In a universe as perverse as ours, only a fool would believe that he charts his own course.
—Greive the Madman
When Christian emerged from the culvert outside Mrs. Evans’s stable, he was pleased to see Crofter on the door again. But as Christian approached, Crofter held up his hand.
“You can’t come in, lad.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not a good day.”
Christian stretched to peer around Crofter’s shoulder. Some sort of tumult was going on in the stable; he could hear a woman’s voice raised in anger.
“Is Maura . . . engaged?”
“She’s not fucking, no,” Crofter replied, and despite the roughness of the word, Christian sensed a degree of care being taken. He tried to duck beneath Crofter’s arm, found himself pushed back.
“Don’t go in there, lad. It’s a mess.”
This time Christian put all his weight behind it, lowering his head and driving Crofter out of the way. The big enforcer fell backward, crashing into a low table that rested beside the doorway, and Christian darted toward the source of the noise, a clear stream of cursing and threats that could only be coming from Mrs. Evans. Compared to her competitors, she was a young woman, only forty or so, but she stood nearly six feet tall, and all Whore’s Alley trembled at the thought of incurring her wrath.
“I don’t care about fucking misuse! What about the damage to my merchandise, you bastard! Where is my compensation?”
“She took too much,” the man’s voice replied, utterly cool, in a broad, flat accent that made Christian stiffen. “Almost twice the recommended dosage.”
“How was she supposed to know about dosage? Little twit couldn’t read her own name, let alone the label on a vial of poppy!”
Christian pushed through the crowd of onlookers that had gathered in the common room, shoving several girls out of the way. The room was lit with torches, and their bright light showed everything in horribly stark relief.
A girl lay on one of the sofas, her eyes open but unseeing, limbs flung out every which way. For a terrible moment, Christian thought it was Maura, but it wasn’t; this girl had hair the color of honey, not the bright white-gold of Maura’s locks. The long strands were matted with whitish matter streaked with brown: vomit. Christian didn’t know the dead girl, but she too showed some signs of rough handling: bruises in the shape of fingers on her throat, and a cut on her cheek. One of her outflung arms still sported a syringe.
Above the body, Mrs. Evans and Arliss stood nearly toe-to-toe. One was backed by enforcers, the other by bodyguards, but their respective muscle seemed to shrink before the two of them . . . two gods at war, except that instead of straddling the world, these two stood astride the Creche.
“The girl’s ability to read, or not, is not my problem,” Arliss stated blandly. “She asked me for poppy, and I sold it to her. From the look of her, she needed it.”
Mrs. Evans’s eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my management of my own product?”
Arliss looked at her with distaste. “I’m saying that this tragedy could perhaps have been averted. Regardless, I am not responsible for misuse of my poppy. Your ‘product,’ as you put it, damaged herself.”
Mrs. Evans turned nearly purple but did not speak; for the moment, at least, she had no response. Christian, who had been looking around the room for Maura, spotted little Gwyn standing at the edge of the crowd, her wide eyes fixed on the corpse. He waved a hand to get her attention, then beckoned her over.
“Lazarus!” she whispered, smiling happily. Christian guided her away, a bit down the hallway, noting almost absently the sharp angles of her elbow beneath his hand. As the topside drought progressed, the price of food was climbing sharply, and Alley girls were fed poorly to begin with. Gwyn seemed nothing but bones.
“Where’s Maura?”
“Gone.”
“What?” Christian asked blankly.
“She’s gone. Mrs. Evans says for good.”
“Gone where?” he demanded, feeling something black uncoil inside him.
“No one knows.”
Christian restrained an urge to shake the girl. She was only a child, after all . . . a crib child, just as Maura had once been, so he patted her shoulder and thanked her. But Gwyn seemed to sense his anger, for she tugged at his sleeve and whispered, “Bella told me her special client took her away to live in a big, pretty castle. Like a fairy tale.”
Christian straightened. Rage was coming, only simmering now, but not for long. Bella’s tale was all very