I wasn’t sure what to make of Jaxon. I wasn’t even sure whether or not I liked him. All that was clear was that my employer was a man with secrets. He was eccentric, to say the least, and intimidating, with a smirk that promised mayhem and milk-blue eyes that saw through everything. Feared and loved in equal measure, he was the most famous mime-lord in the underworld – so Nick said, anyway.

As head of the gang, Jaxon had the best room in the building. It boasted large sash windows, an antique desk, a record player, a stained-glass lamp, bottles of absinthe, and shelf upon shelf of black-market books and ornaments. Nick was already here, lying sprawled on the chaise longue.

Nick Nygård was Jaxon’s mollisher, or second-in-command. He was the one who had uprooted me from my old life, introduced me to Jaxon, and welcomed me into this existence.

‘Afternoon.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Hey, sötnos.’

He had started calling me that a while ago. It meant ‘sweet nose’ in Swedish. I thought it was lovely. Nick in general was lovely.

‘Hey,’ I said.

Eliza threw herself down beside him, shunting his legs off to make room.

‘Jaxon,’ she said, fighting for breath, ‘one of our couriers just caught me at the black market – asked me to get word to you straight away. He said Didion Waite—’

‘It can’t be too dire if it involves Didion Waite, my dear. He’s a clown.’ Jaxon glanced at me. ‘Paige, some tea may be in order.’

Normally I would have asked how many sugars – his preference changed almost every day. Instead, the frustration I had felt for the last three months pooled like lava behind my ribs and bubbled up to my throat, and what came out was:

‘I’d like to stay.’

Jaxon’s eyebrows jumped towards his hairline.

All the heat inside me froze.

He was going to turf me out. I would have to go back to my father. I would never learn how to use my gift. It would eventually surface, and I would have no idea how to hide or control it. I would end up on the gallows before I turned seventeen. Death by reason of being too proud to make four cups of tea. Death by tea.

‘Eliza,’ Jaxon said, not taking his eyes off me, ‘continue.’

Quietly, I breathed again.

‘You know Didion’s been looking for valuable spirits to auction? Well, he only went and found Sarah Metyard,’ Eliza said. Jaxon became very still. ‘He hired someone to bind her, but they bungled it and set her off. She’s on a rampage.’

Jaxon leaned back in his chair and appeared to fix his full attention on a crack in the ceiling.

‘A rogue poltergeist,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Didion, what have you got yourself into?’