Dent in the Bullet ✷ Anthony Lockwood.

01. On Making An Entrance.

YOU COULD ALWAYS tell when Mathilde Lam was entering 35 Portland Row, solely because of the sheer amount of noise she produced. Keys were dropped, expletives uttered, and in extreme cases, a potted plant or two may end up kicked off the porch. It was surprising that someone so graceful in the field could be so clumsy in all other aspects of life, but Mathilde seemed to pull it off well.

Today, as she stumbles through the door with her keys hooked on her pinky finger, several bags of groceries in her arms, and her part askew from all the wind and shuffling her hair was subjected to, Mathilde's arrival at the house is an announcement to George and Lockwood and a surprise to Lucy Carlyle.

She had suspected there was a third, absent person living in the house from the beginning of her interview; three scarves were hanging on the coat rack — Lockwood's inconspicuous black, George's tasseled orange, and another almost overbearingly large woolen scarf knit from a blend of reds and deep pinks — along with a pair of women's shoes by the door, presumably not belonging to either of the boys sat across from her. If neither of those clues was a dead giveaway, three figures appeared in all of the many pictures and Polaroids displayed around the living room, though Lucy hadn't had the time to examine them before Lockwood's questions began.

With all these clues, it wasn't surprising to hear Mathilde's keys jingling through the door. What was surprising, however, was the arrival of Mathilde herself.

Mathilde Lam was someone Lucy had read about in newspapers. She was often pictured side-by-side with Quill Kipps, smiling proudly after the success of another high-profile case, and had once been name-dropped by Penelope Fittes herself in an interview. Lucy could recall several occasions in which she and Norrie had admired Mathilde's picture in the papers. Although she trained and worked at Fittes for her entire career, she had grown up relatively close to the Jacobs Agency. (This led Jacobs to believe he had some sort of bragging rights over her. He did not.) In short, the psychical investigation world didn't have celebrities outside of Fittes and Rotwell themselves, but there were certainly agents to look up to; Mathilde Lam was on her way to becoming one of them.

After everything Lucy had learned about Mathilde through articles and page six features, she had never imagined that the agent before her would leave the Fittes agency, let alone find her way to an enterprise as small as Lockwood & Co. Nevertheless, there she was, standing in the very living room Lucy was being interviewed in with a frown on her face and a grocery bag under each arm.

She hadn't noticed Lucy yet, focusing all her attention on George and Lockwood. "What does a girl have to do to get a hand around here?"

George was up immediately, taking all three of Mathilde's bags in his eagerness to leave the living room. His departure made room for Mattie to finally notice the unknown girl sitting on the couch. Immediately, she was straightening her clothes and hair, plastering an apologetic grin on as she looked between Lucy and Lockwood.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I thought you'd be done by now."

Lockwood gave an easy grin, leaving his spot across from Lucy to stand next to Mathilde. "Not a problem, Mattie. Ms. Carlyle, this is Mathilde Lam, the third member of our agency. Mathilde, this is Lucy Carlyle."

Quickly crossing the threshold, Mathilde extended a hand toward Lucy, who was still sitting slightly starstruck. "Lovely to meet you, Lucy. Sorry to barge in on you like this."

Swallowing, the younger girl smiled. "S'alright."

"I haven't missed too much, have I? You won't mind if I sit in for the rest of this one?"

"Not at all. We were just about to get on with the tests," Lockwood eased himself back onto the couch, inviting Mathilde to sit in the spot next to him. "George, how are those teas coming along?"