Jack made his way away from Temple Square and looked up. The red moon hung directly overhead - if it wasn't midnight already, it would be soon. Red moon on a burial night. The old women in the slums said it meant the dead were still close, not yet let go.
The quicker he found what Kate had hidden, the better. Then he could work out what had really happened and get the smuggler off his back.
He stuck to the shadows as he moved along the wider streets and canals, expecting to hear footsteps behind him. Nothing came. It wasn't until the alleys narrowed and the buildings closed in that he began to relax. Even then, he took every back way he knew before circling round to the east tunnel entrance.
He was hoping Grady would be on duty. They went back a long way - back to when he, Kate and Brunt had first started running jobs for Finnegan. They had felt like big jobs back then
His luck held.
Grady was there, leaning against the tunnel entrance - small, crooked, shoulders hunched in that familiar way. Brown fever had taken hold of him as a child and never quite let go.
Jack kept his hood low and his head down as he passed.
"Hello, Jack."
Jack glanced up. "Oh. Hey, Grady. Didn't see you there."
Grady's eyes flicked over him, taking in the bruises, the dirt. He didn't comment.
"Any trouble out there tonight?"
"Not that I've seen." Jack shrugged. "Went to the shrine. For Kate."
Not a lie. Not entirely.
Grady nodded slowly. "Sorry I missed the funeral. Finnegan had me watching a place by the flower market."
"Don't worry about it," Jack said. "There was a good crowd. She was well liked."
"That she was." Grady shifted his weight. "Careful tonight. Been a few strange faces around."
“Soldier-types or gutter-rats?”
“Not sure. Not like us.” He shrugged. “Glad when they moved on.”
Jack nodded and moved past him into the tunnels.
***
He took the smaller routes, the ones that kept him out of sight. Voices drifted down one of the side tunnels - Jack slowed, stepped back into shadow, waited until they passed.
When he crossed the main chamber, he kept his head down and avoided looking toward Finnegan's rooms. No sign of him. Or Coulter. Or Doyle. Good.
Near one of the larger fires, children curled up around it in loose clusters, a shape stepped out into his path.
The boy.
Jack recognised him immediately. The trousers had been hemmed. The haircut - short at the sides, longer on top - was deliberate now. Up close, Jack saw he was older than he'd thought. Eleven, maybe twelve.
The boy didn't speak. Just stared.
Jack paused, then reached into his pocket and flicked him a copper. The boy caught it clean. Jack gave him a quick nod and moved on, feeling the boy's eyes on him all the way across the chamber. He didn't look back. There was nothing useful he could give the boy beyond the coin, and they both knew it. Some things you had to find out for yourself.
***
The first hideaway was an old one. Jack and Kate had found it not long after they'd started working for Finnegan - they hadn't needed one before that.
It sat halfway down a medium-sized tunnel, hidden behind a grate that looked rusted shut. There was a trick to opening it. Another to reaching the latch hidden just out of sight. It had been easier when he was smaller. Kate had never had that problem.
They hadn't installed the latch themselves - it had been there when they found the place. They'd watched it for two weeks before trusting it, making sure no one came back for it. No one had. They'd used it for two years, then the tunnel filled. Too many people. Too much risk. Now it was empty again - last year's floods had cleared it out, and no one had come back.
The grate sat low in the wall, a rusted iron circle no wider than his shoulders. Behind it, a recess. Jack slid his arm through the gap, twisting it up toward the latch. Found it. Pulled.
The hatch opened.
Empty.
***
He held there for a moment, arm still inside, as if something might appear if he waited long enough.
It smelled the same. Damp stone and old air, undisturbed. Kate used to say it smelled like a place that didn't exist yet. Whatever that had meant.
Not disturbed. Not broken into. Just empty.
The thought came uninvited - someone else had found it. The man from the temple?
No.
No one knew about this place. No one but him and Kate. And anyone trying to force it would have had to break the grate or snap the latch. It didn't make sense.
Jack pulled his arm back slowly. He remembered the documents he'd taken from the desk drawer. He folded them nearly and put them into the cavity, closing the latch and replacing the grate.
He moved onto the next possibility. The man that night hadn't found what he was looking for. That didn't mean it wasn't there.
Jack turned back toward Slope Street.
The tunnels narrowed again as he left the main chamber behind. Slope Street was only ten minutes if he took the old service run - narrow, wet, and rarely used since the last flood. Exactly why they’d chosen it. Kate had always liked the places no one else bothered with.
He moved faster now, the disappointment from the first hideaway sharpening into something harder. One more spot.
If it was empty too, then the man from Kate’s room had already won.
***
As Jack made his way up Slope Street, he noticed it was quieter than usual. Quieter than it had been that night.
He passed through the familiar archway, turned right out of habit, up the stairs and along the balcony, trying not to think too hard about the last time he was here.
Kate's door was locked. Maybe the watch. Maybe a neighbour. Jack made short work of it with his pick.
He didn't start searching straight away. He stood where he had that night and let his eyes settle.
The stain was still there. Dark now. Set into the stone. Broader than he remembered, or maybe he just hadn't looked properly that night. There was a crack running through it - old, nothing to do with her - and for some reason that was the thing he couldn't stop looking at. Not the stain. The crack. As if his eyes were trying to help distract him
He kept his gaze off it after that.
The room had been turned over again - drawers pulled, shelves disturbed. Someone had come back. Whoever it was had searched hard. Thorough.
For a moment Jack felt it drop in his chest. Too late again. He should have come here first but he'd been avoiding it.
As he stood there something shifted.
He frowned slightly, but didn't move. It was gone. Probably nothing — light from outside catching on something.
He turned, took a slow step toward the window - There.
A faint flicker at the edge of his vision. Jack stopped. This time he didn't look straight at it, just shifted his weight, watching from the corner of his eye. A thin line of light, slipping through where the wall should have been solid. From the room next door, probably. Not much. Easy to miss. Easy to wash out if you flooded the room with a torch
Jack stepped sideways, changing the angle. The line held. Straight. Not random.
He crouched slowly, running his fingers along the stone. Nothing. Then - a slight give. An indentation, barely there. He pressed.
The stone shifted.
Inside were two wrapped bundles. And Tully's pouch.
Jack took the pouch first, slipping it into his coat. The smaller bundle next - the smuggler's package - that went into his breast pocket. The last one he carried to the window, into the weak spill of light.
It was heavier than he expected. Wrapped tight. He peeled it back slowly
Wood and brass. Intricate. About ten inches long. Segmented - six sections, each able to turn, sliding against the others with a precision that didn't belong in a place like this. The weight sat unevenly toward one end, as if something moved inside when he tilted it. He tried. Nothing visible.
Each of the segments had marks worn into them - not scratched, intricately carved. Some letters and symbols he recognized, others he didn't
Jack turned it once in his hands. Smooth. Silent. Pointless, as far as he could tell.
But made well. Very well.
A strip of paper had been wrapped around it. Jack unrolled it.
Kate,
I don't know who to trust. But I know I can trust you.
This will reveal the truth
Keep it safe. Keep it hidden.
Tell no one.
I'll contact you soon.
- J
Jack stared at it.
J.
He'd stood at Kate's grave that morning and noticed the one absence. People who got out didn't come back. He’d learned not to expect it.
But she hadn't gone. She'd sent this. Whatever this was, it had passed through Jane's hands before Kate's - and now Kate was in the ground and Jane was still out there somewhere, not knowing. Or knowing and not able to come back. Or maybe she was in the ground, or the canal.
None of those sat cleanly with Jack.
This was what the man from the temple had been looking for. And now he had it.
Jack pocketed the note. Wrapped the device and tucked it inside his coat, close to his ribs.
Then he picked up the smuggler's package.
He looked out the window. The red moon had shifted west. Midnight had come and gone.
The bridge was a long way off.
Jack closed the door behind him and started running.