It came out into a narrow alley where the looming walls on both sides took away almost all of the light still remaining of the day. Even after almost a full year since the invasion by Alexandre and his bandits, the faint tang of burnt wood still hung in corners where not many people came. The houses behind the office had been damaged, and half-burned beams had been removed from the roofs and dumped in the alley.

  Johanna followed the narrow walkway to where it opened out into the street that ran back to the waterfront. A few people came the other way in the street, but it was dark, her hood hid her face, and Saardam was big enough that not everyone immediately knew everyone else by the way they walked.

  It was a good feeling to be free again and not recognised. Although it would be even nicer without that big belly.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the coach that still stood in front of the office, with Anton standing next to it. No doubt he had seen her, because he idly wandered along the quayside in her direction. Johanna turned away from him, making her way along the quayside to the warehouses. But walking was not as easy as it had once been. Her legs hurt and, with each step, the child bumped into her bladder. That caused the constant sensation that she needed to pee, which she had learned to ignore as much as she could, but by the Triune, it made walking an excruciating agony, especially for any distance. The far side of the quay, normally a short stroll away, became an almost unreachable target.

  Coming here might not have been her best idea ever.

  But Johanna gritted her teeth and slowly made her way down, stopping frequently to catch her breath or let her poor legs recover, putting her hand or this or that wooden pole or fence or window frame.

  She saw images of ships arriving—yes, King Leopold was definitely here. He had arrived in a sleek and ornate river sloop that lay moored at the quay, guarded by two men with lots of shiny metal decorations on their uniforms. The ship’s large cabin made it suitable for the transport of passengers only. It had a harness for no less than ten sea cows. She could see King Leopold coming down the gangplank. He was a short rotund man who had so little hair that he wore horsehair wigs, mostly black, because he was known to say that white horsehair made him look old.

  The quayside immediately in front of Father’s office was still empty. This space was reserved for King William’s ship, which would be an ocean-faring vessel with a deep keel that needed the deepest part of the harbour.

  Anton followed her at a distance, but she didn’t want to make it too clear what she was doing. After having been to Master Willems’ house when she and Li Fai dealt with the old church relic, Anton would know about magic, but he had never said anything about what had happened in that house.

  Johanna finally arrived at the eastern end of the harbour and stopped for another rest. The buildings here sheltered the quayside and adjacent water from the breeze. The moonlight reflected in the oily surface of the still water, rippling only when something moved underneath.

  Fish, she hoped.

  This was the spot where Auguste LaFontaine had drowned. It was close to the spot where she and Nellie had fished Roald out of the water on the night that the city was ablaze and all seemed lost.

  It was also close to the spot where, a month ago, ships with teams of sea cows and horses had finally removed the wreckage of the Lady Davida, burned and too damaged to be salvaged. The deck hand Adrian’s body had not yet been found.

  There was so much death here.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  AFTER A SHORT REST, Johanna kept going.

  A string of warehouses along the eastern quay jutted out into the wide expanse of the river. Father’s sea cow barn and the Lady Sara were right at the very end, but in order to get to them, you needed to walk past all the warehouses. The ships that had been moved from the main quay to make space for the dignitaries lay double-moored along this side. Li Han’s ship was a familiar shadow against the moonlit water: solid and stubby, with a single fat chimney protruding from the deck. A storm light hung at the top deck, where there was just enough of a breeze to make the flame flap. Its light produced a pool of yellowish glow that lit the side of the cabin. Someone’s washing hung there, and Johanna could also see a part of the cage that she knew contained fat grey and white ducks.

  She stared at it, willing Li Fai to come out of the cabin and talk to her. But all remained quiet and she knew it was better that way

  She went into the first warehouse on her right. It used to belong to a fabric merchant but now it was being used for the storage of food. As soon as she opened the door, little squeaks in the darkness betrayed the scurrying of mice. She walked along an aisle between two bays of shelves, but away from the door it soon became so dark that it was impossible to see. She touched the wood of the shelving, but saw nothing that indicated a need for further investigation. Just quay workers unloading and loading freight. Chatting to each other. The warehouse manager ordering them around. Where to go, what to bring, where to put it.

  She continued to the next warehouse, which contained furniture and carpets. The wood here told stories of couches being moved around. The owner’s wife had a fair bit to say in the business. She ran the warehouse and did the accounts while the husband talked to customers. Johanna recognised the couple and was glad that they had survived.

  The next warehouse was the timber shed where Nellie had found the chips that told the story of Li Han’s stamp being falsified. The owner had been questioned and a web of smuggling unmasked. The owner had then sold the business to an honest man. The wood chips and shavings on the ground and the planks in shelves against the walls told stories of young men working hard.

  Johanna sank to her knees and dug in the woodchips, but none of the stories she found there were particularly interesting or relevant.

  The next warehouse was a shipyard. The back door of the shed was open, and the reflection from the moonlit river out that way silhouetted the skeletons of boats that stood in the dry docks in the process of being built. The wooden hulls of the boats told stories of men sweating over fires to melt the tar to seal the gaps between the planks in the hull. It fascinated her to see how this was done, but told her nothing about gun smuggling.

  Half the shed was also over the water. The sea cows down there snorted and chewed noisily.

  It was really dark here, and Johanna didn’t want to risk falling in the water, so she made her way back to the entrance.

  Well, that was a waste of time. Clearly the weapons weren’t being stored in the harbour, as Li Fai had suggested.

  She looked again at Li Han’s ship. A little voice in her mind kept telling her to come up with excuses to go up that steep gangplank, where she’d been only once before, and where the ducks would start quacking, and where Li Fai would come from the cabin to check out the racket.

  She wanted to go up there so badly, but she couldn’t. Li Han was one of the guests at the upcoming meeting, by the Triune. He was not a guard to be taken into confidence about the risks posed to visitors by smuggled guns. He was one of the visitors who needed to be protected against the man with the silver-buckled shoes whose identity she was no closer to discovering.

  But hey, something was now going on across the harbour.

  Between the tall bow of Li Han’s ship and the much lower deck of the Lady Sara, she noticed movement of people with lights on the deck of a ship on the other side of the harbour, a river sloop that lay moored on the harbour side hiding behind King Leopold’s ship.

  The vessel was sleek and dark, with a low cabin that had numerous windows with closed curtains. Wasn’t that the ship that had brought Roald back before the ball that started all this misery? The Burovian ship that belonged to the Guentherite brotherhood?

  Yes, she was almost sure it was.

  That could mean only one thing: Kylian was here. The ship’s position, moored alongside the Burovian king’s ship, betrayed the relationship between Baron Uti, his cousin King Leopold and the Guentherite order of the Belaman Church that practiced necromancy and magic.

  She should have known there was a good chance that Kylian would turn up with his father, but it was especially galling that he dared walk into her city.

  She peered into the darkness, but was too far away to recognise any of the people on the deck. She didn’t think Kylian was one of them, but he would be there.

  A chill came over her despite the warm weather. The cold went deep inside her belly, where the child squirmed and kicked. There was magic in the air, and even if she couldn’t feel it, the child could. She clamped her arms around herself.

  She had best go back to Anton. Kylian would feel it if she used her magic, and she did not want to encounter him in the dark alone.

  But there was a soft noise closer to where she stood. Her first thought was a rat, but the sound came from her right, somewhere in the water.

  Johanna took a few steps so that she could see around the bow of Li Han’s ship and peered into the darkness.

  Something glowed underneath the surface of the water.

  By the Triune, that looked like . . .

  She had seen things like this before . . . in Florisheim, where ghosts emerged from the water and wandered over the surface . . . because at the Guentherite brotherhood’s farm, a deep hole dug in the ground to find black rock had disturbed the spirits of the dead. And because Kylian was practicing his necromancy, bringing ghosts back to their bodies.

  Johanna watched, her heart thudding.

  The underwater glow made a little dome in the water’s surface, and then broke the surface. The silvery, glowing blob that came out took a while to acquire a shape. First it grew a bud at the top, and then two smaller buds on each side of the bigger one. Those two grew long and thin, waving at the sky. The top bud grew into a head with long flowing hair. The rest of the shape elongated and became a body in a thin, elfinlike dress.

  The ghost of Princess Celine had returned to Saardam.

  She walked over the water to the Guentherite brotherhood’s ship. The men on the deck had gone below. She put her hands on the bow, looking up at the railing. When no one came, she threw her head back and wailed. It was a sound lighter than the wind, colder than ice, sharper than glass. It chilled Johanna deep inside.

  A man climbed to the deck and looked over the railing. She reached out for him with both hands, but he slapped her aside. She fell to her knees, wailing, sitting on the water’s surface as if it was solid.

  The man threw an object at her. She flew up and threw the object back at him.

  His laughter echoed over the water. Magic erupted from his hand, engulfing her. She sank back under the water.

  By the Triune. Was that Kylian?

  He straightened and looked over the water as if he sensed her.

  A chill went through Johanna. Her stomach cramped up. By the Triune, she suddenly needed to pee so badly that it hurt.

  The door to Father’s sea cow barn was directly behind her. There would be a bucket in there to do her business.

  Johanna stumbled to the door, pain lancing through her stomach with each step. The child squirmed inside her, wedging some body part under her ribs. She winced. That hurt, little one.

  Johanna pulled the door open—

  And she stopped.

  A small fire burned on the paved floor in the loading area. Two figures in dark robes crouched by the fire, both small and thin and dressed in rags. Oh by the Triune, why did Father’s barn always attract beggars?

  She stammered, “I’m sorry. I thought . . .” But she didn’t know what she thought or what she could say to a couple of urchins. She didn’t look like a fellow beggar. She didn’t even look like a fishwife. She hoped they weren’t familiar enough with the royal family to know who she was. Come to think of it, she should probably get out of here and let Anton deal with it.

  But then one of the two beggars lowered the hood of his tattered old cloak, and it was not a him but a her.

  Johanna recognised the pale, wide-eyed face. She gasped. “Loesie!”

  By the Triune, she had changed so much. She looked taller, her eyes more alert, and her expression more vicious. Johanna wanted to hug her, but something stopped her. Loesie looked . . . formidable, and suddenly so much older. Her hair had always been dark, but now it had gone even darker, flecked through with a few white hairs at the temples.

  The person with her was also a woman. She looked younger than Loesie, had flaxen blond hair like Nellie and a round face with freckles.

  She would have been pretty if it weren’t for her eyes. Mist whirled within the milky white irises.

  The air grew cold. A chilling breeze ruffled her hair. Johanna didn’t have the ability to feel magic in the air, but she was certain that if she could, she would be staggering back from the magic force that radiated from this woman. The child inside her kicked her hard in the ribs.

  This had to be Kylian’s magic, there was no doubt about it.

  Loesie said, “Yes, we came back. We saw on the wind that a lot of fuss be happening. We figured this be where the action is.”

  “Did you see Kylian? He’s on a boat on the other side of the harbour.” She put her hand on the curve of her stomach to calm herself down.

  “Why do you think we’s hiding in here? It’s warm enough to sleep outside and if we didn’ have to, we sure wouldn’ be sleeping in s stinky shed with slobbering and farting animals.”

  To illustrate Loesie’s words, one of the sea cows swam past, leaving a trail of bubbles, while munching noisily on a chunk of cabbage.

  “You are certainly welcome back,” Johanna said.

  Despite the magic in the other woman’s eyes, there was something reassuring and familiar about Loesie’s words. This was her old Loesie. Johanna had never been happy with the Loesie who, after having been cured of her possession by Duke Lothar, lost her country accent. “You and your friend can stay here. It’s not like Father is using the barn a lot these days.”

  “This here be Annette. She were on my granma’s farm. She were dead but she came back to life. She be demon-touched so don’ get too close to her.”

  “Thanks for warning me.” Johanna had no such intention. Each time she looked at the young woman, she felt a chill.

  Loesie said, “And look at you. The babe is close, I can feel it.”

  Johanna responded automatically, “Another month.”

  “Hmmm.” She clearly didn’t believe that.

  “What are you doing here?” Johanna asked, pushing away unease. She wanted the child to stay put until after the meeting. “You’re not selling cheese?”

  “We’s sold some. The farm still needs money to pay for clothes and all that.”

  “Did any other people of your family survive? I thought they were all gone.”

  “Only the demon-touched survived. We be a whole farm of bewitched women and children, working the fields through magic. But we still need eatin’, so that’s why we be selling the cheese. That and we be following the ghosts that have floated down the river.”

  “Did you notice them when they came past the farm?”

  “No. They’d be coming from Gelre. The necromancer brought them. He’s been travelling the river for years. He made ghosts everywhere. They’s all in the water.”

  “That long? You never said anything about it?”

  “I were bewitched. Even when we came back here, I were not myself. The Duke took part of it away, and then I washed the rest off in the river. Then I helped the girls.”

  “Girls?”

  “Them’s the ones he needed. The necromancer journeyed all along the river up and down and up and down, killing and raping. He killed those he could not rape. And he killed the rest after he raped them. Like poor Annette here, they’s stuck in between life and death. Except he can’t easily kill the ones with magic, and he can’t kill the ones who’s become with child after he’s raped them so those ones came to the farm, often with bleeding wounds from where he’s tried to kill them.”

  By the Triune. Johanna felt sick. “How many of you?”

  “We’s a group of twenty-one. Other farms, I don’t know. The Duke knows how many. There’s other places where they hide besides our farm.”

  Johanna thought of the work farm at the Guentherite brotherhood. “How many of those women are Kylian’s minions doing his bidding?”

  “We’s not minions. He might wish we were. The farm be a safe place where the women can hide from him. We had six babes born just this month. If the mother’s been badly touched by him, she dies, and we have an extra mouth to feed a long time before we have a pair of hands to work on the farm and a magician to teach. They’s more worry for us.”

  “You teach magic now?”

  “No, I’m no teacher. The teacher be the duke. He comes to visit. We keep the children alive and busy.”

  “Is the duke here?”

  “Not yet, but he be coming, bringing some other girls. The necromancer is up to something.”

  Didn’t Johanna know about that.

  But when Johanna asked, Loesie didn’t know what Duke Lothar planned or when he would arrive. She didn’t know what sort of magic, locations, relics or substances he would be using.

  That was the thing that frustrated her most about people with magic: they did not plan, and they did not let others know what they were doing. Or maybe the duke had announced his plans, and Loesie had not paid attention. Loesie was the worst person to ask about these types of things.

  Johanna said, “I don’t know how often I can come to see you here. We have all the important guests arriving, and I’d be lying if I said I had any time to come and see you, because I don’t. This is the last night before they all start coming into town.”

  “Don’t be worried,” Loesie said. “You look after the important people. They’s all non-magical anyway. They only need to be kept busy, and they won’t even see that there’s something going on. They think they’s important, but they’s all so dumb. You look after them. We’ll look after the magic.”

 

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