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Miranda shut her eyes, and an image drifted to her mind: Mrs. Blasseur, seated on a stool, cutting foolscap into strips.
Her heart stopped. “Oh, no,” she moaned. “I thought—”
“No,” Jeremy snapped. “You didn’t. You didn’t think at all. Old Blazer has no sense of discretion. Have you ever known him to keep his mouth shut?”
“Well, no, but—”
“He’s forever talking to people. And he won’t even do his part in the shop if he feels the slightest ache in his little toe. Do you really think he’d be the sort to work long hours on a thankless endeavor?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“More to the point,” Jeremy said softly, “Old Blazer isn’t in dire need of a replacement. My mother—” His voice cracked.
“Your mother can’t be the Patron.” Miranda shook her head. “Why would she want me to replace her? It doesn’t make any…”
She trailed off once more at the dire look in Jeremy’s eyes.
“Oh,” she said stupidly.
“Miranda,” Jeremy said gently, “you haven’t any sense of discretion either. You haven’t any training. You haven’t any claim to the enterprise.” Jeremy reached into his pocket and fished a hank of hair, gleaming dully copper in the moonlight that filtered through the windows.
Miranda shivered, remembering the knife that had removed that.
“That lock of hair,” Jeremy said, “was delivered to me as a warning. My mother thinks I’m in love with you, after all. And she thinks that George is my friend—she had him arrested, too, and when he was about to be released, had him secreted away as a hostage. This isn’t about you.” He gave her a sad smile. “It’s about my refusal to take up the family business.”
A knock sounded at the front door—two blows, a pause, and then three short raps.
“There,” Jeremy said. “That will be my invitation. All I have to do is go with whomever she’s sent, and I can avert this whole crises. There’s an initiation ceremony.” His lip curled in distaste. “If I’m supposed to take up the Patron’s mantle, I have to administer the Patron’s justice. It…it proved to be a sticking point before.”
His tone had grown harder as he spoke.
“What kind of…” Miranda stopped, not willing to go forward. She knew what the Patron’s justice was like. The man who’d threatened her all those years ago had been driven out of town—and that, just for a threat. Men had died for the Patron’s justice—died and disappeared. If Jeremy was supposed to become the Patron…
His skin was the color of cold wax. “I can do it,” Jeremy was saying, more to himself than to her. “If I agree to take her place, I can find out where he’s held. Have him released. The stakes this time…there could be riots. I can kill one man to save the city.”
Miranda wasn’t sure she believed him. Moreover, she wasn’t sure what it would do to him, to commit murder.
“If I knew where my mother kept prisoners,” he was muttering, “perhaps I could… But no. No. There is no other way.”
Miranda caught his arm.
“Actually,” she said. “I have an idea. I know how to find them, without going through the initiation first.”
Jeremy glanced at the front door.
“Quickly,” Miranda said. “If we go out the back way, you won’t have to talk to him at all.”
IT WAS COLD AND lightless when Smite awoke. He was slumped against some hard surface. He twitched; even that slight movement sent a scatter of pain through his head. No sun played against the lids of his eyes; no lantern-light danced nearby.
It made no difference when he cautiously opened his eyes. It was still black. The floor under him was hard and cold, and a series of curiously regular bumps jutted into his skin. Even breathing hurt.
It took him a moment to orient himself. Last he’d known, he’d been standing behind Temple Church, pretending to smoke a pipe and watching the church. He’d had his back to the wall.
Someone had hit him from the side. He had a vague, troubled recollection of movement, but no memory of how he came to be here. Wherever here was.
There was no movement to the air; it hung about him, close and still. The setting almost felt like one of his nightmares, yet it seemed curiously tactile for a dream. He could make out the odor of metal and grease, and he could never smell in dreams. And in his dreams, he always heard the babble of the passing millrace, growing to a crescendo.
Here, silence engulfed him. Only a faint sound—an almost liquid burble—hovered at the edge of his hearing. It made him uneasy.
He put his hand out. Cold metal met his fingertips, and he found a hard edge in the floor next to him. A moment’s exploration brought the surface to life.
It wasn’t a ridge, and he wasn’t asleep. It was a seam, and those bumps marching alongside the hard metal edge were rivets. He was enclosed in a box made of iron.
Don’t think of it, Turner. If you don’t think of it, it needn’t affect you.
“Turner?” It was a familiar voice. “Is that you?”
“Dalrymple.” Smite felt an unreasonable sense of relief at finding himself not alone. The man’s voice brought back everything—the plan, the church, the Patron… “Tell me Miranda’s not here,” he said.
“If she is, I’ve not encountered her.”
“Ash?”
“Not him, either.”
No point in thinking of them now. He hoped they were safe.
Instead, he ran his hand along the metal beneath him. “Where are we?”
“I’m not certain. I only saw a bit near the end, when the scarf binding my eyes slipped. They took us aboard a ship. I only got a glimpse before they slammed the door shut.”
“Ah,” Smite muttered. A simple word, to hide the unbidden nausea that rose in his gorge. There was only one deserted ship in the Floating Harbour. He was aboard the Great Britain. Buried deep in her bowels. That noise he heard—that was the flow of liquid around the hull. His hand trembled against the cold floor.
He pressed it flat.
Stop fussing over yourself.
“Are you well?” Dalrymple asked. “You couldn’t even bring yourself to swim at Eton, not without becoming ill. And now we’re surrounded by water. It’s all around us. I think—are you shaking?”
“Shut up, Winnie.” Smite drew a deep breath. The pain in his side wa
s receding, but it still hurt. “If you don’t mention it, I don’t have to think of it.” If he didn’t think of it, he might be able to keep his old memories from devouring him alive.
“Oh. Sorry.” A pause. “It’s been ages since anyone called me ‘Winnie.’”
“A deplorable lapse on my part,” Smite said.
Dalrymple had been the Marquess of Winchester, back when they’d been boys—back when almost everyone had believed him to be the heir to a dukedom. The title had been shortened to just Winnie amongst his intimates.
“You’re right,” Dalrymple said presently. “I am a coward. They simply pointed a pistol at me and told me not to make a fuss. That was all that was needed. I didn’t fight. I didn’t scream.” He made a disgusted sound. “Even girls can scream. Ash would have punched them.”
“At least they didn’t shoot you,” Smite said. “I count that a positive. As I told you before, I’d rather you didn’t die.”
“Ha.”
Despite himself, Smite smiled. “How long have we been here?”
“An hour? Maybe two.”
“If we’ve been here an hour, you’ve used up the sentimentality quota.” Smite rubbed his forehead. “So stop telling me what you should have done, and start thinking about what we will do instead.”
That comment brought only silence. And with the silence came that sound again, the noise at the edge of hearing that made him think of water rushing in.
He was outright grateful when Dalrymple spoke again. “It’s like Eton all over,” the man muttered. “I whine to you; you tell me to keep quiet and do something instead. Every day I was convinced you’d discover what a little sniveler I was. Every day for two bloody years.”
“Still too much sentiment,” Smite said. But at least Dalrymple’s voice drowned out the sound of water.
“When you finally did discover it, I hated you for it.”
“My head is splitting.” Smite moved, and winced again. “We’re in captivity. I believe I can weather your hatred for a few hours longer.”
Dalrymple gave a shaking laugh in response. “I know what these early friendships mean. There was no reason our friendship should have survived adolescence.” A heavy sigh followed. “But unlike you, I didn’t have a brother who worshipped me. I didn’t have a family that stood behind me no matter what. For me, there was only you. And you were cold and brilliant and fascinating. You could always set the other boys aback with an insult so exact that it cut precisely to the bone and no further.”
