Corroded

The St. Croix Chronicles - 3

by

Karina Cooper

For my flower twin—whose beauty, intellect, and spirit will set the world on fire. You are my inspiration.

With thanks to Amanda Morris. Your generous donation to Books Fighting Cancer fueled the wayward dreams of an eager young miss determined to become the next collector to set London on its ear.

Chapter One

A fortnight after my husband was murdered, I exhibited a severe allergy to sobriety.

Nightmares plagued first my sleep, then haunted me through every waking hour. In order to maintain what sanity I had left, I chewed the opium that was so much easier to attain now that I had taken my shelter below London’s foggy drift.

Laudanum alone could not accomplish what the resin of Turk’s bliss would.

It became a rote as unthinking as breathing. A bit of tar before I sought my rest. Another bit more upon waking, to ease the ache of the night’s passing. I swallowed it when the anxieties of the fortnight’s events wrapped around my chest, tighter than any corset I’d ever worn, and squeezed the living breath from me.

I licked the bitter medicine for courage and I choked it down to forget.

Revenge tasted best when laced with the cinnamon-sharp draught of laudanum, but such liquid was more difficult to carry and hold than the wax-wrapped bit of opium I had taken to keeping in my pocket. And certainly the ruby solution I’d grown to require could not compare to the long, narrow tube I now held in my hands, its fragrant smoke drifting through my nostrils and into my hazy, addled mind.

While I imbibed, freely and without thought for consequence, I could not bring myself to grieve.

I was on a charge. Or, rather, I should have been.

My name is Cherry St. Croix, and I am a collector. I hunt men for bounties—for coin delivered upon successful conveyance of vagrants, degenerates and those too far in debt to allow to roam free. Were I anywhere else but in a Limehouse opium den buried beneath the choking fog of London low, I would be Lady Compton, grieving widow to the late Cornelius Kerrigan Compton, Earl Compton, and certainly I would not be a collector of any stripe.

A countess could not set so much as a dainty slipper beneath the foggy drift without every periodical from here to the remote Orkneys shouting the scandal.

Of course, I had served as a collector for longer than I’d ever been a countess—five of my twenty years compared to five hours a bride; and the former a secret affectation, beside.

A fortnight as a widow, and I had not yet relinquished my collector’s role. Here, in this shabbily furnished parlor with the stained brown walls and shoddy, threadbare settees and chairs, I could simply be a street boy, with my soot-blackened hair hidden beneath a floppy cap, and my clothing deliberately large to disguise the specially designed collecting corset I wore beneath.

If any of the lolling, idle patrons of this dimly lit Chinese den considered me more than a slightly rotund youth, there was no word, no glance, no questions. Only the brief brush of work-rimed, callused fingers against mine as the pipe passed into my hands and out again, and the sweet, almost lyrical orchestra of voices raised in absent conversation.

The idle gossip of Jack the Ripper, that mad murderer stalking Whitechapel’s doxies and dollymops, could not chill the warmth of the pipe. The crimes the fiend perpetrated in the depths of smoke-blackened night turned all of London on its ear, and to date, even Scotland Yard’s finest had failed to suss out the criminal’s identity—for all that, these things did not sour the atmosphere of this dingy place. Truth be told, an evening spent imbibing Chinese opium often made the grimmest news seem tolerable, and even welcome.

For many that do not partake of the smoke often, the promised bliss of opium comes first through the senses. The things seen by the eyes become something dreamed instead, a skirling waltz for the mind and a feast for the soul. If I were to give credence to a faith which could not be proven, that what the bliss engenders in one is a religious occurrence the likes of which no clergy would approve.

By the glassy sheen to the dreamy gazes about me, most were long gone from the grim shackles of these dank environs. The voices they heard came like melodious chimes, a vibrant delight taken in each syllable, each breath. Laughter sparkled, sighs shimmered. Feelings altered.

Things that might otherwise seem unbearable softened. Eased away.

I envied them, these occasional partakers. Enjoyment though I felt, it was not as it once was for me. Such is the risk. Those who take the medicinal regularly must always take the more to feel the same as that first lovely delight.

For that reason, I was not controlled by bliss as they were around me. The sweet orchestra of their world became a muted whisper in mine. While ’tis true that I felt no anxiety—no fear stemming from my dangerous plans, no sorrow upon my thoughts—I also could not sink back into the sweet cushion of lassitude as these partakers had.

I slept with its help and dreamed while it eased my burdens; long had I valued its assistance. My reliance upon laudanum was at one time a strength. The day my father’s alchemical tincture of opium nearly took my life, my near lifelong use allowed my intellect to overcome the medicinal’s effects. I fought back where he expected placid surrender.

The unfortunate result of continued use was such that while I could soften the blunt edges of this new life of mine, I could not escape it.

I could have railed against the injustice, but to what purpose? To soothe the sting, I simply took the more. I resolved to allow the details of this room to blur ever so gently, until the smoke became a gentle breeze and the candles warming the tar in copper plates turned to merry dancers wrapped in golden hue.

It was so easy to lose one’s self in the slow, deliberate disconnect of time and understanding. An hour’s passing could be as a moment, yet a moment could stretch for eternity. I watched the dancing flame, blinking with deliberate effort to watch the copper glints of my own lashes in the fringes of my own sight, and I contemplated my coming actions thoroughly.

Without looking at him, I considered the man seated at my left. The bearded cove had been my surly and unknowing companion for the past two hours—a man whose broad shoulders and bulging gut beneath patched shirtsleeves and leather suspenders professed him to be hardy stock. He was also was my quarry.

No small game.

As a member of the Brick Street Bakers—one of many gangs who claimed the streets of London low like boundaries of war—Bartholomew Coventry was dangerous alone and unstoppable when among his allies. Any attempt to collect him for the Menagerie, to whom he owed his debts, would most certainly draw the attention of the Bakers, were we on Baker territory.

Then again, the Bakers had no love for any members foolish enough to attract the all-seeing eye of the criminal organization what ran the Midnight Menagerie. That Coventry allowed his debts to go unpaid, earning the Karakash Veil’s ire through collectors such as myself, would be a black mark on the man’s service—if service was the word for what the men of a street gang accomplished. With politics of London low always teetering, swaying this way and that, neither the Bakers nor the Veil appreciated any that caused unrest. Coventry’s debts rocked that balance.

As I, myself, had been given cause to learn, the mysterious heads of the Karakash Veil—so named after a river in China said to overflow with boulders of jade—were not the forgiving sort.

The Veil centered its seat of power in Limehouse—so named for the lime kilns that gave it its distinctly acrid stench—whilst the Bakers’ usual run turned toward the more easterly Poplar and Blackwall. While Limehouse’s borders remained the smallest in size, with the Baker’s territory reaching as far south as the Isle of Dogs, the former retained a grip upon London’s premier pleasure garden, and the firmest grip of all upon the Chinese opium trade.

Truly, if the Midnight Menagerie demanded Coventry’s skin, the Veil could see to it easily. That was not the way, however. Such bounties were left to collectors, such as I, and I could not—and would not—count upon the Veil’s aid in securing a quarry.

If I intended to secure Coventry for the purse, I would need to do so before he reached Baker ground. It would be safer for all involved that way.

I knew that he must leave here some time soon, and I had made plans to follow and seize any opportunity along the dark roads. If he reached the edge of Baker territory, well before Brick Street, I’d lose my chance of a quiet collection and be forced to negotiate—if even given the opportunity, for the Bakers were not a forgiving sort—with any other men within earshot of a whistle.

If I were lucky, Ishmael Communion would be among them—a friend, as they go, and an extremely large tool of persuasion.

If I were unlucky, I would be forced to run.

Any worse than that, and I’d be a dead collector washed up along the River Thames a few days hence.

Easily decided, and all the better when I’d followed Coventry’s trail to this den. I only had to encourage the large fellow to smoke as much as his bellows of a chest could imbibe, and he would be docile as a kitten.

Such efforts were a necessity. I was confident, as collectors routinely must be, yet I was not so far gone that I imagined myself capable of taking on the large Coventry without the help of the calming pipe. In the fickle haze of the Chinese smoke, the great weight of the man mirrored that of a mountain—unmovable but for his own volition. Although I had no intimate understanding of Coventry’s talents, I had no doubt that he would fight like a maddened bull were he antagonized far enough.

A body such as his did not join the Bakers to become a beggar. He lacked overt injury, so would not be much of an abram, and carried no sign of sailor’s cant to play the part of a ruffler. That left thieving or bruising, and I had a clear enough picture of which direction our Mr. Coventry leaned. I was not eager to test his prowess with fists or cudgel.

I preferred, if at all possible, a peaceful collection tonight.

He had not yet denied my pass of the pipe, and I wagered a man large as him could go for a few more before I trusted my weight against his. I fit my mouth about the narrow tube and inhaled the smoke gathered within its bulbous end. I did not fear the sharing of such pipes, for the smoke within did much to ease such idle concerns. The smoke burned in a delightful reminder of its nature—warmth and continued lassitude slid over my senses like sweet bliss.

Would that it could ease the darkest of my fevers; I was too far gone in its use to allow it to take such liberties.

The tar popped faintly in the gleaming dish, and as I maintained my held breath, I passed the slender pipe to my left.

No grunt of thanks came. No thickly callused and peeling fingers over mine.

I turned my head, every gesture given a deliberation of pace and measure that my senses delighted in. The air caressed my grimy cheek, as sweet as a stroke from a gentle hand, and I smiled vaguely as if I were only ascertaining Coventry’s appearance for that of a real man, and not a mirage.

There was no mountain to look back at me.

The pipe slipped from my fingers.

I blinked when the cylindrical tube clattered and clinked to the shoddy floor, each marked note a shimmering crystal bell in my hearing. My eyebrows drew together as I stared at the smudged brass. There was no hand to take it from me, no gruff rumble of acceptance as he’d given me half a dozen times before. I waited a tick more, as if he would reappear from nowhere at all.

He did not do this, either.

For a man whose every breath heaved like a mountain, he had moved like a ghost from his place on the floor. I could only scowl at the cushions emptied of both ghost and mountain.

The skiff had gone. Not only had he gone, but in my smoky reverie, I had missed his departing entirely.

By all the bleeding bells in Westminster Abbey, I’d lost my quarry.

How? I would have sworn he was right beside me. Not a minute ago, he’d passed me that pipe without so much as an inquiring lift of eyebrows.

Wasn’t it but a minute?

I fumbled underneath my too-large coat, plucked the small, tarnished brass pocket watch from its place inside a pocket hidden on the outside of my slatted armor corset. I checked the time as cautiously, furtively as I dared. It told me nothing, for I had forgotten to wind it.

Careless of me.

Secreting the small piece once more about my person, I clambered to my feet, swaying as the ground tipped beneath me. A hand not mine caught my backside—less a fondle than an idle motion of helpful restraint—and I righted myself immediately. “’Fanks,” I tossed off, in the vernacular of the truly uneducated. Exactly the sort of thing one might expect from a guttersnipe’s vocabulary.

“Yeh,” said the man who’d righted me, waving me away as if not quite sure if what he saw was real or imagined. “Yeh, sure. Nice night for’t.”

Ask him tomorrow what I’d looked like, and he’d like as not make it up as he went. Opium could be as much help as hindrance.

For my needs, it was all help. Ordinarily, anyhow. Tonight, I had miscalculated.

Amidst the grumbles of sprawling patrons astride every chair, settee, cushion and even the bare floor, I made my way from corner to corner, searching for a large man with the big black beard of a storybook pirate.

“Watch it!”

“Pass that dream, lad,” someone else mumbled.

I took the pipe from one outstretched hand, tucked it into the asker’s, and moved along.

Nothing. Not so much as a whisker of Coventry’s presence. He’d vanished.

And with him, any hope of a hefty bounty to weigh against my own debts.

“Brilliant,” I muttered, whirling. No real interest met my searching gaze; I was but another patron of this ever so fine establishment, another fool of indeterminate age to give hard-won coin to the same criminal Chinese organization that held my leash.

For I too owed the Karakash Veil a debt of life.

Telling enough that no matter how hard I worked now, I was not carving a dent in the weight of the owing.

Especially as I kept losing my targets.

I spun for the door, pushed away the pipe thrust at me and hurried to catch the trail of the vanishing mountain.

A dim hope, even I knew that. The fog that filled the streets of London was blindingly thick, laced in black coal and yellow filth, painted in eerie shades by the gaslamps struggling to pierce the gloom. So terrible had the coal-smoke castoffs of the factories gotten that Parliament decades ago decreed that all the most respectable parts of London were to be raised above on massive hydraulic lifts.

The work was done long before my day, providing a neat divide between Society’s disposition and those unable to keep up the appearances. Immigrants—such as the Chinese teeming in London’s Limehouse district—and the colored Negros freed by Parliament’s abolition of slavery remained tucked safely out of view, beside the factories, the working class and the poverty-stricken. Those who could manage to keep up such appearances, or them what could learn enough deportment to work for a fine lord, were lent an accord.

There were trades that offered a certain amount of respectability, and then there was real work, done by scarred men and women whose livelihood rested on the pittance earned. My father had been among the former, a doctor of some repute, before he suffered an ill-conceived break with sanity that resulted in the death of my well-to-do mother and my subsequent orphaning. After a childhood saturated in Godfrey’s cordial—a trick of laudanum and treacle employed by orphanages and governesses the world over—and too many years in the employ of a traveling carnival, was it any wonder that I had come to feel more at home in the fog-ridden streets of London below the drift than I’d ever felt wearing silks and gilded feathers above?

Of course, my fascination with all things improper had placed me in this untenable position. It had been a long time since I’d lost a quarry so obviously.

I kicked at the street, muffling an uncivility against gritted teeth as the fog curled and drifted beneath the golden lights flickering on either side of the innocuous façade. It stung my nose and eyes, forcing a sheen of irritated tears, which I swiped at with impatience.

Anger does not come so easy to a body blissed on the Chinese smoke. For me, who had not yet eaten a bit of my remaining tar, it came more like a sluggish burn than a high dudgeon. I could grab it, feed it until it carried me through the streets I knew so well, but to what purpose?

A waste of the sweet lassitude of the evening, that’s what.

The night was not young, and though I had missed my opportunity here, there would be more.

There would always be more.

A few hours spent in sublime delight could not be counted as a loss, could it?

I was sure that the Karakash Veil would not see it as such, and more than certain that the Veil’s spokesman would even be so bold as to outright disagree with my logic, but what was done was done.

If Micajah Hawke had a problem with how I conducted my business, he could seek me out himself.

I shivered as the fine hairs on my nape lifted in abject alarm. Miserable as my memory had become, there were some facts—some recollections—that would not leave me.

Most sharp were the memories of Mad St. Croix, my gifted father who all of Society had long thought dead. I found him only some few months ago, masquerading as a harmless professor. What should have been joy in the discovery of my father turned to a waking nightmare as he attempted—once by accident and then again by design—to end my life.

His goal had been to return his wife, my mother long since deceased, to the world of the living.

I told nobody of this. Only Zylphia, my then-maid, knew the barest details—that a wily old professor had mucked about with alchemical affairs beyond his understanding and paid the price. Even now, in my chilled flesh and blissed state of mind, I could not wholly embrace the depth of my father’s crimes.

To destroy his own flesh and blood in the name of love.

It does not bear remembering.

Though Abraham St. Croix learned by accident that his alchemical formula considered me an ideal candidate for his machinations, he did not manage to take advantage of this fact at the time of its wayward administering. Ishmael Communion, my brave friend, had taken me—insensible under the influence of that first terrible concoction—to the Midnight Menagerie.

For all it was the bloody ringmaster who had kept me from losing myself to the terrible effects of the drug I had been accidentally given, I still owed Ish a debt of gratitude I had not yet considered how to repay.

Would that it had ceased there.

Hawke saved my life in other, less respectable ways. Because of that, or perhaps in spite of it, I was viscerally uncomfortable with the knowledge I read in his mismatched eyes when he spoke to me. The ringmaster of that decadent place was all too familiar with my skin for my ease of mind.

He demonstrated no inhibition in reminding me of the fact. To keep my mind from straying—my soul, he had insisted, from leaving my earthly body—he had placed his mouth on me in places I daren’t not say, forced my attention to the flesh lest I lose it.

An unorthodox solution, to say the least.

I was too worldly to be a prude, and not nearly so proper as to be unaware as to the conventions of the goings on between a man and woman, but half out of my senses as I was, I had no opportunity to come to terms with what had happened between us. I gave myself no occasion to try.

My focus was bent on other, more important things.

Such as, in the greater scheme of the world, searching for that black-hearted villain that murdered my husband mere hours after the vows that would have seen me freed of this debt.

Or, rather closer to the present concern, acquiring the quarry that I could give to the Veil in exchange for a little more time so that I could find that murderous bastard.

Smoothing my hands along my cheeks, and likely smearing the soot from the lampblack I used to coat my distinctive dark red hair, I spun in a semi-circle, held my breath as the fog forced me to clear my throat sharply.

For many who plied their talents below, a constant throat-clearing was as a dinner bell for the starving. One could always tell a visiting toff by the tickle in the throat, and I had not been raised below the drift. I lacked the tolerance to the grit I inhaled with every breath.

I hadn’t bothered to put on my fog-prevention goggles, or the respirator that protected my lungs from the black air. They hung in the tool pouch at my side, heavy and eager for use, but I ignored them.

It seemed only right that I at least make an effort to blend in to the world I now inhabited, even should it continue to gather like an ache in the throat. Since I did not care to always wear the distinctive devices of a collector, I split my time between bare-faced forbearance and protectives.

It was not the most comfortable of choices, especially during true peasoupers like tonight’s devil-thick miasma, but I had little choice. While I hid from my mother-in-law, a deucedly manipulative marchioness whose love for me had never warmed beyond civil intolerance, I could not return to the London I once knew. Not until I’d completed my objectives. Marchioness Northampton mourned her eldest son, I could understand that. That she chose to do so by painting me as the target of her grief—by attempting to imprison me in the confining trappings of grieving widow for the whole of my life—was a circumstance I could not allow. Not, anyhow, just yet.

I would go back, eventually. I would grieve Cornelius Kerrigan Compton, both on my own and as Society deemed proper. I would wear black and drape the windows and hide the mirrors; pen wistful notes thanking others for their sympathies, whatever fashion demanded of a widow. But I would do so on my terms, and only after I had collected the murderer that had taken him.

This was what drove me in the dark and the gloom.

This was what haunted my every waking moment, and even those of sleep. That I had turned my back upon the man I’d married, left him to die in the fog alone as the villain I hunted outwitted me at every turn, was my own great burden.

I was not a complete halfwit. I knew, logically, that I had fallen into a trap—that the vile murderer, whose efforts below the drift put even the Ripper to shame, had laid for me the sort of bait I could not willingly ignore. He had lured me with my maid and dear friend’s abduction, captured me when I had given chase, even saved me from my father’s dark and secret laboratory. His games were that which I professed to despise, and yet I played them.

The flowers he left upon my window sill when I was recovering from my father’s villainy, the midnight sweets he murdered for Mad St. Croix’s diabolical schemes, all designed to put me in Bedlam.

If I owed Hawke my life, I owed this sweet tooth—so named for his taste for Menagerie flesh—something much darker: the midnight sweets demanded his collection. Menagerie justice, they called it. I did not fool myself into thinking it would be anything kind, but I had long ago learned never to ask the outcome of my collections.

I had failed, in every respect. Whatever this man was, monster or madman, he styled himself my rival, and I found myself lacking.

If I were stronger, smarter, perhaps I could have saved Lord Compton from the sweet tooth’s angry vengeance. I could have waylaid the fiend before he murdered the man I had chosen to marry.

I could have... Something. I could have done something, done anything at all.

I did not. I failed, and a good man had suffered the terrible consequences.

What could I say? Even here, in the dark where no one could see me, I felt watched. Always, I felt watched.

I knew it was the eyes of the dead who watched me.

My fists clenched by my sides. Pain knifed through my chest, the same ache that forced the love of laudanum into something much less benign.

Weep for the widowed bride!

So much venom in the murdering collector’s spittle-flecked demand, never more than a hairsbreadth away from echoing in my memory. So much hate in so few words, spat at me from across my husband’s bleeding body.

All for so much blood.

I would never scrub it from my mind.

Blood for blood would have to do.

I turned away from the inviting stoop of the opium den and the sweet escape that waited within, hunching my shoulders beneath the thick fustian coat that was all that stood between me and the chill of mid-October’s autumnal bite. Tucking my cold fingers into the pockets, I began the short trudge back to the gates of London’s decadent pleasure gardens.

It was there, alone and in the cold embrace of the damp fog, that the black tendrils of despair began to creep in.

It all seemed so very hopeless.

On the one hand, I missed my staff dearly. My chaperone, the widow Frances Fortescue, who had been my governess when first I stepped foot in my old Cheyne Walk home. So stiff and unyielding was her façade, but she’d cared for me as only a deeply nurturing soul could when faced with the hell-spawn I’d been as a girl of thirteen.

I keenly felt the loss of my butler, a war veteran missing a leg from his time in Her Majesty’s infantry, and whose beautifully groomed chops and thick mane of white hair had always put me in mind of a gentleman pirate. It was his respectful propriety, his ever calm presence, his wife’s efficient housekeeping and the subtle indulgences of a childless couple that had earned Booth and his wife a place in my heart.

I wondered what happened to Levi, the young house-boy Booth had taken under his patient wing, and whether my maid of only some months ago, Betsy, had found her new home in her husband’s Scotland village to be everything she’d hoped.

I wondered, too, if they suffered the scorn of my reputation. If the letters of recommendation promised by the marchioness had carried my staff far out of my reach.

That I had vanished only added grist to an already humming gossip mill.

My guardian, the executor of my father’s will, surely would hear of this most recent scandal soon, if he hadn’t already. Mr. Oliver Ashmore, an absentee man in trust, had never spent more than a few hours under the roof of the home that was technically his, at least until my majority made it mine. He traveled the world, as my father had before my birth. I’d seen the man by face only once, and aside from a lingering terror of the man, I remembered nothing useful.

I knew that my household often sent letters to him, likely fraught with all my latest antics and troubles. If he had ever written back to assure them of his sympathies, I did not know.

Would he wash his hands of me, then? Upon my marriage, he was no longer forced to act my guardian. Even as a widow, the inheritance he vouchsafed now belonged to my husband’s benefactors—in short, not me. Mr. Ashmore had no further responsibility to me.

I suffered a freedom now from such matters that was almost as terrible as the gilded captivity of Society above this blasted fog. Although I could come and go here, nearly as I wished, I still owed the Karakash Veil for the actions that had saved my life when my father’s alchemical serum nearly ended it.

That they demanded my father’s alchemical concoction as payment—a thing they called magic in their foreign tongue—was the terrible price of that freedom. I could not locate the device that had carried it.

Even if I had, I was not prepared to give that sort of uncertain power to a criminal enterprise.

What, then, was I doing? Collecting Menagerie-posted bounties alone, in the hopes that each one would soften the Veil’s demand?

It was a foolish hope, and a vain one.

But what else was I to do?

As I made my way ever deeper into Limehouse’s filthy avenues, I squeezed my eyes shut against a burn that seemed as if it came as much from the heart as the fog frothing behind me like a wake.

I had betrayed everything. My staff, my dear friends, my husband. This was not mere misery, this was unavoidable fact—ladies of any stripe did not cavort with the creatures below the drift. They did not marry earls with one hand and wield knives in the other.

They did not ever risk behavior that would see their staff ridiculed and turned out, cut by the rest of London’s elite and their own servants, whose airs mirrored their masters’ and mistresses’ so closely.

I had done all of that, and more.

What good, then, was a mistress who could not provide for herself, much less her staff? Who could not stand beside her husband?

Who could not even state with any degree of certainty that she had loved him?

None. Not a whit of worth in a creature as that.

Even less when she struggled in debt up to her coal-blackened head.

I passed one of the many narrow lanes carved between shop stalls and cramped Limehouse quarters, shuddering with an ache in my chest that no amount of opium could soothe. I all but hunched into myself, so much so that I had no inkling of motion or movement as fingers curled into the shoulder of my overcoat and wrenched me off my feet.

I managed a gasped sound, a coughing rasp, and a thickly callused hand slammed over my nose and mouth. Pain lit like a brand across my cheekbone. I tasted the salt of sweat, a gritty layer akin to charcoal or soot, and then the air was shoved from my lungs as my back crashed into damp brick facing. My hat flew off my head. Firelight flickered behind my eyelids as the opium dulled the senses that should have registered such abuse.

“You’re that collector bird,” came the accusation, a guttural breath sweetened by smoke and soured by decay.

I had no opportunity to answer. I felt only an immense pressure constricting my voice and breath. Steely fingers banded around my throat, squeezing the high collar around my neck until my heartbeat pulsed within the confines of my skull and I felt as if only a second more might turn my head into so much pulp.

My feet hung from the ground, leagues away from the command of my thoughts, and the brick gouged deeply into my shoulders. I seized the meaty wrist beneath my chin, so wide that I could only just scrape my fingertips together around it, but I could no more move it than I could will aside a locomotive.

My breath rattled. My ears rang. In tune with my laboring heartbeat, my vision blurred and sparked. The shape before my straining, bulging eyes was man-shaped, beard-colored, but I was blind by darkness and what terrible melancholy had gripped me in the seconds between leaving the den and meeting this beast of a man.

My eyes closed.

“Not so much a fight,” my would-be murderer grunted. “I ought’er—”

Whatever he ought to have done, he did not do. What he did instead was widen his eyes, as if something in my face surprised him. The skin there flinched, masking a glint of red I could not ascertain as reflection or rage, and he cursed a gritty wheeze, his body jerking abruptly. The grip at my neck flexed, grinding flesh to bone, then loosened as my flailing frame lurched like a fish trapped in the killing air. Suddenly, the weight in my chest was gone. My thoughts cleared; anger set in.

What bollocks had I been on about? What had I been thinking?

I floundered, clawing at the brick wall behind me, feet seeking purchase. A knee, a corner edge, anything would do. One foot flattened against the alley wall, the other found soft flesh that earned a taut yelp as Coventry staggered backwards.

He dropped me to the ground, a discarded doll gasping for breath, choking through the swollen flesh of my throat. I managed to get to my knees just as smaller, faster hands dug into my coat. They dragged me to my feet. “Come, cherie, speak to me!”

I coughed a word that wasn’t a greeting. As my vision cleared on the tail end of my quarry’s worn trousers, as he vanished into a swirl of fog and fading, pounding footsteps, I whirled on my erstwhile savior, shrugging off her hands in violent recoil.

It was not her appearance that put me off, though there were many both in the drift and out who could not claim the same.

Zylphia was a mulatto, her skin the color of dark tea lightened by a dollop of cream, her hair coarse, incredibly thick, and with enough kink from her Negro mother that it settled in heavy waves. Her mouth was too wide for fashion’s choice, which only appealed to the refined tastes of the Menagerie’s market, and her eyes were uncannily blue in her African face—legacy of her unknown white father, and all too clear a mark of the shame that birthed her, as far as London proper cared.

Zylphia had once been merely a midnight sweet—those beautiful, cultivated creatures that served as flesh and temptation for the pleasure gardens. As part of my debt, she had become my maid above as well as my keeper below. One of few who knew of both lives I led, I had trusted her more than I should have.

She’d vanished just before the marriage that would clear me of all debt to Hawke and his keepers, and thus relieve her of her duties to me. She had not been there when the rival collector we both hunted had murdered my Lord Compton.

She returned sometime between my husband’s passing and my lapse into that terrible state of raw disbelief, but it was too late. My guilt had grown too weighty to bear.

The murderer had known of my previous maid, dear Betsy of the sweet doe eyes, and had abducted her as neatly as he pleased. He had known of Lord Compton’s proposal, murdering him bold as brass in the street.

He knew where I made my home, and that I acted the collector come evening.

All that I held dear would remain in danger. Zylphia, the daft twist, had not taken to my demand to be left alone.

We were no longer friends, and it was my doing.

I glared at her from watery, burning eyes, my mouth twisted in anger. “You had no right to step in.”

She flinched as if I’d slapped her. I possibly could have done worse if I’d tried. As a creature of the Menagerie acclimated to giving her pound of flesh on demand, she did not like to be touched when away from the work.

Which made it all the more poignant when she caught my hand in both of hers, steadying me as I tottered sideways and staggered to a halt. “That’s one of the Bakers,” she told me, as if I were too daft a child to know. “He rivals Communion for size, what were you thinking?”

“I bloody well know who that was.” I snatched my hand from her grasp. My chest twisted as hurt flashed across her exquisite features.

I could stand on my own. I had no choice.

“I do not need your help, Zylphia. Go on.”

For a moment, only the fog whispered between us. It shifted and coiled, a sinuous cat without form or end.

Her jaw shifted as she straightened, and for the first time, I realized she wore the same masculine clothing I had given her for our collecting adventures. No set of eyes could ever claim Zylphia’s figure masculine, not unless the mind behind them were gone on drink or worse, but the trousers made for easy freedom. Her hair had been coiled up, black as mine without need for soot to make it so.

She was still a lovely thing.

And dangerous, if she’d sent Bartholomew Coventry running. I hadn’t seen her do anything worth running from.

Perhaps he’d thought himself outnumbered.

Perhaps I owed Zylphia more than the sharp side of my tongue.

“I am only trying to help you, Cherry.”

I hissed as she spoke my name, took a step as if I would grab her by the lapels and strike her for her temerity. “Let me be!” The words came on a poisoned point of a knife’s fury. “I’ve no use for a Menagerie whore, now or ever.”

Zylphia, my once-friend, flinched. She staggered back a pace, raising an arm as if it would ward the blow of a whip or worse, and the guilt twisting my heart sharpened to a razor’s edge.

“Go,” I snarled. “And mind your back!”

“You can’t do this alone,” she began.

I raised a hand—dear heaven, forgive me—and snarled a threat that bore no words. If it would send her home, I would strike her here and now, and no one would be the wiser for my shame.

Her chin rose. Her jaw, beautifully delineated in smooth dusky skin, hardened. A pinch of sallow fury creased the corners of her full lips. She spun without a word, fled into the fog until I could no longer see the silhouette of her figure. Her footsteps, dampened by the clinging fog, faded to silence.

For lengthy moments, I struggled to even my breathing.

There was no call for my horrid behavior. None for the anger welling from a wound too deep for a doctor’s hand, too infected to close.

I needed no help. I could accept no friends where the fog blew harsh and biting and black. As long as my path intersected that of the collector who’d killed my father and murdered my husband, I would not bend.

I would not be responsible. Not again.

My heart pounding inside my chest, I leaned back against the same brick I’d met so intimately moments before and wondered if I was expected to cry.

Chapter Two

I returned to the Midnight Menagerie just as the Westminster bells tolled the third hour. I was lacking in collection, exhausted beyond all measure, and my wayward Mr. Coventry had retreated. No matter. When I was ready, I knew where to find him.

It would take me onto Baker grounds, but I’d been through worse. I was, I can say now with some regret, all too eager to make the attempt.

A man in green and black livery waited just inside the gates, passing out pamphlets upon which the entertainments of the week were inscribed. I refrained from taking one. I already suspected tonight’s main event took place within the glowing red beacon of the circus tent.

Years ago, after Vauxhall lost favor with the elite and became instead the haunting ground of footpads and thieves, rumor of a new decadence began to circulate among those with the means or the connections to hear them. Sensing a void—and rather more importantly, a source of ready income—the Midnight Menagerie came to be London’s most fashionable, and fashionably unfashionable, den of iniquity and debauchery.

Like much of the district, the Karakash Veil owned the pleasure gardens. Yet even in this intimate setting, the Veil was a mystery. Perhaps even more so, for the tale of the shadowy puppet masters behind the curtain were as intriguing to the purse strings as the imagination.

And what the Veil could not inspire by word alone, the reprehensible ringmaster of the Midnight Menagerie delivered.

Hawke was, simply put, a bastard. Possibly literally speaking, but most assuredly behaviorally. He was, there was very little doubt, a man whose raw masculinity allowed him a great deal of leeway in an establishment whose credibility resided on what temptations men of a certain reputation could acquire. That which he sold, men who admired or feared the ringmaster would purchase.

Yet it was not his appearance alone that earned Micajah Hawke such accolades. I was not certain if the rumors of his Gypsy-blooded birth were true or spun fantasy, yet his very bearing—haughty, implacable, powerful—established a right to rule within the grounds that allowed him to treat all who came here as fodder for his games. Or, more like, as flesh to exploit.

As the Veil’s right-hand, the public façade upon which all who attended the grounds could fawn, Hawke enjoyed nearly unfettered freedoms. I believed, truly, that no ringmaster upon this great earth was capable of accomplishing that what Hawke could with an audience.

He was in all things a man to watch.

Tonight, as the circus tent pulsed like a jeweled heart deep within the Menagerie grounds, I considered myself safe from crossing paths with the serpent. He would be inside that crimson canvas, leading the audience, guiding the circus rings, taunting the so-called freaks and sideshow displays. As any good ringmaster must, he would control every detail until the crowd roared with delight, gasped with fear and wonder.

Spent coin as if there would be no tomorrow in which to regret its absence.

I remembered little enough of my time in Monsieur Marceaux’s Traveling Carnival, but the sticky sweat of fear and the heat surging from the anticipatory crowd was a thing that haunted easily.

Sometimes, if I were to let my guard down at the wrong moment, a memory would come from nowhere to trickle into my thoughts like a cold bath. The hiss of a knife’s edge as it ghosted past my ear. The terror of a tightrope pulled taut beneath my feet, and a distance so far to fall, it pulled cold, clammy sweat from my skin in shuddering recollection.

I remembered, at times, the dread stemming from a poor day rifling pockets, or the fear that came when the good monsieur decided that what a crowd demanded most was blood.

Of all the places in the Menagerie I did not go, I hated that round-top canvas the most.

The grounds, vast and miraculously clean, were another matter entirely. I could not deny how truly lovely the Menagerie by night could be. Lit by thousands of Chinese lanterns strung high on cords between lamp posts, they illuminated deliberately carved trails into the dark, pointed the way along the most common paths where guests could wander, stroll arm in arm, or deliberately leave. Many was the couple, arrived together or strangers at first meeting, to get lost in the cleverly shrouded alcoves along the walk.

Clever if only because a cunning mind with a keen eye could just as easily look upon a tryst as the lovebirds could find a dark corner to engage.

All things came at a price in this wicked garden. For some, that price was a quiet kind of exhibitionism. The worst of Vauxhall’s rumors then could not touch those dark things whispered of the Menagerie now; for all the disreputable gossip of London’s prior pleasure garden, the Midnight Menagerie had made a game of achieving so much more—and charging for the leisure.

I turned away from the heavily-trodden path that would lead to the circus and its accompanying sideshows, kept to the lit paths and turned my back on the memory of the dangerously seductive ringmaster with his exquisitely tailored evening clothes and wicked whip.

I did not like the man, but I would not deny that Hawke was very good at what he did. He tempted. All who strode his grounds, he knew their desires, knew how to garner them, how to feed them.

I was not much of an exception; I would not be the rule.

Hawke attracted me as a man does a woman of weak will, he always had, but I was no feeble miss or bored lady to fall into his gloved palm, no well-played toy. I owed him a debt, and that grated enough for one lifetime.

There were women plenty all too keen on serving him a pound of their own flesh, of that I was sure.

Weariness dogged my every step. It might have been more secretive to stay in the dark, but I kept to the light, because a woman found walking alone off the path could be construed as fair game. I was not keen on dulling the edge of my blade on some hapless fool who might think me simply playing the virginal milk-maid, eager for his conquest.

I passed couples along the way, passed single men of modest and less-than-modest persuasion. Two doffed a gentleman’s hat to me; courtesy, I think, for there was nothing feminine about my apparel.

That, or either man was looking for a youth of my apparent persuasion. Among the Menagerie’s delectable offerings, even those men who swived other men could find a bit of crumpet, as they say.

For my part, I said nothing, kept my face down and my stride hurried. Soon enough, passing the empty market stalls and the occasional littered bit of parchment, I found the turn to the gated enclave where the sweets’ quarters remained.

By the time I let myself inside, I was bone-weary, my soul weighed as if by rocks strapped to the soles of my aching feet. The communal room was quiet, a fire snapping in the grate and a bevy of feminine voices trilling from the shared boudoir beyond.

I tapped gently and pushed open the doors. The sweets inside the large sleeping quarters paused in various states of dress and undress. Four women of varying height, color, and costumed garb immediately launched into a chorus of croons and questions.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, Lord above, you’re back already. We’re late, aren’t we?”

“Welcome back,” chirped Black Lily, a cherub-faced girl with English roses in her cheeks and hair black as mine when the lampblack had set. “Did you get the bastard?” Two of the women laughed outright, and Jane—a sweet whose skin I’d saved not so long ago from overzealous patrons—hissed a maternal warning and waved dismissively.

I was a little bit of a mascot among the sweets. Not only had I taken a job from them, but I was a female collector—it was practically unheard of. They had no name for me, had adopted Zylphia’s cherie as a nomme de plume that I had no willingness to fight. It was close enough to my name to be understood as mine, and I didn’t care to give them any other.

“Cherie, your face!” Jane fluttered as if she were only moments from seizing me to her beautifully displayed bosom, framed in powder blue silk.

Either my features had gone black beneath a fine coating of soot, or she referenced the bruise I was sure to be sporting after my scuffle with Coventry. I resisted the urge to touch my cheek, certain I’d only set it to throbbing again if I tried.

I summoned a smile from within a black grimace. “I’m well enough, thank you. Only a bed for the night, if it’s no trouble?”

“Talitha’s on the evening.” Jane beckoned at Lily, Delilah, and a girl whose black skin was nearly so dark as to gleam blue beneath the lamplight. FFeathers affixed to her high cheekbones by some kind of glue framed her eyes in startling hues of blue and green, making her gaze seem all the more exotic. She did not afford me much curiosity, seeing to her readiness in silence.

“Thank you,” I said to them, because I was, after all, a creature of hard-taught propriety. Below the drift I might be, I could easily imagine Fanny’s stern glare were I to neglect such small kindnesses.

She flashed me a smile, sweet as a peach in summer. “Be quick, girls,” she told them. “Time’s near.”

Each sweet was readying for a role. Lure or decoration or flesh for the taking, I did not ask.

“Her bed is free,” Jane added to me. “I’ll take her in mine tonight. Tomorrow, Lily’s offered hers as she’s on the market and won’t be abed until day.”

I nodded my thanks, and again to Lily.

We had never been friends, the sweets and I, not like Zylphia and I once, but most of the girls had accepted my presence in the women’s quarters with an air of understanding. Each of the sweets who didn’t mind took turns offering me their beds, then shared with another for the evening.

It was kinder than I had any right to expect.

“You get some rest, now,” Lily called, adjusting her curled and pinned hair with quick fingers.

The sweets did not leave; I would never expect them to abandon their own quarters for me. Instead, as their idle chatter and the rustle of clothing filled my last waking moments, I fell into one of the two dozen beds arrayed side by side, managing only to relieve myself of shoes, coat, and corset. I would be leaving black in Talitha’s sheets.

No matter, I would have them washed tomorrow. I was too tired to bother bathing tonight.

I don’t recall drifting to sleep, or even being aware that I could without a piece of opium to ease the transition. All I remember was that the voices of each girl turned to the howling shriek of marauders in the night; that I inhaled the acrid burn of fog laced with flame, singeing my throat and nose.

I ran in my dreams, ran as if the Devil himself chased me on cloven hooves, and each step took me farther and farther from the lean, patient figure of Earl Compton—my lord husband, my great burden, waiting patiently in the dark.

Skeins of red hair, glinting like the finest rubies of India, wrapped around my wrists, my ankles. A woman laughed, musical and fine.

“You will learn to love me,” the Devil crooned behind me, rich as my lord husband’s voice had ever been and so real that I woke shuddering in damp sheets, my tumbled hair plastered to my forehead and neck. The quarters remained dimly lit, with some girls already abed. Others undressed in the simple light of a single candle, carrying on in whispers and muted laughter.

Not home. Not at all my bed.

A wretched urchin in somebody else’s care.

The square of opium had squashed somewhat beneath the heat of my body, but I fished it from my trouser pockets and bit a corner. The tar burned my tongue, a bitter pill almost too hard to swallow. Too precious to spit out.

I forced it down, my shaking fingers clenching the wax paper into a sharp-edged globule.

I imagined that I could trace the gobbet of sweet bliss as it entered my esophagus, slid to my belly and pooled there. Warm, welcoming. Soothing as only medicine could be.

When I finally slept again, I dreamt of a woman I imagined to be my mother. Her voice eased my fevered mind.

Sweet, sweet girl...

* * *

My mouth was dry. As if I’d spent all night sucking on cotton, my tongue felt coated in grit, my throat sore. I woke mounded in bedclothes, huddled beneath the makeshift tent I’d made of the sheets over my head.

No light pierced through the fabric to tell me what time it could be, or how many sweets had made it back to their beds. My ears felt stuffed full of the same cotton I had apparently swallowed.

I felt like death warmed for tea, and worried that I might be gaining ill.

I had no time to waste on a sickbed.

Muffling a groan, I pushed the bedspread off of me. Daylight seared through my tired, gummy eyes. I almost gave in to the fierce surge of lethargy, almost flipped the blankets right back over my head, I was so desperate to nestle down into the comforting dark. Somehow, I refrained, even if only barely.

The light, more faded than expected in my bedroom above the drift, was still bright enough to trickle through the fine pale curtains. The strength of it told me it was past morning.

The sweets, being nighttime labor, were rarely expected to wake before noon, at the earliest. This would allow me time to clean most of the soot from my skin, repair the lampblack in my tangled, half-fallen mass of hair, and have Talitha’s bedclothes laundered.

My stomach growled beneath my ill-fitting clothing.

I would eat, as well. The Menagerie staff ate at all hours, and the kitchens would be able to spare a plate easily. They rarely took note of which members of this garden came to beg a plate at what time, for many were the men and women employed by the Veil’s demands.

I had been here, making my way among the staff of these grounds, for near a fortnight, and almost all had come to know me by face. Them what didn’t learned of my free passage—often attached to Hawke’s permission, which still rankled. It had taken me only a few days to learn that I was considered his to leash, and his to claim.

While I appreciated the freedom this earned me, the speculation it engendered galled.

Still, the staff left me alone but for my few needs, and did not overly burden me with idle gossip.

In some ways, I missed the easy camaraderie shared between myself and Betsy—and later, with Zylphia.

As if it were an eternity ago.

Quietly as I could, I eased from Talitha’s narrow bed, mindful of the sleeping women surrounding me. Few were recognizable beneath blankets and, in some cases, feather pillows pulled over tousled curls and braided plaits. To my left, I recognized the bright gold heads of Talitha and Jane, who looked near enough alike that they often play-acted sisters. Jane slept on her back, one arm slung across her eyes, her mouth open and a murmured snore leaking out into the crisp afternoon air.

Talitha, her now-frizzy curls tangled and the remains of rouge smudged across her mouth and cheeks, slept curled upon her side, her high-necked shift all that protected her from the cold.

Black Lily, her glossy raven’s wing hair tucked beneath a night cap, slept on her stomach, one arm hanging from the mattress. Beside her, the stunning red hair of a milk-white Irish lass tumbled in copper-bright waves from beneath a still mound of blankets.

I did not look for others; most every bed was full, and I dared not risk waking them. I stripped the bed quickly, collected my shoes, corset and coat, and crept past the beds. I was forced to squint through the unforgiving light, but I managed to make no noise as I bypassed protruding feet and pooled blankets.

I was nearly out when a rustle behind me seized my passage. Holding my breath, I glanced over my shoulder, already prepared to whisper an apology. Instead, I let it out silently when I saw only Jane, elbowing up to tug the bedsheets once more over Talitha’s figure. A bleary glint of guileless blue through a curtain of blond was all the recognition I received as she turned to her stomach and settled back into sleep.

Feeling oddly content by the simple display, I stepped out of the shared sleeping quarters, and shut the door behind me.

My head ached fiercely.

“Good morning!”

The cheerful, painfully bright voice hammered a railroad spike through my skull. Jolting in my skin, my corset slid from my hands and flapped to the floor, the thin metal slats causing it to topple over my foot as I bit back a surprised shriek. The sheets crumpled.

“I’m so sorry!” The same voice nailed another metaphorical pin next to the first, and I flinched.

“Shh,” I hissed, turning quickly. Too quickly. The room spun, my breath shortening as if I’d only just taken a shot of opium direct to the lungs, but my head rang hollowly with pain. I winced.

“I’m so sorry,” softly repeated the girl who set a wide silver tray upon the lacquered, knee-high table arranged in the center of heavily embroidered sofas. Her wide eyes, made all the wider by her dismay, were an innocuous brown, filled to the brim with such innocence that I had never understood how she came to inhabit this debauched den of iniquity.

Madeleine Ruth Halbard was not a sweet. Nor was she a circus denizen, a trickster, a thief, or worse.

What she was, what she had always given the impression of, was terribly young. At sixteen years of age and living under Hawke’s thumb, she must have known all the secrets of flesh and sin, but I was hard-pressed to see the knowledge written upon her as so many dollymops and street-women displayed. She seemed fresh-faced, earnest.

Deucedly uncorrupted.

I could not fathom it.

Aware that I was scowling, and that I surely looked a fright with black all over my face and my hair half-tangled down my back, I made at least some attempt to soften my disposition. “The girls are still abed, and like as not had a late night of it.”

“They did.” Her simple knowledge, indication that she knew what the sweets did by evening, was just one more dent in her so-innocent demeanor. But her smile, when it came, brightened her plain, round face, and the hand she gestured to the platter with was stained by black. “I’ve brought you breakfast, toast and tea. How do you take it?”

Maddie Ruth had not once brought me breakfast.

I was immediately suspect. Setting the blackened sheets upon a chair, I answered, “Two sugars,” and remembered enough of Fanny’s stern upbringing to add, “if you please.”

As the girl, whose build was much like mine in curvature and near enough to my height to make me wonder if she’d surpass me with time, bent to her task, I picked up my corset and brushed off the streaks of smeared soot from the leather.

I kept one eye on the strange dumpling of a creature.

What was her intent? A motive. There would be a motive here.

Yet, almost immediately, I felt shame for the thought.

What kind of turn had I taken when I immediately held suspect the kindness of a girl bringing tea? I was hungry, this was true, and the smell of warm toast and jam curled into my nose like ambrosia from the heavens. Even the ache in my head had subsided with the promise of sustenance.

Maddie Ruth was not a decadent thing, not like the sweets abed in the quarters behind me. Certainly I was no threat to her—whatever it was she did for the Menagerie.

I admit that I felt a certain kinship with the girl. From her round, freckled face to the plain chestnut hair pulled back into a single plait, she was no great beauty. She made no attempt to rectify the lack by dressing well, either. Her blouse was nothing of the sort, but a man’s working shirt in crisp cotton tucked into a plain woolen skirt in drab brown. She wore no gloves, nothing in her hair, no jewelry. A wide belt encircled her waist, and as she saw to my plate, I studied the thick leather gloves—the sort of scarred, heavy apparel a blacksmith or glass-blower might keep close—tucked into the band.

She was, quite frankly, as unfashionable here in the pleasure gardens as I was in Society above.

I understood that position.

Gingerly, mindful of my atrociously filthy clothing, I perched on the edge of a blue, gold and silver embroidered sofa, its patterns reminiscent of the Chinese décor peppered throughout the gardens. I smiled politely when Maddie Ruth set the tea in my hands; my smile warmed to something rather more genuine as the heat of the unadorned teacup saturated my fingers.

“I didn’t know which sort of jam you liked best.”

I looked up from the lovely, deeply brown liquid to find the girl hovering. Her smile, awfully wide, seemed to flicker, as if she strained to hold it.

My eyebrows came together slowly. “I’m quite sure whatever you brought is just fine,” I said, but not wholly with the intent to reassure. Suddenly, I felt very much placed on the spot, and I could not reason out why.

I set my tea beside the plate of toast. The design upon the table was clearly of Eastern origins, a vanity of birds with truly elegant plumage preening for each other set in vibrant color. The contrast between the craftsmanship of the piece and the undecorated china teacup was laughably evident.

I chose not to mince my words.

“Out with it,” I told her.

Her smile dimmed some. “I’m sorry?”

“Tell me truly why you’re here, Maddie Ruth.” I stood, aware that even though she was no taller than my petite height, there was something about my carriage that she found to be nervous over. True to form, she took a step back.

It was then that I noticed there was no accompanying rustle of petticoats or underskirts. No fullness at hip or clean slimness at waist that suggested a corset. She was, much as I had often dreamed to be before circumstances forced my hand, completely free of the constrictive clothing of a lady.

My respect for the girl climbed a titch.

But my suspicions did not calm. They increased.

“Did you come spy on me?” I demanded, hands now on my own uncorseted waist. “Are you here for the Veil?”

She blanched. “Heavens, no!”

That, I’d believe, though I still had not figured out who could be trusted to be Hawke’s creature—bad enough as that was—versus the direct puppetry of the Veil. I knew Hawke was the latter. Was it possible that all others answered to him and him alone to the organization?

Maddie Ruth balled her fists at her stomach, her smile gone entirely. In its place, I watched as she visibly screwed her features into a mask of courage. Her lips twisted hard as she braced herself stiff, her eyes scrunched with the effort.

My mouth ajar by this determined display, it took me a long moment to realize she’d spoken.

I blinked. “What?”

“I said, I want to be a collector.”

Any passing fancy I had taken for the girl, any warmth, vanished. This time, it was I who took a step back. “No,” I said, so coldly that I half-expected the word to shatter into a thousand icy fragments between us.

Gone was her own innocent cordiality. Her round eyes crinkled with frustration. “Why not?”

“’Tis a fool’s hope.” I turned my back, as clear a dismissal as she could ask for. “No one with any intelligence wants to be a collector.”

“I do.”

I rounded on her with such a surge of energy, of chemical imbalance within my skin that my anger seared brightly enough to burn. “No, you do not!”

Her foot stamped hard, rattling my teacup upon its saucer. “You did,” she retorted, with such precision that it found an answering vulnerability within my already teetering sense of responsibility.

“Don’t you dare—”

But my threat was to be bitten in half as the door to the sweet’s sitting room burst open. The ball of energy sprinting inside was wrapped in simple shirtsleeves, threadbare trousers and a street-boy’s cap, gamine features so often caught in an impish smile now turned to concern. “Maddie Ruth! Maddie Ruth, come quick!”

The urgency in the boy’s voice immediately garnered her attention.

Though her hands fisted at her side, she abandoned her discourse with me to hurry for the boy whose name I only knew as Flip. One of the Menagerie’s circus tumblers, he was a lithe child whose smallness of form belied his acrobat’s strength.

Flip had saved me once from the Black Fish Ferryman—another of London’s many gangs, this one comprised mostly of them what sell doxies by the pound and employ footpads by the plenty.

Then again, he’d also called Hawke on me once before, and so my trust for the boy tended toward affectionate caution.

Now, as he seized Maddie Ruth’s arm and tugged her for the door, the girl—now ignoring me completely—said, “I’ll need my bag first. What’s the trouble?”

“It’s Topper, miss,” he said, almost before she was done asking. “He took a tumble from the ropes and went black in the head.”

A bad fall, then, by another tumbler. Flip cast me a brief glance, his smile more worried than truly warm, and the door closed behind them.

Left alone as suddenly as I’d been accosted, I let the abrupt silence replace all those ugly, suspicious thoughts that had filled my ears prior.

My jaw ached from clenching it, my throat burned.

A collector. I had not lied to her when I claimed only the unintelligent chose that route.

Had I known then what I knew now—had I realized that this double role would cost me everything I knew, everything I’d planned—I would have displayed far more sense than I had at fifteen years of age.

God in Heaven, was I even younger than Maddie Ruth when I’d begun?

Did I even have half as much will then as she did now?

Were I told what I had just shouted at Maddie Ruth, I knew what my course of action would have been. At that age, I recall easily doing exactly what I wanted, disregarding all who warned me off. Fanny had done her best to drum propriety into my very bones, yet I knew what it was to be so headstrong.

This is what my stubborn disposition had cost me. This terrible pit inside my skin, an ache so severe that I dreaded waking to face the day. I missed Booth and his wife, missed dear Fanny with her stern sympathies. My family, such as I could claim, was no longer mine. My staff dismissed, my house taken.

The man who had offered me freedom nearly unparalleled in Society’s measure had paid a price so steep, his cold grave would forever mark my shame.

My stomach twisted, a ripple of gooseflesh erupting along my spine as I fought the shudder that claimed me.

Maddie Ruth could not begin to understand, yet she would not let this lie. I knew it as clearly as if I looked into a mirror, and I did not know what to do to warn her off. Did she want to die? Did she want to see those she loved most drawn into terrible games of blood and vengeance?

I wondered if she would listen, were I to sit her down and explain just why a girl such as she could not be allowed to pursue this dangerous life.

Maddie Ruth would not care to hear it.

A shame, but I would not bend on the matter. Under no circumstances would I apprentice any other collectors. I could not bring them into the dark.

I would not feed anyone—much less a girl as fresh as her—to the madness.

The smell of toast and jam, once so welcoming, now turned nauseating. The illness I’d worried over upon waking seemed to intensify, a bit of ague that hovered between aching limbs and swirling belly.

Fighting back the urge to bend, to wrap my arms around my stomach and will the ache to fade, I turned my back on Maddie Ruth’s thwarted bribery.

Let her return to find her offer rejected. Perhaps she would take the hint.

Like as not, she would only try the harder.

Foolish girl.

I used the heavy silver bowl arrayed behind a floral screen, washed my face and all exposed skin. The fire in the parlor had been allowed to die, and would not be stoked again until closer to waking. The chill in the air cooled my too-hot flesh, and I welcomed it. I quickly gathered black remnants of charcoal, worked it through my hair until I was satisfied.

Once done, I tightly plaited it before twisting it up and securing it with my dwindling supply of pins, then washed my hands again in the blackened water.

I put on my corset, the thin metal slats between leather facings fitting into place as designed. I’d made it specially so that I could lace it without help, and as I fastened the high collar in place, as the bindings tightened, I felt a little more the thing.

It was a new day. A new opportunity. Coventry was to be collected, and I needed to place some distance between myself and the Menagerie denizens who would not leave me be.

All I wanted, all I desperately needed, was to be left alone to my own devices. I needed to consider my path, how I might be able to achieve my goals. The Karakash Veil held me accountable for Hawke’s saving of my life. I had been given order to repay the debt by fetching Mad St. Croix’s alchemical serum, yet I knew I could not fulfill the request.

First, because the bloody device had long since disappeared. Second, and perhaps more importantly, I refused to hand over something that powerful—or, at least, with such potential—to the Veil.

This meant that I would be forced to act on a plan, and soon. I could no longer juggle my attempts to appease the Veil with collections acquired for no real purse and locate the sweet tooth to enact revenge. I would have to choose, and soon.

I simply needed an opportunity. A slip of the rival collector’s hand, anything upon which I could pin my next move. It had become, much to my impatient dismay, a game of patience.

So I brought in collection after collection, and did not ask for pay. I slept in the sweets’ quarters and did not make a fuss. I waited.

The devices I chose to embrace were not of anyone else’s liking, I will admit, yet I refused to give a good bloody damn.

So braced, I gathered the sheets into my arms, opened the door and stepped out into the clear air of the Menagerie grounds.

I did not make it one foot from the door. I halted abruptly, my path blocked by a stocky foreign man wearing a plain white robe-like tunic with long bell sleeves. His breeches, knotted off at the knees, were black and slightly billowing, his calves bare and his feet clad in thin black slippers.

He bowed in that uniquely obeisant way of his people, causing the high tail of his topknot plait to fall forward. When he straightened, I looked into the dark brown eyes of a Chinese envoy of the Karakash Veil and knew what it was he wanted.

I would not be left alone at all, it seemed.

My smile was small, my chest tightened.

“You are summoned,” he said in thickly accented English; the only three English words I had heard the Veil’s extremely stoic footmen speak. Possibly the only words I’d ever heard them speak at all. Usually they only gestured. Then they waited.

“I am busy,” I returned evenly. “These bedclothes require laundering and the water in the parlor needs changing.”

I did not know if he understood that much English, for he said nothing. Instead, true to form, he waited.

“I am not going right now,” I told him.

This time, I watched a faint shift of weight. It was a tiny thing, all but imperceptible to them what wouldn’t know to look, but I’d spent a great deal of time looking. I knew danger where I saw it.

I had only just bemoaned my need for patience. I truly needed to be more careful of what I wished.

I was out of time to plan.

Rashness had become my refuge. The urge to behave in such a reckless manner as was not expected of me had grown these past few weeks, but at the time I had called it anger, frustration.

Melancholy.

Dropping my sheets, I surged forward, eager to test this small foreign man’s mettle, and could not even track the motion as he turned to one side. As I sailed past him, a sharp pain bit the side of my neck. Tendons popped in that terrible way of plucked catgut strings, and my breath caught. The muted daylight turned black, and then I felt no more.

Chapter Three

I came to consciousness already perspiring, which told me more about my surroundings than the brilliant haze of crimson slowly congealing into focus around me.

“Wŭ’ān,” said a voice, nasally spoken but pleasant enough despite.

My eyes closed again. I groaned my dismay into the floorboards beneath my overwarm face.

This room was not unfamiliar to me. I had been here before, the night after my first ill-fated brush with the alchemical serum that had nearly destroyed me, and I recognized its ambience. Even as my vision strained to merge into a single focused line, I knew without having to look that the walls were papered with the most ornate patterns I had ever seen. It gleamed like silk embroidery, reflecting back the heat and brilliant color of the fire stoked across the room in a thousand shades of red and gold. The smell I breathed, an aroma both sweet and exotic in its intensity of spice, was likely incense of some kind, whose subtle haze softened the sharp angles of the folding screens arrayed in the center of the room.

Summoning my tottering strength, I pushed myself up from my undignified sprawl on the Karakash Veil’s polished wooden floor. “Good afternoon,” I returned, though sullenly. “I have received kinder invites.”

“Our invite was kind, Miss Black. The assent was your doing.” The voice that greeted my return to consciousness did not lose even an iota of its maddeningly even character as it switched languages from what I assumed was native Chinese—a language I never had the opportunity to learn—to the Queen’s English, completely without trace of accent. “We are pleased to find you did not suffer unduly in your...haste.”

The commentary came from behind one of two embroidered screens, each gleaming red silk panel shot through with gold. The room was brilliant, illuminated brightly by fire and gaslights affixed to each wall, and decorated in matching crimson and gold panels. Tigers and dragons battled for supremacy in the uncomfortable heat.

“You look flushed,” observed the voice when I said nothing. “Are you unwell?”

I did not turn to see if two of the Chinese servants waited by the doors. I knew they would, blank-eyed men with matching top-knots, undecorated robes and slippered feet. Like Chinese soldiers made of tin, they would hold their positions and would not allow my departure unless the Veil willed it.

I tucked my hands behind me and studied the dividers with as much impassive patience as I could summon.

My neck hurt, that did not surprise me, but the ache behind it, that rasp in my throat I could not ignore, suggested I had more to worry about than a thump from a foreigner.

I was coming ill. A touch of the ague from all this frolicking about in the cold and damp, no doubt. I frowned. “As well as can be expected,” I said, giving no ground. “What can I do for you, sir?”

The voice, to be truthful, lacked all distinction of either sex. It was not as honeyed as certain feminine voices, yet it lacked the deep tones of a truly dark-voiced cove. When he spoke his native tongue, he did so in those higher ranges the foreign language seemed to demand.

I had decided on “sir,” as the manner of the Veil was rather aggressive and somewhat reminiscent of Hawke’s more diplomatic moments.

The Veil sighed, a sound nearly swallowed by the crackle of the fire, whose light I could see glowing through the first screen’s silk paneling. “You are well aware of your dictates, Miss Black. Shall we avoid all these terribly English pleasantries?”

For perfectly ordinary words, evenly spoken, the Veil had a way of turning a phrase. This time, it was wariness that crept along the rippling flesh of my arms. I took a step back, shoulders straightening. “If you’d prefer,” I cautiously said, aware that comparing a lack of pleasantries to heathen dispositions might not be quite so much the appropriate thing. “If this is about Mr. Coventry—”

“You may save your excuses,” the Veil interrupted. Despite the heat of the room, my wariness turned to chilly concern. “We are equally as aware of your doings as you are of our demands. That you chose to spend your evening in one of our establishments is no secret.”

I bristled at the unspoken accusation. “I was staying close to Coventry.”

“And yet here you are. Where is he, we wonder?”

My mouth closed on the hot words that formed. The Veil knew very well where Coventry was, no doubt.

I glared at the screen, cleared my throat in non-verbal denial of any wrongdoing. It scratched, aching with the effort.

I could not fall ill now. This was not the time, nor the place, and I would not trust anyone here to see to my well-being with any degree of selflessness.

Nor did I want to be a burden on the sweets who tolerated me thus far.

Clenching my fists, I attempted to soften the issue at hand. “If you’ll allow me to beg your pardon.” The civilities bedeviled me. “I have plans to see to his collection this very day.”

“That will neither be possible, nor welcomed.”

“Have you another bounty posted, then?”

“We have another task entirely for you.” When I narrowed my eyes, folding my arms across my soot-stained shirt, the voice sharpened. “Let us be very clear, Miss Black. You are here not because we desire it.”

“Yes, I’ve been made aware.” I did not soften my own tongue, either. “You want the serum Professor Woolsey made.” Before the Veil could interrupt again, I pushed on, taking a step forward—but no farther, for I knew how quickly the Chinese men behind me could move. “What am I to do about that? The professor is dead, his works destroyed. There is neither hide nor hair of his madness left.” None, of course, but myself.

What I had not told others—what had not been made apparent even to me until it was far too late—was that my father, Abraham St. Croix, and the mad Professor Woolsey had been one and the same man. The serum he’d concocted had been his greatest achievement, the likes of which no alchemist alive could ever hope to create again.

That was what the madman had railed in his time of triumph.

That was simply madness.

Whatever the formula was, whatever the serum, opium had been its root, and the alchemical ingredients within still proved a powerful tool—if it could be unlocked. The things I had gone through while under its sway continued to haunt me, to frighten me.

Yet I had no method by which to hunt it down. My father’s secret laboratory had been emptied, his body taken, all of his tools gone.

The cameo that had sported my mother’s likeness was gone forever.

These things I could not share with the Karakash Veil. I could not even share them with Zylphia.

I was not so daft that I’d admit this to the Veil.

Instead, I looked at the floor between my feet and admitted, “Whatever had been designed, it was used and discarded upon its failure. The professor who developed it is dead.”

“You are sure of this?”

“I am.” More than sure. After all, the same rival collector who would go on to murder my husband had killed Mad St. Croix at the crux of his achievement. I had watched my father die, though I sometimes wondered as to the veracity of my memory on the subject.

At the time, I had been quite gone on the opium concoction.

That the sweet tooth I had been hired by the sweets to collect and the collector working for my father had been one and the same was terrible enough. He had with one hand saved me from my father’s murderous inclinations, and with the other murdered my own husband in those few hours after our vows.

Whatever life I had owed him, the sweet tooth had taken. An act I would not soon forget—and bore no intention to forgive.

“This leaves us with a terrible problem, Miss Black.”

I had long stopped cringing at the term. Where some called me cherie, Hawke had long been the only to call me “Miss Black”—a name given for my black hair, I believe. He knew my true hair color now, but he had not given up the name.

The Veil used it with impunity.

“I will keep collecting for you.” It wasn’t my favorite of the options at my disposal, but it was the lesser of two evils.

“And how do you propose to do that,” the Veil silkily replied, “when you have failed us twice?”

My teeth clicked together. “Haven’t I just explained? The serum—”

“The móshù—” Chinese for magic, as far as was explained to me, “—was only the first of two, and Bartholomew Coventry is the second. We do not give third chances.” The denunciation inherent in each flat word stung. “Had it not been for the efforts of our wūshī, you would have delivered your pound of flesh long ago.”

A shudder seized me, forcing me to tighten my arms around myself. “I can not be stopped now.”

“Yes, we know of your desires.”

I sincerely wished that the voice would change. Gain an octave, mock me, something that gave me a clue as to what the speaker thought. I did not know if he was speaking the truth now. “How?” I asked, trying very hard to keep the accusation from it. “Did Zylphia tell you?”

“You seek this other man, this murderer.” The Veil did not deign to answer me directly, which was all the answer I required. “The sweets call him a sweet tooth, we understand. Quaint, though unlikely he has ever partaken of our gardens with honest coin.”

It mirrored closely the certainty Hawke had once given me; an assurance that Leather Apron, the murderer who called himself Jack the Ripper, had never given the Menagerie coin.

They were two separate men, I was utterly sure. The sweet tooth had called the Ripper a talentless lout, eager for attention.

A bit of professional rivalry, maybe. It didn’t matter. A murderer’s pride was less than worthless, and the reference to “honest coin” had to be let go in deference to my complicated situation.

The Veil allowed the silence to linger as I stared at the gleaming floor. It wasn’t until I winced that I realized I’d bitten the soft part of my lip, so lost in my concerns was I.

I looked up. “I will bring him to the Menagerie.”

“Yes. You were hired, were you not?” By Zylphia, which the Veil had already known. The girl had been whipped for the temerity of hiring her own collector. “Yet, Zylphia belongs to us, and we can revoke the collection order.”

Panic drove me to take a step. “No!” I did not need to see them to know the men had moved. I flung one arm wide, to show I meant no further transgression. No hands seized at me. Quickly, I continued, “Please. This man, this sweet tooth, he was there with the professor.”

A pause. “Explain.”

“If I can locate him, he’ll have more secrets.” I didn’t know for sure. From what he’d told me in that dark, terrifying night, he’d only been the professor’s killing hand, collecting the healthier organs from the sweets for the my father’s use. I did not have to elucidate that much to the Veil, however. “I have been trying to locate him for near a month.”

“It seems, Miss Black, that he located you.”

“Yes.” It took effort not to let the fury of that statement fill my voice; it ate at my consciousness like a plague, fed the ache in my throat and made it harder to breathe.

I dared not let on. Staring instead at the crimson silk, I stopped just short of pleading. “I ask that you allow me to pursue this man and deliver him here.”

Another pause, a thoughtful silence. Only the crackle of fire filled it, and the humming intensity of raging need—of burning revenge—filling my ears.

I had said “please.” There was no greater clue I could have given as to the strength of my need.

Finally, the Veil sighed, this time in thinly masked exasperation. “You are given one more opportunity, Miss Black.” Before I could echo his put-upon exhalation with my own sigh of relief, he added shortly, “Yet it comes with strings.”

I shook my head. “I am already bound.”

“Not carefully enough, obviously.”

“What more can I do? Our negotiations demand I be left from the auction rings.”

“We are not in the habit of requiring reminders of what we ourselves negotiated,” returned the Veil, and I finally received my silent wish. His tone turned cutting sharp; a warning, and my last if I did not gather my wits.

Although I had never heard the Veil yell, I couldn’t help but think a raised voice would be the death of whomever invoked it.

I would not be so stupid. I had wished for a change in nature once, and did not like the result. Impatient by the constant drain at my nasal passages, I cleared my throat again roughly, swallowed the garbled liquid building within it lest it affect my words.

“What do you demand I do?” If my tone came over that divide as a weary one, if I considered that it rang with the death knell of the despairing, I had nothing more to say of it.

The Veil was, in the end, right.

If the serum was all I had to barter with, and I could not complete my collections, what sort of use was I?

Worthless above the drift, and indebted below.

That same black cloak of melancholy that had accosted me before Coventry’s attack now clung to me like a blanket, stifling in the hot air.

“You are not so pretty that the auction rings would be efficient,” said that voice, lacking in sting and made all the worse for its practical application. “And such duties would leave you unable to find your quarry. No, your talents are better—”

Slam! The harsh crack of wood against silk-lined paneling cut the Veil’s words sharply, leaving a silence thicker than the haze affecting the warm air. Both Chinese men were already moving in lockstep as I spun, weight on the balls of their feet, lethal hands unsheathed from their sleeves.

Yet it was not their simple grace that earned my stare.

Micajah Hawke filled the frame of polished wood and suddenly frozen warriors, a halo of light shining from behind him as the gaslights that illuminated the interior halls flickered brightly.

If the Veil’s men were graceful birds in flight, Hawke was the tiger that would tear feather and bone. Both broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, his physique had never leant any credence towards pampered softness, and his carriage naturally invited wariness from those intelligent enough to listen to the visceral instinct of prey. He walked with supreme confidence, spoke with the polished edge of a born sinner.

Hair black as midnight brushed his shoulders in a perfectly straight mass, held back with a leather thong and swept from his face to reveal sharp lines and unyielding planes set in an implacable scowl. Rumor suggested he came from Gypsy stock, which would account for the dark hair and swarthy tint of his golden skin. Yet given as I was to wild fancies on occasion, I often considered that a pact with the Devil was to blame for his eyes.

Dark brown under most circumstances, now they gleamed as if a flame had been lit behind them. The blue streak running through the center of his left eye burned as if the heart of that fire centered there, uniquely colored and wholly unforgettable.

In the depths of my opium dreams, wrapped in a mire of guilty fascination, I had spent many hours remembering the color of that blue river. Whatever characteristics my disorderly imagination had given Hawke’s stare, it paled beside the truth of it. Sharp as the knives I carried in my corset, wicked as the Devil with a bargain in mind, that gaze pinned on me.

This was not a glare that imparted the kindness of friendship.

The Veil’s men hesitated, exchanging a glance I could not read behind impassive features, but Hawke strode between them as if they were mere objects—a careless authority he wore like the finest mantle, whose hem the lowly mortals of his realm dared not touch. I had always hated the way he made me feel, as if I were a temporary interest, or a contrary bother he was forced to manage.

Hated especially that he made me feel at all.

I almost always found him by night, already bedecked in the fashions of the day as if born into them. Not so, this day.

The lack of tails and waistcoat did not soften his dangerously seductive demeanor. Where he was so often a temptation in the dark, now he was the foreman who would not be crossed. Every long stride pulled his working trousers tight against powerful thighs. His shirtsleeves, plain and rolled over his muscled forearms, did nothing to soften the taut shape of his beautifully tapered chest. The dizziness I fought as he encroached seemed all too familiar, my heart pounding furiously.

I could lie, to myself and to all who dared inquire, but I recognized the unwelcome stirrings of simple arousal.

I may not have appreciated the length to which Hawke had gone to save me, putting his mouth on me in places where such things should not be, but my body remembered him keenly. And, I was ashamed to admit, still wanted.

Flesh has always been weaker than the mind.

I took a step back, though I did not raise my fists in preparation for a fight. Hawke had never struck me; I would not expect him to do so now. “What do you want?” I demanded, the words roughly spoken as my symptoms finally sharpened to an unavoidable discomfort.

Plague. I would claim illness until the moon fell from the sky.

His eyes narrowed, thick lashes a line of kohl-black. Wordlessly, slowing not even a whit, he reached my side, snapped out a gloveless hand and caught one wrist over my sleeve.

I had not expected to be so seized, though in hindsight, I should have. Hawke was not a man to rely on words when action would so much quicker appease a dilemma.

I had no doubt Hawke considered me a dilemma.

His grip was steel, the momentum of his trajectory uninterrupted as he turned abruptly and dragged me back to the door. I staggered, yet before I could catch my footing and demand release, the Veil’s voice finally floated from that screen. A question, I think.

I did not understand it, but Hawke stopped so fast that I collided with his broad back. The fingers of my free hand caught at his thin cotton shirt; overly warm flesh burned through the material, seared into my fingers and caused me to bite back a helpless sound of dismay.

My stomach turned, fluttered.

I expected him to turn to address his superior, but he did not. His low, determined voice never approached the same high ranges. Whatever he said, it did not sound like a humble request.

Plastered to his broad back, held by his unwavering grasp upon my arm, I could not turn my head to regard the screen. Had I done so, I was more than certain the red and gold facing would tell me nothing. Instead, I watched both of the Chinese men revert to simple watchfulness, regarding Hawke with dark, implacable eyes.

After a lengthy, taut pause, the Veil replied in a faintly mocking tone, “Tù zi wĕi ba cháng bu liăo.”

The fingers around my wrist tightened, and I winced. It was the same wrist that had been injured in a scuffle with a woman gone mad nearly a fortnight before. I’d solved the mystery surrounding her murdering spree, had revealed her tricks as a misuse of an alchemical serum, yet it had not ended well for either of us. She’d plummeted to her death, and nearly taken me with her to an unsightly grave.

It had been the last of my adventures before my subsequent marriage—and that the same night Hawke had offered me a bargain. Marry the earl, retire from this life of collection and London low escapades, and my debts would be forgiven.

I had done just that, taken that covenant with some small misgiving. I had hoped to earn for my staff the security of a countess.

If I had also hoped to rid myself of Hawke’s looming presence once and for all, I would never admit it aloud. What a fool was I. Although I had married my earl, it had only ended in blood.

I did not keep to my bargain. I returned to London below the drift, seeking sanctuary from my mother-in-law’s vengeful grief, and in so doing, found myself enslaved by the very debt I’d hoped to shake.

Hawke had never said what the bargain had cost him. I did not possess the fortitude to ask.

Hawke glanced over his shoulder. Though the Veil had spoken last, it was not to the voice he looked, but at me.

The breath stilled in my lungs. Even the tickle in my nose and throat, the faint queasiness the air instilled, faded to an aching point of pain at the bones of my wrist and the vivid blue flame trapped in the darkened gold of his stare.

Something cruel shaped the edge of his sculpted mouth; a frown that was as much a declaration of violent aversion as supreme conviction. “Shì.” A single syllable. I heard it often from the Chinese, and took it to mean yes.

Hawke, whatever was said, had agreed to something.

Laughter, strangely tinkling, provided me no answer at all.

I tugged at his grasp. “Unhand me this instant, Mr. Hawke.”

His nostrils flared with a sharp breath. “For once in your misspent life,” he said between gritted teeth, “hold your fool tongue.”

Where I would have ardently contested his summation of my history, I had no chance. He all but wrenched me off my feet, my shoulder twisted high and straining in its socket. Faced with the very likely risk of hurting myself, I seized the back of his shirt in my hand for balance and did my best to keep up with his stride.

The Chinese men watched me pass, and the Veil said nothing more.

Hawke did not so much unhand me as utilize my captive arm as a lever and maneuver me, tottering wildly with the suddenness of it, back out into the vast hallway. Servants passed, humble things that did not look up at the fracas, and I ignored them in turn as I whirled on Hawke. “How dare you?”

“Go make yourself useful.” He did not address my futile temper. “Do not make me regret this moment.”

“I regret this moment,” I snapped.

The hard line of his mouth tilted. A faint lift at one corner that was not a smile, not truly. The harsh edges of his exotic and sensual features, from square jaw to pronounced cheekbones, did inexplicable things to my innards. Most notably, that place between my legs where he had already tasted.

In that moment, I believed that a Gypsy woman had borne him; that he was Satan given flesh, a veritable serpent in his very own Garden of Eden.

And that I, an unwilling Eve, was ever so close to temptation.

I clenched one hand over my corset, like a silly miss determined to still a pounding heart. It did not succeed.

Hawke did not give me sign or signal that he knew. Instead, inclining his head in one of those infuriatingly mocking half-bows of his, he only murmured, “Good day, Miss Black,” and returned to the Veil’s room of crimson and gold.

The door closed behind him.

Belatedly, I shook my fist. “Not any more!” I shouted, hoping that the paneling was not so thick that he couldn’t hear me.

Servants gave me a wide berth, many carrying trays or baskets, and even the often painfully polite Chinese were staring as I glared at the door that had almost spelled my doom.

I was no stranger to the concept of copulation. I had grown up among auction rings and flesh-peddlers, be they high—or low-class. Yet I was virginal in true definition, and the ache Hawke left me with was enough to send me fleeing for less dangerous waters.

Like a collection. Or even a round in the pugilist rings where women were not allowed to go.

Or a forest full of hungry wolves.

My fingers cramped into fists; I smoothed them out. I was not as unintelligent as I’d made myself out to feel. I’d known what had nearly been laid upon me by the Veil’s impatience, how narrowly I’d escaped some unfortunate sentence involving more time spent servicing the Menagerie in one manner or another.

I had foregone my duties, my debts. It was well within the Veil’s rights to place me elsewhere on his roster.

Yet Hawke’s timely intervention had forestalled the judgment. The rapid syllables exchanged between them, culminating in a single, baritone, “Shì,” had gone too fast for me to follow. I could not even ask for translation; much of the dialect blurred.

He had saved me. Again. I had no doubt of this.

How much debt could I earn from one man?

More, if one debt was to the man who had acted for the Veil, and the other was to the man for acting against the Veil, where did that leave me?

I didn’t know. For now, I had been given a reprieve, and I had no recourse but to take it.

Quickly, before either body within that chamber could change his mind, I back-pedaled swiftly, turned and hurriedly made my way back into the gray daylight. I did not look at the servants—did not stop, this time, to care if they were English or immigrants; fair-skinned, yellow or black.

The Veil hired, indentured, and—I had no doubt—enslaved all who were willing to work. Or unwilling to pay.

I had fallen among that number. The narrow escape afforded by Hawke’s timely intervention would not last. Whatever my half-formed plans and ideals had been, I had no choice but to face the truth of it: the Veil was very much aware of my existence.

Not only of my existence, bad as that was, but that I had hopes of cheating them out of the debt they demanded of me. The one was difficult enough, for it drew the Karakash Veil’s eye upon me. I was an independent resource, an uncertainty in the Veil’s structured Menagerie.

Or, rather, I thought of myself as such.

The Veil had just corrected that fallacy.

I could not hope to collect man after man and earn nothing for it. It would no longer suffice to ease my debt.

Damn the Veil and the Menagerie with it.

The impossibly narrow tightrope I walked had just been made apparent. A fitting metaphor, certainly, for I had been in that overly warm chamber before. I bargained for my life, wagered the price of my flesh against the debt they demanded of me—all I’d managed to ensure was that I would not take part in the flesh-peddling auction rings the Menagerie placed its sweets within.

That left far too much I could be forced to do. Whatever the Veil had intended to say before Hawke’s bold interruption, I shuddered to think it may involve the large red canvas and the circus I had no desire to see, much less participate in.

I did not know what I would do if they placed me in that big top tent.

Simply thinking of it was enough to sour my insides, turn anger and indignation to sickly cowardice and choking fear.

I may not remember all that had been done to me in Monsieur Marceaux’s Traveling Curiosity Show—I might even think of some fondness about the bits I cared to recall—but what I could not recall in daylight hours woke me, gasping for air and bathed in clammy sweat, in the darkest of my nightmares.

Death was a mercy for those who were lucky enough to fall, to move just wrong enough, to bend when they should have dipped.

Age accorded the girls in the good monsieur’s employ no favors.

Such shadowy terrors haunted me, formless and without name in my opium-saturated memories. They were enough.

I had always avoided the Midnight Menagerie’s circus affairs, and here I was, poised to allow the Veil’s control to place me just there, if they so felt inclined.

All because of that serum and my father’s bloody hubris.

I did not feel the cold bite of coming winter, too angry was I at my lot in this life. I hurried, unsure of where to go, but certain I could not stay within the Menagerie any longer. I could not risk the eye of the Veil falling upon me, especially if Hawke’s behavior maddened his keepers any further.

The Veil, damn that bloody voice to perdition, was right.

I must up the game. Too much of my well-being depended upon it.

Chapter Four

I was angry enough to dwell on the matter, afraid enough to flee the Menagerie for it, but soothed the sting with a bit of my remaining opium. Squashed as it was, the medicinal value did not care what shape it came in, and the tar eased the sharper edges of my uncertainties enough that I could step past it and focus on the matter at hand.

To wit, how to falsify that which the Veil demanded, slip out from under my debt and possibly humiliate Hawke along the way.

The third was merely my pride speaking. I would settle for the first two issues, which were difficult enough, and include a fourth: achieve some coin, somehow, with which to acquire more of the Turk’s resin, before I ran out for good. This unfortunate problem filled my thoughts as I left Limehouse’s thoroughfare for Steiney, where the collector’s station was kept.

Just north and somewhat west of Limehouse, it was out of the Veil’s immediate purview, but necessitated a crossing through Ratcliffe—which bore the dubious distinction of bordering the Black Fish Ferrymen’s patch. A difficult prospect even by day—gray and sickly as the sunlight may be through the black, virulent fog—yet one made all the easier when I did not stand apart from my fellow pedestrians.

The last time I’d been through the district of Shadwell, I’d been dressed the pristine lady and all but demanding to find myself waylaid as I chased a murderer. The woman whose alchemical creation had turned her invisible had, much to my dismay, taken her fraying sanity out on an aging bookseller, moments before my arrival. My attempt to capture her had earned me too much attention from Ferrymen out for a jaunt about their territory.

For this particular outing, I was walking at a brisk pace, merely another filthy urchin with his head down and his clothes patched and mended.

That both of my knives remained hidden beneath my high-necked jacket was a secret I would be all too happy to keep on my cold journey.

My plan was a simple one, though it would not carry me far for long. I required coin, especially as I would need to spend it in order to hunt down this sweet tooth. In reconsidering all that had been said to the Veil, I reasoned that locating the sweet tooth was the likeliest of my options.

On the one, I found it unlikely that the man would have the same knowledge as the brilliant doctor he had served. My father might have been mad, but his reputation of genius was equally as well-earned.

His murdering assistant? Unlikely to be a match.

Delivering him to the Veil would solve this. It would also allow me to achieve that which kept me below the drift: revenge.

Menagerie justice was something I did not often inquire about. This time, I intended to ask after every detail.

The thought of it did not cause a resurgence of my sickly ague. I attributed my calm to the opium I had consumed, leaning upon its benefits to my demeanor with easy acceptance.

If it would see me through these next few days, then I would happily take what it would give.

The details of my plan to find my rival had not quite made themselves clear to me, but I worked best when my body was otherwise engaged. To that end, I resolved to find another collection note—one whose bounty did not stem from the Veil or the Menagerie. Focusing upon a new quarry would allow me to expend this restless energy I felt rattling about inside my skin, and earn me enough coin to obtain more resin.

Ah ha!

The moment I thought of it, I smiled, ducking my head before anyone might see. Already, I felt marginally better about my lot in life.

At some point, I thought rest may also need to be included into my plan. With every breath of the prickly fog, I found the raw passage of my throat to be no less aggravated, and that worried me.

I did not like to consider it, but perhaps I would be best served seeking Maddie Ruth out in her rooms soon. She was a dab enough hand at a quick mend, and I’d seen her focus when Flip had come calling for help. Perhaps her rustic fishwife wisdom would provide an easy salve for this ague that seemed to come and go.

An unfair assessment, to be true, but as I made my way through the waxing and waning strains of day laborers, knots of running and screaming children—I kept one hand where my purse remained tucked beneath my coat; I knew such tricks intimately, after all—and the stalled carts waiting impatiently for locomotion, I reminded myself sternly that Maddie Ruth was not about to be my friend.

My friends did not choose to be collectors. Collectors, after all, did not easily help one another. My friends did not willy-nilly wander about asking for a shivving in the dark.

I did that. I chose that life, and simply by being close to me, it made my friends targets.

Hadn’t I learned that best only a fortnight ago?

Maddie Ruth may not like me much, but she would forget this nonsense. She may not thank me for her life, either, but at least she would not lose it for her folly. I could not stomach watching another good man or woman die.

I took a deep, scratchy breath, shouldering between two large men who attempted to direct the flow of the walkers by shouting. A bit of broken glass lay between them, to be docked, no doubt, from the day’s wages.

“Off wit’ya,” one snarled, tossing a dismissive fist my way as if he’d a mind to box my ears but made no effort to reach.

I bit back a cheeky word and hurried on.

’Twould do me a fat lot of good to be caught in a tiff with a man whose head was worth nothing.

Coin. The only focus I needed to maintain. Coin to spend when I needed it, coin to purchase opium, and coin to grease the palms of those wayward cogs in the machine that was London. There were always them cogs what need greasing.

London above the soiled drift or London below, it all ran on at least one shared principle: greed.

Anything that a body can get for as little as can be spent for it.

I found myself whistling aimlessly as I walked, feeling much more cheerful than when I’d set off. With a goal firmly in mind—collect a bounty—and a bit of the tar taken to soothe the nerves, I found my mood vastly improved.

A mild ache still prodded at my head.

I considered that spot, tender and raw inside my own forehead as if I’d poked it repeatedly from the inside of my skull. Like a bruise or a seeping wound, I could not stop myself from worrying at this intrusive bother.

If I could have put a finger in my own eye and wiggled it about to get the measure of the hurt, I would have.

I have never been what one might call a good patient. To be honest, I rather considered taking more of the opium I carried—its relief from pain was one of the many reasons it was so valued by doctors and patients alike.

I did not, though. Much as I wanted to, the thought of running out before I had more coin was frightening enough.

Collection first. Resin second. Rest, possibly, following all that, for I need to be sure that I did not fall to illness.

Such thoughts occupied me in slow, deliberate detail, punctuated by the ebb and flow of them what lived in this fog with me. The bit of tar I’d chewed was not enough to take my senses away—I could not afford that much—but I nevertheless enjoyed its effects.

The world seemed a titch brighter, even in this thick haze. All seemed a little more manageable.

I passed an empty storefront just in the upper northeastern corner of Ratcliffe. The windows were boarded and the remnants of the glass long since turned black from too much time without a washer’s rag, and the inside likely as blackened and rotted as the out. Ratcliffe was not a wealthy district by any means, catering to the dock-born, the grubby-handed laborers who could not manage to land work above the drift at the upper West India Docks, and those who made their wages any way they possibly could.

I’d noticed a few more Chinese here and there, but mostly on the eastern edge—where Limehouse’s reach dwindled, but the Veil was not entirely disregarded. I’d also noticed more dock workers than usual; one may learn to recognize them by mode of dress and roughened hands, which were often gnarled like a sailor’s but lacking the distinctive sea-born calluses.

There had been rumors of strike not that long ago, union men demanding fair conditions and equal pay as those who worked above, but I’d heard nothing of late. This many unemployed, lazing about the open porticos of the pubs and prostitutes who made their homes here, was not a comforting sign.

A glimpse into the smudged film coating the remains of the storefront glass assured me that I looked no more out of place than a working man who was not at work, and I blew out a silent breath of relief.

My nerves did not settle. A sign of something more afoot, as I had learned long ago to trust my fog-sense—that instinct of those who made their way in the smoke. Opium might have dulled my anger, but it did little else noticeable.

As I passed the abandoned store, past the slender alley mouth dripping fog from its narrow crevasse, it was only by chance of that mucky reflection that I glanced sidelong into the lane instead of watching the walk at my feet.

The shadow that flitted back from view did not escape my attention.

My heart stuttered once. Then it slammed into my rib cage and hammered hard enough to turn my vision into a narrowed, brittle focus.

I was not alone on these streets—or rather, alone in the sense that a person walking in a crowd may be.

I did not stop—I remembered well what happened last time I threw myself into the smoke and fog in search of a murderer—but my fists clenched against my sides. My throat swelled on words—on an anxious, terrible anger—that I could not expel. The commotion of Ratcliffe about me, the shouting men and laughter of conversation not far away, the cheer of children playing marbles in a smooth patch of sand-filled mud, faded to a throbbing beat.

Was he close? Was he reaching for me even now?

I found myself straining to hear a whistle in the dark.

But it was not dark, was it? I wasn’t alone in the smoke and the fog, haunted by a murderer’s laugh.

I shook my head hard, and the world came back into rights about me. Laughter turned strident and tinny, but it was real. Normal.

What ever that was, I did not know. My heart slammed against my ribs as if it would tear itself out of its bodily cage. The world seemed suddenly too bright, too shrill, too much in all the things I looked at.

Still I walked, my hands fists by my sides, my fingers drenched in damp sweat. My jaw hurt from the clench of my teeth, and I forced myself to loosen it. It would not do to tip off whoever followed me—assuming, of course, that I had not fallen to ghosts of my own making.

I deliberately relaxed, easing into a stride I’d practiced for months before I’d learned to do it right. A street rat as I aped learned the art of walking at a pace that made it seem as if one was in no hurry, but that moved quite briskly indeed. Between the flick of a wrist and the clink of a coin purse, that walk turned into a run that could only be called a scarper.

I employed that talent now, walking as if I had not a care in the world—no school, no mum to worry for me, no thought as to from where my next meal may come.

And all the while, I found excuses to look behind me. I employed distractive techniques—a wave at a young girl here, a nod at a gnarled old man there—that allowed me to semi-turn and glance into the fog around me.

The trembling in my knees eased.

I was in fact, being followed, but I was suddenly certain that it was no sweet tooth come to finish what he’d started in that bloody fog.

If it had been, I was rather sure that I would not have seen traces of him as often as I saw glimpses of this less clever cat. I couldn’t know if it were a footpad after my pockets, meager as they promised to be, or something else, but it would be easy enough to learn.

Sliding my hands into my coat pockets, I whistled again as I sauntered down a narrow street dividing this larger thoroughfare. The tune was something jaunty and heedless—a giveaway, really, for only those up to no good whistle so easily in the cold streets. The damp bit at my ears and reddened my nose, but the warm tide of adrenaline as it trickled through my leaden veins took care of any discomfort I might have felt.

This, then, was something more fun. Unplanned, to be certain, but oh, how I relished the chase.

Even if I were the quarry.

More fool, he who followed me.

I made my way down this narrow street, led us both out of the dull roar of the thoroughfare and into the quiet of the lesser traveled lanes. Now, though I made no sign I heard, I could pick out the faint echo of footsteps not mine as I splashed my way noisily through gathered puddles and shuffled over crumbling cobble.

There was a small apothecary down this way, its windows not as grimy as expected but covered by shelving displaying what wares the druggist could afford to sell. I paused here, pressing my face against the glass and cupping one hand against the glare from the lantern overhead.

I took the opportunity to glance down the road, but saw nothing untoward.

My pursuer was somewhat more clever than I assumed.

Fair. Stepping back, hands once more in my pockets, I continued my aimless route, studying my surroundings for any opportunity to force he who followed me into the open. I could not see him, yet I was sure that he had not given up on me. I was all too happy to return the courtesy.

I itched for the challenge.

An unfortunate circumstance for my challenger, whose trail I found again when I passed an alley mouth and caught a telltale swirl of black-streaked fog—the kind of eddy left when a body moves quickly through it.

I turned into the alley mouth, trod deliberately through an ankle-deep puddle until the splashes echoed down the eerily blank lane. I taunted my pursuer with such calculated brevity, painted myself as the hapless victim heedless of my own danger. My whistle bounced uncannily from wall to wall, then vanished into the suffocating shroud between them.

With single-minded intensity, I followed that alley, encouraged by the clatter of a foot against loose cobble, or the muffled thump of refuse kicked aside.

I felt as if I might laugh. I felt unstoppable. Here I was, an angry widow who’d just pledged the impossible to the Karakash Veil, and it was as if I’d done no such thing. As if I were destined to be victorious over all comers.

It was not to my benefit to be so reckless, but this day’s opponent would not be the one to teach me this.

The footsteps flagged. The alley was soon rife with the gasping breaths of one who could run no farther. My whistle did not cease as I allowed my pursuer to close the gap between us, slowing my pace. The tune did not falter as a silhouette slowly parted from the fog around us.

Yet what was to be a trilling crescendo to my chase cracked when a resigned, feminine voice said, “If I’d known this alley was this long, I’d never’ve dipped into it.”

My good cheer fled abruptly. The Devil’s own nerve. “Collectors,” I pointed out, frigid as the coming winter, “always know the lay of the streets. Maddie Ruth Halbard, you go home right this moment.”

She peeled herself from the clinging haze, and now I recognized easily her shape—unlike myself, she did not hide in trousers, or bulk her figure in too-big coats. The daft child wore her woolen skirt plain as day, though the heavy boots she sported beneath did her ensemble no favors. She was red-cheeked and holding one hand to her chest, as if her heart had not eased its thumping, and I could very much relate to this.

Mine now slammed in place, bolstered by the fire of my wrath.

“Please don’t be cross,” she began, but I did not let her finish the foolish sentiment.

“I’ve a mind to drag you to Hawke himself and make him deal with you,” I snarled over her. She blanched, nearly going bone-white in the gray shadows. “You could have been hurt!”

“I knew what I did.” She sounded for all the world as if she truly believed it.

“Of course you did.” Derision dripped from my every word as I gestured to the narrow alley around us. “Which is how you found yourself here, is it?”

“With you.”

“Yes, with me,” I repeated, “but I could have been anyone, you foolish thing.”

“You weren’t, though,” she said, with the same reasonable calm I employed when I was being stubborn and knew it. My teeth ground with frustration. “I knew it were you, I followed you.”

“No,” I returned, employing that calm now. I took a deep breath, forcing my fingers open. “You followed me down the street. You lost sight of me when you stepped in here. You had no way of knowing I would turn this way—there is no bloody reason why a sane person would,” I added emphatically. “For all you knew, I could be a Ferryman gone astray, or a footpad searching for an easy fogle. Yours, to be precise.”

Her expression did not soften from its brittle determination. “I could have handled it.”

There was just no reasoning with her. “Why were you following me?” I demanded, taking a step closer that I knew she would find intimidating. Claims of handling aside, she was a smart girl—if her pride would ease off long enough to let her intelligence shine.

“I wasn’t.” Maddie Ruth took a step back, one I followed with another in her direction. She looked up, as if she’d find help in the rusted grates set into the wall above our heads. Then, quickly, “I mean, I was, but it wasn’t for you.”

“Talk sense,” I suggested, rather quite coolly.

She fidgeted her weight, one foot to the other. “I was following you just to the collector wall.”

As if this somehow made her choices more tolerable? I glowered. “Do you think this a—”

—think this is a game, Miss Black?

The question died upon my lips even as it formed behind them. Suddenly, in my recollection, I saw Hawke glaring down at me as if I were naught but a nuisance, bloody-minded enough to attempt to stare him down as he held my arm in a secure grip. Close enough to make me acutely aware of the violence he could be capable of, were I to taunt him beyond patience.

I was turning into a replica of the very Devil himself.

Maddie Ruth’s chin rose.

Groaning out loud, I spun away from her and threw my hands into the chill damp as if I would beg supplication from invisible spirits. “I refuse!”

She was silent. Perhaps wary, now, for my outburst was not the sort a sane person may deliver.

I whirled on her, finger extended. Her eyes widened in her cold-chapped face. “You,” I half-snarled, lost on a tide of anger that was self-directed as much as aimed at my erstwhile shadow. “You and I are returning to the Menagerie right this moment, and you’d best pray—”

“No.” A finality that was not as firm as she should have wished. “You cannot force me,” she added quickly, as if it would help. How little she understood. Or, perhaps, understood all too well, for even as she did her level best to stare me down upon my own streets, Maddie Ruth clutched the lapels of her coat. Oh, would that maidenly modesty would help her—she’d find no peace from me.

Then, jarring me from my ire, I noticed the creases of straps pulled tight across her shoulders, as if she carried a pack behind her, all in stitched leather. They strained, pulled back on her shoulders—a heavy enough burden that I briefly admired her strength of back. If not quite that of her spine.

I opened my mouth to ask what in heaven’s name she’d dragged from the Menagerie.

Instinct, that fog-sense of rhythm and motion learned by them what spend most of their time within the drift, plucked a warning chord along my senses.

My gaze slid beyond Maddie Ruth’s ill-advised determination, narrowed on the blank canvas of gray surrounding us.

She saw opportunity, drew in a breath—to plead, to make her case, I didn’t know. It did not matter. I raised my hand, cutting off her voice with a sharp slash demanding silence.

We were no longer alone.

“Come here,” I said softly, my eyes on the fog.

Maybe there was hope for the girl’s obedience, after all. She said nothing at all, her gaze straying over her shoulder as she obeyed by quiet directive. Her footsteps were too loud in the brimming silence.

And then there were too many echoes to put my concerns at ease.

“Stay close,” was all I managed to say before two shapes lumbered from the fog. Particulars were difficult enough, but I’d spent too much time in the murk—usually at night—to lose the ability of perception now. Two men. One squat and broad, one taller and thin but stooped.

Two sets of blatantly forthright eyes, two kinds of cool, self-satisfied leers. One, the lean one, tossed a blade hand to hand, as if it were merely a toy he fidgeted with.

I allowed my lips to curve into a smile. “Dicker.”

He jolted, coming to an abrupt stop. “’Ow you know me name?” he demanded, gap-toothed confusion lending a little thrill of victory to my calm.

I couldn’t tell him the truth—that when last I’d come face to face with the bloke and his Ferrymen crew, I’d been a red-haired lady chasing an invisible woman in a cloak. Dicker had cracked me a good one across the face, effortlessly cruel in the presence of his mates, and my fingers itched to return the favor.

Instead, I cleared my throat roughly, and spit the contents upon the damp street. Charming, really, but there were no ladies present here. “This isn’t Ferryman land,” I pointed out.

The stocky bloke sized the both of us up. Then, his mate. “Who’re them?”

Dicker shrugged, his small, dark eyes firmly on me. Smart one, really. Of the two of us, Maddie Ruth was naught but a skirt-wearing kinchin mort posing no threat.

Unlike her, I’d shown some knowledge, and displayed no fear.

“Mebbe they live ’ere,” he suggested.

“Maybe you want to let us pass,” I offered instead. I could have invoked Ishmael Communion’s name—as a known man of the Brick Street Bakers, they’d have heard of him, at least. But it didn’t escape me that I was still out for a Baker’s collection, and it seemed unfair to invoke their protection with one hand and deliver one of their own with the otherother, so I said nothing.

The Ferrymen exchanged a glance; I read the shared commitment upon each unattractive scowl as they bolstered each other’s nerve. Maddie Ruth shifted behind me, her shoulder brushing against the back of my arm.

Damn that girl to perdition, I could not very well engage both men without concern for her well-being. One, certainly, and perhaps both if Maddie Ruth was not present—but the truth was not so kind. I was blind in this alley, ignorant of whether these two Ferrymen were walking alone or as part of a large group.

There was a maneuver used by low pads—the smart ones, unfortunately—that involved herding marks deeper into alleys and into the arms of a larger crowd of thieves. A loss of one’s possessions was only the start, and I could not engage either without knowing if more waited somewhere nearby to deliver a drubbing.

Neither appeared willing to back down.

I really, truly did not want to try this tact, not in front of the girl; she’d take the bloody phrase and run, I just knew it. Unfortunately, I had no choice. “Collector’s business, gents,” I said quietly. I watched Dicker’s reptilian eyes widen some; his mate did not appear impressed. “You want to let us pass, you do.”

“Tchaw.” A scornful sound from the short one. “Ain’t no collector here.”

Leather creaked behind me. I wanted to reach back, seize Maddie Ruth’s arm to hold her still, but I feared losing my tenuous control of this volatile situation.

Dicker hesitated for only a breath before rolling his lanky shoulders. The blade he toyed with winked in the murky daylight. “Right. ‘And over the lot, and maybe we leave the bird alone.”

Laughable. Of all the gangs—the Brick Street Bakers, the West End Militia, the Hackney Horribles, and still more rising and falling season to season—it was the Black Fish Ferrymen known to be among the worst of them. My own run-in with them had proven they weren’t likely to let a bit of skirt wander away without at least a foray into humiliation. As cross as I was with Maddie Ruth, I did not wish her harmed.

I allowed myself a short sigh, annoyance clear as a whip crack in the alley’s echoes. “Have it your way,” I said, and took a small step-forward—weight on the balls of my feet, hands held loosely in preparation for anything they threw at me.

Leather creaked loudly. Maddie Ruth called, “Duck, please!”

The men looked from me to the very person I was trying to protect, undoing my bravado with a simple, girlish command.

I rounded on her, exasperation so great that I presented my back to the Ferrymen.

Only to glimpse a thing of copper and brass hoisted in the shorter girl’s hands, a wide tube and what looked to be vents of some kind carved into the brass facing. It was ugly, unwieldy, held up by leather and facing me.

I dropped to the mucky street just as Maddie Ruth’s finger depressed the trigger. Air vented, there was a dull thoop as I’d never heard before, and as at least one set of footsteps pattered behind me, I felt a breeze wobble my hat askew.

I turned to my back on the pitted cobble, open-mouthed with shock. A long dark tube unfolded in mid-air, spread into a net of woven rope silkier than any flax twist usually seen. Uncurling until it looked to be a spider’s web, with weights attached to each point, it sailed through the damp with startling ease. IIt slapped into Dicker—whose ire earned him the arguable honor of being first taken down by the netting. The weights yanked him backward, yelling all the way, and slammed him into his mate, who yelped in pain as the same weights wrapped tight around him and likely clobbered whatever bits of skull and flesh they found.

I watched this unfold as if in a dream, not quite certain if I’d managed to walk into an opium fantasy or not.

Certainly what little I’d imbibed would not affect me quite so obviously.

The men tumbled, a tangle of netted limbs, and Maddie Ruth grasped my shoulder. “I can’t reload here,” she said breathlessly.

I looked up at her, my eyes wide. “Maddie Ruth,” I said, certain of nothing but this, “you and I shall talk again.”

“Aye, as you say,” she said hurriedly, her gaze flicking now to the deeper alley where shouts now bounced in reply to the tangled Ferrymen. She shouldered the weapon the leather straps had been securing, once more placing it upon her back. “I think there’s more coming. What do we do?”

Of course there was more. Hadn’t I thought so?

I allowed myself a small smile as I stood. “Now you do exactly as I say,” I told her, and pointed up. “Do you see the line just above us?”

“The wash line?” She looked up, fear and excitement combining to give her a blotchy sort of wash. Her brown eyes were too wide, but sparkling.

I knew that confusion. The rush of victory replete with the knowledge that such victories would be short-lived if things went poorly. I had often made my own choices upon such a balance.

“Step on my hands,” I told her. “Grasp the line and stand upon it, then reach for the ledge just above that.”

Her mouth gaped. “I can’t!”

“‘Tis easier than it sounds, you know.”

“Is not!”

Frustration filled me. “For the love of all that is holy, Maddie Ruth, you will be the death of one of us.” I spat this out on a muttered tide of aggravation as I surveyed the wash line, the ledge of the wall just above. “Stay here.”

“But—”

“Do as I say, girl!”

Authority, as they say, is not the measure of whether others are willing to obey, but the confidence that they will do so whether they wish to or not. It is a thing ingrained in one, and often displayed by those who sit among the peerage.

I was not truly Society, not in the way my late husband had been, but I had spent countless hours among them, learning to shape my words as a weapon and my demeanor as armor.

Maddie Ruth bore no chance. Too young, I think. Too uncertain.

She shut her mouth, pressing herself back against the crumbling wall as if she could disappear into it.

The alley now echoed with the hue and cry of men, and the Ferrymen swore wildly, angrily. Rather uncreatively, to be honest. I’d heard them all already.

Measuring the distance between the alley walls with my gaze, I processed my plan as quickly as I dared and launched myself at the first wall. “Allez hop,” I grunted, just as my feet found purchase on the rough surface and propelled me towards the other. Like a grubby frog, I jumped from wall to wall, climbing with the grace of the acrobat I used to be until the wash line—a useless bit of rope that was not meant for laundering at all—was within reach.

My knees ached with the effort, and my body would not thank me after. Had I paused to consider the foolishness of this maneuver, I don’t know that I would have maintained the momentum to climb this way, but the skills shaped by mostly forgotten childhood are not so easily dismissed. On the final leap, as if by rote, my arms extended on the last spring, my fingers found the rope, and I allowed my momentum to carry my weight once forward, once backward. Another forward, and this time, I curled my body up, pulled my legs in, and landed squarely atop the rope as if it were a bar and I the tightrope walker atop it.

The loose support made certain of my awkward balance, and it took me precious seconds to regain sure footing.

“God in heaven,” Maddie Ruth groaned from the street below.

Not for me, I was sure. Up here, I could see the eddies of day lit vapor tossing about as more of the Ferrymen hurried to find us.

“Let us go!” roared the stocky man, wriggling like the fish his crew was named after. “Cut us loose, damn it!”

Why they were so plentiful in Ratcliffe would be a mystery to suss out later. I rose to my feet and took careful but quick steps across the line and to the far end, where the ledge was much higher. This was not an act likely to be kind to my body.

I plucked one knife from the corset slatting beneath my coat. If Maddie Ruth ever forgot what I did for her this day, I’d deliver a bolloxing so hard, her skull wouldn’t stop ringing for a fortnight. Clenching my teeth, I cut the end of the rope I stood upon. My stomach left its usual haunts to launch into my throat as the support dropped out from beneath me.

Allez hop, I thought wildly, because that, too, was a kind of habit, and one I relied upon to focus myself.

I grasped the rope, swung across the alley and slammed hard into the wall. My palms burned with the effort; flesh tore under the rough, twisted hemp. That would scar, I was sure of it. Rope abrasions were never gentle.

Nothing for it, now.

Agile as an African monkey, I climbed up the rope, hissing as my hands twitched, and over the ledge. “Maddie Ruth!”

“Where are they?” came a not so faint demand from my left. “Dicker! Abe?”

“Get over here,” roared the one I assumed was called Abe.

“Maddie Ruth,” I called in a loud whisper, “get on this rope!”

This far up, the murk seemed thicker towards the street than it did while upon it. I couldn’t be sure Maddie Ruth obeyed, not until the rope I held in my throbbing hands went taut.

Untested though she was, she had gumption. I did not know exactly what Hawke’s Menagerie had taught her, but as I pulled the rope hard, hauling her bodily over the ledge with enough effort to drench my forehead, neck and back in sweat, I was glad that she knew enough that she could hold on to a rope without wilting.

She grasped the ledge as she came close enough, wriggled onto the slanted surface of the rooftop we now occupied, and collapsed, gasping for breath.

I did not sit. I was not so ignorant as my unbidden companion.

“Take a moment,” I said, my gaze not on her as she struggled to catch her breath, but on the roiling fog drifting across the landscape. Pointed rooftops and slanted shingles parted the miasma like ships at sea, bordered by wrought iron grating or strung together by more ropes or twisted bits of cloth. The occasional sheet—ragged sails, usually, pinched from wherever they could be found—flapped like beacons. There were no lanterns to see by up here, not by day, but there were many marked signs. I could read some of them, but none were in written word. The cant of the Crossing was a learned thing, and mine mostly by accident.

Maddie Ruth pushed tendrils of brown hair from her sweat-damp cheeks, looking for all the world like the wayward child she protested not to be. “Is this safe?” she asked, only fortifying the naïve comparison.

I shook my head. “Of course not,” I replied, giving her the courtesy of unbuttered honesty. She winced. “Welcome to Cat’s Crossing, girl. Pray your footing is as precise as your aim.”

“It is.”

“That will be seen.” Lights bobbed in the swirl, and I muttered an uncivility beneath my breath. “Come on, then. We’ve ground to cover.”

“But—”

She was rather fond of the word, wasn’t she? I cut her off with an impatient gesture. “Cat’s Crossing is the domain of the quick and the agile, and you may rest assured that every gang has a bantling or two to run it. Including the Ferrymen,” I added pointedly. “Now, off your backside, Maddie Ruth, and make good on your boasting.”

That was enough. She clambered to her feet, less grace than I expected but I imagined the weight of the device upon her back made for awkward maneuvering.

That would pose a problem. Brusque though I was, I had no intentions of losing the girl.

Cat’s Crossing was the name given the run of rooftops above London’s low’s streets and far below the lifted platforms comprising London proper. It was usually the haunt of children—bantling gangs who either worked for themselves until they were too big to safely run the Crossing or kept company with the foremost gangs in whatever turf they occupied.

It was, in essence, a suicidal course. Even the children who occupied it weren’t immune; many was the small body found twisted and broken on the cobbles below.

I would have to be very careful with Maddie Ruth in tow.

“I’m ready,” she said, huddling closer as masculine swearing drifted from below and the occasional bit of lantern lit a dull glow from rooftops just beyond.

I really didn’t imagine that she was. But she’d learn.

The alternative was not one I was willing to pursue.

Chapter Five

Were we on Baker ground, I would have expected to find the occasional carrier—usually a pair of young kinchin rogues whose purpose was to keep watch on the territory and run messages to members below when likely prospects came wandering past.

More often than not, these kinchins saw great sport in fishing for hats by way of hook and twine. One recognized a successful angler by the state of his hat, usually somewhat too big and stuffed with rags for fit.

As Ratcliffe was unclaimed territory—by careful politicking by the Karakash Veil, I’d wager, who’d not take kindly to the Black Fish Ferrymen’s usual muckery of prostitution and drink encroaching upon their own wares—I saw no carriers of any stripe. As I led Maddie Ruth on a quick-footed chase across the adjacent rooftops, over a knee-high divide of twisted iron fencing—to keep the birds away, naturally—and bade her jump across the narrow gap dividing one roof from the next, I saw nothing to indicate that the district’s Crossing was well-used at all.

This way was not a path for standard men, as many of the most useful ways required leaping, twisting, climbing and the occasional fall. Being short of stature as we both were, we could easily fit in the narrow passes between overhangs, or where one ledge tucked against another in cramped residence.

The men who searched for us below, however, did not give up so easily.

“Why are they searching so steadily?” Maddie Ruth asked as we paused to let her adjust her burden. Red-cheeked and now soot-smeared, she looked as much a fright as I expected I did. At least she was no longer so out of place, what with her higher standards of cleanliness than the streets often demanded. I’d helped her tuck up her skirt, baring a sight more woolen stocking than I expect she cared for.

Better that than tripping on the hem and regretting the lack of foresight during the tumble to a broken head.

I shook my head. I had no answer for her. I could see no benefit to be so focused on two flighty birds with no apparent value to them. I leaned over the ledge we crouched beside, coughing harshly to dispel the gummy taste of the smokestacks we passed by from my throat.

I couldn’t see the streets below, not as such, but I could still hear the echoed remains of hue and cries, lifted from one side of the district to the other.

“It makes no apparent sense,” I muttered.

“Maybe they’re after you?”

“If they are,” I said, not one to let a lesson slide, “then ’tis because I am a collector and they see an advantage to it.”

“Or they know you’re a girl.”

“You’re the twist here,” I pointed out, glancing at her skirt with deliberately pointed interest. “My sex is not so apparent to them what don’t know how to look.”

Maddie Ruth frowned, but said nothing.

Good. I hoped she thought about that.

I braced my fingertips against the ledge, wincing when the act sent sharp tingling across my injured hand. I muttered a few choice words. I should have asked to borrow Maddie Ruth’s gloves. She still carried them, tucked into the back of her belt.

“I thought you would have fought them off,” she said, her voice quiet and a little small. “They’re not supposed to bother collectors.”

“And who told you that?” Turning away from the long drop beside me, I hopped over a loose shingle and beckoned. “Come on, then, we’re not free yet.”

She rose from her crouch, wincing. The weight of her launched netting device was likely becoming less insignificant by the minute. “It’s the rule, right? We all know collectors’re to be left alone.”

“Is that so?” My voice was as dry as the Arabian sands, and slightly amused as I navigated us across the less steep rooftop of what I suspected was a pub, or some like communal gathering. The smell of roasting meat—plain, without spice, and likely flavored with rat or stray dog—merged with the thick pong of the typical London low barrage of odorous delights. Over it all, a fishy rot, wafting from the River Thames just south. “Pray tell who this everyone is so that I may commission them to make a sign.”

“But they all say it.”

Maddie Ruth was of an age where the truths of her knowledge had not quite come to terms with the realities of living. I had very little patience for it, though I admit that in her I saw some of my own arrogance. Difficult to avoid it. A young girl seeking to become a collector, a man’s profession at the very least and an unforgiving one at the worst.

I’d learned quite a bit on my first official bounty, and subsequent collections had only refined me. That I was alive still was not entirely a matter of skill.

“Use your eyes, girl,” I told her, grasping a ledge and leveraging myself over the top. My hands ached with the effort. “Does it appear as if the Black Fish Ferryman give a toss what your they suggests?”

She was quiet for a long moment, following behind me with slightly more racket in every footstep. Creaking leather, shuffling boots and the occasional loud breath as she pushed herself harder than I expect she thought she might have to.

Was I ever this naïve?

I had to think so. No wonder Hawke’s first inclination had been to dismiss me, those five long years ago.

We walked in silence for some few minutes, my gaze sharp on the shrouded rooftops around us just in case the Ferrymen had roped a bantling into playing the spy for them. Then, thoughtfully, I asked, “Why are you with the Menagerie, Maddie Ruth?”

I could all but hear her shoulders move, emphasized by the squeak of still-stiff leather. “The work is steady.”

“What work?”

“I keep the clockwork running, make sure all the circus mechanisms are in good order, and when there’s the occasional tumble from the high places, I know enough common medicine to help.” She listed them off as if she were highlighting her own references, and I bit off a smile before I succumbed to it. “Beside all that,” she added, “Mr. Hawke took my pa in when no one else was willing. Seemed only right to stay when pa finally died of his ague.”

A sobering thought. On the one hand, that the Veil allowed a stray girl and her sick father to stay painted a rather optimistic picture of the faceless voice threatening to turn me over to the flesh tables. On the other, Maddie Ruth had no apparent family to keep her off them.

“What took your pa?” I asked her.

“The bliss.”

Not an uncommon issue, for them who did not handle the opium well. I said nothing to that, and heard no warning. As I said: arrogance.

I meant to ask if she was treated well—and heaven help me if she’d said no, for I had no plans in place to remedy that—when a cacophony of shouting erupted somewhere below.

I shushed her with a hiss, hurrying across the narrow tenement casing. Nimble, keeping my body ducked low, I leapt the small divide and left her to make her way over at a slower pace as I dropped to my stomach and crawled to the far edge.

What I saw in the thinner fog almost forced me to laugh out loud; a shift of amusement that abruptly turned grim as Maddie Ruth fell to her knees beside me.

“What is it?”

“A puzzle,” I said, not truly an answer, but I hadn’t worked it out yet, myself.

Men brawled in the street below, large and small, thin and wide. Black skin, pale skin, young and old. I saw perhaps half a dozen faces I wasn’t certain I recognized, and a little over a dozen more fighting them. I watched a large man pin down a lanky youth and drive a fist like a brick into his jaw, delivering a facer that would crunch bone. Two more chased a squat man whose bare-armed tattoos were already abraded and bleeding—likely a tumble to the rough cobbles.

There was no charm, no grace to the event. This was no gentlemen’s game of fisticuffs. Them what would stagger away would do so bleeding.

The hollering I’d heard came not just from this scrap in the middle of the street—empty, I suddenly realized, with carts left abandoned and doors closed along the way—but from the surrounding lanes and crossroads.

We’d stumbled upon a patch brawl. But why on earth was I looking at Brick Street Bakers in Ratcliffe?

More, if they were here, where was Ishmael Communion? I found it impossible to imagine the Bakers would move into another district so openly without Ishmael’s knowing. The man was not only a prominent member of the crew, but he was built like one of the Queen’s own warships—large, bulky and packing a fierce wallop.

The fact that he was among the finest rum dubbers of the black art—that is, a master lockpick, whose skill could be considered an art—often made him a useful ally.

I regarded the man as a friend. If he was here, he could help me smuggle my unwelcome companion out of this nonsense.

“Let us go,” I whispered, and rolled from sight.

The trouble with Cat’s Crossing—once one eased past the difficult footing, the often treacherous upkeep and the likelihood of carriers to report on one’s movements—was the getting down. To the unwary, reaching the street below was often a matter of misplaced footing.

Reaching the street alive took some finer care.

As I searched for a way down, Maddie Ruth found a bare bit of stone to squat upon and hugged her knees. The cacophony of fighting men surrounded us, drifting up like echoes of some ghostly battle.

“Why are they fighting?” she asked me.

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

“But this isn’t Baker land.”

“T’isn’t Ferrymen, either,” I pointed out, peering into a narrow alley in search of those subtle accents often put in place by Cat’s Crossing particulars. Things that seemed so normal were often anything but. Such as the wash line, which very likely hadn’t seen wash in ages.

Nothing here, save the alley walls themselves. I could creep down them easy. Maddie Ruth would not.

I passed it by, reaching the other side of the rooftop and looking down into a wider lane.

I spied two kinchins huddled back to back behind a stacked bit of barrel, and not far, three men standing at loose ends. Of the three, only one had the broad shoulders of a man large enough to playact the role of a sky ship, and I grinned before I caught myself. I popped off three sharp whistles that bounced in the fog-damp lane.

The two other blokes turned first, but when Ishmael Communion moved, it was akin to the rolling of a mountain. He looked up, the shrewd man, and picked me out right quick from the casement hanging.

“Girl,” was his welcome rumble, “this is not the place.”

Ishmael was not a man easily missed, with skin black as tar and eyes nearly as dark. The whites of them were tinged yellow, as if permanently colored by the peasouper he lived in. His face was comprised of wide, flat features, thick lips and a broad, pugnacious nose that easily marked him as a bruiser.

A pick-lock and case cracker though he might be, there was little doubt that Communion would excel at arranging an opponent’s features in heretofore undiscovered ways. Those who failed to heed the warning learned it on the end of roughened, scarred knuckles.

Though he may have a face only his late mother could love, his voice was exceedingly deep, and his rather excellent grasp of the Queen’s English gave him a certain complexity unexpected from a rum dubber.

That he called me “girl” was not a slight. Like many in the streets below, he had no name for me, and had settled upon the moniker with simple acceptance. I’d never heard sting nor scorn within it, so I let it be.

I grimaced. “Don’t I just know it?”

“Who’s that, then?” demanded a tall, athletically shaped man beside Ishmael. Unlike the latter’s overalls and patched fustian coat, the man wore the common togs of a dock laborer, and his hat was left crookedly atop golden hair slicked back by sweat or damp. He glowered at me as if I were the intruder and not them, which I returned with raised eyebrows.

“Collector,” Ishmael rumbled, and left it—and his mates—there. He reached the bottom of the wall, so tall that were he to reach up with both hands, I wagered I could hang from the ledge and step on his palms.

“What, a girl?”

“The girl,” whispered the third bloke, who was a sight younger but whose nose bore the distinctive scarring of a knife’s edge. No prize already, the scar left him looking angry and mean. But his smile, when he flipped it at me, seemed easy enough. “The only cross patch in the lot. Cor. Didn’t know you was friends, Communion.”

Ishmael ignored them to glower up at me, broad forehead beetling in. “You need down.”

As I said, shrewd man.

“I need help getting someone else down, rather.” I gestured behind me. “Maddie Ruth, come here.”

She’d been waiting patiently enough, but at my summons, she darted to my side.

I gestured down. “Communion, this is Maddie Ruth.”

His full lip protruded in studied thought, a ream of pink flesh stark against the coal black of his skin. “Mark?”

“I’d never,” she protested, as if she’d ever be the one doing the marking.

“Wayward kinchin mort,” I corrected over her confusion. “And so far out of her depth as to be swimming in it. I’m attempting to get her home.”

The two stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. Then, with a gusted sigh, he rumbled, “Right, then. Swing her over, I’ll bring her down.”

“Wait, I’m to what?” Maddie Ruth squeaked this protest. “I can’t climb.”

“It’s a poor collector who can’t,” I said. Not kindly but this really only served my point, didn’t it? I held out my hand. “Give me the net-thrower.”

“Why?” She drew back some, as if I had offered to steal it.

I resisted the urge to swat at her. “Because it will be dangerous enough climbing down without a heap of brass on your back, you daft patch, now hand it over.”

Sheepish, now, she shrugged from the straps and let the device clank to the rooftop.

“Hurry it up,” warned Ishmael, this time with an edge.

I peeked over to find them lacking one—the scarred youth—and the other nervously watching the end of the lane. “Expecting trouble?”

Ishmael had long since learned not to answer the more rhetorical of my questions. Of course we were all expecting it, weren’t we, with a brawl between gangs a stone’s throw away?

“Now,” I said, firming my tone, “you hold on here.” I showed her the grooved ledge. “Lay on your stomach, reach down with a foot until you feel the window casement beneath it. Treat each step like a ladder.”

Maddie Ruth followed my instructions, white-faced before she’d even eased over the edge. “Mind your eyes,” she called, though it shook with fear.

I was polite enough not to snort my critique of Maddie Ruth’s concern of modesty. Communion was too much a mountain to bother.

The third man was not so kind. Scarlet tipped Maddie Ruth’s cheeks as he laughed.

“Ignore him,” I suggested. I seized her wrists, holding her white-knuckled grasp in place. “Lower your weight, there’s a girl. Communion?” I used his surname out of deference for his crew, who might not take kindly to such close intimacy with a collector.

“More,” he suggested.

“Let your arms straighten,” I told her.

“But—!” A gasped word.

I squeezed her wrists gently, working to keep the pain of it from my face. The wounds on my palms were scabbing, and what didn’t itch burned fiercely. “I won’t let you go.”

Trembling, she scrabbled for purchase with her feet, slid down. When her weight sagged sharply, she bit off a high, warbling shriek.

The sound cracked across the lane and into the fog.

“Arseholes,” swore the dockman, just as Ishmael called, “Let her go.”

Without asking Maddie Ruth’s permission, ignoring the reassurance I’d only just delivered, I wrenched her white-knuckled fingers from the ledge.

To her credit, she didn’t scream again. Shocked soundless, I think. Her head vanished from sight, eyes so wide I could see the whites clearly, and then I heard a muffled, “Oomph.”

Followed abruptly by, “Get ’em, lads!”

“Two east by three,” came the roared, deep-voiced demand, loud enough that I could not mistake the source. I drew back from the ledge before I could be seen, seized Maddie Ruth’s apparatus in both stinging hands and hurried back across the rooftop, dragging the device.

I had no fear for her safety. Ishmael would protect her; he was a man to whom I would trust with my life. I had already done so, even, and this was a thing I still needed to thank him for. I wasn’t certain how to find the words. The acts by which Hawke had saved me still left me red-faced and conflicted, and to broach the one seemed a likely opportunity to embrace the other.

I was still too unprepared.

Too bloody sober, and I’d admit that much.

I wanted to delve into my pocket, to retrieve the bit of opium I had left and take a fortifying bite, but I had no time. That I did not feel the bite of anxiety was to the medicinal’s credit. It simply wasn’t enough, that’s all.

Once I touched ground, I would rectify this.

Slinging the device onto my back, grunting beneath its overly sturdy weight, I surveyed my exits quickly. Two rooftops east, I’d find a marker of three. Perhaps three windows, perhaps three chimneys. I’d know it when I saw it. Such things weren’t a map in the usual way. Them what lived on the street knew them different than a mapmaker.

I set off in the proposed direction, keeping my head low, my eyes sharp. In seconds, my back ached beneath the weight, and my estimation of Maddie Ruth’s fortitude rose a notch. To think she’d carried this on her back the whole time and barely gave a word.

As I made my escape, the noise faded behind me. The tiff was still confined to a narrow band of streets, then. In its place, an eerie silence set in—one not entirely quiet, for London could never be accused of stillness. It was a pressing feeling, an anticipation as Ratcliffe drew back into the permeating miasma and resigned itself to waiting. Whichever gang won this one, regardless of the victor, it would be business as usual once it was decided.

I walked a narrow plank set over a larger divide, moving quickly and with my head up, and shimmied down to a second ledge where the last rooftop slanted sharply up. I climbed it, feet digging in for purchase in the shingles, and grasped the fenced peak for balance.

Three of what, now?

The answer came almost as fast as I thought it. Three poles thrust up from the front of the steepled ridge, each sporting a tattered flag. The Queen’s colors, naturally, for British patriotism kindled in the hearts of all stout-hearted men. Even those who demanded change did so in the name of betterment for London, for England, for what ever business venture, all in the name of Her Majesty the Queen.

Lip-service, mostly. Them what flew the Union Jack hoped to be given a bit of leeway by the rozzers, most useful when an evening’s gathering turned unruly. The two other flags suggested this was a deliberate act, as each signified the presence of two of London’s many low street salons. No fashionable entry, here, nothing like the Society gatherings I had never been allowed to join. The closest I’d come was Lady Rutledge’s scientifically minded salon, and even Fanny had been unsure of the use of such a mixed gathering.

These flags were even less reputable. Troublemakers, the lot. Loud-mouthed sorts who searched for any opportunity to gather where there was drink to be had and women to dander on one knee as they spoke grand plans of change and committed to none. I doubted the Queen’s colors helped them overly much.

They would help me today. I adjusted the straps of Maddie Ruth’s device, ensured it remained tight in place. I had never attempted this with such a weight upon my shoulders. Compensating for the awkward balance would take a great deal of care.

I slid down the steep slope, caught my weight on the ledge and ran across it as lightly as I could. The dizzying drop to my left was only a floor higher than the one Maddie Ruth had navigated, but I had no Ishmael to catch me if I were to fall.

The thought sent a surge of energy through my veins, bubbled in near manic glee.

I reached the front lip of the rooftop. “Allez, hop!” I said cheerfully, and leapt to the flag pole.

I dared not try anything too risky. My body felt as if I’d bruised it, forehead to toes, and even the simple act of seizing the flag pole in both hands drenched me in painful, cold sweat. I clenched my teeth, re-adjusted my grip so abruptly that I nearly slid one hand clean off the rod.

The weight of the net-launching device jerked me to the side, but wrapping my legs around the metal haft helped ease the rock from my stomach. The air whistled past my ears, and then I was upon the ground, tottering for balance, my shoulders aching

“Nicely landed.” Ishmael’s voice was not so quiet as to be a whisper, but it was near enough as he was capable. It came at me from behind, still in the vee of the lane I’d run beside. “Hurry, girl, before the Ferrymen come.”

My knees were a bit more watery than I expected them to be. I stumbled some as I turned.

Maddie Ruth was a pale blur behind the Baker’s greater shadow, eyes wide and dark.

“I’ll escort you close to Limehouse,” he said as I approached.

I joined them, saw the dockman was no longer present, and eyed Ishmael. “Why are you in Ratcliffe?”

His features were difficult enough to read, but there was no mistaking his apology—and the implacability of it—as he rumbled, “Baker business.”

Close enough to my frequently declared collector’s business that I knew the warning.

I kept up with his pace easily, even with the device upon my back. Maddie Ruth struggled some, but she did so without complaint.

I edged closer to him. “Ish? You’re not encroaching on the Veil’s land, are you?”

His rolled grunt sufficed as a denial.

“Are the Ferrymen?”

The man said nothing, his gaze focused on the streets on either side of us as we hurried east through eerily empty thoroughfares.

“Likely,” Maddie Ruth piped up, not so lack-witted, after all. “Limehouse has the best dens.”

Opium dens, she meant, and she was right enough. They claimed the best because the Veil imported the best of the resin from China, where the organization hailed. Smuggled, more like. “‘Tis not something one may just step in and seize,” I pointed out.

“Baker business,” Ishmael said again, cutting off Maddie Ruth’s proposed wisdom with a glare. “Best stay clear, girl.”

The “girl” was mine. The glare was Maddie Ruth’s, deadly enough serious that I left both alone.

Fair enough. I would find out another way; I always did. Maddie Ruth, on the other hand, needed to keep her soot-smeared nose a good sight cleaner. “Right,” I said, ending it for the both of us.

We walked in silence, quickly as we could, but relatively unbothered. Short of a full-sized crew at hand, no one would dare take on Baker’s famed Communion. Soon enough, we approached near enough to Limehouse—and subsequently, the Menagerie—that he drew up short.

“There.”

I nodded. “Go ahead, Maddie Ruth. I’ll be on your heels.”

“But what about—”

That girl and her arguments. “Skiv off,” I cut in firmly, fitting her with a glare that suggested my already raised ire would be sharper if she didn’t obey me right this moment.

She did. There was hope for her. Not too terribly much, but some.

I turned back to Ishmael, looking up into his pitch-dark eyes. “Thank you. You were under no obligation.”

He shrugged, I think somewhat uncomfortable with the direct sincerity of my observation. “Not your fault you were caught in it.”

Perhaps. I could have argued in either direction, but did not. “Also,” I continued slowly, seizing my moment, “I owe you a great deal for—”

A very broad hand settled atop my head, in a move he had never before attempted on me. It was one part affection, I think, but mostly I believe it a way to cement my attention. I peered at him from under his fustian-clad forearm, surprised into silence.

“No thanks needed,” he rumbled in his dark, matter of fact voice. “Some things are best left.”

My brow furrowed. “Ish, I owe you—”

“No debts,” Ishmael cut in, his fingers—easily the span of my skull—squeezing gently. “I’m your man, girl.”

That simple statement stole my aching heart. To my consternation, tears sprang sharp and fresh to my stinging, too-long dry eyes. I blinked them back forcefully. “And I’m your girl, man,” I replied, repeating his turn of phrase with a smile. “Come case to crack or word to spread, you know where I am.”

His near-black eyes lifted behind me, to where Maddie Ruth lingered awkwardly. Then back to me. “Be careful. Word is that miller’s still about. Your miss there seems a ripe target.”

Miller, one of his many words for murderer. “You mean the murdering Jack?”

He nodded, and let go of my head. “And the other.”

The sweet tooth. The very mention of him turned my spine to brittle ice.

“Not for long,” I said, a quiet assurance. “I’ve promised to collect the latter.” I still hadn’t figured out how I would go about doing so, or who to deliver him to. This little escapade had cost me the first step in my nebulous plan.

“That’s the face what worries me,” Ishmael said, flat features arranging into grim lines. “Can’t be at your back all the time, girl. Be careful.”

It didn’t matter how often he said the words, they bounced off my determination like stones from iron. Yet I still nodded, because in the end, it made the large man feel better. “You, as well,” I said.

He did not nod. He simply turned and walked away, his distinctive heavy tread lingering long after the peasouper swallowed him.

I turned to find Maddie Ruth watching me warily, hands clasped at her waist.

My eyes narrowed. “Now,” I told her, ominous resolve, “we deal with you.”

Chapter Six

The tongue-lashing I gave Maddie Ruth spanned the width of Limehouse’s western quarter. By the time the fog thinned, a miraculous occurrence just outside the Menagerie’s gates, my companion gave every appearance of proper contrition.

I didn’t buy that for a single second.

“Of all the reckless maneuvers,” I said, marching her past the gates and around. There were a few entries into the pleasure gardens, but the front gates would not open for another few hours.

I made for the western entry, which would put me farthest from the circus tent. And, fortunately, closer to the sweets. I could ring the market and avoid the red canvas altogether this way. And if she were very, very lucky, I would not drag Maddie Ruth to the Veil and demand restitution for my trouble.

Of course, I had no inclination to do so. The threat alone seemed to do the trick.

“I’m sorry, miss,” she said, not for the first time.

Apology, I heard. What I didn’t perceive was a promise not to do it again.

“What would you have done were I not there?” I asked her, pushing aside a hanging fall of thick green ivy cascading from the wall protecting the Menagerie’s grounds. A door behind it was unlocked, but likely not unguarded. The Veil was too mindful of its grounds for such luck, and as this led to the private garden, it would not be overlooked.

“I wouldn’t have been there were I not following you,” she said. Logical, certainly, but lacking.

I threw her an irate glance. “Whether you followed me to the collector’s wall or someone else, eventually you would have ended up in that very situation. Accept it, Maddie Ruth, you are ill-equipped.”

As soon as the poor choice of words left my mouth, I regretted them. A look of such smug satisfaction filled her no-longer-contrite features that I was seized with an urge to rub her face in dirt. Just to dim the bright light of triumph some. “I think I came very well equipped,” she retorted. “What would you’ve done were I not there with my net-launching device?”

“Fight them, and put them quickly out,” I said, with such certainty that her smile dimmed.

“What? Both?”

“Both,” I repeated grimly. I did not say it would have been easy—it wouldn’t, by any stretch. Scuffling outside one’s odds never ended well for everybody. Still, between my old mate Dicker and the squat Abe, I could have done so.

“What about the others in the fog?”

Damn. That was the rub, wasn’t it?

“Shush,” I said instead of addressing the validity of her point. “No reason to go shouting rumors all over the garden, now.” I pushed open the door, gesturing Maddie Ruth inside before me. Best that a member of the Menagerie go first, just in case. I was still often disregarded by them what worked the grounds, and did not fancy a scuffle by mistake.

“Cheers, Tovey,” Maddie Ruth said as she emerged from the foliage. A legitimate concern, then. I did not recognize the name. “How’s the work?”

I stepped into the open portico after her, saw an average-looking gent wearing a working man’s kit and a scarf to keep the chill out. His hair, bright ginger in the gray daylight, glinted like new copper.

The smile he gave Maddie Ruth was polite enough, but I wondered if she noted the way his gaze only touched me before snapping back to her. “Good afternoon, miss,” he said, so quietly I nearly missed the sound of it. “Er, good afternoon,” he added to me. An afterthought, naturally.

I nodded at him.

Maddie Ruth lowered her voice as Tovey shut the door behind us. “You seen any of the whips about?”

Whips, I understood, was the common term for them what held authority in the Menagerie. Hawke, naturally, was among them. He held the most authority of the lot, save the Veil itself. I was led to believe that Zylphia had a sort of ranking over the other sweets, though this seemed to be a malleable situation. I’d never heard her called a whip, but I did witness a kind of respect the other sweets bore for her.

I wasn’t sure who else might operate as some measure of command, and I did not wish to learn. Especially not when engaging in the very trouble I was to be avoiding.

The lad shook his head. “Been quiet in the private gardens since the prince wandered through.”

“Osoba’s been by recent?” Wariness replaced Maddie Ruth’s deliberate smile. She glanced at me, but her gaze did not stick; it shifted, as if afraid to meet my eyes.

Not a good sign.

“Prince?” I asked, and then remembered the pamphlets. Sometimes, in the leaflets provided by the Menagerie, the circus would promote a prominent act. Among them, I remembered a bit for His Highness Ikenna Osoba, lion prince of far-flung Africa.

If he were truly a prince, I did not know, but lion-taming was not a kind profession—even for the supremely confident. That he was numbered among the Menagerie whips was telling. The man was likely to be dangerous, and as capable with the weapon as the metaphorical title suggested.

Though a part of me could not help but wonder if he’d be as smooth with the length of black as Hawke. I’d watched the ringmaster wield a whip with such skill, the memory invoked more envy than the wariness the act warranted.

“Not long past,” Tovey was saying, and I shook my head. “Stepped into the cottage and out again without fuss.”

There was a cottage buried in the private gardens, the kind that was often used for entertainment, but also for various needs by the Menagerie staff. I’d seen the Veil there once. My first meeting.

It had not gone well.

“Did he say anything?” Maddie Ruth asked, worriedly picking at her lapels. Easy for her to be so nonchalant. I still wore her damned machine.

“What?” The lad scoffed. “To the likes of me?”

For some, there is not so much a physical indication as a sense when one’s hackles are raising. Though Maddie Ruth did not seem to change posture, I was aware of the impression of fear about her. Of wariness and deep concern. Perhaps it was in the eyes, suddenly skating across the hedgerows inset into this side of the menagerie grounds.

Like a rabbit, out and about during a lean winter.

I bit back a sigh lest I come across unkind. “Come along, then,” I said to the girl. “Best get you back where you belong.”

Maddie Ruth’s smile wobbled some, and she turned to Tovey with her large brown eyes full of hope. “You won’t say nothing, will you?”

The boy didn’t stand a chance. Plain she might be, but saying no to that wide-eyed supplication would be akin to putting the boot in on a wet pup in winter. “Not a word,” he avowed, and reached for a hat he did not have. Finding none, he mimicked a doff nonetheless. “Miss.” And again, a hastily affirmed, “Pleasant day to you,” in my direction.

I seized her arm and practically dragged her down the graveled pathway. When we were a fair bit out of hearing, I hissed, “You are unkind to that lad.”

“What?” She did not shake off my hand, but she did look behind her as if to gauge Tovey’s well-being. He had returned to his post, minding the entry, but I noted that the pale blur of his face was still aimed at us.

Or, I suspect, her.

Save me from doe-eyed females.

“Bear this in mind,” I said firmly, marching her through the hedgerows. “For every person you involve in your mischief, that’s another to feel the sting of it when you’re caught.”

That I knew intimately of what I spoke was a pain I had not dared to give acknowledgement to. Not yet. Perhaps not for a long time, if I had my say. The very hint of Earl Compton’s face was enough to send my hand plunging into my pocket.

I had not rectified my lack of bliss. Lecturing Maddie Ruth had taken much of my interest. I regretted that fact now.

I would fix that as soon as I saw Maddie Ruth off to her quarters. This, I vowed.

I walked without much mind to direction. I’d been in these gardens before, though they looked a sight different without the dark to deepen the shadows. Unlike the greater grounds, the private gardens were designed specifically to cater to those who traded in subtlety for somewhat more physical proclivities. There was no pretense of discretion here, only dark corners, merrily burbling fountains and hedgerows to lose one’s self in.

Sometimes, when the nights were quieter, the keening wail of a violin could be heard soaring across the private garden. I had not yet met the maker of such haunting music, but I hoped to.

By day, however, much of the mystique was gone, and the gardens were still. The hedge separating the garden from the grounds was easy to find, and the gate stood open.

All was quiet enough that I easily heard her sniff. “I wouldn’t get caught.”

“Oh, ho,” I taunted softly, but not kindly. “Allow me to be the first to assure you of one irrefutable fact. Eventually, you will get caught.” Her head came up quickly, and I nodded. “‘Tis a matter of course. Always be prepared for the inevitable revelation.” Again, I spoke with hard-earned experience. I knew of what I assured her.

My catching had been done after my father’s reckless scheme. To see such disappointment in Fanny’s eyes, to always be aware that my staff feared for my safety, had become a burden I dreaded.

Yet, I would return to that life in a tick, if I could only do so again.

I missed them. There were days, moments when I swallowed a bit more tar than I ought and allowed the lassitude to take me, that I reached for a bell that was not there. I ached to hear the arrhythmic step of my one-legged butler coming to deliver me tea. Even Mrs. Booth’s shrill voice berating the link-boy for tracking soot seemed as music to my memory.

I had lost so much to the sweet tooth’s vicious cruelty.

I owed him so very much in kind.

Maddie Ruth froze so quickly that my feet ended up some distance ahead while the rest of me remained attached at the arm. Wrenched from my bitter thoughts, I stumbled back, righted myself and did not manage even a question before I saw the object of Maddie Ruth’s wide-eyed consternation.

He lingered at the gate in a manner that put me in mind of a hungry black tomcat, all lean potential and challenging stare. He was tall as Ishmael, which said a great deal for his height, yet was only a fraction as wide. His skin was nearly as dark. Though he wore the same working togs as most everyone else who toiled in the grounds by day, he wore them with a careless sense of awareness. The collar of his plain cotton shirt and deep blue jacket revealed a corded throat, and the beginning of lean muscle just beneath. No gloves covered his hands. His hair, which I remembered as falling nearly to his waist, was plaited in a multitude of tiny braids and looped into a tail at the back of his head.

Had it only been some months past that I’d seen him for the first time? I’d come to visit Hawke by day, demand answers regarding the sweet tooth’s activities among the girls Hawke purported to protect, and this man had been there.

He’d stared at me, as if communicating a challenge even as he spoke a language I did not understand. I remember most that stare, much as he was staring now. A forthright scrutiny lacking in even the basest civility. His eyes were tawny gold, lighter brown than Hawke’s and tinted like the tomcat’s I’d considered him.

They were not pinned on me this time, but on the rapidly quailing girl beside me.

“Keep moving,” I murmured, trying to keep my lips from moving too much. “Who is that?”

“Osoba,” she whispered, a rasped sound.

Ah. Now, I had a face to match to the name.

We approached the whip together: myself with a cheerful swagger and a nod, and Maddie Ruth with much more deference. Osoba may or may not have been the savage African prince his own keeper labeled him, but even in British attire, there was something about him that made me consider some truth to the charade.

To be quite frank, there was much of him—his stance, the air of confidence and untouchable arrogance about him—that reminded me of Hawke.

To say Osoba was less dangerous than the ringmaster himself would be doing a disservice to both men—and my own good sense. No, I would be forced to play this carefully.

And with no small amount of boldness.

To my surprise, Ikenna Osoba spoke first. “Caught,” he repeated, in a voice that was not as deep as Ishmael’s, but seemed many times more resonant. “Caught doing what?” Accented deeply and almost lyrical in delivery, his was a voice groomed for the rings, the kind to command attention and demand obeisance. No wonder the lions listened.

If I were to take opium right then, put a bit on my tongue and let it burn while this man spoke of anything at all, I would be lost on a tide of musical delight.

Beside me, Maddie Ruth gazed at the ground before her feet.

I shook myself. “You must be Mr. Osoba,” I said, forcing a smile. I felt slightly dazed. Perhaps I was mistaken, after all. The stuff I’d eaten before I’d set out could have simply been slower to act. “Or do you prefer Your Highness?”

He did not rise to my distraction. He did not shift, at all. Leaning against the gate’s archway, arms folded across his chest, he behaved as if he had all the time in the world. His gaze remained on Maddie Ruth.

Blast.

“Caught,” he repeated again, “doing what?”

The blood rapidly drained from her face. A fine tremor rippled down her skirt, which we’d untied on the return home. No reason to fetch any more eyes than necessary.

The fear there, the uncertainty of it, spoke louder than any words she might have summoned for me. The man scared her right silent.

My shoulders tightened. I found myself stepping in front of her, so that Osoba’s eyes would fall instead upon me.

Taller though he was, and likely stronger, I did not cower. “Maddie Ruth was helping me.”

He was not a man to raise his eyebrows. They lowered, knotting in a ridge of black. “Oh?” A single syllable, with many pointed questions.

Who was I to be helped by one of his own? What could she possibly help me with?

What rights did I have to step between a whip and his mark?

“Collector’s business,” I said, answering each of those unspoken questions with a challenge of my own.

“I know what you are, Miss Black.”

Hawke’s own moniker, put to use again. I resisted the urge to frown. That it bothered me, his chosen name on everyone else’s lips, was something I was not equipped to examine. Not then.

“Then you know that I earn the highest of all collectors for Menagerie bounties,” I returned. I folded my arms across my chest in mimicry of his masculine posturing.

He did not answer me. I hoped the Veil was not so talkative with all whips. I spoke the truth, but I did not know how much of my increasing debt was common knowledge.

As he did not call me on it, I hoped very little of the truth was known.

“And?” he finally asked when the silence drew out too long.

“I needed help.” A flash of inspiration hit me, and I half-turned to show off the brass apparatus slung on my back. “I was having trouble repairing my net-launching device.”

He did glance at it, which was something. Maddie Ruth, to her credit, did not look up, so if she was surprised by my lies, I could not be sure.

“Maddie Ruth helped me fix and test it. ’Tis not quite up to snuff,” I added, in case he needed to know. “I apologize for taking her from her duties.”

I didn’t like apologizing for things that were not my doing, but the alternative seemed worse. Maddie Ruth trembled silently, her breath practically held, it was so shallow.

For a long moment, the lion-prince of Africa held my gaze.

It took some effort to hold it. Sweat bloomed across my skin, but I had held more fearsome gazes. That of the sweet tooth, looming over my inert body. That of Mad St. Croix, my own father, as he attempted to kill me.

Hawke’s, whose own stare was filled with a carnal knowledge he did nothing to mitigate and had not wholly earned.

The lion prince did his level best to out-do them all.

My mouth dried. I did not hold my breath, for such things were an easy tell, but I did mentally calculate the distance between the far exit and the likelihood of my getting Maddie Ruth out fast enough to save both our skins.

Fortunately, I did not have to put the half-formed measures into effect. The man inclined his head. “Very well. In the future, she should be more careful of her commitments.”

“I will be absolutely sure not to impose,” I lied, and felt nothing for it. According to Hawke, my very presence was an imposition. Bully for him.

“Go, then,” he bid, and Maddie Ruth did not wait for a second offer. She hurried past him, shoulders rounded.

“Maddie Ruth,” I called.

She hesitated, turning awkwardly as if she could not be sure which direction might provoke the least dismay.

I shrugged out of the device. “It needs some finer tuning. Would you mind? At your leisure?”

She scooted back under the arch, snatched the straps from my hands, and all but ran as fast as she could while lugging the weight over her shoulder.

Fair enough. Maybe next time, she would consider twice a fool move as she’d attempted.

“You are a peculiar thing,” Osoba told me.

I glanced at him, then again at the space between him and the rest of the open gate. “Oh?”

“I have only just cautioned her to mind her commitment, and you demand more of her.” The observation did not land without a mark. I hid a wince. “Are you attempting to challenge my authority or her will?”

Damn and blast, I hadn’t expected that. I shook my head. “Neither,” I said, and this one not really a lie. “I apologize. Maddie Ruth is the only one who seems to understand the nature of such apparatuses.”

He weighed me—both with stare and, I think, based on my words and tone. This time, I held his gaze somewhat more easily. Perhaps I was getting used to it.

Perhaps he’d dimmed that thing that made his presence nearly impossible to ignore.

“Very well,” he said again, and seemed inclined to leave it there. He gestured with a bare hand, the skin of his palm pinker than the rest of him. “Do not let me keep you from your collections.”

“Thank you,” I said politely, and passed through the gate. I smelled a spice about him, something reminiscent of Hawke but drier. Like burned grass in the height of summer, and the charring of wood.

I paused, turned to find him still watching me. “I’ve news for Hawke. Where is he?”

“He is occupied,” Osoba said. That, I think, was to be the end of my line of questioning.

His Highness did not know me well at all. “Where can I find him?”

“If it is important,” he said instead, “you may tell me.”

Awareness trickled across the cold air; the fine hair on the nape of my neck, smeared down with the soot and sweat as it was, prickled in abject alarm.

Something was amiss. Something Osoba did not want me to know.

How I knew this, I don’t know. Only that my instincts were not dulled by the opium I consumed, or the pain radiating from my hands. Had I managed to eat the tar I kept intending to—had I found a place where no eyes could watch me do it—I would have felt neither anxiety nor pain.

A part of me demanded I stop long enough to tend to my hands, ease the pain of heart and flesh. Another latched on to the unspoken thread in Osoba’s words and followed it.

Was Hawke in danger?

“Where is Hawke?” I asked quietly, my tone so serious that it must have made clear my concern. Mine was not the manner of one simply asking out of curiosity; I had no patience to play the polite miss now.

If I had thought the man intimidating before, I had not realized he possessed the capability to project such warning that only a dead man might miss. His features closed, his eyes burned. “Leave the matter,” he advised me, so reminiscent of the ringmaster that my hackles lifted like the lions Osoba tamed.

Unlike his lions, I was not his to pacify.

Without another word, I turned and sprinted across the open ground. I half expected him to run after me, to keep me bodily from whatever it was that he wanted to keep me from. Perhaps to unveil a whip I had not seen wound about his person and lash it as a noose around my neck.

He did not. To my unexpected relief, the lion-prince let me go.

Chapter Seven

I must have appeared quite the demon, dashing through the market stalls peppered with workers intent on evening preparations, across the paths with no regard for direction, and all the way to the small but elegant estate where some in the Menagerie lived.

Or seemed to, anyhow. I did not know if members of the Karakash Veil lived on the grounds or merely operated here, or if anyone else truly lived here so much as work. I did know that the Veil had chosen to entertain my presence here both times I was summoned.

Servants, startled from routine, gasped or shrieked upon my arrival. I burst through the front door, which did not step into a foyer as I was accustomed but into a large receiving hall. The décor was unapologetically Chinese in origin, again with the imprinted wallpaper and distinctly foreign furnishings. The rug was thick and much larger than my own at what had once been my home.

Seven men and women paused in various states of surprise and dismay.

“Hawke,” I gasped, struggling to breathe after my impromptu dash. The corset about my chest did not give. “Where is Hawke?”

Seven pairs of eyes looked at me with one part disdain, for I was no image of cleanliness, and some part confusion.

I let the door close behind me, a hard thump. “Where is Hawke?” I demanded again. “Bloody bells, never mind.” I left them staring after me, once more pushing off into a sprint. I followed corridors I had been through once, obeying nearly-forgotten directions until I found myself outside Hawke’s quarters.

My heart pounded so loudly, it was all I could do to seize the door knob with shaking fingers.

The last I’d been here, I had woken up lacking in clothing and detailed memory. Zylphia had sworn that I had not been taken, but it had been so close.

Steeling myself against the wild conflict of emotions within me, I threw open the unlocked door and called, “Hawke!”

Silence greeted me. Stillness. The lamps were unlit, the grate empty of fire. Hawke’s bed loomed at the far wall, draped in black silk and embroidered in red, gold and green design, but there was no sign of the man himself.

I stepped out quickly, my breath shallow and too fast.

That even a foot into that place was enough to tear the confidence from me was telling enough. But as I had not found my quarry here, the return of my anxiety only made my concerns the worse for it.

In that moment, standing in Hawke’s chamber with perspiration itching across my shoulders and panic fluttering in my mind, I finally gave in to my own demand. I plucked the wax ball from my pocket, tore the paper in my haste to unwrap it, and bit a lump off. I did not chew it, I did not lick the pungent resin. I simply swallowed it.

Whether it burned through my flesh quickly or the very act was enough to calm my senses, I do not know. I stopped shaking. The pain in my hands dulled, then eased to a warmth I could better manage. My breath expelled on a relieved, gusty sigh, and it did not shake.

With a serenity I did not question, I wrapped the dwindling bit of tar once more in the torn wax parchment and replaced it into my pocket.

So calmed, I could search for the ringmaster without fear of missing clues along the way.

With his bedchamber pristine, I felt confident that I would find none here. I knew of only one other room, and hoped that it would remain the likeliest to be used. Ignoring the servants who stared at me as I hurried past, I ran down the corridors.

Something was wrong. I was not positive how things operated in the Veil’s residence, but if this had been my home, embers would have been allowed to flourish in the grate to keep the chill away. Lamps would have been lit as the day eased into afternoon, kept low for the sake of the oil.

That Hawke’s room was cold suggested he was not expected to return anytime soon. Yet he was not gone, else surely Osoba would have suggested so.

These thoughts came to me on the back of such simplicity that it seemed tragic I had missed it earlier in my high temper.

I did not pause to examine the root of my concern; had I done so, I might have taken things with greater tact. I might have also realized that there were no silent Chinese warriors waiting outside the Veil’s door, indicating there was nothing to enforce.

Instead, I burst through the two ornately carved doors into a wall of heat so thick that it stole what little breath I had left. The screens I had grown accustomed to had been moved, clearing the center of the hardwood floor and turning two fires into glowing jewels behind patterned silk. The light may have been directed away, but the heat did not lessen. I was sweating in seconds.

Yet it was not the light glittering on silk and gilt that snared my attention so fully, but that what snagged on tawny skin.

Hawke sat in the center of the floor, his back to the door. If my interruption bothered him, there was no sign of it. Not so much of a strand of his ink-black hair twitched out of place. Left loose, it tumbled to his shoulders in a pin-straight fall, hid any glimpse of his jaw or profile from me. Sweat gleamed on his back, turned his swarthy flesh to gold.

The man had removed his shirt.

Firelight danced behind the screens, but no shadows fell on the broad expanse of bared muscle and ridged strength. What I had suspected beneath Hawke’s cleverly tailored attire was true. This was no waifish gentleman flattered by the fit of a coat.

What I had never dreamed were the wicked lines of puckered flesh marring that dusky skin. My heart shuddered in my chest as I counted as far as twenty before losing where one furrow ended and another overlaid. Each scar spoke of ruthless effort, relentless energy. They criss-crossed his shoulders, his spine, as low as his waist.

I could not fathom what grave transgression would coerce Micajah Hawke to tolerate a whip’s lash.

My mouth went dry. My voice, tight with breathless astonishment, balled up in my throat and even if my soul depended on its use, I could not summon a single word.

Rage flickered somewhere beneath my wordless inanity. Rage that some monster would mar such a perfect back, that a lash would be allowed to touch a creature of such strength and pride.

Hot, damp shivers wriggled down my spine—the heat of the room and the cool of the hall’s air behind me warring to claim my attention. That the awareness of all that bare muscle and skin conspired to add to my discomfort was a fact I chose to ignore.

Hawke had still not moved.

For the first time since tasting that bit of resin, fear touched me. That it could do so even while the bliss worked to take me was a testament to the strength of the feeling.

A feeling I chose to turn into abject curiosity, rather than truly explore what it was I suffered.

I left the door behind me ajar, as if the mere promise of an escape route would protect me, and walked silently across the sweltering room.

I halted just behind him, torn between wanting to crane about to see his face—make certain that he still lived—and to flee while I still possessed the opportunity.

“Hawke?” It was a croak, and one that barely earned the definition of whisper.

A muscle twitched in his back. The scars over it whitened briefly, and relaxed again. To me, to my searching study, it was as if the very air rolled over his skin like a caress. The firelight gilded his body, turned swarthy color to an uncanny luminosity tempting the senses. I wondered if he would be as hot as the air surrounding us.

If he would warm me as a fire would, or if I would simply turn to ash were I to try.

My greater sensibilities warned me away, but the dreamy space I occupied—that Chinese bliss so named for the sweet innocence it engendered within a body and mind—did not heed the warning.

To my great disbelief, my own hand reached to touch him. With him sitting the way I’d seen some of the Chinese do, legs folded, and myself standing, it seemed that he was in greater reach.

That he was somehow less intimidating.

A moment of fickle-minded folly.

What I intended, I could not say. All I know is that the tips of my middle—and forefinger settled upon one of those terrible grooves whitening the skin of his back. It was ridged, almost delightfully so in my opium-ridden senses, with a tactile pleat carved in skin at once smooth and rippled.

The muscle beneath my fingers contracted; the breadth of his shoulders went taut. His skin was damp, blazing hot where I dared to touch.

As if in a dream, I watched my own hand—eerily pale in comparison to his flesh—stroke the wicked line. “Who dared?” I whispered, shocked. At the question, at the rippled scars. At my own temerity.

What I had mistaken for unawareness turned to lethal poise. With a grace and speed I could not wholly follow, Hawke unfolded, rose as a tiger might from a disarming laze. I snatched my hand back, but my pride would not allow me to put distance between us. This game was one I was more familiar with—Hawke enjoyed brandishing his physical dominance over my smaller stature.

Yet as he turned, I realized too late that games were not the goal this day.

Ruthless intent shaped the stark lines of his features, hardening planes and angles I had spent too long admiring from afar. Hawke had always been a handsome man, even a blind woman would say so, but his was not the fashionably masculine beauty reserved for the harmless or weak.

A flush stained his high, sculpted cheeks, a strand of dark silk clung to his lower lip, and framed a gaze that was as direct as it was damning.

Blue eyes blazed from a frame of black lashes.

The room spun. Chills seized me, alternately cooling my skin and burning up where the heat battered at me from all sides.

It had been too long since I’d considered the quantities of opium or laudanum taken, and when was too much.

Perhaps, unbeknownst to my own reason, I’d passed that point.

I shook my head hard enough that I staggered one step back. One hand flailed for stability in a suddenly mad moment; fingers like hammered steel wrapped about my own. I found my equilibrium, but lost what calm I had left as Hawke utilized that single hold to pull me once more off balance.

I collided into his chest, inhaled deeply to feed my oxygen-starved mind and scented the unmistakable fragrance of warmed spice. With it, what I assumed to be the scent of overheated male.

It was not an unpleasant combination.

I craned my neck to glare up at his face, turned down to search mine.

If he had words, I did not know what he intended to say. He did not say them. Instead, very deliberately, he turned my wounded palm to his gaze, studied the ragged flesh.

Blue. His eyes were blue, weren’t they? It all seemed so unclear, as if my dreams had once more replaced the reality I struggled to perceive. I could not understand what had changed. Were his eyes blue?

Were they always?

I wanted to deny his touch, to flee from this frightening scene, yet it was as if another force held me still—a return to my terrible dreams when I knew I was not sleeping.

Hawke’s unfamiliar eyes burned with a hunger I had never in my life seen before, did not know how to manage. Such fiery blue, the heart of a flame searing my flesh with but a look.

I inhaled an astonished breath as he lifted my hand higher still. Exhaled on a mingled gasp of pain and a whimper of outright confusion as his tongue dipped into the shallow furrow the rope had caused. Warmth pooled in my palm, shocks of stinging pain and the wet heat of his open mouth over the wound combined with the blatant certainty of danger. His tongue dragged across the aching groove like a cat’s. My hand shook in his.

I bit back another trembling sound, sharply aware of a treacherous awakening in my chest, in my belly. Lower, still, where the flesh he’d already tasted once warmed.

I swayed, possibly would have fallen if he did not suddenly remove my hand from his lips, pull it to the side.

“You should not be here,” he said, clipped to nearly nothing. His lips seemed softer, somehow. Damp from the caress of his tongue on my flesh or the sweat covering us both. His larger hand engulfed mine, holding it out at an angle that forced me to maintain contact against his bare chest. He did not touch me otherwise.

I stared not at him, but my hand, splayed wide as if my traitorous palm would demand more of his attentions. His fingers were very brown against my skin. Not so dark as Zylphia’s mixed color, but nothing as pale as mine, soot or otherwise. A golden shackle, outlined by firelight.

It was a startling contrast; a disconcerting observation that should not have caused an answering echo of want within me. Something fiercely hungry had replaced my fear, battled within me for dominance when all I craved was to be let go, set free.

A lie, that one, and my addled thoughts wasted no time in assuring me of it.

Unfair. So unfair. How could he do such a depraved act and then revert to business as if it had not happened? I wanted to reach up between us and slap his face with the wounded hand he had not so violated, I wanted to stomp on his bare feet and demand satisfaction.

That the word held no single meaning was a fact I instinctively knew he would throw back at me, and I was off-balance enough to attempt the challenge.

Bloody bastard.

A deep breath forced my corseted breast against him—a deed that did not earn me as much composure as I’d hoped the breath might.

“Gangs,” I managed, a semblance of sense. I forced myself to look at him, meet his stare with my own and damn the consequences.

His eyes narrowed. I had been wrong, after all. What I’d mistaken for blue were not—simply the river of flame down the left, turning warmed brown to a devil’s fury.

I had eaten too much, ’tis all. An easy mistake to make. Certainly, I was not the only opium eater to have done it. I resolved to be more careful next time.

At least I’d found my words. “The Ferrymen are amassing in Ratcliffe, where they shouldn’t—” The brief tumble of hard-won words ceased abruptly as Hawke’s fingers closed around my throat.

I froze, barely breathing at all.

“Out,” he said, quiet but nothing remotely soft.

The high neck of my collecting corset helped, but it was merely leather, designed to keep the slats in place over my chest. “Hawke, ‘tis—”

Muscle tightened along his arm. I found myself on my toes, chin high to ease the pressure from between his fingers. “Get out,” he said, this time sharper. The threat apparent in the order drew blood. So used, now discarded.

What was happening? Hawke had always been physical—his was not the patience reserved for intellectual debate—but I had never felt truly in danger. My throat felt ludicrously fragile in his powerful grip, as if he would only need to strain a little before the high collar between his fingers and my flesh no longer mattered.

I wanted to argue, to fight, to demand that satisfaction in a very bloody way, but Hawke did not humor me. Using the hand he still held and his grip on my neck, he forced me backward. Step by step, oddly graceful as I was forced to remain upon my toes, he pushed me from the room. An absurdly agile dance no Society maven would ever see.

My back hit a wall of cool air, then sank into it.

Immediately, the hand he held throbbed in pain. I winced.

He let me go. No push, no struggle. He simply removed his hands, as if I were something to be rejected. Or forgotten. He turned, presenting me that scarred back, and still one part of me ached in sympathy.

The rest snarled in a fit.

What was he thinking? Who was he to discount my help? My intentions were pure, and he could not even afford me the courtesy of hearing me out. Half-blooded bastard as he was, what did he know?

My rage cracked through a bliss that seemed somehow lessened, now that I was removed from the intolerable heat.

I was not kind in my fury. I was, however, not so far gone that I did not recognize the threat his greater physical strength posed. I did not let fly with any of the terrible names crowding my thoughts.

“This is important,” I said to his back, and though I did not shout, it was near enough a thing. “You can play all you like, but this problem is not going to wait!”

“Leave him,” came the evocative voice of the lion-prince I’d left behind. I near jumped from my skin.

Hawke did not address me or to acknowledge Osoba. He did not turn. As the firelight danced within the overheated room smelling of fragrant spice, he simply reached out with both hands, muscles pulled taut across his bare back, and shut the doors. The panels slammed into place, practically in my face.

Furious, I thumped my fist against a painted dragon’s leer, which only brought tears of pain to my eyes.

A hand touched my sweaty shoulder.

“I warned you,” Osoba said, in a manner that suggested I’d brought this upon myself.

I shook off the touch, rounded on him—and found myself face to face with Zylphia, instead. Behind her, the lion-prince waited, his features no more or less composed than when I’d left him.

When had either arrived? Had they seen my forceful ejection from that room? I shot Osoba a glare designed to quell any mockery, but I saw none in the prince’s demeanor.

Zylphia’s expression did not reflect dismay to find her touch so rejected. In truth, she barely looked upon my face, her chin high and shoulders square in a frock that was more tea gown than true day-dress. Jealousy seized me, for no matter how often I begged Fanny to allow me to wear the unstructured fashion of the suffragettes, she had refused.

Now that I had seen a tea gown on Zylphia, I would never measure up.

She was lovely. The pale blue turned her skin to the hue of tea and rich cream, and her hair was loose in a long fall of heavy black. Her blue eyes, startlingly pretty in already exquisite features, were focused on the door behind me.

I stepped aside, because I did not like having no exit at my back. “Why is he in there?” I demanded.

Zylphia said nothing. Avoiding my gaze, she opened the doors, gathered her fine skirts—sheer in material but layered as if to provide a modest, cloudlike effect—and stepped inside.

For the second time, the doors closed on me.

Something ugly twisted my heart. Painfully, malice and poison conspired to turn my rage on Zylphia. To paint upon her the target of my reproach.

But it did not sit right, and I did not know what to do with it. I had no call to think of Zylphia so uncharitably. She had always done what was best for me, trained to act as my maid when the Veil forced her to accompany me above the drift. She had helped me when the sweet tooth had taken Betsy, my dear friend and childhood maid.

Zylphia had even brought me opium when the shock of Earl Compton’s death threatened to overwhelm me.

That I would not allow her to accompany me now was not her doing. It was mine. I feared for her safety—for all who befriended me. I suffered no argument, would broach no debate. It was temporary, I assured myself. Only as long as it took to bring the sweet tooth to justice. Surely she understood that.

Surely, she of all could read the fear that underscored my behavior.

I stared at that door and realized the cost of my independence. With nowhere else to go, Zylphia had obviously returned fully to her role as a sweet.

Like all the sweets, her duties included that of tending to the ringmaster’s every whim.

My fists clenched.

“It is time to go,” Osoba said, spreading one long arm to the side in gentlemanly mimicry.

I could not speak around the pained lump in my throat.

Instead of making any further attempt, I clasped my wounded hands to my chest and turned away from the polished door with its scenes of fantastical conflict. Dragons, tigers and ornate birds tangled together, as if caught in a dance, or a fight.

I would lay good coin on the latter. If I had a fight of my own to attend, I would have traded all I had to be there.

Perhaps it would have hurt less.

I did not attempt to ask Ikenna Osoba of what I’d seen in that room. I knew instinctively that he would not answer—perhaps in part to devil me, perhaps because he had nothing to answer me with.

I had not even made up my mind if what I’d seen was true, or if I’d only been taken in by the pressing heat and my own imagination. Hawke had thrown me for a terrible spin, and I did not like it. Not one little bit.

I expected Osoba to leave me once I’d been removed from Hawke’s presence, but he did not. He stayed near enough on my backside that I could bear my silence no longer. I spun in the foyer, glaring up at him with all the indignation I could muster. “What do you require of me, Your Highness?”

His teeth were rather white against his black skin, and I noted with some unease that his eyeteeth were slightly sharper than usually seen on a man. Not unheard of in the occasional person, but off-putting nevertheless. “Biddableness,” he informed me.

“Quite a few syllables for a savage prince,” I retorted, snide beyond measure.

His smile did not dim. “Your English disposition is laughably out of place.”

“So is yours,” I muttered, giving him my back in a huff. That I had not yet uncurled my fingers was an omission I chose to ignore. The feel of Hawke’s mouth on my sensitive flesh was something I had entirely too much trouble forgetting.

Damn him. Just when I felt as if I were gaining ground, he went and did something so...so...incongruous.

Osoba’s hand settled on my shoulder. It was not a friendly gesture. “Be still.”

My head jerked up, shaking loose a fine layer of black. “Take your hands off me.”

An order to no avail. The strong fingers gripping my shoulder did not ease, and as two men in red trousers and wide-sleeved tunics stepped soundlessly into the receiving room, I understood why.

I did not often deal with the Veil’s men direct, yet when I did, they were servants—or perhaps some version thereof. They wore black breeches in that funny foreign style and black slippers. The red trousers these men wore suggested they were of a different caste, though I knew little enough of the system to which they ascribed to call it that with any authority.

The Veil’s warriors approached in soundless unison, once more like enough in manner and dress but not in physical feature. One was taller, the other was leaner in shape—near rail-thin, and older. The topknot each sported was black, but I detected traces of gray in one that I had not seen among the men before.

Yet it was this older man whose movements I watched most closely. There was something much more serene about him, smoother in motion and delivery, that I did not trust.

In the corner of my eye, I watched the lion-prince incline his head. Respect, I think, but not obeisance. Not to the Veil’s servants, warriors or otherwise.

The muddled hierarchy of this place was mind-bogglingly complex.

I should not have been surprised, not after I’d seen the shared lingual capability between him and Hawke some months past, yet I confess to a moderate amount of wonder when Osoba spoke to the men in the same Chinese dialect Hawke knew.

Unlike Hawke, he shifted his voice into a somewhat more nasal range, which I would have found laughable if I weren’t so focused on the eyes of the older servant that watched me.

It was the other who conferred with Osoba. As was rapidly approaching the custom, I did not know of what they spoke. Not until the man I watched withdrew his hands from his bell-like sleeves and gold filigree winked in the light.

The breath vanished from my lungs.

Where I would have lunged for the palm-sized oval, Osoba’s grip on my shoulder did not allow me the opportunity. The Chinese man who held it raised it for all to see, and said in heavily accented and quite butchered English, “It left for you.”

The light caught on the gold rim, glinting in the delicate workmanship. An oval of burnt umber framed the black silhouette of a profile I knew only because I was familiar with my own.

My mother’s features, the curve of a cheek so like mine, the curl of her hair draped over her shoulder, decorated the cameo whose flat backing lacked any means to wear the piece.

It was not decoration. It was no bit of jewelry. One did not forget the object that was intended for one’s destruction.

Chapter Eight

My eyes narrowed. “Give it here.”

He did not.

Osoba’s voice returned to its normal resonance. “Apparently, this was left within the sweets’ chambers.”

Red tinted the outlying corners of my vision. What little bliss remained with me burned to nothing.

That murdering bastard. It suddenly came clear to me: the absence of my father’s material possessions when I’d gone back to the laboratory, the disappearance of this very cameo whose mechanism had contained the serum that was meant to subjugate me.

The sweet tooth, the rival collector who had murdered my father to save me, only to murder my husband for no particular demand, must have made off with the device.

Why? Why in all the hells of all the religious texts in the world had I not considered this?

And why leave it here, now?

Yet even as I worked my way through the manic rise of furious questioning, my skin turned cold. I turned, wrenching myself free of Osoba’s grip, and asked sharply, “Was anyone hurt?”

The gaze he levied upon me was considering. “Yes.”

I flattened a hand against my chest, where my heart jerked. “Who?”

“A sweet awoke with an aching head and no memory of her assailant.” Sensing my next question, he added, “She will mend.”

“So no one saw the man—” I caught myself, “—or woman who left it?”

Another burst of Chinese assailed me.

Osoba looked at the servants, then again to me. “The Veil demands recompense.”

Damn and blast and as many other invectives as I could reasonably imagine in a moment’s notice. I had no room with which to maneuver, no direction that was not blocked by the lion-prince or the two Chinese servants. I drew up my chin. “I had nothing to do with this.”

“Is that not your face?”

I couldn’t very well admit to it being my mother’s. That would open up a great deal of questioning that I did not want the Veil to have. Josephine St. Croix’s many accomplishments had been held over me for years. I would not allow the ghost of my mother to force my hand now.

I set my jaw in mulish determination. “The Veil may go soak his head.”

I had half-hoped to earn a gasp of shocked dismay. None of the men surrounding me delivered. All I could read in Osoba’s intent came in the subtle easing of weight, the firming of his shoulders. I knew without having to look that the men behind me had taken the stance I was learning to recognize as their way of preparing for a brawl.

Fine. They could have it their way. Exhaustion had ebbed to a simmering edge of anger and adrenaline, and it was this I drew upon as I lashed out a foot not at Osoba, but at the younger of the Veil’s servants.

To my utter delight, the ball of my foot connected with his knee. He grunted.

The rest fell upon me in a great snap of momentum.

Osoba was not a frontal assault brawler. I had expected him to come at me, and this he did, but not in any way that I predicted. Where he had begun in front of me, he came at me suddenly from the left, utilizing my distraction from the older servant as that one slipped beyond my guard and delivered an open-handed strike to my plated ribs.

It surprised him, I think, when his hand connected with slatted leather. The effort did push me back several steps, which allowed Osoba room to twine behind me and link my arms so tightly in his, I could not understand how he’d done it without dislocating his own.

Not impossible, given the nature of a circus’s performers.

However, he had not considered my own training—or perhaps was just unaware of it.

My corset provided support and shape, but it was not meant to keep my figure from collapsing in upon itself. I rolled my shoulders back so far that my shoulder blades touched, an act I hadn’t had to accomplish for some time. It hurt enough that would regret this decision, too, come tomorrow.

I think I surprised the so-confident whip. I was half from his floundering grasp—earning a brief and reverberating chuckle that surprised me—when the two servants rejoined the fray.

I stood no chance.

I started cursing when each grasped an arm, freeing me entirely from Osoba’s slacking hold, and only got louder as they dragged me back into the halls I’d only just left.

“What is this madness?” I demanded. “Take your hands from me!” My efforts earned no ire from my captors. They handled me with almost graceful synchronicity, maneuvering me in such a way that every attempt to impair or disengage fell victim of my own momentum.

Osoba followed, his occasional bout of laughter after a particularly crude threat only stabbing red-hot rage through the fear I refused to reveal. “Do not fight,” counseled the still-amused lion-prince. “This debt will be discharged for one night’s work.”

This time, the room I was forced into was not so elegant as Hawke’s, nor as empty. Two female servants, both Chinese and wearing the simple tunic and trousers I’d expected of the foreign women in the Veil’s employ, waited with well-mannered patience. Between them, a bathtub was filled with water, though it lacked soap bubbles or the slick of oils for scenting.

The implications were clear. I was to bathe.

Like hell I would.

I lashed out with my feet, my elbows, anything that would give me purchase, but the men who held me did not capitulate.

The women did not appear troubled by my exertions.

Words flew, orders or explanations or even warnings of care, and Osoba said from the door, “If you do not bathe willingly, the Veil will be forced to punish all who failed in their orders.”

“Does that include you?” I asked, panting from my efforts. I was not standing on my own, grasped between the men and held as if I were weightless between them, my legs sagging.

“Yes,” he replied, surprising me with his honesty. His gaze held mine, tawny gold and no longer laughing. “As well as the men holding you, and the servants who are to tend you.”

The former I could well appreciate. The latter bit deeply. The Chinese girls had done nothing to me, and I had no doubt the Veil would have all of them whipped for a failure that would not be theirs.

I bared my teeth in a soundless snarl.

Osoba must have read capitulation in the act, for he said something in that blasted Chinese tongue and the men dropped me. I fell to the floor, barking my elbow painfully.

One of the girls gasped, and both hurried to my side.

The men bowed once, hands once more easing into their sleeves, and left the room.

I allowed one of the servants—the younger of the girls, with light brown eyes and almost no eyebrows to speak of—to pull me to my feet. “I despise you,” I said, glaring at Osoba.

He nodded, rather more readily than the observation warranted. “That is your right.” Saying nothing else, he closed the door, trapping me in the room with two efficient servants, a cooling bath, several pieces of polished wood furniture, and a vibrant blue and green folding screen.

What was it about the whips of this Menagerie that I could not provoke them into foolish action? Perhaps if he’d done something, anything at all but watch, I could have made my escape from this intolerable situation.

He had not. And would I have attempted escape knowing what I did of the Veil’s threat? That these innocent women would be punished for it?

Bloody bells.

In moments, I was stripped of my clothing and submerged to my neck in the tub, hissing when the temperature proved too cool for my liking. When one made a motion that I took to mean I was to get my hair wet, I jerked upright. Water, blackened and already turning gritty, cascaded from my shoulders. “No,” I said flatly.

I would not walk into the Veil’s machinations with my red hair bared. My identity was still my own. At least, I hoped so. I could not assume otherwise. The Veil had not once called me by name, and though Hawke knew, he had never given any indication of my identity after the disastrous ball where he had offered his bargain.

The servants exchanged a glance. Then, the younger girl said in heavily broken English, “Your hair.” Another sign that I was to wet it.

I shook my head. “I will not.”

“We fix it?”

“You will not fix it,” I told her, folding my arms over my bared chest and glaring. “You will leave it alone.”

Another exchanged glance. Then, the older woman made a circle, muttering a few terse syllables.

The girl nodded. “You will put it in...” She hesitated. “Like this.” She grasped her own long plait with her wet hands, then wrapped it about her head like a crown.

A simple effort. “That’s all?”

“Shì.”

That sound, I knew. I’d heard it from Hawke’s own lips. I frowned. “Does that mean yes?”

“Shì. Yes,” she repeated. “To say understand.”

At least I had come to recognize one word in the complex language.

I subsided, gritting my teeth when the servants scrubbed my skin clean, had me stand and poured cool water over me to wash the remnants of the grit away. They washed my face and my shoulders with cloths, gave me a brush and said nothing as the heavy lampblack in my hair turned my fingers gray. I washed them at their direction, pretended compliance, and all the while, I plotted.

The Veil had agreed that I would remain off the auction tables. He would not go back on his word easily, though I suppose he could have if he had no care for his word. Somehow, I did not suspect this was the case.

What else would the Veil have me do? Something that required bathing. Which indicated that I would be among other people.

The worst possible outcome coalesced so suddenly that pain blossomed behind my forehead. A mirrored hole opened within my belly. “What am I to wear?” I asked, striving for calm.

I prayed that I was wrong. That I leapt to a conclusion that was unfounded, impossible.

The girl glanced at the older woman, whose almond-shaped eyes wrinkled with distaste at the blackened bathwater I left behind. A short conversation ensued, so rapid that I could not separate one syllable from the next.

They wrapped me in a simple robe of shapeless design, too plain and ill-fitting to be the answer I sought, and the girl stepped behind the screen.

As the older woman cleaned the water spatters around the tub, the other returned carrying items that did not offer much clarification until she lay them out, one by one, upon the single chair.

The little voice urging its warning turned to a choking scream. I bit it back before my panic could give it words.

There are some who believe that the loss of one’s memory, the muddling of reality until it becomes little more than an absent dream, is enough to bury a fear forever. They are wrong. Opium had stolen the memories, the details, of my time in Monsieur Marceaux’s Traveling Curiosity Show, but no smoke or bitter tar could ease the lash of instinct and ingrained habit.

The things that occurred to me were this: there is an appearance, a fashion, that is uniquely ascribed to a circus. No sweet determined to seduce or entice would wear such a thing as laid out before me, because the whole was not meant to seduce. It was not overly exotic, nor was it scandalous—or, at least, scandalous in terms of the usual performing fare, though Society might consider otherwise outside the rings.

What the girl laid out began with a corset in a blue so rich as to put a peacock’s feathers to shame. Following, a cream-colored skirt whose blue-trimmed front ruffles would not reach my knees, stockings in a striped violet and green, and various accouterments designed to draw attention to—without hiding or masking—long limbs. My arms would be bare of all but cream ruffles just under the shoulder, and matching at the wrist. My throat, shoulders and décolletage bare.

The ensemble spoke for itself.

One could not bend in a full corset like that, which is why I’d made mine special and without the low hips. This indicated that one wearing such a fancy piece would not be among those required to fly upon the trapeze or silks, or bend for the admiration of a crowd. I was not convinced that the Veil even knew that I could do any of these things; a secret I intended to keep to myself.

The colors were bright enough to assure an audience’s attention, yet the material not so heavy as to hide anything from the eye.

This suggested a role that would demand awareness. Applause.

A bend to the left, a tip-toe across a narrow rope, and the whispered warning of a knife’s edge just by my left ear.

My hands shook so badly, I buried them in the too-large robe. “I see,” I said, and could not hide the tremble in my voice with equal success.

“Very beautiful,” the girl offered, her smile obscenely delighted as she fingered the blue taffeta trimming the skirt.

“Very.” It rasped.

Pretty as a colored cobra rearing to strike, more like.

The Veil would put me in its shows tonight, trapped beneath the red circus tent? I would not. I would not.

But I could not fight the Veil’s men.

I took a slow, measured breath; panic raged inside my skin, twisted and writhed as if it would tear through my constraining flesh. Everything I looked at seemed as if it came from far away. Fresh sweat erupted over my forehead, my shoulders.

The women looked at me expectantly.

I had no choice. And only one real option.

Feeling sick, I gestured to the door. “I can dress myself.” A worthless bit of modesty, for all they’d washed my body already.

The women once more looked at each other, and I wanted to scream at them to get out, to leave me alone.

“I will dress myself,” I insisted. “Thank you. Now, please.” If there was rather more emphasis on the please than I liked, I would not fault myself. I quaked beneath the robe, fear and nausea rapidly taking what control I barely maintained.

When neither woman moved—and in fact, the older began to roll up her long, wide sleeves with intent—I raised my voice. “Osoba!”

As I suspected, it only took one summons. The door opened, and if the man maintained a decent bone in his body, he did not show it, looking in with untoward interest. “Yes, Miss Black.” The tone was not one of subservience.

I did not expect it, but at least he opened the door. It was a crucial step. “I wish to dress myself,” I told him, folding my arms tightly over the front of the robe. I must have looked a sight, with my hair long, frizzed in brushed out curls and unevenly black, my robe too big, my bare toes peeping from beneath the hem.

He studied me for a long moment. “Why?”

“Because I am used to dressing myself,” I explained, pretending far more patience that I truly had. Please, please. “I know how tight to make the corset so that I do not faint in the heated atmosphere of the rings, and I prefer to maintain my own appearance.”

Such snobbery. Such fabrications.

Yet if he had any interest to argue with me, it was put to rest abruptly as Zylphia’s voice, dearly familiar and one more ragged hole punctured in my composure, interrupted the negotiations. “Ikenna,” she said, with a degree of familiarity that did not seem to sit well with the man. “Cage demands your appearance.”

That she was the one to bear the message only indicated that she had not left Hawke’s side this whole time. The panic clawing at my throat tightened.

The man turned away, the door closing partially. “Is it Cage doing the asking?” I heard, low menace. That each was so familiar with Micajah Hawke as to use the intimate shortening of his first name was a telling reveal.

Zylphia’s tone did not change. “Does it matter?”

“It matters,” he said darkly. Apparently not one for farewells, the man said nothing else. He was simply gone, no trace of footsteps or sound.

The door moved. Zylphia beckoned, shaping a few halting words with care. The servants bowed to me, collected my discarded clothes—damn and blast, not at all what I’d wanted—and left the room.

I met steady blue eyes across the small expanse. Gratitude, anger, accusation all congealed into a wordless knot of emotion I could not process quick enough. The door closed again, leaving me in the room with black bathwater, my own dread, and the attire I would not put on.

They had taken my opium.

Terror demanded my capitulation.

I could not acquiesce.

Chapter Nine

The door handle rattled. I marked it, as I’d marked all the others in the past untold hours, with a deliberate counting. “Twenty-three.” Or was it twenty-four? I could not be sure; counting had not done my peace of mind any favors.

I sat in the farthest corner of the room, huddled over my knees. I clasped them to my chest, rocked because I had no choice.

How angry Osoba had been when he’d returned to find the door blocked. I’d fitted the chair beneath the knob, then obstructed that with the heavy trunk I found behind the folding screen. With some effort, I’d laid the screen between the trunk and the wall, finding just enough room to angle it in a secure brace.

It wasn’t sophisticated in any way, but it had provided its service without fuss. There were no windows in this room, no other entry but that door that would not open, no matter how many times it was rammed from the other side.

On the other hand, there was no other exit.

I was sweating profusely. It had set in an hour after my self-induced incarceration. With it, nausea swirled and my head ached like a pounding drum. The ague I’d worried about earlier this morning had returned three-fold, and I felt as if I’d been beaten solidly with sticks and left to rot.

I chewed on my thumbnail as I rocked. Blood had long since welled from the ragged edge I was creating, but I did not stop.

Back and forth, I rocked. Back and forth.

I wanted to pace, but it seemed a nightmare to even sit up straight, much less walk.

How long could I last in this cell? How long until the pain sitting like a rock in my gut turned to blistering agony?

I blew out a breath that shuddered free of lungs too full of phlegm.

The doorknob went still. So did I.

Did anyone wait outside? I had listened for some time through the panel, heard a bitingly angry Ikenna Osoba order men to stand guard for my inevitable defeat.

It did not escape me that he would be punished for my actions. Although the girls had done their bit, I wagered the Veil would not let them escape unscathed, either.

I could not summon the will to help them. Guilt paled beside the depths of my illness now. My efforts to help would only demand my surrender, and that I would not allow. Not for all the coin in the world.

Fresh blood filled my mouth as my teeth found a torn edge and sank deep.

The pain did not distract me for long.

I breathed as if I had run for hours, gasping for air as I rocked once more. My backside ached from the wear, but everything I was had become a terrible knot of panic and fear and pain and illness.

I wanted to laugh, but could not understand why.

“One miller, two millers,” I whispered. “Three millers, four.” The term was Ishmael’s, interchangeable with hang-in-chains for the name of a murderer. “How many millers to open a door?”

Two that I knew of, each demanding justice. Revenge. Rivals with each other, rivals with me.

The dead haunted my every waking breath. Feminine laughter, a woman’s screams. The wide, shocked eyes of an earl’s dying stare—foggy green, and never again to fill with warmth when he looked at me, or delight when I surprised him.

I saw in red and breathed the metallic reek of fresh spilled blood. Mine, perhaps, from the wound I would not leave alone between my teeth.

The earl’s, perhaps, from the wound I would not leave alone in my heart.

I do not know how much more time passed before a sound at the door earned my manic attention once more. It was a tap. A polite sort of sound.

I smothered an inane snort before it blasted through the vicious ache behind my forehead. “Go away,” I croaked.

A masculine voice trickled through the panel. I could not make it out, but it was not Osoba’s. Nor was it the nasal evenness of the Veil’s—not that I expected that one to tend to the likes of me himself.

“I am not leaving this room,” I said tightly. “Leave me.”

Was that my name I heard? A two-syllable decree?

Much to my surprise, I found my legs unfolding. I rose, clinging to the wall as my knees threatened to spill me headlong into the angled screen.

“Open this door, Miss Black.”

Hawke. The nascent threat inherent in every word was unmistakable, as was the all-too-familiar tones of command. Yet there was something else. Something that tugged at my inflamed mind and plucked from within a memory I had struggled so hard to bury.

Are you with me, Miss Black?

No. No, I wasn’t. Not this time. Did I want to be?

Would it matter so much when I had so little else to bargain with?

Oh, heavens. What was I saying? What was I thinking?

“No,” I replied sharply. Too much fear colored the denial. Too much uncertainty.

Hawke must have heard it. I could never accuse him of being dull-witted, not in my wildest of fancies. His voice came again, neither sharp nor loud. “You have been too long locked away,” he said, and would I in my right mind, I would never have called it gentle. Yet that was the very word I thought of.

Gentle. What madness was I mired in?

I climbed over the trunk, hiking the bulky folds of my borrowed robe over my knees as I did so. My palms slid over the wood, as if by doing so, I could see through it to where Hawke waited beyond.

Would he be clad in his working togs? Would he cover his scars once more?

Or would he stand outside this door, cloaked in the steely authority of his mantle? Glaring at this door as if it dared have the temerity to obstruct his aim.

I would be that aim. Reckless, obstinate, foolish Cherry St. Croix, the collector who could not collect.

“Cage,” I whispered. Some part of myself had the wherewithal to be shocked, but I could not summon the mask of cool derision I needed to maintain distance. If I saw him—if I saw his face, would I have the strength to turn away again? Now? Here?

I could not. More than half out of my senses and too hungry for something to fill this terrible ache inside me, I did not dare risk it.

The door creaked faintly, the lightest touch. My fingers shook against the smooth surface. Had he laid a hand atop it? Were our palms separated only by a bit of carved wood?

I wanted to weep for the pain of my body, the ache of my heart, and could not.

“Open the door, Miss Black,” came his voice, so low that I could imagine him murmuring against the panel I leaned against. So close. “Your lot is already difficult enough. Do not force me to make it the worse.”

A threat. Or a warning? Were they all that different?

“Cherry.”

My name in a rich, masculine command—on Hawke’s own lips—was my undoing. I am not certain when I made the decision, but I scrambled over the trunk before I became fully aware of my own intent, kicked aside the screen, and shoved away the heavy chest with a strength I did not know I had. The chair came next.

The door did not open.

I waited, fists clenched together under my chin, but it remained still. Quiet.

I would be forced to open it myself.

Trembling so hard as to clench my teeth against the chattering, I reached for the door knob. I turned it slowly, opened the panel with such effort, I could not imagine where the strength came from.

There were no curious eyes to stare as cool air wafted into the room. No servants to gawk, no angry lion-prince to threaten and snarl. Only Hawke, clad in the exquisite perfection of his ringmaster attire—black and brilliant blue, the same color as the bit of devilry in his left eye. He wore no gloves this time.

He crossed the threshold, very gently disengaged my clenched hand from the door’s edge, and shut it behind him.

It seemed as if all the air left the room upon his entry. He filled what I now realized was too small a space for the two of us. I had no oxygen to breathe, no room to maneuver.

My knees buckled—everything swayed as if I were on a net, a swing; yawning oblivion on each side.

With the agony of failing dignity, I collapsed.

But I did not fall. An arm banded across my lower back, warmth pressed from breast to hip to thigh, and a bare hand smoothed back my sweat-damp hair from my forehead. Surely I imagined that much.

Surely, Micajah Hawke—the ringmaster of the Midnight Menagerie, Gypsy-blooded bastard and bloody-minded authoritarian—was not cradling me on the bare floor in a cramped, cluttered room.

“What fools you make of my house,” he said, the words a harsh, if quiet, accusation. Yet the arm supporting me was gentle, the muscled press of his thigh against mine only marginally softer than the hard floor beneath me.

I shook my head, over and over as if by doing so, my point would be irrefutable. “No,” I said, pleading it. I had no pride left. Not here, with pain ravaging my body and a need clawing at my belly, my mind. That the robe had opened over my legs, exposing my knees and ankles, seemed unimportant. My modesty, what was left of it, did not matter. “I will not. I won’t.”

A rough hand seized my jaw, captured my face between thumb and fingers with unbreakable force. “Proud, ignorant, reckless creature.” Each name an insult, yet his voice was as music to me—a salve, a sweet harmony.

I did not understand it. I could not fathom why.

All I knew was that I hurt in ways I would do anything to end.

“Tù zi wĕi ba,” he murmured, “cháng bu liăo.”

The refrain lodged within my senses, echoing, underscored by mocking laughter that was not his.

With what seemed to be effortless strength, he rearranged my body to lay completely against his, enfolded by his arm, trapped by heat and power and iron will. It freed his other hand, but for what, I did not know until the fingers at my jaw tightened to painful degree.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered. His gaze burned into mine—darkness torn by azure radiance, too bright. Too knowing.

I squeezed my eyes shut, appalled when a tear leaked from the corner of my lashes.

His fingers dug in to my cheeks. “Open it.”

I had no choice. Parting my lips relieved the tension of his grasp. The sound I made was both anger and despair, a terrible noise I had only ever made at my dying husband’s side—so much blood, everywhere. It painted the backs of my eyelids now, a ghostly reminder that seemed as real as the man who held me.

Something passed between my lips. Before I could spit it out, turn away, Hawke placed his hand beneath my chin and forced my mouth to close.

My lips sealed over two of his fingers. I tasted the shock of heated flesh, the salt of callused skin.

The acrid burn of tar as it touched my tongue.

I gave myself no order. As if bearing a mind of its own, my tongue twined about the fingers enclosed in my mouth, dragged over calluses and warm skin.

A strained sound seemed to fill Hawke’s chest beneath my lolling head, but I paid no mind—opium’s sweet lure eased the ache inside me, calmed the chills and fevered sweat battering at my senses. I whimpered as he withdrew his fingers, my teeth closing over the rough pad of his index finger.

His other hand fisted in my hair. “Let go,” he ordered, so quietly it was nearly a growl.

I did not want to. I wanted to be sure to lick every bit of the tar from his fingers, to suck the very flavor of it from his flesh.

The fingers in my hair wrenched hard. I cried out, and he slid free of my lips with a rough sound.

I fell back as the tar melted in my throat, burned a path to my belly. Hawke did not let me touch the floor. As all the world softened to a swift, gentle blur, as the pain and fever left me so much faster than I would have thought possible, his grasp in my hair eased.

“Foolish child,” he said over my head.

I could not summon the anger to reply.

A tentative knock did not even raise my anxiety. With my cheek pillowed against Hawke’s shoulder, it seemed a matter of course when he called, “Enter,” and rose to his feet, cradling me as though I weighed as much as a feather.

“How is she?”

Zylphia’s voice, so familiar as to be welcome. How the harmonies of each tone seemed to play like liquid gold, like sunshine and sweet flavors in a dish of delight.

Hawke shifted, and when my feet touched the floor, I knew enough to keep them there. “She will mend.”

“What of the Veil’s orders? She’s to be in Ikenna’s ring come midnight.”

I watched as if from a distance as Hawke turned me, his features shrouded in implacability—none of the gentleness I had imagined, nothing of affection or kindness. Foolish, indeed.

Yet, as I looked upon Zylphia’s worried face and allowed her to wrap an arm around my shoulders, I could not summon the will to disturb the dreamlike quality of the bliss I now enjoyed.

I leaned against her—the woman who had once been my friend, and possibly would still be my friend, if I only asked—and watched Hawke draw on azure gloves with precision.

“Leave the Veil to me.”

Zylphia’s mouth turned down into a dire frown, the shape of it clearly obvious as I looked up at her dear face. The signs of such dislike—for me, for Hawke, for the situation, I didn’t know—were not enough to lessen her appeal.

Poor girl. One might consider that she’d be well used to the whips of the Menagerie and their high-handed ways.

Her hand tightened on my shoulder. “Why do you take this on?” Zylphia demanded. I could feel the tension in her body, a line of worry against my side.

I stirred, but I could not will my leaden limbs to pull away.

When Hawke said nothing, acknowledged nothing, I watched something painful slip beneath Zylphia’s lovely, furrowed features. “Cage—”

“That’s enough.” Hawke’s mismatched gaze touched mine. “Get her out of my sight.”

Chapter Ten

I believe I slept, a brief hour’s remedy lost in opium-induced dreams that made no real sense upon waking.

As I returned to my senses—shaped as they were by the warmth of the medicinal tar—I remembered only that I felt a puppet trapped in dreaming, the glint of ruby threads, wrapped snugly about my wrists and ankles, and a woman’s gentle laughter.

“Get Nye on the fires,” said a feminine voice whose tone briefly spanned my waking awareness and the foggy dreams I left behind. “Ginger, mind the south fog-pushers. Kelly says they’re sparking.”

“Aye,” piped up a young voice.

“On with it,” said the first, and I was suddenly aware of a noise that was not subtle so much as inoffensively present—a dull rush, an indication of constant motion, of force and power.

I opened my eyes to find a colorful spread hanging overhead; beautiful shades of burgundy wine, starlit blue, beaded black. The mattress beneath me was not soft, but my body did not ache—for that, I was grateful.

Where was I?

A dry, gentle hand pressed against my forehead. “Your fever is broken. Thank the heavens for small favors.”

“Zylla.” Hers was a voice, husky and familiar, that I would recognize anywhere. A terrible pain gripped my heart, but it was not the same as that I’d only just experienced. This was deeper than any physical symptom. It made me feel fragile in ways illness could not.

I did not like the feeling.

The hand left my forehead, and I turned my head upon the thin pillow beneath it to see my once-friend stand, shaking out a cream-colored skirt that tumbled from the back in a ruffle of peacock blue. Her corset was blue, and her beautifully thick hair wound in a tight crown.

She’s to be in Ikenna’s rings...

I struggled to sit up. “No,” I said abruptly.

“Nye!” That other voice again. “The pulleys on the cages need a look-over, get to it.”

“He’s on the fires,” replied a deeper voice, older and roughened. “I’ll see’t.”

“Cheers, Linus.”

“Rest,” Zylphia counseled, her back to me as she reached for the divide in the hanging curtain separating this small sleeping nook from what appeared a greater room beyond. “You require more sleep, cherie.”

I studied the expanse of her smooth, bare shoulders the color of my favorite tea and saw no signal, no sign that I could grasp in my confused state. She simply spoke her advice, and stepped out through the curtain.

“Ginger?” called the voice I could not wholly place.

“Out on the fans,” said that rough voice.

“Right. I’ll do it—Oh, Zylphia, ma’am. How is she?”

I could not hear the answer, but I could imagine what it was Zylphia said. Rest was the last thing I required. I kicked my bare feet over the mattress, pulling the edges of the worn robe together over my bare legs.

I could not afford to take the time to feel guilty for my lapse. That Zylphia would be in the lion-prince’s performing ring this night was not my doing. The Veil was to blame.

And Zylphia willingly worked the part.

Saying this to myself did not ease the guilt fluttering in my belly. How much of that was I carrying, of late?

Not nearly enough. Perhaps too much.

The curtain twitched aside. “You’re awake!” Maddie Ruth stepped inside before I could do more than nod my assent, a bundle of clothing folded over her arm. I realized then that it was her voice calling orders. “I’m so glad. You had us worried.”

I rather had myself worried. “I am quite fine,” I said firmly. “Tip-top shape. Where am I?”

“My room,” she said, as if it were obvious.

Like the last I’d seen her, she wore a sturdy woolen skirt and a simple man’s shirt, though now, the sleeves were rolled high and the heavy leather gloves I’d seen at her belt were protecting her hands. A set of goggles, brass-rimmed and with tinted glass in the frames, was shoved high on her forehead.

She looked quite the working man, were it not for the skirt and the ample roundness of her figure. A bit of dirt smeared her cheeks, or perhaps a kind of grease or oil. The smile she gave me was wide, and more relieved than I had a right to.

Guilt plucked again.

“I rescued your clothes,” she was saying a she set the items beside me. “Or, really, Zylphia did, and I repaired some of the holes.”

“Thank you,” I said, because such things were ingrained. I reached for the items, frowning at the precise stitches I found in the sleeve of the cotton shirt I’d worn. “Maddie Ruth, what do you do here?”

“I fix things. Can you hear the noise?”

“Naturally.”

“That’s the blow-off from the fans.” She turned her back, as if concerned with my modesty. “There’s four sets below the grounds, which keeps the fog at bay.”

Ah ha. One question, at long last answered.

“Why have I never felt a draft?” I asked, quickly dressing while I had the opportunity. Bless Maddie Ruth for her quick thinking. The belt holding all my various gear was still with the rest of my clothing, and my goggles rolled up within. “The engines should cause a wind.”

“They’re precisely designed,” the girl said, studying the scars in her gloves. “What drafts they create are offset by the layout in which they’re placed. If you’re paying right close attention, you can feel a bit of it at certain places, but it’s mild. Most won’t even know.”

I certainly hadn’t. So much for the Veil’s so-called magic. Not at all to my surprise, the mystery turned out to be machine. I found myself grinning, a bit of smug satisfaction. “What fuels the machines?”

“Aether, like the ones in sky ships but different. We’ve got to keep the fires stoked in order to fuel the extraction devices, but then that powers the connectors. The ratio is much lower than full steam needs. Would you like to see?” Maddie Ruth turned as I finished lacing the corset. I tied it off behind me with the skill of long practice. I’d designed it to be easy to tie by one’s self, easy to lace, and not nearly as tight as a true corset should be.

I fastened the collared throat at the nape of my neck, pulling my hair over my shoulder to do so. The length of it had not done well in the interim. Frizzy without the care usually afforded it, I imagined the appearance of it might have sent Fanny into a fit of the vapors.

My smile faded as I thought once more of my family.

How much I missed the life I thought I had hated so much. How things could have been different.

I could have maintained my Wednesday debates with Teddy, truly the best friend a girl could ever wish for. How I missed matching wits and intellect with a man who had not seen me as a dowry or a simpering female, but a peer of scientific thought and entertaining discussion.

How I missed the way Booth would walk down my halls, every step interspersed with the thunk of his silver prosthetic.

If only my chosen husband—a man whose crooked smile had been so difficult to produce, but now I thought of as so dear—had survived our wedding day.

Had I remained, there was no promise of happiness. The marchioness, my mother-in-law of only some days, had sworn to imprison me in my own home, strip me of my loving staff, afford me no freedoms—for a widow could claim none, and all that I owned belonged now to my Lord Compton’s father. Perhaps I deserved such punishment.

No. Such thoughts were useless. I married a good man for the reason of security and care of my family, chose to leave the world below the drift behind, and still the sweet tooth took him away in blood and malice.

Had I stayed above, mourned as I should have, I would have regretted the inability to achieve that which I had all but forgotten this past day.

Revenge.

Guilt transformed to a savage anger so sharp, I hunched my shoulders around it. I pressed one hand against my breastbone, where the ache was all the more acute.

“Miss?”

I looked up, the dull strands of my hair tumbling over my shoulder, to find Maddie Ruth watching me expectantly. Worried, I think.

I forced myself to stand straight. What had she asked me? “Ah,” I said, as if waking from a dream. “The machines. I would like to see them, but not this moment.” I took a steadying breath. “Maddie Ruth, I require help.”

Her eyes brightened. “Help?”

“Two important matters,” I told her. I busied my fingers with my hair, ignoring the gray smudges it left behind as I plaited the length of it. It was thick, unruly, and took great effort to tame as I spoke. “The Veil’s servants have a cameo that belongs to me. It is roughly palm-sized, and bears—”

“Your face?” Maddie Ruth backed out of the curtains. “Or someone that looks right enough like you that it could be an easy mistake, right?” The curtain was still dancing on its cord when she returned, her smile ear to ear. Gold winked at me as she proffered the all-too-familiar disc.

I stared, my fingers still and cramping in the midst of the weave I made of the tangle. “I... What? How?”

“Zylphia brought it,” she said.

Oh, no. No, that foolish girl. Why would she steal from the Veil for me?

Unless she understood that such a thing might lead to the Veil’s demands being met? I had spoken of that cameo, but not whose face was upon it. Did she see the resemblance and guess the rest?

No. I shook my head, clearing the uncertainties. It was long past time I ceased to worry about the others around me. There was work to be done—and perhaps it was the remnants of the tar speaking, but I was eager to see my collection over with.

The sweet tooth had been allowed to wander free for far too long.

“Maddie Ruth!” called the rough masculine voice. “The fires are high and set to last another hour or so.”

“Good,” the girl called back. I waited in silence. “Go for a smoke, if you like.”

“Aye,” he grunted, and then there was nothing but the dull rush of sound; that machinery that was similar to the noise an aether engine made, but larger. Fuller.

These must be some machines.

“Be careful with that cameo,” I advised, finishing my plait with more speed than care. “Do you see a small hinge upon it?”

She squinted, yet I saw no recognition on her face. “I need a glass,” she said after a moment, and once more left the nook.

This time, I followed.

I would never have imagined that such a place would exist beneath the ground of the Menagerie. It was a large enough room, but full half was taken by heavy, overlarge brass and steel fittings whose giant tubes vanished into the wall they rested against. That thrum filled the air, almost a palpable vibration I felt more in my teeth and bones than against my skin.

The rest was brick and mortar, windowless and lit by hanging lamps whose oil gleamed golden through glass bulbs. An overlarge work desk took up one space, while shelves lined the far wall and tools of various origin had been left where they had been laid down.

I saw bits of cast off metal, all sorts from tarnished brass to copper coated with verdigris stains and bits of iron salvaged from what I could only assume were other machines. Strung from the girders in the ceiling, a colorful kite swung gently in a faint breeze.

It was a working man’s paradise.

Or, I realized as I followed Maddie Ruth to the large table, a working woman’s.

My respect for the girl rose markedly.

She hunched over the cameo, turning it beneath a magnifying glass while I marveled at her space. “Ah!” An exclamation of success. “I see it. There’s tiny cogs here. It opens, then?”

“A part opens,” I corrected, forcing my attention fully to the matter at hand. There would be time enough to ask of the various implements I saw around us later. “Watch, but lean very much away.”

She did as I suggested, leaving the cameo upon her gloved palm and angling far as she could from it. I reached around her, found the small indent I searched for, and depressed it. The mechanism engaged, those minute cogs spinning slowly and with terrible purpose. All at once, a bit opened at the top, and there was a faint hiss almost lost beneath the machines.

My insides seized, my lungs frozen in remembered apprehension.

To my relief, nothing came from the opening. No shimmering pink cloud, as had been ejected the last time I’d come face to miniature face with the wretched device.

I breathed easier, but still with some care. “That,” I said, gesturing, “once held an alchemical serum with opium at its root.” All I knew of the stuff, really. “I must learn exactly what it was.”

“You’ll need an alchemist for that. I know of one, but you won’t like it.”

“It won’t be easy, but I know one or two who might—” Her words caught up with me. I blinked. “You what?”

Maddie Ruth turned the cameo over, tapping it against her palm in unadulterated curiosity. Though nothing came out, she nodded as if she understood something I’d missed. “Someone in the Veil knows alchemy.”

“Who? Who is it?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know,” she said thoughtfully. Her brow furrowed. “No one knows who’s in the Karakash Veil, right? But I know they—” She paused so suddenly, it was as a warning had slapped her in the face. The look she shot me was filled with guilt. “I’m not to say.”

“Maddie Ruth.”

The name was a benediction, and she flinched under the intensity of the demand. “I mean, I know someone knows it, that’s how the lanterns stay lit. It’s all alchemical light inside.”

The revelation stunned me. How had I not noticed that it was no candle but something approximating it inside the paper lanterns strung along the Menagerie grounds?

Then again, if I had noticed, would I have considered alchemy the answer?

Alchemy was not a science to which I ascribed much respect. Often the last resort of intelligent men gone daft with age and the looming promise of death, alchemy had led to many a man’s ruin—and certainly no small amount of insanity.

My own father’s dabbling in the mess had proven just that. As had Miss Hortense Hensworth, who had turned to alchemy to right a wrong and lost her life to its maddening effects.

Uncertainty and reticence warred with the guilt and grief I could not put to rest within me.

I needed to know what was in the bloody serum if I was to learn how to fool the Veil. Though the concoction was certainly not the magical mixture the Veil—the spokesman I dealt with, anyhow—was convinced it to be, it was heady stuff regardless. Heaven only knew what the Veil would do with it, were I to hand it over.

If I could figure out the formula, perhaps I could substitute a counterfeit.

I had no choice. I would be forced to reach out to Lady Rutledge, who had become a sort of mentor in Society as well as a lady of science. She would know where to direct my inquiries.

I had of late become a creature of scientific theory, as opposed to practice. What little I knew was not enough to tide me over here. “Right,” I said firmly, as if my concerns had no bearing. “I will not go to the Veil for this.” It would utterly defeat my intent. “I’ll have to locate another alchemist of some repute. Can you draw a diagram of the mechanism used?”

Maddie Ruth peered into the tiny black hole in the cameo’s side. Then, with a faint smile, she set it atop the desk. “No.”

Bloody bells. “What do you want?” I asked, no preamble at all. I was no neophyte when it came to the negotiations of the rabble below the drift. Maddie Ruth, for all her surprising know-how, was still one of them.

She stripped off her gloves, tucking them into her thick leather belt. “I want to be a collector.”

Bloody bells and twice the devilry. My heart pounded in a surge of fear I could not control. I half turned away. “Maddie Ruth, do not ask me to teach you what I cannot.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have watched too many die,” I said sharply, scrubbing the back of my hand across my too-dry eyes. “There is a man out there who will stop at nothing to take away all those I love and admire. You would be easy pickings. I will not give him you too.”

Maddie Ruth could have argued. I expected her to do so; to tell me that she would not be so foolish, that she would not die, that she was too smart, too agile, too something. All excuses that would only prove my concerns valid.

Instead, she said thoughtfully, “This man. You’re hunting him, aye? The sweet tooth, they call him.”

This gave me pause. I frowned at her, but found her quite serious. “I am.”

“And if he’s collected, what then?”

I saw where this was going. Carefully, I said, “Then it may be time to revisit the matter.” It was no promise. It was no guarantee.

“What if I asked you to let me help you, then?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I can help with things,” she replied, less than explanatory. “Things like this.” A gesture with a grease-smeared palm at the cameo. “Or perhaps if you need a body out in the street with you. Or just a device,” she added hastily, reading my immediate protest with startling ease.

I thought quickly. I had not promised to change my mind, and she did not demand it. “Is that your offer, then?”

“It is.”

Well, it was a sight more reasonable than I could expect. I nodded. “Fine. But ’tis your duty to be sure what I ask of you and what the Veil demands are never in contest, do you hear me?”

She nodded.

“And if Hawke ever asks you, you know nothing,” I added.

Her eyebrows rose in unconcealed amusement. “Him? Talk to the likes of me? Only if I’ve done something worth a haranguing. And then it’d come mostly by them other whips.”

That was what I was afraid of. “Be serious,” I told her.

“I’ll be very careful,” she said on a great big sigh, as if I wrenched the commitment from her. “But you’ve no worry. I work hard and get the run of my way down here. Mostly.”

“Fair enough.” It was the best I could hope for. “Then ’tis done.”

“Shake on it.” Maddie Ruth spit in her palm, offered it for shaking.

Ah, lovely. Lower-class honor. I mimicked her gesture, spitting in my palm the same as her, and clasped my hand to hers. The press of damp flesh was enough to have me cringing in amused distaste.

I’d put my hand in worse, really. A bit of saliva never hurt a body.

She pumped my hand once, as hard as a man might, and promised, “I’ll start work on this.”

“Do you require equipment?” I hadn’t seen anything I might ordinarily ascribe to a laboratory.

“Nah.” A tossed off shrug. “Just something to see the fine bits. I’ve a microscope Flip found left behind an old druggist’s shop after the owner kicked off, and he gets me what I need when I need it.”

A good lad to have about, that Flip. “Thank you,” I told her. Now, I needed to begin the next step in what was not quite a plan so much as a budding theory. In Ishmael’s turn of phrase, there was a hang-in-chains to locate.

I had a small idea of where to begin.

Chapter Eleven

This time, I made my way to the collector’s station with no interruptions. Part of this small victory may have come from the lateness of the hour. Most out would be intent on achieving whatever entertainments they chose for the evening than on idling about.

The rest, them what made it their business to watch for easy prey in the dark and fog, would take note of my collector’s appearance. Those of us who made our living by the wall had a certain inimitability quite difficult to ignore.

If the manner with which we strode through the streets of London low did not give the less intelligent pause, the appearance of the fog-preventatives and hand-tooled respirator covering much of my face would. Even low pads tended to err on the side of caution when a body wore such items in plain view.

Only the terminally unwise assaulted a collector in less than a group, and good fortune to any who attempted to locate a group of men willing to try.

I used this to my advantage on those nights when I would much rather focus on the task at hand than wander through the stews making contacts from the residents and working girls there.

I felt rather calm, which surprised me—though I quickly came to believe this a remnant of the opium I had been given. That it came from Hawke’s own fingers was an undeniable fact I was trying very hard not to dwell on.

Delivering medicinal tar was not as intimate a task as my imagination was determined to paint it.

It did allow me, however, a measure of peace that I struggled to maintain without. I walked fearlessly through the fog-stifled streets until I arrived at my destination and did not allow myself to wander across mental landscapes I swore I’d have no truck with.

Hawke’s efforts, Zylphia’s punishments, these were among those thoughts I stifled.

These concerns, these aimless worries, would only detract from the greater goal. I entered the abandoned train station that had become the collectors’ base of operations, strode through the fog leaking through the long-since shattered windows to pool across the empty floor. The lanterns affixed on either end of the open space offered just enough light to indicate that I was alone in the vacant station. It was a rare enough thing to cross the paths of other collectors, but not unheard of.

I did not even know how many of us there were, though I was assuredly the only woman among them. My presence continued to be the fodder of gossip and rumor; a fact I had long grown to enjoy, as my identity remained a thing of mystery.

The faintest current of air pushed the fog along, curling it into wisps and fingers of lamplit gray as it clung to my knees. It did not reach high enough to dampen the papers on the old brick facing at the far end, but some nearer the bottom did tend to show a bit of rot around the edges.

I pushed my fog-prevention goggles atop my head, the better to read the often cramped handwriting scrawled across the various bits of paper affixed to the wall. The yellow lens of one half of the eye protection allowed me to see clearer through the fog than most, though it tinted the world in the same shade. The other lens had long since cracked—in a scuffle with the very same murderer I hunted now.

All things come around full circle, it seemed. I would take the coin I’d need to repair the glass out of his arrogance, as well.

I glossed over many of the notices. It took some recalibrating of my own awareness, but for the first time in my years of collecting, I ignored the ones that called for living delivery, debts collected or items found and looked instead for those demanding assassination.

It was not an act that settled comfortably upon me. I had always maintained two rules: I did not collect children, and I did not murder, for coin or otherwise.

The former because I had seen firsthand the terrible price children paid for such machinations. My first collection had culminated in the rescue of young girls taken by them what should know better.

The latter because I was no murderer.

To kill a man, to lose one’s soul by taking another’s, had never been worth the coin offered. Beyond that, purses so heavy as to warrant the death of the mark were also usually challenged by other collectors. I sought for one, in specific, and knew just how to find him.

There were two demands for death upon the wall that night, and the coin was enough to make even my eyes go round.

Yet it was the third call for the retrieval of a man, a notice that suggested capture alive for justice was preferable but deceased with proof of identity tolerable, that garnered my interest.

Jack the Ripper.

It was not the first time I had ever seen a collection notice for the man, though ’twas the first I’d seen with his newly claimed moniker upon it. He was quite a sight more infamous now.

A man worth the time to claim. I could not be the only collector to think so, though only one would leave the notice upon the wall. That the paper was not yet marked meant it was fresh.

There was no purse attached, which surprised me, only an indication that one should request audience with the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee for reward.

The Committee had formed only last September, bolstered by businesses concerned that the murders committed by the one they’d formerly called Leather Apron were affecting trade. A cold-hearted motive, but one that spurred men into action. If I recalled the articles correctly, one George Lusk had been nominated the chairman of the committee.

His would be the first avenue by which I would gain information.

I reached into my coat and plucked the knife from its sheath at the front of my corset. So cleverly made was the whole that the blade acted as one more slatted support, with its twin acting the same at my back. I drew the first from the top, and the latter from the bottom, which made for fluid arming when necessary.

This time, I only required one. Very carefully, I set the point of the blade at the top of the notice and carved a line down the middle.

I’d perceived a pattern, in my years collecting. The standard mode of operation demanded that the notices were to be pulled from the wall once a collector accepted one. This kept collectors from, well, getting in each other’s way—either terminally or otherwise. However, over the years, there had been some calls for assassination that were not pulled so much as marked.

A single slash down the middle, as if the perpetrator dared the rest of us to challenge him for the winnings.

I believed my rival to be the man who taunted with the display. Not only was it exactly the sort of game he would enjoy, but deliveries of flowers upon my stoop or window sill had coincided with these marked notices. As if I were personally invited to the game.

The deliveries had stopped for a while, and I’d considered myself rid of the man for good. How wrong was I. When next I saw him, it had been over my husband’s bleeding body.

As I sheathed my blade and looked upon my handiwork, I felt no satisfaction at the act. No job well done. Only a pit in the depths of my belly, cold and aching.

I intended to collect the Ripper alive, but if I knew my rival, he would not be so kind. The test, regardless of method, was clear.

“May the best collector win,” I said to the wintry, damp air.

There was nobody else in the station to hear me. Only myself, and the fog that swallowed the bitterness of the challenge.

* * *

I would need help for this particular game.

I made my way through the East End, through Poplar and a titch south, where Blackwall played home to the bulk of the Brick Street Bakers. I had formulated no plan, and I did not think myself worried for it. All had moved rather quickly of late, and where that should have made me concerned, I found only determination in its wake.

The Veil had gone too far, and now I found myself without a safe sanctuary from which to work. This in itself did not bother me overmuch, for I had not considered that far ahead. What I found reprehensible was the manner in which the Veil made known his displeasure.

Had I dreamed that exchange between Zylphia and Hawke? I knew that my once-companion was very likely fulfilling the role that had been deemed mine in the lion-prince’s taming ring, and the terror that caused me was as infuriating as it was a warning of my own weakness.

What could the Veil possibly do to Hawke? He was as part of the Midnight Menagerie as the Veil itself; the gardens would not bloom without its serpent to tend it.

Yet what if the Veil did not consider this?

What if I overestimated the man’s worth?

These worries plagued me only until I forced them from my thoughts.

My goal was to find the sweet tooth. And in order to do this, I would locate Jack the Ripper.

Two impossible demands.

One plan to solve them.

For this to succeed, I needed more eyes and ears than I possessed. The Karakash Veil was certain that neither man had attended the Menagerie’s events, yet evidence suggested the sweet tooth could get in and out of the grounds without raising suspicion. Even I, who could easily make my way inside, could not avoid detection for long. This indicated the collector, the sweet tooth, knew more than I of the ground we had both walked.

Or that he was truly a master of disguise.

This I already suspected, for he’d gotten quite close to me on at least one occasion. He’d appeared an old man with a gruff voice and magnificently barbered whiskers one night, just another face in a smoky room.

How he’d taunted me with that knowledge.

I needed to out the man—dangle before him bait that he could not refuse. The challenge of a race, to find and capture the Ripper first, would suffice. More than suffice, for the Ripper had become something of a thorn, I think. A man glutted on the infamy of his barbarism, while an artist such as my rival would find himself overshadowed. Ignored.

Intolerable.

That I was able to consider these things said quite a bit more for my state of being than any physical act I could have committed, yet I did not stop to think too greatly on the ease with which I understood my opponent.

The Ripper was only a man. A madman, to be sure, and one whose evil demanded his attention fall on them what could not defend themselves, but such a madman would make mistakes. I needed eyes on Whitechapel—on the Ripper’s haunts.

I needed Ishmael Communion’s help.

I left the main thoroughfare, no longer surrounded by the din of the active evening roads near Limehouse. As I approached the East India Docks—not far from the West India Docks where I once would make my way home—the pall that fell over the area became a noticeable heaviness.

I did not imagine that my passing had gone unmarked, but I had not yet considered how I would make my needs known to Ishmael if I could not find him. As a collector, I was given a certain amount of leeway, yet I was still not of the crew. Loyalties ran deeply in such matters.

I was not made to wait long before finding my passing challenged.

“‘Alt,” came a gruff demand, subsequently followed by three men stepping out of the fog.

Even through the respirator I wore, I could scent the acrid stench of fish from the decaying Thames just south of us. The Isle of Dogs tended to reek of the stuff, what with being surrounded by the fetid river on all sides.

I obeyed, but did nothing to make myself appear harmless. “Collector business, lads,” I said, my voice muffled and flattened by the mask I wore. It did not appear overly feminine, and my repaired coat did much to soften those lines. “You’ll want to step out of my way.”

In a gang such as the Brick Street Bakers, there were ranks of men, from the highest rufflers to the lowest abrams.

There were females among the crew’s number, naturally, but their rankings were of somewhat less clear origin to me; many fell along definitions of prostitution, beggary and bait.

Of the three men who faced me now, I placed two as whip jacks—them what pretended to be sailors fresh from a wrecking and eager for begged coin to get back to port—and perhaps the wiry one as more of a ruffler. He had the look of a soldier’s mark about him, unkempt enough that any passerby might think him made daft by war and unable to tend to himself.

Beggars, the lot, but dangerous all the same. And none too pleased to find a collector in their midst.

The jack in the middle, a broad-shouldered man, folded his arms over his chest and sneered. The other, whose hair was dark in my yellow lens and his eyes narrow and set close together, spat upon the ground and said, “We know why’s y’ere. Don’t got no truck wif c’lectors.”

“I see.” My fingers twitched, so suddenly that the motion surprised even me. Yet as they did so, a curl at my sides, I found a slow, humorless smile pull at my lips. “Well, mates,” I told them, “I’ve got truck with you.”

The ruffler shifted uneasily. “It’s a collector,” he pointed out, just in case his crew had misheard that fact. “Maybe we oughter—”

“Shut’cher gob,” growled the speaker of the three. “Bartie’s done tow’d us ’bout that c’lector bird on ‘im. ‘S’her.”

Bartie told them what about me?

Oh, for the love of all things nonsensical and crass. Bartholomew Coventry, that bloody fool. Of course he’d tell his mates of the collector on him, and I doubt he’d leave the bit out about my sex.

“I’m not here for him,” I said, flicking that away with a dismissive hand. “It’s Communion, I want—”

Would that I’d minded my words much more clearly. At that bit of revelation, all three men glanced at each other, and then at me. I had no other warning before the talker snarled, “Gotcher.”

I had not intended this moment to go to loggerheads, but it seemed I was unable to avoid it. Once decided, I no longer cared to try. A brawl they wanted, a brawl I would deliver.

After all, I was bleeding invincible.

The beauty of the moment was not lost on me. Mired as I was in the lingering grasp of sweet bliss, I could admire the ease with which they broke into motion. As though time ebbed to a slow, distinct focus, I watched as a bead of sweat pearled on one man’s grimy temple, while the other shoved his hat askew with the force of his movement.

Two of them came at me as one. I noted in the corner of my vision that the ruffler darted back into the street, his shoulders pumping with effort.

I smiled. No fear filled my belly, no anxiety or concern. Given wing by the resin Hawke had fed me, I embraced this moment with all the glee of a pugilist eager for a bout.

Though I was not prepared to square against two larger men than I, at least they hadn’t counted on my skill. There was something about being a woman that tended to put a larger man at greater ease. As if he were convinced that I would be so much less effort than a collector of a different sex.

I took great delight in proving them wrong.

A large fist came for my fog-preventatives, open-handed as if he would tear them off. I simply stepped back, a precise pace that forced him to over-extend his reach. Catching his meaty wrist in my hands, I turned and pulled him hard against my back, then over in a move taught me by a faceless man I sometimes met in my dreams. A memory of the good monsieur’s influence, I think.

Wherever it stemmed from, the maneuver had served me well.

The jack sprawled across the damp street with a grunt—shame, I think, surprise and anger—and allowed me the opportunity to duck the other fist aimed for the back of my head.

I danced to the side, but this took me closer to the second assailant, and this surprised him, as well.

I believe that neither man was used to the concept of a woman fighting with any more skill than claws and words. They ought rather to be grateful I kept my blades sheathed.

I rammed my elbow into his chest, danced around him so gracefully that I briefly entertained a shaft of dreamy amusement that the Society vipers I’d left behind could not see me move with such talent now, and drove my foot into the back of his knee. He pitched forward, cursing with great enthusiasm.

I laughed. I should not have. It was unwarranted, and more than a little mean-spirited of me.

I did not care. Nothing about this moment seemed quite right. I was eager for the fight, itching to spill blood, and that was not the type of collector I had always chosen to be.

Yet here I was, with my booted foot pulled back.

I allowed myself no sympathy. No warning as to what bounds I flirted with. I simply acted.

Crunch. The sole of my grimy shoes found his nose.

Blood gushed, painted black through the yellow lens.

Crack! My vision went white, then double, and I stumbled to my hands and knees as pain wracked through my skull. My respirator unhinged on one side, and I spent precious seconds catching the shaped mouthpiece before I lost it in the scuffle.

“Get ‘er!” shouted a new voice, an angry one, and I heard the raised answer of more as men of several builds, ages and ranks in the canting crew stepped from the shadows like ghosts of the fog made flesh and blood.

Anger undercut the echoes of pain in my head, and I forced myself to my feet.

Hysteria, the likes I had never before entertained, filled me. It was not the screaming kind, or the likes which culminated in tottering laughter.

Violence replaced dreamy amusement. Mockery to rage.

I would not be brought low by a tangle of men.

I unhooked the respirator, jammed it into my belt, and spread my arms wide. “Come on, then,” I taunted, and could not even mark the reasons why. “Take me down, if you dare!”

They dared. What had begun as two against my confident one became three, then five. Then seven. I held my own for a fraction of a moment, blooding more than my fair share, until I stopped caring of the pain in my fists, my cheek, my head. Anger was all that drove me, rage so black I could not understand where it came from.

My knuckles split, and it did not hurt. My lip bled from a gash caught on a grimy nail rather than from impact of another’s fist, and still I did not cry.

My back slammed to the unforgiving ground, wrenching the breath from me.

With every crack of fists on flesh, every gasp driven from my lungs, every boot stomped across the straining slatting of my collector’s corset, I heard the scream of a madman.

Weep for the widowed bride!

I would weep for nothing.

“Enough!”

The bullish roar erupted across the darkened streets, earning such obeisance that I found myself staring up from the street I’d fallen to, transfixed by the frozen tableau of men caught in various preparations of painful brutality.

I ached. Oh, heaven, I ached, but the laughter that spilled from me sounded more the insane mirth of my father than anything I had ever heard from my own lips.

And that was enough to seal the sound behind my clenched teeth.

“Out of the way,” came the deeply voiced command, and the men lowered fists, feet, rocks and bits of pipes.

I do not know how close I came to death that night, but I would wager that Ishmael Communion saved me a very short swim in the rotted Thames.

When the two men who’d begun the struggle were slow to move, a large black hand boxed one ear and shoved the other. They cursed, stumbling away, and I was left looking up into stony disapproval.

He was not pleased with me.

I gave him the hand he reached for. “You have impeccable timing, Ish.” It came more of a groan, for his ears and mine. I could not manage steady on my own.

“You’re out of your fool head,” he growled, but he was gentle as he lifted me to my feet. “What are you about?”

Standing upright proved painful, but not as painful as the beating I’d been spared. I could taste blood on my lip, feel a dull throb in the wrist I’d once hurt deeply enough to require bracing, and my skull would have much to thank me for soon enough, but I was surprisingly hale. Even my palms, where the rope had drawn furrows, did not ache as badly as they should have.

I felt as if I could take them all on again, and damn the consequences.

Quickly calculated, I deemed myself capable of mobility and turned my attention outward.

The Bakers had not left us. They stared, a full dozen in various states of physical description and degrees of outward malice. Hovering at the fringe, the scarred man I’d met earlier. He grinned, laconic and not at all interested in the proceedings, but did not linger with the others.

Among those, I saw the leavings of my own returned brutality. Blood smeared from one man’s nose, another nursing the bollocks I’d tucked a boot in. More than one would wake to a bruised eye or fat lip, and them I glared at with mad conceit.

No man would find me easy prey. Not tonight, when the tar rode high in my blood and body. Certainly not ever again.

Ishmael glowered, his rumbled grunt earning my guilty attention. No malice in that stare, but a great deal of anger. I’d placed him in a damned difficult spot, and I was suddenly very aware.

I could not apologize. Doing so would weaken me beyond measure in their watchful study.

I pointed at the men arrayed around us. “They’re hiding a quarry,” I declared. “Collector notice on your mate Coventry.”

There were grunts, curses. Even a snarl or two, and a threat I did not bother to address.

Ishmael’s looming figure did not so much as twitch. “Whose?”

“The Menagerie’s.”

I had not expected the noise to suddenly go quiet again. Ishmael turned, slowly, as if he had all the time in the known world to level a look of flat regard to his crew. “Is this true?”

Because he had been the man to begin the sortie, the rogue with the dark hair and spitting habit abruptly found himself in a widened gap of his mates. He thrust out his jaw, folded his arms. “Bartie’s a good bloke.”

“If he has crossed the Menagerie, you know the law.” There was no room for wheedling against that tone. The rogue went pale. “You angling to take his place, Godger?”

If possible, the one called Godger went even whiter, until his skin was nearly the same shade as the fog through my lens. I adjusted the protectives. “No,” the man admitted, but not willingly. It seemed pulled from him; from his pride, more like.

Menagerie justice was not the kind of promise one easily accepted.

“Then you know the outcome.” Ishmael turned to me, his jaw tight. “Talk with me.”

I nodded, only just resisted the urge to make a rude gesture to the men who quickly faded back to whatever holes they might have come from—the laps of willing women, the interiors of pubs, even patrols taken to mind their own territory. More than one would need a slab of cold to take the sting away.

The last to go was the man whose decision had not gone the way he’d planned. Godger glared at me as I turned away.

I made no friends, but then, I’d only come for one.

“Coventry will be delivered, but I can’t do it yet,” said Ishmael as he led the way across the lane and into a narrow doorway. He had to turn sideways to get in. Once past the doorjamb, the space beyond opened into a large, smoky pub. There were men and women alike inside, each as entertained by their own interests as they were curious of my arrival. There was a dip in the conversations, a lull in the rhythm of a good pub well-tended, and then it smoothed.

Ishmael only had to look at a small table occupied by two lanky men, one no older than eighteen, perhaps. They quickly found other places to be.

I was impressed. I knew Ishmael had some ranking among the Bakers, but I did not realize how much. He’d come up in the world.

The chair he sat in creaked alarmingly. I followed suit. Mine did not so much and shift beneath my wait.

“Why not?” I asked once we were seated.

“Baker business, girl. I need him for a time.”

“And after?”

Ishmael did not look bothered. “After, I’ll deliver him myself.”

“Does this have anything to do with the Ferrymen?” I asked him, and sighed when he only looked at me with the expression of one who was not intent on repeating himself. “Fine, fine,” I allowed, and withdrew a small swatch of black from my coat pocket. “Put this with him when he’s delivered.” Ishmael took it, pocketed with a simple nod. He’d do it. It was my calling color, as it were. Black from Miss Black. Hawke would know, when it came time to field the bounty.

It may not matter to the Veil, but it did to me.

“Why are you here?” he asked me, point-blank and with no preamble. A fine grasp of the Queen’s English he might have, but Ishmael was not one to waste words. “You’ve never attempted a collection on a Baker.”

Rightfully so. I fingered my lip gently. “I need Baker help.”

His near-black eyes were steady. “Funny way of showing it.”

“You think they’ll be sore a female caused some damage?” I asked, raising my eyebrows over the goggles still banded about my face.

“Among other things.” He leaned an elbow on the rickety, scarred table. “Help how?”

“I’m hunting the Ripper.”

Now, I watched his eyes widen, the black depths flashing more than a little concern. Heartwarming enough, but not at all the regard I needed from an ally. “Why?” he asked me, the yellowed whites of his eyes vanishing again as they narrowed just as quickly.

To the point. I did enjoy Ishmael’s company so. “He’ll lead me to the sweet tooth.”

He did not ask me why again, allowing the previous word to linger.

“I’ve accepted commissions on both.” Not entirely the truth, but I could not admit so much. There was more I did not say than that which I did—that the sweet tooth had murdered my husband, that he was likely a collector, that Zylphia and the sweets demanded his turning over for Menagerie justice, or that the Veil had done the same—for very different reasons.

I was desperate to rob the fiend of his arrogance, his pride, but I could not stop there.

These things would reveal too much, and allow for too many questions.

I was not prepared to answer any, so I gave him the barest of facts.

“The tooth carved up a number of sweets, and hurt one just recent. He’s wanted for Menagerie justice.” Bordering Limehouse meant that Bakers understood the politics. It was one reason they’d been allowed to flourish east of the Veil’s district.

This seemed more than enough information. Ishmael leaned back, his thick lips loosely working as he mulled the knowledge. A spurt of laughter from a golden-haired twist set a riotous chortle among the men surrounding her, and I glanced once to find her in a man’s lap, his hand ‘twixt her thighs.

I was grateful for the mask of the large goggles, for I wasn’t positive that my cheeks did not burn hotly at the wanton, drunken display. I turned back to my friend as nonchalantly as I dared.

Finally, he asked, “What do you want of the Bakers?”

“Eyes and ears,” I said readily. “Nothing more. You wander the whole of London low, still, yes?”

A short nod, but no explanation. While the gangs remained true to their territory, there were many forays into other districts and boroughs. Not always for related activities, but the rules drawn between gangs were not widely known and I dared not pry. Baker business was not mine.

“The Ripper operates most in Whitechapel,” I told him. “I need more eyes than I possess.”

“For what?”

That, I wasn’t positive. I had no description to give, and no certainties to share. I propped my elbows upon the table, folded my forearms over each other. “I am less sure of this,” I admitted. “He operates at random, but he prefers dark places and rooms occupied by a single fen at a time, rather than many.”

I think my casual use of what little cant I knew tended to amuse Ishmael, rather than impress. He often let it slide without comment, as he did my use of fen for a dollymop’s profession.

“I once ran across what I think was him in Dutfield’s Yard, just after a killing,” I continued. A shiver plucked icy fingers down my spine at the memory. Zylphia and I had interrupted the beast before he could do more than slit a woman’s throat. In a fury, he’d gone on to murder another—and do such terrible things to her body as defied sanity. “He’s quick to kill, fast to run, and knows the streets a good sight better than most.”

Silence, pregnant with thought and anticipation, fell between us. The pub only became the noisier for it.

Finally, he stirred. “I like you, girl,” he told me, seriously enough that I made no quip for it. “So I’ll be clear. You’re asking for carriers to look for things what have no real knowing.”

He wasn’t saying that it was impossible. He was warning me that I’d owe for answers I may never get.

“I know,” I said, shrugging helplessly. “All I can say is that your folk have the way of the street, and you might know when a thing is off enough.”

“You sure you’re willing to pay?”

“Yes.” Of that, I had precious little uncertainty. Whatever earned me the Ripper’s trail—the sweet tooth’s capture—would be worth the owing, especially to Ishmael.

The thick ridge of his eyebrows furrowed deeply. “Then it’s done. We’ll keep ears and eyes on the East End.”

“In return?”

He shook his head, the pub lights glancing off his dark skin like a spark off the midnight river water. “We’ll deal in blood for blood.”

It wasn’t an indication of bodily fluids, not as such. I was not being asked to fight, spill blood, or die. The term indicated whatever service he’d ask of me, it was one I was already capable of providing. It could include helping him crack a particularly difficult case, or run with the Bakers for a specific goal. It may even include use of contacts, should he have need. A fair barter: his eyes and ears for my abilities, no more and no less.

It was all I could ask. “Thank you,” I told him.

“No thanks, girl. Just be careful.”

“I will,” I said, but I don’t think that he believed me. His gaze did not soften, and the worry shaping his flat, broad features did not ease.

I took my leave with no more words exchanged, aware that Ishmael could not show untoward friendship with a collector—especially one who had unwittingly gotten a young Baker kinchin slaughtered by that same rival collector I hunted already. That had been the first blow I’d suffered from my rival. Would that it had been the last.

I did not envy Ishmael the delivery of the large Mr. Coventry, but if anybody could achieve a victory, I would put my pounds on my friend.

I was quite proud of myself, for I’d managed to fool Ishmael into looking beyond my personal well-being and focus instead on the task I’d laid before him. Leaving him mulling over his part in our agreement, I made my way through the loud, cheerful pub and into the street. Eyes watched me depart, and there were more along the path I walked to leave Baker territory, but they left me alone. Small favors, and I would take them.

The Bakers were rather more agitated than usual. I suspected a conflict on the horizon. Too bad for Limehouse, trapped between them. I’d tried to warn Hawke and earned nothing but trouble for my efforts. So be it.

I’d do the rest of this on my own.

Chapter Twelve

The remnants of my opium calm wore off at a rapid pace.

I first recognized the signs when my fingers began to shake, and my throat began to ache despite the respirator I re-affixed over my mouth. What I’d considered an ague seemed instead to be directly correlated to the amount of opium I had eaten recently, and how long it had been since I last indulged.

This was concerning, but not a trouble I could mull over while I was so focused on the task at hand. There would be time to worry later.

Or so I assured myself as I made my way out of Poplar and into Whitechapel.

According to the brass pocket watch I found myself checking at too-often intervals, it was half past one and long past the time when sensible working men and women found their beds.

Fortunately, much of Whitechapel claimed residents neither sensible nor working. Or at least working for an honest wage. Prostitution had not seen much of a decline since the Ripper’s deadly antics began, and though the dollymops attempted to stay beneath the lamplight, men who paid were men well worth following.

I witnessed more than enough opportunity for the Ripper to strike simply by walking along a main thoroughfare.

I was left alone, solicited only by the most daring of the doxies, and usually with a teasing tone that suggested they expected no response—a type of contest, to see who among them was brave enough to solicit a collector. Many were too thin, some with hair that had been pulled loose from pins by prior arrangements seen to in the dark, and others shivered in the cold. October was not a kind month for the hungry. It would only get colder each day. Many was the soiled dove who would freeze to death come winter.

Were it not for my own collector’s profession, I could have been among them. The marchioness had already tried to imprison me once, delicate a widow’s cage though it was.

Were I truly forced to choose—trapped in that cage or walking the streets—I believe I would have chosen the latter without once looking back.

Only here I was, and I found myself looking back often, didn’t I?

I rubbed at the corset plating over my heart, which had taken to aching when I considered anything at all but the goal I’d laid for myself.

The Ripper would make his move, but perhaps I could gain a little ground, first.

Mr. George Lusk was, by all accounts, a respectable man. Named often in the newspapers after his appointment to chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, he appeared to have about him a stalwart sensibility and soft-spoken demeanor.

I had never met the man, and I had not considered what I would do when I did.

With a strategy only half formed, I easily located the address of Mr. Lusk and made my way there.

He would, I was quite certain, be long since abed.

While the fog clung to the face of the squat, plain housing reserved for them what lived here—a somewhat more respectable front than the doxies and profligates naught but a handful of streets over—most were black and empty.

To my surprise, one revealed a bit of nearly smothered light trapped by the yellow lens over one eye, and I crossed the narrow lane towards the first residence. I found lamplight flickering from a single window, muted as though blocked by screen or curtains.

Was Mr. Lusk awake? Was he entertaining?

I could not recall the details listed in the articles I had read. Was he married?

Would it matter? Perhaps he was entertaining a dollymop of his own.

A part of me conceded that to interrupt such a tryst may be the height of rudeness—to say nothing of his wife’s feelings on the subject, if he had one to offend—but I could ill afford to play the understanding guest now.

A glance at the rest of the flats, each melded to the next, showed no signs of stirring.

Shrugging—as if this would cast off the guilt I nursed, or the wariness I felt as I climbed the small landing to his door—I reached out a newly gloved hand and tapped gently upon the door.

There was no answer. In truth, I’d expected none. The man was like as not abed, light or no light, and I did not know one who would open his door at near two in the wee hours without prior arrangements made.

I tested the doorknob, and found it latched.

Naturally.

Just as naturally, I had come prepared. Fishing a pin from my hair—such blasted useful things—I bent, inserted the tines, and probed the mechanism by which much of London considered themselves safe.

Fools, really. As Ishmael could attest, even a halfway decent rum dubber could pick a lock. The best ones could do so quick as spit. I was somewhere in between the two; perhaps if one was a slow spitter.

I muffled a chortle at myself.

As the metal tines clicked against the iron tumblers, my heart stalled. Something changed—something nearby shifted, a presence I imagined turned to cold and malevolence. My innards seized.

Before the sound of my amusement died to nothing, I jerked up from my ministrations, my back to the door and my wide, glass-covered eyes fixed on the fog swirling around the lampposts beside the lane.

What watched? What waited?

A fog of coal-streaked yellow kicked and frothed, as if a mad sea churned up by the passing of some great ferry in the sky. My heart thudded uncertainly, slamming at irregular intervals until I believed that I could hear its echo in the murky haze.

With shaking, frigid fingers, I fished that bit of tar from my pocket.

The lock waited patiently. Fine lock it was. I would tend to it, just as soon as I nibbled off this corner of the medicine that would ease my heart once more. Soothe my worries.

And yet, as the bit Turk’s resin touched my tongue, I found myself straining. Listening. Eager to hear it.

A whistle in the dark.

It did not come. Instead, as I replaced the mashed globule of tar into my coat pocket, the latch clicked open behind me, and the door swung wide.

“Now I must be quite firm,” said a quiet voice, soft-spoken for a man but irritated beyond. “I already told you—”

What he’d told me went unsaid, for he looked into my collector’s mask—the cracked lens held by a strip of leather, the respirator protecting my lungs, my coat and trousers—and promptly amended his reprimand to a face gone pale as soured milk and a strangled, “Help!”

I had no clues as to how to behave, save that if he did not cease his haranguing, his neighbors might soon gain enough interest to come looking.

I pushed him inside his own home, shut the door hard behind me, and yelled over him, “Please cease your shouting, Mr. Lusk!” Muted though as it may have been behind my crafted vents, the intent appeared to have worked.

Mr. Lusk halted, mid-grasp for one of two large candlesticks set upon a narrow table beside him, and stared—open mouthed, no less. Finally, he found his tongue. “Who are you?”

A fair demand, for I’d just invaded his home.

He was not an imposing figure, fairly average in every way. He appeared a man of fifty, stern-featured, with a full mustache framing his mouth that still bore more pepper than the salt his thinning hair displayed. His prominent nose was faintly reddened at the tip—age, perhaps, or drink—and where I expected to find a man in his nightclothes, he appeared instead to have shed his outerwear and rolled up his sleeves. As if I’d only caught him after a long day’s work.

“Sorry for the pushing,” I said, making certain to maintain as much of my low street dialect as I dared without straining the bounds of understanding. “I’m a collector, here about your notice.”

He finally lowered his hand. I noted stains upon the fingers, primarily forefinger and thumb. I’d wager his other hand would show the same about the tips, where he’d test the blotted ink after it dried.

A working man, in ways wholly different than Hawke. Different even than the earl’s—that is, Cornelius’s... Oh, damn. A knot of pain plucked at me, and I fisted my own hands, forcing myself to finished the thought.

My late husband’s hands had been roughened a touch, by what I assumed was his time in Her Majesty’s Navy. I’d had no opportunity to ask him about it.

Fair, because he’d not asked me of my own. I could only imagine what he’d think of the scabbed mess I’d made of them now.

Mr. Lusk cleared his throat rather loudly, a polite and emphatic sound.

I shook myself hard, mentally more than anything. I did not want the man to think me a lunatic. Any more than he already did, anyway, as he asked with the patience of one who has already asked it in the seconds before, “Are you here for a reason, sir?”

I did not address the subject of my sex. Forcing myself to consider only the task at hand, I answered, “There’s enough rumor to fill the rags for weeks on end and run the printers out of ink. I’ve come for the source.”

His expression did not soften so much as ease out of wary lines. I noted creases about his eyes, time and wear taking a toll, but no longer did I see the tension that had possessed him the instant he’d opened the door. Instead, gesturing to me, he turned and led the way into the small home. “I apologize for the untowardness of my behavior,” he said, a sight more polite than I’d expected. “It has been a busy evening. Please, step into my study.”

This was the lamp I’d seen from outside. His study was smaller than the one I was to inherit—a study that had passed from my father to my executor, and from Mr. Ashmore to my husband upon my marriage.

So many things I’d intended to do with my Cheyne Walk home, and now I would do none of them.

Bloody fool, I was. I gritted my teeth behind the mask. It seemed I could not shake my own ghosts tonight, no matter how often I licked the resin I carried.

This would not do. I required focus.

I took a slow breath, silent enough so as not to alert my unwitting host to my troubles. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” I told him. “I’m sure you’ve a wife to see to, and I’ve a murderer to catch.” Best to be blunt, in these situations.

Mr. Lusk surprised me—he smiled faintly, a bit of nostalgia in the curve beneath his mustache. “Not a worry. My Susannah’s gone, rest her. The children are with family for the moment.”

A recent loss, then. Something in me softened—something I could ill afford to nurture, and had no intention to share with this stranger.

My throat tightened. “Right,” I said, rather than give voice to the condolences I wasn’t sure how to shape. Would a collector care? Like as not, no. Therefore, as a collector, I resolved not to. “Tell me what you know of this murderer, then?”

“Most the same as you and probably all the rest of your sort,” he said, easing his not overly extravagant bulk into his chair. He ran a hand over his balding head with weary dismay. I could read it in his bearing, hear it in his confession. “What’s done in the papers is as what we’ve got. Every day, another rumor of a sighting.”

“No truth to it, then?”

“None.” He rested his hands over his middle, studying me with more curiosity, now, than the fear he’d initially displayed. “I suppose you’re here to ask about the reward too?”

It’d seem odd not to, and I did need the bounty. I nodded.

“If that bastard Matthews had his way, there’d be none to have.” Mr. Lusk grunted his ire on the subject. “How many letters must we pen for him to understand the gravity of the need? People need incentive. It’s not enough to want to protect our homes and businesses.”

I confess to a momentary loss of understanding, but it faded quickly as I recalled the name. The Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, had flatly refused to fund a reward for capture of the Ripper.

“I take it you are funding the reward yourself?” I asked, surprised.

“That we are,” Mr. Lusk confirmed, his pride so palpable that I could have reached out to touch it. “The lot of us, the whole committee, each pitched in a bit to make a decent purse. I assure you, sir, you will not be shorted.”

That was in the eye of the beholder—or he who held the purse. Still, I did not pry more. The coin, at this point, was only an extra that I would be glad to have. It would not take much to acquire the opium grains I needed.

“Good,” I said. “Now, tell me all.”

He did, and I listened quietly, standing with my hands clasped behind my back as I’d seen men do. To be perfectly honest, he did not tell me anything I did not already know. It was simply that I enjoyed the sound of it. The words, oh, not so much, but the way his soft-spoken voice spilled forth, strained over some of the less delightful details, rose when he allowed his anger to color his comportment, delighted my opium-tinged senses.

He spoke of the first murders, which I recalled reading of quite clearly. He spoke of the troubles he’d had with the police, and the private detectives the committee had hired. He spoke passionately, but with a gentleness that someone else may have mistaken for weakness were they not paying close attention. The plight of the working class, the business all affected by the murderer’s rampage, and if the doxies being slaughtered did not rank very high in his list of reasons to care, I could forgive him the slight.

Few enough favored the women who chose—or were forced—to earn their keep between their legs. His lapse seemed rather more thoughtless than malicious.

I did not wander the study, because there was precious little room to do so, but I did scrutinize my surroundings. It was charmingly decorated, with bobs and ends tucked here and there, paintings framed upon the striped papered wall. I did note more than a few indications of Freemasonry about the décor.

I found my fingers twitching somewhat to leaf through his array of books.

That would have garnered much more interest than I could answer for.

At the end, Mr. Lusk said, “Therefor, we have taken it upon ourselves to muster a reward. It was Mr. Aarons’ idea to post a notice with the collectors.”

“A good idea,” I assured him. I had made no move to take off my fog-protection, and so I felt able to study the man rather frankly. “Is there anything else you might know? No matter how small, Mr. Lusk, it could be important.”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. He propped one elbow atop his desk and scrubbed at his face, clearly too weary to fight the urge. “All we can do is keep involved, let the people know we’re watching, help the police where we can. Certainly, there’s no shortage of those willing to make a name for themselves over it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh.” A dismissive grimace. “No small amount of crackpots coming from all over to claim they know the face of the Ripper, or that they themselves are what done it.”

I mirrored his grimace, for all he could not see it. Folding my arms over my chest, now, I asked, “Any seem legitimately the sort?”

He laughed, but there was nothing amused or light in the sound. Fatigued, rather. Dismayed. A little bit bitter, unless I missed my guess. “How can one tell? One crackpot murdering is the same as one who’d claim to. There doesn’t seem to be a difference, does there?”

Something in the way he spoke drew my attention, something different than the manner by which he shared his information earlier. A line in his brow, a distasteful sneer as he shifted in his seat.

A wince, even. His eyes glanced left and low.

I approached the desk. “Is there something you know, Mr. Lusk?”

His gaze rose to mine—or the yellow glass, anyhow. I could see all right between the leather holding the fragmented lens in the other, but I could not rely on it. “What?” Then, just as quickly, a scoffed, “No.”

I did not believe him.

Planting my gloved hands upon the surface, just beside his blotter, I leaned over until I read wariness on his face—his mustache twitched, and his gaze narrowed in the way of a man who could not decide whether he would allow himself to be bullied in the name of peace or push back.

I did not afford him the opportunity to work it out. “Mr. Lusk,” I said quietly, “I do not mean to alarm you, sir, but you yourself have only just finished informing me how important this is. If you know anything, anything at all, I’d be well within my rights to extract that information however I please.”

His cheeks darkened, his scalp went red. “Now, you see here—”

I reached over and seized his loosened tie. A good tie, really. Narrow and sleek, exactly the sort of accessory I expected from a Freemason. The dues required of one suggested a certain standard.

It crumpled in my grip.

Mr. Lusk found himself not so much standing as leaning over his own desk, arms braced upon it and mustache vibrating with anger—and shock, I think. “How dare—”

“Your committee went to the trouble of posting a collection,” I told him. Another exclamation of outrage I did not allow him to finish. An interesting game, to my sparkling mind. “Upon accepting the collection, a collector may achieve the end using whatever means viable. Do you understand this?”

“Unhand me,” he sputtered. “Or else!”

“What say you show me what’s in your desk drawer,” I suggested mildly. My grip twisted in his tie. “Top left.”

Mr. Lusk did not seem inclined to argue. “All right. All right! There’s one thing.”

Ah. So my instincts had not yet abandoned me. Brilliant. “Yes?” I let him go as he asked, allowing him the opportunity to smooth his tie. I expected his anger to hold, but it faded quickly. With a nervous hand, Mr. Lusk opened his draw and withdrew a small parcel. Three inches square, with the remains of brown paper still folded about it, it seemed harmless enough to my eye.

“There. That’s all I have. A hoax,” he added, mopping at his brow with a kerchief pulled from his pocket, “but a grim one. Not the first I’ve received, either.”

I reached over to unfold the paper, opening the cardboard box.

The sight that greeted me forced a knot of bile into my throat.

I had seen kidneys before, I knew what it was I looked at. I was versed in anatomical matters, and there’d been a few kidneys on display in the falsely named Professor Woolsey’s exhibit of electrified anatomy.

I looked at what appeared to be half of a kidney, stained with some days of rot, and attempted to calculate what details I could. The organ was rather more purple than red, bloated as if its time in the box had only swollen it but not wholly ruptured the rubbery globule.

“Why is it that color?” I demanded. Yet even as I took a breath to ask it, as the words left my lips, I realized that what I smelled faintly through the ventilator in my mask reeked of alcohol.

Wine, to be precise.

“It’s been preserved,” I said, answering myself. “But why?”

Mr. Lusk proffered a bit of paper. “It was delivered by parcel from somewhere in London,” he explained, “though the writing’s so bad, I can’t make heads nor tails of it.”

I unfolded the piece, laid it flat atop the desk and squinted at the awful handwriting.

From hell, it began. An auspicious start.

“If you require me to read it to you—”

“I can mind my letters,” I said gruffly, tamping down my smarting pride. Of course I could mind my letters, I wasn’t a street-born waif, but I didn’t give voice to the waspish retort.

Mr Lusk, Sor

Some Irish had been known to use “sor” in place of “sir,” but it was possible that the handwriting had forced the letter i appear more an o. The style was not kind upon the eyes.

I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.

“Charming fellow, isn’t he?” I murmured.

“What?”

I looked up, aware that Mr. Lusk had bent forward, an ear tilted. My mask had swallowed my sardonic attempt at levity. “The spelling appears to be strained,” I said, a mild enough observation.

“Oh, it is,” he agreed.

I studied the last line thoughtfully.

signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

Very little punctuation, a love affair with lowercase letters, and some terrible spelling concluded one of two things. Either the letter the Leeds Mercury had printed, wherein the murderer had finally named himself Jack the Ripper, had only been a taste of this man’s terrible grasp of the Queen’s English, or it was another man entirely.

A third option occurred just as quickly. It could be that this note was poorly written by design.

“Why haven’t you brought this to the police?” I inquired.

His proud nose wrinkled deeply as he looked at the stained box. “I believe it a dog’s kidney, and the letter some fool’s attempt at a hoax.”

I could not completely dispute the idea. “When did it arrive?”

“Just today,” he said. “In the evening’s post.”

I looked from the box and its grisly contents to the letter, and back again.

That someone might go to the all the trouble to kill a dog, then slice its kidney and preserve it for a few days, wrap it up with a letter and send it seemed not entirely out of bounds. There were always those eager for a bit of fun—whatever fun that might be.

But how could we be sure?

“Your post man’s name,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your post man.” I shoved the box back along the desk. “What is his name?”

“Girard, I think.” A pause. “Or is it Gerald? Something of the sort. No idea of his given name. I’m sorry, I can’t be sure. But,” he added quickly, “it won’t help to speak to him. I happened to catch him before he left again.”

“What did he say?”

“The box started reeking half through its carrying,” Mr. Lusk said, frowning thoughtfully. “He said it came from the eastern or eastern central districts.”

All too big to pinpoint. Bloody hell, I could not afford to chase down a clue that would lead nowhere.

Frustrated, I thrust the letter at him. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Lusk.”

“Did anything help?”

“If it did, you’ll soon know.” I turned, and polite as he was, Mr. Lusk escorted me to the door. “In the meantime, you’d best be careful.”

“Careful?”

“If the Ripper is aware of you, he like as not reads the papers. Preening, no doubt. He’ll know your address, same as I.”

That did not have the effect I was aiming for. Mr. Lusk nodded most solemnly. “I suspect,” he told me, quite seriously, “that I am already watched.”

“Watched?”

Another nod. “I’ve sensed it, of late. Being watched, from out there.” This time, the bob of his chin was aimed for the door he opened for me. “I’m not afraid. Let the murdering swill know we’re on to him.”

I looked out into the fog, filthy yellow and thicker than paste. If it held the Ripper, only I knew that he wasn’t the worst out there. I hesitated on the stoop, turned and suggested, “You should show the box to your committee.”

“You think so?”

“I do,” I said flatly. “If it is not a hoax, then perhaps it’s your best lead. I suspect that it’s exactly what the Ripper wants, anyway.”

“For me to tell the police?”

“Attention,” I corrected him, once more glancing out behind me. A shudder walked icy fingers along my skin. Now I felt watched. Infected by Mr. Lusk’s paranoia?

Or was this another sampling of an opium dream in waking form?

Once more, I found my ears straining to hear beyond our conversation. A footstep, an echo.

A whistle.

A laugh.

Weep for the widowed bride!

“Strange,” Mr. Lusk told me, his expression one of wry resignation. “The last fellow suggested it to be no more than hoax. Said I’d be better off tossing it out with the rubbish.”

Very slowly, I turned my gaze away from the roiling miasma filling the street. Away from the dark places, and the lamplit yellow bloom. “Last fellow?” I repeated softly.

“Another collector,” Mr. Lusk explained, as if wholly unaware of the gravity that shaped my words. The intensity with which I listened. “You don’t communicate with each other?”

I shook my head, but did not explain. “This collector. What of him?”

I was proud that my question fell from my tongue without strain. Without effort. As if my lips were not thinned and trembling with exertion, as if the blood had not drained from my head and left behind a dull roaring in my ears.

“Oh, a tall bloke,” Mr. Lusk responded, one hand upon his door. “Taller than I, anyway, and thinner. Though that’s no trial,” he added with a briefly amused chuckle. “Plain enough, I suppose. Didn’t remove his bowler, but pleasant spoken. Wore a greatcoat seeing some wear and shook my hand firmly. Well-mannered, too, not unlike yourself.”

“Any distinguishing features?”

“None that I recall.” His smile was somewhat awkward, as if unsure what it is I asked of him. “I’m afraid I did not ask a name.”

“No,” I agreed hoarsely. I cleared my throat, my body as tight as a coiled spring. “Did he say where he headed?”

“Afraid not.”

Though Mr. Lusk continued to wax lyrical on the nature of us collectors for a few moments more, I did not hear it. I let the words glaze off me, unable to pick out a single helpful syllable from the lot.

None of it mattered. Fluff, worthless. As if in a daze, I said my farewells, stepped off the stoop and paid no mind when the door clicked shut behind me.

My rival had been here. Here. Before me.

How?

Was it him? Of course it was him. Greatcoat, bowler hat. Thin. In my occasional tussles with the man, I’d pegged him for a man whose build tended towards thin. I didn’t know how thin, or whether much could be attributed to athleticism, but he was not squat or stocky. As always when I met him, he’d worn a bowler hat pulled low and a large greatcoat, standing collar shading his face in every encounter. It frustrated me that Lusk could provide no greater detail.

Save that he was so polite. Bollocks!

My hands shook as I jammed them under my chin, my gaze pinned on the fog that I did not see.

He’d been here. I knew it. I could feel it. He must have found my challenge sooner than I expected; come to Mr. Lusk while I’d brawled with the Bakers and wasted time with Ishmael.

Had he learned something of the kidney? Is that why he’d counseled the man give it up as a hoax?

Had he hoped it would be destroyed before I arrived?

How recent had I missed him? I spun, ready to return to Mr. Lusk’s door, hammer at it until it came off its blooming hinges, but I stopped mid-turn.

Took a breath.

It stank of acrid air, of damp refuse and always of coal, but it cleared a path through my stormy feelings. Carved a swath of logic.

I could do nothing now. Even as I thought it, the bells of Westminster bonged faintly from up on high. Three, and then no more.

It had taken me too long to deal with the Bakers, and longer still to cross the London Borough of the Tower Hamlets. Small enough as each district seemed, they were a right devil to cross on foot with any precision or haste.

I could not waste the coin on a hackney.

For now, I had no choice. I could not stay within Baker land, and I could not risk anywhere else. Spent, frustrated beyond measure, I returned to the Menagerie.

If I was careful, quiet and blessed with a little bit of luck to offset my continued misfortune, I could slip into the sweets’ quarters and find a bed.

It would not end here. I would not let this go. I did not like the feeling of being one step behind my rival, and I feared what might happen were he to locate the Ripper before me. Everything I planned rested on my outwitting the monster.

I stepped into the fog. It swirled and danced about me, bloomed from the lamps flickering madly. Though I watched the shadows, half-expecting a rush from each pool of black I passed on my journey out of Whitechapel, no opponent made himself known—Ripper or otherwise.

If I was followed this time, I did not sense the trouble. Perhaps I should have listened to my own warnings. Opium to sleep—laudanum or smoke, resin or distilled—was one thing. This habit I’d developed of licking it direct might be turning into a hindrance.

I clenched the ball in my palm, hand fisted in my pocket, all the way back to the Menagerie.

I would ease back on the tar. Of course I would. Once the sweet tooth was finally caught, I would return to the medicinal use Fanny had worked so hard to mitigate.

In the interim, I would focus on the task at hand. No more sloppy collection work. No more jumping at shadows. The sweet tooth was in my grasp, and I’d be damned to perdition if he got another leg up on me.

Chapter Thirteen

I returned to find the Menagerie in an uproar.

There is an order to things—a way of doing—that is not so much apparent but enjoyed subconsciously by them what attend places as a pleasure garden or a circus. Things happen as per schedule, things are allowed to happen as per need, and then there are those things that happen as per misfortune and must be dealt with quickly by staff and without fuss.

Many would never notice the difference.

I did. I spotted it the instant I arrived near the gates to find not two but four liveried men waiting beside them, impeccably courteous in black and green. I did not enter the Menagerie by way of obvious routes, knowing as I did the ease by which I could climb a wall generally considered too dangerous to try, but I did mark the heightened force.

Men patrolled in the guise of footmen, the sweets walked in groups of three or more. What patrons I saw in my careful jaunt across the lantern-festooned grounds did not appear to notice anything amiss, yet there was a pall—a barely contained tension that I expected to crack at any moment.

I could not put my finger upon it. As I walked beneath hundreds of Chinese paper lanterns, each a different color and pattern, I kept my eyes sharp for anyone—anything—that might impede my progress.

I did not even look up to ascertain the truth of Maddie Ruth’s alchemical revelation.

Tonight, the circus tent was quiet and dark, its canvas still. Whatever displays the gardens offered, it did not involve the rings. Was it market night? Or perhaps the amphitheater attended—it could easily house an orchestra, or a full stage performance.

Or, I thought dourly, my cheeks flushing at the memory, another round at the Roman baths. The first time I’d walked full into one of the Menagerie’s more scandalous entertainments, I’d stumbled across Hawke looking so much more...more...

Rumpled. Relaxed?

No.

Desirable.

No. I wrenched the fog-protectives off my face, both the goggles and mask, and inhaled deeply. That night was the first I’d seen Hawke in anything but his ringmaster’s attire or working togs. His shirt had been left undone near half down his chest, and I remembered the expanse of golden skin bared for stroking by a pretty sweet at his side.

The heat, the laughter, the sounds of pleasure from deep within the bathhouse.

And his gesture to me. A challenge. Come.

I did not. I’d fled, the first I remembered doing so.

Now I fled still, but in a roundabout way. Into the Menagerie, not out. Under the very eyes of them what would own me, or cast me out.

I was doomed to be unwanted everywhere.

I ignored the ache that caused in my heart. It was a feeling I’d long since learned to live with. Neither Society by raising nor street poor by birth, I had lived on the fringes of too many worlds to feel the sting of a third.

I was fumbling for the remnants of the ball of opium—damn my previous concerns, I was a desperate woman—when a bit of pale shadow detached from the greater darkness beneath a delicate garden pavilion. Only the faintest light reached the colorless structure, and the silhouette became the shape of a woman wearing white.

“Cherry!” Hands seized my arm, causing the resin to slip from my fingers. “Thank God you’re—”

I cried out, dropping to my knees to pat the ground. “Don’t step,” I ordered tersely. My lungs stilled. My heart stalled. Where? Where had it fallen? “Not a foot out of place!”

It could be days before I landed the Ripper. It could be too long. I stared fiercely at the ground, scrabbling for any sign of the rock-shaped tar. Dark against dark; I couldn’t see.

I couldn’t see it!

Zylphia, whose face I only dimly recognized in my sudden fervor, knelt in front of me, reached out to pluck a faint shape from where it had rolled to a standstill beside a stepping stone. “This?”

I snatched it from her fingers, shoved it into my pocket hard enough that my coat slid askew. “What do you want?”

Her eyes, when they met mine, were infinitely bleak. “Oh, Cherry.” It was a breath, a whisper of sorrow I would not deign to hear.

“Shush!” I found myself clutching at my coat, over the pocket. But I did not let go. My heart seemed unable to slow. “What are you doing? You near gave me a fright!”

“There’s been an assault.” She kept her hands to herself, this time—much more the thing I expected of her. They twisted together at her waist, and I realized that she wore a bit of frothy attire reminiscent of a swan. White upon white, with black paint over her eyes and dragged to her temples in artful design. Her long legs were bare from the knee down, which must be chilly, but she showed no signs of cold.

Fear turned her exotic features gaunt. Fear, and anger, and no small amount of terrible sorrow.

I hesitated, torn between the urge to comfort and the desire to escape. What would be more welcome?

What would earn me a moment’s freedom?

I waited too long to decide. She took a deep breath and deliberately uncurled her hands, straightening her feathered shoulders. “You can’t go where they’ll see you,” she told me. “They’re looking for you all over.”

A respectable attempt at brisk, but her voice shook.

At least I saw no obvious marring from her time in Osoba’s entertainments.

I frowned. “Aren’t you cold? Let’s get to a fire basket, and—”

“Listen to me.” Zylphia then broke her own rules—a habit she was starting to develop—and once more seized my arm. She dragged me, protesting, under the pavilion, and I lost all sense of her features. The darkness swallowed us, leaving me invisible and her swathed in the faintest bit of pale sheen. “There’s been an attack on a sweet.”

“What has this to do with me?” I asked, sympathetic but confused. “I’ve been gone.”

“It’s Lily,” Zylphia said, and her voice broke on the sweet’s name. “The bastard cut Lily.”

“Wait.” I took a deep breath, feeling the cold bite into my lungs. The shock of it, the cleansing freshness of it, helped clear away my confusion. “Start again. What exactly happened?” I’d done this dance with Zylphia before. The night she hired me to collect the sweet tooth, she’d been so upset that I’d been forced to calm her to make sense of the facts.

It was unbearable, this sense of familiarity. I knew. Somehow, I simply knew what would come next—and I was as powerless to stop it here as I’d been those few months ago.

Zylphia mirrored my breath. Then, quietly, she started over. “Black Lily was to be in the private gardens tonight. When we realized she wasn’t there, we looked before the whips found out, but she wasn’t anywhere. When we told Ikenna, he put out the footmen for searching.”

I didn’t know for sure what happened to Menagerie folk who failed to attend their duties, but given my own experiences, I had at least an inkling. “I imagine he didn’t take kindly to it.”

“Lily is reliable,” she replied sharply. “We all know it, even the whips.”

“All right, all right,” I soothed, though impatience snapped a jarring note through my forced calm. “What next?”

Her figure shifted in the shadows. “Suddenly, we hear a scream, and there’s Lily in the gardens. The private ones, in the maze. She’s...trussed and...blood all over...”

Zylphia collapsed from within, nothing so outward as to swoon, but I saw it, heard it, in the struggle to speak.

I reached out, touched her arm briefly. But only briefly. I simply could not tell whether she welcomed it or would refuse, and her own uncertain approach to it did not leave me feeling particularly confident. “Go on, Zylla. Take your time.”

The gist was already had. A man had attacked Black Lily on her turn about the garden. A terrible thing, but why would it be pinned on me?

“The bastard cut her, cherie.” Now I heard the burn of fury, strengthening her resolve. “Bound her so she could not fight, cut her across the face, forehead to throat, then dropped her like she was less than nothing.”

That was terrible, certainly.

“She lives?” I asked.

“She lives, but she’ll not ever be a sweet again.” Her voice hardened. “We’ll find work for her here long as the Veil allows, but she’s ruined, Cherry. No man will ever take her like that, save maybe the Ferrymen.”

I flinched. Not a position worth gloating about, that one. “Did you find any clue? Anything as to the nature of the assailant’s identity?”

“If it wasn’t the sweet tooth,” she said fiercely, “then someone else is making a point of it to hurt us, take us like the tooth before. We’re no common doxies and we aren’t for the likes of him!”

A point. My rival had already been inside the gardens once, as evidenced by the cameo he’d left. His calling card was violence, terror and blood.

But he wasn’t the only. Jack the Ripper had made it his business to go after women who peddled their flesh for coin. “Are you sure it’s him and not the Chapel’s Jack?”

“We aren’t to ask.”

My head cocked. “Your pardon?”

Zylphia blew out an angry breath. “The lion prince has made his declaration,” she spat. “All measures against the sweet tooth and the Ripper are to stop. No collections, no investigations. Whatever has riled this man, whichever man, he wants a stop to it.”

“The hell he does,” I all but snarled. Ikenna Osoba was rapidly turning into a thorn in my side.

I would be all too happy to become the shard of glass in his regal paw.

Zylphia surprised me. “You have to leave it alone,” she whispered.

I blinked for a moment, caught off guard. “What?” Then, as the meaning sunk in, I took a step back. “You can’t be serious!”

She threw up her hands. “A whip has spoken! What are we to do? We risk punishment if you don’t leave it alone.”

My lip curled. I turned away. “Where is Hawke?”

“Cherry, don’t—”

“Where is he?”

There was silence. A held breath.

Very slowly, I turned back. My fingers spasmed hard enough that they cramped, but I took the pain and tucked it aside. Settled it against the warm glow of my rage and bound it tightly to my heart. Guilt that I could not free Zylphia from Osoba’s threats, anger that the whip would dare, grief for all the burdens I carried, hunger for a vengeance that would be mine—I set them aside before they consumed me. There would be time for that soon.

With near superhuman effort, I pulled an icy veneer of calm over it all.

“Where,” I asked softly, “is Hawke?” If Osoba would not see reason, then I would force his hand.

If neither would listen, then I had no choice: I would risk Zylphia’s punishment to put an end to everything.

The recognition of this, my determination to ignore her promised suffering, broke something within me. It was as if my feeling—my ability to process emotion and empathy—had been pushed too far.

The world went quiet around me.

Zylphia let out her held breath on a low groan. “Last I was with him was in his quarters,” she finally said, and the crack that revelation put in my heart no longer hurt. I could not let it; dared not break free of the ice that had encased me. If she had provided the man comfort as sweets were taught to do, it could not touch me.

“I see,” I replied, desperately calm. “Thank you.”

“Wait, there’s something you should—”

I gave her my back. “It does not matter,” I said, finality in every syllable.

Leaving her to shadow, I stepped out from under the pavilion. The lantern light glided over me, picked out the shabby little creature I was as I wove among the gilded roses the Veil so carefully cultivated, but I did not care. I did not attempt to hide my progress as I walked to the main estate.

I knew where Hawke’s quarters were. Come what may, I could not be forced to stop. I would not leave the hunt for the sweet tooth or our shared quarry.

Jack the Ripper was all that would lead me to my vengeance.

I expected to be waylaid. I expected a multitude of faces, demands to halt, servants to watch my every move, but fortune seemed finally on my side. Though I saw the occasional servant walking from one task to the next, it seemed as if all who could stop me had turned their attentions outward, in the grounds and to the events planned.

Only once I reached Hawke’s quarters did I stop.

I knocked upon the door, the very picture of polite inquiry.

There was no answer.

Undeterred, I tested the knob and found it unlocked. Nothing in my chest tilted when it opened. Nothing, no anxiety or hesitation, daunted me. I was impervious to all that assailed me; stony with resolve, driven beyond feeling by a bitter purpose.

I had flailed about in this venomous net for far too long.

Heedless of my own temerity, I walked into Hawke’s quarters and opened my mouth to speak.

What I saw froze me in place. The words died.

My breath broke on a gasp.

Chapter Fourteen

The room was in shambles. The bed was crookedly placed, the wooden headboard I remembered cracked and splintered. A heavy trunk that I remembered at the foot of the bed now lay on its side across the room, shattered at one end as if thrown with great force.

There were swatches of material here and there, torn to shreds, and the beautiful black silk coverlet embroidered in masculine shades of red and gold and green now lay pooled in a torn heap, ruined beyond saving.

There was no sign of Hawke, and none of the perpetrator of such chaos.

A part of me yearned to be worried, to bristle with anger and dismay—the analytical part of my mind I now obeyed assured me that it would not be misguided to feel such things—but I could not summon it from the tomb I had sealed it all behind. I did not want to try.

It was safer, here, hiding within my resolve.

If I attempted anything else, allowed myself to think of the fear and anger in Zylphia’s face, the pain she must have suffered beneath the first lash of the whip, the weight of the guilt I carried might crush me.

Instead, wordlessly, I stood in the middle of that abandoned room, surrounded by tattered furnishings, and once more fished for my little bit of opium.

It came to my hand easily. The wax paper sealing it from dirt and lint peeled back, and I bit a chunk bigger than my usual corner. The bitter taste did not wake me. The burn did not comfort me.

I ate it because I must, and felt no pleasure from it.

This understanding fell victim to my apathy. I did not fear.

Slowly, the ragged edges of my mind smoothed. Enough that the frozen rime encapsulating my lungs eased; I felt as if I could breathe again.

I worked to convince myself that I was a thing of flesh and blood, that it was within my rights to feel something besides desperate resolution.

Yet I stared at the remains of Hawke’s bed, and still I felt nothing.

No logic could break through my despair. It folded around me, swallowed me whole. As I had those days after Lord Compton’s death, I ate my opium and welcomed the addling it would bring—blissful ignorance, stripping away all sense of urgency until I could simply stand in one place and listen to the music of my breath as it eased in and out of my lungs.

This, I could carry. This much, I would claim.

I was tired. For the first time, I found myself contemplating what peace a tomb truly could bring.

What a coward, I was.

I chewed the bitter medicine of my failure and it did not taste at all different than the tar that made it easier to swallow.

It seemed an eternity before a gentle rapping came upon the door I’d left open behind me. When I did not acknowledge it, that rapping came again—echoing pleasantly in my senses.

I turned, and the room turned softly with me.

A Chinese girl, wearing the loose tunic and trousers I’d come to associate with the Veil’s house servants. Her eyes were nearly black in the shadows filling the hall. I recognized her. One of the girls who had bathed me. She spoke some words, then, in broken English, “You look for master?”

I liked her voice. Pleasant enough already, but under the dreamy influence, it seemed lush and full—a multitude of ghosts that spoke at the same time she did. Unfortunate accent turned to the prettiest bells.

I did not bother to correct her assumption of Hawke’s status to mine. “I look for master,” I agreed.

She wrapped her arms about her thin chest, looking over her shoulder briefly. When she turned, she tilted her head, a strand of loose ink bleeding from behind her ear to grace her cheek.

She was plain, but in the sweet melody of my opium dream, she was pretty enough for song. Her skin was soft to look at and touched by a hint of pink at the cheeks, and her nose small and pert over bow lips. I imagined that her hair was long in its twist, for I had not yet met a Chinese person whose hair was short.

When I did not follow, she stopped and looked at me with some impatience. “You follow now.”

I wondered as I obeyed whether all of the Veil’s people were so officious, or if it were only my luck to meet them that were.

I followed this dictatorial girl with a servant’s efficiency, said nothing as we stepped into passages reserved for her ilk. A good servant was only seen when necessary, and I knew that the Menagerie’s structures were riddled with corridors behind the walls. I had not known that the main estate would be the same.

She walked quickly, but with neat, precise steps. In minutes, we stepped out of the bare, lamp lit halls and into the cold.

She pointed, a ghostly hand nearly swallowed by her gaping sleeve. “Follow path. I wait here.”

“Wait?” I followed the line of her finger, but saw only a pale path disappearing into the dark. “Why wait here?”

Another spurt of Chinese followed my question; a phrase that earned my narrow focus. “Tù zi wĕi ba cháng bu liăo.” Unlike the Veil’s mocking warning, this servant delivered each syllable with straightforward statement of fact.

I frowned. “Why do I keep hearing this? What does it mean?”

She folded her arms, tucking her hands into the opposite sleeve. “The tail of rabbit can not be long.”

Bemused, I shook my head. Pretty as she made the lilting bells seem, it meant nothing to me. “What nonsense is that supposed to convey?”

She looked at me, the weight of her stare a patient demand. “Go,” she said, in place of answer.

Part of me insisted I obey, that I follow that dark path and see what adventure waited at the end. The other part of me bristled at such easy orders from a servant, and a foreign one beside.

It seemed so much easier to ponder these small conflicts.

Still, I hadn’t expected her to turn a friendly bit of help my way. After the previous debacle involving the Veil’s attempt to enslave me, I had not expected her to be anything but an enemy.

I frowned at her. “Forgive my rudeness,” I said slowly, “but were you... Did the Veil punish you?”

Her eyes met mine, dark as the night around us. Then she shook her head, not in denial, but in confusion. “So sorry,” she said. “No good, English.”

Fine. Though I wanted to pry, to make my intent known, I went, because the instant the question left my lips, I wanted to take it back. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care to know that the Veil had harmed innocent people for failing to do a task I would not allow them to do.

I left her standing in the dark and did not look back.

I passed trickling streams carved and inlaid with smooth, polished stones, topiaries and gardens fading into winter’s slumber. I followed a stone wall, tracing the cobbles for a time until I realized that it was no wall I occasionally touched but the side of a structure with no windows.

When I found the door, I studied its thick metal hinges, the heavy weight of the braces bolted into it, and the wide keyhole.

This old-fashioned type of lock is the best for a student of the black art such as myself. The heavy iron tumblers would hold the door well, but the largeness of the mechanism made picking it rather easy.

I did not stop to consider why Hawke might be behind a closed door in what appeared to be a stone fortress, small as it was. I did not think that he may be occupied—with a woman, or with business, or anything of the sort.

It did not occur to me to knock, for I had ceased to imagine myself a thing of logic and become an arrow of focus in the darkness.

Opium lifted my heart from its terrible slump, and though I walked as if in a dream, I was once more unbreakable. Untouchable.

I pulled two pins from the crown I’d made of my braided hair and did not care when the blackened plait dropped to my shoulders. I’d lost most of the pins I had left. I would need to beg more of the sweets, but not now.

Now, I focused on doing what it was I did best.

It took precious little time. The lock clanged loudly as the tumblers slid into place, and I withdrew the pins I’d used to successfully force the issue. Pocketing them with the remains of my opium, I laid one hand flat against the metal door and pushed. Warm light spilled out to caress my booted feet.

The door did not screech, as I expected. The hinges were well-oiled, and the weight held firm by the stone frame it was affixed to. This was a mighty portico, built to withstand assault.

Was this where the Veil lived, then? His very own fortress?

I should have been more careful. I should have stepped out the instant I thought of the matter more carefully, turned my back on this foolishness.

I did not. If Hawke was in there, then I would force him to rescind the order that would see others punished for my efforts. I would demand he offer resources to find both the Whitechapel murderer and monstrous collector.

I would see this ended.

Smiling without humor, I flicked my braided hair to hang at my back and strode inside, eager to surprise the Veil and his puppet at their prideful feast.

I could never have been more wrong.

The room was a single chamber, painted red and gold by the fire leaping inside a large iron hearth. While a part of me registered the warm air, the fragrance of spice and burning coal, I could not have given name to any of it were I to try.

My gaze, my senses, my shock was claimed by the centerpiece of this elegantly furnished domain.

Hawke hung from a twisted knot of thick chains, his arms extended over his head, his feet limp above the stony floor. He faced the fire, presenting me with his taut back; an athletic vee of muscle wrenched into rigid tension. His crisp white shirt glowed obscenely bright against the fire-gilded tint of his swarthy skin, pulled tight against his flesh with the strain of the shackles banded around his wrists.

The Midnight Menagerie’s ringmaster had always been the center of attention. Now, obscene in his chains, he served a rather more literal center function.

His hands had become dark stains over his head, nearly purple from the constriction of his own weight against metal braces. Black hair covered his face, a raven’s wing curtain, as if he were asleep or unconscious.

How much pain was he in? How long had he been strung high for display? And for whom? The Veil’s spokesman? Someone else?

Who would dare?

Reaching back, I pulled the door shut, lest a passing servant find it and run tales to the Veil.

The metal panel clanged loudly.

Hawke’s head rose. His hair slid from his shoulders, down his white shirt in a pin-straight sweep. He did not attempt to turn, or to look behind him to see who it was intruding on his imprisonment.

He said nothing.

I did not know what to say.

First, I’d witnessed the scars upon his back, painful and wicked. Now, I found him in manacles.

Who would dare to break a tiger already caged? For what reason could they possibly?

Purpled fingers stretched, wrapped around the chains forcing his arms so high. It set his shoulders shifting, rippling with strength I could not imagine. To be held aloft for so long, and still force one’s body to obey one’s will? All but impossible.

I approached on near-soundless feet. “Why are you chained?” I asked, and the chamber took my voice and bandied it about between hollow walls. Even the lavish furniture, as polished and masculine as that in his quarters, could not wholly soften the stony prison.

He did not answer. The fingers wrapped around iron links tightened.

Did I know that I played with fire?

No. Not entirely. The opium I’d taken softened all such fear, and I was untouchable.

But I did know guilt. Where I had hoped to cultivate resolution, there instead came remorse.

It was a thing that grew in one, nurtured on the terrible circumstances that forced my hand, again and again. I knew guilt for all who had come to harm for my sake, and as I studied Hawke’s still figure—stretched taut and silent in the middle of a lavishly appointed nick—guilt once more bit.

The risk was not in feeling it. The risk came with the need to take more tar, smoke more of the pipe, drink even more of the laudanum to ease that guilt.

I wanted to eat all of what I had left. Now.

Sweat dampened my palms beneath the gloves. The breath in my lungs thinned, and I inhaled so deeply that my collecting corset tightened against my expanding chest. “I did this,” I said on the exhale, answering myself with a certainty that did not ring of anger or deserved apology.

It fell empty and hollow between us, me and the prisoner I had put there.

The chains clinked gently. “Leave.” Hawke did not shout. He did not snarl. With only a single word, he laid before me an order that left no doubt I would obey.

I refused. I closed the distance between us, circled around him to look up into his eyes.

They were blue. Violent, wicked blue, same as the heart of the flame within the hearth. They blazed into mine, and I gasped a note that was as much question as bewilderment.

I had seen these eyes before. The first time, when I’d found him roasting in the Veil’s meeting chamber, I thought I’d dreamed them. Now I stared into that wicked blue flame and could not reason why they had changed again.

Was it my doing? Were my senses truly so far gone on the tar that I could paint Hawke with such outlandish fantasies?

He closed his eyes as if to clear them, his midnight lashes a thick fan. “You should not be here.”

I shook my head, as much to shake loose the webs making it difficult to reason through as to deny his influence. “That has never stopped me before,” I assured him.

When those dark lashes parted once more, his eyes were same colors as I’d ever known, tawny in the light and slashed in the blue I’d only just dreamed they’d been.

Readily solved, then. I was dreaming. Blissed out, more like.

There was no other explanation for it.

“Don’t be a fool,” Hawke said tightly, as if the words labored to escape his straining chest. His arms tightened, and the chains rasped and clinked in response. “Leave me.”

If it occurred to him that he was shackled, held from the floor and powerless to force me to obey, he did not indicate it by so much as a flicker. His features were the same implacable stone I had come to expect, hauntingly beautiful in a way that only the truly deranged might appreciate. His beauty conveyed authority and power; cruelty where the sane might require none.

I understood myself to be among those considered deranged. Certainly, as the tar I’d eaten turned firelight to gold and warning to wicked menace, I had no call to reach up, gently place my gloved fingertips over his chest.

The muscle beneath flexed. Hawke’s jaw hardened to near impossible edges.

“This is my fault,” I whispered.

“This is my doing,” Hawke replied flatly, and his gaze conveyed a fury that should have frightened me. Perhaps it would have, were it not for the opium—or the belief that I was as untouchable as he. “You must leave me. Now.”

“No.” A single syllable it was, but it cracked between us like the lash of a whip.

“Damn you, for once—” He closed his mouth, cutting off his angry demand, until the cruel shape of it thinned. He closed his eyes again, hiding whatever thoughts my refusal engendered within him.

I turned, spied a chair I could use and hurried to drag it back to Hawke’s side. I climbed it easily, stripped off my gloves when I found the locks that would require finer manipulation to pick. It placed me on level with his head, forced me to stretch to reach the locks.

The position put me so close to him that I could feel the heat of his body, an inferno too hot for normalcy and too hard to ignore as I balanced my weight against him. His mouth was too close to my temple while I strained to reach. His breath stirred the fine hairs curling about my ears.

If he so much as twisted, I’d fall.

“Cherry.”

My name again, my given name, sweet as my namesake on his lips. But it was not said sweetly; it growled. It shook, a tremble of breath and snarled effort. The shock of it rent through my concentration. With my hands wrapped around the first of his chains, I jerked my head back, eyes wide to find his pinned not on my gaze, but my mouth.

My lips tingled, as if he’d touched me. As if a finger had drawn across my lower lip.

Open, he’d commanded, only hours ago.

My breath rasped out, and I sealed my lips so tightly, I imagine they whitened.

This was not the reason I was here. I’d come to beg Hawke’s help, not his attention. I’d come because I had nowhere else to ask for help.

I did not know what he could have done, but he was the bloody ringmaster, wasn’t he? He could do so much, if I only offered him my pride.

To find him like this, strung up like some kind of criminal? Isolated, alone. No. “Shush,” I counseled briskly, as if I were the greater force present. “You’re distracting me.”

Forcing my attention once more to my task, I leaned against Hawke’s rigid figure for balance and teased the first of his locks open.

I should have foreseen the consequence of loosening the pull upon one arm, yet I could not be expected to think so far ahead when the heat of the man’s body buried itself into my clothing, nestled into my skin. When I was aware of every second he stared at me, scowled at me, and my senses filled with the fragrance of heat and spice and overwhelming Hawke.

When the manacle released, his arm dropped, and the tension holding him in place lessened along his right side. His body swiveled, tore my balance free and I flailed atop my chair, cursing a sharp uncivility. The floor tilted. The chair tipped.

The muscles at Hawke’s left shoulder bunched, his swollen hand whitening around the remaining chain. With incredible control, his body wrenched back into place. His free arm banded across my shoulders, one hand seized the base of my plaited hair, cradled the back of my head, and as the chair righted itself upon all four legs, I found myself pulled hard against Hawke’s chest.

But it was no measure of safety, no rescue. Hawke’s fingers tightened in my hair, tugged my face up. My lips parted on a gasp.

He swallowed the sound. Plucked the air from my very lungs. His mouth closed over mine, a kiss that was nothing like the first we’d shared that night he’d saved me from alchemical ruin. Where that had been demanding, this was punishing. Where the first had coaxed, this taunted. Claimed. Devoured.

He did not wait for my invite, for I had none to give. No understanding how to give it. His tongue plunged between my lips, tasted the inside of my mouth as if it were nectar of the gods he lived in defiance of; rasped against mine with such controlled violence that I did not know whether to be frightened or intrigued.

Aroused, or silent.

The icy tomb I’d placed around me shuddered.

No. I couldn’t bear it.

My hands stiffened against his chest, fingers digging in to the warmth of his body veiled by thin cotton. I pushed, hard enough to garner his attention but incapable of the strength to break his grasp.

He paid no mind, lips punishing, mouth coaxing mine wider, until he could capture all that I had, claim my kiss as if it were his for the taking.

What it did to me, to the conflict raging within me, was nothing I was prepared to understand.

When it ended, I was left with no uncertainty that it was because he allowed it. He lifted his head, his mouth damp and mine aching.

Did the light pick out the gleam of it upon my lips as it did his? I read nothing of it in his stare, for what shaped his fierce expression was nothing close to kindness. “This is what I promise you,” he said, his voice a dark, violent pledge. I shuddered in the crook of his confining arm. “This is what your efforts will reap. Leave. You will not be allowed another opportunity.” His eyes glittered, too cold for the raw seduction of the kiss. “Lady Compton.”

The name of my title, my late husband’s surname now mine, hurt as nothing else did. As little else could have. A shard of ice to the heart.

Perhaps it would have undone me, had I not wrapped myself so carefully.

Instead of pain, simmering like a cauldron inside my very soul, I allowed pride to rise. Obstinacy to win.

I reached for the second and last lock.

He permitted it without further interruption. But his free hand did not leave my hanging plait, and he watched me so closely, until I could feel his gaze boring into me. Searing, challenging. He said nothing, but I knew his glare for the threat it was.

The taste of his mouth still burned upon mine, and he truly wanted me to leave him?

The man knew nothing of me. Or of my wants.

I did not even know myself.

The manacle released, tore at the tensile wrist it bound. Hawke fell to the floor, landed like an agile cat upon his bare feet, and he dragged me with him. Wrenched from the chair, I found myself gripped in hard hands as he spun, took long steps to the nearest wall and shoved me brutally against it. The impact jarred me to the bone, but it was nothing to the press of his body against mine, the feel of his lips taking mine with such controlled deliberation that I had no opportunity to mend my defenses.

His mouth trapped me, stripped away every word I knew, every bit of will I could pull together, until there was only the heat of him surrounding me. The taste of him upon my tongue. I moaned into his mouth; he took it, demanded more. Pinning me with nothing but his hands and his lips, he feasted at my kiss, sucked at my tongue, bit hard enough at my bottom lip that the pain wrenched a harsh sound of blatant arousal from me.

I would never have believed it of myself.

When he raised his head, I stared at him. My swollen lips parted on a discordant exhale. Yet silence would never soothe the chaos within me.

I could not bear it falling between us.

“What, then?” I whispered, a harsh inquiry. “Will you lay claim where there is nothing to gain?”

Hawke’s mouth curled up, a cruel edge chiseled in exquisite resolve. “You lie, my lady.”

I winced at the courtesy. “Do I? You’re familiar enough with the precepts of flesh for demand—”

He shifted, and hard fingers bit at my cheeks, silencing my provocation. “Lie to yourself if you must,” he breathed against my lips, “but you will never lie to me.” It was not hope I heard, or consideration. It was statement of fact, as if by saying it, I would see it true—taste the lie as the weak obstacle it was.

Again with the demands, the orders, the effortless authority.

I shuddered in his grasp as Hawke wrenched my face away, such merciless strength that did not care what I wanted. What I needed. His lips drifted against my jaw, my throat. Over the rim of my corset’s protective collar, his tongue flicked, damp and hot. A groan rose in my chest; I swallowed this one down, bit at my throbbing lip.

“I warned you.” Hawke’s lips brushed my sensitive skin with every rough word. “Now I take what is mine.”

The very threat should have ended my reluctant capitulation, should have torn loose what was left of my sensibilities and flung me into action. It should have earned my ire.

I reached between us, caught two hands full of his long, velvet hair and wrenched hard enough to hurt my mending palms, pulling his head back from me. His nostrils flared, eyes widening before narrowing just as abruptly.

“I am no man’s,” I said fiercely. My grip tightened. “I am untouchable.”

“Say what you will,” he replied from between gritted teeth. “I know what you are, charlatan.” Stark arousal filled his features, and I remembered the same upon him that night—a tangle of half-formed memories shrouded in a curtain of pink and gold. There was no alchemical concoction to ease my way now, but in the silken grasp of opium’s bliss, I felt no fear.

“Then we are both the same,” said I.

His teeth bared. “Do not speak of what you don’t understand.”

I laughed in quiet amusement as I allowed the soft, silken strands of his hair to slip through my shaking fingers. The sound seemed to surprise him.

His eyes banked, tawny gold and blue shrouded in shielded reserve, and suddenly, he stepped away. That I was left feeling suddenly bereft snapped another layer from my protective armor.

How? How did he do that? How did he know how to dig his fingers under the measures I desperately utilized to protect myself?

It was as if he tore through them all, as if they were naught but silk and his attention a blade.

He turned, strode away from me across the bare stone floor. His feet made no sound. My heart beat unevenly inside the fragile cage of my ribs, echoed like a death knell in my hearing. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or indignant at his departure.

Had I been saved?

No. I did not want saving. I did not need saving, not from the likes of him, and not from myself. I jammed my trembling hand into my pocket, fishing for the bit of opium I’d only just taken, when Hawke halted beside the hearth. The firelight loved him, as keenly as if it would bond with his skin, gilding him in wicked orange and devil’s gold.

Real enough to touch, were I brave enough to try.

“Come here.”

The order came softly. My fingers, newly wrapped around the found bit of paper wrapped tar, clenched.

Chapter Fifteen

I looked upon Hawke’s back and did not read welcome in the set of his shoulders, but that was not the way he had ever operated. His gift was not in welcome, not in the promise of safe harbor, but in temptation. In seduction.

In authority and demand.

Slowly, I straightened from the wall. My shoes made somewhat more noise than his bare feet against the stone, a faint rasp of boiled leather, but he did not turn as I approached.

My insides fluttered, as if I’d swallowed a ball of electricity and it sizzled within.

The fire jumped and flickered, painted this strange dungeon in wild flame, and I watched it play along Hawke’s hair. His back. Slide along the high, carved line of his cheekbones as he turned to pin those wicked eyes upon me.

“Fetch the water.”

As if in a dream, I found my feet moving. Obeying without rancor, without a struggle. My gaze slid to the shelf set over the hearth, close enough to keep its contents warmed but avoid burning.

The large pot resting atop it steamed gently.

Letting go of the opium in my pocket, I reached for the wooden handles on each side, polished and worn. I tried to move the whole, to lift it, but the large pot was too heavy for my efforts. I pulled harder. The water inside it sloshed too close to the edge. I flinched as it sizzled upon the fire-warmed hearth.

His hands curled over mine, dwarfed my own. He’d made no sound, but suddenly he surrounded me. Once more, I was ensnared between his arms, caged by the fell and smell of him. I shuddered as the force of my need, the sheer bloody-minded want of him, nearly took my knees out from under me.

He pressed my palms to the temperate wood. With his help, we lifted with an ease that set my heart pounding harder. I could all but taste the pulse at the back of my tongue, as if it were a flavor or a scent.

Walking in tandem, we set the pot down together.

Hawke took me by the shoulders, neither gentle nor patient, and turned me about. His eyes seemed darker, somehow, but the shape of his mouth, the set of his jaw, had not eased. As if he were angry. Conflicted.

Large, blunt fingers pushed the coat from my shoulders. Peeled it down my arms and left it where it fell.

My heart drummed faster. My mouth dried.

Hawke studied the fit of my collecting corset, straighter than fashionably required and thicker than most. Again, his fingers bit into my shoulders. Again, I turned beneath his unyielding guidance. This time, I felt the laces of my corset give.

I took a deep breath. It shook.

“Hawke, I—” It was not him that stalled me, but my own preoccupied consciousness. What would he do? What would I allow?

Would I be afforded a say?

Did I want to be?

The belt holding my various pouches slackened, and this, too, was stripped away. I heard it clink against the floor, the discarded buckle meeting stone.

I felt him step closer, felt the heat of him against my back as one arm came around me to withdraw the blade I carried from its sheathe. The edge winked, razor sharp and lit to brilliant gold.

I felt the same give in my back.

“Such toys,” Hawke murmured behind me.

Delicious shivers whispered over my skin.

The knives were abandoned. Clink. Thud. His fingers swept my loose braid to the side, and I felt the rasp of his calluses against my nape. The buckle at my throat gave.

The corset fell to the floor with the coat, and I stood clad in only my trousers, a thin cotton shirt and boots.

The air that surrounded me was not cold, yet my nipples tightened. I shuddered with the sensation. My fingers tightened into frightened fists at my side.

I swayed. “Hawke.”

“Say the word,” was his reply, but there was no kindness in it. “Beg me to let you run.”

Run? He expected me to run? In that moment, I decided that I was through with running.

I had come to demand his intervention, but the game had changed. I would beg for nothing.

One large hand spread across my back, and the feel of it fractured something brittle inside me. Something cool and cautious; something I had forgotten at his first imperious directive.

I was to be untouchable, was I not?

How foolish I was.

He cradled me in the crook of his arm, supported by his strength, until my boots were removed. Then I was righted, as if I were no more than a toy at his beck and call, and I felt his fingers at the flap of my trousers.

My head came up. My hands laced around his, gripping tightly as heat suffused my cheeks. “Wait—”

Deftly, he reversed my grip, caught both hands and banded me securely between his arms. “Beg for me to stop.” The dark menace in the ultimatum ghosted across the sensitive skin of my ear and heightened that delicious sensation inside me. The flesh between my legs clenched, and I gasped.

I did not beg.

Holding my wrists with a single firm hand, he undid the buttons holding my trousers in place, and pushed them down. My saving grace was that my shirt, a man’s and much too big for me, hung to my knees. Yet I could not deny that I could feel the air upon my bare legs, shuddered as it slipped beneath my shirt to brush against my sensitive flesh.

I inhaled sharply.

Hawke drew me from the pile of discarded clothing, guided me closer to the basin of steaming water. It was not nearly large enough for a bath, and I wondered on a strained note of near hysteria if he intended to drown me in it.

“Kneel.” It was a taunt, a dare that I could not mistake.

He knew I wouldn’t misunderstand. Had counted on it.

My lips curved. Did he consider me so weak?

I knelt. The stone bit into my knees.

Hawke’s jaw shifted, a muscle leaping near his temple. A dull flush darkened the skin pulled taut across his cheekbones, and the answering thrill this engendered pulsed a wicked pleasure through me.

Slowly, deftly, he rolled his sleeves to the elbow.

It was easy to imagine this man center in the rings, whip stretched taut between his elegant hands; effortless in direction, unforgiving in expectation.

I watched him now, trembling with anticipation, as he cupped his hands and submerged them into the basin. Water splashed to the stone when he raised them again, trickled down his forearms and peppered his trousers. I watched the glistening liquid trace his skin, catch on the dark hair revealed by his rolled sleeves.

When he allowed it to drip over my shoulder, to seep into the pale fabric of my shirt, I stirred. The heat of it simmered against my skin, slid across my breast and down my back. To my surprise, a moan rose in my chest.

“Release your hair,” Hawke said, his eyes not on mine but the stain spreading over my shirt. I looked down, breath catching as I saw clearly the outline of one pale pink nipple, cradled gently by translucent fabric.

I’d never had to consider the issue before, as my corset concealed all.

Now color rose in my face, and self-conscious awareness shredded the remains of my calm. I sucked in a breath that broke half way, made as if to stand.

Wet hands caught my head, fingers speared into my hair. I was forced to look up, to meet the madness in Micajah Hawke’s mismatched eyes, the intensity with which he studied me.

I had never before seen that look upon a man, never understood to what lengths a woman might go to do so. What gripped him seemed as close to savage hunger as I could imagine, focused as a predator might upon such tender prey.

Madness, perhaps, but if it truly was, it was a kind of lunacy I understood.

Such things came with the blood, after all.

“Your hair,” he rasped, forcing the words out as if he were angry. Or desperate. “I would see you as you are.”

My undoing, that heated sentiment. Whatever he felt, whatever he wrestled with inside his own skin, it was me he looked at.

With shaking fingers, I unbound my plait. It left my fingers gray and smudged, but this did not last. For ten long, torturous minutes, the ringmaster of the Midnight Menagerie washed the lampblack from my hair. He smoothed the stains from my skin, ran his work-roughened hands over my shoulders, peeling down the shirt’s collar just enough. My arms, my throat, even my bare legs were not neglected. To see his golden skin against my much paler flesh was as shocking now as it was when first I’d noticed it, an uncomfortably powerful intensity that served to heighten my senses to the point of excruciating anticipation.

Each second burned, each stroke another finger of heat burning my resolve into nothing.

I watched him work, concentration and fierce passion branded upon him like the firelight that saturated us both. In him, I saw a hunger so desperate that I felt compelled to look away, as if I had seen a secret I was not supposed to.

Water dripped from my chin, my fingers. Even from my legs, draped by sodden fabric but bared to the warm air between my knees and the ground I knelt upon. My breath came too fast, shallow bursts of air that did nothing to ease the riotous sensations plaguing me from all directions.

Hawke wrung out my hair, and I peeked to the side to find his fingers tangled into the sodden red strands, a look of such possession upon his face that fear crawled inside my haze and shuddered.

I would not be a thing to own.

I scrambled to my feet. The act wrenched my hair from his hands. It swung wide, made heavier with the water, and flung droplets across the chamber. Over Hawke’s chest, scattered to the stony floor.

Hawke did not lunge for me, as I half expected. He did not reach. He rose to his feet, then fell so still, he could have been made of the stone I’d often likened him to.

For all his immobility, nothing in this world could hide the predatory control with which he marked my every movement.

With my heart in my throat, I backed from him. My hair clung to my waist in heavy wet strands.

His gaze touched upon my collar bones. Then my bosom, patently visible through the clinging fabric. I crossed my arms over my chest. It did no good. The shirt clung to me. I may as well be nude, for all the good it did.

Shame and fear and the sharp edges of arousal battled within me.

Hawke took a step closer. “Where do you run?”

My knees firmed. “I do not run,” I spat.

“Then what do you call it?”

He terrified me. This, what I felt, this oddly tender way he washed my hair and the fierce branding of his stare, were all too much. What was I to do with this?

What did it mean?

He closed the distance step by determined step. I backed away, until there was no more room to move and the wall came up hard against my shoulders. It was cooler on the far side of the chamber. Not as brightly lit.

His eyes glittered still, that devil’s streak bluer than any blue found in the natural world. Wicked bright.

Knowing.

“Are you frightened, my lady?”

“Do not call me that.” The words lashed out, ragged and angry.

“Do you fear what you’ll find, Countess?” He did not slow, did not pause. The taunt in his tone was not enough to hide the rough aggression buried beneath. He came closer until his hands pressed against the stone on either side of my head, and he bent until we were eye to eye.

Trapped, I could only bare my teeth at him. “Do not use that title.”

“Is it not true?” His lips touched mine. A skim, nothing more. “Are you not a countess?” Another, this time a nip of his white teeth against my lower lip, as if he could not help but steal a taste. Just a bite. I jerked. “Does not a man of my low-born consequence sully your white skin, my lady?”

Oh, God, help me. Why were these taunts not stoking my wrath? Why did they instead cause a different burn entirely between my legs? Within my belly?

Why was I not furious?

Hawke’s teeth closed over the soft skin of my throat. Pleasure lit across my nerves like a fuse. The cold wall was nothing as to the heat of his body trapping me, touching me only with his mouth. Pain sparked beneath his bite.

I groaned, despite my efforts to muffle my own voice. “Yes,” I gasped, “you do.”

The acknowledgment seemed to light an answering wick within him. A terrible fuse that would not leave me unscathed.

“Then I will touch every part of you,” he growled, and fisted both hands at either side of my shirt. His shoulders tightened, the muscles of his arms clenched, and buttons flew as the wet fabric tore free of the thread holding each in place.

Suddenly, I was bare to Hawke’s gaze. Every part of me, as he’d claimed. Pale and shuddering and damp from the impromptu bath.

Hawke pulled the shirt down, but only in as far as it caught at my elbows. Twisting it tightly in both hands, he used it to trap my arms to my sides, to clamp me against the wall and in place as he sank to his knees before me.

His gaze was rapt upon my figure, fuller than fashion demanded and less narrow at the waist than a corset allowed. Were I standing before the seamstresses above the drift, I would be forced to endure cheerful reassurances that I could be made more fashionable. More to the liking of the Society who tolerated me.

Yet what I saw in Hawke’s fierce expression was not pity. Nor disgust. What I saw was not the ambivalence of a man purchasing his flesh for the evening.

I was not sure what I could call it, but his was not the demeanor of indifference.

“Every part of you,” he repeated harshly, and I was given no more warning before his lips scored a path from my collar bones to my breast. I arched as the sensations assailed me, a drum beating deep inside my body and demanding something of me I was not prepared to understand. I shivered while his tongue flicked damply against my breast. When he found the nipple, pulling it into his mouth so hard that I nearly screamed with it, I thought I might die.

His tongue swirled about the pink tip, and then his teeth bit a harsh line that caused me to jerk against the restriction of his improvised bonds. Pain lit a burning fire that melded with an arousal so sharp, it was nearly agony.

From breast to belly, he kissed and licked, and when I realized his intent, when my knees went soft with abject fear and breathless anticipation, his arms tightened into rigid muscle, held me in place with no help from my own efforts.

His tongue slid into the auburn curls between my legs and this time, I did scream. The first drag of his mouth against a bit of highly sensitive flesh had me writhing against his hold, wrenching at the straining shirt. He was merciless. Thorough. Licking at me as if I were the most delicious of delicacies and he a tiger starved for it, Hawke feasted at my flesh, nipped gently and sucked hard until the coiled spring winding inside me let go.

My release flooded me with sensation so blinding, I could not breathe, lit the darkness behind my eyelids to shimmering fairy lights and forced a high, wild keening from me.

Hawke did not let up, lapping at me throughout, his face buried between my legs as if he would never stop.

I came back to myself with such startling clarity that even my own breath sounded overloud. I panted with effort, struggled to find my footing, but Hawke was not done.

“This time,” he rasped against my thigh, his skin flushed and eyes sparking with dangerous hunger, “I will not play the gentleman.”

“Are you capable of gentlemanly behavior?”

My words. My voice, shuddering with the aftershocks of a release so profound, I could not imagine doing it again. Yet there I stood, braced against the wall, bared to Hawke’s ravenous stare, goading him. Encouraging him.

The unholy light in his eye warned me that my words had scored their mark.

He stood, caught me effortlessly when I would have slid to the floor and carried me to the single bed—fine enough of make, but narrower than the one I’d woken in before. He set me down.

“I believe you to be untried.” He did not look away, even when his words caused a fierce blush to stain my cheeks. “Is this true?”

I briefly considered taking him to task for daring to ask, but it was superficial at best. “Yes,” I whispered. I found it embarrassing to speak of it aloud, more so with a man who was personally—or would be soon—invested in the subject. It was a truth he’d soon learn for himself. “But I am not ignorant.”

Hawke said nothing, yet the hungry edges of his face tightened. It was almost as if he fought himself, struggled with some internal concern I could not understand.

Whatever it was he fought, it did not slow him. I stared as he pulled his shirt tails from his trousers. I could not help myself. As the sweat cooled on my skin, as my heartbeat hammered like the bells of Westminster, I watched him reveal himself bit by bit. It exposed the lean athleticism of his chest, the muscles flexing with every move he made. He was no lumbering dock man, but I was seized with a vicious need to sink my fingers into all that beautiful flesh. Feel the tensile strength of that lean body beneath my hands.

Hear him growl for me.

The edge of my thumb slipped between my teeth as I drank in the beauty unfolding before me.

Halfway through the buttons, his eyes caught on mine. The sound he made fixed in his chest, and he stripped the shirt over his head entirely, buttons forsaken.

I was left with an impression of taut strength, lethal tension. Those muscles carved over his belly drew my gaze lower, to a stern ridge thrust against the confinement of the trousers he made no effort to touch.

Once more, I felt that pulse within me. That needy ache. I knew what that bulge signified, what it would mean. I was no stranger to anatomy, or the working elements of a physical consummation, yet...

I bit my thumb harder.

The shirt fell from his fingers. He approached me, not wholly nude, and I could not decide if I felt the loss or the relief of it more.

I wanted to see what lay beyond that flap in his trousers. Wanted to look at it, feel it, dear God, I wanted to know it. Just as much as I wanted to cover my face and hide the uncertainty that seized me now.

That, my pride would not allow.

Seizing my courage in both hands, I reached for his waist.

Hawke froze. The taut expanse of his belly sucked in as my fingertips skimmed beneath the fabric’s edge.

I could not believe my own temerity, but I would do it. I would unbutton his trousers and roll them down his muscled thighs. I would kneel on the narrow bed and stare, wide-eyed with wonder, as his shaft sprang free of the confined fabric, as swarthy in color as the rest of his skin, deeply red at the tip and glistening with fluid.

I would, and I did, shocked at my boldness, breathless with wonder and fear and a need that would not loosen its grasp.

Hawke stood because he allowed it. Because I think it pleased him to wonder what I would do, faced with such an unknown.

Perhaps he expected me to take that part of him into my mouth, as I knew that doxies and skilled women of the craft would do.

I could not. Not yet. I had not the courage nor the finer understanding, and a part of me bristled with fury at the possibility of being compared to other women, other acts, other nights Hawke had no doubt entertained.

But because I could not help myself, either, I wrapped one hand around his shaft and measured its width.

The organ leapt against my palm.

Hawke’s breath hissed through his teeth.

“‘Tis smooth,” I observed, astonished. I stroked both hands over him, gentle as I dared. “Like warm silk, until here.” Where the raspy, faintly wiry black hair began at the base.

“Cherry.” A gritted word, my name.

I looked up, into eyes smoldering with such controlled intensity, and could not stop the impish desire no matter how hard I tried. Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to the head of his shaft. A kiss, no more, and a dare of my own making.

I underestimated what it would do to the man.

He moved so quickly, I had no opportunity to truly analyze the taste of him—salty, a little bit musky—before he lifted me bodily, wrenching me away from his flesh and higher on the bed. His skin had darkened, his eyes blazing with something wholly different—something I could not read, had no rules to tell me how.

Suddenly, I was upon my back, my legs splayed and held so beneath his hands. He knelt between them. His shaft thrust proudly between his thighs, trousers bunched at his knees. That muscle leapt in his jaw, a tic that spoke as to the level of restraint echoed in the hard sting of his fingers on my softer flesh.

That I was exposed, my most intimate flesh laid bare for him, was a concern only partly entertained. He had seen me before, after all, and I confess to being swept away by the moment. Raw aggression and poignant need; every note of pain merged with pleasure, every rough touch with a gasp.

My body was too hot, my senses wrapped up too tightly.

I knew what it was I wanted, but I had never asked before, and I would not beg.

I closed my eyes. It did not please him.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

I would not.

His nails dug into my thighs, earning a shuddering exhale. “You will look at me when I take you.”

I cried out, a mewling sound that frothed with need and shame combined, but I did look at him. The satisfaction this carved into his taut features stripped me of that shame—in his approval, I found a kind of serenity.

He bent, looming over me with such abject grace that I wanted to weep; he truly was beautiful. Even with the appalling scars crossing his back, with the devilish eyes that did not match, even the cruel shape of his mouth—he was a man sculpted of such strength and beauty.

The hot skin stretched tight over his shaft tapped my most intimate flesh, and I jerked in surprise. In apprehension.

In aching, wild craving.

“Beg me.” His voice rubbed against places inside me no voice should have the measure of, dark and decadent and so unyielding.

I fisted my hands into the sheets before I gave in to the urge to touch him. My lashes lowered, hid whatever I feared he could read within my gaze. “No.”

“Beg me, Countess.”

A streak of pain no fleshly wound could match. A rise of anger that only fed my wicked need. I opened my eyes to glare into his. “No!”

He shifted, and that hot skin brushed mine once more. A gasp tore from my throat, my hips rose of their own accord and I watched his dark lashes flare as my wet flesh found his, dragged so deliciously that my gasp turned to a moan.

A hand came down by my temple, clenched in the bedclothes so tightly that the knuckles gleamed white.

He lowered his head, sealed the distance between us until my hips cradled his, my breasts cushioned his hard chest, and I was suddenly, deeply aware of him in every way. His heat, his physique. His fragrance.

Every way, that is, but that which I craved.

“Do it,” I demanded between clenched teeth.

Hawke’s mouth turned lazily crooked.

Angry, he was intimidating. Challenging and effortlessly in charge, he was appealing.

This? This laconic smile devastated.

And when he dragged himself across my wet, empty flesh, when he stroked the length of his hard shaft over that most sensitive part between my legs, I groaned with the deliciousness of it. And with the ache that he refused to fill.

“Hawke!”

“Beg me,” he said again, a low growl. “Beg me to defile you, Countess.”

“Why?” I managed, eyes closing tightly despite his earlier demand. “Why, damn you?”

“I would have this truth, at least, between us.” The head of him nudged against my opening, and I thought I might tear my own skin off with the want of it. He pushed, just a little. Just enough that the sensation spread out through my body like a wild flame.

Not enough. Not nearly close to enough.

“Beg me, Cherry.”

No shame could hold me. “Please!” It wrenched from me, wild and wanton. “Please, Hawke, please.” I pulled at the coverlet beneath me, tried to twist my hips but he pinned them too neatly. I inhaled a juddering breath. “I want you to take me. Defile me.” To my unwitting horror, tears burned behind my closed eyes.

Harsh fingers seized my chin, and my lashes flew wide to see the fraying remains of his control snap taut. “Watch me,” he gritted out from between clenched teeth.

I clenched his wrist in both of my hands, nails digging into his flesh. “Make me forget.”

He groaned tightly and pushed himself within my body. I braced for pain on some level, uncertain exactly what it was I expected, but all I felt was the fullness of it, the tightness as my flesh stretched to accommodate this new intrusion. It burned first, then eased to something wholly different—a heat with no end, a bottomless well of yearning.

A thousand new feelings rippled outward, drenching me in awareness, in blind need. “Yes!” I cried, triumph and encouragement.

Hawke moved within me, and it was as if everything I felt expanded. Heightened. In and out, he thrust himself within me with a rhythm that wound my body tighter, drove me further and further into madness, until I dug my short nails into his back and held his sweat-damp body to mine.

He grunted at the act, threw his head back on an animalistic roar when I dragged one hand down his side. I don’t know if I drew blood; I did not care. I felt. Everything I was lost itself, drunk on impressions I had never imagined I could feel. Not like this. Not like the opium I took or the fog I walked in. This took it all away. Made everything vanish.

For a brief moment in time, I was lust and need and wicked pleasure, and I cared for nothing else.

Hawke pushed himself up on rigid arms, filled me so completely as his gaze crackled. In my wild state of mind, I swore that his eyes had gone blue once more. Then I ceased to care about anything but the fingers he wrapped tightly about my throat, the beautifully harsh set of his features as he held me down and drove me to untold pleasures, my own spiraling hedonism taken far beyond anything I could have imagined.

When my release took me again, it was to the echo of Hawke’s ragged groan, a pulsing ache, and the sensation of something hot and wet sliding over my hip.

Chapter Sixteen

I was at a loss.

What was the propriety of those moments after a tryst? Was I expected to gather my things, thank him graciously and leave?

Would he want more than that? Less?

Fanny’s hours and hours of tutelage had never covered this. Hawke sat at the edge of the bed, his back to me, and fastened the trousers he’d pulled back up his legs. Whether to spare me the sight of his nude body or for some other reason, I did not know. I could not tell.

The man was damned difficult to read on any other day. I expected no different now. He was, in the end, just another man who’d gotten his flesh.

That I had enjoyed it—no, that it had stripped from me everything that held me down, tore from me the constraints of a life I had no control over, was something I could easily accept.

I now understood why there were them what risked all for the act I’d always considered more of a chore, a means to a wage.

The hearth painted the chamber in shades of gold, gilding Hawke’s silhouette. I eased the edges of the rumpled bedclothes around me, feeling a sense of insecurity I’d lost somewhere between the bath and the bed. The remains of his release still clung to my flesh, and I felt awkward beyond all measure.

By heaven, I made no logical sense.

Hawke did not turn. The stark contrast of white ridges against the tawny expanse of his back seemed all the more bleak this close, and the angry welts curved over his side left my cheeks hot with the realization that I’d put them there.

As I’d found myself doing the first I’d seen those lurid scars, I reached out a hand. Traced the edge of one with a gentle fingertip.

The muscle beneath jumped. Hawke stood, a fluid motion that only served to showcase the grace and agility with which he moved. A tiger, Zylphia had called him once. True enough. Black and gold.

And wicked as the Devil himself.

“Those aren’t old,” I said, daring to break the silence grown between us. That parts of me still ached, thrummed with pleasure and other unfamiliar sensations, made my casual observation all the more ludicrous.

I wish there’d been at least a pamphlet to guide a lady after her first encounter. At the very least, something for brides. Was the expectation that she would have more to speak of with the man she married?

Impossible. I could not imagine sharing this moment with my late husband. Of all the things we had shared, I could not think of the earl as a man to become more like...

Hawke.

Oh, what a horrid thing I was to compared the two, and unfairly at that. The very thought turned me cold, stripped the vestiges of a fading heat from me and left me scrambling for a different need altogether.

I sat up, clutching the bedclothes to me.

Hawke strode for the small table beside the hearth, poured himself a glass of something that gleamed like garnets held to flame. Wine, perhaps. Or brandy. “Leave it alone,” was his only reply, before downing much of the liquid.

My eyes narrowed. “You must think me one of your bits of flesh.”

“Aren’t you?”

It took effort to refrain from gasping from the verbal blow. “If you believe that,” I replied, coolly as I was able, “you’re rather more deranged than I credited you.”

At least he turned, one black eyebrow arched high. The glass in his hand winked. “You’ve no measure of it, Miss Black.”

The cool return of that moniker cemented my hatred for it. I stood so quickly that my legs bumped the bed behind me. The noise it made as it shifted seemed overly loud in my suddenly pounding ears.

“Very well,” I snapped, striding to the pile of my discarded clothing—and the opium within the pocket. The yawning void opening in my belly spoke of feelings, of injury, I had no desire to share. “I shall leave you to your prison.”

“As you should have the moment you found it.”

The reminder only served to widen the ache, tear free the wound inside me. I stumbled over the edge of the blanket I’d taken with me, sank to my knees and found myself fumbling with the coat I suddenly could not see. Not through the blur affecting my vision.

Not tears. I would never cry for the bastard. Not for him.

Perhaps for other reasons. Other wounds.

Even perhaps for me.

I muttered wordless frustration as I sought blindly for my coat pocket.

Warm hands covered mine.

I stilled, blinked hard to find Hawke kneeling before me, his features implacable. Yet he tugged the coat from me. “What is it you want?” he asked, each word constrained to terse effort.

“The truth,” I snapped.

Even I did not know what truth I spoke of, but Hawke only looked down to my coat. Long fingers dipped into the pocket. “The scars are the reminder of a punishment that did not take.”

Any other person might have displayed humiliation, or perhaps a self-conscious regard. Hawke spoke matter-of-factly, unbowed by the whip that had taken his flesh. Unbroken by the badge of shame he carried with no shame at all.

“They’re fresh,” I said again. “Enough that the scars are still pale. Was it recent?”

He inclined his head, looking up when he withdrew the bit of opium I’d searched for. His gaze told me nothing, banked and reserved.

Mine widened. “My doing?” Of course it was. It made sudden sense. Zylphia whipped for her temerity to hire her own collector, Hawke whipped for...what? What part? What had I done to cause his punishment?

I watched him peel back the wax paper with neat precision, my mind spinning wildly. “I don’t understand. I didn’t know... Why? Why would you be punished for me?”

“It was not your doing.” There was no arguing that tone.

I did anyway. “Of course it was. The timing is too neat, you did something the Veil did not like. For me?”

“Never flatter yourself, Miss Black.”

“If it’s truth—”

“It isn’t.” Hawke lifted the finger-width bit of resin to his lips. Strong, white teeth flashed, and my insides twisted as he bit off half of the globule.

My mouth dried.

He plucked the bit from his lips, damp and misshapen. “My Menagerie does not revolve around you, troublesome pet that you are.”

“But—”

“Leave it.”

“What about this?” I demanded, gesturing at the chamber I’d called a prison. “You were chained, Hawke.”

“I said leave it.” His free hand cupped the back of my head, pulled me to my knees and forced me to brace one hand against his bare shoulder. God above, he was warm. Brilliantly, blazingly hot. “Open,” he ordered.

The will drained from me. “Damn you, Hawke.”

“Open your mouth.” Unyielding.

Lost in the driving intensity of his stare, I obediently parted my lips. His fingers passed between them, depositing the tar on my tongue, and this time, I did not await his efforts. I closed my mouth, deliberately sucked at the flesh that had so intimately known mine moments before.

His gaze darkened. His jaw tightened.

This time, when he withdrew his fingers from mouth, he did not allow the distance to keep. The hand at my nape tugged me closer, so close that his mouth seized mine, claimed my lips for a kiss that did not speak of tenderness or sympathy. Neither would ever be Hawke’s language, and I did not care. His tongue slid between my lips, to taste deeply of me, my breath, and the bitter tar that melted between us.

All that I was liquefied into a wild-light river of blue sensation.

It was not until later, after he’d taken me again against the wall, my cries muffled against unforgiving stone and my hair wrapped about his fist—after he’d driven me beyond all grasp of reality and dreamy insanity—that I realized he had not given me any sort of explanation at all.

The things we demanded of each other were not selfless—and oh, I knew I would carry the scars of this night forever.

I fell into a fitful sleep, alone in the bed as Hawke stoked the fire in the hearth, and dreamed of eyes that winked from tawny to feral blue; of blood spilled on a cold laboratory floor, and the heartrending, disturbing echo of a woman’s sobbing. I wept in my own dream, though if I did so in the waking world, I did not know.

“Cherry,” sobbed the ghostly voice. Warning, I think. “Cherry!”

I awoke, struggling against ephemeral bonds, sure that strands of red, brilliant as rubies and stronger than silk, wrapped about my limbs.

The bedclothes slid to the floor.

My flailing hand was seized in two. “Cherry! It’s all right,” soothed a woman’s voice. Familiar and soft. “Cherry, wake up.”

As my vision cleared on the windowless chamber, on Zylphia’s pretty blue eyes free of the black paint that had darkened them just last night, I found myself clutching her hands in mine. Terror filled me, unnamed and with no source. Cold sweat caused a shudder to take me.

“It’s all right,” she repeated gently, freeing one hand with effort to smooth back my tangled hair.

All right?

No. As I shook my head hard, freeing my thoughts from the foggy grasp of my fractured sleep, I studied the tumbled bedclothes, my own nude body—felt the places that ached so thoroughly—and could not force myself to agree.

Nothing was all right. I awoke with fear sour and choking on my tongue and could not fathom why. I had fallen asleep with Hawke’s presence like a storm within the chamber, and awoke feeling empty and shattered.

I let go of Zylphia to her obvious relief. “Where is—”

And even as I began the hoarse words, I recognized them; exact echo of the words I’d uttered after Hawke had saved me, tasted me so intimately the first time. My cheeks heated.

Was I forever doomed to retrace my own steps?

“Cage?” she finished for me, one beautifully shaped black eyebrow climbing. There was nothing friendly in her gaze, now. Nothing but an irrefutable resolve. “It doesn’t matter, now, does it? You’re to leave.”

“Leave?” I scrambled, pulling the bedclothes to me, though it mattered little. Zylphia had been my maid for some weeks before my exile; she’d seen me unclothed and helped dress me upon waking.

She took the opportunity to gather my discarded clothing. “You cannot stay here anymore,” she told me, her voice a pleasant echo in the stark chamber. “You’re deucedly lucky the Veil didn’t send anyone else here first.”

“Here?” I scrubbed at my eyes with the heel of one hand. “Zylla, what is here?”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. You’re leaving.”

I was, certainly, but I’d meant to be leaving with more help. Not more questions. I’d never intended...this.

I frowned at her, taking in her plain day dress as she gathered my things. Not as delicate as the tea dress I’d envied so much, but certainly no one else could have made a simple white blouse and plaid blue skirt look so delightful.

Jealousy seized my heart.

I turned away as she returned to my bedside. “At least answer my questions,” I said, near enough a snarl that I appalled even myself.

The sticky remnants of my dreams refused to leave the fringes my thoughts. It felt as if I still waded through the tar I’d eaten not hours ago.

Had Hawke truly fed me? Had he shared in the flavor of it with a kiss as indecent as it was electrifying?

It seemed as if the heat in my cheeks flooded my whole body. Snatching the apparel Zylphia gave me, I made short work of pulling on my rumpled trousers—and only winced in surprise once before I learned to mask the discomfort my body felt.

No one had warned me of the aftermath of sexual congress. The understanding I’d come to in the small hours of the morning now strained my credibility.

Why would women sell themselves if this was how they’d feel upon waking?

Zylphia did not offer to help. She turned half-away, as if it would afford me privacy for modesty I was not sure I maintained.

What a fool I’d been. To expect Hawke to be waiting come the morning? For what? Polite inquiry as to my health?

The man was never there come morning. If I did not learn this the first evening spent in his bed—willing or no—I certainly would know it now.

“Ask, then,” Zylphia said, curtailing my wandering concerns with a sigh. “I’ll answer what I may. But you must hurry.”

“I’m going fast as I can,” I snapped, earning her impatient frown. Even her dismay was beautiful. To be so exotic that even surrounding herself with lovely sweets did nothing to dampen her appeal—I could not imagine it. No wonder Hawke turned often to her.

He would likely do so again upon my departing.

I jerked my shirt closed, scowled when I reached for the buttons and found none.

If possible, my face went hotter.

Biting back a harsh word, I wrapped my shirt tightly in place, tucking it into the trousers that had survived intact. “Where did he get his scars?”

“The Veil had him punished for utilizing magic upon you.”

That stopped me cold. I stared at her.

She watched me steadily in turn.

“Magic,” I said doubtfully.

“You’ve heard of the Menagerie’s wūshī, yes?” Unlike me, Zylphia did not stumble over the foreign word. When I nodded impatiently, struggling into my corset while attempting to keep my shirt tails folded closed, she gestured absently. “That’s him. That’s Cage.”

“What does it mean?”

“I think something like sorcerer.”

“Bollocks.” The word snapped as the corset settled into place. It wasn’t the most comfortable I’d ever been, but I’d worn ball gowns with tighter fittings. This would suffice for now.

Zylphia shook her head, yet when I glanced at her, it was pity I saw. “As you say.”

I ignored the challenge inherent in the capitulation and asked, “So he was whipped for helping me?”

Her lush mouth twisted. “It seems a common trend.”

My hands jerked. Clenching my teeth, I wrenched the laces on my corset with more savagery than required. My mood was rapidly turning all the more foul.

Nothing a bit of medicine wouldn’t cure.

“I refuse to be held accountable for your servitude,” I snapped.

“As has been made abundantly clear,” she replied evenly. She bent to pick up my boots, brisk in every way. “Are you done?”

Oh, this hurt. Far more than it should have. Faced with such truth, utterly unprepared for the slap of it, I shoved all I could into a fire of nameless fury. “Is that why I am exiled?” I demanded. “Because the Veil sees me a threat?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she told me, an unwitting echo of Hawke’s common refrain.

To hear it spill from her full lips was a knife I hadn’t expected.

She handed me my boots, one by one, and stood by as I thrust my feet into them. “The Veil believes you’ve brought bad luck to the Menagerie.”

“Bad luck?” I snorted a most unladylike sound, and for the first time, Zylphia’s mouth softened. Almost a smile, really. I hardened myself against it; lathered my anger into a shield so hot, it consumed my efforts. “Does this have to do with Lily’s assault?”

“Among other things. You’re reminded, by the Veil itself, to call off the collection.”

I bit my tongue before I acknowledged that bit of bollocks for what it was. Knowing what I knew—that any attempt to locate the Ripper now would be taken from Zylphia’s flesh, that I had intended to remove this threat and did not—made everything so much worse. I cleared my throat. “I daresay your illustrious ringmaster is eager to see the back of me.”

“He is.” Such easy acknowledgement.

“Then you may have him to your heart’s content,” I said, a ragged declaration. Stamping my feet shifted my boots into a more comfortable place, and I shrugged into my worn coat when she passed it. I avoided looking at her, and she said nothing. “Help me with my hair, then.”

To my surprise, Zylphia did. If my terse order annoyed her, if she felt inclined to leave me, she did not show it. Instead, her fingers were gentle as she braided my hair, then fished pins from a ream of them tucked into the hem of her skirt.

Soon enough, my distinctively dark red hair, frizzy beyond measure without the care I and my maids had always taken, was wrapped tightly and hidden beneath a street boy’s cap she handed over at the end.

It felt...nice. Familiar. To have her fussing over me was a luxury I did not realize I’d missed until a shaft of grief pierced my heart, ruined the smooth ease of anger with something tragic and painful.

How much I had lost, and for what?

I strode across the chamber, knelt to pick up the discarded knives. As I slid them into the custom sheathes, my hands shook. Such toys, the ghost of Hawke breathed into my ear. As if their dangerous promise was nothing to him.

Of course. I wasn’t dangerous, was I? I was something made less. A kicked dog, collared by her own foolish trust. I had accomplished nothing in too long.

He had known it. He’d mocked me for it so many times.

Enough. I would find a way. There was no more choice.

“Cherry?”

I hesitated at the open door, looking back to find Zylphia standing, her arms full of the soiled sheets. I could not stall my blush; my skin seemed determined to reveal my feelings, no matter what stern demeanor I attempted.

“If you come back,” she said softly, her blue eyes luminous in her dark skin, “your debt will be paid in flesh.”

“The Veil agreed I’d be kept out of the auction rings.”

She shook her head. “You have failed in every task the Karakash Veil set before you, brought midnight sweets to harm and gotten too often in the ringmaster’s way. You’ve failed, Cherry.”

Failed. The word screamed where her lips only shaped emphasis. It drilled through my head, raked venomous claws within my aching throat and bloomed like a bloody stain in my chest.

“If you come back, it’ll be your corpse bearing the burden,” she continued, but I heard it as if from far away.

It hurt to breathe.

Failed. I had failed from the very beginning, hadn’t I? Failed to capture the Ripper when first we assumed it was him carving up girls from the gardens, failed to capture the sweet tooth, failed Zylphia when she’d borne the whip for my interference.

Failed Betsy, who had left my service for it.

Failed Cornelius, whose cold mausoleum had never seen my visit.

Failed, failed, failed.

“Never you mind,” I said hoarsely, looking back into the dreary gray light coloring the sky.

“Cherry—”

“I won’t return again.” Squaring my shoulders, ignoring the wobbly uncertainty of my knees and the ill-used muscles I’d never imagined would ache so, I strode from the chamber that had—for the briefest of moments—been a haven.

It took me only a moment to adjust to the brighter daylight streaming through gray and rain-heavy clouds. If I blinked longer than strictly required, there was no one else to note it.

Hawke had not the strength of character to evict me himself. Claimed his night of flesh and then left me to another to dismiss. Zylphia’s harsh appraisal of my misdeeds only bound my wounds in acid truth; insult to an injury I would not acknowledge.

I could not let it hurt.

Chapter Seventeen

Maddie Ruth was exactly where I’d hoped, hunched over her table in her strange underground work chamber with the fans whirring merrily in the background.

There was less chaos by light of day. I suspected the others had long since retired to bed. It should not have surprised me that the restless child did not follow suit.

God help us both, I saw in her a familiarity that I dared not encourage.

I cleared my throat as I clung to the ladder that lead back from the Menagerie ground. “Maddie Ruth?”

She spun on her narrow stool, a smile already stretching her lips. “Good morning! Or afternoon, really. I’m glad—”

Whatever she was glad for faded as she took a good look at my approach. I touched the ground easily, though with a little more ginger reserve than I usually displayed, and I was sure there were bruises under my eyes from my lack of real sleep.

If my face displayed any of my inner turmoil, I simply did not know.

“You look wrung hard.” A rather definite observation. “Are you all right?”

“Quite.”

My even tone brooked no prying, but Maddie Ruth was not the sort to take such cues, I was learning. She slid off her stool, stripping off the wide gloves protecting her hands from the tools I spied arrayed on her table.

“Give me your hand.”

I had not the inspiration to argue. I offered her my left, palm bared. She studied the rope wound I’d all but forgotten. “You’re healing fast.”

Faster than I’d realized, to be sure. The skin had already pinkened, a ream of shiny flesh rather than the crusted seal I’d expected. “So it seems.”

“But not so fast that you’re, um, walking easy,” she added delicately, a glint in her eye. That such a look would reveal itself on a girl of sixteen did not shock me, not here.

Not anymore.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, twitching my hand away.

She did not back down. “You’re shaking,” she retorted. “And your eyes are dilated. Does your throat hurt?”

What didn’t hurt? I shrugged in nonchalant admission.

“Your head?” she pressed.

Like a boot pressed upon it. “Maddie Ruth—”

“And irritable, besides,” she added, as if she were running down a list. “My pa would show the same, when he went too long without.” Ignoring my attempts to direct her attention, the girl turned and vanished beyond the curtain separating the chamber from her bed.

“Maddie Ruth,” I called, impatience cracking. “I am not here to be smothered!”

“Bear with it,” she called back, voice muffled. I heard the scrape of wood, and small hinges squeak. “I think I’ve also worked out that cameo’s design. It really does look like you, doesn’t it?”

Yes, I was well aware. Many was the Society maven who swore I had my mother’s face, though often admitted to a shame that I had none of her grace or skill.

I would wager my graceful mother would never have allowed a man to take her from behind, her unfashionably bold hair held tightly as if she were little more than a creature of flesh and sensation bound by a garnet leash.

I would wager none of those poisonous Society salons had experienced what I had. Screamed as I had.

Begged for more.

As I had.

My knees wobbled. I sat upon Maddie Ruth’s abandoned stool before I found myself greeting the floor. I stared sightlessly at the device upon the table, a lantern of some make whose base was fitted with working cogs of some design. Much of it still scattered around the heavy iron frame, leaving me at a loss as to what she intended.

My mind would not focus on anything but the pain in my body and the wide, empty chasm yawning beyond my feet.

Until my gaze lit on a torn half of parchment tucked to one side on the table. The oval drawn upon it caught my attention.

I reached over, plucked it from under a large magnifying glass just as Maddie Ruth stepped from behind the curtain. She saw the paper in hand and nodded easily. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”

I recognized the drawn face on the oval, done to rather neat precision. Maddie Ruth had a deft hand and clear eye.

That this pretty piece of gold had once housed one of the most dangerous alchemical compounds I’d ever dreamed of did not make its facing any less pretty to look at. If anything, it made a surreal kind of sense. The science behind the foolish dreams of old men searching for immortality and unending wealth was often wrapped in the pretty words of superstitious nonsense. Yet as I’d learned, it was also something to be reckoned with.

Alchemy I would allow. Magic?

Worthless fantasy.

There was no evidence to the contrary.

Whereas evidence of alchemy’s viability was mounting all around me. My father’s dabbling, my mother’s own interest in the subject—as displayed by the book she’d given the marchioness long before I was born. The same book I’d had no choice but to abandon when the marchioness attempted to have me imprisoned within my own home.

Damn and blast. I’d all but forgotten about that book until now.

“What do you think?”

I looked up from the paper I’d been staring at, blinked to find Maddie Ruth beaming at me.

“One moment,” I muttered, glaring again at the precise handwriting with effort. There was little to find confusing. “It seems a simple enough mechanism.”

“It’s the small size of the mechanism that makes it delicate work,” she said. “Eat this.” She held out a ball of brown tar with the other. Opium, darker resin than what I’d finished already. Enough for another day or two, at least.

My eyes locked on it. My throat ached. “I don’t need it,” I said. It rasped.

“Sure you do,” she said, not unkindly. “Take it. I save it for medicinal purposes.” Unlike mine, her excuse did not ring patently false. “I insist. You’ll need it soon enough.”

I was not capable of so much pride—not for this.

I snatched it from her hand. “Thank you.” Even that much seemed torn from me.

I did not like the sympathy upon her face as she set another bit of tin upon the table between us.

“What is that?” I asked, hoping to distract her.

I should not have. “Salve,” she told me.

“For?”

Now, she hesitated, and I was reminded of the girl who’d attempted to entice my help with tea and jam. Gingerly, she cleared her throat. “For, ah... For tenderness. In areas...?”

Unlike me, Maddie Ruth did not blush. Her round cheeks remained clear of shame or embarrassment, though she seemed to be making an effort of delicacy for my sake.

I desperately wanted the ground to swallow me. “Thank you,” I said again, even if it did come out more a strangled whisper.

Did everybody know what I’d done the night before? Did I write it upon my forehead with indelible ink?

I pocketed both.

“Just rub it.” A vague gesture. “Around.”

“I am familiar with the application,” I snapped.

“Well, then.” Maddie Ruth cleared her throat rather unnecessarily. “There was a tiny bit of the stuff left in the cameo.” She frowned, apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it here between glass.” She reached across the table, slid out a small clear square from a mix of other bits of stray items. Wire and gears and some twisted tubing.

“That’s good,” I said, accepting the square. I raised it to the light, peering at the faint pink shimmer trapped between two thin layers of glass. “Mayhap I can use this.”

“Really?” Delight colored her tone, and I looked to find her smiling quite happily. “I’m so glad. I was afraid there’d be nothing to find.”

I hadn’t considered residue, myself. This frustrated me. As a woman of scientific hypothesis, I should have considered it. I knew better.

How far astray had I gone of late?

Too far, obviously. I had made too many mistakes, glossed when I should have investigated. How long had this been going on?

I struggled to recall all the times I might have let facts go untested, or been reminded of clues I missed, but I could pluck nothing from the mess my memory had become. Blissful ignorance was all well and good in the dark of the night, but it could not last. As soon as I was able, I would rectify this. I was too intelligent a creature to allow this wayward meandering any further.

To know this as truth, as it turned out, was far easier than what it would cost me to fix the problem at the root.

I wrapped the bit of glass inside a black cloth for safekeeping, then pocketed it with the tin and opium ball. “Fine work. Now, where’s the cameo?”

“Ah...” A hesitation, terribly obvious. “There was...” Another, and I raised my eyebrows as her round cheeks finally turned red. “It’s still in pieces,” she confessed, looking down at the table. “I haven’t yet put it back together.”

For a moment, I was sure she lied. Something of the way she shifted, avoiding my gaze. Something of the way she tapped her fists together.

“If I had more time?” she suggested.

Then I remembered. Had it only been a day since I asked her help? A day, and she’d already worked out designs, given me the residue. “My apologies,” I said, easing my frown. “You’ll have all the time you require, but may I take the facing?”

I’m not wholly sure why I asked. It wasn’t as if I knew my mother, or even much about her save the comparisons Society ladies had often thrown in my face. She was intelligent, versed in alchemical theory, and much more beautiful than I. I knew my father had loved her to distraction—and far into madness.

Yet still, I wanted that keepsake.

Maddie Ruth flinched. “I—I’m so sorry, but it’s...” Her eyes darted away. “Oh, Lord have mercy.” That a groan, and I stared at her in mounting bewilderment.

“Maddie Ruth, what is the matter with you?”

“I broke the face,” she blurted. “Trying to prise the casing off.”

“Well.” I wish that I’d felt something besides resignation, but I did not. I searched, plumbed myself for a feeling of dismay, of anger, even of relief, but I felt only empty.

I’d asked for a memento of my mother, and there was nothing.

At least there would be no way the Veil would ever get his hands on it now.

“You’re sure this is the last of the residue within?” I asked, tapping the pouch at my hip.

“Yes.” Her brown eyes shone with so much earnestness, I could not meet them direct. “I am so sorry, I was trying to be so careful.”

“Stop.” I shook my head. “No need. ’Tis fine. As long as there’s nothing of the serum within, keep it all. Just give me this.” I raised the paper.

“It’s yours.”

It was the contents that would have been all the more upsetting to lose, anyhow. The stuff was designed, or so my father had claimed, to turn me into a revenant. Mad St. Croix had insisted it would remove me from my own body, allow the spirit of my mother to inhabit it as if it were her own. Even the Veil had suggested it.

Ridiculous.

Yet not wholly farfetched at the root of it. There were drugs, medicinal creations, that could make a body so pliant as to do what another suggested. Concoctions to strip the will and leave behind a vacant memory. It’s possible that my father’s madness had transformed the fact of its use to something his crazed mind could understand. The answer to his desires.

If this serum was like that, maybe stronger, that would be bad enough.

Regardless, the Veil would not benefit now.

I stood. “Thank you, Maddie Ruth. You’ve been helpful.”

She smiled. “I’m glad to.”

“Then I’m to go.” I folded the paper, tucked it into another pouch. “Be careful, Maddie Ruth.”

“I will.” She smiled happily at me, all traces of her earlier concern wiped away by my simple acceptance. To be so young. “Will you come by tonight?”

“Ah.” I shook my head. “No. I’m exiled, now. I won’t be back again.”

“What?” Shock abruptly claimed her smile. “Exiled? Why?”

“Never fear. I am eager to leave.” More so, now, than I’d ever been.

And if Maddie Ruth bought that lie, I would be so much closer to believing it myself.

“You can’t go!” she said earnestly, leaning over the desk as if to impress upon me the intensity of her distress. “What of the sweet tooth? What of Haw—” Her eyes widened. As if catching herself, her lips sealed shut.

I could not summon the will to feel shame. Or anger. Everybody, it seemed, knew my business. Except me. “‘Tis time I end this farce. I’m off to collect the Ripper, first. The tooth will follow.”

“Two? You’re after two murderers?” Her eyes were big as saucers. “That’s too much for one collector.”

I did not go into further detail. If I had, if I explained that one of those murderers was a collector himself, I imagined that she’d never allow me to leave without fuss.

I could not afford the attention that would bring.

“Spare me the counseling,” I said, rather terse for her concerned sentiment. “I do what I do because I must. Have you an alternative?”

“Bring help,” she replied promptly.

I almost laughed, were it not for the certainty that it may come out too close to a fractured sound of dismay. “There are no more friends to ask,” I said, not without some kindness. “The Veil has declared all efforts to cease. No, this is how it should be.” How it should have been all along. “All will go on as it was without my presence, Maddie Ruth.”

Her nose wrinkled, nostrils flaring as if she took a breath to say something, but she only grunted a sound wholly unladylike.

My smile felt too brittle, and so I turned, prepared to climb the ladder that would take me back to the surface.

“Wait.”

I looked back to see her hurrying to a shelf half-hidden by the protrusion of the brass fixture bracing the fans she’d told me of. I realized I hadn’t gone to see them. A shame. Aether engines of this magnitude were usually only found on the large sky ships.

“If you can’t find a friend in flesh, take one in metal.” She picked up the net-launching device from the shelf, shouldered its weight and hauled it to me. “She’s a mite temperamental in the damp—and Lord knows it’s always damp—but she’s solid.”

“Maddie Ruth.” The gesture was kind, but the cost too dear. “I can’t take that. You made it. ’Tis yours.”

“I’ll make another,” she said, shrugging. Before I could demur again, she pushed it into my arms. I was forced to hold it, or let it fall. “Long as you retrieve the net each use, you’ll be fine. I bet you can even make your own nets, given time.”

I’d wager I could too. I smiled over the heavy burden, the polished brass reflecting back the curve I only felt as far as my features allowed. It did not warm the ache I nursed, or the empty hollow fisted inside me.

Still, she charmed me, this eager young girl.

“Thank you.”

“I’m just sorry...” Her own smile flipped crookedly, and she jammed her hands behind her back, leaving the thought unfinished. “Please be safe, right?”

“I can’t promise,” I said with simple honesty. “Could you?”

“I suppose not.” She hesitated. “Will I find you somewhere?”

I hesitated, slinging the device over my shoulder. Shifting it into place, I thought for a moment. “No. I think not.”

Her lower lip protruded a touch, but she firmed it before it could tremble. “All right.”

That was that. Simply all right. I turned, feeling none of the weight I should have for leaving behind this brilliant young lady, and scaled the ladder to the daylight world.

I had one more task before I departed these grounds forever.

Chapter Eighteen

They’d taken Black Lily to the sweet’s quarters where she could convalesce in familiar surroundings. Once she healed, I wasn’t certain that the Veil would allow her to stay there.

The servants lived elsewhere in the grounds.

I entered the familiar parlor, removing my hat out of deference to the hushed atmosphere and setting the net-launching apparatus by the door. All remained as I remembered it, although a fire had been kept bright in the hearth, this time, and the curtains drawn to keep out the daylight. At this hour, most of the sweets would be abed. The stillness within the shrouded parlor gave credence to this habit, though two sweets were still awake.

Neither was Zylphia, much to my relief.

Delilah sat upon an arm chair, her straight black hair and pale skin painted gold by the fire she read beside. Her feet remained tucked up under her nightclothes, but she looked up from her book and afforded me a small smile.

Perched on the floor by Delilah’s chair, a sweet with midnight black skin looked up from her sewing—a needlepoint, of all things—and cocked her shorn head. Unlike the last I’d seen her, she wore no exotic feathers, no fanciful apparel. Her bedclothes were simple, plain cotton and without added decoration. I could not recall her name, but she was often the quiet sort.

Delilah touched her index finger to her own lips. “She’s asleep,” she whispered, deducing that I’d come to see Lily.

“May I see her?”

The sweet glanced at the figure occupying the sofa, as if weighing the options.

“I won’t stay long,” I assured her. I had only come to see for myself what damage her attacker had caused—to glean from it what morbid clues I might.

Delilah nodded, then, her features settling into sad lines. “She’s been in and out of nightmares. We’re all taking turns here.”

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. Nightmares, I understood. “How is she?”

The other sweet raised her head from her work, her brown eyes uncomfortably direct. “Who wants her now?” she asked flatly.

“Ephe!”

The thin shoulders beneath her plain shift lifted at Delilah’s admonishment, but I don’t believe it was callousness that shaped it. Ephe’s words echoed Zylphia’s, and told me everything I needed to know.

Lily would never be the same again.

Delilah gestured with her book, her smile apologetic and more than a little wretched.

It was not until I crossed the parlor, my feet as soundless as I could force my steps, that I realized I held my breath.

Lily was a bit of a saucy thing, with a figure men paid dearly for and a wicked light in her eye. Her skin was roses and cream in summer, her eyes a beautiful shade of green warmed by a truly genuine good-nature.

Of all the sweets, there were them I liked more than others, and Lily was among those I favored most.

The woman I found wrapped in soft furs and warm bedclothes was a shadow of that vivacious girl I recalled. It was as if the assailant had taken more from her than her looks—as if he’d carved away parts of her essence until she was little more than a shrunken creature all but lost beneath the swaddling.

All this without seeing her face.

Who wants her now?

My fingers clamped over my hat, bending the cap near in half. With effort—clammy perspiration gathering in my palms—I dragged my gaze up, over the mottled skin of her throat, and looked her fully in the face.

The world dropped out from beneath my feet.

I had known—of course, I understood—what damage I would see. I knew what a knife was capable of; I had seen many a scar. Nothing, none of that, could prepare me for the visceral revulsion that gripped me upon seeing the truth of it.

The blade that had done this was no ordinary tool, so fine as to cause the flesh to well-nigh melt beneath its honed edge. The skin had parted first from the trauma, then widened further when the muscle beneath had failed to hold.

The bastard had begun just above her temple, carved a bloody swath down her cheek, over her chin, slicing a corner of her mouth in the process. The wound had swollen over the night, angry and red, leaving a chasm in her flesh so deep that it would never heal proper again. Scarred she would have been regardless, this much deliberate mutilation only ensured that she would be all the more unsightly for it.

One corner of her eye leaked as she slept, her face white where the skin had not turned angry and raw.

I flinched, turning my gaze to Delilah, struggling to maintain an expression of sympathy—as if it was not revulsion that forced me to look away. “What was she wearing when she was taken?”

The sweet pursed her mouth. “I can’t recall her assignation.”

“Royal whore,” Ephe offered, blank-faced over the pejorative. “Papal purples, mostly.”

“And her hair?” I asked, already dreading the reply. With a stone in my stomach, I knew what she would say.

“Red.”

It was all too coincidental. The signs slotted together neatly, like the pieces of a puzzle I’d been too bloody focused on to see the greater picture.

The attacker had known exactly what he was about. Deliberately marring Lily’s face in such a way as to exploit the muscle beneath—this spoke of anatomical know-how the likes only a doctor or, as I well know, the well-read might comprehend.

The very knowledge of this tore the rest of my fragile hope from me.

This had not been the Ripper at all. This was my rival’s doing. Working for the erstwhile Professor Woolsey, he’d carved the living organs from otherwise healthy sweets, professing a certain amount of savoir-faire for the act.

The first time I’d met her, Lily had worn a wig of false red hair, so that I was forced to ask why she went by the moniker of Black Lily. She’d laughed and showed me the raven’s wing tresses beneath, and explained it a name that had been offered by a satisfied john. Her reputation had grown, carried on a beauty that had not been exaggerated. From red hair to black, she changed her appearance as often as she wanted. Just as I did.

Her choosing.

Her scarring.

My doing. My fault. More blood for my sake.

The murderer had not only taken my challenge upon the collector’s wall, but issued his own.

I see you.

He may as well have carved the words in Lily’s milk-white skin; the closest to maiming me without touching me at all.

I may as well have taken the blade to her myself.

He’d beat me. Again. And who suffered for it?

What monstrous things I had visited upon those who sheltered me.

I sank to my knees beside the girl, one shaking hand reaching out. For what, I wish I knew. I didn’t dare touch the clotted wound, yet I desperately wanted to try—to heal this awful injury, soothe the hurt.

I withdrew my hand so quickly, fingers digging into the pinkened flesh of my palm, that the breeze of it stirred her matted black curls.

I could not tear my eyes away from the raw laceration. This beautiful English rose, with her bow lips and pink cheeks, now brought low by my own machinations.

“Why is her wound without dressing?” My voice was hoarse.

“It’s to be changed frequently,” Delilah answered softly, her tone filled with the sorrow I was not sure myself how to express. I wanted to scream my fury, promise my retribution, but what would that solve?

For Lily, nothing at all.

“‘Tis to be aired, then?” I asked, as if this were the most reasonable response.

“Aye.”

I nodded. Cautiously, I reached for the edge of the blankets, tucked them more firmly about her shoulders. “Have you opium for the pain?”

“Aye, she’s taking it direct.”

I glanced behind me, my throat aching with the lump within.

Delilah shrugged helplessly. “There’s only so much can be done.”

I wasn’t so certain of that. “What of the Veil?”

The sweet called Ephe stretched her legs out, back settled comfortably against the armchair she leaned again. Her tone was not kind. “The Veil’s got other sweets. No use wasting magic on the likes of her.”

“Ephe,” Delilah protested.

“It’s true,” the girl replied with a sniff. “Saves it for more important folk.”

The look Ephe shot me was not a friendly one, and my shoulders went rigid.

Before I could take the girl to task, to enlighten her small mind as to the ignorance of what she called magic—before I could shift all this ache inside my heart to something I could sink my teeth into—a cold hand gripped mine.

Startled, I turned back on my knees to look down into Black Lily’s clouded green stare.

Black Irish, she should have been called. There had always been witchcraft in those eyes of hers. Not anything truly magic; just the allure of a sweet dove and a fetching smile.

Now, she was barely aware, eyes fraught with pain and nightmares I’d have given anything to ease. I cupped her hand in mine, leaning over her to smile as reassuringly as I could muster. “‘Tis all right,” I soothed, gentle as I knew how. “You’re safe, Lily. You’re home.”

For a lass gone on opium, she gripped me tight enough to hurt. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please!”

Was she talking to me? With such terror, I could not imagine so. Biting back a broken sound, I raised the back of Lily’s hand to my cheek and made all the nonsensical comforting sounds I remembered Fanny doing for me on the bad nights.

Her gaze searched the air between us, but I don’t think she could see me. She pulled at my hand, struggled upright. Sweat turned her skin sallow, and the cut beside her mouth gaped awfully as she gasped for air to scream—a sound that could not form.

“Oh, my dove,” I whispered. I perched on the sofa beside her, cradled her shoulders with one arm. I pulled her to my chest until she could lay her good cheek upon it, and as if she realized—as if something in the act set her free—she folded in upon me, clutched at my coat and sobbed as if her very heart was breaking.

I stroked her hair, rocking gently, and let her cry her fill as Delilah and I shared a moment of helpless sorrow.

At her feet, Ephe’s rage simmered.

How I understood that.

When Lily’s sobs turned to choking hiccups, I eased my grip upon her. Carefully, feeling her weight drag in my arms, I laid her back upon the sofa. “‘Tis all right,” I whispered. “You’re safe. Delilah and Ephe are here.”

Lily’s eyes finally pinned upon mine, as if she only just realized who I was. Her fingers clutched at my hands, my arms. “Cherry,” she mumbled.

My given name, upon the lips of a sweet who had never known it.

Fear turned my innards inside out. Replaced my blood with frigid water.

If I maintained any doubt as to the motive behind Lily’s choosing, she had killed it with one word.

Gently as I could, I forced her hands to settle, linked them upon her chest and covered them with both of mine. “You are safe, now,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

My gaze flitted to the raw wound in her face, skated away.

Her laugh fractured, so heartrending tears sprung to my eyes. “I’ve a message,” she managed, through lips that would not wholly connect on the injured side.

Lord in Heaven, I could not bear it.

“‘Tis not important,” I whispered. “Rest, Lily. You need to heal. Delilah?”

“Here,” the sweet said, appearing at my elbow as if waiting for the summons. She carried a small glass, its ruby contents all too familiar.

I took it from her. “Her shoulders.”

Delilah eased her hands beneath Lily’s shoulders, helped her half sit so I could raise the glass to her lips.

Lily did not cooperate. She turned her face away, the injury falling into shadow. Her good eye pierced through my brisk care as if it were smoke. “He said,” she began, her voice shaking with the effort of pain and fear. “He said he was sorry for not sending flowers. He wants this to be thought his reparation.”

Flowers. Always, it had come down to flowers. The bouquet sent when he’d captured my Betsy. The florets he left when he’d completed a murder for coin.

The sweet whose appearance paralleled mine, and whose name was that of a flower.

How I despised flowers.

The glass shook so violently in my fingers, the liquid threatened to slosh free.

“Give me that,” Ephe said behind me, and her dark hand closed over the tumbler.

I let her have it, torn between howling my rage and doing what I could to soothe the ghosts in Lily’s pain-wracked eyes.

I compromised. It was all I could do, and still it wasn’t enough. “I am so sorry,” I said, my voice a hard, steely promise. “I will do everything I can to make this up to you, Lily. I will find this bastard who put his hands on you, and I will make him pay. I swear it.”

Delilah strained to hold the girl upright. Though her gaze flicked to me, sharp with an awareness that said she knew of Osoba’s order, she said nothing. Ephe waited in like silence, as if even she was aware of how much Lily needed to hear me say so.

Perhaps it would help her. Perhaps it was only wishful thinking for us all. Anything to make Lily stop screaming.

The wounded girl closed her eyes. “Menagerie justice?”

Given the orders to cease all action against the monsters, I didn’t think so. I could not say so. “He will scream before it’s done.” I trembled fiercely, wound so tight I felt as a clock spring coiled too far. One move, one wrong word, and I might uncoil with such violence as to lose all reason.

If she cried again, I didn’t think I could bear it.

I don’t know that she heard me. If she did, I wasn’t sure that she’d remember. Ephe reached past me to administer the laudanum, and Lily drank every last drop. As the ruby liquid vanished, I backed away from the sofa and let the sweets tend to their own.

Pulling the hat firmly on my head, feeling emptier than I ever thought possible, I made for the door, and the device beside it.

“Thank you,” Delilah called, quiet as she could.

I did not turn to acknowledge the sentiment. I didn’t deserve anything of the sort. I departed the sweets’ quarters, shouldering the net-launching weapon Maddie Ruth had given me, with my heart in tatters.

Leaving the Midnight Menagerie proved easier than I had expected.

* * *

There comes a moment when ’tis impossible to know whether all cessation of feeling stems from flagrant medicinal use, or the harrowing events of a body’s suffering.

With every step away from the Midnight Menagerie, I felt as if I were becoming a ghost—stretched so thin, hammered so brutally as to become nothing.

I was not so much a creature of logic and reason in that moment. I was not a thing of tears, or of sorrow. I simply...I simply wasn’t anything at all. I walked—which is to say, I was ambulatory, drifting through the midmorning fog as if I were an eddy to blow this way or that.

How awful things had become around me.

To think that I had begun this venture only some few short months ago, when word of a professor buying up all the opium in London’s low druggist shops had forced a confrontation between myself and the man who would be named the sweet tooth within days of our meeting. If only I had known then what had been made all the clearer now.

What a fool I had become.

Yet though I thought the words sincere, they did not engender in me fear or anger. I could not summon sorrow or pain. Where once I had taken pride in the collections I had gathered, night after night, coin after coin, I felt nothing now.

How long, I wondered. How long had this feeling crept upon me?

Did it begin with the revelation of Woolsey’s true nature? Did this emptiness form when the man exposed as my father made clear his intent to murder me in the name of my late mother?

I must have felt something then. Truly, I must have considered something when the sweet tooth whose hunt had led me on a merry chase across London had turned into my rescuer.

Disgust. Relief.

Admiration?

No. Impossible. That he was intelligent, a veritable fox among hens, was never in doubt. His machinations reached for me even now. Cunning, thorough, skilled.

But I could not admire a man who murdered so gleefully, and for so little reason.

I assured myself this, yet I retraced his steps—retraced the dance we had done that fateful night. I passed into Whitechapel, a phantom among them what made their living by day, and I could not now think of the faces I passed.

It must have been many. Whitechapel was never an empty place.

I did not enter the railyard, I simply halted near enough that I could see the first piling supporting one of the many bridges crossing the whole. The peasouper frothed around it, playing a game of hide and seek with each post.

I watched the mist for a time and did not feel fear, or the chill of ethereal memory. Something had broken, I think. Something integral to that internal mechanism that might keep a body going, hoping, slogging through a challenge until victory was assured for good or lost forever.

I turned away from the railyard and melded once more into the streets—an urchin whose rounded shoulders and lowered head, whose slow trod through the idle carts and bustling pedestrians, spoke of defeat. The weight of the device upon my shoulders seemed as nothing compared to the burdens I carried.

I realized then what I had not understood before—an insight that had escaped me when Miss Hensworth had all but thrown herself over that balcony in King’s College. I’d only meant to aid her, to stop her from her mad schemes and help her get her message of equality out in a manner that did not involve murdering them what stood in her way.

She had been so ill, weakened further by the alchemical formula she had taken to achieve her goals.

Instead of allowing me the opportunity, she’d chosen death.

I did not cry that day. Something, perhaps that emptiness, had grown within me; a void I now acknowledged. I’d turned to Lord Compton’s comfort, listened when he spoke of my safety with startling sincerity.IThat Perhaps it was that feeling, that sense of his genuine caring, that allowed me to accept his proposal of marriage.

In that, I think, I’d craved stability—a thing to hold onto when all else went mad about me.

It began with a barmy old professor’s appointed collector. Through the vile murder of one of Communion’s bantlings, the carving of the sweets, the kidnapping of my maid and subsequent reveal of my father’s greater ploy, I had been dogged by this monster. He had taken Betsy, murdered Mad St. Croix in front of me, hounded me with flowers until I detested the very sight of them.

He had stalked me, hunted my new husband, in the fog.

Taking the earl from me had not been the end of it. No, he had followed me, tracked me like prey, harassed the girls who had taken me in. His antics cost me everything.

All that I had, all that I could rely upon, was gone. I was alone. Isolated.

Such utter brilliance in the execution.

When I looked up again, I found myself standing beside the ferries of the West India Docks. Two were missing from the moorings, likely already above the drift and depositing or taking on passengers. I did not see the Scarlet Philosopher.

A fine enough circumstance. I wagered Abercott would not be glad to see me. I had no coin for him, and last ride we’d taken, he’d given it for free, out of what little charity he could squeeze from his shriveled old heart.

I did not intend to take a ferry up, I did not plan to walk into a knot of dockworkers ready to return to work above the fog. I certainly did not know what exactly I intended to do as we boarded the remaining sky ferry in a noisy group, our funds pooled so haphazardly as to raise no eyebrows when I contributed nothing at all.

Yet in that sleeping void I walked in, my feet must have known that which I could not articulate.

Hungry for foundation beneath me, desperate to remember anything at all of why—why I’d made the choices I had, why I had been picked by this cruel monster for his games—my body carried me away from the docks. I slipped from the workers so easily, it was as if I truly was a ghost.

Did they know I had been there? Would anyone have cared?

Perhaps not. ’Tis a safer life to remain apart from me.

A madman’s attentions were no blessing.

As if it had not been weeks since my late husband’s death, as if I were only returning home after a late night’s outing, I made my way through the servant’s alleys and back paths. I was a good sight cleaner than I normally was, allowing my visage to be mistaken more for house-boy or stable runner, and I made it to Chelsea with little interruption.

All was as I left it. The district, once a fashionable haunt, had been placed too close to the docks for Society’s love affair to continue for long. The Cheyne Walk home that had been my mother’s now occupied a district known more for its bohemians, wastrels and artistic dreamers than for its modish residents.

As I approached what had been my home for seven years, wending through the large hedgerows separating my—that is, the old property from Lady Pennington’s mother beside it, the first of the changes made itself clear.

Black crepe covered the windows, hanging in large ruffles from the each of the doors. It was as if someone had dared to take this charming home and blacken its eyes, shroud its facing in deference to the presence of death.

I would not be able to climb the wall to my window—and I was not certain the window would be unlocked—so I approached the back door instead.

I was not surprised to find it locked, but I confess to disappointment.

What had I expected? A welcome with open arms?

After vanishing so suddenly, I did not imagine that anyone would be so kind.

And yet, even as I tipped my head back to look up at the shrouded windows above me, my heart began to pound.

Was there anyone home?

I needed to see them. My family, my staff. I had precious little experience by way of blood relation, but the man who had sired me had also attempted to end my life, and all I had ever known of my mother had been flung at me in disappointment. I did not come from loving stock.

Fanny had changed all that. Stern-faced Fanny, with her iron gray hair and pale eyes, her features a map of all the years that had shaped her. Night after night, year after year, she had molded me, guided me.

Was Booth inside? If I knocked, would he come? Would he smile kindly down upon me and accept that his charge had returned unscathed, or would he allow Mrs. Booth to lecture me soundly as she’d used to in the kitchens when my mischief proved too much underfoot to handle?

Was Leviticus here? The young house-boy had been Booth’s apprentice, as it were, learning how to guide a gondola and often up to no good when he wasn’t kept busy.

I laid my hand upon the door and thought of each of my loved ones, as dear to me as any blood should have been.

It was not that I made a decision, not really. I simply acted. What had I to lose? With trembling fingers, I plucked two pins from my hair and cracked my own home, picking the lock with ease.

There was no gasp or shouted call from Mrs. Booth to greet me as I slipped inside. There was no warmth in the kitchen fires, nor smell of food prepared. The lamps were dark, and had been for some time. Only the grayest daylight found its way through the windows, each draped in that damnable black.

I shut the door behind me and listened to the stillness of my home.

It echoed eerily that of the empty void within my heart.

I do not know how long I stayed there, straining to hear a noise—any noise at all—but there was nothing. When I moved, I did so with a surety of purpose that my intellect did not recognize. I had no real plan, yet I put the net-launching device down in the kitchen, moved through the hall, one hand trailing over the stripes papered on its walls. I seized the head of the lion whose kingly form shaped the newel at the bottom of the stairs.

I took them two at a time, shouting, now. “Fanny?” My footsteps thundered. “Booth!”

No answer.

I threw open the door to my bedroom. Dust motes skirled into the gray light. Black crepe masked the window, turning the dusky rose and burgundy patterns of my boudoir into a murky shade of gray and brown, and I saw the same black fabric covering the mirror of my vanity.

At first glance, it seemed as if nothing at all had changed, but for the mourning shrouds.

Then I noted the emptiness of that vanity. The lack of books upon my shelves. My desk, a delicate piece that had once held my journals, ink and paper, was empty.

Everywhere I looked, there was nothing to find. No clothing in the trunks that had once held all the outfits Fanny had picked from Madame Toulouse’s stock, no books, none of the tools I’d stored beneath the bed for repairing my corset and fog-preventatives.

Even the delicate silver frames, of French origin and gifted by my late husband, were gone.

My mother’s journal, given to the Marchioness Northampton at one time and gifted in turn to me by Lord Piers Everard Compton, no longer sat where I had left it.

It was as if I had never existed.

For the first time since leaving the Menagerie, tears threatened to break free of whatever obstacle denied me the release. My throat ached with them, an awful pain forming in my chest, squeezing my heart. If I could not feel sorrow, grief—if I could not mourn—then by God, I would feel pain.

A ghost, I had become, and as a ghost, I left my bedroom to enter Fanny’s. Like mine, it was empty of all personal belongings. The furniture had not changed, the mirrors covered all the same, but nothing of the woman remained behind.

From room to room, down the stairs and into the parlor, I searched for any sign of my staff.

I found none.

When I finally made it into the study—Ashmore’s study, Fanny had often reminded me, and I had long determined to make it mine upon inheriting—I felt as if a stern word might break me irreparably. I leaned against the door, fingers splayed as if it could catch me, and rested my forehead against the gleaming wood.

The house stood, furnished as it always had been, with pieces collected first by my father in his varied travels, then added to by my father’s executor. Ashmore had often sent pieces back, some large and some small, of Indian make or Chinese, African or Russian, Egyptian, Greek. So much history, so many memories wrapped in each piece, and yet, it was is if the heart had bled from the place.

What was a roof, what were things, without the people that had made it a home?

Everything ached. My body ceased to obey all will, and I hovered outside that study for so long, the light filtered through black crepe changed.

Finally, seizing what little courage I had left—or perhaps just resigned for the final nail to be hammered into the coffin of my devastation—I pushed open the study door.

More of the mourning crepe covered the windows, turning the light to ash. I had expected to find the whole wiped clean, emptied of the things that had made it so much Abraham St. Croix’s study, but it was not.

I stepped into the room, my breath held, desperately afraid to make a noise, lest a single sound shatter this dream and leave me standing among empty shelves. My head ached so badly, it was all I could do to focus through the pressure.

With one shaking hand, I reached out to touch a ream of books upon one shelf.

They did not vanish.

The heavy wooden desk was still in place, and upon it the things that had always been there. The papers were gone, but the globe remained, covered in a fine sheen of dust. The small boxes carved from cinnabar, the ivory pipes and large horn upon the mantle. An astrolabe beautifully designed and worked in copper and brass sat beside a telescope whose sheen had dulled without polish.

And among them all, spines of every color and size, some worn and some new enough for the gilt to catch what stray bits of light it could, the books remained.

A sob wrenched at my chest.

I did not allow it passage.

Instead, as my booted feet made no sound upon the Oriental rug, I crossed the study and tore the black shroud from the mirror hanging beside one shelf. The frame, carved with scenes of Russian stories, gleamed as the material slid to the ground. I stared up into the silvered glass and did not recognize the face that looked back.

My mother’s face, I’d been told. All the coloring with none of the Societal accomplishments to ease the sting.

Too much my father’s mind.

My eyes were large in my face, too wide, the green of them so very dark. I sported no bruises from my fight with the Bakers, and while that should have been a surprise, I felt as if I carried all the wounds upon the inside.

I reached up with a trembling hand, touched the glass. Perhaps I considered climbing through, like Alice in her backwards Wonderland, but the mirror did not bend.

Behind me, reflected in reverse and looking all the brighter for the mirror’s unveiling, the study that should have been mine waited in silent serenity.

I would never claim the books within. I couldn’t, for upon my marriage, everything I was to inherit passed to Compton.

When he died, it all turned to his heir—his father, whose wife despised me for slights I had never understood. The same woman my mother had gifted her alchemical journal to.

It seemed, no matter what I was or where I would go, I would always carry my mother’s ghost.

My lashes lowered, heavy lidded with a fatigue so thorough, it took all I had to remain standing. In the back of my thoughts, a woman laughed—haunting memories, recurring dreams, from the night my father’s serum nearly ended me.

This had been my father’s study, a place so redolent of his tastes that I had spent many an hour hidden within, escaping Fanny’s searching and imagining that I could know my father through his things. I had spent so long among these items, associating them with a man who had not at all turned out to be anything like I had fancied.

As I dropped my hand, leaving a faint smear on the glass, my gaze fell upon a narrow book tucked between two larger tomes.

A thin volume, one whose beautifully tooled leather showed wear.

With trembling fingers, I extracted the book from the shelf. There was no gilt upon the spine, none at the front. Yet as I opened to the first page, a familiar elegant script greeted me.

For my dearest Almira. Love, your Josephine.

Whoever had removed my things must have considered the book belonging here. I idled through the pages, allowing my eyes to skim rather than indulge, to drink in the symbols, the prose, the penmanship that was Josephine St. Croix’s own hand.

Filled with theoretical concern and moral discourse, this was proof that my mother had shared in Mad St. Croix’s scientific mind. That she had been every bit as brilliant as she had been lauded for her salon accomplishments.

She had not allowed the world to strip her of her mind.

My father might have been driven beyond all measure by his wife’s untimely death, but he had not always been so. The rumors often spoke of his genius. It wasn’t until after his supposed death in a Scotland estate I had never seen did they call him Mad St. Croix—a moniker long since earned.

But not then. Not when he had her to love.

My mother must have chafed under the constrains of Society’s mores, and yet here, I held proof she did not allow any to stop her.

Not even a marchioness.

I snapped the book closed, looking up from its filled pages to stare hard in the mirror in front of me.

Frizzed tendrils of my dark red hair jutted out from beneath the brown street boy’s cap hiding the rest. There were traces of dirt and grime upon me, likely picked up from simply passing through the soot-streaked fog, but beneath, I saw the nose and chin that shaped the cameo of my mother. I recognized the cheekbones, the mouth. I was my mother’s child, I had no choice in the matter, but I would not be her shadow. I would not be the dog kicked aside for lack of better breeding.

Josephine St. Croix might have been an angel—an auburn beauty with innumerable talents—but I was not her. I would not rely on men to take my thoughts and make them a matter of discourse; I would not spread my wings in a gilded cage to sing for a Society who feared a woman’s intellect. I would not allow myself to be bullied into a path I did not choose.

No man could control me. No husband, no whip, no monster, no alchemical serum, no bloody secretive Veil.

I would not be defeated.

I pushed the journal into one of the large pouches at my belt, clicking my teeth together when the ache in my throat sharpened.

So my plans had fallen through. So my challenge had worked all too well. Lily would suffer for it all her life, and I would bear that for all of mine. Hawke might think my pride broken, but I would not bend—not for him, not for anyone ever again. Foolish I might have been to consider he would help me—and more so for giving in to that manipulative temptation he was so famed for—but it was done. The milk had spilled, and I would shed no tears for it.

This was not over.

No more weakness. No more giving up.

Of all the options left for me, I had only one that I cared to follow. One that would place the sweet tooth in my sights. Jack the Ripper, vile fiend that he was, must be found.

I had no doubt that finding him would lead me to my rival.

I did not even turn to look behind me as I collected Maddie Ruth’s net-launching apparatus and left the shell of my empty house. I found my way to the docks, to turn south once I’d smuggled my way onto a ferry and sank once more below the drift.

If any part of me demanded to cry, a bite of spice-laden opium quelled the urge. There would be no tears shed. Not now, and not for anyone living.

The demands of the dead were already too heavy.

How many more would die before the Ripper could be found?

Chapter Nineteen

I made my way to Blackwall, and spent the rest of the afternoon with the Bakers. Once more resolved, the hardest part of this game began. I could not make a move until the Ripper once more played his hand.

I counted down the hours as I waited in brittle impatience from within the pub the Bakers had set up keep. The Fish-Eyed Lady was not known for its fine ale or even for its choice of brews, but the proprietor was the father of a Baker and saw no harm in the protection afforded by becoming a favored establishment.

For the most part, I was left alone. Only Ishmael, arrived shortly after I’d collared a kinchin cove to run a message for me, kept me company.

We did not speak beyond the formalities. “Any word?” I demanded upon his arrival.

“None.”

I thought of Black Lily, and the bloody wound marring her face. “There will be.”

We wiled away the time playing faro. Ishmael won more often than not. I’d never been particularly good with cards.

Food was offered, but I declined. I hadn’t been hungry for days, it seemed. When my head began to pound, I calmed it with the tar Maddie Ruth had given me, and the Bakers looked on and said nothing.

I no longer felt shame. I waited, with a patience I did not recognize, and tried not to think of the fact that I waited for one of two murderers to strike again. To make a mistake, maim another living soul so that I might find him.

I had no surety that the Bakers would be successful, but I had little else to depend upon.

I was held hostage by my rival’s upper hand. I simply chose not to give in.

As the hours dwindled into early evening, the fog thickened outside the papered windows. The men inside the pub doubled, then emptied as they departed on whatever tasks they held important. More came, and stayed this time. We all waited. The stench of Blackwall turned bitter with the peasouper’s encroach.

As I prepared to win only my third hand in as many hours, a Baker bantling burst from the door.

“Communion! Communion!” The boy, red-faced and drenched in sweat, was filthy as a sewer rat and gasping for breath. The men jostled him along, until he staggered into the small space afforded around our table.

Ishmael clapped a hand to him, steadying him on his newspaper-wrapped feet. “Breathe a moment.”

The youth sucked in great gobs of air, but his grimy fist unclenched enough to drop a filthy scrap of parchment on the table.

Ishmael picked it up first. His thick, blunt fingers unfurled the note to find it nearly shorn in half. His eyebrows furrowed deeply, a beetled mask of concern. “A notice.”

I took the note from him and smoothed it out upon the table. “‘Tis Jack the Ripper’s collection notice,” I said, and did not have it in me to worry when my tone was as nonchalant as if we spoke of something much less bloody; what I’d taken to be grime was not.

The bantling heaved in a breath and exclaimed, “Sommat shivved Coventry!”

The curses, growls and shouts this engendered turned far too much attention on me. I scowled. “I was here,” I pointed out, refraining from calling them on their lack of obvious reasoning. “And the collection for him is living, not dead.”

Ishmael leaned forward, resting an elbow on his large knee. Ignoring the crowd now looming around us, he focused instead on the child. “Breathe up, Jim. Where’d the note come from?”

The boy shot me a look from hooded green eyes. One was fiercely red, as if he fussed at it often—a supposition confirmed when the kinchin lifted the back of a dirty hand and scrubbed at the irritated eye before answering. “Was s’posed t’meet Coventry at the foot o’Baker’s Row, so went footin’ it.”

The street was north of the railyard, as I recalled. Nothing to do with the gang, despite the name. Well, save that it seemed Bartholomew Coventry had been enshrined there.

I twitched the collection note, separating the halved fragments until the narrow margin holding them together tore.

It was the original note, all right. Sliced by my blade.

So I was right. The collector was afoot. And he started by killing a man I’d already plucked a notice for. He obviously wasn’t aware of my dealings with the Veil. As far as he knew, if I’d ever hoped to garner that coin, it wouldn’t happen now.

What a right bastard, he was.

“Near broke me arse fallin’ on ‘im,” the boy added. “Stiffer’n a choker at th’ ‘At.”

If he was at all disturbed to have found his mate dead, there was nothing of it about his personage. That was simply a fact of living in London low. A shame, but what irritated me was the point of pride behind his storytelling.

Wasn’t every day that a bantling stumbled upon a big man like Coventry brought low.

“And the note?” I asked.

“Was ‘angin’ from ‘is mouf,” he said to me. “Like he was t’ swallow an’ di’n’t.”

“Good work.” Ishmael clapped him on the shoulder, the way he might another man, and the boy’s thin chest swelled beneath his threadbare, too-small jacket. A palliard, unless I missed my guess. Born to a beggar who was himself born to a beggar. Palliards learned early how to navigate the city, and many knew the secret paths to the mysterious Underground. This kinchin had likely grown up knowing how to make his way unseen through the streets.

I put the two halves of the notice together, lining up the faded text. Nothing had changed, save the blood tingeing the edges—and the remnants of dried saliva and still damp sweat, apparently.

“Wossat say?” shouted a Baker from the far corner.

I ignored the call, leaving Ishmael to deal with the men.

Carefully, I turned the parchment over.

Brown script, still faintly red in places, stained the two halves. I squinted at the cramped, deeply slanted handwriting.

My blood turned to ice.

Tick tock, Miss St. Croix.

I stood so sharply, my chair skittered back. “I must go.”

“You know where you’re going?” This from Communion, who had not stood, but still could look me in the eye from his seat.

“I know where.” The phrasing was too familiar. Too obvious. Tick tock, Miss St. Croix. The last I’d seen this handwritten warning, he’d held my Betsy hostage at the Whitechapel railyard.

This was quite obviously a summons, and this time I would not be caught unawares. I bent, lifted the net-launching device from beneath the table I’d stored it under, and shouldered the heavy brass case.

“Right.” Ishmael’s deep voice broke through my grim contemplation. Flattening a large hand atop the table, he lifted his heavy bulk from the chair straining to hold his massive size. “Then we shall—”

“No.”

The men shouted, varying disagreements with my brisk temerity.

I stepped around the table, closer to him—close enough that eager ears could not so easily listen. Looking up into his yellowed eyes, I laid a hand upon his forearm and said urgently. “This is a summons to come alone. Anyone I bring will be in grave danger.”

His scowl was a fierce, belligerent thing. “Girl, that just means we go in numbers.”

“No. Ish, please,” I pleaded. “He’ll know you’re there, he’ll know we’re friends. It’ll be you he goes for, and even if all the Bakers in London rend him limb from limb, it’ll be you who dies first. He’ll stop at nothing to ensure it.”

Ishmael’s shoulders squared, like a mountain shrugging. “Even more reason.”

“Even more reason for you to stay,” I insisted, and this time, I did not hide the naked fear I felt. To look into his bullish features, imagine seeing them slack in death, was a pain that sheared through ice and emptiness. “I have lost too much to this monster. Friends, a husband—”

Surprise pulled at his expression.

I barreled on before he could ask. “I will not lose another. I know he took from you a man, and I will avenge him. I will avenge them all.”

“Menagerie justice.” It was a flat question, one that was not delivered as such.

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure I spoke the truth. Regardless of anything I felt for Hawke, for the Veil, Menagerie justice was the worst I could envision. If I brought him to the Veil’s own doors, would the collector answer for his crimes against Midnight sweets?

I had to believe he would. If not...

If not, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

I opened one of my pouches, pulled out the journal. Within its pages, I placed the drawing Maddie Ruth had done of the cameo’s bits, and added the cloth-wrapped bit of glass with the remnants of the serum. “I need you to keep this safe, Ish.”

He did not argue as his large hands engulfed the precious remains of my life. But he did ask, “Why?”

“Because I’ll need that when I come back,” I said with a brevity I did not feel. “You’re the only one I trust to hold it.”

The only friend I had left, for all that.

“And I’ll owe you the value of your man’s life,” I added. “Coventry wasn’t to die.”

“You do owe it.” His other hand came down upon my head, flattening over the street boy’s cap I still wore. “We’ll ring the Chapel.”

“But—”

“We’ll stay out, but keep it watched,” he said over me, his deep voice filling the pub. “If it ain’t you coming out, it’ll be him, and we’ll wait for it.”

It was the best I would be offered. I was not so important to the whole of the gang that my needs would outweigh theirs. Yet even this much was a measure of confidence I didn’t know Ish had in me.

I nodded solemnly. “That’s a bargain.”

Mercifully, he did not spit in his hand when he offered it.

* * *

I entered the Whitechapel railyard alone.

The fog filled every crevice, painted the air with the foul stench of the factory smoke and the eye-watering remains of rot and refuse. Safe behind my protectives, I watched the peasouper shift—a roiling sea of yellow-tinged froth—and swallowed all of the last of my opium. It should have lasted much longer than a few hours, of course, yet I did not dwell.

In truth, I was not entirely sure I would escape this one with all my faculties intact. Victory or defeat, my rival would not go down easy.

The tar left a burning fist in my belly, but from that warmth, I drew strength.

My re-breather snapped once more into place, affixed firmly to my mouth and turning my own breath into a harsh whisper.

I had returned. Here, to the collection of abandoned trains emptied for the night’s service, the scattered bones of vacant tracks. Where I’d first faced the murderer who had taken my maid, the monster who had worked for my father. Who had killed and killed again, all in the name of something I could not wholly understand.

Here, where I would face he who had ended any hope of the life I’d chosen to lead.

I had expected the Ripper to lead me to him, but I was wrong. To my surprise, the challenge alone had been enough to bring my rival directly to me. I was doomed to forever misjudge the man, it seemed.

Tick tock, Miss St. Croix.

“Weep for the widowed bride,” I whispered, and the confines of my respirator swallowed the sound.

Tonight, we would see who wept.

My feet crunched on rock and gravel. The steady rains of late had saturated the ground, turning all to a damp, clinging sheet that crept beneath one’s protective clothing and sank cloying fingers into one’s skin. It was the common onset of winter below the drift, where the factory toxins combatted the rain to create a humid shroud.

I pushed through it, the yellow lens of my goggles outlining the looming thrust of train cabooses and empty stacks from the haze. I would not be caught unawares here. Not this time. I was prepared as I could be, with the net-launching device upon my back and the knives in my armored corset.

All I lacked was the long-gun Zylphia had borrowed from my butler the last time.

I missed its comforting heft, a sight easier than Maddie Ruth’s invention, but I knew even without understanding why it would not have mattered.

I needed to look this man in the eye when I delivered him to justice. Perhaps I’d even hear him beg.

The thought stuck in my chest. Twisted hard enough to force me to pause, pull in a deep breath.

Beg me, whispered Hawke’s voice in my mind.

Never again.

Bliss wrapped itself about my senses, turning the streaked fog to something stark and near tangible. As if I were clothed in fur. The pressure eased from me.

Hawke’s whisper did not. Beg me to defile you, Countess.

I slipped off the path.

Weep for the widowed bride!

They came at me from the cloud I forged through, voices spun from nothing. Perhaps I’d taken too much of the tar. Perhaps my intent translated into memories guaranteed to pluck chords of haunted fear from me.

I set my jaw, forced the haggard voices from my mind. I allowed the net-launching apparatus to hang by its leather harness for a moment, and wiped sweaty palms down my trousers.

“Where are you?” I whispered.

The railyard was silent. Echoes of my footsteps rang hollowly as I stepped over a track that ended not far to my left, its space taken by an empty rail car.

Cherry...

I hesitated, one foot balanced upon the rail, and cocked my head. A woman’s voice. My name?

No. Certainly not. Yet a woman’s voice nonetheless. That my mind, soaked in Turk’s bliss, chose to give the sound the shape of my name was simply a matter of mild delirium.

Fear and opium; a dangerous concoction if one was not prepared, as I was.

Again, it came. Cherry. Followed by a high-pitched shriek that sliced through my dreamlike state of understanding.

I spun, device gripped firmly in hand, and tried to pinpoint the sound. The fog distorted everything about me, turned distance into something malleable and uncertain.

I followed the rails, every sense straining to hear what I could.

When it came again, it was not the scream of a woman, but the rasped gurgle of breath trapped beneath liquid obstruct. I’d heard this sound once before. Crystal clear, the memory assailed me—pitch darkness, and the struggling burble of a woman’s attempt to scream around the slash the Ripper had made in her throat. Dutfield’s Yard, when Zylphia and I had stumbled upon him and his third victim.

The fourth murder had been extra savage that same night, as if furious that I’d interrupted his play. The things he’d done to that woman defied explanation.

I could not allow a fifth murder.

I broke into a sprint.

The fog parted before me, as if my intensity were a chisel I followed behind. It closed again behind me, trapping me in a sea of black and yellow and gray. Yet the wild, fearful sounds continued, choking, blunted screams lost in a tide of blood. I leapt off the rail and crossed between two silent train cars.

The fog thinned. A woman’s feet, splayed wide, thrust from the shelter of the first train car. Her knees were open, as if she’d fallen without care of modesty, and her skirts had pooled, streaked with dirt.

She lay propped against the siding, her pale hair sodden with her own blood. Her worn features slackened. Life seeped out over her tattered dress. Her skin gleamed stark white in my yellow lens, her blood black; such delightful contrast in my sparkling vision.

A man knelt beside her, as if in supplication to the alter of her convulsing body. He lifted a fist, sharp blade catching what dim light existed from the railway lamps. It winked, glinting with deadly promise, and slammed hard into the woman’s body. She jerked. Blood sprayed as it wrenched loose.

“Stop!” I cried.

He turned, a dervish of shadow and monstrous energy. I saw little enough but for the heavy greatcoat protecting him from the cold and damp, the silhouette of a top hat, and dark hair. Whatever else I might have noted could not make itself clear. I was addled, furious with my delay.

Angry that I had not found the collector, but the Ripper himself.

My rival would never be so inelegant.

How dare he? How dare this ham-fisted butcher mar my chase?

He said nothing, leaping to his feet and sprinting away. I launched myself after him, muscles straining to carry the launcher weighing them down, when my opium-saturated thoughts clicked into place. Five paces gone, and I halted, the world tilting at the suddenness of it.

I’d come prepared, hadn’t I?

With the fragrance of blood rich in the air, a coppery tang that nursed at my bile, I lifted the device to my shoulder, sighted through the rounded cross-hairs at the top. When the Ripper’s fleeing figure filled the circle, coat flapping in his haste, I squeezed the mechanism that would launch the netting.

Thoop! Compressed air whooshed from the pipes at the top, and the device recoiled back hard enough to wrench the whole of my arm. I stumbled backwards, spun about as pain rolled up my shoulder. Yet I could not tear my eyes away from the long shaft of brown that was my projectile.

It opened wide, a spider’s web I remembered from the first I’d seen it, and the weights pulled it wider.

“Got you,” I whispered.

The Ripper, for all his luck to date, could not avoid it. The net barreled into his back, weights snapping taut and swinging in a circle. Enfolding him tightly, it tripped up his long-legged pace and sent him sprawling face-first to the graveled ground. The glint of his knife sailed into the fog.

“Ha!” The sound cracked from me, shattered into a thousand echoes only half the fault of the medicinal resin. I dropped the now empty apparatus, fingers delving into one of my pouches for the usual braided cord I used to bind my collections.

A slow, measured clap filled the space between the Ripper’s harsh cursing.

I froze.

“I am at once disappointed and reluctantly impressed,” said the voice whose rasping quality haunted me.

I shuddered as I watched my own memories play out—the whistle in the dark, my screaming warning.

And then blood.

So much blood as it pumped from the veins of the man who dared to marry me.

The collector melded from the fog, a ghost with no form. As if he’d only waited for the scene to unfold this far. He paused beside the inert Ripper, looking down with an expression I could not see to read. His coat was more tailored than the Ripper’s own, his bowler hat pulled low enough that only a band of his face could be seen between the brim and his high collar. I imagined that I saw the gleam of sharp eyes, felt the weight of a stare that saw everything.

Of its own volition, my right hand plucked the blade from the front of my corset. I would not be caught unarmed this time. “So the puppet-master finally shows his face,” I replied, summoning every ounce of straining courage.

“Not quite.” His figure half-turned, as if to measure the distance between myself and the man he stood beside. “Fine reach.”

I would not thank him.

“Yet I had hoped for more sport.”

“Taking my bounty wasn’t enough?” I demanded, holding my arms loosely at my side. “Coventry give you no sport, big man that he was?”

The collector sighed. “My dear,” he said, in that strange whispering rasp of his that kept his voice so unique and grating, “that oaf was barely enough to get out of bed for.”

Oh, of course. How silly of me. A terrible part of myself wanted to laugh. I choked it down.

“I had hoped you take more time to enjoy my gift,” he continued, nudging the struggling man with the toe of his shoe. “It took some effort to coax him here, you know.”

“Do you expect an apology?”

Now his head turned, that shadowed band between hat and collar fixed in my direction. “No, dear girl.” His tone sharpened. “I expect you to do what you do best.”

My mouth curved up, a vicious thing I could not have stopped even had I wanted to. “I intend to do just that,” I assured him, venom in every word.

I could not see if he smiled, but his voice indicated he might. “This, I can’t wait to see.”

Such arrogance. “You are officially in my sights,” I told him, walking forward slowly enough that I could keep him firmly there. One wrong move, and I’d be prepared. No amount of opium haze, no fear, no threat of loss could save him now. “Collector you may be, but there’s a notice on you.”

“By the blue skin?” He did laugh, and the sound sent shivers over me. He laughed the way nails shrieked cross slate, the way madness infected and illness spread. That he called Zylphia by such a terrible name only made it somehow worse. “Nonsense. You’ve another to collect first.”

My gaze flicked to the cursing Ripper, entangled in the net. “Don’t be daft. I’ve got him.”

“Do you?” The collector turned, presenting me a narrow back. He flicked a hand, and the wink of a razored edge accompanied a whisper of movement. Rope snapped, and the Ripper grunted as he surged to his feet. He did not stop to retrieve his hat.

He simply ran.

“Are you mad?” I shrieked; foolishly so, as it was a question to which I already knew the answer.

The collector’s laugh chortled as he slipped back around another train car. Torn between hunting the Ripper or chasing him, I hesitated a fraction too long.

“May the best collector win,” came the taunt.

Fury lashed my flagging spirit.

I darted after Jack the Ripper.

Chapter Twenty

Dreams unfold as if designed without interference. Terrible things happen, consequences are unleashed, and the dreamers watch as if in a play.

This was no dream, and yet I watched it unfold the same regardless. Too much of the resin, perhaps. Or not enough.

Had I more, I would have devoured it anyway.

I flung the knife I held. As if that dream enfolded me, I watched the winking blade soar through the air, cut through fog and leave vapors in its wake. It found its mark with unerring precision, sinking to the hilt in the back of the Ripper’s thigh. He cursed long and loud, but he did not stop. He did not slow. What madness must have infected him to keep him moving, I could not know for sure.

Given my own resin-saturated focus, I entertained an inkling.

He looked behind him, eyes wild in a face I could pick out as strong-featured yet not wholly monstrous, and bared his teeth in vicious rage.

The shadows combined around him, wrapped him in a cloak of animal savagery.

Yet he did not turn on me. He darted behind a rail car, hobbled fast as he dared, and I lost him briefly in the swirling fog.

Despite the brief flutter of fear that dreamlike sequence had given me, I would not give up this win.

A sharp cry from my right lanced through the railyard, echoed by the faint whistle as the evening train approached from Wapping. I’d taken the reverse the last I’d been through here, chasing this same collector.

This time, it would all end. My success would begin with the Ripper’s capitulation.

I sprinted across three rail lines, tripped on the last and stumbled. Yet I caught myself without concern for the pain it created in my toes, or the barking my palms earned from the catching. As if the candle of it flared briefly and was snuffed, the opium took away all pain, eased all strain. I passed the corner of building, ducked under an overhang, and called, “Come out!” As if it might help.

It didn’t. I didn’t wholly expect it to. Still, I found a clue easy enough as my clarity of lens picked a black smear from the side of the building I followed.

Blood. Higher than a leg wound should allow. I touched it, found it cool but fresh.

Had the Ripper hurt himself again?

Bloody bells, had the collector seized him already?

I found another stain, this one smeared as if he’d leaned. Not a terrible lot of blood, but enough to hurt, I’d wager.

Setting my jaw, I spun in place, searching the shifting miasma for any clue. Where would I hide? Where would I run, if it were me?

I’d go among people, wouldn’t I? But the nearest were too far out.

The Ripper was thought to be innocent enough in appearance as to wander among the inhabitants of Whitechapel. He was thought to be a normal bloke, even rumored to be a toff. While I didn’t recognize the glimpses of his face that I’d seen, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of acting the part.

There’d be people waiting for the Wapping train, headed home after a long day’s work.

That was it. That’s where I’d go. If I were him, I’d fit right in.

And that was where I’d wager he’d go.

I oriented myself quickly, found a sign and hurried across yard. The train’s whistle blew, echoing across the drift and making it seem much closer than it was.

All so fundamentally familiar.

As I hurried for the station, I stumbled to a jarring, addled halt. For a moment, too long of one, I could not recall where it was I stood. Was I searching for the Ripper, or for my abducted maid?

Was the whistle I heard coming from a train or the bloody gramophone the sweet tooth had left to mimic the sound, making me look the fool?

I dragged one hand over my eyes, plunging twisted fingers through my hair as if I might shove aside the confusion I fumbled through.

I had not expected the Ripper to think of something other than his own skin.

Forcing myself to stagger on. I passed a shallow alcove, where two buildings had begun to lean together. Conductor shacks, perhaps, or a place where the workman stored items of import. Whatever it was, I had thought them empty.

Rough hands darted from within, wrapped about my face and jerked me near off my feet.

On instinct, I folded, earning his surprise, and jabbed my elbow into his gut. He grunted, but he did not let go. If anything, his grasp tightened over my face, crushing my goggles and respirator painfully tight, and fisted in the back of my coat. My hat tumbled.

“Move and I gut you,” growled a voice that could have been pleasant, were it not for the murderous rage behind it.

The dream collapsed. I knew without a doubt where I was—and who I hunted.

I felt a pressure at my belly, and perhaps were I a simple dove, I might have been afraid. I was neither. He’d plucked my own blade from his leg, used it now against me. Sharp as it was, it would take more effort to slice through the thin slatting in my armor. A full thrust might do it.

A flick would only embarrass him.

I slammed my head back, yelping as my skull connected with his face. Jaw, I think. It felt like iron.

The Ripper cursed, and I know he attempted a gutting, for I heard leather part—tearing to reveal the metal underneath. The sound the blade made as it caught against it shrieked through my senses, rippled all the way to my fingernails, even made my teeth ache.

Yet I could not nurse it. I stumbled away, ears ringing.

“Come ‘ere, you filthy bitch,” snarled the Ripper.

My estimation of the man did not climb.

Yet the fury in his spittle-flecked demand told me I would not get a second chance.

I turned.

Another hand grasped me by the coat, pulling hard enough that I stumbled back. “Now, now,” whispered the collector in my ear. “It’s no fun unless they run.”

I again shot out an elbow, but he was gone, melding with shadow and fog. I turned, torn in focus, my concentration shattered, but he was wrong. The Ripper did not run.

He came for me.

Unarmed, I broke away from both, my goal a small bit of light painted nearly white under my lens. The bridge spanned the bulk of Whitechapel’s railyard, providing a way across for pedestrians coming to and from the station. There would be only two ways to come after me: front or behind. Much better than open ground.

I saw no sign of the collector as I ran, but I heard the Ripper lumbering after me, his breath rattling with lunacy and rage. He called invectives, said such terrible things that I could understand easily how such a mind as his might carve a woman as if she were nothing but meat.

Yet, still I underestimated the power of whatever insanity fueled him. Blood ran from his leg, I’m sure it must have pained him greatly, but all the Ripper did was come—closer and closer. It was as if I’d trapped myself in my own dreams, for I swore I felt his breath on my nape and the threat of death hanging like a pall around me.

I heard a woman’s laughter. Her pleading voice. I wrenched one hand forward as if I expected skeins of red to drag me back into the dark.

Madness for all, it seemed.

I scrambled up the incline, reaching behind me to slip free my last knife—too late. With a mighty leap, the Ripper launched himself at me. I avoided the bulk of his attack, yet his arms folded about my knees and I slammed to the ground. Rock and dirt ground into my face, snapped off my respirator and sent my fog-protectives flying.

Dimly, I heard the merry tinkle of breaking glass, and the shattering screech of the Wapping train.

It was nothing to the agony tearing through my back. My side. Like liquid fire burst through my flesh and scorching every nerve to a crisp.

I screamed. The Ripper’s panting, loathsome breath washed over my face. He held his bulk upon me, one bloody hand flattened upon my head, grinding my cheek into the dirt. With the other, he wrenched my own blade from my side. “Bitch,” he gasped. “Filthy whore.”

If he considered me to be the same as the doxies he’d gutted, or if he simply assumed all women were the same, I didn’t know. I could hardly ask, what with the weight of him atop me and the opium I’d swallowed desperately attempting to smother the terribly pain he’d inflicted.

The blade I’d drawn was caught underneath me, my fist aching around it. I sobbed my naked pain—fury prime beside it—as his fingers knotted in my hair. He climbed off me, but dragged me backwards by the knotted plait. The agony this tore along my scalp was nothing to the wound he’d already inflicted, but it allowed me the opening I needed.

It surprised him, I think, when I not only managed to get to my knees, but launched myself backwards in a move that turned his own grasping momentum against him. He staggered back, fingers tangled in my hair. It tore the plait free of its pins, loosing hanks of tangled red. I twisted, finally able to get my knife between us, my blood and his now a terrible fragrance in the filthy smoke and fog. I gagged from the odor and pain and fear of it all.

The Ripper did not seem to notice. He lifted me bodily by my hair, his features nothing more than a snarling mask of murderous frenzy. My own blood dripped from his hand, splattering my face.

I gripped my knife with both hands and thrust.

There was nowhere he could go. Tangled by my hair, a fall of bloody red imprisoning us together, he screamed into my face; spittle rained down upon me.

It was as if I felt the skin part, interminably slow. Felt the flesh give away, melting beneath the point. Blood gushed over my hand, a fountain of it hot enough to burn my aching, chilled skin.

He lurched. Jerked hard, as if I’d only just kicked him.

The weapon he’d aimed at me glanced off my armor, leaving his arm curved around my side. I clamped my elbow over it, holding him in place, as his blood pumped over the hand that held the blade.

I stared up into eyes made dark by the dim light and watched surprise replace rage.

“Whore,” he whispered. “Just a—” I needed no more understanding as to the nature of his character. Whether he truly detested women, or simply them what sold their flesh for a living wage, I would never know. He tried again to label me with his madness, to call me whore or something new, but he could not. It bubbled, wet and red, too thick to shape a word from. Saliva trickled from his lips, dribbled to my cheek.

Revulsion seized me. I twisted, sobbing when the act pulled at the wound in my side, kicked and thrashed and pushed until the Ripper’s bulk slid from me. Surging to my feet tore another wave of pain through me—the opium could not keep up. My fist tightened on the hilt of the knife drenched with another man’s blood. Nausea surged.

“I...wanted...”

The voice croaked. Thready, gurgling with effort, it begged for something I could not give. Face down in the dirt, the man who had terrorized a city gurgled into filth, shuddered. “I...”

The distant Wapping train whistled. He jerked, as if surprised—vomited blood instead of words. Whatever he wanted, the act proved too much; it sealed his confessions forever. With a final, ragged gurgle, Jack the Ripper died at my feet.

Something I had no name for broke within me. Something a clergyman might have called my soul, or perhaps another might have called my humanity.

Were I any other, I might have called it innocence.

I had taken a life.

My hands shook. My breath painted the air in front of my face white, and the fog swallowed my shuddering exhale without judgment. Without malice.

I murdered a man.

Shock dulled the world. Eased the cold, even the ragged throb of torn flesh and the slow, hot drip of my own blood as it slid beneath my corset.

Oh, Cherry.

God, that I would be spared this awful, ghostly echo of my memory! I dropped the knife, stumbling away, clapped both hands to my ears and clenched my eyes shut. My features contorted to a terrible mask, and I squeezed as if I could collapse my own skull.

Let go, the woman’s memory whispered.

Opium hallucinations. Not uncommon, after the amount I’d eaten. Yet so horribly timed. “Leave me alone,” I hissed, teeth clenched.

Cold plucked at me. The fog was silent.

I opened my eyes to find myself standing upon the bridge, the far-off gleam of the Wapping train encroaching through the sheet of filthy gray and yellow. My eyes burned. My nose ran. I lowered my grime—and blood-stained hands slowly.

The faint, tinny strains of music tinkled through the heavy silence.

Still, the dream played out.

Note by note, the song shimmered. I turned, looked out over the blanketed railyard and couldn’t pinpoint where.

I must have lost my mind in dreams. I’d given up the reality of it all for the bliss. This surreal landscape was not mine.

And yet I recognized it—a waltz, as often played in the soirees above this soiled drift. One two three. One two three...

I hummed the next few, but my voice broke, and it came instead as a ragged exhale.

A gentle hand slid around my shoulder. “There, Cherry. Do you hear it?”

I swayed, could not summon the will to resist as he turned me. “There’s a girl,” he whispered. One two three. One two three... “There’s a good girl. You’ve done it, Cherry. I knew you could.”

Gloved hands stroked down my arms, laced with my fingers and raised my hands. I looked up, but my eyes would not paint a picture I could understand. All I could see were two glittering eyes under a low hat, and the shape of a firm, expressive mouth as it slid a warm kiss over my knuckles.

There was not enough light to know the face of the man who claimed me.

I shuddered. My knees buckled.

“No,” he said sharply, catching me quickly enough at the side that the wound beyond his fingers pinched. I groaned my pain. My disorientation only became worse. “Stand on your own. You deserve this, Cherry St. Croix.”

“D...” My tongue was too thick, my voice husky with confusion. I clutched at him because if I did not, I would have fallen. His coat was thick and warm, his arms supportive as they came about me. “Deserve,” I managed.

“I told you.” One two three. Slowly, he turned a circle. One two three. My feet found the steps by instinct, the rhythm by hours and hours of teaching.

One two three. He eased me into a waltz that seemed as natural as breathing. Familiarity grasped at my heart.

We danced in silence, swaying to the tiny notes plucking haunting chords through the fog. Yet I had not the will, nor the strength. My energy faded, and as he turned me around, I sagged in his arms.

He caught me tight against his chest. “It’s all right,” he whispered, his breath warm against my temple.

It wasn’t. Weep for the widowed bride...

“I am so proud of you.”

Proud. The monster who had murdered so many was proud of me.

I had earned that, did I?

The bridge beneath our feet began to shake, and even the shrill waltz began to stutter.

I looked out over the bridge and did not flinch as the train whistle shredded this terrible, surreal dream.

“We are much the same, you and I,” he said. An echo of words he’d told me in the shadows of the Thames Tunnel, moments before he’d delivered me to my father’s schemes. Warm lips caressed the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes, wrapped my hands around his where they crossed beneath my breasts, and held tight.

“So you said,” I whispered.

“So you have just proven,” he replied. “No other man is worth you. No challenge is beneath you. I knew you would not fail me.”

And so I had not. My rival, the one man who had cost me everything. I had failed all others, but him, I pleased.

“It has always been you, Cherry. I was meant to love you.”

Love. That awful word. What monstrous things the emotion provoked in those who fell to it.

I allowed myself a small, humorless smile.

Clenching my fingers tight about his forearms, I rested my head against the shoulder behind me. I closed my eyes. “I know you,” I whispered. I did not know how, I couldn’t understand what it was that seemed so familiar, but I knew him. Every sense struggling to be heard through the train’s rushing approach, the fog that bandied about us, the pain and horror and fear of it all, they screamed a truth I could not ignore—even as I could make no sense of it.

“Well you should know me. I am you.” His lips grazed my temple. “You are me. We are well-suited.”

Of course we were. The soul of a murderer, were either of us likely to have a soul at all.

Justice, I’d promised. A scream sworn to avenge the plucking of an English rose.

“I love you, Cherry.”

With trembling lips, I took a deep breath, held it for a moment until the train’s whistle pierced the silence—so close, it left my ears ringing with shrill warning.

I exhaled my defeat into a weary two words. “Allez, hop.”

Holding his arms around me, I pulled us both over the bridge.

The collector managed only a gasp, a shocked cry; my sudden motion wrested his balance from him, and we fell together.

The air currents took us, frigid air cushioning our fall. We spun—one two three—so morbidly slow, and as if that dream played without me, as if I watched it unfold on a tapestry, gravity tore his arms from my grasp.

The flapping ends of his greatcoat left a dark stream around us. In the searing glow of the oncoming train, my hair tangled like spun rubies. The lantern affixed to the front of the locomotive highlighted every movement. Every expression.

The bowler hat he’d always worn low went sailing off into the shadow.

Sharp features. A nose like a blade. A laconic edge to a twisted mouth.

His brown eyes sparkled, so much pride—and a terrible, crushing sorrow.

Thin hands seized my ribs. In a split second, faster than I could have dreamed, the man I had once known as my dearest friend took my lips in a kiss as sweet as it was brief.

What happened next came as a blur.

Wrenching his weight in mid-air, he tightened his grip over my ribs and threw me bodily aside, forcing us both from the trajectory I’d chosen. The train shrieked, brakes applied as the conductor must have seen us, but too late. I hit the ground hard enough that my senses lurched, tangled and went black.

But I heard the impact. Felt it as the solid train tore through the Honorable Theodore Helmsley’s body as if he did not matter a whit. A wet mist splattered where I lay, gasping for breath.

It took me too long to realize I wore his blood.

Sobbing in denial, in a grief I could not even begin to express, my body snapped back in shattered recoil.

Agony overwhelmed me.

In that moment of terrible weakness, I hoped never to wake again.

Chapter Twenty-One

There was a scuffle. A feeling of arms carved out of oak and stone around me and the mountainous rumble that was Ishmael’s familiar voice against my ear. “Why do you take her?”

Voices in quieter refrain. A cool threat, and a strangled growl I’d never heard from him.

“You’d risk a war?”

“No war,” answered a man’s soft-spoken promise. “Only death.”

The world upended itself, spinning violently until I was sure that I’d retch from the speed at which it moved. I was jarred; pain erupted along my side.

Blunt fingers at my forehead, as if he pushed aside my hair. “Sorry, girl.”

I slid into a faint so deep, I did not twitch again when that bloody surreal voice called my name. The woman. A haunt, a ghost of a memory I could not shake.

Opium smoke given form.

Calling for me. Begging me. For what?

Cherry...

The high-pitched chant of a Chinese tongue tore me from the grasp of bloody webs. I pitched out of oblivion and into a reality that crackled with golden dust, yellow shimmering suddenly blue as it took form before my eyes.

The noxious cloud settled to my exposed flesh, burned like fire. I screamed.

But it did not hurt. Not wholly. It simply peeled back the layers of my skin, frothed and hissed. I bowed and twisted, thrashing against the bonds of grim-faced Veil servants. The pallet beneath me juddered sharply beneath my efforts.

A man said something, a foreign command, and I was rolled over.

This time, the powder he smeared into my wound sizzled, and agony stole my wakefulness from me.

When I finally woke again, it was to a pressing heat. Sweat already dampened my skin, and as I inhaled deeply, I smelled spice and something thicker. Smoke.

Opium.

I tasted it upon my tongue, felt its spider fingers as it entered my nose and spread like a warm cloud.

I sucked in air greedily, clambering to my hands and knees. My body twitched, but it did not scream as it had when last I’d woken. I thrust my tangled hair from my face, already aware that I would see two screens. One backlit by the glow of the fire the Veil preferred, and one to mask the Veil’s spokesman.

“I know you’re there,” I shouted, heedless of the gravel my voice had become.

There was silence. Empty. Eternal.

It took me some effort, but I managed to push myself to my feet. I swayed, tottered.

I was not, as I’d thought initially, nude. Once more, I found myself in a simple, bulky robe with wide sleeves and a large sash to close it. The hem folded underfoot as I attempted a step.

This time, I could not catch myself. I fell to the polished wood floor, crying out when my elbow barked the unforgiving ground and my head bounced a breath behind.

I lay in silence for the space of a heartbeat—one whose eternity lingered, thanks in part to the smoke I inhaled.

A gentle clearing of the throat alerted me to my host’s presence. “The sleep you have had,” said that bloody polite voice from behind a screen, “often leaves one bewildered. Sit for a moment. Gather your strength.”

I desperately desired to tell the voice exactly what uncivil practices he could do with his advice, but I did not. It would serve me nothing. Bruised, battered, driven beyond all measure of perseverance, I pushed myself up and I sat in place.

In silence, I waited—and I desperately clenched my teeth against the nausea roiling in my stomach.

The quiet stretched.

Then, a small sigh. My moment of peace was over. “That is three,” the Veil said. “Your life, Coventry’s failed collection, and now, your life again. You are an expensive habit, Miss Black.”

I bared my teeth, but dared not unseal them. The room swam.

“How are you feeling?”

“What do you care?” I managed to grit out. My palms flattened against the too-hot floor. My hair clung to my neck, my sweaty cheeks—a bloody veil of my own. I blew it aside in loud impatience. “You’re only here to take your pound of flesh.”

“A quaint enough truth,” replied the Veil. Once more, I read nothing in his nasal tone. Simply a voice. “You will be prepared, Miss Black, and you will take your place tonight.”

I sneered. “I thought I wasn’t pretty enough to fetch a price.”

“For this?” An oddly tinkling chuckle, as if I’d deeply amused him. “A very special event will be held, all in your honor. Rest assured, you will bring a price. And more.”

My fingernails dug into the wood so deeply, one snapped below the quick. The sharp pain was nothing as to the fear that swallowed me whole. “No,” I whispered, all bravado forgotten. “The rings? The circus? I can’t... You wouldn’t...”

“You can.” The veil’s tone sharpened. “You will. If you attempt to escape, if you balk even once, if you so much as open your mouth and dare to contradict us, we will punish you.”

That I could take. That, I wholly deserved. I shuddered, though I forced myself to straighten my shoulders.

Yet even as I opened my mouth, the Veil continued in the same razored manner. “We will begin by punishing our ringmaster, who has been too lenient with you.”

My chin jerked up.

“We will punish our sweet, who has failed in her endeavors to report on your actions.”

My teeth came together again, so tight that pain drummed sharply in my temples. I inhaled deeply through flared nostrils, held the opium-laden smoke in my lungs.

“We will punish the agreeable girl who maintains our Menagerie apparatuses.”

“Why?” I hissed out.

The tone did not change, matter-of-fact pleasantry. “Because it will hurt you to watch us do so.”

The blood drained from my face. Stunned, I stared at the opulent screen, saw nothing beyond its crimson silk and ornate gold embroidery.

“One by one, Miss Black, we will punish everyone who has ever made contact with you. You will become a pariah, a thing of pain to all who lay eyes upon you. Where you go, blood will follow.”

I slumped. The will to fight, the anger that I so desperately clung to, faded. What point was there? I had nothing left. No family. No husband. No virtue, no inheritance, no freedom.

No Teddy.

Where I went, blood already spilled, lurid and obscene. My heart, that blackened pit within my chest, crumbled to ash. My head lowered. “Very well,” I said, and every syllable audibly shook. My fingers trembled so badly, I could not do anything but twist them together in my lap. “I am yours.”

“Yes,” agreed the Veil, offensively polite in the face of my terror. “You are. Tù zi wĕi ba cháng bu liăo.”

I closed my eyes. “The tail of a rabbit mustn’t be long.”

“Not mustn’t,” the Veil corrected. “Can not. Like the rabbit’s long tail, those who resort to treachery can not last. You have been foolish, Miss Black.”

Heaven help me. I already knew this much.

My lips curved into a tortured slant. “Shì,” I whispered.

Possibly, I surprised him. He said nothing for a moment, allowing the crackle of the fire to fill the silence. Sweat slid down my temple, trickled to my throat.

Still, I could not swipe it away. I could not summon the will, the energy.

Nothing. I had nothing.

This time, a chattered fragment of Chinese earned two hands on each arm. I did not bother to fight them.

As one, the Veil’s servants took me from the too-hot room.

I was not left alone for a moment. They should not have bothered. I lacked the will to fight my captors now, burdened as I was by a debt I had no choice but to pay. As willing as I had been to drag the sweet tooth here, to leave Zylphia to the punishments the Veil threatened, I could not follow through now.

I was a murderer, just like the men I had chosen to collect. Just like my father, who had ordered his associate—dear Lord, my Teddy, my dearest friend—to murder on his behalf.

Like Teddy himself. So many hours spent in my parlor, debating with such spirit the theory and application of the science periodicals. How often had we danced? Him because it pleased him to tease me upon the floor, and me because it was the only way I could shake off the Master of the House’s matchmaking eye.

Which was the mask? The vile acts in the dark, or the man who had met my every vigorous debate with good humor and sharp intellect?

Which was the lie?

What fight I might have offered, what fury I could have unleashed, would not come. Bowed and broken, unable to place my blood-stained soul above the well-being of all who had ever helped me, I allowed the Veil’s servants to care for me without struggle.

Whatever they had planned, I would commit.

To think such thoughts was not to will them true.

Terror sapped what calm I had left as the hours faded. For the rest of that awful night and most of the following day, I’d slept the sleep of a corpse, and whatever the Veil had done, it had taken my pain. Or, fortunate as I was not feeling, my state of advanced recovery had closed the wound in my side. I couldn’t be sure.

It hurt when I moved, likely would have hurt all the more were it not for the medicinal refuge I hid behind. The servants left tending me made sure that I had opium to smoke, dulling whatever feelings I might have had to bear. Even my bath passed without a struggle.

The attire they brought me took my deadened sense of dread and wrapped it tightly around my insides. Squeezed as viciously as the corset they strapped me into. I had no familiar faces, this time. Only two women I had no names for—one black as pitch with the lush accent of the Caribbean, and one whose hair was nearly white with age.

If either knew me, they said nothing—only as much as needed to prepare me.

The sheer blouse I wore had cap sleeves that clung to my shoulders and ended in a bell poof just beneath. The corset over it was the color of eggshells, beaded with tiny glass drops that would catch the light and wink at the audience, and cinched tight enough to force my waist into as fashionable a curve as my body would allow. It had been a long time since I had been quite so pinched.

I did not cry out. I barely felt the pain of ribs compressed to vicious demand.

That it seemed somewhat more narrow than it should, I attributed to falling out of the habit of seeing myself so compressed. It did not occur to me then that I had lost some excess flesh to the tar I continued to take.

Beneath the corset, I wore bloomers designed especially for a performer. They left much of my legs bare, much too short for comfort and the same color as the rest.

At my throat, a froth of sheer material in a kind of false cravat.

Upon my feet, slippers in like white, also beaded.

My arms and legs were bare, left unornamented entirely. My hair was wrestled into place, smoothed and curled as it had once always been. It took both women, but they piled the waist-length tresses into a loose coil, pinning it in place, then capping it with a like froth of white that made me look too much as if I prepared for a farce of a wedding.

I stared dully at myself in the narrow mirror and did not flinch at the sight.

They pressed kohl into the rims of my eyes, painted my mouth and reddened my pallid cheeks. In the end, I became something of a blend between the whore the Ripper had accused me of being and the bride I had once been—exotic in the eyes, wicked at the mouth.

Obediently, I sucked the smoke from the slender jade tube pressed into my hands—the filigree upon the pipe so fine as to be considered priceless—and did not argue when the Veil’s servants came to fetch me.

A cloak was draped over my shoulders, lest I catch a chill.

I had stepped no farther than the confines of my prison when the reality of my predicament encroached upon me.

The circus. The red tent, looming large upon the grounds, always seemed as if it dominated all eyes. It didn’t, not truly, but in my state, I could not force reason.

I balked suddenly, seized up through no will of my own and could not force myself to take one step farther. The servants around me tightened, four to escort me.

I would move, or I would be moved.

They screamed when they fell, shrill voices ended so suddenly. “You lot,” called the trainer, “get on to the other side or join ‘em.”

The Monsieur did not believe in nets.

I shivered in place, shaking so violently that the light from lamps lining the hall danced across the glass beads; a glittering shimmer.

A hand caught wrapped around a country cove’s fogle—the monsieur’s punishment leaves scars. Not for the crime, but for the catching.

“I won’t,” I whispered.

A hand in my lower back forced me to step—I flinched as it found the wound. I stiffened. Fear turned every limb to something immovably weighty. Iron and sand, an anchor that would not move were I even to try.

I couldn’t.

A crowd so tight as to pack the tent, mingled excitement turning the heat unbearably thick. They wanted blood. The monsieur had always been able to read the audience.

“Please.”

“Go,” ordered one servant, his gruff voice curt.

“I can’t,” I replied, fear turning my voice to something strident and alien. “I can’t, please!”

Another hand grasped my shoulder. Flanked though I was with four, I lashed out at the nearest.

I was in no shape. Though I cried out, pleading to be spared the canvas I dreaded, there was no sympathy in my captors. They dragged me, thrashing and screaming, into the hall. When my voice grew too loud, a hand slapped over my mouth and I was hauled bodily over one shoulder, my wrists held by one and my ankles another.

Shame was not a thing I understood—not then, trapped in the certainty of my own fears, lashed by memories I had never truly worked out. Not from the opium fog that held them.

Ghosts of them whose face bore no name, memories of children held in thrall; opium for the good ones, the boot for the bad—if we were lucky.

Blood was a color not easily forgotten, and I had never realized how much of it painted my life.

I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t! Let them punish all who’d ever spoken to me, I could not set foot in that tent.

Such shameful terrors, that I would sacrifice so many for it.

We passed gaping servants and I heard their startled cries. It did not silence me. As the air turned from the warmth of the manor to the biting frost of winter’s coming, my terror climbed.

I screamed against the hands that held me silent, tears running freely from my eyes and smudging the effect the women had worked so hard to achieve. With inhuman strength, I wrenched myself free of the arms that bound me, crashed to the cold ground. Pain streaked up my arm, jarred loose whatever spiritual gauze the Veil’s man had bound over the wound in my back, and I shrieked unholy madness into the stillness of the gardens.

A man leapt upon my chest, knees pinning my wrists. White teeth, golden eyes. Black skin revealed by his sleeveless shirt, and long hair plaited into a multitude of tiny braids slapped me in the face as he bent over me. Ikenna Osoba did not seem deterred by my panic.

He said nothing I understood, but his fingers prised open my mouth and tar fell to the back of my raw throat. I tried to spit it out, but he clapped that hand over my mouth, covered my nose until I could not breathe.

In defense, desperate for air, I swallowed the bitter lump, but I writhed and squirmed to force him from me. He did not budge. His knees ground into my wrists, forcing fresh tears.

He waited. The edges of my vision went black.

When the bliss took me and my body went slack, only then did he lift his hand.

“We’ll fix her face,” suggested a girl’s voice.

“No.” Ikenna’s deep resonance. “Leave her. It will titillate the spectators.”

“But...” A pause. “This isn’t—”

“Shut it. Or you’ll be in with her,” he said tightly. His knees eased from my limp arms. This time, it was him that lifted me, with an easy strength that belied his lithe figure.

Cradled against his chest, I stared listlessly at nothing as the opium took from me the last vestiges of my resistance.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They did not take me to the canvas tent.

I had assumed, in my folly, that I would be forced to endure the circus show. I did not understand what had happened when I became more aware of myself and my surroundings. Though my senses soared with forced bliss, I had not spent much of my life mired in it for nothing.

As Hawke had once counseled me, them what eat it by habit must always eat the more. For this reason, I was able to thrust myself from waking dream to a surreal actuality. I seemed to come into my skin a little bit more than I should have, for pliability. I was aware of the harsh glow bathing me in golden light, could feel the shuddering heat roiling against my flesh. Yet all of it retained its dreamy state.

The source revealed itself as that of candles lit by the dozens. Possibly even the hundreds. A wall of fire I could not climb.

Ringed as I was, near blinded by the flickering droplets of crystalline light, I did not realize exactly where I stood until I attempted to move from it.

A whisper of fabric, a silken rustle, and I gasped as the lengthy silk ribbons wrapped about my forearms tightened.

I stood, that much was clear, with my arms pulled above my head and given enough slack to allow them to bend, elbows splayed. My fingers clenched around the satiny material, jerked hard—it did not give. Where I might have spoken, a wooden shaft had been forced between my lips, banded to my skull by a tightly tied ribbon.

I could only bare my teeth and growl something wordless and angry. Saliva already gathered in my mouth; I could not swallow, and my jaw ached from the forced parting.

Candlelight flickered, painting wild shapes and demonic shadows.

Each wax column had been placed upon stone seating, arranged in such a way as to allow for empty seats just at the front. A faint haze clung to the air, swirling now and again in the warm glow. Inhaling through my nose left my senses twitching—the fragrance was a familiar one. I’d smelled it often on Hawke’s skin, and again when I’d spoken with the Veil last. Familiar, but different enough that it distracted me. I frowned as much as I was able around the wooden rod between my lips.

They’d placed me in the amphitheater. The seating was only partially familiar to me, as the last I’d been inside, the whole had been converted to the plush decadence of a Roman bathhouse. That I was not ensconced beneath the circus tent was a relief that nearly stole the support from my knees—at least until the rest of my predicament became clear.

Wherever I was—or was not—I was not safe.

I looked up, straining to see anything that I could in the midnight sky above, yet all I noted was that the acrobat ribbons binding me so securely trailed from an apparatus built to be as unimposing as possible to avoid detection by the casual observer. For an audience, it may appear as if the long, crimson stream of silk fell from the very sky.

I had been upon a trapeze, though I did not recall whether I enjoyed the sensation of flying or not. As I had little problem navigating Cat’s Crossing, I suspected I had not minded it. I recalled somewhat more clearly the art of walking the tightrope, and of dodging the knife-thrower’s blades.

Some of these engendered a fear that only heightened the dreamy atmosphere of the whole. Too many memories, some real and some formless as ghosts haunting my imagination, fluttered on all sides.

I forced myself to squint beyond the dancing colors and shapes of my mind.

If I’d ever been tested upon the ribbons, I could not recall. Those what utilized them best were graceful creatures, sleek muscle and lengthy control, and I had never assumed myself among their number.

In any case, these were not meant to be used by an acrobat. Obviously, I’d been bound with an intent towards security, but with a flamboyance I had come to expect of the Midnight Menagerie. The trailing material folded about my wrists and arms, pulling both arms at angles above my head, and the rest had been left to cascade to the ground. It framed my body—pristinely pale in shades of white against the starkness of the vermillion ribbon. The candles danced off the multitude of glass beads, sheathing every movement in a shower of golden sparks. I could not so much as draw breath without scintillating light declaring the act.

Display. I was on display.

The candles wavered, pulling my gaze as a moth to that unforgiving flame, and I sucked in a breath around the wood between my teeth.

So much effort to think. What was it they demanded of me?

I forced my mind to focus through the haze I floundered in. Inhaling deeply only filled my nose with the fragrance of spice—sweet, thick, and different enough from the incense I’d smelled in the Veil’s own chamber that I found myself again distracted trying to place it.

It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t likely to help me escape this predicament.

I rifled through what I knew of the Menagerie’s acts. They employed knife-throwers—two, to be precise, though only one was as good as Monsieur Marceaux’s, I think.

However, the binding they’d put me in wasn’t nearly effective for a good knife-throwing display. So, something else?

Blast it. Why couldn’t I think?

A step behind me was all the warning I received before a hand reached around me to cup my chin. The fingers were long, severe, gloved in what looked like white—not a color Hawke usually wore. Yet I could not mistake his voice beside my ear. “Awake at last...” The fingers bit at my jaw. “Countess.”

I flinched, yet had no room with which to move away. “Ha’ke,” I managed, straining against the binding at my mouth. “Unha’ ‘e!”

In answer, he forced my chin higher, my head back, until I was all but balanced upon my toes. Saliva I had not been able to swallow filled my throat, earning me a reprieve from drooling like an abram flaunting his false insanity.

“You don’t look scared.” Was that disappointment I heard?

Bollocks to that.

I cursed at him to show just how scared I wanted him to believe I wasn’t, but the finer detail fell short behind the constraining muzzle.

Slowly, the grip at my face eased, until I could once more balance my weight upon both feet. Yet I was given no reprieve, for his gloved fingers trailed lower, to skim my neck beside the false cravat. I shuddered. To my dismay, my vision distorted.

When his palm spanned my throat, fingers tightening without warning or gentleness, my breath fragmented. Pain plucked at the cords tightened beneath his palm, fingers biting hard enough to pinch.

“There,” he murmured. “Now you look scared.” A wicked heat entered his voice; a mocking, knowing lilt that I had never heard from him before. “I like it.”

I did not. I wrenched my face away, heedless of the grip upon my throat, and gagged when it did not loosen. Yet I did not cry.

This was naught but a dream—and dreams, I had come to realize, were too ephemeral to last.

Hawke did not loosen his grip. Instead, his free hand came about my other side, splayed possessively over my corseted stomach. His laughter slid over my skin like a mocking benediction. “You have done this dance before.”

No. Not this one. I could not shake my head, not beneath the grip he claimed about my throat, but I garbled a denial.

“Liar.” His breath touched my ear. His tongue flicked the sensitive skin.

His other hand slid lower, closer to the bloomers. The inordinately powerful heat of his palm seared through the material, as if I wore nothing at all.

In that instant—when my body clenched and my mind shrieked a terrible warning—I hated him.

I clamped my eyes shut.

If this was all the Veil demanded of my punishment, so be it. I would suffer under Hawke’s ministrations, knowing that it was no suffering but that of my pride.

I had already given my flesh to him once. My choice, my doing. That the Veil now demanded it was nothing I would not survive.

His grasp tightened at my throat. Caught my surprise, I choked on the deliberate cruelty of it, my airways compressed, and screwed my eyes tighter shut as tears of fear gathered where I had sworn there would be none.

“How I have longed to see you so debased,” he whispered. His voice carried an undercurrent of such menace, such terrible spite, that I flinched. The whole of my body convulsed; the bonds held fast. My breath wheezed out from between his cruel fingers. “That what you did with him will seem a gentle whisper to what I will see you do.”

His fingers let go so suddenly, I sagged against the silks, gasping for air. “Do?” I was able to frame, a harsh sound.

“Do,” he repeated. “Perform. Commit.” His lips nuzzled the curve where my throbbing neck met shoulder. “By the end of this night, you will beg for more.”

Left no other recourse, I snorted.

Teeth closed over that spot, bit down hard enough that a streak of red fragmented through my sealed eyes. Scorn flipped again to fear. And then to conflicted arousal as his other hand tucked neatly between my legs. When I screamed, even I could not be sure whether it was pain or pleasure I felt.

Everything seemed so unreal.

“I will take from you what he was too weak to seize,” Hawke said. The warning did not growl. It did not resonate. He spoke calmly, matter-of-factly, his breath hot on my throbbing skin. His fingers stilled. “I will give you what you seek.”

I held myself motionless, breath held.

What I sought was... What I needed was—

I...I didn’t know.

Tears burned like acid behind my eyelids. “Why?”

The word bore so many questions in one. Why do this to me? Why force me?

Why did he hurt me and feel nothing?

“Why?” Both hands left my body, left me feeling bereft, relieved. Cold. “Because he won’t.”

He? What he? What had I missed?

None of this felt right at all. I felt a player in a stage play with no direction, no script. He demanded something of me, and I couldn’t imagine what it was that drove him.

This was Hawke—the Midnight Menagerie’s wicked serpent. He had always been so difficult to read, and no hours spent in his bed lessened that, but this was something beyond understanding.

I took a deep breath, and swayed when the fragrance I had long associated with Hawke’s presence filled my nose.

“The price they pay to see a countess humbled.” His voice left my back, circled me until I could all but feel him come to a halt in front of me. Seized with the sudden fear that he reached for me again, I jerked back, eyes flaring open.

Yet it was his back I saw, his gaze focused on the doors leading out to the grounds. His hair was loose and straight, a dark stain across the fit of his black coat. He wore a top hat of black silk, banded in bloody red, and his arms were spread as if in welcome.

I’d been right. The gloves he wore tonight were white. I could not recall ever seeing him choose formal white for his gloves before. It was always too...predictable.

“Welcome!” he called, and his voice projected over the amphitheater with trained finesse.

I gasped, struggling to look beyond him, yet all I saw were more shadows. Shapes, silhouettes, faceless and without name.

An audience. God help me, how long had they been there? How long had they watched him taunt me? Touch me?

Fear stole my breath. I struggled to inhale, to force oxygen into my shivering body.

It came on another wash of spice. Warmth filled me. Eased the shiver.

Euphoric.

Bloody hell and the devil’s own tricks. Opium or something derivative to loosen the inhibitions, free the purse strings. I recognized it, now. The underpinning of the incense, the thing that made it so different and still so familiar. It was to be another skin-show, was it?

With my skin the lure.

Reluctant arousal faded to shuddering fear, and fear gave rise to an anger no opium could ease.

I was a slave to the medicinal tar, I would say that much, but I would not be a docile thing for him to exhibit.

I glared at Hawke’s back, hurling insults at him that did not take shape beyond the muzzle he’d forced upon me. My skin burned, not all of it the substance I breathed upon the air. Shame and anger conspired to strip me of what dignity I had left.

Hawke turned to bestow his devilish smile upon me.

In his eyes burned blue fire; his lips, always a cruel edge, spoke of malice I had never before seen upon his face.

I could no longer convince myself that I dreamed the change.

My fingers tightened on the silks. “Who a’ y’u?” It was a terrible butchering of the question, but I did not let that stop me. As I looked up into the wild blue of Hawke’s eyes, one truth became abundantly clear—a warning I recognized far too late.

This was not Hawke.

He lifted his left hand to his mouth, touching his lips with the tip of his forefinger before pressing that indirect kiss to my lower lip. He did not content himself with a gentle touch. He pushed that gloved finger against my lip until my flesh gave way, smearing the rouge over his pristine white glove and causing gathered saliva to leak over my chin.

I heard gasps from the audience behind him.

Humiliation pricked tears into my eyes.

“To be owned,” the creature wearing Hawke’s face intoned. “A dream denied by a prudish society too frightened to embrace the vices that give us life.” Slowly, he brought his finger to his mouth once more. His tongue darted over the red stain, but it was not me he paid attention to.

When he stepped aside, revealing me completely to the shadowed audience, I wrenched my face to the side, eyes squeezed shut.

His fingers curled in my hair. The pain of his grip demanded I look where he willed it, or lose my scalp. The sound I made was more a grunt.

This could not be Hawke. The devil of this earthly Garden of Eden had always been dangerous, even cruel, but he had never been...this.

Had he?

I shuddered, forcing my eyes wide lest the shameful tears fall.

“You’ve dreamed of it, haven’t you?” Hawke asked, his voice slipping through the hazy candlelight as if it were the very serpent I’d accused him of being. “You yearn for freedom, to be relieved of all expectation and burden.” A born showman, even I found my senses pulled to him—sight, sound, even the yearning of secret flesh.

I swallowed, bit down hard enough on the wooden shaft that pain split through my skull.

“Who better to afford such freedom,” he added, doffing his top hat with exaggerated courtesy at the audience, “than fine men, and such extraordinary ladies.”

I heard a woman’s sultry laugh.

I peered into the golden glow, barely making out the shapes of a dozen or so avid viewers. In the reflected haze that was as much the smoke as it was the glare, I saw the rich color of dyed fabric, lazily flicked fans and the glint of fine jewelry. Enough that I recognized wealth.

What madness was this? That the audience bore the entitled, the wealthy, I had no doubt; no one else could afford this show. What horrors would the uppercrust I’d once been part of encourage? Would they truly watch this and say nothing? All for the sake of what?

A humiliation? A reprieve from endless ennui?

I glared at the audience, staring hard enough that I hoped to shame them all. Each and every one who’d given his coin for this unholy entertainment.

In the leaping candlelight, I saw the glint of flame on copper red hair, but I did not recognize the aristocratic face that watched without expression. A glimpse of finely barbered chops in golden shade, masked by the sudden turning of his head, left me uneasy with fading awareness.

I saw elegant emerald taffeta, and the wide-lipped smile of a lady who did not turn away from my stare. Beautiful, with her brunette hair in a stunning array of loose curls, Lady Sarah Elizabeth Persimmon trapped my gaze with her own.

I could not fathom what dark desires had brought the earl’s daughter so far afield, but I would never forget the look of abject malice upon her lovely face that night.

What was left of my reputation was in tatters.

What had I left to lose?

Nothing.

And so nothing would I give them, these vultures and thieves. Baring my teeth around the wooden rod, I snarled my loathing at them all.

“There are those who deny these wants.” As if I’d given him the cue he desired, Hawke stood beside me. His fingers came to rest over my nape. “Poor creatures that they are, forever burdened by the demands of those who do not understand them.”

I jerked sharply. Though there was too much knowing in his words, I did not like the sound of this little monologue.

“Is it not our responsibility to free them from such?”

I flinched when the fingers at my nape tightened.

“Is it not our duty, as greater men, to bring these fragile birds to our hands? To treat them as they deserve to be treated?” His free hand, rouge-stained, cupped my cheek. I averted my gaze rather than be forced to meet that blue stare again. Devil-bright—filled with a knowledge I myself had handed him.

What a fool, I was.

“Let ‘e go,” I rasped. That more of my gathered saliva dribbled from my straining lips seemed to titillate the crowd who watched; I heard murmuring, even a chuckle.

Hawke’s fingers drifted to my throat. Then lower. Sifting through the froth of lace, they skimmed over the swell of my breast.

My flesh heated where he touched.

My face burned with mortification.

“She fights, because she has been told no self-respecting woman would allow herself to be so revealed.” Hawke’s gentle reproach was not so soft as to be for my ears alone. No, he knew what it was he did, projecting such kindness and understanding across the amphitheater. “No one has allowed her the opportunity to be free of the burden of choice.”

“Tou’ ‘e an’ I wi’ ki’ y’u!” What didn’t make it through the gag, I made bloody sure burned in my stare.

The devil laughed. “And still, she fights. Come, Countess. Let go your obligations. Let go the prudery that has all but strangled the heart from you.” I leaned as far away as I could from his grasp, but the ribbons left me no avenue. He crowded me, his hard features twisted into a mockery of kindness. Of platitudes that twisted like knives within my chest.

“Free yourself of sorrow,” he coaxed, his hand flattening over the front of my corset. As if I wore nothing, I felt it press against my constricted ribs—a brand, a mark of possession. “Free yourself of the guilt you feel when choice is all you are offered.”

Slowly, his free hand splayed over my cheek. Warm. Gentle enough that my senses could not distinguish what was real and what came of my own hazy fantasy.

Was this Hawke speaking to me? Was it a stranger in his skin?

Did he promise me safety?

His hand lifted from my cheek. Crack! Pain blossomed beneath his palm. “A body so owned has no worries but that which her protector bestows.” Crack! The other cheek. Tears filled my eyes. “Her passions so enslaved, she has no sorrows but those he allows.”

Crack! My teeth ground against wooden rod. Fire bloomed over my face, crawled down my neck.

“Such a treasure, my lady, is adored, utterly and completely. She is consumed, until she is nothing—” another slap, “—but obedience—” Another. I cried out. “—and love.” Hawke’s palms framed my face, drew me to my toes as his mouth slanted over mine. His kiss reeked of arrogance, of lust given flesh and heightened arousal so sharp, I could taste it on his breath.

Behind him, I could hear the crowd murmuring. Feel their intensity as they watched.

I forced myself to remain still. To remain lifeless under his kiss, noisy and wet and messy as it was against my gagged mouth. When he lifted his head, it was not to me he looked, but the crowd.

I was a prop, a thing. This show, this demanded submission, was nothing like that which I’d offered Hawke of my own will. This was a mockery—a bloody performance for jeering apes dressed in silks, twisting that which had been my gift to him.

What joy I might have felt in Hawke’s arms before now turned to ash and rot.

I shuddered with revulsion. With fear.

“Think of nothing,” Hawke said, his voice a deep drag within my skin. That he could still force an element of feeling from me was something I despised with all my being. “Worry for nothing but that which we demand. That is our responsibility. Our gift to the likes of you.”

When he circled me, I saw him lick his lips—as if he would taste the red rouge that had rubbed off on his mouth from mine. Raw delight, depraved in ways I had never seen before, filled a face I had once thought of as familiar.

I did not know this monster.

I did not know how to rationalize what I felt now. Only that I would escape, the very instant he gave me opportunity.

And then he would be sorry.

“Bring them,” Hawke called. On cue, the side doors that were usually used for Menagerie staff opened, and out came four women—midnight sweets, all of them. I recognized Talitha and Jane, girls I had befriended. Beside them, Delilah, who had been so kind when I’d seen her last, and Black Lily.

All were dressed in simple shifts. All bound. They did not shuffle, or walk with rounded shoulders. They were sweets, quite used to the peddling of their flesh to the highest bidder, but Lily stumbled. It was Talitha who caught her, an arm around her shoulders, and in that moment, I saw Talitha’s face turned in my direction.

Fear flickered there. Fear, and anger.

Lily’s face was bandaged, but the way she moved told me she was as drugged as I—with none of the tolerance to afford her understanding.

He’d brought all the women I’d come to know, to enjoy the company of.

The Veil had lied. Even though I’d capitulated, though I stood here now, these women would be made to suffer—and I had no choice but to watch.

I think I must have lost my mind, for the next thing I knew, I was raving at Hawke in words that would not form fully around the wooden rod. His laughter filled the amphitheater, fused with the sudden surge of delighted chatter from them what watched.

The stays of my corset loosened, so sharply that I know he did not untie them. The panels eased, my natural curves pushing them away.

A knife. I’d bet my life upon it.

A literal wager.

Gripping the ribbons, I waited; held my breath with the effort.

His fingers slid beneath the corset’s edges, pulled it farther apart. The sudden ceasing of pressure upon my wound woke the deadened flesh, and I flinched.

Only to scream in shock and pain as his fingers found the puncture and pressed.

The sound tore through the amphitheater.

“A possession’s reward,” Hawke said in the pulsating silence that followed, “is punishment. Our kindness is in the demands we make. We have too long been made to suffer in silence, persecuted by societies determined to stamp out the vices that give us control. Remember where you come from!” This last was spoken so sharply, filled with so much menace, that many gasped.

I glared out over the firelight, panting tiny breaths lest deeper ones aggravate the agony he’d provoked. Very carefully, I eased one foot out of my slipper.

I saw the color of Lady Sarah Elizabeth’s emerald gown, but could not see her face as she bent to cup Black Lily’s chin in her hand. Her thumb pressed against the bandage.

Spots of red turned black against the white cloth.

Lily did not flee. Rooted to the spot, kneeling beside the woman, she sobbed.

My vision went red in kind.

Bollocks to waiting. I would see blood for blood now. I straightened my arms, providing slack in the ribbons where there had been none. I whirled, graceful as the dancer Fanny had always wanted me to be. Hawke’s strange blue eyes laughed at me, but his smile was one of sinister mockery as my corset slid to the stage floor, cut laces drifting in its wake.

I don’t believe he expected me to behave as I did then. I certainly hadn’t expected it of myself. All I know was that my heart thudded hard enough in my skull to drown Lily’s pitiful cries, the protestations of the girls he would see abused, and my fury would wait for nothing.

Tightening my arms, I lifted my legs and braced both upon Hawke’s chest. I was quick; much more so than he expected, and perhaps more than my wound could allow, but pain would not stop me.

The knife, a simple dagger without ornamentation, glinted in his gloved hand. With a deft move I hadn’t planned through, I kicked out, toes splayed, and deftly plucked the blade from his grip.

Laughter turned to surprise.

Pain sheared up my leg.

I could not let it stop me.

Clenching my toes tightly around the sharp edge, I rolled my body up, until I was upside down upon the ribbons.

Hawke laughed outright. His hands caught my head, cradled it. The veil they’d placed upon my head floated between us, caressed my cheek. With one hand, he seized it at the base, and wrenched the whole thing off. The shear ruthlessness of it hardened my resolve, and though he tore my hair free of its pins, I did not scream. Forcing my upside down stare to meet his, he drawled, “And where do you think to go, my lady?”

A twist of my foot, toes clamped upon the blade, and fabric tore.

Crimson silk pooled over us both. It slid across his cheek, trailed down my body, and abruptly left one arm loose. I would have swung—a strange echo of the way I’d freed Hawke from his own chains—were it not for Hawke’s own grasp on my hair.

It pulled tight enough that I felt some give. My scalp burned.

“I a’ no sla’e,” I spat. For all his pretty words, a slave was something I would never again allow myself to be—neither by flesh nor by marriage.

His thumb caught a thread of saliva tinted gold by the candlelight. Smeared it over my upper lip. “Yes,” he assured me, with extreme gentility. “You are. Why deny this freedom?”

Freedom? Freedom in becoming a man’s possession? I would have laughed, if I weren’t driven beyond madness.

I had faced this path before, selling my dreams in marriage—risking it all on a good man, much less a monster such as Hawke had become.

I would debase myself for nothing less than total freedom.

The exchange allowed me opportunity to work a hole large enough into the other silk ribbon that my weight did the rest. The sound of rending fabric said all that needed to be said.

My weight dropped like a stone, tearing me free of Hawke’s grip as he leapt back. I hit the stage hard enough to ring every bone in my body like a jumbled bell, but I wasted no time feeling the pain.

The severed silk floated to the stage floor, a rain of crimson, as graceful as ink drawn across the page of my comprehension. I surged to my bare feet, and it was as if I was living flame—I had no explanation for it, no real understanding.

In my state of mind, I embodied grace and retribution, facing Hawke down as the ribbon trailed to the floor between us.

The fabric hung from the knots tied around my wrists; near enough to my dreams that for all my surety, I hesitated.

Was this real?

Was I dreaming another dreadful opium dream?

Hawke splayed one hand out, his face a twisted mask of malevolence. “You are mine,” he snarled.

I tore the gag from my mouth, barely cognizant of it when twisted hanks of my hair snapped with it. I threw it at his feet. “I am no man’s,” I returned in like aggression.

The wrong answer, to his mind. An expression of violence turned into rage incarnate. His mouth peeled back, baring white teeth. His eyes blazed. “You will not deny me!” The air over his palm crackled.

Blue light gathered, a sizzling surge of energy. It flickered like electricity, but the central heart of it did not go out, gathering in bright intensity.

I stared, open-mouthed and suddenly empty-minded.

This must be a dream.

A high scream rent the air. On it’s heels, a desperate, masculine voice. “Move!”

From the left, I heard what could not be the sound of swords clashing. That would make no sense. Swords? Here?

From the right, a man’s shape leapt onto the stage. Red hair glinted copper bright. Aristocratic features had not softened, but only sharpened with severe intensity. He appeared nothing more than a forceful man determined to interfere.

Hawke’s teeth bared in a manic smile fraught with challenge. He flung that blue light with such savage fury that I flinched, threw my arms over my head—but I had no need. The blue orb soared, unerringly precise, launched at the man who dared to reach for me.

Madness erupted.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hands seized my waist, and I was dragged from the stage. Blue fire exploded, hotter than any fire I’d known and brighter than the most complex Chinese firework.

I hit the ground upon my backside, my shoulders colliding with a stone seat. Agony tore through my re-opened wound; my vision went spotty.

“The hell,” I heard in a voice I swore was familiar, but all I knew was that rough hands tore at the gag until the wood was removed from between my teeth and I could breathe normally again.

Those same hands cupped my face. “Wake up,” he ordered, a pleasant enough sound were it not for the anger and—what? Something else twisted it. Shaped it to a ragged severity.

I forced my fluttering lashes to part.

Sculpted jaw, sandy blonde chops.

The blood drained from my face. I gasped, but could not form the words.

To my shame, a faint threatened to swallow me.

The hands at my cheeks tightened. “No! Wake up!” He slapped me once, a tap compared to that which Hawke had delivered, but it sent heat surging to my cheeks. I startled, clawed at his grip until he let me go.

“Compton,” I croaked.

“Now,” he agreed, but as he pulled me to my feet, I realized that it was not my late lord standing before me, but his brother.

Lord Piers Everard Compton, inveterate rake and no stranger to the Menagerie’s delights, had been invited to this special show.

I had no time for shame.

I shook him off, tossing back the weight of my loosened hair as I did. “A weapon,” I demanded. My voice was hoarse, my jaw aching from the strain of that damnable gag, but I could at least speak.

Lord Piers stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. His brother had so often worn that very expression.

The ache this caused in me shattered what was left of the mind I retained.

I pushed him, hard enough that he nearly tripped over the seat behind him. “Get out,” I ordered.

“I will not leave you to this madness!”

“Out!” I screamed it, as wild a banshee as I imagine he’d ever seen. “While you can, you fool!” I pushed him again, and this time, he did fall backwards, crown over elbows. “Go!”

I left him, certain he’d have quite the tale to tell his rakehell friends come morning.

If he survived the chaos.

What had begun as an event of prestigious invite had turned into warfare. I stood, feet bare and one bleeding, gasping for breath through a terrible knot in my side, and saw bloody hell rain down upon the amphitheater.

Zylphia, her braid in a wrapped crown and her tunic and trousers similar to that of the Chinese servants, fought those same servants. She had no weapon, but the way she moved—fluid and precise—mirrored the men she fought. As I watched, a spark of something red glinted between her hands. One palm flattened against a short Chinese man’s chest.

The man she battled howled as his eyes turned red. The same light spilled from his nose, his mouth, even boiled from his ears. He clawed at his face, but ash tinted the air on a ragged exhale and he collapsed.

Over the slumped figure, separated by the smoke of fanned candles and wicked lights, Zylphia’s gaze locked with mine. She curled her fingers over a palm I’d sworn glowed as red as the firelight.

I opened my mouth.

She shook her head hard and turned away, this time to shout at a youth who swung a club at a knot of tangled bodies. “Watch your friends, Tovey!”

Chaos. Screaming, thrashing, bloody chaos.

Delilah had torn free of her bindings, and she wielded a sword taken from heaven knows where. Perhaps from Zylphia’s people, though that spoke of civil war in the making—a truth I had recognized no signs of. What bloody coup had been planned in the wings? So many secrets in these grounds.

With skill fine enough to make a fencing instructor proud, Delilah defended Talitha and Jane, who stood back to back, the remains of broken vases in hand. Jane’s eyes were wild, her teeth bared, but Talitha looked winded and afraid; I could not fault her.

Others had joined the fray. It was too chaotic to see them all, but I saw enough to know that not all who fought would walk away this night.

A sweet with Irish red hair lay still, splayed over a stone seat. Blood dripped down the edge. A man whose white mustache had turned red slumped beside her, as if he’d thought to save her life—and only lost his own.

“Help.”

The plea came from behind me. I turned, trailing red ribbon, and screamed my denial as Black Lily scrabbled at the stone ground. A sword lay beyond her reach, as if flung under the weight of her falling. The lion prince knelt on her back, pinning her, as his fingers spanned her head. He wrenched hard, and her voice ended as suddenly as it had rang out.

Osoba stood, a terrible strain written into his drawn snarl.

She did not move again. Her head remained tilted at a terrible angle.

Like Zylphia, he looked up to catch my stare. Rage boiled within me.

“You are mine,” I mouthed, knowing he would never hear me. He offered me a small bow, something raw in his expression, and he turned away.

He vanished into the chaos as if he had always known how to do so, the lion prince seeking his next prey.

Why it was not me, I didn’t know.

Shaking, trembling with frenzy and opium-induced fatigue, I spun, ribbons trailing behind me, and stalked for the stage I’d only just abandoned.

I needed to end this, once and for all. I needed to see this through.

Menagerie bloody justice.

Yet as I braced my palms upon the edge of the stage, I could not fathom what it is I saw. Try as I might to focus, to bat away the haze of bliss drawn over my senses, this defied description.

Hawke and the red-haired gentleman were locked in a combat the likes of which I could not be sure I wasn’t fantasizing. Blue flame and violet light showered from the black sky above, turned to orange fire as it touched the floor, the ribbons. Even those who fought too close.

A Chinese man shrieked as he was engulfed. The horrifying stench of charred flesh turned the incense-laded air to acrid charcoal.

Hawke leapt aside as the strange man threw a glint of gold at him. Whatever it was, it failed to reach its intended target. In answer, he flung a hand and something green shimmered as it arced towards the unnamed toff.

It flashed so brightly, I was left staring blindly at the aftershocks as they flared black and white in my straining sight.

Hawke’s opponent was not caught so unawares, lowering the hem of his singed jacket from his protected face.

Foregoing whatever tricks they pulled on each other, the gent launched himself at Hawke, a form of lethality the likes I never would have expected from an aristocrat. They collided, staggered back over the far edge of the stage and fell over.

I scrambled atop it, darted under the burning ribbons.

I had not expected anyone to pay me a mind. Battles were not my forte, and whatever madness had seized this place, I could make no mistake—this was war.

And I, apparently, an unwitting soldier in it.

The body that slammed into mine was lethally hard, honed like a blade and agile as a cat. I spun, hitting the stage floor upon my back, and already slamming an elbow into the man’s chin.

Black skin, long plaits. Ikenna Osoba, his face twisted into a ferocious scowl.

He said nothing—a lesser man would have tried.

Rather, as we rolled and struggled for the upper hand, he made it clear that he would not tolerate anything less than total victory. Over me. Over himself. I didn’t know.

The man belonged to the Veil; where I’d thought him too proud to take me on, instead he had accepted my challenge. That was all that mattered.

The ribbons still bound to my wrists wrapped us both in a tangle. He wound up the victor on top, and his forearm pressed into my throat as if he’d waste no time drawing it out. Smart, but then I’d known that.

I was long past the point of numb disbelief.

Creating a hook with my fingers, I jabbed them into his arm—a point where the nerves would cause the limb to spasm. I’d learned that one from a doxie what took no nonsense from her paying men, but rarely was I afforded the opportunity to use it. It required precise placement.

Osoba cursed, growling like the lions he was reputed to tame, as his arm slid from my throat. I gasped for breath, drew up a knee and jammed it hard into the soft flesh between his legs.

His curse strangled.

A dark, lithe shape drew up beside us. Zylphia’s hand buried in Osoba’s braids, wrenched hard enough that his head and shoulder bent back, cords standing out in his throat. “That ginger cove,” she said sharply. “He’s losing the fight.”

“Why,” I rasped, “is that my fault?”

Osoba pushed himself off me, a flex of muscle that all but caused him to go airborne for a fleeing moment. His plaits slid through Zylphia’s grip, and she spared me a hard look from behind a mask of blood. Hers or someone else’s, I could not be sure. “We moved this quicker than we intended. For you,” she said quickly, harsh enough that I knew she was feeling the pain of a wound I could not see. “Do not waste it!”

“Zylla?”

“Go, cherie.” She turned to handle Osoba.

I watched them—the mulatto and the prince clashed in a spectacularly agile tangle that told me it would not be a bloodless battle. Part of me wanted to see this play out. I had never known what Zylphia’s special skillset was, only that she came from a lineage the Veil called “useful.”

I hesitated, torn—I did not care to leave her, and owed no loyalty to the ginger cove she warned was losing. Zylphia clapped her hands once and spoke a phrase in a language I did not know she possessed, a glint of red light appearing in her palm. Where I expected Osoba to come for her, he leapt back as if she’d already burned him.

He flung up his hands, fingers splayed and bloodied, and replied something in the same style of tongue. It did not click, not as I’d heard him say before.

Zylphia laughed. It was not a sound I’d ever heard from her—rich and loud, as if he’d said something she found utterly comical.

Osoba’s gaze flicked to me, then back to the sweet. Inclining his head, he slipped away, over the stage, and once more out of view; challenge forfeited.

Zylphia did not turn to face me. As if a woman possessed, she tipped back her head and let loose a scream that galvanized all who heard it into startled shrieks and awful cheers—a terrible noise, yet so joyful as to be frighteningly out of place.

Fear for her froze me in place.

Too late. A flare of red light, wholly different from what Zylphia summoned, surged from the edge of the stage.

The whole of it shuddered. I had no time to scrutinize my options. The far end blew outwards in an excessive display of energy and power, so forceful as to beat down all who stood in its path.

I shielded my face from the splinters of wood and stone.

A foot connected with my back, just over the wound I’d already reopened. I screamed my pain, howled my anger, even as I fell over that ruined edge of the platform.

The report of a pistol cracked, and the amphitheater returned the echo a thousand times. Whoever had assaulted me, they did not come again.

Groaning amidst the carnage left by that red flare, I forced myself upright. Lurched when my knees wobbled.

What a fearless collector I’d turned out to be. Confident enough of my skills when it came to one on one, but the madness of this place undid me. I had never been trained for all-out war, and that was the hell I found myself in.

For all my befuddlement, still I staggered forward. “Cage...” That his name was the one upon my lips should have infuriated me. It would, later. But I had no name for the ginger gentleman and no real understanding that what I saw did not stem from the opium I’d imbibed.

I had taken too much.

And still, I wanted more. To dull the noise, dull the pain.

Put me to sleep where all the cares of the world could fade to empty silence.

The men fought, heedless of the severe damage they left in their wake. Ginger to black; copper to ink. Blue and violet and sparkling green, they fought with things I could not wholly take in, even as the impact of fists and flesh and the ruby glint of blood smeared all.

Hawke’s white gloves were nearly black with it.

The other man wavered upon his feet.

I lurched into a shuffle.

Then, a sprint.

Hawke shaped that light, malignant and red between his hands, his voice raised in Chinese words I didn’t understand. Yet this time, he changed the inflection—his tone turned nasal, where I’d only ever heard him respond to the Veil in his own deep voice.

Had I required further proof of this abnormality wearing the ringmaster’s skin, this sufficed.

Where was Hawke?

The stranger tripped over fallen candles, sprawled on his backside, and strained until his jaw stood out in stark relief and tendons popped in his forearms—mostly bared, its burned remains reduced to a few clinging threads. I saw the roll of his lean shoulders as if he struggled to push back against whatever force Hawke summoned.

I did not think. I simply leapt at Hawke as he raised his hands, his face a wild mask of triumph and near ecstatic pleasure.

“Cage!”

In that moment, a split second, Hawke’s hands wavered. The light faded out, sizzled to nothing. I collided into his chest; his arms came around me, long-fingered hand splaying over the back of my head as if he would protect me from injury.

With effortless strength, he spun me, utilizing my own momentum to gather me hard into his arms. I looked up, fearing the blue of his eyes and frantic to see traces of the man I desperately hope remained inside.

His eyes banked. Blue darkened, and in my wide-eyed confusion, struggling to regain the upper hand as he held me, I saw my terror and abject bewilderment reflected in a brown pool streaked with azure light.

Hawke sucked in a ragged breath. “Cherry.”

I seized his face in my hands. “Come back to me.” That I implored this was not something I am proud of.

His jaw shifted, that muscle I had never thought would be such a relief to see leaping in his cheek once more.

He did not address my demand. “Go,” he ordered.

Bollocks to that. “I won’t!”

The despair writ into his twisted grimace warred with fierce possession, and he shook me hard enough to rattle my senses. “Leave me.” A ragged plea that turned to a growl as another pair of hands tore me, addled and beyond understanding, from his grasp. I found my feet only to lose them again, spun out of the way by the ginger man’s rough handling.

His unfamiliar voice rang in my ear. “Get to safety!”

A tinkle of glass, all but inaudible beneath the madness, seemed so desperately out of place. Over the man’s restraining arm, I watched something violet, not quite light but not flame either, ripple up Hawke’s arm. It hugged his flesh, snaked up his shoulder as he half-turned to protect his face.

He whipped about, flailing that arm, howling his rage. Blue frenzy, naked venom, once more drowned his stare. Whatever the violet stuff was meant to do, Hawke flung it from him with a hard word that crackled.

It fell to the floor in shards of purple glass.

The stranger put me down, keeping his body between us, his arm flung out—hemming me behind him, keeping me away. “I only want the girl,” he called. “The rest of this mess is your own to clean.”

Hawke said nothing, his lip curling into a mocking sneer. Once more, that light gathered between his hands. Red as blood, evil as I would have always sworn light simply could not be. Light was light, color was color; neither good nor evil.

But I felt it. Even from this distance, my skin crawled beneath the vile touch of whatever power the Menagerie’s own devil summoned.

The world had gone utterly barmy; with it, my own senses. I could only stare, rooted to the spot, as the light gathered in intensity—frozen by the cold power in azure eyes.

“All who oppose me will burn,” Hawke said, still in that showman’s voice I despised. He turned that sneer upon the stranger and let fly the mysterious light.

The man I did not know sketched a shape in the air that glowed brightly purple, distorting the air about it. A contour appeared in his fingers’ wake, a pointed set of angles I did not recognize.

Hawke’s red light did not engulf him. It did not touch him.

The evil power banked over him, and Hawke’s smile turned to satisfied leer.

I stared, worn down to nothing but numb futility, as all in my sight turned red.

The cove turned, but too slow. “No!” he shouted. Fury filled it, and he flung one hand. “Hamaxa!”

Everything within me ignited.

My lungs burst. My eardrums popped. Blood filled my throat, my nose. My heart tore itself apart. Everything that could rupture, did.

Or at least, that is what it seemed to me.

Whatever happened after that, it all faded to the faintest of displays, as if I watched a play from far beyond the stage, buried in the wings. My body skidded across the ground, listless as a rag doll, and sent candles spiraling in my wake. No flame caught, but smoke filled the amphitheater.

When I finally fell still, I could not move. I could not will my body to stand, to twitch, even to breathe.

I could only watch in numb horror as everything fell to flame and chaos.

The tail of a rabbit can not be long.

Betrayal had come to the Karakash Veil after all. But did it come from my doing?

Or was this only a matter of course?

My lashes lowered. Weariness—a fatigue the like I’d never known—settled upon my limbs.

Sleep. All I wanted now was sleep. Perhaps forever.

Yes. Forever.

“Cherry!” Hands seized my shoulders; I did not feel them, not really. I was aware that it happened, but not that it hurt. It should have. Everything should have.

My sense of self dissolved into air and nothing.

Cherry. My sweet, sweet girl.

A woman’s voice coaxed me into slumber.

This time, I did not care that I dreamed it. I obeyed.

For once in my bloody life, I did not fight.

You will let me in.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The jarring is what woke me first. My world shuddered, sending vibrations all the way to my aching bones, and I came to already sobbing. It hurt. Everything about me hurt. My body. My head.

My empty, aching heart.

A steady arm wrapped around my shoulders, supporting me against a warmth that combatted the chill I suffered, but it did not help. Everything rocked. “Easy,” murmured a soft spoken voice. Masculine, firm. “Rest while you can, Miss St. Croix. ’Tis a long journey out.”

A glass rim touched my lips. Bitter alcohol coated my tongue. Because I was naught but a creature of habit, I drank every drop of the laudanum fed me.

I had learned nothing, after all.

Peeling my crusted eyes open showed me the blurred glare of a small lantern, and a glint of red where it reflected off copper hair. The gentleman cradled me against his side, his features lost in my bleary sight.

A carriage, I realized. We were in a carriage, it was night—or perhaps the curtains were drawn. The jarring came from roads that were not of London-make, yet that we took a carriage and not a sky ship suggested a certain amount of secrecy.

The laudanum burned a path to my belly. What little deductive reasoning I’d grasped faded away beneath a tide of sweet lassitude. Pain faded. Worry, theory, even interest dulled to nothing.

Opium to dull the pain, and I bore so very much.

My head lolled, and gently, the man I traveled with adjusted his arm so that he supported my inevitable wilting.

My lips moved. “Who...?”

The carriage rocked again, and this time he splayed his free hand over my chest, covered by an ermine blanket to combat the chill. It put his face closer—enough that I could see that his hair was short, messy as if he’d dragged his fingers through it repeatedly, and a bruise stained the pale skin of his jaw. Another abrasion marred his left cheekbone.

Aristocratic features. I could not place them; could barely be bolloxed to try.

“Rest, Miss St. Croix,” he murmured. The lantern reflected back in brown eyes. “There will be time for questions after we’ve dried you out.”

My eyelids drooped. I wanted to feel fear at the words, feel worry or anger or anything—I could not. Sleep beckoned, and with it, that woman’s ghostly song.

I didn’t want to hear it; didn’t want to dream of red ribbon wrapping my limbs, of echoes of weeping and my own worthless sorrow. I did not want to dream of a wicked man with unfamiliar eyes, taunting me from Micajah Hawke’s cruel sneer.

I whimpered my distress.

His arm tightened around me. “It will not be easy,” he said in soft tones designed to soothe. “We will nevertheless persevere. Non omnis moriar.”

My Latin had not been utilized for far too long. I could not parse his intent.

“Who,” I mumbled again. My fingers found his side beneath the blanket, clenched into his shirt. “Please...”

The hand he’d used to brace me now stroked my hair from my forehead. “It has been entirely too long, I think. Oliver Ashmore, at your service.”

I stiffened, more out of habit than any true fear. It was as if the memories of it—the understanding that I should be afraid of this man—hammered at the door to my fatigue, and opium sealed the lock.

Long had I imagined my absent guardian a demon, always had I feared when his booted steps echoed down the halls of my childhood corridors. I had never gone out of my way to see him, always avoided him. Seven long years, and he had remained the demon I feared the most.

Ashmore paused, perhaps recognizing my worthless struggle for what it was. He did not let me go, nor did he allow me space to wriggle away—I could barely summon the will to try. With his arm wrapped around my shoulders, his voice dropped an octave. “I promise you thisY,” he intoned, with such lyrical rhythm as to be nearly mesmerizing. “You are once more in my safekeeping. Now rest.” What dregs of sudden panic spiked beneath the laudanum he’d fed me soon evaporated to bone-deep lethargy.

I would never have dreamed the word I whispered next. “Stay.”

“You have my word.”

The irony of my new predicament did not elude me. Saved from the madness of the Menagerie, only to be threatened with the loss of the one vice that kept my sanity in check. That the determination came from my guardian only made it all the worse, for long had I bemoaned his long-distance interference in my life. The naïveté of those days might have shamed me, were I not so eager to avoid thinking of anything at all.

For all my conceit, it took a demon to save me from the devil.

My eyes closed entirely. Part of me could not decide whether weeping or laughter would be most appropriate. With my head pillowed against Ashmore’s shoulder, I could do neither—only fall into a deep and trance-like state of sleep.

I had, after all, nothing left to lose. In the end, sobriety had become the demon I feared most.

* * * * *

Author’s Note

“But, Karina,” you might be saying to yourself as you ponder the events within the Midnight Menagerie, “everyone knows the English were prudes. What’s all this talk of racy showmanship and possession?”

A fair question. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to introduce you to a man who might give you something of a new view about Englishmen and Brits in general. Through one man’s efforts, I will show you a time in which sexual deviancy, pornography, piracy of the literary kind, and mass mailings all took place.

Although the exact date is unclear, it is proposed that two clubs were formed at the same time in 1863. The first, The Anthropological Society, which is a club whose interests are obviously included in the name. The second, founded by Sir Richard Francis Burton and Dr. James Hunt, was given a name much less telling—or, given your nature, all the more so: The Cannibal Club. It’s thought that the name was derived from Burton’s obsession with the act, which he had long regretted he’d never seen in his many travels.

Burton was a man whose healthy regard for sex and sexuality often put him in conflict with the rather, erm, rigid viewpoints of the Victorian Era. Within The Cannibal Club, he held meetings—which he liked to call “orgies,” though his wife’s father and brother often visited—wherein deviancies of all kinds could be discussed. If it was considered wrong, taboo, or otherwise unacceptable by the staid British institution, then it was ripe for the talking—and, rumor goes, testing.

The members of this club were all men, naturally, though rented girls would have to be an occasional part of the equation. From discourse to experimentation, and rumor had it more than just that, The Cannibal Club played host to any number of vagaries uncommon for the time—or rather, uncommonly spoken about for the time.

Not content with discussion, the members fancied themselves authors, of a sort. They’d gather to write pornographic stories, utilizing a round-robin style that started with one man beginning the tale, then passing the story on to the next, then the next, each adding to it. Sound familiar, writers?

Sir Richard Burton’s contribution to the, ahem, betterment of English mores and morale did not end there. An accomplished spy and polyglot, he was well-traveled and extremely adept at hiding his origins as an Englishman, even so far as darkening his skin to better fill the role. He spent years in India, and he also achieved a disguised pilgrimage to Mecca—not the only Englishman to successfully do so, but arguably the most famous. He was known for the books he brought back, and while the most widely known might be The Arabian Nights, certainly the most infamous came from India—The Kama Sutra.

There was never any secret that Burton was fascinated by sex and sexuality. His writings were often frank about the sexual practices of the cultures he visited, and his journals detailed. The Kama Sutra, translated with help from Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot and archaeologist Bhagwanlal Indraji, was the kind of book suggestive, seductive and scandalous enough to get a man jailed. Quite literally, no less. Since the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, many publishers had been jailed after prosecution by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and publication of “obscene” material had become too much a risk.

In 1883, convinced that the unhealthily uptight Brits could use some education, Burton brought The Kama Sutra back with him, and proceeded to employ a campaign of letter-writing to associates who might be willing to risk a little jail time for the privilege of owning the first English translation of this scandalous and educational book.

Can you imagine what the letter must have said? While most consider The Kama Sutra a tell-all on sexual positions, it also includes advice regarding prostitution, some discourse on how to deal with a cheating lover, and various texts regarding love, family, and other pleasure-oriented goals for a man or woman who wants to live a full and healthy life. Do you suppose he focused more on the lotus or the living well portions in his pitch?

As it turns out, Burton wasn’t the only one with a healthy interest in sex. The requests for a copy of the book came back, and one by one, Burton had them printed and sent off.

So tickled by the contents, at least one of the recipients of The Kama Sutra duplicated his or her copy a few times, then sent that along to friends. Friends reproduced the book and passed it on, leaving a trail of scandal and sex so far and wide that when the authorities tried to trace the source, it proved too tangled a web to follow.

To recap, not only had Sir Richard Francis Burton engaged in unlawful distribution of pornographic materials, but he’d used a mass mail campaign to do so, inspired some early piracy, and got away scot free!

All the while, we hope, enlightening more than a few of those prudish Society trendsetters as to all the good stuff they’d been missing.

While the Victorian Age arguably holds the record for “most sexually repressed” in history, I would point you to all the anecdotes recorded in letters, individuals breaking the norm, and pictures of the time as a suggestion that this might be more of a widely accepted misnomer than absolute fact. It’s certainly true that the expectation of society was that of repression—that women were expected to behave a certain way, that sexuality was no fit topic for any environment, that the appearance of the thing was all that mattered. However, it’s also true that history is so often written by those who live in the time, from a position of power and influence—in more peaceful times, the equivalent of “the victors.” Whatever they wanted further generations to think of them, whatever they expected people to do, that is what they wrote. (Which bears consideration: What do you suppose future generations will think of us?)

From the prostitutes plying their wares across London, to the close-mouthed fascination among the uppercrust with all things dark and occult, to the commonplace but silent acceptance that a man—and occasionally, a woman—would “take a lover,” the obsession with sex and sexuality was never truly stamped out of the Victorian Era. This was a time when men were encouraged to develop such close bonds that their letters to each other sound more like a love letters than a shout out between bros; when women of no relation could inhabit the same home, speculated to be lovers, and simply be spoken of as if they were “aunt” and “niece”—when spoken of at all. It’s a period when we’re rather more focused on the “society” folk, so we forget that it’s also a time of great social upheaval—suffragettes willing to die for their cause, union men banding together, great scientific breakthroughs, rampant drug use, and yes, the repression of gender, class and social distinction.

When Micajah Hawke speaks of ownership and possession, is he really so far out of place as to be a deviant?

Or is it simply that he speaks of it that breaks the mores?

I’ll let you, dear reader, be the judge.

A final note: My greatest of thanks goes to Sophia McCloy, for taking the time to help me with Chinese idioms. You have inspired me to learn again.

About the Author

After writing happily-ever-afters for all of her friends in school, Karina Cooper eventually grew up (sort of) and went to work in the real world (kind of) where she decided that making up stuff was way more fun (true!). She is the author of dark and sexy paranormal romances, steampunk adventures and crossover urban fantasies. She writes across multiple genres with mad glee. Her steampunk series, The St. Croix Chronicles, has won a Romantic Times Award and has been nominated for an RT Seal of Excellence.

One part glamour, one part dork and all imagination, Karina is also a gamer, an airship captain’s wife and a steampunk fashionista. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with a husband, a menagerie, a severe coffee habit and the fantasy of a summer home somewhere sunny. Visit her at www.karinacooper.com, because she says so.

Content

Corroded
The St. Croix Chronicles - 3
by
Karina Cooper

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Author’s Note

About the Author