Chapter Twenty-Five
Ashdown Manor, Skryne, County Meath (Scrín Cholm Cille, Contae na Mí)
Samhain
By the time they left Ashdown Manor, Mr. Bishop’s carriage had long since fled. This left Sam, Hel, and Jakob to walk beneath the stars of Samhain, the bonfires winking at them in the distance, to the nearest train station—a venture that, after the events of the evening, nearly did Sam in.
On the train, Sam slept, her head leaning on Hel’s shoulder. And it might have been a dream, but she could have sworn she felt Hel’s fingers stroking her hair. If it was a dream, Sam decided, it was a good one. Free of feathers, and cold, and blood.
When she woke, they were almost back to Dublin, where a bed and an uncertain future waited.
Sam had disobeyed a direct order from Mr. Wright.
Moreover, they had found no proof of Hel’s father.
She hoped the incriminating photos they’d taken of the Vespertine would be enough to spare her, but somehow, she doubted it.
Particularly given that Mr. Ashdown was intimate with the board.
No, Sam had a feeling things were about to get a lot worse.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Hel mused as they made their way off the train to the grimy red bricks and muddy tracks of Amiens Street Station.
The train hissed, the air cloudy with steam that, for a moment, Sam took for fog.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “How did Mr. Bishop uncover a ritual powerful enough to trap the Mórrígan?”
Jakob scowled. “It’s what he does. What all of them do.”
The Vespertine, he meant. But that wasn’t quite true, was it?
The Vespertine were tinkerers, playing with the crumbs left from arcane societies whose flames had long since extinguished.
Healing salves. Rats sensitive to magic.
Rituals that attempted to predict the future or to reach other worlds, but whose results were muddled at best. This was something different, something real.
The train’s whistle shrilled, and the passengers waiting on the platform crowded on board.
Jakob straightened, frowning. “That’s . . . that’s Detective Lynch.”
“What?” Sam exclaimed, as she turned, searching the crowd of bundled up men and women bustling onto the train. “I thought you said he was dead!”
“He was dead,” Jakob protested. “You saw him as well as I did.”
“Where.” Hel’s eyes narrowed as she searched the platform. “I don’t see him.”
Jakob stood beside Hel, squinting one eye and pointing. “There, with the trilby hat, scratching his nose just now.” Sam followed his gaze, found the man he spoke of. Cold poured down her spine. A raven cackled somewhere above them.
“That’s not Detective Lynch,” Hel said.
“What are you talking about?” Jakob said, confused. “He has the same hair, brown and combed, you know, that way. The same suit—”
“That is not the same suit,” Sam said, incredulous.
“Can you truly not tell the difference? The suit Detective Lynch wore had slit pockets, three buttons, and a structured cut with a double vent, whereas that man’s suit has a single vent and flap pockets.
His hair and build might be similar, but the way he holds himself is entirely different.
” Detective Lynch meant to blend in to the crowd; this man aimed to be seen.
“Now that you mention it, he does look a bit like Detective Brown,” Jakob said, squinting. “He was in the Special Branch’s office when I stopped by to give an update. Told me he’d pass along the message. But no, I’m certain that’s Detective Lynch.”
The raven laughed its human laugh, swooping to land on the shoulder of the man who was not Detective Lynch as he boarded the train.
Hel cursed. “The bell at Sam’s grandfather’s place.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jakob said, consternated.
But as soon as Hel said it, Sam saw it.
“James Moriarty.” Hel had said it was a common name, and Sam had just assumed it was someone else, someone who Hel’s father was spying on. Apparently, Hel had too. “He’s haunted.”
“Why in God’s name would he allow that to happen?” Jakob demanded. “Isn’t it his spy network?”
“Because that’s not all it is,” Hel said grimly. “With a whisper, my father can issue orders from anywhere in the world, knowing his medium will relay his orders. Knowing a man like Sam’s grandfather would never have the spine to betray him.”
Which meant the Wild Hunt had ridden for Professor Moriarty as well. But the train was like a river of iron—proof against ghosts and the Folk alike.
“He’s here,” Hel said, holstering her revolver as she sprinted after the train, which had just begun to chug away from the station, Sam and Jakob close on her heels.
“Speak plainly,” Jakob said, frustration running through his voice. “I swear, it’s like you two have your own language sometimes.”
“My father’s on that train,” Hel bit off.
“That wasn’t the Special Branch’s office you went to on the train,” Sam explained, breathless as she hurried behind Hel.
“It was Professor Moriarty’s, and you weren’t speaking to Detective Lynch—or Brown.
You were speaking to her brother, Ruari.
” The man had been playing with Jakob, seeing how many faces he could wear before the Dutchman caught on.
It was just his sort of trick. Sam should know; he’d nearly fooled her in Paris.
“That’s why he didn’t invite me or Hel—he knew we’d recognize him. ”
Jakob swore. “We need to call in the Special Branch, the civic guard, whoever we can. Have them meet us at the next station—”
“You do that,” Hel growled. “I’m going after him.”
The spy camera—they still had the spy camera. They could make this work. Even if he got away, if they could only capture evidence . . .
“You can’t go after him alone,” Jakob said, blocking her way stubbornly. Hel looked as if she were about to throw him, stepping over his body on the way to what she wanted. “If you fail, if anything happens, you know what the Special Branch, what the Society, will think.”
That she was colluding with her father. That she had helped him get away.
“She won’t be alone,” Sam said.
“Sam, no,” Hel said. Sam could see the arguments in Hel’s eyes, that it was too dangerous, that this was her fight, that her father wanted Sam and so it didn’t matter what Hel wanted, what Sam wanted. But Jakob was blocking Hel’s passage—not Sam’s—and Hel wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
“I said we’d be sharks,” Sam said, and she leapt onto the train. Jakob cursed, making a grab for her, but he was too late. While Jakob was distracted, Hel sprang past him, after Sam.
Sam’s heart beat fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
“I should throw you off,” Hel murmured, so close, Sam could smell the mint on her breath.
“Tell me you don’t want me here, and I’ll go,” Sam said, searching Hel’s eyes.
Hel opened her mouth to deny her, and then cursed, leaning back against the train door. “I can’t. But you should go, all the same.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Sam insisted, looking up at Hel in challenge.
Hel looked away, her teeth gritted. “I never should have let you onto the Paris case.” And Sam felt something in her chest release; she’d won.
Hel took a deep shuddering breath, leading the way down the train to where her father and brother waited, pushing past passengers who had no idea what was about to transpire. The cars were emptying as they drew near the end, until there was no one there but Hel and Sam. No witnesses.
“Right,” Hel said, beginning a litany of instruction.
“You cannot trust anything he says, anything you see. If you thought Ruari was manipulative, he is but a shadow of my father. Whatever he does, don’t flinch, and don’t show emotion.
He can sense weakness a mile away. If he offers you anything, deny it—if he gifts you a horse, you can bet you’ll find Trojans in its belly. Like this.”
“This is a gift?” Sam ventured.
“The raven. The train car number,” Hel said shortly. “151132. It’s the same as the chapter and verses of the prodigal son. He wants us to follow him.”
“But why?” Sam said, even as her mind spilled over with answers. The prodigal daughter. The fatted calf. This had always been what he wanted.
“Shh.” Hel held up a hand for silence. There it came again. The murmur of Ruari’s voice ahead. “Wait here.” She drew her revolver and eased forward, leaving Sam alone in the empty car.
Sam’s nerves stretched to breaking, as her eyes darted to the shadows of the empty car, twitching at every odd sound.
It had been easy when Hel had been set against her, when all Sam had to focus on was how Hel shouldn’t have to face this alone.
Now that Hel had acceded, the stories of the man the Scotland Yard had called the Napolean of Crime came flooding back to her.
Her grandfather and his spy network of spirits.
The accidental-seeming deaths of Hel’s prior partners. The murder of Sherlock Holmes.
At last, Professor Moriarty’s wayward daughter had returned, and with a handle her father could use to control her.
Oh. Sam understood too late. “I should never have come.”
“Oh, but I’m so glad you did,” said a familiar voice from behind her.
Ruari. It had been a trick—the raven had lured Hel away, leaving Sam alone with him.
Sam tried to turn, to face him, even as something slipped around her throat and pull taut.
She choked, gagging, her fingers scrabbling at her throat.
The door hissed open, Hel storming in with a fury, her revolver raised.
“Hello, sister,” Ruari said, tightening the garrote so Sam was forced to fall back against him, heartbeat rapid in her throat.
An effective shield, using Hel’s affections against her.
Sam could not let this happen to Hel, not now, not when she was so close!
This was worth losing herself over. This was worth giving her all.
Desperately, Sam reached for the song, but it could not answer, not within all the iron.