She says it as if to convince herself.
I look pointedly down at the travel trunk behind her. “Then why were you running?”
Just then, Amah grunts against me and straightens. She blinks up at me from under my arm, her lashes as long as her granddaughter’s. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Yes,” I snarl. “Me.”
Amah sighs and pulls a sachet from her pocket, and tilts her head back before emptying it into her mouth. Then, she straightens, and dusts herself off. “I sent you because I knew you’d be the end of that place.”
Annie’s lips part, but no sound comes.
Suddenly, the street behind us erupts in a chorus of shouts, the shrill bark of a constable’s whistle and heavy hoofbeats.He went this way! Onward!
They’re close, much too close for my liking. Their search will inevitably lead them here. I won’t have them swarm Limehouse, especially these shops and homes.
They’re close enough that Annie and Amah can hear them, too.
Annie watches my face shift as I deliberate, and as I do—a harbor bell rings in the distance. She sees what’s coming a heartbeat too late.
“Don’t you dare,” she hisses, backing away.
But I lunge and catch her around the waist, scooping her up effortlessly and tossing her over my shoulder. She thrashes, cussing, boots kicking the air, her nails raking across my cheek.
Calmly, I bend and grab the trunk handle. She’s just as beautiful when she’s furious.
“You can’t do this!” Annie shouts. “Where are you taking me?”
There is no easy answer. All I know is that she, and her Amah, will never be without my protection. Not with Beecham still out there. Not with things likemeout there.
“To the docks. We’ve got a ship to catch.” I glance down and hold out my free arm. “Can you walk, Amah?”
The old woman smiles up at me. “For now.”
ANNIE
IN WHICH THERE IS NO TIME TO EXPLAIN
The docks reek of piss and brine, a vile concoction that clings to the evening fog and settles in my throat with every ragged breath I take. It is bitter and unrelenting, but none more than the brute I writhe against. Thebeastwho has slung me over his shoulder.
I scream his name as loud as I can. “Jacques! Put me down this instant!”
My voice is shrill, echoing off the water, startling a seagull into flight and deafening every poor sailor within a half-mile radius. But I don’t care, and neither does Jacques. He doesn’t stop—he doesn’t even slow down. He continues marching along as I bounce across his shoulder, hauled off like a sack of grain, my skirts flailing around me disgracefully.
“Youmonster,” I wheeze, trying to twist, but Jacques holds my hips steady. I jerk, blinding myself with the sweltering autumn sun in its reflected descent. I’m forced to turn towards the street of wary, soot-dusted onlookers who don’t lift a single finger or voice to help me. They’re too tired, too poor, too sick to help a woman like me. I suppose that’s thejarring irony of a place like London. “Put me down this instant!”
Finally, my boot connects with something: a passing barrel, or his ribs, hopefully. It takes him a moment, but he grunts. The sound is in amusement rather than pain.
“Stop squirming,” he advises over his shoulder, much too calmly for a man being physically assaulted, and I wish to once more draw blood across the cheek that keeps healing. Doing so might draw more attention than necessary, or invoke whatever demon has made its home in his skin.
I don’t want him stabbed, or hung, or imprisoned—not that I’m sure it would do anything. But a solid mugging, on top of being set down upon my own two feet, would suffice.
“You’ll fall into the Thames, and I’m not jumping in after you.”
“Good,” I snap, unease blooming in my stomach as I consider Beatrice and Elias. They’re still in Scotland, and won’t be back another week. Without me, Thomas will be lost; poor old man,what will he be without me?I’m not even sure he remembers how to unlock the front door. “I hope the river swallows me whole. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your miserable undead—oof!”
The last of my dignity is sucked out of me, along with my breath as he slows, adjusting me on his shoulder.
Behind us, Amah is talking to someone, our travel trunk in-hand. Her voice is smooth and unbothered as she explains something to a dockhand maybe several years older than my mother—Southern China, or the Philippines, or Indonesia, maybe—whose friendly eyes widen. At that moment, Jacques stills beneath me, his jaw tightening against my side into a reflexive grimace.
