The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 10

Syrus may have been a Gatherer, but finding a witch in a city that forbade magic was quite a bit different than finding midnight morels. He had searched for many days, not sure how to identify the witch he sought. He chewed at a toothpick he’d swiped from a gin palace, swaggering down an alley toward a hexshop he knew. It would never do to look out of place or afraid here. He hoped Rackham would have some information that might lead him in the proper direction in exchange for the cursed toad. Perhaps there’d be enough coin for a pork pie, to boot.

Dark figures clotted the alley ahead not far from the hexshop door. It looked as though some rookery thugs had gotten the notion of a payday off some Uptowners. Syrus crept closer. Crates stacked by a permanently sealed door afforded cover and vantage. He spat out his toothpick and climbed them as quietly as he could, but his foot slipped on a broken slat. He peeped out from under a line of sad, gray laundry, heart crowding his throat. But all attention was focused on the two beleagured Uptowners—no one heard.

He started so hard then that he nearly fell off the box. For the girl in the ring was none other than the one whose stolen toad he kept in his patched coat pocket. A Pedant stood beside her, bristling, his gaze defiant. What were they doing in Lowtown, at a hexshop of all places? Any Uptowner with any sense would never come here, even in what passed for daylight in this place. Syrus withdrew his pipe and loaded it.

The leader of the rookery said something Syrus couldn’t quite catch before he tried to seize the girl. Syrus aimed and blew. His dart caught the ruffian right in the web between thumb and forefinger. The leader howled, plucking at the barbed dart once before he slid to the slimy stones. The others moved in. Syrus considered using the Architect’s summoning stone that nestled close to the toad, but he had no idea whether the man would come.

Then the Pedant lifted his hands and Syrus saw the stone was unnecessary. Syrus’s eyes widened as the Pedant shaped a rapier from the shadows, a long blade of darkness that dissected the very air as the Pedant swiped at his foes. Though shadow may have produced it, the cuts it made drew real blood. Around the Pedant blazed a tiny light—a wee will-o’-the-wisp, by the looks of it—who bit and threw curses at his foes with gusto. The Pedant was an Architect, perhaps the very one he had encountered earlier, though he couldn’t be sure.

The girl cast about, as though she sought either a weapon or victim. Syrus blew another dart at a ruffian who was losing his resolve with the leader down and thus moved too slowly. The dart sent him to the stones with others who moaned of their injuries. The last two decided to flee. The girl looked up and her eyes met Syrus’s over the edge of the tall crate.

“You!” she shouted.

The Pedant looked in his direction, his eyes flashing blue lightning. Syrus cringed.

“Come,” the Architect said. “With this much magic discharged, I’m surprised the Raven Guard isn’t on us already. And those ruffians and Rackham, presumably”—he glanced at the still-closed door nearby—“will report us for certain. Best we thank our young benefactor there and get out of here.”

“But he stole my toad!”

Syrus was surprised she didn’t stamp her foot when she said it. What a prat.

“I’m sure if he had it, he’d return it,” the Architect said, looking meaningfully toward Syrus. Syrus had the grace to blush, but then his mouth firmed. He wouldn’t return anything to a girl so stuck up, so obviously ungrateful. He and his people had saved her once and he’d helped save her again. Now all his people were dead and he alone remained. And she was still worried about a silly toad?

“We must hurry,” the Architect implored. The will o’ the wisp floated about them, making frantic gestures of escape.

“But, Hal . . .”

He placed his hand on her arm and she went silent. “There’s no time,” he said.

With one last glower over her shoulder at Syrus, the girl let the Architect usher her from the alley.

Syrus climbed down off the crates once the alley was completely still again. Rackham had never once come out of his shop during the entire affair. Which meant either he was behind the ordeal or too cowardly to get involved. Syrus sighed. He took the toad out of his inner chest pocket. What little light was in the dim alley gathered in its carnelian eyes. Nainai had said there was a curse on it. When Syrus flipped it over, he could see the faint characters carved in the bottom. He recognized the character for magic and another character that had to do with stopping or subduing. Why had a girl like that one carried this toad? And why had she been in a hexshop in Lowtown, a place where no girl of good breeding would go?

Only one way to find out.

Rackham was at the far end of his shop, arranging books and other curiosities when Syrus entered. He came real quick-like when he saw Syrus’s patched coat. Hexshop owners like this were all the same—they wanted whatever a Tinker brought in, but didn’t want Tinkers lingering too long with their light fingers. It was a false prejudice for the most part; Tinker grannies always told cautionary tales of what happened when you stole an item without knowing its workings. Syrus guessed he was a victim of one of those tales even now.

“May I help you, young sir?” Rackham asked, dusting his hands on a dirty rag. Beside him, an ugly jar gaped and gurgled. Rackham put an uneasy hand on it to quiet it.

Another thing these hexshop owners knew—it paid to be polite, at least on the surface.

Rackham slid behind his counter, and Syrus faced him across it. Syrus hadn’t been here in a while; all his family’s trade had been honest trade the last few years—whatever they’d found in their Gathering, mechanical bits they fixed for those who liked such curiosities. That fact made Syrus all the angrier about the Cull. Used to be the Raven Guard would come and Cull a family who were known dealers in hexes and magic, but his family had been clean for many a year.

“May I help you?” Rackham said more forcefully.

Syrus blinked.

He brought out the three-legged toad and sat it on the counter. Its carnelian eyes glowed.

“What do you think of this?”

Rackham arranged a tattler across from him. The device whirred, its arched gears spinning until the needle pointed to the upper end of the magical potency register. The dealer looked up at Syrus as he screwed his monocle into place.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” Syrus asked. The tattler confirmed what he’d already known. This thing had enough forbidden magic in it to draw a goodly sum, at the very least. And it certainly should be good enough for the information he sought. Now it just came down to the bargaining. Luckily, his granny had taught him that, too.

Rackham’s left eye was gigantic as he looked at Syrus. He shrugged. “Suppose not.”

Rackham bent to inspect it, but Syrus snatched it off the countertop.

“Eh?” Rackham asked, looking up at him. The careful expression on his face melted into something darker, more harrowed.

“I’m interested in coin,” Syrus said, “but a fair trade for this toad also involves information.”

Rackham frowned. He sat back from the counter, trying to feign nonchalance. But his brow was sweating, and he mopped at it, mussing the wispy hairs across his pate into disarray. He reminded Syrus a little of Truffler, and the boy frowned at the memory.

“What kind of information?” Rackham asked.

Just then, the shop bells chimed, and a bearded man entered. He seemed young, though beards were not generally fashionable among the younger set. He wore plain fine clothes, but the way he carried himself meant that he must come at least from Midtown, possibly Uptown. There was something about his eyes that looked familiar, something decidedly unpleasant that Syrus couldn’t place. Syrus glared at him. What was with all the Uptowners invading Lowtown today?

The young man smiled with the same look one might give a growling bear cub and drifted to the back of the shop.

Syrus leaned closer to Rackham.

“A girl. A girl was just in here with a Pedant. I want to know who she was and what she wanted.”

Rackham’s eyes went opaque, almost black. He seemed about to change his mind regarding the toad.

“You know how rare this is,” Syrus said. “Even I know, and I don’t know nearly as much about it as you do. The more you tell me, the less coin I’ll ask. I’m giving you a fortune and you know it.”

“But . . . I maintain a respectable relationship with all my clients and correspondents. I couldn’t possibly . . .”

Syrus suppressed a laugh. He swept one hand around the shop. “You call this respectable? A hexshop in Lowtown?”

Rackham’s chin wobbled. His glance flitted to the other customer.

Syrus drew back, shoving the toad into his pocket. He half-turned toward the door. The bearded man was just at the edge of his vision, perusing a wall of antiques. It was probably an illusion; Rackham had to be hiding his contraband behind one somewhere.

“I suppose I’ll just have to take my business elsewhere, then,” he said. He went to the door, his hand faintly stirring the bells on the latch.

The young gentleman looked at him. The bemused smile was plastered on his face, but his eyes were sharp.

“Wait,” Rackham said. “Wait.”

Syrus turned, careful not to smile. The fish wasn’t quite reeled in yet.

“Let me see it again.”

Syrus nodded and put the toad on the counter again. The tattler needle stood at attention.

Rackham bent over it, careful not to touch the toad for fear Syrus would snatch it away again.

“Vespa Nyx,” Rackham whispered. He said her name casually, as though he was speaking of something else—the weather or something he’d found at market. “Daughter of Malcolm Nyx, Head of the Museum of Unnatural History. He was seeking”—he lowered his voice so that Syrus strained to hear—“a Manticore lure.”

Syrus frowned. “A lure?”

“Yes, something to trap the Manticore. To take the Heart of All Matter, presumably,” Rackham said.

Syrus knew what he was talking about, but he wanted to be sure. “What is that?”

Rackham gazed at him sidelong, his giant eye making Syrus want to shrink from the counter.

“I’d think you’d already know, you being a Tinker who lives by the Manticore’s grace.”

Syrus stared at him.

Rackham’s fingers drifted toward the toad. “Surely you’ve heard the story of what the Manticore stole?” he whispered. “Old Man Nyx needs the Heart for one of his experiments. But before that he needs . . . a witch. That’s the only lure that will draw the Manticore from her lair.” He looked around as if a Raven Guard might step from the shadows and arrest him at any moment.

Syrus thought of the Manticore’s strange Heart with all its wires and hoses, its pulsing red light as she’d swallowed the Raven Guard whole.

“Why?” Syrus asked.

“Because she’s the only one that can get close enough to the Manticore to draw it out of its den and make it give over the Heart.”

Syrus knew the first bit to be false. Hadn’t the Manticore come out for him?

“This girl, this Vespa Nyx—is she a witch?”

Rackham’s lips wavered around his stained teeth. “Most assuredly. Funny that what Nyx wants has been in front of him all along. Reckon he wouldn’t want to have to sacrifice his own daughter, though.” He flung a few coins across the counter.

Syrus nodded, pocketing his payment. He headed toward the door, aware of the bearded man’s strange gaze on his back. He regretted that he’d had to cut a deal with Rackham with the stranger nearby; surely he had heard some of their conversation, despite their attempts to muffle it.

“Careful, boy,” Rackham said, before Syrus slid out of the door. “You may be stepping into things far beyond your ken.”

That he certainly knew to be true. He nodded swiftly again, and the little bells ushered him out.

As the door closed behind him, the young man walked to the counter.

“I’ll have that toad,” he said in a husky voice.

The tattler vibrated so hard it broke.

“And this,” he said, cradling the jar with a pale hand. “I’ll have this, too.”

He lifted his hand and a white mist rose around Rackham’s head, swirling much like the mist that had brought the Architects to the aid of the Harpy. The young man opened the jar and the mist hastened inside.

Rackham’s eyes went white. His mouth and shoulders slackened; but his fingers crept restlessly over the counter.

“There is no further use for you,” the bearded man said.

Without a word, Rackham pulled an antique dagger from below the counter and stabbed himself through the heart.

Before he left, the bearded man spoke a quiet word.

The room burst into flames.