And then I was fading, fading, the world irising toward night.

Turbulent dreams, dreams in strange languages, dreams of home, of death. Odd bits of nonsense that spooled out in flickers of consciousness, swimmy and unreliable, inventions of my concussed brain. A faceless woman blowing dust into my eyes. A sensation of being immersed in warm water. Emma’s voice assuring me everything would be okay, they’re friends, we’re safe. Then deep and dreamless dark for unknown hours.

The next time I woke, I wasn’t dreaming and I knew it. I was tucked into a bed in a small room. Weak light spilled from behind a drawn window shade. So, daytime. But what day?

I was in a nightgown, not my old, blood-stained clothes, and my eyes were clear of grit. Someone had been taking care of me. Also: though I was bone-tired, I felt little pain. My shoulder had stopped aching, and so had my head. I wasn’t sure what that meant.

I tried sitting up. I had to stop halfway and rest on my elbows. A glass pitcher of water stood on a night table by the bedside. In one corner of the room was a hulking wooden wardrobe. In the other—I blinked and rubbed my eyes, making sure—yes, there was a man sleeping in a chair. My mind was moving so sluggishly that I wasn’t even startled; I merely thought, that’s odd. And he was: so odd-looking, in fact, that I struggled briefly to understand what I was seeing. He seemed a man composed of halves: half his hair was slicked down while the other half was cowlicked all over the place; half his face was scraggly beard and the other half clean-shaven. Even his clothes (pants, rumpled sweater, ruffled Elizabethan collar) were half modern, half archaic.

“Hello?” I said uncertainly.

The man shouted, startling so badly that he fell out of his chair and landed on the floor in a clatter. “Oh, my! Oh, goodness!” He climbed back into the chair, eyes wide and hands aflutter. “You’re awake!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you …”

“Ah, no, it was my fault entirely,” he said, smoothing his clothes and straightening his ruffled collar. “Please don’t tell anyone I fell asleep watching you!”

“Who are you?” I asked. “Where am I?” My mind was clearing fast, and as it did it filled with questions. “And where’s Emma?”

“Right, yes!” the man said, looking flustered. “I might not be the best-equipped member of the household to answer … questions …”

He whispered the word, eyebrows raised, as if questions were forbidden. “But!” He pointed at me. “You’re Jacob.” He pointed at himself. “I’m Nim.” He made a whirling motion with his hand. “And this is Mr. Bentham’s house. He’s very eager to meet you. In fact, I’m to notify him as soon as you’re awake.”

I squirmed up from my elbows to sit fully upright, the effort of which nearly exhausted me. “I don’t care about any of that. I want to see Emma.”

“Of course! Your friend …”

He flapped his hands like little wings while his eyes darted from side to side, as if he might find Emma in a corner of the room.

“I want to see her. Now!”

“My name’s Nim!” he squeaked. “And I’m to notify—yes, under strict instructions …”

A panicky thought flew into my head—that Sharon, mercenary that he was, had rescued us from the mob only to sell us for spare parts.

“EMMA!” I managed to shout. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

Nim went blank and plopped into the chair—I’d scared him silly, I think.

A moment later feet came pounding down the hall. A man in a white coat burst into the room. “You’re awake!” he exclaimed. I could only assume he was a doctor.

“I want to see Emma!” I said. I tried to swing my legs out of the bed, but they felt heavy as logs.

The doctor rushed to my side and pushed me back toward the sheets. “Don’t exert yourself, you’re still recovering!”

The doctor ordered Nim to go find Mr. Bentham. Nim ran out, bouncing off the doorjamb and flopping into the hall. And then Emma was at the door, out of breath and beaming, her hair spilling down a clean white dress.

“Jacob?”

At the sight of her, a burst of strength coursed through me and I sat up, pushing the doctor aside.

“Emma!”

“You’re awake!” she said, running to me.

“Careful with him, he’s delicate!” the doctor warned.

Checking herself, Emma gave me the gentlest of hugs, then sat on the edge of the bed next to me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. They said you’d be out for hours more …”

“It’s okay,” I said. “But where are we? How long have we been here?”

Emma glanced at the doctor. He was writing in a small notebook but obviously listening. Emma turned her back to him and lowered her voice. “We’re at a rich man’s house in Devil’s Acre. Someplace hidden. Sharon brought us here a day, day and a half ago.”

“Is that all?” I said, studying Emma’s face. Her skin was perfectly smooth, her cuts faded to thin white lines. “You look almost healed!”

“I only had a few nicks and bumps …”

“No way,” I said. “I remember what happened out there.”

“You had a broken rib and a torn shoulder,” the doctor interjected.

“They have a woman here,” Emma said. “A healer. Her body produces a powerful dust …”

“And a double concussion,” said the doctor. “Nothing we couldn’t handle in the end. But you, boy—you were nearly dead when you arrived.”

I patted my chest, my stomach, all the places I’d been pummeled. No pain. I lifted my right arm and rotated the shoulder. No problem. “It feels like I’ve got a new arm,” I said, marveling.

“You’re lucky you didn’t need a new head,” came another voice—Sharon, ducking to fit his full height through the doorway. “In fact, it’s a shame they didn’t give you one, because apparently the one you’ve got now is full of sawdust. Disappearing like that, running off without a clue where you were going—and after all my warnings about the Acre! What were you thinking?” He towered over Emma and me, wagging his long white finger.

I grinned at him. “Hello, Sharon. Nice to see you again.”

“Yes, ha-ha, it’s all smiles now that everything’s rosy, but you nearly got yourselves killed out there!”

“We were lucky,” Emma said.

“Yes—lucky I was there! Lucky my gallows-rigging cousins were available that evening and I was able to catch them before they’d had too much Ditch lager at the Cradle and Coffin! They don’t work for free, by the way. I’m adding their services to your tab, along with my damaged boat!”

“Fine, fine!” I said. “Settle down, okay?”

“What were you thinking?” he said again, his awful breath settling over us like a cloud.

And then it came back to me, what I’d been thinking, and I kind of lost it. “That you were an untrustworthy lout!” I fired back. “That it’s only about money with you, and you probably would have sold us into slavery the first chance you got! Yeah,” I said, “we looked into it. We know all about the shady things you peculiars get up to around here, and if you think for a minute we believe that you”—I pointed at Sharon—“or any of you”—I pointed at the doctor—“are helping us purely out of kindness, you’re nuts! So either tell us what you want with us or let us go, because we’ve … we’ve got …”

A sudden, crashing wave of exhaustion. My vision unfocused.

“Got better things to …”

I shook my head, tried standing up, but the room had begun to spin. Emma held my arms and the doctor pushed me back gently onto my pillow. “We’re helping you because Mr. Bentham asked us to,” he said tersely. “What he wants with you, well, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“Like I keep saying, Mister whoever can kiss my mmmff—”

Emma clapped a hand over my mouth. “Jacob’s not feeling himself at the moment,” she said. “I’m sure what he meant to say was, thanks for saving us. We’re in your debt.”