SOAKING IN THE STEAMING WATER eased a few of the aches and pains in Jane’s bones as the soap cleaned away the dirt and dried blood caking the scrapes on her legs and palms. It did nothing to eliminate other discomforts, however.
As she waited for Miriam to return with news of what might make some dreadful sense out of some of her familiar’s irregularities, Jane brooded.
Her father was coming here to find the Blackwoods in disarray. Her mother was under attack by something ineffable. Edith was not well. And Jane had done something very wrong when creating her familiar.
Jane shifted in the water, getting a bit more comfortable in the hot water.
She’d lied to Miriam.
She hadn’t been circling an oak tree when she’d fallen.
She’d been doing something far weirder than that.
ONCE JANE HAD KICKED AWAY from her bedroom window, she couldn’t fly fast enough or high enough or far enough from the old farmhouse. Several times in those first few moments, she’d contemplated what it would mean to never go back—to leave everything behind. To go and seek her fortune, just her and Smudge, free of her obligations to her mother and to her education, free of her constant fear of the Société discovering her failure, free of always living in Miriam’s shadow, free even of her worries about her aunt Edith. She and her loyal companion could make their way to London and from there . . .
But even as she’d thought it, Jane had known she couldn’t.
It was odd, longing for freedom while soaring over rooftop and treetop . . . but flight wasn’t freedom. She’d eventually need to turn her broomstick around and go back. She couldn’t abandon all her notes and clothes. She couldn’t abandon her family, either.
But she could fly for a bit longer yet.
In the air above Hawkshead, there were no rules to follow, no one to disappoint, no nagging list of things that must be thoughtfully done or thoughtlessly neglected.
There was no one to tell her anything—least of all that she wasn’t a witch.
Jane had looked up at the full moon hanging like a mirror over the countryside, looked down at the black sleeves of her dress and her familiar keeping her wrists and hands warm as she flew—and cackled. She could worry about her life when she was back to it. For now, she need obey no master but herself.
“What should we do, Smudge?” She said this out loud, and then wondered if the cat could hear her thoughts when they were in contact like this. A claw gently pressing into the flesh of her hand seemed to be an answer. “Anything we want, I suppose.”
In the distance Jane saw Mrs. Fielding’s thatch-roofed barn. Bearing a little north to meet it, Jane alighted atop it. Mindful of where she stepped, she stood surveying the countryside from the odd vantage point, her hands on her hips, her feet wide. There was something so deeply satisfying about trespassing late at night, under the moon, her hair wild as the wind but her body dressed in the latest Paris fashions. Jane had never felt so good—or so bad, for that matter.
Smudge looked like a nesting pigeon as he sat puffed on the thatch roof, purring and watching her with yellow eyes. Jane grinned back at him. The moonlight felt like a bath on her face and her hands. She’d taken a draft of Winter Warmer before heading out into the night, so she felt perfectly comfortable even when the wind blew.
So comfortable that Jane wanted to feel even more of the moon on her skin.
It was so still, so bright and peaceful. Jane couldn’t help but carefully strip down to her boots and stockings to do a few naked twirls on the rooftop, reveling in the feel of the night on her skin—and her own audacity. She even got back on her broom—carefully—and flew about the countryside until the potion began to wear off.
The trouble began when Jane had needed to don her shed clothes. That had been tricky, up there on the roof, but she’d done well enough . . . until it had come time to hook the clasp. She’d tumbled backwards and hit the ground with an upsettingly loud thump that had knocked the wind out of her. She saw a candle flare within the house, but Smudge had knocked her broom off the roof, and soon enough Jane was once again up and away and laughing to herself about the misadventure.
JANE KNEW SHE WAS LUCKY. She could have injured herself more severely, but that was cold comfort as she sat in the hot bath.
She had thought that excusing her bruises and cuts would be the worst part of her moonlit indiscretion. She should have figured that something far worse awaited her—that seemed to be the way of things.
It was hard to accept that Smudge might be more than what he seemed . . . even if he seemed to be her secret diabolic familiar. But at the same time, Jane couldn’t deny that Miriam’s account had resonated with her experience. It was true, she hadn’t bound Smudge’s shadow . . .
It just hadn’t occurred to her that his shadow might somehow be a separate entity! Jane raised her hand and looked at its dark twin on the wall as she wriggled her fingers. Was her shadow an independent being? Did she have a dark self that would wreak havoc on the world were it allowed to?
The water was just beginning to cool down when Miriam returned, slipping inside the bathroom as noiselessly as a shadow herself. Jane pulled the tub’s plug so the sound of the drain would give them a bit of privacy. The look on Miriam’s face did not bolster Jane’s fading hope that her friend was coming back to announce she’d been wrong and everything was fine.
“Well?” Jane asked, as she climbed out of the tub.
Miriam watched the swirling water as Jane shrugged back into her robe.
“We have a problem,” she said.
Miriam told Jane a good deal more than Jane wanted to know about a forgotten Italian diabolist, something called the Court of Sin, and needing to convince the Société to augment its stance toward the idea of there being hierarchies of demons.
She also said that Jane had summoned the wrong demon—or rather, that Jane had summoned the right demon, but gotten another. Jane was skeptical—she’d never even heard of that being a possibility—but Miriam seemed certain that Jane had knocked on the right door, but someone else had answered it.
“It’s just that Smudge has been so good, Miriam. He hasn’t even bitten me. Look at my hands. No scratches, no scabs.”
“He’s not a cat! There’s no reason for him to do any of those things!”
Jane sounded desperate even to her own ears. “He’s also volunteered to help; he’s so intelligent and intuitive, and his abilities far exceed what I’d expected.” Jane finally realized she was making Miriam’s case for her. “Oh no.”
“It’s not a circumstance you knew to prepare for.” Jane winced, but it was about the most charitable thing Miriam could possibly say, given the circumstances. “I’m not saying summoning a familiar would ever have been a wise thing to do . . . After all, it is their unpredictable nature that made the Société and the Hell Fire Club and the Ukabi Deshi alike ban their—” Miriam must have noticed Jane’s expression, as she stopped there. “But I’m sure you knew all that.”
“I did,” said Jane. “I just didn’t know . . . what I didn’t know. But that doesn’t matter. My mother isn’t well, my father’s coming here . . .” She eyed her friend, the shadows that congregated in the hollows of her face.
“I know,” said Miriam. “I’m not helping matters, either.” She sighed. “There are things I wish we’d both done differently.”
Jane chuckled softly. “You always did have a talent for understatement.”
“I don’t know what to do,” said Miriam. “I just know we need to come up with something—and quickly.”
“For now though, I ought to get back.” Miriam looked surprised until Jane added, “Smudge will be wondering where I am.”
“Of course. We’ll talk. I can write down my thoughts, and you can write down yours. And maybe we should make a point of casting glances at Nancy when we’re whispering and passing our notes to each other so it seems like we’re trying not to talk in front of her, not . . . it.”
“Smudge isn’t an it. But that’s an ingenious plan.” Jane gave Miriam a worried smile. “Mother . . .”
“We’ll help her,” said Miriam. She’d never looked wiser or more confident or more mature than she did in that moment. “Either one of us could do it, but with the two of us putting our minds together, even a king among demons doesn’t stand a chance.”
JANE AGREED WITH MIRIAM that they were capable of figuring out what to do about Smudge and Nancy. The issue was time. They had a mere two days to research, gather, and prepare all that was needed for what would surely be complicated works of Master-level diablerie . . . and they had to be careful that their efforts did not attract the attention of the demon that slunk around the house in the body of a cat—and could detach its shadow to send on whatever wicked errands struck its fancy.
Jane was firmly against banishing the Lord Indigator, which of course was exactly what Miriam wanted to do. Miriam insisted it would be the safest and quickest way to solve their problem, but Jane wasn’t so sure about that. She laid out her feelings in a note:
The Lord Indigator is here. If we banish it, we’ll have no idea where it is. I say we bind Smudge’s shadow the same way I bound him. That way, he and his shadow will be working for us. It’s possible we could even make him undo whatever he’s done.
Jane had an ulterior motive in holding off on any banishing. She still believed there was a meaningful difference between the cat and its shadow.
Their covenant bid Smudge to aid her when and how she asked, but it had said nothing about him offering help spontaneously. Such an act bespoke affection or an eagerness to please—at least, that’s how Jane saw it.
Plus, she needed Smudge to fly. That wasn’t a reason to risk her mother’s safety, and she knew it, which is why she took Miriam’s response to heart:
Banishing it—don’t call it a him!—will eliminate the problem entirely. Only you can do it . . .
But to Jane’s mind, that wouldn’t eliminate anything.
I know only I can do it, which is why I have to be sure it’s the right thing to do. Will the demon’s thrall over Mother end with its banishment? If not, what’s to stop her from summoning Indigator again, and directly into herself ?
That point gave Miriam pause, and to Jane’s relief, she not only agreed that they should research the idea of binding a shadow—she volunteered to put in the time. Jane was happy to let her take over that portion of the project, not just because she’d rather act than sit and read, but because Miriam was really very weak. A sedentary effort seemed best suited for her.
Jane gave her the strike chain to help the effort along. Miriam was a bit shocked by it at first, but then declared it “very useful.”
Jane, given that Smudge was always by her side, turned her attention to the problem of her father’s imminent arrival. As mundane as it seemed to sit Miriam down to see if a touch of Jane’s secret stash of forbidden makeup made her look less ghastly, it had to be done. And, thankfully, it did help. She looked merely unwell with a bit of rouge on her cheeks, so Jane and Miriam agreed they would claim Miriam and Nancy were both recovering from a bout of influenza. That would explain her pallor and Nancy’s inability to keep track of messages.
A thorough tidying and cleaning helped the old farmhouse look less derelict. After that, Jane turned to the Library itself. The volume of unprocessed requests was truly shocking, but Jane couldn’t do anything about that—not with her mother right there.
Smudge was his patient, inscrutable, catlike self throughout the day. Jane hoped this meant he didn’t suspect anything. He even came to sit on her lap and purr whenever she sat down for a moment.
That night, after Smudge seemed to conk out at the foot of her bed, Jane petted him as he slept, and whispered, as she often did, that she’d be right back after washing her face. Casually glancing back to see if she spied his shadow—she did, it was where it was supposed to be—Jane snuck down the hall and into Miriam’s room to find out what progress her friend had made.
Miriam’s report was not encouraging. Apparently, there was precious little to be found on the binding of shadows, and what there was even Miriam was struggling to understand.
“I think this means the shadow must be ensnared before, ah, rendering it inert,” whispered Miriam, running her finger along the line of ancient Etruscan text, “but I don’t know how to ensnare a shadow, and this doesn’t say how to do it.”
Jane’s eyes practically crossed as she looked at what Miriam was reading. “I can’t believe no one’s done this before,” she hissed. She was tired, and cranky, and now disappointed. She’d hoped Miriam would have an answer already.
And yet, Miriam was so obviously flagging that Jane took the book away from her, fending off her childish, feeble attempts to cling to it, and then fussed over her until Miriam agreed to let Jane help her to bed. As she undressed and got into her nightgown, Jane got her an extra pillow and blanket and would have fetched her a glass of warm milk, but Miriam said she wouldn’t be awake long enough to enjoy it.
“I’ll be all right,” Miriam said, looking up at Jane from under the covers. “I did my research. I’ll get better.”
“I don’t mean to make you feel self-conscious,” Jane replied, “but I am worried.”
“I can’t blame you,” said Miriam. “If I were you, I’d be worried about me, too.”
Jane drew up a chair and sat down beside Miriam. She knew she needed to get back—Smudge wouldn’t nap forever—but at the same time, she felt as if now was not the time to leave her friend.
“You were right to remind me of what my parents did for me,” said Miriam. “I pushed myself too hard, but I denied it. I just want you to understand that everything I did was worth it. And if I had to do more, I would, even if it meant my life.”
As Miriam became agitated, Jane took her hand. “You’ve already given so much. No one could ask more of you.”
“I haven’t given anything! ” cried Miriam, sitting up so quickly she became even paler, to Jane’s dismay. “This is my chance to prove who I am!”
“Shh,” said Jane, “Miriam, please you have to rest. I don’t understand—”
“Don’t you see, Jane? I left! I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to stay. I begged them to reconsider, but when they wouldn’t, I was whiny, I was sour, I was ungrateful . . . and, and . . .”
“And what?”
“And I ran away!” Miriam buried her face in her hands. “I ran away, the night before my train. I ran into the street, I wasn’t even wearing my coat. We were staying with my aunt—my mother’s sister—so I was instantly lost. I turned down one street after another, but it was no use. And then he saw me, a man in the street. He leaned down and said, ‘Hello, little girl, where did you come from?’ I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers so I didn’t say anything, and then I saw his armband . . .” Miriam closed her eyes. “Then my mother found me. She apologized to the man; he asked her a few questions. He spoke to her politely but kept looking at me with this knowing expression, and all I could think about was how I should never have gone outside, should never have disobeyed, how I should have listened, never complained, but it was too late.”
Jane was surprised to hear that Miriam was ever capable of such childish mischief, but she didn’t want to interrupt with a comment. Miriam was clearly telling her this story for a reason. “What happened then?”
“He watched where we were going. We walked the wrong way and then a very long way back as my mother scolded me for being so irresponsible and reckless and selfish. We were to have had a special dinner that night, my mother, my father, my aunt, and me, but instead we ate at the train station and spent the night there. I slept sitting up between my parents, and in the morning the last thing my mother said to me was ‘Just try better to keep your head in difficult situations, Miriam. There won’t always be someone around to rescue you.’ ”
“That’s all she said to you?” Jane asked. Miriam had never spoken much about her home life before coming to England; Jane now understood why. “Not ‘I love you,’ or ‘Be safe,’ or—”
“That’s what she meant,” said Miriam, almost defensively. “I know she did. She kissed me, and so did my father . . . but neither said they forgave me, and I was too afraid to ask. That was the last time I saw them alive—and that was their last memory of me, too. I could never write them back when they wrote to me. I could never tell them that I’d listened, that I’d changed. Because I did change, Jane! I tried to rescue them . . . and when I realized I couldn’t, I tried to avenge them . . .”
Jane kicked off her shoes and slid into bed next to her friend, holding her as she’d used to when they were small.
“Edith would have told them what a wonderful young woman you’d become. She must have been in touch with them for a time.”
Miriam nodded. “I know; I’ve thought that too, but I wanted to tell them. I wanted . . .”
And she was crying then, sobbing into Jane’s cardigan as they held one another. Jane cried too, for Miriam, for the world—and for her mother, who might be just as lost.
How long had Jane coveted the approval Nancy lavished upon Miriam; how long had she resented Miriam’s ability to take joy in it, when she, Jane, was so overlooked. Now she realized how selfish she’d been. Her own desire for approval was one thing, and Nancy’s refusal another. But none of that had to do with Miriam. Frankly, it sounded like Nancy’s admiration had been something new to Miriam; perhaps her friend’s relationship with her own mother had been as fraught as Jane’s was with Nancy.
“I’m sorry,” said Jane. She meant to say a lot with that apology, and it seemed Miriam understood.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. Jane squeezed her tighter.
MIRIAM HAD FALLEN ASLEEP, but Smudge was sitting up when Jane got back. He had an expectant air about him.
“Did you miss me?” asked Jane, speaking to the cat as she always did. “Here I am. Miriam and I got to talking, like we used to. It was nice.”
It was all true. Jane thought she saw Smudge relax as she undressed for bed and shimmied into her nightgown.
But she saw something else too: Smudge’s shadow also stared at her with impossible, narrowed eyes—eyes that disappeared the moment she turned around to give the cat a good-night kiss on the nose.