The Fire King Read Online Free PDF Page A

complaining about? I went back and got it, didn’t I?”
    â€œI’m not complaining—” Jack stopped, mid-argument. He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We have to hurry. Corrigan says those hounds will be hunting us. Katerina wants to take us to some place called the Warren.”
    Emily quickly walked on ahead. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Come on then. What are you waiting for?”

C HAPTER T HREE
    In which Emily and Co. travel through a city that is almost, but not quite, familiar. Ancient tunnels. A surprise awaits.
    T his wasn’t Emily’s London. She knew this, obviously, but the truth of the statement became more and more apparent as they fled through the cobbled alleys and dirty streets of the city. Everything was much smaller than she was used to, more stifling. The roads were narrower, filled to bursting with Londoners and horses and boys driving sheep and cows from one side of the town to the other.
    Instead of brick, most of the buildings were made from timber and shoved right up against one another. As a result of this, the only way to make houses larger was to build upwards, each precariously built floor larger than the one beneath and jutting farther and farther out over the street until only a small section of sky was visible from the shadowy road.
    But despite these differences, there was still a lot that was similar. For instance, there were the carriages of all sizes and types that jostled for position on the heaving streets, some rickety, some elaborately carved and painted. (Although, the clothing of the people inside these carriages was odd to her. Men wore frock jackets and curly, shoulder-length wigs, and women held scented kerchiefs to their noses to block out the stench.)
    When Emily first saw this, she felt a sharp stab of envy, because the stench was another thing that was familiar to her. Everyone she passed stank of stale sweat or bad breath. There was nowhere she could turn to escape it. The smell of vomit wafted from dark alleys, the stink of burned food from an open door, the revolting smell of rotting meat from an abattoir.
    And added to this was the stink that came from having all kinds of animals walking through the streets. The inevitable buildup left by the animals either buzzed with flies or crawled with writhing maggots. Back home, there were people whose job it was to clean up this type of mess. Obviously, this simple idea hadn’t occurred to anyone here, though Emily fervently wished it had.
    She stepped over a pile of something she would rather not identify, following Katerina as she slipped into a dark alley. The buildings that formed the two sides of the narrow lane were linked by a plank of wood resting on windowsills high above them. As Emily watched, someone climbed out of one of these windows and clomped over the plank to the house opposite. The wood creaked alarmingly, a fine dust sifting down through the air. Emily blinked the dust away and lowered her eyes. Katerina stood at the entrance to the alley, checking back over their route. The other members of her gang had disappeared as soon as they had left the river. It was just the four of them and Katerina now.
    â€œWhere are we going?” Emily asked.
    Katerina glanced quickly over her shoulder. “To see Rob Goodfellow,” she said. Her eyes lingered on Corrigan. “I can’t figure you lot out. Maybe he can.”
    She turned her attention back to the street. Emily followed her gaze. It looked the same as all the other streets they had moved through. Except here the people going about their business looked slightly less well off, their clothes dull, and most of them had short hair. (Emily assumed this was to keep the nits away.) One or two beggars tried their luck, but anyone could see this wasn’t the best area of the city for them. There were no plump merchants. No rich people to take pity on them. Those who went about their business here were