Charlie remembered his own rescue by Miss Quick and Mr. Coulton, from that jail cell in Natchez. It felt like a lifetime ago. “How’s anyone going to find them now?”
But Miss Davenshaw only urged him to mark the spot and go on reading. Many of the later pages were missing but he could sometimes still read parts of entries and it was one such that he read that made Miss Davenshaw scowl and sit up straighter, as if she’d been waiting for that very passage. It seemed like a kind of diary entry. It made mention of a woman named Addie, of a community built of bones. Addie believes it possible to guard the passage and keep its monsters at bay, Berghast had written. It is not possible. If there is a door, it will be opened. Sooner or later. For that is its purpose and all things of this earth both animate and not must fulfill their purpose in time. One cannot shut one’s eyes and trust the horror will flee. The only way to slay a monster is to confront it in its lair.
Slowly Charlie understood. He lifted his eyes. Berghast was writing about an orsine.
A second one.
* * *
Then one day a hand was forcing the big front door, and there came the sound of footsteps in the foyer downstairs, and then Alice Quicke was standing in front of Charlie, staring amazed and speechless, her clothes filthy and her eyes lined and her wide shoulders tired. She looked ten years older. Before he could say anything, pouring around her on all sides, came Komako and Oskar and Ribs, though Ribs’s left arm was in a sling and her angular face looked paler than usual. They were all of them laughing, talking over each other, and even Miss Davenshaw was smiling gravely.
“And where’s Lymenion?” she said, when they’d quieted down.
Oskar drew his pale eyebrows low in a frown. “He helped us stop Jacob, Miss Davenshaw. But I can make him again. I just need the right … material.”
“He means he needs some dead uns,” said Ribs helpfully. “Aw, Lymenion ain’t gone for good. You can’t kill a flesh giant now, can you?”
“No,” replied Oskar sturdily.
“Thank you, Eleanor, that will do,” said Miss Davenshaw. There was a faint smile at her lips. It seemed some part of herself was coming back to her, and she had drawn herself up in dignified pleasure. “First things first. I expect none of you have eaten. And when was the last time you washed? What are you wearing?”
As Miss Davenshaw’s fingers began to investigate her wards’ condition, Charlie saw Komako looking at him intently, searching his face, a deep sympathy in her, and he felt a heat rise to his cheeks. What did she see? Her eyes lingered on the swollen new scar on his palm. He folded his hand away, uncomfortable, shy. He liked the look of her, even rumpled and unwashed and tired. She had her long braid wrapped around her head.
“What happened to your hand?” she said quietly, so that only he could hear. “Charlie—？”
He started to answer her, to tell her about his talent, and then he couldn’t. He shook his head, looked away.
“We thought you were dead,” she said. “I thought you were dead. We all saw the island blow up.”
“Yeah. I … I got away.”
“Obviously.” She arched a thin eyebrow and for just a moment Charlie saw the old Komako, the sarcastic girl, the one who’d given him such a hard time. But just as quickly it was gone again, and that new worry descended over her face like a veil. It made him sad to see it though he didn’t understand why. It was only later that he realized she hadn’t asked about Marlowe, none of them had. It was as if they knew. There was a distance in her now, some unspoken thing, and he knew then that they were all of them changed, changed utterly, and there was no going back to how it had been.
* * *
That night they gathered in front of the grate in the parlor and there Alice told about what had happened. She told about the killing of Jacob Marber and how Lymenion fell and of the attack by the litch Coulton. The keywrasse had saved them all. Ribs was bleeding badly by the time the island collapsed and they’d taken the horses and fled the burning ruins of Cairndale for Edinburgh. There were fifteen of them who’d got away. They’d stayed with the alchemist, old Mrs. Ficke, while Ribs healed. The newspapers had been wild with speculation about the institute’s destruction. The local police were seeking witnesses. Alice had been afraid that Berghast or the drughr or something worse might still be hunting them and she didn’t want to stay in Scotland. So she’d come to London and left the other kids, all eleven of them, in the care of Susan Crowley. If anyone could keep them safe, it would be Miss Crowley. Of course Ribs and Oskar and Komako had refused. So they’d continued here, to Nickel Street West, because Alice hadn’t known where else to go.