The factory fire stained the dawn with ash. Linden hunched over a gutter in the dockside slums, scrubbing soot from his hands until his skin burned. Rue leaned against a lamppost, her mercury eye reflecting the haze.
"They'll blame us," she said.
"They should," Linden muttered. The screams of fleeing workers still echoed in his skull.
A newsboy's cry cut through the fog: "Shadow-sickness spreads! Quarantine enforced!" Rue tossed him a coin and snatched a paper. The headline glared: INFERNO AT WHITECHAPEL WORKS – ARSON OR OCCULT?
Linden's reflection in a puddle wavered. His left eye's periphery had grayed overnight, the watch's latest toll. Focus, he told himself. Before it takes more.
"Greer's on the hunt." Rue pointed to the article's closing line: Inspector Margaret Hayes vows to apprehend "fire-starting radicals."
"Let's move," Linden said.
Rue didn't follow. "You owe me answers first. Why'd your father really leave?"
"I don't know."
"Liar." She flicked a gear stamped with the Tockmen's eye-and-cog symbol at his chest. "He knew their games. Taught you some, too."
Linden's jaw tightened. "He taught me nothing."
A whimper cut through the alley.
A girl lurked in the shadows, no older than twelve, her right arm glinting. Mercury veins snaked under her skin.
"They said you help," she whispered, clutching a vial of the "medicine."
Rue stepped back. "Kid's a lost cause."
Linden knelt. "Who gave you this?"
"The night-doctor. He comes after the bells." She pressed the vial into his hand. It pulsed, warm and alive. "He's got others. In the church."
The watch hummed. "Ask," it urged.
Linden hesitated. "Which church?"
"St. Algiers. But the stones… they bleed."
The girl's shadow convulsed, then tore free, skittering up the wall and vanishing. She collapsed, her veins gone dark.
Rue cursed. "Tockmen marked her. She's bait."
"And?" Linden stood. "We're following anyway."
St. Algiers stood derelict, its spire crooked, stained-glass eyes of saints shattered. The iron gates bore chains… and fresh scratches.
Inside, the pews were stacked with crates. The same eye-and-cog symbol. The same vials.
Linden pried one open. The liquid inside writhed, forming faces—workers, the girl, a man with Linden's hollow cheeks.
"Father?"
The watch seared his palm. "A trade. His face for the truth."
"No."
Rue called from the altar. "Over here."
A ledger lay open, entries in a looping hand: Doses distributed. Subjects responsive. Debt repaid. The last entry froze him:
Subject 17: L. Hawthorn. Balance due: 7 years, 3 months, 14 days.
His father's name.
A floorboard creaked.
The night-doctor stood in the nave, scalpels glinting in his sleeves. His shadow stretched unnaturally, a dozen hands sprouting from its wrists.
"You shouldn't linger," he said. "This place is… contagious."
Rue drew a pistol. "What's the medicine really for?"
"Harvesting," he said. "Every dose borrows time. For them." He nodded to the shadows.
They peeled from the walls, liquid and snarling.
Linden ran.
The watch screamed: "Speed for sight!"
He didn't consent. It took anyway.
Cold flooded his veins. The world blurred as he vaulted a pew, Rue's shouts and the night-doctor's laughter warping. His grayed periphery hid the shadow until it grabbed his ankle.
He fell. The shadow's fingers plunged into his calf, icy and corrosive.
"Burn it!" Rue yelled, tossing her lighter.
Linden smashed a vial. The medicine ignited, flames racing across the shadows. They shrieked, dissolving into smoke.
The night-doctor fled. Rue dragged Linden out as the roof caved.
In the alley, Linden's leg throbbed, the skin mottled black where the shadow touched. Rue bandaged it with torn cloth.
"You're reckless," she said.
"You're heartless."
She laughed. "We'll see who lasts longer."
The ledger's final entry gnawed at him. 7 years, 3 months, 14 days. His father's debt.
The watch hummed. "Ask."
"Not yet," Linden whispered.
But he would. Soon.