The Isis Knot by Hanna Martine

that he wouldn’t know it was missing. Too easily she could reach up to the medicine shelves and steal what Viv needed—just a pinch of powder, nothing noticeable. And the part of her brain that had been trained to do that kind of thing—trained by her own mother—wouldn’t even bat an eye.
    Sera had been taught how to be silent, to observe, to take control of an opportunity. To take advantage of the clueless and weak…or anyone, really. And once upon a time she’d been really good at it. So good she’d never gotten caught. Until the one day, years after her mother had died of an overdose, when she was almost seen and everything came crashing down.
    That was the day she’d changed her life. Realized that she’d always hated what she’d been taught to do, that it had never meshed with her personality or her heart. That she felt guilt whenever she took what wasn’t hers, and it made her ill and disgusted with herself. So she’d left Las Vegas and started over, and never stole again.
    But the urge never truly went away.
    Amherst was banging around in the back, the clank of glass against glass telling Sera he was about to return. Her heart pounded. The lid of the money box was within reach, the medicine just a quick stretch away. Viv could use both so desperately. And she could probably use money if she had to take off in search of the blond man…but they would all come at the expense of Simon Amherst. Who was probably an honest man and right to be suspicious of a stranger in a colony full of criminals. Who’d done nothing against her and who was giving Viv exactly what he’d demanded.
    So she touched nothing. Amherst came back into the shop, closing the rear door with an elbow because he was balancing four familiar bottles in his arms. He set the bottles on the counter with a clunk, and even though it pained her to give liquor and not healing to Viv, she carefully wrapped and then stacked the bottles in the bag slung over her shoulder. It would be a long, heavy walk home.
    Amherst eyed her warily on her way out, but she didn’t return the stare.
    Outside, a bolt of lightning, wide and forked, lacerated the clouds. The accompanying clap of thunder exploded like a bomb, the aftershock rumbling over the open land. Walking back to Viv’s under an ocean of electricity wasn’t the smartest idea. She’d have to find a place to hide in Parramatta until the storm cleared, which didn’t look like any time soon.
    The town was quiet and closed-up in the midst of the storm, but standing there on the wide porch in front of Amherst’s shop, she’d never felt so exposed. Shrinking back into the shadows, away from the lit window, she considered her options.
    Voices came from around the chapel, followed quickly by the sight of three men who slopped their way through the mud toward the building directly opposite the chemist’s. One of the men pulled open a door, and out of it spilled a shaft of dull light, the playful strains of a fiddle, and a woman’s joyful shriek. An unseen crowd cheered. The door yawned wider as the three men stepped within and shook out their hats.
    Just inside, a man sat on a chair, inspecting the newcomers as he fondled the bare breast of the woman sitting on his lap. She smiled and laughed as the door swung shut, closing off the scene.
    Sera shuddered as another ripple of memory claimed her. They were coming faster, the memories, the pieces of her real life. But now she wasn’t sure if she wanted to remember, because recalling her mother selling herself in front of her own daughter wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that inspired a desire to know more.
    Maybe she should’ve been more careful about what she wished for.
    A flash of lightning thankfully changed her train of thought as it showed her what she needed. The brothel’s severely sloped roof extended long over the typical New South Wales porch. Along the side, far back and away from the front door, a jungle of stacked barrels—rum, most