The sympathy, the warmth—the guilelessness of her face, as if she wouldn’t know a lie if it bit her. Dead Rick shook his head, backing away again, but he’d run out of space; he ended up in a corner between the wall and a statue’s pedestal. “It don’t matter,” he whispered.
“It matters to your friends. Which is what I used to be. Don’t you remember anything?”
He stared at her: the large eyes, the stubbornly pointed chin, the auburn hair left to fall free of any arrangement. Desperately, he raked through his mind, grasping for anything—even a wisp, the slightest hint of a memory. Anything to tell him that he’d once known this sprite, that he could trust her. That maybe he wasn’t alone.
Nothing.
He didn’t realize he’d said it until her eyes filled with tears. Then she took his head in her hands, and for an instant he tottered on the knife edge of breaking, like a memory dropped onto stone.
With an anguished snarl, he tore himself free, escaping the corner. And found himself staring up at the statue into whose shadow he’d retreated a moment before.
The old-fashioned wig, its curls carefully rendered in marble, made the face beneath look different. Older. But he recognized it, from the sewers beneath London.
The Galenic Academy. Galen St. Clair. The ghost Nadrett had trapped.
“What I came to ask,” Dead Rick said, eyes fixed on that stone face. It was young, and the sculptor had put eternal optimism into the young man’s faint smile. “When I ’elped you out of the Market, I mentioned Nadrett doing something with photography. I saw ’is photographer—a French sprite, Chrennois. Used to be in the Academy, a while back. ’E’s the one as trapped the ghost. Burn my body if I know ’ow it works, but I’ve got to find Chrennois.”
Irrith wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and swallowed, visibly pushing her concern for him to the side. But she is concerned. Ash and Thorn. So that’s what it’s like, to ’ave a friend. “Will you punch me again if I ask whether this has to do with passages to Faerie?”
Dead Rick gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe, though damned if I can see ’ow.”
She nodded, as if that somehow made sense. “All right. Chrennois… I remember. Yvoir hated him. I’m not surprised he went to work for Nadrett; that bastard’s collected more than a few people from the Academy. The nasty ones. I’d assume he’s somewhere in the Goblin Market.”
“I’m looking, but my guess is ’e ain’t there. Nadrett’s keeping ’im somewhere else.”
“Well, he isn’t here, or in Hodge’s court. The night garden?” She frowned. “Or some back corner where no one would think to look. I can—”
She stopped, because the door to the library had opened. Dead Rick whirled again, sinking to a half crouch; his heart instantly began to beat three times as fast. But it was only a mortal, shuffling in with a lost look on his face. From behind him, Irrith spoke, her voice gentled by compassion. “I’m sorry—Feidelm isn’t here. I think she went to talk to Ch’ien Mu.”
The mortal was scarcely more than a boy, only hints of stubble upon his cheeks. The vacancy in his eyes made him look even younger, as if he were an imbecile. And his scent had changed, too; it was contaminated by a thorough faerie stain, losing the markers of his mortal home. But for all of that, Dead Rick recognized him, just as he had the statue.
That boy was the second thing he remembered, in all the world. Right after Nadrett’s face and voice, ordering Dead Rick to go into Whitechapel and steal him away.
The skriker was halfway across the room before he knew he’d moved. The boy cried out wordlessly and fled, running to cower between two of the tall bookcases that stood out from the walls. “Don’t scare him!” Irrith cried, and ran after them both. When she caught up, her steps slowed. “Dead Rick… what is it?”
He was still staring at the boy, who had collapsed into a ball in the deepest shadow he could find. “Where did you get ’im?”
“From the Goblin Market. Amadea bought him off someone there, a year or so ago, out of pity. Do you know him?”
I’m the one as stole ’im. He couldn’t tell Irrith that; bad enough she knew he’d fallen into Nadrett’s grasp, without admitting what the master had forced him to do. “Saw ’im there,” Dead Rick said, which was true enough. “What ’appened to ’im?”
Irrith shook her head, pityingly. “We don’t know. Some kind of botched attempt at a changeling swap, Feidelm thinks. He’s lost more than just his name. Poor lad can’t speak anymore, though he understands us a bit. Latched on to Feidelm like a lost puppy.”
Another Academy Master, a sidhe from Connacht. Dead Rick swallowed. “He’s Irish. From Whitechapel. Probably likes the sound of ’er voice.” He bit his lip, then said, “Is there any way to set ’im right again?”
He didn’t know why he bothered asking. The optimism in the eyes of the statue that watched over them, maybe. But this wasn’t the Goblin Market; if there were such a way, someone would have done it already, out of kindness. He wasn’t surprised when Irrith shook her head again. “Not without knowing what exactly went wrong, and maybe not even then. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”
Whatever had happened, it was probably Nadrett’s doing. There were more than a few broken mortals wandering around his chambers. But that didn’t tell Dead Rick much. “Sorry,” he muttered, and meant it. They were both friends of yours, the voice had told him. It would have been nice to do something for the boy, healing Nadrett’s damage.
“Come on,” Irrith said, drawing him away. “Let’s not scare him any more than we already have.” Any more than Dead Rick already had, though she didn’t say it. Maybe the boy always stared out with such fear; maybe he didn’t remember the skriker after all.
Once they were on the other side of the library, Irrith said, “Chrennois. You said he trapped Galen in a photograph?” He nodded. “Where’s the picture now?”
“With Chrennois, probably.”
“Not with Nadrett?”
“I doubt it,” Dead Rick said slowly, thinking. Nadrett had some photos around his chambers, mostly death portraits of mortals. He doubted his master would keep anything as valuable as the Prince’s ghost where it might so easily be stolen.
Irrith muttered a curse. “Well, more reason to find Chrennois. I’ll ask Yvoir if he has any ideas, but he’s out right now, and I don’t know when he’ll be back. How long can you stay?”
His expression answered that question. Irrith’s face settled into grim lines, that even he could tell were unusual for her. “I see. Let me ask a more useful question, then: What can I do to help you? Other than finding Chrennois.”
“I’m fine,” he said. It sounded thin even to his own ears.
“Of course you are. I could shoot Nadrett, if you like; I’ve been wanting to for years.”
“Ash and Thorn, no!” He might never get his memories back. Those, too, were well hidden. “I’ve got to get back, is all.”
Irrith frowned, but nodded with reluctance. “And secretly, I assume. There’s a side way out of the Academy; ever since last year, one of the passages leads over to near the Hall of Figures. A small gift, from all the changes in this place. It’s useful for sneaking out.”
Outside the library, she led him left, avoiding most of the crowded hall. Dead Rick was both disappointed and grateful. He couldn’t afford to stay, to speak to the fae who had known him before—but he wanted to. It was easier when I didn’t ’ave nothing to remind me, he thought. But he wouldn’t have traded his current pain for that numb despair, not for any price.