“Prudent thought.” Cassius turned his back to the wall like a sentry. “If you need me, call out.”
“Thanks,” I said, and stepped inside.
From habit, I looked over at the spot where Henry would normally have been standing. I would miss seeing him there with his easy smile, drying glasses.
Lady was sitting in the far corner near Delain and Sherzer, both of whom sat on her cots against the wall. I made my way toward them, offering hellos as I passed Westy, Ella, the Parley twins, and a bunch of new faces almost certainly here due to the shrinking ward. Lady was wrapping Delain’s arm as I approached. Both vestiges tried to stand.
“Nah, don’t get up,” I said. “How are you guys feeling?” “Fine,” they replied in near unison.
Lady kept at her work. “I’d hug you, dear, but I’m somewhat preoccupied.” “A hug? For what?”
“Well, after the war,” she began, “I took a position at the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury. That was 1741, it was. Such beautiful children.” Lady attached a three-tined prosthetic to Delain’s stubbed arm and began wrapping it with a compression bandage. “When I died, I found myself on my era’s stratum. For nearly a century I watched semblance children arrive again and again, heartbroken to see them come into the Strata alone. Then one day a thanatist showed up with a proposition: he offered me resources to serve topside foundlings in exchange for my services tending his battered vestiges.” She tapped Delain’s fork hand and released it. “Eventually, I’ll get you a hand of flesh and bone.”
I didn’t want to imagine where Lady might procure a human hand. “How’d you wind up at the Horse?”
“After years in his service, I told my binder I would no longer be a party to his endless crusade, and fast as you can eat a pudding he stopped renewing my bindings. I’d have slipped away into nothingness had Henry not rescued me. Much as you’ve done for these two here.”
Lady stood and gave me that hug. Over her shoulder, in her candle-cast shadow, I noticed a particularly long scar that looked to have been sutured somehow; a silvery thread had stitched the wound closed. Something told me this was herprimal moment, but because it had been torn and mended, I chose not to look any deeper.
Delain held up the three-tined arm extension. It looked like a huge, sharp fork. “This ought to come in handy,” she said with a grin. “Though thiswasmy good pint hand.”
Sherzer chuckled, even as he swept his gaze across everyone like a scout.
I stole a glimpse of Delain’s and Scherzer’s shadows on the edges of their cots. They had patterns and occlusions like everyone else, including the darker scars of primal moments.
In Delain’s shadow, I saw the image of a man I guessed was her father. He was wearing a Scottish kilt, facing down a handful of bandits while she clutched a toy doll. I sensed in her a deep pride for him.
In Sherzer’s shadow lurked the embarrassment of being ostracized by the smart kids, because he liked contact sports. That, and countless fights with street thugs along someplace called “Murder Mile” before he was recruited into Britain’s Special Air Service.
The images weren’t entirely clear—that would require a lantern and ghost stone—but the candles showed me sketches of these moments.
When I looked up, I saw Church at his customary table, and Chuey coming through the door, a short bat protruding from his backpack.
“Lady, Chuey, you got a minute?” I asked.
We crossed the pub and slid into Church’s booth—classic metal, with band patches of Manowar, Dio, and all the rest sewn into the old red vinyl upholstery. On the table, the candle burned bright inside Henry’s Peruvian wind glass—just one of his growing collection from different countries.
Church leaned forward. “How are you faring, lad?” “Not so well.”
“Come on then,” said Church. “Out with it.”
No good way to say it. “Henry is dead . . . Jimmy, too.” Lady’s hand curled over mine.
Chuey got really still. “Damn, Jimmy, too.”
I didn’t say anything else just then. I’d had a little time to grieve. They needed theirs. Still, sharing it brought back all the feelings in a painful rush, and I wished like hell there’d been a band blaring from the venue stage.
After a while, Church cleared his throat. “Tell us what happened.”
I’d been dreading this part. “After they shot Henry, they put him in an iron safe and dumped him in the Thames. Jimmy seems to have been killed by the wraith that I probably called up when I was reborn.”
Another short silence fell between us.
“We all loved Jimmy”—Lady squeezed my fingers—“but don’t you dare hold yourself responsible for his death.”
“Quite right,” said Church. “Jimmy would have been the first to disabuse you of such a notion.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t change anything, does it? Jimmy’s dead, and I’m at least partly to blame.”
