“No,” she said. “It’s just us.”
* * *
It was so early that the sun had yet to rise. Dew and fog clung to the streets in front of the abandoned factory in Scar Land, the noise inside piercing through the night’s quiet. Since her first encounter with Lola, Enne hadn’t ventured outside of St. Morse after dark, so she’d grown accustomed to the ever-present loudness of Tropps Street, where dice rattled and drunkards sang no matter the hour. Here in the Factory District, the silence felt almost tangible: heavy and cold.
Lola pushed open the factory’s doors, and the two of them slipped inside.
It was almost as large as a city block, with various stalls and carts clustered in the rows between machinery and conveyor belts. The bustle of the crowd reverberated around the interior, a chorus of haggling and bidding for everything from food to weapons. It smelled of cigarettes and roasted sausage, neither of which appealed to Enne’s unsettled stomach.
A hundred feet or more above their heads, children climbed the rafters and vents as if they were a playground.
“They could fall,” Enne said. She twisted the inside of her dress’s pocket in her fist. The crowds made her claustrophobic, though she’d never felt that way before. Maybe she simply wasn’t used to Scrap Market. Maybe what she called anxiety others called thrill. But a sense of dread imbedded itself in her stomach, and every click of her heels sounded like the loading of a gun.
She shouldn’t have agreed to come.
“Nah, they won’t fall,” Lola answered. “They’re just showing off. Trying to get noticed by the Guild.”
Enne normally would have asked what she meant, but she was too exhausted. Part of her decided that she no longer cared, that this city would always be a mystery no matter how much she attempted to understand it.
“Let’s stop over here first,” Lola said, pointing to a stall covered with huge pieces of fabric and moth-eaten tapestries. “Asking what we’re asking...we might want a bit of anonymity.” She ruffled through the bins of used clothing and fished out a thin black sash. “Here. It almost matches that lipstick you have.”
Enne rubbed the satin between her fingers. The quality was reasonable, and unlike the rest of the clothes, there weren’t any stains or rips.
Lola cut two even holes in the satin with her scalpel knife, then tied it behind Enne’s head.
“Feel good?” Lola asked.
“Sure,” Enne said flatly.
After they paid for the sash, Lola slipped a mask of her own out of her pocket, tied it on and led Enne to another stall. The air around it was so humid from the steam vent nearby that Enne felt like she was breathing sludge. Inside, a man with yellow lips sat on a stool holding a pipe. He wore a glove on one hand, but pieces of hay stuck out of it. In fact, his entire left sleeve was lumpy and thicker than the right.
“He’s got old newspapers he’s willing to sell,” Lola whispered.
“’Lo,” the man greeted them. “Who are you two who look up to no good?”
“My name is—” Enne started, until Lola elbowed her side. Enne reddened, chagrined—masks were useless if they gave away their names. “...we’re customers.”
“Pleasure to meet ya.”
“We’re looking for old newspapers,” Lola said. “Articles by specific journalists.”
“How old we talking?” He set his pipe on the table.
“Ten to twenty years ago.”
“What journalists are you looking for?”
Lola nodded for Enne to speak, and Enne took a deep breath until she found her voice.
“We’re interested in a writer named Séance.” That was the pen name Reymond had told her, the day she’d arrived.
He sucked on his bottom lip. Its yellow color made him look almost inhuman. “Ah, youareup to no good. I used to read the Pseudonyms when I was young and foolish.” He leaned forward. His straw arm remained in the same spot, so with his position, it made his shoulder look detached. “There was Jester—another pen name. Ventriloquist. Nostalgia. Shade.”
“Do you have any of the papers?” Enne asked. She hadn’t realized until now how much she wanted to read one of Lourdes’s articles. Even knowing they had reached their ultimate dead end, and there was no chance they would find her mother alive, she could still learn more about why Lourdes had led her double life, and she could hear the words from Lourdes herself.
It was the closest she would ever get to her mother’s story.
“I might have one that escaped the burnings,” he said.
