Read an excerpt of Map of Plagues

“We are a plague on the Earth.”

David Attenborough

 

“Anyone who was alive during the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the 14th century experienced something terrifyingly close to the widespread death and chaos of an apocalyptic event.”

Alan Huffman, International Business Times

 

Prologue

The storm broke over London in the early hours of the morning. Rain crashed down onto the cobbled street that ran past Traitor’s Gate, the passage to death in the Tower above. Lightning flashed, forking across the city, illuminating the skyscrapers that reached heavenward. A confident city, secure in its power, with no heed of the threat below.

Beneath the gate, the murky river Thames began to boil. A fetid stench bubbled from the depths as four men swam up from below. As they reached for the shore, another flash of lightning caught their faces in profile. Hard ridges of bone, thick jaws set in determination and the half-moon tattoo of the Warlord that painted their faces in shadow.

As the Feral Borderlanders climbed from the water, pulling their muscled bodies easily up the side of the wall, a man stepped from the shelter of the Tower. He wore a plague doctor’s mask, the hooked beak of an ibis, the Egyptian bird of the dead. Two bags lay at his feet.

He called softly down to the climbing men. “Quickly now. We don’t have much time.”

The four men changed into dry clothes, pulling up hoods to hide their faces in this city of ever-present cameras. Two hefted the bags onto their backs. The plague doctor pulled a long cloak around him, set his face against the storm and led the men around the perimeter of the Tower. He glanced up at the symbol of a once-great empire. Fragile flesh would rot away but these stones would remain even as a new power took this city in the days to come.

The men crossed Smithfield within sight of what had once been the Royal Mint, the white imperial facade of what was now the Chinese Embassy lit with spotlights from below. They skirted the edge of the light, staying in the shadows, until they reached a door on the building beyond marked with No Entry signs. It was bolted and padlocked, set with multiple alarms. The plague doctor stood in front of the door and the four men ranged around him, alert for danger.

A spark of flame from his fingers, a flash of electrics. The bolts fell off, the padlock dropped, the door clicked. He held his breath for a moment, half expecting the high-pitched squeal of alarms. But it remained silent.

The plague doctor pushed the door open and the men stepped inside. They turned on torches, revealing stone steps that wound down into darkness. Water dripped from their clothes onto the stone, droplets as dark as blood. It smelled of damp earth and decay.

They headed down with heavy footsteps, their boots marking time like the inevitable march of history.

At the bottom, they emerged into a wide cavern, the roof supported by metal reinforcing pillars so as not to disturb the graves beneath. The excavation was just one of many in London, part of the ever-expanding development of the transport network. This site had once been a Cistercian Abbey and in 1349, during the Black Death, it had become a plague cemetery, a mass grave for the diseased bodies of parishioners.

Pieces of rope bisected the site, dividing the plot into specific areas and orange flags marked the bodies beneath. Skeletons embedded in the dirt reached for freedom, bony fingers clutching at the air as if they tried to rise again even as their remains crumbled to dust.

The plague doctor ignored these common dead, his cloak swirling about him as he strode to the back of the cavern where a stone wall barred the way. It was made from mismatched blocks, some of the stones weathered as if they had once stood against ferocious storms like the one raging outside. The plague doctor ran his fingertips over the blocks, leaning close to them as if he could sense their history through his skin.

According to ancient texts, these stones had been carried from Jerusalem, taken from the rubble of the Second Temple, borne across plague-ravaged Europe to stand guard at the entrance to the knights’ final resting place.

After years of research, the plague doctor suspected that the graves of those who fought the plague also rested here. A secret order of knights who believed that the contagion ravaging the continent had been sent by the Devil himself, a curse that could somehow be lifted by those of faith — and power. Secret annals suggested that they had achieved their goal, pushing the last of the plague out of this world — and into another.

But after years of searching in the Borderlands, the plague island was still out of his reach, lost as the borders continued to morph over time until the original contours disappeared. The only chance to find it now was the map that the knights had made, a map of skin made from plague victims that linked to the island of the dead, a portal back from that lost world to this one.

The plague doctor thought of the gleaming skyscrapers in the city above, the millions who slept secure in their beds. They had no idea what was coming for them.

He stood back from the wall. “Take it down.”

The four men with half-moon tattoos put down the bags and pulled out lump hammers, shovels and picks. One man hefted the weight of a hammer, a grin spreading across his face as his meaty hands dwarfed the handle.

He stepped toward the wall and smashed the weapon into the stone. The sound echoed through the chamber but the blow made scarcely a dent. The man swung again. Another stepped beside him and together they pounded the ancient wall, muscles flexing.

The striking of metal on stone rang through the plague pit but the plague doctor was confident that the thick walls of the old Cistercian Abbey would shield the noise from above. By the time the workers arrived in the morning, his team would be long gone.

The men hammered away until they made a hole in the wall big enough to step through, then stepped back, panting with exertion. Sweat ran down their faces, carving a path through the dust that had settled on their skin. The plague doctor held his torch high and stepped through the hole into the chamber beyond.

The mass grave of the outer room was crammed full of the dead, but this inner tomb was spacious. Intricately carved arches rose to a dome overhead painted with faded images of demons devouring plague victims beneath the watchful eye of a vengeful god. Around the walls, deep niches held the remains of the band of brothers, but the plague doctor ignored them and stalked toward the centerpiece of the vault.

A huge stone sarcophagus sat in pride of place in the middle of the chamber topped with the effigy of the knight who slept beneath. He lay resplendent in full armor, the pommel of a longsword clutched between his hands. Lichen covered his craggy face, eating away at the features of a man who had been feared once, but was now forgotten in time. The plague doctor pointed, his finger shaking just a little as he considered what might be inside.

“Open it.”

Two of the men hefted the lid from the top of the stone sarcophagus, grunting with effort as they pushed it to one side revealing darkness within. The smell of rotted leather with a metallic edge filled the air, permeating even the plague doctor’s mask as the men pushed again. The stone crashed to the floor.

The plague doctor walked to the edge of the sarcophagus and peered in. A suit of armor lay with its hands on its chest, sunken in death, the patina of age turning the once shiny metal to rust red. A yellowed skull grimaced from within the helmet, bones held together by metal hundreds of years after death. This knight had died fighting a foe that could not be beaten by any sword, a creeping invisible enemy that slaughtered loved ones with no hope of reprieve. The plague doctor could only imagine what this man had done to try and rid Europe of the devastation.

In his skeletal hand, the knight clutched a rough box fashioned from lead with rivets at the edges. The plague doctor reached for it, his heart pounding. He had searched for so long, could this finally be the moment?

As he touched the knight’s hands, the bones turned to dust, leaving the box resting on top of the armor. He lifted it from the remains and beckoned for light. One of the men shone a torch at the box while the plague doctor gently levered the top open.

A folded piece of parchment lay inside, grimy with the dust of generations but still intact. The plague doctor lifted the tattered piece of parchment from its resting place with care, placing it lightly on the stone beneath. He unfurled it, revealing a piece of an ancient map, the edges rough where it had been ripped into quarters. It was only one fragment, but it was the beginning of the end for Earthside.

“The plague wreaked havoc on Europe,” he whispered. “Some say it killed six in every ten people. It heralded the end of civilization.” He looked more closely at the tattered map, a silver-grey gleam in his eyes, like a wolf identifying its prey. “It can do so once again.”

 

Chapter 1

Morning sun lanced through the windows of the flat above the old map shop, lighting on the walnut wood bookshelves laden with notebooks and leather-bound journals. The cry of seagulls wafted in as they hung on the breeze above the Georgian streets of Bath, tasting the ocean on the air as it blew inland from the Bristol Channel.

Sienna Farren sat cross-legged on a cushion by the bookshelves, a tendril of titian hair escaping from her blue striped headscarf as she pulled down another of her grandfather's journals. The cover was grey leather, faded in parts, marked by the sun of another time. It looked like elephant skin, but as she ran her fingers over the whorls and lines, she sensed a different vibration. It was from a creature of the Borderlands, lost to Earthside but hunted over there, brought back in death.

The journals captured fleeting moments from the years that Michael Farren had spent as a Mapwalker on missions off the edge of the map. That world was lost in time, but the moments he had spent watching were captured here on the page, passed from his memory to hers across the generations. Sienna had not really known her grandfather in the years before he was murdered, sacrificing himself to save the city of Bath from Borderland invasion. She had inherited his map shop as well as his lifelong mission and in many ways, she was still trying to come to terms with the new direction of her life. These journals were an insight into the mind of a man she wished she had known better in life, but perhaps could still help her even in death.

She flicked through the pages of the journal, past line drawings in thick black ink, some highlighted with color. A bright kingfisher sketched on the edge of a sparkling stream with feathers of burnt orange and turquoise, his spiked beak slightly open. A mountain range with numbered passes, a thin line to show the path of the Mapwalker team. Red-hot lava spilling over the top of a volcanic cone, trailing a path of destruction toward a village that lay beneath.

The face of a young Nubian woman gazed out from another page, loving lines and delicate shading betraying a deeper connection. Sienna wondered who the woman was, and how long ago her grandfather had loved her.

She read on past pages of temples and buildings and ruins, some overrun with vines, others as pristine as if they had been built yesterday. He had noted the sounds and smells of the jungle next to the sketches, the call of monkeys, the fecund aroma of tropical flowers. The scent of berries rose from the page, the purple ink made from the juice of some unusual Borderland fruit that Sienna didn’t recognize.

The journals were numbered with tiny Roman numerals etched into the spine. They were ordered on the shelves, but number twenty-four was missing. Her grandfather’s compass was still missing too, stolen by a Shadow Cartographer just round the corner from the map shop where she now sat. Sienna wondered where the notebook was now.

She understood that the sketchbooks weren't absolute truth, they were her grandfather’s perception of a moment of time. But who's to say where art, truth and history intersected? The notes he made and the drawings he sketched told his version of the tale, even if the annals of the Mapwalkers told something different. None of those who traveled there could take pictures. The boundaries of the Borderlands turned all technology to dead metal. When the borders were formed in the days of stronger blood magic, only the old ways remained off the edge of the map. So Michael had used pen and ink, paint when he could. Charcoal, ash, dust.

Blood.

Sienna pulled up her shirt sleeve to reveal her healing scars, tattooed ley lines of The Circus and the Royal Crescent. Her grandfather’s skin had the same lines, his own blood map providing protection for the city of Bath and the portal that they guarded here. Now it was Sienna's turn to be the guardian of the gate. But she wanted more than that. She wanted to be fighting the Shadow Cartographers, trying to build a future for the Borderlanders.

Alongside Finn.

She flicked through more of the pages, pulling down the journals faster now. Her grandfather had traveled all over the Borderlands. He must have visited the trader town on the edge of the Uncharted, he must have known a way to get back there. Sienna thought of Finn’s face as he stepped back through the gate as the border closed around him. It had only been a month ago, but it felt like forever. He had said his mother came from the slave markets there and after the battle with his warlord father, it made sense that he would flee to the edge of Borderlander civilization, where there were plenty of places to hide.

But it was hard to find and she couldn’t just walk back there through a map of her own creation. She had no context, no anchor, and as with all locations in the Borderlands, its position changed as new places were pushed off the edge of Earthside. As the landscape of the Borderlands shifted, it pushed the trader town even further into the Uncharted. Few dared stay too long, as time moved differently out there.

Sienna wondered if Finn thought of her. She saw his face every night when she closed her eyes, and she longed to go to him.

But there was also a darker thread to her desire.

When she had cut into her skin and used her blood to create a powerful map, she had let the shadow inside. Now it beat within her, drawing her back to the dark magic of the Borderlands, pulsing deep within her heart.

She had to go back there, but she didn't want to go alone. There was one person who understood this craving, one person she could trust. Sienna picked up her phone and texted Mila.

* * *

The low thrum of the engine beat time as the canal boat moved slowly through the water under the shade of overhanging trees. As her phone buzzed, Mila Wendell kept one hand on the tiller while she read the text from Sienna.

When are you back?

A bark of excitement made Mila look up as Zippy, her golden cocker spaniel, greeted the local ducks as they turned toward the aqueduct at Dundas, just a few miles out from Bath. Sunlight dappled the water with shades of green and the smell of elderflower rose from the hedgerows as they passed.

After the battle with the Borderlanders, Mila had fled the city, needing time to let her body return to its Earthside physicality. She could travel in the ripples between waves, spin liquid into weapons, turn her body to water. It was freedom, but every time the Mapwalkers used their magic, a sliver of shadow weaved its way inside — and Mila knew that she had used too much of it in those last days.

And yet every day for the last month, she had fought the desire to go back to the Borderlands alone. She held Zippy close in the night, weeping into his fur as she resisted the pull to darkness. It was an addiction that only grew worse with time. Their mentor, Bridget, had warned of this and it was why Mapwalkers must always travel in teams into the Borderlands. If they had too much shadow, they could no longer cross over for fear of losing themselves. Too many of their kind had been lost over the years, too many had shifted into Shadow Cartography.

Like Xander had done on the last mission.

Once the golden child of Mapwalker lineage, his skill as an Illustrator had marked him out for greatness, but he had betrayed them all for a chance to use his magic every day. To stop resisting the dark.

Mila understood why he had made that choice, but she hoped that she could resist it long enough to help Sienna find Finn and maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for peace between Earthside and the Borderlands.

Zippy ran up and down the roof of the canal boat, happiness on his doggy face. He knew the smells of this place, and they both had friends here, friends who would look after the little spaniel when she had to travel alone. It was time to moor up again, to settle for a time in a place she had come to call home.

Mila texted back. Soon.

* * *

In the stone corridors beneath Bath Abbey, the whoosh of fire echoed before ending in a metallic slam. The sounds repeated again and again, faster now, until suddenly it stopped. Peregrine Mercator leaned over, hands on his knees, panting with effort, his t-shirt damp with sweat in the over-heated room.

As his breath slowed, Perry stood again and pulled the human-shaped target back toward him across the wide expanse of the practice room. It was made of thick metal, but its heart had burned clean through with his repeated attack. Perry nodded, pleased at his improved precision. He was not the same man who had faced his father a month ago. He was stronger now, his muscles more defined, his magic under control.

He sent the target back once again, opened his palms and conjured the fire once more. While the other Mapwalkers had to be careful of using their magic on Earthside, he was a Halbrasse, a half-breed, able to move between the realms, born with shadow already in his veins, choosing to stay and fight for the world he had grown up in. This was his home and when they came for it again, he would be ready.

He slammed flame into the head of the metal target once more, seeing his father’s face melt away with every blow.

* * *

Outside the door of the training room, John Farren sighed as he watched Perry’s anger explode. He leaned heavily on his cane, the barely healed scars on his back preventing him from standing upright, part of his mind still chained in the bloody dungeon of the Borderlands. He understood the depth of the young man’s pain, and he saw a reckoning ahead with the man who had wounded them both so deeply. Sir Douglas Mercator, Perry’s father — and the Shadow Cartographer who had tried to make a blood map from John’s own skin.

An alarm sounded suddenly, a deep note of warning.

John turned from the window and limped away down the corridor. In years past, the sound had been unusual but these days, it seemed the borders were tested several times a day, the Borderlanders pushing against the limits of their world, finding ways back into Earthside. For generations, the magic of the border had been taken for granted, but now it seemed, it was beginning to crumble. It was only a matter of time before they faced a proper invasion and this world would have to face a truth hidden for too long.

He reached the War Room. Bridget Ronan stood before a computer screen showing a map of the south of England, a red light pulsing above the City of London. A deep frown creased her beautiful face, and as she leaned to look more closely, her multi-colored patchwork dress swirled around her legs. As it shifted, John remembered one night when they had danced together under the full moon on a ruined terrace above a forgotten river deep within the Borderlands. The scent of spring blossom hung in the balmy air and the sound of the water splashing below drowned their cries of pleasure as they lost themselves in one another. That night they had left their responsibilities behind, a stolen moment off the edge of the map. But they had returned to real life soon after, the memories fading as he returned to his Earthside family, and she took on a different role in the Ministry. It had been their last mission together.

Bridget looked up, her expression softening as she saw him standing there. Perhaps the memories hadn’t faded after all. Perhaps there was still a chance for them. But with the amount of shadow now within him, John knew he could never go into the Borderlands again. He was stuck on Earthside, as Bridget was too, both of them tainted by the magic they had used on the other side of the map.

Bridget turned back to the screen and zoomed in on the map to show a plague pit behind the City of London.

“A small group of Ferals breached one of the secondary gates under the Thames. It seems they only had one goal.” She pulled up pictures of a tomb surrounded by security tape, then a sarcophagus, an empty box upon the remains of a knight. Above it, the painting of a demon devouring plague victims as the dead piled up in mounds around it. She clicked through to security footage of a man in a plague doctor’s mask.

Bridget frowned, biting her lip in concern. “I think they found the first piece.”

John reached for her hand. “It’s not over, then?”

Bridget shook her head. “It’s only just beginning.”

 

Chapter 2

The rocky beach was busy even in the small hours of the morning. Fishermen readied their boats and traders joked with one another as they warmed their hands by braziers, beacons of flame against the dark. A woman in a black headscarf squatted on her haunches on the stones in front of a fire, her hands shaping balls of dough into smooth round shapes which she threw on the coals with practiced skill. The smell of fresh flatbreads mingled with the tang of smoke and salt in the air.

Finn Page wrapped his thick cloak more tightly around himself, scant protection against the cold wind blowing in from the sea, but more as a shield against anyone recognizing him. His face was on Wanted posters all over the northern Borderland towns but down here, on the very edge of the Uncharted, he should be safe. People here tended to turn a blind eye, since many were also amongst the wanted themselves. He had escaped through the network of the Resistance, but he couldn’t stay anywhere for long, not wanting to draw down the wrath of his father on those who sheltered him.

Finn leaned back against the wooden spars of the jetty, gazing toward the horizon and the faint glimmer of dawn. The sun would rise whatever happened to him. The world turned regardless of whether his life ended in the dungeons of the Shadow Cartographers.

He thought of Sienna on the other side of the map and wondered whether she thought of him at all. Time moved differently out here and the kiss they had shared as the border closed had begun to fade in his memory now. It was crazy to think that he could love an Earthsider, that they could ever find common ground. But Sienna gave him hope that things could be mended somehow, her optimism as yet unshaken by the Shadow.

A light flashed out in the gloom, a lamp held aloft by new arrivals. Another lifeboat filled with refugees rejected from Earthside. They had chosen to leave their homeland for fear of death and chaos, but they were not wanted by anyone else. As each nation turned them away, they became lost on the seas and flickered over the border. These last few months, they had arrived in their thousands, spirits broken by the journey and constant rejection from those who should have let them stay.

Finn understood the feeling of loss. Since he had stepped through the portal in Bath, turned his back on that glorious city and Sienna, he had been running from his father, the Warlord of Old Aleppo. His father threatened death for his betrayal, but more than punishment, Finn regretted the loss of his home. The sweet smell of oranges from the market as he sipped strong coffee with his friends, the stacks of his father’s library filled with contraband books, walking for hours through the streets of a city he had grown up in and knew every corner of. He even missed his father’s laugh as he played with his younger children. The Warlord was a pleasure-loving family man when he was not away slaughtering his enemies — and perhaps now there was hope.

In the last few days, Finn had heard through his Resistance contacts that the Warlord talked of amnesty, a willingness to trade. Finn could live safely in one of the lesser Borderland cities, his niece, Emily, would be returned to him, rescued from the Halbrasse training camps. They would be left alone to live in peace. It sounded like an impossible dream, a tranquil life where he could raise his niece in memory of her mother, Isabel. He had promised to keep Emily safe as his sister took her dying breath, but now that promise haunted him. Finn gripped his sword, knuckles white with tension. He was a warrior, always had been, always would be. While he wanted a better life for Emily than the halls of the Halbrasse, he also couldn’t see himself tending orchards in the outer cities for the rest of his life.

But he had to know more about his possible future, so he was here, ready to meet with a messenger from his father. The rocky beach served well as a public place where he could slip into the shadows if it looked like a trap. The bounty on his head was still worth collecting, after all.

The sound of oars paddling grew louder than the waves as the lifeboat drew closer to the shore, hollow-cheeked men onboard still rowing with tired arms. They wore layers of stained and ragged clothes, pockets filled with what little they could carry from their homeland. Some wore hats pulled low over their eyes as if to shield the world from their sight. Finn glimpsed the drawn face of a beautiful young woman clutching a silent baby boy in her arms, her big dark eyes staring toward an unknown shore.

The traders readied themselves on the rocks, jostling for position, ready to guide the travelers to what they thought was safety.

But Finn knew what really awaited these people.

This was not the coast of some welcoming haven where refugees would be helped into a new life. This was the Borderlands, where those pushed off the edge of the map ended up in forgotten places, where history remained in the present, and the extinct lived on. It was ruled by the Shadow Cartographers, those who could wield dark magic, who bred a new generation focused on taking back the land they believed was theirs. Earthside, where Sienna lived, where a whole world of people lived their lives with no idea that the Borderlands or the Uncharted even existed.

Finn watched the new arrivals. They would learn soon enough.

The boat beached on the shore with the grating sound of metal over stone. The traders helped people out, guiding them up the bank, funneling them toward the soldiers who waited on the crest of the hill above, faces painted with the half-moon of the Shadow. The new arrivals spoke the names of their home towns, the places they had fled for fear of their lives, hoping for news of home, of family, of those who had left before them. Those on the beach merely shook their heads, denying any knowledge.

Soldiers singled out the ones who might be especially useful. One pointed at the beautiful young woman, proof of her ability to breed held in her arms. One of the traders pulled her away from the group.

She turned, calling out to an older man. “Papa!”

The man started up the beach toward his daughter. “Wait, what are you doing?”

He pulled papers from his jeans, the sodden pages almost legible. He thrust them at the soldier, but the man brushed them away, the papers fluttering to the floor. “These are worthless now.”

One of the traders pulled the old man roughly back. “Leave her. She is no longer yours.”

“No!” The old man struggled but more of the traders piled in, punched him to the ground, kicked him as the girl was dragged away screaming, the baby crying, the sound of lamentation in the air.

Finn closed his eyes against their suffering and clenched his fists as he tried to hold himself back. There were too many for him to fight alone and he had no friends here. The girl would probably end up in the breeding halls where his sister had died in a bloody dungeon not so long ago, buried in the mass grave behind the Castle of the Shadow. The girl’s father would probably die in the mines of the Uncharted. This is what the Resistance fought against, but they needed a whole lot more help to overthrow the power of the Shadow Cartographers and he could not fight this battle alone.

As the traders stripped the boat for parts, the refugees were herded away. By the time the sun rose above the horizon, the only thing left on the beach was a child’s doll, choked with seaweed, trampled into the sand.

Finn turned to see the willowy figure of a woman standing alone on the jetty, black hair loose, swirling about her in the wind like the snakes of Medusa. She carried twin crossed swords on her back and her face was marked with the half-moon. As the rays of dawn touched the jetty with a golden glow, Finn recognized her. Jari, one of the Warlord’s trusted bodyguards, renowned for her skill with the sword and her brutality in battle. They had trained together in their younger days, matched in skill on the battlefield — and in their passion afterwards. She was even more beautiful now with the scars she wore with pride. Finn remembered the shape of her muscled body beneath that cloak. He could still recall the warmth of her. He shook his head. His father knew him too well.

He watched Jari from the shadows, waiting for any sense that she wasn’t alone. Minutes passed and she stared resolutely out to sea, her cloak flapping in the breeze.

Finn stepped out into the open, hand on his sword, checking around him for danger.

Jari looked over. “I came alone, as promised.” Her eyes flashed with a dark smile. “Besides, if I wanted to take you, I would. I hear you’re out of practice, Finn.”

She sat down, long legs swinging off the edge of the jetty. She seemed relaxed but Finn was still wary. She was right, he had been running and hiding for too long, and his sword arm was out of practice. Jari could probably even beat him in hand-to-hand combat, but he hoped they wouldn’t have to try that right here.

“What does my father want?”

Jari paused for a moment, her dark eyes raking over his body as if she remembered those nights years ago as well as he did.

“The Shadow Cartographers seek pieces of an ancient map that show the way to an island lost in time, pushed out into the far Uncharted.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Jari raised an eyebrow. “The Warlord knows of your love for Earthsiders and they will come soon looking for your help to find the pieces of this map. We have one fragment already and they will do anything to find the rest.”

Finn’s heart raced at the thought of Sienna coming over the border again. He would see her once more. But he could not betray her. If the Mapwalkers needed the ancient map, then it must have power to destroy something on Earthside. He turned toward the ocean, the frown deepening between his eyes.

“I can’t—”

Jari cut him off. “Your baby niece has no magic.”

Finn spun back to face her. “What? How do you know? She is too young to face the test.”

Jari jumped off the jetty and walked toward him, her gait swaying slightly as if she danced across the rocks. Finn grasped the pommel of his sword and she gave a half-smile at his gesture, like a cat toying with its prey.

“There is one whose magic is knowing gifts early, reading the blood of the newborns to see where their talents lie. To see who is worth keeping.”

Finn flinched at the thought of little Emily’s blood taken for a dark purpose.

Jari walked closer. “Do you know what they do with those who have no magic in the Castle of the Shadow?”

Her words were soft, menacing.

Finn closed his eyes, recalling the thick stone walls of the dungeon, the bodies of the dead, the Blood Gallery, the torture chambers — and the mass graves of those considered worthless to the cause.

He sighed and nodded slowly.

Jari put her hand on his arm and looked up at him with a half-smile on her lips. “She is safe, looked after by the wet nurses, kept from the blood pits — for now. She’ll be returned to your care if you bring the three missing pieces of the Map of Plagues to your father in Old Aleppo by the end of the next half-moon. You can raise her in peace, your transgressions forgiven.” She shrugged. “Who knows, maybe Kosai will want to play happy families. After all, she is his granddaughter.”

Finn spun round, shaking off her hand, his face contorted with anger. “That bastard sent his own daughter to the Castle of the Shadow. Do you know what happens to women in those breeding halls? Women like you?”

Jari laughed in his face. “Not like me. Your sister was weak, easily broken. The question is whether you are, too.”

She was so close that Finn could smell the mint tea on her breath, see the pores of her skin, sense the latent strength of her body. How he wished to fight her now, see her proud face in the dust, but what she offered would fulfill the vow he had made to Isabel as she lay in a pool of her own blood. He promised to look after Emily and he could not storm the castle by force. He had tried before and been vanquished by mere children trying out their newfound magic.

Finn stepped back, giving ground before meeting her eyes. “If I do this, then I want safe passage for the Mapwalker team. I will find the pieces of the map but they must be allowed to return to Earthside afterwards.”

Jari hesitated a moment, then nodded. “The Shadow Cartographers want the Map of Plagues, not the people you have a fondness for. Their fate is sealed, regardless, like all those on Earthside.”

Finn could only hope that her words were empty, that there would be a way to prevent disaster, but for now, he had to move toward saving Emily. He would figure out the rest later, with Sienna by his side.

“Then I’ll do it.”

Jari smiled again. “There is just one more condition.”

 

Chapter 3

Sienna turned the sign on the door of the shop to Closed. The maps behind her rustled, their pages calling to her as portals to adventure, or a warning of places lost in time. She hadn’t even been through the entire inventory yet, the wonders that her grandfather had preserved in a lifetime of cartographical collecting. Each map was potential in paper form, a way into another world, and Sienna longed to place her fingertips on the ink and step through, no matter the price she would have to pay.

She sighed and stepped outside, locking the door with her grandfather’s key. Sienna still thought of it as his even though he had left everything to her, along with the legacy of protecting the city he had loved all his life. Now it seemed it was threatened once again. Bridget’s voice had sounded tense on the phone as she summoned the Mapwalker team to the Ministry.

As Sienna walked along, the bright sun lit up the pedestrianized street of Elizabeth Buildings, colorful with flowering window boxes. The smell of freshly roasted coffee filled the air from the cafe across the way. It was difficult to imagine that these streets had run with blood not long ago as feral wolves ran through the gate followed by the Warlord’s soldiers threatening far worse. They had been vanquished that day, but they still strained at the gates between the worlds.

Sienna turned onto Brock Street, the giant plane trees of The Circus looming ahead. When all was well in the city, red double-decker buses cruised these streets filled with eager tourists listening to the glittering history of the Roman spa and Georgian elite. The buttery Bath stone glowed in the sun, and for the first time, Sienna considered that this could be her home. Her grandfather had loved Bath so deeply that he had given his life to save the city. She had never formed that kind of attachment before, but perhaps now, it might be possible.

Thoughts of Finn intruded. She had promised to help him bring down the dark regime of the Shadow Cartographers, to free the children and enslaved women. That world seemed so far away from this perfection of a city where life was easy and free.

Sienna walked down through the busy streets, past the independent shops, packed restaurants, and the faces of happy families with no idea of that other place.

She turned into the paved square of the Abbey Churchyard and looked up at the facade of the great church, the vaulted stained glass windows flanked by Jacob’s ladder carved in stone on which angels climbed heavenwards. Her eyes were drawn to the sinister angel that crawled down, its contorted body more like a demon. Most never noticed the anomaly, but then most didn’t know of what lay below this ancient place. The winding halls of the Ministry of Maps lay buffered up against Roman ruins, wound amongst the remains of an ancient city, powered by the ley lines that the Druids of old had known so well.

Sienna walked around the back of the Abbey to the doorway she had run from the first time she had been confronted with the truth of the Mapwalkers. Now she entered again willingly, hoping that this was her way back to Finn.

“Wait for me!”

Sienna turned to see Mila in the alley, walking toward her with confident strides. Her dark curls were tied back with a red scarf patterned with grinning sugar skulls that matched her goth t-shirt, pulled tight over lithe curves and the web of tattoos on her arms.

Sienna smiled. “I’m so glad you’re back. I’ve been going nuts here without you. How was your escape?”

Mila shook her head. “Not long enough. What’s going on?”

Sienna shrugged. “Not sure. But Bridget said it was urgent.”

Together they walked down the steps and entered the corridors of the Ministry. They passed doorways for the main departments: Antiquities, Restoration, Misinformation, Illustration. The Blood Gallery.

Sienna clenched her fists as they passed, a cord of emotion pulling her toward what would one day be her own resting place. As a Blood Mapwalker, the most powerful magic flowed through her family line, and one day she would have to pay the ultimate sacrifice.

By the time they reached the War Room, it was busy with Mapwalker staff talking in smaller groups, gathered around a framed image of giant rats devouring a corpse.

Bridget raised her arms and calm descended on the room. She nodded to the screen behind her. “Last night, a tomb was uncovered behind a plague pit in London.” The screen flicked to images of a sarcophagus, the stone lid broken next to it, then a group of men, one wearing a plague doctor’s mask, four with half-moon tattoos.

“These men broke in and we believe they found something, something we thought lost many generations ago.”

The image on the screen changed to a woodblock carving, hard black lines revealing a grim tableau. A man lay dying, his face contorted with pain, bulbous black growths under his arms. Rats gathered under his bed, his family gathered behind him, and beyond them, a hooded figure stood with a scythe.

Bridget closed her eyes for a second, as if gathering strength, then opened them again, the brilliant blue as hard as sapphires. “We don’t have any pictures of the Map of Plagues, but we think a part of it was found last night by these men.”

Questions came thick and fast across the room, the noise growing louder until Bridget held up her hand for quiet. “I’ll tell you all we know from the histories. As the Black Plague ravaged Europe, a group of Mapwalker knights tried to save what was left by opening a portal and pushing the badly infected onto a forgotten island in the Borderlands, effectively quarantining them from Earthside.”

Perry frowned. “And damning those on the other side. They’re people too, you know.”

Bridget nodded. “We can’t escape the sins of the past, but regardless of what was right, that’s what they did. After they pushed the final plague villages into the Borderlands, they used the skin of victims to create a map marking the resting place of the cursed island. The Map of Plagues.”

As Bridget spoke, Sienna touched the scars on her arm, her own skin an evolving map of Bath. Had those men been distant relations of her own blood? She felt her father’s eyes upon her, and she turned to smile at him. His face was old beyond his years now, marked by the passage of time he had spent as a tortured prisoner of the Shadow Cartographers. She had barely recognized him when they found his carved up body shackled to a table and Sienna knew his scars ran deeper than the wounds that scarred his flesh.

Her father’s blue eyes were filled with concern, his knuckles white around his cane with worry, but he wouldn’t hold her back from this mission. He had spent years protecting her from the secret of their bloodline but now she was here, now she had taken her place on the Mapwalker team, she knew he was proud of her.

Mila pointed at the woodcut of the plague victim on the screen. “Can a medieval plague really have an impact on the world these days?”

Bridget tapped on her tablet computer to bring up recent news reports of a plague outbreak. Health workers in white plastic clothing and face masks tended to living victims while the dead lay in body bags in neat rows waiting for cremation.

“It’s not medieval. The plague still emerges every year in Madagascar, and has been present in Congo, and even the western states of America.”

Perry stepped forward. “Don’t we have vaccines or ways to stop it?”

“There is no vaccination for bubonic plague but it can be treated with antibiotics, so it’s controllable. The problem comes when the plague goes pneumonic and becomes airborne, spreading through coughing and contact.” She paused, her frown deepening. “We think the Shadow Cartographers will use the Map of Plagues to find the most virulent strain, the one that the knights banished over the border, and then somehow send it back over to Earthside. Coordinated attacks have been increasing. They’re testing our defenses.”

Bridget pointed at the map again as the red dots of plague overran the stricken continent, leaving millions dead. “This is what the Shadow Cartographers mean to bring back. We can’t let it happen. We have to find the Map of Plagues before they do and destroy it.”

“Where do we start?” Mila asked. “Are there any clues in the archives?”

Bridget shook her head. “The knights didn’t trust anyone, even their own kind. They split the map into four pieces and separated them. There have been fragments supposedly sighted over the years, notes in the annals but nothing concrete.” She hesitated. “There is someone who might know more but she is deep in the Uncharted.”

John stepped forward, shaking his head. “You can’t send them there, Bridget. It’s too dangerous. The Librarian hasn’t been seen since …” His voice trailed off.

“Since the last time we sought her out,” Bridget finished for him, and a moment of understanding passed between them. “Time passes differently out there. She may yet help us again.”

Perry walked up to the screen and examined the plague doctor. He zoomed in and tapped on the man’s face. “I can’t be sure but I think this is my father’s work. He won’t stop until Earthside is destroyed and the Borderlanders retake what they think is theirs.” He spun around, face set in determination. “When do we leave?”

Bridget frowned. “You need a guide to the outer Borderlands and possibly even into the Uncharted. The trader town on its northern edge is the best option. We’ve found many guides there over the years, people willing to risk traveling with us. It has no name so it cannot be found easily and its position shifts, of course, but there is one way you can get there quickly. Follow me.”

Sienna’s heart beat faster at the mention of the trader town. Could it be the same place Finn had run to? As she followed the others toward the door, her father stopped her with a gentle hand.

“Be careful,” he said softly. “I know how the shadow feels.” His eyes were haunted, like an addict remembering the early days before magic ravaged his body. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I should have prepared you—”

“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be fine. We can talk when I come home again.”

He nodded and waved her on with a smile. “Go then. Be safe with your friends.”

The others were way up the corridor now, waiting outside a locked door, one of the many hidden beneath the ancient city. Sienna hadn’t noticed this one before. It was nothing special, just a wooden door, stained and varnished to enhance the natural grain. But as she drew closer, Sienna noted the intricate locking mechanism that held it shut. Carved runes surrounded a silver keyhole and she could sense magic wound within, as if it would only open to those chosen for a purpose.

Bridget pulled a silver key from her pocket and placed it within the lock, whispering words under her breath as she turned it. She pushed open the door, her blue eyes sparkling with a love for adventure. “Welcome to the Gallery of Geographical Maps.”

Sienna couldn’t help but gasp as Bridget turned the lights on overhead. The gallery stretched ahead of her, the length of a football field, with bright colors of earth and sea on either side and above her, a vaulted ceiling of gold extravagance.

Each painted map was as big as the wall, a bird’s-eye view of a region of the world, shaded with detail of the land. Olive groves and mountains, white-capped sea and calm turquoise lakes. Walled cities of grandeur, rural villages and sea ports with ships that headed out into the blue. A tingling in her fingers made Sienna lean in more closely to one of the cities. She sensed that she could use these to travel through, a shorthand version of the more detailed maps held within the vaults, or those she could make herself. This was some kind of Mapwalker portal room, with access to places the team had traveled to in the past — and perhaps had still to visit.

Bridget led them down the gallery and stopped in front of a fresco of Italy. “The way that leads to the trader town is hidden in the map of Rome itself.” She traced the lines of the city with a gentle fingertip. “See, this quarter is not of the ancient city on Earthside. You can enter through here.”

Sienna reached out a hand and caressed the lines as she imagined diving down into those streets. Would Finn be there?

Bridget stepped back to allow Mila and Perry to stand close to Sienna. “Be careful out there, but remember, we need those pieces of the Map of Plagues, whatever it takes.”

Sienna sensed the pull of the Borderlands and as it pulsed through her, she closed her eyes. She held out her other hand to Perry and Mila and as they touched her palm, she led them through the map.

* * *

The energy in the room shifted as the team passed through. The wall of maps seemed to ripple in their wake and Bridget put out a hand to catch the air that passed through. Was that the salt of the ocean she could smell? The smoke from cooking fires?

She remembered traveling to the trader town years ago, the thrill of being on the edge of adventure as her team passed through on their way to the Uncharted. Bridget sighed. She could never walk there again. She could never swim in the forgotten lakes of sparkling emerald or walk in the hanging gardens. She could never again visit the lost cities of legend. She could not feel the dark thrill of shadow in her veins, the intensity of the rush that came from crossing over.

She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching her body tightly, holding herself back. Because of course, she could travel again. She was a Blood Mapwalker, all she had to do was walk through the map.

But Bridget could barely contain the throb of shadow as it called to its home. Every time she had used her magic, the darkness burrowed deeper within her, its tendrils wrapped round her heart. She could cross over again but one more drop might be enough to tip her over. She thought of Sir Douglas Mercator, Perry’s father, once her colleague — once her friend — fighting alongside the Mapwalker team to maintain the border in times gone by.

Until the drops of shadow grew too strong in him, and he turned.

Bridget took a step closer to the detailed map, her fingers tracing the lines that represented the border. Would this desire remain in her for the rest of her life? Would she have to resist it every single day?

She rested her forehead against the wall, closed her eyes, allowed the need to rise up within her. She could leave, forget all that held her here, forget John and her responsibilities, forget the fight over the border. It would be simpler to just let go. The tug of shadow throbbed within her and Bridget let it rise …

She stepped back from the wall quickly, heart hammering as she realized how close she had come.

She took a deep breath.

She could not give in. She could never use her blood magic ever again, for it would cost her everything.