Malarkey overheard the exchange. He plucked Riley from the throne, depositing him at his feet like a royal puppy, or jester. “Don’t worry about Albert Garrick. My best team of murdering scum have been lying in wait for him at his digs, their time bought by the very same fancy gent who ordered your deaths. As to you two foundlings being on your way, I think you have misremembered our arrangement.”

Chevie punched her fist into her palm and several large men jumped backward. “What arrangement?” she asked. Riley’s chin dropped to his breastbone, and he answered the question for Malarkey. “We are fighting our way into the Rams, the alternative being a sudden case of violent death—yours and mine. Once we are in, then we are Malarkey’s for life.” Malarkey pointed at Riley. “A shilling to the boy for keenness. You fight for the very breath in your lungs, little lady.

And if you wrestle your death from my grasp, then I still hold your life. Remember that well.”

He swiveled on the balls of his feet like a trained swordsman until his riding crop pointed at Riley. “Take this one and mark him. He is ours now.”

Hands descended on Riley from the crowd, so many that it seemed as though he were being swallowed by a sea anemone.

Riley fought, dropping several of his captors with well-placed blows, but whenever one fell another sprang to take his place.

The Rams lifted him high and carried him through the throng to a far corner of the room, where a decrepit old man sat surrounded by books, boxes of needles, and little ink bottles of dense, jeweled colors. The man’s fingers were small like a child’s but gnarled and inked in the wrinkles, each knuckle a rainbow. Riley found himself plonked in a wooden chair and held in place by viselike fingers on each shoulder.

“A young recruit, is it?” said the man.

“That is the case, Farley,” said Riley’s restrainer. Farley set his store of needles tinkling as he poked through them. “Not really a Ram,” he muttered. “More a lamb than a Ram. Still, mine is not to wonder why...” He selected a thin needle to make the mark.

“Mister, ain’t you going to a-sketch it on first?” Riley asked nervously.

Farley’s cough rolled in his throat. “Sketch, is it? Boy, I been doing the ram for years, could do it in me sleep, I could. Now, quit yer vibrations, or it’s a goat adornment you’ll be sporting in place of a ram.”

“That needle is clean, ain’t it? I don’t want to lose an arm.” “Worry not, the tool is sterilized better than any steel in St. Bart’s. No one ever saw a bubble of pus from Anton Farley’s needles. I will do her small and quick, and the time will pass.