7

Moonlight glimmered on the Canalasso, the elegant waterway bisecting the city to which the burning ship had delivered Tycho. It glimmered in blanket-sized scraps of silver leaf. And the reflection this glimmering created lit the walls of a fish market opposite. But the three children staring down the slimy steps at the edge of the Grand Canal saw none of this beauty.

They were concentrating on a tidal area, beside the steps, where flotsam gathered. Tonight’s catch was a drowned girl, long silver hair rippling in the gentle waves.

“Get her then.”

Rosalyn guessed Josh meant her. Since she was the one he glared at. Hooking her smock to her hips, she stepped into the filthy water. “It’s cold.”

“Just do it.”

Corpses could be sold, Josh said.

Necromancers, probably. Rosalyn couldn’t see who else might want one. She gasped as the water climbed her thighs, realised she still couldn’t reach the floating girl and stepped down again, grabbing hair. “Give me a hand then,” she protested.

When Josh didn’t move, her brother Pietro did, wading into the canal to help her drag the body nearer the steps.

“My God,” Rosalyn said.

Scowling, Josh came to take a look.

A boy, his genitals flopping sideways, his chest entirely flat, his belly button an intricate coil. If not for the belly button, he could have been an angel with his wings cut off. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

“He’s been shot.”

“As if that matters.”

She yanked the arrow free anyway.

“We can’t sell that,” Josh snapped. “What’s round his wrist?”

Rosalyn dropped to a crouch, seeing her moonlit reflection in the metal’s surface. “A shackle, some of it’s silver.”

“Don’t be stupid. No one would…”

Shuffling closer, Rosalyn snapped her knees shut. She didn’t like the way Josh was leering at her. After a second, she knelt.

His temper had never been good. After that night in Cannaregio, when they hid in a tanner’s pit while demons fought, it was worse. He was less forgiving each day of what had happened to her with the Watch. Maybe, her gut relaxed slightly at the hope, this would keep him happy. The dead boy was pale and very dead, with a ring of ruined flesh where his shackle scraped bone.

“What’s so interesting?”

Her guts locked again. “Look,” she said. The blood trickling from his arrow wound was blackish, its exact colour hard to determine in the darkness.

“So he’s foreign.” Turning to Pietro, Josh said, “Give her your knife… And you, stop pissing around and chop off his hand.”

This was a test, Rosalyn knew it was. Josh spent most of his time telling her she was too stupid to live on her wits like him. Her brother was coming to believe it too. “I’ll cut off the shackle.”

There, she’d failed. As he expected her to.

“Rosalyn…”

Now was when he’d order her to remove it at the wrist, like they’d split a pig’s knuckle they stole. Surprisingly, he just sucked his teeth in disgust. “Hurry it up.”

Bending the corpse’s elbow, she gripped the shackle. It was hard wood, inlaid with bands of silver wire, and it was hinged, clasped and soldered, instead of locked, which was even stranger. In the end, she hacked at the solder wondering why he hadn’t done that himself. Maybe he lacked a knife.

Shouldn’t be here, she told herself.

Shouldn’t be with Josh.

Rosalyn was cold, sodden from the canal, dressed in rags that clung to her legs, hips and buttocks, and scared. Her bladder hurt, her guts said she’d bleed soon, which was a blessing. “Almost there.”

“About time.”

Dragging her blade, Rosalyn freed the weld and sliced her finger to the bone, feeling instantly sick. She rocked back on her knees, but not before blood splashed on to the dead boy’s face.

“What now?” said Josh, as she gasped.

She’d jumped back when dark eyes, tinged with amber flecks, flicked open to glare at her. She felt her stomach turn over as the dead boy examined her face. Then he shut his eyes again. “Cut myself,” she said weakly.

“Kick him back in then.”

“Someone’s coming,” Rosalyn said. “We’ve been lucky so far. Let’s just leave.” Fortunately, Josh agreed with her.