Jack took the long way to the graveyard, sticking to the narrow paths along the canal. The usual morning clamour was quieter today, as if the whole district had agreed to speak in whispers.
A woman selling day-old bread from a crate glanced up as he passed, saw who it was, and looked away again almost immediately.
Even the canal smelled heavier this morning - the same sour rot, just thicker somehow, as if the water itself knew.
A boy sat on the edge of the canal, dragging a bent hook through the shallows, searching for anything worth keeping. Jack watched him for a moment. A few months of that had been enough for him. The boy's hook came up empty again. He cursed under his breath and cast it back in. Jack kept walking. He didn't offer advice - advice didn't fill bellies.
The path curved upward towards the graveyard. Rumour had it the cemeteries on the hill had marble halls for the dead to rest in. Down here, there wasn't even halls for the living.
***
The canal narrowed ahead, the path tightening along the edge where the stone had broken away in places and been worn down to mud. Jack moved more slowly here without thinking, his footing careful, his eyes scanning the water as much as the path.
He saw the boat before he realised what it meant. It sat low in the canal, half-tucked beneath the shadow of an old arch where the stone dipped close to the surface. Not a trade boat. Too small. Too quiet. The kind that didn't belong anywhere official.
Jack stopped. For a moment, nothing moved. Then a man straightened from where he'd been crouched inside it.
Jack turned slightly, as if to take another path, but the man spoke before he could.
"I was beginning to think you weren't coming this way."
Jack didn't answer straight away. He considered leaving anyway. But the man was already watching him properly now, and that made the decision for him. He stepped down from the path onto the lower edge by the water.
"I've places to be," Jack said.
"So do I."
The man's voice was level, not raised, not hurried. They stood there for a moment.
"I was at the docks this morning," the man said. "First light. Cold, too. You didn't come."
Jack held his gaze.
"The item," the man said. "Where is it?"
"I don't have it."
The man tilted his head slightly, as if weighing that. Jack said nothing.
"My partner was carrying it," he said after a moment, keeping his expression flat. "She's dead."
The man watched him.
"I wondered who the funeral was for," he said.
A pause settled between them.
"Doesn't change what's owed."
Jack let out a slow breath through his nose.
"I know where it is," he said.
The lie came easily.
"Do you."
Not a question. Jack held his gaze.
"I just haven't had a chance to collect it yet."
The man stepped up onto the edge of the canal, boots finding the stone without a sound. He didn't come too close. He didn't need to.
"I'll give you the afternoon," he said. "Go and pay your respects."
Jack shifted slightly. He never should've gotten involved with smugglers. He'd been the one to convince Kate to take the job - sick of running errands for Finnegan, wanting something that was theirs.
"And you'll bring it to me," he said. "Tonight."
"Yes."
The man nodded once. "Tonight, then."
He stepped back towards the boat.
"If you don't come," he added, not looking at Jack now, "I'll come looking."
Jack didn't reply. The man pushed the boat off the stone with one foot. It slid back into the shadow beneath the arch, the water closing over the space it left behind.
***
The fires were already lit by the time he arrived.
Even though there was a heavy fog over the graveyard, it was bright enough not to need them. Still, nobody was ever sent to the afterlife in the dark.
The ground was awash with unmarked graves, only a bump or mound showing where people had been laid to rest over the years. The lucky ones. Most bodies in the slums of Knife City were burned. Or worse.
Kate lay beside a hastily dug hole.
From where he stood, Jack could see she had been washed. Her boots were gone, but someone had put her in a clean dress of heavy linen, dyed an indigo so dark it looked almost black in the fog. He couldn't remember ever seeing her wear anything like it.
Finnegan stood ahead, Doyle on one side, Coulter on the other - same dark suit, wide-brimmed black hat pulled low against the damp.
Off to the side, Lorraine kept the children in line as best she could. The youngest still drifted between the mounds, chasing each other over the soft ground, their feet light, their voices low.
Jack watched them for a moment. Not so long ago, that had been him.
He spotted the boy from the tunnels near the back of the group, standing slightly apart from the others. The boy noticed him looking and straightened, as if remembering himself. Jack looked away.
Kate never said much at funerals. She would just stand and watch, taking everything in, her expression unreadable. Afterwards she always wanted to do something reckless - climb somewhere dangerous, steal something pointless, run until her lungs hurt - anything, it sometimes seemed to Jack, to remind herself she was still alive.
There were more people there than he'd expected, some faces familiar, a good few not.
He spotted the man from Slope Street. Hood up, but the staff gave him away. The man caught his eye briefly, then let it pass.
Earl Grave stood near the entrance, looking as out of place as a silver goblet in a gutter - clean coat, polished boots, one guard close at his shoulder, another watching the gate.
Jack had seen him before, never in the graveyard. The Earl kept to the streets above. The living. People said he helped the slums. Jack had never seen much of it.
He scanned the crowd once more. No Jane. He hadn't expected her - people who got out didn't come back.
Finnegan stepped forward and the murmurs died.
"Kate was one of us," he said. "May Kayla guide her."
That was all.
The women stepped forward then, their hands already moving with scraps of cloth and old thread torn from sleeves and hems. They worked quickly, weaving the pieces into a tight braid with the ease of long practice. The eldest woman tied it gently around Kate's wrist.
It had always been Jack's favourite part.
Finnegan gave a small nod. Two men stepped forward. They lowered her into the ground.
The first shovelful hit with a dull, final sound.
And that was that.
***
People began to drift away almost immediately. A few bowed their heads or said quiet words to each other; most simply turned and went, pulled back towards whatever work, debt, hunger, or routine still waited for them beyond the graves.
Finnegan turned. For a moment, it looked as though he might come over. His eyes found Jack across the grave and held there for a second - long enough that Jack almost moved toward him. Then Finnegan turned away instead and left through the gate towards the docks.
Jack watched him go.
The Earl had already left.
Rourke was next. Jack saw him moving the same way, coat dark against the fog. He didn't look at the grave. Didn't slow. Just walked.
Jack's jaw tightened.
One by one, the others began to make their way back down towards the tunnels in small groups, the graveyard thinning around him until the place felt wider and emptier than it had when he arrived.
Jack stayed where he was.
The canal lay beyond the graves, the south bank clear on the far side. He watched it for a long time - long enough for the children to be gathered up and led away, long enough for the gravediggers to finish their work and move on to the next mound without ceremony.
He stood there until the last of the earth had been patted flat.
Then he turned toward the south bank.