He lay still for a moment, muddled, trying to gain his bearings in the unfamiliar dark. There—a thin line of gray marked the shuttered window, a shade lighter than the night inside. Door . . . where was the door? He turned his head and saw a faint flicker of light across the floorboards, the exhausted glow of a guttering candle in the hallway. He vaguely remembered some uproar, singing and stamping from below, but that had ceased now. The brothel had subsided into quiet, though it was an odd, uneasy hush, like the troubled sleep of a drunken man. Speaking of which . . . he worked his tongue, trying to muster enough saliva from his parched and sticky membranes to swallow. His heart was beating with an unpleasant insistence that seemed to cause his eyeballs to protrude, bulging painfully with each throb of the organ. He hastily closed his eyes, but it didn’t help.

It was warm and close in the room, but a faint stirring of air from the shuttered window touched his body, a cool finger raising the hairs of chest and leg. He was naked, but didn’t recall undressing.

She was lying on his arm. Moving slowly, he disengaged himself from the girl, taking care not to rouse her. He sat for a moment on the bed, clutching his head in a soundless moan, then rose to his feet, taking great care lest it fall off.

Christ! What had he been about, to drink so much of that ungodly swill? It would have been better to swive the girl and have done with it, he thought, feeling his way across the room through bursts of brilliant white light that lit up the inside of his skull like fireworks on the Thames. His probing foot struck the table leg, and he felt blindly about beneath it until he found the chamber pot.

Somewhat relieved, but still desperately thirsty, he put it down and groped for the ewer and basin. The water in the pitcher was warm and tasted faintly of metal, but he drank it greedily, spilling it down his chin and chest, gulping until his guts began to protest the tepid onslaught.

He wiped a hand down his face and smeared the wetness across his chest, then loosened the shutters, taking deep, shuddering breaths of the cool gray air. Better.

He turned to look for his clothes, but realized belatedly that he couldn’t leave without Quarry. The thought of searching the house for his friend, flinging open doors and surprising sleep-sodden whores and their customers, was more than he could countenance in his present condition. Well, the madam would rout Harry out in short order, come daybreak. Nothing for it but wait.

Since he must wait, he might as well do it lying down; his innards were shifting and gurgling in ominous fashion, and his legs felt weak.