“Indeed it is Mister Corbett,” Black said. His eyes went to Julian. “And here we must have … Julian Devane, I presume, with a shaved head? Making inquiries of Geoffrey Britt … we knew you were in London, nosing around. And here you are, the both of you.”

Trapped in the spider’s web, he might have said.

Matthew saw that the others were all now on their feet, some watching in bemusement and others more concerned according to their temperaments. Lash settled himself back down upon the stone bench. “I’ll be damned!” he said, with a whoosh of breath that could’ve filled a mainsail. “You two have got some cannonballs in your breeches! Look at them, friends! Come here to join our auction under false pretenses! What happened to the real Prussians?”

Julian lifted his chin. He gave a smile that said he was not dead yet, and far from it. “We carved them up and threw them in the gutter with the other pieces of shit. By the way, they had execrable taste in clothing.”

“Matthew?” A weak voice called. “Matthew … where are you?”

It was Nack, calling from the lip of the grave with RakeHell Lizzie still entwined about his body.

“Here,” Matthew answered, though he still stared into the merciless eyes of Cardinal Black. “We’re going to get out of this house, lest it be attacked by the thirty men out—”

“Only thirty men?” Lash interrupted. He gave a short, harsh laugh. “Why not fifty? Hellfire, why not one hundred?”

“He’s lying, isn’t he?” Montague asked, with a measure of fear. “I didn’t bargain for this!”

Lioness reached out a long arm, roughly took hold of Matthew’s chin and turned his face toward hers. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. “He’s lying,” she said. “I can smell it.”

“Really?” Matthew had a fire in his belly now, and his painted eyebrows went up. “Why would we be so stupid as to come here alone?”

Beside him, Julian gave a cough and sounded for a moment as if he were choking.

“They have come—alone—to steal the book back for Professor Fell,” said Black, speaking to all the group but to Lash in particular. “Tell me this, Devane: what happened to Mother Deare?”

“Dearly departed,” was the reply.

“I thought as much when she didn’t meet me as planned. So Fell still has the book I wanted … which is a great shame and angers myself and my master.” A thin finger traced a Devil’s Cross on Julian’s forehead. “Soon to be departed, yourself.”

“Well,” said Julian with a shrug, “every dog needs a master … and I had a looksee in that tower at your work on a small boy. I’d like to have five minutes in a room with you to show you how a big boy fights.”