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Grace had kept to herself in the week since Beaton’s death, giving Thornhollow a wide berth and processing her own actions. There had been a veil over her mind when she killed, her blade striking true, the sharp edge of the asylum kitchen’s knife slicing through Beaton’s neck easily. The spray of blood had not alarmed her, having seen so many crime scenes. His face as he went down, the confusion in his eyes, the ether-soaked rag in his pocket—none of these things had slipped into her nightmares.

The killing itself was easy, her removal from it in the moment, complete. But Thornhollow’s words had torn the veil away, and Davey’s words of Beaton’s kindness haunted her. Little memorials began to appear in the newspaper from private citizens who posted in their mourning. Beaton had treated prostitutes when no one else would. He had mixed a substitute powder for an infant who would have died after refusing her mother’s milk. He delivered medicines to elderly patients in their homes so they need not wander out in the weather. Except for one glaring exception he had been a lovely man.

Thornhollow had left her to mull her actions in private, granting her wish to not speak of it again, which she now realized was in fact a harsh punishment. It was not guilt precisely that plagued her but a nagging realization that while her actions had saved lives, it was clear that some of Beaton’s had too. And she’d removed him from the world with a flick of her wrist. Their chalkboard had always consisted of black and white, but the reality was gray, and she struggled with the pain of learning it.

Breaking Thornhollow’s silence was not easily done, but time was passing. Each day brought her father closer to home and to Alice, with a present he would demand something infernal for in return.

“I’ll be blunt with you, Grace,” Thornhollow said, back still to her. “I’ve not been able to come up with a plausible way to remove Alice from the household. Even if anonymous letters were written to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, your father is powerful enough to see it brushed under the rug. There are possibilities for delaying his return further, but I can see nothing that will separate the two of them for good.”

“I can,” Grace said.

He turned to her, his features drawn. “I won’t let you kill him.”

“I won’t have to,” she said, willing some calmness into her face as she watched Thornhollow carefully. “We have dead women with no one convicted of the crimes, the true killer no longer among us. The blame can be shifted.”

Thornhollow mulled this, his mind working. “True, but your father was only in the area when one of the crimes was committed.”

“Yes, I know,” Grace said, moving to the chalkboard to create a new picture. “Jenny Cantor’s time of death was never fully established due to the temperatures. She could easily have been killed when he was here.”

The doctor pulled the chalk from her hand to make his own notations. “We can hardly pin him with one murder because he was here and ignore the connection to the others. He was nowhere near when they were committed.”

“Why can’t we?” Grace said. “Mellie Jacobs wasn’t murdered, according to the police. You never shared your suspicions about Jenny and Anka Baran being done by the same hand.”

“No I didn’t, because I knew no one would listen to me,” Thornhollow admitted, tossing the chalk from hand to hand in thought. “Or the two from Pomeroy, either. Beaton had one hell of a method, I’ll give him that. Even a good coroner might come to the conclusion of natural causes once the ether evaporated.”

“And now we put it to our own use,” Grace said, snatching the chalk as it sailed from one of his hands to the other. “Accuse my father of Jenny Cantor’s death. If he’s convicted, he’ll hang.”

“Grace, do you hear yourself?”

“I do, Dr. Thornhollow, and I don’t see shame in it.” She groped for words, unwilling to let her fought-for voice fail her now. “Jenny Cantor is dead, Mr. Beaton with her, and no one but the two of us knowing the reasons for it. Why not extend the hand of justice a little further? You know my father is a monster.”

Thornhollow grimaced and walked away from her. “He is, undoubtedly. But even if I were to agree to this plan, we have no grounds whatsoever that would earn a conviction from a jury. Your father was in the same general area as the victim. That’s all. He has no history of violence or sexual proclivities that are on record. You may as well accuse his coach driver of being guilty of the murder and have just as much evidence.”

“Except the testimony of an expert witness, Dr. Melancthon Thornhollow, who would state that Nathaniel Mae is a deviant fully capable of this act.”

Thornhollow went pale and he sat down abruptly. “You’d have me take the name of my science in vain, on my word, in a courtroom? I cannot do that, Grace, not even for you.”

Grace had expected the argument. “I know better than to ask. Rather I’d ask you to testify in the name of phrenology, a science you have no faith in whatsoever.”

“To condemn a man for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“No, Doctor—I’m asking you to condemn him for the crimes you know he did.” Grace’s voice grew thick as she fought back the emotions that longed to well up inside her, bringing with them all of the memories she’d relegated to the dark. She cried out, doubling over as she fought to keep them away and sliding to the floor in her misery. “It’s not only for me, though I’m the one you see in front of you. There have been many. So many, Doctor. I see their faces and it can’t be undone, only rectified.”

His face went into his hands, and for long moments the only sound was the clock as he pored over her arguments internally. Grace waited, her spine crackling with nerves as he deliberated.

“I can’t do it, Grace,” he said, hands still covering his face, his words sending her heart plummeting. “The risks involved are so great. Your father would be tried here, where the crime occurred, bringing him near you again—something I would avoid at all costs. Even with my testimony there is very little to condemn him and your father would have the best lawyer money could buy. We would lose, Grace. He’d see my career ruined, and God knows what would happen to you if that were the case.”

“Your career,” she said, her tone cold though her voice quaked with emotion. “Science,” she said, her volume rising. “These things mean nothing to me held in balance with my sister’s fate.”

“Did you not hear me mention your own?” Thornhollow yelled back.

“Also meaningless!”

“Christ, Grace. You’re not yourself. You haven’t been since—”

His office doors banged open and Thornhollow jumped to his feet, arms spread in front of Grace. Lizzie swooped in, color high and eyes burning.

“No, she’s not been herself, Doctor. Not since Nell died and she killed a man.”