The constable looked like a boy barely on the cusp of adulthood, with his neatly combed hair, the pink and slightly injured face of the recently shaved, and the heavily starched, dark-blue uniform with its shiny silver buttons and creases as sharp as Ainfean’s sword. Watching him as he knocked on the church door she was reminded of the few times when a very young elf had come to join the army, overflowing with naive enthusiasm and terminal innocence; it hadn’t happened often to start with, and happened even less as the years went by and births became increasingly rare, but her commanding officer at the time had always given them a stern lecture and sent them packing.

She wondered if that’s how she had looked when she had arrived; had the experienced soldier just seen a clueless princess in a pretty dress, sent out to boost morale and swept up in the drama of it all, or had they actually seen past that. She had never bothered to ask, and any concerns they might have been going to put to her had been laid to rest by an ill-timed goblin ambush and the sight of their princess, pretty dress in blood-stained tatters, stolen sword in hand, carving through the small, wiry warriors with a furious expression on her face. Lisariel had been angry about that; it was one of the first in the long line of her dresses that Ainfean had, largely through no fault of her own, utterly destroyed.

Coming back to the present, Ainfean watched the constable emerge from the church, still talking to Reverend Finlay. Presumably, the priest was telling the younger man about his curious singing visitor the previous night. The constable was certainly scribbling furiously in a small notebook about something whilst the men - the undertakers, Mrs Ackerman had called them - carried a large wooden box into the church. Ainfean didn’t need it explaining to her what the box was for, and she had no desire to watch it being taken away so, when the constable left the church and started walking down the lane towards Alfred’s cottage, she followed along, hidden on the other side of the high stone wall that separated the lane from the field beyond.

Ainfean leapt the wall as he approached the cottage, creeping up behind him and waiting until he was about to knock on the door of the cottage before clearing her throat. She felt almost guilty as he jumped enough that his feet left the ground.

“Constable,” said Ainfean. She was standing a few feet away, slightly side on, her hood drawn up so that only the lower half of her face was visible; she also made sure that she was standing in such a way that her sword was hidden behind her trailing leg, deep within the folds of the cloak.

“Madam,” said the constable. “It is not proper to sneak up on a member of the constabulary like that. I might have injured you.”

It had not escaped Ainfean’s notice that his hand had fumbled for something at his waist that appeared to be a small wooden stick as he span around. It seemed lacking, somehow, unless this constable was much more highly trained in combat that she gave him credit for. Even if that were the case, she decided she probably wasn’t going to need her sword. “I apologise, constable, I hadn’t intended to startle you so badly, I merely wanted to stop you before you knocked on the door. Mrs Ackerman did not go to sleep until very late; it would be a kindness to let her rest a while longer.”

The constable’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“I’ll open the door so you can check she’s all right,” said Ainfean, before the constable could voice his suspicion. “You can speak to her later, just let her rest for now.” Ainfean stepped around the young man, who kept his hand very near his stick, and gently opened the door. Peering in, Mrs Ackerman could be seen still sleeping peacefully on the bed. “See?” She closed the door again.

The constable, perhaps feeling that he really ought to be the one in charge of the conversation, stepped back and drew his wooden stick. “Madam, you are disrespecting a member of the Queen’s Constabulary and I have reason to believe that you are involved in the murder of one Alfred Ackerman. Now kindly surrender yourself to my custody so that I can take you in for questioning by the magistrate. I really would prefer not to have to use this.” He brandished the stick.

Ainfean snatched it out of his hand and tossed it into the bushes.

“My baton!”

“Is that what it was?” said Ainfean, not caring in the least. “Worthless. The man who killed Alfred, he was about my height, shaved head, deep-set eyes with a nose that had been broken a lot - there was a scar from side to side across it. Do you know him?”

“I...what? Madam, you witnessed the murder?”

“Please stop calling me madam and tell me if you recognised the man I described.” Ainfean stepped closer to him, forcing him to step back in turn until his back bounced off the stone wall of the cottage.

“Madam, you are under arrest!” he said, wincing at the squeak in his voice.

Ainfean blinked in momentary confusion. “I...don’t know what that means. Just tell me if you know the man.” She didn’t really want to resort to intimidating the nervous young man but, on the other hand, she didn’t want the trail to get too cold in this unfamiliar world. She pushed back her hood and fixed him with a cold, steely gaze.

“I, uh, no, mada...miss, but there was talk from Billy Winston about some fellas from London poking around.” A drop of sweat ran down from the constable’s hairline.

Alfred had mentioned London a couple of times. “London...that’s a town somewhere to the south, isn’t it?”

The constable’s eyes widened, confusion replacing nervousness, at least temporarily. “How do you not know where London is, are you foreign?”

“Very much so.”

His eyes widened still further. “Are you French?”

Ainfean stared at him for a long moment before replying. “No, I am not French,” she said. “Now, please, tell me everything you know about these men from London?”

The constable drew himself up to his fullest height and puffed out his chest. “That is part of an ongoing investigation and I am not at liberty to divulge any further information to the public. On this one occasion I am prepared to overlook this assault on an officer of the law as I surmise that you are the young lady who Reverend Finlay told me was grieving over the deceased, and never let it be said that constable Phillips is not a compassionate man, but I must insist that you relate to me any and all information you have regarding the murder of Albert Ackerman,” he said, taking a deep breath once he had finished.

“You have my description of the man and you know what he did - there is no further information,” said Ainfean in a low, impatient voice. “Now…” Suddenly there was a knife in her hand, the edge of the blade glinting menacingly in the early morning light. It was a good deal more threatening than the discarded baton. “...you were about to tell me about these men from London.”

Constable Phillips eyed the knife nervously. “You know it’s illegal to threaten a member of the Queen’s Constabulary,” he squeaked.

“Your laws do not concern me, constable, I merely want to find the man who killed Albert. He stole something that is precious to me.”

“It was just two men, looked like thugs. They had vicious eyes and scarred up faces - a bit like yours now I think about it - and they were going around asking people about Mr Ackerman. No one’s seen them for a couple of days though.”

“They were looking for Alfred?” said Ainfean, more to herself than to the constable.

He nodded, almost stabbing his chin on the knife that Ainfean was still holding up. “Lot of folk saying it’s something to do with his younger brother; lad was always a tearaway and everyone knows he ran off to London to make his mark.”

“A brother? Alfred had a brother?”

“Oh yes, name was Kenneth, if I remember right. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’d found himself some trouble down in the big city, he was always attracting it.” Now the floodgates had opened and the constable was almost eager to help.

What other secrets did you have, Alfred, thought Ainfean. “Thank you, constable, you’ve been very helpful. I have just two more questions: how do I get to London and is there anywhere around here I can get a horse to ride there?”

“A horse? Why would you ride a horse all the way to London when you could take the train? You’re a strange one, madam.”

Ainfean stood atop the hill and looked down at the track that curved off around the contours of the rolling landscape, and she shuddered. Parallel iron bars as thick as her arm bound the earth like manacles; even as divorced from magic as she was, the presence of so much of it, wrapped around the world, made her queasy. Off to the north, a cloud of steam billowed up, it’s source getting closer and closer until at last it rounded the bend and thundered into sight, an iron monster belching smoke, wheels clattering with a deafening roar, driven by churning levers. Ainfean would have thought it something conjured forth from the darkest pits of faery, some nightmarish creature of foul magics, could she not see the small figures of men moving about within it, and yet more men and women sitting happily in long thin wagons that trailed behind the metal beast.

She watched it until it was out of sight but for the smoke rising up over distant hills. “The train,” she muttered, struck almost dumb by a mixture of horror and wonder. She had scoffed at the constable when he told her what it was but, if anything, he had undersold it. Apparently, the five hour train ride to London cost at least thirteen shillings, something Ainfean did not possess. In fact, if she was being honest, she had nodded politely and paid no attention at all when Alfred had attempted to explain the local currencies to her. She got the impression that thirteen shillings was a sizeable amount, one currently outside the means of Mrs Ackerman, Ainfean had decided to take a more direct approach. Having watched a train go by, and seen where it passed beneath a carved out rockface on the bend, it seemed to her that it would a relatively simple matter to jump on to the roof as it went past.

Mrs Ackerman had pronounced her an idiot when, sure to get herself killed when Ainfean had first outlined a plan based on nothing but the constable’s vague description; it was certainly not the first time anyone had suggested as much. At least the indignant outburst had broken the awkward silence that had followed Ainfean’s question about the mysterious Kenneth. He was no less mysterious now; Mrs Ackerman had refused point blank to acknowledge his existence beyond muttering the word “wastrel” under her breath, then telling her to look somewhere called Whitechapel. After that, it had come as a surprise to Ainfean when she received a hug from Alfred’s grieving widow as she was leaving the cottage. You shouldn’t have been so worried about her meeting me, Ainfean had silently admonished Alfred.

It was an hour later that the next train came rumbling down the tracks, steam pouring from the chimney at the front of the machine. Ainfean was waiting some twenty paces from the edge of the rockface, enough distance to let her get up to a good speed. She had taken off her cloak and wrapped her sword and unstrung bow up in it, then slinging the whole bundle over her shoulder; she didn’t want to risk getting her feet tangled in anything at the wrong moment.

When the smoke-belching machine drew level with her, Ainfean took off at a dead run, pouring all the strength she had into her legs until she was flying across the ground, arms pumping hard. She reached the edge, some fifteen feet above the top of the train, and launched herself off into air made hazy by the dissipating clouds of steam. There was a brief moment of weightlessness as she hung in the air, twisting around so that she was facing the back of the train, and then she landed on the curved roof of the cart with a thud.  As soon as her feet touched the moving train they were pulled backwards, leaving her to thump down on to her hands and knees with a grimace and a muttered curse. She remained in place however, bruised but securely down. Now she just had to sit in the rushing, ash-laden wind for four hours.

It was hard to comprehend, she thought as the train ran tirelessly on for mile after mile, far beyond the point when even the finest elven horse would have needed to stop. These humans, with their brief, fragile lives, still managed to create something like this, countless miles of iron embedded into the earth or even through it; chasms in the rock and dirt had been carved out to allow the track to run as straight as possible. They had changed the shape of the world to accommodate their desires rather than just make the track go back and forth with the contours of the landscape. It was both terrifying and impressive, something no elf would ever even imagine. Even she, for all the taboos she had broken, wouldn’t have thought of doing this. So vital this world was compared to her own.

It could be seen in the distance as she travelled; bustling towns, many with tall chimneys industriously belching out smoke. This was not the world she had read about in Shakespeare or Chaucer or Ivanhoe; she knew it had moved on since then, of course, but even with some of the things that Alfred had described to her she hadn’t come close to realised by how much.

In fact, sitting atop the train, it was as if she was travelling forward in time as the signs of industry became more and more numerous, the towns they passed through became bigger and more densely packed, and all were filled with people moving with a sense of determined urgency.

Occasionally people would spot her from roads or bridges as the train thundered past them. She would wave and laugh at their wide-eyed expressions and then was gone from sight before they were able to overcome their astonishment and wave back. There was something to be said for this, she thought, then felt guilty and a little treasonous for thinking it. Of course, there was something to be said for the clean air of faery, she added, swiping at the soot that was steadily coating her face. If she rode one of these contraptions again then she would definitely try to ride inside the carriage rather than up on the roof. At least it was a sunny day.

Eventually, a dark smudge appeared on the horizon in front of them, the air above it thick and hazy. The nearer they got, the bigger it grew until it stretched from one side of the visible world to the other. This must be London, she decided. The scale of it was immense, dumbfounding. Ainfean had always thought Glyndorial to be big but this was something else entirely; its vast expanse would have swallowed Glyndorial whole with plenty of room to spare.

Earlier, the landscape she passed through had been mainly green fields and fell land with the occasional town but the closer they got to London, the closer the towns and villages became until there was nothing to separate one from the next, as if they had combined to form a single mass of houses and shops and industry. Presumably, it was the last of these that was contributing to an increasingly thick atmosphere, laced with metallic, chemical smells, that had Ainfean thinking longingly of the open fields.

How could they live in such a place, she wondered, did the noxious air not make them sick? Maybe they were used to it; if anything that was an even more unsettling prospect.

More sets of train tracks converged with the ones Ainfean was riding on, until it seemed like she was sailing into the city on a river of metal. On either side of the great path of iron, the buildings grew increasingly tall, with more and more eyes looking curiously at the figure sitting cross-legged on top of the train. So much for the subtle, inconspicuous entrance, thought Ainfean. It looked like they were approaching the end; the train was beginning to slow, the metallic clanking of its parts reducing the furious beat of their tempo.

Suddenly a loud screech rent the air that left Ainfean clutching at her ears and cursing. The train jerked beneath her and slowed even more. Efficient, yes, and pleasant when it was passing my acres of green fields or wooded hills, but in Ainfean’s estimation this was not the most peaceful way to travel.

Ahead of them, Ainfean could see that the metal tracks they followed were leading them into the dark interior of what looked like a huge warehouse. In its dim recesses, she could make out other trains and crowds of people milling about or standing on raised platforms that ran parallel to the track. Time for her to disembark, she decided, not a difficult task with the amount that the train had slowed. Indeed, it was a simple matter for her to wait until she just passed into the shadow of the building’s roof and then jump off to the side, landing with a roll in the loose dirt and gravel before jogging quickly off to the side, into the deeper shadows where she could look at her surroundings without being observed.

The building itself was a marvel, a huge vaulted ceiling of metal latticework and glass in which countless birds flapped and squabbled; even the dwarves of faery, with their huge underground halls, would have been impressed with it. At ground level, it swarmed with people talking or patiently waiting for their trains to arrive. The men were most often dressed in sharply pressed suits with long, thigh length coats whilst the women wore dresses that almost swept the floor with their wide skirts that seemed, to Ainfean’s eyes, ridiculously impractical. She smiled wryly, briefly thinking that Lisariel would have adored them. The whole place bustled and echoed with the sound of chatter and the clatter of trains; the sense of life left Ainfean almost breathless. Before she joined in with the throng, however, she would need to try and clean herself up somewhat; her clothes were filthy, thick with soot and grime, and she dreaded to think what kind of state her face was in. It would certainly be a far cry from the ladies in the crowd delicately covering their mouths with a dainty handkerchief, that was certain.

Over to the side of the warehouse, Ainfean could see a number of doors, some of which seemed to lead to the city beyond the walls; a steady stream of people were coming in or going out. Something caught her eye, a young girl tugging on the sleeve of her mother’s dress. She was hopping from foot to foot with a distinctive urgency until her mother, with a long-suffering expression, finally allowed herself to be pulled towards one of a pair of doors in the wall. Curiously, only women were going in one door with men going in through the other. As Ainfean watched, a man emerged, drying his hands on the trousers of his suit.

Thinking they might be some kind of bathing rooms, Ainfean left the shadows and made her way around to them, skirting around the edges of the crowd and using the curtain of her hair to try and hide the dirt on her face. Even on the edges of the throng, the din of conversation was overwhelming, with the talking occasionally interrupted by the shrill blast of a whistle. It put Ainfean more in mind of the chaotic nature of a battlefield, with its ebbs and flows and occasional shouts of pain or anger, than a place of social gathering. She wondered briefly if she could get them to form up into ordered ranks if she adopted what Olindoir had always called her “Officer’s Voice” and started shouting orders.

Ainfean was still smiling at the notion when she followed a woman into the bathroom. The smile faded instantly and she recoiled as the smell hit her nostrils. She had thought that after hours spent having train smoke blown in her face her sense of smell would be rendered useless; the toxic cocktail of strange chemicals and urine violently disabused her of that notion. Did humans have any sense of smell at all, she wondered as she suppressed her revulsion and forced her way inside.

There was a row of wooden stalls up against one of the off-white tiled walls. Opposite them were three sinks with mirrors attached to the walls above them. The floor was also tiled and distressingly wet; Ainfean did not want to think about what the liquid might be. A woman was standing in front of one of the mirrors, re-applying her lipstick. Ainfean glanced down; the hem of the woman’s green skirt was hovering just above one of the puddles. She found herself desperately wanting to lift the skirt up, though she suspected the woman would not appreciate her assistance.

Pushing it out of her mind, she went to stand in front of the mirror next to the one the woman was using. Ainfean stared at her face; it was black. Not just a little bit dirty, but totally black. The woman looked across, then her eyes went wide as she saw the state of Ainfean’s face. She briefly met Ainfean’s ambivalent eyes and looked hastily away.

“Hello,” said Ainfean, twisting the brass tap and hoping it worked the same way as the taps back in Glyndorial.

The woman looked nervously back at her. “Um, hello,” she said, her reluctance to engage the odd, filthy stranger in the strange clothing written across her face.

“Your skirts almost dragging in the...I was going to say water but that seems unlikely. I’ll say liquid instead. I thought I should warn you.” She splashed water on her face and watched as the watery sludge of ash and grime swirled reluctantly down the plughole. This was going to take some time.

“Oh.” The woman looked down, her face twisting in disgust. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” said Ainfean, looking at her reflection again. It was no longer completely black; now there were streaks where you could just about make out her skin.

“Would you like a tissue?” A hand appeared in the edge of her vision proffering a small folded-up rectangle of cloth.

“That’s very kind,” said Ainfean, “but I doubt I’ll be able to return it in anything resembling a clean state.”

“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” said the woman. She smiled at Ainfean with nervous encouragement.

“Then thank you kindly, it is very much appreciated.” Ainfean took the tissue and started using it to wipe thick lines of the sludge off her face. After a little more effort she was only merely very dirty as opposed to completely filthy. “It’s definitely helping.”

“How did you…?”

Ainfean shook her head. “A long, tedious story that isn’t really worth the retelling.” She splashed her face again; her face emerged from the dirt and now the nice woman who no longer had a handkerchief was staring at the scars. “I’ve had an interesting life,” said Ainfean. “Thank you again for the tissue. Do you by any chance know the way to Whitechapel?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Why on earth do you want to go there?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Still, it can be a dangerous place for a woman on her own.” The woman’s eyes went again to the scars.

Ainfean smiled and finished wiping away the last of the dirt. Her hair needed a wash as well but that could wait a little longer. “I expect I will be all right. If you could just point me in the right direction I would be most grateful.”

“Oh, it’s easy to find, just go to the east side of town until someone picks your pocket and you’re there. But I don’t think…”

“It will be fine, I assure you. Whereabouts am I know, just out of curiosity?”

“Here? Why this is King’s Cross! They only built it this last year for the Great Exhibition.” The woman lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as if afraid someone might overhear. “Tell you the truth, everyone says it was a rush job to get it done in time and the whole thing’ll come down around our ears. Course, they also say this stuff,” she held up the tube of lipstick, “is bad for your health, so what do they know.”

“Oh. Well let’s hope it doesn’t collapse while we’re inside it.”

“Will you be going to the Exhibition, miss?” Speaking to Ainfean about such apparently confidential matters seemed to have bolstered the woman’s confidence.

“I had not planned to,” said Ainfean. “I really was intending to find the man I’m looking for and then leave.”

The woman added a last dab of lipstick and popped the tube back into her purse. “You’d be better off going there than into Whitechapel, I’m sure of that.”

“You really don’t seem to like that place,” said Ainfean.

“Course not, miss, I have to live there.” She stepped back from the mirror, paying careful attention to where her skirt was in relation to the toxic puddle, and then headed for the exit. “Good luck to you, miss, hope you find the man you’re looking for, though there are precious few in Whitechapel who are worth the finding. Now if you’ll excuse me, there are plenty of well-to-do visitors looking to spend a few bob in town for the Exhibition and a girl’s got to make a living. Name’s Cassandra, by the way.”

“Thank you for your help, Cassandra. I’m Ainfean.” Ainfean waved the now thoroughly ruined tissue. “And thank you for this.” She bowed her head to the woman, who smiled back and then left.

Feeling slightly less conspicuous, yet still conscious that even without the dirt the clothes she was wearing made her stand out. At least there were plenty of people around; the constantly shifting crowd was as good as any camouflage. She let the flow of people carry her through the wide doors and stepped out into the heart of London for the first time.

Roads lead away from the warehouse, each one lined by a mix of businesses and homes. The buildings were mostly dull red brick, two or three storeys high, with cornices and window-sills of light-grey stone. A horse and cart rumbled past, heading to the east, it’s metal-ringed wheels rattling across the uneven cobbles, which did at least give the people walking down the roads plenty of warning to get out of the way.

Ainfean followed in its wake, since it was heading in the same direction that the woman - Cassandra - had told her was the way to get to Whitechapel. What she would do when she got there she didn’t yet know, she hadn’t really planned anything out beyond getting to Whitechapel and trying to find Kenneth Ackerman. Originally she had thought she might just ask around but she hadn’t expected it to be so big and crowded; Glyndorial was like a small village by comparison. It was also a lot cleaner. Ainfean knew she wasn’t really in a position to criticise anyone or anything for their lack of cleanliness but London was not a clean city; the windows facing the street were grimy, there was refuse in the street itself, along with the leavings of the horses that passed. She could see a couple of boys collecting what the horses had left behind but their progress was slow and they were having little impact. The elves would never have allowed this to happen, the streets in Glyndorial were kept spotless. And yet…

And yet this place buzzed with activity, even in the early evening, in a way that rivaled Glyndorial’s festival days. It was a repeating pattern, it seemed. Maybe living such short lives meant they didn’t worry about relatively minor things such as this, maybe they just had to focus on packing in as much as they could.

After an hour or so of walking and a few wrong turns Ainfean spied a street sign, bright white with black writing, with the word “Whitechapel” written on it.

“So what now, general?” she muttered to herself as she stood at the side of the street, looking at the passers-by as they hurried by on whatever business they had that propelled them with such urgency.

A place to stay seemed like it might be a good place to start. That, however, would require money, she presumed, so it seemed as if a night or two spent curled up in a corner might well be how she spent the next couple of nights. From the descriptions of the area that she’d heard, this was a place where activities of questionable legality took place, and she knew from the time she’d spent in some of the neutral towns of faery that such areas often had work available for someone with her particular set of skills. That was an avenue she would prefer not to explore if she could help it, though it might put her in touch with the kind of people who might have encountered Kenneth Ackerman, or even the man for whom she searched.

Before anything else, she wanted to scout out the area, to get a feel for the atmosphere of the place and see what the people were like.

What she discovered, by and large, was that the people were closed off and suspicious; they were the ones at the bottom of the pile who had to scrape and fight for every penny, and it was pennies; shillings were something to aspire towards and pounds were a distant dream. On the one hand, the insular nature of the people meant that Ainfean was able to pass through the streets largely without any comment on her unusual appearance beyond a couple of youths inviting her to...actually, she had no idea what the words were that they shouted, their accent was too thick, but she could guess their meaning from the gestures they made. She ignored them and walked on, only stopping to glare at them and let them see the knife that appeared in her hand when they made as if to follow her. They decided there were other lucky, lucky women who deserved their attention elsewhere in the warren of streets. Ainfean briefly considered giving them a lesson in manners but she couldn’t really give them a beating just for walking after her, and she doubted that they were the worst the area had to offer.

The downside of the general air of suspicion was that it proved to be nigh on impossible to engage anyone in conversation; it made getting further information an uphill struggle. All she had managed to establish with any certainty was that shopkeepers and bartenders had little time or patience of people with no money asking them questions. Luckily, that was one thing she was able to remedy thanks to an overconfident pickpocket. She had been looking in a ship window when the man “accidentally” bumped into her. He apologised profusely, the most polite interaction she had had since she arrived in Whitechapel, and went on his way. Obviously, he found nothing but dirt and bits of fluff. Ainfean, on the other hand… She tossed the pleasingly heavy pouch of coins in her hand and smiled; her mother would have been appalled at the disreputable things her daughter had picked up in her sojourns to the neutral towns. Watching the man stroll away from her, whistling nonchalantly, Ainfean counted under her breath. Suddenly the whistling stopped and the man began to frantically pat his pockets. He stopped when Ainfean loudly cleared her throat. She smiled into his furious gaze and turned away, walking slowly into the shadows of a nearby alleyway. As she expected, the man followed her. Well, if polite enquiries didn’t get her anywhere, there were other ways of getting someone to answer her questions.

The man rounded the corner and stopped, looking into the darkness of the alley with narrowed eyes; he wasn’t as dense as he looked, but still dense enough, stepping towards the calmly waiting woman after only a moment’s pause.

“Give back what’s mine and no harm done,” he said, his accent thick and harsh. He wasn’t a tall man, thin and wiry with a slightly bow-legged gait. He had, Ainfean judged, at least one knife, probably tucked into the back of his trousers’ waistband judging from the way he was keeping his right hand hovering close to his hip.

“Yours?” said Ainfean, smiling sweetly. “I suspect there are several people you’ve bumped into today who might dispute that.”

The man’s eyes narrowed and his hand reached behind his back, reappearing with a three inch knife in his hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, little miss,” he snarled.

Looking at the state of the pitted, notched blade, Ainfean thought that any victim was more likely to catch a disease from it than they were to actually be injured by the edge. “Don’t worry, you really won’t,” she said, her smile broadening.

To his credit, the man did hesitate again, just for a moment, but pride and indignation overcame common sense and caution. He stepped forward, knife raised.

“Could you let me go, please?” he asked through gritted teeth. His sentence was punctuated by quiet whimpering.

Ainfean looked down at his pale face, then at the wrist she had twisted up into the air. It wasn’t quite at breaking point but there wasn’t much in it. “You should really take better care of your weapons,” she said, her tone conversational. “That knife was in a terrible state. Now, I have a couple of questions for you.”

His snarled rejection was cut off by a yelp of pain.

“Now, have you ever heard anything about a man named Kenneth Ackerman?”

The man cursed at her then shook his head frantically as she gently increased the pressure on his wrist. “No no, never ‘eard of ‘im!”

“All right. Have you ever heard of a man, a little taller than me, with a shaved head, lumpy ears that I’m told are called ‘cauliflower ears’, and a badly broken nose with a scar running horizontally across it. He uses something called a gun.”

“Ow! Miss, you just described ‘alf the blokes in Whitechapel!”

“That’s unfortunate,” said Ainfean. She thought for a moment before speaking again. “Now, how would you like to make some of this money back?” She shook the purse, making the coins inside jingle.

His eyes narrowed, even as they were watering from the pain. “Doin’ what?”

“Just keeping an eye out for either of those men for me. Give me something useful and I’ll pay you accordingly. What’s your name?”

“‘Arold,” said the man after a moment’s consideration. Ainfean would have been shocked if that was the name he was born with.

“Well, ‘Arold, what do you say?”

“How will I find you if I ‘ear anyfing?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can find you easily enough, ‘Arold,” said Ainfean. “However, if you can tell me somewhere that I can find lodgings for…” She used her free hand to open up the purse. “Twelve pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, right? So that’s one pound and five shillings. Honestly, I’ll never understand why you humans feel the need to complicate things so much.”

“Humans?”

“Try not to worry about it, just tell me a place I can find a room.”

“Uh, there’s Miss Fenton’s place, down on Oxford Street. Often room in there for a young lady looking for a roof over her head.”

“Look for me there, then. If there isn’t room there then I’ll find you in a few days.” Ainfean released his arm, allowing him to stagger backwards, rubbing at his aching wrist.

Harold glared at her. Ainfean could almost see the thoughts running through his mind. “Don’t reach for your other knife, the one tucked into your boot,” she said, picking Harold’s hat up off the ground and throwing it to him. “It won’t serve you any better than the first one did.”

Harold’s shoulder slumped. “It ain’t natural, a girl being able to do stuff like that.”

“Your gender misconceptions are of no concern to me. FInd me information and get paid, don’t and you won’t see a penny.” Ainfean walked past him, the paused at the exit from the alleyway. “Which way to Oxford Street?”

“Turn right out of here, then take the second right and then the first left. Fenton’s is about two hundred yards along.”

“See,” said Ainfean, “you can be helpful when you try.”

Miss Fenton’s Boarding House was a three storey building, with steps leading up to a front door that might once have been ornate but now possessed only an echo of its former grandeur. Paint was peeling and some of the window panels had been replaced with wood. The door was open, however, and there was a small sign in one of the ground floor windows that read ‘VACANCY’S’.

Going up the steps and in through the front door, Ainfean left behind the street that was still bustling and entered a quiet hallway, decorated in dark reds and with darkly varnished floorboards. There were some pictures on the walls, all featuring a beautiful woman staring challengingly out of the canvas.

“Hello?” said Ainfean. Her voice echoed up the hallway.

A head poked out from a doorway a little way further down the passage. There were bright blue eyes, lined with thick lines of kohl, and vividly red lips, all framed by bouncy, blonde curls.

“Allo, love. You’re a keen one!” The girl stepped out into the hall. She was dressed in a blue dress that swept the floor but was much more close fitting around the legs than the ones Ainfean had seen on the women in King’s Cross. She was also wearing a corset that was pushing her breasts up until the tops of them was almost horizontal. “We don’t normally get any punters coming in this early on.” She smiled brightly; Ainfean had the impression that was her default expression. “So what’s your pleasure, love?”

Realisation dawned on Ainfean and she laughed softly. “My apologies. I’m afraid I was given some inadequate information. I was actually looking for a room to rent,” she said.

The girl’s face fell and she blushed brightly. “Oh, sorry. I ‘ope I wasn’t too forward.”
“Not at all,” said Ainfean. “Do you know where I might find a room to rent?”

“Well there is a spare room in the attic but you’d need to talk to Miss Fenton about that. She’s out at the minute but you’re welcome to come in for a cup of tea. We won’t be getting busy for at least another hour or two.”

“A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.” Ainfean followed the girl through to a pleasant kitchen. A large wooden table dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by chairs. The walls were lined with green painted wooden cabinets below a broad counter, and there was a large iron stove with pans hanging down from the wall above it. A sleeping dog lay in front of the stove; it lazily opened one eye to look at Ainfean when she entered but then went back to sleep.

“That’s just ‘Enry, don’t worry about ‘im,” said the girl, gesturing to a seat. “Kettle’s not long boiled, as it happens.”

Ainfean looked at the chair, and then at all the other fixtures; they were all spotlessly clean. “I’m afraid I’ve picked up quite a lot of dirt on my travels; your Miss Fenton might not appreciate me redistributing it on to your furniture.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, one of our regulars is in tonight and he loves to do the cleaning; he’s a demon with a duster, that one.”

Very little of that sentence had made any sense to Ainfean but she took the proffered chair anyway and set the bundle containing her sword and bow on to the floor by her feet; she could already see bits of soot congregating on the floorboards beneath her. “Thank you.” She had to admit, it felt good to be able to sit down somewhere warm and homely after the last few days. “My name’s Ainfean, by the way.”

“Ooh, that’s a pretty name. Is it foreign?” The girl looked up from the teapot with wide, excited eyes.

“You could certainly say that, I think,” said Ainfean.

The girl brought over a white china cup and the teapot and set them both on the table. “Well I’m Jessica. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She held out a hand, which Ainfean gladly shook; luckily she had witnessed people performing the same gesture during the course of her day so it wasn’t a total mystery.

“Your ‘ands aren’t half rough, Miss Ainfean.” Jessica looked down with wonder at the calloused, scarred hand, tendons and veins standing proud. “Not seen hands like that since me dad, and he was a shipbuilder. Course, he was missing a couple of fingers, but still.”

“Just Ainfean, please.”

“I heard the girls in the cotton mills end up with hands like that, working on the looms,” said Jessica as she finally released Ainfean’s hand. “Is that what you did?”

“No,” said Ainfean, shaking her head. She poured herself a cup of tea. “I was a soldier.”

Jessica’s eyes became saucer-like. “A soldier? Like, in the army?” Her voice was thick with astonishment.

“Yes,” said Ainfean with a laugh. “LIke in the army.”

“I don’t think they let girls in the army in Britain.” Jessica frowned. “I don’t think I’d want to, to be honest.”

Ainfean nodded. “I can’t blame you for that, and I’m not sure if it’s a life I would recommend, but I was good at it, so I ended up spending my life behind the sword.” She carefully sipped the steaming tea.

Jessica giggled. “The sword? Are you from the middle-ages? That’s like something out of old fairy tales about knights and damsels.” She looked dreamily into the middle distance. “I loved those old stories.”

Was she really so old fashioned in this world? Alfred had laughed at her for using a sword but she hadn’t realised she was so archaic. “Do people not use swords anymore?” she asked, but even as she spoke she thought again of the flash of fire erupting from the man’s hands and the red spots blooming on Alfred’s shirt. Why would you use a sword when you could wield power like that?

Jessica frowned. ”I think they still carry them but it’s mostly just rifles and cannons now, far as I know.”

“It seems I came to the world a hundred years too late,” said Ainfean.

“Where are you from, anyway?” asked Jessica.

Before Ainfean could answer, the front door banged open and brisk footsteps approached the kitchen.

“Oh, that’ll be Miss Fenton,” said Jessica, her eyes lighting up.

As Ainfean stood and turned, another woman came bustling impatiently into the kitchen. She was older than Jessica, maybe in her mid-thirties, with a handsome face and sharp eyes, her brown hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her dress was dark green but broadly similar to Jessica’s, albeit with a slightly less obvious cleavage.

“Hello,” she said, coming to a halt just inside the door and eyeing Ainfean suspiciously. “Who might you be?” Her accent was a lot less pronounced than Jessica’s.

“This is Ainfean,” said Jessica, almost bouncing up and down with enthusiasm. “She’s looking for a room to rent.”

Smiling, Ainfean held out a hand as Jessica had done earlier. “She is correct. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Miss Fenton hesitated for a moment before taking the hand and shaking it firmly. Ainfean got the impression that the woman was measuring her up, searching her face and trying to assess her character. “An unusual name, still, there’s all sorts coming into London these days. Not many of them have a face as interesting as yours, mind.”

“Thank you for finding a polite euphemism to describe the battered state of my features,” said Ainfean.

“Battered might be putting it a little harshly. Well-travelled is one I’m quite fond of.”

Ainfean chuckled at that. “I like the sound of that one.”

“Miss Fenton, do you want a cuppa? The pot’s just brewed.”

Miss Fenton smiled warmly at the young woman. “No thank you my dear, I have to go and get ready for tonight. There’s a room in the attic you can have; it’s small, you’ll probably hit your head on the ceiling at least twice a day and the bed creaks terribly. A shilling a week’s the rent.”

“That sounds ideal,” said Ainfean. “And in the course of making my face interesting I became quite accustomed to taking blows to the head; that won’t be a problem.”

“Excellent. Bit of extra income and a spare pair of hands around the place is always welcome. If you could try to avoid coming downstairs during the evenings it would be much appreciated.” One of Miss Fenton’s eyebrows raised and the corners of her lips curled up in a slight smile. “Unless you’d like to earn some extra money for yourself; some find an intimidating face like yours appealing, I’m told. Amazon warrior women are in vogue in some quarters.”

“Thank you for the offer,” replied Ainfean, returning Miss Fenton’s smile. “I’m not quite ready to commit to another career just yet, however.”

“Can’t say fairer than that. Well, I must be off to put on my war paint. Jessica can show you to your room when you’ve finished your tea.” She glanced down at the dirt that had accumulated around the bottom of Ainfean’s chair. “There is a small washroom up there as well.”

“My thanks. Would you like the money in advance?” Ainfean reached for the purse but Miss Fenton waved her hand away.

“We can sort that out tomorrow. Have a good night’s sleep, I hope the noise doesn’t keep you up,” said Miss Fenton, then she nodded to Jessica and Ainfean and left the room. Ainfean heard the sound of footsteps going up a flight of stairs moments later.

The room was cosy, and big enough for Ainfean’s needs, though Lisariel would have had a fit at the sight of it. There was a low ceiling, just above her head height, that followed the slant of the roof down to a narrow angle; both it and the walls were painted white. Only the varnished floorboards offered a variation. There was one break in the ceiling where someone could stand up straight in a small alcove and peer out of a window that looked out over the rooftops of the surrounding houses. The furniture consisted of one small bed, covered in white linen, and a wooden covered wardrobe.

“I’m afraid the wardrobe’s a bit rickety; if you’re not careful the door falls off,” said Jessica, swinging off the doorframe and watched Ainfean.

Ainfean glanced back over her shoulder. “That won’t be a problem. I’m wearing everything I own.”

Jessica’s eyes widened in shock and she stopped swinging. “You don’t have any more clothes than those?”

“No,” said Ainfean with a shake of her head. She set her bundle down on the floor and sighed. The bed looked very inviting but she really needed to clean up a bit first; clean, white sheets wouldn’t remain that way for long if she touched them in her current state. “Did Miss Fenton say something about a washroom?”

“Oh, yeah, though if I’m being honest that was a bit of a grand title. It’s really just cupboard with a sink in it. Running water, mind, though I doubt there’s any ‘ot left. It’s just over ‘ere.” She beckoned Ainfean over to a small door. Opening it revealed a tiny room containing a sink and a shelf with a towel on it. “If you can ‘ang on until late tonight you can ‘ave a proper bath. There’s a couple of baths downstairs and Miss Fenton always makes sure there’s plenty of ‘ot water so the girls can get clean, long as you don’t mind communal bathing - got to make the water last, doncha!”

“A hot bath would be lovely, actually,” said Ainfean. “But I’ll try and get the worst of it off now. I’ll give my shirt a wash as well.”

Jessica plucked at the sleeve of Ainfean’s shirt, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “We’ve got to get you some new clothes, Miss Ainfean. I’ve got a couple of dresses you could borrow but you’re a bit too broad in the shoulders for them I think.” She tapped her chin with her finger. “One of Elsie’s might do ya.”

“I’m not a big dress wearer,” said Ainfean, shrugging off her leather jerkin and putting on the floor next to the sink. She’d wipe that down after she’d cleaned her shirt. “Leggings and a shirt will do me just fine. I like things that let me move around properly” She unbuttoned the shirt and dropped it in the sink. The sudden silence behind her made her look round at Jessica.

The girl’s face had gone pale and she was staring at Ainfean’s bare back.

“The soldier’s reward, my first commanding officer used to call them,” said Ainfean, turning on the tap and beginning to fill the sink with cold water. “It’s not as bad as you might be imagining - those accumulated over a lot of years.”

Jessica coughed. “I, er, actually I was looking at your shoulder muscles.”

Ainfean glanced back again. Jessica’s cheeks had a faint blush of pink to them.

“Sorry,” said the girl. “The scars are impressive though. Were you not very good at being a soldier?”

Ainfean turned off the tap and dunked her shirt up and down in the water, which immediately went from clear to almost completely opaque. “I’ll have you know I was considered quite good.”

“But you have all these scars.”

“I do. But my commanding officer used to say that a good soldier would grow old with a body covered in scars and a lot of stories to tell, and a bad soldier would never have either. If you walked - or crawled - off the battlefield then you were good enough.”

“I don’t think I’d like to be a soldier,” said Jessica after a moment’s thought.

“It’s not all pain and misery,” said Ainfean with a chuckle, “though those are an inevitable part of it at some point.” She drained out the filthy water and refilled the sink. This time, the water only went semi-opaque when she swirled her shirt around for a few seconds.

“I should get downstairs; the first guest will be coming soon.” She giggled. “Sorry. If I get a spare minute I’ll bring you some supper up if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Jessica, I would like that a great deal. Have a good night.”

Ainfean slept on top of the bed and dreamed of trains; she, Alfred and Lisariel rode on one, watching fields and towns sliding by, but as they sat together, talking and laughing, her two companions began to crumble to ash and no matter what Ainfean tried she couldn’t stop it. They kept laughing, though, even after there was nothing of them left but the dust on the wind.

She snapped awake, breathing hard.and took a moment to get her bearings in the dark room. So tired had she been that she had made no effort to get beneath the covers, falling asleep almost as soon as she lay down on the surprisingly comfortable bed. Her clothes were draped over the wardrobe, drying off. Judging from the lack of noise in the house below she thought it was probably too late to have a bath. She would have to wait until tomorrow to meet everyone else, and she wasn’t sure if she had the energy to get off the bed anyway.

Suddenly she noticed that a chair was next to the bed. There was a side-plate with two slices of buttered bread on it. Ainfean snorted with soft laughter; Jessica had managed to sneak in here, with a chair no less, without waking her up. Either the girl had hitherto unexplored potential as an assassin ot Ainfean had been a good deal more tired than she had thought. She took a bite out of the bread; it was delicious and prompted her to realise how hungry she was. The first slice disappeared in moments, closely followed by its partner.

Lying back down, she planned out what she would do tomorrow. Her best course of action, she decided, was to seek out other lowlifes like her new friend Harold. There would be dark and dingy inns where people such as that went to do business. No doubt they would be reluctant to answer her questions, at least at first, but she could be persuasive if she needed to be.

That was her last thought as she drifted off into another dream-filled sleep.

It was a little after dawn when Ainfean woke the next morning, feeling more awake and alert than she had felt in days. There was no sound from within the house, no indication that any of the other residents were up and about. She briefly toyed with the idea of just staying where she was but swiftly discounted the idea. There were things she needed to do and she wasn’t going to get them done lying in bed.

Her clothes were still damp but dry enough for her needs so she pulled on her leggings, albeit with one or two grimaces of displeasure at the feel of the cold, wet fabric sticking to her skin. She looked at her shirt then thought better of it, settling for just wearing the leather jerkin that endured only a wipe down and wasn’t dripping wet. Her boots were also mercifully dry. Damp leggings she could cope with but she drew the line at walking any distance in wet boots if she could possibly help it.

Making her way silently down the stairs, she still could hear nothing from any of the other rooms apart from the faint rumble of someone daintily snoring. She was surprised, then, to enter the kitchen and find Miss Fenton sitting at the table.The house’s owner was awake but not yet alert, judging from her half-shut eyes and the strong cup of tea she was nursing.

“Good morning, Miss Fenton,” said Ainfean. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be up.”

“No, a long lie in is one of the perks of the job,” said Miss Fenton, her voice husky, her accent unexpectedly stronger than it had been the previous night. She obviously had not been up long. “What brings you down here so early? Jessica said you were sleeping like a baby when she took you some supper up last night.” She smiled suddenly. “A naked baby, in fact, which quite flustered our little Jess. Here.” She held out the teapot. “Grab yourself a cuppa and sit down. I don’t have the energy to keep looking up at you.”

Ainfean obeyed, taking the seat opposite Miss Fenton. “I’ve always been an early riser,” she said, pouring herself a drink. The tea coming out of the pot was as black as pitch.

“Sorry, got to have it strong in the morning or I’ll be half-asleep all day,” said Miss Fenton. “So you’re one for getting up with the larks, eh? Jess said you was a soldier, suppose it goes with the territory.”

“Sleeping late was discourage, that’s true.”

“A soldier, eh?” Miss Fenton looked sideways at Ainfean; though tired, her eyes were still sharp. “What brings a lady soldier, which I’m fairly certain don’t exist anywhere near here, to the arsehole of London?” She took a big gulp of her tea and breathed out in satisfaction. “Could be a change in career, I suppose. Might explain why you fetched up at my doorstep. By the by, I wasn’t joking around last night; between that intimidating blank stare and those veiny lumps of muscle you’ve got instead of arms poking out from your leather waistcoat, you could make some good money here. Probably safer than soldiering; not saying we don’t end up with a scar or two but they tend to be less visible.”

“We’ll see how things go. I have other business to attend to first, but after that? Who can say.”

“Other business?”

“I’m looking for two men.”

Miss Fenton’s eyebrows rose. “Well you’re in the right house for that, at least. I think Jess might be a bit disappointed though, I reckon she’s developing a bit of a crush on the scary soldier girl.”

“She had excellent taste if questionable judgement,” said Ainfean. “But I am not looking for romance.”

There must have been something in the tone of her voice because Miss Fenton leaned forward, suddenly intent. “There’s a story there. Been a bit unlucky in love?”

“Actually, I’ve been far more lucky than I had any right to expect, but luck runs out.” Ainfean shook her head and sighed. “Now...one of the men took something that didn’t belong to him. I intend to recover it. I’m hoping the other will lead me to him.”

Miss Fenton nodded. “And you’re looking for them in Whitechapel, are you? They dangerous, these men?”

“One of them is.”

Miss Fenton eyed her for a long moment. “I won’t have you putting my girls in danger. This here’s the only safe place some of them have found, I won’t let anyone jeopardise it. These men, if they find out you’re on the hunt for them, are they going to come looking for trouble?”

Ainfean could only shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s possible.” Now it was Ainfean’s turn to lean forward on to the table; she could feel the warmth of her tea rising up over her cheeks. “Miss Fenton, I have no wish to endanger anyone, least of all Jessica or any of your other girls. If you want me to leave, I will do so with no hard feelings and I will pay you for the full week’s rent. I won’t lie to you; the man I’m searching for is a killer. He killed a man I loved and took a pendant from around his neck.”

“So this is revenge?” said Miss Fenton. She looked disappointed.

“Perhaps a little, but I believe it’s more that he took something that was given by me with all of my love. I cannot get my blacksmith back but I can reclaim the gift I gave him. The idea of it resting around the neck of the man who killed my love makes me sick to my stomach.”

“A soldier looking for the murderer of her love? Sounds like a recipe for trouble to me. That bundle you carried in here, that got weapons in it?”

Ainfean nodded. “A bow, a quiver of arrows and a sword.”

Miss Fenton actually burst out laughing at that. “Are you sure you aren’t Robin Hood?”

“The man in green, correct?” said Ainfean, vaguely recalling reading the story in one of her books. “I lack the required merry men.”

“You know how to use these weapons?”

Ainfean nodded. “I am. I’m afraid I have had a lot of practice down the years.”

“You speak like you’ve spent decades doing this,” said Miss Fenton. “You’re no older than me. In fact I’d say you were a few years younger if it wasn’t for the scarring.”

“I’m older than I look,” said Ainfean with a wry smile. “The people from my land are quite long-lived.”

“Really? Must be nice.”

“I don’t know. If you live for too long you end up being static, never changing. I think a shorter, more varied life might ultimately be better.”

“Ah, that explains why you’ve come to Whitechapel, you want to shorten your life expectancy,” said Miss Fenton.

Ainfean laughed again. “It does not seem so bad. Granted, someone did try to pick my pocket not too long after I got here but that aside it look all right.”

“Tried?”

“A man by the name of ‘Arold, as he put it. It was him who suggested I come to stay here, and provided me with the rent. Very helpful.”

Miss Fenton frowned. “Scrawny man, bit bow-legged?” Ainfean nodded. “Yeah, he comes in every now and then when he’s saved up enough. Guess it might be a bit longer before we see him again.”

“Perhaps not. I told him I’d give him some of the money back if he could find out anything about the men I’m looking for.”

“And you think he will?”

“I think he really wants the money back. Oh, I have no doubt he’ll try to betray me if he can, but as long as I get the information I want then I can live with that.”

Miss Fenton snorted derisively. “He’s a weasel, that’s what he is, and he’ll sell you down the river given half a chance, sure as eggs is eggs.” She sighed, and looked thoughtful for a moment, like she was debating something internally. “Fine. Look, you can stay here, I’ll not throw you out on the street…”

“Miss Fenton, I will be fine out there, and I doubt it will be too hard to find another place to stay.”

Miss Fenton glared at Ainfean. “As I was saying: I’ll not throw you out on the street, but if I get even a sniff of trouble I’ll send you out the front door with my boot up your arse, understand?”

“I get the gist of it, yes. Thank you.”

“And if trouble does come knocking, don’t expect any help. I plan to tell the girls to lock their doors and hide under their beds if anything happens.”

“That sounds fair enough to me. Do you ever get any trouble here?” said Ainfean.

“Yeah, now and then,” said Miss Fenton with slight shrug of her shoulders. “Maybe a gentleman finds himself lacking sufficient funds, or can’t quite accomplish what he hoped to and he gets a bit rowdy, but we can sort out little stuff like that easy enough. So then, these men you’re after, do they have names?”

“One of them does: Kenneth Ackerman.” Ainfean watched Miss Fenton for a reaction but all she got was a shake of the head.

“Not a name I know. I can try asking the girls when they drag themselves up but I don’t hold out much hope. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack here, my girl. Now.” Miss Fenton stood up. “I need to go and make myself look presentable, tease my hair into something that doesn’t look like a bird could lay its egg in there, try to hide all the wrinkles and then crowbar meself into a corset because God forbid I have a waist that’s any thicker than my thigh.” She shot Ainfean an evil glare. “I’m guessing it took you less than a minute from the time you woke to the time you came down the stairs.”

Ainfean leaned back in her chair and grinned at her landlady. “Something like that. Makeup’s a bit of a wasted effort on me, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t know, we could cover up the worst of the scars, bit of a powder and some bright lipstick and you’ll fit right in.”

“It’s not that,” said Ainfean. “The few times I’ve bothered I always forget I’m wearing and scratch at my face or rub my nose. It’s never lasted long before I’ve smeared it across my face. Before you go, would it be okay if I had some more of the bread that Jessica brought up to me last night? I can buy a fresh one later to replace it.”

“Don’t worry about it, love, help yourself. Got a fresh batch coming later and it’d only go to the birds if you don’t eat it. I’ll be back down in an hour or so. There’re some books in the drawing room through there if you want to keep yourself amused. Right out of here, down the corridor, first door before the stairs.”

Ainfean’s eyes lit up. “I think I’ll take you up on that, thank you.”

Miss Fenton shook her head as she went out the door. “A soldier and a bookworm as well, where do I find these people?” Ainfean heard her mutter.

Ainfean was sitting at the kitchen table, her nose buried deep into a book about the plants and animals of the countryside when an unfamiliar woman in a thick blue dressing gown walked into the kitchen and stopped to stare at her. The woman’s curly brown hair was bundled up into a loose bob on top of her head.

“Hello,” said Ainfean, smiling broadly. “My name’s Ainf…”

“‘Ere, Jess said your face was a mess and she wasn’t joking,” the woman said, leaning forward for a clearer look.

“Elise!” said a second woman, walking in behind the first one and smacking her on the arm. This one was in a simple red dress, with none of the corsetry that had been prevalent on Jessica and Miss Fenton’s dresses the previous night. Blonde hair was pinned neatly back into a ponytail. Of the two, she seemed much more alert. “Don’t be rude!” She turned to Ainfean. “I’m Mary, the one stuck in the gutter here is Elise. And Jess did not say any such thing - what she actually said was that you had an interesting face and it looked like you had a very adventurous life. My friend here,” She slapped the one called Elise again, “is just being unsophisticated and rude.”

“I’m sure we’ll get along well then,” said Ainfean. “No one has ever accused me of possessing sophistication. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

Mary reached across the table and warmly shook Ainfean’s hand. Elise looked more doubtful, however.

“I dunno,” she said. “You talk kind of posh for someone who ain’t sophisticated.”

“English is not my first language; I learned it by reading the few English books we had, like Shakespeare.”

“I guess that explains it,” said Elise, reaching over the table as Mary had done, though her handshake was slightly less enthusiastic than Mary’s. “So you a commoner where you’re from, then?”

“Actually, I was a princess,” said Ainfean with a broad smile.

“Ha,” said Elise, plonking herself down. “Funny. Don’t suppose the tea in that pot is fresh is it?”

Ainfean shook her head. “Sorry, it’s at least an hour old.”

Elise lay her head on the table. “Maryyyyyy.”

Mary tutted in disgust but went over to fill the copper kettle anyway. “Not only rude but bone idle as well.”

“I love you, Mary.”

“Hush, don’t embarrass yourself in front of our new friend.”

“I might as well get it over with,” grumbled Elise. “Saves time later on.”

“Clean the tea pot out,” said Mary.

Elise groaned. “I’m tired. Do you know what I had to do last night? He wanted…” Stopping abruptly, she slowly raised her head and looked at Ainfean, who was smiling back at her from across the table, with horrified eyes. “I’m so terribly sorry, I forgot you were there. I’m not good at mornings.”

“Do not trouble yourself about it. I have, as Jessica put it, had an adventurous life; I suspect you would have a hard time shocking me,” said Ainfean. “I’ll clean the pot for you.” She took a note of her page number and set the book down on the table with something close to reverence, then she picked up the teapot and emptied the cold dregs out into the sink. Once she’d rinsed it out, she put it on the countertop next to Mary.

“I like her,” said Mary in a muffled voice. She was resting her head on her arms now.

“Do you want a cup, er, Anniefen?” said Mary. “I mangled that didn’t I?”

Ainfean gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “A little. It’s Ainfean. And no, thank you, I’m going out for the rest of the day.”

“The search for your mystery man?” said Elise, suddenly perking up. “I could come with you, show you around!”

Ainfean thought about the kind of places she was planning on searching, and the sort of people she was likely to be talking to, but before she could say anything to discourage Elise, Mary interjected.

“Hush, Elise, don’t go crowding the poor girl when she just met you. And I doubt she wants to spend the next hour waiting for you to get ready to face the world.”

Elise pouted but didn’t disagree. “Fine. What’s your fella’s name, Ain?”

“My...fella?”

“She means what’s the name of the man you’re looking for,” said Mary.

“Kenneth Ackerman. I don’t suppose…” She looked at the blank faces of the two women. “No, I didn’t think so. It was worth a try. I hope to see you both later.”