The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon Read Free Book Online

the balcony, my arms folded. There was the second problem. The only thing money couldn’t buy was respect. I wasn’t a mime-queen. Without Jaxon, I wasn’t even a mollisher.
    There were rules. If Nick and I were to form our own gang in another section, we’d have to seek permission from the mime-lord or mime-queen there. The Underlord would have to give his blessing, which he almost never did. If we did it anyway, we’d have our throats cut, as would anyone we’d been foolish or selfish enough to employ.
    If I returned to the Seven Seals on the other hand, Jaxon would welcome me back with an open wallet and a dance for joy. If I refused to work for him, I’d not only lose every drop of respect I’d ever had, but I’d also become a pariah in the syndicate, shunned by other voyants. And if Frank Weaver put a bounty on my head, those voyants would be falling over themselves to sell me out to the Archon.
    Jaxon hadn’t explicitly said that he wouldn’t help me work against the Rephaim, but I’d seen things in him that I couldn’t unsee. Maybe it had taken him beating me senseless in Trafalgar Square or throttling me on the meadow before I’d got the message that Jaxon Hall was a dangerous man, and he wasn’t above hurting his own.
    Yet he might be my only hope of having a voice in the syndicate. Maybe my best chance was to move back to Seven Dials and keep my head down, as I always had. Because if there was one thing more dangerous than having Jaxon Hall as a boss, it was having him as an enemy.
    Frustrated, I turned away from the window. I couldn’t stay in here forever. Now that I was healed, I should go to Seven Dials and face him.
    No. Not yet. First I should go to Camden, where Ivy had said she would go. I wanted to make sure she’d made it.
    My bag of clothes hung on the back of the door. I took it into the bathroom, where I stood in front of the mirror and set about disguising myself. I belted on a black woolen coat, turned the collar up to cover my neck, and tugged a peaked hat over my hair. If I ducked my head, my dark lips were hidden by the bloodred cravat draped around my neck.
    Warden’s gift to me—a sublimed pendant, able to deflect malicious spirits—was hanging from the bedpost. I pulled the chain around my neck and held the wings between my fingers. The metalwork was like filigree, complex and delicate. An item like this would be valuable on the streets, where some of London’s most notorious murderers still wandered in their spirit forms.
    Once I had loved throwing myself into the labyrinth of London, loved living on its corruption. Once I wouldn’t have thought twice about going outside, even with the NVD roaming the streets. I’d kept a handle on my double life, as many voyants did. It was easy enough to slip past Scion’s security unnoticed: avoid streets with cameras, keep a safe distance from sighted guards, don’t stop walking. Head down, eyes open, as Nick had always taught me. But I knew now that I lived in a façade, and that puppet masters dwelled in the shadows.
    I almost lost my nerve. But then I looked at the couch where I’d lain crippled with terror every morning and night, waiting for Scion to break down the door, and I knew that if I didn’t go out now, I’d never go out again. I pushed up the window and swung my legs on to the fire escape.
    Cold wind clawed at my face. For a minute, I just stayed there, paralyzed with dread.
    Freedom. This was what it looked like.
    The first tremor hit me. I gripped the windowsill, pulling my legs back. The room was safe. I shouldn’t leave it.
    But the streets were my life. I’d fought tooth and nail to get back to this, shed blood for it. With clammy hands, I turned and took hold of the ladder, taking each step as though it were my last.
    As soon as my boots touched asphalt, I looked over my shoulder, reaching for the æther. A couple of mediums stood beside a phone booth, talking in low voices, one wearing dark glasses. Neither