“She did indeed,” said Miss Wren, puffing beside me. “She is—or was, I should say—apprenticed to the minister of obfuscation and deferment, and was here performing her duties on the day the corrupted raided the building. At the time she knew little of her power other than that her hands radiated unnatural cold. To hear Althea tell it, her ability was the sort of thing that came in useful during hot summer days, but which she’d never thought of as a defense weapon until two hollows began devouring the minister before her very eyes. In mortal fear, she called upon a well of power previously unknown to her, froze the room—and the hollows—and then the entire building, all in the space of a few minutes.”
“Minutes!” Emma said. “I don’t believe it.”
“I rather wish I’d been here to witness it,” said Miss Wren, “though if I had, I likely would’ve been kidnapped along with the other ymbrynes who were present at the time—Miss Nightjar, Miss Finch, and Miss Crow.”
“Her ice didn’t stop the wights?” I asked.
“It stopped many of them,” said Miss Wren. “Several are still with us, I imagine, frozen in the building’s recesses. But despite their losses, the wights ultimately got what they came for. Before the entire building froze, they managed to secrete the ymbrynes out through the roof.” Miss Wren shook her head bitterly. “I swear on my life, one day I’ll personally escort all those that hurt my sisters to Hell.”
“All that power she has didn’t do any good at all, then,” said Enoch.
“Althea wasn’t able to save the ymbrynes,” Miss Wren said, “but she made this place, and that’s blessing enough. Without it we’d have no refuge anywhere. I’ve been using it as our base of operations for the past few days, bringing back survivors from raided loops as I come across them. This is our fortress, the only safe place for peculiars in all of London.”
“And what of your efforts, madam?” said Millard. “The dog said you came here to help your sisters. Have you had any luck?”
“No,” she said quietly. “My efforts have not been successful.”
“Maybe Jacob can help you, Miss Wren,” Olive said. “He’s very special.”
Miss Wren looked sideways at me. “Is that so? And what is your talent, young man?”
“I can see hollows,” I said, a little embarrassed. “And sense them.”
“And kill them, sometimes,” added Bronwyn. “If we hadn’t found you, Miss Wren, Jacob was going to help us slip past the hollows that guard the punishment loops, so that we could rescue one of the ymbrynes being held there. In fact, maybe he could help you …”
“That’s kind of you,” said Miss Wren, “but my sisters are not being held in the punishment loops, or anywhere near London, I’m sure.”
“They aren’t?” I said.
“No, and they never were. That business about the punishment loops was a ruse concocted to ensnare those ymbrynes whom the corrupted weren’t able to capture in their raids. Namely, myself. And it nearly worked. Like a fool, I flew right into their trap—the punishment loops are prisons, after all! I’m lucky to have escaped with only a few scars to show for it.”
“Then where were the kidnapped ymbrynes taken?” asked Emma.
“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew, because it’s none of your concern,” Miss Wren said. “It isn’t the duty of peculiar children to worry for the welfare of ymbrynes—it’s ours to worry for yours.”
“But, Miss Wren, that’s hardly fair,” Millard began, but she cut him short with a curt “I won’t hear anything else about it!” and that was that.
I was shocked by this sudden dismissal, especially considering that if we hadn’t worried about Miss Peregrine’s welfare—and risked our lives to bring her here!—she would’ve been condemned to spend the rest of her days trapped in the body of a bird. So it did seem like our duty to worry, since the ymbrynes had clearly not done a good enough job worrying to keep their loops from being raided. I didn’t like being talked down to that way, and judging from Emma’s knitted brow, she didn’t, either—but to have said so would’ve been unthinkably rude, so we finished our climb in awkward silence.
We came to the top of the stairs. Only a few of the doorways on this level were iced over. Miss Wren took Miss Peregrine from Horace and said, “Come on, Alma, let’s see what can be done for you.”
Althea appeared in an open door, her face flushed, chest heaving. “Your room’s all ready, mistress. Everything you asked for.”
“Good, good,” said Miss Wren.
“If we can do anything to help you,” Bronwyn said, “anything at all …”
“All I need is time and quiet,” Miss Wren replied. “I’ll save your ymbryne, young ones. On my life I will.” And she turned and took Miss Peregrine into the room with Althea.
Not knowing what else to do with ourselves, we drifted after her and congregated around the door, which had been left open a crack. We took turns peeking inside. In a cozy room dimly lit by oil lamps, Miss Wren sat in a rocking chair holding Miss Peregrine in her lap. Althea stood mixing vials of liquid at a lab table. Every so often she’d lift a vial and swirl it, then walk to Miss Peregrine and pass it under her beak—much the way smelling salts are waved under the nose of someone who’s fainted. All the while, Miss Wren rocked in the chair and stroked Miss Peregrine’s feathers, singing her a soft, lilting lullaby:
“Eft kaa vangan soorken, eft ka vangan soorken, malaaya …”
“That’s the tongue of the old peculiars,” Millard whispered.
“Come home, come home … remember your true self … something like that.”
Miss Wren heard him and looked up, then waved us away. Althea crossed the room and shut the door.
“Well, then,” said Enoch. “I can see we’re not wanted here.”
After three days of the headmistress depending on us for everything, we had suddenly become extraneous. Though we were grateful to Miss Wren, she’d made us all feel a bit like children who’d been ordered to bed.
“Miss Wren knows her business,” came a Russian-accented voice from behind us. “Best leave her to it.”
We turned to see the stick-thin folding man from the carnival, standing with his bony arms crossed.