London jerryshops were usually small, unlicensed places in the bad parts of the central cohort. There were lots in the Chapel, over in II-6. This was no different. The pawnbroker had set up shop in a kind of tent, made from the sort of drapes Liss used in her performances. Lit by a single paraffin lamp, half the space had been turned into a house of mirrors. The pawnbroker sat on a battered leather armchair, staring into the spotted glass. The mirrors betrayed his speciality: catoptromancy.

He was a gray-haired man with too much of a full stomach to be a performer. When I entered, he raised a monocle to one eye and looked at my reflection. He had the misty eyes of a seer that had seen too much.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. In my mirrors or my shop.”

“Bone Season XX,” I said.

“I see. Who owns you?”

“Arcturus Mesarthim.”

I was sick of that name: hearing it, saying it.

“My, my.” He patted his stomach. “So you’re his tenant.”

“What’s your name?”

“XVI-19-16.”

“Your real name.”

“I no longer remember it, but the performers call me Duckett. If you prefer to use real names.”

“I do.”

I bent to look at his stock. Most of the items were numa: cracked hand mirrors, glass bottles of water, bowls and cups, pearls, bags of animal bones, cards, and show stones. Then there were the plants. Aster, briar, sage, thyme, other burning herbs. There were more practical items, too, essential for survival. I looked through the pile. Sheets, limp cushions, matches, a pair of tweezers, rubbing alcohol, aspirin and oxytetracycline, cans of Sterno, a dripper bottle of fusidic acid, bandages, and disinfectants. I picked up an old tinderbox. “Where did you get all this?”

“Here and there.”

“I presume the Rephs don’t know about it.” He smiled, just slightly. “So how does this illegal shop work?”

“Well, say you were an osteomancer. You would require bones to supplement your clairvoyance. If the bones were confiscated, you would have to find more.” He indicated a bag marked COMMON RAT. “I would give you a task to do. I might ask you to bring more supplies, or to carry a message for me—the more valuable the item you needed, the more dangerous the task. If you managed it, I would give you the bones to keep. For a limited loan, you would have to bring me a certain number of numa, which I would return to you when you returned the item. A simple, but effective system.”

It didn’t sound like a conventional jerryshop, which loaned money in exchange for pawned items. “What do you charge for information?”

“That depends on the information you seek.”

I put the remaining half of the pill in front of him. “What’s this?”