I pressed a hand over my nose. My eyes were really beginning to sting.
Rory was staggering. “Poison!” he choked out.
“Move,” said Eurig. “The fumes will kill us.”
I pulled down the latch and opened the window. The winter air hit like a blast. A crow sat on the peak of the roof opposite. I was so sure it was watching me that I could not move.
Bee pushed past me and out the window. Shaking myself, I followed. We chivvied to the right around the chimneys and out of sight of the lane. Across a warren of roofs, it was possible to see the river embankments and docks crowded with vessels. A massive flock of crows wheeled in the sky.
“Look!” Bee’s fingers tightened painfully on my arm.
A fire blazed on the wide pewter expanse of the Solent River.
Greasy smoke billowed. Ripples of heat rolled upward against a dawn sky made dank and low by clouds. A hulk anchored beyond the docks was burning with fiery abandon.
“Isn’t that a prison ship, Cat? All those people chained in the holds must be trapped.”
Rory crawled into sight, wheezing. Eurig slouched after, dragging the bags.
Upriver, a sloop flying the prince of Tarrant’s ensign flowed into view. The deck was covered with uniformed men, some in clusters around the guns, others with swords, pikes, and crossbows ready to board.
Eurig shaded his eyes. “They mean to sink the hulk. Follow me.”
Bee released my hand. “They’ll let the prisoners burn? Or drown?”
He cast her a disgusted look. “Of course they will. That’s the plague ship.”
“A plague ship?” I stared at him. “What plague?”
“The salt plague.”
“The salt plague never left West Africa. It can’t cross water or survive the desert.”
He laughed in a coarse way that made me blush with shame. “Of course it can cross water. In a ship. That’s how our noble prince keeps agitators in line. There’s a cage of salters on that hulk. A political prisoner gets put in that cage, and he will get bit. The plague will infest his blood, and he will become a salter just like the others. He’ll crave salt and blood as his mind and body rot.”
Bee’s fingers closed over my forearm, grip tightening as Eurig took a step closer.
By the tension in his shoulders and the cant of his head, he meant us to feel intimidated. “My sweet lasses, there is no cure for the salt plague. And every person who is bit gets infested and becomes a salter in their turn. It would be better to be dead. So don’t wonder why we send those salters to rest at the bottom of the tide where they can’t bite us. Scarred Hades! Get down!”
A corner of Ticking Lane was visible between two chimneys. Horsemen rode past. We ducked, then crawled to where a sloped plank gave access to a higher roof. We climbed up, but once there, Rory vomited a vile spew that, horribly, had the slimy remains of feathers in it.
“Just…need…moment…rest,” he murmured, sinking to hands and knees.
“You’re turning green,” said Bee as I covered my mouth and nose with a hand. “You scout ahead. I’ll stay with Rory and the bags.”
Wincing with distaste, Eurig was eager to lead the way over the uneven rooftop with its chimney pots, then up steps to a wide ledge boasting a decorative wrought-iron bench, as if people sat up here. We looked over the rebuilt warrens. Trolls in pairs and threes, never singly, hurried through interconnected lanes and alleys, intermixed with men and women carrying goods on their heads or backs. One of the trolls cocked its feather-crested head, spotting us but moving on. Two bright-plumaged trolls leaned out an attic window several houses down, looking toward the conflagration. A woman hanging out washing had paused to stare at the disaster out on the water.
A voice from an unseen watcher cried out: “Militia in the warrens! Bloody Romans, too. And mage House soldiers! Quick, lads, stow the rifles.”
“Get down!” snapped Eurig. “Anyone might see you.”
I stepped behind a chimney as he tugged open a trapdoor. We descended steep steps through an attic crammed with crates, baskets, and sealed ceramic jars. The floor below had no walls, only support pillars. Mirrors fragmented me into a hundred pieces: etched mirrors, hand mirrors, bronze mirrors, mercury mirrors, all hanging from the beams or propped on racks or braced on stands. Among them, displayed on a maze of shelving, lay gleaming objects of every shape and size: polished gold bracelets, bowls of metal gears, glass pipettes sealed over liquid mercury, steel blades, a flintlock rifle recently oiled. The shadow threads that bind the world seemed to have caught in the maze, tangling through my head. A discordant melody echoed faintly through the maze, the disharmony making my temples pound.
