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  “No, My Lady.”

  He thanked his lucky stars and his grandmum for her fairy stories that he was able to answer so quickly and easily. Getting the little duchess to think of hiring a wagon to take herself away had been a difficult game of charades and suggestions, but in the end it had been her idea. He had not really “helped” her.

  “Hm.” The duchess shrugged, satisfied. “I will attend to the Hunter shortly. As always, you will tell no one.” She fixed him with a stare, then retreated to her dressing room.

  Alan stood a moment before carefully lowering the mirror back down to its stand on the floor. Her room was silent and cold.

  As he thought about these things, the realization struck him: I shall have to leave soon. She is bound to discover the truth eventually. But when can I leave? And how? He couldn’t lie to the duchess or leave the estate without her explicit consent.

  He ran a hand through his ginger hair, grabbing it to bear the pain of his tongue. Three bright drops of blood fell from his mouth onto the wood floor. He took it as a sign, but did it mean he should leave in three days, three fortnights, or three months?

  Chapter Seventeen

  UNDERSTANDING

  Snow was scrubbing the dishes and plates; Raven was watching her quietly and building a castle out of cards. It was a warm night. Chauncey and the Mouser had gone out for a walk—drink, she knew—and Sparrow was snoring like a hive of bees.

  Soon Raven was watching her more than his cards. She caught him once or twice, his eyes flicking back to his fairy building when she turned around.

  “You’re very good at that,” he observed quietly after a while.

  She laughed, thinking about what Dolly would say to the idea of someone complimenting her on her cleaning. “It’s honest work,” she finally said. She immediately wished she hadn’t.

  Raven looked at his castle. “You don’t approve of us,” he said quietly. “Chauncey, and the Mouser, and everyone.”

  “No! It’s just …” She tried to think of a nice way of saying it.

  “… that we steal for a living,” he finished for her. When he looked into her eyes like that, she couldn’t lie. There was sadness there, but also a little bit of humor. He raised one eyebrow slightly, daring her to make something up. It was very much like what the Mouser would do, but more genuine.

  She sighed, “Isn’t there—anything—else you could do?”

  “What would you suggest?” He grinned. It was probably the first time she had seen him do it.

  “Well, I don’t know, there must be something….”

  “To learn a trade you have to be part of a guild, Snow. Often that means working, living, and sleeping with the same people. It would be hard to hide how we look.”

  “Couldn’t you … I don’t know … open up a shop or something?”

  “And what would we sell?” Was Raven actually teasing her? “Flowers, maybe?”

  “I don’t know!” She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. If she was still Jessica Kenigh, of Kenigh Hall, duchess and heiress-to-be, she could have done something to give them an alternative to their life of crime. Sell some of her jewelry, if nothing else. Maybe get them positions on the estate … she imagined the Mouser as a butler and smiled to herself. Then she imagined him stealing something, like her mothers silver hairbrush, “It’s just—those poor people you steal from.”

  “Those poor people?” Cat was standing at the door, and from the disdain in her voice it was obvious she had been listening for a while. “We don’t steal from poor people, duchess.”

  “No—I meant—but what about the people you do steal from? It’s still their property; they own it. What’s the difference, really, between stealing from the rich or the poor?”

  “She’s very quick to defend her own kind,” Cat pointed out nastily.

  “There is a very big difference between the rich and the poor in London, Snow. I cannot speak for the rest of the world.” Raven shrugged; the smile was gone and he was as gloomy as before.

  She tried very hard to imagine the real differences between Dolly and her father. It was true the old cook didn’t get many days off, but her father worked all the time too, running the estate, doing business, or talking politics with the people in town. She seemed less unhappy than he did too. And Craddoc loved his horses and dogs like they were his own children. He seemed happy enough combing them.

  “Let’sss sshow her, Raven.” Cat’s eyes lit up. “Let’sss give her a little tour.”

  Raven nodded mutely. And so they took her out.

  It was strange being out, escorted by them. That hadn’t happened since the first night they brought her back to the hideout. The streets were still dark; Snow looked to the east for the first faint signs of light, but the fog blanketed everything in the same ghostly gray. They passed the new gas lamps the Mouser had spoken of, and Cat snorted. Snow thought it was sort of beautiful, though—a single globe of light in what was otherwise a neighborhood far too dangerous and far too late at night for her to be walking around.

  Cat and Raven moved quickly and silently; Snow was hard pressed to keep up. A couple of times they ran through back alleys and had to leap over piles of garbage. Snow gathered her skirts as best she could but still managed to trip and fall into a pile of wet offal. Raven put his hand out to help her up. Cat held her nose. Once they ran right behind the back of a policeman—a real bobby, nightstick behind his back and tall round hat. He didn’t even turn around.

  This is fun, Snow realized, her breathing ragged. This beats out being a duchess by far. Or a maid. She imagined herself running alongside her new friends and family, anonymous in the night, unseen by anyone. No rules! No chaperones! She felt perfectly free, and another piece of Jessica slipped away. She pictured her life back home, if she had continued living there with things the way they were before her punishment. Perhaps a season in the city, perhaps a month of balls, escorted by her tutor or some other old bat—escorted everywhere by someone. And then marriage, and confinement to another estate except for trips with her husband, a maid, or some boring female relative.

  Snow said a breezy good-bye to mugs of expensive hot chocolate and fabulous jewelry, and wondered how she could become a full-fledged member of the Lonely Ones without a tail, claws, or feathers to recommend her. Surely there is some way—

  And then she remembered what they did when they were out and about.

  A pair of gentlemen walked out of the fog, talking loudly. In the thick, wet air, Snow couldn’t hear a word they were saying clearly, just a lot of “tut-tut” and “I say.” They were middle-aged and had thick muttonchop sideburns and moustaches. They swung shiny black canes and wore tall top hats. They were so loud! Snow looked around the street. Didn’t they realize they were alone, and in possible danger?

  “They just came from Madame Tumenca’s.” Raven barely mouthed the words, but Snow heard him perfectly. She looked at him questioningly.

  “A brothel,” he answered. “And an opium den.”

  Her eyes grew wide in horror.

  Cat was nowhere to be seen until Raven touched Snow’s hand and pointed. A dark claw reached out of the shadows behind one of the gentlemen and ever so gently snicked the catch on his golden fob. An expensive pocket watch fell expertly into Cat’s outstretched hand. When the men vanished down the street—Snow could see they were walking unevenly, as if half asleep—Cat reappeared by her side, grinning and dangling the shiny gold watch.

  At least, Snow assumed it was shiny. In the thick, stuffy fog nothing gleamed or shone.

  “It’s a good thing Officer Barnstable is patrolling,” Raven said wryly. “Otherwise those two will never make it home. There’s far worse than us out tonight.”

  It began to rain big, warm drops. Snow was grateful for it; she felt the air was clouding her head. The whole scene had occurred so quickly and strangely it seemed like a dream.

  Cat beckoned and they followed.

  They moved through the streets, getting cl
ose to the water at one point. Snow could smell cool saltiness and hear seagulls. The sky finally seemed to brighten a little. The streets grew better and then worse again, cobbled and bricked and then back to dirt and large stones. Their footsteps, even Snow’s, made no noise.

  They appeared to be nearing their destination. A gigantic warehouse loomed before them, from which foul smelling smoke drifted.

  “What is this place?”

  “A poorhouse.”

  Cat pointed and they went around the back. Raven found a window some feet up and gave Cat and then Snow a hoist.

  Snow had only a vague idea of what a poorhouse was: some place set up by the government to take care of people who couldn’t find work. She looked through the window, wondering what the point of this outing was. What she saw was a nightmare.

  It was cold. Breath froze in the air like spirits departing the inhabitants. Old people and young women, all wearing the same rough, colorless uniform, were shivering despite the fabric. A feeble coal fire burned at either end of the enormous room. Pools of flickering lantern-light illuminated groups huddled over work.

  Snow sucked in her breath when she saw what they were doing.

  They were grinding bones—piles and piles of all kinds of bones, large and small, blunt and sharp. Ivory, white, and yellow. Some with a little meat still on them. One small group pulled giant round stones like a hellish grain mill; pale-skinned women would carefully guide a bag of bones in on one side, and another pair filled a bag with the fine white powder that was produced. Bone dust settled over everything, and everyone, turning them into ghosts.

  One old man, hunched over sorting a pile of bones, stuck one in his mouth and sucked at it, hoping for marrow. Snow had to work hard not to gag.

  Everyone was thin and listless. The work was silent except for scrapes and grinding, and occasional groans.

  “The powder is sent to factories.” Cat hissed in disgust, as if she thought this an inappropriate use of bones.

  “They separate families,” Raven whispered. “When a poor family comes in, the old people and wives come here, the men go to a different section, and the children go to yet another. They’re not allowed to see one another.”

  Snow felt weak, but she couldn’t turn her eyes away.

  “This isss what the rich do with the poor,” Cat pointed out, smug and disgusted.

  “They figure if you have no work that its your own fault,” Raven said, “that you must be lazy, or immoral.”

  “So you ssee, it is hard to ssympathize with the rich.”

  Snow felt as weak as the people in the poorhouse looked. The smell of burning bones made her feel faint, but it did not dampen her anger.

  “So what do you do about it?” she demanded. “You just steal and that’s all right, because the people you steal from are terrible? Do you ever do anything to help these people?”

  “Sometimes I leave something in the charity box,” Raven shrugged, a little abashed.

  Cat hissed. “Would they do anything for me?” she asked peevishly.

  Snow just glared at Cat. She had to control the urge to slap her.

  The other girl must have realized this, and for once looked a little surprised, and unnerved. Maybe it was the fact that Snow was more than a head taller than she was, or maybe it was just the force of her emotion. I’ll bet she thought I was a milksop.

  Cat looked down at her hand, the watch still clutched in it. She growled, then pitched herself through the window, landing silently on her paws and toes. Raven and Snow watched as she scampered through the shadows to the old man who had been sucking a bone. She made a little noise and the man turned around, surprised and scared. Cat held up the watch, but he didn’t react. She waved her hand in front of his face; he didn’t follow it. He was blind. She took his hand—he flinched but made no noise—and wrapped it around the watch, pushing it to his chest. Then she scampered away again, back up to the window.

  The old man waited a minute, listening by instinct to see if anyone noticed. Then, with a growing smile, he held it to his ear and listened to the tick-tocks.

  “Someone will just take it from him,” Cat hissed in disgust.

  Snow realized that if she said anything Cat would just dismiss it, or ignore it, so she said nothing, letting the gravity of the act speak for itself.

  Their trip back to the hideout was slower, each of the three lost in his or her own thoughts. Snow observed that even when they strolled, the two Lonely Ones had ways of making themselves unnoticeable.

  They paused once to look in a wealthy mansion, partly for a comparison of opposites and partly because Snow was genuinely interested in how city gentry lived. The house they chose to peek in had its own tiny ballroom that had gilt ceilings and was tiled with silver mirrors from the previous century. The people who owned it were still asleep, but the maids and servants were already up preparing for the day. They wore uniforms that matched, all of them. Snow loved the dumbwaiter, the tiny hand-cranked elevator that allowed them to move silver-domed meals and less-fascinating stuff like laundry from floor to floor. There was a library with a small fire and thousands of books. Snow wondered what it would have been like to live there for a season, if she had a debut.

  But as much as the wealth intrigued and distracted her, she was much more affected by the prosaic sounds of clinking glassware as it was being washed, and the low, whispered laughs of the help. She felt a pang of homesickness.

  I wonder if Gwen or Dolly think about me.

  Finally they left and wandered back home.

  Snow was quiet the entire way, though her shoes rang louder against the pavement than theirs. In the living room she distractedly took off her cloak, staring into space, thinking of all the things she had seen.

  “Are you all right?” Raven asked.

  “Yes, I—” she shook her head. “It’s just—the city is so extreme. Such wealth and poverty—and—” She didn’t even know what to make of the brothels. “It’s just a lot to think about.” She smiled wanly.

  “The roof is a good place for thinking. I mean, about things like that. It’s where I always go. Would you like me to show you?”

  She was exhausted and not a little bit sad, but he looked so eager, biting his lower lip, his brown eyes hopeful.

  “Sure,” she answered. “I’d like that.”

  They went into his and Sparrows room. Hidden in the back was a rickety wooden ladder that led up to an unused closet on the second floor. From there they walked through a narrow tunnel between the inside walls of the house. It fed into a crawl space that led up to the roof at a fairly steep angle, probably beside a gable.

  How many other hiding places are there like this in London? How many people are there like the Lonely Ones, living shadow lives of the people who really live there? She thought about her life piggybacking on someone else’s life and wondered if anyone strange inhabited the walls of Kenigh Hall.

  Finally they emerged in a dusty unused attic, which might have frightened Snow if she were alone, not so much from the eerie silence and cobwebs as the cracks in the plaster and the few safe planks to walk on without falling through to the floor below Raven opened a window in the second-to-last gable and crawled out to the ledge, turning back to offer her a hand. Heights did scare her a little, but the space on which to walk was wide, and soon they were scrambling up the slate roof to sit on top of the gable, which somehow felt safer.

  Snow gasped at the view.

  They could see all of London just waking up. The streets had felt mostly flat when they ran along them, but from up there she could see slight hills and tiny valleys, houses descending one street and climbing up another. They looked jam-packed; she would not have believed there were any alleys between them if she hadn’t been there herself. Chimneys rose crookedly up in all directions like a field of strange, sick plants. Smoke drifted from them and joined the morning fog. The sky was patchy with stars, and layers of cloud were lit red from the lights of the city below. Everything glowed o
range, like the whole city was slowly burning.

  The sounds of morning were muffled. Occasionally a night watchman’s call rose up to them, or the cry of a city bird.

  “You can see the whole world from up here,” she breathed.

  “Yes,” he smiled faintly. “None of the others really like heights. Sometimes Cat comes, but she talks too much.”

  Snow couldn’t imagine it.

  Raven looked out over the city, as if hoping to find words there. His pale brow furrowed. “It’s almost like … I can fly up here, you know?”

  She thought about the feathers on his arms and didn’t say anything.

  “I dream I can fly. Every night. With the other ones.” He pointed to a raven arcing silently by on huge wings. “I can understand what they say, you know. I hear them talking about their nests, and food, and how wonderful the wind is on certain days.” She thought about her own ravens, how much more pleasant her confinement would have been if she could have understood them.

  He looked down at his feet, kicking a pebble off the roof. “I just don’t understand it. Why would I think these things, or dream them, and not be able to do it? It’s not fair. I feel like I’m … an accident, or a mistake.”

  “Raven.” Snow put her hand on his arm. “It must be terrible. But—look at me, I’m just a person. I can’t talk to the birds, I can’t see in the dark, and I can’t do anything the rest of you can. I wish I could.” She had started out saying it to console him, but tears sprang to her eyes when she thought about it. My life would have been so different….

  “What do you dream about?” he asked softly.

  “Home. And sometimes I dream that my father really loved me, and talked to me like a real dad. And there was no duchess. Those are the worst.”

  It was Raven’s turn to be silent. They spent the last hour before dawn that way, watching the city wake up. When Snow grew sleepy she put her head on his shoulder, and he didn’t pull away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE CASTLE