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“Can I help?” Jesse said eventually.
Grace nodded and began to direct Jesse—measure this, trim that, soak this paper in that liquid. Feeling guilty for just sitting there, Thomas ventured that he was also happy to assist. Without looking up from the gas flame she was lighting, Grace shook her head. “You should get back to the Institute; you’re needed there more. They’ll be wanting you to help protect the place against the Watchers.” She looked up then, her brow furrowed as though she’d had a realization. Hesitantly she added, “I could use a Fireproof rune, though, before you go.”
“Oh,” said Thomas. “You don’t know how to make one.”
Grace pushed her hair behind her ears, frowning. “I only know the runes I learned before my parents—my birth parents, I mean—died. No one ever taught me beyond that.”
“Mother never did think of your education,” said Jesse, his calm tone concealing, Thomas thought, a lot of well-justified anger. “But I can do it, Grace. I studied the Gray Book often during… well, while I was a ghost.”
Grace looked almost tearfully relieved. “Thank you, Jesse.” Her brother just nodded and reached for the stele at his side.
Thomas watched as Grace held out her wrist, waiting for Jesse to Mark her. The way she was looking at him—with a hopeless sort of yearning—made it clear: she did not really ever expect to be forgiven, or for her brother to love her again.
Thomas could not blame her. Even now, he could still feel a bitterness toward her, at what she had done to James. Would he ever be able to truly forgive her that? He tried to imagine how he would react if he’d learned Eugenia had done something so terrible.
And yet, he knew the truth—that he would forgive Eugenia. She was his sister.
“I’ll be off, then,” Thomas said, as Grace, her new rune freshly applied, returned to the worktable. “Don’t leave the house. I’ll come back in a few hours to escort you back to the Institute,” he added. “All right?”
Jesse nodded. Grace seemed too deep in her work to respond; as Thomas headed up the stairs, he saw her hand Jesse a beaker of powder. At least they seemed to feel comfortable working together; perhaps that could be a path to forgiveness, in the end.
On the way out, Thomas stopped in the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of water, and went to water the potted plants in the entryway. A show of faith, he thought, that the Fairchilds would return home. That despite Belial’s power, all would be right again eventually. He had to believe that.
Perhaps Anna, Ari, Alastair, and Thomas had done their job a bit too well, Cordelia thought; when she and Lucie returned to the Institute, they found it looking as if it had been abandoned for decades. Wide boards had been nailed over the lower windows, and the upper windows were painted black or hung with dark fabrics. Not a hint of light escaped into the smoky glare of London.
The Sanctuary was lit with a few candles burning low, which gave off just enough light to keep Cordelia and Lucie from bumping into the walls. Even though Cordelia knew full well it was the same Institute it had been a few hours ago, the dim amber glow gave the place a somber feeling, and they went up the stairs in silence.
Although it was possible that Lucie’s silence was merely a sign of her suppressed excitement. When Cordelia had turned to her in Tyler’s Court and said, “I’ve had an idea, and I need your help,” she had fully expected Lucie to reject the entire plan. Instead Lucie had turned the color of a raspberry, clapped her hands, and said, “What a wonderfully terrible idea. I am entirely willing to help. And keep it secret. It is a secret, isn’t it?”
Cordelia had assured her it was, though it would not stay that way for long. She only hoped their observant friends would not note Lucie’s suspiciously bright eyes and ask questions. At least the dark would help with that.
Once upstairs, they heard a murmur of voices coming from the library and headed that way. Inside they found Alastair and Thomas and Anna and Ari, stained with paint, dusted in sawdust, and holding a picnic on the floor in the middle of the library. A coverlet from one of the spare bedrooms had been spread out in the space between two of the study tables; on the tables themselves were an assortment of tinned foods from the pantry: canned salmon and baked beans, tins of cherries and pears, even steamed Christmas pudding.
Anna looked up as they came in and beckoned them to join in. “It’s all cold food, I’m afraid,” she said. “We didn’t want to send up any smoke from a fire.”
Cordelia settled herself on the coverlet, and Alastair passed her an open tin of apricots. The sweet taste was a relief from the bitter air outside; as she ate, she couldn’t help but be reminded of another picnic, the one they’d held in Regent’s Park when she first came to London. She thought of the sunlight, the abundance of food—sandwiches and ginger beer and lemon tarts, but lemon tarts only made her think of Christopher, and remembering the picnic made her think of those who were gone. Barbara had been there, with Oliver Hayward. And Matthew and James and Christopher, of course, and they had all vanished along with the summer and the sunlight. She glanced over at Thomas. Who was he, without the company of the other Merry Thieves? She didn’t quite know, and she wondered if he did either.
She set down the empty apricot tin with a thump. James and Matthew, at least, were not gone beyond reach. They were still alive. And she would not let them be lost.
Lucie was poking at the tinned pudding with a fork. “Other than nailing boards to windows, what have you been up to while we’ve been gone?”
“Looking for magical exits from London,” Ari said. “Ones that Belial might have overlooked.”
“There are some old burial barrows, one over at Parliament Hill, that used to be Faerie gates,” Anna added. “And some very old wells mentioned in historical texts, that water faeries used to inhabit. Bagnigge Wells, Clerks’ Well—we’ll be spending tomorrow with our heads down wells, it looks like.”
“While Thomas and I will be trying to kill a Watcher,” said Alastair.
“Trying to determine how to kill a Watcher,” Thomas said. “Without the other ones noticing.”
“Or being killed by one yourself,” said Anna. “How was the Hell Ruelle?”
“Awful,” said Cordelia. “The Downworlders are a bit more active than the mundanes, but no less lost in a dreamworld. If you speak to them, they’ll look at you, but they don’t really know you and they don’t really hear you. It’s very unsettling.”
“So they’ll be no help,” said Thomas glumly.
“Belial did say they wouldn’t be,” said Lucie. “I suppose it’s now a matter of what Cordelia and I do next. Anna, what would be most helpful?”
“Well, we could always use help looking for a way out of London,” said Anna, leaning back on her hands. The gold braiding on her waistcoat gleamed, and even the smudge of dirt on her high cheekbone looked elegant.
