He swallowed, freed his hands for the dustwork. He had some confidence he could strangle whoever approached, unless they proved a talent of some strength.
But just then someone hissed his name. “Jacob, this way! Come!”
It was Walter, peering through a half-opened door just down the way. Jacob didn’t hesitate. In a flash he was across and through and the door was closing. They were in a kind of narrow broom closet, the only light creeping in through a crack in the door. Jacob could smell the sour reek of sickness coming out of Walter’s clothes. The small man looked up at him, held a finger to his lips.
Whoever hurried past did not slow.
Then Jacob felt a gentle tugging at his sleeve. It was Walter, leading him deeper back into the closet. At the far wall the little man pressed a hidden panel, and a door appeared.
Jacob followed him through. He was feeling wonder and a savage amazement. He’d seduced Walter because the man was weak, vulnerable, an easy mark. He’d not imagined the man also might be genuinely resourceful.
Walter’s hidden passage led through to a small sitting room, its furniture draped in white sheets. Jacob caught a glimpse of the three of them—himself, Walter, the baby—in a tall clouded mirror standing near a window. Apparitions, each one. Then they were slipping soundlessly out into the grand foyer of Cairndale Manor.
It stood empty and dark. The great hearth had burned down to embers. Jacob moved quickly toward the front doors but he wasn’t even halfway when Walter stopped in alarm.
There was a figure standing in front of the doors. A woman, thin, severe, with a cloth tied over her eyes. She was, Jacob realized, blind.
“Just where do you think you are going?” she said.
Walter was looking at Jacob in fear, confusion flickering across his face. He waved his hands in some furtive way as if to communicate something but Jacob felt a sharp impatience bloom inside him and he stepped forward.
“You have mistaken us for another,” he said coldly.
And then the baby started to cry.
Jacob watched her face turn toward him in the darkness. She seemed to register his words. “I believe,” she said slowly, “that is true.”
That was all. And yet, it was as if she had said: I know what you are here for, Jacob Marber. I know what you are. Somehow—maybe from her expression, or the silence that hung after, broken only by the thin cry of the child—Jacob got the distinct feeling that she knew exactly what was happening. Blind or not, she knew.
And it was then he sensed a shift in the gloom all around them, and he looked down in surprise and saw the baby, the child, was flickering with a faint blue shine.
“Miss Davenshaw, ma’am—” Walter began.
“Mr. Laster?” she said, in surprise. “It was you—？”
Jacob acted fast. He drew the dust and smoke from within his flesh and crushed it tight in his fist and then he lashed it in a long slow arc out at the blind woman, like a whip, so that it struck her viciously on the back of her head, and hurled her forward across the floor. Her body knocked against the base of the stairs and slid sidelong toward Jacob and Walter and came to a stop.
And then Jacob Marber, dark with fury, smoldering, stepped over her crumpled figure, and kicked open the big doors and went out into the night, the baby shining brighter and brighter in his arms.
* * *
Henry Berghast glared down at the empty cradle, furious. And just then a sharp voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Dr. Berghast! I’ve been looking for you, sir.”
He turned. Mrs. Harrogate was standing in the open door, peering in with an odd expression. She looked from Miss Crowley to Berghast and then back.
“There has been a discovery, in the cellars,” she continued crisply. “A tunnel. Miss Davenshaw fears some of the children might have got out.” Her voice faltered. “What. What is the matter here?”
Henry felt the blood move through his skull. He put a hand to the wall, as if to hold himself upright. Miss Crowley was wringing her foolish hands.
“No one has got out, Mrs. Harrogate,” he whispered. “Rather, someone has got in.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Henry went swiftly to the window and drew back the curtains and threw the casement wide. The night was cold, vast, deep. “It will be Jacob. Mr. Laster is assisting him. They have taken the baby, Mrs. Harrogate. They have stolen the child.”
Miss Crowley gave a little whimper, sank onto the sofa.
“My God—” said Mrs. Harrogate. She sounded angry.
But Henry was already thinking. “He is still here. There is still time. You have discovered his path of escape, therefore he will need to leave by a different way. Across the fields, perhaps? No. No, he will go down by the loch and use the cliffs for cover. Somehow the glyphic’s wards have been reduced.” As he spoke he hurried from window to window and then he left the room entirely and hurried along the hall, stopping at each window to get a better glimpse. And then he saw it, he saw what he was looking for.