"When the blind little girl walked out of the ring with the city's most feared attack dog, the mob boss realized too late that he had just given away his ultimate weapon.

By three in the morning, the rain had settled over the West End—not a hard summer storm, but a slow, cold drizzle that brought the smell of coal smoke down into the alleys and made the wooden steps slick as grease.

Vance was sitting on the floor of the coal cellar behind the kitchen, his broken leg bound to a broom handle with two of Marcus’s spare work ties. He hadn't spoken since Doyle had hauled him down the steps by his armpits, but every ten minutes he would let out a long, shuddering groan that made Raleigh lift his head from Carrie’s lap.

"We can't leave him here," Marcus said. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a tallow candle stuck in an old ink bottle providing the only light. In front of him lay the black leather collar.

It had taken twenty minutes with an iron file from the rail yard to cut through the second brass rivet. The leather was three layers thick, stiffened with dried horse glue and grey salt, and smelled so strongly of Raleigh’s neck—a mixture of old grease, dog hair, and iron—that Marcus’s fingers were black from handling it.

Inside the middle layer, tucked into a slit no wider than a matchstick, was a small, flat piece of brass.

It wasn't a key.

It was a tally plate—a three-inch disk of soft brass used by the river barges to mark high-grade grain shipments. On one side was stamped a single letter: R. On the other side were six rows of fine, hand-punched numbers, each row ending in a small cross.

"That’s not a key," Marcus said, holding the disk close to the candle flame. The wax flickered, casting long shadows across his hollow cheeks. "It’s a weight receipt from the Union Elevator."

"It’s both," Carrie said. She was sitting on the low bench by the stove, her shoes off, her small toes tucked under Raleigh’s belly for warmth. The dog hadn't slept. His chin was rested on her right ankle, his eyes half-closed, but his nostrils were constantly moving, tracking every draft that came through the floorboards.

"How can a piece of brass be a key?" Marcus asked, his voice sharp with tiredness.

"You put it in the hole," she said simply.

"What hole?"

"The hole in the iron box under the scale," she said. "When we were at the pit... before you took me to the ring... I sat on the grain sacks by the wall. There was a man with a wooden leg who kept hitting the floor with his iron tip. Every time he hit the fourth plank from the door, something clicked under the flour dust."

"That was Old Man Gidley," Marcus muttered, his fingers tracing the punched numbers on the brass. "He’s been running the scales at the Union Elevator since sixty-eight. He’s deaf as an anvil."

"He’s not deaf," Carrie corrected. "He just doesn't like people who talk loud. He told Sean his corn was two pounds light on the bushel, and Sean gave him a dollar to hold his tongue."

Marcus looked at his sister with a strange, frightened intensity. "Gidley doesn't speak to anybody. He hasn't said ten words together since his son died in the river."

"He spoke to the dog," Carrie said. "He gave him a piece of salt pork through the wire before they brought him out for the fight. He called him 'Number Nine.'"

Marcus dropped the brass disk onto the table. It made a clear, sharp clink that seemed to linger in the small, dark room.

"Number Nine," Marcus repeated softly. "The ninth pit-dog Sean imported from the South."

"No," Carrie said. Her fingers tightened in Raleigh’s fur. "The ninth barge."

Marcus stood up so fast his chair screeched against the linoleum. "The ninth barge of silver from the lead works in Galena. The ones that disappeared off the river during the strike three years ago."

Raleigh lifted his head suddenly. His nose turned four inches to the left, toward the small high window that faced the alley.

The rain had stopped.

In the alley behind the house, a horse was walking—not at a trot, but at that slow, heavy, iron-shod walk that meant a dray wagon loaded with wet timber or grain sacks. The iron tires groaned as they climbed the muddy rut behind the coal shed.

"He's back," Marcus whispered, reaching for his pocket knife again.

"It's not Sean," Carrie said. She hadn't moved. Her face was turned toward the window, her mouth slightly open as she listened to the precise cadence of the horse’s hooves. "Sean’s horses have iron shoes with sharp calks because he’s afraid of the mud. This horse has rubber shoes. Like the milk wagon."