2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Mina dug her nails into her palms. The slight pain steadied her and eased the nausea that had flared as she negotiated the filth and stagnant water. The reality of Wild Court Rookery was more intense than what her imagination had conjured when Matron had said she thought Enzo might be here. Closed and overcrowded, the streets teemed with mules, aged ponies, mangy dogs, hissing cats, pigeons, and bare-footed children.

Oh, the children.

Mina buried her hands in her skirts to hide their trembling.

‘Save the sermon, Fischer,' Enzo called from where he sat crouched. His face, half lit by the fire in the furnace, twisted into condescension. ‘Hell doesn't care for a lesson from Matron.'

So much flint, so much harshness. He'd grown into a wall of a man, both in looks and stubbornness. Not so much in height—like most orphans, Enzo barely scraped five feet—but in his shoulders, his chest, his body, he could have been built from the surrounding bricks. Even as he eased back on his haunches to rest an elbow on his knee, he moved with a jagged stiffness. Dark hair, full cheeks, no smile… so similar, yet so very different. A hint of red tinged his knuckles—chills from the wind, or from dispensing justice? Probably best not to ask. The scraggly boy who had befriended her at the orphanage gate, who had taken her tiny hand in his and showed her the dorms, the kitchens and the classrooms of the Duke Street orphanage, had died and been buried somewhere in these slums. This brute was all that remained.

‘It's not a message from Matron.' Her voice started to shake, but she snapped it off.

Breathe, Mina. This isn't about you anymore.

As Mina inhaled confidence, the world swam, and she had to pause to brace herself against the door. Confidence had never smelt like this.

Enzo chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet. He crossed the room with his easy gait. Not a swagger—Enzo understood his place on the bottom rung of the ladder—but with purpose. He may be a London rat, but he clearly revelled in it. She had always dared to dream higher than an orphan girl should. Her dreams had given her nothing but trouble. Reality had served Enzo well.

‘You have a proper servant's voice now. Not a hint of deutsche left in you. Shame. I liked it.' He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. ‘What's wrong with our plan?'

‘Bow Street runners. They're ramping up. And every noble leaving town at the end of the season has got their own men on the watch. I heard them talking in the kitchens at Morton House.' She had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. ‘They're saying they miss the days when thieves were hung, not tried and transported. They still give the boat, you know. And it's no co-incidence that many a caught man is black and blue when he stands before the judge.'

He tilted his head, and half his mouth smirked, the rest not bothering to respond. ‘Did concern for our welfare bring you down here? You could have saved yourself the hassle. We can get around the watch, and we know the alleys better than Bow Street.'

Fire burned in her cheeks as anxious nausea wrecked her stomach. She had, naively, expected more than his disdain. She'd thought that a sliver of information might make him more amenable.

There was nothing else for it.

‘I need your help,' she confessed.

‘My help? Surely not.'

Under the harshness, she sensed surprise. Mina looked up with a spark of hope. ‘Yes, your help. I cannot go to Matron, and even if I could, she wouldn't intervene. I was sent out on my first placement. And I've been dismissed.'

She waited for his derisive laughter, but there was nothing but a huff. Enzo raised a curious eyebrow, his eyes narrowing as he watched her, waiting.

‘They owe me a month's work,' she continued. ‘But they won't pay, saying twenty-seven days ain't a month. But it's closer to full than naught, and I need my wages. I know where they keep them. I need some help, getting past the locks, and taking back what's owed to me.'

‘Interesting proposition.' Enzo drummed his fingers against his bicep. ‘What's in it for me? You'll give me directions to the best loot in the caste? Or better again, the name of some uppity wish-me-good-willy who has dreams of emulating his betters, and will pay handsomely for some imagined family heirlooms?'

‘I can't be a part of thieving. Not that sort.' Mina scrunched and released great bunches of her skirts, struggling with their weight, and trying to hold fast to what had dragged her to the darkest dens of London, to the kind of place that Duke Street had been made to keep people like her out of. He asked too much. Far too much. ‘I knew I shouldn't have come. I'll find another way.'

‘Slow up.' Enzo grabbed her shoulder before she turned away. The smirk vanished, and for the briefest moment he resembled the boy that had told her not to cry and taken her by the hand. ‘I was only teasing. If you need me, I'm here. Duke Street kids stick together. Remember?'

‘No, they don't. You left.' More hurt than she would have liked laced her words, and the memory of his departure brought a slight sting to her eyes.

‘But you still knew you could come to me, didn't you?'

He pinned her with his sharp eyes, deep brown, and in the dull light, almost black with dilated pupils. With his dark mess of ruffled hair, she couldn't be sure where shadows ended, and the man began. Even in the orphanage, confessions and information had tumbled out when Enzo set his gaze on someone. No one survived his look.

Mina nodded. ‘It wasn't easy to find you. I went to the orphanage to ask Matron if she knew where you were. She said she'd heard a rumour you were here, and if I found you, I should give you this.'

Mina pulled the parchment envelope from her pocket. Its corners had yellowed with age, yet the heavy gum seal still clung firm, hiding secrets beneath the delicate ridge made by the flap. His name—his full name—had been blazoned across the front in long, flowing curls and loops of letters, ending with a small flourish at the end. A thoughtful little dot, like a commitment, hinted at an educated hand. In the gloom, the envelope took on its own sparkling luminescence.

A letter. All the orphans dreamt of one, even her, who had known what had happened to her mother and that her father had always been gone. If not a parent, they all dreamed of some long-lost relative finding them, revealing everything that had happened to leave them abandoned to fate so young, and now offering them a family, a future and a home. It was the only reason any orphan received a letter. Who else would write to them?

She held it out, and a mixture of curiosity and envy twisted her already indelicate stomach.

Enzo stared at the envelope like he struggled to read, even though she knew he had read as well as Matron, so well that when no one was looking, he'd help the younger ones who struggled. With a hand like lightning, he snatched it from her grasp, folded it into a lopsided half, then shoved it into his coat pocket.

‘Likely a bill from her Majesty, demanding restitution for the strain we all put on the public purse. Do you need somewhere to sleep? Mrs Wembly has got three families staying with her, but she's never turned away a hard case.'

Mina shook her head. ‘I have a bed at the St. George, in Southwark. I'm sharing with my friend Patsy, who works nights at a tavern. We take sleeping shifts.'

He nodded like he knew the place. ‘I'll meet you there in the morning. You can show me this house, and we can work out a plan to get your wages.' He slung a look over his shoulder, at the small furnace, where a burly man sat hunched, poking at the fire.

‘Aren't you going to open your letter?' she asked.

‘No.'

‘But Enzo… it's a letter.'

‘Seamus!'

‘Yes Duke?' A small man with a thick Irish accent and a flat tweed cap lumbered out of the shadows.

‘An escort, if you will.' Enzo turned to her. ‘Seamus will make sure you're safe, so don't fret. No one will bother you until the edge of the rookery. After that, walk fast. There's a fog settling in.'

His back served as her dismissal. Habit made her half bob, and she chided herself.

He wasn't a real duke, and he didn't need her deference.