“Hi,” the newcomer said finally. “My name’s Tyr. Don’t think I’ve seen you before?”
“No. It’s Vikram.”
“Would you mind coming with me? There’s someone who wants to meet you.” Tyr slung an arm around Vikram’s shoulders and was leading him away before he had a chance to say goodbye. The group looked momentarily surprised, and then reformed as though nothing had happened.
Tyr steered Vikram expertly into the mirrored hallway. It was quiet compared to the fracas inside.
“So, this is the first time you’ve been to one of Adelaide’s parties? What do you think?”
“Good party.” Vikram stayed neutral.
Tyr laughed. “They always are. Now do tell me, Vikram. Which of the krill are you working for? Because you sure as hell don’t belong in here.”
Vikram glanced back through the archway. Two girls had climbed onto the piano and were swaying from side to side as they sung, the weight of their headpieces threatening to unbalance them completely. No-one was paying any attention to him and Tyr.
“I’m not here for any newsreel,” he said. “I’m here to see Adelaide.”
“That’s funny,” said Tyr. “Because you’re not on her guest list.”
“I know that,” Vikram said, wary now. He didn’t know Tyr’s background, but nor did he doubt a stranger’s capacity to throw a punch. He felt his own body tensing in anticipation. There was a growing part of him that would love to get in a fight. “Look,” he said. “I’m from a political reform group. Horizon. I spoke at the Council recently. I just wanted to see Adelaide. To ask if she could help us.”
Tyr stared at him as though he was crazy. “I don’t know who you are, or who you’re working for, but you’re leaving right now.”
“It’s alright, Tyr. He’ll go quietly.”
The voice was at once layered and laden, cold and charged, honey and steel. Composed as it was of so many disparate keys, it had no right to be any one thing. Vikram looked to its source and caught his first glimpse of Adelaide Mystik. She was wearing a dress the colour of clotting blood. It rippled around her body as though she was a strand of seaweed caught by the waves. In her hair were black roses and black lines ringed her green eyes, brilliant in a pale, pointed face.
“Adelaide,” he said. The words clustered on his tongue. He was ready, at that moment, to tell her everything. About Mikkeli, about Stefan, about the other people who were going to die this winter, about the fishing boats and the unremembered quarters, the coldest he’d ever been, and the way the sea sounded at night with the window open in the summer months, fierce but strangely comforting, even about the underwater cell. He was ready to tell her all of this, and despised himself for the impulse, but he could not stop. “I need to talk to you—”
“Yes,” she said, and now her voice was sanitized: stripped of all pretence at kindness. “Thank you for coming. Goodbye.”
The door opened. The doorman beckoned. Adelaide turned away. Vikram glared at the velveted figure, furious with himself, furious with Linus and Linus’s bitch of a sister. Tyr stood with a smile which Vikram could only construe as amusement. With every second that passed he felt his options dwindling. He could fight. He could rage and swear at them. He could get arrested, and spend another few months in jail underwater. He could walk away. Once again, he could walk away.
They were encouraging him towards the latter. It had been so neatly done. Extracting him from the guests, Adelaide bidding a cordial farewell. He wanted to rob them of that victory, to make a mess and a scandal, bring blood to these exquisitely papered rooms. He was longing to break Tyr’s jaw. He saw the other man’s face as a mangled pulp, and was almost shocked by the intensity of his desire to make it happen. Even that would only give them more meat to feed off. He had lost all around.
Outside, he read the gold plated sign on the closed door: Adelaide Mystik, The Red Rooms. He vented a fraction of his frustration on the wall, denting the panelled corridor. The doorman took a step away from his post.
“Don’t,” said Vikram. Something in the expression on his face halted the man, and Vikram walked away.
11 ¦ ADELAIDE
From her hiding place up on the mezzanine, Adelaide surveyed her party critically. The room was full. Hired barmen moved subtly through the red-dressed guests, replenishing cocktail bowls where the tidemarks fell low. Beside her, the DJ was brewing a potent cloud of sound to fuel the dancers. But Adelaide was distracted. There was a man present at her party who was not meant to be here. She knew he was not meant to be here because he was talking to Gudrun, a veteran member of the Haze, and Gudrun looked bemused. Gudrun was never bemused.
Loathe to create an unnecessary scene, she found Tyr chatting to Freya Kess, a tiny girl with a pixie face and hair that descended in corkscrew curls. Adelaide surveyed them dispassionately before interrupting.
“Do you have a minute, Tyr?”
“Nice to see you, as always, Adelaide.” His tone, as usual for their public meetings, was just short of sarcastic.
“Now?” she said imperiously.
“Excuse me.” Tyr turned to Freya, rolling his eyes. He followed Adelaide into the crowd. “What is it?” he said in an undertone.
“We have a gatecrasher.”
“Where?”
“Behind me, by the interior wall, two o’clock.”
His eyes flicked over her shoulder. “Black shirt, terrible hair? Talking to Kristin and Gudrun?”
“That’s the one,” she said. “Do you recognize him?”
“No. You?”
“Not a clue. Do you think he’s dangerous?” With her back to the gatecrasher, Adelaide felt her sense of intrigue rising. The breach in security took her aback though. Her invitations were watermarked like pre-Neon banknotes. They weren’t just quaint; they should be impossible to forge.
“No idea. Looks oddly familiar though. Stay here, I’ll deal with it.”
“Thank you.”
The second that Tyr moved away her attention was claimed by Lilja. Adelaide gave the acrobat a full half of her attention. The other half shadowed Tyr as he approached the stranger and escorted him through the archway. Adelaide excused herself and moved to where she could listen without being seen.
“I’m not here for any media. I’m here to see Adelaide.”
The gatecrasher sounded strange. It was a gruff voice, but hoarse too, she thought. It wasn’t an accent as such — what was an accent nowadays anyway? Everyone spoke Boreal English. Even her grandfather had forsaken his childhood Siberian; she had only ever heard him speak it on those occasions when Axel had asked. She edged closer.
“That’s funny,” Tyr was saying. “Because you’re not on her guest list.”
“I know that.” There was a pause. A new track started and Adelaide strained to hear over the music. Why did this man want to see her? She knew most of the krill by voice if not by sight. She was forever changing her scarab code to evade them.
“Look,” the gatecrasher said. “I’m from a political reform group. Horizon. I spoke at the Council recently. I just wanted to see Adelaide. To ask if she could help us.”
This was unexpected, and disappointing. Of course, it was possible the man was lying, but she sensed not. That was what was bothering her about the voice. It held the unusual ring of truth.