Honesty pressed himself against the side of the carriage, his eyes flitting anxiously from man to man as they climbed into the vehicle’s cabin.

The engine coughed and grumbled.

Arundell exclaimed, “Got it!” and joined his companions, pulling the groundsman inside with him.

Swinburne and Monckton Milnes didn’t enter, but climbed up to drive the vehicle, setting it into motion as soon as the passenger door had been pulled shut.

Eliphas Levi raised his voice over the rumbling of the rain on the wooden roof. “Monsieur Honesty, there is no danger. That man, he was the fugitive Monsieur Arundell told you of, and Sir Richard here is an agent of His Majesty the King. You witness a thing very terrible, but not murder. Non! Not murder!”

“What, then? You drove a stake through the man’s heart!”

“Oui, it was necessary, but to explain, ah, that is a difficult thing.”

“Not now,” Arundell interrupted. “In the name of God, not now! I can’t stand any more of it.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “Tom, we are all traumatised. Rest this afternoon and come to the house before the church service tomorrow morning. We’ll give you a full account.”

Honesty looked searchingly at his employer’s face then gave a reluctant nod.

The landau slid and rocked its way along the path, stopped at the lodge, where the groundsman got off, then continued on to the manor, and into the vehicle shed.

An hour later, the men, having washed and changed into dry clothing, met in the smoking room. They’d missed lunch but had no appetite for anything but fortifying brandies and comforting cigars and pipes.

Burton was withdrawn, his thought processes paralysed, an intolerable constriction gripping his heart, but in his room he’d swallowed half a bottle of Saltzmann’s Tincture, and now, when he downed a brandy in a single gulp, its warmth permeated out from his stomach and didn’t stop. He felt it course through his arteries, branch off into the veins, spread through the capillaries, and bleed into the surface of his skin, spreading and flattening and reconnecting him with the exterior world.

Like Time. Dividing, dividing, dividing, until all its many filaments become indistinguishable from one another, the consequences of decisions—made and unmade—taken to their ultimate limits then conflated, unconstrained by context, fully perceptible from every possible perspective.

The unity of multiplicity.

A new mode of being.

The empty glass slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor.

He realised he was standing by the fireplace and the others were looking at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Clumsy.”

Henry Arundell rang for one of his clockwork footmen and instructed it to clean up the fragments.

“You and me both, Richard,” he said. “My hands won’t stop shaking.”

“A shock prolonged, it is very damaging,” Levi said. “So we must proceed intrépide—undaunted—though it hurt us bad. We act fast and cure this disease before it spread far.”

Swinburne said, “What should we do, monsieur?”

Levi addressed Arundell. “Your family, they are in the chapel, oui? Standing vigil over Mademoiselle Isabel?”

“Yes.”

“Just before dark come, you must remove them.”

“That won’t be difficult. They’ll need to eat and sleep.” Arundell raised his hands to his head and dug his fingers into his hair. “But, Mother of God, no! I know the deviltry you intend, sir, and I’ll not have my daughter’s body so violated without absolute proof that she’s become the thing you claim!”

Burton interjected, “Despite everything I’ve seen, I agree. You’ll not lay a finger on her, Levi, not unless she—” He swayed and grabbed at the mantelpiece for support. “Not unless she rises before my eyes.”

Levi considered the bowl of his pipe. “Then we must witness more horreur, que Dieu nous protège!” He addressed Arundell. “In my room, monsieur, there is a tall floor mirror. You have many such in the house?”

“One in every bedroom.”

“C’est fortuit. Will you have them all put in the chapel? C’est nécessaire.”

“Very well.”

Arundell’s haunted eyes fixed upon the objects beside the occultist’s chair: the second stake, the mallet, and the axe.

He poured himself another brandy.

At six o’clock, Arundell went to the chapel to relieve his family of their vigil, telling them he would sit through the night with his daughter.

His wife, Blanche, Smythe Piggott, the cousins Rudolph and Jack, and Uncle Renfric joined Burton, Swinburne, Monckton Milnes, and Levi in the dining room. The Birds and Beetons joined them, having spent much of the day since breakfast sitting with Sadhvi Raghavendra, helping to write letters, taking down the decorations, and arranging flowers all over the house.

The meal was a perfunctory affair. Halfway through it, Mrs. Arundell made tearful apologies and retired to her room, and afterwards the family members were quick to disperse, all exhausted by their grief.

Blanche hung back, clinging to Burton’s arm. “Richard—that this should happen at such a time. I am so sorry.”

“We’ve both suffered a dreadful loss,” he replied. “I wish I could somehow comfort you, Blanche, but it’s all I can do to keep myself standing. I don’t know what words I can offer.”

“I have my faith and my Bible. At times like this, religion proves its worth. I would be comforted if you would finally realise the value of it, too.”

His eyes met hers and she flinched at the smouldering anger in them. He said, “I’m afraid, if anything, I’m being pushed rather in the opposite direction.”

A tear rolled down Blanche’s cheek. She took his hand, squeezed it, and left the room.

Burton turned to his companions. “Let’s get this over and done with.”

They waited for Levi to retrieve the tools then followed Burton out into the hallway and along a number of passages to All Saints Chapel, which was incorporated into the west wing of New Wardour Castle, being undetectable from the outside. Semicircular at both ends, almost a hundred feet long, forty wide, and forty high, it was remarkably sumptuous, painted white with gold fittings and decorated with many paintings and vestments.

Leading the group along the aisle between the pews, Burton approached the chancel. He saw Henry Arundell sitting beside an open coffin, which was on a catafalque in front of the altar. The explorer mounted two steps and looked down into the casket.

The chapel fell away, as if rapidly sinking into a dark chasm. He felt hands grabbing him beneath the arms; heard Monckton Milnes’s distant cry of, “Richard!”

There was deep shadow, a confusion of memories and sensations. He smelled the spice-laden air of Zanzibar; listened to parakeets bizarrely cursing him in English; saw his reflection in the facets of a black gemstone; tasted blood.

Nurse! By God! Don’t lose him!

Stand aside, sir. Move! At once!

Is it another attack? His heart?

Will you please get out of my way? How am I supposed to do my job with you breathing down my neck?

He opened his eyes, looked up at Swinburne, and said, “It’s all right. Just a momentary dizziness. Not my heart.”

“No one thought it was,” the poet answered.

“I heard them say so.”

“No. You must have imagined it. The shock hit you hard—you fainted.”

Burton sat up and looked at Henry Arundell. “Why, sir? Why is she in her wedding dress?”

“It’s what she would have wanted, Richard. In the eight years since she met you, she desired only to be your wife. She talked about it incessantly. We thought it appropriate that she be interred in the dress.”

With help from Swinburne and Levi, Burton got to his feet and looked into the coffin again. Isabel lay motionless, white, with silver coins covering her eyes and her hands crossed over her chest. A rosary was wound about her fingers.