The Black Warlock’s son was only a boy of twelve—too young to go to war. While his father was destroying the White Family, the Black Prince was at home studying. He happened to be in his room by the terrace window when he saw something fall upon the stones outside.

And when he went to look, he found a young falcon with feathers of purest gold, wounded and afraid.…

—From The Black Prince and the Golden Falcon

It was well past midnight that night when Alf leaped lightly down from the stable rooftop into the mews behind Kyle House. She paused in the shadows and glanced up and down the mews, but all she saw was a cat darting into the stable. She was still in her Ghost of St Giles costume, and it wouldn’t do to be seen by anyone.

When darkness had fallen she’d needed to dance on rooftops, feel the night wind at her back, find a rogue or two to bring down. Find a way to be free, or go insane.

After Kyle and she and his men had found Crewe’s body, they’d retreated in defeat from his house. The carriage ride back had been awful. The men not talking, Kyle obviously in pain from what looked like a headache—he seemed to get them regularly, from what she could see—and she…

Well, she really didn’t belong here, did she? She wasn’t even the boy they all thought her—the boy he thought her.

So she’d gone out as the Ghost to St Giles, looking for trouble, and she’d found some right enough. Except now, hours later, even after giving a sound drubbing to a footpad trying to rob a moll, she still felt itchy and out of sorts.

The rooftops and the moon hadn’t calmed her. She wasn’t sure she even knew what she wanted anymore. To return to St Giles and her life as a boy? To stay here under Kyle’s thumb, aware all the time of his broad shoulders and black, glinting eyes?

She was stuck. She couldn’t move either way.

She went over the gate and into the gardens behind Kyle House and made her way silently up the gravel path. The house was all in darkness.

Save for a single light on the first floor, coming from a tall glass door.

Alf halted and stared, her breath, quick and light, fogging the night air. Was it he? Was he still awake at this hour? Perhaps still sitting up with an aching head? Jenkins, the quiet one-eyed man who’d sewn her up with gentle hands, had given Kyle a wineglass of something when they’d gotten back from Crewe’s house. Kyle had downed the contents in one gulp—almost like medicine.

She frowned. It shouldn’t matter to her if his head hurt or if he had regular headaches.

But it did.

The garden path led to a series of steps and a short walkway. She approached the lit glass door cautiously. It was the library—the same one she’d been brought to the first time she’d entered Kyle House. She peered in the room and at first it seemed deserted, and she felt a bit disappointed.

Then she saw his leg, sticking straight out from the chair before the dying fire, and her breath caught. His leg wasn’t moving.

Her eyebrows rose. Was Kyle asleep?

She crept closer, her mask almost against the glass.

He sat in a wing chair before the hearth, a candle guttering on the table beside him. He had a book on his lap, splayed facedown, and his head was thrown back, his eyes closed, his mouth a little open.

Oh yes. Asleep.

She really ought to creep away again. To find the safety of her bed and go to sleep herself. It was far, far too dangerous to stay and risk the possibility of discovery.

But she’d always been attracted to danger.

She tried the handle of the glass door and found it unlocked. She smirked as she turned it and let herself into the room.

He didn’t move as she tiptoed closer and bent over him, feeling bold. Feeling as if she were a wicked thief. She bit her lip and studied him, all unawares.

He’d taken off both wig and coat and sat in only rumpled shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his jaw shadowed by his dark stubble. Thick black eyelashes lay against his cheeks, his forehead marred by the spider legs of the stitches and the bruising around them, now turned yellowy green.

Her gaze fell to his mouth. That mouth. His plush pretty lips were parted as he slept, and she was tempted.

Oh, she was tempted.

He belonged to another, but it was night and the night was hers. What happened by the light of a guttering candle surely didn’t count, did it? She’d never had many things, and what she’d had had mostly been stolen or scavenged.

Why not this?

She leaned a little closer and pressed her mouth to those pretty, pretty lips and inhaled his breath.

For a moment he was still beneath her, and then he moved, his hands rising slowly to grasp her arms.

She drew a little back, watching him.

His eyes opened, black and drowsy, staring into hers. He seemed entirely unsurprised to find her in his library, kissing him.

She smiled and for the first time that night felt herself settle. She placed her hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap. Knelt on the chair and bent her head to his again, opening her mouth over his, her palms on either side of his face.

The book tumbled to the floor.

She skimmed over his upper lip, feeling the odd prickle of his stubble. Caught his lower lip between her teeth.

An ember fell on the hearth.

Something sparked, and he took charge of the embrace. He opened his mouth beneath hers, angling his head, kissing her slowly, lazily, lushly, as if he had all the time in the world. She could feel her heart beating fast, could hear his breathing in the quiet room. He found the laces of her tunic and pulled at them, parting the edges. Beneath she wore a plain man’s shirt, and he parted that as well. And under that?

Nothing at all, not even her bindings.

She could feel the chill of the air against the damp skin on her throat and between her breasts. He picked her up, never taking his mouth from hers, and rearranged her so that she lay across his lap, her head on one shoulder. He thrust his hand into her gaping clothes and she felt it, hot and large, against her bare breast.

She gasped into his mouth.

His palm was rough with calluses, but his touch was gentle—so gentle—as he brushed against her skin. Back and forth, lightly, teasing her nipples, until she arched under him, pushing herself into his hand.

He curled his fingers around one breast, so large that he entirely covered her, warm and heavy, and then he flicked her nipple with his thumb, sending a spark through her.

She moaned.

He bit her bottom lip, sharp and fleeting, and then licked it as he pinched her nipple.

She squirmed under him, clutching at his shoulders. She’d never done this with anyone. Never been this close to a man. It made her feel so wild, so free, and she wanted more. Wanted to tear the shirt from his body, to feel his arms and his chest, to run her hands over his bare skin as well.

She growled in her throat at the thought.

He chuckled softly.

His hand was suddenly gone from her breast, and she groaned in disappointment, but then she felt it again.

At the fall of her breeches.

Her breath caught as she felt him open the buttons one by one.

He lifted his head and watched her, saying nothing, but one eyebrow rose in question.

She inhaled and let her hands fall to her sides, a silent assent.

The corner of his mouth curled in a male smile that was not quite kind.

She kept her gaze locked with his as she felt first her breeches loosen, and then the buttons of the boys’ smallclothes beneath.

His fingers slid against the skin above her curls, making her belly tremble. She felt his hand slowly move over her hair, down into that secret, warm place between her thighs.

That part that made her a woman. Not a boy.

His eyes glittered black and triumphant in the candlelight as his fingers parted her slick folds.

She gasped, her eyelids fluttering, trying to close against her will.

Holding his gaze was harder than leaping a five-story tenement. Harder than dueling three armed toughs at once.

Harder than hiding, every moment of her life, who she truly was.

But she kept her eyes open, for she was no coward. She was the Ghost of St Giles and she’d look Kyle in the eye even when he found that special nub at the top of her slit and touched it just like that with one of his thick fingers.

His beautiful upper lip lifted in a sneer then, but he nodded at her in approval. As if she’d passed a test of endurance. As if she’d done something brave and noble.

He bent and kissed her again, his finger working against her faster, more strongly. She lifted her hands, feeling his hair, short, but softer than she’d thought it would be. Her breath coming in gasps into his mouth. She wanted to spread her legs, but she couldn’t, not really, not while still wearing the breeches. And she could feel the warmth, the wetness building in her quim.

She squirmed against his hand, moaning into his mouth.

He was going to make her… make her…

She touched his cheek, the bristles of his beard prickly under her palm, his face warm and intimate, and arched into his hand, his fingers curved through her wet flesh, possessing her, holding her as if she were his.

As if maybe he might be hers as well, impossible though that was.

And on that thought she felt the stars fall from the sky and she flew up and up and up over rooftops, over London, maybe to the moon itself.

Oh, it was lovely.

Better even with him than when she did it herself.

She felt so warm and limp and melty, her eyes closed, her chest heaving.

Her mouth was curving into a smile.

She felt so wonderful in fact that she didn’t realize he was taking the mask from her face until it was too late.

HUGH PULLED THE mask from the woman in his lap and for a moment the world tilted on its axis.

The face revealed was… a boy’s. Was Alf’s.

But he’d felt the small, perfectly tipped breasts.

The evidence of her wet cunt still glistened on his fingers.

He blinked and the world righted itself.

This was Alf on his lap, her sweet, round arse against his hard cock.

The delicate features re-formed—still the same as before—but now he saw the tilt of her chin, the slim little nose, the pink lips, the winged eyebrows above big brown eyes. The jaw was too fine for a boy, the neck too elegant. She was so obviously female that she could nevermore look like a male to him.

Alf was most definitely a girl, not a boy.

And as he knew the truth, she leaped to her feet.

She snatched the mask from his lax hand and was out the French doors while he was still rising.

“Wait!” He scrambled after her, feeling like a bull chasing a deer. “Goddamn it, wait!”

But by the time he was through the open door, the garden was deserted. He squinted into the dark night. Had she hidden herself? Surely she couldn’t have disappeared so quickly?

He went out onto the terrace and called softer, trying not to frighten her, “Alf.”

He could see no movement.

Then he remembered how nimbly she climbed buildings.

He whirled to scan the facade of Kyle House.

She wasn’t there, either.

Goddamn it.

He went back inside the house because he simply didn’t know what else to do—and then stood staring at the fire. It was tempting to dismiss the entire episode as some sort of wine-induced dream.

Except he knew bloody well it wasn’t.

He could still smell her on his fingers. He brought them to his face and inhaled, closing his eyes, and his still-hard cock jerked. He’d woken to her kiss, so tentative and shy, but mischievous as well. And he’d responded without thought, without hesitation, dragging her into his lap, plundering that sweet mouth, exploring those pretty little breasts. He’d never stopped to wonder why she had sought him out in his library, why she’d kissed him.

Why had she run? Was her disguise so important to her? Was her name truly Alf, or was that some sort of disguise as well?

Bloody hell, had she been playing him for a fool this entire time?

“Christ!” He thrust both hands into his shorn hair at a new realization.

How old was she? When he’d thought Alf a boy he’d estimated her to be no more than sixteen or seventeen. Of course if she’d truly been living in St Giles all this time then it was highly unlikely she was still an innocent, much less a virgin. Except…

Except her lips had trembled under his. She’d seemed surprised and excited when he’d touched her.

Dear God, had he just debauched a child?

ALF LEAPED FROM one roof to another only minutes later, catching the toe of her trailing boot on the eave. She fell hard, shingles clattering to the alley below, her hands scrabbling for purchase as she slid on the slanted roof. Her legs overshot the edge and dangled into space before she could stop her slide.

For a moment she hung there, her ribs aching, her leg throbbing, a sob catching at her throat.

Stupid, stupid idiot.

She’d well and truly buggered it this time. She could hear Ned’s voice inside her head, chiding her as she grunted, painfully reaching up the roof to search for a fingerhold. There. She could feel a hole where a shingle had broken off. She dug her fingers into the wood and pulled, gasping. Flung her other arm as far as she could up the roof and grasped whatever she could, ignoring splinters cutting into her palms, and crawled like a panting, broken creature onto the safety of the roof.

She turned and lay on her back, catching her breath, her face wet with tears, and stared at the moon, gauzed over with clouds. She didn’t even have her mask on—she’d shoved it inside her still-open tunic. Slowly she began buttoning her shirt and then her tunic.

Her fingers were shaking.

He’d seen her.

He knew.

No one alive knew except for St. John, and even he never discussed it with her. He’d tried a time or two, but she’d either changed the subject or left until he’d stopped trying to pry into her life and her past and why she was the way she was.

Hiding all the time.

But Kyle. Kyle had had his hand on her quim when he’d bared her face. He knew her as Alf and the Ghost and a woman.

She was revealed.

She didn’t know what to do.

Maybe she should flee. Run back to St Giles and her hidey-hole nest. Stay away from Kyle and his black eyes and big hands.

Never let anyone know, Ned had said. Never let them close. Never reveal yourself. Hide yourself away, Alf. Don’t let anyone in to hurt you. Better to go it alone than to expose yourself to danger.

She stood, trembling, and looked around. She wasn’t even sure where her feet had taken her, but she soon realized.

She wasn’t far from Saint House—St. John’s home. She could… maybe she could ask him what to do.

She tied her mask back on her face, pointed herself in the direction of Saint House, and, moving more cautiously than she had in years, loped across the roof. The moon guided her through the cold winter night. When she was very little, Ned used to say the moon was a round, fat lady watching out for them.

Saint House came into view. It was a great old building, with two shorter wings extending from either side to form a courtyard between them. She ran and leaped to the roof of the right-hand wing. From here she could see that there was a light on in the upper floor of the main building.

The light was below the practice fencing room—where the nursery was.

Alf crouched low and tiptoed closer until she could see into the room. Perhaps one of the nursemaids was up with the baby. St. John’s little girl. But when a figure crossed the lit window, it wasn’t a nursemaid she saw.

It was Lady Margaret. Megs. That was what he called her. Her heavily pregnant form wrapped in brightly printed silk, her hair down about her shoulders, she cradled the baby in her arms and paced.

Alf caught her breath. She was so close she could see the other woman’s smile as she looked down at her beautiful baby. And then St. John was there beside her. He said something. Megs looked up and he bent and kissed her over the sleeping baby, and Alf…

Alf turned away. She couldn’t look anymore. It wasn’t right seeing something so private, but that wasn’t the reason there were fresh tears in her eyes. That wasn’t the reason she blindly fled back over the rooftops.

She would never have that. Not as she was. Not dressed as a boy, not dressed as the Ghost. She had nothing and nowhere to go, did she? Not when she came right down to it. She either had to go back into St Giles and return to being Alf, with the constant threat from the Scarlet Throats and others like them, or return to Kyle.

And she couldn’t do that, could she?

Except.

She’d done nothing wrong, had she?

She paused, leaning against a chimney, trying to think, the moon calm and serene above her. Dressing as a boy wasn’t wrong, was it?

She wiped her nose and her eyes. Besides. She and Kyle weren’t done yet—not by a long shot. They hadn’t brought down the Lords of Chaos. Of course she wasn’t sure that he would want to work with her anymore. But he needed her, he did. She was the one with the connections in St Giles. She knew how to worm out information.

And there was that kiss tonight. Maybe he wouldn’t want to kiss her again—not now that he’d found out that the Ghost and Alf were one and the same—but if she didn’t go back, she’d never know, would she?

She had nothing to lose. Nothing at all.

And when this was all done? Well, then she could go back to her life in St Giles. If he told no one what he knew about her, why, none would be the wiser. She’d go back to being Alf the boy.

Back to hiding day and night.

Her breathing was calmer now. Alf pushed away from the chimney and ran back the way she’d come.

Ten minutes later she swung down from the eaves of Kyle House to her room in the servants’ quarters. She’d left the window open hours before when she’d first gone out as the Ghost, and now she slithered in, easy as you please.

She took off her swords and Ghost costume and hid them under the bed. Washed herself in the cold water left in a jug on the dresser. Bound her breasts and put on her boys’ clothes, and then went to bed, determined not to worry about what she’d say to Kyle on the morrow.

But as she fell asleep, her mind drifted to beautiful lips curled in male satisfaction and knowing hands that had touched her as no one else ever had, and she wondered: could she ever truly return to what she’d been before?