Felix straightened. Raphi Klonimus slipped in with urgency at his heels, coat collar damp, breath thin from the cold. He didn’t greet them. He set a stack of letters and folded sheets on the worktable; the edges wore the grime of travel and being read too often.
“Everything my contacts in Vienna could pull,” Raphi said. “About Maisie Morgenschein.”
Felix’s stomach knotted. His hands went careful and still. For years, every inquiry had ended in a clean, echoing nothing—as if the world had swallowed her name. Now paper sat between them, heavy as proof.
Alfie edged back, eyes flicking toward Felix.
“She vanished from the official record in 1813,” Raphi went on, softer. “Just before you returned from India. There’s the synagogue notice for her father a few days after you left—then the trail dies. No employment. No address.”
Felix’s breath hitched. “That isn’t possible.”
“I thought the same.” Raphi unfolded a page. “Translation says the post confirms her name was stricken from the resident registry. I asked why.”
Silence settled.
“No answer.”
Alfie splayed a hand over his face. “So someone scrubbed it—on purpose?”
“I don’t know. Rot, fear, or order from above—it reads the same.” Raphi met Felix’s eyes. “They erased her.”
Felix stepped back until the counter found his spine. He swallowed once, then again. “So I can’t find her.”
“I’m sorry.”
Felix nodded. The cold that had been pacing his chest lay down and stayed. Impossibility wasn’t a reason to stop, only a weight to lift.
Raphi cleared his throat. “And that’s not the worst of it.”
Felix blinked. “What now?”
“My contact inBistri?a—Northern Transylvania—says Baron von List’s men are raiding gold shipments again. And Wendy said Prince Stan’s family has soldiers there.”
Alfie stiffened. “The Carpathian routes.”
“Disguised as banditry, too regular to be chance. Klonimus reserves are down. The Crown-Jeweler network will strain. And you, Felix—your gold for restorations dries up if this keeps happening.”
Alfie swallowed. “If the Royal Warrant is questioned—if supply fails—”
“I won’t treat the charity cases,” Felix said. “Or keep standards for the titled ones.”
“And that,” Raphi said, “is the point. Discredit the Jewish jewelers who supply the Jewish doctor, undercut trust on Harley Street, and Parliament nods along while List calls it service to the Crown.”
Felix’s jaw set. It was never only medicine with men like that. It was power, and the boy at the center of today’s case made the perfect lever.
No one spoke. In the quiet, Alfie’s hand landed heavy and warm on Felix’s shoulder.
“You saved my smile,” Alfie said. “When no one else would risk their place.”
Felix gave a small, rough sound. “The rules weren’t right. That’s all.”
“No,” Alfie said, “some men live to make right things impossible. That’s where we don’t stop.”
“Nor will we,” Raphi added. “My brothers stand with you. So do the Pearlers. We’ll keep the gold moving. You keep the mouthsmended. No one’s taking your Warrant while we can breathe.”
Felix looked down at the nearest letter, the ink feathered by strange hands. He slid one page toward himself and squared its corners, the old habit of a man who needed one true line to work from.
“All right.” He spoke low and steady but the air didn’t feel as though it filled his chest entirely. “Then we begin.”
