10.

The watch puls’d warm in Jack’s trouser pocket. A small animal radiating heat and possibility—driving him towards Bess, hailing him into a Future where he would be no longer a freezing chained girl, mustering tuffet after tuffet at Kneebone’s command. A future where he would be with her, and he would be Jack.

And so, although it was pouring and very cold, Jack reached into his pocket for the file—slipped it into the ankle-lock, and freed himself from the warmth of his bed into the swirling wet Wind.

By the time he reached Cresswell’s his fingers were gnarled with cold. He ascended with some measure of pain the rain-drenched bricks to the parapet. Waited ’til Bess finished with what sounded like an out-at-the-heels *1 duke, who climax’d in a tortured Squeal.

After the exit of the cove, Jack sent down a branch he’d collected from the alley, tapping at the window. It opened to the upper casing with a thump.

Drop. Swing. Tumble in.

Bess wore a tight black Chemise with a low neck, and black jodhpurs. She was tying her hair back with a ribbon. The sawdust-and-Rose scent of her permeated the room—went straight to Jack’s groin.

He cleared his throat. “I nabbed a watch.” He removed the fob from his pocket and laid it before her.

Bess peer’d down. “A nice one”—looked up—“Pull a rum stall?”^*2

“More just a…” It was the blackguard who had pulled off the rum stall, in fact. Jack didn’t know the canting term for “unplanned pickpocketing.” “Jus’ a simple jilt, really.”

“You can pawn this, dear rogue.”

“Not much of a rogue.” He bit the inside of his cheek.

“Are now.” She smiled, dangling the watch from her pinky. “Most of the thieves in this city are owned by Wild. Not you.”

“What’s ‘wild’?” Jack sat on the Daybed.

“My gods, you’ve been squirrel’d away.” She joined him on the Daybed. “Wild’s a craven scoundrel. A businessman of thieving. Runs the largest gang of blackguards in the city. Controls them through what you might call an ‘informal indenture.’ Do you know what fencing is?”

“Naturally,” he huff’d. “Selling stolen goods.” His mother had once described him as “fencing” the barley seeds he filched off the apothecary carts. She hadn’t been entirely opposed to it either, as he always gave her most of his Coin.

“Wild was London’s most acclaimed fencer until the magistrates got onto him. Imprisoned him at Wood Street Compter for many years; he survived by turning Trustee^*3. While at Wood Street, Wild made the acquaintance of every whip-jack^*4, blackguard and elbow-shaker^*5 captured off the streets. He knew everyone by name. And he knew exactly who to put one over on at any given occasion. They called him the Thieves’ Oracle. Wild was the one to see if you needed an ounce of gin, a Law-book, or a high bunk to escape the rat-frequented damp of the common Hold.

“And Wild was also the gent the Keepers solicit’d for Information on who had pinched an ounce of gin, or who had managed to gain extra pence that day begging through the prison bars. He made Cozy with the Keepers. He was their King-snitch for the term of his Confinement. And now snitching and cozy-keeping have become Wild’s very Profession.”

In the course of these declamations, Bess had leaned into Jack, her shoulder pressing against his. The watch was ticking forward—he could hear it in her hand. But the time Jack was inhabiting had come disjoin’d from the Watch.

“Once he was discharged from Wood Street, Wild created a new category of urban Blight, christening himself Thief-Catcher General. He runs the heists, and he runs the snitches and he snitches out the heisters, too. He’s intimate with the Magistrate.”

Bess leaned back against the window casings. The warm Impress where her shoulder had been cool’d in the open air.

“Wild’s the worst kind of thief. He’s as bad as the stockjobbers at the Royal Exchange. No, worse.” She touched his forearm. “I think you could be a freelance rogue. You’re different.”

Would being a freelance rogue mean more of this? More touching and talking and—

“Come to the docks tomorrow, ’round noon. I can introduce you to some other Unowned.”

Jack flinch’d. “I’m permitted to market generally only on Tuesdays and the occasional Sunday. I can sneak out at night, but during the day—”

“Do you make all your decisions based on the threat of Punishment?”

In fact, more or less he did.

“They don’t enforce the Vagrant Act the way you think they do.”

“The Act is very clear ’bout what you can and can’t do.” Sadly, Jack had memoriz’d every threatening word of the Act.

“Has a centinel ever stopped you on your way to market?”

“No. But I’ve always had a master’s Note.”

“How do they know you have a master’s Note? You wear it pinned to your sleeve?”

Jack winced.

“And how do you walk when you have your note?”

“Easy.”

“And how do you feel?”

“Easy.”

“So”—she shrugg’d—“walk that way without one.”

“Bess, that’s—”

“Don’t you know that all the laws are enforced selectively? Now, if you were a lascar marooned in London by the East India Company refusing to pay return passage, then I’d say—”^*6

“Well, of course!”

She ignored Jack’s frantic display of understanding.

“As I was saying, if you were a marooned lascar sailor, then your options would be slenderer. And I’m not saying they’re not slender now. But choosing when and how they enforce the law on you is not something you can do. And not a reason to confine yourself before you begin.”

The catastrophe of being caught without a master’s Note rose up like a clot of Smoke in his mind. “Even if I could, there’s Kneebone and the workday—”

“Do you want to be Kneebone’s servant all your life?”

This stung.

“Of course not.” His words were sticking together in a dry mouth.

“Well, if you find a way.”

This was delivered as if there were a Way to find.

“Could you wait until Tuesday? On my way to market?”

“Tomorrow’s when we meet up. Regular thing.” And then Bess leaned in. Her hand was on his Chest. On the wrappings. “You’re not breathing,” she said, her breath heating his Neck.

Time went out of joint again because she press’d her lips to his neck, and said, “Did you want to make that Acquaintance with me now?”

Jack had never made any woman’s Acquaintance. So he did what he could only imagine a cove would do in such a situation. He put his fingers under Bess’s Chin, raising it gently. He kept his fingers there for the duration of which he leaned down and kiss’d her—three seconds that bloomed and bloomed. His heart had turned ocean, was throwing waves onto a shore.

“Nice,” Bess said, nodding. “Nice.”

Then she put her hand around the back of his head and pull’d him down more firmly to her Lips. “Now do it not quite so nice.”

She open’d her mouth wide and they were kissing again—with their Velvets down each other’s throats and him groaning and holding her fast against him at the small of her back.

When they surfac’d, he put his head into her neck, breathing deep the scent where her hair met Skin.

“Or,” she said. “You don’t have to go back to Kneebone at all. I have a place you can stay.”

She meant her rooms—her rooms with her in them— Oh God.

How he wanted this—to be plung’d into her world—to stay with her.

But Jack didn’t know how to do this—to stay. More properly, to stay Seen—to be seen all day and have it continue into the Night—and how—and what next? Show himself to her—as what?

He must retreat to the aloneness of Kneebone’s—the wretched unseenness to which he’d become accustom’d.

“I have to go,” he said, already at the window, knowing full well how unsatisfying and yet how unstoppable his release back into anonymity would be.

Then he was thundering over the roofs alone, the wind coursing through his lungs—a specter evaporating back into the City— This, he felt, was all he was and all he would ever be—a Shard of metropolis.^*7

He ran over the roofs to Kneebone’s. Unhinged the windows. Slipp’d into bed, his knickers and thin smish filling with the chill that’d collected under the coverlet. And then he fell into sleep Unseen. As he did every night. Every single night, like a Pebble falling silently to the bottom of a dark Pond. Alone. Alone. Always alone.

Jack woke just before Dawn, the sky streak’d pink and blue over the tiled roofs. Why couldn’t his own Ceiling change color, deepen, shoot through with sun? Why was he the terrified, careful idiot who had to wait until Tuesday? Always calculating Punishments to come. Would the black-capped horizon of his Imagination never prism into color?

—Oh, how he long’d for her.

For Bess had given him something he had never known. Some confecktion—still just a Concept yet—the flicker of a life lived in tandem. Something to truly want.

And this just about undid him.

The hasps at his door rattled— Jack’s heart leapt—he’d forgotten to slip the Polhem Lock back onto his ankle to mask his evening Escape.

And now the Door was opening.

Jack could not have guessed that old, rickety Kneebone could move so quickly and with such Force. For his gray eyes had landed on Jack’s ankle, lying outside the coverlet. Lockless.

Jack tried to sit up, to say something, fashion some excuse— But before he could speak, Kneebone struck him in the temple, slamming his head back against the wall— In the ensuing onslaught, Jack was too stunn’d to resist— Kneebone wheezed with the force of his effort as he knocked Jack’s head again and again at the same spot. Jack heard high-pitched squeals— He was shattered to realize that the squeals were coming from his own throat. He heard himself calling for help— His own voice rang out, unrecognizable.

When it was over, Kneebone walked calmly to the door. “Your labor is the property of Kneebone. Your rest restores you to labor for Kneebone, and thus is your Rest my Property as well.”

Then he walked through, closed and lock’d the door.

Jack curled on his side, panting. In the sudden silence of the room, he was possessed of a strange Clarity. A sentence ran through his mind. He had never been given to Vengeance before, but what was there now was there without dispute. You’ll be sorry, he thought, over and over again. You and all your kind will be sorry.

Jack snatch’d his cloak and threw the rose-gold watch fob into his pocket. Slipp’d open the window and leapt out. He raced from Kneebone’s powered by the Terror—the Certainty—that his master was just behind him.