We fell asleep to the sounds of the windmill churning outside, arms intertwined. Even in sleep, I didn’t want to let him go. I dreamed of us together in my house on Belgrave Square with children of our own and hallways that always smelled of fresh roses. I dreamed that one day, years from now, it would be safe for us to leave Ballentyne and we’d travel to Paris and New York and Rome.
As I fell deeper into sleep, a different scent reached my nose. Montgomery’s arm suddenly tightened around me, shaking me until I blinked fully awake.
“Do you smell smoke?” he asked, just as screams rang out from beyond the walls.
THIRTY-TWO
WE THREW ON CLOTHES and raced through the hallways toward the sound of the screaming. I nearly slipped on the stairs before Montgomery caught me with quick instincts. Smoke. Screams. What had happened? Had lightning struck the house?
We reached the foyer and spun, trying to find the source of the screams. Footsteps came from the kitchen, where Lily appeared straining under a bucket of water, her eyes glassy with fear.
“It’s the south tower, Miss!” she cried.
The laboratory. We raced up the stairs but a door flung open, startling us. Moira stumbled out of Hensley’s bedroom with smoke billowing behind her. She leaned against the wall, coughing.
“What’s happened?” I said.
She let out a wail and a terrible dread twisted inside me. Hensley’s bedroom. The secret room of rats that I’d told him about last night.
No, no, no . . .
“Is anyone hurt?” Montgomery asked, but I just squeezed my eyes closed. I’d have done anything not to face that room, afraid of what we’d find, and my own role in it.
Moira cried harder. “It’s the mistress,” she choked. “And Hensley too . . .”
I opened my eyes and took a shaky breath. We pushed into Hensley’s chambers, and I froze.
I had expected a raging fire. Charred furniture. Every scrap destroyed.
But everything was exactly as I’d last seen it, untouched by flame, save the smoke billowing toward the ceiling. It came from the secret room where Elizabeth kept Hensley’s rats. The door was cracked open.
“There.” My voice was faint, as I pointed toward the secret room. “In there.”
Montgomery threw open the door. His face went white. “My God.” He tried to block the sight from me. “It must have been an accident. I’m so sorry. Tonight, of all nights . . .”
My head started spinning. Everything felt surreal. “Let me through,” I said, though my own voice sounded distant. “I need to see.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, but it was too late, as I pushed past him. My breath caught, as the lingering smell of smoke hung in the air. The fire had died out. The rats’ cage was completely burned—as were the two human bodies in the center of the room.
They were charred beyond recognition, and yet there was no mistaking them. A woman and a little boy. Hensley and Elizabeth.
Both dead.
My stomach clenched. I doubled over and emptied my stomach onto the floor, again and again. The smoke came from them. The ash in the air was their flesh and blood. I coughed and gagged, but couldn’t get the taste of smoke from my throat.
“Murdered,” Montgomery murmured, and then went rigid. “It must be Radcliffe. He must be here!” He ran to the door. “Moira, fetch Balthazar. Sound the alarm. Radcliffe has found us—”
“No.” I interrupted him. “No, it wasn’t Radcliffe.”
My eyes fell on another small body in the ashes, this one charred but not burned. One of the white rats. A terrible certainty grew as I knelt down and recognized the wounds on its side, made from the procedure to reanimate it.
This was the rat I’d brought back. I had only just told Hensley about it. I had thought the reanimated rat was harmless, and perhaps it was.
But Hensley wasn’t.
“Jack Serra would have alerted us if Radcliffe knew our location,” I whispered, eyes still squeezed tight. I forced myself to stand straight. “It wasn’t an accident, either. Hensley did it.” Moira let out a strangled gasp. “He killed her—look at the way her neck is broken. The same way he strangled the rats.” Guilt flooded me so hard I could barely stand. I’d been so desperate when I’d told Hensley the truth about the rats. I should have known better after he’d killed the Beast, and after those bruises on Elizabeth’s wrist. He must have flown into a rage and killed her, then killed himself when he realized what he’d done.
I sank to my knees, burying my face in my hands. Montgomery stared at the bodies with wide eyes, the idea horrifying. I sank against the wall as a harsh, mad laugh bubbled out of me. “History did repeat itself,” I coughed. “A cursed wedding night. Oh God, just like Victor Frankenstein’s.”
Montgomery’s brow wrinkled, but before I could explain Lucy crashed through the doorway, Balthazar right behind her.
“I smelled smoke . . . ,” she said, and then froze.
Balthazar took one look at the rats crawling around the charred bodies and wrapped her in his arms, squeezed her tight.
“Don’t let her see,” I said. “Take her away from here, Balthazar.”
Lucy sobbed as Balthazar carried her back toward the stairs. Lily came in with the bucket of water, but let it fall when she saw the scene. Frigid water soaked into my slippers.
“Oh God,” she whispered, and sank onto Hensley’s bed.
I took a shaky step closer to the charred bodies, nothing more than ash and bone now. As I knelt, my skirt brushed Elizabeth’s leg and it fell away into black ash. I pulled my hand back. The moment I touched them, they’d disappear into dust.
“She gave us everything,” I said.
“She did,” Montgomery agreed. “She gave you everything. Which means you’re the mistress of Ballentyne now.” He looked back at Hensley’s bedroom, where McKenna held two girls pressed into her skirt to spare them the awful sight. “They’ll be looking to you now for guidance.”
I looked at him helplessly. “Me, guide them?” I dropped my voice to a hushed whisper. “I practically killed their mistress with my own hands, Montgomery. Last night I told Hensley about the rats. That’s what threw him into a rage.”
He hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head and smoothed down my hair to calm me. “He was unpredictable. He’d hurt her before. There’s no telling what might have set him off, today or a month from now. All that matters now is the room full of girls who need you.”