Viktor ate the poached eggs and toast without tasting them. He had not slept well.

When the four of them had rendezvoused afterward, he told them how the club catered to the lupine sort of clientele. They ate as much meat as ravenous wolves and he knew blood under someone’s nails when he saw it.

“Fine. Jaq,” Mrs. Wroll had said gruffly, “do what you can regarding Isabelle’s journal. It might take some time. Devote yourself to it. Sir Owensby, you will take me home. Dressed like this I will be taken for a harlot.”

Jaq licked her lips and looked elsewhere while Owensby had cast Viktor an intimidated expression but willingly gave her his arm. Not a word passed between him and his butler until they reached the house.

“Do you need an—?”

“No,” he had answered curtly, and went to bed. Or rather, spent the night staring at his ceiling.

Now he placed himself in the study, staring at words and listening for his butler’s footsteps instead of reading. He had never appreciated how quiet she was. He nearly fell out of the chair when she knocked on the door.

“The room is finished. Everything’s been moved back in. It’ll smell like paint for a few days. Are you having dinner?”

“Why wouldn’t I be having dinner?” he countered, and then he realized that it was indeed darkening outside.

She stared at him blandly. “Do you have a preference?”

“Of what?”

“Food.”

Viktor fiddled with the pages of the book he had failed to read all day. “Anything. Except cucumbers. And eggs. Everything I eat contains those ingredients.”

She chose not to respond to that and left the room. Viktor’s book fell open to the blank pages at the back—pages that were no longer blank.

“Jaq!” he shouted, rising from his chair and striding into the foyer. She had not gotten far. “What is this?”

She peered at the book he held. “Flowers.”

“Why are they drawn in my book?”

“I ran out of paper,” she replied nonchalantly. Jaq rotated to continue down to the kitchen.

“You—?” he exclaimed, following her. “You ran out of paper?”

“You might as well know that most of your books have drawings in them,” she provided.

Viktor gawked at her, mechanically following her into the kitchen. “Why didn’t you buy more paper? Or tore these out?”

“That would have diminished the value,” she responded, turning on the gas and lighting the stovetop with a match. “I raised it.”

Viktor rubbed the area between his eyes and said measuredly, “Humour me. How did you raise the value of my books?”

She faced him to reach the counter behind his back. “I don’t think you know what humour is. I’m actually good at what I do. Just because the pay is inconsistent, doesn’t mean I’m not a professional artist. My work is expensive.”

And then she blatantly cracked an egg on the side of the skillet, and opened it with one hand while facing him. His eyes watched it fall and sizzle.

“That is an egg.”

“Yes it is.”

“Why are you cooking an egg?” he pestered.

“Therapy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Am I sacked?” she asked.

“What? . . . No.” He took a step away from her.

“Then let me cook.”

“Leave my books alone!” He stormed out of the kitchen. Returning to his study, he began pulling books off the shelves. She was serious. Over the past year, she had drawn and sketched inside the majority of his volumes. He had exactly two hundred books. One hundred and seventy-two of them were marked.

Jaq came in with a pan-fried leg of duck, garnished with a cranberry-lemon relish and roasted asparagus drizzled with balsamic vinegar reduction. No eggs. The damn plate was a work of art.

“One hundred and seventy-two,” he stated. “Notebooks have more than one hundred and seventy-two pages. You couldn’t be bothered that many times to purchase your own paper?”

“Will that be all?” she inquired.

He stood there, considering what to say. “What is the status of my shirts?”

“The tailor should be finished with them tomorrow.”

“Are they the same as my others?”

“Down to the thread count,” she assured.

His brow furrowed at her tone. “Are you in a hurry to be somewhere?”

“Yes, actually, I am,” she said without a hint of remorse.

Viktor was taken aback. “Where?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said.

“You’re my butler. It is my business.”

“Do you need me for some reason tonight?”

“No!”

“Then why are you yelling at me?” she retorted calmly. He came around the desk and stood in front of her.

“You set an example of this house. I cannot have you running around alone in the middle of the night.”

“Did you want to come?” she asked.

His mouth was open but no words came out. “Come where?”

“Where no one cares what example you set.” Viktor processed that while she added, “Keep in mind, you’ll want to sack me by the end of the night.”

“I can’t sack you,” he sighed. “You’re better than Ives ever was.”

This time she was at a loss for words. “Thank you…” They stood in awkward silence. “Eat the food before it gets cold. Maybe another time.”

His chin perked up. “You’re not going?”

“Oh I’m going,” she assured. “Try not to die while I’m away.”

Viktor was stunned that she actually left. Right through the front door. He heard the turn of her key as she locked it behind her. He glanced down at his dinner, and smelled its delicious aromas. Leaving the plate untouched, he grabbed his coat, quickly locking the door again.

The butler’s path was winding and tangled. Twice he nearly lost her. He now understood why she wore trousers. She led him to the industrial part of town where she began climbing over piles of crates near the shipyard to get into the window of a building Viktor had never seen, let alone visited. He loudly followed behind her, stumbling onto the creaky floor and the window clattered shut after him. The room was an empty, abandoned office. Papers bearing the watermark of a liquidated business covered the floor. Jaq was nowhere in sight.

Viktor peered through the doorway, but the corridor was a balcony overlooking the winding flights of stairs leading downward, and they were all empty.

He carefully pushed open cracked doors of the rooms on the way down, but they were roughly in the same state as the rest of the place. Not until he reached the ground floor did he notice a vibration resonating through the soles of his shoes. Viktor opened the door to the basement, and sound bloomed. He turned the corner of the landing, where light, colour, and music collided in his face.

The room was a large tangle of beams holding the building up, and the hull of a ship made up the far wall. The ship’s name, Sea Servant, was painted in large, gold letters on the hull that was stained with salt and garnished with dead barnacle shells. To the left was a bar, perhaps disposed from the same ship because of the warped wood. People crowded around it, shouting and laughing, ordering drinks. To the right, the place was filled with people…dancing.