"Pay particular attention to shadows," Kichlan lectured me. The others were a good five strides ahead, talking among themselves. Mizra gestured wildly and Lad nearly fell to the icy flagstones in a paroxysm of laughter. "Dark in colour, debris is easy to miss in the shadows. We do not collect at night for this reason. Unless, of course, in an emergency."
"Of course."
Mizra waved his hands in the air, and now Uzdal was laughing too. Even Natasha let out a soft chuckle. Lad whooped, the sound echoing. A face peered down from a slit of a window, high up in the flat, unpainted cement wall. I glanced up to see an old man, hair thinning and face heavily lined, scowling as we trooped past.
"Mizra," Kichlan called. When the young man turned around Kichlan made gestures over his mouth, then pointed at Lad. Mizra shrugged, only to be rewarded with a clenched fist. Finally, Mizra nodded, and the laughter ceased.
Seemed a pity to me.
"Where was I?" Kichlan clasped his hands behind his back, and lifted his head. He could have passed easily for a university lecturer striding along like that. All he needed was a black cape and a bear's claw pinned to his breast.
"You were telling me about emergencies," I said, At least emergencies sounded interesting.
"Remember to wear your uniform all the time."
"So you said."
"Even at night."
I balked. "At night?"
"I told you to wear it all the time, Tanyana. And I mean it. If you are called to an incident at silentbell what will you do? Trust me, you won't be given time to dress." And then, Other's beard, the bastard sneered at me. "When the call comes-"
All the time? That was ridiculous. "How will I know if there's an incident when I'm snug in my own bed and sound asleep?" And how did he expect me to reach that state of sound asleepness wrapped in a hot, hard, second skin?
"I was trying to tell you." He tapped at his wrist. "You'll know."
The suit then. I couldn't get away from it, could I? Not at home, not in my sleep, not anywhere or any time. "Fine."
"Good." Kichlan was silent for a moment. "Should be easy for a skilled ex-binder like you to work out."
"Great." My left knee was starting to hurt.
We trekked further. More small windows opened, letting in the crisp morning air. Wet clothes and bedding were hung on wire strung between them. People stepped out into the streets. Men dressed in dark suits with smallbrimmed hats tucked tightly over their ears. Women in wide skirts, heavily layered, rustled against the flagstones in rose pinks, wildflower cream and bright sky blue. Their hands were wrapped in muffs of fur dyed to match the colour of lace hemming or glimpsed underskirt. Some wore thick hats, wide enough to keep the sun from delicate skin but low enough to protect their ears, but most donned more elaborate versions of my own: tight around the head, topped with soft moleskin and rimmed with fur.
I tugged at the lapel of my unfitted, tailored-for-a-man jacket. I played with the ends of my short-cropped hair.
"Now do you see what I mean?" Sofia hung back from the others to grace me with a self-righteous smile. "You really don't fit in, do you?"
I supposed that was a bad thing. "I don't see you dressed up like some oversexed flower waiting for the bee."
Ahead of us, Mizra let out a raucous laugh that had Lad quickly following suit. Sofia scowled. "I look like a woman of my station. You should try it sometimes." She hurried forward to smack Mizra on the back of the head.
I decided it was easier to hold my tongue than argue the point.
We didn't get much further from the Keeper that day. We wound our way through small alleys and side streets, squeezing through gaps in wooden fences, climbing a few stunted iron railings and opening rusty gates with hinges that screamed to wake the Other. I supposed it was intentional, this keeping out of the way. Away from people, away from the thoroughfares, away from space and sunlight and open sky. Because debris kept to the corners, Kichlan said, because the passage of coaches, of people, could sweep it away like dust. I didn't believe him. I was convinced, as I strained to squeeze through a cracked iron gate that refused to open any further, that the collectors were not following debris. They were avoiding people.
Then Lad, out in front and pushing along nicely despite his size, stopped. Mizra ran into his back – the experience a lot like I imagined walking into a wall would look like – and hurried to step away, expression apprehensive.
The team wrapped themselves in tense silence, all at once. I glanced from face to face, but all attention was reserved for Lad. The big man cupped his hand to his ear. Listening. He nodded, to no one in particular, and started abruptly down a different alleyway.
"Quickly." Kichlan grabbed my elbow and dragged me with him. "Once he's found it there's no slowing him, no stopping him."
I tripped on what was left of the gate and allowed myself to be half-carried, half-dragged into the alley. The stench of cat piss made me gag, while Kichlan's grip jarred into my shoulder. I struggled upright, and started running, finally able to shake him off. "Found what?" I panted behind him.
He spared me a glance, disbelieving. "Debris, of course."
I couldn't see anything, not even the Other-forsaken sludge I was stepping in. Even if the whole alleyway was teeming with dark, wiggly worms of debris I wasn't sure I would see it.
Lad turned a corner, Mizra and Uzdal close behind. Sofia, with a kerchief pressed against her nose, and Natasha, expression ugly with disgust, were a step behind them. Kichlan, probably impatient with my slow, limping run, nearly missed the bend.
"How does he know where it is?" I asked, trying to breathe through my mouth and talk at the same time. Anything to lessen the smell.
Kichlan grabbed my arm again and forced me to match his pace. His face was lit bright with flashes of sunlight and a wild smile. Somewhat mad, somewhat alarming, but alive. And proud. "He's Lad." The grin caught me and dragged out a smile of my own. "That's enough, isn't it? He's Lad. He knows."
We halted at a dead end. Roughly fired clay bricks – ugly and dark and made, I guessed, of ungainly or reluctant pions – stretched upward in a wall so high it blocked the Keeper from view. I peered at the soles of my shoes as the others shuffled aimlessly, moving boxes of rotting wood aside, lifting the worn-away edge of what was once a drainpipe and flinching back from whatever hid there. I touched an adjacent wall, just as ugly, for balance as I tipped my foot up. I had definitely stepped in something far below savoury.
Lad stood at the dead end, shoes swimming in scummy liquid. His face was hard to see in the dim alley, but what muted and grey light did penetrate it showed his lips moving slowly, his voice so quiet it was lost in a distant and incessant drip. Almost, I thought to myself, like he was talking to pions. What a strange and ridiculous thought.
Kichlan said nothing, only watched his brother. I put my foot down and leaned against the wall, just as Lad spun toward me.
"Look out!" he cried, and lunged forward as the wall gave way. His large hands fumbled with mine; I grabbed air and slippery palms but could hold onto neither. I fell backwards, into a putrid puddle of water, as a heavy shower of bricks rained down on me.
I scrambled desperately, hands beating at the falling bricks, feet slipping and kicking for purchase. And just as suddenly as the wall had collapsed, the stones stopped falling on my head. I opened my eyes to a semicircular dome of silver that wrapped around me, that shielded me from the rest of the wall.
What, by the Other's own hells, was that?
"Tanyana!" Kichlan yelled, voice muted through the silver ceiling and the Other only knew how much rock. After a breathless moment I heard scraping and the clattering of stones, then tapping.