room we passed was a different business, sub-let presumably, and we caught glimpses of shabby people slaving away, working silently in appalling conditions for nothing remotely like minimum wage. Whole families packed so tightly round rough wooden tables there was hardly any room to move. Fathers and mothers and children, all working intently in dim light in rooms with windows that wouldn't open, making goods for pennies that would sell for pounds to their betters. None of them ever said anything, bent quietly over their work. The overseers might not be visible, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Trouble-makers didn't tend to last long in sweatshops.
I'd never seen such blatant misery before. Capitalism, red in tooth and claw. It was one thing to know that such things still went on and another to see it with your own eyes. I felt like tearing the building down with my bare hands… but the sweatshop workers wouldn't thank me for it. They needed the work, needed the lousy money and the protection that went with it, from whoever was looking for them… And I couldn't risk blowing Julien Advent's stakeout and getting him angry at me. I was going to need Julien.
Dead Boy really didn't like sneaking around. It wasn't his style. "When am I going to get to hit someone?" he kept asking.
"You'll get your chance," I said. "God, you're like a big kid. You'll be asking if we're nearly there, next."
We finally came to a closed door with a card tacked to it, saying Dingley Dell. I tried the door handle, slowly and very carefully, but it was locked. Dead Boy raised a boot to kick it in, and I pulled him away, shaking my head firmly. I listened, one ear pressed against the wood of the door, but I couldn't hear anything. I straightened up, wincing as my back creaked, and looked around. And there at the end of the corridor was a spiral stairway, leading even higher. I led the way up the curving steps, Dead Boy pressing close behind like an impatient dog, and we ended up in a disused gallery, looking down onto the open room that was Dingley Dell. And there, at the end of the gallery, was the Timeslipped Victorian Adventurer himself, Julien Advent.
He was actually wearing his old opera cloak, the heavy dark material blending him smoothly into the gallery shadows. Dead Boy and I padded forward as silently as we could, but he still heard us coming. He spun round, ready to fight, and only relaxed a little as he recognised us. He gestured sharply for us to crouch beside him. He was tall, and still lithely muscular despite his years, with jet-black hair and eyes, and a face handsome as any movie star's; only slightly undermined by his unswervingly serious gaze and grim smile.
Julien Advent was a hero, the real deal, and it showed. We'd worked together, on occasion. Sometimes he approved of me, and sometimes he didn't. It made for an interesting relationship.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" he said, his voice little more than a murmur. "I put a lot of effort into getting silently into place here, and remaining unobserved, and now you two clowns… How do you know you haven't tripped off every alarm in the place?"
"Because I saw them all," said Dead Boy. "There's not much you can hide from the dead."
I looked at the two ragged holes in his coat sleeve, and sniffed. "You don't half fancy yourself sometimes."
Julien shook his head despairingly, then we all looked down into the open room of Dingley Dell, while Julien filled us in as to what was happening, in a voice I had to strain to hear.
It seemed Dingley Dell was a sweatshop for manufacturing magical items. Wishing rings, cloaks of invisibility, talking mirrors, magic swords, and so on. The usual. I always wondered where they came from… Gathered around a long trestle table were dozens of small shivering forms like undernourished children, with big eyes and pointed ears. Wee faeries no bigger than two-year-olds, with bitter faces and crumpled wings, all of them looking
I'd never seen such blatant misery before. Capitalism, red in tooth and claw. It was one thing to know that such things still went on and another to see it with your own eyes. I felt like tearing the building down with my bare hands… but the sweatshop workers wouldn't thank me for it. They needed the work, needed the lousy money and the protection that went with it, from whoever was looking for them… And I couldn't risk blowing Julien Advent's stakeout and getting him angry at me. I was going to need Julien.
Dead Boy really didn't like sneaking around. It wasn't his style. "When am I going to get to hit someone?" he kept asking.
"You'll get your chance," I said. "God, you're like a big kid. You'll be asking if we're nearly there, next."
We finally came to a closed door with a card tacked to it, saying Dingley Dell. I tried the door handle, slowly and very carefully, but it was locked. Dead Boy raised a boot to kick it in, and I pulled him away, shaking my head firmly. I listened, one ear pressed against the wood of the door, but I couldn't hear anything. I straightened up, wincing as my back creaked, and looked around. And there at the end of the corridor was a spiral stairway, leading even higher. I led the way up the curving steps, Dead Boy pressing close behind like an impatient dog, and we ended up in a disused gallery, looking down onto the open room that was Dingley Dell. And there, at the end of the gallery, was the Timeslipped Victorian Adventurer himself, Julien Advent.
He was actually wearing his old opera cloak, the heavy dark material blending him smoothly into the gallery shadows. Dead Boy and I padded forward as silently as we could, but he still heard us coming. He spun round, ready to fight, and only relaxed a little as he recognised us. He gestured sharply for us to crouch beside him. He was tall, and still lithely muscular despite his years, with jet-black hair and eyes, and a face handsome as any movie star's; only slightly undermined by his unswervingly serious gaze and grim smile.
Julien Advent was a hero, the real deal, and it showed. We'd worked together, on occasion. Sometimes he approved of me, and sometimes he didn't. It made for an interesting relationship.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" he said, his voice little more than a murmur. "I put a lot of effort into getting silently into place here, and remaining unobserved, and now you two clowns… How do you know you haven't tripped off every alarm in the place?"
"Because I saw them all," said Dead Boy. "There's not much you can hide from the dead."
I looked at the two ragged holes in his coat sleeve, and sniffed. "You don't half fancy yourself sometimes."
Julien shook his head despairingly, then we all looked down into the open room of Dingley Dell, while Julien filled us in as to what was happening, in a voice I had to strain to hear.
It seemed Dingley Dell was a sweatshop for manufacturing magical items. Wishing rings, cloaks of invisibility, talking mirrors, magic swords, and so on. The usual. I always wondered where they came from… Gathered around a long trestle table were dozens of small shivering forms like undernourished children, with big eyes and pointed ears. Wee faeries no bigger than two-year-olds, with bitter faces and crumpled wings, all of them looking
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