.
In the belly of the Requiem Vortex, Grike checked on Oenone Zero and found her in her cabin, trying on a steel helmet that made her look even younger and less soldierly than before. Her cowardice perplexed him. He had been sure that she would try to attack the Stalker Fang before the fleet reached its target. Had she given up her plan? Perhaps; he had searched her cabin several times and found no sign of any weapon.
Sirens were hooting. The ship’s companionways and passages were full of frightened Once-Borns and impassive battle-Stalkers hurrying to their posts. Grike made his way to the forward gondola and found his mistress there, ignoring the crew, staring out instead at the enormous moon.
“why are we here?” Grike asked.
The Stalker Fang’s bronze death mask turned to stare at him. She had still told no one the reason for this expedition, and Grike suspected that if any of the Once-Borns, even Naga, had asked her so bluntly, she would have torn his throat out with her claws for their impertinence. But she only stared at Grike, and then whispered, “Tell me, Mr. Grike, do you ever remember your former life? Your life as a Once-Born?”
“i do not even remember my life as a stalker,” said Grike. (Although a memory flared up as he spoke: a young girl with a bloody face lying on a heap of old cork fishing floats. He squashed it quickly, like a man stamping on a flame.) “I remember nothing before dr. zero awakened me on the black island.”
Fang turned away, looking out through the glass again, but he could see the reflection of her face, the odd marsh-gas flaring of her green eyes. “I remembered something once,” she said. “Or I almost did. There was a young man I encountered at Rogues’ Roost. Tom. When I saw him, I felt that I knew him. He was very handsome. Very kind. Anna Fang must have been fond of him. I am not Anna Fang, but when I looked at him I sensed… oh, all sorts of intriguing feelings.”
“we are the dead,” said Grike, who was starting to grow uncomfortable. “we do not feel. we do not remember. we were built to kill. what use are memories?”
“Who knows what the first of our kind were built for, back in the Black Centuries?” asked the other Stalker. “My memories are what have brought us here, Mr. Grike. I made inquiries about this Tom. I wished to learn more about him, and perhaps to recapture those strange sensations. I found out that he and his companions had a connection with an ice city called Anchorage, so I sent to the Great Library of Tienjing for books on Anchorage. They had only one: Wormwold’s Historia Anchoragia. It told me nothing about Tom, but it was there that I first learned of the Tin Book and guessed what it contains.