And so they had.
They had come back to Lindridge Hall, regardless of how or where they died, their only connection that Augustine had felt responsible for their deaths. And by the same rules, Orren and Abigail and Renton had come to her. Who else was waiting in the wings? She had led a quiet life, a small life, insulated from death by sheer dint of having few connections. The Cunninghams and their children all lived. Her only other connections were the servants.
And Augustine himself.
If she took too long, if she failed, would he come to her? Would she hold his weakened body in her arms, feel how cold he was, how hungry? Would he beg her for food, only to disappear with the sun?
All the magic in the world was worthless if she failed. She could not bring him back from the dead. She could not even move a book.
Weeping now, she curled up at the base of the shelf, the wood pressing against her spine. It would be best to give it all up; how much time did she even have left? Below her left ribs, a mass pressed against her flesh; with more magic, it might grow. And without Augustine, what would be left of her? A broken madwoman, her body growing out of order, knowing of the impossible and knowing she could not grasp it. Another failure for Dr. Nizamiev to add to her collection, to study endlessly. And perhaps that was what the doctor had hoped for all along; new data, a new experiment, a new subject.
Perhaps she’d never intended to help.
Jane was alone. More alone than she had been when she had fled Lindridge Hall, more alone than she had been the day she realized she would have to change her life, either by going back to dreaded Camhurst or marrying to stay behind. More alone than when she was a little girl, staring at the ceiling in her room in Larrenton, wondering if the bombs were still falling. Wondering if her mother was alive. Her sobs turned to gasping breaths, and she turned herself toward the shelves, pressing her forehead against all the books. Their dusty scent should have been grounding, but instead she smelled the stench of spreading gas, felt the shudder of buildings barely holding up to assault.
But … if she let that memory wash over her, she could still remember her mother’s touch. What it had been to sleep near her, protected, and to hear a familiar, soothing voice, murmuring in her ear, as the whole world came apart around her. And by comparison, even the pain of Camhurst was familiar; it was terrible, but in the way that old wounds were terrible. She knew its shape, its texture. It offered the comfort of an old friend, rather than a new agony.
She wanted that comfort. And suddenly, selfishly, she was thankful her mother was dead.
Because with her mother dead, couldn’t she appear at Lindridge Hall?
If Jane squinted, the leather bag set atop the bookshelf looked like her mother’s gas mask. If Jane knew her mother’s boots were over by the doorway, they would appear; she still remembered their sulfurous reek, the way her mother had stuffed the toes because the boots were not made for a woman’s feet, the cracking and burns on the leather itself from incendiaries. With every detail, her world narrowed focus, her heartbeat slowed.
She might still call her mother’s spirit, if she learned to blame herself again. And she had shame enough to drown an army.
It would be easy; she’d blamed herself for her mother’s death from the day the notice came, years ago. She had wished she were better: more compliant, more loveable, so that her mother wouldn’t have sent Jane away to safety. She had wished that she were worse, crying and screaming and objecting so loudly, so strenuously that her mother would have had to take her to Larrenton herself, and then be enticed to stay.
Her breathing regained some semblance of rhythm. Yes—she could peel up the scab and feel all her old terrors once more, if it would bring her mother to her. It was something actionable, her will worked upon the world.
Because Jane was alive. She lacked control, perhaps, but not power. As long as she could still think, still know, she could take another step, and another.
She did not even have to conjure her mother; if there truly was no other way to save Augustine, then she could conjure his ghost, for it would be her failure that condemned him. The torment would be worth it, to speak to him, to compare notes, to have him in some capacity.
The thought hurt, but with the hurt came certainty. Logic. Her chest no longer felt so tight, her head so heavy.
She had told Augustine that death always won. But now she was not so sure; now she knew that, in at least some spectral way, the impossible could be made real. Death could not be defeated, but it could be amended.
And there were still five nights left in the ritual. Augustine had not yet appeared to her, and so she could assume he still lived.