Gideon stalked out, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him down the steps, a little away from the house. “Where have you been?” he demanded, strangled.
“The crypt.”
“Why?”
“What’s wrong?”
“The motor is back,” Gideon said, with tenuous patience. “I was looking for you half an hour ago to suggest we wait by the gate, but I couldn’t find you, and now the motor is back and itwon’t be going out again.”
“Of course it will,” Zeb said blankly. “The police and the doctor—”
“Haven’t come. Won’t.”
“What?”
“The chauffeur returned alone. I asked where the authorities were. He said he was very sorry, but he encountered a bad patch of mist and felt unsafe driving through it, so he came back. He was laughing at me when he said it. So now the gate is locked again, and I have no doubt that Wynn will announce it’s too dangerous to send the motor out until tomorrow. We’re stuck, Zeb. We missed our chance.”
“Because of me,” Zeb said, with a cold feeling in his gut. “Shit. Wynn got me out of the way, didn’t he? Shit!” And if he hadn’t been sucked into that mock funeral procession, if he’d just refused to be involved with Wynn’s nonsense, if he had paid attention, they might have been outside the wall now. His heart constricted with guilt. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Why the blazes did you go off with him?” Gideon almost shouted. “You have to stop playing his games!”
“It was a particularly good game,” Zeb said numbly. “We just interred Elise—”
“What?”
“And I think Wynn intended to get me in the crypt with her body and slam the door.”
Gideon stared at him, mouth open, for a moment, and saidagain, as more of an acknowledgement than a question, “What.”
He was wearing his overcoat. “Come on,” Zeb said, tugging him down the path. “We need to speak in private and that means not in the damned house.”
They walked in silence, except for the percussive thud of self-reproach in Zeb’s brain. He’d been so easily distracted. He’d taken Wynn’s bait, and now Gideon was caught here with him, flies in a web. All Zeb’s fault. Ruining his life. Again.
He led the way into Wayland’s Smithy, the faux-prehistoric folly. Nobody would see them in there without actually sticking their head into the building, and nobody was likely to pass by. He had to duck his head low to enter; Gideon, several inches taller, bent double.
There was a sort of stone bench. Zeb sat on it, and Gideon joined him. It was extremely cold and felt damp.
“All right,” Gideon said. “Why are we here?”
“Wait. Listen. I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t. Really, Zeb. Wynn is very good at manipulating people, and I might have done the same in your shoes. We’re where we are; we have to concentrate on what we’re going to do. Rosary.”
“What?”
“Rosary. Start fidgeting and pay attention.”
Zeb blinked. Then he hauled the string of beads out of his pocket, flicking the smooth ovals through his fingers, letting a little of the pent-up tension in his body leak out through his hands.
“Can I go on? Right,” Gideon said. “Firstly, this is Wynn’s fault, every damned part of it. He won that round, so now weneed to win the next. For that, I need you thinking, not mired in guilt or might-have-beens. So with that in mind, what did you want to say?”
Zeb took a deep breath. “I know what’s going on. Not why, but what.”
“In what sense?”
“It’s the books. I think Wynn is recreating the Walter Wyckham books.”
Gideon frowned. “You said the ghost was copied from that one,The Monastery.”
