Page 120 of Pandora

And it spoke to her... did it not? She heard voices. Crying. Perhaps she imagined it, all the other things too.

But Hermes, Hermes did not imagine it. Hermes felt something was wrong. He did not want to go down to the basement that first night, was uncommonly restless. She thinks of how he fled when she whispered Pandora’s name. He was perfectly occupied pecking at the lid bef—

Dora lowers the pencil.

So that was it.

The note must have been in the lid, rolled up or folded so small she would not have noticed it at the time. That was why Hermes was so defensive when she went near the birdcage, why he made such a mess...

Dora shuts her eyes, pinches back the tears that have begun to form at the corners.

Hezekiah killed her pet bird for a scrap of paper that did not belong to him.

***

By the time she is washed and dressed and has eaten it is past six, the rain has paused in its onslaught, and so she goes directly to Edward’s lodgings, knowing he should have returned from the bindery long before now.

His landlady directs her up to a pokey first-floor landing and Dora raps hard on the door, her sketchbook clutched close to her chest.

“Dora,” he exclaims in surprise. “What are you...?”

Edward blushes. His shirt is untucked, his cravat loose about his neck. His blonde hair is wet at the temples, and Dora sees she has disturbed him in his toilette.

“I...” Dora tries to compose herself. After Mr. Ashmole’s revelation about Edward’s past she has been unsure how to act around him, how to feel. Her original anger is more now an irritable ache, and her knowing more of him... Well, it changes things.

“Dora?”

“I thought you should know I’ve finished the sketches of the pithos. For your...”

The words lose themselves in her throat. He seems to shake himself.

“Of course! Please, please, come in.”

He steps aside. Dora ducks her head under the lintel.

It is the first time she has seen his lodgings. The set of rooms he keeps, she notes, is not much bigger than her attic was, but it is clean and warm and serviceable, no peeling window frames, no woodwormed beams. Dora smells the musty scent of books, a hint of candle wax. She looks about her with interest, at the bookcase tucked into the alcove next to the narrow fireplace that blazes brightly in its grate, the desk that stands at the window, spread with papers of tightly packed text.

“Forgive the mess.” Edward is darting around the room, picking up discarded stockings, shirts, shoes, and he piles them in his arms, looking deeply embarrassed and flustered. “Would you give me one moment? I just need to...” and he is trailing away, retreating into a bedchamber off to the left, taking his creased garments with him.

Dora wanders over to the desk, removes the sketches of the pithos, spreads them out across its surface and as she does, one of the papers beneath is knocked aside, catching her eye. A phrase pops into focus, and she moves the rest of her drawings to take a better look.

It is easy to hide such pieces in an establishment that has become known only for its counterfeit wares. While deeply frowned upon, duplicates are not uncommon in trading circles, and so authorities are unlike to suppose that genuine articles might be hidden in amongst the dross of a business whose complete catalog is made up entirely of forgeries. And that is how the black-market operates—deception within deception—the oldest trick known to man.

“I am so glad you came,” Edward’s voice sounds behind her. “I’ve wanted to—”

He stops when he sees what she is reading. His hands fall limply at his sides.

“So,” Dora says quietly. “This is it.”

Edward’s face has paled to porcelain.

“Yes.”

They watch each other. He makes to step forward. Dora turns her head.

“‘Genuine articles might be hidden in amongst the dross of a business whose complete catalog is made up entirely of forgeries,’” she reads. Dora turns back to look at him, and despite her earlier thaw, the stab of betrayal is still sharp in her chest. “Are there other antiquity establishments such as Blake’s Emporium, then? Can you honestly stand there and say this is not about me?”

She somehow manages to keep her tone calm, but the words wobble in the seat of her throat. There is a pat-pat-pat of water on the windowpane, and the rain starts up once more.

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