Transmuted by Karina Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

trust her not to murder me outright,” I said slowly, “yet this does not guarantee me her goodwill.”
    She sighed. “Bloody bint, that one.” Settling back, arranging the folds of her simple dress with care, Zylphia reached up to adjust the sputtering light. “All right, then. What’s all this about a diamond?”
    Quietly, I filled her in on the history of the gem. It had come by way of the East India Company, considered spoils of war for a long time. Having the young maharajah gift it to Her Majesty was little more than a political move to lend credence to her ownership. Such was the method by which all worldly treasures were bought and sold.
    Mention of the diamond’s worth widened her eyes. Subsequent scrutiny of the appraisal papers I handed her—for she, despite expectations most might have of her sort, was quite literate—earned a thoughtful hum. When I leafed through the parchment left to me, she was already running through a small list of them what might have the means to smuggle such priceless treasure out of London.
    I wasn’t so certain the diamond would gallivant around by the usual means. An envelope came to my searching fingers.
    It was unmarked, but fine in quality. The sort meant for pocketing matters, rather than posting them. Curious, I opened it beneath the hanging lantern light.
    The bit of parchment that fell out drifted to my lap, and with it, a bit of old glass, such as that leftover from a smashed bottle.
    Time had worn the fragment so its edges were no longer sharp, and the color had muddied, but there was no mistaking the symbol etched into the widest portion. “Zylla?” My tone earned a shift from her side of the seat, and a lean that tucked her dusky cheek close to mine.
    The suddenness of her indrawn breath echoed my growing smile. “That’s an Underground chit, isn’t it?”
    “That it is.” I held up the worn bit of glass between two gloved fingers. The surface had long since marred to the point of dullness, ensuring it reflected no light. The V carved in it had blackened with filth accrued.
    “And this?” Zylphia asked, reaching for the bit of parchment.
    It looked similar to those notes I’d earned much of my professional reputation on, little more than a scrap with a request and pay written upon it.
    As she read it aloud, anticipation surged through me.
    “‘A large diamond,’” she recited. “‘Ten thousand pounds per fifty carats.’” The elegant black wings of her eyebrows lifted sharply. “How many carats did you say this Mountain of Light was?”
    “One hundred and five.”
    “Twenty thousand pounds, then.” She whistled low and greedy. Not that I could blame her.
    “No small sum,” I noted. A rather droll underestimation.
    She huffed in overt understanding of such. “Whatever bloke’s making the demand, he’s a rich blighter, isn’t he?
    “Yet there’s no name,” I pointed out. “Only a chit. Why? What does the Underground have to do with this? Did this collector, if collector he be, make prior arrangement with his patron?” And then, because I could not still the rising eagerness within me, I clucked my tongue in mock dismay. “Now, who would be so foolish as to drop the notice and accompanying chit at the scene of the crime?”
    “Couldn’t say.” My companion lifted the note to her nose, then grimaced. “Smells of sewage.”
    The Underground often did, at least that part of it closest to the run-offs. I had been there only a small number of times, often chasing a bounty—and never without a guide. Tough as steel and boiled leather we may be, even collectors took care to mind the unspoken rules of the Underground.
    There were them what utilized it as a means for criminal activity, and them what lived so far below that they did not exist in the eyes of Her Majesty’s civic services. It was a place similar to a black market, but called instead by other monikers—the ghost market, the forgotten tunnels.
    The most poetic of the lot was a