Chapter Text
The witches in the square can’t be more than nineteen.
"Have to say I’m impressed," Julian mutters. "Didn’t think she’d actually do it."
The two women are on their backs with their hands folded over their chests, fragments of bone charms crammed into their mouths and stacks of coin lined up between them. Their throats are slit to the bone, but the bodies are utterly spotless; there isn’t even a drop of blood on the cobblestones.
Somewhere in the Estate District tonight, two doors will open onto two blood pools and the words we walk amongst you cut into the floor, and several of the Whalers’ turned informants will find their bribes mysteriously vanished.
Julian predicts Thomas will have an easier time finding a way into Coldridge prison after today.
"Was this really necessary?" Beside him, Bertram seems to have reached a different conclusion. "I realize there’s sending a message, but—"
"Butchers," says a nearby woman primly; a crowd’s gathered around the corpses despite the watchmen’s best efforts to keep them back. "The work of butchers. This is the sort of thing you expect in Draper’s Ward, not a place like this—”
"Sure," says Julian, and pushes Bertram to a different part of the crowd. His scowl and eyepatch grant them a wide berth; with Bertram in a suit and him in similar but darker clothes, they look like a nobleman and his particularly irritated bodyguard. Now closer to the bodies, it should be easier for them to do their job—find the witch sent to investigate, and tail her back to her sisters or hideout.
Julian reaches up as if to scratch his right eyebrow and closes his eye, letting dark vision take over. Ever since his left eye was torn out in a scrape with the Dead Eels, he’s seen in dark vision on the left side permanently, rendering his normal right vision a hopeless distraction. In the first year he’d seriously considered blinding himself entirely until Popinjay pointed out (with a smile, damn him) that they could then dress him in whatever colors they wanted.
"No informant yet," Julian murmurs, still covering his closed eye with his hand. All the lines of sight he sees are the usual stares of vaguely embarrassed bystanders. "We might be here a while."
Bertram shifts, scanning the crowd. “Only if the Overseers don’t show up first.”
"They probably won’t come at all. This whole district’s bought its way out of Abbey supervision."
"I doubt money could get them to ignore a display like this."
Display. Julian sighs. “If I knew this was going to bother you so much I’d have asked for someone else.”
"I do my job," says Bertram quietly. "It doesn’t mean I like it."
"Please. Don’t act like you’re the one who did this."
Bertram sighs and grips the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t bother you at all?”
"Why should it?" Julian snaps, keeping his voice down with difficulty. "Because some of our own are this age? Because one of our own did this?"
He knows Bertram’s answer is yes, and takes perverse pleasure in watching him struggle for another answer. “We used to do things differently. We used to make things clean.”
"Well things are different now, aren’t they?"
Bertram ignores the jibe. “Did you hear what Aleksander had to say when he got back? The ones he fought, two of them barely knew how to hold a blade. One of them just about transversed into his shot.”
"All the better for us then."
"Julian," says Bertram, exasperated. "You can’t even call this a fight. She’s sending civilians at us.”
The same conscience that drove Bertram to leave the Abbey will get him killed as a Whaler, Julian is sure. ”They knew the consequences when they bribed our informants. Don’t act like they were told this was safe.”
"I doubt they were told they might actually die either. Or that they might die like this."
Julian scoffs, drawing a disgusted look from a young nobleman. “Like anyone is dumb enough to think being a witch might end well.”
"No," says Bertram with incredible patience, "but they might be young enough to."
"Youth doesn’t excuse anything."
"Really?" Bertram looks around as if weary of the bodies before him, but actually scanning the crowd for possible spies. "I wouldn’t complain about how our younger friends disrespect you then, Julian Ford. It seems to me they merely return the favor."
Julian scowls. The edges of his eyepatch dig into his brow. “They join us to work, not to be coddled. The conditions of our employment are clear.”
"That’s exactly what I’m trying to get at. Every one of us was told what it meant to put on the uniform. Does Delilah strike you as doing the same?"
There’s nothing he can say to that. He only heard the woman speak all of three sentences, but he got the general impression she was far from a professional employer. Still, he doubted her witches could be so clueless about the dangers of their work. Julian himself came to Daud as a mercenary, no stranger to the consequences of being caught by the Watch. The added danger from the Abbey wasn’t particularly bothersome either, though the fact of the suicide pin still bothers him now.
Aeolos had used the pin when the Overseers questioned him. Not that Julian saw—nobody saw—but Bertram had seen the body when the Overseers threw it before him and Shakesheave, and they’d all seen what had been done when it came time for the last rites. Like a mangled doll, Julian had thought. Thomas hadn’t taken it well; Aeolos was the one who first brought him in and trained him, a long time ago.
And Shakesheave died helping Bertram escape. So many of them died that way, helping their own. Valenti would have too, if Bartleby hadn’t stepped in.
That had been a shock, Valenti buying time for him. He wouldn’t have done the same.
Julian wonders if he should be ashamed of it.
"I see her," says Bertram quietly, interrupting his thoughts. "By the manservant on your left. Blonde hair, blue jacket, white blouse; she’s scoping the crowd."
Julian nods but doesn’t look up. He watches a line of sight sweep the street and swivel away, follows it to the slim yellow silhouette of a woman near the edge of the throng. After a moment she turns and begins walking; as if on cue, another shadow detaches itself from the roof of the opposite cigar shop and follows, blinking across the rooftops in stealthy pursuit.
Valenti.
"We’ve got eyes," says Julian. "Let’s go."