Dead Rick had no idea what she meant by most of that, but one thing was clear enough to prick his curiosity. “Who did ’e send you after?” His attention went to the girl on the couch. “’Er?”
“No!” Cyma said. It was abrupt enough that he believed it, especially with the way she shifted as if to protect the girl; for a moment, he thought she might say more. But Cyma wasn’t so far gone that she would spill her secrets that easily. “Nadrett’s business,” she muttered, subsiding. Was he imagining the guilt on her face? “It was a man he wanted, and nothing to do with you.”
Could this have something to do with the plan the voice had spoken of? Dead Rick doubted it. Nadrett sent his minions after people all the time; Gresh harvested them regularly from the East End, for bread and less pleasant things. Rewdan’s business was something less usual. “Cyma… do you still talk to that fellow over in the Academy?”
“Yvoir?” Cyma’s gaze sharpened, and she said in something more like her regular voice, “What do you want, Dead Rick?”
He’d practiced the lie until he could tell it convincingly. “I might know ’ow to get my ’ands on some compounds from Faerie. But I ain’t no scientist; I don’t know what they’re good for. And that means I don’t know what they’re worth. I was ’oping you might be able to find out for me.”
“What compounds?”
“Satyr’s bile. Lunar caustic. Maybe some others, but those two for sure.”
The mortal’s hand groped absently through the air, from where she had sagged back along the couch. Cyma caught it, then hung on as if she could read the answer to Dead Rick’s question in the young woman’s palm. He held his breath, waiting. Cyma was the only person he halfway trusted; if she couldn’t help him—or wouldn’t—he’d have to buy the answer from someone else. Valentin Aspell sold information, but it came at a high price.
Cyma frowned. “Won’t your master be angry? If you go making deals behind his back.”
Not ’alf so angry as ’e’ll be if ’e finds out what I’m really doing. “I can’t afford to be safe, Cyma.” He gestured around: at the opium den, the Goblin Market, the Onyx Hall. Maybe at London itself. “It’s all falling apart, ain’t it? Nadrett’s got me chained to ’im now, sure, but I ain’t stupid enough to believe that’ll ’elp me much when the end comes. ’E’ll leave me to drown, I know it. I got to be ready to run on my own.”
Cyma’s gaze softened. One hand reached out to stroke his cheek; he flinched away. To his surprise, he saw the bright glint of tears in her eyes. “We shouldn’t have to run,” she whispered.
The opium was starting to make him light-headed. He fought it back with bitter anger. “Unless you’ve got a new palace stuffed down the front of your dress, we ain’t got much choice. Bloody ’umans are going to crush us underfoot, and never know we was ’ere.” He glared at the oblivious young woman on the couch.
“Some of them know,” Cyma said, and stroked the girl’s hand. “Maybe if they all did—”
“What?” Dead Rick’s skin jumped all over, as if he’d turned around to find Nadrett pointing a gun at him. “Are you bleeding mad? They’d kill us.”
Cyma gestured languorously at the slumped figures all around the opium den. “These don’t. The ones in the Academy don’t. The idea isn’t mine, Dead Rick; you’d be surprised who else agrees. We’re a part of London, damn it—have been for centuries. Why shouldn’t we admit it?”
“Because we’d ’ave priests waving crosses in our faces, blokes shoving us into cages for raree-shows, little girls wanting us to dance in the bloody flowers for ’em. We’re a part of London? So’s the rats. Even the Irish and the Jews would be lining up to kick us.”
Cyma had started giggling at his complaint about the flowers, and was having trouble stopping; she said something half-intelligible about nobody going to church any longer, but Dead Rick didn’t listen. The trouble was, he wanted to agree with her. Wanted to charge up into the streets and shred anybody who threatened his territory, the Onyx Hall. Bare his teeth and say, This place is mine, until the mortals backed down, showed throat, left him in peace.
Stupid whelp. It ain’t your territory. It belongs to the ones strong enough to ’old it—and they don’t care a toss about defending it, not against the bastards upstairs. Curs like you get kicked to the gutters, by both sides.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, for Cyma reached out and took him unexpectedly by the shoulders, too tight for him to easily twist away. “Dead Rick—I’ll help you if I can. When the time comes.”
“’Ow?” he growled, hearing his own rough voice as if it came from a great distance. Nobody touched him, except to hurt him; he wasn’t at all sure that Cyma wasn’t doing the same, to something other than flesh. “You ain’t going to be ’ere, are you?”
“I—I’ll find a way. If what I’m doing works… I’ll come back and tell you. Maybe see if I can help you do the same thing. I promise, I’ll explain everything then. And I’ll ask Yvoir about the compounds; you don’t have to pay me. Is that enough that you’ll forgive me for leaving? Just a little bit?”
He had to get free of her hands, and free of this room, with its gentle smoke beckoning him to let down his guard, relax, slip into oblivion. “Sure. A bit. Just keep it quiet. You’ve got your secrets, and I’ve got mine.”
She seemed about to say more, and would not let him go. His heart beating too hard against his ribs, Dead Rick resorted to changing his shape; Cyma exclaimed and flinched back from the shifting of his skin and bones beneath her hands. A dog once more, he fled into the shadows, stumbling around lost before a breath of cleaner air from the curtains guided him to his escape.
Memory: August 13, 1878
She entered the room in perfect silence, well cloaked by charms. The man in the bed, one Frederic William Henry Myers, did not stir; this had been a bad night, one of several in a row, and he’d helped himself to sleep with brandy.
She’d been waiting for such a night to come. The dreams of mortals were more easily influenced when their hearts were troubled; a man at peace offered her little chance to work this art. Fortunately, the closest Myers came to peace was at the bottom of a bottle, and that created its own kind of opening.
Cyma drew back the curtain, letting the light of the full moon fall upon her target’s face. He stirred slightly, and she waited, allowing him to settle; only when he was quiet did she move again, across the carpeted floor to the side of his bed, where she laid a feather-light touch upon his temple.
For weeks she’d sampled his dreams, sifting from them the face and voice and manner she needed. They were more valuable than photographs, for her purposes; Cyma’s interest was not in what the woman had actually looked like, but rather how Myers had seen her. She’d gathered more information than strictly necessary, perhaps; his mind would fill in any gaps or errors she might make, so long as they weren’t too jarring. But it had been ages since she had this kind of freedom to walk among mortals, protected by their bread, and she could not resist stretching it out for as long as possible.
Which brought her to this night. Closing her eyes, Cyma lifted one foot from the floor, then the other, until she floated above Myers in his bed.
She was not the best at this. But she was good enough, and she owed Nadrett a debt.
Beneath her, Myers dreamt of Annie Marshall. His cousin’s wife, who drowned herself two years ago. Not nearly enough time for the grief to fade. In his dreams, Myers could do as he had never done in life: profess his love for Annie, kiss her lips, touch the flesh he’d only ever imagined. The hard part was not making him dream of Annie; it was making him dream of something other than their unconsummated love.