Broken Guns

[translations at the end of chapter]

Ezra was gone when Emmerich awoke later on, and the sun had not yet risen.

But that was all right, Emmerich thought, as he lit a fire in the makeshift hearth and heated water over it, enough to scrub the remnants of the night from his skin. Ezra always awakened early as well and could have just gone elsewhere in the printing house, though Emmerich was not shy with his disappointment about his absence. They had woken together in the same bed nearly every morning since meeting, and now that they were lovers it had been strange to find only cool bedding and dim grey light in Ezra’s usual place beside him.

Emmerich dressed himself with no real haste, considered his holster for a moment before forgoing it, tucking the bulldog into the back of his trousers instead in the way that was Ezra’s preferred manner. He was most eager to find Ezra, to speak with him. Just to be certain that what they had come to understand together last night still stood now, in the hours of daylight. He was familiar with men whose minds and conduct changed with the rising of the sun, and though he did believe Ezra was different than that, Emmerich still wished to hear it once again.

He left through Luca’s room—also empty, the man’s small bed rumpled and unmade—and took the main stairs down to the printing floor. He spotted no one about. The presses were unattended and sitting in silence, as it was too early even for work hours. And Ezra’s pistol was on the floor beneath one of the drafting tables, the silver edge gleaming bright in a square of greasy light from a gaslamp outside.

Emmerich froze at seeing it. The Lutreole never left Ezra’s possession or sight, just as the bulldog never left his own. True enough, Ezra could have simply ducked into the washroom or Luca’s office for a moment, but even then it was unlikely he would have left the pistol sitting out like this on the ground. The sight of it there, lonely in the yellow light, sank something terrible in Emmerich’s stomach. Everything about it struck him wrong, and brushed a deep chill through him.

He went to a knee and retrieved the gun, spun the chamber out and looked inside—all were full, as he had expected. Emmerich was sure he would have heard a fired shot even up in the attic room. The pistol itself did not smell of powder, either. That meant that Ezra had left it here willingly, or had been set upon so quickly he hadn’t had time to take it, or had even left it behind on purpose as some kind of sign.

If anything had happened to him at all; if there was even something to be concerned about. There was still the possibility he was just in another room, and that Emmerich’s panic was foolhardy. Either way, Emmerich was beginning to understand why Ezra had struck him in the face when he had returned from that night with Archie at the slipways, why he had been so wrought with worry and panic. The same feeling was beginning to creep up upon Emmerich now, though he fought to keep it back. There was no reason yet to fear the worst.

But then, he saw the reason. At the edge of the table, along the sharp edge of the corner. A dash of red, just beginning to thicken and brown. Emmerich dropped to a knee to look, heart thick inside his chest, beating at a sickening pace. On the floor beside the table leg were several drying spots of dark blood, one with half a handprint smudged through it.

“Ezra,” Emmerich breathed, touching his hand to the liquid. His fingers came away tacky and reddened, and he hurriedly wiped it away on his trousers. Even as he did so, his eyes tracked across the floorboards and found more spots, a trail of them leading away across the printing house. Several were smeared with the track of a bootprint.

“Nein, nein, unmöglich...”

He heard the words again and again but did not recognize them as his own voice, not until the entire workspace was ringing with them and his throat burned raw. He staggered back against one of the presses, the metal edge of the table digging hard against his back, shoving the bulldog hard into his spine. His eyes tracked wildly across the floor, following the blood which continued along the wooden boardsl, droplets and smears where a boot or something else had smeared through it. He pushed away from the press and followed the trail to the side of the print house, where the narrow wooden stairs led to the door at the bottom and out into the street. The entrance he and Ezra had lock-picked their way through upon first coming here. It had not been closed all the way, the door sitting slightly off in its frame, as though it had been passed through in a hurry. The smell of the sewers and factories wafted in around the door frame.

Emmerich found himself sitting heavily upon the top step, his hands pressed to his mouth and his gut writhing. He could not imagine Ezra dead—he wouldn’t, for it was too horrible to consider—and decided instead that he must have been incapacitated in some way, wounded, and dragged away.

“Beruhig dich, Emmerich, und denk nach,” he muttered into his fingers. Clearly it was the work of Staard and Clavel, and the men that now worked under them. There were no others who would want this. Where would they have gone from here? Where would they take Ezra? He and Emmerich had been unable to find any place that appeared to be a base of conducting their affairs, so Emmerich rather knew for certain where they would not go. Unless dragging Ezra to one of the emptied storehouses or lofts was in fact what they had planned. He simply had to find them, if there was only some way of…tracking them, of…

Emmerich’s eye fell on the smears of blood once again, from the drafting table all the way across the printing room floor and towards this small door that lead out to the alley. As a boy, his uncle Heinrich had taken him into the forests surrounding their village on occasion, to go hunting. Emmerich had never been fond of it, the hours of waiting and watching, sometimes with nothing to show for it but aching back and legs from crouching in the underbrush. Then, the drying blood of an animal on his hands at the end of it all, the small skinned corpses of rabbits and various fowl that Heinrich would carry back proudly. Emmerich could not deny that he enjoyed eating the animals, but he wished he had not had to see their deaths, not plan them so carefully and so cruelly.

But he remembered how his uncle had read signs of the animals passing, the way tracks in the dirt and disturbances in the brush could lead him to prey. Or when one had already been wounded, the way to follow the trail of its blood to the hiding place it had dragged itself to in desperation, and how to set upon it in an ambush.

Emmerich had a trail to follow here, and the men at the end of it surely deserved an animal’s death. If they had killed Ezra, even hurt Ezra—

He found himself back in their upstairs room without the memory of going there, pulling on boots and his coat and buckling his holster back on beneath it, moving with a wild yet purposeful energy. Only one thing mattered, and he had to act fast upon the one chance he had.

“Du bist nicht tot, Ezra,” Emmerich muttered, shoving an Acllaum pistol and their accompanying bullets in each of his coat pockets, the Lutreole into his holster. The bulldog he kept within his hand. “Du kannst nicht tot sein. Warte auf mich.”

Upon his leaving through the alley door, he found Luca outside in the gutter, likely laid out with a blow by whoever had come for Ezra. Perhaps he had intercepted the men at the door, and simply been put out of the way for convenience. Luca himself was aware and in his senses, but woozy and rather confused, sopping with mud and other unsavory runoff. Emmerich helped him to his feet and checked him over, finding a sizable lump at the back of his skull

“Io sto bene,” Luca muttered, clearly robbed of the knowledge that Emmerich did not speak his language. Emmerich half-slung the man across his shoulders, brought him back inside and to his office. Taking him upstairs to his bed would be preferable, but Emmerich had not the time for that. The longer he waited, the harder the trail would be to follow.

“I have to go get Ezra,” he told Luca, as the man collapsed into the chair at his desk, hand cupped to the back of his head. “You ought to stay put, here.”

“Emmerich,” said Luca, reaching out an ungainly hand to grasp at Emmerich’s coattail. “I did not do this.”

It hardly mattered at the moment, if Luca had sold them out or not, so Emmerich only nodded and made to leave the office. Yet Luca had not unhanded his coat.

“Emmerich, you mustn’t—I believe it would not be in your best interest to go after him.”

“What care do you have for my best interests?” said Emmerich in pure curiosity. Luca had never been overtly friendly nor fully indifferent to him—they were not friends, only associates, linked through Ezra. They both cared for him and thus tolerated each other. And Emmerich had never quite forgiven him for their first meeting.

Luca touched the back of his head once more, and winced. “When they came for him, at first they fought and wounded him, but I heard some of what they said near the door. The things that boy said about you…” For a moment Luca went unsteady, his head reeling on his shoulders as though it had become too heavy for him, and then he steadied himself with a hand to his temple. The usual color of his skin was overtaken by a grey pallor, and if Emmerich weren’t in a hurry he would have called someone in to have a look at him. Luca would just have to do so on his own.

“It doesn’t matter what he said.” Emmerich pulled his coat from Luca’s grip, made to leave the office.

“It would if you had heard it.” There was a grim tone to Luca’s voice that Emmerich did not like. “He told them he had got all the use he could from you. That you were witless and soft-headed, a near useless burden only good for using for while. That he was tired of you, how you leant on him for everything. Once he told them this, he went with them willingly.”

Bile rose in Emmerich’s throat, but he could not believe the words. He simply could not. “He must have had good reason.”

Luca’s expression told him that he truly was lacking wits, but Emmerich was nothing if not stubborn. If Ezra had spoken about him that way…there was a reason. The man Emmerich had been with last night would not have said these things, would not even think them. Ezra kept his sentiments all near the surface of himself, whether it was anger or affection, cruelty or caring. If he felt such disgust and vitriol towards Emmerich, his body would have betrayed it or his passions would have. And Emmerich did not believe Ezra was that skilled in deception, or had been playing a long game since the moment they met.

Luca may have heard truly, but those words had not come from a true place. Emmerich was sure of it.

“Emmerich—” Luca called out once more as Emmerich left the office. But this time Emmerich disregarded him, and quit the print house entirely through the alley door.

The street outside was sunk in a thick yellowish fog, which curled together with a colder mist that seeped inland from the river. It bit into his skin through his coat, filled his nose and mouth with a briny taste. The gaslamps were still lit and no true light penetrated the hazy shroud. He was not sure of the time, but he only hoped it was still as early as it seemed, and that there were few people on the street to disturb the trail of blood he needed to follow.

There was quite a lot of it at first, large splashes that were already drying tacky and brown against the dirty street, yet still easily seen. Because the men had come for Ezra at such an early hour, they had obviously not worried about being spotted and the trail stuck to the wider streets and eventually the main thoroughfare that lead out of the factory district entirely. Emmerich hardly noticed when he passed from the squat drab industrial buildings into Bowbuttle and eventually to the outskirts of Grand Faire, so focused was he on his one scant chance of finding Ezra. The trail grew harder to see at every step, becoming no more than a few droplets here and there that were only minutely darker than the muck of the street, ones that Emmerich was not even sure if he was simply imagining out of pure hope.

And at last, the truth was inescapable.

The trail was gone.

Emmerich dropped to his knees in the center of the street, chilled to his bones with an emptying sense of horror.

“Ezra.” His voice came hoarse and broken to his lips. “Ezra.”

He lifted his head, stared into the lane ahead. But before him there was only the fog-shrouded street, the cobblestones curving away into the yellowish haze. The lofty spires of a nearby abbey made striking black shapes that seemed to shift and change within the cloying mist. The soft glow of a lamp bloomed somewhere at the foot of it. As Emmerich looked, it went out. Then, down the road, another winked away. Then yet another. The lamplighters were about, snuffing the flat-flames.

Emmerich struggled to right himself. “No,” he whispered. He could not simply stop here. Ezra might or might not still be alive, but he certainly would not be if Emmerich gave up.

He went back to the last visible spot of blood, no more than a few brown flecks on the stones. There was a cross street here, but no sign that either the left or right street had been taken. Continuing forward then was the best option, though Emmerich was loathe to leave the last visible sign of Ezra’s presence. Nevertheless he moved forward, scouring the ground for any sign of what he knew wasn’t there, but now also glancing around at the nearby buildings, in the case that any of them appeared that they might house a crew of outlaws. But he was in Grand Faire, and these were all respectable businesses, closed in the early hour but certainly with no sign of being used for any nefarious purpose. It seemed an odd area of the city for men such as these to even be passing through.

With every step his hope dwindled, crumbling around his heart. But then, quite suddenly, a new splash of blood puddled across the cobblestones. Brighter and far newer than the dwindling trail he had followed before. When Emmerich stooped to touch it, his fingers came away slick and red. Fear clutched in around his heart—it was not a lot of blood, but clearly something had happened, a scuffle perhaps, that had wounded someone. Most likely Ezra. But until now Ezra had clearly been going obediently along with them, and now only a block or so away from where his blood ended….

Had he done it on purpose? Seen the end of his followable trail, provoked the men who had taken him...in hopes that Emmerich, or anyone, was following?

Emmerich looked up, finding himself at the meeting of another cross-street. He was down a narrower lane now, not a main thoroughfare but certainly not a tucked away alley. It would be wide enough for carriages to pass, and indeed Emmerich could see some cart tracks pressed into the dirt of the cobbles.

There was one building that did not match the appearance of the others around it. The front doorway was a large arch—big enough to fit a horse-drawn cart into which ice would be loaded from the wells—the door wooden, painted a faded and peeling blue, barred with a chain. The windows were grimy, covered up on the insides with brown paper. It did not look shut up simply overnight, but disused entirely. The building itself was solid brick all the way up, joined near seamlessly with the others beside it. A single bootprint, still glistening from the muck of the street, stood out boldly on the cobbles before the doors.

The cobbles, which cut through the pavement and led inwards and under the door, as though the street continued into the building itself. The arch of the door was large enough for a horse and carriage to fit comfortably through. With no doubt of it, Emmerich knew that behind this row of buildings would be a canal, likely some sort of basin, into which barges could dock and unload wares. This building in particular would have the ground floor set below the water level. He knew these buildings, knew their type well.

“Ein Eiskeller,” Emmerich murmured. Emmerich had seen his share of ice houses in the days when he had picked up work unloading barges as well as loading them at the close, and ice was a constant trade. The wells to hold it were dug deep and could potentially hide all manner of things, if used for that purpose. Could be covered if inspected, its contents unsuspected. An excellent use for those who were smugglers and thieves looking to hide wares. Or, perhaps, a captured man.

He clearly could not simply walk in—not only was the door barred, but if there were truly any of Clavel or Staard’s men here, they would be on lookout. And Emmerich was not familiar enough with this area of the city to know the best and quickest way to access the canal, and the back of the buildings, from here. There may have been an alleyway nearby, or there may have been nothing for blocks.

Well, Emmerich told himself. It isn’t as though you haven’t had practice with climbing in recent days. The windows on each floor were rather spaced apart and the bricks were set evenly and smooth, unlike the rough sloppy masonry of the poorer areas that he had been previously climbing. But he set to it, first adjusting his holster so that it hung at the back of his waist and would not hinder him. Though still had all the other guns in his coat pockets, which weighted him down considerably.

Despite the narrow ledges of the windows and a general absence of foot and handholds, Emmerich managed to get himself hoisted to the first story in short enough time. The window he first encountered there fortuitously pushed upwards with some effort, and with minimal sound. Emmerich rolled himself over the sill and landed in a quiet crouch on the bare boards of the floor within. The room was a single large one, the only thing within being rows of slatted wood at the far end, forming several open-ended compartments.

Horse stalls. All empty save for a faint, nostalgic scent of animal that seemed to emanate from the wood itself. A thin layer of dust coated the floor, and everything was silence. Emmerich held his breath, pricking his ears and trying to listen over the heavy thudding of his heart. He brushed his hand over the grip of the Lutreole, as though he could sense Ezra’s presence through it. But there was nothing. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps there was nothing here, perhaps—

But a low mumble of voices reached his ears, coming from the floor below. It died away as quick as it had come, but Emmerich was sure he had heard it. Against the north wall of the building was set the ramp that the horses would have been led up to the stables from the carriage entrance downstairs. Emmerich crept towards it, carefully testing each floorboard before setting his whole weight upon it in case any were loose and squeaky. None were. He crept down the ramp, stopping when he was still hidden from view by the floorboards, but able to see through the support beams into the large room below.

It was indeed set below the water line, though a platform at the back led up to the back wall, greasy windows and heavy doors that would go out to the docking basin. Through cleaner parts of the windows, Emmerich could see the heavy brownish surface of the water lapping up against the bricks of the buildings across the basin. Two enormous wells were dug just before the platform, each rimmed with a ring of brick and leading down into darkness. The ice wells themselves.

And there were men here, men who were not working and did not look like laborers of any sort; standing ‘round armed and alert. Placed near doors and windows, Emmerich noted, and all of them the rough sort of men he would expect of what remained of Kegg’s group, and Allister’s as well. They would now be men under Clavel and Staard. Though Emmerich was decently acquainted with Clavel’s broken-nosed profile and lanky build, he had seen Staard only once before, in the brothel the night he and Ezra had first met—a stocky red-haired fellow with a gruff smoke-roughened voice.

Emmerich could not identify any of these men as ones he knew from Allister’s crew; in fact, none of them looked familiar. These, then, were Staard’s men alone. They did have the most reason to take Ezra—after all, he had worked with them, been their cohort for three years. He was trying to take stock of their positions, count as many heads as he could see, when a cacophony of sounds suddenly broke into the relative silence. It was nothing more than a hollow series of incoherent noises, rebounding up from the wide ring of stone that made up the lip of the ice well, but Emmerich’s heart leapt and then clenched in his chest.

“Ah, he’s woke,” said one of the men nearest the well, and leant over the rim to peer into the darkness below. “Oi, Ezza! How’s it feel down there?”

The answer was a ringing echo of angry shouts that Emmerich could not pull any true words from, but it sounded enough like Ezra’s voice that his knees went weak with relief.

Nicht tot. He put a hand against the rail of the ramp to steady himself. Not dead.

But likely wounded, and Emmerich knew how deep these ice wells could be. There would be no way to get Ezra out on his own, not with all these men here and Ezra injured and stored neatly underground in the middle of them.

But what were they waiting for? Taking him from the print house and dragging him this far through the city—killing him seemed far easier. But they seemed rather unconcerned with him entirely. At Ezra’s clamors, the men closest to the well had chuckled roughly but, no one else shouted down to him. None of them moved from their spots around the large chilly room. Luca had said Ezra had gone willingly with them. Perhaps he had promised them something, an assurance that would ensure his survival—like the return of the money? Emmerich would gladly return it, if that’s what the men were so concerned with retrieving. They had not used a penny of it, and the satchels holding it were still stashed between the walls of the room Luca was allowing them, untouched. If it would give them their lives, then Emmerich especially had no want to keep it.

He stayed crouched on the rampway until his legs began to go numb beneath him and his grip on the wood began to slip. It seemed as though if he stayed here, watching, then no harm would befall Ezra. But if he left…he could neither see nor stop anything that happened here.

And yet these men were doing nothing at all. Only one or two of them had moved this entire time, and it was only to look out of a different part of a window or to shift to a new position. Most were at the platform in the back where the largest windows were, or near the ice wells, and only one man was near the front of the ice house at all. Brown paper covered these windows and the door was barred by the chain, so it was likely of less concern to them. Emmerich was only glad they had not see his shadow or heard him as he had been clawing himself up the outside of those windows. One man was near the bottom of the ramp, but with his back to it and with no chance of spotting Emmerich unless he did some extreme contorting.

“My god man, how long’ve we got to wait here?” one of the men by the windows barked, so suddenly that Emmerich startled and nearly lost his balance. He caught himself on the ramp, felt the board creak softly under his hand, and his breath and heart and mind all seemed to stop completely.

But the sound wasn’t heard, because several more men had all shouted back at once. The one Emmerich heard the best was the man nearest to the ramp, who bellowed, “you had us go fetch the bloody little mandrake far too early! We wasn’t meetin’ the rest this early, it’s barely past dawn, you nickey twat!”

Emmerich could only take this to mean that Staard, as well as Clavel and his men, were on the way here. That would at least double the amount of armed bodies here, and Emmerich could not take on the five that were already here. Ezra was out of reach, and Emmerich could not keep sitting here idly, just waiting.

So he crept back across the floor to the window, slithered out and dropped himself carefully back to the ground. Once there, he remained crouched on the cobbles for a moment, taking in his breaths short and carefully. His earlier panic had abated, but now there was a tight desperation that would drive every action he took from here. Ezra was not yet dead, but he could be soon, or worse. Clavel’s men were not particularly a gentle breed, and Emmerich knew nothing of Staard’s, but they could hardly be better. There were worse things than death that could happen to a person, and from his time spent around Ezra and those that knew him, he thought that there were some who might leap at an opportunity to cause grievous harm to him.

There was only one place in the city that he thought he could turn to, the only people who might understand. Certainly the only chance he had.

#

The slums on the south side of the river had barely woken by the time Emmerich had crossed Moxmill bridge and wound his way through the the constant reek of rot and sewage all around the run-down shanties, the streets and flimsy roofs covered in soot that drifted down from the factories. He slogged through Peddleweight and into the slightly less shambled St Falgars district. The sun may have risen by now, but it was hidden beneath a low angry tumble of clouds that pressed down on the city, smothering its inhabitants.

There weren’t even any of the women about the Thistledown performing its disguise as a laundry when Emmerich got there, and the front doors were shut and locked. Emmerich knocked, then waited upon the stoop with his hands in his coat pockets, curled around the handles of the Acllaum pistols and avoiding the gaze of a man who sat upon a burlap bundle on the opposite side of the street, smoking and staring and clearly waiting for the place to truly open its doors.

It was long minutes, and more persistent knocking, before anyone came to the door. And it was Miss Ingsbel herself, her dark eyes glittering at him out of the shadows and pale fingers wrapped around the warped wood of the door.

“Ah. Mister Mandelbrauss,” said she, and to Emmerich’s surprise, yawned. Compared to their last meeting, it was a moment of unexpected casualty. “There are better hours in which to assure yourself of your friend’s well-being here—”

“It’s not anything like that,” Emmerich interrupted, despite the rudeness of it. “Ezra has been...taken.”

Miss Insbel stared at him for one moment more, then moved from the door and allowed him inside. The parlor area was dim, the only lights that were lit clearly the ones Miss Ingsbel had turned on as she came down the stairs. From around the corner of the upstairs wall, he could see several curious heads peeping around the corner, awoken by the noise and watching them.

Miss Ingsbel closed the door behind them and threw the bolt back into place. Emmerich had been prepared to see her in some sort of nightdress, and to avert his eyes politely as necessary. But she was fully dressed, though her hair was damp and loose.

“Taken by whom,” she said, quite calmly.

“The men that he—that I—that we both worked for, before all this.” Emmerich was unsure of how much she knew of their situation, of how much Vena would have told her, if she had told her anything at all. Ezra and Vena were alike to brother and sister as anything, and doubtless Vena spoke of him to the other girls. But to her employer? “I...I am afraid they will kill him.”

“And you have come here.” Miss Ingsbel crossed her arms lightly, resting her fingers atop her elbows. “Expecting what?”

“I—there was no one else.” He was horrified to find himself near to weeping. “I cannot get him back on my own. I need, I only need—” The folly of this idea was becoming clearer as he spoke. Miss Ingsbel had once threatened him with a pistol, and told him that her girls knew how to take care of themselves, but how could he ask this of them? And yet he kept speaking, and found himself holding one of the Acllaum pistols in his hand with the barrel pointed to the worn rug. “I can arm you. Please. I can’t do it alone.” The two satchels of money, stuffed into the walls of Luca’s printhouse, occurred to him. “I can compensate you, whatever you want. Bitte, ich brauche ihn. Er ist alles.”

“Don’t make the poor man beg,” said a terribly familiar voice, and Emmerich turned to see Lilin Aubrey descending the stairs, dressed as always in trousers that were too tight and a shirt that was too loose. He was smiling, but it did not reach his eyes. He seemed to be focused on the one thing that was not there, staring into the empty space at Emmerich’s side which should have held Ezra. “What’s the trouble?”

At his side, Miss Ingsbel snorted. “What isn’t the trouble,” she said. “Ezra appears to do nothing but infuse it into the very air around him.”

Lilin’s countenance changed at once; sobering further, even the smile wasting away. “What’s happened?”

Emmerich could feel no jealousy towards him any longer, and now welcomed his immediate concern. Vena cared for Ezra, but Emmerich had nearly forgotten that Lilin might as well. With Miss Ingsbel hesitant, perhaps Lilin would help change her mind. He explained, quickly, the same story he had told her, though perhaps with less desperation and more clarity. As the last words left his mouth, a hand brushed his shoulder, turned him ‘round.

“Emmerich, this is not our fight,” Miss Ingsbel said to him, her hand now in a firm grasp upon his coat. “I’m sorry, truly, about Ezra. I understand he is dear to you and Adia—” Emmerich vaguely recalled that was the name Vena went by here, “—but I cannot and will not risk my girls over a single man. I have taught them to defend themselves, not to go roaming about gunning down brigands.”

“I understand,” Emmerich said, for he did. His voice was weak to his own ears, and distantly he felt Lilin take him by the elbow and try and lead him towards one of the threadbare settees. “Staard will kill him,” he said, unsure if he was addressing Lilin or no one at all. “I—Lilin, no, leave go, I have to go back myself.”

“Staard?” Behind him, Miss Ingsbel’s soft voice became a knife blade, sharp and dangerous. “Johan Staard.”

“Yes,” Emmerich said, lifting his head. Ezra had said the man’s given name once and he was sure, almost completely, that it was Johan. “You know of him.”

“Oh. He has been here, once or twice.” The ugliness in her voice had not abated, and it send an odd twist of hope through him. He thought he had angered her once before, when she had drawn on him, but it was nothing compared to how she looked now.“He lays hands on the girls, as do his men. He would be barred from these premises if such a thing were possible. As is, we cannot keep him out. We cannot fight back. You clearly know the kind of men he has behind him, what they would do if challenged.” Miss Ingsbel eyed Emmerich sharply. “These are the same men who have taken Ezra.”

Emmerich nodded, not yet daring to be too encouraged. “Yes.”

Miss Ingsbel then glanced upwards, over Emmerich’s head. When he turned, he found a full cluster of women now standing on the center landing of the stairs, most in nightdresses, watching this display somberly. He was not startled to see Vena included among them. He was even less surprised when she shoved her way down the stairs, and stood herself near face-to-face with Miss Insgsbel. They were nearly of a height, similar dark hair and eyes, and could have almost been sisters.

“I’m going with him,” Vena said, simple and firm, and then moved to Emmerich’s side. Lilin was still there as well, and he touched Vena’s shoulder in a comforting fashion. Several of the other women on the stairs had moved down a step or two, and all had their eyes upon the three of them. Miss Ingsbel was watching them in turn.

“Who would go, of their own will?” she said, and several women put up their hands almost at once. Many of the others looked as though they wanted to, but were held back by something. Fear of these men perhaps, or even physically by each other—he saw one girl snatch another’s hand down and pin it to her side, whispering furiously and shaking her head.

“Well, Mister Mandelbrauss,” said Miss Ingsbel, turning back to him. “I suppose you have your help, after all.”

“Da—thank you,” Emmerich said in little more than a whisper. Though he knew it was not for him, nor for Ezra, but he was grateful all the same. He did sit on the settee then, but only because he did not trust his own legs to hold him.

“Let’s not waste time about this, then.” Miss Ingsbel moved a single step towards the stairs, which was enough to scatter any of the women that had not volunteered. Most disappeared back upstairs, but the few who were dressed headed to the half of the building that housed the dolly tubs. Those who had put up their hands remained; there were three.

“Well, is this your preferred attire for this outing?” Miss Ingsbel said to them. At once they dispersed to dress and ready themselves, including Vena and Lilin, which left Emmerich and Miss Ingsbel alone in the parlor. Emmerich imagined her pistol was already on her; that she had answered the door with it readied. He watched as she deftly twisted her hair into a plait, and then came to him and uncurled his fingers from the Acllaum pistol, which he still gripped in his hand.

“I want no harm to come to them,” he said, quietly, as she examined the pistol. “I would not have come if I could do this alone.”

Miss Ingsbel slipped the gun somewhere beneath her skirts—he had offered it to her, after all—then bent to tighten and retie the laces of her worn boots. “I am aware, Mister Mandelbrauss.”

The wisest action would be to cease speaking. Yet he could not. “If you told me to go, I would go.”

Miss Ingsbel’s eyes flashed to him for only a moment. “It’s something of a pity about our inclinations, “she said briskly, hiking up her skirts to an astonishingly indecent height and checking a slim knife in a sheath that was strapped about her leg. “I am beginning to like you.”

He did not inquire as to how she knew of his nature. He imagined it was clear enough on his own face whenever Ezra was near him, whenever Ezra was even mentioned, his unsuppressed desperation now to have him back safe. As for hers, he did not want to assume, though the suggestion was that men did not interest her. But perhaps she simply misliked men with red hair.

“I am certain mine would encompass you, were I a different man,” Emmerich professed, and he did believe it was the truth. Miss Ingsbel tilted her dark eyes to him, a smirk on her lips.

“Another lifetime then, for both of us,” she said, her face composing into something much more serious and hard. “But in this one, there is other work to be done.”

#

Emmerich received quick introductions to the other women when they returned—a sturdy woman called Katharine with arms made muscular by working the possing-sticks, Franny tall and dark with her hair tied over in a kerchief, and Ruth who had grey at her temples and lines about her face but a great strength in the way she carried herself. Emmerich was sure Miss Ingsbel would not have included them if they were not fully capable of defending themselves. What surprised him was Imogen, the pale and freckled girl with the northern accent that Emmerich had last seen in tears. Her hair was tied back now into a sensible plait and she was dry-eyed and standing tall.

Emmerich glimpsed Lilin as he joined them all last from the stairs. He now wore a coat and boots which made his appearance far less wanton—he would have been taken for any young man of the working class, heading to a factory for a day’s worth of toiling. Even the yellow curls of his hair seemed less vibrant, slicked back and tamed. He seemed to sense Emmerich’s gaze on him, for he lifted his head and looked about until their eyes met.

“Thank you,” Emmerich said to him, in something of a mutter, moving closer as he did. “You don’t need be part of this, I know. I doubt Staard or his men ever touched you.”

“Well. I’m not doing it because of that, am I,” Lilin said, and Emmerich felt his countenance fall impassive and cold. He knew he had no reason to be jealous of Lilin, and he wasn’t, and yet that protectiveness of Ezra that wanted to keep anyone from him was still so strong. And potentially smothering, and dangerous, and he would have to be careful of his own self with it.

“You’ve no need to be jealous of me,” Lilin said then, as though following Emmerich’s obvious thoughts. “We’re only friends, Emmerich, and I don’t take my friends to bed.”

“I’m not,” Emmerich said. “I only don’t like you much.”

Lilin smirked then, an odd smile that pulled across half his face. “Fair enough,” he said. “But I can help you, and I will.”

“Because of Ezra.”

“Yes, because I’m fond of him. I wouldn’t like to see him hurt any more than you would.” Lilin’s pale eyes studied Emmerich in a way he did not like. Perhaps Ezra had spoken to Lilin about Emmerich, shared with this boy what he wanted before Emmerich himself had even known. He wondered if Lilin would have taken Ezra to bed otherwise. But none of it truly mattered now. Or ever would, if he could not get Ezra back alive.

“Here,” said Emmerich, and passed Lilin one of the Acllaum pistols, its weight still so fragile and delicate feeling in his hand. “You can shoot, I’d hope.”

At once Lilin snapped the gun in half just as Ezra had done upon first handling one of these same makes, looking over the odd fixed combination of barrel and cylinder, inspecting the empty chambers. “You don’t think I’d’ve been living under Miss Ingsbel’s roof for most of my life and not known how to handle one of these?” Lilin said, and clicked the cylinder neatly back into place. “I might even be a better shot than you.”

Emmerich did not dispute with him over the matter, and simply handed over the accompanying bullet cartridges. Lilin took them, allowing their hands to touch with purpose, though one that was not intimate.

“You’re a good man, Emmerich, you know,” he said. “Not many…” Lilin drew in a breath, a strangely somber expression on his face. “He is fortunate to have a friend like you.”

Of course Lilin would not know that their relationship had progressed beyond that, but Emmerich felt no need to educate him on the matter. It was a private thing, something meant for him and Ezra alone. But it was also the unexpectedly maudlin look upon the boy’s face, the sudden loneliness in the hunch of his shoulders that Emmerich recognized well, which stopped him from the correction his heart wanted to make.

But it was gone, in the next moment, when Lilin raised his head and his usual ingratiating smile had dropped back into its usual infuriating place. “Well,” he said. “Oughtn’t we be getting on with this?”

“Oh, halt die Klappe,” Emmerich muttered, and pushed past him to join the others waiting by the doors.

#

There were new bootprints around the carriageway door now, which meant that there were more men inside the ice house than had been before. Upon seeing them, Emmerich gathered the Thistledown women down to the far end of the street, mostly out of sight of the ice house. He had been thinking of a plan on the journey back across the river, at least the very outlines of one, and with the front of the building still entirely unguarded at the front, it seemed a possible one.

Lilin was a good shot, or so he had said. Katharine and Franny were grown women, sturdy and tall, while Vena, Ruth, and Imogen both much younger. For entering the ice house and making no noise, he found the latter to be a better choice.

“Katharine, Franny, and Lilin, you ought to be on the rooftops. Make sure you can see the door, but can hide if necessary. The others, with me,” he said, and then turned to Miss Ingsbel, who was watching him with something of a hard and unreadable expression. “I—my apologies, I did not mean to overstep—”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Ingsbel, with a lift of her dark eyebrows. “It’s rather nice to see you not trotting at someone’s heels like a puppy. I may know how to defend myself and my girls, but I’ll admit my ignorance to ambushes. Remember, however—” her smile gleamed then, bright in the overcast gloom, “I’m the best shot of them all.”

“Then, you’re with me,” Emmerich said, and Miss Ingsbel glided to his side with a knowing smirk. While also a grown woman, she was slight of frame and short in height, not much taller than Vena even. Though he would rather not have her scaling buildings, she would likely be up to the task.

He looked back to the other two women and Lilin, who seemed to be discussing the best rooftop spots amongst themselves, gesturing and pointing at chimneys and gables.

“Anyone approaches, shoot them. Anyone leaving, shoot them,” Emmerich said to them, and Katharine and Franny exchanged a pleased look. Not at all what Emmerich had expected, but he could not begrudge them pleasure from being given a chance to strike back at men who had once hurt them. Lilin only smirked at him, and Emmerich turned away.

“We need them to believe there are more of us than there seem to be,” Emmerich went on, now addressing the others. “As there truly are more of them. The aim doesn’t matter, shoot both guns you have. Separately, to sound as more shots. The idea is to drive them outside, where the others can set upon them. All we truly need is this building to be empty, for none of them to return to it. Then I can go in, get Ezra.”

“You said windows in the back,” Miss Ingsbel said, placing hands upon her hips and looking back down the street with a critical eye. “Perhaps two of us come through the first story, two more around the back. With the other three in front, it has them surrounded on all possible sides.”

“The windows leave you too open, accessible,” Emmerich said. “I would not risk it.”
“You have risked us already,” said Miss Ingsbel. “And if we are going to do such, we may as well make sure that it is not a fruitless endeavor.”

“I—” Emmerich began, and then, “would you take the windows, then?”

“Myself and Ruth,” said Miss Ingsbel promptly, as Emmerich handed her one of the Acllaum pistols.

“I’ll need another,” Ruth put in. “Only got the one.”

Emmerich had left one of the Acllaums, his own, and Ezra’s. He handed Ruth the first of them, and after only a few moments of looking it over, she clearly understood the mechanism of the cylinder. Miss Ingsbel certainly had trained her girls to look after themselves, better than Emmerich had ever been trained. Given that he’d had no training whatsoever, it was not unexpected.

“Has everyone got two?”

Imogen put up her hand. “I haven’t.”

Emmerich was loathe to give her the bulldog—not because it was his own, but because it was such a terrible example of weaponry. But she would not need to be hitting precise targets, so into her hands it went. Only the Lutreole was left now, tucked into the holster close to his side. He could forgo a weapon of his own, if needed, but...this was all he had of Ezra now. He wanted—needed—it nearby. And he saw Miss Ingsbel watching him, and realized he was clutching the grip of the pistol beneath his coat, and that she could see him doing so.

“Vena?” he said, and she shook her head.

“I’ve two,” she said, and Miss Insbel at once gave her a look. “What? One is yours, one I took from my father’s office ages ago and he hasn’t noticed yet.”

Emmerich laughed despite himself, and Ruth chuckled as well. “Right,” he said then. Down at this end of the street, he had spotted a narrow alley where the greenish brown of the canal water peeked through. They could likely get around to the area of the basin that way, and Emmerich gestured for Vena, Imogen, and Miss Ingsbel to follow him. The others remained, still talking amongst themselves about the roofs.

Emmerich and the women wound their way through the alley to the walk that lined the canal, and then back to the docking area that held the ice house. Emmerich could recognize it by the large windows and its placement against the other buildings. And it was there that they found what the front of the building had been missing: a man standing at the edge of the basin with a pistol in hand, keeping watch. Emmerich was just taking in a breath in order to speak, when Miss Ingsbel pushed past and strode around the corner. He did not have the time to catch her back.

The man noticed her at once—a lovely woman making her way down the edge of the basin towards him, now slow and almost timidly, though with a fluid movement to her hips that even Emmerich saw. She had made her way almost halfway to the man, who had stuck his pistol back in a holster by now, when she stepped too close to the very edge of the dock. Emmerich saw her wobble, loose her balance, but luckily tip herself in the direction of dry land. She fell to the ground, her skirts flopping up high on her legs to reveal pale calves. Miss Ingsbel cried out in such a manner that Emmerich knew all of this had been a purposeful thing. And at once the man left his spot before the windows, hurrying over towards her. Emmerich did not know whether his intent was chivalrous or nefarious, but it did not matter—as soon as he came within reach and bent down to her, Miss Ingsbel caught him round the neck, bore him down to the pavement and pressed her arm against this throat to cut off both his breath and his cries, all of her weight atop him.

She was small, but strong. In only a matter of moments the man ceased thrashing and fell still. Carefully, Miss Ingsbel rolled him off the edge of the dock, and into the flat water of the basin, keeping a tight hold on his clothes so he did not splash. He disappeared beneath the surface for a moment, then bobbed somewhat back into view, face-down and floating.

Miss Ingsbel was already climbing back to her feet, gesturing at the others to come forward while Emmerich was still recovering from the spectacle.

“I—well done,” he said when he reached her, and at first she did nothing but send him one of her flint-eyed glances and straighten her skirts. But then;

“Be thankful you can never fall for something so piteously obvious as that,” she said. It seemed a compliment, yet Emmerich frowned.

“I wouldn’t leave a woman lying on the ground,” he said, and Miss Ingsbel snorted.

“Yes, helping me up was his true priority.” Then she was turning away from him, speaking a few quiet words to Ruth and resting her fingers on the crown of Vena’s tumultuous dark hair. Emmerich hesitated before joining them, once again thrown by Miss Ingsbel and what her true opinion of him actually was. Sometimes he thought she would actually prefer to shoot him than to hear him speak.

“Vena and Imogen and I will get upstairs. Fire only when you hear our shots first,” he said, addressing mainly Ruth and Miss Ingsbel. They would have to first shoot out panes in the windows, but those were grimy enough to perhaps help obscure their positions. They could also keep out of reach by ducking back behind the brick walls to either side. He produced the bullets that had come along with the Acllaum pistols. “Shoot often, but make them last. Viel Glück.”

Miss Ingsbel and Ruth nodded at him, and then Emmerich turned towards the task of the climb. They would have to approach from the building next door, as walking in front or or climbing the ice house’s own windows was too risky. He went first, to test the way, and Vena and Imogen were surprisingly deft at clambering their way up after him to the first story, then sliding along the molding until they reached the windows on the first floor. Emmerich had some idea they might have had some experience prior to this; certainly Vena seemed the type who might have been a daring child fond of some mischief.

The three of them crept quietly through the window that Emmerich pried open with some more effort than the first, and on his first step inside he nearly fell through a rotted hole in the floor beside the area where the horse stalls were. It was possible to see down to the floor below through the remaining crossbeams, a view mainly of the platform before the windows. Emmerich directed Vena and Imogen around it as they followed him inside, but gestured to Imogen and silently pointed her out the spot. They could not speak now that they were within, even over the mumbles of voices that came from below.

Imogen understood, and crouched at the rotted spot with her pistols in hand. She would be able to fire directly through the ceiling, and it was unlikely anyone would guess shots were coming from there. He touched Vena on the arm and gestured her to follow him towards the rampway, making sure that she kept behind him and that his body could shield her. He stopped at the same place he had before, and then edged forward when Vena elbowed and pushed at his back. He was far more exposed now, a large gap between the boards of the first story and the ramp, but there was a rough wooden railing and the area was dark, and if no one came too near or looked too close...

There were far more men than before, over double the previous number. At least twelve or fifteen of them, now filling the space in a much more threatening presence. Emmerich hadn’t expected so many, it seemed as though it was every man in both crews gathered here. He now recognized the men he had worked under for the past five and could pick out the ones he had known best—Thomme and Uxilord were generally the only ones who would ever converse with him, and they were standing in a corner together, and the man who generally gave him his meager stipend, Witherkey, was nearer the windows. While all armed, none of them men were particularly on alert or paying much attention to anything. It seemed as though they were only waiting for something to be decided, and quite bored in the meantime.

Staard and Clavel themselves were both here now. They stood together near the ice well that held Ezra, speaking in rapid mutters to one another. Emmerich could only assume Ezra was still stowed below ground, as another careful sweep of the room did not reveal his presence. He wasted no time then, and after a glance back at Vena to assure that she too was ready, he drew the Lutreole from his holster. He took careful aim with the sleek barrel of Ezra’s unfamiliar pistol, and fired at the back of Staard’s head.

The shot went wild, as he had accounted for the heavy kick the bulldog gave and its tendency to track left. Ezra’s gun had no faults such as this, firing straight and true and missing both men entirely. But it was enough.

The next few minutes he would only ever remember as a chaotic nightmare of noise and confusion. Glass panes shattering as bullets crashed through them, men yelling, shots blasting out from within the room and from outside it, Vena firing her own weapon so near to his ear that his head was ringing with it. At first the men below scattered wildly, trying to run for cover that was not there, some firing back at the windows but most unable to tell where any shots were coming from. None were hit in any manner that incapacitated them, but that was not the intention to begin with. One man tried for the ramp, and froze upon seeing Emmerich and Vena crouched there. Vena thrust one arm across the back of Emmerich’s shoulders, fired, and the man’s neck spurted with a violent blossom of red.

A slice of grey light cut into the dimness of the room, and Emmerich saw that one of the men had finally undone the lock on the door chain and shoved out into the street. He took two steps forward before his body jerked and stumbled forward, and he staggered out of sight beyond the doors. The work of Katharine, Franny, or Lilin. Another man had been quick on his heels, pushing the door further open and making it perhaps five or six long strides before he was out of sight. He did not know if a bullet reached him or not.

Emmerich himself refrained from taking too many shots—he would need to go down into that room himself eventually and did not want to be unarmed in the open. And were he not aware that only four people were firing directly into the room, he would have thought it was a dozen at least. More men were breaking away for the front doors, as the ones who had tried the doors that lead to the basin were now laid out upon the floor. They had gotten too close to either Ruth or Miss Insbel’s guns.

Some seemed to escape—whether they were purposefully allowed this or not was unclear. Some had collapsed outside in the street, the doors now flung wide open. But within a very short time, the entire room was emptied except for a few motionless bodies and the heavy metallic scent of blood. The silence became eerie as even the shots in the street quieted, and stopped.

Vena pushed lightly at Emmerich’s back. “Go,” he read upon her lips, and though he was sure she had spoken aloud, the ringing in his ears covered the sounds of it.

And he went, making his way down the ramp, picking his way carefully over the body of the man Vena had shot. He was drenched in blood, his neck a ragged mess, collapsed face-first on the floor. Emmerich near held his breath as he stepped into the room, expecting at any moment for one of the prone bodies to leap to its feet, for a shot to ring out, a cry to raise up and catch him here. He could not look at the faces of any of the men as he passed. The quiet pressed in on him, and he could hear only the fading ringing in his own head.

But he reached the ice well with no difficulty, and risked enough to slide the Lutreole back into his holster. Then he laid his hands carefully on the brick, and leaned over the rim.

“Ezra,” he called down softly, his own voice spiraling down to the depths of the dark chute. He could make out only a faint shape at the bottom, and despite the lack of ice within, cold blasted up from the shadowy pit of bricks. But no other sounds with it. “Ezra. Ezra, please. Antworte mir.”

“Es...es geht mir gut,” came the shaky reply at last, and Emmerich laughed for no reason he could understand.

“Ich bin froh, das zu hören,” he said though his helpless grin. “Let me get you out of there.”

“Please do.” Ezra’s voice was tinny and still very faint. Emmerich cast his gaze around the room for anything useful, a ladder or some sort of...anything. At last he spotted a lengthy coil of rope sat piled near the wall, a heavy rough twine that would serve well enough. Emmerich wrapped one end around a metal pole that appeared to be a hitching post, securing it before returning to the ice well.

“Achtung, Ezra,” Emmerich called gently, before throwing one end of the rope down. He heard a soft thud of it hitting a hard surface far below. “Grab on, I’ll pull you up.”

Ezra’s voice was alarmingly soft now. “I—I can’t.”

There was no time to argue on why Ezra couldn’t do so. “Tie it round your waist, then, come on, mach was, Ezra!”

A moment passed, the rope sliding and jerking in small motions in Emmerich’s hands. Then, at last, “zieh.”

Emmerich set his whole weight into it, bracing his foot against the rim of the well and hauling the rope around the metal post for leverage. He was only glad Ezra was slim and light, and that lifting him was not much more of a task than much of the labor he had done working at the close. Though when the top of Ezra’s dark head finally appeared over the bricks, Emmerich’s arms were beginning to ache with the strain. Ezra appeared to have tied the rope around his waist as Emmerich had bid, and twisted it around his back and chest beneath his arms, gripping it with one arm until his knuckles had turned yellow.

When he was far enough about the lip of the well, Emmerich reached out to him, keeping the rope firmly wrapped around his other arm and gripped in his hand. Ezra’s lips had taken on a faint blue tinge, and he shook terribly, hardly able to grasp his fingers around Emmerich’s. Emmerich abandoned his grip on the rope and caught Ezra’s lower arm as well, and hauled him to solid ground.

“E-Em—” Ezra tried, but his teeth chattered together so terribly that he could not speak. Emmerich shed his coat at once and threw it about Ezra’s shoulders, drew him close. He could not help but to run his hand through the boy’s hair, caked with grit and blood, pull him nearer against his shoulder, murmur in his ear, “Ezra, oh, Ezra, du bist in Sicherheit. Ich hab dich.”

Ezra allowed the comforting and the petting, curling his head beneath Emmerich’s chin until his shuddering subsided. In the meanwhile Emmerich untwisted and untied the rope from around Ezra’s slight frame, let it fall in coils to the floor. When Ezra pushed hands against Emmerich’s waist, Emmerich allowed him the space to step back, and also took a true look at him since he was pulled him from the well.

Dried blood crusted beneath Ezra’s nose and along a wide gash along his forehead, just under the fall of his dark hair. The right arm of his shirt had been darkened and sodden by some liquid that was likely blood as well. Dirt and grime covered his skin and matted his hair, stained and dirtied his clothes, but his eyes were as sharp and bright as they had always been, pale blue-grey in the light from the windows.

“Ezra—” Emmerich began, in the moment before shots rang in the street outside. First several quick pops that Emmerich reckoned belonged to one of the Acllaum pistols, and answering heavy blasts that clearly came from a sturdier revolver. Ezra gasped and twisted himself closer at once, then seemed ashamed of the reaction; as he immediately tore himself from Emmerich’s embrace, eyes ablaze and lips drawn back. There was a split in his lip and his teeth appeared pinkish, as though he had perhaps been struck in the mouth and bleed there.

“Who is that firing?” he said, and before Emmerich could answer the inquiry, was already stalking towards the front doors of the ice house. He was not armed, and Emmerich’s coat flew from his shoulders and dropped to the floor. Emmerich, hurrying after him, scooped it up and pulled it back on. His hand brushed his holster as he did, touching the grip of an unfamiliar pistol.

“Ezra, deine Pistole!” Emmerich shouted at his back, drawing the Lutreole from his holster with the intent to return it to its rightful owner.

But Ezra was already through the carriageway doors and in the street, and the doors shut behind him.

“Bist du verrückt, du Arschloch?” Emmerich bellowed after him, reaching the door only moments after Ezra had. Dashing into the street was foolhardy, yet he could not let Ezra remain out there alone. It occurred to him that he had not heard shots for several moments, but as soon as he placed his hand to the door, several more of them cracked through the air, muffled from behind the door. Further away this time, as though the men in the street and those from the Thistledown on the rooftops had moved into a different block of the city, perhaps one group corralling the other. Emmerich only hoped the girls were faring well, that he had not brought them to harm.

The moment Emmerich pushed into the damp cold air of the street, he had but a moment to see Ezra in the middle of it before a shape rose from the ground near his own feet, something that had looked like a motionless body when his eye had first passed over it. A man who had perhaps been shot, wounded, but not full incapacitated. His movements were quick and Emmerich, far too focused on his lover, was too slow to avoid his reach.

Emmerich found himself whirled around, hurled headfirst towards the brick of the ice house wall. He managed to turn at the last moment, so that the side of his head struck the wall rather than his face, but the blow still staggered him, made his ears ring and his vision blacken at the edges and fade to grey. When he was recovered of his senses, the man had him enveloped in a stronghold, trapping his arms at his sides. He had dropped the Lutreole—his hand was lifeless and empty. Pain seared in his ribs and throbbed in his cheek and temple, and the tang of blood coated his tongue. And yet he was still able to see the shape that moved out of the shadows across the street, from a narrow alleyway where it had clearly been hiding.

Emmerich recognized the profile at once—the strong kink to the nose and the long bird-like limbs. Clavel, who had been cowering in a nearby alleyway but now saw an opportunity in Ezra, wandering uncertainly in the middle of the road. Clavel threw himself at Ezra from behind, caught him hard and slung him around. Ezra shrieked in fury for a moment before Clavel’s hand closed around his throat, choking him and snapping his head back to Clavel’s shoulder. Ezra’s hands flew up to claw at Clavel’s arm, his feet kicking at the man’s shins. But Clavel could lift Ezra nearly off the ground with his height and unexpected strength, and did so, keeping Ezra helpless and unable to free himself.

Emmerich shouted for him, roared out his name until the man behind him drove his fist into Emmerich’s stomach and expelled the breath from his body. He nearly went to his knees, and it was only the arms clamped about his middle that kept him up, gasping and blinking through stars in his vision.

Clavel swiveled towards Emmerich, eyes narrowing in the second it took to recognize who he was. Emmerich had worked under him, after all, though he’d been hardly of any import.
“You want this,” Clavel shook Ezra roughly by the throat, and Emmerich whimpered in terror, “to live?” Ezra’s eyelids were fluttering, he looked near to unconsciousness, and it only became worse when Clavel produced a revolver from his coat and jammed it against Ezra’s jaw.

“Please.” The words could not be loud enough for Clavel to hear, but Emmerich had not the breath to say them louder. “Please. No.”

“He used you, you know,” Clavel snarled, and shook at Ezra again. “The money is all he was after from the start. He only needed some soft-hearted mark like you to drag into it, a pawn in his scheme. He’d’ve got rid of you as soon he was sure his hold on it was secure. Once any other threats were gone, like the men it truly belonged to.”

Emmerich could not speak still, nor had he any words to say if he could. It was plausible. Ezra had not wanted to spend any of the money. Did not want to hear of lending any to Luca, a friend of his who owed great debts. Ezra had been the one to suggest they remove Staard and Clavel from existence, eliminate them as a threat. He had agreed with Emmerich that leaving the Kingshore was not viable. Every plan had been Ezra’s, and Emmerich had followed them all.

“And look, it’s done.” Clavel briefly removed the gun from Ezra’s jaw to gesture at the street around them. “Who is left to pursue you now? The only threat left to him is you, and he’ll rid himself of you the first moment he can. He’s nothing but an ill-bred cur to be put down. I’ll do you the favor.”

And Clavel pulled back the hammer on his revolver.

Ezra screamed, a wordless surge of rage that rang through the street, and turned on Clavel. At first it appeared as though he had merely thrown his weight at the man and knocked him down, twisting under the grip Clavel had on his throat and managing to shove a knee high into the man’s stomach. Weaponless as Ezra was, Emmerich could not imagine this going well. But he heard no shot go off, despite the pistol Clavel had been wielding. He saw only shadows scuffling in the street.

Emmerich twisted himself violently against the man at his own back, but the fellow outweighed him by at least a stone and had him at a terrible disadvantage. But he did need both arms to restrain Emmerich, and therefore couldn’t draw a weapon on him. But what Emmerich needed was to get to Ezra, and he could not free himself.

A single sharp blast of one of the Acllaum revolvers rang out from the rooftops. Something hot splashed the side of Emmerich’s head and neck, causing him to jerk away at once. The grip on him slackened immediately, and the man sagged against Emmerich’s back and crumpled to the street, red seeping out from beneath his contorted form. Emmerich turned, startled, up towards the rooftops, and saw a golden-haired head peeping back at him from behind the ice house’s sooty chimney.

“Good thing I heard all your screaming, came back around. What do you think of me now?” Lilin called to him, his grin bright even from the rooftop and through the smoke that wafted back from the barrel of his pistol. Emmerich was beginning to see why he and Ezra got on so well together; their similarities in countenance were rather strong.

“I suppose you’re decent enough,” Emmerich said, and meant it sincerely. Cooling blood trickled down into the collar of his coat, slowly thickening and drying there.

“The rest are gone—we’ve run them off, the ones we’ve not shot. We’ll all be fine.” Lilin gestured with his pistol in a northerly direction, along the rooftops. “You ought to see to him.”

There was no question of whom he meant. Two shapes were now sat near the gutter, one stretched out on its back, unmoving, and the other huddled and bent over itself. Emmerich fumbled the Lutreole back into his holster and lurched to his feet, shaking the dead man’s hand from where it had snagged into his trouser leg with a small shudder of discomfort. All this death—he had never seen so much of it before as Allister’s errand boy. Not so violent and bloody like this. He had seen people slip into it like shadows into the dark, close and cold under the touch of his hand while he was helpless to stop it. And he still remembered the face of the man from the canal, the one whose eyes Emmerich had been staring into the moment he shot him through the head.

But none of that mattered now. As Emmerich got across the street, he could see that the figure stretched out in it was Clavel. He was alive, but pale in the face and glassy-eyed, groaning unintelligibly. It wasn’t until Emmerich saw the dark spreading stain on the man’s belly under his clutching fingers that he understood that Ezra was wearing the knife mechanism, and had wounded Clavel with it. The device Emmerich had built for him. How often had Ezra been wearing it, he wondered. He did not recall needing to remove the mechanization from Ezra during their intimacies of the previous night, but he remembered little from those hours but Ezra’s bared flesh, and not precisely what had been covering it.

Ezra was on his knees not much of a distance away, coughing and holding his throat. New blood stained his shirtsleeves and neck, trickled out of his hair above his ear, marked his hands with crimson. Emmerich went to him at once, dropped to his knees before him, searching for any signs that any more of the blood was his just as cold flicks of rain began to pelt at the back of his neck .

“Was hat er dir angetan? ” he demanded, passing his hands over Ezra’s face and shoulders and sides. “Bist du verletzt?”

“No—nein, nicht wirklich,” Ezra muttered. “Aber du—“

Emmerich shoved a hand into Ezra’s hair and dragged him forward. Ezra made a helpless sound in the moment before Emmerich kissed him hard, teeth and lips clashing together and fingers twisting hard against fabric and skin. Ezra clutched him back, opening fully to him, and it didn’t matter that they were in the street in the mud and the new-falling rain, kissing in full view of anyone who might happen to be there—a crime punishable by the noose if anyone cared to report them.

“Emery, I didn’t—“ Ezra tried, in between the rough presses of their mouths together, clawing at his coat with one hand. “What he said, I didn’t—“

“Ich weiß, ich weiß, I know.” Emmerich bit the words against Ezra’s mouth, tasting dirt and sweat and blood there. “Wir müssen gehen. Jetzt.”

Ezra looked dazed as they staggered to their feet together, one shaking hand finding Emmerich’s waist and clinging on. Finger-shaped welts were already rising on his neck where Clavel had gripped him, and his face was pale and ashen.

“Komm mit,” Emmerich said again, more gently, slipping an arm around Ezra’s shoulders to help hold him up. “Lehn dich auf mich.”

“I can walk on my own,” Ezra said, but made no motion to shake Emmerich from him. He kept his other arm limp at his side, and he still looked ashen and rather unwell. Though he was holding to his feet, he was leaning into Emmerich heavily.

“Bist du sicher, dass du unverletzt bist—?” Emmerich tried again, but Ezra only made a soft sound and shook his head.

“I’m fine,” he said roughly, and after only the briefest glance at Clavel’s now-silent form, added, “let’s go.”

[TRANSLATIONS]

“Nein, nein, unmöglich...” = No, no, impossible…
“Beruhig dich, Emmerich, und denk nach.” = Calm down, Emmerich, and think.
“Du bist tot nicht, Ezra. Du kannst nicht tot sein. Warte auf mich.” = You’re not dead, Ezra. You can’t be dead. Wait for me.
“Io sto bene.” = I’m fine.
“Ein Eiskeller.” = An icehouse.
Nicht tot. = Not dead.
“Bitte, ich brauche ihn. Er ist alles.” = Please, I need him. He is everything.
“Halt die Klappe.” = Shut up.
“Viel Glück.” = Good luck.
“Antworte mir.” = Answer me.
“Es...es geht mir gut.” = I’m all right.
“Ich bin froh, das zu hören.” = I’m glad to hear it.
“Achtung.” = Look out.
“Mach was, Ezra!” = Do something, Ezra!
“Zieh.” = Pull.
“Du bist in Sicherheit. Ich hab dich.” = You’re safe now. I’ve got you.
“Deine Pistole!” = Your gun!
“Bist du verrückt, du Arschloch?” = Are you crazy, you asshole?
“Was hat er dir angetan? Bist du verletzt?” = What did he do to you? Are you hurt?
“No—nein, nicht wirklich. Aber du—” No, not much. But you—
“Ich weiß, ich weiß, I know. Wir müssen gehen. Jetzt.” = I know, I know, I know. We have to go. Now.
“Komm mit. Lehn dich auf mich.” = Come along. Rest on me.
“Bist du sicher, dass du unverletzt bist—?” = Are you sure that you’re unhurt—?