What a coward, I was.
I chewed the bitter medicine of my failure and it did not taste at all different than the tar that made it easier to swallow.
It seemed an eternity before a gentle rapping came upon the door I’d left open behind me. When I did not acknowledge it, that rapping came again—echoing pleasantly in my senses.
I turned, and the room turned softly with me.
A Chinese girl, wearing the loose tunic and trousers I’d come to associate with the Veil’s house servants. Her eyes were nearly black in the shadows filling the hall. I recognized her. One of the girls who had bathed me. She spoke some words, then, in broken English, “You look for master?”
I liked her voice. Pleasant enough already, but under the dreamy influence, it seemed lush and full—a multitude of ghosts that spoke at the same time she did. Unfortunate accent turned to the prettiest bells.
I did not bother to correct her assumption of Hawke’s status to mine. “I look for master,” I agreed.
She wrapped her arms about her thin chest, looking over her shoulder briefly. When she turned, she tilted her head, a strand of loose ink bleeding from behind her ear to grace her cheek.
She was plain, but in the sweet melody of my opium dream, she was pretty enough for song. Her skin was soft to look at and touched by a hint of pink at the cheeks, and her nose small and pert over bow lips. I imagined that her hair was long in its twist, for I had not yet met a Chinese person whose hair was short.
When I did not follow, she stopped and looked at me with some impatience. “You follow now.”
I wondered as I obeyed whether all of the Veil’s people were so officious, or if it were only my luck to meet them that were.
I followed this dictatorial girl with a servant’s efficiency, said nothing as we stepped into passages reserved for her ilk. A good servant was only seen when necessary, and I knew that the Menagerie’s structures were riddled with corridors behind the walls. I had not known that the main estate would be the same.
She walked quickly, but with neat, precise steps. In minutes, we stepped out of the bare, lamp lit halls and into the cold.
She pointed, a ghostly hand nearly swallowed by her gaping sleeve. “Follow path. I wait here.”
“Wait?” I followed the line of her finger, but saw only a pale path disappearing into the dark. “Why wait here?”
Another spurt of Chinese followed my question; a phrase that earned my narrow focus. “Tù zi wĕi ba cháng bu liăo.” Unlike the Veil’s mocking warning, this servant delivered each syllable with straightforward statement of fact.
I frowned. “Why do I keep hearing this? What does it mean?”
She folded her arms, tucking her hands into the opposite sleeve. “The tail of rabbit can not be long.”
Bemused, I shook my head. Pretty as she made the lilting bells seem, it meant nothing to me. “What nonsense is that supposed to convey?”
She looked at me, the weight of her stare a patient demand. “Go,” she said, in place of answer.
Part of me insisted I obey, that I follow that dark path and see what adventure waited at the end. The other part of me bristled at such easy orders from a servant, and a foreign one beside.
It seemed so much easier to ponder these small conflicts.
Still, I hadn’t expected her to turn a friendly bit of help my way. After the previous debacle involving the Veil’s attempt to enslave me, I had not expected her to be anything but an enemy.
I frowned at her. “Forgive my rudeness,” I said slowly, “but were you... Did the Veil punish you?”
Her eyes met mine, dark as the night around us. Then she shook her head, not in denial, but in confusion. “So sorry,” she said. “No good, English.”
Fine. Though I wanted to pry, to make my intent known, I went, because the instant the question left my lips, I wanted to take it back. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care to know that the Veil had harmed innocent people for failing to do a task I would not allow them to do.
I left her standing in the dark and did not look back.
I passed trickling streams carved and inlaid with smooth, polished stones, topiaries and gardens fading into winter’s slumber. I followed a stone wall, tracing the cobbles for a time until I realized that it was no wall I occasionally touched but the side of a structure with no windows.
When I found the door, I studied its thick metal hinges, the heavy weight of the braces bolted into it, and the wide keyhole.
This old-fashioned type of lock is the best for a student of the black art such as myself. The heavy iron tumblers would hold the door well, but the largeness of the mechanism made picking it rather easy.
I did not stop to consider why Hawke might be behind a closed door in what appeared to be a stone fortress, small as it was. I did not think that he may be occupied—with a woman, or with business, or anything of the sort.
It did not occur to me to knock, for I had ceased to imagine myself a thing of logic and become an arrow of focus in the darkness.
Opium lifted my heart from its terrible slump, and though I walked as if in a dream, I was once more unbreakable. Untouchable.
I pulled two pins from the crown I’d made of my braided hair and did not care when the blackened plait dropped to my shoulders. I’d lost most of the pins I had left. I would need to beg more of the sweets, but not now.
Now, I focused on doing what it was I did best.
It took precious little time. The lock clanged loudly as the tumblers slid into place, and I withdrew the pins I’d used to successfully force the issue. Pocketing them with the remains of my opium, I laid one hand flat against the metal door and pushed. Warm light spilled out to caress my booted feet.
The door did not screech, as I expected. The hinges were well-oiled, and the weight held firm by the stone frame it was affixed to. This was a mighty portico, built to withstand assault.
Was this where the Veil lived, then? His very own fortress?
I should have been more careful. I should have stepped out the instant I thought of the matter more carefully, turned my back on this foolishness.
I did not. If Hawke was in there, then I would force him to rescind the order that would see others punished for my efforts. I would demand he offer resources to find both the Whitechapel murderer and monstrous collector.
I would see this ended.
Smiling without humor, I flicked my braided hair to hang at my back and strode inside, eager to surprise the Veil and his puppet at their prideful feast.
I could never have been more wrong.
The room was a single chamber, painted red and gold by the fire leaping inside a large iron hearth. While a part of me registered the warm air, the fragrance of spice and burning coal, I could not have given name to any of it were I to try.
My gaze, my senses, my shock was claimed by the centerpiece of this elegantly furnished domain.
Hawke hung from a twisted knot of thick chains, his arms extended over his head, his feet limp above the stony floor. He faced the fire, presenting me with his taut back; an athletic vee of muscle wrenched into rigid tension. His crisp white shirt glowed obscenely bright against the fire-gilded tint of his swarthy skin, pulled tight against his flesh with the strain of the shackles banded around his wrists.
The Midnight Menagerie’s ringmaster had always been the center of attention. Now, obscene in his chains, he served a rather more literal center function.
His hands had become dark stains over his head, nearly purple from the constriction of his own weight against metal braces. Black hair covered his face, a raven’s wing curtain, as if he were asleep or unconscious.
How much pain was he in? How long had he been strung high for display? And for whom? The Veil’s spokesman? Someone else?