That night, alone in her bedroom, Caroline Avery examined the promise she had made to Great-Aunt Mildred. The silver chain still hung around her neck and from it dangled a pendant: precious metals entwined in a tangle, each twisted loop interlocking, but falling without shape against her chest as she let it drop. It gleamed in the candlelight: brass, copper, sliver and gold rings shining brilliantly against the soft white lace of her nightgown.
Caroline didn't understand. Her aunt had said that she was to keep it safe, and made her promise to never take it off – but to what end? How could she, Caroline, keep it safe and from whom? Who, she wondered, was looking for it? And what did it do? What did it all mean?
Perhaps Great-Aunt Mildred was simply ill, as Mother had said. Still, she had been so insistent, demanding that Caroline be left alone with her before the necklace was conferred and the vow extracted, making her swear to keep the secret hidden. It certainly was a puzzle. Playing idly with metal loops, Caroline reasoned that her promise would come to nothing. And if so, it would be all the easier to keep. She slid the pendent under the neckline of her nightgown and did up the top two buttons, so that the necklace was completely out of sight.
Caroline leaned over to blow out the candle, letting the darkness overtake her little room. Of course, the streetlight outside her window still shone through the curtains and crept faintly across the floor. She stared at the encroaching parallelogram of light and the whispering movement of the curtains and contemplated the strangeness of the past few days. It seemed to her that she had been able to do little else since they'd occurred.
Alone in her bedroom, in the darkness, the gentle heaviness of the jumbled metal loops resting on her sternum was oddly reassuring. Caroline felt an easy warmth spread through her body as the pendant rose and fell with every breath – each soft swell bringing an unforeseen restfulness. As sleep stole quietly through her eyelids to dim her consciousness, Caroline was not at all troubled by the strange deathbed promise she'd given to Great-Aunt Mildred, nor the mysterious present that seemed a charge rather than a gift.
9.
8.
Kitty stared at the documents she'd thieved, assessing the paper quality and the fineness of the hand, and wishing like spit that she could decipher it. Being an unlettered, unregistered unruhe had its occasional disadvantages. Still, she found the writing to be graceful yet surprisingly devoid of ornament, and the schematics were clear enough. She traced the line o f a spring as though she could reason out the meaning of the machine through a kind of tactile osmosis. Not that Kitty could ever begin assemblage, nor comprehend what the device could possibly do once constructed, but the images appeared well drafted: clean and precise. The paper was thick and soft – and unsoiled, or had been until her thorough examination. There was great wealth written in these pages, of that she was certain. If she were able to read, this dreadful mistake might have been mitigated, a laughable misunderstanding. For Deadmen do laugh.
But as matters stood, Kitty could not avoid this foreseeably unpleasant existence. With a modicum of regret, she folded away the plans. She was still ensconced in her haunt in the upper clerestory of Kilford Station; she'd dared not descend into the crowds for the Taker must surely be hunting her. He'd have noticed his missing billfold by now, she reasoned. So she was as good as dead. With no recourse, with no sanctuary, she was trapped above the station. She'd've had to scatter moments after the discovery of her mistake if she'd any hope of seeking the shelter of the Tiere. They would not welcome this burden. Kitty considered herself well and truly severed, as one would cut off an infected limb.
Oh they would grieve – Corva perhaps the least, despite the blood between them; Corva had always been practical. – But Kitty would not consider bringing her dangers upon them. Even if she dared in desperation to seek out her sister, she would be a ghost in Corva's eyes. No, she must suffer her trespasses alone.
Only now conscious of tears threatening to dampen and stain her dress and create incongruous, light smudges on her veil of anonymity; threatening to mark her as someone to whom life had taken an interest in subjecting to its smallest indignities, Kitty stifled the sobs; for she would not allow pity and desperation to reduce her very self, in all thought and action, to her immediate, though dire, circumstances. Kitty slowly uncurled, commanding her muscles individually to relax before allowing herself to stand. She tucked the purloined wallet into her most intimate garments, not daring to leave it secreted in the metal box hidden under a particularly large rock in one of unnumbered, unremarkable rubble mounds scattered between the ceilings of Kilford. She had to find a better hiding place; but first, her stomach gently insisted, she had to eat.
Kitty carefully made her way below, invisible to the masses eddying and swirling through the station. They moved beneath her, alone and oblivious to their solitude, as one mistakes company in a crowd of unknown, unnoticed strangers. All of these people, Kitty marveled, acting merely as decoration for the individual’s hurried commute, each anonymous as the drops of rain spattering in an unsteady staccato against the leaded glass panes, so intent on their own destinations that they hadn’t spare enough mind to perceive the person next to them, and certainly not the slight, grubby girl scurrying through places they had no notion to think she’d even be. It still surprised Kitty, the things people didn’t see.
Her descent lead through doors marked “Restricted Access” and “Authorized Personnel Only”, down straight ladders affixed to walls and masked by columns, and twisting staircases hidden in the gaps between the interior and the exterior of Kilford Station’s heavy cut stone face, until she slipped in with the ‘Habitants on their ways in their worlds. As one of the many, Kitty left Kilford and lost herself in the shadow-clothed back-alleys of respectability. It was time to become someone else for a while.
7.
The Dormitories weren't the most glamorous neighborhood of boarding houses, but the rooms were clean enough and the ceilings didn't leak too badly. And Corva had an arrangement with the publican of this particular establishment – a Mr. Dowelling, who kept several buildings including The Bitter Maid. For a reduced fee, her unruhe made regular use of one of the larger rooms; Corva paid in coin or trade based circumstantially on her financial situation and his mood. Tonight most of the Tiere were bunking in. Ducks, suddenly shy, clung to Corva's skirts with his good arm. The other was in a sling and bound tightly to his chest.
"What's this now?" asked an attractive boy, who looked to be venturing sweetly toward manhood. He sat on one of the beds next to a girl with remarkably similar features. He had been plaiting her hair, but paused when he'd noticed the new arrival.
"I've brought another one for you to mother, Hen," Corva said, pushing Ducks forward so that the rest of the Tiere could appraise him.
"What good is he?" asked the girl whose chestnut hair Hen had his fingers in.
"He survived a run in with a Taker, Henne. Nicked something off him too. "
Another of the unruhe whistled appreciatively. Corva withdrew the blue fabric from her bodice. All eyes went wide.
"Where's Kitty?" Hen asked. Corva blanched.
"She didn't show."
"Corva, is she–? Did he–?"
"She didn't show."
"You didn't say she were to meet a Taker, Corva." Henne said, her green eyes bright.
"There was no need," Corva said sharply. "No more about this now. Everyone say hello to Ducks." She placed a hand on his shoulder as he tried to squirm away from view. "Those two are Hen and Henne," she said, pointing out the pair on the bed. They looked a matched set with their heart shaped faces and delicate features. Hen smiled kindly at the young boy, who just burrowed further into Corva's skirts.
"They aren't even sibs, though they could pass for twins," Corva explained.
"Lucky for us," Hen said. Ducks was baffled by this statement,
"Makes us more 'spensive," said Henne as though this clarified things.
Corva ruffled Ducks hair. "People will pay for the pair of 'em, thinkin' they're gettin' more. Henne and Hen could be türen one day. Could've already been if they'd've left our little family. Specialty tastes, Ducky," she said.
His expression was all confusion, still. Corva laughed sweetly. Such innocence! "Never you mind, Ducky. Someone will explain it all when you're older."
The brutish body skulking in the corner gave a laugh that was more of a smirk – a short vicious explosion of mirth. Ducks drew back. He'd known that sort, all over muscles and a hard taste for cruelty.
"Oh behave, Ducky," Corva said and she ushered him forward. "It's only Kurr. And he won't touch a hair on your head. Will you Kurr?"
"Whatever you say, Corva." The reply came as a soft growl.
"He's a good lad really, Ducky. Looks after them as needs it." Corva said as she tenderly stroked the boy's hair. "But that's Ratter. Knows a lot of chappies does our Ratter."
The small shabby figure on one of the thin pallets littering the room looked up from his pile of ragged clutter – old boots; broken toys; articles of clothing, every one in need of mending. Each object had obviously been once fine but in disrepair for some time. A cracked pocket watch, its casing dented and battered, dangled from a snapped chain clutched in the boy's fingers. He offered a brief nod to the newcomer.
Ratter did not appear much older than Ducks nor were their circumstances markedly at variance, but the difference between the boys was immeasurable. Already Ratter's expression was sharp and closed. His squint eyes glittered with a shrewd understanding of the world and his place in it. He conveyed himself with the seriousness of one cusping adolescence. Ratter had ambitions. Whereas Duck's main advantage was his seeming innocence. His wide eyes lit with a disarming sweetness, his cheeks appeared overly full despite the gauntness of his frame, and his fragile features made one yearn to swaddle the child and protect him from his lot. In short, he looked a bit like a cherub who had fallen into a coal bin. He stared, wide-eyed, at the gathering of souls, each so varied and distinct, and yet not at odds with the disparity, rather like Ratter's fine trash.
"And that's the lot of us–"
"Save Kitty," Kurr said.
"Save Kitty," Corva amended.
"D'ya think–?" Hen began.
"I think that wench can take care of herself. Be the delight of her to have us lose our heads. Now, who pulled today?"
The talk in the room turned to business.
"D'ya think Kitty met her Taker?" Hen whispered into his partner's hair.
"I think Corva's right, Hen," Henne said. "Kitty can take care of herself.