The Court of the Air. Stephen Hunt

be embarrassing,’ said the old man. ‘Although I would prefer it if you would stay a while with Molly and myself.’

      ‘If you would like an extra lady, sir, I can arrange that—’ she stopped puzzled. ‘But I told you this girl was called Magdalene…’

      ‘You misunderstand me, my dear. I do not require an extra girl,’ said the old man. A steel blade snicked out of his cane as he slashed it across Justine’s throat. ‘I require one less witness to have seen my face.’

      Choking on her own blood, Justine stumbled and fell dying towards the green felt bell pull, the one they were to use if a patron ever turned violent. The door exploded open and the house whipper was in the room, a police-issue lead cosh in his ham-sized fist. Molly did not wait to see the bruiser closing on the old man; she was rolling off the velvet sheets, eyes darting around for an exit. The sash window had bars across it; the door was open but blocked by the two men; then her eyes fell on the cold fireplace. She had done smaller vents. Before the Blimber Watts tower breach. The memory of the last time she had crawled through a small space hit her. How could she go back to that?

      There was a hacking noise from the whipper. One of his arms had been severed below the elbow, blood fountaining from the stump. The old man’s cane had split into two blades and they traced a strange almost hypnotic dance in front of the shocked bawdyhouse enforcer.

      Maybe it was the rush of leaaf into her system, maybe it was the realization that she was surely going to die in the next few seconds, but Molly was into the fireplace and up the chimneystack as fast as a fox to its warren. The cold weight of the darkness seemed to slip past her, the air sucking her up, her feet defying gravity as they shimmied weightless from brick to brick, her fingers almost too fat now for the child-sized sweep’s holes. Was that a disappointed tutting below her at the fireplace opening? How long before the old man retraced his steps outside and found her again?

      Air, cold, evening. She was on top of the roof, two storeys up. She recognized the skyline – western Sun Gate; one of the big mansions with its own wooded gardens. She slid down the iron drainpipe, each breath a wheeze and with the superhuman speed she had found the grounds flowed past her body. She vaulted fences, raced around a miniature lake; bang bang her hands slapped the wall. She glanced back – the wall was twice as tall as she was. She couldn’t have jumped that. It had to be the leaaf.

      Who in the Circle’s name had that old man been? No, that was the wrong question. He was a topper – as clear as day, he was one of the kingdom’s professional killers for hire. An assassin. The right question was, why had he come into her room? Was Molly the target? Surely not. Damson Snell and her tub-load of ruined laundry were not about to lay good guineas to see young Molly Templar sliced in half. Had he killed someone in one of the other rooms and wanted to make a clean sweep? But neither she nor Justine had heard or seen a thing that night. And he had known Molly’s name when he should not have – and said something about witnesses. Perhaps Justine had been a witness to something she could not be allowed to live to repeat and Molly was the bystander. Surely the killing had not been intended for her?

      Molly could not testify to any crime except the Beadle’s hand out for bribes, and he had taken care of her in his own rotten style by selling her ward papers to Fairborn and Jarndyce. Yet the killer had known her name. Asked for her specifically. That was an expensive way to end a cheap life.

      She was back at the Sun Gate workhouse. Her feet had led her subconsciously to her sad excuse for a home. The hall lantern was off. Everyone would be asleep. She entered the poorhouse with trepidation. Would the Beadle believe her story? With a trail of corpses left behind in Lady Fairborn’s establishment the head of the poorhouse would have no choice. Perhaps Lady Fairborn would cut her losses and throw her out as a Jonah. She had not brought any more luck to the bawdyhouse than she had to the Blimber Watts tower.

      The large double doors to the entrance hall had been left ajar slightly and there was no sign of anyone sitting on the night chair. If the Beadle caught whichever boy or girl it was that had sloped off night duty, they would be for it and no mistake. She turned left and down the rickety wooden stairs to the girls’ dormitory in the basement.

      Strange. It was not past ten yet, only an hour after house curfew; there should have been some cheap tallow candles burning, the orphans reading penny dreadfuls, talking, eating fruit lifted from Magnet Market’s throwaway bins. The room was pitch black, no skylights to the street above. Molly reached for one of the matches and lit a candle.

      Cheap plywood bed frames lay overturned, hemp blankets scattered across the floor. Not just blankets. Molly stood over one of the bundles on the floor, hardly daring to flip the huddle over. She did. Rachael’s cold dead eyes stared back at her.

      ‘Rachael.’ Molly prodded her. ‘Rachael, wake up!’

      She would not be waking.

      Who had done this? The world had gone mad. Toppers breaking into bawdy shops. The same senseless slaughter at the Sun Gate poorhouse.

      ‘Molly.’ A voice sounded from the linen chest. Something moved under the blankets. It was Ver’fey, the craynarbian girl. She was wounded, one of the orange shell-plates of her crab-like armour shattered above the shoulder.

      ‘Ver’fey! Your shoulder…’ Molly ran to her. ‘For the love of the Circle, what happened here?’

      ‘Men,’ coughed the craynarbian. ‘They came dressed as crushers from the ninth precinct, but they were no con stables, I knew at once.’

      She should know. Half of Middlesteel’s police force was craynarbian; their tough exo-skeletons made them natural soldiers and keepers of parliament’s peace.

      ‘They did this?’

      ‘They were looking for you, Molly.’

      ‘Me?’

      Ver’fey sat down on the chest, exhausted. ‘Rachael told them that the Beadle had sent you off somewhere, but he wouldn’t tell any of the rest of us where you were. Just said you’d finally got the job you deserved. One of the men thought Rachael was lying and started laying into her with his Sleeping Henry. They just beat her to death in front of us. We tried to stop them; that was when they gave me this.’ She pointed to her broken shoulder plate.

      ‘Where are all the others?’ Molly looked around the dormitory.

      ‘Took them,’ sobbed the craynarbian. ‘Took them all. The boys too.’

      ‘Why?’ said Molly. ‘What would they want with us?’

      ‘Better you ask what they wanted with you, Molly. It was you they were after. What have you done, Molly?’

      ‘Nothing that the rest of you weren’t up to,’ spat Molly. ‘None of this makes any sense.’

      ‘Perhaps it’s your family?’

      ‘What family?’ said Molly. ‘You are my bleeding family.’

      ‘Your blood family,’ said Ver’fey. ‘Perhaps they’re rich. Rich and powerful enough to hire a gang of toppers. Some father who’s just found out he has an unwanted bastard and is out to simplify the act of inheritance.’

      Molly grimaced. Simplifying the act of inheritance was Jackelian slang for leaving an unwanted child on the poorhouse doorstep. Ver’fey’s theory had the ring of truth to it. She had never once felt wanted in her life, but this was preposterous. Perhaps her mother had abandoned her at Sun Gate out of love after all, out of fear of what might happen to her if her father found out he had sired a bastard

      ‘Come on old shell.’ Molly helped Ver’fey out of her hiding place. ‘They’ve cleared off. Best we do likewise, before someone comes back.’

      ‘You could come with me to Shell Town,’ said Ver’fey. ‘Hide out.’

      ‘Unless you can fix me up with armour and an extra pair of arms, I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb in Shell Town. You’d be in danger every minute I was with you.’

      ‘But where