Corroded

pulled back into a single plait, she was no great beauty. She made no attempt to rectify the lack by dressing well, either. Her blouse was nothing of the sort, but a man’s working shirt in crisp cotton tucked into a plain woolen skirt in drab brown. She wore no gloves, nothing in her hair, no jewelry. A wide belt encircled her waist, and as she saw to my plate, I studied the thick leather gloves—the sort of scarred, heavy apparel a blacksmith or glass-blower might keep close—tucked into the band.

She was, quite frankly, as unfashionable here in the pleasure gardens as I was in Society above.

I understood that position.

Gingerly, mindful of my atrociously filthy clothing, I perched on the edge of a blue, gold and silver embroidered sofa, its patterns reminiscent of the Chinese decor peppered throughout the gardens. I smiled politely when Maddie Ruth set the tea in my hands; my smile warmed to something rather more genuine as the heat of the unadorned teacup saturated my fingers.

“I didn’t know which sort of jam you liked best.”

I looked up from the lovely, deeply brown liquid to find the girl hovering. Her smile, awfully wide, seemed to flicker, as if she strained to hold it.

My eyebrows came together slowly. “I’m quite sure whatever you brought is just fine,” I said, but not wholly with the intent to reassure. Suddenly, I felt very much placed on the spot, and I could not reason out why.

I set my tea beside the plate of toast. The design upon the table was clearly of Eastern origins, a vanity of birds with truly elegant plumage preening for each other set in vibrant color. The contrast between the craftsmanship of the piece and the undecorated china teacup was laughably evident.

I chose not to mince my words.

“Out with it,” I told her.

Her smile dimmed some. “I’m sorry?”

“Tell me truly why you’re here, Maddie Ruth.” I stood, aware that even though she was no taller than my petite height, there was something about my carriage that she found to be nervous over. True to form, she took a step back.

It was then that I noticed there was no accompanying rustle of petticoats or underskirts. No fullness at hip or clean slimness at waist that suggested a corset. She was, much as I had often dreamed to be before circumstances forced my hand, completely free of the constrictive clothing of a lady.

My respect for the girl climbed a titch.

But my suspicions did not calm. They increased.

“Did you come spy on me?” I demanded, hands now on my own uncorseted waist. “Are you here for the Veil?”

She blanched. “Heavens, no!”

That, I’d believe, though I still had not figured out who could be trusted to be Hawke’s creature—bad enough as that was—versus the direct puppetry of the Veil. I knew Hawke was the latter. Was it possible that all others answered to him and him alone to the organization?

Maddie Ruth balled her fists at her stomach, her smile gone entirely. In its place, I watched as she visibly screwed her features into a mask of courage. Her lips twisted hard as she braced herself stiff, her eyes scrunched with the effort.

My mouth ajar by this determined display, it took me a long moment to realize she’d spoken.

I blinked. “What?”

“I said, I want to be a collector.”

Any passing fancy I had taken for the girl, any warmth, vanished. This time, it was I who took a step back. “No,” I said, so coldly that I half-expected the word to shatter into a thousand icy fragments between us.

Gone was her own innocent cordiality. Her round eyes crinkled with frustration. “Why not?”

“’Tis a fool’s hope.” I turned my back, as clear a dismissal as she could ask for. “No one with any intelligence wants to be a collector.”

“I do.”

I rounded on her with such a surge of energy, of chemical imbalance within my skin that my anger seared brightly enough to burn. “No, you do not!”

Her foot stamped hard, rattling my teacup upon its saucer. “You did,” she retorted, with such precision that it found an answering vulnerability within my already teetering sense of responsibility.

“Don’t you dare—”

But my threat was to be bitten in half as the door to the sweet’s sitting room burst open. The ball of energy sprinting inside was wrapped in simple shirtsleeves, threadbare trousers and a street-boy’s cap, gamine features so often caught in an impish smile now turned to concern. “Maddie Ruth! Maddie Ruth, come quick!”

The urgency in the boy’s voice immediately garnered her attention.

Though her hands fisted at her side, she abandoned her discourse with me to hurry for the boy whose name I only knew as Flip. One of the Menagerie’s circus tumblers, he was a lithe child whose smallness of form belied his acrobat’s strength.

Flip had saved me once from the Black Fish Ferryman—another of London’s many gangs, this one comprised mostly of them what sell doxies by the pound and employ footpads by the plenty.

Then again, he’d also called Hawke on me once before, and so my trust for the boy tended toward affectionate caution.

Now, as he seized Maddie Ruth’s arm and tugged her for the door, the girl—now ignoring me completely— said, “I’ll need my bag first. What’s the trouble?”

“It’s Topper, miss,” he said, almost before she was done asking. “He took a tumble from the ropes and went black in the head.”

A bad fall, then, by another tumbler. Flip cast me a brief glance, his smile more worried than truly warm, and the door closed behind them.

Left alone as suddenly as I’d been accosted, I let the abrupt silence replace all those ugly, suspicious thoughts that had filled my ears prior.

My jaw ached from clenching it, my throat burned.

A collector. I had not lied to her when I claimed only the unintelligent chose that route.

Had I known then what I knew now—had I realized that this double role would cost me everything I knew, everything I’d planned—I would have displayed far more sense than I had at fifteen years of age.

God in Heaven, was I even younger than Maddie Ruth when I’d begun?

Did I even have half as much will then as she did now?

Were I told what I had just shouted at Maddie Ruth, I knew what my course of action would have been. At that age, I recall easily doing exactly what I wanted, disregarding all who warned me off. Fanny had done her best to drum propriety into my very bones, yet I knew what it was to be so headstrong.

This is what my stubborn disposition had cost me. This terrible pit inside my skin, an ache so severe that I dreaded waking to face the day. I missed Booth and his wife, missed dear Fanny with her stern sympathies. My family, such as I could claim, was no longer mine. My staff dismissed, my house taken.

The man who had offered me freedom nearly unparalleled in Society’s measure had paid a price so steep, his cold grave would forever mark my shame.

My stomach twisted, a ripple of gooseflesh erupting along my spine as I fought the shudder that claimed me.

Maddie Ruth could not begin to understand, yet she would not let this lie. I knew it as clearly as if I looked into a mirror, and I did not know what to do to warn her off. Did she want to die? Did she want to see those she loved most drawn into terrible games of blood and vengeance?

I wondered if she would listen, were I to sit her down and explain just why a girl such as she could not be allowed to pursue this dangerous life.

Maddie Ruth would not care to hear it.

A shame, but I would not bend on the matter. Under no circumstances would I apprentice any other collectors. I could not bring them into the dark.

I would not feed anyone—much less a girl as fresh as her—to the madness.