There was light on the main road, at least enough to see by, lit by gas lamps and candles in shop windows, but between the ancient buildings, dark alleys waited like gaps in teeth. Shadows moved within them, lurking just beyond where Elswyth could see.
The carriage stopped, and Kehinde opened the door and stepped into the street without hesitating, extending a hand to Elswyth. She looked at it, then at the street outside, and descended from the carriage. The night was icy, and the ratty cloak only did so much to keep her warm. She brought the hood up, concealing her scar. It would not do to be recognized in a place like this.
Kehinde moved toward the alley to her right, across the crowded causeway, and Elswyth followed. On either side of the alley stood a factory and a pub. Workers—their hands withered from the extraction of spices—poured out of the factory like escaping prisoners. Half of them went down the road to wait for an omnibus. The other half went straight to the pub and waited for fresh beer. Elswyth must have heard six different languages in that crowd of factory workers; foreigners capable of fabricating exoticspecies were almost guaranteed work sating London’s demand for herbs. Any money they made went toward food to replenish their vitæ, and so most were little more than indentured servants, living day to day in the workhouses. But even that was better than living on the streets.
As they walked, Elswyth noted a large posting on a brick wall near the alley. She hesitated, reading the massive print:
CURFEW IN EFFECT; NO-ONE SHALL BE OUT-OF-DOORS PAST TWELFTH BELL; WOMAN-SLAYER AT LARGE; STAY VIGILANT; INFORMATION ON ‘REAPER’ REPORT TO METROPOLITAN POLICE; 150-POUND REWARD
Next to it, someone had posted a recent news sheet proclaiming the discovery of the last victim. Around the main causeway, Elswyth spotted identical postings plastered to the windows of shops. The crowd from the nearby omnibus disembarked, walking quickly past her. Some glanced at them, but most simply kept their heads down, sticking to the well-lit areas beneath the gas lamps.
Kehinde signaled for her to move along with a jerk of his head. He slipped through the crowd, looking back to ensure that Elswyth was not far behind. They followed the slope of the alley downward, over the muddy stones as bedsheets, drying on strings, waved like ghosts above them. What struck her most was the darkness; away from the gas lamps of the main streets, the alleys felt like caves, oppressively dark. A smog-choked moon struggled through the thin opening above the alleyway, casting fractured light on the cobblestones, and the walls of the brick tenements grew closer as they descended, like the shifting walls of canyons.
Kehinde turned a corner into a wider corridor, one that curved along a gravel path. Red lanterns hung from doorways along the street, and women wandered beneath them, leaning against walls and smoking cigarettes. They twirled their gowns as Kehinde and Elswyth walked by, blowing kisses or playing with their hair. Each wore different flowers, signifying their unique offerings. A girl a few years younger than Elswyth sat behind the glass window of her brothel wearing a crown of white roses. Elswyth didn’t need a book of floriography to know what was being sold. Finally, they came to a small gap between the buildings marked by a red lantern and a street sign:LIME ALLEY.
“This is it,” Kehinde said.
“The place the last body was found?” Elswyth said.
Kehinde nodded. “Not a place I would expect Persephone to be,” he said, looking about the street. To their right, a few men lingered outside of what might have been an opium den. A thin smoke leaked from the windows, smelling of tar and sweet, dark fruit. “You really believe this Reaper business has something to do with your sister?”
Elswyth frowned, examining the cramped alley. “You guessed my reasons for coming here, so the thought occurred to you as well.”
He shrugged. “I may have noticed the newspaper clippings in your desk drawer while I tidied up. That does not mean I believe it.”
Elswyth frowned. She made a mental note to hide her research more thoroughly. “Five women were murdered in the span of months. Persephone goes missing at the same time, in the lone month where a body was not discovered. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“Yes, but the Reaper’s victims have been… a different sort of woman.”
“Prostitutes, you mean.”
“Yes. Living and working here, in the Rows. Persephone was out shopping the day she vanished, preparing for a ball. Not quite the same thing.”
“And Mrs. Rose has taken me to every modiste and haberdashery that Persephone would have frequented. Not one of them saw her that day.”
“What is your theory, then? That she was in the Rows, for an unknown reason, and was abducted by the Reaper? I might not have known her well, but that does not seem like your sister.”
“Everyone has their secrets,” Elswyth said. She thought of the bouquet in her sister’s room with its coded message. Could Persephone have had a lover? Could she have been meeting him here, far from the prying eyes of society? And if she’d rejected that lover—if he was, perhaps, beneath her station—would he have been angry enough to murder her?
“Perhaps,” Kehinde said. “Although, as far as I saw, she did little except shop, gossip, and attend balls. She almost never left the house unsupervised. She, unlike some houseguests, never made a habit of sneaking out.”
The sound of ringing metal interrupted them. They stood still as the clocktower tolled again and again.
“Twelfth bell,” Elswyth said. “Curfew’s begun.”
Kehinde nodded. “Be quick then. Best not to tarry in such a place.”
Elswyth removed her commonplace book and read through her notes. “The body was found in an alley just off this street. Up here, I think.”
Elswyth moved on without waiting for him. She walked forward as though descending into the throat of a giant. The buildings seemed to teeter around her, the soot-stained bricks of the walls arching over the cobblestone path. There were no gas lamps anymore, and the darkness settled thick between the walls. The only sounds were the occasional distant cough and thedrip-dripof water leaking from broken gutters. No one lingered on the street, either, but Elswyth heard the sound of locks clicking as they walked by and saw the flicker of eyes as they vanished behind drawn curtains. Soon they were completely alone.
Under an archway of old stones to her right was an even smaller alley. The walls loomed closely enough that she could touch either side if she wished. Old barrels lay abandoned here and there, and the cramped corridor smelled of wetness and rot. Elswyth checked her notes again. She’d clipped the sketch of the last victim and held up the page to the alley.
“It was here,” she said. The barrels, the broken stones—it was all the same. Hazel Fairburn’s body had lain in the center of the small corridor, far from view. Why had the Reaper killed her here? Why had he stolen her organs and grown flowers in their place? Perhaps there was no assigning logic to the methods of a madman. Or, perhaps, there was some perverse logic that Elswyth could not see.
Elswyth crouched and touched the stones where Hazel Fairburn had died. Had Persephone met the same fate? The thought made bile rise in her throat. But no—Persephone’s body had not been dumped in an alley, mutilated or otherwise. Why, if all the other women had?
Elswyth stared at a wall, lost in thought. And then she realized the wall was staring back at her.
