Then glass shattered as the lantern slammed against his shoulder. Oil splashed, and with an eager crackle, fire bloomed across the front of his ill-fitting suit. The heat scorched Elisabeth’s skin; crying out, she dropped the lantern. Mr. Hob staggered backward and stared uncomprehendingly at the licks of blue flame rippling across his chest. Finally, it occurred to him to shrug off his jacket. He smacked the remaining fire out with a clumsy hand.

“Mercy,” Elisabeth implored.

“I’m trying! I’m almost . . .” Mercy’s key scraped against the lock. Her hands shook violently, missing again and again. Meanwhile Mr. Hob advanced on them, his jacket smoking on the ground behind him. He took a step forward. Another. And then the lock clicked, and the gate clanged open, shedding flakes of rust.

Elisabeth shoved Mercy through first, then darted after. When she shoved the gate closed behind them, it wouldn’t close all the way—it had jammed on something yielding. Mr. Hob’s hand. He stared at them unblinkingly through the iron bars as his purple skin began to bubble and steam. Elisabeth threw her weight against the gate, muscles straining against Mr. Hob’s resistance. The soles of her boots scraped across the pavement. He was too strong.

From beside her, there came an unexpected shout. A stone flew through the air and crushed Mr. Hob’s knuckles with a wet, nauseating crunch. He snatched his hand back, and the gate rang out as it slammed shut. The latch fell into place automatically.

Elisabeth stumbled away and traded a wide-eyed look with Mercy, who clearly couldn’t believe what she had just done. Mr. Hob stood there, watching them, as if unsure what to do next.

“We’re safe now,” Elisabeth whispered. “He can’t get past the iron. And I don’t think he’s smart enough to figure out another way around.”

Mercy didn’t answer, too busy shuddering and taking gulps of air, her hands braced on her thighs. Elisabeth looked around. The gate had let them out in an alleyway behind a row of narrow, dreary brick buildings. Their curtains were closed, and there weren’t any lights on inside. “Come on,” she said, taking Mercy’s arm. She led her out of sight of Mr. Hob and sat her down on an overturned crate.

“What did he want?” Mercy asked through her fingers.

Elisabeth hesitated. She could explain everything. She could ask Mercy to help her—to testify against Ashcroft. But who would believe her? She now understood that the world wasn’t kind to young women, especially when they behaved in ways men didn’t like, and spoke truths that men weren’t ready to hear. No one would listen to Mercy, just as no one had listened to her.

She crouched in front of the other girl, coming to a decision. “Listen. It was me the demon wanted, not you. Wait until the coach leaves, and then you can return to the hospital. Mr. Hob—the demon—he won’t come back for you.” She closed her eyes and took a breath. “When people ask what happened, tell them I attacked you, and you had no choice but to help me escape. Say that a man chased us, a human man, dressed as a butler. Don’t mention anything strange about him. And tell them that I was . . . that I was like a wild animal. That I didn’t even know my own name.”

She suspected that it wouldn’t matter to Ashcroft whether she was rotting in Leadgate Hospital or starving on the streets. As long as he believed her mind had been destroyed, and he appeared to have done his best to help the poor, hysterical girl in his care, he would let the matter drop in favor of focusing on his plans.

“But you saved my life,” Mercy protested.

“I’m the reason your life was in danger in the first place. Trust me. It’s better this way.” Elisabeth wrapped her arms around herself, wondering how much she could reveal. “You don’t want to cross the man that demon serves,” she settled on at last. “If he thinks you know something you shouldn’t, he won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

Mercy nodded. To Elisabeth’s dismay, she didn’t look surprised. For her, men who wanted to hurt girls was simply the natural order of things.

“I’m glad you’ve gotten away from Leadgate.” Mercy lifted her gaze and met Elisabeth’s eyes with her own, sad brown ones. “You can’t imagine what kind of place it is. Wealthy people pay money to come gawp at the patients here—to sympathize with the plight of the unfortunates, or some such rubbish. Sometimes . . . sometimes they pay for other things, too. The matron makes good money off it. Speaking of which—here.” She reached into her pocket and pressed something hard and cold into Elisabeth’s palm. A coin.

Elisabeth struggled to find words around the lump in her throat. She couldn’t think of what to say, so instead she pulled Mercy into a tight embrace.

Mercy laughed, surprised. “Now I’ll look dirty enough to say you attacked me.”

“Thank you,” Elisabeth whispered. She gave Mercy one last squeeze, and then let go and ran before the tears prickling the backs of her eyes had a chance to spill over.

She dodged past piles of rubbish and plunged down a steep cobblestone avenue. This time of night, the streets were all but empty. She doubted it was necessary to run, but every time she slowed she saw Warden Finch sneering at her, or a man’s hands full of leather straps, or the Chancellor’s charming smile. She paused at a corner to be sick, and then kept going. She didn’t stop until she was forced to: she reached a promenade looking out over the river, and caught herself against the rail.

The sleeping city looked like an illusion spun from fairy lights. Pointed spires reared glittering into shadow, the statues atop them cutting shapes from the stars. Columns of gold shimmered on the black water beneath. Nearby the Bridge of Saints flickered with gaslight, its somber statues like a procession of mourners crossing the river, memorializing the passing of some long-dead king. The wind tangled her hair, smelling of soot and algae and the wild, endless expanse of night sky.

She stared across the shining city, ancient, impossibly vast, and wondered how all that light and beauty could exist side by side with so much darkness. She had never felt smaller or more insignificant. But finally, for the first time in weeks, she was free.

SIXTEEN

“THERE MUST BE some mistake,” Elisabeth said to the freckled boy behind the counter. “Master Hargrove has known me my entire life. He wouldn’t send this reply.”

The paper shook between her fingers. The terse message read only, We have no record of an apprentice named Elisabeth Scrivener at the Great Library of Summershall. Underneath, in lieu of a signature, someone had stamped the Collegium’s crossed key and quill. That meant the letter had been written by a warden, even though she had addressed it to Hargrove.

The clerk looked sympathetic, but his eyes kept darting nervously to the glass front of the post office. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t know what to tell you.”

The paper blurred as she attempted to focus. This was wrong. Surely she was—she was—

“It’s Finch, the new Director,” she heard herself say. “He must have intercepted my letter. He’s stripped me from the records. . . .”

Someone cleared his throat nearby. Elisabeth glanced over her shoulder in time to see the well-dressed gentleman in line behind her whisper something to his wife, both of them eyeing Elisabeth with a combination of disapproval and unease.