It would be irresponsible to allow Garrick to run amok in London with all the knowledge in his head, which he would definitely not be using to put an end to war and starvation. Simply put: Garrick had to be stopped. But how? She had no idea. This was Riley’s world, and they would have to put their heads together on a problem as big as Garrick. And to do that they would have to lie low somewhere until they were fit enough to fight back.

Chevie slapped Riley’s cheek gently.

“Come on, Riley. Wake up, partner. There must be somewhere this lunatic won’t follow us. Where is Garrick afraid to go?”

She was forced to repeat the question several times before it penetrated Riley’s addled skull, but as soon as he understood the question, he knew the answer: the Old Nichol. His face paled and his hands shook at the very idea.

“There is a place,” he said, then coughed long and harsh. “Somewhere Garrick has sworn he would never go. He would rather smash his artist’s hands with a mallet, said he, than return to the rookeries of Old Nichol.”

Chevie sat straight in the hansom’s seat, brushing the soot from her shirt. “Off we go, then. The Old Nichol it is.”

Riley was not so eager, for to see the devil afraid of a place is a powerful incentive never to pay that place a visit. He gazed at the road ahead, remembering how Garrick had described the Old Nichol.

“My master told me that the air in Old Nichol is charged with sulfur, enough so that the rats and small dogs will turn snow white and asphyxiate.”

Chevie sat back beside her traveling partner. “Rats turning white is never good,” she admitted.

“At the rear of each tenement or rookery there is a pile of raw sewage, which is fed by the entire building. The only creatures who thrive in Old Nichol are those which feed on offal.”

Chevie felt her stomach sour. Offal-thriving did not sound like much of a way to get by.

Riley remembered something else. “Old Nichol is slow death for all. Garrick told me of a strongman who fell on hard times and took a bunk there. In six months he had wasted away to nothing and died of blood poisoning from bedsores. They buried him in a flour sack.”

“Oh, come on,” objected Chevie. “We’re not getting married and raising kids there. You just need a few hours’ sleep to get the poison out of your system, then we can figure out a way to defeat Garrick.”

“It takes only a moment to suck down whooping cough.”

This was a sobering statement and almost turned Chevie from her purpose, but she held onto her reasoning. Garrick would not set foot in this Old Nichol hellhole, so they must, if only for a single night.

She rapped on the cab’s roof.