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“No. You were going to ask about something worse.”

Morrigan’s tail flicks once against my wrist. I look from Edward to Alcott to Lazarus. “What did you do?”

Lazarus sits up. “We found someone.”

My fingers still in Morrigan’s fur. “Someone.”

Alcott turns one paper toward me. “Lord Bertram Valehurst.”

I stare at the name. It doesn't mean anything. There are so many monsters in the world that one could commit unspeakable acts and still remain unknown to me. “What has he done?”

Alcott answers because Alcott could make horror orderly when the rest of us could not bear to hold it. “Profits from debtor prisons. Owns two factories using children under false apprenticeship contracts. Funds private entertainments for men who prefer their victims poor, frightened, and legally invisible.”

My stomach turns cold.

“And you brought this to me?” I ask.

Lazarus leans forward, elbows on his knees. “We thought it might interest you.”

I look at the papers again. Interest is too small a word, the name sits on the page like a throat waiting beneath my hand. Once, I would have smiled and I would have asked for his habits, his weaknesses, his favorite poison, his nearest exits.

My hands begin to tremble.

“I do not want to do it alone,” I say. The words leave me before I can dress them in pride and the room goes utterly still. I look down at my hands as the tremor worsens.

“I thought I would.” My voice sounds smaller than I would have liked. “I thought if I ever returned to this, I would want it to be mine. Entirely mine. The plan. The room. The kill.”

Alcott says nothing as Laz’s eyes brighten and I swallow. “But I do not want to walk into another man’s house alone. I do not want to be touched by chance or cornered by surprise.”

My throat tightens. “I want to do this. I think I do for I want him gone and I want to remember what it feels like to be the hand that ends a nightmare.”

I force myself to look up. “But I want you with me.”

Lazarus stands, slowly, as if sudden happiness might frighten me. Alcott leans back in his chair and folds his hands beneath his chin.

“Darling,” Lazarus says warmly, “we were hoping you would say that.”

I blink. “What?”

Edward’s mouth twitches and Alcott reaches for another paper and slides it across the desk. “It would have been rather rude of us to find you a monster and then expect you to unwrap him alone.”

I stare at the paper, a map. Valehurst’s town house, with entrances marked, servants’ rotations. Guard positions, with delivery schedules and a back stairwell to a wine cellar. My pulse quickens, with something almost like hunger. “You already made a plan.”

“A beginning,” Alcott corrects.

Lazarus comes closer and kneels before my chair, leaving space between us until I place my hand in his hair. Only then does he lean into the touch. “I thought you might enjoy revising it.”

Edward crosses the room then, stopping beside the chair. “We would never make you go alone.”

I look up at him. His eyes are bright and dark and full of everything he still fears but would not use to cage me.

“Never?” I ask.

“Never.” He replies.

“I used to do everything alone,” I whisper.

Alcott’s voice is gentle. “You do not have to anymore.”