The lantern was high in his fist. He ascended the stairs at the far end of the tunnel, his long legs taking them two at a time, and he paused in the night air. The scumbled stones and broken walls of the old monastery rose up around him in the darkness. He looked back across the loch at Cairndale, lit against the sky like a ship at anchor. Something was not right.
He frowned, brushed the worry from his mind. One could prepare, and then one could wait. But worry served no purpose.
He ducked his head and with the lantern held out before him made his way through the ruined monastery and down to the cistern below. Even before he had emerged from the curving stone stairs he could sense something was wrong. The chamber, usually lit a faint blue color, the reflected shine of the orsine, was furiously bright. The orsine was shining in full blast.
He held a hand to his eyes and squinted, uncertain. It had never been so bright before.
For a long impossible moment he stood, thinking. If the orsine was alight, it meant it had opened. If it had opened, it meant the glyphic’s powers were—
And then, in a growing fear, he understood. He turned swiftly on his heel and ran. He ran for the tunnel and took the stairs three at a time and ran with his long scissorlike strides the length of it beneath the loch, the lantern swinging dangerously in his fist, and when he got back to his study he hurtled out through the antechamber and past an astonished Mr. Bailey and he did not stop, he did not slow, though his hat flew from his head and several old talents and a few of the young children stopped in the halls to watch him pass, unnerved, alarmed. He did not stop or slow until he reached Miss Crowley’s rooms, until he reached the baby.
The east wing was quiet, calm. He tried to slow his breathing, he adjusted his waistcoat and combed his fingers with his hair and then he knocked firmly.
He heard Miss Crowley’s irritated voice even before she opened the door. “Mr. Laster, sir, you really must—” Then she fell silent, staring up at Berghast in surprise. “Oh, forgive me, sir, I thought you were—”
“Laster. Yes.” He pushed past her. Some part of his brain flickered at that, wondering why the gatekeeper would be bothering the nursemaid. But then it was gone. “Where is the child, Miss Crowley?” he said quietly. “There has been no … disturbance?”
“Disturbance, sir?”
“You have been here all this time?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked all around. The rooms seemed quiet, warm, just as he’d left them. He dialed his face slowly toward the curtain, toward the crib that would be just beyond it, willing his heart to calm down. Had he been mistaken?
“The wee thing’s sleeping, sir. Not a peep out of him.” Miss Crowley put a hand to her throat, her nose crinkling. “But what has happened, Dr. Berghast? Is something the matter?”
He did not answer her. A dread was rising in him. He went to the curtain, drew it slowly back, and stared down at the crib.
It was empty.
* * *
Jacob held the swaddled thing close to his chest as he ran through the halls. The soft warm weight of it. The smallness of it. He half feared he might smother it and he kept slowing and lifting its face away to peer down at it in its blanket and then looking up and around and running on.
He’d left Walter. He’d just scooped the baby into his arms and turned and slipped out of the nursemaid’s rooms with the dust cloaking his presence as before, scarcely daring to look at the child, to marvel at its sweetness and wonder at his holding him again, but once in the outer hall he abandoned all deceits and he just ran.
The hour was late. He needed to get back to the cellars, to the tunnel. He feared being seen, of course; but more, he feared the drughr’s power would fail, and the glyphic’s wards would return to strength, and he would be trapped inside Cairndale’s walls.
He slowed in the servants’ corridor. There were voices ahead in the kitchens and he stopped at the door, lurking in the shadow, listening. He thought it must be the cooks or the serving staff but he was wrong, it was two men talking about missing kids, a tunnel in the cellars. He heard a third voice call up from below, then retreat away. They’d found the tunnel.
He melted back into darkness, alarmed.
The corridor was long, flagstoned, its walls peeling with ancient gray paint. There were candle sconces standing empty along the walls. Several doors, all shut, and then the stairs at the back. He was trying to think how he might get out. He slid his coat over the baby to muffle any cry it might make and then he turned at a sound. Footsteps. Someone was coming.