Every Exquisite Thing (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #3)

“Oh, very impressive!” Ariadne said, smiling.

Anna stood there for a moment, Ariadne in her arms, unsure of what to do. There was something in Ariadne’s gaze, in the way she was looking at Anna . . . as if mesmerized . . .

How did she ask? How did this happen with someone like Ariadne?

It was too much.

“A very good attempt,” Anna said, gently setting Ariadne on her feet. “Just . . . watch your footing.”

“I think I’ve had enough of that for today,” Ariadne said. “How does one have fun in London?”

Oh, so many ways.

“Well,” Anna said. “There is the theater, and the zoo is—”

“No.” Ariadne took hold of one of the pillars and gently spun around it. “Fun. Surely, you know a place.”

“Well,” Anna said, searching her mind frantically, “I know a place full of writers and poets. It is quite louche. It is in Soho and starts after midnight.”

“Then I assume you will be taking me,” Ariadne said, eyes sparkling. “I will wait for you by my window at midnight tonight.”





The wait that evening was excruciating.

Anna picked at her dinner and watched the clock across the room. Christopher was forming his carrots into a pyramid and working something out in his head. Her mother was feeding Alexander. Anna was counting her heartbeats. She had to try not to appear conspicuous. She spent some time in the family room with her baby brother; she picked up a book and cast an eye blankly over the pages. By nine, she was able to stretch and say she was going to have a bath and retire.

Back in her room, Anna waited until she heard the other members of the household go to bed before changing her clothes. She had taken the time to clean her outfit and mend it as best she could. When she dressed, she looked dapper and dangerous. She had decided now that this was how she would dress if she slipped out on adventures, even to meet Ariadne.

She slipped out of her window at eleven, sliding down a rope which she tossed back inside. She could have jumped, but it had taken her some time to arrange her hair under the hat correctly. She walked to Belgravia, and this time she did not bother to avoid the pools of streetlight. She wanted to be seen. She straightened her back and widened her step. The more she walked, the more she felt herself slipping into the gait, the attitude. She tipped her hat to a lady passing in a carriage; the lady smiled and looked away shyly.

Anna knew now that she was never going to go back to wearing dresses. She had always loved the theater, always loved the idea of a performance. The first time she had worn her brother’s clothes it had been a performance, but with each time she did it again, it became more her reality. She was not a man and did not want to be—but why should men get to keep all the good pieces of masculinity for themselves because of an accident of birth? Why should she, Anna, not wear their clothes, and their power and confidence, too?

You have stolen fire from the gods.

Anna’s swagger faded a bit as she turned the corner on to Cavendish Square. Would Adriane accept her like this? It had felt so right a moment before, but now . . .

She almost turned back, but then she turned on her heel and forced herself on.

The Bridgestock house was dark. Anna looked up, fearing that Ariadne had been teasing. But then she saw a flick of a curtain, and the sash window opened. Ariadne looked down at her.

And she smiled.

A rope sailed out of the window, and Ariadne slid down it, more gracefully than she had in training. She wore a light blue dress, which fluttered as she dropped.

“Oh my,” she said, walking up to Anna. “You look . . . quite devastating.”

Anna would not have traded the way Ariadne looked at her in that moment for a thousand pounds.

They took a carriage to Soho. Though she and Ariadne were both glamoured to hide their Marks from mundanes, Anna enjoyed the look she got from the driver when he realized the handsome young gent in his cab was a handsome young lady. He doffed his cap as she and Ariadne alighted from the cab, muttering something about “young people these days.”

They arrived at the house, but this time, when Anna knocked on the door, the person answering was less accommodating. He looked at Anna, then at Ariadne.

“No Shadowhunters,” he said.

“That was not your previous policy,” Anna said. She noticed that the windows were now covered in heavy velvet curtains.

“Go home, Shadowhunters,” he said. “I have made myself clear.”

The door was slammed in their faces.

“Now I am curious,” Ariadne said. “We must go in, don’t you think?”

Ariadne certainly had a wicked streak in her that complemented her bubbly cheerfulness, a love of things that were just a bit . . . naughty. Anna felt she should encourage this impulse.

There was no clear point of access on the flat front of the house, so they moved down to the end of the street and found a narrow alley backing the houses. This was bricked up to the third floor. There was, however, a drainpipe. Anna got a hold on this and made the climb. She could not reach the third-story windows from there, but she could get onto the roof. She looked down to see Ariadne climbing up after her, again showing more skill than she had in the training room. They managed to pry open an attic window. From there, they crept down the winding stairs, Anna first, with Ariadne behind. Ariadne kept a hand on Anna’s waist, possibly for guidance as they walked, or . . .

Anna would not think about it.

They were burning a great deal of incense in the house tonight. It hummed through the hall and up the stairs, almost causing Anna to cough. It was not a pleasant smell—it was acrid and hard. Anna detected wormwood, mugwort, and something else—something with a metallic edge, like blood. The group was usually quiet. There was only one voice, speaking low. A female voice with the Germanic accent. She heard the incantations.

Anna knew a summoning when she heard one. She turned to Ariadne, who had a look of concern on her face.

She reached for her seraph blade and indicated to Ariadne that she would go ahead and look. Ariadne nodded. Anna crept to the end of the steps, then down the hall. She pushed back a bit of the velvet curtain that closed off the main sitting room. Everyone there was turned toward the center of the room, so mostly she saw backs and the faint flicker of candlelight.

Anna could make out the form of a circle drawn on the floor. The woman in the turban was just on the edge of it, her face tilted up in ecstasy. She wore a long black robe and held a book with a pentagram over her head. The book was bound in something odd. It looked like skin.

Towering above all was the warlock Leopolda, her eyes closed and her arms raised. She held a curved dagger in her hands. She was chanting in a demonic language. Then she looked to the woman in the turban and nodded. The woman took a long step into the circle. Green flame flashed all around, making the mundanes murmur and back away. There were not, Anna noticed, many Downworlders present.

“Come forth!” cried the woman. “Come forth, beautiful death. Come forth, creature, that we may worship you! Come forth!”

There was a terrible smell, and the room filled with darkness. Anna knew she could no longer stand still.

“Get out!” Anna yelled, pushing her way into the room. “All of you!”

The group had no time to be surprised. A massive Ravener demon burst forth out of the darkness. The woman in the turban went down on her knees before it.

“My lord,” she said. “My dark—”

The Ravener whipped its tail around and easily severed the woman’s turbaned head from her neck. The assembled let up a collective scream, and there was a rush for the door. Anna had to fight her way toward the demon. The Ravener was making short work of the woman’s remains.