The Crooked Sixpence by Jennifer Bell

she asked, blowing out the candle flame.
    Scratch squeaked. ‘This corner’s round, then wrong.’
    Ivy puzzled through his directions.
Round this corner, then right.
She squeezed him gently. ‘Thank you.’
    They wound their way through the back streets of the Gauntlet and emerged further up the main road, where a series of cutlery traders were demonstrating the properties of various spoons and forks. Ivy didn’t stop to see what an uncommon ladle was capable of; instead, she clutched the invisibility candle to her chest and ducked through the crowd, dodging feet and elbows. As she crossed onto the cobbles, a shadow fell across her path and she looked up to find a tall white obelisk standing proudly in the middle of the road. At eye level was a brass plaque. Ivy stretched up to read it.
    The Great Cavern Memorial
In loving memory of the gauntlet
traders who were killed in the
Great Battle against the Fallen Guild
Twelfth Night 1969
    Ivy studied the names – at least thirty of them, if not more. She swallowed. It couldn’t just be coincidence that the Great Battle had occurred on the same Twelfth Night that Granma Sylvie had disappeared.
    As she continued towards the underguard station, she tried to work out how she might rescue Seb, but her thoughts kept slipping back to the Dirge and that crooked sixpence. If the Dirge had sent the
We can see you now
to Granma Sylvie, it meant they’d been searching for her all these years.
    Scratch quivered in her pocket. ‘Ivy not almost far now there,’ he whispered. ‘Rounding of the corner.’
    She made a sharp turn and then came to a halt. The street had opened out into a black marble courtyard filled with . . . Were those
gravestones
?
    Ivy examined one nervously. It was engraved with a public notice:
    UNCOMMON NEEDLES HAVE EYES.
ASK YOUR LOCAL OFFICER ABOUT NEEDLE CCTV;
IT’S PINPOINT ACCURATE!
    The next one along read:
    OBSERVE THE TRADING HOURS:
FIRST LIGHT TILL MIDNIGHT.
GUT LAW BREAKERS WILL BE TRACED AND PROSECUTED.
    Ivy shuddered. It was eerily quiet. She regarded the surrounding buildings with their smooth granite walls and smoked-glass windows. If there was a design theme here, it was
darkness
. She could see only one set of doors in the entire square and these were iron, with a sign hanging from a hook above them. ‘That’s it?’ she asked, her voice cracking.
    Scratch only shivered. Ivy didn’t blame him.
    She made her way quickly across the courtyard, her wellies pattering over the marble floor. When she reached the station doors, she paused to read the sign hanging above:
    FIRST COHORT UNDERGUARD HQ
COMMANDING OFFICER: LADY SELENA GRIMES,
QUARTERMASTER DE
    Ivy grasped the strap of Granma Sylvie’s handbag, trying to summon up some courage. She could hear the voices of her mum and dad in her head:
Come on, soldier, you can do this. We believe in you.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed open the doors.
    Ivy surveyed the interior of the underguard station with a deepening sense of horror. In addition to the expected underguards, she could see a skull-shaped vase filled with headless flower stems and a collection of large stone urns with the letters RIP etched on the front. There were thick black drapes hanging in the windows and a mahogany picture rail running around the walls from which dangled sepia photos of old bones. The smoke-filled air smelled of strange chemicals, whisky and furniture wax.
    Ivy trembled as she went in. Fortunately there seemed to be plenty going on so one noticed when the front doors closed of their own accord.
    A dark stone reception desk – unnervingly like a tomb – stood at the back of the room; on it was a black marble cherub holding a silver bell. Behind the desk, underguards in long dark cloaks swished about their business with feathers or toilet brushes.
    Ivy felt Scratch shivering in her pocket as she scanned the far wall and counted three