Demon Blood

that they tried to rewrite that history. And even if the evidence pointed to Trahaearn, he wouldn’t be ruined.
    But as the investigating officer, Mina would be.

    By the time she and Newberry reached the Isle of Dogs, the nip of the evening air had become a bite. Not a true island, the isle was surrounded on three sides by a bend in the river. On the London side, multiple trading companies had built up small docks—mostly abandoned. The southern and eastern sides held the Iron Duke’s docks, which serviced his company’s ships, and those who paid for the space. In nine years, he’d been paid enough to buy up the center of the isle and build his fortress.
    The high, wrought-iron fence that surrounded his gardens had earned him the nickname the Iron Duke—the iron kept the rest of London out, and whatever riches he hid inside, in. The spikes at the top of the fence guaranteed that no one in the surrounding slums would scale it, and no one was invited in. At least, no one in Mina’s circle, or her mother’s.
    She was never certain if their circle was too high, or too low.
    Newberry stopped in front of the gate. When a face appeared at the small gatehouse window, he shouted, “Detective Inspector Wentworth, on police business! Open her up!”
    The gatekeeper appeared, a grizzled man with a long gray beard and the heavy step that marked a metal leg. A former pirate, Mina guessed. Though the Crown insisted that Trahaearn and his men had all been privateers, acting with the permission of the king, only a few children who didn’t know any better believed the story. The rest of them knew he’d been a pirate all along, and the story was just designed to bolster faith in the king and his ministers after the revolution. That story and bestowing a title on Trahaearn had been two of King Edward’s last cogent acts. The crew had been given naval ranks, and Marco’s Terror pressed into the service of the Navy . . . where she’d supposedly been all along.
    The Iron Duke had traded the Terror and the seas for a title and a fortress in the middle of a slum. She wondered if he felt that exchange had been worth it.
    The gatekeeper glanced at her. “And the jade?”
    At Mina’s side, Newberry bristled. “ She is the detective inspector, Lady Wilhelmina Wentworth.”
    Oh, Newberry. In Manhattan City, titles still meant more than escaping the modification that the British lower classes had suffered under the Horde. And when the gatekeeper looked at her again, she knew what he saw—and it wasn’t a lady. Nor was it the epaulettes declaring her rank, or the red band sewed into her sleeve, boasting that she’d spilled Horde blood in the revolution.
    No, he saw her face, calculated her age, and understood that she’d been conceived during a Frenzy. And that, because of her family’s status, her mother and father had been allowed to keep her rather than her being taken by the Horde to be raised in a crèche.
    The gatekeeper looked at her assistant. “And you?”
    “Constable Newberry.”
    Scratching his beard, the old man shuffled back toward the gatehouse. “All right. I’ll be sending a gram up to the captain, then.”
    He still called the Iron Duke “captain”? Mina could not decide if that said more about Trahaearn or the gatekeeper. At least one of them did not put much stock in titles, but she could not determine if it was the gatekeeper alone.
    The gatekeeper didn’t return—and former pirate or not, he must be literate if he could write a gram and read the answer from the main house. That answer came quickly. She and Newberry hadn’t waited more than a minute before the gates opened on well-oiled hinges.
    The park was enormous, with green lawns stretching out into the dark. Dogs sniffed along the fence, their handlers bundled up against the cold. If someone had invaded the property, he wouldn’t find many places to hide outside the buildings. All of the shrubs and trees were still young, planted after Trahaearn had purchased the estate.
    The house rivaled Chesterfield before that great building had fallen into disrepair and been demolished. Made of yellow stone, two rectangular wings jutted forward to form a large courtyard. Unadorned casements decorated the many windows, and the blocky stone front was relieved only by the window glass, and the balustrade along the top of the roof. A fountain tinkled at the center of the courtyard. Behind it, the main steps created semicircles leading to the