The net in my hands is rough and slimy when I reel it in, the cold of the early morning water enough to make my fingers numb. Small shells and fish escape the holes when I hoist it over the side of my sloop, but I don’t pay them any mind. Shells and shellfish go for far less than fingers and toes.

     I empty the net into the bottom of the boat and sort through it, fish in the livewell, shoes in the bucket, fancy bits and baubles in my pocket. This net is never the most profitable—the best I’ve gotten from this spot is a hand with a ring, once—but it’s still good enough. Today, however, I’m lucky.

     Half a foot, bloated and distended, probably in the third or fourth stage of decomposition, but still intact enough to be recognizable. The skin is slimy and thin under my fingers as I turn it over, looking for something to tell me who it belonged to. There’s a brand on the ball of the foot—two four-pointed stars with a line through the middle—which should be more than enough to identify the owner. However, the brand probably means it belonged to an escaped slave or sex worker, so nobody would be looking to pay to get it back. Disappointing, but not unusual.

     I cast the net back into the river and watch it sink slowly, the white and red buoy attached to the end bobbing up and down in the rough wake from passing boats. Once I’m sure it’s going where it’s supposed to, I raise my sail and continue onward, stepping over the slew of seaweed, shells, and sludge lining the main deck where I haul up my catch.
The amount of bodies in the river is surprising, if nothing else. Probably the most in the world, found here, at the heart of Steel City. It’s the biggest city in the province, the biggest river in the city, and the most dead people per capita anywhere in the world. I’d be worried about that, if people didn’t pay so much to get their loved ones back once the hapless fool makes a mistake and finds himself dead.

     Four years of pulling nets has lent some interesting insight into the goings on of this city. The work I do is less than reputable, but that puts me in the same shoes as the majority of the city’s residents, and the same shoes as most of the bodies I dredge up. Thankfully, I’m still breathing in mine.

     I’ve found people with bullet holes too perfect to be suicide, too imperfect to be suicide, and some who are just plain unlucky. I’ve hauled up prostitutes and slaves, yakuza bosses and hitmen, even an earl, once. I would be sick to my stomach in any other situation—even watching the red lights of the body barge go out to the Island at night makes me nauseous—but it’s hard to have pity for the fools when their family pay a hundred shillings for a finger, an eye, some teeth. Especially when they have no clue whose parts they really are.

     The last net of the morning is over near the Stack Bridge, the biggest thoroughfare be-tween East Steel and West Steel—and also the best place to find fresh faces. I find my buoy about fifteen meters from where I dropped it off last night, having slid downriver with the lazy current, and it looks untouched. Good. All of us bodyfishers have markings on our property, and it’s our unspoken code not to touch other peoples’ stuff.

    The net comes up heavier than the last one, which either means I’ve caught someone’s trash thrown over the high walls at either side of the river, or I’ve found something good. The net scrapes my hand and grates over the side of my sloop as I reel it in, and it flops on my deck with a wet shhk-thwap. I stare down into it, and a pair of wide eyes stare back up.

     I don’t usually see a lot of beheadings, but whenever I find one, I know I can rest easy at night. This guy will probably fetch ten thousand, maybe more, I muse, grabbing the head by the hair as I wrestle it free of its trappings.

     He doesn’t look like he’s from around here. Probably some foreign dignitary, with his reddish hair, pale skin, grey eyes. He looks young, too—mid-twenties, no older. The ragged end of his neck oozes a bit of blood foam around the trailing stem of his spinal cord. Not a clean cut, but a recent one—a hasty job that people didn’t want discovered. Interesting.

     I place the head in the parts bucket with less care than I probably should, and finish freeing the handful of squirming fish and crab from the net. There’s a set of fingers in the net, too, and a thin gold chain luckily wrapped around the ropes, probably churned up from the muck at the bottom of the river by the fish’s thrashing. The last one goes into my pocket, the net back in the river, and then I’m heading for port.

     The sun is barely up when I reach my berth. I’m just a little later than normal in my arrival, so the wharf is already half filled with the day’s fish vendors and bodyfishers. Quickly tying everything down, I unload my livewell into a large barrel, then loop a rope around the top of it and drag it off the sloop, onto the docks. Across the way from me, my neighbor, Norman, calls out.
“Morning, Rell!” he says, jovial as ever, and I wave.

     “Hello, Norm. Anything interesting?” I ask, slipping the barrel rope over my head so it settles at my waist, against the thick leather of my belt.

     He grins, showing off the gap in his bottom front teeth, and looks a little too happy. “Hand with a wedding ring. Looks noble. ”

     “Better hope the owner of the hand isn’t still living,” I reply, and he laughs. It’s a private joke most bodyfishers are in on—sometimes we’ll scoop up parts chopped off for punishment. The owners, if unlucky enough and alive enough to stumble across their own detritus, sometimes start a row with whatever bodyfisher caught the wrong hand.

     “I doubt it,” he says, scratching at the coarse beard growing down his neck. “Poor sucker probably lost more than just this hand. We’ll see if the constabulary comes lookin, then we’ll know.”

     Though my luck has been good and I’ve avoided the constabulary’s attention for the last few years, they occasionally come to us bodyfishers in search of something specific. Norman has found more thieves’ hands than any of us, so I’m sure if there’s a case on hand, they’ll go to him first.

     Norman waves me on, and I begin the slow trek across the docks, weaving in and out of the morning crowd until I make it to a small, inconspicuous shop front set back from the main walkway. A ragged blue and silver tapestry hangs off the side of the shack, and the front shutter bangs open when I knock twice on it.

     “Unka’ Rell!” the small girl in the window squeals, her face hidden in a nest of black curls that jiggle as one mass with her excitement. Turning, she shouts, “NAN! Unka Rell be here!”

     “Morning, Lod,” I laugh, and she bounces some more, looking about ready to climb out the window.

     “Whatcha got?” she asks instead, leaning out the window as an older woman with the same thick, curly hair appears behind her. Nandi Anne peers down at me and smooths her hair back, tying it down with a bandanna.

     “Ta, Merrel,” she smiles, calling me by my full name, as she always does. “Good morning?”

     “For me? Yes. For you, not sure yet. Where do you want the barrel?” I ask, sliding the rope over my head, nearly upsetting the barrel.

     “Eh, just around back somewhere. We’ll bring it back later, with lunch, if you’re fine.”

     “I’m perfectly fine,” I smile back, and she reaches out to clap me on the shoulder.

     “Well, off you go! I’ll get you ya’ shillings tomorrow.”

     I nod in agreement, wave at her and Lod, and work my way back to my sloop. When I ar-rive, someone is standing near the end of the dock, surveying the row of bodyfisher boats, arms crossed over a stomach tucked in to one of those fancy waistcoats only noblewomen wear.

     “Can I help you?” I ask, and she turns, surprise bright in her silver eyes. To my surprise, she looks near the same as the head I fished up, except less dead. A sister, maybe?

     “You’re a body fisherman, yes?” she asks, an unusual accent thick in her mouth, down-played slightly by her confidence.

     “I’m an everything fisherman,” I laugh, and she scowls.

     “I’m looking for my cousin. He looks like me.”

     “What parts?”

     “I beg your pardon?”

     “What parts of him are you looking for?” I repeat, having a little fun playing with her.

     “His head,” she replies, icily, and I raise both eyebrows in emulated surprise.

     “All right, hold it in, I’ll see what I’ve got,” I say, and she follows me as I return to my sloop. Her eyes singe my shoulder blades as I step up and over the side of the bow. When I return to my bits bucket, the head placed atop it earlier is noticeably missing. What in the hell?

     I duck into my cabin, to see if it may have rolled in on accident, but the floor is as empty and detritus-free as usual. Stomping back on deck, I check the bucket again, then look back at the girl. “Well, I had part of him, I think.”

     She raises an eyebrow as I stuff my hands in my pockets. “Had?”

     “Yes, had. It would appear that someone stole his head from my bucket.”

     Her expression twists into something foul, and I offer an apologetic shrug. Though the theft bothers me—she looks like she’d pay well—the weight of the gold chain in my pocket reassures me that I’ll still have enough for food.

     The look on her face has me rethinking where my worries lie.

     She spits out a string of foreign curses with enough venom to make me understand the implied meaning. “What do you want  for it?” she asks, sounding tired as she catches my gaze.

     It takes me a moment to realize what she’s asking. “Lady, this is a more honest business than most,” I reply, rocking forward on my toes. “I ain’t hiding it from you. As I said, someone took it.”

     Her face pinches into something unpleasant and she looks away. “You’re sure you’re not messing with me?”

     “I’m sure. It doesn’t benefit me any,” I laugh.

     She curses again, and I get the feeling that cursing is a preferred response of hers.

     “Why don’t you check around with some of the other fishermen?” I suggest instead. “The river’s big, and there’s only one of me, so they might’ve found something else belonging to him. Nobody but a bodyfisher would have a use for a dead man’s head.” Which isn’t entirely true—many medicine makers or bounty hunters can make use of a skull—but she doesn’t need to know that.

     She doesn’t leave as I began hauling my bits bucket down to the dockside, preparing to dump it out in one of the crude wooden boxes at the end of my berth for passersby to sift through. She trails behind me and sits on a crate nearby as I start cleaning everything off with a bucket of water drawn up from the river.

     “What’s that mark on your hand mean?” she asks after a while, watching me scrub down a foot with a coarse brush, baring the bruised skin underneath for all the world to see.

     “Guild marking,” I reply, holding up the hand with the brush to show off the silvery-pink brand on the back. “Got it when I started this life.”

     “There’s a guild for body fishermen?”

     “We call ourselves bodyfishers, and yes, but it’s just for show.” I put the foot in the box and reach in the bucket for something else. “Enough to keep the nosy official folks from questioning the legality of it all, that’s it.”

     Her steely gaze is scrutinous as she watches me rinse off a few mismatched fingers, rolling the bones in my hand like a roll of coins. “Why do you do this job?” she asks, innocently.

     I do my best to force back my rising irritation at her constant questioning, but it doesn’t work. “Don’t you have a dead cousin to go find?” I snap back, and those silver eyes look a bit affronted.

     “It was just a question,” she says, crossing her arms again, and I roll my eyes.

     “Well, I ain’t in the mood to answer it. I’ve got bits to attend to. So, if you don’t mind, good day…”

     “Loralie,” she says. “Loralie Meinung.” The weight of the name nearly knocks me over, but she doesn’t give me any time to process it. “If you just so happen to find his lost head, please bring it to me.”

     The distraught look on her face—combined with the fortune connected to that name—is almost enough to make me promise I will, despite how I doubt I could uphold such a promise.

     I nod in reply, and that seems to satisfy her. She mutters something I can’t make out—probably more curses—as she leaves, and I return to my work in a bit of a daze, my mind occupied with a swirl of questions. Remember your promise, I tell myself, scrubbing a few more fingers with more vigor than necessary. Don’t ask questions, don’t get invested.

     After repeating that statement enough, I forget about her, and shift my efforts to tending to the gathering of interested people in front of me. One woman finds her sister’s finger—by the scars, she claims—for ten shillies, and another finds his son’s ankle by that star brand for a hefty thirty shillies, but that’s all. The rest of the morning is quiet as the breakfast rush peters out, and it doesn’t pick up again until midafternoon. Of course, by then, the bits in the box are beginning to smell, no matter how many times I douse them with water to wash the ooze away, so once it becomes apparent no-one else is looking for anything, I tip the whole lot back into the river.

     As I wash up in the brackish water with a bar of lard soap meant for clothes, Lod and Nandi Anne walk up, Lod skipping as Nan clutches her hand in one and a basket in the other.

     “Anything good in that barrel?” I ask, putting the soap back in my apron pocket as I stand and dry my hands on my trousers.

     “Snapper, an’ an eel!” Lod grins, and Nan ruffles her hair.

     “And some otha’ thins,” she laughs. “We’ll make bank today, e’en with your fee.”

     “Good. Glad for that.” I watch as Nan pulls out a woven square of fabric to set the basket on, and settles in to the cobblestones as she unpacks the food. “Make something new?”

     “Eel pie an’ some boiled scallops. No potatoes, today—Corbin say he ha’ some weird mold on ‘em when he in this morning.”

     “Shame. It’ll still taste as good as ever, though,” I say, settling down next to her, scooping Lod into my lap with one arm as I reach into the basket with the other.

     Nan cracks open her scallop with her bare hands and slurps the muscle out in one motion, eyeing the shell when she’s done. “These ha’ been tasting worse and worse o’er the months,” she says, reaching for another one anyway.

     “It’s probably the water,” I laugh, smacking my clam on the stones until it cracks before handing it to Lod. “Been a bit smellier than usual. Probably some manufactory dumping weird junk in the river again. I’m sure it’ll be fixed in no time.”

     But as I suck down the innards of a scallop myself, I can’t help but notice she’s right. It tastes a bit more like bitters and copper than usual—and I’m sure it’s not Nan’s cooking, as she always makes sure things are cooked through before feeding anyone. Food poisoning isn’t a good way to keep business.

     The three of us eat in silence, moving on from the main course of shellfish to the desert of eel pie within the half hour, and that tastes perfectly fine, if a little bland. I’ve never liked eel anyway, but I eat it because it’s food and its Nan’s cooking, and she’ll smack me if I don’t. Lod kicks her feet and bounces her shells off her toes into the river, and Nan and I talk about our mornings, what we’ve seen, who we think might be interesting.

     Soon enough, lunch is over and I have to get back to work, as do they. Nan packs up the basket while I twist Lod’s hair into twin braids—a bit uneven, but I’m getting better—and she squeezes me tight once I finish. I bid them good afternoon, and watch as Lod skips off towards their shop. Nan stays back for a moment.

     “Somethin’ bad is in the air today,” she says, turning those stern eyes on me. “It don’t taste right, either. You have care, now.”

     “Yes ma’am,” I grin, and though I tip my cap at her, she’s satisfied I listened to her, and walks away.

     I watch them go for a moment longer before climbing back on my boat. It takes me a few short seconds to cast off the mooring lines, and I wave at Norman as I push away from the rot-ting dock with a hearty kick.

     My nets don’t usually catch fresh things in the afternoon—it’s harder to dispose of people in broad daylight—but they sometimes catch older bits stirred up by the morning’s boat traffic. Oftentimes they snag the heavier things, like shoes and watches, or sometimes scrap metal I can make use of. Once, I found a lady’s frock—nothing much I could do with it but clean it up and sell it, but it makes a good story, at least.

     I make my rounds and start at the furthest net, closest to the farmland on the outskirts of the city. This net never pulls up much but fish, but the fish are still useful, especially for Nan and Lod. I haul the coarse hemp rope over the side and shake it out, showering the deck with some smaller yellow fish—more snapper, probably—and a few rocks and shells. The fish go in the livewell, the net goes back in the river, and I go back towards where I came.

     This afternoon is quieter than usual. The only ship I pass is the garbage ship, which stinks worse than the river. The captain waves me on as I cross in front of it to find another net.

     Seven nets later, I’ve reeled in more fingers and hands and a few pieces of scrap metal, as well as a nice leather boot, an old book, and a few jars of something I’m hesitant to identify. The last net, the one beneath Stack Bridge, is unusually heavy—again—as the rope scrapes up the hull and drops into my sloop.

     A pair of steel grey eyes stare up at me, and I stare back in mild surprise.

     That’s wonderful, I think, bemusedly, as I disentangle the severed head from the rope.

     I place his head back in my bits bucket and cover it with a tarp this time—better safe than sorry—and heave the net back in the river, paying little attention to where it ends up. Traffic has picked up again by now, so it takes me unusually long to return to my berth. I’m a little lost in thought as I go through the usual motions, tying up my ship, emptying my livewell into the barrel Nan returned after I left, and furling the sail.

     Ignoring the bits bucket, I scoop up the head in the tarp and wrestle it into a wicker bag before setting it in a secluded corner of the deck, fully intending to leave it there until later, when there isn’t more money to be made. I can still feel those grey eyes staring at me through the fabric, though.

     After a moment, I walk back and turn the bag away from me, and the pricking feeling goes away.

     Mostly.

     Aw, hell, I think, turning back to the bag with a poorly suppressed grumble. Those damn persistent eyes. Best to get this over with, then.

     I toss the bag over my shoulder and march off the deck, leaving my half-empty bits bucket for later.

     It’s difficult to ignore the stench of open sewers and rotten produce as I trudge past the throngs of people exiting the tall silver buildings towards the city center. Part of me wonders why I’m even going to this much effort to return a decapitated head to its closest living relative. Sure, it might pay my bills for a few weeks, but there’s equally enough money to be made back at the wharf. She better pay more than anyone else, if for nothing but the effort it takes to get this far downtown.

     As the sun disappears behind the tops of the buildings, I slip deeper and deeper into the darkness covering the streets. The crowd lessens and lessens, but even the few hollow-eyed people on the street corners pay me little mind. I wear the mark of a bodyfisher on my hand, and the apron around my waist—I probably stink of fish and decay, too, come to think of it—which places me in a different realm than most. Not untouchable, but unwanted.

     I don’t know her address, just the general area I need to go, so I stop to ask a few squinty women smoking on a corner. At the name Loralie Meinung, they wordlessly point me down the street, the same direction I’ve been going. All of them. At once.

     I discover the reason for the slightly disturbing synchronicity when I reach the end of the boulevard. A wide metal gate marks the end of the street, and visible in the far distance is a tall pinkish mansion, barely distinguishable from the backdrop of trees and tall grasses.

     A footman at the gate notices my approach and steps in front of me as I reach the wrought-iron monstrosity, and I take a long look at her surname emblazoned in brass far above his head.

     “State your business,” he says, looking over the top of my head. I eye his silver uniform warily, and slip the bag over my shoulder.
 

     “Lorie—Loralie—sent me,” I reply, unwrapping the head. Lifeless eyes stare up at the footman, who stares down at the head like it isn’t the most unusual thing he’s seen all day.

     “Go in, then. Tell the doorman the same, and he’ll summon her.”

     The footman steps away from the gate and opens a smaller doorway set into the metal frame, the door sized for a human rather than a carriage or automated buggy. He locks it behind me when I step through, and I try not to let that knowledge bother me.

     Re-wrapping the head as I walk, I’m a little unnerved by the crunch of gravel—real gravel—underfoot, and the obvious display of wealth around me. Even if they’re the Meinung family, no-one can afford such expansive grounds in the center of the city unless they own a lot of the city, and anyone who owns a lot of the city probably does so by illegal means. Not that I’m in a place to judge, though—I don’t exactly work a legal job myself, and I’m sure the authorities are as happy with me as they are with any of the yakuza.
 

     Soon enough, the winding drive gives way to manicured gardens, ringed with small marble statuettes of the Muses and a number of other figures from ancient legend.

     The front doorway is twice as tall as me, brass inset into a walnut door probably thicker than the hull of my sloop. A brass knocker adorns each side, and I have to stand on my toes a little to reach one. A resounding thunk sounds when I let the knocker drop, and it seems a bit small of a sound to alert the whole house to my presence.

     The door swings in immediately, and I find myself eye to eye with another footman, this one dressed a little more extravagantly as the first. “State your business,” he says.

     I reveal the head again, and his reaction is a little more what I expect. “Loralie sent me,” I say, for explanation, and he sighs.
“I’ll send for her. She’ll come down at her leisure. Feel free to make yourself comfortable—out here, please.”

     He shut the door, and I stared at it for a few seconds before taking a seat on the front stoop. The pink marble is warm beneath me, and I can’t help but run my surely-grubby fingers over the smooth surface. It’s a far cry from the well-worn wood and mildewy cobbles of the wharf, that’s for sure.

     As I wait—with far more patience than I knew I possessed—a warm breeze washes across the grounds, sending the late summer grasses rippling like the river, and I’m so entranced by the view that I don’t notice Loralie’s presence until she taps me on the shoulder.

     “I didn’t think you’d actually come,” she said, arms crossed the same way as earlier as she stares down at me. She’s wearing a different dress—this one peach, and simpler than the blue one from the docks—but the same shoes. “You’ve found it, then?”
Wordlessly, I unshoulder the bag and hand it to her. She opens the tarp, frowns at the severed head distastefully, and re-covers it.
 

     “I came straight here, to avoid a repeat of the first time,” I tell her, feeling the need to say something to break the silence. “Missed prime business time to bring it to you, you know.”

     “I suppose I should thank you profusely, then.” Sighing, she tugs at some of the pins in her hair, and sits down beside me. I start a little in surprise, and shift so we’re not so close.

     “Have you found the rest of him?” I eventually blurt, my curiosity getting the better of me, despite my efforts. She slips her hair pins over the cuff of her shirt carefully.

     “Yes,” she replies after a long moment, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger. “It was delivered to our doorstep this morning. That’s how I realized he was missing in the first place.” Shaking her head, she finally turned to look at me. “I dropped everything to sail over here, you know. To prevent this from happening. He ran away from our family back home, you know. He left our protection. And this is the unfortunate result.”

     Curiosity continues to prickle under my skin, as irritating as a hole in the toe of my sock or an itch I can’t reach. Damn it all. “Ran away from what?” I ask, maintaining eye contact even though I know I shouldn’t be asking. I’ve already learned too much.

     “I can only guess. I… got here too late to find out,” she replies, voice quiet. Her tone isn’t sad. More… disappointed. “Can I ask you something?”

     I stare hard at the side of her face. “Depends.”

     “Why? Why did you… go to all this effort to return his head to me, someone you barely know?” There’s honest curiosity in her voice, and I shrug in reply.

     “I did it because you asked me to.” That was true enough.

     “But you wouldn’t do it for anyone, would you?”

     It’s a little surprising, how easily she sees through me. “I wouldn’t. But I figured you’d pay well, and decided to take that chance before someone stole his melon again,” I reply, lying through my teeth.

     Her expression closes off, and I ignore the guilt souring the inside of my mouth. “How much do I owe you?” she asks, speaking through a sigh.

     “Heads usually run upwards of a thousand,” I say, and I have to look away as her searching eyes catch mine. “It caused me a lot of trouble to bring this here, you know.” But that’s only an excuse.

     “Not enough trouble to be worth a thousand pieces,” she mutters, reaching under her frock coat for her purse. She slaps a wad of paper notes into my hand with more force than necessary, and I glance down at the unfamiliar words printed across them. “You might have to go exchange those somewhere, but it’s the only currency I have.”

     I turn the notes over in my hand and smooth them down. “Where are these from?”

     “Where I’m from,” she replies, standing. I follow suit.

     “Which is?”

     “Can’t you read?”

     “Only the local language.”

     “Oh. I suppose I didn’t think of that.” She offers a tight, apologetic smile. “The new continent, across the Adriatlantic.”

     “That’s a far way to come,” I reply, raising my eyebrows in surprise. That explained the accent, too.

     “Far, but not far enough,” she replies, staring down at the bag in her hands. “Not for him, anyway.”

     She reaches up and raps on the door twice, and I stuff my hands in my pockets as I turn to leave, wrapping my fingers protectively around the paper.

     “Now that you’ve been seen entering here, its best not to come back again,” she tells me, without a second glance. “Goodbye…”

     “Rell,” I tell her as the footmen opens the door. “My name is Merrel. And… good luck, Loralie.”

     She freezes, turns, looks me in the eyes. “With what?”

     “I’m not sure. But good luck.”

     She turns around without another word, and the door closes behind her. I stare at the back of the door, then leave, and that’s the one thing in life I most regret doing.

     I don’t think much of our conversation for the rest of the evening, too focused on the curl of the paper in my pocket and the weight of the gold chain in the other. I’m unbothered as I walk back to the wharf, and my pockets are heavy with coin after I step out of my favorite pawn shop. One bronze piece dances over my knuckles as I step into Nan and Lod’s stall, and I fill them in on the events of my evening over a late dinner of salted fish and hearth bread. Lod begs me to teach her the trick with the coin, and I teach it to her, then give her the coin after pulling it from behind her ear.

     My stomach is warm with food and drink when I return to my sloop, and I swing myself into my bunk with my clothes still on, barely pausing to strip out of my apron. The coins disappear into my trunk, and then I’m asleep heavier than a net during spawning season.

     The next morning, a breakfast of old bread clamped firmly between my teeth, I return to my nets just as the top of the sun brushes the horizon. Long streams of ruby and gold sneak be-tween the buildings and wash over me and my sloop when we reach the farm fields, and my nets come up easy. The lack of fish worries me less than it should, seeing as I have enough money to feed myself for a fortnight with no work, so I go about my morning like everything’s right in the world.

     When I reach the net beneath the Stack Bridge, it’s as heavy as it’s been the last two days. The old rope digs into my fingers as it scrapes over the side of my sloop, and the net lands at my feet with a wet shhk-thwap.

     Another foot, with a similar brand, and a hand with obvious bruises around the wrists—another escaped slave or sex worker, probably. Not the best haul, but good enough. It isn’t like I have much to worry about, anyway.

     The short ride back to the wharf happens in silence, and I spend the same amount of time tying up my ship, loading up my barrel, and bringing it to Nan’s. She thanks me in her usual manner and slips me a small case of alcohol without Lod seeing.

     “Just because,” she says when I open my mouth to ask her about it. She winks at me conspiratorially, but her playfulness doesn’t meet her eyes.

     When I return to my berth, bottle in hand, I see why. Norm is unloading his haul as I walk by. At the front of his box is a severed head, not unlike the one I found yesterday. So like it, in fact, I have a hard time not losing my breakfast into the scummy water two feet to my left.

     Norm sees me staring, and offers a wide smile, showing off the gap in his bottom teeth. “A damn lucky haul today, eh? Looks like whatever gods graced you yesterday moved on.”

     “Right,” I say, absently, popping the top off the bottle before draining a third of it in one pull. My cheeks feel distinctly warmer afterwards, but my stomach feels like it’s full of ice. “Pretty thing, her. Wonder what happened.”

     “I don’t. It ain’t my place to know,” Norm replies, and I’m reminded of something she said to me yesterday. He left our protection. And this is the unfortunate result.

     Silver eyes burn holes into my stomach, and I draw in a long breath.

     “You should’ve never come here,” I whisper, stopping just long enough to take in the rough edge of her severed skin, the mottled trail of her spinal cord. The churning feeling returns, and I turn away quickly.

     “What was that, kid?” Norm asks, looking up. I wave him off.

     “Nothing. It was nothing.”

     I climb aboard my sloop and empty my bits bucket into the bin at the front of my berth. It’s difficult to ignore her piercing gaze even when it isn’t directed towards me, but I manage to ignore it for most of the morning. An elderly woman finds the hand with the manacle bruises and claims it belonged to her captured son, and I sell it to her for ten shillies, even though doing so makes something deep in my chest rear its head and bare its teeth.

     I manage, somehow, to keep the monster at bay for the morning and into the afternoon. I let it nibble on my lungs for a while, and I’m content to let it do that for as long as it wants. The churning regret in my stomach always drowns in apprehension and apathy after long enough. To-morrow will be another day—another lunch with Nan and Lod, another haul, another penny for another finger.