Ester eyed the young woman who had floated out the door, wafting the scent of gin with her. Certainly not the sort to loiter in the Leaky Cauldron at this hour; nor the supposed kind to wander London alone. Not the sort of person, then, that Ester usually mixed with these days. (For starters, she was dressed far too conservatively.)

And she seemed far too sharp, as well, her tone made more matter-of-fact in friction with Ester’s drunken haze. What on earth else was acting up, anyway? “You tell me,” she said with a pout. She twirled her wand slightly as she lowered it and backed up to lean against the wall, tilting her head at the newcomer in an insouciant pose and quite forgetting, in the process of it, that the patch of wall she’d taken for her support was the place she had just been trying to get through.

(She was doing ever so well tonight.)

Still, it was the girl’s fault, for piquing her curiosity about the damned Savoy. Her domain was Holywell Street and all its illicit trade; but it was set just next to the Strand, and she was sure the stage was destined to be her next conquest, wasn’t it? Her mouth quirked upwards at the girl, observing her with interest as she rearranged her priorities. “What did you see?”

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