Fortunately, I made it to the trash bin beside my bed and didn’t cause too much of a mess. But as I knelt there, I couldn’t stop crying.
Tony dragged Etienne Hart off and slammed his back into the wall. “How dare you come in here and show her this? Haven’t you tortured her enough?” Tony pushed Etienne Hart away. “You’ve caused enough trouble for tonight.” Then he said to Pearson, “Confine him to a guest room, and put his men under guard. Send a man to his father, and one to mine.”
At that last, Etienne Hart paled.
Shanna knelt beside me, wrapping a towel around the trash bin. “I’ll take that, mum.”
Tony said, “Where’s Amelia?”
Another maid said, “I’ll fetch her, sir.”
I rested my arms upon the edge of the bed, my forehead upon them. That couldn’t be Josie’s finger. It couldn’t be.
What kind of monster were we dealing with?
Amelia came rushing in. “Mum, what’s happened?”
I couldn’t stop crying. “Her ... it. Oh, gods, there was no blood!” Had they cut the finger from her dead hand?
“Come on, now, mum,” Amelia said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She turned to the mass of people in the room. “All of you, out.” She pointed to the maids. “Not you. Get this mess taken care of. I’ll take her to the bath.”
Josie couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.
The hot water felt soothing. The frantic beating of my heart slowed.
They had no reason to kill her: as long as she lived, they had leverage over us.
By the time I came out, a new nightgown on, Tony sat alone at my tea-table. The room had been cleaned and redone, but it still smelled faintly of sick.
“Sit with me,” Tony said. “Amelia, you may go.”
Amelia curtsied. “Thank you, sir.”
Tony and I sat quiet for a while.
Finally, he said, “I have no excuse as to how or why he was able to reach you here, where you should feel safe.” He took a shallow, shaking breath, let it out. “I’ve failed you yet again.”
“You haven’t failed me. Who would ever have thought an Inventor would behave so?”
“But if he’d truly meant you harm, you’d be dead, and the child with you.”
Perhaps it would have been better.
“I should never have asked Alan to guard at night and be footman during the day. It’s too much.” He put his face in his hands. “I —”
I reached over to pull his hand away from his face. “Please don’t berate yourself any further. We’re safe and well.”
Tony knelt by my side, his head upon my belly, his arms round me. “I would rather die than have any harm come to you.”
I smiled at him. “I know.”
Tony drew the chair around to sit beside me. He took my hands. “We’ll find her.”
I pulled away, put my elbows upon the table, clasped my hands and pressed my forehead upon them. “There wasn’t any blood. So either she’s dead or they want us to think so. My guess is that she’s not; she’s more valuable to them alive.” I took a deep breath. “Perhaps some dead woman they’ve used to alarm us?”
Tony stared at me. “Whoever said pregnant women weren’t sensible never met you.”
That made me laugh despite how terrible I felt right then. “I can only be who I am.”
That sent him into some thought. “Remember when I was attacked a few years ago? You thought it to be some kind of test.”
I nodded.
“This feels the same. And what has anyone learned?”
“Inventor Hart is remarkably fleet of foot for his age.”
Tony laughed. “He certainly is! I would have never suspected it in a man of his size, and half-blind at that.”
“He used surprise to his advantage.”
“That he did.”
“And he came here rather than go to his father.” There was no possible scenario in which Charles Hart would have sent him to me, particularly with a disembodied finger in hand.
“He believes you know something, even still.”
“But what? Josie and I have always called each other sisters. We have a true and sincere regard for each other. If I knew anything, I’d offer it up in a second.”
And a thought struck me: which was why the Cathedral never shared anything with me once I’d been sold to the Family.
Did they fear I'd come to love Tony?
Tony leaned forward. “What is it?”
I spoke softly, unsure who might be listening. “If the Red Dog Gang did this, then they no longer trust Inventor Hart. Could they have learned he’s my brother?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Yet they left none of their marks about.”
“True. And it seems unlikely that our most recent disappearance before this one is related.”
Ah. So he feared others might be listening as well. I nodded.
“So who benefits from this upset?”
Someone could want to split the Hart quadrant, as was attempted with ours. But there seemed easier methods than kidnapping. Someone could wish harm upon me, or upon Etienne Hart, or upon the Harts in general.
But if it were a test, as Tony thought ... “Someone wants to learn what I know. How much I know.”
Tony gave me a sharp, horrified glance. “Could the Cathedral be behind this?”
“I can’t see why. My mother has no reason to do this to me. She has no reason to harm Josie, either.”
“Weren’t Master Joseph and Miss Josephine part of your group? There, in the Cathedral?”
A twinge of sadness came over me. “No. Her parents were street people. Her mother died bearing them; I’m amazed either survived.”
“What does that mean, ’street people’?”
It was something we in the Pot didn’t speak much of. “They have no brothel to shelter them. They live in the street, or in abandoned buildings. They survive on the trash you throw over the Hedge, or by begging from others.”
“Good gods,” Tony said. “How did their grandfather let them live like that?”
“I’m not entirely sure he knew they existed, until they were older.”
Tony looked appalled. “And this goes on in our quadrant?”
I nodded.
“Why doesn’t anyone take them in?”
I shrugged. “Most are from the quadrants.”
Tony stared at me, mouth open.
“Most refuse to whore. Many are drunkards, like Josie’s father, or addicted to Party Time so badly they can’t make themselves presentable. Peedro Sluff was like that, before your father sponsored him into the quadrant. Some are mad, or feeble, or elderly, or sick, and no one knows them.”
Tony swallowed, his face pale. “This is wrong.”
I remembered Amelia’s words some time back: We was thrown outside the fence like trash to fend for ourselves. But the reverse was also true. “It’s been this way because your ancestors abandoned us there.”
“This is unspeakable.” Tony sat very still for a long time, staring at the table. “What should I do?”
“Talk to the Dealers, perhaps? They would know what the most pressing needs are.”
Tony took a deep breath, let it out. “I’ll do so on first light.”
* * *
Tony was gone when I woke. According to Amelia, Charles Hart had arrived whilst I slept and taken his son and men home. Which I imagine must have been quite embarrassing for the Inventor.
I drank my liver tonic and regular tea to the sound of birds calling. Surely the Cathedral would have no part in some quadrant kidnapping plot, no matter what Tony thought. From what my Ma and my friend Benji said, the Cathedral’s main concern as far as the quadrants went was to help turn the hearts of the quadrant-folk to compassion for those trapped in the Pot.
So who else might benefit from Josie’s capture? Who cared at all what I knew about the Cathedral?
The Inventors, I thought. But would the other Inventors — Monte Arrow, Lori Cuarenta, young Themba Joteba — even consider kidnapping Etienne Hart’s betrothed? Why?
Even if they were that desperate to learn how to get into what sounded like the last Spadros quadrant piling yet unearthed, how would that help them? If they hunted for the controls, and if, as Inventor Call thought, one piling held the controls to all the others, it only seemed logical that this piling should be located upon Market Center, in the midst of the city. Maybe under the Plaza, where the old Palace used to be, or somewhere nearby.
Right after I left Tony and Spadros Manor, Mrs. Regina Clubb had threatened to use me to sway the Cathedral to give up its secrets. Could she possibly be behind this?
But if the Clubbs wished to seize me, they’d had many opportunities since then. And how would they know anything whatsoever about Josie?
Jack Diamond had implied that I'd only advised her son Lance to gain access to the inner workings of his Family in order to disrupt things. But that wasn't entirely true. I’d learned the hard way that ignorance could be far more dangerous than knowledge.
* * *
Around mid-morning, I sat in a chair and tea-table out on the front porch, smoking. Honor and Amelia stood beside me as I watched the carriages go past.
After some complaint from the uppers who lived on our over mile-long block, Tony had allowed the carriages — after being stopped and searched by his men at either end — to go through. The only people who walked the streets outside our house were Tony’s men.
Tony himself had been called out to some issue that Sawbuck needed his assistance on. Tony didn't want to tell me what it was about, but did wonder aloud why Sawbuck hadn't come here, rather than send men to bring him there instead.
None of that really mattered to me.
I wondered where Josie was, if they were caring for her, if she were still alive.
She can’t be dead, I thought. Damn this thing inside that prevented me from going to her!
And for an instant, I hated it. I wished it dead.
I stubbed out my cigarette, eyes burning. What crime had I committed in my past lives to be trapped like this?
“Is all well, mum?”
I glared at Amelia. “You know the answer to that one.”
Her face flushed, and she stared stiffly out towards the street.
A small boy, cap in hand, went up to one of the men at the corner, across the street and some twenty yards to my right.
The man bent over to speak to the child, then glanced up, alarmed, looking around him.
I gestured with my chin at them. “I wonder what all that’s about.”
Amelia shrugged.
One of the others jogged across the street to meet him. After some discussion, they patted the boy down and escorted him to the gate. But the boy balked at going close to the gate itself, pulling away.
So the men — now five of them around the child — went into discussion once more. One opened the gate, coming up the walk to me. “There’s a boy wants to see you, mum. He says it’s important.”
“Does he say what about?”
“Miss Josephine, mum. He claims he knows where she is.”