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“You ready?”
His brother jumped, then spun, wide eyes meeting Arthur’s to prove he had been fully engrossed in the book on his lap. Remorse twinged as a long moment slowly drained the tension from Owen’s shoulders.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he apologized shortly.
A deep breath finally let Owen shrug aside the apology, though his attention returned to the large book on his lap. Arthur smothered a smile but moved closer. He should have expected Owen to want to stay a while longer.
“His notes are interesting, aren’t they?”
Owen hummed an agreement. Small fingers flipped back a page. “What’s this word?”
“Azimuth. It’s part of finding yourself with a star map, but I’m still trying to figure out how to do it.”
Another hum answered him. Owen’s reading had come a long way in the last week, but several seconds slowly finished skimming pieces of that section before Owen finally glanced up again. “Do we have to go?”
“George just sent Timmy asking if we would help with the forge,” Arthur replied. “Tim is too small to hold the pieces in place, and he needs another pair of hands. We can come back tomorrow.”
Owen pulled a face at waiting an entire day, but he gained his feet to slide the book onto a nearby shelf. Arthur waved a farewell at Mr. Hensley on their way out the door.
“Thought forge was done?”
“It was. George found more scrap metal at the dump and decided to make the tub in the middle a little bigger. He’s hoping his master will teach him how to make that wall decoration we saw in the other smith shop last week.”
Arthur’s Running that day had taken them by another, smaller blacksmith’s shop closer to Baker Street, and he and Owen had both lingered over the intricately swirling metal that covered the walls. Arthur rather hoped George could make some of that for the courtyard. He liked the intricate patterns, and if George’s master let him sell the creations, they could earn a bit more money for food. Arthur’s account had sent George there the next morning in search of ideas.
George had returned with a story of a husband and wife running the shop together, but Owen ducked a widely gesturing street performer without a reply. They dodged across the street and through the alley passages before a feeling of wrongness made Arthur freeze barely a minute from the courtyard. One hand on Owen’s shoulder prevented a question. Something was…off. Wrong. What had changed?
The alley looked fine. Normal shadows. No extra debris. No unfamiliar footprints.
Smelled fine. The city’s horses. Someone washed clothes nearby. One of the others needed to wash in Regent’s fountain.
Sounded—
Wrong. They stood well within earshot of the courtyard, yet he heard only the hawkers on the next street. He gently dragged his brother well away from that hidden home. Only once almost to the street did Arthur chance a whisper.
“Why is the courtyard silent?”
Owen’s eyes widened once more, then he nodded. They had not heard the protocol, but even the dead of night did not carry the weighted silence of hiding young ones. A gesture sent Owen the long way around to the tunnel entrance as Arthur crept forward. Was this an Alpha, an Intruder, an Omega, or something else?
An Intruder, probably. The disheveled archway led to an equally destroyed courtyard, and a single glance noted broken cots and scattered belongings. Whoever the other boys harried against the opposite wall, he had reached the courtyard before they knew he was nearby. Did they have a little to protect?
Maybe, but probably not. A second peek confirmed only the ten oldest boys surrounding a scruffy but muscled street adult. If this man had followed one of them home, his target had reached a cubby in time.
So how could Arthur help?
The others had not yet noticed his presence, but they clearly struggled against the intruder. He needed to keep the element of surprise, if he could. They fought too far away from the entrance for him to lunge into range. Anything thrown would only hit another Irregular. Taking the long way around to enter via the tunnels would take too long even if he could fit without revealing the others’ presence. He finally edged along the wall, carefully staying behind the creep as he worked his way closer.
Tim saw him first. Ducking the man’s lunge nearly sounded the alarm on Arthur, but a grin appeared the next moment. He attacked again to keep the man facing away from Arthur’s path.
George saw him next. His fist missed the creep’s skull to impact his shoulder instead, then an outstretched foot prevented their target from turning around. Gestures and signals slowly alerted the others to Arthur’s presence, but whichever protocol they had initiated, they wanted the man contained for the Yard, not rendered harmless. Arthur considered for only a moment before he retrieved a nearby length of rope instead of the scrap metal he had originally wanted. Another moment took him close enough to lunge, though he waited for Jones to give him an opening.
There. Jones dodged Tim’s failed attack, and Arthur charged through the gap to impact the stranger’s back with all the force he could manage. Grunted surprise tried to become a growling shout, but George jumped at the same moment. Their combined weights took the man to his knees, and Tim’s assistance pushed him to lie on his stomach just before running footsteps sounded in the alley.
“Behind!”
“Hold!”
Arthur fastened the knot as Frank charged into the courtyard, clearly expecting to join the fight. He calmed at seeing Arthur’s captive, and Sergeant Douglas entered behind him.
“Alright, boys?”
Tim quickly checked the others before he nodded. “Yes, sir. He went for the younger ones first, though. Frank?”
“Lily went for the doctor,” Frank confirmed, “but one o’ the littles was cryin’ when I left. Couldn’t tell who or why.”
Fear or injury, either could cause tears. Especially with the more skittish young ones, and a glance at Tim found the anger of an intruder that had attacked the first kids he saw. The man must have tried to chase them out of their home to claim it for himself.
Not that he intended to pay attention to the scruffy, stinky man’s growled insults. A smaller bit of rope became an impromptu gag.
To make the sergeant grin. He did not try to scold, however, and Tim rattled off the sequence—sneaked through the archway to try to scare the young ones out of their home, only to find himself attacked by a dozen boys—and the charges—breaking and entering and assault of about seventy—before Sergeant Douglas nearly dragged the protesting street adult down the alley. He and the other Yarders would confirm identity and motive at the station.
Which left the Irregulars to clean up the mess. Three more pairs of feet hurried down the alley as Tim sounded the “all clear,” and a line of young ones started streaming out of the walls. Some crawled. Some limped in a variety of severities. Several displayed the too-wide eyes of lingering fear, but one cradled her left arm as she awkwardly shuffled to sit against the corner. The doctor went straight to her when he entered between Lily and Mr. Holmes.
Arthur continued watching that cubby, however. Less than two weeks after gaining a small shadow, Owen only left his side when he had to. He would have expected his brother to be one of the first out despite starting at the back.
Except the line of kids slowed, then stopped, and one knobby-kneed boy had not yet glued himself to Arthur’s side.
Where was his brother?
Head and shoulders barely fit into the hole they called their emergency exit, but just enough light filtered in to confirm the hollow empty. He shifted to the spot along the wall where the bricks would carry his voice the furthest.
“Owen?”
Nothing. No response. Not even the scratch Owen would have given before he started talking again. His brother had not stayed in hiding, so Arthur pushed himself upright to scan the courtyard. Their oldest girl always kept careful track whenever they hid in the tunnels.
“Beth!”
She glanced up from where she helped calm Mandy down while the doctor wrapped her arm, then waved Arthur over. One hand continued rubbing Mandy’s shoulder even as Arthur nearly blurted his worry.
“Was Owen in the tunnels with you? We returned after the protocol started, so he would have come in the back.”
She thought for only a moment before shaking her head. “I sat where I could hear the exit and see the courtyard. No one came in through the exit.”
Which meant something had happened to Owen between where they had split and the tunnel entrance. Arthur ignored Mr. Holmes’ approach to dart through the archway and back into the alleys.
“Owen!”
“Papers! Times! Harold! Getcher news here!”
A hawker on the next street drowned out any possible reply. Arthur stilled long enough for the calls to fade before he tried again.
Only to hear nothing. When the most direct route to the tunnels’ exit found no sign of his brother, Arthur started a search pattern. Why had he not confirmed that Owen arrived?
Because he had been focused on trying to help the others. The knowledge did nothing to change the growing worry.
“Owen!”
Silence. He followed an alley to its end then hurried down the street to the next opening.
“Owen, where are you?”
Still nothing. That alley dead-ended into a shop, and he backtracked to the next one.
“Owen, can you hear me?”
“Ar—”
There. Too quiet to hear the entire word, he still easily recognized his brother’s voice. He froze, frantically trying to tune out the approaching footsteps to locate the source.
“Keep talking, Owen!”
“H…thur…los…n’t…still because…find the courtyard. Arthur!”
Zigzagging alleys used trial and error to locate the rambling words. He easily caught enough to hear the relief in Owen’s voice—and the fear at getting lost in the first place—but Owen spotted him first. The relieved cry sounded from his left just before Owen darted out of a narrow alley. Small arms locked around Arthur’s middle to let Owen bury his face.
“Need more practice with alleys.”
Arthur quickly knelt to wrap Owen in a hug of his own. “Are you alright? Did someone grab you?”
Yes, then no, but Owen willingly moved his hug to Arthur’s neck instead of his waist. The kneeling embrace easily picked his brother up to wrap him even tighter.
“What happened?”
“Lost,” Owen muttered into his neck. “Couldn’t find the tunnel. Then the entrance. Knew you’d look after ‘all clear,’ so held still.”
“Good.” The choppy sentences conveyed a progress Owen would not have displayed even last week, and the trust warmed Arthur’s chest. He held Owen just the slightest bit tighter. “That’s exactly what you should do if you ever get lost again,” he continued, “but we’ll get you some more practice navigating the alleys.”
Arthur’s support let Owen crawl around to ride on his back, and Arthur got his bearings, then set off toward the archway. The footsteps he had heard earlier emerged from another alley just before Arthur rounded the last corner.
“Hello, Mr. Holmes. Were you looking for me?”
For them, by the glance evidently checking both him and Owen for injury, but he did not try to correct the word choice. Mr. Holmes scanned them for only a moment before a silent tilt of his head aimed his steps for the courtyard. Arthur fell into step beside him as Mr. Holmes’ amusement failed to hide behind a stern question.
“When did you intend to tell me that Owen had found his home?”
His home?! What about searching for his brother had finally made the detective note the family relation?
He had no idea, but Arthur could not halt a wide grin. A short bounce hefted Owen a touch higher on his shoulders.
“Took you long enough. What gave it away?”
“Your search,” Mr. Holmes confirmed shortly. He ducked to fit through the archway. “You would have gone to look for any missing young one, but the worry you failed to hide made me look again. While you each inherited a different mix of your parents, you are both a mix of your parents.”
Which meant Mr. Holmes had easily spotted the resemblance as soon as he decided to look. A wide grin kept Mr. Holmes’ attention as Arthur detoured across the courtyard, and curiosity made the detective follow to where the doctor discussed Mandy’s bandaged arm with Tim. Before Mr. Holmes could ask what he had failed to deduce, Arthur spoke into a break in the conversation.
“I’ve come to claim my farthing.”
“Your—” The cheerful announcement earned clear surprise, but Doctor Watson’s question cut off as he looked first at Arthur, then at where realization had put a scowl on Mr. Holmes’ face. His loud laugh became a wide smirk.
“Did he finally identify Owen’s brother?”
“Yup.” Mischief enjoyed Tim’s laugh as he pocketed his coin. “Something about me searching for Owen a minute ago, but we weren’t together, and he didn’t figure it out in the courtyard, which means I win.”
Mr. Holmes’ amusement at them hiding this from him had mixed with a truer irritation that the doctor had helped. “How long have you known?”
“We figured it out a couple days before we found Leonard,” Arthur grinned. “So, a couple weeks ago? I didn’t recognize him, but he still carries the toy that Father made, and I recognized that immediately. Doctor Watson noticed as soon as he walked into your brother’s sitting room the day Leonard joined us, and we made the bet when you rushed off after supper without commenting. Mr. Holmes thought you’d deduce it the next time you saw us, but we didn’t wager anything. Doctor Watson bet a farthing that you would figure it out when you saw us together in the courtyard.”
And Mr. Holmes had not seen them in the courtyard before today. Had not seen them at all, specifically, but that made no difference to their wager. Arthur would probably use the coin to share a cake of some sort with Owen.
The explanation did nothing to ease Mr. Holmes’ mood, however. His scowl only deepened, and mostly feigned irritation grumbled something about keeping puzzles to himself. Doctor Watson’s laughing retort about not being Holmes’ secretary earned a witty reply, which quickly degraded into a round of bickering that lasted throughout the many check-ups treating the various minor injuries from the intruder earlier.
Arthur followed at a distance, Owen at his side and thoroughly enjoying some of the doctor’s more “pawky” replies. Arthur never tired of hearing them bicker, and his own presence appeared to calm more than one skittish young one.
He would start coaching Owen through the alleys once the entertainment returned to Baker Street.