Eliza thanked him, and added a second, silent thanks to God as she hurried to the conservatory, wiping her hands clean on her apron.
Inside, the glass roof of the structure magnified spring’s faint warmth; that and the blooming flowers made the place a miniature Eden. It formed a pretty background for Miss Kittering, who stood in an ivory morning dress in the far corner, fingering the half-opened buds of an Oriental poppy.
They were alone, and as long as no one shouted, the gardener would not hear them outside. Eliza still dipped into a curtsy out of habit, thinking as she did so that this was not the best way to begin following up on a threat. Before she could say anything, though, Miss Kittering spoke.
“You addressed me in a very unacceptable fashion the other night.” Her fingers brushed the brilliant tips of the poppy petals, then curled around the stem. “In fact, I would go so far as to say you attempted to blackmail me.”
Eliza’s breath drew short. I should have done this sooner. Before she had time to think about it. But if Miss Kittering thought strength of will alone would be enough to protect her, she was wrong. “Call it whatever you like, miss; it doesn’t change anything. I can still tell your mother things that will make life very hard for you, whether they’re true or not.”
“You can—but you won’t.” Miss Kittering turned to face her. The young woman’s face looked pale and bruised, as if she’d not slept well during her captivity, but above the dark circles her eyes glittered like two brown agates. “Because I heard two interesting things lately. One was gossip about a constable who came to question my father the other day. And the other was your voice that night—sounding very distinctly Irish.”
At those words, a lump of lead took the place of Eliza’s heart. It felt like her blood had truly stopped flowing, and metal coldness spread throughout her body.
“I may have secrets,” Miss Kittering said, a small, triumphant smile curving her lips, “but so do you. And it seems we’re each in a position to ruin the other. So this is our agreement: that you will say nothing, and neither will I. Out of gratitude for your assistance the other night, I will tell no one of how you threatened me; but that is all the help you will receive. Whatever further price you intended to extort from me, you can give up on it now—for if you attempt to force me, then you will end in prison. However little I inherited from my mother, I can promise you, that is one thing we share.”
All Eliza’s hope of a moment before had crumbled into ash. Darkness at the edge of her vision made her realize she wasn’t breathing; when she gasped air in once more, Miss Kittering’s smile deepened. How could she rejoice? A boy’s life was at stake, maybe his very soul—
But Eliza had never told her that. And now it was too late. Miss Kittering might have believed, had she heard the tale sooner … but not now, not after Eliza’s terrible misstep. Or rather, if she did believe, she still would have no reason to help. What did a rich, sheltered young miss from South Kensington care what happened to a poor Irish lad from Whitechapel? She wouldn’t give tuppence for Owen, any more than the peelers had when he disappeared.
Eliza refused to give up. Not when she was this close. “Then let me help you,” she said, coming forward with her hands raised in supplication. “If you sneak away again, your mother will thrash you within an inch of your life; but what if I helped you hide it? Say you’d gone to call on a friend, or—or close the windows behind you, if it must be at night.”
Miss Kittering laughed. She’d pulled the bud off its stem, and was now shredding the delicate, half-formed petals, letting them fall to the ground like drops of bright blood. “I have better allies than you, and shan’t have to worry about my mother much longer. Now get out of here; I’ve said what I must, and have no desire to hear anything else you might say.”
Eliza went. There was nothing to be gained by staying; she had missed her chance. But like a drunken man in a brawl, the hits she’d taken only made her angrier, and more determined. Louisa Kittering could go to the devil; Eliza O’Malley would rescue her friend.
She went about her duties like the clockwork doll she’d once seen exhibited in Covent Garden, while her mind wrestled her problems toward a solution. The next meeting of the London Fairy Society was in a bit more than a fortnight. Eliza would be there if she had to quit her position to go—but in the meantime, she might as well stay here. Her long vigil in Newgate had produced nothing, and her earnings as a costerwoman were barely enough to keep her fed. Better to stay where there was actual money, and look for another opportunity to get the upper hand over Miss Kittering. Given the young woman’s behavior, surely she’d have one before long.
Failing that, she could at least get a bit of revenge in parting.
Lips peeled back in an expression that might have been mistaken for a grin, Eliza went about her work.
Sewerside: May 1, 1884
“Remember Moor Fields?” Gresh asked, spitting tobacco juice onto the floor.
He’d been kind enough to spit in the other direction from Dead Rick, and so the skriker didn’t bite his head off for bringing up the painful subject of memory. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s May Day, old chap! We ought to be outside, with bonfires and feasts and such. Dancing. Music. Nymphs from nearby villages, willing to spread their legs for anyone. Mortals we’d lured in, that we’d be nice to for once.” Gresh spat again, then fingered something out of his mouth that didn’t look like tobacco leaf. “But they’ve gone and built all over it. So we sits ’ere and gets drunk, and it’s no different than any other day.”
Dead Rick bent his attention to the dirt under his fingernails, as if that could be his excuse for not answering. Fields, and celebrations in them: two more things he didn’t remember. He felt like punching Gresh.
But an approaching scent brought him into a wary crouch, not sure whether he was about to growl or show throat. Nadrett swept into the room, trailing a trio of other fae: the fetch Nithen, a thrumpin named Old Gadling, and a sprite Dead Rick didn’t recognize, who was lugging an unwieldy leather case. Showing throat it is.
“On your feet,” Nadrett said. Dead Rick stood, warily, not liking the sense of purpose in his master’s posture. “Take these.” His hand flicked outward, twice; Gresh and Dead Rick both caught what he threw. “Now come with me.”
Dead Rick uncurled his fingers, his nose telling him what he held before his eyes did. Bread. Nadrett was taking them outside.
Gresh cackled and threw his piece up into the air, catching it in his mouth as it came down. “Moor Fields!” he said to Dead Rick, chewing. “Think ’e’s laid on any nymphs for us?”
Nadrett was far enough ahead by then that he either didn’t hear or, more likely, didn’t think Gresh worth answering. Nithen did it for him. “Moor Fields has been paved over as Finsbury Circus, idiot, and the only way you’re going to see a nymph there is if you get a head full of Po’s opium first. Now shut up.”
They were still in the Goblin Market; Nadrett would have ripped the guts out of anyone stupid enough to say anything of their purpose where others could hear. It didn’t take Dead Rick long to figure out where his master was leading them, though. There were only four ways out of the Market: two passages to the rest of the Hall, one concealed entrance to Billingsgate above, and the sewers.
His hackles rose as he remembered bringing Irrith here. Had Nadrett learned about that? Stupid whelp; ’e wouldn’t give you bread if ’e ’ad. But they did have bread, which meant they could have gone through the door into Billingsgate without worry. The sewers were mostly used by unprotected fae, willing to brave the filth and the danger of drowning in order to avoid the worst of the iron.
Could be what Nadrett sought was in the sewers.
The black stone of the Hall gave way to a brickwork wall, with a hole knocked in it big enough for a faerie to slip through, so long as he wasn’t a giant. This wasn’t one of the proper entrances, built into the Hall’s fabric; it was a break, a spot worn thin and finally throug
h by the cast-iron gas main running alongside the great intercepting sewer. They couldn’t keep a glamour over the hole for more than a short while, and mostly only bothered when men came through to inspect the tunnel. Any tosher who spotted the gap and climbed through was fair game for the Market inhabitants on the other side: a small compensation for when the sewer flooded through to their chambers.
Dead Rick helped the unnamed sprite maneuver his case through the hole. “Careful, that’s delicate—” the sprite said in a distinct French accent, but swallowed his words when Nadrett spat a warning curse. Dead Rick sniffed, but couldn’t smell anything beyond a hint of leather over the sewer.
He dropped through the gap last, into water that came up past his knees. Nadrett produced a hawthorn box from one pocket, and slid aside a disk on one end until a will-o’-the-wisp floated out of the small hole there. It was considerably safer than a lantern, which could ignite the bad air and kill them all, but Dead Rick didn’t put good odds on the wisp’s survival. Those things couldn’t eat bread. Nadrett covered the hole again and put the box away. “Follow me.”
It was hard going, in water that deep; the brickwork was slick below his feet, and Nadrett had them walking upstream. Dead Rick hoped it wasn’t raining outside, and watched the water in the dim faerie light, ready to flee if he saw it rise. It remained steady, and when they’d gotten some distance away from the Market, Nadrett stopped.
“Tell them,” he said to Nithen.
The fetch grinned. In the scant light, he looked even more cadaverous than usual. His voice echoed weirdly over the sound of the water, making his words hard to understand. “So there’s stories of a ghost in these sewers. Every year on this night, for a couple of years now. We’re going to hunt it down.”
Gresh looked confused. “But it ain’t All ’Allows’ Eve.”
Old Gadling smacked him on the back of his head. Nithen said, “Ghosts can appear at any time. The night they died, for example. This isn’t an All Hallows’ Eve ride, us sweeping away ghosts with the dawn; we don’t want this ghost going anywhere.”
“We’re going to capture it,” Nadrett said.
Dead Rick’s eyes went back to the sprite’s heavy case, which Gadling had taken control of. The water came nearly to the thrumpin’s waist, but he didn’t seem to care; the stocky faerie balanced the case on his head and waded through without apparent trouble. There were ways of capturing ghosts, but none of them—so far as Dead Rick knew—required anything so bulky.
He’d see what it was soon enough. “Where’s the ghost?”
“That’s what you’re ’ere to find out,” Nadrett said. He let out three more will-o’-the-wisps, then gestured ahead, and Dead Rick saw dark shadows along the walls ahead, openings into the smaller sewers that connected to this main trunk. “Start looking.”
That seemed to be directed at him, Gresh, and Nithen. Old Gadling braced his feet and served as a stand while the sprite unlatched the case. And Nadrett, of course, could not be bothered to help. Dead Rick went without complaint. He wanted to be the one to find the ghost—and maybe warn it to flee.
Iron shivered against his senses as he went, not hurting him, but palpably there. They were close to the Underground works, where navvies labored day and night to build the railway’s final extension; no tracks had been laid yet, let alone trains run along them, but there were spades, mattocks, nails for the bracing beams, carts to bring cement and drag the spoil out. The doom of the Onyx Hall, less than a hundred feet away.
Right, left, or straight. Dead Rick went left, climbing the slick bricks to enter the smaller tunnel. The flow here was neither so deep nor so fast, but that was at best a mixed blessing; without the force of the water to scour material away, the passage was much fouler. Dead Rick held his breath as best he could and peered ahead, searching for the telltale flicker of a ghost.
A dead tosher, most like, he thought. People didn’t seem to be leaving ghosts as often as they once did. Or maybe ghosts, like fae, were being worn away by the changes in the world. All he knew was that Gresh complained every year about the loss of the old All Hallows’ Eve ride—an event he missed far more than May Day in Moor Fields—but the inability of the fae to sweep away weak ghosts each year, as they used to do, hadn’t left London neck-deep in phantoms. Maybe some Academy scholar was trying to answer that very question, and Nadrett intended to sell this ghost to him.
Another fork. The side passages were narrower still, barely large enough for Dead Rick to fit through. He didn’t want to go down them. But he was a skriker, a death omen, and instinct led him left.
He didn’t have to go far. Mist floated in the air ahead, where no mist should be; then it eddied as if turning to face him, and took more solid form.
Dead Rick found himself staring. This was no tosher. Nor was it a recent ghost. He didn’t need memories to know that knee breeches had gone out of style generations ago for anybody who wasn’t some rich swell’s footman. And footmen didn’t carry themselves the way this figure did.
It was a young man, slender of build, with the habitual dignity of a gentleman. He seemed relieved to see Dead Rick. “Oh! Thank goodness you found me. I seem to have gotten lost.”
Dead Rick was too startled to prevent his will-o’-the-wisp from streaking away. He hadn’t put on a glamour; despite his human form, he was clearly a faerie. And yet this ghost seemed completely unsurprised. Was it because he was dead, and therefore accustomed to strange things? Or had he seen fae before?
The ghost glowed faintly, just enough for Dead Rick to make him out. The skriker said, “What do you mean, lost?”
A laugh almost as faint as the light answered him. “I mean that unless I am very much mistaken—addled by death, perhaps—I ought to be in the Onyx Hall. But I haven’t seen so much as a bit of black stone in four years, now. Am I in a cesspit?”
The quality of the echoes changed. Dead Rick cursed. The wisp hadn’t bolted; it had gone to fetch Nadrett. They could take simple commands well enough.
Whoever this ghost was, Dead Rick wasn’t inclined to help Nadrett capture him. “Look, you’ve got to get out of ’ere. Go back to wherever you came from.”
“I’m sorry?” The phantom drifted closer, cocking his head to one side as if that would help. “I couldn’t quite understand you.”
Because Dead Rick had spoken quietly, not wanting the untrustworthy echoes to carry his words to Nadrett. He grimaced and flapped his hands, trying to shoo the ghost back, but the young man peered as if he could not quite see, either. Of course not, because I ain’t glowing.
Then it was too late. “Out of the way, dog.”
When he didn’t move, a hand seized the back of his waistcoat and yanked, dropping him onto his arse in the built-up muck. Nadrett shoved him against the sewer wall, then stopped, staring at the ghost. In the light of the gathered wisps, Dead Rick saw a wondering and unpleasant smile twist Nadrett’s lips. “Well, well. Ain’t this an interesting surprise. Evening, milord—out for a walk, are we?”
The ghost frowned. “Do I know you?”
More hands, grabbing Dead Rick under the arms; with slime and shit greasing the passage, Gadling was able to pull him out with only the most casual effort. “If you remember much, you might,” Nadrett said. “Though after this long—a century? No, more—I’ll be surprised if you do. Don’t much matter either way. Chrennois, get to it.”
Nadrett moved out of the way. Dead Rick, climbing to his feet, saw the sprite go to the mouth of the ghost’s tunnel with something in his hands. A box, about the size of a man’s head but wider, with flexible canvas sides that allowed him to extend the front forward. Two silver-rimmed lenses were set into that front board, winking clean brilliance in the dim light.
Wary, but not yet afraid, the ghost said, “What is that?”
Dead Rick answered him silently, held frozen by sudden, half-formed understanding. It’s a camera.
Lunar caustic, satyr’s bile. Nadrett was doing something with photography—or r
ather, this French faerie was, on his behalf. Were they about to open a passage to Faerie? In the filthy sewers of London? Dead Rick tensed, unsure what he was going to do, but ready to do something.
Chrennois peered through an opening in the top of the box, then pulled a lever set into the side. With a most peculiar noise—halfway between a moan and a huh of surprise—the ghost vanished.
It didn’t even fade; it simply blinked out of existence. The figure of the young man disappeared, leaving behind only faint wisps of phantasmal substance, which dissipated before they could fall to the sludge below. Those weren’t even gone yet when Nadrett demanded, “Did it work?”
The sprite shrugged, collapsing the front of his camera back into the rest of the body. “I’ll have to develop the plate to be certain. But he went somewhere; it seems likely.”
“Good.”
There was no mistaking the malicious pleasure in Nadrett’s voice. For the camera’s work, or the capture of that ghost in particular? Maybe both. He’d clearly recognized the young man, and just as clearly didn’t like him. That alone was enough to make Dead Rick feel sorry for the unknown phantom. But he couldn’t regret the fellow’s imprisonment too much, because it had just handed Dead Rick another piece of the puzzle.
Now if only he could figure out what it meant.
There was certainly no sign of a passage to Faerie. Were Nadrett and Chrennois planning on using the ghost in some fashion, later on? Or was this a test of the photography concept, a stepping-stone on the way to something greater? Dead Rick had no idea; what little he knew about science came by way of the mortal and faerie inventions that occasionally appeared in the Goblin Market. But the voice, he was willing to bet, would know more.
For one unpleasant moment he thought he’d given his intentions away, when Nadrett turned without warning on him and Gadling. In a voice colder than ice, the master said, “You don’t tell nobody about this. Understand? First one to open ’is mouth gets an iron knife through the eye.”