Lilliana had made up her mind days ago that she would set out in the early morning when the sunlight was a meek white ghost. Mr. Luccullis may not have been the most socially adept of young men, but he stemmed from sweet enough gentry she had no doubt he would allow the eccentricities of a woman’s complexion to impinge on his convenience.

Youth of some small grace were oft early to bed and to rise, after all. most would be pleased to be caught by an associate in the shortly after sunrise -- the soft red light gave one such a rosy glow. And it made her scarlet hair cast such embers! Well -- she noted, with a weary flickering to one of her carriage’s pearly windows -- at least when the sunrise isn’t weighted down by unfathomable clouds

She, like many others in the Society for Passive Equality, had been eager to see the fruits of his stay in Brunnhold with the passives. Even young gentlemen of good breeding, she knew, had a propensity for sloth. Perhaps, she had surmised, a slight bit of prodding would motivate the boy to publish his findings.

The ornate white orb of her carriage rattled down the cracked cobblestones for what felt like ages, creeping a long like an adorned beetle, four bright moa pulling it along. The way from her plush little house tucked away on High Street to the squalid quarter of the city was lengthy and fret with hiccups on the wheels. All this bouncing and rocking forced her to readjust her cravate unnumbered times, and coaxed great worry for the state of her hair, but over all the ride was most uneventful.

Upon arrival, her spindly human coachman, Luke, all but fled from his seat, claret velvet tails flapping wildly in his rush and the wind of a coming storm, great black clouds brooding on the horizon. He eased open her door, and along with pleasantness of his timorous smile, Ana was greeted with a rush of city stink. She fished a kerchief from her bodice and clutched it dearly over her mouth and nose, stifling a disgusted whimper, before alighting from her coach.

Once steadied on the cobblestones, Ana gave Luke a mincing nod, and he rushed forward to tend to her veils. Carefully, his spider fingers unfixed the diaphanous white veil from its place pinned and twined artfully around the ruched flowers of her hairpiece, arranging the fall of silk to delicately mask her features. After that, he scurried back to the carriage to fetch her parasol, which he blossomed open for her with a practiced hand. She accepted the handle into her little gloved palms with grace.

Even through the crush of the kerchief, the sugared smile in her voice was clear.

“Thank you, my darling. Sweetest boy living, you are.”

She decided not to wait for the boy to do his dance of bows and flattering, slinking around him with a flick of her heavy skirts.

A helpful fellow of hers in the SPE had been gracious enough to inform her of Mr. Luccullis’s living arrangements, giving her the directions in a voice fraught indecision. In all her years, she’d never been able to fathom what it was about her colleagues that made them go milk white at the suggestion of venturing into The Dives. It was populated with the wretched poor, not hatchers, for Alioe’s sake. Perhaps it was the smell that frightened them so. For that, she could not blame them.

The street had been too packed with common folk for the carriage to venture any farther, as she had expected, but she’d noted the greasy pub weaving on drunken support beams across the way from a stout little apothecary shop with dark windows winking down from the upper most floor. The walk was brief, and when she kept her field up and bristling the few yards she had to stroll down the street, the lower races gawped, but were cordial enough to refrain from infringing on her business.

How good of them to stare! Many proclaimed she had a penchant for overdressing, but she considered her ensemble to be a modest morning promenade dress. A white chiffon blouse accent with a cravate frothy as whipping cream ticking her throat, a heavy bustled skirt paired in white with the top, a sash of black organza and lace tied at her hips and spilling down over the thick ruffles of the skirt. And, a drake leather and devilfish bone confection of a corset cinching her waist fabulously, dyed in chiaroscuro stripes. And as for her pearls, she practically slept in them.

Once she reached the shop, Ana alighted the wrought iron staircase -- it shivered beneath her weight -- with mincing steps, the angular nature of her boots allowing nothing but. At Mr. Luccullis’s cockeyed door, she deigned to slip the kercheif away from olfactory devices long enough to knock.

“Mister Luccullis, darling?” she called, the honeyed strains of her voice oozing through the cracks. “Your goodly friend Madame Steerpike has been gracious enough to visit you!”

In spite of the nauseous reek thick all around her, Lilliana’s most warm and affectionate smile slid up on her ruby like quicksilver. She only hoped he answered soon. She had no idea how long she could manage to hold it.

It was likely that Campion’s snores were audible through the dilapidated door, due to both the sheer volume and close proximity of the young man’s body to the entrance to his home. He had a perfectly tolerable bed of course, but at some point during the previous evening Campion’s body had decided that to walk the length of his one room would be impossible and that bare floorboards were an inviting substitution. The bottle of whiskey beside his head had of course helped with this difficult moral quandary.

His neck however, would soon disagree with this judgment vehemently and as the sun began to stream through a window, the curtains of which Campion had not thought to close, his head too began to throb in protest.

Was it morning? Or afternoon? Campion wasn’t exactly sure. Time seemed more fluid these days, as though flowing through an hour glass, along the neck of a bottle. Alioe, my head. He coughed thickly and raised a hand to his temples, realising his position on the floor, the hardwood against his back. He made no attempts to alter this however, and simply curled into himself slightly, his long limbs folding as though made of paper.

Another night of more debauchery, another night he thankfully couldn’t remember, Campion groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His head hurt so much, it seemed as though his brain was hurling itself at the inside of the man’s skull, like repeated knocking.

Knock, knock, knock.

No.... wait... that was actual knocking.

Probably Dom. Had he left a prostitute somewhere in the apartment that he wanted back? Campion growled and pushed himself up. The sudden change in altitude was dizzying and uncomfortable, the room swaying from side to side and the walls seemed to pulsate and convulse at the same time, colours merging and swimming and-

He just made the waste paper basket, and a dull splat sounded in the apartment just as a woman called from outside. Her voice seemed fuzzy and much further away than she actually was, but was unmistakably galdori.

Not his mother? No, his mother wouldn’t come here. But there were no other golly women with any reason to pay him any mind. Not in his current state; breath thick with bile, tasting of Absinthe cocktail and what’s-her-face, the one from Cook’s place with the blonde hair.

“One minute,” he croaked, smoothing down his hair and his clothes and anything else that was crumpled- this was a boy in need of a good and thorough ironing out.

Hobbling to the door (A leg pain? That was new) Campion pulled it open, with considerable effort- the damn thing was so stiff, poking his head out at his visitor.

He looked terrible, of course. Eating less than ever, Campion had surpassed thin and was now simply skeletal, his bones jutting at odd angles and his rumpled clothes hanging off of him. What little skin that was stretched over his face and body had taken on a waxy grey pallor. It was obvious that Campion was not a well man. His eyes were bleary red, the hair on his unshaven face patchy, his growing moustache thin and unkempt. Apart from the weak field and there few tell-tale signs that genetics held firmly on to, Campion looked to be losing almost everything that polite society would recognise as galdori.

“’lo?” he blinked at the pretty older woman at his door, and make no mistake she was very pretty, so clean she could have been dipped in milk and dressed like some kind of delicious cake, pearls glinting like the hundred and thousands atop a fondant fancy. She also belonged nowhere near here. He recognised her face and the way she carried herself, a fellow SPE member. A group he was in no particular hurry to see again.

He could shut the door in her face- this shiny, healthy, galdori delicious cake lady. It would be fairly easy, just a simple movement and then the blissful comfort of sleep in a bed. But good breeding was good breeding, and such an out and out rude gesture made Campion feel nervous.

“Madame?” he said, still a million miles from the poster boy for proper decorum- but it was a start. What followed should have been ‘It’s wonderful to see you again. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Instead, Campion blinked some more and tried to pretend that standing up and not puking was a realistic goal.

At the sound of what could only be someone stumbling up off the floor, that heartbreaker smile twisted. Behind the forgiving shroud of her veil, Lilliana’s white rabbit teeth speared her lip. She was far too polite to let her face contort too badly, but the jolt of revulsion was undeniable.

And when he appeared in the doorway, she couldn't stop herself from clutching her kerchief to her nose again, feigning a dainty cough. Her thin brows pinched in a brief flash of irritation.

But oh dear mercy, did this woman have a fast recovery. A hummingbird couldn’t have caught that grimace. Ana lowered her kerchief, rebounding with a quiet chirrup of tittering. She lifted her veil with utmost care and draped it back over her mesh-wreathed bun, where it spilled down her back in a diaphanous waterfall of silk. The plump cherry of her lips unfurled again, showing off a splendid collection of teeth. A hostess smile. A mother’s smile. Warm, inviting, and unassuming. The kind of smile that said there’s nothing wrong here is there, Mr. Luccullis? Right?

Right.

All those tender adjectives died on the pale planes of her cheeks and never touched her eyes. Knowing, calculation. Once she managed to quell her surprise -- she new he wasn’t well off, judging from the disagreeable hole he lived in, but she’d never fathomed it could be this bad -- her painted lids shuttered off her eyes, reducing them to mire green crescents. The piquant swill of concern and revulsion gleaming there made one think she could be looking at a dog scraping around on three legs, more so than a man.

“Mister Luccullis, oh…” Her ruby smile became a gem-encrusted simper, paired with a feather-soft moan of sympathy.

“Have you been ill as of late? Such would explain your extended absence, dear…” She let the gentle accusation hang in the air like a coil of smoke. The sharp stink of his breath and his apartment and his all of him didn’t stop her from stepping closer, leaning to peer up at him, slipping her fingers through the slim crack of the door. She breathed an internal sigh of relief that that her gloves protected her, as if her pale little fingers might become sick if they touched anything naked.

“If it would not impinge upon your convalescence, young master, I was hoping to nip in for a chat? Those of us in the Society have missed you direly! And the drizzle out here is dreadful and I fear for the state of my gown.” She spoke that last bit somber seriousness.

“Ah, poor boy. Seat yourself! I have the most delightful collection of new teas in my purse, I shall brew you a kettle with joy.”

The words were laced with promises of motherly fawning, sweet perfume, and emphatic-affectionate squeezes of the hand. Yet very little about it sounded like a request.

“Yes, of course, Ms Steerpike,” he said weakly, looking around the room. There was very little that could be salvaged from the, well, hovel was only appropriate and so all that Campion could do was run a nervous hand through rumpled hair and step away from the door.

“I’m sorry my appearance is somewhat intolerable” he said in a rather pitiful, croaking voice, speaking of the pans dotted around the room half full with stagnating water, of the rumpled papers and dust gathering in corners. Shirts and socks and undergarments hung from a line across the ceiling, acting as a kind of partition between the living area and the kitchen like a horribly inappropriate clock’s eve decoration, and Campion was on them in an instance, ripping his things from the line and stowing them under the coverlets of his bed. “And that of the room too, I’m afraid.” A nervous laugh followed, forced painfully out of his throat.

Stop looking at me like that. Her pity made him queasy, or perhaps that was simply a leftover from the night before. Either way, Campion became quite fascinated by anything away from Liliana’s eyeline. Stop, please.

“Yes…I’ve been…I’ve been ill?” This was spoken as a question, as though Campion wasn’t quite sure if he was unwell or not, if this affliction he could be suffering was of the body or the mind.. “Nothing serious, of course- a sniffle or two. Nothing that can’t be healed with a few early nights and a good dose of time.” He twitched like an anxious rabbit, twisting the tails of his shirt as he allowed Lilliana into the room, unable to predict her reaction

“Right…” it felt so awkward in the tiny room that he could taste it on his tongue, like a mouthful of icicles. “You’ll be wanting tea, Ms Steerpike. Oh… tocks…the kettle.”

The kettle was collecting rain water in the centre of the room. He darted to it with jerky motions and quickly placed it on the cooking range.

Campion battled with embarrassment and nausea to retain composure, trying to smile. “Do sit down, Ms Steerpike,” he gestured to the one chair in the room, pretending he was just another gentleman in the parlour of a country estate, that the butler would be bringing in peppermint tea at any moment. It was an almost grotesque façade, like a badly made paper mask.

“So, to SPE business?” he prompted, longing to be done with pleasantries but unwilling to talk much on the subject of passives.

Lilliana’s fish-eyed inspection of the small flat coaxed her simper to deepen. The faintest flicker of hesitation beetled her brows before she eased the door closed behind her. And, in spite every well-bred fiber of her being, that kerchief leapt to her nose again. She played it off as a show of delicate sensibility once she caught sight of his pleasantries strung up from the rafters.

At that, she lingered in the doorway with her eyes pinned to the floor, demure as if she’d never seen a man’s underthings before. Ana stood still like an elaborate sculpture of patience and propriety, her head cocked and mouth curled into a ghost of a smile as she watched Campion flutter hither and yon.

“It is most indecorous for a woman of my stature to be paying visits to the apartments of single young men-” -- much less ones holed up in the clock-stopping Dives -- “so I believe it would be in the interest of both our reputations to keep this meeting succinct,” she offered on the wings of a sugared smile, softly tittering as if it were some rusty joke . Her whole form and expression suggested that she would absolutely love to linger with him longer, really, but those cursed binds of propriety were keeping her from it.

In all honesty, the smell inside the flat was somehow worse than the reek conjured up by the entirety of The Dives. She had no idea how Campion accomplished it, though the acidic stench wafting up the direction of the wastebasket gave her some inkling. Ana had as little desire to linger as Campion had to keep her.

She seated herself primly, heavy skirts billowing out over the edges all but hiding the little chair from sight.

“Oh, silly roof,” she smiled warmly up to the ceiling, chiding it for its inefficiency, and another nervous titter at the alarming thought that it might drip on her dress. She only sheathed her parasol after a long moment of hesitation.

“But yes, Mister Luccullis! The Society business!” Ana clapped her little gloved hands together in excitement. “In regards to your visit to the University. Mercy knows you couldn’t have just gone on vacation, barely out of the uniform yourself! The notes on your interview, of course. We have all been so on fire to see the fruits of your labors--” With that bang-flash of realization lit up Lilliana’s face. She cut herself off with sharp gasp, sweet visage crumbling to a mask of purest sympathy.

“Oh, Good Lady! I pray their conditions were not so vile it upset your sensibilities! Leaving you stricken with illness, an affliction of the mind manifesting itself in body, oh my goodness. Poor wretch you are!” she crooned. So aghast she was, it looked as if she might swoon right there in the middle of his living room.

The horror in her voice wasn’t as artificial as it could have been. Mr. Luccullis was able to leave the damned and damnable place, after all. Others she knew, little girls with strawberry hair and pale lashes too much like her own, did not have that luxury.

Campion found himself bristling at the title of 'poor wretch', admittedly in his more self-pitying moods, the kind that occured when the rains were at their strongest and the moaning in his stomach almost drowned out caterwhauling in the streets Campion had seen himself as a poor wretch too. But the moment always passed and he found himself quite embarrassed at the notion, just as he did now.

It was rather funny, in a way that left a sour taste in his mouth, that Campion had once romanticized the idea of being a starving artist so. But it was hard to be romantical when one felt and smelt the reality...Ms Steerpike was demonstrative of this. In reality he wasn't some hero, or bohemian maverick at best he was a pitied 'poor wretch' and at worst a ruined man- doing his best to hide good breeding under the stench of whiskey and sex.

"My sensibilties, I assure you madam," Campion said in a weak voice finally, "are not so fragile as to be damaged so by a week in Brunnhold. Despite my namesake, I'm no wilting flower."

The wet, thick cough that escaped his mouth was, unfortunatley, hardly a sterling example of this notion however.

"As for my passive findings," he fiddled with a strand of hair growing in an unruly fashion, "I fear the society may be dissapointed." Rather an understatment really when one thought about it, but he embellished whislt preparing tea in two chipped cups, only one of which was still partenered with a grubby saucer.

"You see the passives weren't particularly...do you take sugar Ms Steerpike?" he interrupted to hold up a small tub, "the passives weren't...oh, tocks, I seem to be all out of milk." Campion had been all out of milk for quite sometime but the semantics of morning tea was all he had to distract himself from the accuality of his rather dismal failures at Brunnhold. "I could of course offer you an earl grey and a slice of lemon. But I have a suspicion I havent any lemon...or earl grey for thatmatter!" Nervous laughter followed and really, Campion knew he couldnt keep this up.

"What I mean to say really Ms, Steerpike,is that I found very few co-operative passives. None of them wanted to be caught talking to me, as you'd imagine. And I hadn't the heart to force them to co-operate if they didn't really want to"

And what of Triston? Asked the nasty little voice in his head, Did she really want you?

There were a few notes in notebooks, of course, but something in Campion was reluctant to part with them. In many ways, while of course in no explicit over the happenings in Brunnhold, Campion felt these notes were almost as initimate and private as that too short night with Triston. To imagine the SPE members reading of his impressions, the time spent with Triston and Aurelie was almost to imagine them stealing those memories. Memorieswhich parts of him hated, but the whole of him still wasn't ready to part with.

"You aren't terribly upset with me are you?" and despite himself, Campion found himself playing the wretch.

“Oh, my dear dear boy…” A simper, a smile. Honey wasn’t this sweet. hER fingers slid along the brim of her hat, relishing in the drag of velvet amongst this birdsnest of … banality. “Do not hazard the thought! How could I ever carry ill will in my heart for a Luccullis? And – “

A soft puff of a sigh as she rummaged through her purse, procuring a pale envelope. The parchment was so smooth it looked like poured and pressed cream. She cradled the thick packet to her bodice and stood, boot heels clicking sharply on the hardwood as she crossed the tiny flat to him.

“I already insisted I had a fine new sampling of teas in my purse, sweet boy!” Lilliana tittered and pressed the packet of loose tea leaves into his bony hands. “Cream earl grey, my love. Dried rose petals crushed all through it! Does that not just sound wonderful? The apothecary maiden out in Kingsway Cross is quite a lovely old woman. You should see her sometime. Tell her I sent you, and she’ll surely find some sort of wonderful gratis to grant you.”

Lilliana was not too pleased over the close proximity to Mr. Lucculis’s person (the boy stank, just like the rest of the room did), but it never showed. She could go on smiling and small talking for hours like this – the carriage of her tiny shoulders was mite stiff, but the rest of her was open and inviting as a flower.

“But…yes. Surely your time there was not purest puerility?” She murmured, clover green eyes peering up at Campion, curious and owlish. “Mercy me, how wretched that must be for you. A week among them, poor creatures, surely it must have been no pleasure. And yet…you received no pertinent information what-so-ever? I simply – I…”

In spite of her words, there was a meek cloud of disappointment looming over her pale features. Lilliana was never one to be bad with words. The fact that she faltered, for just that moment, could speak volumes. Tiny gloved hands fidgeted silently with her purse.

“What little did they tell you?" A spot hopeful, a touch delicate. Quiet. "Did it seem quite as awful as they say? Any names clinging in your notes?” Suddenly, her mellifluous façade was not painted on so thick. When it came to Aurelies, Lilliana couldn’t stop herself from going soft.

Campion blinked at the tea, the sweet smell of rose petals soft as a whisper tickled his nostrils before being crushed under the think stench of the room.

"My visit wasn't entirely fruitless, I'll admit," said Campion, "I was able to speak briefly to two young passive girls. Very briefly."

He flung the grotty tea he had prepared already out of the window and made to prepare Ms. Steerpike's much superior leaves. As he did this, Campion considered how he should present the interview- how much he wanted the society to know about the girls. What if someone else from the society heard about Triston and spoke to her- he couldn't bear for his secret to be revealed. Perhaps he ought to change their names, as he had assured Aurelie he would.

Triston Bricketson could become Trudy Bucket or some such name and Aurelie Steerpike could become...

Steerpike. Campion almost dropped the teapot. How on earth could he have not made the connection before? Between the sour little Aurelie and the overly sweet Ana who stood in front of him. Campion didn't know much of the Steerpikes, though perhaps his mother would- if they were of the landed set - perhaps they were a large family and Ana and Aurelie were distant relation, or perhaps they were closer.

It could, of course simply be coincidence- so Campion decided to test the waters, careful not to infer anything. "I seem to remember one of the girls, the other one not so much, around twenty years old- red head by the name of Aurelie, she never gave me her last name."

“Aurelie…Steerpike?”

The barely-there whisper of her voice, the warm shock that slipped over her trained features – she looked as though Campion had told her he’d found a quarry of diamonds in the walls of his bathroom. Lilliana shuffled a step or two back from him, blinking up at him as if he were something entirely more mystifying than a bile-smelling young man with a blossoming rash of neckbeard.

“Aura? My little finch, the precious dear…?” One hand tensed around her reticule, clutching it tight to her chest. With the other, she braced herself against the countertop. Ladies and their sensibilities, it looked as though she might swoon and topple over.

Around twenty? Ten years, neglected and locked away in that awful birdcage, her little finch? The number of it made her dizzy. All of this, from the words and the stench, was making her dizzy.

“Is she--?” ‘Alright’ was hardly the apt word. Alive was the unsaid word here that coaxed her eyes to sting, her pale cheeks to dampen. She dabbed the streaks of tears away quick as she could – all of this emotion bubbling up in her, it was far too private and delicate to spill all over the dusty floor of a ruined, twenty-something year old boy. Lilliana turned her back to him and hauled down a shivery breath, steeling herself.

“Oh, I apologize for the state that I’m in,” Ana muttered, crushing the kerchief under her eyes. “She is…Aura is…”

Poor baby bird, knowing nothing of the gentry aside from this boney degenerate and snub-nosed school children. Grotesqueries, all of it.

“What did she tell you?”

Campion wasn’t sure whether he ought to stand behind Ana, she looked as though she may faint at any moment. His mother was prone to bouts of fainting, through resttictive corsets, her general lack of nourishment and the large quantities of vintage wine she drank before midday and often required her lady’s maid to carry smelling salts so she could be roused- Campion wasn’t sure he had smelling salts but he did have a pair of socks that would cause any lady to be roused from even the deepest trance and towards the nearest vomit-disposal point.

“She’s well…” was all Campion found he could say, now that the instensity of Ana’s emotions hit him. What on vita else could he say? Ms Steerpike had just learned that a relation that she cared deeply about had been in contact with him, as a member of the SPE, it was clear that Ms. Steerpike sympthatised with the passive plight and was overjoyed rather than mortified to hear news from Brunnhold.

“And you needn’t apologise. It would be a shock for me too…what I know of Aurelie is that she is working in the kitchens- she has a real fondness for cooking.”

Ought he to speak frankly on the subject of the awfulness of Aurelie’s imprisonment. He recalled the scar she had spoken of. Ana seemed far too gentille a woman to be subjected to it all, instead he forced a smile- “she seems very strong. Stronger than I would have first imagined possible for a passive.” Just like Triston…had been. Was she strong still? Or had his actions…damaged her?

"Forgive me, Ms Steerpike, if I'd have known you had a connection I would have told you earlier...your SPE membership, it was for her wasn't it?"

“Does she?”

Meek, delicate. But she could summon a smile, very faintly. “Oh…” feather-soft, that being the sound of Lilliana stepping back into the past, a tiny place in memory she never thought about much. All that sunshine and innocence just made her sad. And what business woman could afford to be sad? Her smile sold everything. Smiling, always smiling. It got tired around the edges sometimes, sagged in the corners, but she was always to haul it up again. Those ruby-red lips were Lilliana Steerpike’s battle standard, hoisted high and proud. It was wavering, now.

She was red and wet under all that white white skin, after all. Just like every other Vitan was.

“How sweet! Oh, the precious little thing…” Was that all she could summon up, now? Sweet muttered things, to fill the gaps where ten years of memory should have been? Perhaps. She did not want to cry, absolutely did not, want to cry here in this scummy Dives kitchen. But alas and lack, she was.

“She always liked cooking. Baking, really. I…she was so small. She liked to watch me bake, at the very least. Mix things, pour things, she got to do all of that. Oh, these delicious cookies I used to make for her. Sweet and thick with cinnamon, and black chocolate all ground up, and these dainty white nuts from Mugroba.” Ana leaned against the counter, blinking up at Campion. Looking away. Her eyes bounced around the apartment like green glass marbles, shrink wrapped in tears. No, no. It was uncomfortable to look anywhere. So she closed them instead.

“She made such a lovely mess of things, she did.”

Oh, sister. Oh, child.

Oh, Aura.

“And…yes, Mister Luccullis.” What other reason could there be? “We all have our bizarre reasoning for these kind of things, don’t we?” She hitched up that smile, watery at the edges though it was. “We must be careful with those reasons. Too soft, too delicate to let every ear hear. I mean, the beginnings of our sentiments are not always so…” She coughed, softly. “…damaging, as in the case of Mister Snodgrass, but we keep them private just the same.”

Lilliana sighed softly, a sweet rush of breath. The stink was stifling. Living among this mire, Mister Luccullis must be keeping ungodly, unnumbered things private, too. Well, good. Let them stay that way forever. She wanted none of it.

“Imagine it! A business woman, going to tears over a little girl.” She quieted for a moment, bit her lip. A smear of red paint pinkened the tips of those white rabbit teeth. “How embarrassing…”

She raised her kerchief and swiped under her eyes. She pouted into all that cotton and lace when it came away smudged black with kohl.

“You will tell no one of this.”

A simple statement, soft as every other word. The implications beneath it, however, were far more brittle.

Campion touched his arm hesitantly, recalling his own reasons for joining the SPE, felt the carved mock-passive tattoo as though it were being made for the first time. For once, Campion felt almost glad for it, burned as it was simply into his skin- not carried about in the same way that Ms Steerpike’s own internal scar was. The pain of flesh was momentary, but memories and family were not so easily cured by time. Poor Ms. Steerpike, poor Snodgrass.

“Of course not Ms. Steerpike,” he pressed the teacup into her hand, inappropriate perhaps but he hoped it came across as a reassuring gesture. “You have my most solemn word on that.”

And who, even if he wanted to, would Campion tell? He was hardly the darling of high society- there was no doubt that Ana had already guessed that- he did not sit at dinner parties and charm the way he might have once done, instead he fermented in strong whiskey and his own regret, kept company with lower races and other similarly fallen types like himself. He was no longer part of that world that Ana was so desperate to keep her sister secret from.

“And you have nothing to be embarrassed of,” he said cheerfully. “You have noticed my home haven’t you? No, you ought not to be embarrassed and certainly not of Aurelie.”

Goddess, Campion had no idea what he would have done if he had a sibling forced into servitude like Aurelie. While it would be an undoubted fallacy to claim that Campion and his older brothers were the best of friends, despite Chervil and Vervain’s faults and their conduct towards each other these past twenty three years or so had been less than exemplary he wouldn’t never wish such a life on them. Or on anyone.

"We can help her," he said with what he hoped was optimism, though he felt his optimism had long waned already, "that's what the SPE is for."

"Oh, yes..."

Sweetness and tears, it all seemed to be solidifying into something more...capable. Miss Lilliana Steerpike did not support this splendiforous wardrobe free from her parents' assitance through simpering and fiddling with dresses. Beneath all the froth, perfume, and corsetry there a sliver of steel in her. Mugrobi spice trade routes bore her investments, cunning engineers were developing fabulous machines because of her, her wealth had doubled during the highest pitch of the Hessean gold rush. She was delicate, but she was cunning.

Ana accepted the tea, and gave Campion's hand a squeeze of affirmation. "There are surely ways to pull a passive from servitude. Is that not what Mister Snodgrass did? I trust my little finch will be sweeter than...oh, whatever that chap's name was. It simply goes to show that bonds forged in lust cannot be trusted. Young things are so frivolous, so flighty..." She pursed her scarlet lips, peering into the depths of her teacup as if an answer lay there.

Her eyes had taken on a hard sheen, like glazed porcelain. Even flushed and damp froms tears, there was brittle seriousness in her face.

"We certainly can help her, Mister Luccullis. If family can retain their afflicted child from that wretched school, surely family can take them back. I have wasted ten years fretting with my dear progeny, and high society ties, and my dear I must tell you: I'm a touch too well off to much care about the perceptions of our dear kin anymore."

She smiled, dazzlingly smiled, and tilted her head to the side like a pure innocent. Could a high society woman look even slightly wily? She certainly felt that way, just a touch. Rakish almost. A lifetime of conformity left her easily impressed by any small contrarywise action.

"Do you have any familarity with law, Mister Luccullis? I ... oh, no matter. An extra pair of hands will be appreciated no matter what. Oh, slave rights and property! This will be so enthralling." Ana wasn't waiting for an affirmative from him. If anything, being seen in public with her would improve his social lot. Significantly. "You'll be escorting me to the Grand Library for a bit of light study. Dress appropriately, dear boy."

She look a dainty sip of her tea.

"If I am to lay seige to Brunnhold, Mister Luccullis, I must go heavily armed."