Page 8 of Immortal Rose

“I can’t believe I’m to speak these words,” Arabella began, “but that toff’s new policemen may not be so bad after all. If they don’t hassle us overmuch.”

I shook my head. “All they’re going to do is provoke the Stone Sloggers into another street war, and the rest of us will pay the cost.”

The home secretary, a pale-faced toff who’d likely faint in terror if he was ever made to step a foot inside the Brickbats, was about to learn what happened when you sought to tame a feral rookery. Not even the old Reed Corner Runners darkened these streets for their investigations, and soldiers had to come in units.

Still, if the police managed to arrest enough Sloggers . . . if they got to Greystone . . .

No. That was what bribes were for. It was said Greystone was as rich as the King and, like the sovereign, only death would end his reign.

At least there’d be no Sloggers in Southpoint.

Arabella made a noise of surprise, her brows rising as she observed two nearby ladies wearing masks to protect their identities as they made their purchase of Gallian wine. “And ’ere I’d been in ’igh ropes thinking them swells being back ’ere for the Season would bring a few more feet by, but this is the busiest I’ve seen.”

My own gleeful mood soured.

Ah, yes, the Season. That dazzling, confection-sweet dance of gowns, balls, promenades, and self-importance the rest of us were invited to view from a comfortable distance—unless we were bade to pass through the glimmering veil of candlelight to serve the Patricians, of course.

There was none of that here, deep in the moldering black heart of the Brickbats. No amount of rain or time would drive out the wrenching anguish and hunger that stained the air, no more than it could rinse the blood from the rookery’s gutters. A person could become lost in the crush of desperate souls wandering the Brickbats’s dark maze of alleyways and footpaths. It was why Mama had brought us here all those years ago, but in the end, our problems had found us all the same.

I breathed in deeply, until I all but choked on the violent clash of scents. The Sloggers with their steel knuckles crusted with blood. The fresh paint and varnish of the newly erected church, meant to save the rookery’s corrupted soul. The lingering warmth of a roast from the King’s Arms Tavern. Unwashed bodies, the sticky sweetness of children, the soggy plaster of the paper-thin tenement walls collapsing in on themselves . . .

But then the wind shifted, carrying in its chilling grasp something else entirely.

Boot polish. Dyed wool.

Gunpowder.

The sounds of the market faded beneath the roar of blood in my ears. My eyes drifted to the perfume flacons on the table before me, thoughts swirling into a furious storm.

Bad omen, this is. I gritted my teeth. First the Sloggers, now this. Bloody Toady.

With a calm I didn’t feel, I took Arabella’s arm. She leaned in, sky-blue eyes widening. The rest of them could rot, but I’d be damned before I let her fall into whatever snare was being set. Life had battered her enough already.

“Listen to me,” I began in a low voice, knowing anything like fear would spark her own. “We’re going to take our baskets and walk . . .” I paused, drawing in another exploratory breath. West. The scent was a few streets west of us, give or take. “. . . down the alley to the east until we reach Regent Street—”

I never had the chance to finish.

Arabella gasped, drawing back as if I’d bitten her nose. With dawning horror, I watched her tilt her head and open her mouth.

“No!” I whispered frantically. She’d cause a panic and we’d never escape the ensuing riot.

“Raid!” she bellowed. “Raid!”

The Midnight Market became its own nightmare.

Chaos erupted with the wet fur stench of terror. I jumped as tables were overturned; wares smashed to the ground in the haste to flee. Merchants and customers scattered like rats through whatever crack or crevice they could find, shouting and shoving at one another as they reached dead ends or bottlenecked at gates.

The heady surge of brandy, Gallian wine, and olive oil pooling on the ground became overwhelming, clawing at me until my stomach heaved.

“Ta, sweet! Take care!” Arabella called to me, using her parasol-sharp elbows to fight her way through the fray. Her basket of stolen goods rattled as she leapt over a man who’d fallen and been promptly trampled. She was one of the few heading east. Good.

Pounding footsteps echoed against the crumbling walls. “Stop! In the name of the King!”

A flacon of Lady Luck danced off the edge of the plank, shattering against the cobblestones. The sound startled me out of my daze. I stared at the remaining flacons, feeling as though my heart were ripping in two.

Every instinct begged me to run, but I couldn’t leave the perfumes for the soldiers to find, nor could I waste the oils and the magic I’d given pieces of myself to. It would take me months to repay Oliver alone. But if I took them, if I was caught with them on my person, it would be Fairgate by sunrise.

I shook myself, refusing to let the terror set in again. If I was caught with them, I’d brazen my way out of the situation, the way I always did.