Chapter One #3
with blood. The fresh paint and varnish of the newly erected church, meant to save the rookery’s corrupted soul. The lingering
warmth of a roast from the King’s Arms Tavern. Unwashed bodies, the sticky sweetness of children, the soggy plaster of the
paper-thin tenement walls collapsing in on themselves . . .
But then the wind shifted, carrying in its chilling grasp something else entirely.
Boot polish. Dyed wool.
Gunpowder.
The sounds of the market faded beneath the roar of blood in my ears. My eyes drifted to the perfume flacons on the table before
me, thoughts swirling into a furious storm.
Bad omen, this is. I gritted my teeth. First the Sloggers, now this. Bloody Toady.
With a calm I didn’t feel, I took Arabella’s arm. She leaned in, sky-blue eyes widening. The rest of them could rot, but I’d
be damned before I let her fall into whatever snare was being set. Life had battered her enough already.
“Listen to me,” I began in a low voice, knowing anything like fear would spark her own. “We’re going to take our baskets and
walk . . .” I paused, drawing in another exploratory breath. West. The scent was a few streets west of us, give or take. “. . . down the alley to the east until we reach Regent Street—”
I never had the chance to finish.
Arabella gasped, drawing back as if I’d bitten her nose. With dawning horror, I watched her tilt her head and open her mouth.
“No!” I whispered frantically. She’d cause a panic and we’d never escape the ensuing riot.
“Raid!” she bellowed. “Raid!”
The Midnight Market became its own nightmare.
Chaos erupted with the wet fur stench of terror. I jumped as tables were overturned; wares smashed to the ground in the haste
to flee. Merchants and customers scattered like rats through whatever crack or crevice they could find, shouting and shoving
at one another as they reached dead ends or bottlenecked at gates.
The heady surge of brandy, Gallian wine, and olive oil pooling on the ground became overwhelming, clawing at me until my stomach
heaved.
“Ta, sweet! Take care!” Arabella called to me, using her parasol-sharp elbows to fight her way through the fray. Her basket
of stolen goods rattled as she leapt over a man who’d fallen and been promptly trampled. She was one of the few heading east.
Good.
Pounding footsteps echoed against the crumbling walls. “Stop! In the name of the King!”
A flacon of Lady Luck danced off the edge of the plank, shattering against the cobblestones. The sound startled me out of my daze. I stared at the remaining flacons, feeling as though my heart were ripping in two.
Every instinct begged me to run, but I couldn’t leave the perfumes for the soldiers to find, nor could I waste the oils and
the magic I’d given pieces of myself to. It would take me months to repay Oliver alone. But if I took them, if I was caught
with them on my person, it would be Fairgate by sunrise.
I shook myself, refusing to let the terror set in again. If I was caught with them, I’d brazen my way out of the situation,
the way I always did.
Scooping the bottles into my wicker basket, I took off.
The scent of the soldiers exploded behind me as they came upon the remnants of the market. I glared down at the rattling bundle
of bottles pressed to my chest. I might as well have been wearing a bloody bell for how easy I was making it for them.
Bloody moon, bloody Toady—bloody Sloggers. The soldiers had probably tracked those men here, damn them.
Within two heartbeats my old ankle boots were soaked through, my hems stained and splattered. That was why you wore only gray
or brown to the Brickbats. Any other color would be sacrificed to the rookery’s filthy fingers or mark you as a peacock ready
to have your feathers plucked.
I made a right where the alley narrowed, a left at the spot Mr. Higgins had been gutted like a fish for his fine new hat,
another left at the burnt-out husk that had once been a cobbler’s shop before the Tremont Terrors had gotten their paws on
fireworks.
It was only by virtue of how often I’d run these lanes that I was sure-footed enough not to twist an ankle on the uneven stones.
It was all too easy to get lost in the dark, labyrinthine sprawl of the back lanes. They’d been the delight of murderers and
thieves over the centuries for this very reason—the blind turns opportunities, the shadows protective of their own.
I slid to a stop at a crossway between four tenements, taking the measure of each path. Right would take me deeper into the
rookery, and left—
Foul panting breath, sweat-damp wool, and gunpowder found me again. Close—too close. The sound of quick footfalls followed,
the last warning I’d receive.
I lifted my narrow skirt and swung left, my heart thundering. The Coffin. I’d lose them near the Coffin, where the roads circled back onto each other like serpents devouring their tails. I could hide in the deconsecrated church’s crypt or by running flat out to the river if it came to it.
“There!” a man shouted. “There she is!”
I ran faster, my boots sliding through the muck, crashing my left shoulder into a sharp corner of brick. I sucked in a breath
of pain as the stone tore the tufted sleeve of my dress and scraped the skin there raw. Finding my footing once more, I continued,
consoling myself by imagining the soldiers’ fine emerald King’s Guard uniforms splattered with the same filth.
Nearly there, I thought, taking a right when the scent of another soldier, this one reeking of whatever stew he’d eaten for supper, slithered
down the lane to my left.
The damp air was a muddle of fading essences, trails of all those who had walked them in the days before or fled through them
only moments ago, having had the same idea I did.
The alley tightened around me like a fist, forcing me to turn sideways to pass through. The clatter of musket and sword and
those heavy, unrelenting footsteps were the only sounds I heard over my own heartbeat.
Nearly there, I told myself again.
But I heard it then—the echo of a shout. A woman’s piercing wail. Arabella?
I hesitated, and it cost me. It always cost me.
With my gaze turned back toward the clamor, my body slammed straight into a hard wall of wool and muscle.
“Ah, there you are.”
I jerked back in alarm, but the soldier, looking remarkably unharassed in his prim uniform, clapped two hands around my arms
like irons. Breath tore in and out of me as I forced my gaze up—and up—into the soldier’s face. The white handkerchief tied
beneath his nose fluttered with his soft chuckle. Eyes as silver as coins bore into mine.
A shiver passed down my spine and straight into my soul. How . . . ?
The basket slid from my nerveless fingers, the bottles hidden inside clattering horribly as it hit the cobblestones.
I inhaled sharply. But there was nothing—not an essence, not even the smell of wool or leather. It was impossible, and yet . . .
I could puzzle it out later, when I was well away from here. From him, whatever he was.
“Let me go!” I demanded, craning my head around, searching for my way out.
Nearby, a tenement leaned toward the street like a curious bystander.
I spun up my best east city accent. “Help! Help! The swad’s going to kill me!”
This time, the soldier reared back. I almost laughed at how offended he appeared at the suggestion.
When he spoke, his accent was as clear as cut crystal. “I most certainly am not—though that can be arranged.”
A toff, then? A second or third son, more like, whose father had bought his commission. A soft-belly lad. Untested. Probably
pissing himself in terror being made to march into the Brickbats.
“Make it a habit of assaulting innocent young women, do you?” I jeered back.
I twisted, savagely kicking at his knees and ankles and soft parts. A fight then. I’d claw my way out. He swore, releasing
one of my arms, only to perform some sort of trickery that had me spinning around. He brought my back flush to his hard chest.
I jabbed an elbow back, wincing as I struck the cold buckle on his belt.
He brought his face in line with mine, his breath fanning across my ear. Another shiver spread from my scalp to my freezing
toes. “I’d hoped to do this in a more civilized manner . . .”
He banded an arm across my chest. I threw my skull back, the way Arabella had taught me, but naturally he had to be a bloody
giant. My head bounced off the collar of his uniform, and my simmering blood heated to a boil as he laughed again.
There was something in his free hand—a small black bottle. He flicked the cap off with his thumb. Pine. Lavender.
My body tensed as a stroke of effervescent magic brushed my senses, settling deep in my lungs before I could stifle my breath.
Seductive warmth curled through my blood then, stroking my mind with slow, teasing fingers.
One by one, my bones hollowed, turning as light as a bird’s. A dark curtain pulled down over my mind, smothering my frantic
thoughts. My terror.
“You . . . bastard . . .” My lips moved, but I wasn’t sure I’d managed to force the words out. My sense of him blurred like watercolors. His grip on my chest eased.
“Now, Miss Lockwood,” his voice rumbled near my ear again, “you’ll have to do far better than that if you mean to maim.”
My fist curled around the lapel of his damp uniform coat, twisting with one final, silent promise as I sank into dark unconsciousness
and the moon’s soft face dipped toward the horizon.
I will.