Fong had spotted her right away.

Thinking back now, she saw the parallel: here she lounged on a stool at the bar, watching the door and seeing this squat brute with the thick wrists walk in. Just as Fong had spotted her all those years ago, from behind the bar where he had been explaining the finer points of Chinese Alchemy to the bartender, Krauty Frankle. Krauty hadn’t been in favor of alchemical additions to the drinks; not because he objected to doping the customers, but because he objected in principle to all Chinese philosophies. “Inefficient,” he would grumble.

Fong had been concerned for Penny, seeing at once her bleeding feet and torn nightgown. He whisked her into a back room where he spent hours personally removing glass from her feet and cleaning the wounds. He gave her bitter, disgusting, teas to drink. When Rivard’s men had come looking for her, nobody at Fong’s had seen a red-haired, green-eyed thirteen year old girl. Fong ran a tight ship. His teas and herbal medicines brought Penny to full health, even as the complimentary (at first) opium he gifted Rivard sank its hooks into the pimp.

Knucklebrow Twosie arrived at the bar and Penny Onehole’s reverie burst like an overripe pomegranate, which is to say it crunched and appeared to bleed.

“Whispey,” Knucklebrow said.

“Beg pardon?” said the new bartender, Heifitz McNabb. (Krauty Frankle had died two years before, the victim of a sudden and mystifying alchemical explosion in the sub-sub basement, an accident Fong described as, “Entirely un-Chinese.”)

“Whispey, neat,” said Knucklebrow.

A split second passed before Heifitz nodded, smiling, the perfect curls of his moustache betraying nothing of his inner amusement. Penny knew they’d chuckle about it later, but for now she fixed her eyes on the newcomer and said, “Welcome, stranger. What’s your name?”