He didn’t get very far before running into someone. Quite literally: a mortal man came unexpectedly out of a side passage, nose buried in a book, and bounced off Dead Rick’s shoulder. “Terribly sorry,” he mumbled, and wandered onward without ever looking up.
Dead Rick paused, staring after him, then down the corridor he’d come from. Which way? He had no idea; Nadrett had never brought him here. Tossing a mental coin, he followed the mortal.
It proved to be the right choice, at least if he was looking for people. The passage opened into an enormous chamber, blazingly well lit; startled, Dead Rick realized that some of the illumination came from electric lights. Also gas lamps, faerie lights, and even some candles scattered here and there, as if someone had decided to try everything at once. After the dimness of the Goblin Market and the crumbling Onyx Hall, it made his eyes water.
When they cleared, he found himself confronted with… he didn’t even know what to call some of it. Machines of various sorts; a few were recognizable as clocks or engines, but others were completely unidentifiable. Chemicals in glass containers, doing things incomprehensible to him. And people of both faerie and mortal kinds, some of them English, some very obviously not; fae came from as far away as China to join the scholars here. They were hard at work all over the hall, tinkering and arguing and ignoring his presence completely.
Dead Rick hadn’t cloaked himself with any charms of silence or invisibility. They wouldn’t do much good, with so many fae around to pierce them, and he had no particular desire to surprise anyone; that led to violence, and he still ached from the beating Greymalkin had given him. But nobody seemed to care that he was standing in plain sight, watching them go about their work. All the bustle and clamor of the Goblin Market, and none of the suspicion.
Not immediately, at least. But if he went on standing there like an idiot, somebody would start to wonder. Dead Rick risked waving down a monkeylike faerie whose clothing marked him as being from India, like the naga he’d seen caged in the Market. Wonder where that poor beast went? Died in the earthquake, maybe. Or got sold to some collector of exotics. Or escaped, though he doubted it. Speaking loudly and slowly, with gestures to help, he said, “Irrith? Where? I’m looking for ’er—”
With a cool look and a flawless accent, the monkey said, “Dame Irrith? I believe she is over by the calculating engine. And if you need an interpreter from cockney to English, I can ask on your behalf.”
“Cheeky bugger,” Dead Rick muttered, embarrassed, and went in the direction the monkey pointed.
Of course Irrith couldn’t be in some quiet part of the Academy, where fewer people would see Dead Rick. He found her in the shadow of an enormous machine, a mass of gears and levers twice the height of a man. She was arguing with a red-bearded dwarf about defenses for something, until Dead Rick drew close; then the dwarf cut her off with a raised hand, scowling suspiciously at the skriker. His distrust was weirdly comforting; at least it was familiar.
That distrust was echoed in Irrith’s eyes when she turned and saw him. Unsurprising; their last meeting hadn’t exactly ended well. “What do you want?”
Uncomfortable, Dead Rick muttered, “Can we talk private somewhere?”
Her mouth pinched a little, but she said, “I suppose so. Niklas, can I have my gun back?”
“Not unless you vant it to blow up in your hand,” the red-bearded faerie said.
The name triggered Dead Rick’s memory—the part of it that hadn’t been stolen. This must be Niklas von das Ticken, one of the pair of German dwarves who served as Academy Masters. The less friendly of the two. No surprise the web-gun was his doing; he could only rarely be talked into making weapons, but those he produced were remarkable.
Irrith stuck her tongue out at Niklas, then sighed. “Fine, I suppose I’d rather keep my hand. Come on, Dead Rick; I think Feidelm’s out of the library. We should be private there.”
Feeling a bit like a puppy who didn’t know if he was going to be whipped or not, Dead Rick followed her. They wove a path down the chamber, dodging various people bent on unknown tasks, past a tall faerie in a turban watching two humans work on some kind of strange loom, and through an oaken doorway into a room filled with more books than Dead Rick had ever seen in a single place. He stopped, gaping at the shelves—and then whirled, but not fast enough, as Irrith kicked the door shut and aimed a pistol at his throat.
“Picked Rumdoring’s pocket as we went by,” she said, in response to his obvious surprise. “Did you think you could just stroll into the Academy, and we wouldn’t care? You work for Nadrett. What in Mab’s name are you doing here?”
She didn’t look like she would shoot him, but the skriker put his hands up anyway. “Are we safe?”
Irrith’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You aren’t, not with me pointing a gun at you. I certainly hope I am.”
“I mean, could anybody be listening to us?”
“Oh.” She paused, considering. “Back up.”
Finding his way with his bare toes, Dead Rick retreated the length of the library, toward the statues at the far end. As they passed each set of shelves, Irrith’s gaze flicked sideways, checking the aisles. He made no attempt to jump her in those moments of distraction, and when they reached the end of the room, she shrugged. “Nobody in here, I don’t think, and the whole Academy is charmed against eavesdropping. Why do you care?”
“Because I ain’t ’ere on Nadrett’s business.”
Her mouth tightened. “Whether that’s true or not, you still work for a slave-trader and thief. What happened to you, Dead Rick?”
He’d been an idiot, thinking she would want to help him. “It don’t matter,” he growled, toes digging into the carpet as if he had any chance to run. “I just came ’ere to ask a question, that’s all. Ain’t no danger to you; it might even be ’elpful. Will you put the bloody pistol down?”
The sprite bit her lower lip, teeth digging a sharp line, then spoke abruptly. “Answer this first. Do you know anything about Nadrett having the ghost of Galen St. Clair?”
His hands dropped like stones. “Blood and Bone—’ow the ’ell do you know about that?”
Irrith sighed, and finally relaxed her arm, pointing the barrel at the ceiling. “Valentin Aspell. He wants to sell the Prince some information about it, but Hodge doesn’t like his price.”
“Blood and Bone,” Dead Rick repeated, this time more quietly, but no less heartfelt. Had his ally sold that news to Aspell, or did it leak out by some other path? Old Gadling, maybe. Or it could be Nadrett, working through the other faerie to demand a ransom.
He hated this feeling, like he was playing some game, with rules he didn’t know and players he couldn’t see. Nadrett and the voice, Aspell and the Prince—even Irrith. Any chance he had of pretending not to be involved was long gone. She asked, “What do you know?”
Dead Rick opened his mouth to answer, then shook his head violently. “No. I can’t. I’m probably dead already, but the more people I go telling, the more likely that is.”
“You can trust me.”
The laugh burst out of him, harsh and unamused.
Irrith paused, then laid the gun down on a table at her side. “But you’ve forgotten that, haven’t you? You’ve forgotten me. Other people, too, I think; you didn’t recognize Abd ar-Rashid out there, did you? Or Niklas—well, he didn’t recognize you either, but that’s Niklas for you. Now here you are, looking like you’ve been run over by a dustman’s wagon, acting as if somebody might knife you in the back any second, and you’re working for Nadrett. What happened?”