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  “They had us at gunpoint.”

  “I know. Darren told me in the night, stay off the phones, don’t send emails. Like this Ministry could pick up our scent on radio waves. It’s madness and I’ve been racking my brains but I can’t figure it out. What are we going to do?”

  “Did Darren have any ideas?”

  “Oh, he was rambling like a loon. We don’t have phones, anyway – only Darren had his on him and it’s dead. All I’ve got is this.” Holly handed over a piece of paper and Pax scanned the elegant handwriting.

  Problems:

  Husband mortally wounded.

  Government can’t be trusted – ergo police/hospitals/communications unsafe.

  Monsters under the city.

  Fairies = real – also want to kill us.

  Solutions:

  Contact the Evening Standard.

  “The Evening Standard?”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “They ran an excellent exposé on a pothole scandal in Ten Gardens. Those roads are now being fixed and the culprits are facing jail time. This isn’t much different, is it?”

  “There was a fifty-foot electric octopus thing,” Pax said. “It’s a little different.”

  “The principle’s the same,” Holly insisted. “The papers could offer us protection, surely. We need help of some sort – Darren needs to get to a hospital. I’d rather hoped for more, visiting a doctor.” Holly glanced towards the thickets of plant life that surrounded them, like she held this botanical recluse personally responsible for not having a medical degree. “But now we need to rethink – and the newspapers seem as good an idea as any.”

  “Except,” Pax said, “all we’ve got is a story.”

  “We’ve got your friend?”

  Pax met her eye and checked the room with concern that the doctor might be nearby. Something moved behind a wall of overgrown ferns, a few tables over. Pax willed Holly to be more careful keeping Letty secret; the fairy had rescued her from the Ministry, after all. “Her people stay hidden for a reason. But you’re right, we need more options. I’m hoping the doctor might present some.”

  “Oh, good luck. She’s been lurking,” Holly warned.

  Pax moved away and found the doctor standing aimlessly behind the ferns, thin hands clutching a steaming tin mug. Under her tent-like lab coat and dungarees, she seemed skeletal and birdlike, and was most definitely lurking.

  “Doctor,” Pax said. “How are you?” The doctor nodded awkwardly, the worry in her eyes intensified by thick-lensed glasses that covered half her face. Pax’s gaze tracked to a large glass jar hanging from the ceiling, the grime on the outside obscuring whatever floated inside. The machinery noises, she realised, had stopped. “You experiment on things from the Sunken City, right?”

  “When I can,” Rimes said. She lifted a hand to a potted tree with warty bark and mottled brown leaves. “There are...fascinating specimens down there.”

  “A regular horror show,” Pax agreed. “We weren’t properly introduced, were we? Pax.” She held out her hand. “Thanks for taking us in.” The doctor took a halting step forward, almost spilling her drink in surprise at her own movement. She gave a bony shake.

  “Dr Mandy Rimes.”

  “With what?”

  The joke met with silence.

  Pax continued, “You’re friends with Darren?” Another nod. “And Rufaizu?”

  “I knew his father,” Rimes said. “I hadn’t seen the boy since he was little, though.”

  “Hadn’t?”

  “Until last week.”

  Pax waited, but there was no elaboration. This woman might have been the only person to actually talk to Rufaizu before he was abducted. “Did he tell you anything? About where he’d been, where he was going? Anything he’d learnt?”

  “No. Not really. Just checking if I was still here. Ready to help.”

  “I guess this isn’t the sort of help you had in mind. Bunch of maimed strangers with the Ministry breathing down our necks?”

  Rimes’ shoulders bunched up weirdly, her nose scrunching, and it took Pax a moment to realise she was amused. “It’s exactly the sort of help I had in mind,” the doctor said. “This is a safe house. It always has been. Especially from the Ministry.”

  That was to say, it was a safe house for Apothel’s team. Their fight against the monsters had ended nine years ago, though, after Apothel’s assassination at the hands of an anonymous Fae. Yet the doctor was still here. Pax said, “Do the Ministry know about you? That you’re out here? That you knew Darren?”

  “Oh yes,” Rimes said. “Since Apothel – ahem –” She went quiet, as though the death of Rufaizu’s father was taboo. “They came after Apothel left us. I consult on their research, now.”

  “You what?” Pax started in alarm, almost jumping into the ferns.

  “I consult,” Rimes repeated, completely unapologetic. “I had to agree to it. Otherwise – otherwise they would have shut me down.”

  “You can’t be –” Pax began, but saw the doctor’s innocent smile. She had seen enough poker faces to know when someone’s emotions rested on the surface; Rimes genuinely didn’t see a problem. “Does Darren know?”

  “Of course,” Rimes nodded quickly. “We’ve been very careful – but really, we parted ways before Apothel’s...incident. And the Ministry understand Apothel was in the past. They never come here. Even if they did...” She pulled her thumb and forefinger across her lips to show they were sealed.

  Pax stared. This was a bad start. But she’d said it herself: Rimes hadn’t turned them in so far. “What if they do come?”

  “Ah. They usually send me samples by courier. Or I collect from the Long Culdon Post Office. They don’t like to visit, because of the security system.”

  “A security system that keeps the government away?”

  “Oh yes,” Rimes said. “An alarm, the dogs. Then the beacon. A combination of blinding water and a flock of ether bats.”

  “Blinding water and ether bats.” Pax could not recall these oddities from the nightmare creatures she’d first read of in Apothel’s book.

  “A powerful deterrent. I have various ways to reveal Sunken City secrets to the wider world. Otherwise the Ministry might have just – well – you know.”

  Pax did know. They might have killed her and disappeared the body. Yet something about the doctor’s manner, living in her own world, suggested Rimes hardly took the Ministry threat seriously. “Why haven’t you revealed these secrets anyway?”

  Rimes gave an awkward shrug. “You experienced some things down there, yes? We disagree on some of our research, but the Ministry are right to be cautious. Widespread knowledge of that world could be very dangerous.”

  That was true enough. A little knowledge had turned Pax’s life upside down. “There’s a lot you must be able to tell me, though. Can I ask you some questions?”

  The lower half of Rimes’ face fixed tightly. “Questions?”

  “About the creatures – what Apothel called the minotaur, and the blue screens on the walls, the ones he used to write messages – what? What’s wrong?”

  Rimes was shaking her head. “No. Can’t talk. I don’t know you.”

  “I came here with Darren, we’re –”

  “The Sunken City,” Rimes said, almost in a whisper, “is not to be discussed.”

  “You trust Darren? What if he tells you it’s okay?”

  Rimes shot a look towards the bedroom. “He’s hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Pax said, “and he’s not getting help if I can’t figure something out.”

  “I can help him.” Rimes’ eyes were still on the bedroom door, away with her thoughts. She hadn’t helped last night; if she was hiding some medical talent when he’d lain bleeding and broken, then she was a bigger mess than Pax thought.

  “How?”

  “I’ve got some glo,” Rimes said. “Not much, but it should do.”

  She pointed a shaky finger to the far side of the room. Pax spotted the unnaturally glow
ing bottle of liquid partially hidden behind a stack of translucent containers filled with either old stew or preserved animal organs. She knew a little about glo, the potion which had given Barton and Apothel the ability to see the creatures in the tunnels. “How’s that supposed to help?”

  “It accelerates the healing process. One of its many charms. If he has no serious problems, the body will heal itself, with glo’s help.” Rimes smiled with a twitch. “If his wife will let us. She’s a stern woman.”

  A light, surprised cough, behind the plants, revealed Holly had been listening.

  The bedroom had an atmosphere like a candlelit vigil. Cardboard boxes and rags littered the space around the bed, making the room dark and impossibly tight. Darren Barton lay across one side of a rusty cot, his skin blue with bruises where it wasn’t black with scabs or hidden under darkening bandages. His daughter, Grace, lay alongside him, curled up with her bare soles raw and swollen, flesh hard and dirty even after she’d spent half an hour scrubbing.

  Holly perched on the rusty metal chair where she’d spent the night. She took one of Darren’s beefy hands in both of hers. “Diz, dear. Are you awake?”

  He clearly wasn’t, so she leant closer and asked again, louder. He stirred with grumbles. Rimes crept into the room, ahead of Pax, the jar of bright liquid cradled in two hands.

  “What’s happening?” Barton moaned. He tried to push himself up.

  “Stay put, dear. We just came to check on you.”

  His eyes scanned the gathered trio and rested on Rimes. “Wasn’t a dream...”

  “No,” Holly said, more patronising than comforting. “Your family did get molested by monsters you neglected to tell us exist. And tiny people and government agents do want to kill us.”

  “I remember,” Barton said, pulling free from her and sitting up. His face creased with pain as his leg shifted, and his strangled curse woke Grace with a moan.

  “Bloody hell,” Barton heaved, staring at his ankle. “How bad is it?”

  “Apparently,” Pax said, “it’s outside all our expertise.”

  Barton kept staring as Grace shifted up onto an elbow. “Oh, Daddy...”

  “No hospitals,” Barton said gravely. “No phones.”

  “Yes, we got that,” Holly replied. “How about no foot?”

  “Darren?” Rimes said, simply, holding up the glo.

  Barton’s expression grew graver. Holly said, “I told them we’re a few furlongs short of experimenting with magical elixirs. But obviously the choice is yours.” Her tone said it really wasn’t.

  He waited long enough to suggest he respected her view, then said, “I need it.”

  “Darren –”

  “Give it to me.”

  Rimes looked to Holly for guidance, and Holly held off for a few seconds, mouth tight. Pax asked Barton, “Can it really do what she says?”

  “Of course,” he told her gruffly, and Pax felt a little hope, however unlikely it was. It’d be an early win if they could get Barton walking. He could share the burden. Except he complained, “Is that all we’ve got?”

  Rimes was about to answer, her sad face confirming it, when a car engine growled outside, wheels rumbling over the uneven road. The doctor’s eyes broadened in alarm, magnified by her thick lenses. Pax cursed under her breath. “Where’s your defence system?”

  The doctor said, “No – it’s not active, not while we’re in here!”

  Pax’s fists clenched. After finding this reclusive hut and the doctor who’d just admitted to working with their enemies, what did she expect besides a useless security system? Should’ve gone with Letty when she had the chance. She didn’t need to ask to know no one good was visiting. “You have to get rid of them.”

  3

  There was no chance of moving Barton unnoticed, so Pax urged Rimes to greet their guests and keep them away from the bedroom. Pax went with her, wary of the doctor’s inability to lie and her possibly split allegiances. Fortunately, the chaotic mess of Rimes’ workroom was packed with hiding places, including a roomy desk space near the entrance, draped with hanging plants whose leafy branches created a curtain.

  A man coughed outside, louder than was necessary, signalling to the world that he was irritated. Pax imagined the cloud of dust their rapid approach must have stirred; she’d coughed on it too, when her group had arrived in the night.

  The walls were thin enough for her to hear the men’s approach. The first one spoke in a deep, aggressive tone. “Seriously expect me to check the perimeter? I didn’t pack galoshes.”

  “We’ll see what’s necessary,” the second man replied with a younger, more reasonable voice. “She’s one of us, right?”

  “Look at this place. The only thing she is, is abnormal.”

  Definitely Ministry. Pax leant out to watch Rimes’ face as the doctor stood by the door. She had a claw-like hand near the handle, unblinking face tight with nerves. Dammit, she was going to give them away.

  “Dr Rimes?” the low-voiced one shouted, apparently not one for knocking. “You in? We’ve got some questions.”

  Rimes cleared her throat, eyes fixed on the door handle.

  “She’s in. Car over there, no way she owns more than one.”

  Pax tensed at the mention of the car. They had stolen the distinctly old Cavalier from an MEE agent. It was concealed under a tarpaulin, between the trees, in case the MEE had satellites or something looking for it, but all these men needed to do was look under the sheet.

  “Rimes!” the boorish one called out and pounded on the door. The doctor jumped back, before composing herself and opening up. Pax ducked under the desk.

  “Finally,” the man snorted. Almost definitely a terrible person. “Agent Farnham, Agent Devlin. We wake you?”

  “No,” Rimes answered quietly, then cleared her throat and tried again, with all the flatness of someone trying too hard. “No, not at all. I’ve been working since sunrise.”

  “You know what’s happened in town?”

  Rimes didn’t say anything, no doubt affecting an innocent, ignorant look. Pax prayed these men would see her as eccentric rather than untrustworthy.

  The loud one, Farnham, huffed and raised his voice as though talking to a simpleton. “Not got a radio out here? Some way to hear the news?”

  “I have the internet,” Rimes replied, matter-of-factly. “Even on my phone now. I check my emails twice a day –”

  “Dr Rimes,” the younger one said. “Is it alright if we come in?”

  Rimes scuttled away from the door. “By all means, by all means.”

  The floorboards groaned under the men’s weight; at least one of them was carrying more than his share of bulk. Pax could guess which. They continued between the workbenches, scanning the room.

  “This place is a dump,” Farnham concluded.

  “Dr Rimes,” Devlin said, “there’s been a number of incidents in town. It started Friday and came to a head last night. You haven’t heard anything about it?”

  “I didn’t receive an email,” Rimes said. “Or a call.”

  “This was on the local news.”

  “National news, now,” Farnham corrected. So they had connected the gas main incident to them. As he creaked through the room, Pax curled tighter into her hiding spot. “You heard from Darren Barton lately?”

  “Darren?” Rimes said, with a peak of volume. Too surprised. “No, not in many years. He cut off all ties with me, you know. He left it all behind him. Everything.”

  Pax squinted through the leaves at the shape of the man passing the other side of a bench. He was big alright, and had a great curly beard like a Viking. He moved towards the bedroom.

  “No visitors lately?” he asked. Rimes laughed nervously. “Something funny?”

  “No – well, yes. I don’t get visitors, Mr Farnham. Who would come here? I don’t even see your people. But – do you want to search the grounds? Do you think someone could have sneaked in?” Her voice rose with worry. Pax hadn’t given her enou
gh credit; Rimes didn’t just sound convincingly scatty, she was playing on Farnham’s clear reluctance to be here.

  “It’s Agent Farnham,” he replied bitterly. He moved away from the bedroom, back through the room, and Pax let out a quiet breath of relief. The other agent started moving, closer to her. His legs came past the desk, right in front of her, and she held her breath again.

  “We’ve got reason to believe Darren Barton is active,” Devlin said. “You will tell us if you hear from him, won’t you?”

  “Oh.” Rimes affected even more surprise. “Active how? His wife would kill him.”

  Devlin scratched a smart shoe down his calf, smearing mud on the suit trouser. Not used to being outside the city. “You’re aware of the rumours that the Fae once had a weapon that could affect the praelucente?”

  The MEE’s word for the minotaur.

  “Rumours,” Rimes echoed, dismissively.

  “Seems someone had access to something like that, and it got set off last night,” Devlin continued, getting a snort of disapproval from Farnham. No doubt angry that it was one of their own, Casaria, who had activated the weapon. “The praelucente is behaving somewhat unusually this morning. Possibly after-effects from the device.”

  “You got any ideas about that?” Farnham said, accusingly.

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Rimes replied. “I haven’t done such research in almost a decade. My primary concerns are in testing Sunken City flora. Do you know I’ve been running some very interesting tests on wading moss –”

  “You used to do other things,” Farnham pressed. “Back when you worked with that bastard Apothel. Before the MEE educated you about the praelucente’s net benefits, right?”

  Casaria had used the same phrasing; the MEE’s dogma that the minotaur, on balance, offered some force of good. Rimes didn’t answer at once, which Pax realised was a genuine falter. Whatever work she’d done with these people, the doctor didn’t believe the minotaur was a good thing. Rimes said, a little testy, “Apothel never found a way to hurt it. He never even got close to it.”