“He owns the building,” said Anna. “As for who runs it, you will see soon enough.”

Cordelia did not like having to wait to find things out. She sighed and glanced at the window. “Where are we going?”

“Berwick Street,” said Anna, and dropped a wink. “In Soho.”

Cordelia didn’t know much of London, but she did know that Soho was where bohemians roamed. Dissolute writers and starving artists, penniless socialists and aspiring musicians, rubbed shoulders with a mix of shopkeepers, tradesmen, aristocrats who had fallen down in the world, and ladies who were no better than they should be.

It had always sounded wildly exciting, and exactly the sort of place her mother would never let her go.

“Soho,” she breathed, as the carriage rattled down a narrow, dark street on whose pavement the stalls of a public market had been set up. Naphtha beacons illuminated the faces of stall owners chatting and haggling with customers over chipped china plates and mugs and secondhand clothes. Gentlemen—well, they weren’t gentlemen, most likely, Cordelia thought—tried on overcoats and jackets in the street, their wives fingering the material and exclaiming on the fit. Boswell’s butcher had thrown its doors open and was selling cuts of meat—“Whatever will spoil before tomorrow, darling,” Anna said, noting Cordelia’s curious stare—by gaslight, and there were bakers and grocers doing the same. They passed a tea shop and then the Blue Posts pub, its windows alive with light.

“Here,” said Anna, and the carriage stopped. They scrambled out and found themselves at the corner of Berwick and a small alley called Tyler’s Court, leading away from the main thoroughfare. The air was full of the sound of people laughing and shouting, and the smell of roasting nuts.

After a brief, whispered conference with Matthew, Anna disappeared down the alley, her tall, black-clad form melding almost immediately with the shadows. Cordelia was left alone with Matthew. He had his hat tipped down over one eye and was regarding her thoughtfully.

Cordelia glanced about at the shop signs. She could see the silhouettes of women lounging in doorways. She thought of her mother’s voice saying, A fallen woman, you know. As if the girl in question had merely overbalanced. Cordelia tried to imagine it. Kissing men for money, doing more than just kissing.…

“What are you thinking?” Matthew asked.

Cordelia wrenched her gaze away from a woman with rouged cheeks smiling up at a man in ill-fitting laborer’s clothes. “What’s a lapidary?” she asked, not because she actually wanted to know, but because the sign opposite her said A. JONES, LAPIDARY and Matthew was making her nervous.

“A lapidary phrase is one that is worth carving into stone,” said Matthew, “and preserving forever—a wise saying such as ‘we are dust and shadows,’ or alternately, any words that come out of my mouth.”

Cordelia pointed at the sign. “They sell phrases there?”