Hel’s breath hitched.“Sam.”At last, Sam allowed her gaze to be drawn to the last picture. This was the photograph of Sam, stripped to her habit shirt under the pale-berried boughs of a mountain ash, looking very much as Miss Shinagh had said, like a woman in a fairy tale. At first, all Sam could see was her own embarrassment. But then, she caught sight of it. Behind her, in the fog, was the misty form of a woman in an ephemeral nightgown, staring directly at the camera, her milky lips parted to reveal the points of two black fangs.
A chill trickled down her spine. “The ghost that attacked me.” Then it hit her?—the victims were each haunted by a ghost;Samwas haunted by a ghost. Fear flooded her lungs like water. “Wait, does that mean I’m next?”
Sam squeezed her eyes shut. She could still hear the roar of the wind when she closed her eyes. Still hear those awful wingbeats, the battlefield scent of rotting meat curling around her. She thought again of the horrible blankness of Mr. Enfield’s face as he’d fallen, the absence of a scream.
“I won’t let them take you,” Hel said.
“How can you know that?” Sam said, embarrassed of the tremble in her voice. “We don’t even know what theyare.” And besides, Hel had not so long ago left Sam to die, whatever her reasoning. Sam didn’t entirely trust that she wouldn’t do so again. Not if it would let her win.
Hel seemed to read as much in Sam’s expression. “Do you know how long a ghost takes to reconstitute?”
“Um...” Sam knew this, she just had to calm down and think. “Roughly three days.” The knowledge calmed her. She had three days to figure this out. She drew a shuddering breath. Hel was right: They needed to trust each other or there was no point to any of this.
“Was there anything of use in the files?” Hel asked.
“Not particularly,” Sam said. On paper, the good detective was right. “Aside from the usual altercations with workers, and their being influential Unionists, there was nothing in the reports to indicate why anyone might hold a grudge against Mr. Hayes and Mr. Pearse. The only event of note was that one of the men?—Mr. Pearse?—had reported the theft of a ring while on holiday in Dublin, only to cancel the report the very next day. It had, it turned out, been in his pocket the whole time.”
“Hmmm,” Hel hummed in her throat.
“Perhaps Van Helsing will have had more luck with the ring,” Sam said unsteadily.
“Oh, that?” With a bit of sleight of hand, Hel produced something that sparkled brilliantly in the red light, flipping it into the air and catching it: Mr. Enfield’s ring.
“You didn’t!” Sam gasped.
“You’re right, I didn’t,” Hel said with that crooked smile, and this time, it sat a little better. “Heathcliff did.” Heathcliff poked his head out of Hel’s pocket proudly at the sound of his name.
“And you just let me set Van Helsing after poor Lord Lusk like that?” Sam laughed despite herself. “Knowing he’s innocent?”
Hel shrugged. “We don’t know he’s innocent of anything but the theft. Besides, how else was I to steal time alone with you?”
Heat pricked in Sam’s cheeks. It struck her then that Hel must have conceived of the plot to steal time with Sam the night before, when Van Helsing was interrogating Lord Lusk. She’d known Sam would notice the absence of the ring and push to uncover whether there was a connection, bait that Van Helsing’s need for vindication wouldn’t let him ignore?—all so Sam and Hel might have a portion of time together while keeping up the charade that they were at odds.
It was dizzying, the way Hel was always three steps ahead, leaving Sam to chase after?—a sense that had only grown more acute in Ireland. Hel had always been devious, but now, it was as if everyone were just a pawn in the game she played against her father.
It was what Hel had trained her whole life for. Sam wondered if this was the true reason Hel hadn’t wanted her along?—not simply because of the risk, but because she hadn’t wanted Sam to see her this way: so like her father.
You can no more suppress a thing’s true nature than you can hold back the tides.Sam shoved the thought away. Hel wasn’t her father. Shecared. She’d promised to be better. To try.
“Let me see the ring,” Sam asked. Hel tossed it to her. Even through her gloves, vertigo swept through her, bringing with it an echo of what she’d felt the night before.
The song whispered in her ears, and Sam found herself moving as if in a dream, reaching for her gloves, the sudden desire to feel the air on her bare skin singing through her?—
No.Sam shuddered, and she opened her hand, dropping the ring to clatter to the ground. The song melted away as if it had never been.
“Tell me,” Hel said intently. A part of Sam wondered if this was why she’d wanted to steal time away with Sam: so she might channel. It didn’t matter, Sam told herself,she had, and if it might help solve the case, that was what mattered.
“It felt... like falling,” Sam said.
“Up or down?”
“Up,” Sam said, for she’d felt the tug on the earth in her feet, and she was reminded of the fingernails on the windowsill of the folly and her subsequent deduction that Mr. Pearse had fallen skyward rather than in accordance with gravity. “I could smell rotting meat and hear wingbeats. But that still leaves us at ghosts, doesn’t it?”
The vengeful spirits had a similar odor. So did vampires. It was, it seemed, a common theme amongst the dead and discontent. The wingbeats, though... was that simply Hel’s brother? Or something else...? Sam had seen something fly past her the night prior, too quick to see clearly.
If Sam had listened to the song, if she’d removed her gloves, she might know. But she hadn’t, for that feeling, of moving without her own control, had scared her more than any vision could.
“Anything else?” Hel demanded. “Even if it’s small, even if it doesn’t make sense.”
