The alley leading to The Old Forge opened out into a tiny square, accessible only from the maze of narrow alleyways on all sides. At one edge of the square was the pub itself, a drinking hole so ancient that London had sealed around it almost completely. The building had once been a large farm-house or perhaps a small barn. The tenements nearby towered over it, leaving it in perpetual shadow. It held a kind of rotting menace that reminded Henry of tales of witches his mother had told him when he was little, and for that reason, he’d loved it from the first time he emerged from the alleys and found this place years ago, after one of his attempts to run away from home after she died.

With Francis and Maggie at his side, Henry strode through the open doors. The walls of the pub were compacted earth, wooden beams criss-crossed the building seemingly at random and the only ventilation was a small hole cut into the thatch roof. All of the customers in the low, smoky room were regulars, and they barely glanced at the three as they crossed to their usual table. Francis put some coppers on the scarred planks, and the elderly landlord brought over three cow-horn mugs filled with strong cider. He palmed the coins into his apron and shuffled away, the three orphans watching him go before putting their heads together.

Francis was the first to speak: “So what is it about this gift horse that you dislike so much, Henry?”

“When he was... He stabbed me with a pin.”

Maggie gasped, and gripped Henry’s forearm. “Do you think he is a witch-hunter?”

“I don’t know. If he is, then why didn’t he do anything?”

Francis shook his head. “He isn’t a witch-hunter. I’d have known. Hunters are Saints, and he didn’t have any Angels that I could see. Besides, if he had been a hunter, I’d be in a hessian sack half-way to the Saint’s College in Rome by now.”

Maggie relaxed slightly, but left her hand on Henry’s arm. “Wouldn’t Father William have stopped him?”

“The good Father couldn’t stand up to a witch-hunter” said Francis, with an earnest shake of the head.

Henry snorted at that. “You mean he wouldn’t. He’s a coward and a pervert. Probably give him a stiff one, watching me burn.” He leaned back in his chair, waiting for Francis’ inevitable rebuke.

Francis delivered. His cheeks turned red, his eyes widened. “Don’t speak of the good Father that way! He is a holy man, beloved of the Angels.”

“I can see what he is. His thoughts are written across his face, Francis, clear as day to any who’d think to look. Besides, if you trust him so much, why haven’t you confided your abilities to him? Come to think of it, he must know what you are anyway. Why hasn’t he offered to train you?”

“I trust him, but I need to stay and to protect you two. Besides, the Saints have learned to look beyond the flesh,” said Francis, but he looked rattled.

Henry saw the pain and doubt, he tried to reign in his tongue but failed. “Oh? Our ‘good’ Father looks at the flesh a little too much, I’ve heard. Maybe more than looks.”

Maggie made a small noise that could have been either agreement or rebuke, and looked away. Francis sat back as well, face flushed, wringing a faded old straw mat between his clenched fingers. They subsided when Maggie shushed them. They always do. But tension had fallen heavy over the table, and Henry could see the flickering glow of Francis’ Angels about his head as they whispered in his ears.

Henry worked a long splinter loose from the side of his chair, palming it into his right hand and then pushing the point into his thumb. He drew a single bead of blood, the source of his own power, which was quickly re-absorbed into his skin. Just enough to enhance his vision and hearing, to know when to duck if Francis lost his temper. A bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck as he watched Francis’ halo grow brighter, the Angels’ hold strengthening. Pretty soon the other patrons would start to notice too, and there would be panic.

The glow winked out abruptly as Maggie pinched Francis on the wrist, her nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood. “Francis James Willoughby, you snap out of it!” She followed the pinch up with an ear-ringing slap across Henry’s face. She leaned into the centre of the table, her voice a tense whisper: “Honestly, the two of you are as bad as you ever were. How old are you now? Remember where you are. Do you want to burn half the city to the ground?”

The tension bled away, and was replaced with embarrassed silence. All three sat back in their chairs, sipping their drinks and carefully avoiding each other’s eyes.

The silence built, became awkward, until finally Francis broke it. “So what are we going to do?”

They continued sitting in silence a while longer, then looked for the answer in another mug of mead.

*

Henry lay awake, staring at the impenetrable shadows that hid the ceiling of his dormitory. He listened to the creak and shift of the building, the shuffles and murmurs of children sleeping in the room below, and somewhere further off, the quiet sobbing of someone newly orphaned. No matter how much he tried to stop thinking, or how often he decided that it is time, or how many times he calculated how much sleep he might get if he closed his eyes right now, he cannot keep his mind from racing.

He could feel the spirits of the people he had lost crowding him, feeling his desperation and fear. His terrible hope. Henry felt his future hanging invisible above his upturned face, as if he could tilt his head just so, and catch the glimmer of starlight reflected on its heavy blade. He bit his tongue again, a fresh burst of iron and salt; of pain. His senses sharpened further. He saw easily through the shadows now, the dusty spider-webs, the familiar cracks and gouges in the rough-cut timber beams. He heard the skitter of mice in the pantry two floors below; the steady, slow breathing of the clergymen in their feather beds.

He gently shrugged away Francis’ arm and rolled to his feet, slipping from the heavy blankets, carefully placing his feet where they would not make the floorboards creak. With practised care, he slipped to the window and opened it slowly, taking its weight in his hands to quiet the old leather hinges. The room was chill enough to turn his breath to puffs of mist, and the draft that hit him from the open window was still biting cold, even through his blood-focus.

Outside, with the window shut behind him, he crouched on the narrow roof of the porch that lined the courtyard. The city smelled of sewage and wood-smoke, even now. Especially now. Ice stung the soles of Henry' feet, and the cold seeped into the bones of his toes, but his blood was strong; hot. He took a step, and his footprints were clean-cut in the deep frost coating the roof slates.

He liked coming up here. It gave him a chance to test himself, to see how strong and fast he could be, how sharp his reflexes could get. It gave him a chance to be alone with his thoughts, though that never produces much in the way of results. And it gave him a chance, just for a little while, to feel free. Even though he knew the only place he really had to go was back inside, when he was up here, he felt at least that he could go anywhere. That the world was open to him. But the cold started to seep in and remind him that, while there may be a whole world out there, it had little to offer a child like him.

Henry ran. His feet sure, even on the ice-coated slope of the roof. He jumped. He climbed, bare fingers and toes finding purchase in the shoddy plaster of the orphanage walls. He didn’t stop until he stood on the very crown of the building, able to see the candle-lit windows of the rich homes to the north; the taverns and brothels to the south. He bit his tongue again, and the stars stretched out above him, more stars than any ground-glass lens could capture, more than Henry could imagine, let alone count. A river of light streaming across the night sky, twin to the carpet of tiny points below and the river snaking through it.

His hearing sharpened too, and he could hear the bickering of new parents, quiet enough to let their baby sleep; the turn of pages; the rustle of curtains; the rush of urine into a bedpan. Henry could hear the clamour of a hundred thousand hearts all pushing at once, and he tuned them out slowly until one stood out from the background, familiar and terrifyingly close. It was not alone.

Henry wheeled, skidding and sprinted back across the roofs of the building, heedless of noise he created; his feet smash down on the old slates, and he sent one skittering loose, a moment of yawning silence as it slipped from the edge until it exploded on the flagstones of the courtyard. Henry dropped from the edge himself, two stories down to the roof of the porch that jutted out from beneath his dormitory. He dashed along the roof to the window he knew he left ajar, feet cut by the slivers of sharp black stone. He vaulted up into the open window, crouched on the sill.

The room was full of looming figures, grown-up strangers, huge in their dark cloaks and cassocks. Father William stood by Henry’s bed. All of Henry’s possessions were spread out over the thin sheet. A man entered the room carrying Maggie, who struggled futilely against his heavy hand. She was gagged, her arms and legs wrapped tight to her body with lengths of sack-cloth, wrists and ankles bound with iron manacles. The light in the room was white and steady, emanating from a globe of angelfire haloing Father William’s head. Maggie’s face was red from screaming, but she couldn’t form words around the thick wad of fabric stuffed in her mouth. She saw Henry, and her eyes widened even further, until he could see the whites all around. She moaned desperately, but he couldn't understand her.

Father William stood close to her for a long moment. He tutted, his leering, flaccid face drawn back in a grotesque grin, wooden teeth glinting in the unnatural light. “I worried that I might have more devil’s spawn besides you under my roof, it honestly stayed my hand for quite some time, but hard as I looked I could never be sure. And then that foolish popinjay came through and asked to take Henry away from me. How kind of him.” Father William brushed a lock of sweat-slick hair from Maggie’s forehead. “Too bad your friend has run away, but still; there will be one less filthy witch in London, and one more brave saint going off to serve our Holy Father.”

Francis lay next to their bed, his expression slack, eyes rolled back in his head and a lump the size of an egg on the side of his head. One of the men is crouched next to him, stuffing a gag in his mouth and tying it on tight.

Henry dropped to the floor, the slap of his feet striking the floorboards causing the priests to start, and Father William’s head snapped around. His eyes widened. “Ah, you’re back. Witch!”

The room exploded with movement as a dozen grown men threw themselves at him. Henry’s heart feels like it stopped in his chest, and for a moment he was caught between rushing to his friend's aid, and fleeing for his life, but he charged forward, biting down on his tongue so hard that his mouth floods with coppery blood that is immediately absorbed. He screamed, leaping into the mass of men. Power coursed through him. The men reached forward with slow and clumsy hands, but he was flying, ducking under a heavy, swinging arm, then sliding under a lumbering leg. He couldn’t reach Father William; the fat old bastard was pressed against the back wall, his face creased up in that hideous smile, and the men, slow and stupid as they are, were too numerous. He feels someone grab him just below the elbow, and he rolls his arm around their wrist, breaking their grip and their arm with it. Someone comes at him from the side, and Henry drives the heel of his foot deep into his attacker’s stomach, driving the wind out of him, maybe more as the room filled with the stink of shit. Henry pushed off the man, launching himself further through the mass of grasping priests.

Henry felt like he was pushing his way through a bramble hedge. His shirt pulled tight against his chest. Someone trying to use it to pull him off his feet. He dug his toes in between the floorboards, and the cheap fabric tore away from his body.

One of the men kicked out at him, trying to trip him up. He was too slow and Henry stepped around him with ease. Now through the worst of the crowd, there was only one broad priest between Henry and the man who caused all this. The final clergyman crouched down, then sprang forward. Henry was fast, but not quite fast enough. This man, who Henry now realized he’d seen before at the Old Forge, was ready for him. He caught Henry around the waist and pivoted, lifting the lighter boy off the ground and robbing him of his leverage.

Henry lashed out with his elbows, and the man winced and tried to roll his head out of the way of Henry’s flailing limbs, but he didn't let go, squeezing until Henry’s ribs creaked. Henry heard the priests rallying behind him. He was struggling to breathe, and getting tired.

And then he heard Maggie kicking out and screaming around her gag.

Desperate, Henry clutched at the man’s face, his fingers seeking purchase, trying to push the man away, scratch at him, anything. Finally, he sank his thumbs into the priest’s wide blue eyes, pushing them in with all his might, blood spurting up his arms only to soak into his flesh like sea-foam on beach sand. Connected to that vast reservoir, Henry drew deep, and the man screamed as if his very soul was being dragged from his body. Perhaps it was. His legs buckled, and Henry rode him to the ground, exultant, skin flushed and veins bulging. But he had stayed too long.

Big hands descend, fists crashing into him, fingers grabbed and pinched and tore. Henry bucked and struggled. Unnaturally strong, he snapped their wrists and broke their fingers as if they were dry twigs. But he was surrounded, and vastly outnumbered. He tried to bite, to scratch, but those hands pinned him to the floor. Knees crashed down, pinning his arms and legs. He found himself with his face being ground into the floorboards. Through the gaps between them, he saw the young ones in the dorm below him, looking up, eyes wide with fear.

He spat and twisted, but he had no leverage, and his strength was seeping out of him.

Silence fell in the room as the men waited for instruction from Father William.

“Brave Inquisitors,” Henry heared, but it was not Father William’s voice. “Courageous slayers of innocent children. What a pack of craven dogs you are.”

The weight on Henry disappeared, most of the men turning to the source of the sound. A few, the injured, looked for a way out, but there was only the one door. They scrambled to the windows seeking escape. Henry willed himself to stand, to breathe, but he couldn’t, his body refused to respond. A loud bang shakes the room, and an acrid smoke stings his nose. Henry craned his neck to see what was happening. He sees the flash of a blade punching out from under the crow-faced deacon’s shoulder-blade, his face in profile as he died, a match-lock pistol falling from his slack hand, streaming smoke. A familiar blue sleeve dyed purple in a spray of arterial blood, then blue again as the blood is pulled through the fabric. Byford the ‘Master Tailor’ danced between the men like a hummingbird in a statue garden, laying them open with the precision of a master butcher.

Father William stood back, biding his time. He wasn’t smiling any more. His Angels appeared at his side, coalescing out of thin air they towered over him, their crowned heads passing ghost-like through the beams of the ceiling. As Byford cleared the scrum of desperate attackers, Father William stretched out his hand. Both of the angels mimicked his movement, and summoned a concussive blast of compressed air that hammered Byford off of his feet.

“Witch!” Father William cried. His voice was resonant; it went beyond being an auditory sensation, Henry could feel it in his bones. “You think you can thwart the will of God? Your tainted craft will not save you, or your satanic brood.” He cried out to his Angels, calling down Heaven's fire to scourge the unholy. Light filled the room, and heat bloomed until Henry' lips cracked and his eyeballs stung.

Light radiated from the Angels until it hurt to look at them. The old priest’s attention was fixed solely on the tailor. He had stopped paying attention to Henry, and the boy decided to act while he had the chance. Henry rolled up to his knees, and grabbed the closest thing he could find, the deacon’s discarded pistol, its slow-match still burning. He threw it at an Angel’s head. The wood incinerated in a flash when it hit the corona of light, metal glowing red as it passed through the Angel then scattering harmlessly in a spray of sparks. None of the figures seemed even to notice.

Though it was light that surrounded the priest, Henry could feel a physical pressure build, his ears popped and started to ring. The air in the room thinned as Father William’s shield grew.

Byford returned to his feet, steadied himself. Henry could see no fire yet, but the wooden furniture around the priest darkened and smouldered. Then, from Father William’s outstretched hand, a ribbon of flame blossomed and darted at the tailor like a striking adder.

Byford took a deep breath, held his black blade in front of him and walked through the flames, which folded around and enveloped him, coming near but never quite touching. He was flushed red with blood, veins taut like Henry's, and, as a ball of white-hot light gathered in Father William’s hands, Byford reached into one of the pouches on his belt and then flung out a handful of gritty powder.

The grit met the flames, and the fire imploded, winking out as rapidly as it had appeared. Father Williams stumbled, and even the Angels recoiled as their power faltered.

Byford drew his dagger in a smooth motion, and he flung it underarm with incredible force. The point found Father William’s chest.

Father William cried out as the blade thudded home. Blood bloomed across his chest, a slick black on black, only visible by the way it stuck his cassock to his chest. He sucked in a breath, and the blood bubbled around the wound. Henry could hear the rush of his lungs flooding, his deseased heart struggling, fluttering, and failing. As he faded, so too did the heat which had emanated from him, and the Angels flickered and disappeared. The priest fell to his knees as Byford reached him.

Byford grabbed a handful of Father William's thinning hair, and pushed his head back until his neck was bent as far as it would go. The tailor looks into the eyes of the priest, and then spit on his face. He spoke, his voice hoarse and cracked: “May your spirit never find peace. May the unquiet souls of those you've murdered haunt you, in whatever hell you find yourself.”

The priest’s breathing quieted, and then stopped altogether. Byford lets the corpse topple to the ground.

Tenderly, the tailor undid Maggie’s restraints. He un-gagged Francis, and then lifted each of the children into his arms, awkwardly arranging Francis and Maggie on his shoulders then lifting Henry to his feet by the crook of his arm. Henry stumbled along, weak as a kitten as the adrenaline and magic wore off.

As Byford led him down the winding stair to the main hall of the orphanage, Henry found that he could walk unaided. He saw Francis' breath quicken, and the boy's eyes dart and focus, his expression going from shock, to confusion, to naked fear. Maggie lay shivering, silent except for an occasional quiet sob. Byford only put them down when he reached the courtyard, and then unpinned his elegant half-cape and draped it over Maggie's shoulders.

The blood-witch looked down at them, his face creased with worry and fatigue. “Well, I suppose we will take you on earlier than expected. Head for the Taylor's Guild for now, I shall meet you there. I have to deal with the bodies.” And with that, he strode off, vanishing around a corner.