Free Our Lady of the Streets (The Skyscraper Throne) by Tom Pollock Page B

many times, to keep me safe, and I never went. And even if I
’
d known then about what would happen to me, about all this …
’
    She turned her tiled hand over, inspecting it in the light of her gaze. ‘
I still would have killed you, Filius Viae, if you
’
d tried to make me leave
.’
    She stopped talking then, pierced through by loneliness and the bone-deep knowledge that the girl she’d just pushed out of her life was utterly irreplaceable. She felt it go through her like a needle pulling thread, tightening and drawing her in on herself. Worst of all, she knew that Pen was hurting this exact same way, and Beth had done it to her, and she’d done it on purpose and there was nothing she could do to fix it. She trembled as she breathed. Her eyes fell on the flask and the label that read
Childhood outlooks, proclivities and memories
.
    The child gurgled impatiently and reached for the flask. For a second, for even the glimmer of a chance, Beth was tempted to risk it. She popped the rubber stopper from the flask.
    ‘Lady Bradley!’
    Wings fluttered somewhere in the darkness. A white plastic bin bag ghosted in under the strip lights, borne by a pigeon. It billowed and folded into the shape of a swollen skull, with eggshells in the eye sockets. Beth hurriedly crammed the stopper back into the bottle and pushed the bottle into her hoodie pocket, but it wasn’t her Gutterglass was worried about.
    ‘Lady Bradley, we have a problem.’
    ‘
What problem?
’
    Gutterglass hesitated, eggshells blinking stupidly. Beth started to ask again when he blurted out, ‘Three hundred and fifty-eight.’
    *
     
    ‘
Do we know who?
’
    ‘The stoneskins are checking now.’
    They were back in the kitchen – Gutterglass’ paranoid sentries made it the perfect place to confer when they didn’t want to be overheard. The white bin bag had been settled on the shoulders of a makeshift body, but the hasty construction showed none of Glas’ usual attention to detail. He shed out-of-circulation coins and gelatinous bits of pasta as he fidgeted around the room.
    ‘
Maybe you miscounted?
’
    ‘I didn’t.’
    ‘
Maybe whoever it is just slipped out for something to eat …
’
    Glas didn’t answer. He began chewing on a bacon-rind cuticle and accidentally pulled it free of his hand. He stood there for a moment with it dangling from his mouth, then spat it out like a cat with a dead mouse.
    ‘
Maybe
 … ’ Beth began again, but she heard the rusty squeak of the hammer arm outside extending and retracting, and then the door was shoved open. Petris appeared framed in the doorway, then disappeared, then reappeared again a foot from Beth’s face.
    ‘We have a name,’ the granite monk said.
    ‘
Who?
’
    ‘Timon. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going and no one’s seen him all afternoon.’
    ‘Do they know why you were asking?’ Gutterglass asked, but Petris’ only answer was a stare and a withering, ‘
Please
.’
    ‘Timon?’ Gutterglass sounded puzzled. ‘He’s only justarrived. Why would he suddenly just up and go again now that he’s reached us?’
    ‘Maybe he didn’t like what he saw,’ Petris grunted with a spray of stony dust. ‘Not sure I blame him. Our first desertion. Still, it could be a lot worse; no one seems to have any idea why he’s gone, so if he’s running scared he’s kept it to himself. We don’t have a crisis, not yet.’
    Beth slumped back against the countertop. ‘
Sure we do
,’ she muttered, certain she was right.
    Gutterglass looked at her sharply. ‘My Lady?’
    ‘
It
’
s not a desertion
,’ she said, ‘
it
’
s a
defection.
He
’
s going to Her
.’
    Gutterglass straightened in alarm and Beth felt the sudden shift of attention from inside the statue as Petris turned his gaze on her.
    ‘How can you possibly know that?’ Glas demanded.
    Beth thought of the limestone-robed kid smoking miserably in the rain.
    Lady B, please: give him his mortality back. Let him die for