Preparation

Lurching awake with a muffled cry, Elara found herself drenched in a cold sweat, the dingy sheets twisted hopelessly around her thrashing limbs.

For several disorienting moments, she could only gulp down the air in harsh pants while struggling to separate nightmare from reality. 

From somewhere beyond the door, raucous laughter and the clinking of fresh tankards filtered up from the taproom - solitary sparks of warmth and simple joys amidst the East End's churning sea of misery and violence.

Nell's little borrowed sanctuary seemed to offer fleeting refuge from the chaos just beyond its sturdy oak barricades.

Trembling hands raked Elara's matted curls back from her damp brow as she fought to steady her ragged gasps.

Just a dream...the same formless night terrors that had plagued her restless slumbers ever since that fateful series of events that had seen her ripped so violently away from her idyllic life among the palatial manors of Crown Hill.

Ever since watching her entire world unravel in a sickening spiral of death, betrayal and unspeakable anguish, Elara had become painfully accustomed to waking drenched in cold sweats from such faceless onslaughts of pure dread.

All that remained was to forcibly subdue the panic through sheer determination. Here in this borrowed Duggar under Nell's irreverent protection, at least the risk of any actual threats was mercifully remote...

Despite the lack of any true timepieces, some deep-seated instinct told Elara it was still hours until first light.

Above, she could make out the familiar thump and shuffle of heavy boots across the creaking upper rooms - the nightly parade of sailors and doxies seeking temporary congress, heedless of the deeper battles raging silently in their midst. 

Resigned to a restless vigil until dawn, Elara hugged her knees protectively to her chest and forced her mind's eye to focus on studying the bizarre bric-a-brac cluttering every niche and shelf around her.

Each ill-gotten bauble represented a thousand unique stories, a thousand nameless victims targeted by the same ruthless opportunists who stalked the Borough's darkened alleys and markets.

As her pulse gradually slowed to a more measured cadence, Elara felt a strange sense of kinship with Nell's magpie collection of knickknacks, candles and lurid oil paintings.

They were all survivors of a sort, equally displaced from their natural circumstances and now finding uneasy, unlikely equilibrium under Maggie Doyle's staunch oversight of the Anchor.

For how much longer such sanctuaries could endure amidst the escalating street wars and feeding frenzies consuming the East End, however, remained frighteningly uncertain.

Already, Elara could feel the delicate threads of her own resolve fraying away...

Nell's words from earlier that evening echoed back with unaccustomed poignancy, their dire implications finally sinking in through the haze of slang and irreverence: "...once you've drawn the angle-angers of one of those bad blades, ain't no hallowed fanchin' nor rumpstall can keep you dodged."

As Elara's eyes tracked over the shadowed faces in the pilfered portraits, she had to muffle a shudder.

Yes, no matter how fiercely Maggie Doyle enforced her own brand of unswerving order and principle under Anchor's eaves, it was merely staving off the inevitable.

The cruel vortex of savagery and bloodshed swirling unchecked throughout the rest of the Borough would eventually reach inescapable critical mass.

When that ignition point finally came and the long-simmering feuds between cabals like Mad Jack McVitie and Sly Sam Hawkins finally ignited their powder kegs, she could scant imagine the devastation it would wreak.

Nell's offhand comment about Maggie Doyle commanding her own private moll-block of hard cases and hecklers took on chilling new dimensions.

And those unfortunates who had naively believed themselves beyond the fray - dodged, as Nell would put it - would find themselves directly in the conflagration's path whether they were ready or not.

As the night's formless terrors and waking revelations had laid fresh assault on her psyche, Elara knew deep down that her own desperate gambit for survival depended on fully immersing herself in the brutal codes governing this kill-or-be-killed underbelly of the East End. 

Some core essence would have to be cauterized, seared away to clear space for the implacable, merciless resolve required to navigate the ever-narrowing rungs and slipways between the warring overlords.

If she was to have any hope of coming through this crucible forged rather than shattered, Elara would need to seize whatever hard wisdom and protection Maggie Doyle and even roguish tutors like Nell could offer.

By morning's first pale rays, her decision would be set. There could be no more cowering within sanctuaries, no more furtive scampering to stay one step ahead of the darkness forever gnashing at her heels.

Not if she had any hope of surviving, let alone prevailing, in the face of the maelstrom about to be unleashed by Mad Jack and his ilk.

Sleep finally claimed Elara again just as the first wan hints of dawn began slanting through the sole grunted window.

But her slumber was utterly purged of dreams, replaced only by a steadily crystallizing sense of singular intent and merciless focus once unimaginable to her former self.

The insistent rapping at the duggaroo's door roused Elara from her grim, dreamless slumber with a start.

For a disorienting moment, she instinctively tensed for mortal danger before the previous night's recollections and resolves reasserted themselves. 

"Wakey wakey, peckish birdie!" Nell's impish lilt filtered through the stout oak barrier, accompanied by another flurry of knocks.

"Don't tell me I need to scradge up some bisto to get them peekies unbatted, eh?"

With a resigned sigh, Elara extricated herself from the tangled linens and crossed to unlatch the door.

Sure enough, her unlikely new mentor stood grinning on the other side, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed despite the early hour.

"There's me duck, nice an' gamey on the bungaloor!" Nell crowed in approval, sweeping uninvited into the small chamber to plop herself down on the rumpled bedding.

"Thought you'd be spieled out till Sundee the way you was rabbit-nabbin' them zees last night."

Elara felt a reluctant smirk tug at the corners of her mouth despite herself.

Nell's irrepressible, salt-tongued energy was nothing if not an effective tonic against the lingering psychic tolls of the night.

"I do believe that's the first time I've been referred to as both a...'peckish' and 'gamey' in the same breath."

The younger woman cackled richly at that, scooping up an abandoned hairbrush to toss it Elara's way.

"Well you just get them duck-furrers untangled while I scree to Mags about tentin' us up a breakfast bine, eh? Can't have you starvin' on your trotters afore we go for our mertoon with the big hal!"

Elara nodded, dutifully working the brush through her dishevelled chestnut tresses as Nell loped out into the corridor bellowing something indecipherable about kippers and bisto.

She found herself smiling again, despite the bone-deep weariness that still gnawed at her core.

There was something utterly infectious, even admirable, about her urchin-like tutor's resilient cheer in the face of their squalid circumstances.

By the time Nell came bounding back in with a laden tray of strong tea, stale bread and something vaguely meat-like dripping pale grease, Elara had managed to restore some semblance of decorum to her frayed appearance.

Not that such niceties seemed to register in the slightest with her impervious guide.

"There's me filly, right as ribine and ready for a barmy bine!" Nell announced cheerily, swinging the tray down on the bedside table with a clatter before flinging herself back down amidst the disordered covers.

She gestured expansively at the unappetizing fare. "Feast up, dearie! Can't have you getting them fat-traps all back at the thought of breaking blood with ol' Maggie herself over a few rumbline clackers!"

Privately, Elara had reservations about the mysterious fare's ability to stay down past mid-morn, let alone qualm her rapidly hollowing stomach.

Still, she knew better than to look a gift meal in the mouth down among the Borough's squalors.

Forcing a genial smile, she retrieved the precariously balanced mug of brackish tea and tried not to scrutinize the globular masses drifting atop its surface too closely.

As she picked at the burned bread and dripping globs of offal grease - taking minuscule sips to try washing away their lingering charnel revenants - Nell predictably launched into another breathless torrent of slang-laden recaps and explanations about their impending "mertoon" with the formidable Maggie Doyle.

Despite the frequent lapses of comprehension, Elara got the distinct impression that this meeting would be no mere social call.

While she may have found temporary sanctuary from the East End's brutalities under the Matranker's watchful aegis, it was fast becoming clear that such refuge could only ever be tenuous at best.

Nell's constant refrains about "keepin' them peekies unslitched" and "dodgin' any gullywhoppers as come bellied for your blurries" laid bare the stakes should Elara's standing as a guest rapidly outlive its welcome.

An existential litmus test of some sort clearly loomed in their parley with Maggie Doyle.

When the younger woman finally paused for breath, shoving the last scrapings of her makeshift breakfast into her mouth, Elara knew she could temporize no longer.

She set down her largely untouched tea and straightened her spine.

"Nell, I...need to know precisely what this 'morning meeting' with Maggie entails before we proceed. My hospitality and very life likely hinge on the outcome, do they not?" 

She fixed the irreverent scrapper with an intense look, allowing her wearied determination to harden her features just enough to brook no equivocation.

"Out with it now - what trials, tests or hurdles is your indomitable Matranker likely to subject me to this day? You may couch it allusive slang if you must, but make no mistake: there shall be no more canting or frolics where I am concerned. Only brutal truth, no matter how bitter or unpalatable."

For once, Nell seemed struck dumb - her roguish features settling into an appraising look of pure surprise.

Whatever harmless revelries or joshing asides she'd prepared collapsed into uncharacteristic seriousness as she eyed her upper-class charge anew.

When she did respond, at last, her tone carried unaccustomed sobriety and weight. "Well now...I daresay you might just be more gamey than you let on, my fine faltered duchess." 

She leaned back against the rickety headboard, idly toying with the tray's last scrap of grizzled meat while her piercing hazel gaze remained locked firmly on Elara's. "Very well then...let's slang some brusker truth into those peekies, shall we?"

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VICTOR