The Crimson Road E-Book

A.G. Slatter

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 498

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A captivating dark gothic fantasy set in the same universe as the award-winning author's All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns and The Briar Book of the Dead. A tale of vampires, assassins, ancient witches and broken promises, perfect for readers of Alix E. Harrow, Hannah Whitten and Alexis Henderson. Violet Zennor has had a peculiar upbringing. Training as a fighter in underground arenas, honing her skills against the worst scum, murderers and thieves her father could pit her against, she has learned to be ruthless. To kill. Until the day Hedrek Zennor dies. Violet thinks she's free – a rich young heiress with a world of possibilities in front of her. Then, to her horror, Violet learns that her father planned to send her into the Darklands, where the Leech Lords reign. Where Violet's still-born brother was taken years ago after Hedrek sold him to a man bearing the mark of the mysterious Anchorhold. Her father's solicitor and the city's bishop are insistent she fulfil her duty, but Violet steadfastly refuses. Until one night two assassins attempt to slaughter her – and it becomes clear: if she wants to enjoy a future free of the interference of either solicitors, bishops or assassins, she's going to have to clean up the mess her father made. On her journey, Violet seeks the help of Miren O'Malley in the hidden estate of Blackwater, whose family once produced the purest, strangest silver; Ellie Briar of Silverton, the Briar Witch who guards the gateway to the realm of the Leech Lords; and Asher Todd of Whitebarrow, who did terrible things and found The Three Who Went Beneath. Ultimately, Violet must go alone. Into the Darklands. To the Anchorhold where it all began. Where it will all end. To do what must be done. By turns gripping and bewitching, sharp and audacious, this mesmerising story takes you on a journey into the dark heart of Slatter's sinister and compelling fantasy world, where blood is currency and magic is a weapon.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

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Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

PRAISE FORTHE CRIMSON ROAD

“Deftly weaving the threads of her previous novels into a tapestry all its own, . . . part fantasy adventure, part dark fairytale, and all sharp teeth as the latest of her bright, fierce heroines is forced to grapple with the bonds of family, legacy, and love in order to save her world.”

Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch’s Heart and The Weaver and the Witch Queen

“A rich and decadent world where mystery waits around every bend, and darkness lurks just beneath the surface. Dark family secrets abound in a perfect blend of Gothic and fairy-tale fiction – Slatter knocks it out of the park once again.”

A.C. Wise, author of Wendy, Darling and Hooked

“Angela Slatter continues to tantalise us with a further glimpse into her intricate and thrilling world of interconnected tales. Another beguiling tale from an author at the height of her powers.”

Lucy Holland, author of Sistersong and Song of the Huntress

“A.G. Slatter has a unique gift for balancing light and dark in the fairy-tale gothic. The result is a deliciously sinister fantasy world, with vampire-slaying heroines to rival Buffy, witches who pay a bloody price for their magic, and heiresses who uncover secrets lurking in their family trees – but it’s also a world so full of unexpected cosiness, warmth and delight that every Halloween lover will want to curl up in it.”

Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces and Where the Dead Wait

“The Crimson Road delivers heart-pounding gothic adventure, a glittering world of mystery and menace, and a formidable heroine.”

Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia

“I adored returning to Angela Slatter’s Sourdough world. Violet's journey to the mysterious Darklands revealed some delightfully familiar faces, as well as some truly frightening new ones. A tale filled with adventure, danger, loyalty, love and family secrets – readers will love sinking their teeth into this one!”

Kell Woods, author of After the Forest and Upon a Starlit Tide

Also from A.G. Slatter and Titan Books

ALL THE MURMURING BONES

THE PATH OF THORNS

THE BRIAR BOOK OF THE DEAD

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The Crimson Road

Print edition ISBN: 9781803364568

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803364575

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: February 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© A.G. Slatter 2025. All rights reserved

A.G. Slatter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To my niece Meghan May, to paraphrase Gandalf:A family, like a wizard, is never late, but alwaysarrives when we most need it. It’s an absoluteprivilege to have you in my life.

Up, up, up.

No, further north.

A little more north.

There!

You see?

That tiny part of the map? Not entirely snow and ice, but the summers are short and spring lasts no more’n a day or two. Nights are long and that’s how they like it.

A little nation it is, barely a county but oh-so-significant. Dangerous. Some small towns, mostly villages set around the estates. A few cities – those that have managed to grow despite the nature of their overlords. Some know the value of carefully husbanding resources. Others are more… voracious.

Cities, yes. Like Caulder – or Calder, depending upon your origins and education – or The Spire or Fredegund’s Ruin. Vibrant places, industrious and industrial. Then there’s The Bowery and St Xenia by the Tower – neither of which you wish to see. Both are slaver cities, where human cattle are bought and sold, as serfs and food.

But the place that concerns you, Violet?

Here. It’s barely marked – just that tiny x – faded now, this is an old map stuck in these pages. This is the spot.

Anchor-hold.

The Anchorhold.

Where, it’s whispered, it all began.

Where it will all end.

[FROM THE JOURNAL NOTES OF HEDREK ZENNOR,GENTLEMAN OF ST SINWIN’S, WRITTEN TO HISDAUGHTER AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS FINAL FEVER]

1

The pillow feels solid, weighty, like it can do damage.

My own hands, clawed around it, are age-spotted and thin. I think, This can’t be right, then the thought leaves my mind and I’m back to the task, grip so tight I can feel each thread in the cambric pillowcase, every delicate structure in the feather stuffing. Standing, looming, my thighs pressed against the mattress, my talons descending.

The pillow over my father’s face, obscuring his withered features, hollow cheeks and eyes, the greying stubble, the lips canyoned by desiccation, the hair still surprisingly thick and mostly honey-coloured. Some days I forget he was only nineteen when he sired me, hardly a man. Over forty now, but looking twenty years beyond that. And in this moment, this second, moving, moving more than he has these past weeks, surprisingly strong, the wriggles, the jerks, heels drumming the bed, nails tearing at me or trying to but unable to get past this fluffy, fluffy pillow. The noises, not quite loud enough for anyone to hear, not even Mrs Medway were she to traverse the corridor of the second floor of our house. I push down harder and harder, feel his struggles lessen, become shudders then tremors, the muffled protests, dying away until there’s no longer any indication of life.

A sense of relief shoots through me like fresh blood – and I wake with a start.

Still in the chair beside Father’s sickbed, the distance between us several yards, the same as when I went to sleep. No disarrayed bedsheets. No pillow in my hands, hands that are nothing like those in the dream; these are white and plump, unblemished by anything except some few small scars where I’ve been careless with weapons in training. Breathing fast, heartbeat staccato. My neck and back are stiff from dozing upright, the book I was reading lies on the floor – was its hitting the polished wood what woke me? Perhaps not. Perhaps there was no sound at all.

I glance to the bed again, the hangings removed from its four-posted glory some days ago when my father shouted that they smothered him. It’s bare but for the form lying in the middle of the mattress. Nothing out of place, no sign of a struggle.

But Hedrek Zennor no longer breathes.

*   *   *

My father’s death came as a surprise only in the time it took to occur.

He’d been ill in varying degrees for years; indeed, I can barely remember a time when he wasn’t ailing. His survival was the thing to make folk remark; they didn’t know what burned inside of him. I did not help him along even though there were days I yearned to do so. Lady Death put her gentle hand on him with no aid from me. That I dreamed his death, my own responsibility for it, was mere coincidence. Yet I can’t help but feel something’s lodged in my bones, some coldness carried by the violence of my hatred for him, that I would dream of bringing his end.

Or perhaps it’s merely the chill of the day, unseasonal for this part of spring. Or perhaps it’s the heavy rain sweeping across the cemetery lawn down the slope that leads to the cliff, water cascading over the edge and into the misery-wracked sea. Most of the other mourners (quite the number but generally stickybeaks and look-sees) have given up, leaving immediately after the service in St Sinwin’s cathedral. Only a small band of diehards remain: those of us with no choice and those who think they’ll benefit from staying.

Despite the enormity of the Zennor fortune, my father has been laid to rest in a slim grey mausoleum where my mother has waited all these years. A simple final place. The cathedral is a magnificent thing, the entire wall behind the altar made of stained glass (a glory, a true wonder) but its uniqueness doesn’t really allow for anyone to be buried in its walls lest the vibrations cause fractures. And the crypt beneath the flagstone floor is reserved for ecclesiastics. We’ve not been a rich family long enough to justify anything larger, although I’m sure Father would have had one built, had there been more years left to him; Hedrek Zennor, despite his illnesses, didn’t think death would come for him quite yet. He had other matters on his mind. And I? I lack the inclination to raise a greater memorial than currently exists.

Bishop Walter looks like a wet, bald raptor, raindrops sluicing the few remaining hairs on his head down towards his collar. His purple silk robe, embroidered with gold and silver, studded with gems along the ermine collar, is soaked, a cat dropped in a well. Not a one of his attendants has an umbrella over him or themselves, either a dearth of planning or the belief that nothing should come between this last office and the Lord Above. Walter’s voice, which is a deep baritone and rather fine for sermons and psalms, quavers with the cold.

‘We commit the last remnants of Hedrek Zennor to this sacred earth. He will find himself in the Halls of the Lord and be welcomed by His mercy. Remember him in your prayers, and now you may all go in peace.’

Beside me Mrs Medway, more prepared than a legion of god-hounds, holds an umbrella above us both, a very large one, that keeps trying to catch the wind and fly away. My housekeeper is determined, though, and I’d not bet against her even in a contest with the elements. She’s got her other hand around my arm; I know it’s for comfort, but a voice in my head claims it’s for ballast, to hold her down. Around us are gathered, in no particular order of favour or otherwise, Junius Quant (banker), Titus Pendergast (solicitor), Talwyn Enys (the Harbour Mistress), Jack Seven-Gates (my childhood friend, once a source of comfort), six bedraggled god-hounds, and three other men whose names I cannot recall but are likely to present themselves at some inopportune moment as potential future husbands. Women are not fool enough to stand in the rain on a day such as this, and I’ve no doubt several will pay visits at my home in the weeks to come. A groundskeeper, grizzled and impatient, awaits our departure.

Mr Pendergast raises his feathery grey eyebrows in my direction and I nod wearily. Yes, yes, I know. He moves off, sharing an umbrella with Quant; Talwyn pats my shoulder as she passes and my knees almost buckle with the heft of her hand; Walter and his protégés follow suit to make their way back towards the sprawling white-painted rectory that sits alongside the cathedral. I watch them all go, then return my attention to the mausoleum as the groundskeeper closes the burnished copper doors. I don’t know what I’m expecting: an apology echoing out the narrowing gap, perhaps. From my father for his treatment of me, from my mother for leaving me with him.

Instead, there’s Jack’s voice, saying my name. ‘Violet. Violet. Are you—’

I nod, dragging my gaze away from the now-closed doors, the groundsman putting the key in my gloved palm, and notice how very well-dressed Jack is. He’s always loved clothes, but these seem even more elegant than usual, albeit standard grief-stricken black. ‘Yes, Jack. I’m well enough.’

He grips my hand, looks at me sadly. ‘I do have to go, Violet, Mother will—’

‘Of course. Thank you for coming.’ I sound so formal, try to fix that: ‘Come by later, Jack? Tomorrow?’

‘I’ll try,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Violet.’

I hope he’ll succeed; I’d welcome the chance to chat or even sit in companionable silence. He turns away, hat held down over his auburn curls, charcoal umbrella flapping, and trudges to the lychgate of the churchyard, thence to the cobbled streets that will take him into town, back to his mansion, newly purchased to replace the one that burned down just gone two years ago.

‘Well now, my girl. It’s just us.’ Mrs Medway squeezes my arm, speaks gently.

‘Yes.’ Just us. All the other staff dismissed, with excellent bonuses and references, not because they’d done anything wrong but because they were my father’s choices. Mrs Medway said not to hurry about getting anyone because the beekie – the little hearth hobgoblin – would take care of things for the moment. All the cleaning done as long as he’s properly compensated with extra milk and bread left out each night and a glass of rum on holydays. I’ve never seen him (though gods know I would sneak down and try as a child until Mrs M caught me and told me if he’s seen he’ll depart and take all our luck with him – or worse, become destructive. My mother would tell me tales too, of how the only way to calm one down, perhaps keep him from leaving, was to give him whatever was in your pocket.). When there are new servants, he’ll go back to just doing the small things, like stacking the firewood, collecting the cream off the milk, churning the butter, but he’ll need to be told there are new folk coming, that there’s no harm in it, no criticism or complaint. That they’re here to help him.

As I think about the empty house I feel something lift from me. The weight of my father and the life he put me through. The constant study and training, the tests physical and mental, the sense that no matter what I did it was never good enough. Hedrek Zennor’s gone, and I will have a life that I choose. I will refuse his plans, his wishes. And there’s not a thing he can do about it.

Pulling the fob watch from my pocket to check the time – almost six – I sweep the bone orchard with one last stare. Then I turn my back on the mausoleum, and drag Mrs Medway along until she matches my stride. She’ll be anxious to check on her birds in their dovecot, make sure they’re settled before night proper closes in.

The light is fading as we leave the churchyard – a late funeral for Hedrek – and at first I don’t see the figure at the gate. When I do, I think for a moment it’s Jack or one of the others, doubled back, but it becomes quickly obvious that it’s not. A man in a long, dirty cloak, face obscured by a scarf, but the knife in his hand very clear even in the dusk. He lunges at us – at me – and Mrs Medway knows what to do.

She steps away, gives me room to move. I bring my hand down and grab the man’s wrist, pulling it and the knife past me, tightening my grip and digging into the pressure points. The man curses and drops the blade. Twisting, I try to knee him in the groin, but he jerks aside and I make contact with his thigh, which is effective enough. He grunts and staggers, then limp-runs out the gate. He rights himself and gives me one last look, calculated despite the harm I’ve done him, then spins to bolt away. I scoop up the dagger from the ground and throw it. It hits the target just as he’s about to round a corner – there’s a thud and a bleat. My aim’s not as good as I’d like because it gets him high in the shoulder and he keeps going, disappears just as the sun drops. Perhaps he’ll crawl off and die somewhere. I’m disinclined to go after him.

‘Gods!’ shouts Mrs Medway. ‘Those thieves are bold. Can’t a body bury their family without being attacked? That Constable’s not earning his money – they’re getting worse.’

‘He didn’t fight like a footpad, Mrs M. Fought like a soldier.’

‘That sort return from wars and become thieves too. Not all are heroes.’ She gives me a once-over, nods approvingly. ‘Not a sweat broken, not a hair out of place. Your father would be proud, Miss Violet.’

Those aren’t words I’m longing to hear from anyone, and I know they’re untrue. Hedrek would somehow know that my knees are shaking beneath my plain ebony skirts, that the adrenaline’s leaving me as fast as it arrived, and I’d like to be already collapsed in front of the fire with a glass of winter-lemon whiskey or buttered port rather than negotiating a path home beneath the dancing flames of the streetlights.

‘That’s as may be, but I’ve had enough for one day. When we get home, send a message to Mr Pendergast and tell him I’ll not be attending at his practice this evening. He’ll see me first thing in the morning, whether he likes it or not.’

Mrs Medway knows better than to contradict me, and she’s got no love for my father’s friends; nor for my father, but I think she stayed all those years because of me. She contents herself with saying, ‘You showed him,’ and I’m not sure if she means Titus Pendergast or the would-be robber. There is a satisfaction, in spite of everything, at having prevailed. Still and all, I’m cautious as a cat while we make our way from the cemetery, pausing at the mouths of alleys and avoiding unlit cut-throughs.

2

St Sinwin’s is a sloping sort of town; built on a hillside that feeds down to the harbour, the entire place has a vague air of sliding into the sea. Locations like the port-city of Breakwater are flatter, the surrounding hills gentler. But we cling here nevertheless, a determined mix of fisherfolk, sailors, merchants, sea captains and the occasional ‘retired’ pirate (once they were all gone, hunted to near-extinction, but some hardy types are taking back to the old ways), families rich and poor, the god-hounds, thieves and bankers, doctors and lawyers, craftsfolk. It’s pretty: buildings painted white and blue, the occasional pink, although those closer to the docks are faded, often in disrepair. Higher up, are the mansions of stone and imported exotic wood, a curve of them almost like a battlement in case of attack. Most of the cobbled streets wind back and forth to combat the worst effects of gravity – no one wants a goods cart or fine carriage careening off and collecting who-knows-how-many lives on its way.

The inhabitants are a canny lot, figuring out the shortest, smoothest ways to get wherever they’re going – not lazy, no, but practical – and there’s a brigade of muscular lads and lasses who carry palanquins up and down for those with coin to spare. There are five main ‘spokes’ that lead from the city gates above, all the way down to the maritime heart of our town; wooden benches are set at convenient rest points for visitors and the elderly. Lots along these major arteries are highly sought after for businesses wanting visibility. Running between the spokes is a network of thoroughfares of varying width, popularity and usage; mostly residential. I suspect it was all meant to form a tidy grid system, but urban planning seldom survives encounters with people’s desires for bigger houses or smaller, combining structures to create warehouses, splitting others up for tenements, inserting gardens for contemplation and seduction, sinking wells and ornamental ponds.

Pendergast & Associates is roughly halfway up or halfway down, depending on your perspective, and has a clear view to the waters of the harbour, the ships moored there and all the busy little ants rushing hither and yon loading and unloading, clattering across the docks, swaying along gangways, swarming up rigging. It’s a well-respected establishment, three solicitors, one of whom is Mr Pendergast’s daughter, the other his son-in-law. The rooms are surprisingly light and airy, quite ruining the expectation that a legal office should be gloomy and dust-ridden. None of that means it’s a pleasure to visit, and I’ve spent many hours of my life here learning about contracts and crime as part of my very specific educational curriculum as defined by Father. When Father came into his fortune some thirteen years ago and found himself in need of legal guidance, none of the fancier firms would take his business. Walter (a mere deacon then) referred him to Titus, who tends to any finances the now-bishop doesn’t want known to the Church.

I’ve known Titus Pendergast, Esq., more than half my life and he and Walter were always kinder than my father, insistent but not cruel, or not excessively, so you’d think he might have had some inkling about my feelings, might have expected my reaction to his reading of the will. Yet Titus, who is now staring across his desk at me and saying, ‘But, Violet, you must,’ apparently did not.

‘But I shan’t. My father controlled me in life, he will not continue to do so in death.’ It’s all I can do not to grind my teeth.

‘You really must, Violet.’ He leans forward, elbows on the desktop, fingers clasping each other in a desperate steeple. ‘This was the mission he set for you, for which he ensured you were trained. There’s so much at stake. Your father was very determined.’

‘My father was very determined, certainly. He was also manic and obsessive, driven by demons and haunted by phantoms. We’re both aware, Titus, he was not well in his mind.’ I lean forward in the uncomfortable leather seat, tap on the blotter pad with a sharp pink nail. ‘There are Leech Lords, yes. But they are confined in the Darklands. They cannot get out. There is a border and it is held.’

He makes a gesture which says he concedes the point. ‘But he intended—’

‘Wasn’t it enough? What he did to me? Haven’t I suffered enough pain and anguish? Do you really think I am going to undertake a journey to the north, find the Anchorhold, find my brother – his corpse! – and then what?’

The sunlight from the window shines down on his silver fluff of hair and highlights the beads of sweat on his brow. I slump back into my chair.

‘Violet, there is more than you—’

‘I wish to know nothing more! I repeat, Titus: my father controlled my life. He’s not going to continue to do so in death.’

‘Violet, it is critical. There’s too much at stake for you to be childish about—’

My voice thins to a stiletto blade: ‘It’s preposterous, what he wants. All his mad fancies trying to bind me from beyond the grave. And you should be ashamed to be helping!’

And he does hang his head.

‘Then I believe we are done, Mr Pendergast.’

‘But—’

I raise a finger.

‘We. Are. Done.’ I rise, rearrange my long black mourning skirts (embellished with jet beads), straighten the ladylike gloves, hang the beaded velvet reticule and silk fan at my wrist, adjust my ridiculously tiny silk hat, and give the solicitor a brief brittle smile. ‘Please arrange for the transfer of the house title, of all his properties and all funds from his bank accounts into my own. I have let all the staff go except for Mrs Medway’ – I want to choose my own household – ‘so please ensure that Father’s bequests to them are made as soon as possible. Do you wish to continue as my solicitor? If not, tell me now so I can make other arrangements.’ Perhaps one of those fancy ones that rejected Hedrek all those years ago. A bluff, really, I don’t want the trouble of it; thankfully, Titus nods. ‘And thank you for your consideration, Mr Pendergast. I do appreciate your efficiency and kindness in these matters.’

I’m at the door when he says, ‘It is a condition of your inheritance, Violet. If you do not travel north and fulfil your father’s instructions…’

My fingers convulse on the brass doorknob, seeming to swallow the shine of it, as if all of the hope I felt last night now rests in the belly of a wolf.

‘If you do not do this, Violet, everything will go to the Church.’

The moment feels endless, but I know it’s no more than a second before I say, ‘I’ll not be held hostage to a dead man’s demands.’

*   *   *

Out in the fresh air, I take a deep breath and lean against the stone wall. Titus’s last words, that I have three days to decide, ring in my ears. The barely legible lines from Hedrek’s journal (given to his solicitor for safekeeping a few days before his demise, I was told) appear across my vision, a palimpsest laid over the sight of the harbour and the blue, blue sky.

But the place that concerns you, Violet?

Here. It’s barely marked – just that tiny x – faded now, this is an old map stuck in these pages. This is the spot.

Anchor-hold.

The Anchorhold.

Where, it’s whispered, it all began.

Where it will all end.

And the yellowed piece of paper, ancient and thin as onion skin, the contour lines on it the muted blue of deep veins.

You will go north, Violet.

You will find the place where your brother resides.

You will destroy the Anchorhold and whatever moves within it.

And you will save your brother.

Save Tiberius.

Neither journal nor map did I take, nor were they offered. Perhaps Titus knows me well enough after all – given a chance I’d have touched them to a candleflame, sent them into the ether. I have no need of money, I tell myself, then amend, I have no need of riches.

I don’t need the house or the real estate portfolio or the myriad business interests, nor all the gold and silver stacked in bank vaults. I don’t need servants to dress me or clean or cook, to open doors and do my washing, and tell visitors that I’m not at home. I don’t need the carriages or the horses. I do need some money to survive. To flee. To feed myself until I can get settled elsewhere. Quickly, I calculate how much is in my own accounts, how much jewellery I have that might be sold before the Church tries to claim it as well, arguing it was no gift from my father, merely a ‘loan’.

To my left, the harbour and all its ships. The Harbour Mistress would put me on one, no doubt, a decent one with a captain who could be trusted to deliver me across the sea, to some foreign land where I could proceed to get lost. To my right, the route up the hill to Zennor House where Mrs Medway waits; I don’t think I could live with myself if I left her in the lurch. And there’s Freddie too. Who’d look out for her? It’s not lost on me that I dreamed my father dead, but can’t bear to leave these two behind.

I turn and head upwards, the heels of my boots clacking on the cobbles, my skirts hissing behind me as if some Medusa follows. At home there will be a warm bath, a comfortable dressing gown and the scandalous joy of bare feet. Mrs Medway to bring me hot buttered port and biscuits even though it’s not yet lunchtime, and I can hide for the rest of the day, reading in front of the library fire with the fine mantlepiece carved from the bone of a whale and a mirror, once thought to be magic, above it. Forgetting the world and my losses, the burdens my father left me. Tomorrow, I will think of a way to get out of this ridiculous situation.

The slope of the hill is insistent but I’m strong – years of climbing up and down, and the training, always the training – my legs are sturdy. But I don’t pass up the opportunity to take an alleyway to my left, a gentler incline, then another alley and another. Past the bakeries and coffeehouses, taverns and grocers, past the modistes and gentlemen’s ateliers and jewellers, past the physiks and dentists and apothecaries, and all the houses in between, streetlamps hung zigzag to ensure a safe light when darkness falls. Far to the right I catch glimpses of the promontory where the cathedral sits, where goodbyes were said to my father, hymns sung a little off-key for that’s the nature of a congregation.

Some passers-by recognise me, call out or nod sympathetically, condolences sincerely given. Others simply push past, either not caring or unaware of who I am. How long before Hedrek is gone from memory? Mine and others? Will he last, seemingly carved into the very air I breathe, inescapable? Or gone like a feather on the breath of the gods? Will I be able to let the memories go or will they remain as a bright aching wound?

Both Titus and Bishop Walter have told me over the years that my father loved me, but he was unable to show it. That my mother’s death, the circumstances of it, had warped him out of true. And that was why I had to learn such strange things; not in a school where I might make friends other than Jack Seven-Gates, but with two old men whose offices were repurposed as classrooms. Law, mathematics and economics with Titus; religion and myth and magic with Walter. Not to mention learning to fight in a warehouse by the docks under the Harbour Mistress’s watchful eye and, all too briefly, history and deportment and grooming in my stepmother’s solar. And now… now…

Shaking my head, I try to concentrate on the stones at my feet, but I can’t stop Titus’s reading of my father’s words from resurfacing.

Go to the north. Go into the Darklands. Go to the Anchorhold. Destroy whatever resides there. Rescue your brother.

My brother who’s been dead for thirteen years.

*   *   *

‘They’ve already started.’ Mrs Medway’s tone is all I-told-you-so as she steps into the library.

Prematurely grey hair, smooth-skinned, sharp-eyed and sharper tongued, her mauve gown’s covered by a pristine white apron that I’ve never seen dirtied. She places the silver tray on the coffee table beside me; port and cheese biscuits just out of the oven.

‘Which “they” are we referring to?’ I didn’t share the details of my meeting with the solicitor; merely said that matters were ‘in train’. No need to bother her sooner than I must.

‘Your suitors. The flies flocking to a pile of fresh warm shite.’

‘Am I the shite?’ I ask, eyebrows flying upwards. ‘As long as I’m fresh and warm, I suppose.’

‘You know what I mean.’ She dips a hand into her apron pocket and produces a stack of cards, generally uniform in size and quality of stock, but in varied hues and degrees of embossing, with the occasional flash of gold foil from the very rich or the very ambitious. ‘Thirty this morning. Not that Seven-Gates lad, though.’ She gives me a sidewise glance, which I ignore. ‘And you only a day from burying your father. Hardly decent.’

‘I see what you mean. Isn’t there a mourning period in which they should be leaving me alone?’ I take the cards from her, flick through them. Thirty. The prideful part of me thinks Not bad for someone who didn’t go to Mistress Tilwater’s Academy or Lady Crompton’s Finishing School, who didn’t grow up in high society. I suppose it doesn’t matter when there’s money to be had – when their parents realised just how much of a fortune Hedrek Zennor had left me. The cards: mostly men, some women, some of the finest families, some of the wealthiest, and those two groups don’t necessarily cross. This one has breeding but no money. This one plenty of money, but even less pedigree than I – make no mistake, I’m the daughter of a first-generation merchant, barely out of the dirt.

‘Yes. But it’s that they’re disguising their approaches as mourning visits to pay their respects that irks me.’ She begins dusting the shelves in irritation, displacement activity. Not conducive to my quiet time.

‘I could place a notice in The Courier? That I am not at home to uninvited guests for the next three months. Might help – the better-bred ones won’t want to be seen being so gauche.’

‘Doesn’t mean they won’t pounce on you in the streets,’ she grumbles. ‘Waste of money.’

‘Then it’s either remain indoors all that time or sneak out in disguise.’ And in truth, neither of those ideas are completely awful. If the intrusions get truly insistent I can always pen a brief missive on a sheet of Zennor Enterprises stationery, a polite way of saying KEEP OUT. ‘I’ll leave it for the moment.’

The Courier began as nothing more than a list of tide times and weather predictions, ships due to dock and those to depart. It still prints those things but with the addition of births, deaths and marriages, announcements of social movements such as holiday destinations for the wealthy, notices of estate sales, sales of other sort, blanket apologies, accusations and occasional insults, calling out for duels, and notifications of availability or otherwise, a few columns of scandal, reports of crimes committed, those caught for it and their punishments. It carries, once a month, advertisements for Zennor Enterprises – notices of new incoming cargo, space for outgoing merchandise, destinations, calls for passengers, and the like. And now, perhaps, this notice of unavailability. Something new for them, I’m sure.

Penelope Medway nods, and departs. She recognises at last my need for quiet. We’ll need to advertise at some point in The Courier for new servants but for the moment I’m enjoying how silent and slow the house is. Time to adjust to what my life is now without the constant vibrating presence of my father and his needs, his illness and anxieties and fears. Time to feel how I fit in this house now that it’s mine. Now I’m alone.

This house – not the one I was born in, not the one we all began in, not the one where memories of my mother reside – is, was, Father’s and mine alone. There was only ever he and I in this place purchased with the fortune given to him by the cloaked man almost thirteen years ago. It’s one of the biggest in St Sinwin’s, and for all it’s called a townhouse, it’s really a mansion, a stone structure at the top of the bowl of the harbour. All the furniture included in the asking price because we had nothing worth moving, and insufficient taste to know how to decorate such an abode. We learned – because money can buy you knowledge or the services of those who have it – and gradually replaced piece after piece so that everything’s been made almost anew, like fresh skin cells replacing old. But the first things we owned were second-hand, belongings of the rich-poor old man who’d died here without issue.

Just Father and I in a home with multiple bedrooms and dining rooms, washrooms larger than the old cottage itself, a manicured garden out front, a stable and carriage house, several libraries (some disguised as studies or offices, even parlours) to which my father began to add a collection of strange and eldritch books. Father in those days, not so terrible, not what he’d become; still remembering that he’d loved me.

Now, in the biggest of the libraries, I return to my usual spot, the green brocade wingback to the right of the hearth. Putting my bare feet up on the hassock, I reach for the port. The dressing gown is warm, the flames toasty, and soon spring will reassert herself, I’m sure of it, yet I’m chill to the very core of me. I stare at the empty seat opposite. Raising my glass to the empty chair, I nod.

‘I hate what you tried to make me, are still trying to make me.’ Pause. ‘I hate what you made me. But you’re gone and I’ll be my own creature yet.’

3

I’m thirteen and it’s my sixth year of this life, so different from the old one.

The sixth year of running and jumping and swimming, of climbing trees and walls and surfaces with barely anything to grip, of learning to use knives and axes and bows and arrows and swords, garottes made of scarves and rosaries and rope and fine chains that otherwise look like jewellery. Of learning to fight boys and men far larger than I, of sparring with anyone Talwyn Enys saw fit to pit me against.

Of thumping one of the punching bags hanging from a beam in the warehouse over and over until, after enough crimson and skin have been offered up, my knuckles are tough and coarse and callused. Even in my dreams, I can smell the stink of sweat and dried blood, feel the heated air, the rough calico of the bag, the shudders that go through me with each blow, hear Talwyn shouting at the others, those who hope to join her Harbour Guard.

The cadence of those drills, the thud-thud-thud, became a song to me, a lullaby that would repeat in my head to send me to an exhausted sleep at night.

Thud-thud-thud.

Thud-thud-thud.

Thud-thud-thud.

Then the noise spills out of my sleep, into the bedroom, and I wake to a hammering somewhere in my house.

It takes a few moments before I realise it’s a knocking on the front door, far more loudly than if they used the mermaid-shaped knocker. Wood against wood? Next, voices raised. Mrs Medway and one I’d hoped not to hear for some while, but chance would be a very fine thing. I push myself out of bed, slip my feet into the slippers on the rug, find the soft green velvet robe and throw it over my nightdress.

Shouts are issuing from the foyer as I pad down. My housekeeper, her back to me, is trying to close the door on our guest but he’s managed to wedge a staff into the gap. They don’t hear me approach, but when I step from the shadows of the unlit grand staircase, the bishop’s eyes widen. For a second, he looks frightened, then his expression shifts to startled, and finally settles on angry. I don’t know what he thinks he saw apart from a stocky irritated blonde. Mrs Medway glances over her shoulder, spots me, then shouts at the prince of the Church, ‘There, you’ve done it.’

‘Walter,’ I say, ‘you’re here so soon? Or should I say so late? It is very late indeed for taking your crozier for a walk.’

I thought I might get a few days’ respite, at least, but I’m willing to bet someone’s been telling on me. The bishop’s pitch carries as if he’s addressing the congregation and needs to reach those sitting at the back.

‘Titus Pendergast told me you’re refusing the call.’ Of course he did. Hedrek, Titus and Walter, the unbearable trinity of my life.

‘Good news travels fast.’ I pause for a moment, calculate the chances of just leaving Mrs Medway to deal with him, perhaps thrash him with his own staff. Not good – not because it’s beyond Penelope Medway to administer such a beating, but because the consequences would be ones I don’t feel like managing. ‘Ah, let the bastard in.’

Behind him, peering from the night, the faces of two lesser god-hounds, his escort and looking too young to be out after dark. ‘Mrs Medway, feed the lads, they’re terribly thin.’

She rolls her eyes, but gestures for the youths to follow.

‘Come along, Walter.’

‘Bishop Walter.’ His tone is sharp.

I don’t reply, just lead him into the nearest parlour – small, decorated in reds, the artwork vaguely pornographic, nudity hidden by diaphanous drapes in the paintings, but the statuettes on tables and plinths have no such modesty, a veritable array of breasts, slits and cocks – the decorator Father hired insisted it was the height of good taste, that all folk of quality had such a room, and Hedrek didn’t question it. I gesture to the scarlet velvet chaise; do not offer him a drink. My father would always host him in the big library, but that space is mine now and I’ll not have it contaminated. Walter drops to the seat, studiously keeping his hazel eyes on me, not his surrounds. Beaky of head and ovoid of body, he looks a little like an outraged eagle on top of a large egg. In his sixties, skin florid and unhelped by his workaday purple robes (no silver or gold embroidery), he glares at me as if I’m a recalcitrant child.

Which, I supposed, is accurate.

‘Violet Zennor, you have a duty to perform. An obligation.’

‘Walter, all these years I obeyed my father without question, hoping obedience would lead to approval – that it might take me back to a time when I held his affection. When he cared for me as a parent. But that never happened, and this is all nothing but madness.’

‘Hedrek had told you all these years—’

‘Yes. He’d told me what I was meant to do. Go north. To the Anchorhold. But, Walter, he never mentioned my brother.’

‘He planned to tell you and very soon because time is of the essence.’ He shakes his head. ‘Then he fell ill again, into that fever.’

‘And he hardly spoke again. Four weeks and he barely spoke again.’

Walter scratches his hairless chin. ‘Your father raised you to be the instrument of his penance.’

‘I didn’t get any say in it. I wasn’t born simply to be a thing. An implement.’

The bishop looks surprised, as if slapped by a fish. ‘You’re his child. You will obey his wishes.’

‘He’s dead!’

‘Your father’s salvation lies in you. You are his atonement.’

‘Once again: he’s dead. I’m not. Don’t I get a life of my own, Walter?’

‘Bishop Walter.’

‘My father made choices, Walter. Those were not mine.’ I rise. ‘And, Bishop, I will not go.’

Perhaps he sees something in my face – that peculiar obduracy that my father said rendered me “so mulish” he half-expected ears and a tail to grow – because Walter seems to physically deflate, a sagging purple balloon, all its air seeped out. It almost makes me pity him.

‘You taught me about the Darklands and the Leech Lords. That there is the border and it is held, and has been for centuries by the Briar Witches. That the Leeches cannot cross it.’ I shake my head. ‘Whatever you fear – whatever madness you three old men shared – cannot come to pass. The Leech Lords are bound. Trapped. I’ll not leave this life now it’s become my own just to fulfil a dead man’s fanciful wish.’

‘Your brother’s thirteenth birthday approaches. In three months—’

‘My brother is dead! He was stillborn! It’s the thirteenth anniversary of his death!’ My voice is louder than I’d have wished. For a moment he looks set for one last try. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, Walter. Now, please leave lest I put some of my training to good use – and be warned that the thought of applying my foot to your arse is a little too pleasing.’

The bishop rises. ‘Just because we don’t want to do things, Violet, doesn’t mean we don’t have to. And it doesn’t mean that life will shift around us to accommodate our wishes.’

I lead him back to the foyer. His escorts are eating apricot tarts and sitting in the carver chairs by the door. Mrs M is nowhere to be seen, obviously having drawn the line at babysitting them. As Walter follows the god-hounds out, he takes one last shot: ‘And just because nothing’s happened yet, doesn’t mean it never will. The time is coming.’

‘Goodnight, Walter.’

‘I’ll return in the morning, when you’ve calmed down, are more reasonable.’

‘Don’t waste your time. My father was mad. There will be no missions, no journeys northward. I’m not going anywhere.’

*   *   *

‘Miss Violet! Oh, Miss Violet?’

Despite my disguise – one of Father’s old suits, a stout pair of boots and my long hair curled up under a tweed cap to keep any condolers away – the childish voice, high and clear, makes it obvious that at least one person’s seen through me. I look around though I know she’ll be invisible until she chooses otherwise. Urchin. Ragamuffin. Waif.

She appeared almost two years ago – keeping body and soul together with what she can beg, borrow and steal, sleeping in haylofts and attics, beneath bridges and by inn fires when someone forgets to remove her. I saw her the first day I left my bed after an illness, and I don’t know why but she attached herself to me. The child’s bright and clever and deserving of better than living rough. I’ve tried to talk Freddie into Zennor House, learning domestic skills from Mrs Medway, or going to the best of the orphanage-schools if she’d prefer, or undertaking an apprenticeship (to seamstress, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, whatever she pleases) – but she’ll have none of it. I know she holes up in our stables on occasion and a basket of food is left there whenever she’s noticed hanging around. But Freddie likes her freedom. She likes learning things, watching people and their doings, keeping track. I wonder, if she survives long enough, might she let me set her up in business, a private detective? Freddie’s Investigatory Services. She’d never be out of work, making a mockery of my camouflage as she does.

‘Hello, Freddie.’

And there she is, as if she’s stepped from the air. It’s just a trick, the child knows how to hide, how to blend. I suspect that someone once spelled her shoes and clothing or taught her how to make them silent and unseen; or she stole the knowledge, which helps no end with her thievery. Skilled acquisition, she calls it. Still and all, it keeps her safe from prying eyes, predatory ones; helps her slip beneath notice. A smudge of a child, small, maybe eight, bright blue-eyed, clever, mud-red hair and a covering of dirt on her skin and ragged attire. In autumn I’ll have Mrs Medway leave a good coat in the stables – it’ll keep Freddie warm, then she can hawk or barter it at the end of winter. A larger one will be supplied at the next change of season.

‘Hello, Miss Violet.’ There’s a lengthy cut on her bare arm (the sleeve torn), still seeping ruby drops.

‘What have you done to yourself, missy? Will you go to see Mrs Medway? She’ll make sure that doesn’t get infected…’ I’ve found it’s best to ask, make it seem like it’s her idea, that she’s doing you a favour rather than being told what to do.

‘Someone was chasing me.’ She shrugs, falls into step. ‘Caught myself on a nail or thorn or something.’

‘Well,’ I say, biting back ‘be careful’ because that will just annoy her, make her disappear for days or weeks on end, depending on her mood, ‘you know what you’re about.’

We keep walking. After a few moments she says, ‘Sorry about your da.’

Which is charitable of her because my father had no time for Freddie, nor urchins in general; no great giver of alms, Hedrek. Perhaps he didn’t want to remember how close I was to being like her. Gods know he’d chase her out of the stable or the garden or from the kitchen door whenever he found her there.

‘Thank you, Freddie.’ It might be easier, now with him gone, to coax her into the household, keep her safe.

‘Miss Violet?’

‘Mmmm?’

‘There’s been a woman and a man around the inns. They dress like quality but talk like toughs. Asked about your father ’til they heard he’d died. Then they asked about you.’

‘What did they want to know?’ I flip two silver quarter-coins from the pocket of my suit jacket; they fly upwards and disappear even though I barely see her hands move.

‘What you’re like, your daily schedule.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That you were a sweet and timid thing who loved needlepoint and dogfights.’

‘Is that how you got cut, Freddie? When you gave them lip?’

She shakes her head; might be telling the truth, might be lying to save her professional pride. ‘I can find them, follow them…’

They might be amongst my father’s legion of “researchers” who’ve found him books on esoteric topics over the years; or they might want to be. Some are far less erudite than others – better to call them “gatherers” or “harvesters”. Hedrek always paid handsomely, even when the search wasn’t dangerous.

‘No,’ I say. ‘They can find me easily enough.’

She seems to deflate, lose interest. Freddie starts to drift away, just a step or two but I recognise it as the precursor to a disappearing act. Casually, so as not to seem needy, I say, ‘Mrs Medway’s made apricot tarts.’

She nods, then slips away, back up the hill towards Zennor House where I know she’ll at least be fed and that cut attended to. I continue my descent towards the docks. The Harbour Mistress sent a summons this morning; I can speak with the woman about ships and escape plans, killing two birds with one stone.

*   *   *

Talwyn Enys has been the Harbour Mistress longer than I’ve been alive, almost thirty years since she took up the post from her mother, who took it from her mother and so on. Not a hereditary position, but won through their sheer gift for organisation. St Sinwin’s is the best administered port-town anywhere. Never an argument over berthing or traffic management, larger ships are piloted in with ease, loading and unloading of cargoes moves with the precision of clockwork. It doesn’t hurt that Talwyn’s well over six feet tall, muscled as a stevedore, swears a blue streak and isn’t afraid to hit anyone causing her grief.

Her office is on the second storey of an old wood and tin building on the wharves. Knowing what I do about her precision and organisational abilities, it’s always a shock to find that this room is a mess of mounds of ledgers and maps, pieces of paper, notes, permissions and licences, arrival and departure logs, tide times, and cargo manifests and passenger lists. Yet she can always put her meaty hand on whatever is required, within seconds. It’s a gift. An astounding, confounding, unlikely gift.

Said office, when I step into it, looks even worse than usual, like an actual rummaging has taken place. The next thing I notice is a young man, his feet not touching the ground because the Harbour Mistress has him by the throat and is shaking him. He’s making noises, none of which are actual words. She’s shouting up into his bloodied face.

I raise my voice. ‘Mistress Enys, not to interfere, but I think he needs to breathe.’

I’m smart enough to stay in the open doorway, poised for flight, just in case she doesn’t find this helpful. Talwyn glares in confusion at me, eyes a little red, there’s something of the bull about her, including her short black hair and brown skin. I remember not everyone’s got Freddie’s perceptiveness so I remove my hat, shake my hair. The fury fades and she gives a frustrated sort of snort, followed by several profanities, and releases her victim. He curls into a ball on the floor; had it been me, I’d have made a point of running. Possibly he fears if he tries to escape, she’ll be after him, and Talwyn’s land speed is surprising, her size deceiving. She leans down towards the lad, who’s even younger than I’d thought, and hisses: ‘Filthy fecking rat!’

‘Ah,’ I say as if it all makes sense, righting one of the chairs, and planting myself.

Talwyn stomps to the liquor cabinet – a wooden crate turned on its side – and pours a measure of something dark and syrupy. She lifts the bottle in my direction; I shake my head in turn. Far too early. Focus my attention on the lad: maybe sixteen, wispy mouse-brown hair, half-starved cheekbones, barely even peach fuzz on his cheeks.

‘And you are?’

‘Wilf.’ He tries for defiant, but just squeaks as he rocks into a sitting position.

‘And what have you done, Wilf?’

‘Smuggling!’ Talwyn growls from where she and her glass have taken up position behind the broad desk. But she stays there so she’s calmed down enough to realise that honey might extract what vinegar cannot.

‘Let’s not set her off again, Wilf. You can speak to me now or I can leave you with Mistress Enys while I summon the Constable in a leisurely fashion. Your choice.’ I cross my arms, then my ankles. All in all, a picture of nonchalance. For good measure, Talwyn gives another growl.

Wilf decides quickly. ‘They telt me I could make extra money. That it’s just dodging the customs duties and no one gets hurt.’

‘Interesting.’ I shoot a glance at the Harbour Mistress, who’s prided herself on keeping smugglers out of St Sinwin’s for the last ten years; the tales of that violent campaign, I’m assured, are still told in drinking establishments from here to Bellsholm and beyond. ‘And who suggested this enterprising idea?’

‘The first mate on my ship.’

‘Which ship?’

‘The Fortitude.’

‘How many of the crew are involved?’

‘Me, the captain’s boy, eight others.’

‘And what’s the plan?’

‘We hide the goods in a false hold, tonight we’re to row them around to the Merrow’s Cove Cave for handover.’

‘To whom?’

‘Dunno.’

I glare at him for a moment. ‘Talwyn, give him another shake.’

She’s surging out of her chair and he’s squealing. ‘I dunno, I dunno, I swear on my mother’s soul I don’t know anything else!’

And I believe it. If I were putting a smuggling operation together, I wouldn’t share the details with someone like Wilf, either. There’s a chance they’re not even planning to pay him and his colleagues. A few drowned men mean extra coins in a larger purse. There might come a day when the lad’s grateful for Talwyn catching him but that won’t be for some time yet. I tap a finger against my chin, pondering.

‘Wilf, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Act normal, load the ill-gotten gains and take it to the cave. Play us fair, and when all this is done, we’ll look at a better life – an apprenticeship and a place to live. Or a new ship to crew?’

‘I get seasick,’ he whimpers. ‘Don’t want to do it no more.’

‘Apprenticeship it is, then.’

‘Thank you, Miss.’

‘If you play us wrong? You won’t have to worry about her.’ I nod towards the mountain of muscle and ill-temper sprawled in the corner, then a flick of my right hand brings the concealed knife out of my sleeve. Another flick, and it’s gone. The lad goes pale.

‘Scarper,’ grunts the Harbour Mistress and the boy’s up and out like a shot, papers lifting in disarray at his flight. Talwyn gives me a calculating glance. ‘Coming out tonight, then? And you so recently in mourning.’

Mistress Enys and I glare at each other for a few moments, until I say, ‘All the fun of the fair. You had something to discuss? Or was it the redoubtable Wilf?’

‘Gods, no. That was unexpected – found him trying to pick the lock on the door, contraband in his pockets.’ She grabs a pile of papers, indistinguishable from the other piles of papers. ‘This is what I wanted to show you.’

I rise and cross the room. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘Passenger manifest for the Siren’s Song which docked early this morning. It was an old O’Malley ship.’

The O’Malleys were the stuff of legend until they weren’t, and became a cautionary tale of families that grow too big and bold. Of business ventures that overreach through greed and arrogance. For the longest time they grew and grew and grew – until everything they had and everything they were began to wither and at last they disappeared from the face of the earth completely. There were tales, in some of Walter’s lessons, about them and their bargains with the creatures that lived beneath the waves; some were stories brought back by the O’Malleys on their travels of monsters and magic from the deep. Now, only whispers and rumours and fragments remain and none of them are good. Until, until, until.

‘And?’

‘Over the page, right at the end.’ Her tone’s far more patient than I’d have expected after what she just did to Wilf. There’s also a touch of patronising an idiot.

I flip through impatiently, scan down, down, down.

‘Oh.’ All thoughts of ships and escape leave my head.

4

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose mother died. She and her father lived happily together until the father remarried…

Once upon a time, there were two children, a girl and a boy. Their mother died (or perhaps she did not) and their father married again (or perhaps he did not). Their stepmother (or perhaps their true mother) did not like them, and during a time of plague and famine suggested to the children’s father that life would be easier without two extra mouths to feed. After all, they could always have more offspring…