1

      The air in my crumbling attic chamber smelled of roses and formaldehyde.

      Beyond the frosted windowpanes, the rooftops of Shoreditch stretched toward the east in sharp angles still marked with yesterday’s snow, as chimney stacks pumped smoke into an already foggy sky. On nights like these, I never knew what dangers might lurk in the streets. Yesterday morning a flower girl around my age was found frozen on the corner below. I hadn’t known her aside from glimpses in the street, one girl on her own nodding to another, but now her dark, pretty eyes would never again meet mine in the lamplight. The newspapers said nothing of her death – just one of dozens on such a cold night. I’d learned of it in slips and whispers when I made my usual rounds to the flower stalls and butcher stands. They told me she’d tried to stuff flowers between the layers of her meager clothing for warmth. The flowers had frozen too.

      I pulled my patchwork quilt tighter around my shoulders, shivering at the thought. After all, a threadbare scrap of fabric wasn’t much more than crumpled flowers.

      Winter in London could be a deadly time.

      And yet, as I studied the street below where children trailed a chestnut roaster hoping for fallen nuts, I couldn’t help but feel there was something about the