“Not a problem at all, Mrs. Tuffins. I would be happy to share with Miss Wyn—”
“I can share with Miss Chen,” I cut in, seeing Mrs. Tuffins’s eyes go wide at Mr. Kent’s joke. I glared at him but smiled at Miss Chen. After all, I was the only one she knew even a little. “Rose, you can share with Catherine—”
“Evelyn, is it all right if I share with you, actually?” Rose asked, looking tense in a way I couldn’t quite read. “I feel I’ve bothered Miss Harding enough the past week.”
“I—yes, of course,” I said, glancing at Catherine and Miss Chen. “Do you two mind sharing?”
Catherine looked a bit confused but covered it with a smile. “Of course not.”
“I rarely break the ceiling when I wake up these days,” Miss Chen reassured Catherine. She glanced back to me. “But what about … uh…” She gestured at Sebastian, and everyone’s eyes followed.
Right. Hmm.
Mrs. Tuffins looked rather concerned, and Mr. Kent hastened to assure her. “It’s just … Mr. Braddock snores. Terribly,” Mr. Kent explained, looking at me for assistance but then continuing on, making everything worse. “I think the only thing for it, Miss Wyndham, is for me to bunk up with you, while Mr. Braddock sleeps alone.”
That was too much, even for the kindly Mrs. Tuffins. She looked properly scandalized. Everyone tried to jump in, offering worse and worse excuses. I groaned, the hallway suddenly feeling rather crowded. In everyone’s haste to reassure the poor woman, Sebastian slipped back toward the stairs.
He managed to get nearly all the way downstairs before I caught him by the wrist.
“Sebastian. Please,” I said.
He looked smaller than me, standing three stairs down, held back only by my grasp on him. He was already shaking his head, preemptively disagreeing with whatever I had to say.
I said it anyway. “It will be all right. You and I can stay near each other—perhaps even—”
His voice came softly. “They are going to get hurt.”
“More people are going to get hurt if we leave,” I said, squeezing his hand, trying to make him feel the power between us. “I promise. I’ll be near.”
“You were near when I killed that man on the train.”
“You did not kill him.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. We weren’t standing there for a full thirty seconds listening to you kill a man. That would have been … well, it wasn’t.”
“How long was it?”
“I—Twenty … one seconds. I’ve started counting whenever I see you make contact with someone,” I said, slightly omitting the fact that I had only now started. “You only knocked the man out, which in turn, saved all seven of us. So you can subtract that from the number you are undoubtedly keeping in your head.”
He pursed his lips and said nothing but looked a little redder.
Of course he was really keeping a number. “What is it?”
“One hundred and thirty-two.”
I frowned at him. “The newspaper said one hundred twenty-two.”
He sighed and scrubbed at his face. “Victims from before.”
“Then you should include people you’ve saved from before,” I said. “You could cut it in half for all the people you saved from Dr. Beck.”
“That was only eight people,” Sebastian said stubbornly.
“Eight? That’s absurd. You can’t just—” I stopped. And sighed. What was I doing arguing with him about this? This was the last thing he needed.
“Well, one hundred twenty-four before today, then,” I said encouragingly. “And after this morning on the train, it’s one hundred seventeen.”
“One hundred and nineteen. I can’t count you and Mr. Kent again.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, these rules are terrible!” I said. “If you’re counting that way, then by saving me, you also indirectly saved everyone I’ve saved—I’d estimate that to be about sixty.”
“You can’t do that,” Sebastian said, looking as frustrated as I felt, and it suddenly, loudly occurred to me … this was what he needed. Arguing meant he cared about something. Yes, that thing he cared about was the number of people he’d killed, which he was using to continually torment himself. But that was still better than the vacant gaze. A count meant there was still hope.
“Too late, I already did,” I said as tartly as possible. “The total is fifty-nine now. Sorry.”
“Ev—the ball … it’s my responsibility.” He was almost pleading with me now, as though he wanted me to agree that this was all his fault.
Too bad.
“It’s just as much mine,” I said. More so even. I was the one who chose Rose over everyone else. “And I’m always going to be near, whispering the right number in your ear until you can’t remember the wrong one. Now come with me.”
I tugged him back upstairs, pulling ineffectively at him until he finally relented and followed, a warm, heavy presence I could feel at my back. I shook my head a little, feeling even guiltier.
I managed to get Sebastian back upstairs without pulling his arm off, where Mr. Kent, Tuffins, and his mother were waiting.
“Everyone’s getting settled. You and your sister are in that room,” Mr. Kent said, pointing to the one across from Laura and Emily. Then he pointed to the room next to it, anticipating what I planned. “And Mr. Braddock will be in that one. I’ll take the room with the prisoner upstairs.”
“Thank you, Mr. Kent,” I said. “And Tuffins, Mrs. Tuffins, I don’t know what we’d do if you weren’t here.”
“Well, we are. So please tell me if you need anything,” Mrs. Tuffins insisted, looking much more composed. Perhaps Rose had managed to convince her there was nothing improper going on. “We’ll let you know when the tea is ready, dear.”
Mr. Kent stared at Mrs. Tuffins with the deepest appreciation. “Tuffins, if I had known your mother was such a paragon, I would have come to live here ages ago.”
“How sad that I never mentioned it,” Tuffins said, as dry and measured as ever.
Mr. Kent clicked his tongue and disappeared upstairs, while our hosts went down. I took Sebastian to his designated room and sat him on the bed against our shared wall. He did not protest, just looked up at me warily through his dark lashes.
“For as long as you’re in here, I’ll be canceling your power out. No one is going to get hurt. Just tap the wall; I’ll be on the other side.”
I took his hand in both of mine, like it was some sort of sacred object, and set it on the faded floral wallpaper. I slipped out of his room and into the one next door. Rose had taken the bed farthest from Sebastian’s room, by the window, and was sitting with her arms around her knees, watching the street. I shoved at my bed, wincing at the screeches it made, until it bumped up against the shared wall.
I climbed atop it, running my hand along the wall, feeling nothing and more nothing, until I knocked. A knock answered back and I slid my hand over till I found the current of our powers.
It worked. I could actually feel him through the wood. The sensation was muffled to a degree lower than when we touched through fabric, but it was still there, it still caught my breath, and it was still undoubtedly Sebastian.
He didn’t move away and neither did I. I held my hand there for a long moment, before the silence behind me got unnerving. I turned around on the bed, leaning my back against the spot, letting the hum warm my whole body a little.
Rose was perfectly still, gazing out the window with that same lost, vacant gaze that Laura had. I didn’t know what to say to her now. I’d already promised her we’d be safe at home after we deposed the head of the Society. I’d agreed to leave London and not even an hour had passed before we had to turn back into the fray with no real plan of which to speak.
“Rose, I’m—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, stealing the words from the tip of my tongue.
“No, I am. You don’t need to apologize for anything,” I told her, managing the same gentle firmness that I used with Sebastian.
She shook her head. “I … the whole time Dr. Beck and Mr. Hale and Camille held me captive, not a moment went by when I didn’t dream about going home.”