The woman in the smoking jacket looked at the wounded runner on the table. “Duriyah’s been with me a long time,” she said. “And you’ve only just started.”
The blush boy flinched, like he was waiting for bad news. But all the woman said was, “She should have known better than to go out the front. And you both should’ve known not to come back here!” Cordelia thought the woman really would slap him now. Her hand was stiff, drawn back slightly from her hip. But an intercom crackled from the desk, beside Duriyah’s foot, and she whirled to listen instead.
“Hounds coming down the street,” said a high, fuzzy voice. Sounded like a kid.
“Everybody shut up,” said the woman in the smoking jacket. “Keep quiet. And Marto? The lights.”
Marto flipped the switch at the doorway, and the room was plunged into blackness. The only sound was Duriyah’s shaky breathing.
Cordelia’s toes curled. If she ended up in the trap for delivering a letter she hadn’t even read, she’d lay every curse she knew on Ari’s curly head. Not that it would do her much good.
Thirty tense seconds later, the intercom crackled again. “S’good. They gone past.”
Marto brought the lights back up. The blush boy had his eyes tight shut, his hands like claws around his cup. The doctor’s face was unreadable, but he was already reaching for his coat. The woman in the smoking jacket, who must be Zelda, finally got an eyeful of Cordelia.
“And who are you?” she snapped.
“I’m here from Aristide,” she said. “I got a letter for—”
“Of course you do. Right now, of all times, and he had to send a new girl.” The scorn in it left Cordelia gaping. “Upstairs. Marto, show her.”
Cordelia was ready to smack the envelope into Zelda’s palm and be done with it, but Marto took her arm and drew her through another door, into a narrow hallway, and pointed her at a set of stairs that kinked ninety degrees halfway up. He jerked his chin at the steps, and then left her standing at the foot of the runner.
The attic was crammed with dusty artifacts and cobwebbed chandeliers lying at odd angles on the floor. A stuffed leopard growled from behind an ironbound sea chest.
At the far end of the room, where a grand brass bed was pushed against the wall, two women sat in deep conversation. One, dark skinned and heavy around the hips, perched on the bed with her legs crossed. The other had tucked herself into the dormer window, a plain white pyjama shirt pulled over her knees. The curtains were drawn, but billowed in the soft night air. Cordelia was willing to wager open windows were against Zelda’s rules, but the stuffy attic smelled powerfully of mold.
“Hello?” She stepped onto the first creaking floorboard.
The women both looked up, startled. Their faces were vaguely familiar, and Cordelia wondered if maybe they were punters. Ari’s clients came by the Bee sometimes.
“Who are you?” demanded the woman on the bed. Her northern burr was even thicker than Tory’s. “One of Zelda’s people?”
Cordelia took a step forward, and both women flinched. She held up her hands. “I got a message, from Aristide Makricosta.”
They didn’t relax. If anything, they wound up tighter.
“What does it say?” The woman in the window stood and came toward her, bare feet silent against the plain wood. “Is it about Taphir?”
“I didn’t open it, all right?” She took the envelope from her pocket and handed it to the younger of the two, who tore the paper with shaking hands. Her companion hurried over, crowding her.
Inside the envelope was a postcard of a hunting party, hounds gathered around the heels of horses. As the woman flipped the card over, Cordelia got a glimpse of Ari’s decorative scrawl.
“Charming day yesterday,” read the woman in the nightshirt. “Though utterly a wash. The hounds gave good chase and cornered him, but he slipped them in the covert.”
It didn’t sound good, but the women were smiling. The younger covered her mouth with a delicate hand.
“Oh, blessed stones of the cairn and temple. Oh, Mab, he’s out.” She threw herself into the older woman’s arms, sobbing. Cordelia looked away, embarrassed.
But she wasn’t going to get out that easy. The crying woman dragged herself up, leaving wet splotches on Mab’s shirtfront, and turned to Cordelia. “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much.”
“It’s all right,” said Cordelia. “Really, it ain’t no trouble.” She took a step back, angling for the stairs, but the woman put a hand on her arm.
“‘The bringer of joy must be given joy in return.’”
Queen’s sake, the woman was quoting scripture at her.
“Mab,” she went on, “Mab, what have we got left, from mummy’s jewels?”
“There’s the pearls,” said Mab. “But Sofie, that’s a bit … well, they’re a mite showy, nay? Even Zelda said she’ll have half a time moving them.”
Sofie nodded. “But the earrings, the citrines…”