Chapter Four
Soon we reached London, the immediate goal of the Gypsies’ travels. Never had I seen anything like it. Bakers and charwomen, bookbinders and woodworkers, vendors and hawkers, sailors and adventurers, couriers and courtesans—all jostled each other in narrow lanes twisting between the crowded patchwork of innumerable buildings. In this sprawling metropolis, colorful and wild, surely there would be much coin to be made by Magda’s family.
Yet this strange city, this burgeoning heart of commerce, was also the perfect place in which to take leave of my kind benefactors. Though I hated to lose my dear, passionate Magda, to my unnaturally heightened senses the fathomless dark eyes of her father seemed to grow more troubled every day. Despite the man’s best intentions, I thought, his
