Free Mina Wentworth and the Invisible City by Meljean Brook

Lusitanian coal mines, and a tinker was always valuable. Most slavers wouldn’t risk taking someone wearing the Blacksmith’s guild mark—but although it wasn’t common knowledge that the Blacksmith was away from London this week, someone might have known.
    They might not have known Anne belonged to Rhys, too. Or they had known—and that was why they continued sending grams, trying to cover their asses before the Iron Duke came for them. He already had a man heading to the wiregram station where Anne’s messages had originated from, trying to discover who had sent the grams. Except for government offices and some of the newer, wealthy residences, everyone had to use a station to send a message, and they could easily be traced. But reason told him that most likely, Anne had sent them herself.
    God, what could have kept the girl away?
    Mina must be terrified. Rhys’s chest ached with the need to go to her, but he knew the only thing that could stop her fear would be to find Anne.
    It would be the only thing to ease his worry for the girl, too.
    The balloon roared in over the Narrow, where the Blacksmith’s warehouse sat up against the north bank of the Thames. Empty but for the stone rubble that piled at the front of the buildings and into the street, the Narrow would later be crowded with dockworkers and laborers hoping to pick up an odd job for the day. If Rhys hadn’t found Anne by then, he’d pay every one of them a year’s wages to search every borough around London.
    He set the two-seater down directly in front of the Blacksmith’s door, and didn’t bother to lock it down. No one would dare steal the balloon from him.
    Eyes widened as he walked into the smithy. Rhys wasn’t a stranger here—in the past ten years, he’d met with the Blacksmith too often for that—but he’d always sent a gram first. Still, his unannounced arrival didn’t explain the unease he saw on several faces. His gut tightened. They knew Anne was his, and they knew something . What was it?
    Rhys scanned each work station, looking for her, listening for the sound of her voice over the noise of the exhaust fans, the pounding of metal. She wasn’t here, but there were two more floors above this one. If necessary, he’d tear the smithy apart looking for her.
    The floor supervisor came toward him, pushing her welding goggles up over short dark hair. Lottie’s face was set, her eyes hard, and she folded her gray arms of mechanical flesh across her aproned chest. She offered him a short nod, but no greeting.
    “He’s not here,” she said simply. “Come back when he is.”
    Rhys wasn’t looking for the Blacksmith. “I’m searching for Anne the Tinker.”
    “I know. You won’t find her here. She doesn’t come back until the Blacksmith does.”
    Lottie sounded as if she preferred that Anne never returned. His girl. He unclenched his jaw, evened out his anger into steel determination. “Why?”
    “She broke the guild’s rules. He decides whether to erase her mark.”
    “What did she do?” Whatever Anne had done, he’d fix it.
    “You don’t have a mark, I don’t say.”
    God damn her and their fucking rules. “Where is she now? Here?”
    “She doesn’t come back until he does. Where she is until then is none of my business.”
    But Lottie obviously knew.
    She knew and was keeping Anne from him. A red haze swam in front of his eyes, and for a brief moment he considered slamming her against the wall, his hand around her throat until she talked. He’d start a war with the Blacksmith, but if it meant finding Anne, he’d risk it. There wasn’t a single line he wouldn’t cross.
    But he wouldn’t have to cross any lines yet. He took a deep breath, pushed back the anger. His gaze swept the room before he started for the exit. He stopped at the door.
    “I have a heavy purse.” His voice carried across the smithy. “And I’ll give it to the first person who tells me where Anne the Tinker is.”
    And he went outside to