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He was already half-way in, past the hidden door, when he noticed that the tunnels smelled of smoke. Not the cigarette or incense sort, but of fire and death, the smell you would get after house fires, that still lingered in the air days after the fire had engulfed everything it could burn. Peter picked up his pace until he was running down the dark tunnels, towards the underground settlement where the Quiet People lived - and where the smoke was coming from.
By the time he reached the end of the tunnel he was out of breath, the smoulder scratching in his throat but not thick enough yet to make him choke. The underground air system must have been better than he had thought. One more turn and before him, just down the hill, lay the underground city.
Or what was left of it.
The entire village was burning, houses set ablaze, flames soaring high and the smoke filling the ceiling like black fog.
Peter staggered back, his mind refusing to believe what his eyes were telling him. The whole area in front of him was one blazing fire pit, the heat almost unbearable on his face. There was no way to stop the village from burning to the ground - the fire had already reached even the last house and as the Quiet People didn't have a huge water supply there was nothing they could do to stop a fire of this size.
He frantically looked around, searching for the village's inhabitants. There was no motion he could make out between the burning houses and he hadn't seen anyone on his descent down here, so maybe they had already escaped?
It was only then when he saw the man. He was standing about fifty meters away from him, close to the edge of the settlement, his back turned to Peter and against the light of the fire he couldn’t make out more than his silhouette.
As he was watching, the man lifted his hand. A fireball flew from his open palm and hit one of the few remaining unscathed houses, exploding upon impact and set it on fire.
Before he even realised it, or had time to think about how much of a bad idea this was, he was running towards the man, who was already raising his hand once more, crashing into him at full speed and tackling him in the side. They both crashed down, the man underneath him letting out an ‘oomph’ as they hit the ground.
Peter already had the impello forma ready to knock him out cold (you should never hesitate with magic users who were probably way more experienced than you were), when he recognised the man.
‘Nightingale?’ he breathed out. His mentor looked briefly surprised to see him, but then quickly schooled his features into a neutral expression.
‘Peter, I thought I had told you to stay in the Folly,’he said calmly.
‘And you were supposed to be talking with Ten-Ton about Clarice’s murder,’ Peter replied. ‘And yet-‘ His mind was still trying to understand what he’d seen, that Nightingale had attacked the Village of the Quiet People.
‘What did you do?’ he whispered, tightening his grip on where his hand was holding Nightingale’s jacket. ‘You were just supposed to talk to them, so what-‘
‘Peter,’ Nightingale cut him off, his voice patient. ‘I can explain this to you. Just let me up first.’
For a moment he nearly did, but then his copper senses kicked in, the same senses that had saved him many times from getting kicked into the back.
‘Explain first,’ he demanded, his resolve strengthening from actually saying it out loud.
Nightingale sighed. ‘Peter, really, this isn’t necessary. There is a good explanation for all of this, just let me stand up first, would you?’ He sounded soothing and placating, the patient adult reasoning with a stubborn child.
On second thoughts, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. What was the harm in having this conversation while standing instead of lying in the dust? There was no reason to distrust the man who had been his mentor for the past two years. Was there?
Peter abruptly flinched, shaking his head in an attempt to shake out the thoughts that weren’t his, that were turning his mind into honey.
‘Is that… a glamour?’
Nightingale’s previously pleasant expression had turned cold. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe he really should have run the moment he saw the figure standing in the cave.
Then he was suddenly lifted up, his grip on Nightingale’s jacket ripped away as he found himself levitating a good two feet above the ground. He couldn’t move, it felt as if someone had stuck him into a form-fitting box, with barely enough space to breathe.
In front of him, Nightingale was getting up, dusting off his jacket with all the calm in the world. But it couldn’t be him, could it? There was no way that Nightingale would do something like that, it had to be some sort of imposter, there surely was some magical creature that could assume a person’s face and body out there somewhere.
Except that there was no way to fake someone else’s vestigia and magic. And Peter could feel it, the same strength, the sharp twist that was so typical of Nightingale’s spells, the magic that flowed around him and kept him in place. It was definitely him, though there was… there was more. More magic than he had ever felt from Nightingale, more power. The air nearly seemed to be brimming with it around him, like some sort of halo.
‘You shouldn’t try to hold a wizard down with mere physical strength, Peter,’ Nightingale said, almost like his usual self, the mentor lecturing the student. If only it weren’t for the whole holding him immobilised thing, and the fire behind them.
Though he knew it was useless, he still tried to struggle against the magic holding him in place. He might as well have tried to make stone budge - all he achieved was straining his muscles and earning himself a disapproving glance from Nightingale.
Giving up on that attempt, he focused on Nightingale, who had turned his back to Peter and was looking over the fire that had nearly completely engulfed the village.
‘Did you really do that?’ he asked. Nightingale looked away from the fire and back to him, silent for a moment, something calculating in his eyes.
‘Yes,’ he finally answered.
Even though he had, rationally speaking, known it already, had known it the moment he had recognized Nightingale, it was still a blow to hear him actually admitting it out loud.
‘But-‘ he started, but the words weren’t coming. ‘Why?’ he asked in the end, because at least that he needed to know, maybe because there still was a tiny bit of him hoping that there was a reason, some good reason for all this.
Nightingale let out a sigh, the sort he normally used when Peter had done something especially exasperating, like accidentally making a sink in the lab explode, or messing around with formae.
‘It was a mistake to form a contract with the Quiet People in the first place. Clarice’s murder merely showed that.’
‘This is all because of Clarice’s death?’ Peter echoed.
‘Not exactly ‘because’ of it. More as something that… sealed my decision. It was inevitable, in the end.’
‘What- inevitable!?’ Peter struggled against the spell. ‘But the Quiet People didn’t kill Clarice! It’s why I came here, it was actually one of her friends who led her into the tunnel and killed her there, the Quiet People had nothing to do with that!’
Nightingale merely shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. Sooner or later something like this would have happened, it’s better this way.’
Better this way?
‘What did you do to them?’ Peter asked quietly.
Nightingale frowned. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Peter looked over the village where the fire was still blazing, hot enough to feel it even up here.
‘No,’ he breathed as he realised what Nightingale meant.
Nightingale looked at him with something that might have been pity. It made him nauseous.
‘If it’s a consolation, they were asleep. We released a gas through the air vents before I started the fire.’
He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry, and to vomit, to scream, to run into the fire and try to save anyone who might be still alive despite knowing that there was no chance that the fire had spared anyone.
Instead he just collapsed, stopped struggling and would have fallen down if the spell hadn’t been keeping him upright.
‘How could you do that?’
‘They posed a danger to the public with their existence. Killing them will ensure that the peace is kept.’
‘But those were living people!’ Peter yelled, all the fury from before returning. ‘Living, feeling people! They didn’t deserve to die!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Nightingale snapped. ‘They weren’t people anymore. They lived down here for so long that they couldn’t be recognized as such anymore. At this point they were more animals than human. What do their lives matter against those of the real people above?’
Peter wanted to shout back, to say that of course their lives mattered, that those lives were just as important as anyone else’s, but looking at Nightingale he could see that his words would fall on deaf ears.
‘But… you were willing to let Simone and her sisters go. I thought…’ I thought that you had changed. That you were better than this.
Nightingale looked at him silently, his expression unreadable. Then he lifted his right hand, forming his fingers into a loose fist and then opening it slowly.
Peter could feel the magic behind it – some sort of unravelling, a spell coming undone. He expected the magic that kept him in the air to disappear, but nothing like that happened. All he really noticed was a growing headache.
‘What- What did you do just now?’ he asked, feeling increasingly panicked.
‘Think again, Peter,’ Nightingale said, neither his expression nor his voice giving anything away.
‘What-‘ he began. Then it crashed over him like a massive wave.
Images upon images, layered upon and blurring each other.
Simone and her sister, slumped dead on the table. Nightingale standing in front of him as he enters the room for the first time, looking up with eyes made of cold steel.
Nightingale standing over a body, blood soaked through the left arm of his shirt.
Lesley next to Faceless on the rooftop of Skygarden, one hand outstretched, shouting, but he can’t understand the words against the roaring of blood in his ears.
Nightingale, looking at him, his hand on Peter’s forehead.
He blinked, and the images vanished, but they were still there, burned into his mind.
‘What was that?’ he got out, only now noticing that he was breathing heavily, as if he had just run a marathon.
‘Your memories. The real ones.’
‘But- you… you manipulated my memories.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you killed Simone and her sisters.’
‘Yes,’ Nightingale answered, still completely unmoving. Peter suddenly fervently wished he would show any kind of emotion, anything, even manic glee, not just admit to multiple murders like he was reading out of the telephone book.
‘Did you kill Lesley too?’ he asked.
‘No. Though I should have when I had the chance.’
‘Is that why she went with the Faceless Man?’
Nightingale raised an eyebrow. ‘Because she looked for protection from me, you mean? No, while it is without doubt one of the perks, her main reason is that she seeks his power to defeat me.’
‘And he agreed because he’s tired of getting the blame for your murders?’ He knew he had gone too far with that one when Nightingale narrowed his eyes at him.
‘The Faceless One is still a criminal. All the human victims we’ve encountered so far were killed by him, not me.’ Nightingale sighed. ‘I think Lesley working together with him is her version of striking a deal with the devil. She knows that she doesn’t stand a chance against me, but with the Faceless One as an ally she thinks that she might.’
‘Why didn’t she do something when she still lived in the Folly?’ Because if there was someone who was willing to stab another in the back if it meant doing something good in the long run, it was definitely Lesley.
‘Her change of heart was rather recent, when the two of you were residing in Skygarden. There was an… incident, you could say. It should be among your re-acquired memories.’ The image of Nightingale standing over the body flashed before Peter’s inner eye again. He couldn’t make head or tail of, and he was suddenly not so sure if he wanted to. ‘It was probably Lesley’s turning point,’ Nightingale continued. ‘Though I do not doubt that she had certain suspicions previously.’
Peter frowned at this, quiet for a moment. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he finally asked.
Nightingale cocked his head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Why bother? Why not just kill me, like you want to do with Lesley?’
Nightingale flinched at that. ‘I do not want to kill you, Peter, I’ve never wanted to. I want to make you understand.’
‘Understand?’ Peter echoed.
‘Yes!’ Nightingale said, taking a step towards Peter, who would have moved back if he could have. ‘You see, when I took you in as my apprentice, I saw the potential in you to one day take my position, should I die. Your intuitional feeling for magic was extraordinary and albeit your methods were rather… unorthodox and hindering to your learning, I knew that with time you would become a very good wizard.’
Peter nearly laughed at that. Yesterday, he would have been overjoyed to hear this kind of praise from Nightingale. Today, he wanted nothing more to run away from this nightmare.
‘But then, you jumped to Simone’s defence,’ Nightingale continued. ‘And I realized that I had neglected to guide you morally. I tried to argue with you, but you refused to hear what I was telling you, and so I had to take… a few drastic measures.’
‘You altered my memories,’ Peter said.
‘Yes, and I apologize for that. I hadn’t intended to let it come to that, but you just wouldn’t listen. I had no choice back then, so I did what was necessary, hoping that maybe when you were more experienced and older, you would understand.’
‘But it happened again, didn’t it? You altered my memories again. Several times at least.’ Peter really wished the pieces would come together a bit faster at this point.
‘Yes. I tried to avoid it as much as possible, but there were some… unfortunate events which forced my hand.’
‘You do know that you had a choice though?’
Nightingale looked confused. ‘What?’
‘You previously said you had no choice, but you did,’ said Peter, his voice growing louder. ‘You didn’t have to kill Simone and her sisters. You didn’t have to alter my memories. You had a choice, but you just chose not to take it!’
Nightingale looked at him, seemingly undisturbed by his outburst, his face only showing faint disappointment.
‘I had somewhat hoped that you might have changed since last year, but apparently I was wrong,’ he finally said.
‘Of course you were!’ Peter shouted. ‘You are being willfully blind to what doesn’t fit into how you want things to work. You lie to the people around you to get away with what you are doing. Did you manipulate Dr Walid’s memories too?’
Nightingale chuckled at that. ‘Oh Peter, you can so delightfully naïve sometimes.’
‘What?’ said Peter bewildered.
‘I never altered his memories or lied to Abdul. Though I admit to not telling him everything, but by his own request. He says he is not interested in the details, as long as he gets to research magical phenomena.’
‘Dr Walid would never-‘ Peter protested, then stopped, sudden doubt swallowing the rest of his sentence. ‘How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘I cannot prove it to you. I can just tell you that I am not.’
‘And Caffrey and his men?’
‘They were the very ones who helped me with endeavour.’
‘But what about the Rivers?’
‘Are you insinuating that I altered their memories too?’ Nightingale asked, bemused. ‘Not even I would try something like that. It would be too much work anyway. And I certainly haven’t been able to hide what I do from them either. No, the Rivers, both Mama and Father Thames are happy as long as I don’t touch any of theirs. And they are certainly not complaining about London being free of any threats to their hegemony. They do not care about how I do it, or who ends up getting… removed, as long as they remain in power.’
‘But-‘ Peter started, but words failed him. His eyes were burning and he closed them, not wanting Nightingale to see him cry.
‘Peter,’ Nightingale said softly and he opened his eyes to see the wizard standing in front of him. ‘Can’t you see that this way is for the best? There were wizards, long before you, who also tried to reason with magical creatures like you did, but in the end their efforts always resulted in blood and pain, both of innocents and their own. If you had been an apprentice during my time you would have learned that you should not compare them to humans… I would have taught you so too, but it just seemed so obvious to me at that time. And look at where we are now! Despite the fall of the British wizards, we have maintained peace and stopped countless humans from getting killed. I’m sorry for what I did to you, but it was only for your own good.’
‘No,’ Peter whispered hoarsely. ‘It was for your own good. You tricked me, you manipulated me, just so you could still have me next to you, even though I would never agree with what you do. Hundreds of innocents died for those people you pretend you saved.’
Nightingale looked at him, sadness on his face, and Peter wanted to punch him, wanted to hurt him so badly.
‘I suppose it can’t be helped then,’ Nightingale said, and reached up, laying his right hand on the side Peter’s head, his thumb pressing into Peter’s forehead.
‘What-What are you doing?’ Peter asked panickedly, eyes flickering between Nightingale’s hand and his face.
‘Making things right again,’ Nightingale answered, and Peter felt the forma take shape.
The first thing he noticed upon waking up was the smell of disinfectant. He opened his eyes, blinking against the light and turned his head. He was in a hospital bed in a single room, which had been painted the typical hospital light blue. Light was streaming in through a window to his right and by the looks of it, it seemed to be early afternoon.
He heard the sound of a door opening and turned his head to see Dr Walid walking in.
‘Ah, so you’re finally awake,’ he said, walking towards Peter’s bed. ‘How are you feeling? You worried us a bit here.’
‘What… happened?’ Peter rasped, only now noticing how hoarse his throat felt.
‘Easy there,’ Walid said, pushing Peter back on the bed when he tried to sit up. ‘And try not to talk too much. You inhaled a lot of smoke and were out for about 24 hours.’ He retrieved a glass of water from the nightstand. ‘Here, drink this,’ he said, holding the straw to Peter’s lips. He obediently took a few mouthfuls.
‘Nightingale?’ he asked once he had swallowed down the water.
‘One second,’ Walid said and hurried to the door.
Peter used the break to do exactly as Walid had told him not to and sat up, checking himself for any injuries he might have received, but – luckily – found nothing.
The linoleum floor creaked and he looked up to see Walid come back, this time in the company of Nightingale. He looked as put together as usual, except for the tension running through his frame. It was nothing an unfamiliar observer would notice, but it didn’t escape Peter.
Dr Walid coughed. ‘I’ll just… leave you two to it then,’ he said, and retreated through the door.
Nightingale walked towards the bed and sat down on the visitor chair.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Okay, under the circumstances,’ Peter answered, the words scratching at his throat. ‘Mind telling me what happened?’
Nightingale looked at him for a moment, hesitating, his face unreadable. ‘How much do you remember?’ he finally asked.
Peter frowned. ‘Not much. I remember discovering the truth about Clarice’s murder… running through the tunnels… and then things are pretty hazy.’
Nightingale sighed. ‘Abdul said your memories will probably come back very soon and that you just need some rest.’
‘That sounds like it might take a while. I need to know what happened now.’
Nightingale shifted in his seat, visibly uncomfortable, before finally giving a resigned sigh.
‘I suppose delaying it won’t really help in this matter. I don’t know all the details yet myself and the investigation is still ongoing, but I suppose I can give you my perspective of what happened yesterday.’ He took a deep breath.
‘From what we know, the Faceless Man must have somehow discovered the existence of the Quiet People, probably through the investigation regarding Clarice’ murder, as it fits the time frame and the coincidence is just too unlikely. Using the air vent system of the Underground he… released a sleeping gas into the tunnel system. When I arrived near the settlement, I breathed in a fair amount of it and noticed too late what was going on to extract myself from the scene. Since I hadn’t entered the village but was still on the outer perimeter, I managed to hide before the drug took full effect. I don’t know for certain what happened after that, for the most part, but apparently you entered the tunnels after me and… by then, the Faceless One had burned down the village, with the Quiet People still inside. I regained consciousness when you got me out, but you went back in, trying to maybe save some of them, but you came back out and told me that the fire had already completely destroyed the village and you had seen the Faceless One retreat. You fainted after that, having breathed in too much smoke and I brought you to the hospital.’
The memories still felt fuzzy, but they were starting to come back as Nightingale recounted the events.
‘Did… did any of the Quiet People survive?’ Peter asked, barely getting the words out.
Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Peter.’
He balled his fists into the blanket with so much force that it hurt, and then the tears were falling freely, dropping on the white bed sheets.
Distantly he noticed Nightingale taking one of his hands between his own, offering something to hold amidst the grief, as Peter mourned for all the innocent lives that had been taken.