Corroded

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