“You’re soaked to the bone, the two of you,” muttered the woman. “You’re drippin all over my floors.”
Komako nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Come, come. I’m Mrs. Ficke. We must be at gettin you warm. Now, there’s a wee stove in the back what gives off heat like a horse. An what’s your name, lad?”
“Oskar, ma’am.”
Komako could feel herself relaxing, too. “Mrs. Ficke,” she said, “does the name Henry Berghast mean anything to you? We’re here on account of him.”
The old woman, close now, tapped the wooden spoon thoughtfully against her chin. “Berghast, Berghast…，” she muttered. Her eyes lit up. “Why, I believe it do.”
Komako was drying her hands on her pinafore. “You know him, then?”
Something shifted in Mrs. Ficke’s face, a flicker of shadow, just beneath the skin. She said, “White beard? Handsome as the devil?” She nodded. “A fair temper on him though. Oh, aye, I reckon I know him.”
Komako hadn’t worked out in her head what she’d say after that. She’d been imagining they’d have to sneak in, eavesdrop maybe—not meet the owner or director or whatever she was, and find her quite so … obliging.
“Mrs. Ficke,” she began, “we’re here on account of some deliveries Cairndale receives, every two weeks. And the, um, passengers the carriage takes on. We were directed here. We have some questions—”
“Directed here? To my shop? By who, love?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Most things are, I don’t doubt it.” A shrewd look came over her face. “Tell me true though. Do Henry know his wards is escaped, an is pokin around in his business?”
The old woman’s yellow eyes flicked—for only a second—to the left of Komako. But it was warning enough. Komako spun quickly on her heel, drawing the dust to her fingertips.
But there was Edward Albany, already looming up over the top of the shelf, a heavy cudgel in his fist. Everything happened very fast then. Albany knocked over the jars as his heavy arm swung hard down and Komako heard Oskar cry out. She was summoning the dust but it was too late, his arm was coming down again, and then a searing pain filled her head and her eyes rolled back up in her skull and all at once everything went blessedly, painlessly, soundlessly, dark.
* * *
Ribs, invisible behind the counter, watched in silence as her friends were struck unconscious. She made no move to help them, nor, as the old chandler locked the front door fast and flipped the hanging sign to CLOSED, did Ribs stir and try to get closer. Manipulating her talent after a long night of no sleep was making her skin crawl, the seams in it feeling like they were on fire. She winced but kept the pain in check. What she needed now, most of all, was to be still.
Truth was, she was feeling irritated. Irritated at Komako’s impatience, irritated by the old woman’s sly questions. Sure, it’d been maybe a stupid notion, sneaking down to Edinburgh to find out what Berghast was up to. She could’ve told Ko that. Hell, she had. But did anyone ever listen to her?
Like to get them killed, it were.
She’d slipped into the shop quietly, reaching up to muffle the bell as the door closed behind her, and then started her slow way down one aisle. That was when she’d heard the old ones talking, and crouched suddenly, and listened. Almost the first word she’d heard was Cairndale. She stripped silently down and rubbed her hair dry with her shirt and then left her clothes hidden. She let the prickling come over her skin until there was only light and dust where her flesh ought to be. It was always a dizzying moment, looking down at her hands and feet and seeing nothing, and always there was that quick instant when she felt like she was falling. But it passed, as it always did; her head cleared; and she crept forward to hear better.
The old woman with the missing hand was talking about the deliveries. One was due that night, it seemed, and she was instructing the grizzled man as to the particular care of the crates. Whatever was in these ones, it seemed, it was breakable, and of greater value than usual. The man just nodded in time to her instructions, mute, grim. And that was when the old woman said it.
“Soon, now,” she muttered. “That poor glyphic won’t much longer live, an there’s no solution here for it. Ye can’t stopper a hole in a boat with beeswax, my old Mr. Ficke used to say. An them what’s upstairs is beeswax, or worse. No, Henry’ll not put it off much longer.”
The old woman broke off, raised her yellow eyes. Ribs held her breath. The woman was glaring in her direction, almost as if she could see her.