Broken Guns

“Wo ist deine familie, Emery?” Ezra asked as they lay together in the room above the printing house, each comfortable on their own side of the joined bed. They had not separated it again even after Ezra’s admission, and neither of them seemed inclined to make mention of doing so. The lantern was lit on the hearth and burning low, and Ezra was merely shapes and shadows even this close.

“Beerdigt,” Emmerich said, and Ezra shifted and rolled over to face him. His hand moved across the space between them, and touched Emmerich gently on the wrist.

“Alle?”

Emmerich nodded. Ezra was looking at him now, with that same genuine attentiveness that he often gave, the kind that Emmerich was unused to receiving. That someone cared enough to listen to him, to want to know things about him; his life, his family, where he had come from. He didn’t think about any of it often, didn’t like the memories and the sorrow that came with it, but Ezra had told him about his own wounded past and it seemed only fair.

“Meine Mutter...” he began, and then stopped with the realization that Ezra had begun the conversation in Deute but might not actually be able to follow everything if it continued that way. It had been familiar to slip into the comfort of his own language, speaking without having to carefully construct everything in his mind before allowing it out. But he still wasn’t sure just how much Ezra knew, despite the education he would have had as the son of a lord. Emmerich couldn’t imagine this language had ever been part of his lessons.

“My mother died when I was just seven,” he continued instead. “She left myself, my younger sister and brother, my father. He was a good honest man, hard-working, and he knew how to provide for our family. But it was difficult for him to raise us alone. I was attending school then, but I stopped, to help at home.”

Emmerich turned his face up towards the ceiling, which he could not see in the dimness of the room. “Even then, we didn’t survive long. My father fell into debt, and we suffered for it. Justus and Odila were gone not far apart from each other, they were simply too young—one gone of disease and the other just of…well, we never had enough to eat. As for my father...eventually, his debts were the end of him.”

Ezra’s arm moved from Emmerich’s wrist, up along his arm and to his chest, carefully resting across Emmerich’s ribs. It was both comfortable and calming, and Emmerich found nothing too odd about it other than the way it made him much more aware of his own breathing under the heaviness of Ezra’s limb. Ezra’s forehead was tucked against his shoulder, and as he spoke his voice was warm and muffled into Emmerich’s shirtsleeve.

“Then how did you get here, to the Kingshore?”

“Bartered my way onto a merchant ship,” Ezra said. “She needed small repairs, I told them I could do some of it if they’d only take me out of the diocet with them. I didn’t care much where they were headed. I happened to get off ship here.”

“And then what?”

“And then...that’s where I stayed. I worked at the close, helped with merchant freight, loading and unloading and such. But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and what I couldn’t get with what I was paid, I had to steal. For a long time I hated it, because my father—“ Emmerich held his breath for a moment, then let it out carefully. “My father would have been disappointed in me for it.”

Ezra lifted his head and looked at him. “For living?”

“For not doing so honestly.”

“It’s a rare man that can do that,” Ezra said quietly. “You oughtn’t be ashamed.”

But Emmerich was, and terribly so. He had left some of his past unspoken, such as the way he had tried to help his father by getting down on his knees for a few collectors, despite his age at the time—which had even, sometimes, seemed a drawing point—and even then it hadn’t been enough. His father had still been robbed and murdered for his debts in his own workshop, and Emmerich had been so broken, so horrified, that he hadn’t been able to stay in the only home he’d known for even a fortnight afterwards.

That way of surviving hadn’t stopped once he’d stepped foot on the Kingshore, either. Canalcourt was a true city, not a village like Dachstrauβ, and it devoured anyone without the strength and will to resist it. Emmerich had nearly foundered, and it was only small bits of luck at opportune times that had kept him from coming out face-down in a filthy ditch in the rookeries. He hadn’t spoken a single acceptable language, he’d had no money and no manner in which to prove his adequate skills in handiwork. He’d had only the one crude ability that needed no words to demonstrate and was understood by anyone with blood in their body.

But he hadn’t needed to do any of that in years, not since joining Allister’s crew. The only man who touched him with any regularity now was Archie, and that was mutually wanted and pleasing. But he still remembered, still woke some nights with the memory of rough men and rougher hands, dark shadowed places and a foul taste in his mouth. There was a part of it that would never quite leave him, and there was no manner in which he could explain it to Ezra and be understood.

Against his shoulder, Ezra snuffled and wriggled closer, sighing in a drowsy manner that made Emmerich smile. He would let the boy sleep like this if he wanted, tucked close against him, if only because it was quite the opposite of how he’d thought Ezra would be with him now. He had expected, after Ezra had revealed himself fully, that he would become careful and distant in the wake of it, ashamed of what Emmerich knew. But it seemed to have compressed the space between them instead, as though Ezra’s desperate hold on his secret had been a last barricade. And with it known, Ezra was unexpectedly affectionate—at ease with Emmerich’s acceptance of him.

#

Emmerich was awoken by a loud row going on just outside the door. One voice was clearly Ezra’s and the other belonged to a young woman, and as Emmerich rolled over and groped his way out of the bedding, he became quite sure it was Luca’s daughter. Beyond the window the sky was still dark and reddish with fire-smoke; not quite yet morning and no longer night. An uncomfortable hour to be woken at, and Emmerich wondered why Ezra was awake now at all. Vena was likely returned from her mysterious place of employ, and perhaps that was the cause of all the shouting. It had clearly set Ezra at unease before, that she had lied about it, and so poorly at that.

When Emmerich pushed the door open and peered into the hall, Ezra and Vena were not an armslength apart, leaning into each other’s faces and still exchanging unfamiliar heated words that Emmerich couldn’t understand a single syllable of. Vena was carrying an oil lamp and Ezra was holding a bit of rushlight that was burning near to its clips in the iron holder, and both filled the hall with smoky orange light. It was surprising that Luca had not heard them himself and come out as well, but perhaps it was for the best that he did not. Vena was the more wound up of the two, nothing but anger in her face and fierceness in her words.

Emmerich moved to Ezra’s side and the boy faltered at once, glancing at him and winding down, his fervor ebbing away. Vena snapped out another few words at him but Ezra seemed to have lost the fight even before Emmerich had come out into the corridor, and he pressed himself slightly into Emmerich’s shoulder as if to glean strength from him. Vena’s eyes moved sharply between them, and Emmerich wondered what it was she was seeing there.

“Did we wake you?” Ezra spoke quietly into the ringing silence left by the argument, and Emmerich shook his head.

“No,” he lied, and could tell Ezra knew it. “What’s the matter here?”

“There’s nothing,” Vena said. Her dark eyes glittered in the light of her lamp as she stared at Emmerich. Blocks of light stretched across her face against blue shadows. “Nothing that’s any of your concern.”

“Vena,” Ezra said, his tone a warning.

“Nor is it any of yours!” she spat at him, but there was a tremble to her mouth. Emmerich saw it plainly, but Ezra either did not or was too worked up to pay any close mind to it.

“You think I won’t go to your father, but I will,” he said.

“You’d only be hurting us,” said Vena. “We don’t do well here, Ezra, you must have seen! Papa may have told you he prefers to live here, but he doesn’t, we lost the house to his debts, and what is it to you if I help to keep this place from becoming another payment to some debt collector? It has to be done, and Papa can only take so much of it!”

“If you had only told me—“ Ezra began hotly, and Emmerich had the thought that they were simply restarting their same row, only in another language this round of it. Vena stamped her foot, setting the floorboards creaking, and Emmerich cast another look towards the door that lead to Luca’s quarters.

“Told you how?” Vena demanded. “You always disappear, for months at a time, we’ve not even seen you for nearly a year now—“

“I’ve my own problems as well!” Ezra said. “You can’t have gotten in such trouble in only a year, you weren’t so bad off then—“

Ezra voice was rising with every word, and Emmerich put his hand to his arm that held the rushlight, gripping at him gently.

“It won’t matter if you go to Luca or not,” he said, softly. “Carrying on like this, you’ll wake him soon enough.”

Though the words were meant for Ezra, Vena heard them as well, for she pressed her lips together and the lantern in her hand shook.

“Ezra,” she said, very quietly, looking downwards at her shoes. They were thin and muddied and patched beneath the hem of her skirt. “Don’t do this, not now. If you help me here, I’ll try to help you.”

“With what?” said Ezra crossly, clearly not in the proper humor for compromising or even listening.

“You’ve said you have problems, you’ve told me you’re in trouble,” Vena said. “It must be worse than usual, as you’ve been hiding here for days. I can only imagine it’s with your...employer.”

“Partly,” Ezra muttered.

Vena let out a breath, clenching her fist against the top of her lantern. She glanced between Ezra and Emmerich again, mouth set. She seemed as though she were weighing something within her mind, with some difficulty.

“Come to the Thistledown today, then,” she said at length. “All sorts of things happen there; sit long enough and I’m sure you’ll overhear something useful to you.”

“Fine,” said Ezra tersely, while Emmerich startled at the name she had said. He knew of the place, had been there on occasion while working for Allister, though Ezra clearly was not similarly familiar with it. Had he been, there might have been another row starting.

#

The Thistledown was set across the river, the way to it through an even more unpleasant part of the city than where Emmerich and Ezra had spent that first night on the edge of the rookery. They had to cross Moxmill Bridge into Peddleweight, where houses were hardly better than bits of wood leant up against each other, low little hovels with greasy fires burning in make-shift hearths, leaking black smoke low into the air. Despite the affluence of the Order, there were parts of the city it had not yet dared to touch, even after its several-decade governance here. South of the river was much unchanged from what it must have been like before the city was converted, and reminded Emmerich of the aughterland villages around where he had grown up—poor, crowded, and dismal.

Moving from Peddleweight to St Falgars improved the quality of the construction to thicker wood and some stone—it no longer appeared as though one good shove would send the entire quarter collapsing in on itself—and a few buildings even risked a first or second story. The streets here in the borough were thick with mud and the smell and sound of animals. Scrawny goats and stocky pigs were led through the muck by weary crofters, and frantic geese honked as they flapped from corner to corner, disturbed by heavy carts bogging and sloshing through puddles. The people here were colored as dingy grey and brown as the sky above them and the streets below, moving about in raggedy coats and worn boots, rough faces and hard eyes beneath woolen caps and scarves.

Emmerich was the one who lead them, as he knew roughly where the Thistledown was; at least what area of St Falgars it lay in. Vena had gone on ahead of them in the early morning hours, telling them an address but nothing much further than that. Emmerich was of an opinion that she might be hoping they’d be unable to find it at all, as many of the streets here were unnamed or had had their signs stolen long ago for use as kindling. But Emmerich had been there and remembered well enough, and it wasn’t very long at all before he and Ezra came upon it, set on a junction of two narrow streets.

The Thistledown was a stout three-story building of rough wood, yellowish windows, and the laundered rags flapping out from windows and railings. A launderers was what it somewhat convincingly appeared to be from the outside, the cover it gave itself to avoid the Order shutting it down. Though there were hardly any men of the CC ever on this side of the river, and it was even more rare for them to enforce their laws here. The south boroughs did not welcome their presence and swelled up against them, as though they had no mind to be infested with unwelcome regulations and ways of life.

The women who worked here—Emmerich could hardly call them girls, though most of them were not much more than that—were thin and bony, not the well-kept flushed judies of the Prince and Rose. They looked around with old eyes and stretched smiles beneath painted lips. Their clientele were rougher, harsher, and demanding men with only a few coin and determination to get all they could out of what they paid.

“What is this,” Ezra said in a taught voice as they came to stand before the brothel’s doors, looking up at the greasy, lamp-lit windows through the brown of the air and the stink of the mud.

“What does it look like, Ezra,” Emmerich said.

Ezra spat out a word in a language Emmerich did not know, and then he pushed forward and marched through the door of the Thistledown, nearly knocking aside a young girl in an old stained dress as he did. Emmerich followed him peaceably, and cast an apologetic look to the girl as he did. Her eyes were only hard and careless in return, as he clearly did not look the sort to be spending any amount of coin there, in his own tattered and worn clothes, with his growth of beard and own air of desperation about him. He was not much better-off than these women even now, had once done the same sorts of things to survive, and perhaps it was still recognizable in him.

An errant goose flapped into Emmerich’s path as he approached the door, and he nudged it out of the way with his boot and got a vicious peck for his efforts. Once inside, the brothel’s interior was dank and dim, full of smoke and steam. Several large dolly tubs sodden clothes in a sort of large still room, to the left of a thick-hewn stair. To the right was a small foyer of low couches, meant for men to smoke and drink and chose their pleasure. There were a few women hanging about here, though this appeared to be an hour of very little business and more of their legitimate work. The dresses they wore laced in the front and were cut low below the fabric of the blouses beneath, and always reminded him of the Dirndlegewand of his home. Though these were clearly made this way to entice, to call attention to the woman’s body, especially as they bent forward to beat at the tubs with their possing-sticks.

Emmerich caught no real attention from any of them, and he still supposed it was because he was not acting the part of a client. It was easy enough to locate Ezra, with his being the only loud male voice rising inside the place. Clearly he had found Vena already, and they’d taken up their row again. Emmerich found them both at the back of the warm still room, the air damp and heavy with steam. The large windows opened to the street to allow some of it out, which also brought in the stench of the gutters. Ezra had Vena by the shoulders, gripping her hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

“Is this what you do?” Ezra was demanding of her. “Don’t tell me it’s all washing out clothes!”

“I don’t do it for your approval, Ezra!” Vena shouted. She was red in the face and her fists were clenched at her sides. “I oughtn’t have even told you at all, I just knew you’d have a fit over it!”

“I rather think I’m entitled to, if you’ve turned yourself into some sort of...of left-handed wife!” Ezra shouted back, and was rewarded for it by a quick and vicious slap across his face from Vena’s hand. The strike whipped Ezra’s head towards his shoulder, and the ringing sound of it stopped the work and the conversations of all of the women in the still room. Emmerich paused in his way across to them, stopped by the sudden hush and startled himself by what Vena had done.

Ezra heaved in a sudden breath, drawing back his shoulders and turning his head about again. Then without a word, he turned on his heel and stormed from the room, pushing unseeingly past Emmerich and heading for the brothel’s doors. Vena, in turn, fled into the building, disappearing through a narrow door at the back of the still room. After a moment, Emmerich chose to follow her.

He found her in a cupboard, the door ajar, sitting on an upturned wooden bucket amongst dusty shelves of odds and ends. She was not weeping as Emmerich had somewhat expected—instead she muttered furiously to herself and every so often kicked out at the cupboard wall with her foot, causing the shelves to rattle and squeak. Emmerich came to the door of the cupboard and rapped on it with his knuckles to catch her attention, which he received immediately.

“What do you want?” Vena said fiercely, glaring at him from over her shoulder. “Come to tell me how awful I am as well?”

“Vena, listen to me,” Emmerich said, and then, after the look she gave him, “no, listen to me speak. The way that I do.”

“You’ve an accent, so,” Vena sniffed, rubbing at her nose.

“So. I know what it is to be an immigrant here; how difficult it is. I know what it is to do this.”

Vena’s laugh was sharp and mirthless. “Of course you do,” she said. “I’m certain Ezra told you to come and—“

“Ezra told me nothing. He’s gone outside to clear his head.” Emmerich was reasonably sure Ezra hadn’t gone far, and that he would come back. If he wasn’t of a mind to, then....well, it was fortunate, and perhaps strange, that Emmerich felt more at ease here than he would have if Ezra had left him alone at Chambért’s shop. Working for Allister had not left him a stranger to houses of prostitution, and as he was not tempted by anything inside of them they were a familiar setting that he did not especially care for, but at least understood.

Vena had only tightened her mouth at him and crossed her arms across her slim body, one bony shoulder poking through the worn fabric of her blouse. She was so very young, but no younger than Emmerich had been himself when he had begun this very same thing. He did wish it was different, but so often it simply couldn’t be.

“Ezra cares for you, it’s plain to see,” Emmerich added, more gently, and Vena scoffed a bit.

“Too much; I never asked for him to play at being my brother, though he certainly acts it,” she said. “It’s none of his concern how I employ myself, and he does far worse.”

Emmerich was tempted, for a moment, to ask of what sort of worse things Ezra did. Killed men, he imagined, as he could not quite forget the coldness with which Ezra had told Chambért they would shoot his nephew if he did not cooperate. But that was the way of it, living as they did, and Emmerich was only fortunate that he’d not yet had to do the same. Before this all ended, he was certain he would no longer be able to claim that his hands were clean of blood.

He took a bucket for himself then and upended it, while Vena watched him with some distrust. They had not met on favorable terms, nor had any of their encounters since been much better. Truly, their only real connection was through Ezra.

“You do it to help your father,” he said, and Vena nodded stiffly. “As I did.”

Vena’s countenance lifted somewhat. “And?”

“And it wasn’t of any use. I did these things, and it wasn’t enough.”

Her fists clenched atop her thin knees. “It is enough,” she insisted. “What I bring back to Papa keeps us from losing what we have left.”

“Do you think he shares the entirety of his burdens with you?” Emmerich said, and Vena frowned and stared away into the back of the cupboard. “Whatever troubles your father has, you can’t mend them with doing this. He wouldn’t want this for you. No father would.”

“But then...what can I do?” Vena said, her shoulders hunching. “I can’t simply do nothing.”

“I never found the answer to that myself,” Emmerich said, twisting his hands together between his knees. “But I would like to help you, if I could.”

Vena peered at him strangely. “Would you,” she said. “All Ezra’s done is shout at me about it.”

“So I’ve heard,” Emmerich said, and Vena offered him a wry smile. She watched him for a moment longer, and then pressed her palms against her legs and sighed.

“You’re not very much like him, you know,” she said. “He’s quite thick sometimes. He can’t see why there’s no avoiding doing certain things, thinks that we should all be better than what we’ve no choice but to do. As if there’s some other way to live without sinking.”

Because he is a lord, and some part of him still doesn’t fully understand, Emmerich thought but did not say. If Vena did not know Ezra’s origins, it would not be Emmerich’s place to tell of it.

“He does mean well,” he said instead, for that he was sure of. “Your family is dear to him.”

“And you?” said Vena. “What does my family mean to you?”

“The same as it does to him,” Emmerich said. “Whatever is important to him is equally my concern, at least for now. We’ve—the trouble we’re in, well...we’ve got to survive together, and you and your father are part of what he needs to do that. It’s your sake for my own.”

“Well,” Vena said, and nearly smiled. “At least you’re honest about it.”

#

It was long minutes before Ezra came back to them, grim and silent at first, refusing to look at Vena and hardly even at Emmerich either. They had taken to a shabby settee in the small front area, a sort of open parlor, before the stair. Emmerich had tried to question Vena in vain about her employment here, receiving very little in the way of answers. He was mostly doing it for Ezra’s sake, which perhaps Vena realized—thus her silence on the subject.

Ezra only made the atmosphere between them far more tense, and there was very little conversation between them all once he had taken a seat to Emmerich’s right, placing himself as far from Vena as he could. Emmerich was unsure of what it was they were even doing, here at the moment—he knew that Vena’s promise to help them had not interested Ezra so much as learning where she worked. He was not sure how Vena could have helped to begin with, as even though men on the wrong side of the law often came here, it was unlikely that any of them could be useful to them. It would not be wise to spread the knowledge of their predicament too widely.

A few minutes had passed when a willowy young man came down the stair. He wore a loose linen shirt the color of rust, hanging open at the chest, and his trousers were dark and clung tightly against his legs, as though made for a smaller man. He spotted the three of them upon the settee and came to them, swaying his hips as he moved.

“Oh, Adia,” he said to Vena, and ruffled the top of her dark hair. “Who’s this you’re entertaining?”

Vena made a huffing sound through her teeth. “You—“ she began, but the boy leant right over her and offered his hand out to Emmerich, who was closest to him. His face was elegant, perhaps even prettier than Ezra’s, with full pink lips and grey eyes, pale skin beneath the grime and dirt. His golden hair hung about his face in lank curls. He couldn’t have been much older than Vena, or much younger than Ezra. Despite the youth of his face and adolescent slant to his body, there was a hardness in his eyes, the same resigned detachment that was in Vena’s, in all of the women there.

“Lilin Gedfrey,” he said. Despite the soft look of him, his hand was callused and hard when Emmerich took it.

“You work here as well?” Ezra said, the first words he had said since returning inside. He sounded surprised, and Emmerich knew why. He had never heard of a man being employed at this type of work before. And the only thing he could think of was that had he known about Lilin, he might not have visited Archie so often. It was a terribly ill-placed thought and he felt ashamed for it, but there was a heat creeping up from his collar nonetheless.

“Oh, he only lives here,” Vena said, still eyeing Lilin with exasperation. “Pays his rent in cleaning and cooking. Yet he still manages to do very little of the work he’s meant to, as he’s always working on other things.”

“It’s not my fault if some men don’t want a girl,” Lilin said with a laugh. He drew a hand down his delicate shoulder, traced two fingers slowly down across the center of his pale chest, in the open space left by his shirt. He caught Ezra staring at him, watching the movement, and his lips pulled into a smile. “For those ones, I’m here.”

Ezra swayed forward slightly, lamplight bright in his widened eyes. Emmerich coughed, clearing his throat loudly, and Lilin leaned back. He was still smiling, still watching at Ezra, who seemed near captivated by him. Vena only looked irritated.

“Lilin,” she said. “Stop trying to charm everyone you meet. Most men only favor you because you look so much like a girl.”

Lilin’s pink mouth curved further and he leant forward, planting one hand on the frayed arm of the settee and using the other to reach forward to cup his fingers around the front of Vena’s thin blouse.

“None of these on me,” he said, and Vena leant forward herself, to reach in between Lilin’s legs and take firm hold of what was there.

“Going to be none of these on you, either,” she said, with a light squeeze of her fingers, “if you keep at it.”

“Vena,” Ezra said faintly, looking shocked, and if he had known the girl since she was twelve than Emmerich could see why. Both Vena and Lilin laughed, and took their hands off each other.

“He calls you by that,” Lillin said with something of a smirk. “He must be a special one, then.”

“Not hardly,” Vena said. “Lilin, go back to work—where you’re meant to be—or at the very least find some man and take yourself upstairs. Make yourself useful, is what I mean, as you’re not wanted here.”

“Hm,” said Lilin, his gaze flickering to Ezra once more. Then he laughed. “I’m afraid these are the only men here.”

“And they don’t want you,” Vena replied promptly. “I’ll call for Miss Ingsbel, Lilin, I really will, and she’ll have you out on your ear.”

“Oh, all right,” Lilin said. He flicked at Vena’s hair once more before turning to leave, though his eyes lingered on Ezra for a moment before he did. Emmerich pressed his tongue hard against the backs of his teeth to keep from saying anything out of place.

“Miss Ingsbel?” Ezra spoke up. The name had a slight familiarity to Emmerich, though he could not place it.

“The procuress here,” said Vena.

“Do you think I might speak with her?” Emmerich asked, and both Ezra and Vena looked to him. Ezra’s countenance was startled and somewhat irate, but Vena’s expression was much harder. Yet, she didn’t appear to have an argument against it.

“Fine, I suppose,” she said. “She’ll be in her office, first door at the top of the stair.”

#

Miss Ingsbel was a slight, dark-haired woman of some five and thirty years. Emmerich found her seated behind a small davenport in the room that Vena had pointed him towards, little better than a narrow corridor wedged behind a door at the top of the stair. When he entered the room, she had barely glanced up; only kept on writing in a large ledger with a rather fancy and incongruent brass dip-pen.

“Come in all the way and close the door,” she said. Her voice was soft and surprisingly sweet, though very firm. Emmerich came in all the way and closed the door. It was only then that Miss Ingsbel looked up at him.

“Hm,” she said, sitting back somewhat in her chair. “I was not expecting you, whoever you are.”

“No, I suppose not,” Emmerich agreed. “I only—I just wished to ask about one of your girls. Vena.”

“I suppose you mean Adia,” said Miss Ingsbel. “As that’s how she’s called.”

“Then, yes,” Emmerich said. “I meant her.”

Miss Ingsbel put the dip-pen down to the side of the ledger, and folded her hands across the pages. “I must inform you that I do not sell my girls to clients, I simply won’t hear of it.”

“Oh, no, you’ve misunderstood me,” Emmerich said hastily. “I’ve no interest in—Vena is a friend, only a friend.”

Miss Ingsbel’s brow lifted. “Well then. Mister...?”

“Mandelbrauss.”

“What a mouthful,” Miss Ingsbel said with some distaste. “Your given name, then.”

“Emmerich.”

“Somewhat better.” Miss Ingsbel rose from her desk and came about to him. She was dressed simply in blues, which were quite flattering to her darker complexion, the near ink-color of her hair and umber of her eyes. “If you’ve no interest in her as a woman, Emmerich, why are you here?”

“I only wanted to know of her well-being,” Emmerich said, stammering slightly over his words. The procuress came up only to his shoulder, but she had an air of cold fierceness about her that Emmerich did not want to cross. “How long had she been employed here?”

“Just over seven months.” Miss Ingsbel considered him from beneath heavy eyelashes. “But you would know that, being a friend.”

“Well, no, I—,” Emmerich decided that it was quite useless, lying to this woman. “I’ve only just recently met her. But she means a great deal to someone...whom I care about.”

“Sounds complicated indeed,” said Miss Ingsbel. “But I assure you, she is as well taken care of as is possible to be, in a place such as this.”

“In a place such as this.”

Miss Ingsbel’s gaze grew sharper. “I’m well aware of the business that I run, Mr Mandelbrauss, and what it is. But I also endeavor to take care of these women, and to keep them safe. This is a profession that will always be practiced, and I may as well look out for as many as I am able, while I hold this position.”

Emmerich did not inquire as to how she had come to hold the position, as he thought he already might know. He had looked into her eyes and seen. “And how do you keep them safe?” he asked instead, and something of a smile crossed over Miss Ingsbel’s lips.

“Would you like to come closer to see?” she said, and Emmerich was quite sure he did not want to. But nevertheless, Miss Ingsbel stepped very near to him, her hand going to her layered skirts. Emmerich had only a moment to take in a breath before there was the unmistakable press of a pistol against his belly, cold metal flashing between them.

“You must not think us easily frightened because of our profession, or sex,” said Miss Ingsbel. “Perhaps you are used to establishments of the north side, where procurers have as much sympathy for their wards as an orange-girl for her fruits. I assure you it is not so, here. We live hard lives together and we look out for each other.”

“I—I meant no offense.”

“No, you didn’t.” The touch of the pistol disappeared, and Emmerich allowed himself to exhale again. “Nor did I mean to shoot you. Still, the effect is quite the same, isn’t it?”

“I think I...ought to go,” Emmerich said.

“As it pleases you,” said Miss Ingsbel, her pistol vanishing back into her skirts. Emmerich took steps towards the door, his eyes fixed on Miss Ingsbel. Even though she had proclaimed no ill will towards him, he would not turn his back on anyone he knew to be holding a weapon. She only watched him with a slight smile, a tilt to her head and her fingertips steepled together, upside-down, at her waist. She did not move from her position as Emmerich got into the corridor outside and pulled the door shut between them.

For a moment he stood there, hands pressed to the worn wood of the door, unsure of exactly what had just transpired. He did not know if he had made an enemy of her, or earned her esteem. He hoped for the latter, but he had never before met a woman quite like Miss Ingsbel. He was even, perhaps, a little bit afraid of her.

Though he did now feel as though Ezra had little to worry about over Vena’s safety here, and he was sure the boy would appreciate that if nothing else. Emmerich turned back to the stairs, intent on going back to Ezra and telling him of his encounter with Miss Ingsbel. He did not have to go far to find him, for as soon as he went around the corner he found Ezra and Lilin speaking to each other at the foot of them.

Lilin stood with hips canted out, hands hooked in the waistband of his trousers, closer to Ezra than was truly necessary. Ezra was smiling, one arm draped carelessly around the banister and the carved post of the end tucked against his shoulder, leaning there. Their voices were quiet, and Emmerich was not near enough to hear their words. They were not touching, but their eyes did not linger entirely on each other’s faces, and Lilin’s attire was quite far from modest.

The two were likely of an age, and even though Lilin was some kind of whore, perhaps they were well suited to each other. They clearly got on well together and Emmerich had seen the way Ezra’s attention had been captured when Lilin had been touching himself, speaking of fucking men. If this was the kind of thing that excited Ezra, then...Emmerich had no business interfering. They did make a pretty sight together, one that Emmerich couldn’t look at for long.

He did not have to. Lilin clasped Ezra by the shoulder and drew him away from the stair, back towards the still room. Ezra followed him readily, his own hand falling to Lilin’s shoulder in turn. Emmerich descended the last flight of stairs in time to see them disappear behind the wall, into the steam and quiet murmurs of the women at work. Emmerich went in the opposite direction then, making his way back to the room beyond the stairs, the dingy back area where men smoked and drank and generally partook of all other illegal activities available within the house, other than the services of the women. This was where he had spent his time in the very few occasions he had been here before, to meet with men Allister had sent him to receive packages or letters from. It was not often he had been sent here, as Allister had done very little business south of the river.

The room was empty now, filled only with shadows and a lingering haze. The rough curtains were drawn before the windows, and Emmerich went to one at the very back of the room and pulled it aside. Out the dark glass he could only see flickering torches of the street behind—burning a thick and greasy oil, not the bright gas of the river’s north side. He rested his hands on the sill and pressed his forehead to the cool surface, felt the thick whorls of the panes against his skin.

This had been harmless in the beginning, when Ezra had been nothing but a handsome young man that pleased Emmerich to look at, but they were tied together now, surviving alongside each other. Now it was dangerous, foolish, and wretched. Despite what Ezra had confessed to him about his own desires, Emmerich had not spoken of his own, as he was afraid that Ezra might only see him as something convenient if he did. It was not how he wanted Ezra to treat him, the same way men always had—as little more than a way to satisfy their basest desires. Emmerich could not bear that from him, as he had from so many others.

Archie, by his own words, cared nothing much for men, only for the agreeable activities that could happen between them. After all, he’d a wife and was clearly pleased with her as well, seeing as they’d nearly four children between them. There had been boys back in Emmerich’s village, but what Emmerich had done with them in the rough and ungainly encounters of youth was hardly a thing to cherish. And what he had done with the older men there was even less so. If he did not hope in Ezra, there would be no disappointment in how much the boy would be unwilling to give back to him.

But still, Ezra was the only man Emmerich had ever met who appeared overtly taken with other men, and other men alone.

And perhaps there was Lilin, but Vena was right—he looked awfully like a girl.

Emmerich sighed and lifted his head away from the window pane. The coarse curtain had fallen over his back and trapped him inside with the dry smell of dust and the cold air that was seeping through the glass, and he was uncertain of how long he had been standing there. They had come here to this place for a purpose, after all, and it was nothing to do with what he had been thinking of. If he let Ezra become such a distraction like this, he was likely to wind them up both at the noose, for one breach of the law or another.

Just as he was putting his hand to the edge of the curtain to draw it back, Emmerich heard footsteps and the sound of several low voices enter the small back room. He paused, thinking it might appear odd if he suddenly emerged from nowhere upon them. In places like this, men were often more wary than usual, watchful of strangers or those who might carry word of their disreputable business elsewhere. Emmerich did not want to be mistaken for an enemy, especially one that had concealed himself in something of a suspicious way.

He was trying to think up a way in which he could make the men aware of his presence without alarming them, when the words of their muttered conversation began to impress upon him. He was sure he had heard Staard’s name spoken, as well as the name of his erstwhile employer Kegg. The men appeared to be speaking of what had occurred at the Prince and Rose the week prior.

“I’ve heard they’ve marked that nasty little rotter Ezra for it,” said one of the men, and Emmerich drew further back into the curtain. The cold of the glass pressed against his shirt and soaked through to his skin, and he tried to still his breath inside his chest as he gripped onto the windowsill.

“Not surprising, that,” said a second, a voice roughened and scratched by years of smoke and spirits. “Was only a matter of time before he turned on the lot of them, I always said.”

“Always heard meself he was a right downey bugger,” a third man agreed.

These words, about Ezra—Emmerich couldn’t believe they could be about his Ezra, the same boy he knew and shared a bed with, however chaste that sharing might be. They spoke of him as they would a biting insect, or a diseased cur in the street to be kicked and spat upon. Emmerich held very still within the curtain, hoping the men would come no closer to him. He heard chairs pull out some distance into the room, creaking as bodies lowered into them, and smelt the bitter aroma of tobacco even though the musty curtain.

It appeared as though Emmerich had not been noticed at all, though there was no telling if or when he might be. Holding still and silent here until they’d gone again was what he could only hope for, especially as they knew about himself and Ezra. Or perhaps only about Ezra—he hadn’t heard his own name mentioned at all. He had never been of any import before this, perhaps it was still the same now.

“He’ll be dealt with, right enough,” said the first man. There were at least three of them, perhaps even more that had not yet spoken. Emmerich was glad he had kept himself behind the curtain, as he was quite outnumbered and might not have been overlooked by such a group. “As soon as they find where the whelp’s hiding out, he won’t be nobody’s concern. Now, Bartho, let’s hear of the rest of it.”

There came a soft squeak as a chair was moved in across the floor. “There’s a cargo headed in, I hear,” said the voice of the second man, presumably called Bartho. “A shipment coming in from Ginneaune in three days’ time. Now that that lot’s distracted by their little traitor, we’ll take it for ourselves.”

The third man spoke. “What’s it of, then?”

Before the answer came, there was a slow creak of wood, as if the speaker was leaning heavily forward on the table.

“Some ammunitions, spirits and the usual things; but I heard they’ve a crate of Royal-made pistols, come from Acllaum. Smuggled out, but real fine-like. A whole crate, imagine it! If we could get our hands on those, have them for ourselves, we’d have ourselves a bit of leverage in the world as it were.”

“Who’s it come in by?” the third man asked. “Reliable?”

“It’s to come in with the Frand, that’s the best reliable there is,” said Bartho.

Something of a rush went through Emmerich, starting low in his belly and flooding through his limbs, filtering out through his fingers and toes. This was certainly what they had come here for. Pistols could be an asset, if they could get hold of those as well, but the most appealing aspect was the knowledge that this cargo being spoken of contained ammunition. It was what he and Ezra needed the most.

“Agreed then,” said the second man, his roughened voice bringing Emmerich back to what he was listening to.

“Now as we’re here, I’d rather like some nicer company than you lot,” said Bartho, and the other two must have assented in some way, as Emmerich heard chairs moving across the wood and the sounds of feet upon the floor. He risked a slight movement to the side, to level his eye with the narrow parting between the curtains. Through them, he caught a glimpse of a dull red-brown coat and a length of dark, stringy hair pulled back with a bit of cloth. The other men were too far ahead to see clearly, but Emmerich imagined that one was perhaps fair-haired.

Once they were gone from the room, Emmerich still waited several minutes before stepping out. His hands were shaking a bit from the excitement, and he clenched them into the hem of his coat until he was breathing steadier. Now, he had to find Ezra.

Emmerich half expected to need to go knocking on doors in the upstairs and drag him out of a bed, but he found the boy back in the still room, by himself. He was standing before the windows, looking out into the gloom of the dismal street, pulled close into his own body as though he were afraid to touch anything or to occupy too much of the space around him. Heavy steam moved about him and dampened his hair, flattening it against his face.

“Ezra,” Emmerich said, coming up to stand at his side—perhaps closer than he needed to be, for Ezra startled a bit and had to lean to the side to meet his eyes. Nasty little rotter, Emmerich heard a rough voice say inside his head, and ignored it. “I’ve heard something.”