Page 2 of I Will Steal You the Stars
It was a failure he was proud of.
They called him Duke, but really, he was a king.
At a wooden door, its base swollen with damp, the three of them paused. Seamus looked along the alley. Enzo pulled a key from his pocket and clicked the lock open. They slunk into the cavernous old cellar that had once belonged to a long-destroyed manor that was rumoured to have been a home to one of Henry VIII’s advisors.
Harry crossed the small room, then hunched before the kiln. He pulled a few swiped lumps of charcoal from his pocket and tossed them into the stove.
‘What’s the take, boys?’ Enzo held out a wooden bowl, and the three of them threw in a handful of coins. Mostly silver, but a few gold sovereigns glinted in the light cast by the spluttering fire. Enzo picked those out. He retrieved a pouch from inside his coat and gave it a shake.
‘Might be enough. Harry?’ Enzo lobbed the pouch. Harry caught it, weighed it thoughtfully, then nodded. He didn’t speak much since he’d lost most of his hearing working in the glass factory.
‘I’m not slipping any clipped sovereigns.’ Seamus jiggered from foot to foot. ‘Busy or not, there’s not a barkeep in London who’d believe an Irish had gotten hold of blunt like that by honest means.’
Enzo scratched his nose. ‘I’ll go snide pinching up town. I’ll wear my best coat, be all square-rigged like.’ He smiled and smacked his lips. ‘I’ll put on my proper voice,’ he said, taking care to round each syllable and to roll each vowel like he’d been taught at the orphanage. ‘And when I pass ‘em one of Harry’s coins, no one will suspect a thing.’
If Matron could see him now.
Harry pulled his bundle of tools from his coat pocket. He smoothed the canvas and set each iron piece for sovereign casting into position, one beside the other, lining them up with the same precision he once plied to his more honest work. From an envelope he retrieved from his coat pocket, he added his special mixture of salt and ground brick to the assemblage. Once the shavings were melted, he’d add the concoction to separate out the gold from the silver. He blew a long, steady breath into the fire. The smoking lump caught, and flames danced. With a satisfied nod, he took up a pair of clippers, then carefully sheared a thin sliver of gold from the edge of one sovereign. It curled over and onto itself before falling into his porcelain bowl. Occasionally, he looked up from his work to poke at the fire. The factory may have taken his hearing, but he’d kept his steady hand. No one ever looked twice at one of Harry’s coins, the ones he made or the ones he shaved. He was the best bit-faker this side of the river.
There was more honest work, beyond a doubt. But there was less honest too, and work that hurt those in lower places. Work that relied on swindling and thieving and breaking backs. But ‘collecting’ coins through a discreet palm, then clipping a little off the edge to melt down to cast into new currency… Was that so terrible a thing in a city built on thieves, both those in the gutters and in their lofty townhouses?
Technically, it was all still money. Just… redistributed.
As Harry worked at the stove, Enzo took up a stick. He drew a rough rectangle in the dirt between him and Seamus. ‘It’s a busy night tomorrow. One of the last big takes of the summer before the hobs head back to their estates in the monkery. Just skip through, mind. No theatrics, no big biscuits. Only take what you can nab from open pockets. If they don’t protect it, they don’t mind losing it.’
‘I’m not certain that’s a good plan.’
Wild Court was always noisy, and this room, with the forge going, especially so. Still, it all fell to nothing as that voice cut through the chamber. It was more well-rounded than he remembered, and more assured than when he’d last heard it. No quiver in it now. But still lyrical and light, as if she were calling his name across the Duke Street yard as they played games.Ready, Enzo?she’d sing, before they’d run and try to hide behind brick chimneys, cracked blocks and old crates, their small bodies contorting to find refuge in the barrenness.
Enzo dragged his gaze over the rough stone, along the chipped wood, to the grey hollow of an entrance.
As prim as a rector’s rib, as high-strung as a horse at the gate, with curves as luscious as a bawdyken madam, there she stood.
Mina. Bloody Mina.
Chapter Two
Mina dug her nails into her palms. The slight pain steadied her and eased the nausea that had flared as she negotiated the filth and stagnant water. The reality of Wild Court Rookery was more intense than what her imagination had conjured when Matron had said she thought Enzo might be here. Closed and overcrowded, the streets teemed with mules, aged ponies, mangy dogs, hissing cats, pigeons, and bare-footed children.
Oh, the children.
Mina buried her hands in her skirts to hide their trembling.
‘Save the sermon, Fischer,’ Enzo called from where he sat crouched. His face, half lit by the fire in the furnace, twisted into condescension. ‘Hell doesn’t care for a lesson from Matron.’
So much flint, so much harshness. He’d grown into a wall of a man, both in looks and stubbornness. Not so much in height—like most orphans, Enzo barely scraped five feet—but in his shoulders, his chest, his body, he could have been built from the surrounding bricks. Even as he eased back on his haunches to rest an elbow on his knee, he moved with a jagged stiffness. Dark hair, full cheeks, no smile… so similar, yet so very different.A hint of red tinged his knuckles—chills from the wind, or from dispensing justice? Probably best not to ask. The scraggly boy who had befriended her at the orphanage gate, who had taken her tiny hand in his and showed her the dorms, the kitchens and the classrooms of the Duke Street orphanage, had died and been buried somewhere in these slums. This brute was all that remained.
‘It’s not a message from Matron.’ Her voice started to shake, but she snapped it off.
Breathe, Mina. This isn’t about you anymore.
As Mina inhaled confidence, the world swam, and she had to pause to brace herself against the door. Confidence had never smelt like this.
Enzo chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet. He crossed the room with his easy gait. Not a swagger—Enzo understood his place on the bottom rung of the ladder—but with purpose. He may be a London rat, but he clearly revelled in it. She had always dared to dream higher than an orphan girl should. Her dreams had given her nothing but trouble. Reality had served Enzo well.
‘You have a proper servant's voice now. Not a hint ofdeutscheleft in you. Shame. I liked it.’ He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. ‘What’s wrong with our plan?’
‘Bow Street runners. They’re ramping up. And every noble leaving town at the end of the season has got their own men on the watch. I heard them talking in the kitchens at Morton House.’ She had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. ‘They’re saying they miss the days when thieves were hung, not tried and transported. They still give the boat, you know. And it’s no co-incidence that many a caught man is black and blue when he stands before the judge.’
