“That is true, as a general rule. But Alma is my sister, you see, and though I wasn’t fortunate enough to inherit any of her talents for manipulating time, I do share her most useless trait—the ability to turn into a vicious little bird of prey. I did a rather excellent job impersonating her, don’t you think?” And he took a little bow. “Now, may I trouble you for some pants? You have me at a disadvantage.”
His request was ignored. Meanwhile, my head was spinning. I remembered Miss Peregrine once mentioning that she’d had two brothers—I’d seen their photo, actually, when they were all in the care of Miss Avocet together. Then I flashed back to the days we’d spent with the bird we had believed was Miss Peregrine; all we’d gone though, everything we’d seen. The caged Miss Peregrine that Golan had thrown into the ocean—that had been the real one, while the one we “rescued” had been her brother. The cruel things Miss Peregrine had done recently made more sense now—that hadn’t been Miss Peregrine at all—but I was still left with a million questions.
“All that time,” I said. “Why did you stay a bird? Just to watch us?”
“While my lengthy observations of your childish bickering were incontrovertibly fascinating, I was quite hoping you could help me with a piece of unfinished business. When you killed my men in the countryside, I was impressed. You proved yourselves to be quite resourceful. Naturally, my men could’ve swept in and taken you at any point after that, but I thought it better to let you twist in the wind awhile and see if your ingenuity might not lead us to the one ymbryne who’s consistently managed to evade us.” With that, he turned to Miss Wren and grinned broadly. “Hello, Balenciaga. So good to see you again.”
Miss Wren moaned and fanned herself with her hand.
“You idiots, you cretins, you morons!” the clown shouted.
“You led them right to us!”
“And as a nice bonus,” said Caul, “we paid a visit to your menagerie, as well! My men came by not long after we left; the stuffed heads of that emu-raffe and boxer dog will look magnificent above my mantelpiece.”
“You monster!” Miss Wren screeched, and she fell back against the table, legs failing her.
“Oh, my bird!” exclaimed Bronwyn, her eyes wide. “Fiona and Claire!”
“You’ll see them again soon,” Caul said. “I’ve got them in safekeeping.”
It all began to make a terrible kind of sense. Caul knew he’d be welcomed into Miss Wren’s menagerie disguised as Miss Peregrine, and when she wasn’t at home to be kidnapped, he’d nudged us after her, toward London. In so many ways, we’d been manipulated from the very beginning—from the moment we chose to leave the island and I chose to go along. Even the tale he’d chosen for Bronwyn to read that first night in the forest, about the stone giant, had been a manipulation. He wanted us to find Miss Wren’s loop, and think that it was we who’d cracked its secret.
Those of us who weren’t reeling in horror frothed with anger. Several people were shouting that Caul should be killed, and were busily hunting for sharp objects to do the job with, while the few who’d kept their heads were trying to hold them back. All the while, Caul stood calmly, waiting for the furor to die down.
“If I may?” he said. “I wouldn’t entertain any ideas about killing me. You could, of course; no one can stop you. But it will go much easier for you if I am unharmed when my men arrive.” He pretended to check a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “Ah, yes,” he said, “they should be here now—yes, just about now—surrounding the building, covering every conceivable point of exit, including the roof. And might I add, there are fifty-six of them and they are armed positively to the teeth. Beyond the teeth. Have you ever seen what a mini-gun can do to a child-sized human body?” He looked directly at Olive and said, “It would turn you to cat’s meat, darling.”
“You’re bluffing!” said Enoch. “There’s no one out there!”
“I assure you, there is. They’ve been watching me closely since we left your depressing little island, and I gave my signal to them the moment Balenciaga revealed herself to us. That was over twelve hours ago—more than ample time to muster a fighting force.”
“Allow me to verify this,” said Miss Wren, and she left to go to the ymbryne meeting room, where the windows were obstructed from ice mostly from the outside, and a few had small telescope tunnels melted through them with mirror attachments that let us look down at the street below.
While we waited for her to return, the clown and the snake girl debated the best ways to torture Caul.
“I say we pull out his toenails first,” said the clown. “Then stick hot pokers in his eyes.”
“Where I come from,” the snake girl said, “the punishment for treason is being covered in honey, bound to an open boat, and floated out into a stagnant pond. The flies eat you alive.”
Caul stood cricking his neck from side to side and stretching his arms boredly. “Apologies,” he said. “Remaining a bird for so long tends to cramp the muscles.”