Free The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann Page B

himself.
    Idiot.
    He slid down the door and closed his eyes.
    Idiot, fool, boggle-eyed fish-brained dunderhead.
    Of course it was stolen. That black-winged faery had snatched it somewhere and given it to Pikey, likely as a joke. And Pikey had fallen for it. He thought he could march in and sell a gem that was worth all of Spitalfields and several streets of Fenchurch as well, a gem worth more money than most men earned in their entire lives? What had he expected? That the jeweler would believe him? That Pikey could strut and put on a deep voice, and everyone would ignore his filthy clothes and his smell of mud and frozen alleys?
    Well, now he was in for it. Now he was dead. Forget caramel apples. Forget his stupid dreams. The officers would come. They would see his eye, and the war was starting soon. A faery-touched boy in the middle of London would be spirited away in a blink. To the lockup, or the workhouse, or worse . . . a faery prison.
    The mouthpiece clattered into its cradle. Footsteps receded down the corridor. Pikey heard a high flutter of giggles. Then nothing.
    He leaned his head against the door, his hair sticking unpleasantly to the cold wood. He knew he should move, look for a weapon, look for a way to escape, but he barely felt he could. He had been so close. For three days he’d had a path laid out in front of him, a gem in his pocket and a spring in his step, and suddenly the happy voices and the warm stove had seemed very near indeed. But now Mr. Millipede had dropped the gem into his waistcoat pocket, and that was where it would stay until Pikey was well on his way to being locked up and to disappear and—
    Disappear. The word brought him back with a sharp twist of panic. That would be the end, then. He would be dead, and that would be all.
    He pushed himself off the floor and glanced about. The lock on the door was strong and old, and he had never been good at picking locks anyway. The only other way out was the window. He looked up at it. Veins of lead crisscrossed it, and it was high above his head. But not too high.
    He snatched one of the rickety chairs and dragged it up under the window. He clambered onto it, careful to keep his feet on either side of the brittle straw seat. Then he pulled his sleeve over one hand and knocked it against the glass. The panes were thick. So thick they distorted the alley outside into bluish waves and whorls. Well, he didn’t have a choice. He balled his fist to smash it—
    â€œDon’t,” said a voice.
    Pikey froze.
    The door had not opened. No one had come in. The voice had been soft, and dark, and spoken with the faintest hint of a laugh.
    Slowly Pikey turned to face the room. The chair wobbled under him.
    A tall, thin figure stood in the shadows, next to a stack of canvasses and empty picture frames. Pikey couldn’t see its face or eyes—only a silhouette—and for a moment he wondered if it was a statue and he had imagined the voice. But then a long-fingered hand unfurled from the shadows, and the voice spoke again: “Come to me. Come quickly. We mustn’t have you in trouble.”
    Pikey leaped off the chair and backed up against the wall, his hands flat on the stone. “Stay away,” he hissed. “Who’re you? Stay away!” His voice sounded small and sharp, a little boy’s voice.
    â€œThey will catch you.” The thin figure laughed softly. “They will kill you.”
    Beyond the door, the jeweler’s shop was no longer silent. Bells jangled, long and insistently. Then heavy footsteps, in the shop, in the corridor. Boots. They were coming for him.
    â€œDo you want that? Do you want them to make you disappear like you never existed? They will see your eye. They will drag you to one of their faery prisons in the wilds, and no one ever comes back from those. No one like you, at least.” Another laugh, so quiet it was just a breath. “Take my hand.”
    Pikey looked at the