Oh God. Lee. It would be impossible to get him to leave if he saw me in this state. He was too kind, too good to abandon me when I had just narrowly avoided death. While I refused to let a few nasty bruises keep me from rescuing us both from Coldthistle, I would need time to cover up the marks on my skin. Perhaps I might steal some of the undertaker’s cosmetics to hide the welts, enough at least to fool Lee into thinking I was all right. But then . . . Mr. Morningside had been right about the widow. And he’d been right about Dr. Merriman, too. What if Lee really was hiding something unthinkable? No. The attack had rattled me, that was all. I would sit quietly for a while, perhaps have tea or a restorative, then find a way to slip Chijioke and Mary, then reunite with Lee.
“Will you fine gentlemen be enjoying a round at the Rook and Crook?” I heard Chijioke say above the rustling of Mary’s skirts as she slid off the bench and held out her hand.
We stepped down onto the cobbles and Mary locked the wagon gate; then she hooked her arm in mine and led me around the far side of the cart, keeping the tall, covered bed between us and the men speaking on the other side of it. I pulled the hood close over my eyes, and we scurried by the horses and into the shadowy awning of the undertaker’s shop.
As the door closed, Lee’s voice trickled through the glass window. “Was that Louisa? I meant to speak with her here in town.”
I’ll be back to find you soon, I promise.
“Well, something hot to drink is in order for the both of us.” Mary ferried me along, down a narrow passage cluttered with family portraits and potted plants. The floor was swept and clean, but the tiles were cracked and faded. The men in the portraits might have been brothers, each thin-faced and big-nosed, with pointed chins and a thatch of sandy blonde hair greased back from the forehead. The smell of vinegar was so strong my nose twitched.
“Giles! Giles? Oh, where is that confounded man?” Mary searched from door to door. I saw a parlor go by, and a cloakroom, as well as several closed doors with ominous labels like FUNERARY TOOLS and CHEMICALS, SUNDRIES. It was one level of labyrinthine halls and small rooms, each warmer than the last.
“You must come here often,” I remarked quietly, peering into dim corners laden with homemade rat traps. One had been a success, a hairy rat nearly cleaved in two by a supper knife tied to a spring.
“Not me,” Mary replied, taking me around a corner and toward a shabby white door labeled PRIVATE. “I helped Chijioke once before, but normally he can manage on his own.”
As she reached for the knob, the door swung inward with a bang. A man who might have popped right out of one of those portraits stared down at us with eyes blown huge by spectacles. He wore a smart black suit with a purple pinstripe to it and a deep red cravat. A tiny silver bird skull dotted the knotted silk. He propped one spindly hand on his cravat, while with the other he adjusted his specs.
“Good Lord. Mary! Where did you come from?”
“Giles.” She blew out a breath. “We’re here with more work from Mr. Morningside. It ought to have been only one body, but we . . . Well, there was a complication.”
“There usually is. Come in, then,” he said, sweeping us forward and into a surprisingly cheerful little sitting room. The carpets were a lively green, and the overstuffed chairs, resting on knobbly mahogany legs, were patterned with pastoral toile. “Who is this odd-looking child? A new recruit for the armée du diable?”
“She works at Coldthistle, aye,” Mary replied, impatient. “Louisa Ditton, this is our undertaker of choice, Giles St. Giles. The tubby tabby by the fire is called Francis.”
“Francis is off biscuits,” the undertaker informed us gravely. “He can’t jump to the bed anymore, the poor fellow.”
Francis looked anything but poor; in fact, he appeared perfectly fat and happy, purring away on the rug before the hearth. Mary guided me to one of the chairs near a small but healthy fire and removed the cloak snuggled tightly around my shoulders. “Is there tea? Louisa here had a run-in with a bad sort.”
Now there was the understatement of a lifetime.
“Go on,” Giles said, giddy. “I need the local gossip, you see. Business has been rubbish since that pompous idiot John Lewis set up in Malton. I say he puts far too much rouge on his corpses, makes them look like a bunch of blushing Colombinas.”
“I’m sure he’s nothing compared to you,” Mary told him kindly. She took the chair next to mine, lifting my braid to inspect the bruises forming on my neck. “Do you have anything for this, Giles? I dearly wish Mrs. Haylam were here. Her poultice would soothe this instantly.”
“My clients are already dead and unconcerned with mere bruises, but I will check the workshop. Kettle first, however, and a biscuit or two, but none for you, Francis, you greedy lump. . . .”
Francis meowed in protest and turned over, showing us his explosively furry belly.
“I can manage the kitchen,” Mary said, hopping up and going to a white-painted archway across from the hearth. “Chijioke will be along any moment and I doubt he wants to tarry.”
“No, he is always eager to be about his work and I am always eager to watch,” Giles replied, rubbing his hands together. He wedged his tall, storklike body through a door behind me, and I heard his heeled boots clack on a set of stairs leading downward.
“How are you feeling?” Mary asked, busying herself with the range and a heavy black kettle. I watched her through the arch, reaching to scratch the tabby’s neck.
“Like the apple that fell off the cart,” I replied with a sigh. “My wrist was only just feeling better and now this.”
Cupboards opened and closed in a flurry. I could hardly track Mary as she bounced around the kitchen gathering up tiny bottles and wooden boxes into her arms. While she busied herself in the kitchen, I glanced around for any usable cosmetics. There was nothing but books and a globe and a few framed drawings to be found. “Ah! We can see to that. Silly man. He has almost everything I need right here . . . moonwort, pigeon leaf, even baltian violets. And here I thought Giles was a hopeless gardener.”
“I’m not sure I know what any of those are.”
“You wouldn’t. Some of these will only grow in certain soils during certain phases of the moon and wilt from the touch of humans and animals. Moonwort only grows in land fed by the corpse of a fairy,” Mary explained. She opened all of the tins and bottles she had collected and began stirring in different measures of each into a miniature cauldron on the stove. She added water from the kettle and a few glugs from what looked like a wine carafe. At once, a delicious and florid scent poured out from the archway. Francis the tabby flipped onto his stomach and arched his back, sniffing. “I’m not all that talented at restoratives, but I try to listen when Mrs. Haylam teaches Poppy.”
She brought me an engraved cup filled to the brim with steaming hot liquid. I put my nose into the vapor and inhaled deeply, my stomach growling from the smell. It was like buttermilk infused with violets, or the perfume of baked bread wafting through a field of flowers.
Giles St. Giles burst through the door to the cellar, a jar of ugly black leeches tucked under his arm. His face fell after catching a whiff of the concoction in my hands.
“Mary, you scamp, you sent me on a useless errand. Thought I might give her a leeching. Practically any of life’s ailments can be cured with a good leeching. Except anemia, obviously.” He laughed as if this was the funniest joke ever told.