Sparrow Falling by Gaie Sebold

sure, he wouldn’t have given her a moment of his time. The very idea!
    And of course, if it proved she was only what she claimed, he would take great pleasure in throwing her off, and giving a piece of his mind to any business associates he could think of about the perils of allowing women – young, impertinent women – to become involved in one’s business.
    In the meantime... he turned away from the window.
    He would have to provide his next payment soon.
    He felt the familiar shudder of distaste, the brim of fear along his nerves. Was it just to show him that even with the flute, he had no power over them, that they had the upper hand? Perhaps they were simply trying to get him to give up.
    But that would not happen. He would not be defeated. One way or another, Josh Stug always ended up in charge.
     
     
    E VELINE BOUNCED ALONG the pavement, brimful of pleasure. There. She had done what she set out to do, she had proved herself smart, and she had got them a respectable job.
    She had done it by stealing and conning, admittedly – but only because Stug was so unreasonable. And that part of it would please Ma Pether and Liu, at least.
    She slowed, her walk losing some of its energy. Liu had been... she knew Liu cared for her. He’d risked his life for her, in fact – though she also knew that risk was his lifeblood, the way it was hers... or had been. But was he right? Was she doing something stupid?
    And could she make up to him for what she’d said? The memory of it chilled her and leadened her feet. You should know, she’d said. You are one.
    Stupid, and cruel, and unfair – but he’d got under her skin so. He could do it like almost no-one else; because she cared for him, too, whether she liked it – and whether Ma Pether liked it – or not.
    Maybe she should check Stug out. A bit more. Because he was obviously up to something. Many people might dismiss the Folk as a spent force, something between history and myth, now they stayed away from the cities; she knew better. They were still there, and if Liu was right – and it was true, he really should know – still dangerous.
    What she knew about them was that they – at least real Folk, not half-Folk like Liu – didn’t think like people, and that made them tricksy.
    So someone who got involved with them either didn’t know what they were doing, or did, and thought it was worth it.
    Like you, something whispered in her head, and she made a face. She’d never got involved with the Folk on purpose, it had just happened. And she hadn’t seen Aiden of the Emerald Court in years. When she was little, she’d thought of him as a friend. Later, she’d realised that he thought of her as more of a half-trained puppy. Her sister was his lapdog now.
    Charlotte had been offered the chance to come home, and had refused. It hurt Mama more than she tried to show and it had hurt – it still hurt – Eveline fiercely.
    But Charlotte was irrelevant. She wasn’t coming back. Mr Stug was what mattered right this minute.
    He was a landlord, that much she knew. She couldn’t risk going back to his offices, not now. But though she hadn’t taken anything but the flute... she’d looked at every paper that was in her eyeline the two times she was in the offices, and had an address in Limehouse fixed in her mind. Knowledge, and the means to use it. The school’s motto, taken from one of Ma Pether’s sayings. It never hurt to have as much information about a mark as you could gather.
    Of course, respectable people didn’t think of the people they did business with as marks. Well, you couldn’t change everything at once.

 
    Limehouse
     
     
    S HE DIDN’T BOTHER with a cab, besides, they cost money. She liked to walk, to keep her eye on things. Within an hour the familiar stench and babble of the slums surrounded her. Limehouse, where she’d spent much of her life.
    She felt wrong, out of place. It wasn’t the clothes – she’d moved around these streets