My head started spinning. Everything felt surreal. “Let me through,” I said, though my own voice sounded distant. “I need to see.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, but it was too late, as I pushed past him. My breath caught, as the lingering smell of smoke hung in the air. The fire had died out. The rats’ cage was completely burned—as were the two human bodies in the center of the room.
They were charred beyond recognition, and yet there was no mistaking them. A woman and a little boy. Elizabeth and Hensley.
Both dead.
My stomach clenched. I doubled over and emptied my stomach onto the floor, again and again. The smoke came from them. Loose rats crawled through their ash—their flesh and blood. I coughed and gagged, but couldn’t get the taste of smoke from my throat.
“Murdered,” Montgomery murmured, and then went rigid. “It must be Radcliffe. He must be here!” He ran to the door. “Moira, fetch Balthazar. Sound the alarm. Radcliffe has found us—”
“No.” I interrupted him. “No, it wasn’t Radcliffe.”
My eyes fell on another small body in the ashes, this one charred but not burned. One of the white rats. A terrible certainty grew as I knelt down and recognized the wounds on its side, made from the procedure to reanimate it.
This was the rat I’d brought back. I had only just told Hensley about it. I had thought the reanimated rat was harmless, and perhaps it was.
But Hensley wasn’t.
“Jack Serra would have alerted us if Radcliffe knew our location,” I whispered, eyes still squeezed tight. I forced myself to stand straight. “It wasn’t an accident, either. Hensley did it.” Moira let out a strangled gasp. “He killed her—look at the way her neck is broken. The same way he strangled the rats.” Guilt flooded me so hard I could barely stand. I’d been so desperate when I’d told Hensley the truth about the rats. I should have known better after he’d killed the Beast, and after those bruises on Elizabeth’s wrist. He must have flown into a rage and killed her, then killed himself when he realized what he’d done.
I sank to my knees, burying my face in my hands. Montgomery stared at the bodies with wide eyes, the idea horrifying. I sank against the wall as a harsh, mad laugh bubbled out of me. “History did repeat itself,” I coughed. “A cursed wedding night. Oh God, just like Victor Frankenstein’s.”
Montgomery’s brow wrinkled, but before I could explain, Lucy crashed through the doorway in her nightclothes, Balthazar right behind her.
“I smelled smoke . . . ,” she said, and then froze.
Balthazar took one look at the rats crawling around the charred bodies and wrapped her in his arms, squeezed her tight.
“Don’t let her see,” I said. “Take her away from here, Balthazar.”
Lucy sobbed as Balthazar carried her back toward the stairs. Lily came in with the bucket of water but let it fall when she saw the scene. Frigid water soaked into my slippers.
“Oh God,” she whispered, and sank onto Hensley’s bed.
I took a shaky step closer to the charred bodies, nothing more than ash and bone now. As I knelt, my skirt brushed Elizabeth’s leg, which fell away into black ash. I pulled my hand back, afraid of crumbling their charred bodies any more.
“She gave us everything,” I said.
“She did,” Montgomery agreed. “She gave you everything. Which means you’re the mistress of Ballentyne now.” He looked back at Hensley’s bedroom, where McKenna held two girls pressed into her skirt to spare them the awful sight. “They’ll be looking to you now for guidance.”
I looked at him helplessly. “Me, guide them?” I dropped my voice to a hushed whisper. “I practically killed their mistress with my own hands, Montgomery. Last night I told Hensley about the rats. That’s what threw him into a rage.”
He hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head and smoothed down my hair to calm me. “He was unpredictable. He’d hurt her before. There’s no telling what might have set him off, today or a month from now. All that matters now is the room full of girls who need you.”
I looked back through the doorway. Moira let out another sob and McKenna pulled her close, rubbing her back. Over the girl’s shoulder, the old housekeeper’s wrinkled eyes met mine. Waiting for me. Waiting for my leadership.
I stood, fighting the urge to dust the black ash from my hands and my dress. Outside, dawn was breaking.
“Moira, Lily, take the little girls back to their bedrooms,” I said, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice.
“And the ashes, miss?” McKenna asked quietly.
I looked at the wet ash on my hands. I wouldn’t ask McKenna to clean up the ashes of her own beloved mistress. “Fetch me a pail,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”