The sight of her mesmerized him. She knows me. I should know ’er. But there was only blankness in his mind.
When he found his tongue, he whispered, “Who sent you?”
Another quiet laugh. “Who else? Hodge, of course. Heard Aspell had a flock of children he was going to trick into swapping places with changelings, so Hodge sent us to get them out. Well, he sent Peregrin and the rest; I begged to come along. Can’t pass up a chance to tweak Aspell’s nose.”
Hodge. It took a moment for him to recognize the name, so few people used it. The Prince. “Nobody else? Nobody told you to come find me?”
She gave him a peculiar look. “Why should they? I thought you’d gone in search of Faerie years ago.”
About seven years, he guessed. Or maybe longer; for all he knew, those lost memories included a hundred years away from the Onyx Hall. But he doubted it. “Peregrin. Or the others. Are they trying to do anything about Nadrett?”
The sprite had begun lowering herself down; there really wasn’t room for two of them in the crook of the pillar. She paused long enough to make a disgusted face at him. “If only they could. We’re fool enough to make the occasional raid, Dead Rick; we’re not suicidal.”
Those two elf-knights would sound like gentlemen, surely; the puck might be able to pretend. And they served the Prince now, not the missing Queen. Dead Rick pursued the sprite back down to the floor. “’Eard any rumors about ’im? Maybe that ’e’s got some secret plan, some way to get to Faerie?”
She’d been brushing her palms off against her trousers; at his words, her hands froze in midair. Dead Rick cursed his tongue, so ready to wag at the first sign of a friend. “A passage, you mean? One people don’t know about?”
Better not to say anything more than he already had. “Something like that.”
Her green eyes went very wide. “If something like that existed… Ash and Thorn, Dead Rick. Half the Onyx Hall would sell their souls to the devil for a path to Faerie. The half that have to worry about iron. What do you know?”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He’d demanded the voice send someone as proof partly because he wanted to learn more about himself, but mostly because it would give him a chance to identify his mysterious ally. So far, he hadn’t made much progress with either. And this was a terrible place to be having any kind of conversation, but his refuge lay too far away to take her there, even if he was willing to show that kind of trust.
Dead Rick compromised by jerking his chin toward the far corner of the room. The sprite watched in interest as he pried up a hinged stone in the floor, revealing a tight passage beneath. “It runs right past a bad patch,” Dead Rick warned her.
She flashed him a grin before dropping into the hole. “I’m not afraid.”
I am. If the bad patch had grown since he last went this way, at best they ended up in another part of the Onyx Hall. At worst, they would find out where the fae who vanished had gone. Dead Rick doubted it was Faerie.
But at least the tunnel was private, even if he nearly planted his knee in his teeth with every crouched step. “I don’t know a lot,” he said, edging his way along. How much to tell her? You were once a faithful Queen’s man. “There’s… rumors that ’e’s got something secret, or ’e’s working on it, anyway. Something really big, and I figures it’s about selling passage to Faerie. But the only secret thing I’ve found ’im doing is photography.”
“Photography? That sounds more like Academy business, not Market.”
“If it ’as anything to do with this, then it’s power. And that’s Goblin Market business.”
“True.” For the first time, a grim note entered her voice. But a howling mob hadn’t been able to depress her spirits for long; neither did this. More cheerfully, she said, “I still have a lot of friends in the Academy. I can ask.”
Dead Rick’s heart thumped harder. “Be careful. This gets traced back to me, I’m dead.”
Then they were at the other end of the hidden passage, and he directed her in how to open the panel. No way to check if there was anyone on the other side, but not much need; the sprite gagged at the smell of sewage that rushed in. Even hardened goblins avoided this spot. Dead Rick climbed out after her, leaving the panel open behind him, and cocked a thumb to the right. “Go through there, turn left, and you’ll see a hole in the stone. It’s where the sewers broke through into the palace. Sorry to put you into the mortal world, but I couldn’t get you to the other doors, not without you ’aving to shoot ’alf the Market.”
“I wouldn’t have minded.” She pulled the web gun from her trousers, cocked it, then looked at him with a sharpness that took him by surprise. “Are you a prisoner?”
His skin jumped as if she’d pointed the gun at him. In the wake of that shock came shame. She knowed me before. I don’t want ’er to know what I am now. But he had to say something, and he didn’t have time to think of a good lie, even if he could tell it convincingly. “No. Not exactly. It’s complicated.”
“Come with me. You can explain as we go.”
Shattering glass echoed in his memory. ’E’d destroy ’em all. “I can’t. Look, you’ve got to get out of ’ere, and I’ve got to get back. Just—if you ’ear anything about Nadrett, can you send word? Without anybody knowing.”
Her mouth quirked at the added requirement, but she said, “If it will help you, I’ll try.”
“It will.”
She turned to go, and the question burst out of him. “Who are you?”
It gave away too much. He saw a degree of understanding come into her green eyes, and prayed she wouldn’t ask. He couldn’t bear having to explain.
She didn’t ask. She merely said, “Irrith,” and then she was gone.
Irrith. He knew that name; she’d once put Valentin Aspell in prison for a hundred years. Can’t pass up a chance to tweak his nose.
Had she, too, once been a friend?
Whispering the name to himself, Dead Rick crawled back into the tunnel and closed the door behind him.
The Prince’s Court, Onyx Halclass="underline" April 12, 1884
The door swung open dramatically, and Irrith announced, “I’m not dead.”
None of those gathered in the Prince’s chambers tried to hide their relief. Ever since Sir Peregrin’s raiding party had come back without Irrith, Hodge had been pacing, using up energy he could ill afford. It had been a risk, sending them in the first place. In the early years of Hodge’s reign, Sir Peregrin and the rest of the Onyx Guard had been eager for any chance to strike at the festering sore known as the Goblin Market. Some of them died there, and others fled when the decay brought on by the opening of Blackfriars and Mansion House stations ate great chunks out of the Hall. The rest soon learned pragmatism: if they stood foot to foot with those thugs, they would lose. Especially if the thugs belonged to Nadrett.
His elf-knights were down to three, Sir Peregrin, Sir Cerenel, and Dame Segraine. To that meager strength he added Bonecruncher, Cuddy, and Irrith. That was all he had, to occasionally peck at the evils of the Goblin Market. Losing even one would be too much.
Without fear to keep his knees strong, Hodge sank into a chair. The furniture was ludicrously elegant for him; the whole room was. The chambers traditionally assigned to the Prince had crumbled a few years before, but Amadea—Lady Chamberlain to a court that had long since vanished—made sure he got the best of what was left. The black stone of the walls was carved at regular intervals with decorative columns, fluted into delicate spirals. The tapestries in between showed grand scenes, their colors unfaded by passing centuries, and the wood of the furnishings was rare, exotic stuff, taken equally from Faerie and the Orient. A little island of quality, in the midst of decay.