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top and took a deep swallow. Then she passed the bottle to Arden. “It all makes sense now.”
    Without being given or demanding an explanation, Arden took the bottle and drank, shuddering as the potent liquor hit her stomach in a most comforting manner. If Zoe hadn’t bothered with glasses it had to be bad.
    She took another drink, then gave the whiskey back. “All right, tell me.”
    Her friend also tipped the bottle as she leaned against the edge of the desk. Her handsome face wore a ravaged expression, and her dark eyes were bright and rueful.
    “Word has it that the Company has sent a ghost after you.”
    Arden’s stomach rolled, threatening to send the whiskey back up. “Ghosts” were Company assassins, called such because they were often able to achieve their bloody goal without being seen or heard. She pressed a shaking hand to her abdomen, but the sick feeling remained. She didn’t know how or why, but she knew who the assassin was. “Luke.”

Chapter 3
     
    Five paused in the stairwell of his lodgings and pressed the heel of one palm to his forehead. It felt as though there was something worrying at his brain—like a cat pawing at a closed door.
    Luke.
    He clung to the rail with one hand, trying to keep himself from falling down the narrow stairs as her voice rang in his head. He hadn’t been able to get it out. Every time he thought of her, pain followed.
    Luke. It was what she had said to him in her bedroom. She had said it as if he should recognize it, and it had sounded almost plaintive—regretful.
    She knew him, and though he knew everything about her he didn’t know the connection. She had the upper hand—had him at a disadvantage.
    He despised vulnerability. That she made him feel that way was simply one more reason to kill her. And he would. She had done something that marked her for death—made her deserve it—and as her personal grim reaper it was his duty to deliver her judgment.
    He would not fail next time.
    The Company knew he hadn’t completed the mission and had ordered him to report to an address in Whitechapel this afternoon.
    The hem of his leather greatcoat swished against his legs as he continued down the stairs, the pain in his head lessening. As he stepped outside, Five slipped on a pair of tinted spectacles that eased some of the ache in his skull. He swung his leg over the seat of a heavy black-and-copper-colored velocycle parked near the door and slipped on soft, worn leather gloves before starting the machine’s engine. It chugged and roared to life, eager to tear through the damp, cobblestone streets.
    It didn’t feel right to him to stay in this particular part of town. There was somewhere else he should be, but he had no idea where. He had no idea who he was, but his accent was English, so it made sense that he came from London or perhaps nearby. It was a posh accent too, which didn’t make sense with what he had been told about his background. It made him think of other things that didn’t make sense in his life. But those thoughts hurt too, so he tried not to think them.
    He steered the heavy machine into traffic, its ridged wheels gripping the cobblestone street. As he maneuvered the steering bars to guide him around a slow-moving omnibus, an image flashed in his mind—of him, driving a cycle of much higher quality than this one down a dusty country lane. A woman’s arms were wrapped around his middle, and her laughter rang with wild delight in his ears.
    So clear and sudden was the vision that he almost lost control of the cycle. Swearing, he managed to keep from taking a spill into a rather nasty-looking gutter.
    He shook his head as he righted himself. A memory. Could it be that he was regaining his past? The thought plagued him all the way to Whitechapel, where he stopped in front of a nondescript building off Dorset Street, near Miller Court.
    He knocked on the door and waited. Within a few moments he heard footsteps approach, and then the heavy portal