“And you shall have them,” Jackaby replied. “Rook is splendid with details—lots of descriptive adjectives. Maybe too many.”
“We’ll have a full report to you by tomorrow,” I assured the commissioner.
“Good,” Marlowe grunted. “In the meantime, I’ll take the abridged version. Did you learn anything at all?”
I nodded. “There’s someone in the center of all this,” I said. A vision of the pale man hung in my mind. He had stolen the tooth. He had guided Hudson to breed the dragon. He had known about the chameleomorphs. I swallowed. He had killed all those people. “I don’t know who he is or what he’s up to—but he’s the one to watch out for. I’ll give you a full description in our report.”
“Do,” said Marlowe. He turned back to my employer. “And for future reference, discretion doesn’t generally involve blowing a crime scene off the map with a fireball the size of an ocean liner.”
“No?” said Jackaby. “Language can be such a nuanced art.”
“The papers are calling it a lightning strike,” I said. “So you needn’t worry about your townspeople being gripped by any new monster panic.”
Marlowe looked unsatisfied, but he nodded and we parted ways.
“Perhaps they should be,” Jackaby murmured as we left the station.
Jackaby took a circuitous route back to his building, which led us past the New Fiddleham post office. He sidled up to the drop box and pulled a slim package wrapped in brown paper from his pocket. On the front, in his barely legible scrawl, I made out the word Chronicle.
“Sir?” I said.
“Miss Fuller asked me to keep this safe for her,” he said. “I don’t believe her final wish was that it gather dust on our shelves, do you?”
I stared. “Marlowe is not going to be happy about that,” I said.
“That is a distinct possibility.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t even know if the plates survived the heat. I guess we’ll just have to see what develops, won’t we?” The brown paper package made a tinny clank as it slid down the mail chute.
Jackaby’s cheery red door was a welcome sight at the end of our journey. I had once been reluctant to step inside the unusual abode on Augur Lane, but now I could not have been happier to be home. Dropping my luggage in the foyer, I breezed through the zigzagging hallway and slowed only a little as I rounded the steps up the spiral staircase. I had so much to tell Jenny. I hoped that she would be proud of me, but I knew I still had to make amends for the way we had left things. I tiptoed to her door and knocked quietly.
“Jenny?” I said. When no one answered, I tried the handle. It turned easily, and I pushed the door ajar just the barest sliver. “Jenny, it’s Abigail. Are you still cross with me? It’s all right if you are—I would be, too. I am sorry. Jenny?”
I was careful not to step over the threshold again without permission, but I let her door swing open and peered inside. The room was a portrait of destruction, and Jenny was nowhere to be seen. Bits of porcelain still lay scattered about the floor, a few shards embedded in the plaster of the walls. The armoire lay broken on its side, and the mattress and bed frame were on opposite sides of the room. Feathers littering the floor were the only signs that there had ever been a pillow. The windows had been stripped of their curtains, and in spite of the warmth of the noonday sun, I could see that the panes had frosted over. The only piece of furniture upright was the nightstand, which appeared to be unmolested by the spectral storm. A little sprig of bittersweets had been retrieved from the floor and placed daintily atop it, like a wreath atop a Roman pedestal. I stared at the scene for several seconds, and then shut the door quietly and went back down the steps.
Jackaby was in his laboratory when I reached the ground floor again. He was scowling and muttering to himself, drumming his fingers along the molten glass that had once been Jenny’s amber vase. “What’s on your mind, sir?”
“A catalyst.”