Lucie wondered if he had been up all night—he seemed exhausted, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the shadows beneath his eyes as purple as the eyes themselves. Long ago, she recalled, when she had been a child, she had thought Malcolm quite thrilling—a dashing and beautiful warlock, with his stark white hair and fine hands. Now he looked as if he had aged twenty years in the past day. As if grief had ravaged his face.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I—I never would have told you of Annabel’s fate in the way Grace did, and if I’d known she was going to do so, I would never have brought her to see you.”
“To be honest,” Malcolm said as he lifted the lid from a tin of tobacco, “I appreciate her bluntness. It is better to know the truth.”
Lucie could not help the surprise that went through her. She recalled Grace at the Hell Ruelle: I told him the truth. Shouldn’t he know the truth?
“That is why I summoned you. I thought you deserved to hear my decision from me.” Malcolm filled the bowl of his pipe with tobacco and tamped it down gently. “I will not help you. Necromancy is inherently evil, and notoriously difficult. Even if I could assist you in compelling Jesse Blackthorn to rise again, I fail to see what would be in the bargain for me.”
It had begun to snow outside; Lucie could hear the soft brush of the flakes against the tent fabric. “But if you could help me raise Jesse, I could—I could help you do the same with Annabel.”
“You told me that Jesse Blackthorn’s body has been preserved using magic. Annabel died a century ago, and I have no idea where she was buried.” Bitterness sheathed the rage in his voice, like a brittle scabbard over a blade. “She is lost to me. I’ve read over the texts, I’ve studied what there is to know. It might be one thing with Jesse, as he is an… unusual case. But with Annabel—” He shook his head. “To compel the dead back into a mortal body requires necromancy, and necromancy carries too heavy a price. And without the original body—to take a body from another living human would be a terrible act.”
Lucie took a deep breath. She could get up and walk out of this tent and resume her normal life, with no one the wiser. But she thought of Jesse—of Jesse dancing with her in the snow outside the Institute. Of Jesse vanishing as the sun touched him. Of Jesse in his coffin, with the snow falling all around him, never feeling the cold. “Mr. Fade, I am able to speak with the dead, even those who are not restless. I could summon Annabel’s ghost for you, and we could ask her where to find her body—”
Malcolm went rigid, the pipe unlit in his hand. He turned slowly; Lucie could only see his profile, sharp as a hawk’s. “Annabel is a ghost? She haunts this world?” His voice was ragged. “That is not possible.”
“Mr. Fade—”
“I said it is not possible.” His hand shook, loose tobacco spilling from the bowl of the pipe. “She would have shown herself to me. She would never have left me alone.”
“Whether they are ghosts or not…” Lucie hesitated. “I can reach the dead.”
Slowly, Malcolm sat up straighter. Lucie could sense his desperation; there was something almost brutal about it, about the intensity of his need. “You could speak to Annabel? Bring her ghost to me?”
Lucie nodded, lacing her cold fingers together. “Yes, and if you help me reunite Jesse’s soul with his body, I will do whatever you need. I will summon Annabel, and find out where she is buried.”
* * *
A few minutes later, Lucie stepped out of the blue tent. She felt nearly dazed, almost incredulous, as if it had been someone else in there with Malcolm Fade, making deals, swearing promises. Pretending to a confidence she did not really feel. Agreeing to let Malcolm take Jesse’s body out of London, to his country house near Fowey, as if she had the authority to countenance such a thing. She did not yet know what she would say to Grace, or to Jesse either—
“Lucie?”
The snow was falling thick and light, laying its gauzy veil across the Market. She squinted through the flakes and saw a boy with dark hair. James, she assumed, and hurried toward him, her hand up to shield her face from the snow. She hoped he would not ask her what she had been doing. His protectiveness could turn quickly to scolding, as was, she suspected, the nature of older brothers—
But it was not James. Out of the hazy white night, he evolved like a shadow: a slim boy in shirtsleeves, the snow falling around him, but not on him.
“Jesse,” she breathed. She hurried up to him, the hem of her skirt dragging in the snow. “Is everything all right? Can anyone here see you save me?”