Free The Left Hand of Justice by Jess Faraday

used—and a low chest of drawers. So much storage. Maria had left Romania with the clothes on her back and had—always to Hermine’s chagrin—not done much to replace them. Having few possessions made it easy to keep tidy. And to move the wardrobe back from the wall. And to leave when, inevitably, her situation turned against her once more.
    She knelt beside the wardrobe and smoothed the plans along the floor before folding the paper into quarters. She laid the plans on the parcel paper, painted glue around the edges of the paper, and pasted it carefully to the back of the wardrobe. Then she pushed the wardrobe into place again. It wasn’t perfect, but it would be good enough. An intruder would probably search the lab, the front room, possibly the kitchen. Even if they searched the attic room, it was unlikely they would think to look there.
    She twisted the lid back onto the jar of glue and wiped her fingers on the rug. She set the jar of glue onto the vanity table and glanced longingly at her bed, her natural eye burning, her head light from lack of sleep. There was a book on the end table. Perhaps if she just—
    She sprang up at the sound of footsteps in front of her house. The sky was just beginning to go gray. It was too early for visitors, too early to even be walking the streets. Her hand went to her robe pocket, where she found a small silk bag with bones and herbs. She rubbed the little bag between her fingers, feeling the delicate twig-like bird bones and the organic brittleness of the herbs. The footsteps shuffled again, and for a moment Maria thought the intruder had changed his mind. The spring-coiled tightness in her stomach eased.
    And then came a firm knock upon the door.
     
    *
     
    Dr. Maria Kalderash lived in a two-story house set into a wall of shops and apartments along the Rue des Rosiers. The area was home to a variety of immigrants and exiles outside the city wall. All in all, a fitting place to find an outcast. Outside, most of the windows were still dark, the doors firmly bolted from within. But later that day, the area would come alive with a hundred different languages, and carts bearing comfort foods from distant homelands would spring up like mushrooms on both sides of the narrow, twisting street.
    As Corbeau passed through the gray stone canyon, she was greeted by the familiar sounds of a neighborhood waking: the jangle of keys in a lock, the creak of a window opening overhead, the self-conscious scrabble of the cesspool cleaners as they collected each building’s refuse into barrels to transport to the drying yards. A sudden clap of thunder shook the air. Corbeau sighted Dr. Kalderash’s door and hurried across the muddy street just as the rain began again. Pressing as close to the house as Javert’s umbrella would allow, she rapped on the door. She heard no answer for a moment, then cautious footfall in the hallway. The door cracked open.
    “Yes?”
    Dr. Kalderash stood no higher than Corbeau’s shoulder, but even in the diminished light of the early morning, in the unexpected vulnerability of her dressing gown, her presence filled the doorway. Corbeau’s breath caught in her throat. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she felt the same disorienting sense of awe she had felt when she’d beheld the inventor’s picture in Javert’s carriage. Dr. Kalderash blinked her natural eye—large and liquid brown—while the mechanical one clicked and whirred as if it, too, was taking Corbeau’s measure.
    It was a startling combination—a full, pleasingly feminine face, an expression of rightful suspicion, metal, and dark hair cropped shorter than Corbeau had ever seen on a woman. And there was the Eye: a surprisingly elegant nest of gears and lenses attached to a decorated leather band that buckled around the back of the inventor’s head. It left Corbeau stumbling for words.
    “I have some bread and cheese if you want it,” said Kalderash.
    “What?”
    Kalderash’s suspicion had softened