“I said your hair is coming undone. Here,” he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spil hot up into her cheeks, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand back slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek. “You don’t want to give the enemy anything to grab hold of.”
“Oh—yes—of course.” Tessa looked quickly toward the window—and stared. The yel ow fog hung heavy over the streets, but she could see wel enough. They were in a narrow thoroughfare—though broad, perhaps, by London’s standards. The air seemed thick and greasy with coal dust and fog, and the streets were lined with people. Filthy, dressed in rags, they slumped against the wal s of tipsy-looking buildings, their eyes watching the carriage go by like hungry dogs fol owing the progress of a bone. Tessa saw a woman wrapped in a shawl, a basket of flowers drooping from one hand, a baby folded into a corner of the shawl propped against her shoulder. Its eyes were closed, its skin as pale as curd; it looked sick, or dead.
Barefoot children, as dirty as homeless cats, played together in the streets; women sat leaning against one another on the stoops of buildings, obviously drunk. The men were worst of al , slumped against the sides of houses, dressed in dirty, patched topcoats and hats, the looks of hopelessness on their faces like etchings on gravestones.
“Rich Londoners from Mayfair and Chelsea like to take midnight tours of districts like these,” said Jem, his voice uncharacteristical y bitter. “They cal it slumming.”
“Do they stop and—and help in some way?”
“Most of them, no. They just want to stare so they can go home and talk at their next tea party about how they saw real ‘mug-hunters’ or ‘dol ymops’ or ‘Shivering Jemmys.’ Most of them never get out of their carriages or omnibuses.”
“What’s a Shivering Jemmy?”
Jem looked at her with flat silver eyes. “A freezing, ragged beggar,” he said. “Someone likely to die of the cold.”
Tessa thought of the thick paper pasted over the cracks in the windowpanes in her New York apartment. But at least she had had a bedroom, a place to lie down, and Aunt Harriet to make her hot soup or tea over the smal range. She had been lucky.
The carriage came to a stop at an unprepossessing corner. Across the street the lights of an open public house spil ed out onto the street, along with a steady stream of drunkards, some with women leaning on their arms, the women’s brightly colored dresses stained and dirty and their cheeks highly rouged. Somewhere someone was singing “Cruel Lizzie Vickers.”
Jem took her hand. “I can’t glamour you against the glances of mundanes,” he said. “So keep your head down and keep close to me.”
Tessa smiled crookedly but didn’t take her hand out of his. “You said that already.”
He leaned close and whispered into her ear. His breath sent a shiver racing through her whole body. “It’s very important.”
He reached past her for the door and swung it open. He leaped down onto the pavement and helped her down after him, pul ing her close against his side. Tessa looked up and down the street. There were some incurious stares from the crowds, but the two of them were largely ignored. They headed toward a narrow door painted red. There were steps around it, but unlike al the other steps in the area, they were bare. No one was sitting on them. Jem took them quickly, pul ing her up after him, and rapped sharply on the door.
It was opened after a moment by a woman in a long red dress, fitted so tightly to her body that Tessa’s eyes widened. She had black hair piled on her head, kept in place by a pair of gold chopsticks. Her skin was very pale, her eyes rimmed with kohl—but on closer examination Tessa realized she was white, not foreign. Her mouth was a sulky red bow. It turned down at the corners as her gaze came to rest on Jem.
“No,” she said. “No Nephilim.”
She moved to shut the door, but Jem had raised his cane; the blade shot out from the base of it, holding the door open wide. “No trouble,” he said. “We’re not here for the Clave. It’s personal.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“We’re looking for someone,” he said. “A friend. Take us to him, and we won’t bother you further.”
At that, she threw her head back and laughed. “I know who you’re looking for,” she said. “There’s only one of your kind here.” She turned away from the door with a shrug of contempt. Jem’s blade slid back into its casing with a hiss, and he ducked under the low lintel, drawing Tessa after him.