The Mesmerist(21)

“Well then, it sounds like you’ve got to revenge him.”

“Yes,” I agree. “I surely think so.”

Emily gestures for me to sit, which I do, in a small, childlike chair next to her desk.

“It was just me and Gabbyshins at the orphanage,” she starts, fiddling with the stitched fabric of her bedding. “We had to look after ourselves. A sorry lot they all were. And the food! Blimey! Mush every day.”

“Mush?”

“Well, mush is the same as slop, but mush has peas. Sometimes we’d get a wrinkled piece of meat.”

“Who is Gabbyshins?”

“Gabriel,” she explains. “Old Gabbyshins, I call him.”

We are interrupted by a knock at the door. To my surprise, Gabriel enters.

“Speak of the devil, and he will appear,” Emily says.

Gabriel narrows his eyes at her.

“Sorry,” she mutters, sinking back into the bed.

I find this exchange between the two of them very odd.

“I told her,” Emily goes on. “I told her about my light.”

Gabriel closes the door behind him and stands, as there is no place for him to sit other than the foot of the bed. I study his face. There is something sad there, behind the dark circles of his eyes, like he’s carrying the burden of the world on his small shoulders. But why would a young boy have this look about him? “I guess you want to know about me, then,” he says.

Yes! I think, but do not let my curiosity show.

He walks to the small window and stares out at the dark. I watch his shoulders rise and fall. He reaches into his coat, and when he turns back around, a small stringed instrument is cradled in his arms. It is then that I hear perhaps the loveliest sound I have ever heard. It fills me with a sense of joy, and all in the world seems to be at ease. I close my eyes. I see Mother and Father laughing. I see myself and Deepa down at the docks, watching the ships come in.

And then Gabriel plays another note.

The joy vanishes, to be replaced by a sense of loss I feel in the pit of my stomach. It is painful—?not in a physical way, but an ache, as if my soul itself has been pierced. He strikes another note, and the pain subsides.

Emily smiles. “Neat, innit?”

I gaze at Gabriel, and the candlelight flickers on his face.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Y-yes—” I stutter. “That—?instrument. What is it? What are you?”

“Merely a bard,” he says, “and this is only a harp.”

Emily giggles, as if sharing in a private joke.

“My gift lies in the power to affect others through song,” Gabriel says. “I can change people’s emotions and even drive them to do terrible things.”

“Fascinating,” I murmur. But I wonder if there’s more to his story, and I try to look into his mind. I know it is an invasion, but I keep my gaze steady. I sense nothing, like I am staring at a blank white canvas. He looks at me curiously until I turn away, embarrassed, and feel the telltale pain along my shoulders.

“And is that all you can do?” I ask.

Emily laughs. “I think that’s quite enough, innit? You shoulda seen what he done to old Olly back at Nowhere, just by playing a song on that there harp.”

“Nowhere?” I ask.

“The orphanage,” Gabriel clarifies. “That’s what we called it.”

Nowhere, I think. What dreadful things could one witness at such a place? I don’t have to ask aloud, because Emily tells me. “There were a man named Fitchett what roamed around at night with a silver cane,” she says, “tapping the floors to make sure we was snug in bed. You’d hear him coming: tap, tap, tap. He smelled like gin and old onions.”

I imagine that the two of them must have had quite a hard time at the orphanage.

“And how do you feel about all this?” I ask Gabriel, just as I did Emily. “Being here, under Balthazar’s charge? This League of Ravens?”

Gabriel does not hesitate. “It is my duty to strike down evil wherever it may stand. Only through light can the darkness be vanquished.”

“That just means he’ll slay any beastie we come across,” Emily says.

Gabriel shakes his head, but I see a smile in his dark eyes.

The three of us, I think. Together—?the League of Ravens.

Whatever is to come, I am not alone.





CHAPTER TEN





The Rosy Boy


My first real outing into London comes the next day. Balthazar has asked Emily and Gabriel to show me the market so I can become a little more familiar with my surroundings. “You need to know your way around if you’re ever on the run,” he had said, his face showing no sign of humor.

This gives me pause, but I do feel the need to explore. I could use a break from the training.

Once we depart, I discover that the East End of London is beyond anything I could have prepared for. Children with no shoes on their feet run around like packs of wild animals, people wheel carts of food down muddy streets, pigs and cows meander in back gardens, and horse-drawn carriages rumble along so quickly, I have to dive out of the way. Worst of all, factories belch clouds of black smoke into the air.

But that is nothing compared with the market itself, which is only a few short blocks from 17 Wadsworth Place. The High Street, Emily calls it.