It was less than half a mile from the Shelbourne Hotel to Trinity College. The sun bled through the low-hanging clouds, the eerie fog gone, as if it had been but a prelude to the events of the night before. Smoke rose up on the horizon, filling the air with the scent of burning. According to the papers, an Oilliphéist, a dragon-like serpent who dwelled in rivers and lakes, had attacked a textile factory.
The monster had, as Detective Lynch had claimed, targeted industry, and one that had been threatening to replace traditional Irish weaving. But that didn’t mean that the people who worked there had deserved to die.
Hel walked quickly, forcing Sam to hurry to keep up, leaving no space for conversation, unless she fancied shouting.
The entrance to Trinity College’s campus was set in a grand granite façade with white columns. The door was enormous, carved from warm oak and domed with the relief of a many-rayed sun. It was one of those doors that was so grand it possessed a door of its own, and it was through this smaller, more modest entrance that Sam and Hel passed through onto the college campus.
Sam couldn’t suppress her excitement. This was where countless writers had cut their teeth, from Oscar Wilde to Jonathan Swift, its library whispered about amongst the Society’s researchers in tones of awe. Sam had yearned to experience the enchantment of that vaulted chamber, all dark wood and gilt lettering. But it had always been relegated to a dream, as Catholics were banned from its hallowed halls thanks to England’s unionist policies, as were women, thanks to men being, well, men. It was only through the intercession of the Crown that Sam and Hel, who had committed the cardinal sin of being both Catholic and women, had been given leave to enter.
Students rushed back and forth on campus, their black robes fluttering behind them, clutching books. Some of them craned their necks to look at Sam and Hel as they passed, hushed whispers catching amongst them like fire in dry weeds. Van Helsing ought to have done this task, were they truly to stay undercover. The whole city would know of the women who had visited the college by the end of the day. But there was nothing for it.
Trinity College’s chemistry department possessed both the necessary chemicals and a closet that could serve as a darkroom if you stuffed a rag beneath the door to block out the light. A ruby glass votive, borrowed from the church, burned on a shelf behind them, casting the room in red light and darkness.
Hel cut a sharp figure, silhouetted against the red, as she measured out chemicals, mixing them with water in one of the four trays laid out before them, the faint scents of vinegar and rotten eggs lingering in the air.
“How could you?” Sam demanded the moment she was certain they would not be overheard. “Last night. You’re not a heavy sleeper?—don’t tell me you are, you hardly sleep at all. I know you heard me screaming.”
“I was following the plan.” Hel’s clever fingers lifted the roll film out of the camera and stripped the backing without touching the fragile images. “Did you think the plan was only for when there was no risk?”
“Ithoughtit meant a few sharp words,” Sam said. “Not this.” She hadn’t thought Hel would beableto leave Sam in danger, that she would be able to stop herself from coming to her aid, the way Sam would for her, despite having all the martial prowess of a moldy turnip.
“If I’d come running, it would have confirmed my affections, and then you would have been in far more danger than you were last night,” Hel said reasonably. She passed the strip of film through a tray of water, once, twice, three times, keeping it in constant motion. “My father might have sent the ghost himself, just to measure my reaction. I couldn’t let him win.”
“Win.” Sam was briefly at a loss for words. “I might have died!”
Hel scoffed. “Hardly.” She continued to move the film, this time through the developer, pulling it through as an eerie fog-like film crept over the images. “You’re far more competent than you give yourself credit for.” But Hel hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen how Sam had been trapped. “Besides, Van Helsing was there, and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s killing monsters.”
“You were counting on Van Helsing to save me?” Sam exclaimed, horror worming through her that this had been Hel’s plan. “The man despises me. We’re fortunate he decided to help and not merely watch.”
Hel snorted. “He would never allow his record to suffer your loss.” She pulled the strip of film through the fixing bath three times, before letting it soak. “Besides, he doesn’t despise you. He fears you. It’s entirely different.”
“That’s even worse.” The most terrible things men did, they did from fear. The witch burnings, the imprisonment of channels, the persecution of anyone who had the unbearable temerity to be different from them.
“Don’t worry, he fears his father more,” Hel said dismissively. “Besides, he did save you, and while he was at it, he noted I wasn’t there when you needed me?—again. With any luck, you’ve excited his protective streak.”
The worst part was, Hel was right. It had. It had seemed almost as if Van Helsing cared, before he mentioned murdering Sam as a natural extension of said affections. It played into their ploy perfectly. Van Helsing had ordered Sam to accompany Hel, to keep an eye on her. But still?—
“How do I know how much is a game?” Sam whispered. This whole scenario felt awfully like when Sam had met Hel’s brother, when she hadn’t known which visions were real, hadn’t been able to trust her senses. Sam had been right: Hel was too good at pretending to be someone else. Unless she wasn’t. Unless this was who she was. Sam closed her eyes. “I don’t?—I can’t tell what’s real.”
Hel caught Sam’s hand, clasping it between them as she searched Sam’s face, her features painted starkly in red light and shadow. “This is real,” Hel said intensely. Sam caught her breath, desire shivering through her. “This is theonlything that’s real. We need to trust each other, or there’s no point to any of this.”
Hel brushed Sam’s cheek as if she were made of glass, as if she were afraid of breaking her. Sam ached for her to stop being so gentle, to press harder, to hook her fingers into Sam as if she needed her the way Sam needed Hel.
But Sam was still furious with Hel, even if she was also drunk on her. She turned, not quite pulling away.
“I do trust you.” Or she had. “But I can’t keep?—”
Hel went rigid, staring at the photograph negatives in the fixing bath over Sam’s shoulder. Sam followed her gaze. The fog had come clear, the pictures resolved. There was the shush of shifting water as Hel drew them free of their chemical bath.
The images were ghostly?—the film a translucent, yellowed silver, etched in shades of grey and black. Everything was reversed from the way it was in life?—trees a ghostly white against a midnight sky, teeth black against pale lips.
The first was of a dark flower shaped like a trumpet, with five toothlike points to it and arrow-shaped leaves the color of ash.Datura,Sam thought, though it was hard to be sure. A poison, though it was a warm-weather plant and oughtn’t be found in Ireland, so perhaps she was mistaken. The second was of the ragged, black crenellations of a Gothic castle like something out of a fairy tale, glimpsed through tangled ivory branches of a blackthorn bush. The third was of the Duke in his bloodless suit, staring up at a pale sky filled with a murmuration of waxen birds.Wingbeats,Sam thought, remembering her vision. Or ravens.
Sam squinted and bent closer. There was something wrong with how the film had developed behind the Duke, a place where the negative hadn’t come clear, almost as if?—Sam caught her breath as eyes that burned like stars resolved in the mist, the brim of a hat, the suggestion of a cloak.A ghost.And behind the Viscount?—another.
Though spirits were rarely seen when they did not wish it, spiritualists in New York City had found you might capture a ghost’s image in photography?—something to do with etheric resonance. Was this, then, why the Viscount and the Duke had a camera? Had they found evidence that Mr. Hayes and Mr. Pearse were haunted as well?
Sam’s eyes skipped to the image of Mr. Enfield, his crumpled form silhouetted on the cobblestones. It was hard to make out, the night rendering the image muddy, but she could just pick out the shadow of a little girl in a pinafore against the whiteness. A girl who most definitely had not been there the night before.
