Forced to be pickpockets. That was more common than it ought to be.

“The children have to come back with a certain amount or . . .” She didn’t finish; she didn’t have to.

“We can send someone there right now, find them before he does,” Fletcher said.

“You don’t know them. He does.” Serena was physically shaking. “Just me talking to you could’ve tipped him already.”

“You tell us their names and what they look like, how we’ll know them. We’ll find them. We have eyes and ears all over the city.”

Serena wrapped her arms around herself, doing little to still her trembling. “So does the Mastiff. He burns people.” In a strangled whisper, she added, “Alive.”

“We know,” Barnabus said. “We will understand if you aren’t willing to take the risk right now. But this may be your only chance. My mother was also trapped by someone cruel and exacting. I often wished when I was small that she’d taken the risk and tried to free us.”

She was debating; he could see it in her eyes. “Would I have to be separated from them?”

Barnabus shook his head. “We can bring them to you.”

“I’ve nothing to pay you with,” she warned.

“We’d not accept it anyway,” Fletcher said.

Serena’s shoulders straightened, though she hadn’t stopped shaking. “I’ll go with her,” she said, pointing to Ana.

It was quickly arranged. Hollis and Ana would hail a hackney and get Serena to one of the safe houses Barnabus had set up to help women escaping dangerous situations. Fletcher would go find her children.

“Do you promise me you’ll find them?” Serena pressed, her voice breaking with emotion.

“I swear to it,” Fletcher said.

She crumbled at that, though whether out of desperation, fear, or relief wasn’t immediately apparent. Ana put an arm around her and, with Hollis, led her away.

Only Fletcher and Barnabus remained in the tiny, narrow street.

Barnabus sighed with relief.

“Wouldn’t breathe too easily yet if I were you,” Fletcher said. With a tip of his chin, he motioned to the walls on either side of them.

Barnabus had been so focused on Serena that he’d not taken time to study their surroundings. Scrawled on every wall multiple times, in everything from ash to mud to paint to what he feared might be blood, was a single phrase: “The Tempest is coming.”

The Bachelor and the Bride

the Bachelor
and the Bride

by Mr. King

Installment IV
in which an unexpected Danger places our Hero and Heroine in a most dire Situation

Sorcha felt as though hours had passed, though it had likely not been more than thirty minutes. She told herself to breathe, to remain calm, to not grow overly worried. But her mind returned rapidly and repeatedly to a similar wait undertaken in a dark cottage on a fear-filled night.