The magician started to climb the wheeled ladder, forgetting Lena in his total focus on the butterfly. She shot toward the ladder and kicked it with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, sending it hurtling along the rail, tipping sideways. Chatham, who was halfway up, tumbled into the shelves, sending several drawers of metal fixings crashing to the floor. Lena watched as one of the bookcases swung forward, and readied herself to jump out of the way—but it wasn’t falling. It was … opening.

Inside the secret room, a low yellow light burned steadily over another workshop, twice the size of the one in which she was standing. She caught glimpses of metal objects scattered across a long desk and recognized them dimly as counterfeit body parts—legs, arms, hands … even a series of masks similar to the one Constance had worn. And on the floor, which was plain pale stone, were several dark stains…

Lena knew a bloodstain when she saw one. And now that she had noticed it, she perceived other signs of violence in the secret workshop. A saw discarded on the floor beneath the desk, its blade streaked with dried reddish stains, and various bloodied cloths tossed into a large metal bin. Whoever had cleaned up in here had done a slapdash job.

“Get away from there,” a low, menacing voice said. Chatham had risen to his feet, and there was murder in his eyes.

I should never have come here.

She staggered backward, her heart in her mouth.

“What did you do?” she breathed, her voice barely more than a whisper.

As soon as she was clear of the bookcase door, Chatham slid it shut. “Now, now,” he said softly, “don’t draw conclusions about things you don’t understand. It wasn’t me anyway.”

But Lena wasn’t listening. She shook her head, continuing to back away slowly. The butterfly was hovering around the door to the shop, its metal wings scraping against the wooden frame in clinking whispers.

“I’m sure we can come to some arrangement, after all,” the magician added, his voice now sweet as honey. “Just … stay here for a moment.”

He was drawing closer, but Lena’s hand had found the handle of the door. She burst through into the main shop, unsteady on her feet. The assistant and the customer, who was on her way out with a white box clutched under her arm, shrieked loudly as Lena slammed into the counter, Chatham at her heels. His hands closed for a second around her wrist, and she felt a lurch in her stomach as an unnatural warmth radiated from his fingers, a hum filling her ears as her wrist started to burn. His magic. She tried to pull away, but he was too strong, so she kicked out desperately—once, twice—and found his knee with the hard toe of her boot. He cried out, let go.