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, “
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. “
