Prologue
They say the cold won’t kill you if you can remember what it was like to be warm.
But when the hell was that? Back before we broke the world: when the streetlamps were full of fire and you didn’t have to search so hard to find the spark of light in someone’s eyes. Now there’s just darkness and death and—
No. Remember.
Shoulder to shoulder on the Sunder City streetcar, crammed between fur-covered creatures and dirty workers done for the day. Music and mulled wine in underground clubs, before it all went rotten and silent and—
No.
The Ditch, after closing, alone with a mop. Warmer than you might imagine. The air thick with the memory of pipe smoke, folk songs and bad breath. Windows fogged over and the kitchen ripe with onions, mutton and sage.
I wipe the tables, warmed by plates and heavy elbows; clearing peanut shells, tobacco crumbs, gristle and spit. Working from top to bottom, I sweep and then mop, thinning down the sickening mix of food scraps, melted snow and spilt beer.
I throw the bigger pieces into the fireplace: a cast-iron sculpture in the center of the room, topped with a thick chimney. I watch the flames eat the leftovers, spitting grease against the glass door. For a moment, that fireplace is the warmest thing in the building. Then the front door opens and Eliah Hendricks arrives.
“Fetch, my boy! You have got to try one of these!”
The High Chancellor stumbled into The Ditch with both hands wrapped around a leaky paper bag. Brown oil dripped down his ringed fingers on to my newly mopped floor. His copper-colored hair, sprinkled with snow, was bunched up in the collar of his riding cloak. I was flattered: the leader of the Opus had traveled for days to get to Sunder City and I was his first stop.
Well, second. He’d stopped to get snacks.
I wiped my hands on my apron and made a move towards the bag. Hendricks pulled it away like he was saving a baby from a lion’s jaws.
“Don’t even think about sticking those filthy tentacles in here. Open up.”
Hendricks reached into the bag and plucked out a sweet-smelling, crispy bundle. I opened my mouth and he pushed it onto my tongue.
“They call them Swine-o’s. Fried plums wrapped in thin strips of fatty pork.” I bit down slowly, feeling the mixture of fruit juice and animal fat fill my mouth. “Isn’t it just marvelous? This right here is the miracle of Sunder City. Most people on the continent can’t see it. They’re so set in their ways they don’t understand what’s so special about this place. This,” he pointed an oily finger at my full cheeks, “is a modern marvel. The old magic would never have conjured this up. Not in hundreds of years. I ought to know: I was there!”
He pulled another burgundy morsel out of the bag, held it under his nose, breathed deeply and shook his head in disbelief.
“Mizaki winter-plums, sweetened to perfection by the chilled winds of the north, cocooned in marbled pork-belly from the cocoa-bean-eating boars of Southern Skiros. An ingenious invention of Sunder City cuisine sold on a street-corner at midnight for the shocking price of one silver coin per packet.” He popped it in his mouth and kept on talking. “This is progress, Fetch! This is something worth fighting for!”
He dropped the oily bag on my clean table and I dragged over a couple of stools. Hendricks went behind the bar and began the well-practiced routine he performed every time we were together.
First, he slipped two bronze bills into the register. It would not only cover the booze we were about to consume, but also encourage Mr Tatterman to overlook my debilitating hangover the next day.
There was no point trying to do any work while Hendricks was around so I dragged the mop bucket out back, took off the apron, washed my hands, and helped myself to some leftovers from the kitchen that wouldn’t be missed: a quarter-wheel of hard cheese, a dollop of honey and some bread that was a day away from stale. When I brought out the plate, Hendricks had all his ingredients lined up like soldiers.
Burnt milkwood, like most cocktails, began its life as medicine. The sap of the tarix tree is cooked over an open flame till it melts into a bitter, caramel-colored syrup: good for sore throats and sinus infections but it tastes terrible on its own. Mothers with sick kids mixed in beet-sugar to balance out the flavors. Over time, more ingredients were added until the recipe became so rich that, if one was so inclined, it could hide a ridiculous amount of alcohol without anyone being able to taste it.
Most bars kept a pre-mixed bottle of tarix sap on hand, but Eliah preferred to make his own.
“My boy! How go the adventures of the biggest kid in Sunder City?” he asked, as he emptied a small vial of raw sap into a saucepan. “Still breaking hearts, banks and expectations?”
He always talked to me like that. For all our fondness of each other, I never quite worked out if he was teasing me about my struggles or whether he actually thought I was making good impressions around town.
“I’ve got a new room,” I said. “Sharing with an Ogre who snores like thunder. I have to get my sleep during the day when he’s working at the steel-mill but it still feels like I’m moving up in the world.”
“No need to move up, Master Fetch, just around.” He swirled the sap in the saucepan as he made his way over to the fireplace. “This is a marvelous city to play in but most people misunderstand the game. The beauty of Sunder is that it isn’t some ancient kingdom bogged down with bloodlines and crowns where the leaders spend all their time trying to cut each other off at the necks. It’s a market. A dance-hall. It’s a laboratory of unstable chemicals reacting to each other in beautiful and unexpected ways. Don’t look up. Look down! Take off your shoes and let the city squeeze between your toes. Wallow in it. Smell it and taste it until you’ve absorbed everything it has to offer.”
Hendricks sat down in front of the fire, wrapped his cloak around his fingers and grabbed the handle of the glass door. When he opened it up, the heat blew back his hair. He pushed the saucepan inside, slowly shaking it in circles as the flames caught the sap. I took a seat at the table and dipped a crust of bread into the honey.
“There’s not much time for wallowing when I have to work three jobs.”
He pulled the saucepan from the fire, blew out the flames that were burning too quickly, then slid it back in.
“I suppose that all depends on who you work for,” he said.
“It’s different every week. I’ve been working for Amari quite a bit.”
“Ah, yes. My Faery friend with her little Fetch wrapped around her finger. What does she pay you in? Batted lashes and hidden kisses?”
I blushed and ignored the question.
“Mostly, I’m just here. Sometimes I run errands for the apothecary or take one-off jobs from customers.”
The sap turned a deep caramel so Hendricks pulled out the pan and brought it back behind the bar.
“But who do you really work for? The sleepy oaf who runs this place? He’s the one who pays you and gives you your orders.”
He was mounting the back of another one of his speeches and I’d learned not to stand in his way when he took off.
“I suppose so.”
“Or are you really just working for the money? If so, then some would say that you’re actually working for the Sunder City Bank. Perhaps we all are! But does the city serve the bank or does the bank serve the city?” It wasn’t a question I was supposed to know the answer to, so I just shrugged. “Perhaps I’m underestimating you. Maybe it’s not about the money at all. In your heart, perhaps you work for the customers. When you polish the bar and mop the floors and clean the glasses to perfection” – in jest, he wiped a smudge from the high-ball he was holding – “do you actually think about the patrons themselves? Do you see yourself as being in service to them?”