Chapter 3 #2
Finn shivered. Out of habit, she touched her tin heart pendant, the feel of the dented metal soothing her.
Someone had tied it around her neck as a baby.
It was the only thing she’d been able to hold on to—probably because it was worthless to anyone else.
But the little rusted heart was hers, and she wore it always, even under her seer disguise.
Knowing she would need confidence for the meeting, she’d dressed it up, threading it on a bold red ribbon.
Entering the attic, she saw her family waiting for her.
They’d chosen this open area as their meeting place: it was the highest room, with windows that provided a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding neighborhood, which seemed peaceful but one never knew.
As Iris had drilled into their heads, a Hawk could never be too careful.
The former owner had left behind a macabre trove, and his stuffed creations made for an interesting ambiance.
Beady-eyed creatures, some with fur and others with feathers, overflowed trunks and cabinets.
Finn’s favorite was the peregrine falcon perched on a stand, its piercing yellow eyes keeping vigilant watch.
Chains and hooks hung from the rafters, swaying with subtle menace.
Glass vessels, metal implements, and other tools of the trade cluttered the shelves.
The Hawks had lugged up a battered sofa, scarred table, and collection of mismatched chairs.
Finn almost smiled to find everyone exactly where she would have predicted.
Caleb sat at one end of the table, drumming his fingers impatiently.
Next to him, Nell was scribbling in a ledger.
In an adjacent corner, Tansy had fastened two of the hooks together to form a swing, and she giggled as she soared through the air, her blonde curls bouncing.
Simon, who at fifteen was the youngest after Tansy, was on his hands and knees.
A gangly, rawboned youth, he was fiddling with delicate wires coming out of the floorboard.
Finn strolled up to him. “What are you doing, lad?”
When he looked up at her with his huge brown eyes, the memory of their first meeting tugged at her chest. His head had been in the muck and beneath the boot of a master sweep, who’d been tearing a strip off his hide while onlookers enjoyed the entertainment.
That had been three years ago, and even at that tender age, Simon hadn’t cried.
He’d just gazed up at her with misery and resignation, and Finn couldn’t walk by.
Luckily, Iris had felt the same way. They’d managed to free Simon from his master and welcomed him into the flock.
He’d paid them back with gratitude…and a special set of skills.
As it turned out, no lock could keep Simon out, and his talent with mechanical matters rivaled Tansy’s athletic abilities.
“Broken,” Simon said, his brow furrowed. “Swing, swing.”
He was a fellow of few words, yet Finn knew what he meant.
“Your rig worked fine,” she replied. “You put the fear of God into those coves. If the chandelier had swung any farther, someone would have had an apoplectic fit, and we can’t have a customer cocking up their toes on the first day, can we? Bad for business.”
“Bad for business.” Simon’s grin was slow and sweet. “Fix. Swing.”
“Deal with the chandelier later, Simon,” Caleb said imperiously. “It’s time for a council of the Hawks.”
With a prickle of annoyance, Finn headed to the table.
At twenty-three, Caleb was a year younger than she was, and while they’d always butted heads, their rivalry had been mostly benign.
Lately, however, he’d been challenging her authority.
He’d somehow gotten the idea that he ought to be the leader just by virtue of the extra equipment God had given him.
I’ll show you who has the larger bollocks.
She strode to the head of the table, facing Caleb down its length.
“All right, everyone. I am calling the meeting to order,” she said pointedly.
Caleb lifted his brows and leaned back in his chair.
Simon shuffled over and sat next to Nell, who closed her ledger.
“Coming,” Tansy sang.
Fully aware of Tansy’s agility, Finn nonetheless held her breath as the girl jumped off the swing mid-flight, somersaulting in the air before landing in a graceful crouch.
Scampering over, Tansy sat beside Finn. “I’m famished. What’s to eat?”
Caleb plucked a golden meat pie from the platter in front of him and tossed it to Tansy, who snatched it neatly out of the air. She took a large bite, bits of crust cascading like snowflakes.
“Thf ith goow,” she said, her cheeks bulging.
“The old mort from the inn brought them,” Caleb said.
“That would be Mrs. Thornton, who runs the Briarbush Inn with her husband,” Nell clarified. “She has a reputation for her exceptional cookery—and her mean temper.”
Nell’s research was as meticulous as her bookkeeping, and she had a rare gift for gathering information unnoticed.
For some time, she had been doing reconnaissance, and what she’d learned about the legend of “Bloody Thom” had given Finn the idea for their current undertaking.
Nell passed the platter around, and everyone took their share.
Finn bit into her pie…and nearly moaned as savory beef and flaky pastry melted in her mouth.
“The lady knows her way around the kitchen,” she said.
Nell nodded. “Mrs. Thornton said—and I quote: ‘There’ll be more pies coming if you lot convince Bloody Thom to end the curse.’”
“They’ve taken the bait,” Finn said with satisfaction.
“A rather premature conclusion, don’t you think?”
Caleb cut his pie into neat wedges with his dagger—the pretentious sod. Not for the first time, Finn wondered what bee had gotten into his bonnet. While he’d always been a know-it-all, lately he’d become insufferable.
“Considering that the Harrington cove intends to barricade your way into the manor using his corpse,” he added with a smirk.
“It won’t be the first dead body I’ve stepped over,” Finn retorted. “And it certainly won’t stop me from getting into Bottoms House.”
She would do whatever was required to complete the mission and save Iris.
“Why has Harrington taken such a dislike to you, I wonder?” Caleb’s manner turned speculative. “Surely it cannot be your charming personality that’s got his bristles up.”
The game’s up. Tell them the truth.
Finn steeled herself. “We had an encounter two months ago. I was disguised, of course. But I think he recognized me.”
“The pigeon on Panton Street?” Nell’s eyes widened behind her spectacles. “That was him?”
Finn nodded sourly. “I wasn’t certain he recognized me at first. I am still not sure—he’s bleeding difficult to read. It is possible that he merely dislikes mediums in general and Madame Seraphina in particular.”
“I don’t think so,” Caleb said with relish. “His animosity seemed more…personal. Which makes sense since you seduced, drugged, and robbed the toff.”
“I didn’t seduce him,” Finn shot back.
He seduced me.
There was no blooming way she could bring herself to tell the Hawks everything now. Not with Caleb giving her that superior smile. The one that said, You were never meant to be captain of this ship. You’ve steered us off course already.
“I lured him to a private place so I could pluck his feathers,” she said tightly.
“Pluck boots.” Simon smiled.
When he proudly pointed at the footwear he wore night and day, Finn couldn’t bring herself to regret stealing Lord Owen’s boots.
Simon had been growing like a weed and needed new shoes badly.
The fashionable boots, cut from buttery brown leather and nearly new, had been too fine to pass up.
They were too big for Simon, but he loved them so much he wore extra socks to make them fit.
“We’ve a problem then, don’t we?” Caleb studied his fingernails. “You picked a mark who happens to live in the manor we need to search.”
Finn scowled. “How was I supposed to predict this would happen? Back then, we didn’t know about Chuddums or Bottoms House. Carver hadn’t fully sunk his claws into Iris. I cannot control everything—”
“You seem to have trouble controlling anything, Finn.”
The barb stung. Worse than that, it released a trickle of fear—that she was failing to do her part. That she was unworthy of the task and her place in the gang.
“I will fix this,” she insisted. “All is not lost.”
“But if he knows you swindled him once,” Nell said, “how will you get him to believe that you are a medium?”
“I will think of a way,” Finn said confidently.
Cogs were already turning in her head. Schemes were her specialty.
“I have a way,” Tansy said in her singsong voice.
“No.”
Everyone said it together, even Caleb. Tansy was sweet and fiercely loyal. She could also be a bit maniacal.
“We follow the original plan,” Finn said firmly. “The letter Carver gave us says to look for the treasure in ‘this place that can sink no lower than its name.’ It must mean Bottoms House—what’s lower than the bottom, after all?”
“Stupid riddles,” Caleb said in disgust.
Finn smiled because she was good at riddles. Yet her smugness faded quickly: her talent was responsible, in part, for landing them in this mess. Carver had taken Iris hostage to motivate Finn and the Hawks to get him what he wanted.
“As Madame Seraphina, I will get us inside the manor,” she said. “Then we will use the sessions to search the place. Once we find the treasure, we exchange it for Iris. No one gets hurt.”
“No hurting,” Simon agreed.
Finn looked around the table, meeting everyone’s gaze. “We are agreed on the plan?”
Everyone nodded—including Caleb, albeit with reluctance.
Time to end the meeting in the traditional manner.
“We’re Hawks,” Finn stated. “Are we hunted?”
“No,” the group chorused.
“Do we hunt?”
“Yes.”
“How do we survive?”
“Together as one.”
“No Hawk flies alone,” Finn concluded.
As her family whooped, she felt a prick of unease…because she was about to do exactly that.