“What did the people who lived here tell you?”
“Nobody lived here.”
Finch chewed on that for a moment. Was the Partial hiding something from Heretic? He patted his satchel. “I’ve got the entire list from Heretic of anyone who lived here.” Idiot. “You’re saying it won’t include the two who lived here?”
“They don’t live here,” the Partial said, a hint of warning in his voice. “They don’t live anywhere anymore. They didn’t know anything important.”
Dead, then. Disappeared into the abyss of history.
Appalled, Finch said, “Heretic knows this?”
The Partial nodded, folding his arms. “Don’t take anything from the bodies this time except for the memory bulbs. I’m supposed to guard them. I’ve been here all day. Someone will always be here.”
The way the Partial said this made Finch think the man, the abomination, was applying for martyrdom. Did the Partial think Finch was weak just because he hadn’t allowed the gray caps to take his eye? Part of Finch wanted to hit the Partial in the mouth for that. Instead, he squatted next to the man’s body. Looked so peaceful.
Was he alive for a time? In the room? Was he fighting the gray cap? Fleeing him?
The Partial, from in front and above him: “I’ll watch. Just to make sure.”
Make sure of what?
“Stay where I can see you.”
“Such distrust,” the Partial murmured.
Finch knelt beside the man’s body. Pushed aside the matted hair on the man’s head to get a good grip on the stalk. Held the bulb in his hand. Sticky, porous, rubbery. Gently twisted it off the stalk. A pock sound as he detached it. He put the bulb in his pocket. Pulled the stalk out at the root. Left behind a round indentation about a half inch deep. Blood began to fill the small wound.
That’ll leave a scar.
Let loose a yip of nervous laughter. Shut it down.
But the Partial still noticed it. “I knew you didn’t want to eat their memories.”
Finch ignored the Partial. Repeated the process for the gray cap. No blood, no pock sound.
“You might be the first person to ever eat a gray cap’s memory bulb. Aren’t you the lucky one.”
Finch rose to face the Partial. “Pathetic idea of security, by the way. One Partial. First thing any intruder will want to do is shoot out or cut out your eye. Followed by cutting off your head to make absolutely sure.” Said each word slowly. Savored each.
The Partial wasn’t smiling now. The eye twitched. He advanced on Finch until he stood inches away. Finch looked into that ruin of a face and tried not to turn away in disgust.
“Finch. Finchy. Whoever you are. You’re not as smart as you think. I’m not the only one here. We’ve got this whole building staked out. If anyone comes here, we’ll see them. The spores will see them.”
Bellum omnium contra omnes. “Never lost” in a dead man’s hand.
“Who would come here? And why?”
“Followers of the Blue.” The Partial seemed on the verge of saying more. Caught himself.
But Finch had heard enough. A grin broke across his face. Didn’t turn back soon enough. He gave the Partial a last poisonous stare.
“What? Nothing more to say?” the Partial called after him as he headed down the stairs. “I’m disappointed, Finchy … Someday, though, Finchy, someday…”
Out onto the street, amid the black leaves. The rotten fruit. A memory bulb in each pocket. Looking now for the signature of the rebels in every figure that he passed.
* * *
Followers of the Blue … The Lady in Blue.
A thousand tales told about her by now. Told by old men to young men. Told by mothers to sons and daughters. Most are about her voice. No one agrees on where the Lady in Blue came from, but everyone agrees that during the worst of the War of the Houses her voice was heard coming from courtyards, buildings, even underground. Or seemed to. Some thought she was an opera singer transformed by grief over a slain lover. That she was in some way the voice of the city, coming up from the earth. Believed this even though it could not be true. None of it could be true.
Then her voice started coming to the people on the radio stations of House Hoegbotton and House Frankwrithe, before the Rising. In those interim years when the Houses combined forces to confront the true insurgents. The enemy hidden in the ground.
Finch remembers some of those broadcasts. Listened to them with his father. Near the end.
The Lady in Blue would begin in a low, slow voice. Almost the murmurs of a lover. Her voice would build in volume and strength. Until she was exhorting the people of Ambergris to stand firm against not only the “underground invader,” but also against the avarice and selfishness of its own leaders.
That her voice came from everywhere was reinforced by background noises in her broadcasts. Many different settings. Sometimes the sounds of the River Moth behind her. Sometimes a windy tower. Sometimes a water-clogged basement that she would claim was actually an underground gray cap stronghold. Often, she sounded weary. So incredibly tired. And other times strong, defiant.
Then the gray caps Rose, and Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe alike became the rebels. Dead. Dispersed. Fled. Lost. But the Lady in Blue survived, and by surviving she seemed to have again become greater than herself. Neither the green of the Hoegbottons nor the red of the Frankwrithe & Lewdens, but all the colors mixed together. People clung to the hope that she would return in force to save them. Even though she’d never been more than a voice on the radio to most of them.
Finch has seen the gray caps’ files on the Lady in Blue, of course. Knows that she was born Alessandra Lewden in the Southern Isles. Received her education from various private schools in Morrow and Stockton. Then became Alessandra Hoegbotton in a politically advantageous marriage arranged during a brief truce between the Houses. Wife to the opera singer Joseph Hoegbotton, who was shot dead by an insane rival after a performance. After which Alessandra disappeared for several years. Until House Hoegbotton needed her for their latest propaganda tool: radio broadcasts. Across enemy lines. The disembodied voice of the self-described “Lady in Blue” coming out of houses and the back rooms of cafés.
Unclear from the files if Alessandra had given herself over entirely to Cause Hoegbotton. But it didn’t matter when Cause Hoegbotton and Cause Frankwrithe-Lewden came together. The Lady in Blue just became more powerful. Sometimes, she was the only thing connecting the two factions.
But fascinating to Finch: her voice coming over the radio had driven the gray caps insane with anger. At first, they did not understand this new invention, brought to Ambergris by the busy scientists of the Kalif’s empire. So for a time her voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Magically. Or a magic that was beyond them, unaffected by spores or fruiting bodies. You could not re-create radio using fungi. You could not spy on it from within.
The gray caps, the files revealed, had spent at least as much time trying to track her down as preparing for the Rising. But they could not locate her. They flooded tunnels. Sent spore armies rushing down remote streets. Blocked off passageways. Still, they couldn’t find her. Which made Finch, even conflicted, admire her, reading the files. Understanding the cost of being constantly on the move. Constantly in flux.