The rain was hammering London like it had a personal grudge, turning the cobblestones into a slick, miserable mess. It was late—past midnight, I reckon—when I stumbled into my cramped flat above the butcher's shop in Whitechapel. The air stank of damp wool and the faint tang of blood from downstairs, but I'd gotten used to it. A man's got to eat, and archaeology doesn't pay the bills when you've been blacklisted by every university from Oxford to Edinburgh. My name's James Carter, once a promising scholar of ancient history, now a scavenger of the past's dirtier secrets. They call me a tomb raider behind my back, but I prefer "freelance historian." Sounds less like I'm one step from a noose.

I tossed my sodden coat over a chair and lit the oil lamp on my desk, its weak glow flickering across a chaos of maps, books, and half-empty whiskey bottles. I was about to call it a night when I noticed it—a parcel on the floor, slipped under the door while I was out. No stamp, no address, just my name scrawled in black ink across the top: James Carter. The handwriting was sharp, old-fashioned, like something out of a Gothic novel. My gut told me this wasn't a bill or a summons, and curiosity's always been my curse.