As it turned out it was two long nights and many wasted attempts before they found the right place—a small, very discreet club where an excellent champagne flowed and both men and women made their availability startlingly plain. There seemed to be endless doors to side rooms, curtains, laughter, farther doors beyond with locks. People wore all kinds of costumes. Some were colorful, even picturesque, borrowed from history or imagination. Others were merely obscene. In some cases it was easy to be deceived as to whether the wearer was male or female. Some appeared to have bosoms and yet also wore large and very suggestive codpieces.

Almost every distortion of appetite was catered to. Two or even three men together was illegal, but commonplace enough here. A near-naked hermaphrodite, clearly possessing rudimentary organs of both sexes, turned even Squeaky’s stomach.

A slim, pale boy offered himself for sexual asphyxiation, and Henry averted his eyes, his face white. Squeaky wondered how long it would be before someone lost control and the boy ended up dead.

“Would you fancy something to eat, gentlemen?” another young man asked. “What’s your pleasure, sirs? Oysters to spark the appetite a little? Champagne? Chocolate, perhaps? Soft, dark chocolate to lick off a woman’s body?” He giggled. “Or a man’s if you prefer? Got a nice young boy that nature was generous to …”

For once Henry was lost for a reply.

Crow shook his head.

“We’ll find our own!” Squeaky snapped, surprised to hear how hoarse his voice was. “Don’t worry—we’ll pay.”

The man swiveled on his heel and went off in a pettish temper.

Squeaky looked at Henry’s too-evident distress.

“Take that look off your face!” he hissed, digging his elbow sharply into Henry’s ribs. “Yer look like you just bit into a rotten egg.”

“I feel like it,” Henry said, gasping and coughing. “What in God’s name has happened to these people?”

“How the hell do I know? Look, I never dealt in this kind of thing!” He was indignant now. Did Henry really think this was commonplace to him? “What kind of a …”

Henry shook his head. “The question was rhetorical.”

“What?” Squeaky was hurt.

“A question that does not expect an answer,” Henry explained. “I don’t really imagine that you know, any more than I do, what creates this out of people who must once have been … normal.”

“Oh.” Squeaky was relieved. A heavy, stifling weight had been lifted from him.

He was straightening his jacket and beginning to look around him when he saw her. She was standing almost ten feet away from them, leaning slightly backward against one of the pillars that held up the ceiling. It was not her laughter that had caught his attention, or any movement of the man facing her, it was the extraordinary grace of her body. Her face was lifted to look at the man, her profile delicate, her long white throat smoothly curved. Her hair was jet-black and her lips artificially red. She was the only person in the noisy, hysterical room who was absolutely motionless. And yet her very stillness was more alive than any action of the rest of them. It was Sadie. It had to be. Which meant Rosa was dead—or Niccolo.

“Crow!” he hissed urgently. “Crow!”

Henry looked at him, then turned to Crow, touching him on the arm.

Crow swung around, then froze. His eyes widened.

“Go on,” Henry urged. “Now.”

“But she’s …” Crow protested.

“We’ve got no time to waste,” Henry told him. “Do it now, or I’ll have to.”

Crow hesitated.

Squeaky moved behind him and gave him a hard shove in the middle of his back.

Crow shot forward with a yelp and stopped a yard short of Sadie.

She looked at him, smiling with amusement. “That’s original—even inventive.” She looked him up and down, quite openly appraising him.

The young man she had been speaking to snatched Crow’s arm hot-temperedly and said something almost unintelligible to Squeaky, who was watching.

Henry was clearly anxious. He started to intervene.

“No!” Squeaky said sharply. “Leave him!”

Crow gave the young man a dazzling smile, all white teeth and wide-open eyes. Then he kicked him very hard in one shin. The young man howled with anger and surprise. Crow seized Sadie and marched her away to a moderately empty space hard up against the wall.

Henry and Squeaky followed almost on her heels.

“They’re my friends,” Crow explained simply. “We need to talk to you,” he added.

“You’re Sadie?”

She nodded.

Sadie was amused. Crow was unusual-looking—not unattractive, just eccentric. Perhaps that appealed to Sadie more than the typical spoiled and demanding sort of young man who frequented such places. Also, he was sober and did not have the faded, rather pasty look of so many of the other inhabitants of the night world of the West End.

Sadie raised her elegant eyebrows. “Really? About what?”

“About Lucien Wentworth,” Henry replied.

Sadie’s smile froze.

Squeaky moved around to stand closer to her to block her retreat. At this particular moment the dim lighting of the room was an advantage; even the crowding helped. They could hear from the distance cries and moans of all sorts, raw farmyard emotions under the gaudy paint of sophistication.

“He’s … dead,” she said, her voice faltering.

“No, he isn’t, any more than you are,” Squeaky snapped. “It was Niccolo or Rosa who was murdered, and you know that. Maybe both. Lot of blood on the ground. Who was it, Sadie, and why?”

She kept her face toward Henry, as if he were the one most likely to believe her lies. “I don’t know. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“You may not have held the knife,” Henry agreed. “But you sharpened it, and gave it to someone. Who? And why?”

She swallowed. The pallor of her skin was almost ghostly in the subterranean light. Her eyes were brilliant, very wide, with black lashes. There was a feline grace to the way she held her body. Her beauty was strangely disturbing, but there was something ephemeral about it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said angrily. “If somebody’s dead, it’s nothing to do with me.”

“That’s a clumsy lie,” Henry told her. “You don’t survive here not knowing who’s been murdered, and why. If it was Niccolo, then you’ve lost a lover. If it was Rosa, then it could be you next.”

She stared at him with venom naked in her eyes. “You bastard!” she said between clenched teeth. “You touch me and I’ll make you pay for it in ways you can’t even imagine. You’ll wish someone would put a knife to your throat—quickly!”

“Is that what it was?” Henry asked, his expression barely changing. “Revenge? Discipline for taking something that belonged to you, perhaps?”

She looked harder at his face, and saw in it something she did not recognize. Perhaps it stirred in her a memory of some better time.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said, still between her teeth, but more slowly, as if she was now afraid.

“But you know who did, because you led them to it, didn’t you?”

She shook her head and made short, jerky movements of denial with her hands.

“I couldn’t help it! I have to do what he tells me, or … or he won’t give me any more cocaine, and I’ll die.” Something in her hectic eyes brought back to Squeaky’s memory the first brothel he had ever been in. He had been almost six, taken there by his mother, told to start work on cleaning up behind the customers, sweeping, washing, always being polite to people. “They put the bread on your plate,” she had told him. “Don’t you ever forget that, boy.”

There had been a young girl there then, for her first time. He could recall the smell of sweat and blood and fear, no matter how hard he tried to forget it. And he had tried. He had filled his mind with a thousand other things: his own pleasures in women, some of whom he had even liked, victories won over men he hated, good food, good wine, warmth, the touch of silk. But he could still smell that fear sometimes, alone in the middle of the night.

“Then you’ll lead us to him now,” Henry said to Sadie, his voice breaking the spell in Squeaky’s head and forcing him back to the present.

“He won’t help you. Leave him alone.”

Crow moved slightly. Squeaky saw the distress in his face, which was composed of embarrassment, revulsion, and an anger within himself that he could do nothing to control.

“I don’t believe it’s got anything to do with Shadwell,” Crow said deliberately. “You killed Rosa and Niccolo. I don’t know how. Maybe you killed Niccolo first. You could have held him in your arms, and put a knife in his back, then cut his throat. You lured Rosa there, and when she was stunned at what she saw, you used the knife again. Perhaps she bent over Niccolo’s body, maybe weeping. It wouldn’t be hard for you to come at her from behind. One single slice from one ear—”

“I didn’t!” Sadie cried, lunging forward as if to scratch at his face, everything in her changing from the pleading to the attack.

Squeaky grabbed her, pinning her arms to her sides. She struggled, and she had the strength of desperation. He kicked her hard and her legs collapsed under her, pitching her forward.

Henry was startled and profoundly disconcerted. He bent forward to help her up. “I think you had better take me to Shadwell,” he said clearly. “See what he has to say about it.”

She surrendered with startling suddenness, as if all her strength had bled away.

Squeaky knew better than to trust her this time. He stood well back, watching, ready to move quickly if she changed her mind.

“I’ll take you,” she said, and turned and led them out of the hall, then along one passage after another, and down several flights of steps. It was damp and bitingly cold. The air smelled stale, and there was something on the walls that could have been mold.

Then Sadie seemed to change her mind. Almost doubling back on herself, she climbed a long, narrow flight of stairs upward.

“Where the devil are we going?” Squeaky demanded as they came outside into the night and followed her across a lantern-lit, freezing yard. The wind groaned in the eaves of the high buildings crowding around the small space. There were icicles hanging from broken gutters, and a rat scrabbled its way, burrowing among the discarded refuse for food.

Sadie avoided a wide door that looked as if it might have led to a tavern, and instead went to a narrow, poky opening between one stone wall and another. She turned sideways to get through the opening, and for a moment Squeaky was afraid she had escaped them.

He pushed his way through ahead of Henry and Crow. He felt in his pocket for his knife in case he should need it as soon as he emerged.

But there was only Sadie waiting for him. As soon as she saw him she started to walk away, knowing he would follow her. He looked at the pale gleam of her skin above her dress and wondered how she didn’t perish with the cold. Then an uglier thought occurred to him: Perhaps, in all senses that mattered, she was in a way dead already. He had seen a despair in her eyes that made that easy to believe.

Were they fools to follow her into this deeper hell than the wild self-indulgence they had already seen? How could he persuade Henry Rathbone not to go with her, when they seemed so close to finding Shadwell, and perhaps enough of the truth to convince Lucien to come back into the warm, breathing world and pay whatever it would cost him to go home again?

Squeaky was disgusted with himself that he liked Henry so much. What use was liking someone? It only ever got you into trouble. And if he imagined that they would like him in return, then he was stupider than the most idiotic drunkard in the halls and taverns they had just left. When this was over, Henry Rathbone would go back to his safe, clean house on Primrose Hill, and Squeaky would go back to keeping the books for Hester in the clinic on Portpool Lane. It would be surprising if they ever met again. Squeaky would have sacrificed his own internal comfort for nothing at all.

At the far end of the alley Sadie led them into another open patch where there was a narrow, scarred door. She pulled a key from around her neck and opened the lock, closing it behind them again when they were inside.

Here a wider stair led down into a labyrinth. They heard laughter, the drip and gurgle of water, and voices that echoed along the tunnels through which she walked as surely as if the way were marked before her.

Squeaky tried at first to keep track of where they were going—left or right, up or down—but after a quarter of an hour he knew he was lost. He was not even sure how far below the surface they were. He began to feel steadily worse about the whole thing. What had happened to the sense that usually warned him of danger? Except that he knew perfectly well what had happened to it: He had let it slip away from him because he was a fool, wanting to be liked.

He caught up with Sadie and grasped her arm.

She stopped abruptly.

“Where are we?” he demanded. “You’ve taken us round in circles! Where’s Shadwell, then?” He held her hard, deliberately pinching the flesh of her arm.

She did not pull away, as if she barely felt it. “Not far,” she answered. “I’ll show you where he is, then I’ll …”

There was the noise of a door slamming not far from them, and then soft laughter.

Squeaky froze. He swore vehemently under his breath, then looked across at Crow a yard away from him. Even in the half-light he could see the fear in his face. Beyond him, Henry was little more than a shadow.

Sadie turned to Crow. “He knows we’re here,” she whispered. “I thought I would trick him coming this way, but he still knows. We’ve got to get out. Come back another time.”

“What does he do down here?” Squeaky demanded.

“We’re not that far down,” Sadie replied. She was shivering. “Tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you there. You can come back for Shadwell any time.” She took the key off the chain around her neck and passed it to him. Her sea-blue eyes were almost luminous in the gleam. “Where do you want to get out?”

Crow named an alley. It was quarter of a mile from the room where they had left Lucien and Bessie, but a tortuous and half-hidden route.

Sadie nodded. “Follow me.” There was urgency in her voice now, and an edge of fear that had not been there before. “It isn’t very far.”

They obeyed. Squeaky glanced at Crow and knew that he would be trying to remember it as well.

She had not lied to them. It was perhaps twenty minutes later when they stood outside in the alley. The wind had dropped, and the fog was thick, so that it lay in a blanket over the roofs and trailed long, white fingers of blindness in the streets.

They parted from Sadie, and she was lost to their sight within moments. Crow crept forward, leading the way. He knew it well enough, even in this sightless condition.

Lucien and Bessie were waiting for them. Lucien was sitting up now and had a little color in his face.

“D’yer find ’im?” Bessie asked eagerly. She sat on the floor close to Lucien. There were several pieces of bread on an old newspaper, and the stove was still just alight. She gave them each a portion of bread, taking the smallest for herself. There was cheese also, but she gave all of it to Lucien. Squeaky wondered how many women she had seen do that for those they cared for, saying nothing of it, pretending they had already eaten their share.

“We know where he is,” Henry told her.

Squeaky was less sure, but he chose not to argue.

Henry recounted to Lucien their finding of Sadie, and her story that she had had no part in killing either Rosa or Niccolo.

Squeaky watched Lucien’s face, judging whether he knew all this: if it were lies, or the truth.

“Oh, just tell my father you couldn’t find me,” Lucien said to Henry. “For the person he wants you to find, that’s true enough. You won’t be lying.”

“Yes ’e would,” Bessie spoke suddenly. “ ’Cause you’re lyin’.” She looked at Henry. “Did ’is Pa say as ’e ’ad ter be a certain kind o’ person, or did ’e just say ’is son?”

“He just said his son,” Henry replied. He looked again at Lucien. “I did not imagine it would be easy for you. You do not simply walk away from people such as these. And before you leave, you have to prove that you did not kill Niccolo, or Rosa. You have to prove it to the people who cared for them, and you have to prove it to us. If you don’t, it is going to haunt you for the rest of your life, quite possibly in the very unpleasant form of someone coming after you. Surely you are not foolish enough to imagine that going back to your home would put you beyond their reach?”

“No,” Lucien agreed. “There is no such place of safety. There is always somebody who can be bought, whether for simple money, or from hunger of one sort or another—or out of fear.”

Bessie was looking at him, chewing her lower lip, waiting to see what he would do.

“They don’t know where you are,” Squeaky put in. “We’ll go and find him tomorrow.”

Lucien hitched himself up on his elbow.

“Not you,” Squeaky told him sharply. “You’re not well enough. You’ll just get in the way.”

“But …”

“You’ll stay here with Bessie. We haven’t got time to be looking out for you. Do as you’re told, unless you want me to set that wound of yours back a few days?”

Lucien met his eyes steadily for several seconds, then lowered his gaze and lay back again.

Bessie kept looking at Squeaky, trying to work out in her mind what he meant, and if he would really have hurt Lucien again. Squeaky turned away. He did not want to know what answer she reached.

A few hours later Henry, Crow, and Squeaky set out again, this time to find Shadwell without Sadie’s help—or presence to warn him. Bessie and Lucien were both asleep, and they did not disturb them. There was really no need.

It was a short journey back through the streets to where Sadie had left them, counted in paces through the all-enveloping fog. They returned the way they had come, and used the key to the door that led downward toward where she had said Shadow Man would be.

“What are you going to say to him, if he’s there?” Crow asked.

Squeaky looked at Henry expectantly.

“A devil’s deal,” Henry answered quietly. “But one that will prove to Ash, and his friends, that Lucien did not kill Rosa.”

“Or Niccolo?” Crow asked. “Doesn’t it matter about him?”

“No, not much,” Henry said, moving forward carefully on the slick stones. “I think we might find that Niccolo is still alive.”

“There was a lot of blood for one person,” Crow said unhappily. “If the second body wasn’t Niccolo, who was it?”

“If I’m right, I’ll explain. For now we haven’t time for a lot of talking.” Henry led the way down the steps and along the stone corridor.

Squeaky looked at Crow and saw the anxiety in his face. They both hesitated.

Squeaky swore. “Come on! If we don’t go with him, the damn fool will go alone. Anything could happen to him. Why do I always meet up with such idiots?” He hurried and nearly missed his step on the uneven surface. Crow strode behind him. There was no sound but the scraping of their boots on the stone and the steady dripping of water.

The words “a devil’s deal” kept going around in Squeaky’s head. What had Henry Rathbone meant? He wanted to ask now, but it took all his concentration to keep up with Henry and Crow in these miserable winding passages.

Then suddenly he recognized a stairway up to their left, and in front of them a door with a brass handle.

“We’re in the wrong place!” he said simply, catching Henry by the arm. “This is the room of that fearful little creature in the velvet coat.”

“I know,” Henry answered. “The man who knows exactly what happened to Rosa, I believe.”

“He killed her? Why? What did she …”

“No. He didn’t kill her, but I think he knows who did.”

“Why didn’t he tell us?” With every new turn of events Squeaky was beginning to feel worse and worse about this whole idea of coming back.

“Because he wants to take revenge himself on the man who did,” Henry answered quietly.

“Why?” Squeaky asked. “What’s Rosa to him?”

“Doctor Crow?” Henry prompted.

“I think she’s his daughter,” Crow answered gently.

“What? How d’you know that?” Squeaky was aghast.

“Do you remember Lucien saying that Rosa had unusual eyes?” Crow asked. “One hazel and one green?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“I asked someone else and they said the same thing …”

“So what does that matter?” Squeaky was growing impatient. “Are you saying that it wasn’t Rosa who was dead, then? So who was it?”

“Yes, I think it was Rosa,” Crow replied.

“The color of your eyes is something that doesn’t change with age, except perhaps to fade a bit,” Henry interrupted. “If you think back, you’ll remember that Ash had odd eyes too. What do you think the chances are that they are closely related to each other?”

Squeaky let out his breath in a long sigh. “Yeah. I never saw that. So what’s your devil’s deal?”

Henry took a long, slow breath. “A Christian burial for Rosa, if Ash will admit that the second body was Niccolo, and that he killed him in revenge for his murdering Rosa.”

“Are you sure he did?” Squeaky asked.

“No, I just think so. It makes sense. Who else would?” Henry asked. “Perhaps he didn’t mean to, just lost his temper. Apparently he was violent. Maybe he was wild on withdrawal from cocaine. No one had seen him since her death.”

“You mean you believe Lucien that he didn’t do it,” Squeaky concluded, not sure if he was pleased, frightened, disgusted, or maybe all three. He had not felt so confused in years, maybe not ever. He could not afford all this … feeling.

“Do you know of some reason I should not?” Henry said.

Squeaky swore vehemently and from the heart. “ ’Cause it’s bloody stupid! It’s dangerous,” he hissed. He wanted to shout at Henry, but he could not afford to make such a noise right outside Ash’s rooms. “You can’t go around just believing anything anyone wants to tell you! You could get taken—”

“I said ‘reason,’ ” Henry corrected him gently. “Not fear.”

“Fear’s a reason!” Squeaky was exasperated. “It’s one of the best reasons I know. It’s kept me alive, with my skin whole, for fifty bleedin’ years!”

“And has it made you happy, Squeaky?”

“Yes!” He waved his hand in a gesture of denial. “No! Well—I’m alive, and you don’t get very happy dead! What a question to ask!”

“You don’t have to come and see Ash if you’d rather not,” Henry told him.

That was the final insult. “You trying to say you don’t want me?” Squeaky demanded. This hurt, badly.

“Not at all.” Henry smiled and took Squeaky’s arm. He turned to Crow. “Come, Dr. Crow, let us see if the poor man will accept our deal.”

Our deal? Ours? Squeaky was about to protest, then realized he really wanted to be included. He banged on the door and then threw it open.

The room inside was empty. Squeaky was crushed with disappointment.

“We’ll wait,” Henry decided. “At least for a while.” He sat down on the filthy floor.

They had not long to sit. When Ash returned he was still wearing the absurd lavender coat. His face seemed even more gaunt, the white painted skin stretched over the bones of his skull. He used the stick to prod the ground, as if he were not certain that it was firm enough to hold his weight.

“Well!” he said with interest. “And what do you want this time? You found Lucien. And Sadie.” He said her name slowly, as if it hurt him.

“Indeed,” Henry replied. “But we did not find Rosa or Niccolo. I think you could help us with that.”

Squeaky looked at the terrible face, which was like a chalk mask. Crow was right; one of his eyes was hazel, the other quite definitely green. Perhaps Henry was right too that Rosa was this man’s daughter. It made a sort of tragic sense.

Ash stood motionless as a garish figurine.

“In order to give them a Christian burial,” Henry went on. “Or Rosa, at least. Perhaps Niccolo doesn’t deserve one. They don’t do that for men they hang.”

Ash smiled. It was sad and horrible. “He wasn’t hanged. Not strong enough to lift him, you see.” He raised his hands, but stiffly, as if they would not go higher than his shoulders.

“How did you kill him?” Henry inquired as if it were no more than a matter of courteous interest.

Ash tapped his stick with his other hand. “Dagger in here,” he replied. “Very useful. Had a proper sword once. Haven’t the balance to hold it anymore now. Dagger will do. He didn’t even see me. Just killed my beautiful Rosa. I put the blade through his heart. I was surprised how much he bled.”

“He probably took a little while to die,” Crow observed. “People don’t bleed much after they’re dead.”

“Really?” Ash looked only mildly interested. “A Christian burial? Why?”

“Because I want something from you,” Henry replied. “Of course.”

“What?”

“That you tell people the truth, so Lucien is not blamed for either death.”

“And you’ll bury Rosa, decently, like a Christian?”

“I will.”

“Where is she?” Henry said wearily.

Without speaking again Ash turned, leaning awkwardly on his stick, and led them out of the room. In the passage he started in the opposite direction from the one they had taken before. After a hundred feet or so they went into a small side room, cold and dry, where two bodies lay side by side on a table. One was a young woman, her long dark hair loose around her face, her hands folded as if totally at peace. Her eyes were closed. Even so, her features were a finer, almost beautiful echo of what Ash’s might have been in his youth, before disease spoiled them.

Her dress was matted with blood where someone had stabbed her over and over.

The man, by contrast, bore only one wound, to the heart. His arms were by his sides.

They stood in a few moments’ respectful silence. It was Crow who broke it.

“I’ll carry her,” he said quietly. “Do you have a cloth of any kind to wrap around her?”

When they were far beyond the hall and heading toward the way up, they came face-to-face with Sadie, and behind her Lucien and Bessie.

Henry stopped instantly, Squeaky, Crow, and Ash close on his heels. One glance at Henry’s face was enough to show that he did not understand, but Squeaky did. It was all now horribly clear. Sadie had been so eager to help because she needed to see where they were keeping Lucien. Now she had gone back to collect him—for Shadwell! Always his servant, bought and paid for with the cocaine she could or would not live without.

Bessie had come as well, either with them or close after. Her ridiculous sense of loyalty would make her do that. Now they were all trapped. He didn’t even need to turn around to know that the way would be closed behind them.

Shadwell was there in the half-light, as Squeaky had known he would be. He did not even notice if he was tall or short, except that he wore a frock coat, like an undertaker. It was his face that dominated everything else, every thought and emotion. The lantern on the wall threw his left side into high relief, illuminating the bony nose and sunken cheekbones, the wide, cruel lips. The darker side was only half visible, the eye socket lost, the bones merely suggested, the mouth a shapeless slash on the skin.

There was an instant’s utter silence, then Henry spoke.

“Mr. Shadwell, I presume?” he said quietly. His voice was absurdly polite, and shaking only a very little.

Shadwell remained motionless where he was. “And you, sir, must be Henry Rathbone.” His reply was almost gentle. As Sadie had said, it was a voice that crept inside the head and remained there.

“I am,” Henry agreed. “We would be obliged if you would allow us to pass. We are taking the body of Rosa in order to give her burial.”

“Ah, yes, Rosa.” The man let her name roll on his tongue. “What an unfortunate waste. She was hardly Sadie, but she was still worth something. By all means bury her. Put a Christian cross above her empty soul, if it gives you some sense of your own worthiness. It will fool neither God nor Satan.”

Squeaky gulped. He wished Ash had not had to hear that.

“All obsequies for the dead are to preserve our own humanity,” Henry answered him. “Reminders of who we are, and that we loved them. The present is woven out of the threads of the past.”

Shadwell inclined his head a little, allowing the light to shine on his face, making it look worse. “A silken rope to bind you,” he agreed. “I will let the good doctor go, taking Rosa. The rest of you stay. I dare say in time I shall find a use for you.”

“And Lucien,” Henry added.

“And Bessie!” Squeaky insisted. How could Henry forget her?

“You make a hard bargain,” Shadwell responded. “What do you think, Sadie? Could you teach this bony child to be a good whore?”

Squeaky looked at Sadie. Her face should have been beautiful, but now there was an ugliness inside her that soured it.

It was Lucien who moved. He stepped toward Shadwell, his head high, his arms held a little forward, still protecting his wound.

“I’ll stay. I’ll do whatever you need, even bring in men from my own society who want to come, if you let all these go, including Bessie. I’m of far more use to you than she’ll ever be. She doesn’t know or care how to please men. She has no art at all.” He stood a little straighter, his eyes never leaving Shadwell’s. His face was yellowish gray in the sullen light.

Shadwell’s eyes widened, like sunken pits in his skull. “You trust my word?” he asked incredulously.

Lucien tried to smile, and failed. He was shaking. “Of course not. I shall bring to you every greedy and twisted man who can pay you, for as long as I know they are safe, including Bessie.”

“Indeed. Or you’ll do what? Are you threatening me?”

“Or I will kill myself,” Lucien said simply. “I am no use to you dead, but alive and willing, I can bring men—and more women as lush as Sadie.”

A look of anger and surprise filled Shadwell’s terrible face.

Lucien had won the bargain, at least for the moment. He knew it. His skin was ashen. He was entering a real hell: one that he understood intimately, could taste on his tongue and in his throat, and one that would never leave him.

Henry Rathbone was smiling, and tears welled up in his eyes. He watched and said nothing. That was when Squeaky knew that, for him, Lucien had redeemed himself.

Henry took Squeaky by the arm very firmly, so that his fingers dug into Squeaky’s flesh, and pulled him away.

Bessie was on Squeaky’s heels. Crow followed, still carrying Rosa’s body. Ash was nowhere to be seen.

They walked as quickly as they could along the tunnels and passages, and up the flight of steps, slippery underfoot, lit only by a couple of rush torches soaked in pitch.

Bessie pulled so hard on the tails of Squeaky’s jacket she very nearly tore the fabric. He stopped and whirled around on her, then did not know what to say.

Behind him Crow stopped as well, leaning against the wall, breathing hard. He carefully allowed the weight of Rosa’s body to rest on the ground.

“We in’t goin’ ter leave ’im, are we?” Bessie said, her voice trembling.

“No,” Henry answered her. “But we must think very carefully what we are going to do, and how. I think we are far enough away to take a rest. And we must keep our promise to Ash, wherever he has got to.”

“ ’Im?” she said in disbelief. “ ’E’s a—”

“It is our promise, not his,” Henry reminded her. “But quite apart from that, he did keep his bargain.”

“So where is ’e then?” she demanded.

“Probably watching us, to see if we keep our part,” Crow said wryly. “He doesn’t know you as well as we do.”

Henry gave him a quick smile. Squeaky thought of all the sane, sensible people above them in the daylight, preparing for Christmas, buying gifts, getting geese ready to roast, mixing pastries and puddings and cakes. He could almost smell the sweetness of it. There would be wreaths of holly on doors, music in the air. Sometime soon there would even be bells. These people knew what Christmas was supposed to be.

“But we’re going back for Lucien?” Bessie insisted.

“Of course we are,” Henry assured her. “But we must do it with a plan. We have no weapons, so we have to think very carefully. Crow, you had better take Rosa’s body somewhere safe, where it can come to no possible harm, and where we can be sure it will be given a Christian burial, should we find ourselves in a position where we cannot attend to that ourselves.”

“You mean if we’re dead!” Squeaky snapped.

“I would prefer not to have put it so crudely, but yes,” Henry agreed. Then he turned back to Crow. “Do you know of such a place? Perhaps friends who owe you a favor? I am willing to pay; that is not an issue. I will write an I.O.U. that my son will honor, should that become necessary. Surely in your professional capacity you are acquainted with undertakers?”

Crow smiled, almost a baring of his teeth. “A few. It will take me at least half an hour to see to it.”

“Then you had better begin,” Henry urged. “In the meantime we will consider what weapon we can create that will be of use to us in battle against Shadow Man.”

Crow picked up Rosa’s body again. He staggered a little under her weight, although she was slight.

Squeaky realized how far he had carried her already, without a word of complaint or the request that someone else take a turn.

“We need a good weapon,” he said unhappily, although a fearful idea was beginning to take shape in his mind. He did not want to look at it, not even for an instant, but it was there, undeniable.

“Crow!” he shouted.

Crow stopped. He was almost at the next bend in the passage. “What?”

“Bring some matches,” Squeaky called. “Lots of them.”

Henry stared at him. “Fire?” he said hoarsely. “For God’s sake, Squeaky, we don’t know anything about the airflow down here, or which tunnels lead to which others. We could end up killing everyone.” His voice cracked. “We could end up setting fire to half of London!”

“I’ll bet that little bastard Ash knows,” Squeaky said darkly. “You shouldn’t have let Crow take the girl’s body. You gave away the one thing we could have bargained with.” How could Henry be so clever and so stupid? Squeaky would never understand some people.

“We already used it,” Henry pointed out.

“Well, we could’ve used it again, if you hadn’t let Crow take her!” Squeaky protested.

“No, I couldn’t. Quite apart from the morality of it, it isn’t very wise.” Henry smiled. “How can a man trust me if I’ve already cheated him once?”

Squeaky was obliged to concede that there was a certain logic in that. “Do you wish me to go and look for the little swine?” he offered.

“There is no point. You won’t find him if he doesn’t want you to.”

Squeaky swore. He really needed more words if he was going to continue in Henry Rathbone’s acquaintance. Everything he knew was insufficient to express the pent-up emotions inside him, the rage, the pity, the sheer, blind frustration of it all. Not to mention the fear!

There was a tiny sound behind him and he swung around. Ash was standing no more than a couple of yards away.

“Don’t creep up on people!” Squeaky shouted at him. “You could get yourself killed like that.”

Ash looked at him in disdain. “Not until after you’ve killed Shadwell,” he replied. “You need me until then.”

Henry looked at him. “We don’t intend to kill Shadwell, just to rescue Lucien, and Sadie if she wishes it.”

Ash leaned on his cane. Henry offered him a hand to steady himself and he took it, reluctantly. “Same thing,” he said. “He won’t give up, and he knows these tunnels and passages far better than you do.”

“Then you are quite right when you say that we need your help,” Henry agreed. “We need to have some form of plan by the time Dr. Crow returns. He has gone to take Rosa’s body to where it will be safe, and buried properly, if we find that we cannot do it ourselves.”

“I know.”

Henry opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. “Do you know these passages well enough to help us?” he said instead.

“Of course I do,” the man replied. “What is your plan?”

Henry smiled ruefully. “We have very little yet. We wish to rescue Lucien and Sadie, and prevent Shadwell from following us out. The only weapon we have is fire.”

Ash pulled his grotesque face into an even more bizarre grimace. “Then we must get Lucien out. We can set fires that will trap Shadwell so that he cannot follow you. Sadie will not come. Lucien may. You must be prepared for any answer, and willing to leave them, or you will be burned as well.”

“We know,” Henry agreed.

Henry dug around in his pockets and found a piece of paper on which Ash could draw a plan of the tunnels, steps, and passages through buildings where Shadwell would likely be, along with the direction of drafts, and so the way fire would travel.

“We’ll have to wall him in,” Ash explained. “Here.” He pointed to the end of a network of pathways.

“Doesn’t he have an escape door, a back way out?” Squeaky asked. “I would.”

Ash smiled. “That way.” He put his fingers carefully on the paper. “Into the sewers.”

“As long as we get Lucien,” Henry said quietly, his face pale. “We may have to forgo getting Shadwell too.”

Ash touched the paper again. “If we set fires here, and here, and maybe here, too, then we’ve got him. You’ll need to collect as much rubbish as you can, stuff that’ll burn easy.” He smiled. There was something ghastly about it, and Squeaky found himself turning away from the sight. “I know where they keep the oil for the lamps,” Ash went on. “And the tar for the torches along the tunnels where they can use a flame. We’ll have a fire to make hell proud.”

By the time Crow returned they had collected oil, tar, several piles of tallow candles, and as much old wood and rags as they could find without robbing people whose attention they could not afford to attract.

They crept forward together. Ash led the way, tapping his stick on the ground to make certain of it so his nerve-dead feet did not trip him. He was followed by Henry, Crow, Bessie, and Squeaky, all carrying or dragging behind them roughly made sacks of candles, pieces of wood, tins, bottles, and jugs of oil, and buckets of tar. When they reached the places the man showed them, they very carefully laid their fires, sometimes with a fuse made of torn and knitted rags soaked in oil, aided by a little tar. There was no time for error or for waiting and watching.

With shaking hands Squeaky lit a match, held it as still as his trembling hands would allow, then touched it to the rags. It ignited immediately. The flame raced along it and caught hold. He jerked back, watched it for another moment to make sure it was not going to die, then ran as fast as he could to the second site to set it burning too.

He knew Crow was doing the same with the other fires.

Henry, Bessie, and Ash made their way to the heart of Shadwell’s territory, expecting to meet him around every corner or through every door or archway.

When they finally did, it was deeper than they had been before. They crossed a last threshold into a clean, stark cellar with doorways to both the right and left, and one to the back. The last must lead to the sewer, the other to the tunnel where the fire was already approaching. Shadwell was sitting in an armchair with Lucien in a chair opposite him. Sadie stood casually by a table with a cabinet next to it, filled with tiny carved wooden drawers.

“What now?” Shadwell asked, rising to his feet. “Have you changed your mind? Come to give me the girl and take Lucien in exchange? I’m afraid you cannot do that. You see, Lucien is right. He is of far more use to me than she could ever be. You made your bargain and it stands.”

“I came back to ask Lucien if he wishes to leave,” Henry replied. “You too, for that matter. Although I have no idea where you might go. I doubt there is a place for you above the ground.”

For several seconds Shadwell did not reply.

“You are right.” His voice was still very quiet, insistent, and the strange sibilance was even more pronounced. “My place is here, in all the stairways and passages that thread under the blind, busy world. This is my world. But you chose to come into it. Everyone who is here chose to be, but I choose who stays and who leaves. I let you leave once, but not this time.”

Crow came up behind Henry. Squeaky appeared at his other side, but facing backward, keeping guard over the tunnel.

“Go, while you can!” Lucien said urgently. “He’s right. I made my decision and I’ll abide by it.”

Henry could smell smoke drifting toward them from the passage beyond Squeaky: a sharp, acrid stinging in his nose. In another moment they would all be aware of it. And the flames could not be far behind if the man in lavender was right about the flow of air in the tunnels.

“Lucien!” Henry said urgently.

Lucien shook his head. “Let me pay my debts,” he answered gravely. “Please tell my father that I did that. Go, while you can. You don’t owe me anything. You never did.”

The smoke was getting stronger. Suddenly Shadwell caught the odor of it. His eyes widened and his head jerked higher. The only way of escape was either past Henry, Crow, and Squeaky, or past Lucien through the door behind them, into the sewers.

The crackle of fire was audible now.

It was Bessie who broke the silence. She walked forward to Lucien, past the line of the door to the left. “Lucien, yer gotta come wi’ us. Squeaky and me come back for yer. Yer can’t stay ’ere …”

The door to the left crashed in and the fire spread across the room, cutting them off with a wall of heat.

“Bessie!” Squeaky cried out desperately. “Yer stupid little cow! What … Oh, God!” He tore off his jacket and put it half across his head, then bent and charged through the flames to where he could still just see her. The heat was terrible, but he was through the wall and out the other side to find Bessie gripping Lucien’s arm.

She swung around.

Squeaky seized her, picking her up. She weighed almost nothing. He could feel her bones through the thin cloth of her dress. He turned, but the fire was taking hold. It was hotter, spreading already. He hesitated. How could he get her back through it to the way out? What if her clothes caught fire? Her hair?

There was no time to even think. He put his head down and charged. He felt the flames all around him for a terrifying moment. The pain was enough to make him cry out, but he bit it back, afraid to draw in a scorching breath.

Then he was out the other side, Bessie still in his arms. Crow clutched hold of him, throwing his coat over Bessie and holding it, smothering the flames that licked at her dress.

No one had noticed Henry going the other way through the flames toward Lucien, Sadie, and Shadwell.

Lucien stared at him, horrified. “You can’t come with us!” he said urgently, his eyes flickering just once toward the doorway to the sewers.

“I don’t intend to,” Henry replied. “But if you hurry, you can come with me. There’s still time to get back through the fire, if we go now.”

But it was Shadwell who answered. “You want him, you must pay.” He was standing close to Sadie, between her and Henry. He put out his hand and his strong, heavy fingers closed like a vise on arm. “If he goes with you, I will kill her.”

Henry hesitated.

“Slowly,” Shadwell elaborated. “Painfully.”

“You are doing that already,” Henry told him. “My leaving Lucien behind will not change that. As you have pointed out before, those who are with you are there by choice. I don’t know what choices Sadie has left. Each decision we take can narrow them. But if she will not fight to save herself, no one else can do it. There comes a point when we all stand alone.”

Lucien took a step toward them.

“Go, while you can,” Henry ordered him. “I’m coming with you.” He turned, and in that instant Shadwell let go of Sadie and put his other hand on Henry. His grip was like iron. For a moment, as he saw Lucien step into the flames, Henry was paralyzed. The pain in his arm took his breath away.

Lucien was gone. Sadie was still standing by the wall, stunned.

Henry swung around to face Shadwell. He had never physically fought anyone in his life. There was only instinct to prompt him.

Shadwell’s face was close to his. For the first time in the red light of the flames, Henry saw his eyes, empty keyholes into hell in his uneven face. He could not bear to look at them. He bent forward a little and charged, knocking them both off balance and toppling onto the floor, kicking at each other. It was ridiculous and desperate. The heat was filling the room and sucking the air out of it. Henry was gasping already.

Shadwell was on top of him, holding his throat. He couldn’t breathe at all. The room swam into darkness.

Then suddenly he was slapped, hard, and gasped for air.

“Get up!” a voice hissed at him. “Get up, you fool! Take my arm!”

Henry opened his eyes, expecting to see Crow and Squeaky, but it was Ash hitting him with the little strength he had. “Get out of here, down the sewer and turn left. Stay left at every turn. Go!”

Henry struggled to his knees. The fire all but filled the room now. Shadwell was on the floor, kneeling, rising, his back to the flames. Sadie was screaming, her clothes alight. Henry tried to lunge toward her but Ash kicked him in the ribs. Henry doubled up with the pain of it and found himself staggering forward. A hard shove from behind and he was through the open doorway. It slammed shut behind him. In seconds the room would be an inferno. Yet he was safe and utterly alone, unable to go back, unable to help.

The sour smell of the sewers was cold and damp, a balm to his seared skin. He was glad to step into the icy water and wade to the left. Feeling his way in Stygian darkness, he was too relieved to be afraid.

The water grew deeper, the current of it stronger as he went a little uphill. As Ash had told him to, he bore always to the left.

His feet were numb beyond his ankles by the time he saw light ahead, but he had not had to travel as long as he had feared. With a shudder of relief he made his way onto a ledge and upward to an iron ladder. He grasped it and climbed to the passage above.

There were sounds ahead, footsteps. Henry froze. Then he saw the pool of light on the dripping wall. Suddenly the slime of it was gold. A whole lantern appeared, and the hand holding it, then the sleeve of Squeaky’s scorched and ruined jacket.

“Squeaky!” Henry shouted with joy. “Here! Over here!”

Squeaky came forward at a run, the lantern swinging around wildly, as his feet slid on the wet surface. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, his face contorted with both fury and relief. “You had us scared half to death! You ever do that again, an’ I’ll …”

Crow was coming behind him with Lucien and Bessie. They were all filthy, skin scratched and burned. Their clothes were torn and in some places blackened by fire, but they were alive.

Bessie threw her arms around Henry, hugging him with more strength than he would have thought she could possess. Slowly he closed his arms around her and held her just as powerfully.

“You need to get those burns tended,” Crow interrupted. “We should get out and find clean water, bandages.”

“Yes,” Henry agreed. “Yes, of course.” Now that he thought of it, parts of him hurt appallingly. Even in the semi-darkness here, he felt as if he was still on fire. He let Bessie go at last and tried to collect his wits.

Crow took him by the arm, but holding only the cloth of his sleeve, not touching his skin. “Come on. Lucien knows the way.”

It seemed like a long time, but perhaps it was no more than half an hour before they were standing in the street. The lamps were lit and gleaming in the dark, shedding pools of gold on the snow. Icicles sparkled from roofs and gutters. There were a few carriages and hansoms around, and they could hear harnesses jingling, hooves muffled in the snowdrifts that were still fresh and untrampeled.

In the distance people were singing.

Crow, the least disreputable-looking among them, hailed a cab. They all piled in, although with difficulty. Henry needed a little assistance.

“Where to?” Crow asked.

Henry gave him James Wentworth’s address.

Lucien began to protest.

“According to the driver, it’s Christmas Eve,” Henry told him sharply. “You’re going home. Where you go after that you can choose, but tonight you owe us this.”

Lucien sat stiff and afraid, but he did not argue.

It was not a long ride to Kensington, where James Wentworth lived, but to Henry, who was exhausted and very sore, it seemed to take ages; Only now, on the brink of impossible success, did he actually wonder if Wentworth really wanted his son back to forgive him. Perhaps it would instead involve some harsher discipline, some price for his disobedience and the family’s shame.

When they stopped they had to fish between them for enough coins to pay the fare and offer the cabbie a bonus fit for Christmas Eve. They climbed out stiffly, helping each other, until they stood on the freezing pavement. The hansom jingled and rattled off into the distance.

The street was lit as far as they could see in both directions. There were wreaths and garlands on the doors. Somewhere far away church bells were ringing out across the rooftops.

Henry walked up the short distance to Wentworth’s door, lifted the brass knocker, and then let it fall.

The door was opened almost immediately and the liveried butler stared in undisguised disbelief.

Lucien stepped forward. “Happy Christmas, Dorwood. Is my father at home?”

The butler gasped and his eyes filled with tears. “Yes, Mr. Lucien,” he said gravely. “If you care to come in, sir, I shall tell him you are here.” He did not even bother to ask who his companions were.

Inside, the magnificent hall was decked for Christmas, as if they had been expected. The Yule log was burning in the open hearth. There were garlands of holly, ivy, and mistletoe, with colored ribbons. Red wax candles glowed. There was mulled wine in a large bowl on the sideboard, and cakes and pies and candied fruit in dishes.

A door flew open. James Wentworth came out, his eyes wide, his face shining with joy. He went straight to Lucien and threw his arms around him, too filled with emotion to speak.

Then he let him go and turned to Henry, the tears wet on his cheeks.

“Nothing I can say is thanks enough.” He all but choked on the words. “My son was lost, and you have found him for me—you and your friends. My home and all that is in it are yours.” He looked questioningly at each of them.

“My friends,” Henry introduced them. “Dr. Crow, Mr. Robinson, and Bessie.”

Bessie curtsied, with a slight wobble. Crow stood beaming the widest smile of his life, and Squeaky bowed, really rather gracefully.

“How do you do,” Wentworth replied. “Happy, happy Christmas.”