Surfacing was like pulling a knife from his own flesh: both pain, and the relief from it. Hodge sucked in a great gasp of air as he opened his eyes, and then laid his forehead against the cool stone.
Aspell would not see the Queen. Nobody did.
Not even the Prince.
There was no point. Lune sat in a trance, dedicating every shred of her concentration and strength to maintaining the Onyx Hall. The only way he could talk to her was through the palace. All going to visit her would do was tell other people where her defenseless body rested.
She’d made him Prince—and then left him to it. He hadn’t laid eyes on her in fourteen years.
Valentin Aspell would have to be content with talking. If he didn’t like it, then he and his deal could go to hell. They would handle the problem of Nadrett themselves.
Newgate, City of London: May 31, 1884
“Come out, ye bastards! I know ye’re here!”
Eliza’s shout echoed from the brick and stone facades of the buildings around her. For once it was audible, not drowned out by a hundred others; she didn’t know what time it was, but midnight had come and gone long since, and the streets around Newgate Prison were deserted. She cackled, remembering the clerks she’d scraped after for pennies during her months here, and shouted again. “Buns! Hot buns, only a farthing apiece!”
It made her miss Tom Granger, and his newspapers at the corner of Ivy Lane. He probably thought she’d gone to work in the new factory and never bothered to tell him. “Sorry, Tom,” Eliza mumbled, and took a swig from the bottle of gin she carried, letting it burn down her throat and set her eyes to watering. The gin was responsible for the latter, surely. “Should’ve said goodbye. Or never left. They’re here somewhere, I know it.”
She paused, casting around, and finally pointed toward Warwick Lane. “Over there. That’s where I saw him. Should’ve jumped him then—but I’m a bloody coward, I am, and then I lost them. Missed my chance. But they’re here, I’m sure of it. Ye’re here!” That last was a shout again. She put her mouth to the gin bottle, found it empty, threw it at the entrance to Warwick Lane. It came up short, but shattered satisfyingly against the cobblestones.
Why Newgate? She snorted. Might as well ask, why Whitechapel, where she’d first seen the dog? Why London at all. None of the stories said anything about that, faeries in the city, but they were here—and once you accepted that, Newgate was no stranger than anywhere else. Maybe the faeries were drawn by the money, all the wealth of the City’s bankers. The traitor had told enchanting stories, about a beautiful and tragic Queen with a string of mortal consorts, but no doubt they had all been lies. Like everything else he said.
Eliza’s feet brought her stumbling to the corner of Warwick Lane, where she began to run her hands over the walls, as if she would find something. A hidden door, maybe, that would lead her through into a realm of sunlight where nobody ever got old. But she didn’t get far in her search before a voice stopped her. “You there! What do you think you’re doing?”
She rested her head briefly against the bricks, then rolled it sideways until her shoulders followed, flattening themselves against the wall. That held her up while she focused her eyes on the source of the voice.
A bobby, of course, in his dark coat and hard, round-topped hat. His left hand held a lantern, adding to the dim gaslight in the street; his right gripped a truncheon. Eliza put her hands up in innocence. “Don’t mind me,” she said, offering him a grin. “Only looking for something I lost.”
He frowned and scraped his shoe along the ground, hitting fragments of her gin bottle. “I ought to run you in for public drunkenness.”
“No need, no need.” Eliza straightened up, to prove she didn’t need the wall, and only swayed a little this time. “I’m, uh—I’m on my way home.”
“Is that so?” He came closer, lifting the lantern toward her face. “Where’s home? What’s your name?”
“Eliza,” she said, then cursed herself for telling the truth. And for speaking in her natural voice, she realized belatedly; now he knew she was Irish. Have to give an Irish name. “Eliza… Darragh.” It was the first thing that came into her head, and a stupid answer. Grief rose up in her throat, bringing nausea with it. Owen. We should have been wed by now.
“And where’s your home, Eliza Darragh?” he repeated, showing no sympathy for her distress.
This time, at least, she managed to think before she spoke. “St. Giles.”
His lip curled. The rookeries of St. Giles were even worse than Whitechapel, full of the poorest Irish crammed in ten to a room. But it lay in the right direction from here, if he sent her along—which he did. “Get back where you belong, then. And quietly, mind. I’ll be putting your name on the books, and if you’re caught disorderly again, we’ll see if a night in gaol doesn’t settle you down.”
“Ye lot couldn’t catch a fish if someone gave ye one with a hook through its lip,” Eliza mumbled, moving to obey.
“What was that?”
She laughed at him—then stopped, because it wasn’t really funny; they’d failed to catch the one who took Owen, too. Shuffling off down Newgate, she said to the night air, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Don’t mind me; I’m just a poor Irishwoman. Nobody cares about us.”
Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 31, 1884
She woke the next morning in confusion, with no idea of where she was. Damp cold had settled into her bones, making every bit of her body ache, but under her cheek was clean dirt, and she smelled flowers nearby. Head swimming, Eliza lifted her head and looked about.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’m in the garden. The back face of the Kitterings’ Cromwell Road house rose nearby, full of respectability in the morning light; she was lying on the ground behind a bush, with little idea of how she’d gotten there.
The aftertaste of gin in her mouth, and the unsteadiness of the world as she pushed herself upright made her remember drinking—which make her remember Newgate—and the policeman. She’d staggered far enough toward St. Giles to satisfy him if he’d followed her, then turned south, feet carrying her onward while her mind tore again and again at the problem of Owen and the faeries. She hadn’t even meant to come back here, not consciously; yesterday she’d taken the evening off, and left with all her money in the pocket sewn to the inside of her skirt, thinking it might be best just to quit. What was there for her in South Kensington, except a family of rich swells with a rebellious daughter?
But habit brought her here, where she’d climbed the wall into the garden, before being defeated by the locks and shutters on the house. Eliza vaguely recalled sitting with her back against the bricks, meaning only to rest a moment while she considered what to do. And that was the last of it.
Sounds from the mews told her the coachman and grooms were up and doing; well, of course they were, it must be at least nine o’clock. Eliza should long since have been inside the house, and hard at the day’s work. The very thought of walking through those doors made her ill—and then she remembered what her heart had known, what she’d forgotten last night, with the gin fogging her brain. She’d brought her money, but left behind the photo of Owen.
For that, she would go back inside. And then leave, and do… something.
Eliza climbed to her feet and spent a moment ineffectively brushing the dirt and leaves from her dress. Then she went out through the now-opened gate, and around to the western side of the house and the basement door.
Sarah clearly expected some kind of delivery when she opened the door; her eyes widened at the sight of Eliza, who mumbled an apology and pushed past the scullery maid without attempting an explanation. Cook was more difficult to avoid; she sniffed ostentatiously at the reek of gin and said, “You’ll be lucky to avoid a sacking.”