Corroded

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