Trinket threw the laboratory door open and hurried down the stairs, Booker and Frieda right behind her. She went immediately to the shelf that held Booker's old medical book, the one Benedict had given him before leaving the orphanage. Placing it on the nearest workbench, she quickly thumbed through the pages, passing chapters on muscles and nerves and the best ways to open up dead bodies.

"Ugh, this dusty thing?" Frieda said, wearing only her nightgown and Booker's coat. "If it wasn't Benedict distracting you away from me, it was this bloody tome. Can't believe you still have it."

Booker shushed her as Trinket reached the page she was looking for. Just as in Frieda's book, a tiny number was up in the corner:

799.

And on that very page was a section entitled The Nose, accompanied by a hand-drawn illustration of the specified body part.

Booker's eyes went wide as he pulled the book towards himself, staring down at the image. "The nose," Trinket said, hardly able to contain her excitement. "Exactly where we found the map piece in the body labeled seven ninety-nine."

Without a word, Booker flipped further ahead in the book, stopping at another familiar number.

917.

Again, the page contained a drawing of a body part, this time the liver. It was a nearly perfect depiction of the organ beneath which they'd found the first map piece.

Booker slammed his hand down on the open book, making both Trinket and Frieda jump. But the look of triumph in his eyes quickly brought a smile to Trinket's face, and it was all she could do to keep from bouncing up and down like a small child.

"This is it," he said. "This is the connection. This is how to break the code. Something personal. Like Ms. Langtry said."

Frieda, now leaning against the operating table, furrowed her brow. "Ms. Langtry? The fortune-teller? You actually went to a fortune-teller over this?"

Ignoring her, Booker began pacing back and forth. "This is perfect. Now, instead of performing a full autopsy, we just have to go directly to the organ or body part specified by the number."

Trinket's entire body was tingling with anticipation. "Which means we won't need to drag any corpses home with us. Or find a way to get rid of them."

He turned to her suddenly, a huge grin on his face, and lifted her up into the air. "You are brilliant, my dear," he said as he spun her around in a circle before drawing her into a tight embrace.

Her heart beat wildly, both from his praise and the rush of adrenaline at having figured out the mystery. And for a moment, she almost understood this game. She almost understood how someone could get so caught up in it that they'd forget human lives were involved. Sobering up, she pulled away from Booker and gave a quick smile. His joy, however, would not be dampened, and he placed a kiss on her cheek before hurrying to his desk.

"I have the other numbers written down. We can look them up now and make sure we have all the tools we'll need," he said as he rifled through the drawers.

Trinket took a breath, still somewhat overwhelmed by this new discovery. But as she turned away from Booker, she found Frieda's cold gaze focused on her. Trinket fell back a step, surprised that a woman who was physically quite a bit smaller than her could be so intimidating with only a stare.

"My, my, aren't you a clever little thing?" Frieda said flatly. "I can see why Booker chose you as his assistant."

Clearing her throat, Trinket ran her hands down her dress. "I have a very keen sense of observation," she said carefully.

Frieda continued to stare, and for a fleeting second, Trinket feared she somehow knew the truth about her condition. But no, that was absurd. How could she know? Only a day or two ago, Frieda hadn't even known of her existence.

"Yes, you do, don't you?" she said at last. "And I expect you're rather unusual, too. Booker Larkin doesn't waste his time on those who are ordinary."

That wasn't meant as a compliment. There was venom dripping from every word, and it sent an unexpected chill through Trinket's veins. Tearing her gaze away from the frightening woman, she turned back to the book. Booker was busy looking up the other numbers and jotting down notes, completely unaware of the tense exchange that had just taken place.

"Excellent," he said, scribbling down one final line of nearly unreadable handwriting. "This will make tonight go much, much smoother."

He snapped the notebook shut and tucked it into his vest pocket.

"Tonight?" Frieda asked, regaining her flirtatious playfulness. "What's happening tonight?"

"Nothing that concerns you. Also, why are you here?"

She pouted her plump lips. "Please, if you really didn't want me here, you wouldn't have chivalrously given me your coat." She drew the piece of clothing closer and breathed in deeply. "Which smells even more like you than your nightshirt. How exactly does that work?"

"I only gave it to you so you didn't attract unwanted attention running down the street in that scrap of fabric you call a nightgown."

"You seemed to like my little scraps of fabric so many years ago."

Despite her best efforts, Trinket's cheeks flushed at the thought of Booker seeing Frieda in something more revealing than what she had on now. Then it dawned on her that he'd certainly seen her in far less, considering their romantic history, and her blush only deepened.

As if he could read her thoughts, Booker nervously cleared his throat. "We have plans at the cemetery," he admitted, not meeting either her or Frieda's eyes.

Frieda's face lit up. "Raising the dead?"

"That's one way of putting it."

"Ooh, sounds absolutely delightful. So when are we going?"

"We are not going anywhere," Booker said, gesturing between himself and her.

Pushing away from the operating table, Frieda snaked her arms around Booker and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Oh, come now, my darling. You know how useful I can be. I'm your willing volunteer. Do anything you'd like to me. Anything."

Booker untangled himself from her grip and moved a few steps closer to Trinket. "Too many people would be a risk. More of a chance someone will see us."

"Yes, but consider: if someone does happen to wander over while you're slicing up the dead, who would you rather have to distract them? That little twig?"

She wrinkled her nose as she motioned to Trinket. Trinket self-consciously wrapped her arms around her chest.

"Or this voluptuous work of art?" Frieda continued, pulling open Booker's coat and running her hands along her curvy figure.

Booker opened his mouth to respond but then hesitated. He looked Frieda up and down before casting Trinket an apologetic glance. "My own taste aside," he said, turning his attention back to the still-posing Frieda, "you would prove to be an adequate distraction should we be discovered."

"Adequate. What every woman wants to hear."

"And having a look-out would leave Trinket free to assist me. We could be done with this in half the time." His gaze flitted to Trinket once more before he heaved a sigh and leaned against the workbench. "Fine. You can come. But you must promise to behave yourself."

Frieda smiled and played with the lace edging of her nightgown. "Oh, Booker, that's like asking a leopard to change its spots."

Booker gave her a withering glare.

Rolling her eyes, she mumbled, "All right, all right, I'll try my best."

With that settled, Booker and Trinket saw a triumphant Frieda to the front door. Booker turned to Trinket with a reluctant smile and reached out to give her hand a squeeze.

"I'll return as soon as I bring her back to the Clocktower," he said.

"We'll see about that," Frieda said, a vicious smile playing on her lips.

Booker shot her a scowl before returning his gaze to Trinket. "Soon," he repeated, squeezing her hand again before letting go.

Trinket nodded solemnly. "I'll have tea waiting when you return."

He flashed her a grin and stepped outside with Frieda. "And crumpets?"

The tension in Trinket's shoulders faded slightly. "Of course."

With one last smile, he reached back to close the door.

"Don't worry, I'll warm him up for you," Frieda called out as she slipped her arms around Booker's and gave Trinket a wicked smirk.

The door slammed closed before Trinket could respond. Taking in a deep breath, she clenched her skirts and slowly made her way to the kitchen, reminding herself that picking a fight with someone who regularly drugged people would be a very bad idea.

~

The witching hour came too quickly. Surrounded by a small swarm of bright red moths, Trinket placed the weaponized hairpins in her braid, unable to calm her pounding heart. Everything that could go wrong was running through her head.

What if Jewkes was taken off cemetery duty? What if the police caught them? What if the numbers had been a coincidence? What if they weren't really page numbers? What if they ran into the Mice? What if Scales had beaten them to the bodies?

Squeezing her eyes shut, Trinket forced herself to stop thinking and slipped on her poison ring. What good would speculation do? Like Booker said, if he waited to consider every possibility, nothing would ever get done.

Something's going to happen.

Something bad.

Don't go!

Don't do it!

The normally mocking voices were suddenly frantic and terrified. Perhaps Tory was right. Maybe the voices were there to help, not hinder. But that was ridiculous. How could the voices know something she didn't? Weren't they a part of her?

Don't do it!

Trinket took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, dutifully ignoring the voices. It would be fine. Everything would be fine. They'd find the missing map pieces and be well on their way to finishing the game. And that's as far as she'd let herself consider the matter. If she thought about what would happen when the game was complete, she'd return to her selfish, shameful plan to keep Booker from reuniting with his friend.

A knock sounded at her door, spooking the voices into a chorus of shrieks and yelps. It was rather amusing and ridiculous. As she pulled the door open, she had to hold back a hysterical laugh so Booker wouldn't suspect her fragile state of mind and insist she stay home.

"Ready, my dear?" he asked, offering his arm to her.

She gave a tight smile and accepted the gesture, closing the door on the moths. One escaped and followed her down the stairs, fluttering in front of her face and being almost as much of a pest as the voices begging her not to go.

"Is Frieda here?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the hallucinations.

Booker grabbed the two shovels leaning in the corner by the coat rack and held the front door open for her. "She's going to meet us on the way."

She picked up his medical bag and stepped outside. "Can we trust her not to cause a scene?"

"Frieda can be surprisingly discreet when she needs to be."

It was a warm night, though a tad too humid for Trinket's taste. "I'd imagine she'd need to be whilst carrying on an affair in an orphanage full of people," she said as Booker locked the door.

He turned back to her, his face drawn and pale. "Well, yes, that's true."

She took his arm again as they made their way up the street, keeping to the shadows should someone try to follow them. "And for so long, too."

Booker adjusted his grip on the shovels and cracked his neck uncomfortably. "Yes, discretion was indeed needed, especially when I started apprenticing for the clockmaker."

Trinket felt rather cruel for drawing some amusement from his discomfort. "Stop fidgeting, Booker. I don't care about your history with her."

"I do. I wish it'd never happened."

"We all have things in our past we wish hadn't happened." Some worse than others. A youthful indiscretion was hardly as wicked as murdering one's brother.

"For so many reasons I wish I'd said 'no.' For my sake, for hers, for yours—"

"How does this affect me?"

He hesitated and then winced. "As you've seen, Frieda is a tad unhinged. And there's no misinterpreting the chemistry between you and me, especially for someone as sharp as her. I fear her jealousy and former claim on me may lead her to do something drastic."

This came as no surprise to Trinket. Frieda's loathing of her was not subtle. "I've taken on Mice and mutant wolves. I'm not too worried about a lovesick debutante."

"She's no debutante. And love-crazed is more accurate."

Leaning into Booker, Trinket chuckled softly. "Mr. Larkin, you need to stop being so irresistible, or else the women of Tinkerfall will tear each other apart vying for your affection."

"Some of the men even. This blasted charisma of mine is a vile curse."

As they reached the general store, a figure stepped out from the shadows. The voices in Trinket's head gasped loudly, and it took Booker's comforting touch to keep her from doing the same. When they'd drawn closer, the mysterious figure raised its head and flashed them a stunning smile.

"A lovely night for a walk, is it not?" Frieda said, ambling her way over to meet them.

"Is that your mourning garb?" Booker asked, referring to her black silk dress and the delicate black veil covering the upper half of her face.

Her red lips curled into a wicked grin as she adjusted her hat. "Indeed. And here I thought I'd never get any use out of them."

Sighing, Booker shook his head and continued towards Angel Road. "You're ridiculous."

She snaked her arm around his, ignoring the shovels and tugging him away from Trinket. "Incorrigible, darling."

He tried to shake her off but with no success. Finally, he gave a defeated sigh and focused on the road ahead.

"So this game," Frieda said, sounding bored as they strolled through the dark, "is there any point to it aside from finding Benedict?"

"What other point would there be?" asked Booker, his eyes darting about the road.

"I don't know, maybe money?"

"Money is not everything, Frieda."

"I beg to differ."

"This is about skill and knowledge. It's a test to see how much we've learned over the years. There's no monetary value to that."

She let out a groan. "You boys never did have your priorities straight."

"Says the girl who married a living corpse just so she'd never have to work."

"How is that not a priority?"

"Were you even happy?"

"Of course I was. I had money, fine clothes, plenty of cognac, money. Really, Booker, you're the one who never realized the fortune you could be making on those little toys of yours."

She wasn't wrong. Booker's creations were works of art. If he used his charm to convince society of the value behind them, he could be incredibly wealthy.

They were passing the police station now, and both Booker and Trinket eyed it warily. "I don't build them to make money," he said to Frieda.

"I know, I know," she mumbled. "It's all about the science."

"Well, yes. But they also help people."

Trinket glanced up at him, her heart skipping a beat. Helping people? Since when had that become an influencing factor?

"Help people?" Frieda repeated, sounding as though the words were bitter on her tongue.

"Yes. I mean, I did start all of this to challenge myself and to explore unknown branches of medicine. But . . ." He tilted his head a tad, seeming almost sheepish as he continued on. "But there is some satisfaction in knowing you've helped someone. Saved their life, even."

A slow smile spread over Trinket's face. "How long have you felt that way?" she asked rather breathlessly.

He turned his attention to her, a shy smile tugging at his lips. "I think I've always secretly liked helping others. I just didn't want to admit to that sort of sentimentality. It took some assistance for me to realize it."

Her chest swelled with so much warmth she thought it might burst. But Frieda quickly interrupted the tender moment. "Well, I can only hope it's not all work and no play. That could make for a dull existence. Tell me, Booker, does this one pick your lock as well as I used to? Or wait, is it the other way around? So hard to keep my innuendos straight."

Booker's face fell, and he glowered at Frieda. "Must you be so vulgar?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "My darling Booker, what's a little vulgarity between old lovers?"

Pulling his arm out of her grasp, he pushed the shovels into her hands. "Make yourself useful," he said as he quickened his pace.

At last, they arrived at the cemetery. Terrible memories assaulted Trinket as they neared the gate. The weight of Gin's lifeless body in her arms, the agonizing ache in her heart at the realization she'd never see the little girl again. Her stomach practically turned inside out as Booker motioned for them to follow him around the back.

"Best not to go through the front," he said, stopping at a good spot to climb over. "Might draw too much attention."

"Yes, because walking down the street whilst toting two large shovels isn't conspicuous at all," Frieda drawled as she watched him help Trinket onto the other side of the rusted fence.

"Did you have to wear something so complicated?" Booker asked Frieda, taking the shovels from her as she hiked up the skirt of her dress well over her knee.

"I'm a very fashionable woman," she replied, scurrying over the fence with impressive grace. "Unlike some people here."

She eyed Trinket's simple cotton work dress with obvious disdain.

"Please, I have superb taste," Booker responded, landing on the other side of the fence and glancing about the cemetery. "Come on, I believe the communal graves are this way."

He led them around various tombstones and mortsafes with the sort of expertise that suggested he'd done this on more than one occasion. Trinket made a deliberate effort not to look for Gin's grave, though in her mind she was retracing the steps to where it was, remembering every detail of that horrible night.

The sound of the gravekeeper digging into the hard, cold ground.

The feeling of Gin leaving her arms.

And the sickening sight of the dirt covering her casket, taking the urchin from her forever.

"This looks like the right spot."

Booker's whispered voice pulled her away from the memory. They were standing before a patch of earth that appeared to have been recently disturbed. There was no marker, no flowers. This was clearly a place for people who would not be remembered. This is where Gin would have ended up had she died before meeting Booker.

"What now?" Trinket asked, her throat tight with tears begging to be shed.

Holding a shovel out to her, he replied, "Now we get a bit dirty."

"You certainly know the way to a woman's heart," Frieda cooed as Trinket accepted the shovel.

Booker turned to her, drawing his brows together disapprovingly. "You are here for one purpose, and that's to keep a lookout. And distract if necessary."

Pouting, Frieda spun around and moved out a ways. "I don't know how you can live in such a splendidly seedy city and actually manage to become duller than when you were in Ravenwallow."

As she melted into the shadows, Booker and Trinket got to work. The voices had died down to a quiet mumble, but they still seemed anxious and afraid. Unfortunately, a single red moth had followed Trinket from her room, only now it was twice its original size and insisted on fluttering its wings right in front of her face. A number of other worms and insects crawled about her feet, and while some had likely come from the ground she'd just unearthed, it was impossible to tell them apart from the imagined ones.

After a while of digging, the tip of her shovel hit something solid yet relatively soft. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she met Booker's excited gaze. "Time to do a little exploring," he said.

Together, they hauled the first body out of the grave and laid it out on the ground. It was the man with the number 957 carved into his head. He looked much worse than when she'd last seen him. Even in the dark, she could make out his bloated, rotting flesh and sunken eyes that had gone completely white. Chunks of skin flaked off in her hands as she moved him away from the hole, along with a few of his fingers. But nothing was as bad as the smell. She'd been exposed to decaying bodies in Booker's laboratory before, but this was horrendous. It was as though musty, rotten garlic and cabbages were fermenting inside of him.

She didn't have time to focus on her roiling stomach, though, as Booker was pulling out the second body, this one the sickly young woman labeled 627. "They weren't buried very deep," Trinket said with a grunt as she helped Booker drag the corpse beside the first one. "And without caskets."

"I'd say that has to do with how cheap and lazy the gravekeeper is," Booker panted, wiping the sweat from his brow as he prepared to grab the last body.

That was a fact she couldn't deny. She recalled how firm she'd had to be with the sloppy man to get him to bury Gin that awful night. It took a heavy purse of coins to persuade him.

When at last the third corpse was exhumed—the smiling Eastern man—she and Booker collapsed on the ground and attempted to catch their breath. "Is it always this bad?" Trinket asked, holding a sleeve to her nose to keep the overwhelming stench of death at bay.

Booker shook his head. "No, sometimes there are as many as eighteen bodies in one grave."

"Eighteen?"

"Yes, and those holes are usually much deeper and smellier. Anyhow," he dragged over his medical bag and snapped it open, "let's get to work."

Pulling out a lantern, he lit it before retrieving a scalpel from his bag. The red moth frantically slammed itself against the glass panes of the lantern in an attempt to get to the dim light cast by the small flame. Trinket tried to ignore it as Booker got to work slicing open the body labeled 957. Like the redheaded woman they'd opened up, this man had stitching down the middle of his torso from having been worked on before. All Booker had to do was break the thread and pull apart the pre-cut pieces. At first glance, it didn't seem that anything had been touched inside of him. But then something metallic caught the low light of the lantern, tucked between the ribs and the lung on the left side of the chest cavity.

"Page nine hundred and fifty-seven," Booker said under his breath as he cut the container away and held it up for them both to see. "The lungs."

He stashed the metal cylinder in his medical bag and moved on to the Eastern man. Booker glanced at the number on his head—690—and promptly turned him over so he was face down. Ripping open the man's shirt, Booker smiled as he revealed neat stitching along the corpse's back.

"Page six hundred and ninety," he said, cutting the thread and pulling the muscle and skin away to expose a row of stout, gleaming white bones.

And in place of one bone, right in the middle—a shiny metal container.

"The spinal cord," Booker said, breaking the small canister free.

Trinket closed her eyes and drew a deep breath as Booker placed the second piece in his bag alongside the first. One more body. They were almost finished. It would be all right. They were going to do this. Everything would be fine.

No, no, no, no, whispered the frightened voices in her head.

"Last one," Booker said.

Pushing the voices into the background, she focused on their task. The sickly woman. She remembered this body. This was the one with the stitching around her head. A pit of dread grew heavy in Trinket's gut as she turned to Booker and received confirmation of where this next clue was located.

"Oh Lord," she muttered.

"Page six hundred and twenty-seven." He brushed back the dead woman's bangs to uncover the stitching along her scalp. "The anterior lobe."

Trinket fingered her own forehead. "The what?"

Bringing the scalpel to the stitching on the poor woman's head, he replied, "The brain."

She quickly looked away, still unable to watch him mutilate a person's face. It reminded her too much of Tory, transporting her back to the mortuary where Booker had dissected her old friend. Thinking of Tory on that hard metal table sent the voices into a frenzy. They screamed and hollered, insisting she needed to flee immediately. Just as she was about to tell them to hush, Frieda's lilting voice broke through the chaos.

"No, no, gentlemen, I told you, there's nothing of interest over there. Only cold, stiff bodies. What about me? I'm warm and soft in all the right places. If you'd just—oh, blast. Darling, we have a situation!"

Trinket exchanged a wide-eyed look with Booker. "Police?" she whispered.

Reaching for one of the shovels, he scrambled to his feet. "My bet would be on rodents."