“You cannot,” Sam said sharply. “I’m not a piece of luggage you might move from one place to another at your convenience.”
“You’d be safe enough here,” Hel said. “From your ghost and the Wild Hunt both.”
“Being safe isn’t the same as living!”
“Neither is being dead,” Hel drawled.
“It’s a good idea,” Van Helsing said, but he seemed like he was only half listening. He was restless, his knee bouncing. It was unlike him to be so distracted, particularly when the subject matter was the one he seemed to best enjoy: how to solve the problem of Sam.
Abruptly, Van Helsing stood, grimacing. “I’ll be back.” He threaded the aisle to the back of the train car, his spurs jingling with the shaking of the train.
“Are you well?” Sam ventured.
“Never better,” Hel said, wincing as the light from the setting sun flashed off a passing train. But Sam could read the lie in the way her jaw tightened, the way she wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes even behind the dark circles of her spectacles. Surreptitiously, Sam caught her hand between her thighs and slipped off her glove. She reached out; Hel jerked back, but for once, she wasn’t fast enough. Sam snatched the spectacles off Hel’s face.
The moment Sam’s hand touched them, her breath caught in her throat, a feeling coursing through her like a current, pulling her under.A vision.She felt oil slick her eyelids and tears stinging her eyes, heard whispers fluttering like moths caught in the cockles of her ears. She breathed in a strange miasma, vaguely mossy, acrid as a cat’s breath, and something else. Something bitter and bloody that recalled bare wires and bubbling retorts.
Alchemy.
“What did you do?” Sam hissed.
Hel looked peaky without her dark spectacles. Her skin sheened with what Sam had first taken for spindrift, but which she was fairly certain was sweat, despite the bite in the autumn air. Her pupils were blown, the black swallowing the hazel of her eyes. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, hers were wide open.
Hel snatched back her dark-lensed spectacles, settling them on her face. “I gave myself the Sight. It has... side effects.”
“You didn’t,” Sam breathed. But Hel’s wince as she shaded the side of her head from the fading light was answer enough. “Why couldn’t you simply use a hagstone like the rest of us?”
“And what, fashion a pair of glasses from them?” Hel said. “That wouldn’t attract any attention at all. Not to mention the lack of peripheral vision.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sam said. “It’s not like you need the Sight all the time?—”
Hel cut her off. “YouknowI do.”
The ghost. It had been three days since Van Helsing had dispersed it. Hel had done all this so she might catch Sam’s ghost when it pulled itself back together. So she could protect Sam, just as she’d said she would. But who would protect Hel if she got caught? Mr. Wright had been correct; this was all Sam’s fault.
“It’s not worth it,” Sam whispered urgently. “If Van Helsing finds out?—”
“It’s no worse than what you do,” Hel said dismissively.
“Don’t act as if this is the same thing!” Sam said angrily. What Hel had done was dangerous?—using alchemy to pierce the veil that clouded the eyes of the living, letting her see ghosts even when they didn’t wish to be seen. Like channels, users of alchemy risked corruption and imprisonment if they were caught. But unlike channeling, it was a conscious action. “What I do, I don’t have a choice. You have every choice.”
“Don’t you?” Hel said, angling her dark spectacles at Sam’s ungloved hand.
Sam set her jaw. She knew she ought to feel embarrassed, ought to trust Hel, but how could she, when Hel still insisted on keeping secrets? “Hel?—”
“Mr. Van Helsing,” Hel said loudly, and Sam became aware of the jingle of his spurs, harmonizing with the rattling of the train. Hurriedly, Sam tugged on her glove as Van Helsing sat down heavily beside them. “You certainly took your time.”
He scowled at Hel. “I was summoned,” he said, tossing Hel a slip of paper folded into a square. Sam’s stomach tightened, until she realized it was far too big to be glued to the back of a bee, even if that bee was of exceptional size. “Someone slipped this in my pocket at the train station.”
Hel unfolded the paper, revealing neat cursive writing:
Mr. Van Helsing,
Your presence is required in car 151132 at your earliest convenience. Come alone. Tell no one.
With kind regards,
Detective Lynch
