Jess. She finally called me Jess.
“Shhh,” I whisper, and caress her face. “It’s all better now.”
She wraps her arms around me and begins to cry.
“Oi, wolf girl,” Emily calls weakly. “I think it’s time you joined our little club.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
An Afternoon in the Parlor
Small fires burn in empty trash bins on the High Street, although it is now daybreak.
There is no one in sight but for a few bobbies strolling the alleys. Shiny buttons run the length of their coats, and official badges gleam atop their tall hats. One or two of them look our way, but considering the state we’re in—?with our dirty, bloody faces and torn clothes—?they must take us for a band of guttersnipes.
“Out of here!” they shout, waving their batons and blowing whistles. “The lot of you! Off!”
Several shops are completely destroyed, and broken glass litters the street. Vendors’ carts are overturned, their goods scattered and spoiled.
I am supporting most of Emily’s weight as we walk, and Gabriel leads Darby, who is still quite dazed and confused. My cheeks burn from the cold, and my fingers are stiff and numb. None of us are dressed properly, seeing as how we rushed out of the house toward a fate we did not know.
But we survived.
And we prevailed. We stopped the evil that was Malachai Grimstead.
Balthazar returns the next day, looking none the worse for wear. We are all sprawled in the parlor and have barely stirred since our return. Darby is curled up by the fire, which I find quite canine-like.
“It’s done,” I tell him before he has a chance to ask. “Malachai Grimstead. He’s dead.”
“Again,” Emily says.
“Malachai?” Balthazar questions.
“He was behind all of it,” I tell him. “From the very beginning. The letter M, the sickness, Mother—”
My heart aches.
We tell Balthazar everything: Malachai’s rats, his explanation of the word “darkling,” my visions of his past, and—?strangest of all—?the lash I created from my own thoughts.
“Now there is no doubt,” he mutters, looking at me curiously.
“No doubt?” I repeat. “Of what?”
But he steers the conversation elsewhere. “Two moons,” he says, looking to Darby. “Two moons in one month.”
I reach up to touch my scar. Darby had transformed once already. How could it have happened again?
“It is the blue moon,” Gabriel says. “A full moon that rises twice in one month, written of in the ecclesiastical calendar.”
I look to Gabriel, who is once again the small boy with dark curls and eyes, not the blazing figure I saw in the tunnel. He is an angel, I remind myself. An angel.
Emily seems better now, after drinking several ewers of water.
I am beyond exhausted, still reeling from the battle. The fire in the grate warms my aching limbs. But finally I ask the question that is weighing on me. “Where were you?” I ask Balthazar. “We needed you.” I know I am being rather blunt, but I do not care.
“This was your quest, child,” he tells me. “It had to be this way.”
I am flabbergasted.
“My quest? But what if we were harmed . . . or killed?”
“You swore an oath to this order,” he replies without the slightest trace of sentiment.
The words of the initiation come back to me:
And do you swear to use your gift for the good of mankind and strike down evil at any cost, even at risk to your own life?
For a moment, I cannot speak. I hear Emily’s breathing deepen and see that she has fallen asleep in her chair. Gabriel’s head dips to his chest several times, and he jerks awake, only to let it happen again.
“We all have a great task in life, Jess,” Balthazar tells me. “Your parents had theirs in defeating Mephisto, and this was yours—?to rise as a member of the League of Ravens, continue their work, and avenge their deaths. You faced a threat brave men would flee from, and that is no small thing.”
What Balthazar says is true, and even in this moment, with all that has come to pass, I can think of only one thing: a little girl in Deal, running about the house with a carpet beater as a sword—?The Adventures of Jess the Pirate Girl and her Deeds of Derring-Do!
Now I have truly seen what adventure holds, and it is no playful lark.
Sleep is a blanket that wraps me in peaceful slumber. There are no dreams of a dark tunnel filled with white mist. I see no man with red eyes or children sick with disease. There is only a deep, restful quiet that embraces my whole being.
And somewhere within that quiet, I see the faces of Mother and Father, who smile upon me and kiss me good night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Wood Beyond the World
Darby spills the pile of sticks onto the floor. “Come on, then,” she says. “Let’s play again.”
Emily sighs. “There are other games, you know.”
I feel for her, as it is the fourth time they’ve played, and she seems rather bored.
“But I like this game,” Darby protests.