‘We shouldn’t talk about it,’ said Lilia, ‘it’s bad luck.’
‘How much worse can our luck become?’ Freddy observed. ‘So few of us …’
‘We’ll wake the Families, as soon as we recover the carpet,’ said Jerichau. ‘The Gyre must be getting restless, or else how did this man get a look? The Weave can’t hold forever –’
‘He’s right,’ said Apolline. ‘I suppose we’re obliged to do something about it.’
‘But it isn’t safe.’ said Suzanna.
‘Safe for what?’
‘Out here. I mean, in the world. In England.’
‘The Scourge must have given up –’ said Freddy, ‘– after all these years.’
‘So why didn’t Mimi wake you?’
Freddy pulled a face. ‘Maybe she forgot about us.’
‘Forgot?’ said Cal, ‘impossible.’
‘Easy to say,’ Apolline replied. ‘But you have to be strong to resist the Kingdom. Get in too deep and next thing you can’t even remember your name.’
‘I don’t believe she forgot,’ said Cal.
‘Our first priority,’ said Jerichau, ignoring Cal’s protest, ‘is to retrieve the carpet. Then we get out of this city, and find a place where Immacolata will never come looking.’
‘What about us?’ said Cal.
‘What about you?’
‘Don’t we get to see?’
‘See what?’
‘The Fugue, damn you!’ Cal said, infuriated by the lack of anything approaching courtesy or gratitude from these people.
‘It’s not your concern now,’ said Freddy.
‘It damn well is!’ he said, ‘I saw it. Almost got killed for it.’
‘Better you stay away then,’ said Jerichau. ‘If you’re so concerned for your breath.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Cal,’ said Suzanna, putting her hand on his arm.
Her attempt to calm him merely inflamed him further.
‘Don’t side with them,’ he said.
‘It’s not a question of sides –’ she began, but he wasn’t about to be placated.
‘It’s easy for you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got connections –’
‘That’s not fair –’
‘– and the menstruum –’
‘What?’ said Apolline, her voice silencing Cal. ‘You?’
‘Apparently,’ Suzanna said.
‘And it didn’t dissolve the flesh off your bones?’
‘Why should it do that?’
‘Not in front of him,’ said Lilia, looking at Cal.
That was the limit.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to talk in front of me, that’s fine. You can all go fuck yourselves.’
He started towards the door, ignoring Suzanna’s attempts to call him back. Behind him, Nimrod was tittering.
‘And you can shut the fuck up,’ he told the child, and left the room to its usurpers.
1
It wasn’t, oddly enough, a dream of profit. Money had become an irrelevancy since he’d stumbled upon Immacolata, who could conjure all they needed from thin air. No, the dream was one of power, he, the owner of the goods that people were bleeding to buy, standing back from the crowd and smiling his charismatic smile.
But suddenly he was awake, the clamour of customers was fading, and he heard the sound of breathing in the darkened room.
He sat up, the sweat of his enthusiasm chilling on his brow.
‘Immacolata?’
She was there, standing against the far wall, her palms seeking some hold in the plaster. Her eyes were wide, but she saw nothing. At least, nothing that Shadwell could share. He’d known her like this before – most recently two or three days ago, in the foyer of this very hotel.
He got out of bed, and put on his dressing gown. Sensing his presence, she murmured his name.
‘I’m here,’ he replied.
‘Again,’ she said. ‘I felt it again.’
‘The Scourge?’ he said, his voice grey.
‘Of course. We have to sell the carpet, and be done with it.’
‘We will. We will,’ he said, slowly approaching her. ‘The arrangements are underway, you know that.’
He spoke evenly, to calm her. She was dangerous at the best of times; but these moods scared him more than most.
‘The calls have been made,’ he said. ‘The buyers’ll come. They’ve been waiting for this. They’ll come and we’ll make our sale, and it’ll all be over with.’
‘I saw the place it lives,’ she went on. ‘There were walls; huge walls. And sand, inside and out. Like the end of the world.’
Now her eyes found him, and the hold this vision had on her seemed to deteriorate.
‘When, Shadwell?’ she said.
‘When what?’
‘The Auction.’
‘The day after tomorrow. As we arranged.’
She nodded. ‘Strange,’ she said, her tone suddenly conversational. The speed with which her moods changed always caught him unawares. ‘Strange, to have these nightmares after so long.’
‘It’s seeing the carpet,’ said Shadwell. ‘It reminds you.’
‘It’s more than that,’ she said.
She went to the door that led through to the rest of Shadwell’s suite, and opened it. The furniture had been pushed to the edges of the large room beyond, so that their prize, the Weaveworld, could be laid out. She stood on the threshold, staring at the carpet.
She didn’t set her bare soles on it – some superstition kept her from that trespass – but paced along the border, scrutinizing every inch.
Half way along the far edge, she stopped.
‘There,’