Hazel knew the Old Town was a maze of twisting streets. Even remembering what the front door of the Anatomists’ Society looked like, Hazel still silently rehearsed the way she might politely stop a stranger and ask him for directions. But almost as soon as she deposited her horse at an inn and started walking along the cobblestones on foot, she picked out a pair of anatomy students in the crowd. They couldn’t be anything else: threadbare black coats, stained shoes, and, most tellingly of all, copies of Dr. Beecham’s Treatise clutched under their arms. Perfect.
Hazel followed them on foot over the rain-dappled stones until they dipped into an alley near South Bridge that reeked of day-old fish. The alley released into a close—a tight square surrounded on all sides by buildings at least three or four stories high. The buildings all seemed to tilt forward. The sky had been blue and expansive as Hazel rode to town, but here it was just a distant pocket square–sized patch of dishwater gray. Laundry and the smell of urine hung in the air.
But here she was: ROYAL EDINBURGH ANATOMISTS’ SOCIETY was engraved on a brass placard next to a black door. Several of the men milling about carried the broadsheet advert in their hands. Hazel was surprised to see that most of them did, actually, look like gentlemen. She had been secretly convinced that Bernard was right, and that she was voluntarily entering a den of ruffians and theatrical actors. But, no—there were top hats and shoes of real leather. Though she couldn’t recall their names, she recognized one or two men by face from the salons at Almont House, and she held her breath and pulled herself against one damp stone wall to make herself invisible. She needn’t have bothered. The men were distracted by their own importance, and not one would have thought to look at anyone who happened to be standing a centimeter below his own eyeline.
Then the bells of Saint Giles tolled, louder than Hazel had ever heard, vibrating to her very core. The men murmured and scuffed their feet for a moment longer before the small door swung open and they all started jostling to get inside.
Hazel hung back, watching them, noticing their impatience and the way they greeted one another with cold reserve. And then through their capes and sweeping long coats, there stood a man who made Hazel gasp with familiarity. It was the eye-patched doctor who had given the pauper’s tooth to her uncle Almont, Dr. Straine. He didn’t see her, or didn’t seem to, but Hazel pressed herself closer to the brick wall of the close, anyway—just in case.
It took until the bells tolled the quarter hour before the men had all made their way inside and the various groans and exclamations of recognition finally quieted. Hazel was left alone in the close when the black door swung shut.
She would give it five minutes—five good, long minutes—before she sneaked inside. She would count them off herself, count five minutes while watching the stained linens that hung out the windows above her sway softly. The Old Town wasn’t so bad as all that, Hazel thought. Her mother had told her stories about the murderers lurking in every corner, the once-gentlemen turned creatures by the corruptness of the city itself. The way Lady Sinnett told it, one could scarcely go a block in the Old Town without encountering half a dozen monsters out of a penny-fiction. But here Hazel was, only seventeen, and she had made it here herself.
There, now. That would be five. She would slip in the door, covered by the darkness, and watch firsthand as Dr. Beecham—the grandson of that very Dr. Beecham himself!—demonstrated what the advert had promised to be “a revolution in the field of surgery.” There was a smattering of applause through the door. Something had started. Now was the time.
There was only one problem. The door was locked. Hazel gave it another tug, hoping that maybe the wood had just gone slightly warped or swollen in its frame—but, no. It was firmly and tightly locked. Hazel sank to the ground, not caring that her skirts were becoming damp on the stones. She had come all this way for nothing.
“Hey!”
A voice called out to her from across the close, but its source was concealed by shadow. Hazel lifted her face, half expecting to meet with one of her mother’s monsters. But, no: it was a boy. A boy she had seen before, with gray eyes and long dark hair. The boy she had seen outside Almont House. He slinked toward her and extended a hand. It was dirty, fingers pulling through holes in his glove, but his nails were clean. Hazel took it and let the boy pull her up.
He cleared his throat. “They lock up when the demonstration starts. Dr. Beecham hates interruptions.”
Hazel gave him a small smile. “I figured as much.”