"Yes, sir." They all gave him solemn nods.
"Got your protective spells on?" Grey shifted his vision to inspect them. "Pearl, a moment of your time, if you please."
At his request, Pearl added a layer of protection and "don't-look" to the magic they wore, and they went to catch a cab for the docks.
PEARL SAT WITH Elinor on a park bench beneath the umbrellas their magic-masters had insisted they keep, shivering in the damp cold, and watched Briganti Investigator Meade conduct the murder investigation. Tears kept welling up and trickling over, and she kept wiping them away, until her gloves were as damp as her skirts. She was cold and miserable and apparently useless. And she was still better off than poor Rose.
She choked on a sob, and the fat load of magic bloating her made her hiccup. Elinor put her arm around her and squeezed. Pearl leaned into her friend for a grateful moment before stiffening her spine to take up her burden of grief once more.
"You'll find justice for her," Elinor murmured.
"I will," Pearl vowed. More tears came. "But I forgot about her. She was a good friend to me-shared her supper even when she didn't have much-and I never spared one moment's thought for her. And now she's dead." Pearl cleared her throat. "I don't feel so much at fault for her death, not anymore. Grey was right. That's on his head, the murderer's. But . . . I forgot about her."
"You had a new life to focus on. If you were such friends, I'm sure she wouldn't begrudge your good fortune."
"No, she wouldn't." That brought on fresh tears, though a new thought made her smile through them.
"Wouldn't she be shocked to see me now? Rose only knew me as Parkin, the boy."
She hiccuped again. The magic overloading her was beginning to burn just a bit around the edges. She'd poured everything she could into the blood on the handkerchief, but this other magic had somehow seeped in through her skin, and she couldn't push it back out. It made Pearl wonder if innocent blood made different kinds of magic-some for the blood, some for justice, and some for-what? For the spirit? For peace?
"I have to get rid of this magic," she muttered.
Pearl stood and took as deep a breath as she could, lifting her face into the cold air, closing her eyes to the view of the umbrella's underside. She listened for her heartbeat, as her books instructed, for the rush of blood inside her. Then she whispered the words that sent the magic out to seek justice. Afterward, she put all her memories, all her gratitude for Rose's kindness, and the love and appreciation for her friendship into the remaining magic and sent it back to Rose, offering her peace and comfort.
Pearl felt it go. She could almost, almost feel it reach the trapped and frantic ghost and free her from those traps. She hoped it did. She hoped Rose was at peace.
Come and see me, Pearl thought in Rose's direction. Let me know you're all right.
"Miss Parkin." Meade's voice startled her out of her concentration, and she lost her balance.
She'd gone up on tiptoe, she realized, somewhere in the middle of her spell. She gathered herself and turned to Mr. Meade. "Can I assist you, sir?"
"If you would, please." He beckoned her. Elinor came, too.
"Magister Carteret told me that you have a sensitivity to innocent blood." Meade watched her with a curiosity that made her feel like a bug on a pin. "Would it be possible for you to trace it back to its point of origin? To the place where Rose Bowers was murdered?"
Pearl blinked as she thought. She didn't know how rapid blinking could help the process, but it did. Somehow. "I've never tried it, sir, but it seems as if it might be possible." She gave him a doubtful look. "But, if Rose was transported here by the demon, that may change things. Do-do we think she was?"
Meade propped his hands on his hips, quite like Grey did, and yet utterly unlike. He sighed. "All indications from the spirits say she was, then abandoned here. God alone knows why."
"To create the greatest disturbance?" Elinor suggested.
"Perhaps." Meade shrugged. "Perhaps the demon was instructed to remove the lady from the murder site and, yes, brought it here to cause uproar."
"I thought one could not instruct a demon," Pearl said.
"One may instruct," Meade replied. "One may not command. Now, shall we see whether innocent blood trumps even demons?" He gestured toward a waiting hackney cab. "Or we can use the I-Branch carriage, which will be following, if open air is not necessary for your magic."
Pearl looked longingly at the massive I-Branch vehicle, obviously warmer and much drier than the increasingly miserable day, but she didn't trust her feel for the magic. She might be able to sense it from inside the closed carriage, but she might not. Best not to tempt failure. "I'm afraid it must be the hackney, Mr. Meade."
"And I am afraid I shall have to be your lone companion, Miss Parkin. There is simply not room for both of you ladies and myself in the cab."
Pearl glanced at Elinor, to be sure she was agreeable with riding in the carriage with however many of Grey's Briganti as could squeeze in. Elinor smiled and nodded, so Pearl allowed Mr. Meade to hand her into the hack.
The scent of Rose's innocent blood vanished just outside the park, so Pearl turned them in the direction she'd sensed the magic fly when she'd released it to join Rose's ghost. And that set the pattern for the rest of the day. She would stumble across the scent and follow it for a street or two, then lose it again. Meade maintained his stiff formality, which actually made him an excellent companion for this task. His silence didn't interfere or disturb.
By midmorning, she had a pounding headache from stretching her senses farther that she ought, and trying to filter the taste of Rose's innocent blood from the thick layers of blood magic permeating the atmosphere of the city.
By noon, her head hurt so bad it made her stomach cramp. The sandwiches Meade sent one of the underlings to collect for eating in the cab helped restore her strength. Elinor alighting from the carriage to perform a spell with herbs and wizardry, first to restore Pearl somewhat, then to suggest a direction when Pearl had none, helped more. Especially when, at the next street, she caught a fresh whiff of Rose. That became the new pattern-Elinor divining a direction whenever Pearl got stuck.
The demon seemed to have bounced all over London with Rose's body. Probably for this precise reason, to torment those tracking her death and send them running in circles. Though their path resembled a mad, looping zigzag more than a circle. Pearl prayed that her friend had been already dead when the demon got its hands-Claws? Talons? Paws?-on her. That Rose hadn't been the living, terrified plaything of such great evil.
Surely not. It was her death that had called the demon. Right? But if demons acted on their own whims, it could have appeared at any time at all in the process, and-
Pearl pushed the thought away with a shudder and reached out again for the magic saturating the air around them, sifting through it for Rose. She was at peace, Pearl hoped. Rose's pain and terror were done. Pearl's task was to find who had done it and stop him from hurting anyone else.
But they wouldn't do it today.
18
THE SKY WAS dark again when the cessation of motion startled Pearl awake. She ached all over, especially her head. Except she couldn't feel her feet at all. They were leaden lumps on the ends of her icy legs. Her hands wouldn't grasp the door handle and she couldn't make her mouth form words.
"Good God, man!" Grey was there, snapping at Mr. Meade. "What were you thinking, keeping her out all day in this weather? You've frozen her through."
"I asked." Meade defended himself. "I asked and asked if she was cold, and she said no. She wouldn't give up the trail."
"Of course she wouldn't. She's got the tenacity of a terrier with its teeth in something. She'll keep going long after her strength is gone. You have to make her stop." Grey lifted Pearl in his arms. Oh. He was warm.
Pearl snuggled in, seeking his warmest parts by instinct, her hands burrowing beneath his greatcoat, her nose tucking into his neck above his untied neckcloth. "You smell good."
"Yes, my dear, my valet works very hard to make sure of it." He carried her inside a building where there was light and warmth. Not upstairs. Not at home then, Grey's or her own.
"Where?" She could form that word with her frozen lips.
"I-Branch." He understood her. Of course he did. He was hers. Or she was his. Some version of that.
"Demon?" Her mouth had trouble with the m.
"Gone. Not anywhere on this plane that we've been able to discern."
"Good." It took her a long time to find the trail of thought she wanted and haul it in to get a good think at it. "Couldn't follow Rose back to the end. Demon's playing with us."
"Sit her down here." That was Elinor. Elinor had been out in the cold. Some of the time. "Let's get some tea inside her, plenty of sugar and milk, perhaps some brandy, and this."
This would be Elinor's magical elixir, Pearl knew.
Grey tried to set her down on something. Pearl tightened her arms around him. She had one around his neck, her hand tucked inside his coat collar, and the other under his greatcoat and his frock coat, around his back where the warmth of his body came through the lightweight back of his waistcoat and the fine cotton of his shirt. He was warm. He was hers. She wasn't letting go.