‘They’re my family,’ said Violet.
Will said, ‘Simon took my family from me too.’
She didn’t know him. With the bruising mostly faded, he looked different – like a clerk, if a clerk were all cheekbones and intense eyes. His dark hair and too-pale skin were half-hidden under a cap, and his faded blue jacket was torn at the shoulder.
‘Stewards hate Lions. You didn’t hear them, on the ship.’ On the ship, before Tom killed them. ‘Whatever I am, I’m not welcome.’
‘You don’t have to tell them what you are,’ said Will. ‘No one knows what you are except you.’
She realised it then. She was going to follow him, this boy she’d barely met. ‘He’s here, isn’t he? Justice.’ Justice, who hated Lions. Justice, who had fought her brother and almost killed him. Justice, who might kill her too, if he knew what she was. ‘You’re going with him to the Stewards.’
Justice, who had taken a bullet for her in the confusing crush on the ship.
Justice, who thought she was Simon’s captive and Will’s friend.
Will nodded once. ‘I have to know. What I am. What Simon wants with me.’
Will had lied to Justice for her. Will had come back here to help her. They had stumbled into this together, and he was right. She wanted answers. Violet closed her eyes.
She said, ‘Then I’m going too.’
Darkness had fallen, but there were lights on the river, and lamps and torches flaming on the banks where the work of salvage was still going on. It gave them both cover to creep around in.
Will was good at hiding. Slipping in and out of shadows and gaps, he had a skill born of necessity: discovery for Violet had only ever meant a box on the ears; discovery for him meant capture and death. He knew how to move, where to put his feet, when to stay still.
They had to reach the other side of the pier, through stacks of crates, and stuffed sacks and long lines of lumber. There was no sign of her father, but twice she heard voices that sent her heart into her mouth, and once they had to cram themselves into a space between bins while Simon’s men patrolled.
Justice was waiting, a cloaked figure indistinguishable from the shadows until Will pointed towards him with a silent tilt of his chin. He had stayed back to deal with Simon’s guards while Will came in to find her, she realised. He was likely the reason they had seen so few patrols: he had cleared them out.
As he emerged, Violet felt a shiver of fear, remembering Justice’s strength on the ship. He had thrown Tom around like he weighed nothing, then survived a blow to the head that had set him floating facedown in the water. Even now his hand rested protectively on his sword, an old-fashioned weapon like his old-fashioned clothes and his old-fashioned way of speaking.
If he knew what I was—
‘Good,’ was all Justice said, with a nod. ‘We must go.’
He didn’t ask her where she’d been, just seemed glad that she was safe. They set off with Justice in the lead. She found herself staring at him, at his jet-black hair that was straight where hers was curly, his upright posture that seemed to radiate authority, the seriousness of his warm brown eyes.
‘It’s dark enough now that we can try to cross without being seen. If we can make it past Simon’s patrols—’
There was a sudden commotion from the bank, and all three of them jerked their heads towards it.
‘Something’s happening,’ said Will.
The clatter of a carriage, the sound of voices from the river – but more than that, there was a shift in the air that she felt but couldn’t quite name, like the build-up before a storm. She could almost taste it, dangerous, electric.
Justice’s expression changed. ‘James is here.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
WILL TURNED.
James. He didn’t recognise the name. But he could hear the tension in Justice’s voice. Simon’s men seemed to feel it too, waiting in tense clumps on the bank. James is here.
The carriage was arriving like a processional, announcing itself with the sound of hooves, wheels and the clink of harnesses. There were three men riding before it, each wearing a single piece of broken armour atop their riding clothes. It gave them an unnatural look. They felt wrong, their sunken eyes unblinking, their faces death white. They cantered ahead of the carriage, like the obverse of Stewards.
The carriage itself was black, high-gloss lacquered wood, drawn by two black horses with arched necks and flared nostrils, their eyes hidden by blinkers. On the doors and carved into the wood were the three black hounds that were Simon’s coat of arms. The curtains were drawn; you couldn’t see inside.