“The name of the place, the leader, give us something, anything,” Caffrey says good-naturedly. He swivels his foot, grinding it into the bloody mess that covers Boyne’s pant leg. “Just a word, and I’ll let you be.”
“Drisdale!” he sputters, crying out again at the pain. Caffrey removes his foot but stands ready to readminister it.
“Is that a place?”
Boyne nods frantically, but Caffrey looks disbelieving. He stamps his foot into the wound again, and Boyne tries to pull away, moaning and writhing. “In the red district! There’s an inn! I swear it’s the truth! I swear it!” He looks like a baby, sobbing on the floor. “Mercy presides over it. She’s the one he buys the girls from, and sells ’em back to. The Merry Little Maid, the inn’s called. Mercy has other sites, but that’s where you can find her. I can help you, whatever you need. I know everything he did, everyone he dealt with. If Swain wants me to talk—”
“I know the place,” Phoebe says quietly to me. “I can take you there.”
I turn to her with questions, but no chance to ask them. “We need to go,” Gilbert says, silencing Boyne with a glare. Boyne curls in on himself, sniffling and pitiful, his eyes darting among all of us.
“We’ll need to bring the body. And that one”—Gilbert points at Boyne—“for Alistair’s decision.” He turns to Caffrey. “I’ll find a sheet; can you go and take care of the sentries at the gate?” Caffrey slips past us while Gilbert wraps Curram’s body in the sheet before seeing to Boyne’s leg. Lillian’s sobs have subsided, but Des still cradles her against his chest, murmuring things I can’t hear.
Tam looks down at me. “Come on,” he says. Marion plants a kick in Boyne’s side and flashes him a smile before following us out the door, and from there, Phoebe leads us to the vestibule.
It’s poorly lit by just one lantern on a table, probably taken from the cellar. In the dimness, I can see figures: small, bent figures, huddled together in the middle of the room. “You can leave,” I tell them, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. “Take anything of value that you see, use it to get home. The guards won’t be a problem. Go on.” They stare back at me with wide eyes, not moving, and I try not to be irritated.
But then I remember the awful, paralyzing fear that came with my captivity. Guessing that they carry similar scars, I hold out my left hand so they can see the brand. “I came from this place,” I tell them, keeping my voice gentle. “I was taken off the street, and they put this on my hand before I was brought here. He’s dead now. That’s why I came back, so that you don’t have to belong to him any longer.”
One of the girls looks down at her own hand; she’s so thin and so small, her cinnamon-colored skin smudged and dirty. She looks up again, meeting my eyes. “This is not who you are,” I say as sternly as I dare. A girl with red-gold hair and freckled cheeks gets to her feet. She steps timidly forward, keeping her eyes locked on mine. She can’t be older than fifteen.
“Thank you,” she says hoarsely. “I didn’t think … I thought there wasn’t any…” She doesn’t finish, and I nod. She moves to one of the tables along the side of the room and begins opening drawers. Encouraged by her action, the other girls move about the room, and I watch them with satisfaction swelling in my chest.
Tam says something about helping Caffrey and slips past, touching my shoulder as he goes.
“I tried to say good-bye to my parents,” Marion says, watching the girls go, “but I couldn’t get the words out. I’m sure they’d have tried to stop me. They must have noticed I’m gone by now.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“They’ll be fine eventually.” She shrugs, not looking like she believes it.
“How did you find Lillian?”
“They’d put her in the cellar, where we were kept,” Valentina says. “We got in that way and saw Phoebe and those men fighting the guards. Tam joined the fight and it was over pretty quickly. I don’t know where Curram kept her before, but she looked like a scared rabbit and hardly moved when we let her out. It was like she’d never been outside. I’ve never seen Des so shook up.”
“I don’t know how I forgot how awful it was,” Marion says, her eyes wide. “The smell and the stickiness…”
“Was Robbie still there?”
Phoebe grins. “I swear he pissed himself when he saw me,” she says. “Must’ve thought I was a ghost, coming from the shadows. He went down easy. He’s in the cell again; I wonder if he’s getting used to being beaten by a girl, and the same one twice at that.”
Caffrey reenters the house and passes us. Valentina offers to help the girls on their way, then leads them nervously outside. When the last one disappears through the door, I look at Phoebe. “You said you know the place we’re going?”
Her expression turns serious. “The brothel Curram was selling them to, it’s not the only one, all right? If you really want to do some damage, it won’t be easy.”
“I never said I thought it would be.”
It feels like a long minute before she goes on. “I grew up in the red district, with brothels next door and doctors’ assistants selling laudanum under the bridges. It’s just life, there. You’re lucky if you take care of yourself, if you’re not owned by a man with a bed for rent, or worse. If you close one whorehouse, they’ll just open another. It’s like a sickness, buried deep. Changing things will take everything you’ve got.”
“I can’t go back to my old life,” I say, “not after all of this. I thought when Curram was dead everything would be over, but he wasn’t the only one.”
A smile works its way onto Phoebe’s mouth. “That’s how I’ve been feeling,” she says. “But we’ll need help. We can’t take down the industry with just a handful of people.” She furrows her brow, murmuring names and ideas to herself.
She would have left me behind to die if it had meant her own freedom, that first day I met her in Curram’s cellar. Even in the train car, her only thought was for a way out. I see now how small of me it is to think that I am the only one who has changed, who has become strong because of what happened.
Tam appears in the doorway. “Ready?” he asks.
There’s a commotion, and Gilbert and Caffrey appear, carrying a linen-wrapped body between them. Boyne, his bound hands tied to Caffrey’s belt, stumbles after them, yelping in pain and limping. Behind them, Des eases Lillian along, his arm around her shoulders, his footsteps keeping slow pace with hers.
“We’ll be loading up what’s in his treasury,” Caffrey says, smiling broadly. “Swain wouldn’t want us to waste it, I’m sure.”
“Of course not,” I say.
“Is this good-bye, then?” Gilbert asks, putting down his end of the awkward bundle.
I nod. “There’s still a lot to do,” I say.
He tips his head to the side. “I hope we meet again.”
“Good luck, Isla,” Caffrey says. “Take the cart. We’ll tell Swain you slipped away.”
When we step outside and the cool, fresh air hits us, I feel free all over again. Lillian hesitates just inside the threshold for a moment before stepping out into the open air, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her head tipped back, her eyes on the sky. The stars are bright, and the moon brighter. It’s like a new world.
It’s only when we reach the cart, parked near the wall, that I see the two guards from the gate lying on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs. I give Tam a questioning look and he shrugs. “Caffrey made a good point. Why waste the gold?” he says. “And there was rope coiled up there at the wall. What were we supposed to do?”
I bend down to see their faces. “Your master is dead. Lawmen will be here to search the place in the morning, no doubt. When they arrive, feel free to tell them about your friends that we locked in the cellar.”
Marion hauls the gate open, and Phoebe climbs onto the driver’s bench.
“I know a place we can stay tonight,” Phoebe says. “Curram’s dead and that’s a good thing. But he wasn’t the mastermi
nd behind the operation that took us in the first place; he was just one of many buyers. If we want to really damage the industry he benefited from, we’re going to need reinforcements. We can discuss a plan tomorrow, but if any of you would rather not be a part of saving lives”—she looks pointedly around at everyone—“we won’t make you stay.”
No one objects, and she looks satisfied. “All right, then,” she says as Marion climbs up beside her, “Drisdale it is.” Tam offers Lillian a hand into the cart, but she shies away from him, clambering in on her own. Even when Des takes a seat next to her, with Valentina on his other side, she keeps her distance. Will she ever be all right? I wonder, watching her in the near darkness. In her mind, has she even fully left? Will she ever be free of those years of abuse and darkness? And there must be so many like her.
I can see the others behind my eyelids: Eugenia, Cecily, the one with the darkest skin, Winifred, and the one with all the freckles. One of the girls said she missed her brother, and one was afraid of the dark at night, when Dunbar took the lantern with him. And before those was the skinny, frantic girl at the warehouse with her wide eyes and bony wrists.
There were so many, and even though I know I couldn’t have helped them, it still hurts to remember.
I sit on the loading trap, my legs swinging over the edge, my heart heavy. Tam jumps up beside me, and we start to move. The streets are mostly unlit as we begin to weave our way through them, but Phoebe seems to know the way well. For several minutes, Tam and I sit in silence, and I don’t know what to say.
Should I still be angry with him? I’m almost too tired to be upset. But he hasn’t apologized, or said anything about our last conversation. His coming here proves that he cares, but it doesn’t make everything magically better.
“There was a water pump in the garage,” he says a little awkwardly. He holds out a handkerchief, and when I take it I realize it’s soaking wet. “You … your face,” he explains, gesturing. I mop away the blood; the lines drawn by Curram’s fingernails feel raw, but at least they’ve stopped bleeding. I can feel the tenderness of a bruise starting to form on the side of my face where he struck me. When I’m clean, I look over and see that Tam is watching me.
“You wanna walk for a second?” he asks, gesturing behind us.
“Don’t go too far,” I call to Phoebe, jumping to the ground. Tam does the same, and we let the cart stretch ahead of us before following. When he doesn’t say anything, I take a deep breath.
“It was when I went to say good-bye to you,” I start, swallowing the lump in my throat. He looks over at me, still silent. “You saw the crowds; I could barely spot you. I didn’t even know what was happening until I was being dragged away from the station.” Instead of disappearing, the tightness in my throat only seems to be getting worse. “I thought you saw it happen. For all those weeks, I told myself you’d come to save me.” He opens his mouth to say something, but I hurry on, afraid if I don’t finish now, I never will. “They branded us all, and then Curram came. He bought us, Tam. I didn’t—I can’t tell you how it feels to know someone owns you, someone who can just dispose of you at any moment.
“You saw those girls in the cellar, so you’ve probably guessed the rest. He kept us down there until it was our turn to be taken upstairs. It was hell, seeing one girl after the next go upstairs, wondering if they’d come back. Eugenia did.” My chest is tight. “She was so upset, he killed her.” The words hurt, coming out. Saying them aloud drags me through every emotion, every nightmare all over again. But Tam doesn’t flinch, or change the subject.
I tell him about the girls I want to believe could still be alive, and when I get to the part where we found Eisendrath, he shakes his head, frowning. “Isla, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was scared of what you’d think of me. I didn’t even know what to think of myself.”
He stops walking and leans down to kiss the top of my head. When he pulls back, he puts his hands on my shoulders, making me look at him. “What I think is that you’re brave and fierce and brilliant.” I feel like I’m sinking, somehow. “I need you to know something,” he goes on, sounding nervous. Tam is never nervous. He reaches into his breast pocket and draws something out, holding it toward me.
I cup my hands and he drops a jumble of metal into them: the chain with the key to my locket, and the miniature spyglass I gave him. I turn the objects over in my hands, waiting for his explanation.
“I’ve had them with me since the day I left. I never let them out of my sight because they made me feel connected to you. I knew I would see you again if I was strong enough to survive everything around me.” The words to tell him I felt the same are pushing against my lips, but I force myself to wait, to let him finish. After a long moment, he clears his throat. “But after the army … I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. I thought you liked Des,” he says, sounding like a little boy, ashamed of something he’s done. “I thought that while I was gone, you’d fallen for him, and I didn’t want you to think that I expected anything from you, or that you should feel obligated to me, so I let you believe I didn’t care.”
“You were really convincing.”
“I could tell,” he says miserably. “And I’m … I’m so sorry. I wanted to let you off the hook. I didn’t want to make you hate me. I can see how stupid that was, and I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
I can’t speak around the tightness in my throat; I try to smile, but it threatens to turn into a sob. Tam pulls me close, like he did that last day on my roof. “I’ve never been any good at saying the important things,” he says into my hair. “I registered for the army weeks before I left, but I didn’t have the guts to tell you until it was time to ship out.”
“Well, you’re not as brave as I always thought,” I murmur against his shoulder, breathing in deeply.
“Hey!” He laughs, and I can feel it in his chest. “Only when it’s about you, all right? I’d have told you years ago, only the words always felt like rubber when I tried to get them out.”
“Told me what?” I demand, pulling back slightly.
“Y-y-you know,” he stutters, and I’m sure he’s blushing.
“No, I want you to say it.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I say with a grin.
He plants a quick kiss on my nose.
“Cheater,” I say, feeling everything settle into place inside of me.
But the longer we walk, the quieter Tam becomes. When I look up at him, he turns away. “I’m not sure where you got this idea that you need me, Isla,” he says. “Seems like you’ve got everything pretty well sorted on your own.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I laugh, but he’s serious. “Fine, then. Can I keep you even if I don’t need you?” His fingers lace through mine, and I smile, stepping a little closer to him. A year ago, my stomach would have erupted in butterflies if our shoulders had touched when we sat next to each other.
It wasn’t long ago at all that I shied away at the thought of standing up for myself, of seeing new places and challenging the way things work. And Tam always thought that no matter where he went, it would be a beautiful and perfectly grand adventure. We’d both gotten such different things than we imagined we would. “Just think,” I say, spreading my free arm like Tam used to and putting on my best impression of him, “of all the amazing things we’ll do, the lives we’ll save, the sights we’ll see.”
Now it’s his turn to tease, affecting astonishment. “Isla Powe, asking for an adventure? I don’t believe it.”
“If you think all of this sounds like too much, I’ll understand.”
He watches me for what feels like an eternity. I used to worry when he looked at me for so long: Was I as pretty as I could be? Did he notice all of my imperfections? Was I talking too much? This time, none of that crosses my mind, and not caring makes me love him more than ever. Slowly, he shakes his head. “I don�
�t know why you’d choose me,” he says finally, taking me by surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“Even when we were kids, I wondered why you always stood next to me when any of the other boys would have loved to take you to the dances or share their lunch with you.” I almost laugh, but he means it. He doesn’t see me like everyone else always has, as ordinary and small. “I’m scarred, Isla, and different. I told you the things that I did, when I was with the army—”
“Tam,” I say, stopping and pulling my hand away from his and holding it open to him. “I’m marked, too. I wanted to be the same when I found you, but it didn’t work out that way.”
He’s quiet again, tracing my X in silence. I’ll never be rid of it, I think. But then he brings my palm to his mouth and kisses it gently, in the center of the brand, sending a shiver through me. I trail my fingers along his cheek, the skin still tight and pink from the burns. “We each have scars,” he says, smiling slightly.
I touch the locket absently where it sits in its rightful place around my neck again; he’s already hung his key just under the collar of his uniform. “I guess I feel like I grew up,” I say finally. “As if … I don’t know. We’ve changed so much.”
“It doesn’t have to be bad,” Tam whispers. The space between us and Curram’s manor grows wider and wider. Curram is dead, I think. It isn’t his manor anymore. It’s just a house. “We were bound to grow up eventually. No more hiding behind me, all right?”
“It’s a deal,” I say, and Tam grins like a little boy, his eyes crinkled and brimming with promises.
Tam’s arm comes around me and he pulls me closer, resting his chin on the top of my head as we walk. It’s getting colder; summer must be nearly at its close, and it’s strange to think that this will be the first autumn of my life that I won’t be starting down the cobbled streets to school each morning, pretending to have something in my shoe so that Tam will catch up and we can walk side by side, or letting him think he has surprised me with a handful of dry leaves raining down on my head.
Somewhere at home, in the old paper hatbox that was Mum’s, I’ve got the best leaves from each year: the ones Tam stuck in my hair and the ones we tried to make a pile out of on the sidewalks, from all of the poor, skinny city trees growing in manicured boxes. If my absence wasn’t noticed before by my schoolmates, maybe it will be now.