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eye. The artist had captured a certain haughtiness in her stature—as if her plain dress and short hair were a daring style choice, rather than, as was more likely the case, indications that financial desperation had once forced her to sell her hair and finer clothing. The way she was drawn also betrayed a sly intelligence. Corbeau wasn’t surprised to see the title “Doctor” beside the woman’s name.
    “Dr. Maria Kalderash. The artist drew her looking to the side in order to hide her deformity,” Javert said.
    “The doctor working in the slums with the Divine Spark?”
    Javert nodded. “In reality, Dr. Kalderash’s face is noticeably scarred. She also wears a mechanical device on the right side.”
    “The Eye,” Corbeau said. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered hearing about the doctor and her eccentric prosthetic gadgets. Although the articles in Javert’s hand spoke of the ones she’d created for healing purposes, there had also been a series of devices that amounted to fashion accessories. For a short time, they had been quite a sensation among the moneyed classes. It was rumored that the contraption she herself wore enabled her to see through a blinded eye.
    “Dr. Kalderash trained as a physician in her native Romania. During the year or so that she was associated with the Church of the Divine Spark, she worked side by side with Madame Boucher. Her association with the Church ended some time ago, but she still maintains a modest clientele. Her training isn’t recognized here, of course. Her methods are…foreign at best. Spiritually, they are suspect.”
    “You’re calling her a witch?” Corbeau asked. Javert raised a conciliatory hand at her tone.
    “Under His Majesty’s new guidelines regarding the prosecution of witchcraft, the argument could be made. However, I have no intention of leveling those charges against her—not when I believe her to be culpable in the more concrete case of Madame Boucher’s disappearance.”
    Corbeau looked at the newspaper sketch again. It was dated the previous January. More of the story came back to her. Two of Kalderash’s devices—the Gin Liver and the Discreet Lady’s Stomach Bypass—had been at the height of their popularity. Her name and Boucher’s had always seemed to be linked then. But that had changed over the summer. Corbeau had marked the devices’ decline in popularity as the passing of another trend.
    Had it been something more than that?
    “They were lovers, you know,” Javert said, interrupting her thoughts.
    He said the word matter-of-factly, and without the revulsion or judgment she would have expected from a former priest. Corbeau glanced at the sketch again, her eyes lingering on Dr. Kalderash. Something about the picture stirred her. She’d always had a weakness for intelligent women. She’d even pursued a few. But that had been when she was younger, had more money and energy, and before it had just become easier to be alone.
    Javert teased another clipping from the pile of papers and slid it on top of the first. In this sketch, Madame Boucher stood at the entrance of a large, well-appointed home. Beneath a fortune of exquisite pelts, she wore a simple gown—a light, flowing fabric decorated with thousands of crystal beads. It was of the same old-fashioned design—lightly corseted, without the full skirts and bustles her fashionable peers favored. As if to compensate, her light hair had been swept up in a complicated knot and adorned with jewels.
    “Three nights ago, Madame Boucher attended a party. Dr. Kalderash turned up uninvited. There was some unpleasantness between them, and Dr. Kalderash was unceremoniously ejected. Much later, Madame stepped into her carriage and vanished.”
    “Vanished?”
    Javert pinched out what remained of his cigarette and ground the remaining paper twist underfoot.
    “The footman reported he shut the door behind Madame, and when he opened it again upon arriving home, the carriage was