“Like?” A flicker of a smile crossed the old woman’s face. “What has liking a person to do with it?”
“You could just leave. Go to London, America, anywhere. You don’t have to stay here, making … tinctures.”
Mrs. Ficke sniffed. “Everything seems so simple, at your age. I remember it. But nothing is, not really, not when you bring time and betrayal and forgiveness into it. Truth is, I owe Henry a … debt. A debt I’ll not repay in full, no matter how I try.” She inclined her head a moment, then looked up. The gears of her iron hook whirred down. “My brother, Edward. Henry showed him a kindness that did save his life. It is the right thing to honor one’s debts, even if they must be paid in blood.”
“In—in—in blood—?” stammered Oskar.
Komako felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “What happened?”
Mrs. Ficke shrugged.
“You are right to be suspicious, pets.” Mrs. Ficke’s pale tongue poked out, as if testing the air. “I’d of been the same way, once. Now let’s be frank with each other. You are here on account of the missing children. Do not lie to me.”
Oskar opened his mouth, started to speak, closed it.
Komako shook her braid out of her face. “Where are they?”
“There’s more at work here than you can imagine,” Mrs. Ficke murmured. “You think you’re hunting a lion. But it’s the jungle what’s hunting you both.”
She paused then and stared at the shadows across the cellar, as if deciding something. Then she went over and untied their ropes. Oskar sat up, rubbing his wrists. Komako’s own wrists were on fire and she stretched and worked the raw skin gingerly.
“Eleanor,” called the old woman. “Do come out. You’ll find I’ve brought your clothes down and left them behind that barrel, in the corner. If you’d care to dress and join us—?”
Komako smiled sharply to herself. She hoped Ribs was far from there, maybe looking for a way to help. But after a moment, to her surprise, she heard Ribs’s voice.
“I seen them,” the voice whispered, in a fury.
“Seen what?”
From behind a crate, Ribs appeared, her face streaked with dirt, her hair wild and stringy about her shoulders. She was already dressed. She walked slowly over and stood beside Komako and Oskar, her face radiating hatred. She hardly spared a glance for Komako; all her rage was directed at Mrs. Ficke.
“I seen Brendan. And them others.”
Mrs. Ficke went very still. Her hooked claw was suspended over a fire and she withdrew it and blinked and frowned. “You wasn’t supposed to go upstairs,” she said.
“What you done to him, then, eh?” Ribs demanded. Her voice was rising. “What you done to all them? When Dr. Berghast finds out—”
“When he finds out.”
“When I tell him what you done—”
“When you tell him.”
“You’ll be bloody well sorry, then.” Ribs had her fists clenched and she took a menacing step toward the old woman.
But Mrs. Ficke didn’t even flinch. “Ah, pet, you really don’t understand it at all,” she said, with regret. “That’d be Henry’s doing, what’s up them stairs. Not mine.”
“The hell it is!” Ribs shouted.
Komako pulled her friend back. “What’s going on? Ribs?”
Ribs whirled around. Her eyes were wild. “They’re monsters, Ko,” she said in a rush. “They’re all locked in little rooms an they, they been made all into…” She shuddered.
Oskar’s mouth was open. “Who are? The missing kids?”
Komako stepped sharply away from the muting powder and drew in a thick fistful of dust. A quick fury was in her. She felt the lurch and sharp intake of pain rising in her wrists and up her forearms as the dust took hold. She glanced at the stairs but there was no sign of Edward Albany.
“Go on, then,” said Mrs. Ficke, unimpressed by Komako’s display. “But there won’t be none to feed or wash or change them, if you do. You think Henry cares to keep them alive? It ain’t but me an Mr. Edward done that.”
A strong black dust was swirling at Komako’s fists.
“Show me,” she said. “Show me what you’ve done.”
* * *
Komako had never felt such anger, such power. It frightened her. They met Edward Albany on the upper stairs and despite his size she felt how easy it would be to snap his neck with a rope of dust. He was holding a crate of dirty bowls and cups at his belly and he stood blinking, staring down at the darkness spiraling around her fists, as if confused, until his sister shooed him impatiently aside and led them past.
Mrs. Ficke stopped at the fourth door along the barren hallway. “This here is Deirdre,” she said, taking out a ring of keys. “She came to us, oh, some two years ago now. She don’t know her own self, so stand back, you lot. No sense in frightening the poor thing more than she is already.”
Komako’s fists were smoldering. The cold pain was in her shoulders now, radiating through her bones. She knew she ought to let it go, release it, but there was in the pain something new, something she liked.
“Ko, your eyes,” said Ribs.
“They’ve gone all black,” whispered Oskar. He looked worried.
She didn’t care. It felt good. But when she saw the shrunken girl in the room, and the way Mrs. Ficke kneeled next to her, and stroked her back, all at once the rage died. She let go of the dust, just let it go, and it collapsed instantly, settling like ash on her clothes and shoes and the floor.
For there was such tenderness all at once in the old woman.
The girl Deirdre was standing in the middle of the room. The window had been painted over with lime but still it filled the small room with a gentle light. The girl’s hair had turned white and was long and pulled over her face, as if she were shy, as if she were ashamed. Her body was small, like the body of a little child, and there was something the matter with her lower half. Her ankles, her knees, her thighs, all had hardened and intertwined into a single gnarled tree, her feet like roots, her legs the trunk. Her fingers were long and husked and sprouted little green leaves. Komako felt a revulsion rising in her, despite her. Oskar gasped. Ribs’s eyes were wet.
“What … is she?” whispered Komako.
“Glyph-twisted,” said Mrs. Ficke. “That is what she is. An a horrible thing it is, too.” There was a small sewn doll in the corner and the old woman retrieved it and slid it into the unmoving crook of Deirdre’s arm. “This is all what’s left of her, poor creature. Didn’t seem right, letting Henry dispose of her. Any of them. So we done what we could, we brung them here to take care of them. They’re just sad and confused, mostly. I don’t know what’s left of them on the inside. But on the outside there’s no part of them is harmful at all.”
“You … care for them?” said Ribs slowly.
Mrs. Ficke pulled the girl’s hair gently behind one ear, revealing a pale heart-shaped face, its eyes closed. “No one else done it,” she said.
“What is glyph-twisted?” said Komako.
Now the old woman’s face hardened. “Oh, these are just exiles, like me. Except when they lost their talents, Henry gave these little ones a choice. He told them about Mr. Thorpe, an his sickness, an what all’s like to happen to the institute when the glyphic dies, an the orsine rips open. An he said what if they could help. He said what if they could keep their friends safe. An in return, he’d give them their talent back. These here are the ones what agreed to try.”
“To try what?” whispered Komako. But she already knew the answer.
“To be made a new glyphic. In his image, like. To take over for Mr. Thorpe when he dies, an control the orsine an the wards an such. Oh, it’s never worked, of course. A glyphic don’t get made like this. But Henry had his notion that the key to everything were us exiles. Except now”—the old woman ran her palm tenderly along the girl’s cheek, her voice tired—“now he’s out of time.”
“What do you mean?” said Oskar.
“The glyphic’s dying, child. The drughr’s coming. An then the dead will pour through. The orsine needs to be closed for good, like, to be sealed, an there’s only the one way of doing that.”