The Veil hired, indentured, and—I had no doubt—enslaved all who were willing to work. Or unwilling to pay.
I had fallen among that number. The narrow escape afforded by Hawke’s timely intervention would not last. Whatever my half-formed plans and ideals had been, I had no choice but to face the truth of it: the Veil was very much aware of my existence.
Not only of my existence, bad as that was, but that I had hopes of cheating them out of the debt they demanded of me. The one was difficult enough, for it drew the Karakash Veil’s eye upon me. I was an independent resource, an uncertainty in the Veil’s structured Menagerie.
Or, rather, I thought of myself as such.
The Veil had just corrected that fallacy.
I could not hope to collect man after man and earn nothing for it. It would no longer suffice to ease my debt.
Damn the Veil and the Menagerie with it.
The impossibly narrow tightrope I walked had just been made apparent. A fitting metaphor, certainly, for I had been in that overly warm chamber before. I bargained for my life, wagered the price of my flesh against the debt they demanded of me—all I’d managed to ensure was that I would not take part in the flesh-peddling auction rings the Menagerie placed its sweets within.
That left far too much I could be forced to do. Whatever the Veil had intended to say before Hawke’s bold interruption, I shuddered to think it may involve the large red canvas and the circus I had no desire to see, much less participate in.
I did not know what I would do if they placed me in that big top tent.
Simply thinking of it was enough to sour my insides, turn anger and indignation to sickly cowardice and choking fear.
I may not remember all that had been done to me in Monsieur Marceaux’s Traveling Curiosity Show—I might even think of some fondness about the bits I cared to recall—but what I could not recall in daylight hours woke me, gasping for air and bathed in clammy sweat, in the darkest of my nightmares.
Death was a mercy for those who were lucky enough to fall, to move just wrong enough, to bend when they 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.