Twelve-year-old Carmen has a secret: she can talk to her cat Grim. But the powerful Brotherhood has banned pets, and the penalty is death.
Ward is the most wanted boy in the world. The only thing standing between him and the hangman's noose is maste...
By the time Ward and Carmen reached the city the sun had dropped below the walls of Bedlam prison. The clouds were purple ships on the horizon, the moon a disc of amber, and stars were winking into existence like faraway lamps. Seagulls cried. A drunk moaned on a hard doorstep. A breeze from the north scurried through the city, carrying with it the smell of the wild northern lands, and from the river came the slow steady toll of a bell.
The night people were emerging: the traders and criminals and wandering homeless. The day people were safe at home. Traders pushed handcarts about the streets. They were bearded, their faces dark and their eyes white. They could vanish in the blink of an eye. It was not clear what they sold. Where they came from, and where they went when the sun came up, nobody knew. The drinking houses had been forced to close one by one, and the few that remained, down by the riverside, were shuttered during the day. At night they were warrens of shadowy rooms in which sinister deals were struck. Hardened drunks were not tolerated in such places of business, so wandered the streets until they passed out in some doorway or were taken away by the Reds. They would sometimes be found later, face-down in the river, seagulls standing like bargemen upon their backs.
So Ward and Carmen moved warily through the city as the light evaporated to the west. Grim had followed them when they left Carmen's place, seemingly indifferent to the drama, though he kept his distance: when Ward looked back he could barely make out the black fel amongst the deepening shadows of the city.
They were making for the only Scowerer-controlled entrance to the underground in this quarter of Bareheep, which was otherwise Hector territory. It was accessed via a vacant building. Centuries ago, Mildew had told Ward, the building had been a bath house, where the ancients would bathe together in one big pool. This sounded so strange that Ward figured she was pulling his leg.
There were many vacant buildings in the city. After acquiring land the State would usually sit on it to prevent it falling back into private hands. The wasn't yet the case with the bath house, for its ownership was still in dispute. The complexity of civil law meant that these cases could be endlessly appealed by invoking ancient statutes; the original parties would usually either die or go bankrupt before the case was resolved, and their families would carry it on in their name. The lawyers and judiciary had no incentive to resolve the case – they were State employees who were paid a stipend like everyone else. The institutions at which they studied were State-owned and run, and the awarding of licenses strictly controlled. Subversive personalities found themselves disbarred. This ensured that no civil case was ever brought against the State itself. Sometimes a barrister would go it alone, but it was a risky business, and they rarely lasted long. So the case dragged on, and the ancient bathhouse crumbled, and nobody thought it unusual, nor did they give any thought to the ragged children that flitted from time to time through its dark doorways.
Ward and Carmen stopped across the road from the bathhouse and peered through the gloom at the two dark shapes standing in front of it.
"Who do you reckon they are?" Carmen whispered.
"Too small for adults," Ward said. "Come on."
Wonder upon wonder, it was Mildew and Slops. The four of them looked at each other for a moment in the half-light, as if they each wanted to say something but couldn't open their mouths.
It was Mildew who finally spoke. "Better get below."
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