The room had gone too quiet.
Even the low murmur of the river beyond the warped shutters seemed to recede, leaving only the sound of breath—hers, too quick; Ferris’s, very steady; Pell’s, ragged in his throat.
Caine smiled as if this were all a minor amusement.
“Sit,” he said.
It was not a suggestion.
The men around the table shifted, chairs scraping. One of them—thick-necked, with a broken nose—rose and nudged a rickety chair toward Mira with his boot.
Ferris’s hand tightened on her elbow.
“You don’t have to—” he began under his breath.
“I know,” she murmured.
And then, because there is a particular kind of courage that comes only when one is too far in to back away, she walked forward and took the chair.
Ferris swore, so softly only she could hear, and took his place at her side. Ned hovered by the door, looking as if he might faint or fight, uncertain which.
Tully had already folded himself into the farthest shadow, trying his best to resemble a smudge.
Pell sat opposite Mira, his smile stretched thin enough to split.
Caine did not sit. He lounged, one hip braced against the table, close enough that the flicker of the lamp threw odd hollows into his face.
“Mrs. Godwin,” he said. “You have a pretty name. It would be a pity to ruin it.”
“Then you must take care,” she said, before Ferris could stop her, “not to smear it with your dealings, sir.”
A hissed intake of breath circled the room. Pell’s eyes went wide with horror.
Ferris’s fingers brushed hers under cover of the table, a quick, fierce squeeze. *Enough.*
Caine’s brows rose, not in anger but in genuine, faint amusement.
“You have steel, I see,” he said. “For a woman who has been to so many funerals.”
“Only one,” she said. “And I am trying to prevent more.”
“Are you.” He tilted his head. “Whose?”
“My own, to begin,” she said. “I cannot help but notice that widows who ask too many questions have a tendency to slip on convenient patches of ice.”
“And does that frighten you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I am not a fool. But I find ignorance frightens me more.”
Ferris’s hand left hers. When she glanced sideways, he was watching Caine with a faintly fascinated contempt, as if studying a venomous snake he could not yet afford to tread upon.
Pell cleared his throat. “Mrs. Godwin, if you will permit me—”
“I will not,” she said, turning on him. “You have spoken enough over my affairs. I should like, for once, to hear it from the man behind you.”
Pell’s mouth snapped shut.
Caine watched this exchange with that same almost-laughing expression.
“An unusual woman,” he said idly. “Most ladies in your position would be sitting in the country, embroidering pillows with psalms.”
“I tried,” Mira said. “I found thread very poor company.”
“And you prefer mine?” he inquired.
“No,” she said. “But you are honest about what you are.”
One of the men at the table let out a bark of incredulous laughter, quickly stifled.
Caine did not appear offended. “You think me honest.”
“I think,” she said carefully, “that you have no interest in pretending to be other than what you are. That is rare in this city. Men like Mr. Pell”—she did not spare him a glance—“prefer to dress their actions in fine words. Silk on rotten meat. You…do not bother.”
“You’d be surprised how often silk distracts,” Caine said, a brief flick of his eyes toward her bodice, barely there and yet not.
Heat crawled up her throat. “Not forever.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not forever. That is why I prefer plain dealings.”
He pushed himself upright at last and walked, unhurried, to the far end of the table, where a few folded sheets of paper lay weighted by a pewter mug. His movements were economical. Graceful, even. The kind of grace that comes from having had to move fast and precisely or die.
“Your husband,” he said, picking up the top sheet and glancing over it as if reminding himself of some small matter, “was not a man I knew. We had mutual…agents.” He favored Pell with a look that made the other man swallow audibly. “When he died, there was confusion. Debt. Opportunity. Others moved quickly. I moved…less quickly.”
“Ghouls,” she said, her voice steady though her fingers dug crescents into the rough wood beneath them. “Picking at a fresh grave.”
“Commerce,” he corrected. “No one forced Godwin to borrow. No one forced him to gamble on ships. He played. He lost. It is unfortunate—for you—that he lost so thoroughly.”
“And fortunate for you,” she said.
His mouth curved. “Oh, not especially. By the time I came to the table, most of the meat was gone. A few bones. A few scraps. This man—” He inclined his head toward Pell. “—had already been chewing for some time.”
Pell flushed, then paled.
“You admit it,” Mira said to Pell.
“I admit nothing,” he snapped. “I made arrangements to keep Godwin’s enterprises afloat. The fact that he could not keep up with the demands of trade—”
“The demands of *whom*,” she cut in.
Pell’s jaw clenched. “Of creditors. Of partners.”
“Of me,” Caine supplied, unbothered. “Say it. The word does not burn the tongue. I made him an offer. He accepted. We did not yet consider it…wise…to involve Mr. Godwin directly. He was a respectable man. He liked his accounts neat and his profit honest.”
“And you do not,” she said.
“I like my accounts paid,” Caine said simply. “When Godwin died, matters…changed. This man—” again, that slight, contemptuous tilt of his head at Pell—“had made promises he could not keep. Promises in your husband’s name as well as his own. You see my difficulty.”
“So you came after the estate,” she said. “After my house. My security.”
“I came after what I was owed,” he corrected. “It is hardly my fault that Godwin’s estate has turned out to be…disappointing.”
“He left me nothing,” she said.
“Not nothing.” Caine’s pale gaze flicked to her gloved hands. “You have his name. His respectability. The illusion that he was a good man wronged by scoundrels. That is worth something. To some.”
Mira’s throat tightened. “He *was* a good man.”
“I do not doubt it,” Caine said. “Good men are often the easiest to lead to bad decisions. They cover vice with their virtue like sugar on arsenic and are surprised when the powder kills as surely as the poison.”
Ferris inhaled sharply. “Is there a point to this sermon,” he asked, “or are you merely enjoying the sound of your own philosophy?”
Caine’s eyes shifted to him, and the air between them seemed to crackle.
“You are Felix Amesbury’s second son,” Caine said. “You know something of such mixtures. Piety and hunger.” His gaze dropped, just once, to Ferris’s frayed cuff. “An unfortunate combination.”
Ferris’s jaw tightened. “Leave my family out of this.”
“Why?” Caine asked. “Family is where all rot begins. Godwin. Pell. You. Me. Her.” His eyes returned, finally, to Mira. “We are all paying the debts of those who fucked before us.”
The vulgarity hit her like a slap.
She refused to flinch.
“My husband’s debts,” she said, enunciating, “are his. Not mine.”
“And yet,” Caine said, “here you are. In a tavern. With me. They cling, these things. Like smoke.”
“What do you want from us?” Ferris demanded.
“For the moment?” Caine considered, tapping the folded paper against his palm. “To understand how dangerous this woman is. To me. To Pell. To the careful balances that keep this city from choking on its own greed.”
“Dangerous?” Mira repeated. “I am a widow with a head full of numbers and a maid who snores. What danger could I possibly pose?”
“Information is danger,” Caine said lazily. “Especially when it belongs to other people.”
Her pulse leaped. “You think I have…information.”
“I think,” Caine said slowly, “that a man with one foot in the grave and the other in debt might have scribbled down a few private thoughts. A list of names. A tally of wrongs. A record of shipments that did not end where they ought.”
She went still.
Thomas’s journal.
She had burned it.
No—she had *tried* to burn it. She had fed one page after another into the fire, watching ink curl into smoke, until the heat had driven tears from her eyes and the room had blurred. But she had not been able to burn it all. Some entries she had torn out, shoved into a box, hidden in the false bottom of her travelling trunk.
Entries with dates. With questions. With the name *Pell* underlined twice.
She had not told anyone.
Not Gilbert. Not Ellison.
Certainly not Ferris.
Her sudden silence told Caine everything.
“Ah,” he said softly. “There it is. The scent of something tucked away.”
Pell’s head snapped toward her. “You have his books,” he said, voice sharp. “You never told—”
“Enough,” Caine said.
The word was not loud. It did not need to be. It cut through the air like a blade.
Pell shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.
“Mrs. Godwin,” Caine went on, almost conversational, “I have no interest in prising every scrap of paper from your bedchamber. Domestic life holds no appeal for me. But I will tell you this: if certain pages, containing certain…unflattering…accounts, were to find their way into the hands of particular men, it would prove…unfortunate. For many people. You included.”
“Unfortunate how?” she asked.
“For one,” Caine said, “they would not see you as a wronged widow. They would see you as a threat. A woman who holds the power to ruin fortunes. To hand names to magistrates. To burn warehouses down without striking a single match.”
His words sent a cold thrill down her spine. The power he spoke of…she felt it, like a weight in her reticule where Thomas’s remaining pages lay.
“You overestimate my influence,” she said. “I am one woman.”
“One is enough,” Caine said. “Slander falls from many mouths and blows away. But truth, spoken by the right voice, can crack foundations.”
He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table. “So. Here is what will happen.”
Ferris stiffened. “You are in no position—”
“I am in every position,” Caine said, not looking at him. “You will be quiet now, Mr. Ferris. You have had your turn at ruining things.”
Ferris flushed, color rising hot along his throat.
Mira lifted her chin. “What terms do you propose?”
Caine’s lips curved faintly. “Ah. You have learned quickly. Good. Bargains are easier than threats.”
He straightened. “You will bring me the remaining pages of your husband’s journal.”
“No,” she said instantly.
“Not to keep,” Caine added. “To see. I wish to know how much Godwin understood of the game played around him. How many names he wrote. Which shipments he…suspected.”
“You could simply tear those pages from my hands and take them,” she said.
“I could,” he agreed. “But then you would never trust me.”
A harsh laugh escaped her. “You imagine I might?”
“In time,” he said, almost lightly. “Or rather, you might come to trust that my self-interest aligns briefly with yours.”
Ferris let out a disbelieving sound. “You are asking her to walk into a trap carrying the only weapon she has, and you call that alignment?”
“A trap?” Caine repeated thoughtfully. “No. If I wished her dead, Mr. Ferris, she would already be floating belly-up in the river, and we would not be having this charming conversation.”
Ned made a strangled noise.
Caine ignored him. “I do not kill without profit. Mrs. Godwin offers me something more interesting than her necklace. Perspective. A vantage point. If I know what Godwin knew, I know how shaky my own ground is. Which of my associates are careless. Which are greedy. Which are dangerously sentimental.”
“Men like Pell,” Mira said.
Pell bristled. “You cannot lay this at my door alone—”
Caine brushed a hand through the air. Pell subsided, sweating.
“In return,” Caine went on, “I may be persuaded to…adjust certain accounts. To ease pressure on particular debts. To allow some names to sink quietly rather than be dragged into the light.”
Mira’s heart stumbled. “My husband’s name.”
“Among others,” Caine said. “Your own. Perhaps even…Ferris’s.”
Ferris stiffened. “I want nothing from you.”
“Everyone wants something,” Caine said. “You want to ease your conscience. You want to pretend that by escorting widows into taverns you are paying off the cost of your ambition. It’s touching.”
Ferris’s hand curled into a fist on the table. “Careful,” he said softly.
Caine’s eyes glinted. He liked this. The sparring. The danger.
Mira realized, with a strange, cold clarity, that in this room, death was a game piece, not a consequence.
“You will not harm my husband’s name,” she said.
It was not a plea. It was a line drawn.
Caine considered her. “His name,” he said, “is a ship already half sunk. The question is whether you wish to climb onto what remains or let it drag you under.”
“I will not let you use it as ballast,” she said. “To weigh down other men’s sins. Thomas made mistakes. He trusted the wrong people. He borrowed too much. I am not blind. But he did not *deal* with you.”
“He dealt with men who dealt with me,” Caine said. “It is a thin distinction. But very well. I will not speak his name in any court. I will not whisper it into any ear that might carry it to a gallows.”
Silence thickened.
Pell stared at him, stunned. “You would do that. For *her*?”
“I would do it for myself,” Caine said. “And incidentally for her. A reputation like Godwin’s is useful. He is a ghost who can stand between me and certain…unpleasant attentions. As long as his widow is not shrieking accusations in the street.”
“I have no intention of shrieking in the street,” Mira said. “I prefer quieter methods.”
Caine’s smile flashed. “All the more reason to cultivate you.”
Mira swallowed. “You ask for my husband’s pages. What else?”
“For now,” Caine said, “only your patience. You are burning to chase Pell down every alley, to wave ledgers under every nose. It is…admirable. It is also suicidal. If you strike too loudly, men with more to lose than you will swat you like a fly.”
“And you are offering to…what?” she demanded. “To tutor me? To teach me how to be a better avenger?”
“Avenger,” he mused. “An ambitious word.” He shrugged, the movement oddly elegant. “Think of it as…guidance. I will tell you where not to look. I will suggest where to press. Whom to embarrass. Whom to flatter. Whom to leave alone.”
“Whom to protect,” she said.
“If protecting them profits me,” he said. “Yes.”
Ferris made a sound of disgust. “You intend to turn her into another piece on your board.”
“Of course,” Caine said, amused. “She is already on it. I am merely offering her a choice of squares.”
“What if I say no?” Mira asked.
Caine considered. “Then you will go back to Hanover Square and continue to dig on your own. You will make some progress. You are not stupid. You may even flush Pell into the open. He will flail. He will perhaps attempt something foolish. Someone will die. Possibly you.”
Ned inhaled sharply.
Caine went on, unhurried. “Harcourt will scramble to protect his own interests. Ellison will wring his hands. Ferris will get into a fight he cannot win. Caine”—his mouth quirked—“will be mildly inconvenienced and then adjust his strategy. In ten years, no one will remember Thomas Godwin’s name, save as a rumor attached to a cautionary tale.”
“And if I say yes?” she forced out.
Caine’s gaze did not soften. But it did narrow, like a man sighting something distant.
“Then,” he said, “we may find a way to pull Pell down without collapsing the entire scaffolding upon which you and yours stand. We may, if we are clever, retrieve enough of your husband’s estate to keep you from becoming entirely dependent on the grudging charity of your brother-in-law. We may even prevent Harcourt from hanging himself with the same rope he so cheerfully looped around Godwin’s wrists.”
“And your profit?” she asked, because if she was to swim with sharks, she wanted to see the fins clearly.
“My profit,” Caine said, “lies in stability. Chaos is bad for business. Too much noise, and the Crown sends its little hounds sniffing. Quiet rot is preferable. Manageable. I prefer my corruptions subtle.”
There was something almost…honest in that.
Almost.
Ferris leaned closer to her, his shoulder brushing hers. “You don’t owe him anything,” he murmured. “You don’t owe *any* of them anything. You can walk out of here and let them devour each other.”
“And then?” she asked without turning. “Retire to the country? Watch Gilbert count pennies on my behalf? Listen to Sally talk of hats while the men who killed my husband’s peace sleep well?”
His jaw flexed. “You cannot fix all of it.”
“No,” she said. “But I can fix some.”
Their eyes met briefly, a flash of flint on flint.
“You will think about it,” Caine said, as if she had spoken aloud. “You will bring me your husband’s pages in two days’ time. Here. During daylight. Bring Ferris if it pleases you. Leave your footmen at home.”
Ned bristled. “Oi—”
Ferris threw him a quelling look. “Ned will do what he’s told,” he said.
Ned subsided, cheeks flushing.
“And if I choose not to bring them?” Mira asked.
“Then we will have another conversation,” Caine said. “Perhaps in a less pleasant setting. I assure you, I can be very hospitable.”
Under the table, her hands were trembling. She flattened them deliberately against her skirts.
“Two days,” she said.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
It took everything in her not to flinch at that.
Ferris rose abruptly. “We have taken enough of your time,” he said. “And your air.”
“My air is not yours to take,” Caine said mildly. “But go. Hanover Square will be fretting.”
Pell made a move as if to speak to Mira, to reach across the table, to say—what? Apology? Excuse? Threat?
Caine’s fingers brushed the rim of his mug. Pell froze.
Mira stood.
Her knees wobbled once. Ferris’s hand was there, under her arm, steadying without seeming to.
“Mrs. Godwin,” Pell blurted finally, voice cracking. “I—I should be happy to call on you. To set your mind at ease—”
“You have done nothing but disturb it,” she said, meeting his eye for the first time since Caine had named terms. “I suggest you concern yourself with setting your *own* mind at ease. While you still can.”
His face went grey.
Ferris guided her toward the door. Tully scrambled ahead to open it. Ned followed, one hand inside his coat as if gripping some imaginary weapon.
As the door shut behind them, Mira heard Caine’s voice, low and amused.
“She will either save you all,” he said. “Or destroy you. I confess, I am curious which.”
***
They did not speak until they were back in the narrow passage. The smell of spilled ale and unwashed wool seemed suddenly heavy, like a physical thing pressing down.
Mira drew in a breath that shuddered in her chest.
“That,” she said, “was…educational.”
Ferris turned on her.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Walking into that room. Answering him like that. Bargaining with a man who could have you killed with a nod.”
“I was thinking,” she said, keeping her tone deliberately cool, “that I am tired of being at the mercy of men whose names I do not even know. Now I know one more. That feels like progress.”
“Progress,” he repeated incredulously. “You have just drawn a circle around yourself in Caine’s mind. He will *watch* you now. He will factor you into his calculations. That is not a place any sane person wants to be.”
“Perhaps I am not entirely sane,” she said. “Grief has a way of loosening the screws.”
He raked a hand through his hair, leaving it in more disarray. “You were shaking.”
“Am shaking,” she corrected quietly. “Not was.”
His eyes dropped to her hands, still pressed against her skirts. He made a sound, half-maddened, half-admiring.
“Do you understand,” he said, more measured now, “what it *means* that Caine is willing to bargain? He does nothing without ten outcomes calculated and twenty contingencies in place. If he wants those pages, it’s because they matter. To him. To Harcourt. To Pell. To half a dozen names we don’t yet know.”
“Yes,” she said. “Which means they might matter to me.”
“They might also paint a target on your back so bright you’ll glow in the dark,” he snapped.
“Would you prefer I kept them under my pillow?” she asked. “Do you think that would make the target less vivid?”
“No,” he said, haggard. “I would prefer you set fire to the whole damned lot and let the river take the rest.”
“And live the rest of my life wondering?” she asked. “Never knowing whether I hold in my hands the means to clear my husband’s name, or at least to muddy Pell’s?”
He let out a breath between his teeth. “You are determined to get yourself killed.”
“I am determined to understand,” she said. “If death follows…so be it.”
“Don’t,” he said sharply.
“Don’t what?” she demanded. “Speak of death? Pretend it is not already sitting at my parlour table, drinking my tea?”
His face twisted. “You talk like a woman with nothing to lose.”
“I have very little,” she said. “A house that is not truly mine. A name that is already being whispered over like a scandal-sheet. A maid. A few gowns. A handful of pages. And now, apparently”—she let out a small, bitter laugh—“the interest of a man whose business is making other people’s bad decisions worse.”
Ferris stepped closer, so close the cramped passage seemed to hold too much of him.
“You have your life,” he said. “You have the capacity to laugh at Lady Bennett’s nonsense. You have the infuriating habit of walking into rooms as if you own them, even when they smell of rot. You have…” He broke off, swallowed. “You have more to lose than you think.”
Her heart pounded.
“And you?” she asked, because asking about herself felt too raw. “What have you to lose if I go back to Caine with those pages?”
“Sleeping a little easier at night,” he said.
“You do not strike me as a man who sleeps easily anyway,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “But I’d prefer not to spend my remaining nights wondering whether your blood is on my conscience as well as Pell’s.”
The “as well” pricked.
“You were not responsible for Thomas’s death,” she said.
“Aren’t I?” he asked softly. “I introduced him to Pell. I urged him to invest in certain routes. I argued with him about certain…riskier ventures. When he chose Pell’s path over mine, I washed my hands and walked away. Perhaps if I had stayed—if I had insisted—if I had swallowed my pride and worked alongside Pell to keep Godwin within safer bounds…”
“You might have died in his place,” she said. “Of illness. Or debt. Or a knife in an alley. Meanwhile, Thomas would still have been Thomas. He would have taken your advice or not as it suited him. You speak as if you pulled him into the river. He walked.”
His eyes flashed. “You are very quick to absolve me.”
“I am very tired of listening to men tear themselves to shreds over things they could not control,” she said. “My husband loved you. He said you were the only man who could argue with him about profit and not bore him to tears.”
Ferris blinked. “He said that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Over dinner. Once. Right before he told me you’d had a shouting match in the office that rattled the windows.”
Color rose in his cheeks. “He exaggerated.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “He also said you had a habit of talking to the sea as if it might answer. I thought that very romantic.”
He huffed. “I was not talking to the sea. I was cursing at a ship.”
“Ships do not listen either,” she said.
“No,” he agreed. “They’re like stubborn women that way.”
Heat flared. “Careful, Mr. Ferris.”
He smiled, fleeting. “You see? If you die, who will keep me from saying unforgivable things in corridors?”
“You give my tongue too much credit,” she said. “And your own far too little.”
They had reached the end of the passage. Beyond the small door, the tavern hummed with low talk and the scrape of chairs. The air out there felt almost clean after the back room.
Ferris paused with his hand on the latch.
“Two days,” he said quietly. “You will *not* go back there without me.”
“I had not intended to,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Because if you do, I will… I don’t know what I’ll do, but it will be very dramatic and no doubt unwise.”
“Would you throw yourself on your brother’s mercy?” she asked lightly. “Beg him to lock you in the vicarage to keep you from further sin?”
He shuddered. “Do not even joke about that.”
She smiled, then sobered. “You need not come.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“Because you feel indebted,” she said.
“Because I know Caine’s kind,” he said. “And because someone needs to stand in the way if he decides to…correct his miscalculation in allowing you to leave that room alive today.”
A chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the damp.
“Very well,” she said. “In two days’ time. Here.”
“No,” he said. “Not here. I will fetch you from Hanover Square. We will walk. We will not arrive together like lambs to the same slaughter.”
“Do you have such a low opinion of lambs?” she asked.
“I have a low opinion of slaughter,” he said. “And I have seen too much of it to stroll toward it hand in hand.”
The image that conjured—his hand warm around hers, leading her through alleys toward danger—made something traitorous in her belly twist.
She stepped back slightly, creating a sliver of space.
“As you wish,” she said.
He searched her face, his grey eyes flicking over the lines there as if committing them to memory.
“Don’t burn those pages,” he said at last. “Not yet. Don’t trust Caine. Don’t trust Harcourt. Don’t trust Pell.” His mouth curved. “And for the love of God, don’t trust Mrs. Willoughby with any detail you don’t want repeated in triplicate by morning.”
“I do not trust *you* either,” she said.
“Good,” he said, oddly satisfied. “We understand one another.”
He pushed the door open.
The tavern’s dim bustle swallowed them. Bess the barkeep lifted a brow as they passed. Wordless questions hung in the air.
Ferris’s hand brushed the small of Mira’s back, quick and impersonal, guiding her through the press.
Outside, the grey daylight felt like a blessing.
Sally, waiting in the coach with her knitting clenched in nervous fingers, sprang up as they approached. “You’re back,” she gasped. “I was just about to come in after you with my needle.”
“I am certain the prospect would have terrified them,” Mira said faintly, allowing Ferris to hand her into the carriage.
He did not follow.
“You are not coming?” she asked.
“I have business,” he said. “The sort of business that pays badly and might keep you breathing.”
“Always noble,” she murmured.
He snorted. “Always contrary.” His gaze softened, just a little. “Rest. You look as if you’ve been anchored in a storm.”
“I have,” she said. “I just haven’t decided whether I was the ship or the rock.”
“Both,” he said. “And the tide besides.”
Her mouth twitched. “You talk like a man who still speaks to the sea, Mr. Ferris.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said. “It will frighten the fish.”
The coach lurched forward. Through the smudged glass, she saw him turn away, shoving his hands into his pockets, shoulders squared against the damp wind.
He did not look back.
She did.
***
That night, sleep found her late.
When it came, it was filled with ink.
She dreamed of Thomas’s journal, its pages fluttering like trapped birds. Names crawled across them: Pell, Harcourt, Ferris, Caine. Numbers swelled and shrank, columns bleeding into one another.
In the dream, she stood on a wharf while the river rose, dark and cold, over her ankles, her calves, her knees. The pages floated on its surface, bobbing like dead fish. Every time she reached for one, it slipped away, borne on a current she could not see.
A hand, strong and callused, grabbed her wrist.
She looked up, expecting Thomas.
It was Ferris.
“You cannot catch them all,” he said. “You will drown.”
“I have to try,” she said.
“She’s right,” another voice murmured, low and amused.
Caine stood at the edge of the wharf, dry as bone. Pell cowered behind him. Harcourt watched from a distance, his hands full of gold.
“Let her swim,” Caine said. “Either she brings us what we need, or she feeds the river.”
Mira jerked awake, heart slamming.
The canopy above her seemed too close. The sheets tangled around her legs like weeds.
She kicked them off and swung her feet to the floor, breathing hard.
From the little table by the window, the travelling trunk watched her like a patient beast.
Inside its false bottom: Thomas’s remaining pages.
She rose and crossed to it, fingers unsteady on the latch.
The smell of old paper wafted up, faint but insistent. She lifted the loose board, exposing the sheaf of folded sheets she had not been able to destroy.
Her hand hovered.
She could still burn them.
She could feed them, one by one, to the hungry little fire in the hearth, watch ink blacken and curl and vanish.
Ignorance would wrap itself around her like a warm, stupid blanket.
She picked up the top page instead.
Thomas’s familiar scrawl slanted across it. *Pell says…* *Harcourt insists…* *Ferris disagrees…* *Must look closer at figures from Mariner’s manifest—something off. Won’t mention to Mira yet. No wish to worry her.*
Her throat closed.
“Idiot,” she whispered. “You should have worried me.”
The paper trembled in her hand.
Two days.
Caine wanted to *see*.
Ferris had warned.
She could choose.
She folded the page carefully, smoothing its edge.
“I will not drown,” she told the quiet room. “Not before I decide who deserves to sink.”
The fire crackled, throwing up a small, defiant spark.
Outside, somewhere far beyond Hanover Square, the river turned in its bed, indifferent.
---