Dead Rick spat onto the stone, wondering if the stranger could hear it. “No. I ain’t doing nothing for a cove I can’t see. ’Ow do I even know you can do what you say?”
A sigh answered him. “Very well. As proof of my goodwill, let me give you something: a fragment of your past.”
The skriker stopped breathing, hackles rising again—but not in anger or fear.
“The first task Nadrett demanded of you,” the voice said, “was to steal a mortal from the world above. A young man—little more than a boy, really. Irish, and poor. He had a friend, a girl of the same age; from what I hear, she attempted to kill you when she realized what you were doing.”
A pause. Dead Rick worked spit back into his dry mouth and said, “From what you hear. So you got the story; so what?”
“The story doesn’t end there. Or rather, it doesn’t begin there. The boy you stole, and the girl who was his friend—they were both friends of yours.”
Her screams were one of the first things he remembered, echoing in the empty void of his memory. Only half-coherent—only half-English—he’d never understood what she was saying, but the intent of the words was easy to make out. As was the betrayal on her face.
The voice said, “Nadrett was testing his control over you, making certain you remembered nothing. You would never have harmed either of them if you knew. And it amused him to make you turn on those who trusted you.”
The fury rising inside Dead Rick was a strange thing, with a hollow void at its core. He couldn’t be properly angry for the friends he’d betrayed; he didn’t remember who they were. No, it’s worse than that, he thought, with grim despair. I don’t remember what friends are. Who could he give that name to? Cyma? But the instinct was there, the impulse to loyalty, whatever beating it had taken in the last seven years, and it left him shaking with rage that had nowhere to go. Dead Rick almost howled, just to let something out.
At the moment he reached that breaking point, the stranger spoke again, as if he had measured Dead Rick’s endurance to the last inch. “Nadrett has isolated you from everyone who knew you before, forbidding you to leave the Goblin Market without his orders, cowing those who might be able to say more. I am not bound by his restrictions. For every piece of information you bring to me, every task you undertake on my behalf, I will tell you a piece of your own past.”
The unvoiced howl had lodged like a knot in his throat, painful to swallow down. Thickly, Dead Rick said, “You could make things up.”
“I could. But I won’t; in fact, I may give you ways to verify what I say. But that is beside the point; in the end, the point is to do harm to Nadrett. Will you assist me?”
The thick nails on Dead Rick’s feet scraped against the stone, his toes curling down as if he were about to leap. But which way?
It’s stupid. It’s fucking stupid. Agreeing to work with somebody you can’t even see—you know nobody in this place can be trusted—
But yearning, and the desire for revenge, were stronger than common sense. And the stranger had called him by name.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Excellent.” Pleasure radiated from the word, but quickly gave way to cool instruction. “Tell me: What do you know about passages to Faerie?”
Dead Rick snorted. “Ain’t you the one who came in ’ere pointing out I don’t ’ave no memories?”
“You’ve had seven years to gain more. Do you know nothing?”
The skriker slid down the wall until he was tucked into a comfortable crouch, scratching his torn ear. “Just the usual bosh. Everybody says ’e knows something, and pretty much everybody’s lying.”
“Because most of the passages we knew are gone. The railways are not only a threat to the Onyx Hall; they’ve wrought a great deal of destruction in the countryside. You’ve seen the refugees here, of course. Their homes are the least of what’s been lost. These lines of iron mortals have laid across the land act like dikes and canals, shaping how the water flows. Making the usual roads impassable.”
“You want me to find you some way to get to Faerie?” The first step was easy: leave England. Go someplace that hadn’t been so thoroughly carved up by iron, not yet. And then hope you could find a passage somewhere in the American frontier, or convince the rakshasas or whoever in India to let you through, and take your chances with whatever their part of Faerie looked like.
“No,” the voice said. “I want you to find out what way Nadrett has.”
The skriker’s heart thumped hard against his ribs. “The ’ell with you. ’E don’t ’ave nothing of the sort. Don’t you think we’d know, if ’e did?”
“It depends. The longer Nadrett waits, the greater the desperation; the more fae will pay for the escape he offers. But I suspect he does not have it yet. A new passage to Faerie cannot be a simple thing, or cleverer minds than his would have worked it out by now; they have certainly tried. No, I believe Nadrett is working toward this end, and is close to succeeding.”
No need to ask why the stranger wanted the information; it would be more valuable than bread, more powerful than the empty throne of the Onyx Court. But— “And ’ow exactly am I supposed to find this out for you?”
“In stages. Have you ever heard of a fellow named Rewdan?” Dead Rick shook his head, then realized the voice must not have any way of seeing him, and repeated the denial out loud. “I want you to find him for me. Rumor has it that he went to Faerie—from some foreign land—and returned, on Nadrett’s orders. I’d like to know why.”
Dead Rick licked his lips. He’d be better off keeping his mouth shut, but he had to ask. “Why send me? If you knows the Market, you knows there’s a bloke named Valentin Aspell. ’E buys and sells this kind of information every day.”
“Which means he might very well turn around and sell the news of my asking to someone else. You, on the other hand, are desperate enough to help me, and stand to gain very little by betraying me.”
That was true enough. Still— “Nadrett might find out, though. I ain’t that subtle.”
“Then try harder.”
The annoyed reply was a little victory, and Dead Rick wondered if the speaker noticed it; for the first time, he’d prodded the stranger into an answer that hadn’t been rehearsed. Those three words told me more about ’is real nature than everything ’e said before them. Whoever this cove was, he was accustomed to giving orders, and had little patience for fools. “I’ll do what I can,” Dead Rick promised. “When I ’as something, how will I tell you?”
What followed after was almost as telling as the three words; the stranger regained his composure with speed. “Nadrett permits you the night garden; it won’t attract suspicion if you go there. Bury a bone near the old pavilion, and I will speak to you again back here soon after.”
“No,” Dead Rick said instantly. In part because the choice of a signal felt like mockery, but mostly because of how the conversation began. “I told you to get out, and I meant it.”
The impatience was back, and stronger. “Will you argue with everything I say? There is nowhere else in the Goblin Market that might be considered remotely safe; anyone in this warren would cheerfully sell news of your dealings for a scrap of mortal bread. If you leave the Market too regularly, it will draw Nadrett’s attention, and that would be equally detrimental to my plans. If you insist on defending your territory, then I will promise not to return until your signal—but I will not undertake pointless risks just because of your canine instincts.”