Chapter 6

The invitation came before noon, which told me how quickly the consortium moved.

It was on good paper. A boat would come to the end of the black quay at the turn of the tide. Mr. Emmerich Sloane, factor for the Vantree Consortium, requested the pleasure of speaking with the young woman who had been so unfortunately pursued by the garrison, and would guarantee her safe conduct and her freedom.

Peg Marrow wanted to burn it.

"No," I said. "He's going to tell me what he wants, and what he wants tells me what he's afraid of."

"He's going to put you in a sack."

"Then he's going to have to explain to the regent why he did it before the regent got his hands on me. That's the only reason he's asking instead of taking." I looked at my hands. There was frost burn along two fingers from the ice house wall. "And I need to see inside that house."

So I went.

The regent's mansion sat on the waterfront with its windows full of gray light, and a servant took me up a back stair to a study that smelled of cigar smoke and lemon oil. Emmerich Sloane was a small, neat man with a smooth face and reading glasses, and he stood when I came in, and offered me a chair, and poured me tea, and I hated him more in ten seconds than I had ever hated anyone in my life, because everything he did was pleasant.

"You've been having a hard week," he said.

"I've had worse."

"Perhaps." He sat down across from me, comfortable, and folded his hands. "I have a proposition. There is a ship leaving for the southern colonies on the evening tide. I will book you a cabin in a name I've already arranged. You will have money, clothes, and a letter of introduction to a household that will take you in as a servant and never ask a question. In exchange, you will stand up in the union hall tomorrow and tell the dock crew that the Wick was a trick - that some old woman lit the lamp with a taper to stir them up, and that you were paid by a union steward to say you'd touched it."

I kept my face still, which took everything I had.

"Why would I say that?"

"Because if the docks believe the Wick answered a beggar girl, they will do something stupid, and the regent's garrison will kill a great many of them, and I'll have to replace a great many workers." He smiled. "I'm a practical man, Miss Calloway. I'd rather buy the bell than break it."

And there it was. He knew my name. He'd known it since the market, or since the letter, or since fifteen years ago.

"Give me until tonight," I said.

He inclined his head. "Naturally."

I stood up and let my coat swing out, the way you do when you're cold, and I walked to the door and put my hand on the latch. On the desk behind me, under his elbow, was a leather folder stuffed with papers, and I had seen enough manifests in enough ships' offices to know one when I saw one. He'd left it out. Not carelessness - arrogance. Nobody steals from a man who is offering to buy them.

I turned back like I'd forgotten something and asked, "Which ship?"

He was already reaching for a paper in the folder. He slid it out. I leaned over the desk to look at the name, put both hands flat on the wood, and swept my left hand across the rest of the folder on the way down, folding four sheets into my sleeve with a movement I had practiced since I was eight years old.

"Vantree Maid," he said. "She's a good ship."

"Thank you," I said, and went out, and got down the back stair and out the servants' door and along the waterfront with my heart going like a hammer on a hull.

I was a hundred yards down the road before I heard his voice behind me, mild, unhurried, carrying.

"Miss Calloway."

I ran.