This book was written for adult audiences. Some content may not be suitable for minors.

Violence

Death

Alcohol use

Grief

Moderate swearing

Assault

Sexual Content

Sam
London zoo, 1901

Sam never wanted to pick a pocket so much as he did while watching the visitors of the New London Zoo crowd together, staring in oblivious rapture at the sleeping baby unicorn. He could have stuffed his hands into their pockets while blowing a kazoo and they never would have noticed.

To make matters worse, the late spring day was warm and balmy, and half the men had unbuttoned their jackets and waistcoats to take advantage of any stray breeze. The flash of fine watch chains, rings, cufflinks, and jeweled brooches caught his eye no matter which way he turned. Little coin purses dangled from wrists and the bulge of wallets screamed at him from vest and trouser pockets.

He could clean this place out before anyone realized what was missing, and now that he owned fine clothes, he would blend in. No one would look at him twice as he made off with their possessions.

Sam folded his arms and tucked his hands safely into his armpits.

It was useless to imagine dipping his fingers into the waistcoat of some careless mark and walking away with a shiny new timepiece. He wasn’t a thief, anymore; he was the ward of Lady Gwenevere St. James, and all the fine things he used to lust after were now part of his daily life.

He and his sister were respectable now, and they could do things only wealthy people did: like buy sweets at a bakery, or stand around with other wealthy people watching a baby unicorn sleep. Neither of them needed to steal. He leaned on the rail and told himself he was glad about that.

Lady Gwen joined him, her umbrella and hat combining to cast as much shade as a small tree. She used a full black umbrella instead of the white lacy parasols the other ladies used. Unlike the rest of the crowd, Lady Gwen had no desire to display her rank and wealth with jewelry. Whatever money she carried was tucked away in places Sam couldn’t guess at. The last time she paid for something, the money had been under her hat. Hard to pickpocket a lady’s hair.

“Why the long sigh?” she asked.

He thought over how much to say. This was the first time he’d ever visited the zoo without having to hide from security, and he was nearly thirteen years old. Instead of dodging guards and scaling trees, laughing under his breath as his clever hiding spots went overlooked by the confused bobbies on his trail, they strolled from exhibit to exhibit without a care in the world.

“I…thought the unicorns would be more exciting,” he said. “All they do is lay around and sleep. I don’t understand why everyone was so keen to see them, they don’t look like nothin’ but skinny horses.”

“Don’t look like anything,” Lady Gwen corrected with a smile. “Do try to avoid double negatives before mid-day, my dear, they make my teeth ache.”

Sally leaned far over the fence to peer at the little white animal and said in a dreamy voice, “I don’t know how you can say that, Sammy. They’re perfectly magical. Look how small the foal is with its pink nose and bit of horn poking out of its hair.”

Sam frowned at his sister, then at the animal. It was smaller than a horse, with spindly legs more like a goat, and a little downy tuft of a beard on its chin. Its neck was a bit longer and it had feathery hair around its cloven hooves, but so did some horses.

He said, “Can we go see the lions, instead? Or at least something with claws and teeth?”

Lady Gwen considered him for a moment, her dark eyes sparkling with laughter, but her voice was solemn when she asked, “Sally, why are there so few unicorns in captivity?”

“Because unicorns are both clever and elusive,” Sally said as if reciting a passage from a book. “Their white fur takes on the hue of the light reflected by their surroundings, and they’re as nimble as a goat, so they can climb trees and sheer cliffs to get away from their pursuers. And if a unicorn is cornered, it can strike with its hooves and horn.”

“And how many men have unicorns killed?” Lady Gwen asked.

“Twice as many as lions for every human encounter.”

“Why?”

“Because men expect lions to be dangerous.”

Lady Gwen gave him an affectionate pat on the shoulder. “There’s a lesson in there somewhere, Samuel.”

So, the Unicorn was more interesting than he thought, but the beast still just lay in the shade, panting, with its legs curled up to the side.

“Can we at least see a manticore or something?” he asked.

“Manticores are only a myth, I’m afraid. If they are real, we’ve never seen one. There are none in this zoo, in any case. However,” –Lady Gwen pulled a watch out of some pocket so well concealed Sam hadn’t even seen it– “we can watch the crocodiles. Inspector Hardwicke will meet us there, shortly.”

Sally sighed one of those girl sighs full of secret wishes. She thought nobody noticed, but every time the Inspector visited Lady Gwen, Sally’s cheeks turned pink.

He kept the knowledge to himself, and his hands in his pockets, as they walked along the paved path toward the crocodile pit. A welcome breeze lifted the sweaty hair off his forehead but carried with it the sticky-sweet scent of caramel apples mixed with the ripe stench of animal dung and a distant humming sound, like angry bees.

Lady Gwen raised her parasol as if she’d had a grand idea. “While we’re walking, let’s make good use of our time. Sally, what are the medicinal uses of Monkshood?”

Sally rattled off an answer filled with words that sounded like a foreign language, so he ignored them. Ever since they moved into Lady Gwen’s townhouse, his sister had been on a mission to learn everything about everything. She spent hours curled up in a chair in the study, reading obscure books by the steady light of Dwarven Lamps. Lady Gwen seemed to think it was a good idea, so they talked about useless facts whenever Sally’s tutor wasn’t teaching her how to be a lady.

Girls. Couldn’t they just enjoy a few quiet moments to think?

Sam had a tutor, too, but he was learning to read and speak like a gentleman, not memorize rubbish about plants. The speaking part was harder than the reading. He would always sound like he was from the Narrows, but as long as he had money, who cared how he sounded?

“Did you get any of that, Samuel?”

He hesitated for only a moment before answering Lady Gwen. “You can use it for fevers, gout and,” —what was the word?— “rheumatism.”

Lady Gwen blinked at him. “So you can. Well, you cannot, don’t get it into your head to muck about with any. Just touching the plant could kill you. But those are a few of its traditional uses, in any case. Well done.”

“If it’s so dangerous, why are we learning about it?”

She stopped walking and bent to look him in the eye. “Of all the things to learn in the world, what do you suppose we should know most about: the innocuous things, or the things that can do us harm?”

He thought that over as they approached the crocodile pit, wondering if he should learn about crocodiles, too, since they were dangerous. Inspector Hardwicke waited there, almost a head taller than the people around him and twice as wide. His hair was a few shades lighter than Sally’s dark blonde, and he had the jaw of a boxer. The man also had big, capable hands that needed wide pockets.

Sam smiled and flexed his smaller, nimble fingers.

The inspector must have heard them coming because he turned, bowed his head, and smiled at Lady Gwen for just a moment too long. That gave Sam the chance to slip away from her side and blend into the crowd around the viewing platform.

“Lady St.James,” the inspector said, using her formal address the way he only did in public, then bobbed his head at Sally. “Miss Dawes.”

Sally blushed. She was such a ninny. The man barely even glanced at her, what did she have to blush for?

“Good morning, Inspector,” Lady Gwen said, stepping close enough for a handshake.

Sam edged around a woman and her children to slip up on the inspector from the right side. The man was right-handed, so when he reached out to shake Lady Gwen’s hand it pulled the fabric of the coat away from his body. Sam slipped his fingers into the exposed pocket.

Nothing. The Inspector was learning.

Sam backed up, hurried around the edge of the crowd, waited a moment as if he’d lagged behind, then ran in from the opposite direction, waving and shouting, “Tony!” before tripping and plowing into Sally’s back.

She squealed and tumbled forward into the Inspector and the three of them slammed together with an oof, arms flailing as they steadied themselves. Sam slid his hands over all the usual spots but felt no wallet or watch or bulge that indicated valuables.

The inspector righted himself, straightened the two of them, and asked, “Are you all right?”

Sally blushed again, this time as red as the roses Mrs. Chapman put on the table in the foyer, and mumbled something about being fine.

“Samuel,” Lady Gwen sighed. “That was clumsy. A little subtlety goes a long way.”

The inspector narrowed his eyes, then widened them as realization set in. He patted a spot on the outside of his jacket with his right hand before checking the more obvious places Sam already searched.

Gotcha.

“Not this time, scamp,” the inspector said, satisfied his possessions were safe.

“You’re getting better, I guess.”

“Maybe next time.”

The Inspector was a good cop and an honest man. He’d never win at this game. Sam hid his amusement behind a mask of disappointment and said with a shrug, “I suppose so.”

“Shall we have a look at our reptilian friends?” Lady Gwen asked.

The four of them made their way around the crowd of spectators to an open spot along the fence. A steep embankment lay on the opposite side of the wrought iron, leading down to a pond where the dozing crocodiles sunned themselves or floated lazily through the green scum on top of the water, leaving brownish trails behind them.

A few of the onlookers leaned far out and pointed as one of the crocodiles sank beneath the surface, which was a precarious place to balance with so much danger beneath. What would happen if one of them fell in? After a scream and a great splash, the crocodiles would sink and turn to swim toward the unlucky victim as they struggled to climb the muddy bank. Some people would toss jackets down the slope while the braver citizens held hands to form a human bridge.

But crocodiles were faster than they looked, and when one or two climbed the bank and opened their toothy mouths--

“What news?” Lady Gwen asked the inspector.

Sam pulled his attention away from the daydream and focused on listening while his eyes roamed over the scaly predators.

“We’ve been watching the building and every delivery for months. There is no sign the mysterious Mr. Capstone has been communicating or paying anyone from the orphanages by hiding bribes in the laundry deliveries,” the Inspector said. He sounded tired as he took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair.

Lady Gwen said, “Then either Mrs. Edwards was lying about the bribes, or Mr. Capstone has reneged on their arrangement.”

“I doubt whether he had agreements with the other orphanages since no more children have gone missing under suspicious circumstances.”

Suspicious was the inspector’s code word for magic. Sam shivered despite the heat. He remembered what magic felt like the first time he’d encountered it, so many months ago. It felt like home. It was a mother's arms reaching out with the promise of love and safety, only to drag him down a narrow alley at night where the only person waiting for him was a kidnapper.

No orphan who ever dreamed of being rescued by their long-lost family could resist the pull of that magic.

Luckily for Sam, his sister had been with him. Sally fought for him like an angry badger, but she was no match for a full-grown man. Sam had tried to save her but got a knock on the head for his trouble, and spent the rest of the night running back to the townhouse on Grosvenor Square with tears streaming down his face, looking for help.

Lady Gwen and the Inspector tracked the kidnapper, saved Sally, and stopped the witch responsible for the kidnappings before she sacrificed the orphan children to save her sick daughter. If there had been no more kidnappings, maybe it really was over. Maybe he could sleep without nightmares, or without waking to the sound of Sally's muffled crying through the wall that separated their rooms.

“I am glad to hear it,” Lady Gwen said. “Though, it makes catching him much more difficult.”

“Assuming he is a real person.”

Lady Gwen made a very un-lady-like sound.

“I know you don’t want to admit it,” The inspector said, keeping his voice low enough to blend with the hum of the crowd, “but we must consider whether Mrs. Edwards lied to cover her involvement. It is possible the witch worked directly with Mrs. Edwards to arrange the kidnappings. Mr. Capstone may not exist, at all.”

“Do you believe that?”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “No. I don’t. But we must consider all possibilities. It’s been months with no proof for our trouble. If I don’t find something convincing soon, my superiors are going to recall the men I’ve been using.”

“I know how much you’ve fought for this investigation. Don’t lose heart. There is one strong piece of her testimony in favor of Mr. Capstone being a real person: the particulars Mrs. Edwards provided. If we assume she was lying, she chose to fabricate details strangely unrelated to the truth. Why make Mr. Capstone a Dwarf who wanted to kidnap the orphans to scare humans?”

“Why, indeed.”

“And scaring the humans had nothing to do with Lady Monmouth’s plan to save Clai—her daughter.” Lady Gwen’s voice caught on the girl’s name and Sam flinched. He had held Claire's hand as she died, her skin slowly growing cold once the spell keeping her alive vanished. She’d only been a year or two older than him. Of course, sacrificing other children to save Claire had been wrong. But in a strange way, Sam envied Claire such a mother. If their father had loved him and Sally half as much, perhaps he wouldn't have abandoned them.

The wind picked up again, dragging away the stale mud and pondwater scent of the crocodile pond and bringing with it…voices? What sounded earlier like the faraway buzzing of bees matured into the ruckus of rhythmic shouting.

The conversation behind him paused.

Lady Gwen tilted her head to listen. “Another demonstration?”

“A big one,” the Inspector said. “Had to go several blocks out of my way to avoid them, but it was peaceful.”

“That brings us to my point,” Lady Gwen said in a voice Sam had to strain to hear. “I think this Mr. Capstone business is more likely tied to the impending legislation for equality. He is the only piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit into Lady Monmouth’s plan to save her daughter through sacrificial magic. She used compulsion spells to control everyone she worked with, but Mrs. Edwards had no spells upon her when we questioned her at the orphanage.”

“The bit about scaring the humans is suggestive, I’ll grant you. But it would only make Parliament less likely to approve the bill.”

“I never suggested which side of the affair he was on. If he is working for equality, he may be misguided in believing humans would acquiesce through fear. But if he is trying to suppress the bill because he does not want elves and dwarves to be granted hereditary titles alongside humans, then perhaps he seeks to discredit them.”

“True, enough. But we can speak of it another time.” The Inspector’s voice carried a tone that said he meant something other than what he'd said, but Sam wasn’t sure what. When he spoke again, his voice was lower and harder to hear. “You still plan to go through with this?”

Through with what? It didn’t sound as if the Inspector liked the idea of Lady Gwen doing whatever it was. Sam began weaving through the crowd, casually shifting his weight and leaning as if he were only looking for an opportunity to view the exhibit from a better angle.

“You know what we saw that night,” Lady Gwen replied in the same tone of voice she used when teaching Sam something he wasn’t interested in learning. “Just because the Fae have done nothing overt since Samhain” —she said something Sam couldn’t make out above the growing noise of the protests outside— “and unless we know how she gained access to that magic, there will be nothing to stop them. And if Mr. Capstone is still active, I will not risk anything happening to Sally. She’s already been touched by magic, and magic leaves traces.”

Sam’s stomach tightened into a fist.

“We will learn nothing if you work yourself until you cannot function. Don’t think I do not see it on your face.”

“That,” her voice was crisp and detached, “is not your concern, Inspector.”

He ignored her switch to a formal address and stepped closer, raising his hands as if he would hold Lady Gwen’s, but stopped. “You are taking too many chances, Gwen. I don’t—”

Inspector Hardwicke didn’t have a chance to finish his thought, because the protesters had drawn closer, and the next shout of, “Polity for equality! Polity for equality!” was loud enough to make everyone turn. Vibrations from hundreds of feet made the ground tremble.

“What’s a polity?” Sam asked.

The Inspector spun, surprised to find Sam standing behind him. Sam smiled and held up the inspector's badge and wallet. The man’s jaw tightened, and Sam dropped the pilfered items onto his palm, still grinning. Tony wouldn’t ask how Sam had known where the items were, and Sam wouldn’t offer the information. That was part of the game.

“Better luck next time, guv.”

The inspector stuffed his valuables back into his pockets with thin lips and a grim expression. “I thought I had you.”

“I guess you need more practice, after all.”

A loud crash sounded outside the walls of the zoo, followed by a single scream. That scream was joined by another, then another, growing like a snowball, picking up shouts of indignation and ending in a sustained howl from the crowd of protestors.

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Lady Gwen said.

“It does not,” the Inspector agreed.

Behind them, the crowd of Zoogoers shifted and muttered. The atmosphere of the place changed. Like dropping ink in water, the sense of discomfort, of fear, billowed out in invisible tendrils infecting everything it reached. Sam's whole body tensed, muscles primed to move, to flee, to hide.

Sally met his eyes, the same knowledge on her face. The lessons taught by life on the streets were carved beneath the skin, down in their very bones.

“We should go,” Lady Gwen and the Inspector said at the same time.

“This way,” the Inspector said, and ushered them down the path leading away from the front of the Zoo. A gust of wind dragged all the tree limbs toward the fleeing crowd, and Sam’s heartbeat sped up at the acrid burn of smoke in his nostrils. Something in the city was on fire. The ground continued to shake.

Zoo visitors who weren’t hurrying toward the exit were frozen, staring wide-eyed at the walls. Even people without the finely honed senses of street urchins felt the sense of impending danger.

“Come on,” the Inspector ordered in his most officious voice. “Don’t just stand there, move along! That’s right, Ma’am, this way, please.”

As their party gathered more frightened visitors, Sam’s desire to flee grew so strong that the only thing keeping him moving in an orderly fashion was Sally’s hand clamped painfully on his own. She was still bigger than him, still stronger, and just as scared, but so were the other visitors. They bumped one another, muttered in frightened voices every time a scream rose from outside the walls, and several people tried to part from the group, thinking they would be safer on their own. Sam wasn’t sure they were wrong.

“Keep calm,” the Inspector called to them over the rising shouts, cries, and crashes in the city. “Everything will be fine. We’re going to the opposite side of the zoo, where we can exit safely. Sir, stay with the group please, thank you.”

A siren wailed nearby, the sound soaring above the racket of shouting, and several ladies gave little cries of distress. Sam was surprised to find that, even in his fear, he had room for disgust. Fire should have been less terrifying to people who lived in stone houses. And sirens were only used by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade that served the West End and downtown, equipped with all the latest artificery to keep rich people—and their money—safe. In the Narrows, the fire brigade consisted of what buckets, axes, and wet blankets the inhabitants managed to gather. If they were lucky, the older wagons would show up before the fire spread and too many people died of smoke inhalation.

Lady Gwen turned and said over her shoulder in a low voice, “Stay close to me.”

Sam knew that tone of voice. Sally tightened her grip and he squeezed back.

The smoke grew stronger, and the group huddled together like frightened sheep being driven before the storm, Inspector Hardwicke as the sheepdog snapping at their heels.

A horse screamed and the entire group flinched and froze. The shouting and screaming from outside the walls reached a crescendo, followed by a crash that made Sam jump, and the wall not ten feet in front of them crumbled inward in a cloud of dust and madness. For a heartbeat, everything moved in slow motion. The fancy new fire engine followed the tumbling brick as it toppled sideways through the broken wall and onto the path, dragging with it the screaming team of horses. A ton of wood and metal crashed to the ground, the siren stopped and the water reservoir broke, sending a wave of shin-deep water rushing toward them hard enough to pull Sam and everyone around him off their feet.

He lost grip of Sally’s hand and rolled, then hit the iron fence post separating the path from the smaller exhibits. He grabbed the rail to steady himself, then pulled himself upright. The shiny brass horn of the siren, etched with runes to amplify sound, lay in a muddy puddle at his feet.

He looked up. A crowd of people swarmed through the break in the wall, some holding signs, some wearing the frantic expression of hunted animals, and others with the bright gleam of destruction in their eyes. They ran in every direction, leaping over the sopping bodies of the other visitors who had been dragged to the ground.

“Sally!” He yelled, but the crowd caught him up, and he could do nothing but get dragged along in the press of running bodies, even as he heard Lady Gwen scream his name.

Instinct took over.

He turned with the tide and ran as fast as his sturdy legs could carry him, trying to separate himself from the crowd, searching for the first opportunity to break away into someplace dark and hidden. But getting away from the crowd was almost impossible. They pressed in on one another like a living wall, and when one person fell, the rest trampled them in their haste to flee. Sam squeezed between two men, avoided getting kicked, and pushed himself toward the edge of the crowd near the fence. Someone stepped on his foot, he stumbled, grabbed a sleeve to steady himself, was jerked off his feet, and hit the path hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

Someone stepped on his leg and he cried out, curling in on himself and trying to roll away but stomping feet hit the ground everywhere. If he didn’t move, he would be crushed. A hand curled around his wrist and pulled. Sam tried to help, scrabbling at the stone, even as someone kicked him hard in the ribs trying to leap over him.

He hit the ground again, this time on his side, but kept rolling and panting, sobs of pain breaking through with every other breath. He couldn’t stay on the ground. He pushed to his feet to find himself on one of the lanes that turned off the main path toward a closed exhibit. He had managed to roll beneath the barricade.

He was safe.

At least, he thought he was safe until he looked up into the face of the person who had pulled him free.