pendants

and shook out the ornaments. “These are even better, if that’s possible,” she pronounced. “Whoever taught you about jewelry was a wise woman. Never choose fake anything, when for the same price you can have something genuine.” She held up the sparkling strands of Murano glass beads that she would weave through her hair, then the three-tiered necklace with carved amber pendants and the matching earrings. “Can you see how much richer and substantial these look than gilt chains and faux pearls?”
“I didn’t like the look of the other things I was offered,” replied Kat. “I can’t explain it, and no one taught me.”
“Then you have very good instincts,” Francesca told her, taking out the last piece, her precious amulet. It had been her mother’s, and had come all the way from Aquitaine with Francesca. It was very crude—a wooden heart encased in a plain silver cage. It was also very old, and would probably get her burned on sight if one of the Sots ever got wind of it. It held a luck-spirit: not a terribly powerful one, but powerful enough to keep Francesca safe so long as she didn’t do anything monumentally stupid . . . and quite powerful enough to keep her safe from prowling canal monsters by making her invisible to the eyes of evil creatures and black spirits.
It was also indisputably pagan. Which was why Francesca had chosen her Jewish goldsmith to hold it for her while she was in the Red Cat.
“Instincts good enough for me to do what you’re doing?” came the bitter question.
Francesca clutched the amulet to her breast quite unconsciously and stared at the girl. “You can’t possibly be saying you want to become a whore!” she blurted.
Kat flushed, but persisted. “You seem to be doing well enough. And if . . . my grandfather dies, I may have no choice.”
Francesca had known from the first day she met Kat that the girl’s family was in dire straits. She was fairly certain she