Fingers of orange light threaded through the darkness from Reed’s lantern as he approached, bringing muted noises from the spider girl. Falsteed moved to a corner of his cell where the flickering could not reach him, but his voice covered the distance between him and Grace, its low whisper meant only for her.
“Hang back a moment, dear one. I’d have you draw the measure of the man while he’s still in ignorance of you.”
An irrational fear sliced through Grace as she saw two shadows cast in the dim lamplight. Her world had shrunk into a place populated only by herself and Falsteed, the pitiful complaints of the spider girl underscoring their existence, punctuated by visits from Reed. The arrival of a new person, and one who Falsteed had spoken of in awe, sent Grace fleeing to her stool in the corner.
“I apologize for the dank, sir,” Reed said. “Once the weather gets a mind to start raining, the cellars don’t stand much of a chance of drying themselves.”
“Interesting choice of words, Reed,” a new voice said. Grace’s ears perked up, even though her hands began to tremble.
“How’s that, sir?”
“You’ve given the weather and the cellar—entities that don’t make choices or take action on their own—precisely the qualities that the humans in your care lack.”
“I suppose I did, sir, though I had no intention of doing it.”
“All the more telling, that your mind would subconsciously choose words to allocate control to things that lack exactly that.”
Grace pressed her bare toes against the stones, bracing her body against the cold wall. The stranger’s voice was low and melodious, wandering through sentences as if assured it would find the end victoriously, though the path was unsure. His shadow stretched beside Reed’s as they came nearer, the serpentine voice easily supplying answers to Reed’s nervous chatter.
“Nonetheless, I’m sorry for the state of things down here, and you with a surgery tonight, sir.”
The pair stopped outside of Grace’s cell, and she examined the newcomer in the sickly light of the lantern, his deep-set eyes lost in the shadows, his doctor’s bag slung over his shoulder almost haphazardly.
“Why do you call me ‘sir’?”
“Well, I suppose because you’re a surgeon, Dr. Thornhollow,” Reed said, his hand trembling on the lantern as he held it aloft.
“Yes, but I’m no greater than you. In fact, I’d venture to say you’re probably the better person, if it came to a matter of weighing souls.”
“I don’t see how one would weigh a soul, sir, or what bearing it would have on the argument.”
“For example,” Thornhollow continued as if Reed hadn’t spoken, “I can see my mother’s house from my office, yet I only visit her once a month or so, and then only under duress. The last visit occurred because I had a bit of glass buried at the base of my spine—never mind how—and had to find someone to pull it out. Even considering that, I think I went there because it was the only house that had a light at the time. I could’ve very well asked a stranger in the street to oblige me—would have, in fact, saved time if I’d done exactly that.”
“Saved time, sir?”
“Yes, of course. Because once I was back in the house of my birth, much the worse for wear for having been out of the womb for some twenty-plus years, my mother had to fuss and pick. Nonetheless, she’s a well-intentioned person and I did get a good dinner out of the whole escapade. I suppose I just don’t go in for that sort of thing.”
“What? Dinners?”
“No, well-intentioned people. Speaking of, where’s the poor soul I’m meant to see to?”
“To the left, sir. Just follow what little noise she’s able to keep making.”
The men moved from Grace’s sight, and she shifted silently, tiptoeing along the edge of the wall. The pale glow cast around them by Reed’s lantern sank to the floor with them while the men knelt beside the spider girl’s cell, one pleading white hand stretched between the bars.
Dr. Thornhollow’s fingers closed around her wrist, and the faded mewlings that she’d been making intensified, like a starving cat in an alley that spotted hope in a stranger. “You can open the cell, Reed. She’s no danger to anyone in this condition.”
“True enough at the moment, but she’s down here because she nearly took the upper lip off of Croomes.”
“Only fair. I assume Croomes has been giving lip to people long before someone accepted her invitation to take it.”
Reed’s keys clanked and the cell door swung open. Thornhollow beckoned for him to follow as he propped the girl against the wall. Her eyes were dark circles, her hair a tangled cloud that moved in a perpetual storm above her head, but she offered no resistance when the doctor touched her, placing his palm against her forehead gently.
“What’s your opinion in this matter, Dr. Falsteed?” Thornhollow asked, raising his voice so it would carry.
“It’s a sad case, Dr. Thornhollow,” Falsteed said, his voice assuming a professional tone Grace had never heard from him before. “She came in recently, claiming that there’s spiders in her veins for blood. Reed said the constables found her in an alleyway, slicing at her wrists with a bit of glass so as to let them out. Nobody’s had a word from her about anything other than the spiders, not even her name.”
Thornhollow nodded, pushing the girl’s hair out of her face. “What’s been done to you, then?” he asked, as if expecting an answer. “Or what have you seen that you’ve gone to the abyss so young?”
Grace’s throat constricted, her words piling on one another in her gut as she yearned to answer the questions that weren’t asked of her.
“It’ll be a mercy, Thornhollow,” Falsteed said. “We both know she’ll get no true care here, and there’s no one to speak for her on the outside. She’s another lamb to the slaughter, and it’s better you wield the blade and bring her the blackness than allow her to know the injustice of this life.”
Thornhollow remained crouched in front of the girl, his hand in her hair and his gaze searching her blank face. Her fingers drummed a rhythm on the stones beside his foot, and her eyes rolled.
“Seems a bit calmer, almost,” Reed observed, leaning toward her.
“Yes, they do that sometimes when you treat them like people,” Thornhollow said, rising to his feet. “All right, Reed. Take her by the hand, please. I believe she’ll follow easily enough. We’ll use the same room as before. If you’ll fetch another light, I believe we’ll need it.”
Grace watched as the doctor stepped out of the cell, all semblance of emotion now stripped as he pulled his doctor’s bag from his shoulder. “Falsteed, what are your feelings on additional patients? I’m surprised at Heedson only requesting one procedure with the Board’s arrival imminent.”
“I imagine one or two more will be along,” Falsteed said. “He always overestimates his capacity for generosity before the panic sets in.”
“Panic indeed,” Thornhollow said, pulling a wooden box from his satchel. He sank to his knees on the stone hall, oblivious to the wet as he flipped the lid. It came open like a jewelry box, compartments unfolding in the faint light of Reed’s fading lantern as he led the spider girl away. Grace’s hands went to her ears, remembering the jewels that had hung there once upon a time and a similar box on her nightstand at home.
But what emerged from Dr. Thornhollow’s box was nothing to ornament a woman or anything to be spoken of at parties. Glass bottles clanked against one another and metal scraped as he rummaged in a lower drawer. “I don’t suppose the kitchens would begrudge me an egg or two, Falsteed? I seem to have broken mine.” Thornhollow distastefully flicked something off his fingers.
“Trying something new?” Falsteed asked.
Footsteps signaled Reed’s return, along with the gradual lightening of the hall. Grace could see one of the doctor’s eyebrows raise. “I hardly think you’re one to condemn a little experimentation, Falsteed,” Thornhollow said.
“Just a professional curiosity,” Falsteed said. “I find it hard to remain at the top of my field when I’m always . . . kept in the dark.”
Thornhollow’s mouth barely twitched at the joke. “I highly doubt that. Reed keeps a steady stream of information directly to your ear. As far as the darkness goes, I’d welcome an excuse for isolation.”
Falsteed grunted in response, and Grace squinted as Reed leaned over the still-kneeling Thornhollow. “I think you’ll find her quite ready for you, sir. I dosed her with ether and the poor bird flew off into the oblivion like she’d been pining for it.”
“Like I said, Dr. Thornhollow,” Falsteed said. “It’s a mercy.”
“No doubt. And yet only hours after I carve into the brain of a lost girl whose name we’ll never know, I’ll be seated next to the recognizable names of society with my hands itching to give them that same mercy so as to stop their ceaseless words.”
“You’ve evaded their clutches quite a while. A young man of your position can only escape his social duties for so long. I imagine they’re hoping to affiance you to a daughter before you leave for Ohio?”
Thornhollow snapped the box closed. “Reed really does keep you up to speed on current affairs,” he said stiffly. “As to the daughters, society will have to learn to live without air if they’re holding their breaths for my marriage.” He rose holding only a glass vial and a slim blade. “Reed, if you’ll humor me by going to the kitchen for two eggs and an apple corer?”
Grace could see Reed’s face pale. “Y-yes, sir,” he stammered, leaving the lantern on the floor. The light pooled around the doctor’s feet, his features lost into a smeared blur once again.
Falsteed cleared his throat. “Thornhollow . . . if I could speak with you about something, when you’re finished?”
“Of course. I have to meet with Heedson to see if he’ll have me deliver any more of his patients from ever having to be aware of his presence again, then I’ll be back down to check on the girl. Unless you needed something from me immediately?”
“No, Doctor, just a moment of your time after the procedure. And if we can agree to something, perhaps a favor after the fact.”
“A favor? I don’t recall you ever asking anything of the kind from me before.”
“And I wouldn’t, if the situation weren’t dire.”
“For a man who’s been sitting in darkness for years with none but the mad for company to suddenly find his situation dire makes me quite worried for him.”
“Not for myself, Thornhollow. My lot is my own,” Falsteed said.
The doctor rose to his feet, lantern in hand, as the sound of Reed’s footsteps advanced down the hall. “I’ll speak to you of it afterward,” he said. “Your protégé returns much more quickly than he left. I imagine he’s been told to set to. Which means I’ve got more than our poor lost lamb for my night’s work.”
Reed burst into the hall, two eggs in one hand and the apple corer in the other, sweat beaded on his upper lip. “I’m sorry, sir, it seems there’ll be two more at least tonight.”
Thornhollow rolled his sleeves to the elbows. “Your favor, Falsteed, it will keep?”
“All the night long, Thornhollow.”
The doctor nodded sharply. “Right then. Reed—gather some more eggs from the kitchen and a pot of boiling water. And I’ll have to bother you to send my regrets to the governor’s mansion. It seems I won’t make dinner this evening.”
Reed’s mouth gaped open, more horrified at dispatching the news than retrieving the apple corer. “And what do I say to the governor, sir?”
Thornhollow slid two of his blades together; the metallic zing of their meeting brought a smile to his face. “Tell him I’m working.”