regulus
Cheers greeted Regulus as he emerged from the eastern arch, Lily trailing behind him and, if Regulus was any judge, already working herself into a sulk.
Emmeline, Dorcas, and the others charged at them, whooping and shouting. The crew had got the barest glimpse of the proceedings with Greyback, but they’d heard most of it. Now they were chanting, “The Phoenix is on fire! The Order don’t have no water!”
“I can’t believe he just turned tail!” jeered Dorcas. “He had a loaded pistol in his hand!”
“Tell us what you had on the guard,” Emmeline begged.
“Can’t be the usual stuff.”
“I heard about a guy in Sloken who liked to roll around in apple syrup and then get two—”
“I’m not talking,” said Regulus. “Lestrange could prove useful in the future.”
The mood was jittery, and their laughter had the frantic serration that came with near disaster. Some of them had expected a fight and were still itching for one. But Regulus knew there was more to it, and he hadn’t missed the fact that no one had mentioned Peter Pettigrew ’s name. They’d been badly shaken by his betrayal – both the revelation and the way Regulus had delivered punishment. Beneath all that jostling and whooping, there was fear.
Good.
Regulus relied on the fact that the Order members were all murderers, thieves, and liars. He just had to make sure they didn’t make a habit of lying to him.
Regulus dispatched two of them to keep an eye on Pettigrew and to make sure that if he made it to his feet, he left the city. The rest could return to the Slat and the Crow Club to drink off their worry, make some trouble, and spread word of the night’s events. They’d tell what they’d seen, embroider the rest, and with every retelling, Dirtyhands would get crazier and more ruthless.
But Regulus had business to attend to, and his first stop would be Fifth Harbour. Lily stepped into his path. “You should have let me know about Peter,” she said in a furious whisper.
“Don’t tell me my business, Evans.”
“You think I’m dirty, too?”
“If I thought you were dirty, you’d be holding your guts in on the floor of the Exchange like Pettigrew, so stop running your mouth.”
Lily shook her head and rested her hands on the pendant attached to her neck. Whenever she got angry, she liked to take the gemstone in her hands, like a child seeking the comfort of a favoured doll.
It would have been easy enough to make peace. Regulus could have told her that he knew she wasn’t dirty, reminded her that he’d trusted Lily enough to make her his only real second in a fight that could have gone badly wrong tonight. Instead, he said, “Go on, Evans. There’s a barstool waiting for you at the Crows Club. Drinks on me. Stay there till morning or whenever you decide to go home with a girl, whichever comes first.”
Lily scowled, but she couldn’t fight the smile forming on her lips.
“Another bribe?”
“I’m a creature of habit.”
“Lucky for you, I am, too.” She hesitated long enough to say, “You don’t want us with you? Greyback’s gang are gonna be riled after that.”
“Let them come,” Regulus said, and turned down Lily without another word. If you couldn’t walk by yourself through Ketterdam after dark, then you might as well just hang a sign that read ‘soft’ around your neck and lie down for a beating.
He could feel the Order’s eyes on his back as he headed over the bridge. He didn’t need to hear their whispers to know what they would say. They wanted to drink with him, hear him explain how he’d known Pettigrew had gone over to the Black Tips, listen to him describe the look in Greyback’s eyes when he’d dropped his pistol. But they’d never get it from Regulus, and if they didn’t like it, they could find another crew to run with.
No matter what they thought of him, they’d walk a little taller tonight. It was why they stayed, why they gave their best approximation of loyalty for him. When he’d officially become a member of the Order of the Phoenix, he’d been fourteen and the gang had been a laughing stock, street kids and washed-up cadgers running shell games and penny-poor cons out of a run-down house in the worst part of the Barrel. But he hadn’t needed a great gang, just one he could make great – one that needed him.
Now they had their own territory, their own gambling hall, and that rundown house had become the Slat, a dry, warm place to get a hot meal or hole up when you were
wounded. Now the Order were feared. Regulus had given them that. He didn’t owe them small talk on top of it.
Besides, Lily would smoothe it all over. A few drinks in and the Heartrender’s good nature would return. She held a grudge about as well as she held his liquor, and she had a gift for making Regulus’ victories sound like they belonged to everyone.
As Regulus’ headed down one of the little canals that would take him past Fifth Harbour, he realised he felt – Saints, he almost felt hopeful. Maybe he should see a medik. The Black Tips had been nipping at his heels for weeks, and now he’d forced them to play their hand. His leg wasn’t too bad either, despite the winter chill. The ache was always there, but tonight it was just a dull throb. Still, a part of him wondered if the parlay was some sort of test Severus Snape had set for him. Snape was perfectly capable of convincing himself that he was the genius making the Order prosper, especially if one of his cronies was whispering in his ear. That idea didn’t sit easy, but Regulus could worry about Severus Snape tomorrow. For now, he’d make sure everything was running on schedule at the harbour and then head home to the Slat for some much-needed sleep.
He knew James was shadowing him. He’d been with him all the way from the Exchange. He didn’t call out to James. He would make himself visible when he was good and ready. Usually he liked the quiet; in fact, he would have happily sewn most
people’s lips shut. But when he wanted to, James had a way of making you feel his silence. It tugged at your edges.
Regulus managed to endure it all the way past the iron railings of Zentzbridge, the grating covered in little bits of rope tied in elaborate knots, sailors’ prayers for safe return from sea. Superstitious rot.
Finally he gave in and said, “Spit it out already, Prongs.”
His voice came from the dark. “You didn’t send anyone to Burstraat.”
“Why would I?”
“If Greyback’s doesn’t get there in time—”
“No one’s setting fires at Nineteen Burstraat.”
“I heard the siren …”
“A happy accident. I take inspiration where I find it.”
“You were bluffing, then. She was never in danger.”
Regulus shrugged, unwilling to give him an answer. James was always trying to wring little bits of decency from him. “When everyone knows you’re a monster, you needn’t waste time doing every monstrous thing.”
“Why did you even agree to the meet if you knew it was a set-up?” He was somewhere to the right of him, moving without a sound. He’d heard other members of the gang say he moved like a cat, but he suspected cats would sit attentively at her feet to learn her methods.
“I’d call the night a success,” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”
“You’re crazy, Regulus,” He sighed. “You were nearly killed. So was Lily, for fuck’s sake!”
“Greyback emptied the Black Tips’ coffers paying useless bribes. We’ve outed a traitor, re-established our claim on Fifth Harbour, and I don’t have a scratch on me. It was a good night.”
“How long have you known about Peter?”
“Weeks. We’re going to be short-staffed. That reminds me, let Greengrass go.”
“Why? There’s no one like him at the tables.”
“Lots of sobs know their way around a deck of cards. Greengrass is a little too quick. He’s skimming.”
“He’s a good dealer, and he has a family to provide for. You could give him a warning, take a finger.”
“Then he wouldn’t be a good dealer any more, would he?”
When a dealer was caught skimming money from a gambling hall, the floor boss would cut off one of his pinkie fingers. It was one of those ridiculous punishments that had somehow become codified in the gangs. It threw off the skimmer ’s balance, forced him to relearn his shuffle, and showed any future employer that he had to be watched. But it also made him clumsy at the tables. It meant he was focusing on simple things like the mechanics of the deal instead of watching the players.
Regulus couldn’t see James’ face in the dark, but he sensed his disapproval.
“Greed is your god, Reg.”
“No, Potter. Greed bows to me. It is my servant and my lever.”
James laughed. “And what god do you serve, then?”
“Whichever will grant me good fortune.”
“I don’t think gods work that way.”
“I don’t think I care.”
He blew out an exasperated breath. Despite everything he’d been through, James still believed his Suli Saints were watching over him. Regulus knew it, and for some reason he loved to rile him. He wished he could read his expression now. There was always something so satisfying about the little furrow between his black brows.
“How did you know I would get to Fletcher in time?” he asked.
“Because you always do.”
“As good as it feels to hear you compliment my skills, Black, you should have given me a warning.”
“I thought you would appreciate the challenge.”
For a while he said nothing, then from somewhere behind him he heard him. “You’re right, I like a good challenge but I could do without watching you nearly die.”
He didn’t see James go, only sensed his absence.
-
Regulus gave an irritated shake of his head. To say he trusted James would be stretching the point, but he could admit to himself that he’d come to rely on him. It had been a gut decision to pay off his indenture with the Menagerie, and it had cost the Order sorely. Severus Snape had needed convincing, but Potter was one of the best investments Regulus had ever made. That he was so very good at remaining unseen made him an excellent thief of secrets, the best in the Barrel. But the fact that he could simply erase himself bothered him. He didn’t even have a scent. All people carried scents, and those scents told stories – the hint of carbolic on a woman’s fingers or woodsmoke in her hair, the wet wool of a man’s suit, or the tinge of gunpowder lingering in his shirt cuffs. But not James. He’d somehow mastered invisibility. He was a valuable asset. So why couldn’t he just do his job and spare him his moods?
Suddenly, Regulus knew he wasn’t alone. He paused, listening. He’d cut through a tight alley split by a murky canal. There were no streetlamps here and little foot traffic, nothing but the bright moon and the small boats bumping against their moorings. He’d dropped his guard, let his mind give in to distraction.
A man’s dark shape appeared at the head of the alley.
“What business?” Regulus asked.
The shape lunged at him. Regulus swung his cane in a low arc. It should have made direct contact with his attacker ’s legs, but instead it sailed through empty space. Regulus stumbled, thrown off balance by the force of his swing. Then, somehow, the man was standing right in front of him. A fist connected with Regulus’ jaw. He shook off the stars that rocketed through his head. He spun back around and swung again. But no one was there. The weighted head of Regulus’ walking stick whooshed through nothing and cracked against the wall.
Regulus felt the cane torn from his hands by someone on his right. Was there more than one of them?
And then a man stepped through the wall. Regulus’ mind stuttered and reeled, trying to explain what he was seeing as a cluster of mist became a cloak, boots, the pale flash of a face.
Ghosts, Regulus thought. A boy’s fear, but it came with absolute surety. Sirius had come for his vengeance at last.
It’s time to pay your debts, Regulus. You never get something for nothing.
The thought passed through Regulus’ mind in a humiliating, gibbering wave of panic, then the phantom was upon him, and he felt the sharp jab of a needle in his neck. A ghost with a syringe?
Fool, he thought. And then he was in the dark.
Regulus woke to the sharp scent of ammonia. His head jerked back as he returned fully to consciousness.
The old man in front of him wore the robes of a university medik. He had a bottle of wuftsalts in his hand that he was waving beneath Regulus’ nose. The stink was nearly unbearable.
“Get away from me,” Regulus rasped.
The medik eyed him dispassionately, returning the wuftsalts to their leather pouch. Regulus flexed his fingers, but that was all he could do. He’d been shackled to a chair with his arms behind his back.
Whatever they’d injected him with had left him groggy.
The medik moved aside, and Regulus blinked twice, trying to clear his vision and make sense of the absurd luxury of his surroundings. He’d expected to wake in the den of the Black Tips or some other rival gang. But this wasn’t cheap Barrel flash. A squat decked out like this took real money – mahogany panels dense with carvings of frothing waves and flying fish, shelves lined with books, leaded windows, and he was fairly sure that was a real DeKappel. One of those demure oil portraits of a lady with a book open in her lap and a lamb lying at her feet. The man observing him from behind a broad desk had the prosperous look of a schoolmaster. But if this was his house, why were there armed members of the stadwatch guarding the door?
Damn it, Regulus thought, am I under arrest? If so, this merch was in for a surprise. Thanks to James, he had information on every judge, bailiff, and high councilman in Kerch. He’d be out of his cell before sunrise. Except he wasn’t in a cell, he was chained to a chair, so what the hell was going on?
The man was in his forties with a gaunt but handsome face and a hairline making a determined retreat from his forehead. When met his gaze, the man cleared his throat and pressed his fingers together.
“R.A.B, I hope you’re not feeling too poorly.”
“Get this old canker away from me. I feel fine.”
The schoolmaster gave a nod to the medik. “You may go. Please send me your bill. And I would, of course, appreciate your discretion in this matter.”
The medik secured his bag and exited the room. As he did, the schoolmaster rose and picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk. He wore the perfectly cut frock coat and vest – dark, refined, deliberately staid. But the pocket watch and tie pin told Regulus all he needed to know: Heavy links of laurel leaves made up the watch’s gold fob, and the pin was a massive, perfect ruby.
I’m going to pry that fat jewel from its setting and jab the pin right through your schoolmaster neck for chaining me to a chair, Regulus thought. But all he said was, “Dumbledore.”
The man nodded. No bow, of course. Prodigious schoolmasters didn’t bow to scum from the Barrel. “You know me, then?”
Regulus knew the symbols and jewels of all the Kerch merchant houses. Dumbledore’s crest was the red laurel. It didn’t take a professor to make the connection.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re the headmaster at Hogwarts, the school for troubled kids”
Dumbledore gave another small nod. “I strive for the world to be more at peace, one troubled child at a time.”
“Peace? You make laugh. What’s the difference between what the Order does and what happens in your school?”
“One is violence and the other is discipline.”
“When a man loses his temper, he may have trouble telling them apart.”
“The Barrel is a den of filth, vice,—”
“How many of the children you teach come back home traumatized?”
“That doesn’t—”
“One out of five, Dumbledore. One in every five children who return home from Hogwarts is badly traumatized, leading to them gambling, and drinking. I’ve seen them at the Crows Club. They make the best customers.” He smiled. “So please, let’s not speak of violence.”
“I won’t argue ethics with a stripling from the Barrel.”
Regulus didn’t really expect him to. He was just stalling for time as he tested the tightness of the cuffs around his wrists. He let his fingers feel along the length of chain as far as they were able, still puzzling over where Dumbledore had brought him. Though Regulus had never met the man himself, he’d had cause to learn the layout of Dumbledore's room inside and out. Wherever they were, it wasn’t the schoolmaster’s mansion.
“Since you didn’t bring me here to philosophise, what business?” It was the question spoken at the opening of any meeting. A greeting from a peer, not a plea from a prisoner.
“I have a proposition for you. Rather, the Council does.”
Regulus hid his surprise. “Does the Hogwarts Council begin all negotiations with a beating?”
“Consider it a warning. And a demonstration.”
Regulus remembered the shape from the alley, the way it had appeared and disappeared like a ghost.
Sirius.
He gave himself an internal shake. Not Sirius, you idiot. Focus. They’d nabbed him because he’d been flush off a victory and distracted. This was his punishment, and it wasn’t a mistake he’d make again. That doesn’t explain the phantom. For now, he pushed the thought aside.
“What possible use would the Hogwarts Council have for me?”
Dumbledore thumbed through the papers in his hand. “You were first arrested at thirteen,” he said, scanning the page.
“Everyone remembers their first time.”
“Twice again that year, twice at fourteen. You were picked up when the stadwatch rousted a gambling hall when you were fifteen, but you haven’t served any time since.”
It was true. No one had managed a pinch on Regulus in four years. “I cleaned up,” Regulus said. “Found honest work, live a life of industry and prayer.”
“Don’t blaspheme,” Dumbledore said mildly, but his eyes flashed briefly with anger.
A man of faith, Regulus noted, as his mind sorted through everything he knew about Dumbledore – prosperous, pious, a widower recently remarried to a man not much older than Regulus himself. And, of course, there was the mystery of Remus Lupin, Hogwarts student extraordinaire who had mysteriously disappeared a few weeks ago without explanation.
Dumblredore continued paging through the file. “You run book on prize fights, horses, and your own games of chance. You’ve been floor boss at the Crow Club for more than two years. You’re the youngest to ever run a betting shop, and you’ve doubled its profits in that time. You’re a blackmailer—”
“I broker information.”
“A con artist—”
“I create opportunity.”
“A bawd and a murderer—”
“I don’t run whores, and I kill for a cause.”
“And what cause is that?”
“Same as yours, merch. Profit.”
“How do you get your information, Mister Black?”
“You might say I’m a lockpick.”
“You must be a very gifted one.”
“I am indeed.” Regulus leaned back slightly. “You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who take the brute’s way, but I prefer a gentler approach – the right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It’s a delicate thing.”
“Do you always speak in metaphors, Mister Black?”
Regulus smiled. “It’s not a metaphor.”
He was out of his chair before his chains hit the ground. He leaped the desk, snatching a letter opener from its surface in one hand, and catching hold of the front of Dumbledore’s shirt with the other. The fine fabric bunched as he pressed the blade to Dumbledore’s throat. Regulus was dizzy, and his limbs felt creaky from being trapped in the chair, but everything seemed sunnier with a weapon in his hand.
Dumbledore’s guards were facing him, all with guns and swords drawn. He could feel the schoolmaster’s heart pounding beneath the wool of his suit.
“I don’t think I need to waste breath on threats,” Regulus said. “Tell me how to get to the door or I’m taking you through the window with me.”
“I think I can change your mind.”
Regulus gave him a little jostle. “I don’t care who you are or how big that ruby is. You don’t take me from my own streets. And you don’t try to make a deal with me while I’m in chains.”
“Benjy,” Dumbledore called.
And then it happened again. A boy walked through the library wall. He was pale as a corpse and wore an embroidered blue Grisha Tidemaker ’s coat with a red-and-gold ribbon at the lapel indicating his association with Dumbledore’s school for troubled kids. But not even Grisha could just stroll through a wall.
Drugged, Regulus thought, trying not to panic. I’ve been drugged. Or it was some kind of illusion, the kind they performed in the theatres off East Stave – a girl cut in half, doves from a teapot.
“What the hell is this?” he growled.
“Let me go and I’ll explain.”
“You can explain right where you are.”
Dumbledore huffed a short, shaky breath. “What you’re seeing are the effects of jurda parem.”
“Jurda is just a stimulant.” The little dried blossoms were grown in Novyi Zem and sold in shops all over Ketterdam. In his early days in the Order, Regulus had chewed them to stay alert during stakeouts. It had stained his teeth orange for days after. “It’s harmless,” he said.
“Jurda parem is something completely different, and it is most definitely not harmless.”
“So you did drug me.”
“Not you, Mister Black. Benjy.”
Regulus took in the sickly pallor of the Grisha’s face. He had dark hollows beneath his eyes, and the fragile, trembling build of someone who had missed several meals and didn’t seem to care.
“Jurda parem is a cousin to ordinary jurda,” Dumbledore continued. “It comes from the same plant. We’re not sure of the process by which the drug is made, but a sample of it was sent to the Kerch Merchant Council by the Malfoy family, courtesy of Lucius Malfoy.”
“Yes. He wished to defect, so he sent us a sample to convince us of his claims regarding the drug’s extraordinary effects. Please, Mister Black, this is a most uncomfortable position. If you’d like, I will give you a pistol, and we can sit and discuss this in more civilised fashion.”
“A pistol and my cane.”
Dumbledore gestured to one of his guards, who exited the room and returned a moment later with Regulus’ walking stick – Regulus’ was just glad he used the damn door.
“Pistol first,” Regulus said. “Slowly.” The guard unholstered his weapon and handed it to Regulus by the grip. Regulus grabbed and cocked it in one quick movement, then released Dumbledore, tossed the letter opener on to the desk, and snatched his cane from the guard’s hand. The pistol was more useful, but the cane brought Regulus a relief he didn’t care to quantify.
Dumbledore took a few steps backwards, putting distance between himself and Regulus’ loaded gun. He didn’t seem eager to sit. Neither was Regulus, so he kept close to the window, ready to bolt if need be.
Dumbledore took a deep breath and tried to set his suit to rights. “That cane is quite a piece of hardware, Mister Black. Is it Fabrikator made?”
It was, in fact, the work of a Grisha Fabrikator, lead-lined and perfectly weighted for breaking bones. “None of your business. Get talking, Dumbledore.”
The schoolmaster cleared his throat. “When Lucius Malfoy sent us the sample of jurda parem, we fed it to three Grisha, one from each Order.”
“Happy volunteers?”
“Indentures,” Dumbledore conceded. “The first two were a Fabrikator and a Healer indentured to Councilman Longbottom. Benjy is a Tidemaker. He’s mine. You’ve seen what he can do using the drug.”
Longbottom. Why did that name ring a bell?
“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” Regulus said as he glanced at Benjy. The boy’s gaze was focused intently on Dumbledore as if awaiting his next command. Or maybe another fix.
“An ordinary Tidemaker can control currents, summon water or moisture from the air or a nearby source. They manage the tides in our harbour. But under the influence ofjurda parem, a Tidemaker can alter his own state from solid to liquid to gas and back again, and do the same with other objects. Even a wall.”
Regulus was tempted to deny it, but he couldn’t explain what he’d just seen any other way. “How?”
“It’s hard to say. You’re aware of the amplifiers some Grisha wear?”
“I’ve seen them,” Regulus said. Animal bones, teeth, scales. “I hear they’re hard to come by.”
“Very. But they only increase a Grisha’s power. Jurda parem alters a Grisha’s perception.”
“So?”
“Grisha manipulate matter at its most fundamental levels. They call it the Small Science. Under the influence of parem, those manipulations become faster and far more precise. In theory, jurda parem is just a stimulant like its ordinary cousin. But it seems to sharpen and hone a Grisha’s senses. They can make connections with extraordinary speed. Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be.”
“What does it do to sorry sobs like you and me?”
Dumbledore seemed to bristle slightly at being lumped in with Regulus, but he said, “It’s lethal. An ordinary mind cannot tolerate parem in even the lowest doses.”
“You said you gave it to three Grisha. What can the others do?”
“Here,” Dumbledore said, reaching for a drawer in his desk.
Regulus lifted his pistol. “Easy.”
With exaggerated slowness, Dumbledore slid his hand into the desk drawer and pulled out a lump of gold. “This started as lead.”
“Like hell it did.”
Regulus shrugged. “I can only tell you what I saw. The Fabrikator took a piece of lead in his hands, and moments later we had this.”
“How do you even know it’s real?” asked Regulus.
“It has the same melting point as gold, the same weight and malleability. If it’s not identical to gold in every way, the difference has eluded us. Have it tested if you like.”
Regulus tucked his cane under his arm and took the heavy lump from Dumbledore’s hand. He slipped it into his pocket. Whether it was real or just a convincing imitation, a chunk of yellow that big could buy plenty on the streets of the Barrel.
“You could have got that anywhere,” Regulus pointed out.
“I would bring Longbottom’s Fabrikator here to show you himself, but he isn’t well.”
Regulus’ gaze flicked to Benjy’s sickly face and damp brow. The drug clearly came with a price.
“Let’s say this is all true and not cheap, coin-trick magic. What does it have to do with me?”
“Perhaps you heard of the Shu paying off the entirety of their debt to Kerch with a sudden influx of gold? The assassination of the trade ambassador from Novyi Zem? The theft of documents from a military base in Ravka?”
So that was the secret behind the murder of the ambassador in the washroom. And the gold in those three Shu ships must have been Fabrikator made. Regulus hadn’t heard anything about Ravkan documents, but he nodded anyway.
“We believe all these occurrences are the work of Grisha under the control of the Shu government and under the influence of jurda parem.” Dumbledore scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Mister Black, I want you to think for a moment about what I’m telling you. Men who can walk through walls – no vault or fortress will ever be safe again. People who can make gold from lead, or anything else for that matter, who can alter the very material of the world – financial markets would be thrown into chaos. The world economy would collapse.”
“Very exciting. What is it you want from me, Dumbledore? You want me to steal a shipment? The formula?”
“No, I want you to steal the man.”
“Kidnap Lucius Malfoy?”
“Save her. A month ago we received a message from Lucius Malfoy begging for asylum. He was concerned about his government’s plans for jurda parem, and we agreed to help him defect. We set up a rendezvous, but there was a skirmish at the drop point.”
“With the Shu?”
“No, with Fjerdans.”
Regulus frowned. The Fjerdans must have spies deep in Shu Han or Kerch if they had learned about the drug and Malfoy’s plans so quickly. “So send some of your agents after him.”
“The diplomatic situation is somewhat delicate. It is essential that our government not be tied to the Malfoy family in any way.”
“You have to know he’s probably dead. The Fjerdans hate Grisha. There’s no way they’d let knowledge of this drug get out.”
“Our sources say he is very much alive and that he is awaiting trial.” Dumbledore cleared his throat.
“At the Ice Court.”
Regulus stared at Dumbledore for a long minute, then burst out laughing. “Well, it’s
been a pleasure being knocked unconscious and taken captive by you, Albus. You can be sure your hospitality will be repaid when the time is right. Now have one of your lackeys show me to the door.”
“We’re prepared to offer you five million kruge.”
Regulus pocketed the pistol. He wasn’t afraid for his life now, just irritated that this fink had wasted his time. “This may come as a surprise to you, Dumbledore, but we canal rats value our lives just as much as you do yours.”
“Ten million.”
“There’s no point to a fortune I won’t be alive to spend. Where’s my hat – did your Tidemaker leave it behind in the alley?”
“Twenty.”
Regulus paused. He had the eerie sense that the carved fish on the walls had halted mid-leap to listen.
“Twenty million kruge?”
Dumbledore nodded. He didn’t look happy.
“I’d need to convince a team to walk into a suicide mission. That won’t come cheap.” That wasn’t entirely true. Despite what he’d said to Dumbledore, there were plenty of people in the Barrel who didn’t have much to live for.
“Twenty million kruge is hardly cheap,” Dumbledore snapped.
“The Ice Court has never been breached.”
“That’s why we need you, Mister Black. It’s possible Malfoy is already dead or that she’s given up all her secrets to the Fjerdans, but we think we have at least a little time to act before the secret of jurda parem is put into play.”
“If the Shu have the formula—”
“Malfoy claimed she’d managed to mislead her superiors and keep the specifics of the formula secret. We think they’re operating from whatever limited supply Malfoy left behind.”
Greed bows to me. Maybe Regulus had been a bit too cocky on that front. Now greed was doing Dumbledore’s bidding. The lever was at work, overcoming Regulus’ resistance, moving him into place.
Twenty million kruge. What kind of job would this be? Regulus didn’t know anything about espionage or government squabbles, but why should stealing Lucius Malfoy from the Ice Court be any different from liberating valuables from a mercher ’s safe? The most well-protected safe in the world, he reminded himself. He’d need a very specialised team, a desperate team that wouldn’t balk at the real possibility that they’d never come back from this job. And he wouldn’t be able to just pull from the Order. He didn’t have the talent he’d need in their ranks. That meant he’d have to watch his back more than usual.
But if they managed it, even after Severus got his cut, Regulus’ share of the scrub would be enough to change everything, to finally put into motion the dream he’d had since he’d first crawled out of a cold harbour with revenge burning a hole in his heart. His debt to Sirius would be paid at last. There would be other benefits, too. The Kerch Council would owe him, to say nothing of what this particular heist would do for his reputation. To infiltrate the impenetrable Ice Court and snatch a prize from the bastion of Fjerdan nobility and military might? With a job like this under his belt and that kind of scrub at his fingertips, he wouldn’t need Severus Snape any more.
He could start his own operation.
But something was off. “Why me? Why the Order? There are more experienced crews out there.”
Benjy started to cough, and Regulus saw blood on his sleeve.
“Sit,” Dumbledore instructed gently, helping Benjy into a chair and offering the Grisha his handkerchief. He signalled to a guard. “Some water.”
“Well?” prodded Regulus.
“How old are you, Mister Black?”
“Nineteen.”
“You haven’t been arrested since you were fifteen, and since I know you are not an honest man any more than you were an honest boy, I can only assume you have the quality I most need in a criminal: You don’t get caught.” Dumbledore smiled slightly then. “There’s also the matter of my portrait of Professor Everard.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Six months ago, my painting Professor Everard, one of Hogwarts’s most celebrated Head, worth nearly one hundred thousand kruge disappeared from my home.”
“Quite a loss.”
“It was, especially since I had been assured that my gallery was impenetrable and that the locks on its doors were foolproof.”
“I do seem to remember reading about that.”
“Yes,” admitted Dumbledore with a small sigh. “Pride is a perilous thing. I was eager to show off my acquisition and the lengths I’d gone to in order to protect it. And yet, despite all my safeguards, despite dogs and alarms and the most loyal staff in all of Ketterdam, my painting is gone.”
“My condolences.”
“It has yet to surface anywhere on the world market.”
“Maybe your thief already had a buyer lined up.”
“A possibility, of course. But I’m inclined to believe that the thief took it for a different reason.”
“What would that be?”
“Just to prove that he could.”
“Seems like a stupid risk to me.”
“Well, who can guess at the motives of thieves?”
“Not me, certainly.”
“From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my painting is exactly who I need for this job.”
“Then you’d be better off hiring them..”
“Indeed. But I’ll have to settle for you.”
Dumbledore held Regulus’ gaze as if he hoped to find a confession written between his eyes. At last, Dumbledore asked, “We have a deal then?”
“Not so fast. What about the Healer?”
Dumbledore looked baffled. “Who?”
“You said you gave the drug to a Grisha from each Order. Benjy’s a Tidemaker – he’s your Etherealnik. The Fabrikator who mocked up that gold was a Materialnik. So what happened to the Corporalnik? The Healer?”
Dumbledore winced slightly, but simply said, “Will you accompany me, Mister Black?”
Warily, keeping one eye on Benjy and the guards, Regulus followed Dumbledore out of the library and down the hall. The house dripped with wealth – walls panelled in dark wood, floors tiled in clean black and white, all in good taste, all perfectly restrained and impeccably crafted. But it had the feel of a graveyard. The rooms were deserted, the curtains drawn, the furniture covered in white sheets so that each shadowy chamber they passed looked like some kind of forgotten seascape cluttered with icebergs.
Longbottom. Now the name clicked into place. There’d been some kind of incident at Longbottom’s mansion on the Geldstraat last week. The whole place had been cordoned off and crawling with stadwatch. Regulus had heard rumours of a dragon pox outbreak, but even James hadn’t been able to learn more.
“This is Councilman Longbottom’s house,” Regulus said, skin crawling. He wanted no part of a plague, but the schoolmaster and his guards didn’t seem remotely concerned. “I thought this place was under quarantine.”
“What happened here is no danger to us. And if you do your job, Mister Black, it never will be.”
Dumbledore led him through a door and into a manicured garden, thick with the new nectar scent of early crocuses. The smell hit Regulus like a blow to the jaw. Memories of Sirius were already too fresh in his mind, and for a moment, Regulus wasn’t walking through the canal-side garden of a rich merch, he was knee-deep in spring grasses, hot sun beating down on his cheeks, his brother ’s voice calling him home.
Regulus gave himself a shake. I need a mug of the darkest, bitterest coffee I can find, he thought. Or maybe a real punch to the jaw.
Dumbledore was leading him to a boathouse that faced the canal. The light filtering out between its shuttered windows cast patterns on the garden path.
A single city guard stood at attention beside the door as Dumbledore slid a key from his pocket and into the heavy lock. Regulus put his sleeve up to his mouth as the stink from the closed-up room reached him – urine, excrement. So much for spring crocuses.
The room was lit by two glass lanterns on the wall. A group of guards stood facing a large iron box, shattered glass littering the floor at their feet. Some wore the purple uniform of the stadwatch, others the sea green livery of the Longbottom house. Through what Regulus now understood had been an observation window, he saw another city guard standing in front of an empty table and two overturned chairs. Like the others, the guard stood with his arms loose at his sides, face blank, eyes forwards, gazing at nothing. Dumbledore turned up the light on one of the lanterns, and Regulus saw a body in a purple uniform slumped on the floor, eyes closed.
Dumbledroe sighed and crouched down to turn the body over. “We’ve lost another,” he said.
The boy was young, the bare scraps of a moustache on his upper lip.
Dumbledore gave orders to the guard who had let them in, and with help from one of Dumbledore’s retinue they lifted the corpse and took it from the room.
The other guards didn’t react, just continued to stare ahead.
Regulus recognised one of them – Preston Fawley, the captain of the stadwatch.
“Fawley?” he queried, but the man made no response. Regulus waved a hand in front of the captain’s face, then gave him a hard flick on the ear. Nothing but a slow, disinterested blink. Regulus raised his pistol and aimed it directly at the captain’s forehead. He cocked the hammer. The captain didn’t flinch, didn’t react. His pupils didn’t contract.
“He’s as good as dead,” said Dumbledore. “Shoot. Blow his brains out. He won’t protest and the others won’t react.”
Regulus lowered his weapon, a chill settling deep into his bones. “What is this? What happened to them?”
“The Grisha was a Corporalnik serving her indenture with Councilman Longbottom’s household. He thought because she was a Healer and not a Heartrender, he was making the safe choice to test the parem.”
Seemed smart enough. Regulus had seen Lily at work. She could easily rupture people’s cells, burst their heart in your chest, steal the breath from their lungs, or lower their pulse so that they dropped into a coma, all while never laying a finger on them.
If even part of what Dumbledore said was true, the idea of one of them dosed with jurda parem was a daunting proposition. So they had tried the drug on a Healer instead. But apparently things hadn’t gone according to plan.
“You gave her the drug, and she killed her master?”
“Not exactly,” Dumbledore said, clearing his throat. “They had her in that observation cell. Within seconds of consuming the parem, she took control of the guard inside the chamber—”
“How?”
“We don’t know exactly. But whatever method she used, it allowed her to
subdue these guards as well.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it? The brain is just one more organ, a cluster of cells and impulses. Why shouldn’t a Grisha under the influence of jurda parem be able to manipulate those impulses?”
Regulus’ disbelief must have shown.
“Look at these people,” Dumbledore insisted. “She told them to wait. And that’s exactly what they’ve done – that’s all they’ve done since.”
Regulus studied the silent group more closely. Their eyes weren’t blank or dead, their bodies weren’t quite at rest. They were expectant. He suppressed a shiver. He’d seen peculiar things, extraordinary things, but nothing like what he’d witnessed tonight.
“What happened to Longbottom?”
“She commanded him to open the door, and when he did, she ordered him to cut the thumb from his hand. We only know how it all happened because a kitchen boy was present. The Grisha girl left him untouched, but he claims Longbottom carved
away his own thumb, smiling all the while.”
Regulus didn’t like the idea of some Grisha moving things around in his head.
But he wouldn’t be surprised if Longbottom deserved whatever he’d got. During
Ravka’s civil war, a lot of Grisha had fled the fighting and paid their way to Kerch by becoming indentures without realising that they’d essentially sold themselves into slavery.
“The merch is dead?”
“Councilman Longbottom lost a great deal of blood, but he’s in the same state as these men. He’s been removed to the country with his family and the staff from his house.”
“Did the Grisha Healer go back to Ravka?” Regulus asked.
Dumbledore gestured Regulus out of the eerie boathouse and locked the door behind them.
“She may have attempted it,” he said as they retraced their steps through the garden and along the side of the house. “We know she secured a small craft, and we suspect she was headed to Ravka, but we found her body washed up two days ago near Third Harbour. We think she drowned trying to get back into the city.”
“Why would she come back here?”
“For more jurda parem.”
Regulus thought of Benjy’s glittering eyes and waxy skin. “It’s that addictive?”
“It seems to take only one dose. Once the drug has run its course, it leaves the Grisha’s body weakened and the craving is intense. It’s quite debilitating.”
Quite debilitating seemed like a bit of an understatement. The Council of Tides controlled entry to the Ketterdam harbours. If the drugged Healer had tried to return at night in a small boat, she wouldn’t have had much of a chance against the current.
Regulus thought of Benjy’s gaunt face, the way his clothes hung from his body. The drug had done that to him. He’d been high on jurda parem and already greedy for the next dose. He’d also looked ready to keel over. How long could a Grisha go on that way?
It was an interesting question, but not relevant to the matter at hand. They’d arrived at the front gate. It was time to settle up.
“Thirty million kruge,” Regulus said.
Dumbledore cast him a disapproving look. “We said twenty, Mister Black.”
“You said twenty. It’s clear you’re desperate.” Regulus glanced back in the direction of the boathouse, where a room full of men simply waited to die.
“And now I see why.”
“The Council will have my head.”
“They’ll sing your praises once you have Malfoy safely hidden away wherever you intend to keep her.”
Dumbledore’s gaze locked on his. “You’ve seen what this drug can do. I assure you it is just the beginning. If jurda parem is unleashed on the world, war is inevitable. Our trade lines will be destroyed, and our markets will collapse. Kerch will not survive it. Our hopes rest with you, Mister Black. If you fail, all the world will suffer for it.”
“Oh, it’s worse than that, Dumbledore. If I fail, I don’t get paid.”
The look of disgust on the merch’s face was something that deserved its own painting to commemorate it.
“Don’t look so disappointed. Just think how miserable you would have been to discover this canal rat had a patriotic streak. You might actually have had to uncurl that lip and treat me with something closer to respect.”
“Thank you for sparing me that discomfort,” Dumbledore said disdainfully. He opened the door, then paused. “I do wonder what a boy of your intelligence might have amounted to under different circumstances.”
Ask Sirius, Regulus thought with a bitter pang. But he simply shrugged. “I’d just be stealing from a better class of sucker. Thirty million kruge.”
Dumbledore nodded. “Thirty. The deal is the deal.”
“The deal is the deal,” Regulus said. They shook.
As Dumbledore’s neatly manicured hand clasped Regulus’ leather-clad fingers, the schoolmaster narrowed his eyes.
“Why do you wear the gloves, Mister Black?”
Regulus raised a brow. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories.”
“Each more grotesque than the last.”
Regulus had heard them, too.
Black’s hands were stained with blood.
Black’s hands were covered in scars. Black had claws and not fingers because he was part demon. Black’s touch burned like brimstone – a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die.
“Pick one,” Regulus said as he vanished into the night, thoughts already turning to thirty million kruge and the crew he’d need to help him get it. “They’re all true enough.”