The scar was not something she could easily ignore. On the few occasions when she smiled, it pulled taut against her cheek, as if trying to pull her back into solemnity. In winter she could feel the cold through it, as if a real snowflake had landed on her skin. The nearest she knew to fear was a throbbing flutter behind her scar, and as she recalled the events of the carriage ride she could feel it, like a moth’s wing beating at her cheek. Ah, she thought without emotion, I suppose that episode must have frightened me.

As one footman handed her from the sedan, his fellows busied themselves with unfastening the six great locks to the door of the Eastern Spire.

“My business in the Capital is concluded,” Tamarind explained. “Kindly send a letter to Mr. Kohlrabi’s lodgings, telling him that I require his presence as soon as he is back in the city, then bring me a dish of tea, the latest issue of the Gazette, and a bag of dead cats.” Five minutes later her ladies-in-waiting were at her side with the requested items, and together they entered the spire.

One by one the locks slid to behind her with smooth, liquid clicks. The great locks bore the Guarantee of the Locksmiths. This meant that they were of the very finest quality. It meant that if they were broken, the Locksmiths would pay a small fortune in recompense. It meant that word had been put out across the underworld that the Eastern Spire was a no-go area, so that no clear-thinking thief would consider milling the locks, in case the Locksmiths’ dreaded Thief Takers were sent after him.

All of this might have reassured Lady Tamarind, if she had been hoping to lock out anyone but the Locksmiths themselves. She had resorted to other measures to make sure that the Locksmiths could not wander into her apartments and search them at will.

As she climbed the stairs she slid on a long leather glove that reached to her shoulder. At the door of the salon she paused, then drew out one of the dead cats by the tail and carefully flung it toward the middle of the floor. There was a rasp, like the hiss of sand through a straw, and a low, leather-bound river of wickedness snaked out from the darkness below the harpsichord. Its jaw opened impossibly wide, like a lean book crowded with teeth, and caught the cat before it could touch the ground.

The two ladies-in-waiting stayed at the door while Tamarind advanced to examine her pet. With satisfaction she noted its distinguishing features, the dirt-colored dent above its left eye, and one flattened tooth jutting out from its fellows.