“There’s the blood of another on you, though. I smell a spatter or two, underneath your own. You didn’t come down here without a fight, did you? And who was your tormenter?” An inhalation, this one drawn deep inside of him as if his lungs were digesting the air.

“Ahhhh . . . Heedson, you are a vile thing.”

Grace rested her head against the stone wall, letting the cool fingers of the stone sink into her temple as his words flowed over her, drawing her into a deep calm.

“There’s your voice, love. It’s small and cold, tucked down under all else. I can smell it, like a river stone it is. Smoothed out and polished into a nothing it’s jammed down under something else . . . something hot. There’s a touch of brimstone in you, there is. And it’s putting up the smoke that’s got your voice trapped underneath.

“And the smoke and the—” Another sniff. “The sweat. Your anger sweated you out. It’s gone and opened up all your pores, and I can smell that dainty lavender soap you used to use, though I imagine it was a good long while ago.

“What a shock you’ve had. Taken from that world into this. You used to move about in light and lavender, with the laughter pouring from you, and now it’s all blood and darkness, with your throat closed so tight your own breath is choking you.”

The truth of his words wrapped around her, and Grace gasped for air, letting it out in a deep rush as if to release the smoke he spoke of and give her voice freedom.

“That’s right, keep doing it. The in and the out of the air. Your lungs know the job, know it well enough to do it without being told, and likely won’t stop even if you want them to. You’re alive, girl. And it’s been a good long while since I’ve had an interesting person in the darkness with me. And you’ll stay alive, for Falsteed is not about to let those that have the brimstone in them die while he’s near. No, not me.”

There was a scraping noise of wood against rock and something nudged against her foot in the filth. “Grab the end of that, and feel about on the wall in the corner. There’s a bit of rock that sticks out just enough to rest the board against. I’ll put the other end on my knees and take the weight of you on myself, for the night. You’ve got to get out of the muck, your lower parts anyway. There’s dirt and filth ankle-deep everywhere down here. The last fellow that had that cell was none too gracious about using his bucket. That’s not only mud you’re wallowing in.”

Grace felt around for the board poking at her toes and found the ridge in the wall easily. She felt the other end of the board lift along with her as she put it in place, rain trickling over her fingers. Her hands came away with the sweet smell of outdoors, only slightly fouled by the cellar walls. She pressed her hands against her face, the rainwater cooling her swollen eyes.

She sat on her makeshift bench and felt it settle on Falsteed’s end as he adjusted for taking her weight on his knees. Grace curled into the corner of her cold darkness, resting against the wall and feeling the rain seep through the rocks. Her eyelids sank and she felt her jaw fall slack right before sleep brought the darkness from outside into her mind.

As she settled into its comfortable grip she heard Falsteed’s voice once more. “Dear child, do you even know all the rage that is inside you?”

EIGHT

Whether her eyes were open or closed, she could not tell. Sleep and reality melted together until she saw a streak of light in the darkness, a cascade of blond hair that flowed over a white linen pillowcase leading to a pair of bright blue eyes. Grace’s memory provided the details, down to the pattern of broken blood vessels in the whites of her little sister’s eyes, red from crying.

“Alice,” Grace said, the name slipping through the slit between her teeth. “Alice. You can’t be here. You don’t belong in the darkness.”

Her sister smiled, the pearly white of her childish teeth bright against the pinkness of her lips. But it was Falsteed’s baritone that came from her mouth, bringing with it a swirl of black that pulled her to consciousness.

“Wake up, love. Reed’s brought you clean clothing. Heedson fancies that Reed’s our jailer, and though he may collect an asylum paycheck, I’ve given him something more than money in the past. You can trust him.”

A flicker of light caused her to cover her eyes, the anonymity of the dark lost.

“S’all right, then, girl.” A new voice came from behind the lantern. “I’ve not come to look upon ya. Come and take the clothes I’ve snatched up, and you can toss the old once yer decent.”

Grace stretched her legs hesitantly, feet sinking ankle-deep into muck before finding the stone beneath. She heard Falsteed shift in the cell next to hers as her weight came off the board, both knees popping audibly. A hand beckoned to her from behind the lantern, and she approached cautiously, eyes still shaded against the light.

“C’mere then, and back to the shadows with you for the dressing part.”

Grace’s fingers closed over the clothing, the dryness of the fabric drawing a sigh from her as she took it. Back to the darkness of the corner, she let the filthy sheet fall away, wadding it into a pile at her feet. The clean clothes fell over her shoulders, fitting awkwardly around the new laxness of her belly, empty without the life she’d come to know.

“Step out into Reed’s light, love,” Falsteed’s voice directed her from his cell. “Let me see your color.”

Grace did so, though Falsteed remained anonymous in the dark, light flickering off the iron bars that separated them. “Well enough, then,” he grunted. “You’ve not got a fever. Reed, take the filthy clothes out and come back with a stool, if you can pilfer one. I don’t think a bite of food would come amiss to the girl, either.”

“Grace,” she said, her name bubbling up from her mouth into the dimly cast rays of Reed’s light. She spoke toward Falsteed’s voice, her own stretching out wearily toward his to bridge the gap. “My name is Grace.”

“Hello, Grace,” Falsteed said, a smile evident in the twist of his words. “And welcome to my asylum.”

Silence hung in the air while she reasserted her grip on the smoothly polished river rock that he had called her voice. She found it, the words tripping over it roughly as they scratched their way upward. “Your asylum?”

“Yes, love. You’ll find that Reed here keeps me well apprised of the comings and goings above our heads, the matters that happen in the light. Meanwhile, I pull little strings like a cunning spider and wait for the throbs to come back and let me know what’s about. And speaking of what’s about, Reed, how goes the convalescent in the men’s ward?”

“Still not so much of a flicker of his eyelids, sir.”

“And there was no fall, no injury to the head?”

“Not that anyone knows.”

“Next time you get a chance, bring me a clipping of his hair. I’ll give it a whiff. If something’s gone amiss inside his skull, that’ll tell me all I need to know.”

“Yes, sir. And I’ve brought you the pillowcase of the newest, a girl what claims there’s spiders in her blood.”

“Give it here, then.” Falsteed’s hand appeared between the bars, and Reed handed over the linen, his features briefly in the light. Reed wasn’t much older than Grace, but his face was already lined with the weight of life. The sound of Falsteed breathing deeply filled the air, and Grace listened intently for his recommendation, intrigued after he’d learned so much from her scents.

The linen sailed back through the dark, landing neatly into the waiting hands of Reed. “What do you think, Dr. Falsteed? Any hope for her?”

“That one is lost. She not only claims her veins are full of spiders but truly believes it. And once we are convinced of something, no matter how ludicrous, it becomes a fact. If you cut her she’d see eight-legged creatures pour forth rather than a crimson tide, and who is to say that we are only all agreeing on the same perception when we say it is blood, and not arachnids, moving through us?”