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They both shied back as something cracked and a stinging rain of diamonds cascaded past, rainbow hued in the orange-red light of the fire. It was the windows, Janie realized, disbelieving—the windows in the nursery had burst, scattering glass everywhere. Fire roared out where the windows had once been.

From far away, Janie could hear Lacey swearing; then Burke’s hand appeared out of the smoke, and she heard his voice, thick with fear, saying, “Quickly!”

Janie swung her legs over the ledge and went, never minding the snow, never minding how she slipped and slid, all that mattered was getting away, getting away before something else crumbled. Burke’s hand was warm and steady on hers, and then Giles Lacey had her around the waist, swinging her to the ground, and there was a part of Janie’s mind that marveled that Giles Lacey, of all people, should be saving her life, before her feet in their impractical shoes sank calf-deep into the snow and she nearly cried with relief, but for the fact that Burke was still on the ledge, his jacket ripped where the glass had rained down on him, his form silhouetted against the flames.

“Burke!” she called and waved her arms at him.

The snow was coming down heavily, heavily enough to impede her vision, but not enough to quench the fire already roaring through the new house, tearing through wood, toppling stone, greedily gobbling up everything in its path: Jacobean chests and Sheraton chairs and Gobelins tapestries, portraits and figurines and drapes.

“One more!” shouted Burke back and turned back to the open window, holding out his hand. “All right, Mrs. Van Duyvil. Your turn.”

Janie could see her mother in the window, her black silk dress reflecting the glow of the flames, her faded blond hair glowing gold again in the light.

But she didn’t take Burke’s hand.

“Mrs. Van Duyvil!” Burke’s voice was barely audible above the flames and the wind. Janie saw how his arm quivered as he stretched it out to Mrs. Van Duyvil, his face turned away from the punishing glare.

“Mother!” screamed Janie, but her voice was lost in the sound of cracking glass and crumbling masonry. She was crying, she realized, the tears mingling with the soot and the snow. “Mother!”

Her mother looked down at Burke’s outstretched hand. Her lips moved in words Janie couldn’t hear.

For a moment, Janie’s mother stood black and gold against the casement window, jet beads glittering.

And then she turned and, without another word, disappeared into the flames.

TWENTY-EIGHT

New York, 1899

February 11

They huddled in the kitchen of the old house, clustered around a hastily kindled fire, clutching cups of sugar lightly touched with tea.

They had staggered in bruised and soot-covered, Sebastian coughing, his nurse panicking, Mrs. Van Duyvil’s maid dissolving into paroxysms of grief, although it was unclear, from what Janie could make out, whether her laments were for the loss of her mistress or her position.

Mrs. Gerritt took charge, ordering about staff and guests alike. Fires were lit, water was boiled, and Sebastian was set to breathe a scented smoke that quieted his coughs to whimpers against his nurse’s chest. One by one, they were summoned to the kitchen pump, scrubbed clean with freezing water, their wounds slathered with evil-smelling salves. Mrs. Gerritt, like a conjurer, unearthed clothes from Janie’s grandmother’s trunks: old-fashioned trousers and shirts, full-skirted dresses with tight basques from her grandmother’s youth, children’s smocks that must have belonged to Janie’s father, if not her grandfather.

Sebastian clung close to his nurse, but Viola careened about like a toy that had been wound to breaking, peppering everyone with questions, demanding to know why the sky was red, what had happened to the house, where was Grandmother, did this mean they were could live at home again? Viola’s questions fell like pebbles striking her skin, only half-felt. It was, of all people, Giles Lacey who stumbled through answers to Viola’s questions, clearing his throat and looking to Janie for help, for answers she couldn’t give.

I would kill her again if I could. Her mother’s voice rang in Janie’s ears, brazen, half-crazed. Outside, the fire still raged, eating away at the mortar binding the new house together. The crackle of the flames, the clatter of stones tumbling down punctuated the night, making the survivors in the kitchen jump and wince.

Sebastian’s nurse, as dazed and hollow-eyed as the rest of them, her arm wrapped in a makeshift bandage, nuzzled Sebastian’s barley floss head. “The wee ones should be in bed.”

“There are still beds in the nursery, aren’t there?” said Anne. She swung a protesting Viola up in her arms. “Has anyone lit a fire?”

“Gerritt saw to it,” said Mrs. Gerritt matter-of-factly, as if midnight evacuations happened in the normal course of things. She moved about the familiar kitchen as though she had never left it, the old house already humming to her tune. “There’s clean linen in the airing cupboard. Clean nightdresses, too.”

Janie hauled herself out of her chair. It wasn’t just her legs that felt numb. It was all of her. She felt as though she were trapped in those few minutes just before the house went up in flames, living them over and over and over again. She made me do it. I would kill her again. “I’ll go.”

Anne turned with Viola on her hip. “Stay here. Drink tea. I’ll settle these creatures.”

“I am not a creature,” said Viola with dignity. “I am Viola Van Duyvil.”

Janie’s throat contracted. Viola might look like Annabelle—Georgie—but she sounded so like Bay.

“Are you? Then act like it.” Anne stared at Viola until Viola ducked her head, squirming herself into a more comfortable place against Anne’s shoulder, one strong will bowing to another. “If you’re good, I’ll sing you a lullaby.”

Viola lifted her head. “I don’t want a lullaby. I want a story.”