“Which room?”
“The healer’s room,” he said blithely, then looked a little guilty as he turned to me.
Mr. Kent looked at Miss Molly and raised his eyebrows without asking the question.
She answered anyway. “That man, he paid for her services first. Then came in here to attack another patron. A gentleman it was. Thomas Cox was his name.”
We turned back around and knocked on the healer’s door. Miss Molly had some words with her and then we were let into the dim bedroom. Two women were in there, one dressed like a nurse, albeit an underdressed one, the other a pretty redhead adjusting her smart little hat in the mirror. “Be a good gent and tell me all your secrets,” she practiced to herself.
“My God, it’s the perfect woman,” Mr. Kent uttered. “But the attire, it’s all wrong.”
As Mr. Kent went to go flirt with the female version of himself, Laura and Emily giggled at the bed. Oh Lord. We were corrupting poor Laura. What was Mr. Kent thinking?
Mr. Adeoti gingerly touched the bed frame and then various places on the wooden floor. He slowly made his way over to a small pile of soiled bedsheets in the corner of the room. His face turned even redder as he set one finger on the edge of a sheet and stared steadily at the ceiling. No one needed to ask what he was seeing because it was written all over his face.
“For the love of England don’t repeat anything … indecent,” I said. “But do you have any sense of where he’d go? Or what else he wants?”
“Well, he killed that Thomas Cox last night for Captain Goode, and they did intend for it to be blamed on Mr. Braddock,” Mr. Adeoti said, shaking his head sadly.
“What motive were they going to ascribe to him?” I asked.
“Well, the man seems to have been some minor aristocrat—” Mr. Adeoti began.
“Baronet.” Miss Molly crossed her arms and stared at all of us suspiciously.
“Indeed. And they, well…” He looked sheepishly at Sebastian. “They want to make it seem like Mr. Braddock is especially dangerous to aristocrats.”
“But … Captain Goode is the one who feels that way!” I was shaking with anger, my fingers vibrating against my skirt, clenched in my fists.
“Bastard,” Miss Chen said, her jaw tense and eyes furious. “Burned the man alive for nothing.”
“On the bright side, he was probably in the worst agony for only a few seconds,” Mr. Adeoti offered. “And then he likely felt nothing.”
“I don’t suppose this Jarsdel happened to leave anything behind here?” Mr. Kent asked.
“He did,” the girl pretending to be a healer was compelled to say, looking unhappy about it. She looked nothing like me, of course, but knowing that she was pretending to be … well, me, in a way, was still disconcerting.
And knowing that the general public was titillated by that was far worse. My stomach gave a little roll.
“And what wonderful piece of evidence did he leave behind?”
“The watch,” she answered, looking at Mr. Kent’s pretender.
The girl sighed and reached into her reticule, pulling out a watch.
“He didn’t tell me the truth,” she explained boldly, putting up her chin a little, as though daring us to challenge her.
“You must not have asked the right questions.” Mr. Kent chucked her chin and handed the watch over to Mr. Adeoti.
“The British Museum, a Lord Lister,” Mr. Adeoti said, eyes closed, then they flew open. “He’s planning to attack a board member this morning, making it look like Mr. Braddock is on a killing spree.”
“If he hasn’t already,” Miss Chen said, glancing out the window for a sign.
“This Mr. Jarsdel,” Sebastian asked. “Does he have red hair, a rather bushy beard? A scar?” Sebastian sounded far too knowledgeable about this person.
Mr. Adeoti nodded throughout. “On his forehead.”
I turned to Sebastian. “You know this man?”
“I do. The Society sent six of us to capture him,” Sebastian replied. “And that was when he wasn’t enhanced.”
* * *
It took twenty minutes to reach the British Museum, most of which Mr. Kent spent persuading Laura to wait for us in the carriage with Tuffins and that she wouldn’t be missing a secret brothel hidden inside the reading room.
As we crossed the open courtyard toward the grand portico entrance and the imposing Greek columns, Sebastian turned to Mr. Adeoti.
“Mr. Jarsdel’s power isn’t fire, exactly, is it?” he asked.
“Indeed, Mr. Braddock, it’s connected to the sun.”
“And that makes it worse, I assume?” Miss Chen asked.
Mr. Adeoti nodded. “He’s stronger in the sunlight. He can also emit a flash that temporarily blinds anyone looking at him, so be sure to cover your eyes.”
“And how do we not get set on fire with our eyes closed?” I asked.
“Oh, you’ll likely be set on fire!” Mr. Adeoti said. “But hopefully we will learn something new today.”
“I suggest hiding,” Sebastian said, his lips pursed.
We reached the front door, where Mr. Adeoti paused for a moment as he held it open for us, his eyes seeing something beyond us. “Mr. Jarsdel’s here. I don’t think he knows exactly where his Lord Lister is, though.”
“Then that gives us the advantage,” Mr. Kent declared as we entered the main vestibule. He stopped at the first attendant we saw and asked if he knew a Lord Lister who was on the board and currently somewhere in the museum. The attendant had no idea.
“A very slight advantage,” Mr. Kent clarified to us.
We moved from room to room, ignoring the thousands of years’ worth of priceless manuscripts, artifacts, and sculptures. Instead, we headed straight for the attendants with the same question ready. Our path took us through a vast library, the Egyptian wing, and a few Greek and Roman rooms until we reached a staircase where Mr. Jarsdel had touched the banister on his way up.
“He didn’t find him on this floor,” Mr. Adeoti said. “He’s just a few minutes ahead.”
“Then we will just have to find him first,” Mr. Kent said, as if it were the simplest thing.
We climbed the stairs and passed through a room dedicated to oriental artifacts and into another Egyptian room.
Before crossing the threshold, I turned around to find Miss Chen looking at something in a glass curio cabinet. By the time I came upon her, she was pulling jewelry out of a perfectly round hole in the glass front.
“You can’t steal things from the museum,” I whispered.
Miss Chen snorted. “How do you think they got here in the first place?”
“I … fine, steal them after we’re done,” I said, quickly plastering a smile on my face as a passing lady gave us a strange look.
“Excuse me, miss, what is it you have there?” a voice behind us asked with the tone of someone who definitely knew what we had there.
Standing by a cabinet at the entrance was a short, dapper man, squinting at us in shock through his monocle.
“What is it you have there?” Miss Chen shot back, giddy bewilderment on her face. “I didn’t think you English actually wore those. This is incredible.”
The man looked affronted, especially when his monocle cracked from Miss Chen’s thrilled gaze. He spun around to seek help and found it in Mr. Kent and the rest of our group.
“Ah good, you found him. Lord Lister, yes?” Mr. Kent said.
“Yes, that’s me,” the man answered, looking confused. “But these young ladies, we must fetch the police, they are thieves and—”
“Miss Wyndham, Miss Chen! I never would have thought you had it in you. I am thoroughly impressed.” Mr. Kent winked at us both.
“Now, sir!” Lord Lister began blustering.
“Oh, right, yes. I have some news for you, Lord Lister. Someone is trying to kill you, so I suggest you come with us.”
Lord Lister stared at us, trying to suss out the joke, then frowning when he saw everyone�
�s serious faces. “Who are you? Who is … trying to kill me?”
“Imagine a sun,” Mr. Kent said. “But it’s grown arms and legs and a torso and has decided it doesn’t like you very much.”
Lord Lister stared helplessly. “I … don’t have a son.…”
“Mr. Kent, you’re confusing him more,” I hissed, pushing our group into the Egyptian room, toward an exit. “Let’s go.”
“If I were told the sun wanted to kill me, I’d be on my way and save the questions for later.”
“I can’t imagine you ever saving questions for later,” I replied.
“Is that the sun … man?” Lord Lister interceded, pointing to the other end of the room.
We followed his gaze to a red-haired man walking straight for us, flames rapidly growing in both his hands.
“Oh, very likely, well done, you!” Mr. Kent said.
“Get Lister away,” Sebastian told me, cracking his knuckles. “And keep him healed.”
He took a deep breath and a slow step away from me. Then another. And then he turned and darted around the edge of the room toward Mr. Jarsdel.
“Emily, be ready,” Miss Chen said. And then the loudest crash I’d ever heard filled the room.
As the windows along the wall shattered one by one, flames poured out of Mr. Jarsdel’s hands. They rushed toward Sebastian like a massive ocean wave of fire, but Jarsdel was forced to stop, ducking as Emily sent the broken window glass toward him. Sebastian was able to dive behind a sarcophagus, the last bits of flame snaking by him.
Mr. Jarsdel shifted one hand in our direction, sending out more fiery waves as he closed in on us. I pushed Lord Lister behind a display case for cover, while museum visitors screamed and desperately scrambled for the exits.
As the room emptied, more glass cases shattered from Miss Chen’s gaze, and Emily picked up the glass debris to send a vicious storm straight at Mr. Jarsdel. His fire managed to burn some of it, but there was too much. The glass cut across his face, and he copied Sebastian, diving for cover behind another sarcophagus.
Sebastian took this as his chance to rush our enemy, but Mr. Jarsdel’s flames encircled and shielded him from Sebastian, forming a five-foot-tall wall of fire. A quick swerve and Sebastian dove out of the way, his jacket catching most of the blast. He landed behind a reconstructed tomb wall and hastily discarded his burning jacket.
Miss Chen picked up the assault, climbing a cabinet to get a clear view. The floor around Mr. Jarsdel started to crack, splintered wood exploding into the air in a circle around the flames. Within seconds, the floor fully collapsed and Mr. Jarsdel disappeared from sight, falling down to the floor below.
And immediately rocketed back up. His palms aimed downward, Mr. Jarsdel propelled himself back up to our floor and straight at Miss Chen before any of us could react. He tackled her through a glass case and a marble bust and nearly into the brick wall, but Emily caught them and flung them apart.
I rushed over to heal Miss Chen, pulling Lord Lister along with me. She had cuts and burns along her face and arms, but she groaned and shrugged off the pain, rising back to her feet. I helped her up, trying to heal her as much as possible first. Emily had Mr. Jarsdel pinned to the wall, but he was struggling to break free. Flashes of flames escaped from his hands, his aim slowly getting closer to Emily. She held on, sweat breaking on her brow as she fought to keep him in place.
The flames grew around Mr. Jarsdel. He seemed to shake with anger and panic, primed to explode. I crouched behind a cabinet, bracing myself when Sebastian yelled, “Close your—”
The room turned a searing white as I remembered the blinding power a moment too late. I could make out nothing but a sense of brightness, of fire in my eyes as I clutched Lord Lister’s hand and pulled him away, my other hand in front of me, grasping at nothing as we stumbled forward. I prayed that the others had closed their eyes, for if Mr. Jarsdel was the only person who could see, we had no chance of fighting him like this. Not that the chances of outrunning him were any better.
I groped ahead of me, running into display cases, stumbling over artifacts, and expecting a wave of fire any moment. Then something dark broke through the white haze. My vision was returning. I thanked my healing power and scrambled forward, ignoring the broken glass stabbing into my palm. Behind me, the blurry, stumbling outline of Lord Lister slowly came back into focus, but I couldn’t see past him. The rest of the room remained hazy, as if it were filled with smoke.
Because it was. Display cases and chests were smoldering around the room, more smoke rising from the ruined room below us, keeping us hidden.
“Mr. Kent!” I yelled. “If you can hear me, ask Mr. Jarsdel a long question!”
A blast of fire flew straight at us in response. I barely managed to pull Lord Lister away.
“Mr. Jarsdel, what are your thirty favorite things to light on fire?” Mr. Kent shouted.
“Birds, riverboats, gardens, soap factories…,” Mr. Jarsdel answered, firing off more blasts in our general direction.
We dove behind a cabinet for cover, but one blast struck Lord Lister in the back, knocking him to the ground. I hastily tried to smother the fire on his jacket, but his yells only made things worse, narrowing down our location for Mr. Jarsdel. His voice and his long list of combustibles came closer as he assaulted our wooden hiding spot, which wasn’t the best defense against fire.
“Wheat fields, trains, windmills…,” Mr. Jarsdel continued.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Lord Lister as I pulled out my dagger. I was the only one who could survive Mr. Jarsdel by running straight through his blasts. It’d be painful but better than waiting, watching him slowly cook my friends to death.
“Bridges, schools, and, finally, spoiled rich girls,” Mr. Jarsdel said, smugly ending his list. But his eyes widened in surprise as I leaped out and dashed toward him.
He raised his glowing hands to fire, and the next moment, Sebastian was behind him, forcing his arms downward, the flames flickering harmlessly to the ground. Sebastian’s eyes met mine, and I could see the plea in them as he grappled Mr. Jarsdel into submission. I slid to the side, scrambled back away from them, and started the count.
One, two, three …
Mr. Jarsdel started coughing, but he continued to put up a fight. He struggled to bring his arms up, and when that proved impossible with Sebastian’s hold, he turned his palms downward to take flight. Sebastian held on, and the blast propelled them both through the air, out the window, and down into the courtyard below.
Seven, eight, nine …
I shot back up to my feet and raced for the window, refusing to be left behind. I leaped out and dropped down a floor, hitting the stone ground hard. I couldn’t let Sebastian down.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen …
Mr. Jarsdel’s energy left him, and his fire sputtered out a few yards ahead. After crashing to the ground, they had toppled and rolled along the stone. I chased after them, running harder than I’d ever run before. Please, please, please.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
Their momentum slowed, and Mr. Jarsdel’s body pinned Sebastian down. I dropped by their sides as Sebastian groaned and coughed and gasped for air. His eyes opened, and he lost what little breath he had left, panicking as he realized he was still touching Mr. Jarsdel.
“I’m here … Sebastian,” I managed, grabbing his hand, letting the sensation convince him if my words couldn’t. “I’m canceling it out.”
I pulled Mr. Jarsdel’s body off him and felt for his pulse. He had blue splotches on his skin, and he was unconscious, but that was it. We’d timed it correctly.
“It’s all right,” I told Sebastian. “He’s alive.”
He let out a sigh of relief and winced as he shifted his weight to one of his several injuries. I wished I could heal him, but I simply had to settle for helping him to his feet.
The rest of our group found us a minute later, still walking hesitantly as they blinked away the haze from their temporary
blindness. In the distance, I could see Lord Lister making his escape. We could hear alarms ringing and people shouting frantically on the other side of the building, at Great Russell Street. The fire was still raging and doubtlessly destroying some of the museum’s prized possessions. The streams of water from the firemen seemed to be doing very little to help. I cringed at the thought of explaining this to Catherine.
“Did they put out the fire?” Miss Chen asked, averting her gaze from the museum.
“No,” I said, my eyes, along with everyone else’s, sliding up to the smoky sky.
“See?” She fingered the bracelet she’d stolen. “We should have saved more.”
* * *
With the panic centered around the fire, we were barely noticed among the fleeing museum guests. Mr. Kent and Miss Chen helped carry the unconscious Mr. Jarsdel out the gates and to the carriage. Laura looked a bit stunned as Tuffins opened the door for us. He, of course, seemed to notice nothing unusual.
Next to me, Sebastian sighed. I couldn’t help the pride I felt for him, and I squeezed his hand a little. He managed to use his power, it had only incapacitated the man, and he wasn’t catatonic right now. He looked concerned, yes, but he was still here with us.
“I think the count is down to fifty-two,” I said. Sebastian looked at me blankly. “You saved us in there. Lord Lister, Mr. Kent, Miss Chen, Mr. Adeoti, Emily, me, yourself—I think you’re down to fifty-two.”
“I’m not counting myself,” Sebastian said stubbornly.
“I don’t believe that was ever against the rules,” I said, pulling him into the carriage with the rest of the group so he wouldn’t be able to argue.
As the carriage took us away, we followed Mr. Adeoti’s instructions to suppress Mr. Jarsdel’s powers. Using Sebastian’s necktie, we bound his hands together, palms inward, so his fire could not be released.
Within minutes, the carriage stopped in front of the police station, where Sebastian and Mr. Kent unloaded our prisoner, and I followed them in. With our scorched clothes and sooty faces, we looked completely wretched, but I couldn’t ignore the feeling of triumph coursing through my body.
“Hello. I’ve found the man you’re all looking for,” Mr. Kent declared. “He’s here to make a confession.”
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