Sam flung her arms around her, startling Hel out of her tirade before she could get started.
“Thank you,” she murmured into Hel’s shoulder, tears pricking her eyes.
“For what?” Hel said stiffly, but she didn’t push Sam away. “Nearly letting you get murdered? I could be wrong, but I don’t think that’s generally the sort of thing you thank someone for.”
“For trusting me,” Sam said.
Hel’s breath caught, and she looked away. Sam might have been wrong, but she thought she saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes, too. Sam wandered over to Jakob, who was looking down at the knife in his hands, confused, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
“How did you know I wouldn’t kill her?” Jakob asked.
“I didn’t.” Really, she ought to have expected the opposite. The notches in his revolver for every monster he’d killed. The man who’d stalked her through the streets of Paris, and half of Ireland, warning her at every turn that he’d put her down if she showed the first sign of corruption, that it would be a mercy. As if she ought to be grateful. But then when it had finally happened... he hadn’t.
“But?” Jakob pressed.
Sam shrugged. “But it’s like you said. You like protecting people.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ashdown Manor, Skryne, County Meath (Scrín Cholm Cille, Contae na Mí)
Samhain
By the time they left Ashdown Manor, Mr. Bishop’s carriage had long since fled. This left Sam, Hel, and Jakob to walk beneath the stars of Samhain, the bonfires winking at them in the distance, to the nearest train station?—a venture that, after the events of the evening, nearly did Sam in.
On the train, Sam slept, her head leaning on Hel’s shoulder. And it might have been a dream, but she could have sworn she felt Hel’s fingers stroking her hair. If it was a dream, Sam decided, it was a good one. Free of feathers, and cold, and blood.
When she woke, they were almost back to Dublin, where a bed and an uncertain future waited. Sam had disobeyed a direct order from Mr. Wright. Moreover, they had found no proof of Hel’s father. She hoped the incriminating photos they’d taken of the Vespertine would be enough to spare her, but somehow, she doubted it. Particularly given that Mr. Ashdown was intimate with the board. No, Sam had a feeling things were about to get a lot worse.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Hel mused as they made their way off the train to the grimy red bricks and muddy tracks of Amiens Street Station. The train hissed, the air cloudy with steam that, for a moment, Sam took for fog. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “How did Mr. Bishop uncover a ritual powerful enough to trap the Mórrígan?”
Jakob scowled. “It’s what he does. What all of them do.”
The Vespertine, he meant. But that wasn’t quite true, was it? The Vespertine were tinkerers, playing with the crumbs left from arcane societies whose flames had long since extinguished. Healing salves. Rats sensitive to magic. Rituals that attempted to predict the future or to reach other worlds, but whose results were muddled at best. This was something different, somethingreal.
The train’s whistle shrilled, and the passengers waiting on the platform crowded on board.
Jakob straightened, frowning. “That’s... that’s Detective Lynch.”
“What?” Sam exclaimed, as she turned, searching the crowd of bundled up men and women bustling onto the train. “I thought you said he was dead!”
“Hewasdead,” Jakob protested. “You saw him as well as I did.”
“Where.” Hel’s eyes narrowed as she searched the platform. “I don’t see him.”
Jakob stood beside Hel, squinting one eye and pointing. “There, with the trilby hat, scratching his nose just now.” Sam followed his gaze, found the man he spoke of. Cold poured down her spine. A raven cackled somewhere above them.
“That’s not Detective Lynch,” Hel said.
“What are you talking about?” Jakob said, confused. “He has the same hair, brown and combed, you know, that way. The same suit?—”
“That isnotthe same suit,” Sam said, incredulous. “Can you truly not tell the difference? The suit Detective Lynch wore had slit pockets, three buttons, and a structured cut with a double vent, whereas that man’s suit has a single vent and flap pockets. His hair and build might be similar, but the way he holds himself is entirely different.” Detective Lynch meant to blend in to the crowd; this man aimed to be seen.
“Now that you mention it, he does look a bit like Detective Brown,” Jakob said, squinting. “He was in the Special Branch’s office when I stopped by to give an update. Told me he’d pass along the message. But no, I’m certain that’s Detective Lynch.”
The raven laughed its human laugh, swooping to land on the shoulder of the man who was not Detective Lynch as he boarded the train.
Hel cursed. “The bell at Sam’s grandfather’s place.”
