“Lovely, and you can make it half an hour,” he said, smiling, showing too clearly that he’d already had lunch and some of it was still located in his teeth. “I hate to think of you suffering for one second longer than absolutely necessary.”

“That was certainly not our man,” Thornhollow declared, once they were back in the carriage. “Though I’d like to give him a sound drubbing anyway. Not interested in treating a girl he’s never seen until he likes the sight of her.” He shook his head, talking only to himself. “A disgrace to the Hippocratic oath.”

Grace rapped his knee with her knuckles as they slid to a halt once again. “Our next stop, Doctor.”

“I’m going to lose my faith in humanity before the day is over, Grace, mark my words,” he said as they descended to the street.

So it continued in office after office, until the dirt of the streets covered Grace’s boots and her plea of a headache was no longer a lie. They played their parts, each dissecting the man they spoke with the second they saw him and comparing notes as the carriage took them to their next destination. Not once did they find a doctor who was noticeably flustered by Grace, and Thornhollow’s patience stretched as thin as her smile.

“Dammit,” he bellowed, tossing the paper on the floor of the carriage as they headed toward home. “A whole day spent trying to prove our theory and all I have for it is twelve doses of medicine I don’t need.”

“I do,” Grace said, hands to her temples.

“I’m sorry for shouting,” he apologized. “I’ve had such a day in town it’s a lovely relief to return to the asylum.”

“It is,” she agreed, pulling pins free and letting her hair tumble loose, scars on display as the wet air from the lake filled her lungs. “It truly is.”

TWENTY-ONE

Grace’s letters were waiting on her nightstand when she went to bed. The pages had been soaked through by Nell’s would-be alligator attack, and Grace had been terrified that they would fall apart in her hands if she didn’t let them dry thoroughly. The pages fluttered in the night breeze as she reached for them, her heart leaping at the sight of her younger sister’s handwriting.

Fair Lily—

The breeze brought me your letter. I don’t know that I would’ve gone looking for it otherwise, it has been so long since we played. I am glad you came back.

Do you remember my sister, Grace? She has died. Mother and Father say that a sickness killed her on a boat when she went on a trip. I miss her. She would always play with me and tell me everything would be all right, though it looks like she was wrong.

Father tries to comfort me. He even let me sit on his lap the other day, although Mother said I’m much too big to be doing that sort of thing now. Mother put my hair up in curls to try to cheer me up, but when Father said I looked very pretty she got angry and pulled it all out again. It hurt and I had to cry, and Mother didn’t let me come down to dinner and I don’t know why.

I miss Grace and I miss you.

Write back—

Alice

Grace’s fingers shook as she refolded Alice’s letter, placed it under her pillow, and turned to Falsteed’s.

Dearest Grace—

From one asylum to another, greetings. Enclosed you will find a letter that Reed retrieved for you. I gave it a good sniff before entrusting it to him. Your sister has the smell of innocence about her still, and the whiff of purity that came from your presence may indeed have been due to your close proximity to her. But I choose to believe otherwise.

You say I am a good person who has done bad things. You are a good person who has had bad things done to her, which is a different situation altogether. Do not sell yourself so short in assuming that the darkness inside you cannot be overcome, or that your only path to redemption lies with the footsteps of Thornhollow. There is more to you than beauty. There is more to you than strength. There is more to you than intelligence. You are a whole person, and I would have you treat yourself as such.

Falsteed

Grace’s sob took her by surprise as her tears fell on Falsteed’s declaration that Alice remained innocent. “Thank God,” she said quietly to herself as a night rain began to fall outside. “Thank God.”

Grace slammed her hands over her mouth before she realized that the screams that had awoken her were not her own. Pulse racing, she listened with the rest of the wing’s inhabitants to see if it would happen again. And it did. A piercing wail that floated up through the floorboards, its maker unrecognizable in her grief. Footsteps shuffled in rooms all around her and doors creaked open, hushed voices seeking answers as lamps were lit.

“What’s happened?”

“Who is it?”

“Where’s it coming from?”

Grace lay still in her bed, willing her heart to a steady rhythm before joining them.

“It’s comin’ from down under me own room. Luck o’ the Irish, my arse,” Nell’s voice joined the throng and Grace slipped through her door to see a cluster of familiar faces gathered together.

“Under your room?” a tall woman named Rebecca said. “That’d be the widow Jacobs.”

Another shriek reached the group, trailing off into a series of racking sobs that made Grace’s throat ache.

“That old loon?” Nell said. “Christ, she’s a case, sure enough. Best get used to it, lassies. We’ll be up the rest o’ the night.”

“Nell,” Elizabeth chided. “That’s no way to speak.”

“I can’t help me accent.”

“You know what I mean,” Elizabeth bit back, more harshly than usual, her hand clamped firmly in the thin air beside her hair. “Something’s gone horribly wrong.”

“Oh, really?” Nell asked. “And what does String know about it?”

Elizabeth twisted her hand furtively, uncomfortable under the hungry stares of the others. “It’s not my place to say.”

“You do know, then?” Rebecca asked, raising her oil lamp higher and peering at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth’s eyes bounced from one face to another, and Grace felt a stab of pity. She tugged on Nell’s elbow just as the door at the end of the hallway opened. Janey’s hair was down and loose, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

“All right, ladies, back to bed, back to bed,” she said, her voice still carrying authority even though she was wearing a nightgown. “Nothing to get upset about.”

“Somebody who sleeps in the room under me own doesn’t think so,” Nell disagreed, arms crossed in front of her. “She was verra upset indeed.”

“Is it Mrs. Jacobs?” Rebecca asked.

Elizabeth only fretted at the air beside her ear, fingers entwined in something invisible.

Janey looked at the circle of faces and sighed. “All right then, if it’ll get you back in your beds. Her daughter’s died, and the police have just been to tell her.”

“And her just a wee lass,” Nell said, real sadness in her voice. “Tha’s a terrible thing to hear.”

“She’s not,” Rebecca said. “Her daughter’s a full-grown woman, same as me. I’ve seen her when she comes to visit. Unless there’s more than the one?”

“Mad or not, yer dense as can be,” Nell said. “’Ave ye not ’eard the woman speaking of ’er lass like she’s just a bairn? Goes on about ’ow she cries all the night till ’er mum brings ’er a drink.”

“Ladies,” Janey said, her voice bringing a halt to the argument. “Mrs. Jacobs has just the one daughter, if I must say so to end this ridiculousness.”

“She walks on ’er own two legs and still cries for ’er mum in the night?” Nell said incredulously. “Sounds like she’d be better off in ’ere with the likes of us.”

“Except she’s dead,” Elizabeth reminded her. “And Mrs. Jacobs chooses to think of her as a child because it’s easier than recognizing the adult she’s become.”