“It was my … mother’s,” Charlie gasped, reluctant. “My father gave it to her.”
“Your father.” Berghast released his grip.
Charlie withdrew his hand sharply, as if it had been burned. He folded it up under his armpit. “He was a … a talent, here. But his gift disappeared, and he got sent away.”
“Impossible. Talents do not come from talents.”
But Charlie just stared stubbornly back, refusing to look away. He knew where he came from. And not only because of the file he’d read. Somehow, he knew it with a new certainty, a new clarity. And it wasn’t for Berghast or anyone else to tell him otherwise.
Dr. Berghast, however, seemed unimpressed. He rose to his feet still holding the glove and he went to the door and rested one hand on the pull. “I must think about this,” he said. “This has been a most illuminating encounter, Mr. Ovid. You may keep the ring for now. Go. Get some rest.”
Charlie got up numbly, not understanding. “But aren’t we going to go back in?” he said. “For Marlowe, I mean? He’s all alone in there.”
Berghast frowned. “What would you have me do?”
“We have the glove. And, and now there’s this ring. I thought—”
“You did not think,” snapped Berghast. “There is nothing to be done. That boy was your friend, and yet you left him. You abandoned him, and now it is too late. Marlowe may be able to survive in the orsine. But the spirits will have come for him by now.”
“The spirits?” Charlie was shaking. He’d had no choice; surely he could see that.
“Leave me now, Mr. Ovid,” Dr. Berghast finished. “It is what you are best at, is it not?”
The disgust in the man’s tone was final, was crushing. Berghast stood silhouetted against the firelight, his hands cradling the ancient glove like a thing from an unremembered past, a thing that had showed him once his truer self, and might yet show it again.
Charlie, devastated, went.
* * *
It had been a long cold day on the road as the cart led them back from Albany Chandlers, back along the green crooked ways, to the gate at Cairndale, and through.
It was late; the sun was low in the west. They’d slipped unhindered past the wards, and along the gravel drive toward the manor. Lymenion was waiting for them in the cold, his hulking shoulders slick in the moonlight, and Oskar had stood in front of him with a look of deep relief and then all of them had gone, troubled, in.
But they hadn’t crept up to their rooms, hadn’t bothered, but instead had gone into the schoolroom and shut the door carefully and drawn the curtains so as not to be seen. The dinner bell would be ringing soon, and anyway they were all too disturbed by what they’d witnessed in Edinburgh, by all that Mrs. Ficke had told them, to rest. Komako folded her hands together over a wick of candle and a flame bloomed and then the four of them sat on the floor behind Miss Davenshaw’s desk.
Hopeless.
That’s how it seemed to them all. Komako, when she let herself think about it, felt a quiet rage building in her. But she’d come to a decision, all the same.
“We need to seal the orsine,” she told the others. “Mrs. Ficke knew it, too. That’s why she told us how it’s to be done. The Spider’s afraid it won’t be finished, that’s what he was trying to show us. He’s guarded it for centuries, and it won’t have meant anything if it rips open now.”
Ribs scowled. “Or … we could just grab any of them what would listen, an go.”
“Go where?” said Oskar, rubbing at his reddened nose. “Running won’t do any good, Ribs. If the dead get loose, where would be safe?”
“Rrh rruh,” agreed Lymenion.
Ribs popped her knuckles, one by one, her green eyes staring gloomily into the candle flame. “How good are you with a blade, Ko? Cause I ain’t cuttin his heart out of his body. Uh-uh.”
Komako frowned. “We’ll draw straws. That way it’s fair.”
“Come up with a different plan, then. I ain’t doin it.”
“I—I—I’ll do it,” said Oskar softly.
They fell silent, looking over at him. Ribs opened her mouth, closed it.
The boy blushed under their scrutiny. “Bodies don’t bother me,” he said. “It’s what I do. It’s how I make Lymenion. I just … I might need some help.”
There came a sound from the darkness. They all turned as one, as the door pull clicked and opened silently in the gloom beyond. Charlie stood there, looking filthy and tired and like he’d maybe been walking the halls for hours, crying. His clothes were ragged and his hands were held out before him, the fingers clawlike and pained. He stopped when he saw them.