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Anna nodded. “Alastair, you and Thomas are on Watchers and how to fight them. Cordelia—”
“Lucie and I will look into the Downworlders,” Cordelia said. She caught Lucie’s eye and held her gaze intently. “And we’ll figure out how to rescue Matthew and James.”
“That’s all the tasks and all of us,” Ari said. “Funny how quickly things can be accomplished when the rest of the Enclave isn’t here to slow us down.”
“When everything has gone to Hell,” Alastair said, “it focuses the mind rather effectively.”
They all began to speak. Lucie looked over at Cordelia, who remained silent, also watching the rest of them. For the first time in a long time, Lucie felt a bit of hope. Cordelia and I are going to be working together, she thought. And we are going to be parabatai. Even through the chill of the empty city and the daunting tasks ahead, that thought kindled a warmth within her, the first warmth she’d felt since all this business began.
Cordelia and Lucie stuck close to one another as they made their way down Berwick Street. Cordelia could not help but remember the first time she had ever been here, in Soho, with Matthew and Anna. How she had stared around eagerly, taking it all in: the neighborhood bursting with life, naphtha beacons lighting the faces of customers haggling at stalls over everything from china plates to bolts of shining fabric. Laughter spilling from the lighted windows of the Blue Posts pub. Matthew smiling at her in the moonlight, reciting poetry.
How lively and lovely it had been. Now it was eerie. Though it was midday, it was dark, the gas streetlamps unlit: the night before she had seen lamplighters wandering the streets, going through the motions of their jobs, but there had been no lit flames at the ends of their poles. Figures slumped in doorways, many dressed only in rags: shivering Jemmys, they were called in ordinary times, but now they were not shivering. They seemed not to notice the cold, though their fingers and bare feet were blue. Cordelia wished she could throw blankets over all of them, and knew she couldn’t: interfering with the mundanes drew the attention of Watchers, and—as Anna had reminded her and Lucie sternly—the best way to help them was to end Belial’s control of London as soon as possible.
Still. Her heart hurt.
Nearing Tyler’s Court, they came upon an artist with his easel set up on the pavement. He wore a ratty old overcoat, but his paints and palette were fresh. Lucie stopped to look at his easel and winced—the image there was hellish. He’d painted London in ruins, the city on fire, and in the sky above, leathery-winged demons flapping, some with bleeding humans in their talons.
Cordelia was glad to get off the street. They ducked down the narrow aisle of Tyler’s Court, and her heart sank as she saw that the door to the Hell Ruelle hung wide open, like the gaping mouth of a corpse.
“Better draw a weapon,” she whispered, and Lucie slipped a seraph blade from her weapons belt, nodding. Cordelia was armed—she knew it was simply too dangerous not to be—but she had not raised a weapon since she had killed Tatiana. She hoped she would not have to; the last thing she needed now was to summon Lilith forth.
She had half expected, after seeing the open door, to find the Ruelle deserted. To her surprise, once inside, she heard voices coming from the inner part of the salon. She and Lucie moved slowly along the corridor toward the main room of the Ruelle, and paused in shock when they entered.
The room was full of Downworlders, and at first glance the Hell Ruelle seemed to be going on as usual. Cordelia looked around in astonishment—there were entertainers on the stage, and an audience seated at tables before it, seeming to watch the performers avidly. Faeries passed among them, carrying trays on which glasses of red wine rested like flutes of rubies.
And yet. Where normally the walls were covered with art and adornments, all of that was gone. Cordelia did not think she’d ever seen the Ruelle so bare of color and decoration.
She and Lucie began walking carefully toward the stage, which brought them among the crowded tables. Cordelia thought of Alice, disappearing down the rabbit-hole. Curiouser and curiouser. The Downworlders were not watching the performance: they were staring fixedly ahead of themselves, each lost in a separate vision. There was an acrid smell of spoiled wine in the air. Nobody took any notice of Cordelia and Lucie. They might as well have been invisible.
On the stage a strange sort of performance was unfolding. A troupe of actors had assembled there, in mismatched, moth-eaten costumes. They had placed a chair at the center on which sat a vampire. He was dressed as a mundane’s idea of the devil: all red clothing, horns, a forked tail curled around his feet. Before him stood a tall faerie wearing a bishop’s miter and holding a circle of rope, caked with dirt, that had been woven to resemble a crown. The faerie did not look at the vampire but only stared into space, but as they watched, he lowered the crown onto the vampire’s head. After a moment, he took it back off, and then made to crown the vampire a second time. There was a fixed smile on his face, and he was murmuring, almost too quietly to be heard; as they drew closer, Cordelia was able to make out the words. “Sirs, I here present unto you your undoubted king. Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same?”
The vampire giggled. “What an honor,” he said. “What an honor. What an honor.”
The other actors on the stage stood to the side and applauded politely without stopping. From here Cordelia could see their hands, which were red and raw: how long had they been applauding this bizarre coronation? And what was it supposed to mean?
Around the tables, a few Downworlders were upright, but most were slumped over at their seats. Lucie stepped in a puddle of dark liquid and quickly hopped away, but it was too thin to be blood—wine, Cordelia realized, as a faerie waiter wandered by with a bottle, stopping here and there to pour more wine into already-full glasses. The alcohol sloshed and spilled over the tablecloths and onto the ground.
“Look,” Lucie murmured. “Kellington.”
Cordelia had hoped to encounter Malcolm, or even one of the Downworlders who were friendly with Anna, like Hyacinth the faerie. But she supposed Kellington would do. The musician was sitting by himself at a table near the stage, barefoot, his shirt splashed with wine stains. He didn’t look up as they approached. His hair was matted on one side: blood or wine, Cordelia couldn’t tell.
“Kellington?” Cordelia said gingerly.
The werewolf looked up at her slowly, his gold-tinged eyes dull.
“We’re looking for Malcolm,” Lucie said. “Is Malcolm Fade here?”
In a monotone, Kellington said, “Malcolm is in prison.”
Cordelia and Lucie exchanged alarmed looks. “In prison?” Cordelia said.
“He was caught by the Nephilim when he was only a boy. He will never escape them.”
“Kellington—” Lucie started to say, but he droned on, ignoring her.
“When I was a boy, before I was bitten, my parents would take me to the park,” he said. “Later they died of scarlet fever. I lived because I was a wolf. I buried them in a green place. It was like a park, but there was no river. I used to make paper boats and float them on the river. I could show you how.”
“No,” Lucie stammered, “that’s all right.” She drew Cordelia away, her face troubled. “This is bad,” she said quietly. “They’re no better off than the mundanes.”
