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“You keep trying to tell me that you are better than I am, Bellrose, but then your very next action proves that you were born losing,” Selina drawled behind him, forcing him to wheel around.

He hit her again, and this time with enough force to make Selina stagger against the wall. But as he wrapped her braid around his hand, yanking her head around, Selina chuckled.

“Be careful Bellrose,” she murmured. “You know Chandros and his lackey have reasons they want you to keep me alive. If you kill me before they can use me, they will make you regret it in ways I don’t even have the words for.”

Judging by the way he stood ramrod straight, Bellrose knew those words to be true. But then he relaxed with a false insouciance. “I only have to be patient to receive my due, Lady Normanby .” He shook her once by her braid, then thrust her away, heading back up the stairs in an angry rush.

“Why did you provoke him like that?” Charity hissed at her.

“Because it made him mad enough that he went away.” Selina finally wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “In the black cockles of his fearful little heart, he knows I am more important to Chandros than he is.”

Then she gave Charity a frank look. “But your importance to Chandros is… less established, Duchess. If he stays teetering between his ill desires and fear of what retribution he will bring down on his head if loses his temper and goes against Chandros’s wishes, he forgets that fact.”

Charity gave her a keen look of worry.

“Never you mind, Duchess. How is… your head?” the marchioness asked her neutrally.

“No more seeing things not there.” The large dose of laudanum had plagued Charity occasionally with hallucinations the night before, and some had been terrifying .

“Good. I am hoping we are near enough to London that the lights will show us the way once it is dark.”

“That is… a clever thought.” It was worthy of one of Grace’s escapades, actually. “Perhaps you missed your calling as an adventuress.”

“Not at all, Duchess. I expect I shall never complain about a dull party again,” Selina smirked at her, her green eyes sparkling briefly. “Are you ready to brave that small space, little dragon?”

Charity clenched her teeth. “If I must.”

“Good. It is narrow, yes, but not for a long distance.” Selina reassured her. “There is a hatch up top that will have to be pushed open. But I could see sunlight there earlier.”

Having to climb and push open a hatch in the darkness sounded terrible. “Are you sure it shouldn’t be me playing ladder for you?”

Selina chuckled, pressing a shoulder to Charity’s. “Absolutely not. You need to go first, because if you are going to have the vapours, I would rather you do it before we risk alerting Bellrose with any noise from the hatch. Not after. Panic will not be helpful if you have to hurry.”

Charity sniffed, stifling pique. But she recognised the truth of Selina’s words.

“I would like to protest that. But it is a fair concern. I’m glad…

that you’re here with me,” Charity replied.

“That sounds awful, because I shouldn’t wish this prison on anyone except Lady Fitzroy.

But I do not think I would be anything except a huddling pile of skirts without you. ”

“Courage sometimes takes practice, Duchess.” The marchioness grasped Charity’s hand then.

Charity held it, realising that Selina was trembling faintly, despite her bold words. And somehow that made Charity feel a little better. Lady Normanby wasn’t unafraid. She simply had put her nervous energy to action. That was all.

She could certainly do the same. Fear was acceptable, as long as it didn’t keep her from moving. She could use her anger to master her fear, and be a dragon.

“Tonight.”

They tried to get their rest as they waited for the full measure of darkness to fall. Bellrose, in his fury, did not come back with food or water, or even to sneer at them. But that suited both women just fine.

Harnessing anger, Charity kept her nerves despite having her head stuck inside the steep, dark chute.

She could feel air around her legs, and the pressure of Selina’s hands below her booted feet.

But as Selina shoved her higher, and Charity scrabbled for purchase on the slick bricks, her fortitude quickly began to fail.

It was pitch black, and the angle of the chute was disorienting.

“Don’t lose your nerve,” Selina hissed at her. “It is small, but it isn’t like you will get stuck, after all. It’s so slippery you will just slide right back out. Don’t slide back out.”

It was strange, the sort of things that could offer reassurance. That she would fall out of a dirty coal chute rather than get stuck was not something Charity ever imagined she would find comforting, but here they were.

Quickly, however, she realised that she had a very different problem. “How do I not slide back out?”

“It’s narrow enough you should be able to brace yourself against the walls with your knees. Don’t worry; I will not tell anyone how unladylike you’re being, you hoyden.”

Charity snorted, but it was sound advice.

It was a challenging thing to master—groping for finger holds on uneven bricks while holding herself steady and shuffling forward inches at a time because of her skirts.

She could hear the fabric ripping as it snagged on rough edges, and they sometimes bit into her skin, but she welcomed the distraction of the pain, the ache of her legs from the unfamiliar activity.

“Keep going, Duchess,” Selina murmured tauntingly to her when Charity paused to catch her breath. “What would you like to do first when you get back to London? Have a bath, or kiss Perry?”

“For certain, a bath,” Charity said grimly, and Selina chuckled.

And then—she was there. Her searching fingers bumped against a metal door. It felt like she had been climbing a mile. But it was probably only a good six feet. Cautiously, Charity pressed against it. The hatch gave slowly, lifting just enough to let in a wisp of fresh air.

“It’s not locked,” Charity said with relief. “Thank God.” But as she pushed the hatch door open wider, she realised that a brick had been keeping it closed against vermin. It slid off the metal noisily, landing with a thud on the ground.

Charity froze, uncertain what to do.

“Bellrose heard you. I can hear him walking around inside. Move, Your Grace!” Selina hissed, and Charity shoved the hatch fully open, whimpering in fear.

Terror gave her wings as she crawled out of the hatch as quick as a wink, then turned around, looking into the dark hole. “Selina! Are you climbing out?”

“No, Charity,” she said gently. “I won’t get out without a boost. It was never going to be possible for both of us to get out this way.”

Peering over the edge, Charity couldn’t hear any movement from the marchioness. “Selina! We were supposed to be going together!”

“I lied. Do not waste your chance!” she barked. “Go! Get back, stop them, and help protect Perry.”

Charity hesitated only a second longer. Then she turned and fled, vaulting into the night with her lungs burning and her heart thundering in her ears.

Behind her, the last thing she heard before the coal chute swallowed her escape was the unmistakable sound of Selina’s voice raised in furious challenge.

Even though she began her flight by crashing into the hedgerow, leaving a long flap of her skirts hanging on the branches, Charity would remember later that fortune smiled on her several times that night.

How ironic it was that she had been kidnapped while wearing the sturdy boots meant to protect her sprained ankle! It would have been impossible to run in slippers, and even walking in them would have been a task.

Second, the half moon and the stars gave her just enough light to make out the track.

Charity bolted along it as fast and as long as she could run, only realising once she was too winded to continue that she should get off the road and out of sight.

Blessedly, the filth on her made her a wraith amongst the shadows.

But as she stopped to catch her breath, it was then that she remembered she had no idea which way she was going, and frantic, she huddled, shivering in a ditch by the next hedgerow.

By dumb luck, her blind flight had been in the right direction.

Along the horizon was the faintest wash of light, and Charity blessed Selina’s name over and over.

She did not know if she would have thought to look for it otherwise.

Lastly, Selina had, by some miracle, kept Bellrose occupied long enough that Charity could do all these things before she heard him finally running down the traces, looking for her.

It was a good thing Charity was too numb to cry. Instead, she burrowed herself into the dirt and branches, cowering for a long, long time as Bellrose snarled, searching. And then, not finding her, he gave up and turned back, going back to the house.

No. He was probably going back to Selina.

Was the woman still alive? She had to be. The marchioness was far too clever and stubborn to be laid low by a man-shaped stain like Bellrose.

Charity finally got up again, this time driven by a painful need to keep moving. She had to get to Perry. If she could warn him about Chandros, maybe Perry would know how to fix everything. He could help Selina. She no longer even cared if they stopped the counterfeiting scandal.

But how to make sure she could find her way back to this place? She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. They landed on the edge of her torn skirts, and the rips gaped, exposing the cleaner white shift beneath. The white cloth fairly glowed in the moonlight.

With a curse, Charity pulled back her skirts and ripped a chunk from her shift, leaving two small fluttering strips on her hedgerow.

And then she kept on, trotting as fast as she could through the softer dirt on the side of the road, where she could more easily hide if she heard someone moving along the roadway.

She didn’t know when it was that she began to pray, but it began as formless yearning.

For hope. The safety of Selina and Peregrine.

For the distance to close between her and London’s streets.

She prayed for just a whisper of the strength that had given her best friend the courage to persevere when she had faced down calamity.

It was much later that she realised her supplications were directed not to the heavens, but towards Peregrine. I am coming back , she promised. Wait for me? Please. I am coming.

It kept her from being afraid in the darkness, leaving pleas and scattered bits of cloth like a trail of breadcrumbs .

She had no idea how long it took—hours, it must have been—before she stumbled out of a wooded glen and into view of a line of gaslit streets. And as she looked around, she realised she was in Hyde Park, not too much farther from Grosvenor Square.

Charity could hardly believe her luck. Bellrose’s house must have been in Kensington.

So close, so close. Tears finally began to stream down her cheeks as she kept moving. It felt like a dream when she saw the familiar shape of Atholl House looming ahead, windows lit. Was the night still so young?

Her relief at finding herself finally home was so overwhelming that she collapsed on her knees, right in the front drive, her stamina wholly spent.

Atholl House was as busy as a beehouse, because it was not long before someone saw her shadow through the window. And the front door flung open—her footman shouting out a demand to get lost, you filthy beggar!

She couldn’t find it in her to respond. But his demand attracted the household’s attention, and only a breath after his order did someone issue a short scream.

Everything happened at once, then. Or, actually, things began to blur together as she finally began to swoon.

Too little sleep, too little food, and too much laudanum.

All she knew for certain was that Peregrine had spotted her. He had come to her house, looking for her? Now he ran across the lawn as the world began to tilt, snatching her into his arms and cradling her to his chest.

And the last thing she heard before darkness claimed her was the sob of her name.