Barnabus hadn’t forgotten she had children tied up in this as well. “We’ve saved children too.”
Still the terror in her eyes. Still the frantic shaking of her head. “Not from him.”
“Yes, from him,” Fletcher said. “We know who he is. He knows who we are, too, because we thwart him every chance we get.”
She blinked a few times. The tiniest flicker of hope crossed her face, but she snuffed it out quickly. “If I went bridges with you, he’d nab my little ones before any of us could say Bob.”
“Where are they?” Fletcher asked gently and with clear concern.
“They’re at Trafalgar Square, earning their keep for the day. They’re made to be bungnippers.”
Forced to be pickpockets. That was more common than it ought to be.
“The children have to come back with a certain amount or ...” She didn’t finish; she didn’t have to.
“We can send someone there right now, find them before he does,” Fletcher said.
“You don’t know them.Hedoes.” Serena was physically shaking. “Just me talking to you could’ve tipped him already.”
“You tell us their names and what they look like, how we’ll know them. We’ll find them. We have eyes and ears all over the city.”
Serena wrapped her arms around herself, doing little to still her trembling. “So does the Mastiff. He burns people.” In a strangled whisper, she added, “Alive.”
“We know,” Barnabus said. “We will understand if you aren’t willing to take the risk right now. But this may be your only chance. My mother was also trapped by someone cruel and exacting. I often wished when I was small that she’d taken the risk and tried to free us.”
She was debating; he could see it in her eyes. “Would I have to be separated from them?”
Barnabus shook his head. “We can bring them to you.”
“I’ve nothing to pay you with,” she warned.
“We’d not accept it anyway,” Fletcher said.
Serena’s shoulders straightened, though she hadn’t stopped shaking. “I’ll go withher,” she said, pointing to Ana.
It was quickly arranged. Hollis and Ana would hail a hackney and get Serena to one of the safe houses Barnabus had set up to help women escaping dangerous situations. Fletcher would go find her children.
“Do you promise me you’ll find them?” Serena pressed, her voice breaking with emotion.
“I swear to it,” Fletcher said.
She crumbled at that, though whether out of desperation, fear,or relief wasn’t immediately apparent. Ana put an arm around her and, with Hollis, led her away.
Only Fletcher and Barnabus remained in the tiny, narrow street.
Barnabus sighed with relief.
“Wouldn’t breathe too easily yet if I were you,” Fletcher said. With a tip of his chin, he motioned to the walls on either side of them.
Barnabus had been so focused on Serena that he’d not taken time to study their surroundings. Scrawled on every wall multiple times, in everything from ash to mud to paint to what he feared might be blood, was a single phrase: “The Tempest is coming.”
theBachelor
and theBride
by Mr. King
Installment IV