Swallowing down the memory of sickness, Dead Rick shook his head. “If I ever did, it’s gone now. That would’ve been the first bit Nadrett smashed.”
“We won’t know until you do, will we?” Hodge’s breath caught, his scent giving off a wash of unexpected pain, and he slumped abruptly down into a different chair. When he’d let the air out again, he said, “I’ll tell Yvoir to ’urry it up.”
After a brief wait, Dead Rick figured out that had been a dismissal. Startled into lack of caution, he said, “That’s it? Ain’t you going to—” His common sense caught up, and he snapped his mouth shut.
But Hodge understood him anyway. “Ain’t I going to punish you, for that business with the boy? Blood and Bone, Dead Rick—you just stood there and told me as ’ow Nadrett tortured you into being ’is dog. I suppose I could make you pay for what ’e did—but ain’t I got worse problems?”
Dumbfounded, all Dead Rick could think to say was, “The girl—”
“The girl’s got ’er own problems,” Hodge said with exhausted finality. “’Ere’s an idea—you two take care of yourselves, and save me the trouble.”
Whitechapel, London: August 16, 1884
The light showing through the canvas over the broken window was dim, no more than a single candle’s worth. But it was enough to tell Eliza that someone was at home, and so she raised her hand to the weathered panels and knocked.
This time she heard footsteps: slow, dragging ones, the steps of a woman exhausted past the will to raise her feet. They might have belonged to an old woman, but when the door opened, Eliza saw it was Maggie Darragh. The narrow court in which they lived was dark as pitch, and with the candle behind Maggie her face was entirely in shadow, but she was too tall for Mrs. Darragh, and her shoulders slumped with weariness, not defeat. “What do you want?” she said dully.
Eliza drew a careful breath. She’d been given a mirror to look in, before leaving the Onyx Hall; she knew the face she currently wore was not her own. Seeing Maggie fail to recognize her, though, both reassured and unnerved her.
It made her task more difficult, too, which was regrettable, but necessary. She still hadn’t decided what to do about Sergeant Quinn, and after her suspicious release from the workhouse—not to mention the way she’d vanished after—she doubted the man thought well of her. The Darraghs’ room would be the first place he’d come, if he went looking. So if Eliza wanted to come here, she needed a disguise, and a better one than just a deep bonnet. She needed a faerie illusion—a glamour, as they called them.
Now she needed to convince Maggie to let strangers into her lodgings.
“Miss Darragh?” she said, and the shadow in the doorway nodded. “Father Tooley sent us. May we come in?”
At the word us, Maggie squinted past her into the darkness of the court, where Eliza’s companions waited. “Sent ye? Why?”
“For your mother’s sake,” Eliza answered. “We belong to a charitable society, and would like to help you if we can. I promise we won’t ask more than a few minutes of your time.” It happened occasionally, that well-meaning women from the better classes decided to help out the less fortunate. They didn’t come by at night, when few honest people were out and about, but she hoped Maggie wouldn’t think of that, not before she let them in.
From behind Eliza, a friendly voice spoke up. “We’ve fresh biscuits to share.”
Maggie hesitated as if fighting with her common sense, but the delightful smell that suddenly filled the court decided her. “Ma’s asleep, so be quiet.” She stood aside to let them in.
With the weak light of the candle now falling on Maggie’s face, Eliza saw what shadows had previously hidden. The young woman’s eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been straining them on too little sleep, and indeed, a half-finished pair of trousers were draped across a three-legged stool, next to the room’s one light. Other fabric scattered around showed that this was no bit of personal mending; Maggie had taken on piecework to earn a few more coins. Not enough coins, if her hollow cheeks were anything to go by. Heart cramping with sympathy, Eliza wondered if the biscuits would be the first thing Maggie had eaten that day.
The small room seemed even smaller once six people were crowded into it. Mrs. Darragh lay on the bed, crumpled even smaller in sleep, with a moth-eaten wool coverlet pulled tighter over her shoulder. Maggie stood over her protectively, facing Eliza and the other three. With the door closed, they were alone as anyone could get in the back alleys of Whitechapel, where eavesdroppers were only a thin wall or floor away.
The plump woman who looked exactly like Rosamund Goodemeade, only a little taller, unfolded the napkin in her basket, revealing the biscuits inside. Their smell was sweet heaven in the drab little room, and Maggie twitched as if she wanted desperately to seize them in both hands. Rosamund gave them over freely, but Maggie just stood clutching the basket. “What is it ye want?”
Eliza wet her lips. After seven years, the moment had come; she was surprised to find it terrified her. Whatever speech she’d thought up, to explain everything in a quick and sensible way, had vanished from her mind, leaving a roaring blank. But she had to speak; Maggie’s suspicion was growing with every silent moment. The words burst out of her. “Maggie, ’tis me. Eliza. I’ve found Owen.”
Maggie’s hands went white on the basket. She gripped it now as if she would swing it into someone’s face, should they gave her half a reason. “What the devil kind of joke—”
“It isn’t a joke! The faeries had him, Maggie, as I always said, but I’ve found him, and I brought him here, but we had to disguise ourselves in case—” Eliza stopped herself. That didn’t matter; all that mattered was bringing Owen home. “Rosamund, show her—”
Like a breath of wind whispering over the fine hairs of her arms and legs, the glamour she wore fell away. And Maggie, eyes wide and unblinking, hands still white on the basket’s handle, stood rigid for a full three seconds. Then her legs gave out, and she fell hard to her knees on the floor beside the bed.
It woke Mrs. Darragh, who made a plaintive noise and rolled over. Her eyes opened; for a moment they swept over the room in unfocused confusion. When her gaze sharpened, she gave a wordless cry and sat bolt upright, one hand pressed to her heart as if it would give out on the spot.
Her own heart pounding like a navvy’s hammer, Eliza turned to see for herself. Owen stood swaying by Feidelm’s side, his face wrinkled with apprehension and uncertainty. Eliza didn’t know if her plea to Rosamund had been meant to include his glamour or not, but the brownie had taken it that way, dropping them both at once. The two faeries’ glamours still stood, but they were hardly needed; they could have been a pair of fire-breathing dragons and neither of the Darraghs would have paid an ounce of attention. They had Owen back at last.
Mute, half-witted, snatched out of time. Mrs. Darragh did not seem to see; she stumbled free of the bedclothes, moving faster than she had in ages, to throw her arms around a boy who did not recognize her but had nowhere to retreat. The last seven years might never have happened; for her, it was still 1877, and Owen the age he should be.
But Maggie saw.
Some part of her understood, even if she couldn’t yet put the knowledge into words. Eliza read it in the desperate look Maggie directed at her. “How—” the young woman began, shaking her head; and Eliza answered her.
She kept it to the simplest points. They had never told Maggie about their friend Dead Rick; that had been their secret, hers and Owen’s, not for a little sister to share. And the part about Nadrett would only confuse her now. What mattered was Owen’s condition—and the solution Dónall Whelan had given them.