“No such thing.”
He shook his head. “You continue to be a most peculiar creature.” With that, he began to lead her away. “But keep your money in your pockets. We sell to the Black Market of Sasenroche, Bard. We don’t buy from it. That would be very wrong.”
“You have a skewed moral compass, Alucard.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“What if I stole it?” she asked casually. “Surely it can’t be wrong to steal an item from an illegal market?”
Alucard choked on a laugh. “You could try, but you’d fail. And you’d probably lose a hand for your effort.”
“You have too little faith in me.”
“Faith has nothing to do with it. Notice how the vendors don’t seem particularly concerned about guarding their wares? That’s because the market has been warded.” They were at the edge of the cavern now, and Lila turned back to consider it. She squinted at the stalls. “It’s strong magic,” he continued. “If an object were to leave its stall without permission, the result would be … unpleasant.”
“What, did you try to steal something once?”
“I’m not that foolish.”
“Maybe it’s just a rumor then, meant to scare off thieves.”
“It’s not,” said Alucard, stepping out of the cavern and into the night. The fog had thickened, and night had fallen in a blanket of cold.
“How do you know?” pressed Lila, folding her arms in beneath her cloak.
The captain shrugged. “I suppose …” He hesitated. “I suppose I’ve got a knack for it.”
“For what?”
The sapphire glinted in his brow. “Seeing magic.”
Lila frowned. People spoke of feeling magic, of smelling it, but never of seeing it. Sure, one could see the effects it had on things, the elements it possessed, but never the magic itself. It was like the soul in a body, she supposed. You could see the flesh, the blood, but not the thing it contained.
Come to think of it, the only time Lila had ever seen magic was the river in Red London, the glow of power emanating from it with a constant crimson light. A source, that’s what Kell had called it. People seemed to believe that that power coursed through everyone and everything. It had never occurred to her that someone could see it out in the world.
“Huh,” she said.
“Mm,” he said. He didn’t offer more.
They moved in silence through the stone maze of streets, and soon all signs of the market were swallowed by the mist. The dark stone of the tunnels tapered into wood as the heart of Sasenroche gave way again to its facade.
“What about me?” she asked as they reached the port.
Alucard glanced back. “What about you?”
“What do you see,” she asked, “when you look at me?”
She wanted to know the truth. Who was Delilah Bard? What was she? The first was a question she thought she knew the answer to, but the second … she’d tried not to bother with it, but as Kell had pointed out so many times, she shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be alive, for that matter. She bent most of the rules. She broke the rest. And she wanted to know why. How. If she was just a blip in the universe, an anomaly, or something more.
“Well?” she pressed.
She half expected Alucard to ignore the question, but at last he turned, squaring himself to her.
For an instant, his face crinkled. He so rarely frowned that the expression looked wrong on him. There was a long silence, filled only by the thud of Lila’s pulse, as the captain’s dark eyes considered her.
“Secrets,” he said at last. And then he winked. “Why do you think I let you stay?”
And Lila knew that if she wanted to know the truth, she’d have to give it, and she wasn’t ready to do that yet, so she forced herself to smile and shrug. “You like the sound of your own voice. I assumed it was so you’d have someone to talk to.”
He laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. “That, too, Bard. That, too.”
V
GREY LONDON
The city looked positively bleak, shrouded in the dying light, as if everything had been painted over with only black and white, an entire palette dampened to shades of grey. Chimneys sent up plumes of smoke and huddled forms hurried past, shoulders bent against the cold.
And Kell had never been so happy to be there.
To be invisible.
Standing on the narrow road in the shadow of Westminster, he drew a deep breath, despite the hazy, smoke-and-cold-filled air, and relished the feeling. A chill wind cut through and he thrust his hands in his pockets and began to walk. He didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t matter.
There was no place to hide in Red London, not anymore, but he could still carve out space for himself here. He passed a few people on the streets, but no one knew him. No one balked or cringed away. Sure, there had been rumors once, in certain circles, but to most passersby, he was just another stranger. A shadow. A ghost in a city filled with—
“It’s you.”
Kell tensed at the voice. He slowed, but didn’t stop, assuming that the words weren’t meant for him, or if they were, then said by mistake.
“Sir!” the voice called again, and Kell glanced around—not for the source, but for anyone else it might be speaking to. But there was no one nearby, and the word was said with recognition, with knowing.
His rising mood shuddered and died as he dragged himself to a stop and turned to find a lanky man clutching an armful of papers and staring directly at him, eyes as large as coins. A dark scarf hung around the man’s shoulders, and his clothes weren’t shabby, but they didn’t fit him well; he looked like he’d been stretched out, his face and limbs too long for his suit. His wrists protruded from the cuffs, and on the back of one Kell saw the tail edge of a tattoo.