2
The Sign of the Singing Hawk
Decision made, they all stood: a silent consensus. While Jess and Electra headed upstairs, Evan, Harper and Manx drifted towards the laundry, seeking their clothes. After a moment’s hesitation, Paige decided to wander upstairs, too, which left Laine, who hung back, and Solace, who was watching her. As if sensing her scrutiny (which, Solace realised, she probably was), the psychic turned. They locked eyes, black against pale blue. Laine tilted her head towards the kitchen.
Walking around the edge of the bench, Solace flinched in belated memory of the swan, bracing herself against the expected pile of gore. Instead, the tiles were bare of blood and feather both, as though Duchess’s gruesome meal had never taken place.
‘She really did vanish the rest,’ murmured Laine, placing a pale hand on the counter. Looking up slowly, she straightened the front of her robe. Her voice was soft. ‘I’m sorry.’
Solace sighed. ‘It was when you brushed my hand, wasn’t it? The touch. You read my mind. My reaction.’
‘Yes.’ She flicked at a strand of hair. ‘I don’t mean to. Usually, I try to block it out. I still hear stray thoughts if they’re concentrated enough – if someone’s worried, say, or scared, any sort of gut feeling – but physical contact changes things. I go deeper. And I see things people wish I didn’t. That I shouldn’t.’ She shook her head, laughed. ‘I’m really a thief, of sorts.’
‘It wasn’t so bad,’ said Solace, unwillingly. Despite somehow knowing that Laine had glimpsed nothing more shocking than her buried loneliness, and not, for instance, last night’s conversation with Duchess, she couldn’t bring herself to feel relieved. ‘Probably, you didn’t need to be psychic to see – I mean, I don’t exactly know much about my parents, and reading the book …’ She let the words trail off, watching Laine’s face. ‘But it’s not just me, is it? And not just then.’
‘No.’ Laine made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. ‘Secrets all unsaid. That’s me.’
Even after such prolonged discussion, it took Solace a moment to place the reference. ‘You think you’re the Watcher?’
‘I know I am. It can’t refer to anyone else.’ She ran a hand through her hair. Adrift with static, several threads clung to her fingers.
Solace stared at her. ‘You don’t want the others to know.’ It wasn’t a question.
A flush crept into Laine’s cheeks. ‘I am a creature of secrets.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘I never wanted to be. But now that I hold so many, it’s hard to give them up. Let me choose the moment. Please?’
For a moment, Solace was paralysed by the irony: thanks to Duchess and her command of silence, she entirely sympathised with Laine, but was unable to say so for precisely that reason. And who was to say her intuition was correct, and Laine hadn’t learned exactly those truths she’d been told to keep to herself ? She felt sick with uncertainty.
But then she saw her friend’s face, and knew. Laine hadn’t asked for her Trick, any more than Solace had asked to be Sanguisidera’s enemy. That hadn’t stopped either of them from trying to do the right thing.
‘I will wait,’ she promised. ‘And you can be the one to tell.’
‘Tell what?’ asked Evan, sauntering into the kitchen. Freshly dressed and devoid of his usual mocking expression, he looked somehow different, as though it were possible to don maturity along with a clean shirt and – saints be praised – pants.
‘True things,’ said Laine, after a moment’s pause, glancing at Solace. ‘And the promise of truth.’
‘Mysterious,’ said Evan, but without humour. As his gaze left Laine and lighted on her, Solace felt the skin along her spine begin to tingle.
‘A secrecy of birds,’ she echoed, almost without thought.
‘Mm,’ said Evan. He blinked. ‘Speaking of which, is Her Smallness coming to Kent Street? I only ask because, in the interest of discretion, even the average Sydneysider is likely to notice her traipsing along behind us.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Solace considered the question. ‘I suppose it’s up to her. I mean, it’s not as if we can actually lock her in.’ Suddenly curious, she looked around. ‘Where’s she gone, anyway?’
Evan frowned. ‘Upstairs with the others? I don’t know.’
‘Laine,’ Solace said slowly, ‘can you hear Duchess thinking? I mean, if you can read minds, and she does talk – well, I mean, she thinks, but –’
Laine shook her head. ‘No. It’s like static electricity, I suppose you’d say, or snow on a TV channel. The signal’s there, but it’s not getting through. She’s on a different frequency.’
Solace swallowed a shot of relief, followed swiftly by a guilt chaser. She trusted Laine, but with Manx already able to hear Duchess, another person would have been too much.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘either she’ll come, or she won’t. There’s not much more we can say.’
Over by the laundry, Harper straightened from tying his shoelaces. ‘We ready to go?’ he asked.
Solace nodded. A moment later, the other girls reappeared. Paige sported two small braids amid her usual scruff of hair, while Jess and Electra had each settled on a single, precise plait.
‘I have a question,’ Jess announced, jumping down the last two stairs.
‘What’s up?’
‘Where exactly is this house? I mean –’ the seer laughed, ‘– clearly it’s here, and, by the look of our yellow Earth sun, somewhere on the right planet. But couldn’t Duchess have brought us anywhere? For all we know, we’re in Arkansas. Or Sweden! This could be Sweden!’
‘No, it couldn’t,’ Manx countered, walking up. Despite having been second-last out of the shower, his reddish hair was almost dry, gleaming a little in the light. ‘I had a look over the back fence, and I’m pretty sure we’re still in Sydney – not the CBD, but one of the closer suburbs, anyway. No need to panic.’
‘Well, thank God for that!’ said Jess. ‘For a minute there, I thought we were as stuffed as a turkey.’
‘Oh, bollocks,’ Solace muttered. Everyone looked at her. ‘We still are – I mean, I am, anyway.’ She nodded at the window. ‘It’s the middle of the afternoon. You know, sun shining brightly down in a leave-the-house-and-start-fainting kind of way? I was all right outside for a few minutes when the clouds were thick, but how the hell do I get to the city?’
This gave the group some pause. Then a thought seemed to occur to Evan. Holding up a hand, he ducked out through the front door – pulling it courteously shut behind him, so as not to blind Solace with sunlight – then, after less than a minute, came back inside. A broad grin stretched his face.
‘Hey, if by some miracle of hallucinogenic weirdness you ever get to talk to your parents? Tell them from me they are gods.’
‘What –’ Electra started, but Evan cut her off, almost laughing with glee.
‘A Kombi van. They left us a damn original freakin’ Kombi!’
‘Clearly, they didn’t know you were coming,’ Jess muttered, but Solace saw interest light her eyes.
‘Can anyone here actually drive?’ asked Harper.
‘Can I drive? Can I drive?’ Evan was affronted.
‘No,’ said Laine and Jess, at once. Electra made a choking sound.
‘Are there keys?’ asked Paige.
‘Indeedy-do. They’re already in the ignition.’
‘Glee,’ said Jess, grinning broadly. ‘Dibs on driving.’
‘Shotgun!’ yelled Evan.
‘What are you, twelve?’ said Laine, her usual deadpan humour softened by a slight smile.
‘Thirteen, if you must know.’
‘Oh, my hero.’
She was out the door before he could think of a comeback.
There was a last minute scramble as everyone searched for their meagre belongings – money,wallets, watches – and, finally, a key to the house, once Electra pointed out the necessity of having such a thing. It proved easy to find, hanging on a hook beside the front door. By mutual agreement, Manx was put in charge of it.
Patting her jacket pockets to double-check the key to Starveldt and the pages from her mother’s book, Solace finally conceded readiness, walked into the hallway and, with a deep breath, opened the door. Throughout the comings and goings of her friends, she’d kept herself away from the sun, but now there was no avoiding it. This time, the light hit her full and heavy, unmuffled by clouds; her eyes felt sore as if she’d opened them under salt water. Blearily, she saw an open roller-door garage to the right of the house, and staggered for the safety of shade.
Once inside, she blinked, panting a little. No doubt about it: her reaction to the light was getting worse. As the spots faded from her vision, she focused on the Kombi. The van seemed original: powderblue on the outside, black leather seats, sliding door half-open where Laine had entered. There was even a sixties flower decal on the rear window.
Pulling the door completely open, Solace smiled to see the psychic sitting in the middle row of seats, an odd expression on her face.
‘What –’ she began, then looked at the very back seat. And laughed.
For there, curled up in a tight blue circle on the leather, green eyes closed and hidden from view, was Duchess.
The van moved, and Laine’s thoughts moved with it.
Last night, exhausted and overwrought after their escape from Sanguisidera, she’d found herself sharing a chair with Evan, bodies pressed together as Jess, Electra and Solace explained what had happened. Their Tricks were similar enough that the contact had sparked something off – need, maybe, or loneliness – and knitted them together with cobweb strands of awareness. It was gentle, and strange, and comforting at a time when comfort was in short supply, but even so, if they hadn’t wound up sharing a room, nothing might ever have come of it.
But something had come of it. They’d slept together.
If Laine was honest, she had done more than Evan to instigate it. Unlike every other bedroom in the house, theirs hadn’t contained any actual beds – just a pair of mattresses pushed against opposite walls, and sheets enough to cover them. It wasn’t a big room. By stretching out a hand in the darkness, Laine had been able to touch Evan’s wrist, reigniting the contact. Neither had spoken. She’d asked permission with each brush of skin, and was granted it. Almost, she could fool herself into thinking that she’d just wanted to hold someone, and to be held; to feel the particular sense of safety that comes from being pressed up against another person in the dark, breathing together. But she’d wanted more, too, and after everything that had happened in the previous forty-eight hours, Evan had been eager enough to focus on something better, more real, more tangible.
Remembering, she twined her fingers together. I should’ve been more careful. For most other girls, that thought would have hinted at fears about an accidental pregnancy, but Laine had long since paid for an implant to prevent that from happening; a slim metal bar buried beneath the skin of her arm. No, she had no fears on that count, and thanks to her Trick, she knew she wasn’t in danger of having caught anything, either. Two clean, safe, willing bodies, freed from the interruption of speech, that’s what they’d been. Where was the danger in it, the risk? But of course, she should’ve learned by now. Sex was never just sex, not for a psychic.
What had she thought – that sleeping with an empath would make all the difference? That somehow, being part of a couple where both parties could read into each other would cancel out her Trick, even though that electric touch, that sharing without speech, was what had attracted them in the first place? Idiot, she told herself. It doesn’t work that way. Instead, they’d wound up sharing more than just bed and breath. Memories had bled between them, flashes of hidden truth, old anguish and the day-to-day, as sudden as a flock of birds startled from their roost. Once she’d realised what was happening – and worse, that it was going both ways – it had been all Laine could do to keep her secrets from spilling out, clutching so tight to the Great Lie that she’d thought her heart would explode.
If Evan realised she’d been trying to hold back, he didn’t say anything, but when they finished, there’d been tears on both their cheeks. A sense of emptiness pervaded the room. They lay in each other’s arms, cold sweat sticking the sheets to their skin, and didn’t speak; but this time, even the silence was bereft of communication. Finally, Laine reached out and pulled her own abandoned mattress close alongside Evan’s, so that she could roll onto it without getting up. She’d felt satiated and sleepy, but also numb, dizzy with expended magic. What had they done, and what did it mean? She didn’t know, and before she could think to ask, she’d fallen into dreams.
When she woke, Evan was already up, and she was alone in the room. Her head ached in the special way it sometimes did when she’d pushed her Trick too hard, and which meant she’d be blissfully dull for the next few hours at least, almost a normal girl, deaf to the noisy brains of those around her. But when she tentatively stretched her gift – like pressing a bruise, to gauge how bad it was – she found that, far from being hurt, the encounter had left her even more sensitive than usual. Without trying, she could catch stray thoughts from everyone in the house, even detecting the fumbled dream-logic of the few who were still asleep. Though she desperately wanted a shower, it was a while before she could bring herself to leave the room. Instead, she dressed, pushed the mattresses back the way they’d been, and sat cross legged on the floor, trying to block everyone out, setting the mental wards she’d first taught herself to build at school. She was out of practice; she’d let herself get sloppy, and it took longer than she remembered.
By the time she emerged, the rest of the house was up and moving. Keeping busy was good, and breakfast was even better. She’d been worried about how Evan might react to her presence, but even though her wards couldn’t entirely dull her awareness of him, he gave no cause for offence. He treated her the same as he had yesterday, as if nothing had happened. She didn’t quite know how she felt about that. On the one hand, it was a relief not to have to explain anything, and their friends were given no cause to speculate. On the other hand, even though things had gone … well, not badly, per se, so much as unusual, that didn’t make what they’d done an experience you could just shrug off. She waited and looked for some sign or other, some tacit acknowledgement of what had happened, but found none. Either Evan was being cautious around the others, or he didn’t care.
It’s not like I’m asking for much, Laine told herself. I just want to know where we stand.
Despite her cardinal rule, she was almost prepared to read his mind deliberately: the uncertainty was eating at her, imposing significance on his every gesture. She was preoccupied, gnawing away at herself. It wasn’t until Solace read the prophecy out loud that Laine jolted back into the present, brought up short by the reference to secrets all unsaid. Of course it meant her; there could be no doubt. Even so, it was such an unsettling realisation that when Solace handed her the paper, she let her wards slip. It was only for a second, but that was more than enough time to gaze on the yearning loneliness that had dominated the vampire’s early life, brought to the surface through learning about her family.
The more Laine’s Trick connected her to people, the more disconnected from them she felt, but that was quite a different species of isolation to what she gleaned from Solace. It shamed her.
There had been something else in Morgause’s pages to cause her unrest, and demanded her continued attention: the naming of a place that had since become their destination. The Rookery. Thrills ran through her at the thought. She’d never been there, having only learned of its existence through the overheard thoughts of folk stranger even than her friends, and yet that fleeting reference had been enough to pique her curiosity. Despite what she’d told Evan, she knew what the word meant because she’d googled it after the first time she heard it mentioned. Had her search turned up anything that might have proved useful now, she would have come clean up-front – but it hadn’t.
And now, here they were, moving forwards again, moving ever deeper into those strange troubles that Solace had brought with her. Laine didn’t mind – didn’t care, even, because although it had caused her problems, sooner or later, something always did. But meanwhile, there sat Evan, as cheerful outwardly as he ever was, but with his mind closed to her, offlimits, silent as clouds.
‘I hate Sydney streets,’ Jess muttered, not for the first time since leaving the house. ‘A pox on all town planners and their no right goddamn turn signs!’
‘Sweet sister, we understand,’ said Evan wearily. ‘We also comprehend, sympathise and generally agree. Now stop whining and find us a park!’
‘He says, as if it were the easiest thing in the world,’ Jess hissed, blasting the horn as she swore at a passing cyclist. ‘Dammit! Would you like to drive? Don’t answer that!’ she amended, as Evan opened his mouth.
They were on George Street, driving at snail’s pace between each set of lights. The house was situated in Surrey Hills, and although they hadn’t needed to cover much distance, the exercise had proved overlong and frustrating. Still getting used to Sydney, Solace was hard-pressed to understand why driving through the CBD was so hard – an irritation caused largely by a veritable barrage of no right turn signs, most of which seemed to be situated at junctions where the objection to turning right was not so much based on the traffic flow as a desire to cause as much congestion as possible.
‘Look,’ Paige interjected crossly. ‘We’re nearly at Bathurst Street, anyway. Turn left there to turn right into Kent, and then we can park underground, seeing as the whole point of the exercise is to find parking.’ She sat back, apparently satisfied.
‘Fine!’ snapped Jess. Abruptly, the lights changed to green, causing the traffic to lurch forwards like a conga-line of drunks on a downward slope. Bathurst Street loomed large ahead, and before the lights could switch again, Jess flicked the indicator and veered sharply left. The right-hand turn into Kent came so swiftly afterwards that Solace wasn’t alone in feeling jarred.
Miraculously, no other cars were interested in Kent Street at that particular moment, and Jess was able to slow down. As Sydney roads went, it seemed at first much like any other, lined with the common slew of cheap cafés, hotels, office buildings and underground car parking facilities. Of the latter, there was one ahead on the left, advertised by the usual blue and white P-sign, but beside it lurked a different sort of building altogether.
‘What’s that?’ asked Electra, pointing. The motion of her arm caused Laine and Solace to duck, as they, along with Harper, were all squashed together in the middle row of seats. They all leaned forwards, vying for a look.
The building in question was an old-fashioned house. Built of creamy sandstone and situated behind a wrought-iron fence, it was overshadowed by slender, leafy trees. Smaller than either of its neighbouring structures by far, it seemed marooned in an island of shade, anachronistic and beautiful. Despite its obvious age, it was well maintained and clearly occupied, with a brass nameplate resplendent on the fence.
‘The Judge’s House,’ Laine read aloud, squinting. ‘Huh. I wonder what that is?’
‘Maybe it’s where we’re meant to go?’ asked Paige, from the back.
Jess shook her head. ‘No – I can’t get in. There’s a security system on the gate. Anyway, it’s above ground.’ She exhaled. ‘Down we go, then.’
With a scff of rubber on asphalt, the Kombi turned to enter the nearest underground car park. It was a little like being swallowed, Solace thought, watching as the outside light was muted to a dull, fluorescent yellow.
Once down the slope, a boom gate and its adjacent pay station confronted them. Grumbling, Jess wound down the window and examined the rates, eventually letting out a snort of indignation at the expense.
‘Fifteen dollars flat rate!’ she exclaimed. ‘And in coins, no less!’ Imploringly, she swivelled around in her seat, peering back over the gearbox. ‘Any chance, Lex?’
Without answering, Electra began to glow. In comparison to other times, her aura was soft, but warmer than Solace had expected. For all she’d watched Electra’s Trick before, she’d never been close enough during the process to feel its physical effects.
Seconds later, Electra was passing a handful of gold coins to Jess, who smiled in thanks and fed the machine. In answer, it made a lengthy grinding noise before finally spitting out a small, square ticket. The boom gate rose, and they drove on.
‘Now, the real challenge of parking,’ Harper murmured.
‘Hush,’ Jess scolded. ‘You’ll jinx me.’
For several tense minutes, they drove around in circles, thwarted by row after row of immobile cars. Finally, their thoroughly-frazzled driver spotted bare concrete in a far corner, uttered a cry of relief and made for it with indecent speed.
With a final, exhausted clunk, the Kombi sputtered and fell silent. There followed a moment of weird hesitation, devoid of movement or speech. The pause was broken by Harper, who unbuckled his seatbelt and slid the door open, almost uncertain of what he was doing. Like wildlife freed from the grip of high beams, the others came back to themselves, stretching as they left the van. Duchess leapt out last of all and started washing her paws.
‘Well,’ said Manx. His voice echoed against the concrete. ‘Should we start looking?’
‘Um,’ said Paige, pointing at the far wall, ‘I don’t think we need to.’
They began to move away from the van. Solace’s hand strayed to the key in her pocket, stroking it through the leather of her jacket.
Paige was pointing at a door. Painted deep blue, it looked as if it led to a flight of tairs – not an unreasonable speculation, as the parking continued above ground as well as under. Nothing odd in that. But across the neighbouring wall was a colourful splay of graffiti, depicting – in the sharp, almost hieroglyphic lines of spray-painted art – a stylised hawk, coloured bronze and red, with darkly golden eyes. Fanning out from beneath its wings and claws were the metallic blues, greys and greens of a storm, while the backdrop overhead was gunmetal and black. The hawk was facing the door hinge, and Solace saw that its beak was open. A faint, almost indiscernible shockwave seemed to be coming from the raptor, flowing out of the image and into the door.
‘The Sign of the Singing Hawk,’ Solace said, softly. When nobody answered, she reached out for the handle, gleaming round and silver in the fluorescent light. Manx reached out and stopped her, placing a hand on her arm.
‘There’s no turning back from here.’ He spoke in a lowered voice, but his words still echoed. ‘You open that door, and we don’t know what will happen.’
Solace squeezed his hand and met his mismatched eyes, concerned but unafraid.
‘That’s life,’ she said, simply. ‘Every door is a choice, and every choice is a door. This one, we’re walking through.’
Taking a breath, Solace turned back to the door. The others clustered behind her, moving with the small, animal restlessness of a herd. As her left hand touched the metal handle, her right brushed the key to Starveldt; a gesture of prayer, or safety.
Head bowed, Solace spoke. ‘We seek entry to the Rookery. We seek Liluye.’
One heartbeat. Two.
Beneath her skin the knob began to turn. The lights winked out.
Enter, then.
One moment, Solace and her friends were walking through the door and into darkness, feeling the odd buzzing, clicking sensation that marked any passage through conjoined space – doorways where magic acted as a shortcut through the distance of reality. And then there was light: blinding, dazzling and absolute. For an instant, Solace thought that they’d emerged outdoors, and flinched. But the dizziness she’d braced for didn’t come. Bewildered, she risked opening her eyes, blinking furiously until her vision returned. Behind her, she was aware of muttered swearing – Jess, she guessed, or Paige – and felt someone bump into her. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one to have been blinded.
‘Greetings! Please, remain where you are.’
The voice was lilting, unfamiliar, and female. Straightening – when had she stooped, exactly? – Solace stared and squinted. Her sight was still blurry. At first, all she could make out was a blue shape on a light background. As the figure approached, her focus tightened: it was a person dressed in blue? – a woman? – a blue woman?
‘Um,’ said Solace dumbly.
The blue woman smiled, revealing a mouth full of the kind of white, absurdly perfect teeth usually unknown beyond toothpaste ads and the cosmetic dentistry of Los Angeles. Solace focused on the teeth: they at least were known quantities. The woman herself was a different matter entirely.
Her skin was dusky blue, lighter on her throat and arms, as though she, like anyone else, would tan from the sun. She was impossibly svelte and shorter even than Paige, dainty as a child. Her face was alien: wide, too-large, almond-shaped eyes – their huge pupils limned with the barest ring of dark blue iris – set off ascetic cheeks, and ears like lobeless arrows swept back against the narrow carriage of her head. Even her hair, shorn in a shaggy pixiecut, was blue, the kind of deep, profound colour that dye endeavours to achieve, but never does. And there were protrusions on the crown of her head – two slender, waving sensors of which the only apt descriptor was antennae.
Curiously, she was dressed in a blue toga, or perhaps sari. The woman’s left breast was bare, the final disconnect with any lingering sense of normality. Wherever we are, Solace thought, it certainly isn’t Kansas.
With fluttering, graceful steps, the woman moved forward.
‘I am Anise.’ Reaching up, she brushed Solace’s cheek before letting her hand fall back. ‘Do not be alarmed. You are safe.’
‘Wasn’t alarmed,’ Solace mumbled. Abashed, she forced herself to look Anise squarely in the eye. ‘Well, I was. But only a little.’
Anise laughed. It was a pretty sound, rippling like the music of an underwater bell.
‘You are honest,’ she said, smiling again. ‘That is good.’
‘Where are we?’ Electra asked.
Belatedly, Solace thought to look somewhere other than at their host, and realised their location resembled the lobby of a glamorous hotel. The floor underfoot was white marble. Ahead lay a grand staircase of the same stone, covered with red carpet as it flowed up to a landing that diverged into two separate flights, each leading to a different level. On either side of their point of entry, a marble hallway, lined with elegant portraiture and bric-a-brac, stretched off into the distance.
‘This is the Rookery,’ Anise said. ‘I assume that this is your first time among us. Repeat visitors rarely materialise in this place.’ She waved a hand to indicate the lobby.
‘Something like that,’ said Solace, glancing at the others. Paige looked awed, Jess still slightly cross, Electra thoughtful. Manx and Harper were taken up with not staring at Anise, but Evan, to Solace’s surprise, seemed to be experiencing no such difficulty. Instead, he was watching Laine from the corner of one eye. Under this subtle scrutiny the psychic stood rigid, as though she were aware of his attention, but not wanting to show it. Solace felt the Vampire Cynic take note. Interesting.
‘You asked us to wait,’ said Jess, after a brief pause.
Anise nodded. ‘I did, and I appreciate your compliance. You must speak with the owner.’
‘Liluye.’ Solace exhaled the name.
‘Not because you spoke her name. Your cargo makes it necessary.’ Anise motioned towards Solace’s jacket pocket. ‘The Rookery has a cautious policy toward objects of power. That which you carry activated certain of our wards, the effect of which is to blind and bind while notifying me. Had you tried to leave the lobby before I stopped you, the result would have been – well, unnecessary, let us say.’ Her gaze flicked upwards, momentarily lighting on each of them. ‘But I am sure there will be no problem. Liluye will discern the truth of the matter.’
‘This Liluye,’ Manx began, nervously licking his lips. ‘Is she – I mean, is she like you?’
Anise’s face deepened in a humour. Her mouth and eyes were incredibly expressive, so that even the subtlest change registered with beautiful clarity. Solace had initially taken her for Rare, but now found herself wondering whether she might be something else entirely. Surely it’s not that crazy an idea.
‘Liluye is unlike anyone,’ Anise replied cryptically. Before Manx could ask what this meant, however, the blue woman cocked her head and held up a finger, her slender ears (or possibly her antennae) receiving some private message.
‘She is ready,’ Anise murmured, after a slight pause. ‘Please follow me, and keep together. You will have an opportunity to ask questions – soon.’
This last request forestalled both Jess and Harper, whose partially open mouths slid closed with the smooth synchronicity of car windows.
Beckoning, Anise turned and walked toward the main staircase. Solace was not alone in gasping at the sight of her not-so-bare back.
‘She has wings,’ breathed Paige, speaking for everyone.
They were so fine – and, like the rest of Anise, blue – that nobody had noticed them before. The bone and musculature on which they balanced protruded neatly from her back, eerily akin to what Solace had once imagined dragons having. They were currently tucked away, the long, blue-skinned upper bones folded down against their shorter, stronger counterparts, while segmented flashes of dragonfly gossamer shivered between them like molten silver. Sensing their scrutiny, Anise turned on the third step, raising an eyebrow in quiet rebuke for their dawdling. Guiltily, they caught up with her.
‘The Rookery is larger than you think,’ she said, turning away. ‘It would not do to lose yourselves.’ Her folded wingtips fluttered.
When they reached the landing, Anise led them up and right, following the lower staircase until it flattened out into a sinuous walkway. Solace ran her hand along the smooth wood of the balustrade until the encroaching wall cut it short and the entrance lobby vanished from sight.
The corridor ahead was broader than she’d expected, with doors only on the left-hand side. Most were wood, and many had glass windows cut into the top half, reminding Solace of some classic private investigator’s office. She tried to look in the first few, but the glass was fogged and rippled, and she saw nothing but the blur and glow of fluorescent lights.
Soon, they reached a T-junction; Anise glided left, and they followed in ever-deepening silence, uncertain of what to say, or of what could be said. Thus far, the Rookery felt like a magic place, some strange conspiracy of the senses that, along with Anise, seemed far too fey to be anchored in reality. As though the building itself were determined to prove this point, a low buzz emanated from somewhere up ahead. Manx and Solace, whose senses were sharpest, heard it first. The others reacted individually: a Mexican wave of puzzlement. After the initial shock had worn off, and as the sound grew louder, Solace realised the buzzing was actually familiar. It was like the distant noise from the Gadfly on the first night she’d met her friends, washed through walls and watered down, but unmistakeable. The sound of a crowd.
‘What is the Rookery?’ she asked, unable to stop herself.
Anise didn’t answer immediately, but the rustle of her wings gave Solace the impression that the query pleased her. Abruptly, they turned another corner, stepping into an open foyer even larger than the lobby. Bare white marble glowed underfoot, and though several other slim passages opened into the space, their little group stood alone. The noise was louder here, washing against their ears like the growl of ocean waves chewing a pebbled beach. Solace looked up: the foyer roof was so high that it resembled the inner dome of a cathedral, vaulting overhead in arched stone beams and curving panels. Before them stood massive double doors of dark wood. Resting one slim hand on a long brass handle, Anise came to a halt and turned to face them. Her alien eyes were wide and bright, glowing with insect intensity and devilish with human glee.
‘We are givers of sanctuary,’ she said, ‘on whom the pale moon gleams. We shelter the Rare, and those who are human, and those who are neither, and all who ask. We are a circus and burlesque show, a brothel, a convent and den of thieves; a worship of writers, a talent of gamblers, a skirl of pipers and banner of knights; a coven of witches, a host of angels, remade dreams and a city of lights. We are isangelous, curious, furious, furtive, fatuous, dangerous, slanderous, libellous and lycanthropic, anachronistic and metempsychotic. We are archaic and we are brave, futuristic, forgotten and grave. We are the Rookery, flotsam of worlds.’
Her voice had been building in pitch and intensity until, with a cry of laughter, she flung wide the doors, revealing a world of riotous, glorious, glittering chaos.
Solace felt her heart stop, and could sense that her friends, too, were similarly overwhelmed. Anise met her incredulous gaze, and when she spoke again, the blue woman’s words were soft, and for Solace alone.
‘Welcome to the universe, child. We’ve been waiting for you.’