Her Majesty's Necromancer (The Ministry of Curiosities #2)(54)

He shook his head. "I can't tell the future. I can't see very far ahead at all. What I possess is a superior ability to anticipate things before they happen, but not everything. I don't know how people will act or what they'll say, for example. Gambling and fighting seem to be different. I can almost always anticipate the way the die will fall, as well as what my opponent's next move will be."

"That's useful."

The corner of his mouth twisted. "Very."

"I wonder…"

He frowned. "Go on."

"I wonder if your supernatural instinct has melded perfectly with your skill and natural instinct."

He arched a brow.

"You're highly skilled when it comes to combat of all kinds," I explained. "Anyone who has practiced for years would possess excellent instincts in a fight. But couple that natural instinct with your hereditary one, and you've managed to take it to new heights. Perhaps if you were as skilled in non-combative interaction, you could anticipate what people would say and do. It seems your inherited ability enables you to occasionally guess when someone is seeking you out, or is speaking about you, but that's all. If you were more sociable, your instincts with people could improve too."

"Is that your way of saying I don't have much empathy?"

I smiled. "Some would say you lack charm and witty conversation. Not me, of course."

"Witty banter is a waste of time. I'd rather get to the point of a conversation."

"Sometimes the witty banter is the point of the conversation."

"Then those conversations and the people who have them are dull."

I rolled my eyes and tried to contain my smile. "Then you're not going to enjoy yourself at the ball tonight."

"Probably not."

My smile faded altogether as he turned to look out the window again. The last time we'd spoken of the ball and the reason he was going, he'd wanted me to think he didn't know who his father was. I didn't dare ask again and risk his ire.

"Thank you, Mr. Fitzroy," I said. "I appreciate you confiding in me. I won't tell a soul."

"I know."

The certainty with which he said it shocked me a little. Then it warmed me. I would do everything in my power to keep his secrets if it meant that much to him.

The carriage slowed as we turned onto Ratcliffe Highway. We came to a stop, and Lincoln opened the door and alighted first. He helped me down and we headed into Lower Pell Lane, leaving Seth with the horse and carriage. It looked less forbidding during the day, but more derelict. Paint peeled off ever door and window frame, while the windows themselves were gray from soot. The buildings looked as if they'd sprung up haphazardly, with a wall of brick here, a crumbling plastered one there, and a wooden arch connecting them. Children played on the street, their own imaginations as their toys, while their mothers hung out washing from the upper levels.

Lincoln knocked on the dragon's nose carved into Mr. Lee's door, but there was no answer.

"Is Mr. Lee in?" I asked some of the children hovering nearby.

Several of them nodded, others merely shrugged. One of the older ones stepped forward, and I recognized him as the boy who'd brought me the message the night before. I smiled at him, but he didn't smile back.

"Mr. Lee is out marketing, miss," he said.

"We've come to see the body of the man who died there last night," Lincoln said.

"They took it away in a cart."

Damn. We were too late. The captain had returned and claimed the body already.

"They?" Lincoln asked the lad.

The boy lifted one shoulder. "Men. There was writing on the cart. English writing. But I can't read." He drew some lines in the air.

"An M," I said.

"That's all I remember," the boy said with another shrug.

"You've done very well. Thank you." I opened my reticule, but Lincoln already had coins in hand. He gave the boy two and one each to the other children. They beamed and rushed off with their loot.

"M?" I said to Lincoln as we left the lane. "Is that linked to the captain, do you think?"

"The captain wouldn't have returned. He was too scared of both Gordon and of capture, or he would have put up a stronger fight, perhaps even shot someone. M is most likely for Mortuary. The authorities have collected the body. I know where to find the nearest one."

Seth drove us the short distance to St George in the East church, Wapping. The mortuary had been built behind the church, almost on top of a cluster of gravestones. It was unattended and the door locked. Lincoln dismissed my idea to seek out a clergyman and instead used some long pins he withdrew from his pocket. He had the lock open in a moment.

"Impressive. Did one of your tutors teach you to do that?"

He nodded. "Mr. Jack Plackett was a master thief in his time, but was an ancient cripple when he came to tutor me. He was as sharp as a knife, though. I learned more useful things from him than from any of my other tutors."

"Including your female tutor?"

"Not for lack of effort on her part."

I covered my smile with my hand. It seemed inappropriate to laugh in a mortuary.

He pushed open the door. "Do you mind if I go in first?"

"I was hoping you'd offer."