“Did someone shout fire?” said Miss de Vries, reaching for the bedpost.
“I expect it’s a false alarm,” muttered Alice. Noises were coming from the road or the park, distant and muffled.
Miss de Vries moved. “I’ll go and see. Fetch my dressing gown.”
Alice grabbed Miss de Vries’s hand. “Don’t,” she said. “It might not be safe.” She found Madam’s skin to be dry and cracked around the knuckles. It had ridges and corrugations as if soap had chapped it, burned it. This made her seem more breakable, more delicate.
Madam gazed back at her, eyes dark. She let out a long, shaky breath, but did not reply.
“I’ll go,” Alice said, kissing her hand. “You wait here.”
She slipped between the gap in the drapes, closed them tightly behind her. She could hear Miss de Vries shifting, pulling her rich sheets around her, not following. The carpets sucked at Alice’s feet, silky air wrapping itself around her throat. She looked around the room, hands trembling, taking in all the familiar and wonderful things: the polished walnut table, the gigantic looking glass, the escritoire. The bureau was winking at her, locks sparkling. The whole room was telling her what to do.
Mrs. King approached the bedroom suites just as Alice slipped through Miss de Vries’s door. Mrs. King was at the far end of the passage, and she turned when she heard the roll and click of the sliding doors, saw a figure hurtling away down the stairs.
“Alice,” she breathed. She didn’t dare call out her name, for fear of discovery.
Mrs. King ran silently down the passage. She wouldn’t permit Alice to be alone in this house one moment longer. Lockwood, Shepherd—she could not let them touch her. Corruption started on the surface of the skin. Dirt in the fingernails, nicks and cuts, flesh bubbling, hardening over. It needed to be treated quickly, with carbolic and gauze, before the rot could set in. The thought of Alice being taken, priced up, sold, made Mrs. King’s lungs burn.
Alice was fast. She vanished down the servants’ staircase, and Mrs. King had to double her pace. She felt the riptide of the job in motion, this thing of her own creation: it vibrated in the walls as she descended through the house. The hiss of the pulleys, the whoosh of the crates, the creak and hum of wires. She dodged the crowd of Mrs. Bone’s men wheeling trolleys down the garden, entered the sultry garden and glimpsed Alice in the distance, racing for the mews house, her apron winking in the dark. Mrs. King could see men on the roof, on rope ladders, winching up the drainpipe. They crawled over the house like insects. It was miraculous. But immaterial, if Alice were in danger.
“Dinah.”
A hand reached out, catching her arm.
She saw the gleam of golden eyes.
“No,” cried Mrs. King, staggering to a halt. Her voice carried on the air as Alice disappeared around the corner, into the night. The men around her, dragging crates, stopped dead.
They all stared.
And William, wide-eyed, amazed, held on to her.
Winnie carried the Inventory like a priestess with a prayer book, moving through the public apartments, watching as they were skinned. The house thrummed around her, sweltering, in never-ending motion. Things weren’t going the way she’d planned.
She imagined the house would simply divest itself of its treasures, that it would be glad to give them up. It wasn’t.
Men swarmed the stairs, tripping over ramps and cables. Several boxes nearly went flying. Winnie’s heart was in her throat, checking for nicks and cuts and bruises on the walls. She’d impressed this on everyone: it was essential that the house was left entirely undamaged.
“Careful,” she begged them, and when they ignored her, she raised her voice: “Take care.”
“Yes’m,” they murmured.
It was such a long time since anybody had obeyed Winnie without demur. The pleasure increased every time she tested her power. “Carry on,” she said.
She counted items. Tapestries, peeled from the walls. Cushions, blankets, eiderdowns, tassels, testers, sent off in chutes. Paintings, swinging out through the windows. And then someone let out a frightened roar. Winnie felt a rush of air, massive velocity. A grand piano came plummeting through the air toward them.
“Wire!” she breathed, pointing, cold fear in her throat.
The men scrambled, hurling themselves on the ropes. There was a dreadful crack as the cables tautened, the platform lurching, the piano lid swinging open with a bang.
Awestruck silence, three dozen faces. The piano swung madly, braced to its platform, creaking. It was safe.
The grotesque things came, too: the stag’s head and the stuffed bears. Chairs, footstools, small couches, side tables, urns the size of full-grown men. Mrs. Bone burst out of the saloon, a tiger-skin rug draped over her shoulders.
“Come on, you Janes!” she shouted. “Let’s be having you!”
Don’t close your eyes, Winnie ordered herself. The Janes had fixed a pair of swings under the dome. The greatest art pieces were all up here: the painted panels and triptychs and angels. You could go up on a ladder, take them down one by one, if you had half a day to spare. The men broke off what they were doing to watch. Winnie didn’t scold them. She clasped her fingers together, pressed her hands to her heart.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Bone thinly. “My Janes can do anything.”
Winnie felt her stomach looping as the girls climbed up onto their perches. Slowly they began to swing. The men gazed, transfixed. There was something unutterably lovely about it when Jane-one let go, forming a giant curve, slicing through the air.
Up Jane-one went, a reverse dive, landing perfectly on the ledge just underneath the dome. She couldn’t have had more than two inches to land on. Didn’t pause. Lifted a frame from the wall. Didn’t turn. Leaped backward into the air, gilt gleaming as she fell. Jane-two swung out from the other side, caught her by the feet. Together they swung toward the French doors. Out went the painting, a straight throw, to the nets and waiting hands beyond.
Back to their perches. And this time Jane-two was off.
It’s happening, Winnie thought. She felt an extraordinary sense of rightness, of purpose. Perhaps it was hubris.
“Can they go any faster?” she asked Mrs. Bone.
Did the girls hear? Jane-two was lifting a diptych from the wall. Its hinges creaked as she did so. Its illuminated boards must have swung open as she lifted off, affecting her balance, breaking her dive. Winnie gasped as she slipped from her swing.
A cry, piercing the silence. Jane-one, already launching off from her swing. A shriek from Jane-two as the diptych and gravity pulled her toward the marble floor.
Winnie couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes.
“Aah...” grunted Mrs. Bone, rigid beside her.
Winnie opened her eyes.
Jane-one had latched her ankles to the second swing. She had swung out to grab Jane-two. The girls were dangling together, the diptych hovering—safely—above the floor.
“Faster, my arse,” said Mrs. Bone, clutching Winnie’s arm.
Out in the garden, Mrs. King shook William’s hand away. Mrs. Bone’s men circled them, eyes dark.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Mrs. King gasped.
He stood back. “You think I don’t know that?” His eyes flashed. “I’ve been watching your lot all night. You think I don’t know what it means when half a dozen packing crates go up in the lift for no reason? When half the guests keep sending me off for more wine and then tip it straight out of the window? When someone comes down shouting ‘Fire!’ because she’s having a fag?”
The men drew closer.
“For heaven’s sake, Dinah,” William said. “What do you need?”
Her heart tilted. It was gratitude. It ran right through her.
“Well?”
“Give us a hand,” she said, letting out her breath. “I need to find my sister.”
She turned and ran.
Alice had raced to the park.
She crossed Rotten Row, her boots leaving footprints in the sand. She didn’t bother to scuff them over. Who cared if she left tracks now? She could hear the crowd of guests gathered outside the house, on the wide stretch of grass opposite Stanhope Gate. She wasn’t going anywhere near it.
She remembered Winnie’s instructions. There were only four exits from the house. Front door. Tradesman’s. Mews gate. Garden door. She picked the mews gate.
She was followed, of course. As she knew she would be. She sensed it first, the tingling in her skin. A twig cracking underfoot.
That voice.
“You got it?” The debt collector, dry and hoarse, as if he was longing for a drink, as if he’d lost the last remnants of his patience.
Ten feet away, said her mind.
“I said, Have you got it?”
She turned. A plane tree soared above him, boughs reaching for the heavens. He must have taken a great arching loop across the park to intercept her.
She approached him slowly. “How much do I owe?” she asked.
She unbuttoned her apron. Her uniform made her look so useless, so small. She didn’t feel special; she didn’t feel like a soldier anymore. She rifled in her pocket.
He named the sum. It almost made her laugh in despair. The price for her salvation. The cost of betrayal. Was that it? Would her fear simply vanish when she’d paid her debt? She held the money in her apron.
When she’d left Madam’s bed she’d opened the bureau. Rummaged as silently as she could, among the silk stockings and envelopes containing banknotes and cash. She knew which drawer to open: she’d seen it opened many times before. She knew exactly where Miss de Vries kept her personal funds.
Behind her, a figure moved between the trees. “Don’t go anywhere near her.”
The man whirled round. So did Alice. In that moment Alice’s shame bloomed: the night opened up around her, all-seeing.
“Dinah,” she breathed, agonized.
For there was Mrs. King: panting, gloves off, hat tilted at a vicious angle. Clearly, she’d come running, tracking Alice across the park.
“I mean it,” Mrs. King said. “Get away from her.” She was holding a knife.
The man studied the knife. He looked at Alice. “Who’s this?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Alice shook her head, raised her hands. “Dinah, don’t. It’s nothing—it’s fine.”
Mrs. King’s eyes flashed in the gloom. “It’s not fine,” she said. Her voice sounded throttled, scared. She didn’t sound herself at all. She turned to the debt collector. “Who are you?”
“I’ll do you the courtesy of telling you to clear off,” the man said. “And I’ll only say it once.”
Alice had never seen her sister do it. She’d only heard about it. The neighbors said that Dinah could be violent. That she could make grown men weep. Alice had never been able to credit it. And yet now, as Mrs. King stepped quickly toward the debt collector, she understood. It was like watching a demon, a soft-footed sort of devil. Mrs. King sheathed her knife and came at him without a hint of fear. She drove into him, white gloves balled into fists.
“Ah—” said the man. He flailed, righting himself, reaching into his pocket. Alice saw the dull gleam of silver, the black eye facing her.
A pistol.
The park swayed, a gust of wind roaring through the trees. Mrs. King staggered.
Calmly, breathing fast, the man centered himself. His arm was steady.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
He lifted his pistol.
“I’ve got the money!” Alice’s voice was strangled. She drew out a fistful of banknotes from her apron, keeping her eyes only on the gun. “Here, here. See? You can count it. Take what I owe.”
Slowly, he came to her. He smelled ripe, as if he needed to bathe, but his overcoat still carried the faintest whiff of gardenias. “Show me.”
He kept the pistol on Mrs. King and Alice unfolded banknotes with shaking hands. He sniffed, held out his hand. Folded it all away in the lining of his coat.
“This was a bad business,” he said, staring her in the eye. “You’re lucky.”
He swiveled the pistol away. Tipped a finger to Mrs. King. “Good day to you.”
Alice didn’t watch him trudging away through the trees. She felt no relief. She closed her eyes. The plane trees were whispering, worrying, overhead.
She heard Mrs. King’s voice, tight, and from a distance. “Alice,” she said. “Are you safe?”
“Dinah,” she said. “I’ve been in trouble.”
At last, Miss de Vries got out of bed. It was a sound that did it. An echo of something, crystalline and pure, at the outermost edges of her consciousness.
A cry.
She ran a hand across the rippled surface of her sheets, instincts stirring.
When she rolled the bedroom doors back, the air around her felt as if it had been hollowed out, immeasurably expanded. The lights were burning, same as always, in the passage. But she saw the wrongness at once. The floor: glossy black paint, obsidian smooth. It made her dizzy. Someone had taken up her splendid carpets. They’d left only the bare, stained boards underneath.
She touched the floor with a toe. Cold.
Movement below. Footsteps, hundreds of them, unmistakable.
But no voices.
She stepped out into the passage.