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.The body collapsed and fell to the ground.By morning, it would have been stripped of everything and perhaps transported to the crematory.Even the hardened inhabitants of the Rookery blanched at the thought of necromancers using discarded bodies as weapons.Jack took the trembling girl’s hand, kissed it gently, and then vanished into the shadows, pulling an illusion around his body.The girl would have seen him vanish into thin air.It would be yet another rumour about Captain Swing echoing through the underworld until it reached the ears of Master Thomas.He would know that Jack was back.He smiled as he lifted himself up to the roofs and began to make his way back to Lucy’s brothel.The coming confrontation would be savage – one of them wouldn’t walk away alive.But Jack had his cause to fight – and die – for, while Master Thomas merely upheld the established order.Jack would die for the poor.It was the least he could do to make up for his crimes.Chapter TwelveGwen cleared her throat.The young man – almost a boy – who was reading a book in the library jumped when he heard her behind him.He looked around, hand raised in a defensive pose, and flushed when he saw her.Bruno Lombardi – a young man barely two years older than Gwen – had been assigned to tutor her in infusing…and he’d forgotten.Gwen doubted that he’d forgotten intentionally, unlike some of her other tutors; he’d simply entered the library, found a book and lost track of time.It had happened to her from time to time as well.He was a handsome youth, apart from the pair of spectacles that were precariously balanced on the end of his nose.Unlike most of the young men his age, personal grooming wasn’t practically an obsession, giving him a kind of dishevelled appearance that Gwen found rather endearing.He blinked owlishly at her and she found herself smiling.It wasn’t as if she disliked him, after all.He had never shown any sign of dislike – or resentment – of Gwen’s presence in the hall.“You were meant to be in the workshop with me,” Gwen said, dryly.He flushed even brighter; as the third son of a minor aristocratic family, he had to learn to live by his wits alone.There would be little more than a few thousand pounds left for him when his father shuffled off the mortal coil.“I’ve been waiting for the last twenty minutes.”“Oh, crumbs,” Lombardi said.He sounded embarrassed.“I quite forgot.”Gwen cast her eyes over the pile of books on his table.“I can believe it,” she said.His face couldn’t get any redder, but his hands twitched nervously.“If you want to postpone the lesson…”“I’m just coming,” Lombardi said, quickly.He placed the book he was holding on the table and walked quickly out of the door, leaving the pile for the librarian to sort out and return to the shelves.Gwen took one last look at the pile – a handful of scientific treatises and a couple of speculative fiction works – and followed him down to the workshop.The library would have to be left until later.The workshop was the largest room in Cavendish Hall, apart from the dining room and the lobby.It was bare, save only for a pair of metal tables and a sheet of metal blocking off half the room, almost like a fence.Gwen had inspected the room several times while she’d waited for Lombardi and hadn’t been able to figure out why anyone would want to cordon off part of the room.Or, for that matter, why it was so bare when she had expected tools and raw materials scattered everywhere.The door, she realised as she closed it behind her, looked like it had been armour-plated.Someone, she deduced, didn’t want to take any chances.Lombardi waved her to one of the stools and sat down beside her.He looked nervous to be sitting so close to a girl, even though it was unlikely that their respective parents would sanction a match.His eyes didn’t seem to dip to her bodice as often as some of the other young men in the building, something else Gwen found a little endearing.He was shy around her – and presumably every other young girl he met.It was better than the bullish bragging that other men indulged in when they were trying to impress a girl.“The difference between Infusing and Changing is that Infusers place magic into an item while Changers use their magic to reshape an item,” Bruno said.He sounded more confident while he was lecturing, even though Gwen was right next to him.“A skilled Infuser can create objects that can do almost anything, as long as the magic lasts.The more one wants it to do, the more magic it consumes, leading it to burn out quickly.Once the Infuser has created the item, however, a less-skilled magician can replenish the magical supply and keep the item working.”He looked up at her, flushed, and then looked away.“It takes time and practice to become a skilled Infuser,” he added
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