“They are wearing the respirators,” he says out loud though he is speaking to himself, not his friends, “so they don’t imbibe any of the quickened Soot. It protects them, and also keeps them docile; and it ensures that not a precious gram is lost.” He gets up, fetches a respirator, spreads it out before him, goggles at the top. “And so they sit. Six slaves, masked, and strangers to one another. And the foreman, he will have a club.”

He hears Livia walking up behind him, listening to his words; continues with his numb recital of the facts.

“And that door over there with the heavy lock will lead next door. Did you notice it when we drove up? A big house like a fortress. Barred windows: a gaol. Of course, whoever works down here must never be released — otherwise they would go into the world and spread the news about cigarettes far and wide. No, they are stuck here for life. I wonder what crime warrants that? Something temperate, I should think. Forgery, counterfeiting, or some clever kind of theft. You wouldn’t want murderers near such Soot. They might get ideas.” He looks over at the kegs by the side of the wall. “What a paltry harvest! Dark Soot is a rare commodity. Until now. Pools, you say, a filtration system. Sebastian has been dredging the sewers to distil three hundred years of crime. No wonder Julius put up the money! Your mother must have told him it was to expand operations. The profits would have been astronomical. I doubt she told him it was all to go up in Smoke.”

He falls silent as Livia takes the stool next to him; watches her study his face.

“Does all this not make you angry, Thomas?”

He could say: I can’t afford my anger. It is too much fun.

Or: We have seen what my anger leads to.

Or: Back there, pressed hip to hip, my trousers wet with Julius’s blood, I could feel your pulse beat in your upper thigh.

But he merely shrugs his shoulders and watches her nostrils dilate around a stringy slug of Smoke.

ф

Charlie joins them. He has raced from room to room and wall to wall, inspected each shelf, each alcove, and each tool. Now he drops his weight onto a third stool.

“There is no sign of Lady Naylor. And no exit. Just that one”—he points over to the bolted door near them—“and you say it leads to the gaol. Which means we have lost her. We have lost Mowgli.”

When neither Thomas nor Livia responds, he jumps up, races around the rooms once more, frantically searching the walls for a clue. On his return he is too restless to sit; walks up and down in front of them, his face open, flushed, and worried.