That simple statement stole my aching heart. To my consternation, tears sprang sharp and fresh to my stinging, too-long dry eyes. I blinked them back forcefully. “And I’m your girl, man,” I replied, repeating his turn of phrase with a smile. “Come case to crack or word to spread, you know where I am.”
His near-black eyes lifted behind me, to where Maddie Ruth lingered awkwardly. Then back to me. “Be careful. Word is that miller’s still about. Your miss there seems a ripe target.”
Miller, one of his many words for murderer. “You mean the murdering Jack?”
He nodded, and let go of my head. “And the other.”
The sweet tooth. The very mention of him turned my spine to brittle ice.
“Not for long,” I said, a quiet assurance. “I’ve promised to collect the latter.” I still hadn’t figured out how I would go about doing so, or who to deliver him to. This little escapade had cost me the first step in my nebulous plan.
“That’s the face what worries me,” Ishmael said, flat features arranging into grim lines. “Can’t be at your back all the time, girl. Be careful.”
It didn’t matter how often he said the words, they bounced off my determination like stones from iron. Yet I still nodded, because in the end, it made the large man feel better. “You, as well,” I said.
He did not nod. He simply turned and walked away, his distinctive heavy tread lingering long after the peasouper swallowed him.
I turned to find Maddie Ruth watching me warily, hands clasped at her waist.
My eyes narrowed. “Now,” I told her, ominous resolve, “we deal with you.”
Chapter Six
The tongue-lashing I gave Maddie Ruth spanned the width of Limehouse’s western quarter. By the time the fog thinned, a miraculous occurrence just outside the Menagerie’s gates, my companion gave every appearance of proper contrition.
I didn’t buy that for a single second.
“Of all the reckless maneuvers,” I said, marching her past the gates and around. There were a few entries into the pleasure gardens, but the front gates would not open for another few hours.
I made for the western entry, which would put me farthest from the circus tent. And, fortunately, closer to the sweets. I could ring the market and avoid the red canvas altogether this way. And if she were very, very lucky, I would not drag Maddie Ruth to the Veil and demand restitution for my trouble.
Of course, I had no inclination to do so. The threat alone seemed to do the trick.
“I’m sorry, miss,” she said, not for the first time.
Apology, I heard. What I didn’t perceive was a promise not to do it again.
“What would you have done were I not there?” I asked her, pushing aside a hanging fall of thick green ivy cascading from the wall protecting the Menagerie’s grounds. A door behind it was unlocked, but likely not unguarded. The Veil was too mindful of its grounds for such luck, and as this led to the private garden, it would not be overlooked.
“I wouldn’t have been there were I not following you,” she said. Logical, certainly, but lacking.
I threw her an irate glance. “Whether you followed me to the collector’s wall or someone else, eventually you would have ended up in that very situation. Accept it, Maddie Ruth, you are ill-equipped.”
As soon as the poor choice of words left my mouth, I regretted them. A look of such smug satisfaction filled her no-longer-contrite features that I was seized with an urge to rub her face in dirt. Just to dim the bright light of triumph some. “I think I came very well equipped,” she retorted. “What would you’ve done were I not there with my net-launching device?”
“Fight them, and put them quickly out,” I said, with such certainty that her smile dimmed.
“What? Both?”
“Both,” I repeated grimly. I did not say it would have been easy—it wouldn’t, by any stretch. Scuffling outside one’s odds never ended well for everybody. Still, between my old mate Dicker and the squat Abe, I could have done so.
“What about the others in the fog?”
Damn. That was the rub, wasn’t it?
“Shush,” I said instead of addressing the validity of her point. “No reason to go shouting rumors all over the garden, now.” I pushed open the door, gesturing Maddie Ruth inside before me. Best that a member of the Menagerie go first, just in case. I was still often disregarded by them what worked the grounds, and did not fancy a scuffle by mistake.
“Cheers, Tovey,” Maddie Ruth said as she emerged from the foliage. A legitimate concern, then. I did not recognize the name. “How’s the work?”
I stepped into the open portico after her, saw an average-looking gent wearing a working man’s kit and a scarf to keep the chill out. His hair, bright ginger in the gray daylight, glinted like new copper.
The smile he gave Maddie Ruth was polite enough, but I wondered if she noted the way his gaze only touched me before snapping back to her. “Good afternoon, miss,” he said, so quietly I nearly missed the sound of it. “Er, good afternoon,” he added to me. An afterthought, naturally.
I nodded at him.
Maddie Ruth lowered her voice as Tovey shut the door behind us. “You seen any of the whips about?”
Whips, I understood, was the common term for them what held authority in the Menagerie. Hawke, naturally, was among them. He held the most authority of the lot, save the Veil itself. I was led to believe that Zylphia had a sort of ranking over the other sweets, though this seemed to be a malleable situation. I’d never heard her called a whip, but I did witness a kind of respect the other sweets bore for her.
I wasn’t sure who else might operate as some measure of command, and I did not wish to learn. Especially not when engaging in the very trouble I was to be avoiding.
The lad shook his head. “Been quiet in the private gardens since the prince wandered through.”
“Osoba’s been by recent?” Wariness replaced Maddie Ruth’s deliberate smile. She glanced at me, but her gaze did not stick; it shifted, as if afraid to meet my eyes.
Not a good sign.
“Prince?” I asked, and then remembered the pamphlets. Sometimes, in the leaflets provided by the Menagerie, the circus would promote a prominent act. Among them, I remembered a bit for His Highness Ikenna Osoba, lion prince of far-flung Africa.
If he were truly a prince, I did not know, but lion-taming was not a kind profession—even for the supremely confident. That he was numbered among the Menagerie whips was telling. The man was likely to be dangerous, and as capable with the weapon as the metaphorical title suggested.
Though a part of me could not help but wonder if he’d be as smooth with the length of black as Hawke. I’d watched the ringmaster wield a whip with such skill, the memory invoked more envy than the wariness the act warranted.
“Not long past,” Tovey was saying, and I shook my head. “Stepped into the cottage and out again without fuss.”
There was a cottage buried in the private gardens, the kind that was often used for entertainment, but also for various needs by the Menagerie staff. I’d seen the Veil there once. My first meeting.
It had not gone well.
“Did he say anything?” Maddie Ruth asked, worriedly picking at her lapels. Easy for her to be so nonchalant. I still wore her damned machine.
“What?” The lad scoffed. “To the likes of me?”
For some, there is not so much a physical indication as a sense when one’s hackles are raising. Though Maddie Ruth did not seem to change posture, I was aware of the impression of fear about her. Of wariness and deep concern. Perhaps it was in the eyes, suddenly skating across the hedgerows inset into this side of the menagerie grounds.
Like a rabbit, out and about during a lean winter.