The wax stuck to her fingers.
Mira swore softly under her breath and tried again, pressing the warmed lump against the key’s head, feeling for the ridges, the grooves. Ellison’s clerk—goggle-eyed and scandalized at having a lady in the back room of the office—had shown her how, his hands trembling comically as he demonstrated on a lesser key from the supply cupboard.
“Like this, ma’am,” he’d stammered. “See? Gentle. You don’t want to lose the detail.”
Now, in her bedchamber, with the curtains drawn and Sally standing guard near the door like a small, fierce lioness, she coaxed the wax into shape.
“There,” Sally said, leaning in. “That’s it. You’ve got it.”
Mira lifted the key free carefully.
A clear impression glistened in the wax: teeth, notches, the tiny nick near the base where Pell’s key had been dropped one too many times on stone.
“Good,” Mira murmured. “Again.”
She made three in all.
One, she wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine, to give to Ellison for his safe. One she pressed into a small tin lining, improvising a makeshift mold that could be filled later with softened wax to make yet another copy if needed.
The third she left unmounted, a small, plain disc of hardened wax that would, to anyone else, look like nothing.
“Where will you put them?” Sally whispered.
“One in Ellison’s box,” Mira said. “One in Mrs. Willoughby’s sewing basket—no man dares rummage there. One…” She hesitated. “I will carry. Hidden.”
“On your person?” Sally asked, eyes wide.
“Yes,” Mira said. “In case I need to open that door before anyone can be fetched.”
Sally shivered. “I don’t like thinkin’ of you goin’ there at all, ma’am.”
“Nor do I,” Mira said. “But liking has very little to do with any of this.”
She glanced at the trunk in the corner where Thomas’s surviving pages now rested under folded gowns.
“So many small things,” she murmured. “Keys. Pages. Bits of wax. And yet grown men quake.”
“Perhaps they should,” Sally said. “If they’d done nothin’ wrong, they wouldn’t be so scared of little bits o’ metal.”
Mira smiled faintly. “You are becoming a philosopher.”
“I listen,” Sally said defensively. “Men talk looser around maids. They think we don’t hear. Or don’t understand. Cook always says if the masters knew how much we heard, they’d stuff cotton in our ears.”
“Never do that,” Mira said. “I need your ears.” She touched Sally’s cheek lightly. “And your tongue, when it isn’t blurting my secrets at breakfast.”
Sally flushed. “I didn’t mean—that thing about Mr. Ferris—”
Mira waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s done.”
It *was* done, she thought as she slipped the real key into a small leather purse and tied it around her thigh, beneath her petticoats. The leather lay warm against her skin, the weight oddly intrusive, like a hand.
Not Daniel’s hand.
Her cheeks heated at the mental correction.
“You’re blushin’ again,” Sally observed, half-teasing.
“Go away,” Mira said without heat. “Go help Mrs. Willoughby invent a headache for this evening. I suspect we shall not be at home.”
Sally’s eyes widened. “Another tavern?”
“Another dinner,” Mira said. “More dangerous.”
***
Ellison’s mouth made a small, horrified O when she handed him the paper-wrapped key impression.
“You have been making—” he looked around his own office as if afraid the walls would object “—copies of contraband?”
“It is not contraband,” Mira said. “It is a shape. On wax.”
“It is a shape that opens a very particular door,” Ellison hissed. “Mrs. Godwin, if anyone knew—”
“No one will,” she said. “Except you. And perhaps Mr. Ferris.”
“Ferris knows everything,” Ellison muttered. “Or thinks he does.”
“You like him,” she said suddenly.
Ellison blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You grumble,” she said. “But when you speak of him, there is…affection. Even when you call him a nuisance.”
He sighed. “He annoys me,” he admitted. “He drags the law into places where it would rather not go. He forces me to consider…ethics…in matters that would be much easier if left to custom. But he is…honest. In a very inconvenient way. And he does not abandon his friends. I value that more than I resent the rest.”
“So do I,” she said softly.
Ellison’s gaze softened. “Mrs. Godwin,” he said. “May I be frank?”
“I should be disappointed if you were not,” she said.
“You are in…deep water,” he said. “Deeper than any woman of your station has a right to be. If you were my daughter—”
“I am not,” she pointed out.
“—I would have locked you in the country,” he finished. “You do not have to do this. You could let me—let *us*—handle it. The law. The banks. The quiet letters.”
“And Turners would still take crates to the head,” she said. “Neds would still die. Harcourt would still fatten. Caine would still smile. I cannot pretend that stepping back makes me innocent. It merely makes me…comfortable.”
“Comfort is not a crime,” Ellison said.
“No,” she said. “But it is not a virtue either.”
He sighed again. “You are very like your husband.”
“In this?” she asked, surprised.
“In stubbornness,” he said. “He once badgered me for three hours about a clause in a contract because he thought it might put too much burden on a junior partner. I told him no one else would care; he said that was precisely why he must. I am not sure he ever understood how tiring his righteousness was.”
Her throat tightened. “He understood it tired people,” she said. “But he thought the alternative worse.”
Ellison smiled crookedly. “I miss him,” he said.
“So do I,” she said.
He took the paper from her and, with a reluctance that suggested he knew precisely what weight it carried, placed it in a small tin, then into his safe.
The clank of the lock closing sounded final.
“There,” he said. “One copy. Out of sight. I will not speak of it to anyone. Not even under oath.”
She arched a brow. “You would lie?”
“I would be…economical with the truth,” he said primly.
She almost laughed.
“Thank you,” she said instead.
“Do not thank me yet,” he said. “When the Crown comes sniffing, you may curse me.”
“When the Crown comes sniffing,” she said, “we will have bigger curses to manage.”
On her way out, she nearly collided with a man coming in.
“Forgive me,” she said automatically, stepping back.
“Mrs. Godwin?”
The voice was familiar.
Gilbert.
Her brother-in-law filled the narrow hall, his country coat smelling faintly of horse and cold air. His eyes—small, kind, stubborn—widened when he saw her.
“Mira,” he said. “What the deuce are you doing here?”
“Gilbert,” she said, forcing a smile. “London suits you.”
“It does not,” he said bluntly. “Too many smells, not enough space.” He glanced past her toward Ellison’s office. “I came up because I had a letter from him. I did not expect—why are you at the solicitor’s? Has something happened? Has someone—”
“Breathe,” she said gently. “Come out of the draught before you catch your death.”
He allowed her to shepherd him back into the street, grumbling as he went.
They stood beneath Ellison’s modest sign, carriages and carts rattling past, the air bustling.
“You look,” Gilbert said once they were alone, “different.”
“In what way?” she asked warily.
“Less…dead,” he said. “More…troublesome.”
She laughed, a short bark. “Troublesome? I have merely been speaking to men about accounts.”
“That is what worries me,” he said. “You have ink on your glove.”
She glanced down. “So I do.”
Gilbert stared at her. “Mira. I came to town to speak to Ellison about a letter he sent—some nonsense about a new approach to settling Thomas’s affairs. He mentioned…your activities.”
“Oh, did he,” she said, making a mental note to scold Ellison for gossiping.
“He said you had met Caine,” Gilbert said, lowering his voice as if the very name might sprout ears. “He said you had been to taverns. That you have been…invited to Harcourt’s dinners.”
She shrugged. “All true.”
Gilbert flushed. “It is madness. You are a Pierce by birth, a Godwin by marriage. Our names—”
“—are already being whispered,” she said. “Gilbert. I appreciate your concern. Truly. But you must understand—”
“I understand,” he cut in, surprising her with the force of his tone, “that I promised Thomas I would keep you safe.”
“And I told you,” she said, more sharply than she intended, “that I never asked for a keeper.”
He flinched as if burned.
For a moment, guilt lapped at her. Gilbert, who had sold a field to pay Thomas’s doctor. Gilbert, who had written her clumsy, earnest letters urging her to eat. Gilbert, who had offered her Linton and quiet and chickens.
“I am not ungrateful,” she said, softer. “I know what you have done. I know what you offered. But I cannot sit at Linton counting eggs while men who profited from my husband’s pride and illness go on as if nothing happened.”
“You think you can change them?” he demanded. “You think you can shame men like Harcourt into honesty? Men like Caine into…into charity?”
“No,” she said. “I think I can make it…less comfortable for them to continue as they have. That may be enough.”
“You may get yourself killed,” he said roughly. “For ‘less comfortable.’”
“Yes,” she said simply.
His face crumpled.
“Oh, Mira,” he whispered. “Is nothing enough for you?”
The question stopped her.
Was it?
Answers. Justice. Money. Names.
Daniel’s hand on her back.
Thomas’s hand, gone.
“No,” she said honestly. “Not yet.”
Gilbert scrubbed a hand over his face. “Ferris,” he muttered. “This is his doing. Filling your head with tales. Dragging you into his schemes.”
“He has tried repeatedly to push me out of them,” she said.
“He should have tried harder,” Gilbert said. “Where is he? I intend to have words.”
“Probably in a coffee-house,” she said. “Arguing with numbers.”
“Good,” Gilbert said. “He can argue with my fist instead.”
“Gilbert,” she said, struggling not to laugh despite herself. “You will accomplish nothing by punching him.”
“Oh, I disagree,” Gilbert said. “I will accomplish a great deal. For my temper, at least.”
He seized her by the shoulders suddenly, not rough but firm.
“Promise me,” he said. “Promise you will not go to that warehouse alone. Promise you will not meet Caine alone. Promise you will not…slip away in the night without telling anyone where.”
She stared at him.
So many promises had been made around her lately. Caine’s. Pell’s. Daniel’s unwelcome *love yous.*
She had no more room for shackles.
“I promise,” she said carefully, “that I will not be…reckless. That I will not seek danger for the sake of it. That I will take allies when I can. That I will not…throw myself from bridges or walk into cellars full of knives without at least a good reason.”
“Mira,” he said, exasperated. “That is not—”
“It is the best I can give,” she said. “I will not lie to you. I have had enough lies.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them with a sigh.
“You always were impossible,” he said. “Even as a girl. Climbing trees in your Sunday frock. Arguing with the vicar. Thomas loved that about you.”
“He told you that?” she asked, throat tight.
“Often,” Gilbert said. “Usually right before complaining that you’d once again rearranged the books in his study according to your own…logic.”
She made a strangled noise. “They needed organizing.”
Gilbert smiled, sudden and fond. “Apparently he still thinks so. Through you.”
She blinked hard. “You are very sentimental for a man who wishes to punch my…ally.”
“I can do both,” he said.
He let her go, stepping back. “If you die,” he said, “I will find you in the next life and lecture you.”
“I shall look forward to it,” she said.
He snorted, then turned and stomped back into Ellison’s office, shoulders set.
Mira watched him go.
Family, she thought, was its own kind of chain. Heavy. Sometimes chafing. Sometimes the only thing keeping one from floating entirely away.
She touched the place on her skirt where the hidden purse’s leather pressed against her leg.
Keys. Chains. Locks.
Nothing was simple anymore.
***
That evening, Caine sent a note.
It arrived in an unremarkable hand on unremarkable paper, tucked into an unremarkable envelope that Sally almost threw away as some tradesman’s bill.
Mira unfolded it under the drawing room lamp.
*Mrs. Godwin,*
*I find my curiosity renewed. If your schedule permits, I should like to borrow an hour of your time tomorrow, after dusk. The Mariner’s Rest will suffice. Come with Ferris, if you must. Leave your conscience at home.*
*C.*
Mrs. Willoughby peered over her shoulder. “You know,” she said, “for a man rumored to gut people for looking at him sideways, he has remarkably good penmanship.”
Mira swallowed. “He knows about the key.”
“Of course he does,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “No secret lasts more than six hours in this town. Four, if it’s interesting.”
“I think we have become…very interesting,” Mira said.
“Congratulations,” Mrs. Willoughby said dryly. “You’ve always wanted to be talked about.”
Sally hovered. “You’re not goin’, are you, ma’am? To *him*?”
“Yes,” Mira said.
“No,” Mrs. Willoughby said simultaneously.
Mira looked between them. “I cannot ignore him. That would be taken for an answer in itself.”
“And what answer do you wish him to infer?” Mrs. Willoughby demanded. “That you are at his beck and call? That you will come when summoned like a spaniel?”
“Better a spaniel than a rabbit,” Mira said. “At least spaniels bite.”
Mrs. Willoughby stared, then let out a reluctant chuckle. “You make it very difficult to be reasonable.”
“You are not reasonable,” Mira said.
“True,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “But I like the illusion.”
She sighed, then straightened. “Very well. Go. Take Ferris. Take every ugly footman I own. Take Lady Bennett, if you can convince her; she’s more terrifying than any of them. But keep your wits. And if he offers you anything in a glass, pour it on the floor when he isn’t looking.”
“He won’t poison me,” Mira said.
“You do not know that,” Sally squeaked.
“If he wanted me dead,” Mira said, “I would already be. No. He wants…to watch.”
“That is not as reassuring as you think,” Mrs. Willoughby muttered.
***
The Mariner’s Rest looked different by lantern-light.
More shadow than shape. The painted mermaid’s already scant tail disappeared entirely, leaving only an expanse of crude, grinning flesh.
Inside, the main room buzzed more quietly than usual. Men hunched together in tighter knots. Conversations broke off when Mira and Daniel entered, then resumed with that particular forced casualness that told her they had, indeed, been speaking of something significant.
Bess nodded once from behind her bar, a blend of warning and reluctant welcome.
“He’s in back,” she said as they passed. “Door’s open. For now.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “We won’t be long.”
“See that you aren’t,” Bess said. “I don’t fancy scrubbin’ blood twice in one week.”
The passage smelled as it always did: damp wood, spilled ale, something sour and old.
The door to the back room stood ajar.
Caine sat with his boots up on the table, chair tilted back, mug in hand.
No one else.
“You are punctual,” he said as they stepped in. “I approve of women who respect time.”
“You summoned,” Mira said. “It seemed polite to answer.”
He smiled. “Polite. An interesting word for a woman who has been stealing keys from men’s pockets.”
“Pell gave it,” she said.
“Pell never *gives* anything,” Caine said. “He repositions. Still. You hold it now. That changes the board.”
“Does it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Before, Harcourt was my most precarious piece. Now…perhaps it is you.”
Daniel stepped closer to her, between.
Caine’s gaze flicked to him. “Ferris,” he said. “You are becoming a very tenacious shadow.”
“Occupational hazard,” Daniel said.
“Of what occupation?” Caine inquired. “Professional nuisance?”
“Something like that,” Daniel said.
Caine’s lips curved. “Sit,” he said.
Mira sat.
Daniel didn’t.
“You do not like chairs?” Caine asked mildly.
“I don’t like turning my back on you,” Daniel said.
“Paranoid,” Caine said.
“Alive,” Daniel said.
“Yet,” Caine murmured.
He turned his attention back to Mira.
“So,” he said. “Our mutual friend has decided to speed his own downfall in the hopes of tripping others first. How very…in character.”
“He gave me a choice,” she said.
“No,” Caine said. “He gave you the *illusion* of choice. The key was always going to find its way into your hand. This way, he gets credit and perhaps a cleaner conscience when the beams come down.”
“That may be enough for him,” she said. “It may also be enough for me.”
“Is it?” Caine asked, tilting his head.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Ask me when the door has been opened.”
He smiled faintly. “You intend to open it, then.”
“Yes,” she said.
“When?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Soon.”
“Careful,” he said. “Delaying too long is as dangerous as rushing. Men like Harcourt can do a great deal of damage in a fortnight if they smell smoke.”
“I know,” she said.
“Do you?” he asked.
He leaned forward, boots dropping to the floor with a thud.
“Every day you hesitate,” he said softly, “more boys like your Ned may find themselves in the wrong place. More Turners may be nudged off wharves. More clerks may misplace ledgers in exchange for silence. You think your caution is mercy. It is also, necessarily, cruelty.”
“How many must I kill either way?” she asked, the words scraped from somewhere deep. “If I act, men fall. If I do not, others suffer. You speak as if there is a path where everyone lives. There isn’t.”
“No,” he agreed. “There isn’t. That is why most people prefer not to choose at all. They let the tide decide. Cowards.”
“And you?” she asked. “What are you?”
“A man who calculates,” he said. “I add columns of flesh and coin and see which loss will cost me least.”
“And where do I fall in your sums?” she asked.
“In the column marked ‘unknown,’” he said. “Which I dislike. Unknowns unsettle me. They make my hand less steady.”
“Then remove me,” she said. “Cut me out.”
He regarded her, amused. “You think I have not considered it? One push. One stone. One cut rope. Yet here you sit. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Curiosity,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “And because, for the moment, you harm my enemies more than you harm me.”
“I am not working for you,” she snapped.
“Of course not,” he said lightly. “You are working for yourself. That is much more reliable. People always betray employers. They rarely betray their own desires.”
She swallowed.
“What do you *want* from me?” she asked. “Truly. You know I have the key. You know I will go. You know I will find…something. Why summon me?”
“To warn you,” he said.
Daniel snorted. “You are in a generous mood.”
Caine ignored him. “Harcourt knows you have it,” he said to Mira. “He does not yet know when you will act. That uncertainty makes him dangerous. He may try to…fix…that.”
“By killing me,” she said flatly.
“Yes,” Caine said. “Or by buying you. Or by attempting some wretched compromise. Men like him are inventive when cornered.”
“I’ve noticed,” she said.
“So,” he said. “When you go to that warehouse, you will not go alone. You will not go at night. You will not go on market day, when the streets are too crowded and confusion is easy. You will not go unarmed.”
“Armed,” she repeated. “With what, precisely? A hatpin?”
“A pistol,” he said.
She stared. “I have never fired one.”
“Then learn,” he said. “Ferris?”
Daniel stiffened. “No.”
Caine arched a brow. “No?”
“No,” Daniel said. “I will not have her wielding firearms in dark warehouses while half of Harcourt’s men are flailing. She’ll shoot me in the foot.”
“I would aim higher,” Mira muttered.
Daniel gave her a look.
“Teach her,” Caine said. “Or I will.”
“I would rather drown,” Daniel said.
“You might,” Caine said. “If she misses.”
Mira pressed her lips together to keep from laughing hysterically. “Is this truly necessary?” she asked. “Pistols?”
“Yes,” Caine said simply. “Not because I think you will outshoot any of my men. You won’t. But because holding one will change the way you stand. The way men see you. The way *you* see yourself. A woman with a pistol is a different animal than a woman with a fan.”
“You speak from experience?” she asked.
He smiled. “I have had pistols pointed at me by both. One was more convincing.”
She shook her head. “Very well,” she said. “I will learn. Ferris will teach me. Or Lady Bennett will; she looks as if she has shot at least three men.”
Daniel rubbed his temples. “You are all mad.”
“Yes,” Caine agreed. “It is what makes you interesting.”
He rose.
The conversation, such as it was, seemed at an end.
“We are done?” Daniel asked.
“For now,” Caine said. “You may go. Don’t die on the way home; I’d be annoyed.”
Mira stood slowly.
As she reached the door, Caine’s voice followed her.
“Mrs. Godwin.”
She paused, half-turning.
“Be sure,” he said softly. “Before you turn that key. Once it is opened, it cannot be unopened. Whatever is inside that warehouse will not return neatly to its crates.”
“Neither will I,” she said.
He smiled, a flash of white in the dim room.
“Good,” he said.
Outside, the river wind slapped her cheeks, sharp and real.
Daniel walked beside her, his pace a little too quick, as if he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and Caine’s shadow.
“You are not truly considering learning to shoot,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He groaned. “Mira.”
She stopped.
He stopped too, turning to face her.
“What?” she demanded. “You would have me walk into that place with nothing but my tongue?”
“Your tongue is very sharp,” he said. “It has wounded greater men than Harcourt.”
“And when they choose to reply with something sharper than words?” she asked. “What then?”
His face hardened. “That is what I am for.”
“I will not use you as a shield,” she said.
He smiled, humorless. “Too late.”
“This is not a jest,” she snapped.
“I know,” he said. “Which is why I am making them. It keeps me from screaming.”
She stared at him.
“You cannot be everywhere,” she said more quietly. “You cannot stand in front of every blow. I must be able to fend for myself.”
“You already do,” he said. “With your wits. Your courage. Your damned stubbornness.”
“And those have already killed one boy,” she said.
His jaw clenched. “No. The men who shoved him did that. Do not give them the mercy of taking the blame upon yourself.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“I will learn,” she said. “To hold one. To fire. Even if I never use it. I need to know I *can.*”
He was silent a long moment.
At last, he sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Tomorrow. Early. Before breakfast. The mews behind Mrs. Willoughby’s. We will scandalize the horses.”
She almost smiled. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me,” he said. “I am arming my own demise.”
“You think I would shoot you?” she asked.
“Not on purpose,” he said. “But you have a terrible habit of being where trouble is.”
“So do you,” she said.
He gave a short, choked laugh. “True.”
The key pressed against her thigh.
The river murmured, indifferent.
Somewhere, in a warehouse on the south wharf, crates waited.
She would open them.
Soon.
---