“What? No,” Jakob exclaimed. “That’s the opposite of what we should be doing.”
“Jakob, trust me?—” Sam started, reaching out for his arm, but Jakob pulled out of range.
“Idid,” Jakob said, that past tense pulling through her like fishhooks. Which was absurd. When had he ever trusted Sam? When had her lying to him been anything but survival?
“Look on the bright side,” Sam said, “this way, you can always put me down if I go wrong. Hard to do that when I’m on a ferry back to England.”
Jakob’s jaw clenched. If Sam didn’t know better, she’d think he didn’t actuallywantto put her down.
Jakob shook his head, as if at his own seeping corruption. “I will see you on that ferry if I have to truss you up and toss you on myself. I will not take the blame for your insubordination, or your death. I have worked too hard to lose everything?—just because you couldn’t follow orders if they were embroidered on the backs of your eyelids!”
It took Sam a moment to recognize herself in his comment. When had she stopped believing in the Society? That justice came from following its orders?
“What will it take for you to understand?” Sam seethed. “You are not responsible for my actions:I am.And if you won’t tell Mr. Wright as much, I’ll tell him myself.”
“Fine!” Jakob threw up his hands. “Do what you want. But if you get yourself killed?—”
She’d have no one to blame but herself. “Understood.”
Jakob squinted into the sun?—not yet setting, but entirely too low for comfort. “I’ll requisition a carriage. If what you say is true, there’s no time to waste.”
He turned on his heel and left. Heathcliff raced over from where he’d been hiding behind the bed. Sam knelt to scoop him up, smiling as he nuzzled the palm of her hand. “At leastsomeonemissed me,” Sam murmured.
Hel stopped her with a look, reclaiming Heathcliff and depositing him on her shoulder. He was, she remembered with a pang, Hel’s rat. Another thing she’d lost.
“Miss Harker,” Hel said. A part of Sam died at those words, at the sheer formality of them?—even after everything. “So that you understand. This doesn’t mean we’re partners.”
Sam swallowed against a tightness in her throat. “I know.” Had they thought they were pretending to be at odds? The reality was so much worse.
“Good.” Hel shouldered past her and into the hall, leaving Sam to chase after her one last time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath)
Samhain
Women in sumptuous coats and men in their sleek winter wool fought the wind as they made their way down the streets of Merrion Square. Cold froze their breath as it bloomed from their mouths, and the wind snatched it away almost as fast. Even the crows struggled, no longer following Sam as she hurried after Hel and Jakob but everywhere, as they tumbled in gusts of wind that bowed trees, buffeted about like fallen leaves.
Sam worried her lip.
“We’re wasting our time. Bishop doesn’t know anything,” Jakob argued. “We ought to go directly to Ashdown Manor. Explain things to them, tell the Vespertine that whatever they have done, they must undo it.”
“Right,” Hel said dryly. “While we’re at it, we can have them carve the sigils from their heads and cast them in the fire too.”
“Yes,” Jakob said, completely missing the fact that Hel was being sarcastic.
“As if the Vespertine will listen to reason,” Hel scoffed. She was right, Sam thought, recalling what Mr. Ashdown had said about necessary sacrifices. “They know what they’re doing. They simply don’t care.”
“Then we’ll tear that manor apart,” Jakob growled.
“We can’t just charge in and expect to figure it out,” Sam said. Ashdown Manor had as many secrets as a hive did bees?—Sam had barely scratched the surface?—and it wouldn’t be long before the sun began to set. If they were to stop them in time, they needed to know precisely what the Vespertine had done, and how best to undo it. “Besides, it’s not just the Vespertine at stake. It’s everyone with a haunting.”
Jakob made a frustrated sound in his throat. “Fine. Let’s get this over with, then.”
Mr. Bishop lived in a Georgian townhouse that looked exactly as might be expected of a man who bragged of dancing with the Devil. The rays of a golden sun stood over a door hewn from some dark purple wood.
Hel frowned at the blackthorn that had shoved the paving aside, growing up alongside the townhouse as if it would strangle it. “That’s new.” From when Hel and Jakob had stalked Mr. Bishop that first night, Sam presumed. Sam never thought she’d be grateful for Jakob’s habit of assuming everyone a villain, but without it, they wouldn’t have known where Mr. Bishop lived, so here they were.
