Marlowe breathed and breathed. They stayed like that a long time, just waiting, in case something more was coming. But nothing did; and at last they went back out into the alley.
“What was it, Charlie?” Marlowe whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“You should write it into the notebook, like Dr. Berghast said to. Do you think it heard us?”
Probably, he thought. But he just looked at Marlowe and said, “It didn’t hear us.”
“I don’t want to be here when it comes back.”
He nodded at that. “Let me see your hands.”
The little boy pulled back his sleeves and turned his wrists and Charlie looked. There was no sign of trembling or discoloration yet. He knew Berghast had said Marlowe was immune but he wasn’t about to entrust the boy’s welfare to the very man who’d sent them in here. He grimaced and took out the map and looked at it and peered around. The mists looked closer, the strange twisting figures ribboning away in them seemed almost to be looking for them. It was time to get going. At the mouth of the alley there was a sign nailed into the wall: FANNIN STREET. He reached into the satchel for the map. He couldn’t see any Fannin Street anywhere.
“I reckon it’s this way,” he said, stuffing it back away. “It’s got to be. Come on.”
The dark buildings of the city loomed. They saw no sign of the creature from the alley. There was only the faceless dead in their turnings, and the water, and the cold.
The light never changed. They slept when they got tired, in the rotting second story of a tenement, somewhere north of the river. They were cold and damp and their feet were soaked clean through and they took off their shoes and dried their tender skin as best they could. It was a room with an old bedframe and no mattress, but the walls were nearly clear of fungus, the windowpane intact. They had no way of making a fire in the fireplace and no food to eat and they lay down shivering in the gloom. Time passed.
“You better put it away, Charlie,” said Marlowe sleepily. “You’re going to lose it.”
Charlie opened his eyes. He was turning his mother’s ring in his fingers again, tracing the twinned hammers on its face. He blinked. He hadn’t realized.
He looked over, saw Marlowe’s little face watching.
“I never told you,” he said slowly. He looked away. He wanted to say nothing more but then he was talking and it was like he just couldn’t stop. “I found him, Mar. My father. There was a file in Berghast’s study. His name was Hywel. He was at Cairndale when he was young, just like us. A strong, like Mr. Coulton was. Ribs said there’s this group living in London, exiles. Talents who’ve lost their powers. She said it’s sad to see. That’s what happened to my father. He ended up down there with them, alone.”
“He wasn’t alone,” said Marlowe, with a quiet conviction.
Charlie, shivering, rolled over. “Yeah, he was. But it’s okay. It was all a long time ago.”
“He wasn’t alone, Charlie. He had you.”
Charlie swallowed a knot in his throat, unhappy. He was so tired. “I don’t know where he got this stupid ring,” he added. “He gave it to my mama when they got married. It was precious to her. It came from Cairndale, obviously. I don’t know, maybe they give them out when you lose your talent.”
“I don’t think they do anything nice if you lose your talent,” said Marlowe quietly.
“Maybe he won it in a card game. Or stole it.”
Marlowe nodded, his eyelids heavy.
“I won’t ever know though, will I? Not for real, I mean.” The ring felt cold in his fist, unusually heavy. He did something strange then, he worked it free of the leather cord and slid it onto his finger. It glowed like a strip of silver light in the gloom. He didn’t remember it fitting his finger so well before.
“Thing is,” he murmured, “you waste all this time dreaming of where you came from, cause you know no one comes from nothing. And you tell yourself, if you only knew, then maybe you could see a reason for how you got to be the way you are. Why your life looks like it does. But there isn’t any reason, not really.” He worried the ring at his knuckle, feeling the bite of it.
“My father died a long time ago,” he said, without pity. “I never got to know him. I don’t even know what he looked like. He died, and then my mama died, and I was left all alone even though I was just a little kid. And that’s just how it is. There’s no changing it, and it doesn’t mean anything.”