Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery aka Fly Trap

The mattress was set down roughly on the cobbles, and Brand opened his eyes to find himself confronted by the uncomfortable ends of a bill-hook, a rake, a cleaver and a chisel. The terror in his enemies’ faces suddenly tickled him unbearably, and despite the pain in his side he started to laugh, so breathlessly and helplessly that the other four took a step back, evidently fearing madness.

‘Yes,’ he choked. ‘The radical. The terrible radical.’ The absurdity was too much for him. ‘Bravo! You have captured the great Brand Appleton, the King of the Radicals! The mayor will be very proud of you. Ow .’ He clasped his hand to his side as his laughter threatened to reopen his wound. The very hopelessness of his position made him feel free and giddy all of a sudden. He was at death’s door, but his captors were the ones that seemed terrified.

‘We should take him to the mayor,’ whispered the billhook wielder.

‘Yes, to the mayor and his saintly daughter.’ Brand gave them a bruised and crazed grin. ‘What are you waiting for? Take me to them – do you think I will tell anyone but the mayor about my crimes? All these flames – that was me too, did you not know?’

‘What? You… you cur!’

‘Blame my birth.’ Brand winced as he was roughly dragged to his feet, his arms slung over two sets of shoulders so that he could be carried. ‘Blame Sparkentress, the wicked minx. Blame the mayor for sending me to Toll-by-Night, where I could mix freely with others of my seditious kind, plotting his overthrow and the destruction of Toll!’

Ah, so it ends , he thought, as he was dragged along the streets by his captors. And it seems I will be visiting the mayor and his daughter again after all .

He would see Beamabeth one last time. And yet when he thought of her he could only remember a set of golden ringlets and a warm glow, with no actual face. Instead he found himself thinking of a surly, crop-headed figure with a cut lip, and thanking the Beloved that Laylow had not been caught up in his arrest.

Let us hope Laylow and Mosca find the Luck. I am all out of luck, it seems. But perhaps I can help them… by forcing the Locksmiths’ hand. If I can persuade everybody that the town catching fire is a sign that the Luck is dead, then the Locksmiths will probably have to bring him out of his hiding place to prove he is still alive. That might give Mosca and Laylow their chance…

‘You are all closer to death than I!’ he declaimed, in a carrying and manic tone, ‘I have already doomed you all! There is nothing to stop the flames now, nothing! Last night I slew the Luck myself!’

Let us see the Locksmiths ignore that.

The reaction to his pronouncement was all he could have hoped for and more.

Toll-by-Day was blinding, and Laylow could barely keep her eyes open. As far as she was concerned, the whole world might just as well have been aflame. The colours burned, from the murky green of the yews to the red cloaks of respectable housewives. Even her good friends the roofs had developed leeringly bright patterns of moss and scratch tracery. The sky was an ache, and the sun a searing, shapeless hole, so different from the gleaming penny of the moon. The air smelt different as well, and not just because of the smoke.

Her own hands as she found holds on ledges and chimneys looked strange to her, the callouses yellow, the scars snail-white. She felt exposed, as if everyone must be able to see her every instant. In actual fact, however, most people were too busy with thoughts of the fire to wonder whether a claw-gloved girl might be running along the rooftops.

There was a lot more noise in the streets than she was used to in the night town, but some fragments floated up to her.

‘… says the Luck is gone! Flames spreading because the Luck is gone!’

‘… captured Appleton and says he cut the Luck into pieces and threw them over different walls…’

Laylow stiffened, and her claw-tips made squeaky sounds as they etched tiny white marks into a roof tile. Brand had been captured. He was a prisoner, and had come up with exactly the sort of mad defiant lie that would see him torn apart by a hysterical crowd. Did he want to die?

For a little while she could not breathe, and thought about running to the jail to find him. But what good could she do against armed guards and a tower of stone? None.

What now? Would rescuing the Luck help her save Brand? It was so hard to think in this blazing, clattering daylight. If she was lucky it would somehow. She pushed on towards what she prayed was Blithers Yard.

Looking down she saw two men stop dead and exchange glances as they overheard the report of the murder of the Luck. Both were wearing gloves. They conversed hurriedly, then broke into a run. Face puckering in concentration, Laylow set off along the rooftops, keeping pace with them.

She had to hope that these men were going to check on the Luck, make sure that he was still alive and well, and to report the rumours circulating. She almost knew where she was now. Laylow knew the Jinglers’ favourite shortcuts to most places, having conned them by rote when planning her chocolate delivery routes.

In an alley, the two men met with two more, also in gloves, and Laylow craned to hear something of their furtive conversation.

‘… says we should move him… breaking into all the houses down there… move him further from the fire…’

And on they went, now as a foursome. Jingle-jing, jingle-jing , the faintest silvery sound of hidden keys chiming as they ran.

No doors had been beaten in yet in Pritter’s Lane, but the house-tearers were only a street away. Casting quick glances up and down the lane, the gloved men fumbled quickly with the locks on a house-facing and slid it aside to show a small red door. This was opened, and after more conference two figures came out, a large and burly man and a boy in his teens. Laylow could not tell how closely he matched Mosca’s description of the Luck because there was a thick cloth draped over his head, as if to protect him from smoke.

If she did not act, they would lead him to another part of the town, pull him in through another door, fasten it and vanish. But there were five of them and only one Laylow. What could she do?

Only one thing.

The five Locksmiths were on the alert. Two kept an eye up and down Pritter’s Lane. One was casually keeping watch at the corner, another attending to locking the door behind them, the last making sure the hooded boy did not run or do anything sudden. None, however, were looking up, and so none were ready when a grim and wiry figure dropped down in their very midst, yanked the Luck backwards by his collar and placed the tips of three sharp iron claws to his throat.

‘Get back!’ hissed Laylow. ‘Or it’s an unlucky day for all of us! Step away!’

During the following long pause the Locksmiths glanced at each other and sent furious messages using eyebrow semaphore, but there was nothing that any of them could actually do without endangering the Luck. Carefully, but with an air of barely reined menace, they moved backwards away from her.

The boy whose collar she was gripping was trembling. His feet were turned inwards and his hands were big and clumsy. He was taller than her, but he was making tiny, squeezed sobbing noises under his face cloth, like a little child crying under its pillow.

‘Soot-girl sent me,’ Laylow whispered, and the crying noises stopped. ‘She says you want to be free. That true?’ The clothy head-shape nodded. ‘Me too. Stick with me and we will be.’ She reached up and tugged off the cloth, and the Luck blinked at the world around him, jaw hanging open. ‘I will not hurt you. But we must hoodwink these people so they think I will. Trust me.’