“We’d have to find the right trap,” Catherine said, pacing by the writing desk.
“I will see if I can make a list of places he regularly visits,” Mr. Adeoti said.
It felt like floodgates had been opened in my mind, ideas pouring in faster than I could manage them. There was a new energy crackling through the room. We could finally get Captain Goode.
“We can do it safely, carefully,” I said. “If we keep our distance with Emily, Miss Chen, and Miss Rao—”
“No.” Miss Rao smoothly stood up from the couch and removed the sling around her arm, her injuries finally healed.
“I—Miss Rao, is something wrong?” I asked. She did not turn as she headed to the door. “If you were to help us, we might both get what we wish.”
“No.” Miss Rao’s voice cut like a knife. “Not with you.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Kent asked, which was good, as I was feeling extremely offended and might have been ruder.
“The healer only cares about what affects her.” She turned to me. “You don’t care about what happens to anyone else.”
“I’m trying to help everyone.”
“No, you’re using that as an excuse when all you still want is to kill the power remover. You align your goals with others and pretend to be fighting for everyone, for change, but when the time comes to make a decision, you will choose what you want. You will choose your revenge.”
“I want to stop him without killing if we must. We all have the same goal.”
“No, we don’t. Because you don’t care about the people under his power. You don’t care about preventing another Society, preventing your country from repeating the same evils. Everything has to change or nothing will. It doesn’t matter what you’re saying now about capturing him alive for the sake of the plan. It’s entirely about what you’d do in that moment he’s at your mercy. And you’ve already proven what you care about. Your friends should not trust you to resist killing him. They cannot trust any plan you are involved in to remain a secret to him. If you truly want to help, you would leave, too.” And with that damning, truthful statement, she slid out the door.
The room sat in shocked silence except for a lone voice of protest in the corner. I turned, the world a little off-kilter, my thoughts moving too quickly, or was it too slowly?
It was true.
She was right.
“No!” Laura yelled. “You can’t leave, Evelyn. We have an idea, too.” Emily floated the both of them across the room.
Mr. Kent looked at his sister with indulgence. “What is it, Kit?”
“You find a person with the power to bring back people from the dead. This way Captain Goode will have his brother back, we’ll have Miss Grey and Oliver and Mama and Papa, and there will be no need to keep fighting over all of this.” She looked at Mr. Adeoti. “If someone can see deaths, someone has to have the power to bring them back. It must exist.”
“The plant boy can grow a magical fruit,” Emily suggested.
Mr. Adeoti looked at them with pity and then to Catherine for help.
She didn’t have any to offer. “We haven’t found anything like that.”
“Then maybe it’s part of Evelyn’s powers,” Laura said, grasping for anything. “If her powers got raised all the way—”
“I tried, Laura,” I said. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t enough. I … I think Miss Rao’s right.”
I knew she was right.
“No, that doesn’t mean that you have to leave,” she pleaded.
“Everyone should stop leaving!” Emily added.
“But I can’t be involved,” I said. “I can’t trust myself to make the hard decision when it’s in front of me. I was selfish at the Belgrave Ball. I chose Rose over everyone else.”
Rose was shaking her head. “Evelyn, no, you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Miss Chen asked.
“When Captain Goode entered the ball, he had already hurt Rose. And after he raised all of your powers and you were shot out of the room, he gave me a choice. He turned up Sebastian’s power and said if I let go of Rose, let her die first, he’d let everyone else live. But I couldn’t. Even … even when Rose was begging me to, I still refused to give her up. And I let everyone else in the room die for it.”
“Because of my power!” Rose argued to the rest of the group.
“Your power was off,” I said. “He turned it off the moment he found you.”
“And the effects lingered,” she said.
“And I made the same choice I would have made anyway,” I said. “In that moment, I didn’t think about anyone else in that room. I didn’t think about protecting you, Rose. Mr. Kent, ask me what I was thinking about.”
He bit his lip. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
He took a breath. “What did you think about when Captain Goode gave you that choice?”
“I thought about myself and how I couldn’t lose Rose again,” I said. “I made that awful choice for myself, and it got everyone killed. And I’m not going to do that again.”
There it was: the truth. No one could deny it. I marched away from the circle of stunned silence and out of the house. I felt nauseated even thinking about Sebastian and how he must have looked at me, knowing what I’d done to Mae. I couldn’t bear it. I never wanted to face that again. And for better or for worse, I could finally say that I truly understood what was going on in Sebastian Braddock’s mind all those times he ran away.
Chapter Fifteen
I WALKED.
I walked far, weaving through alleys, crossing thoroughfares, not really certain of my destination.
I needed to think.
I needed time away from everyone who knew the decision I had made at the ball.
Unfortunately, I could not run away from myself.
Miss Rao’s words swarmed inside my head, the truth in them stinging me over and over. She was right. It didn’t matter what I said I would do. If you asked me in advance, I’d always pick the noble decision, the right one you’re supposed to make. But the Belgrave Ball was proof that I’d be selfish when it came time to actually make the decision. And if there was even the slightest chance I’d do the same thing when it came to Captain Goode, then I was putting everyone at risk.
Even this damn walk was selfish. My friends would be worried about me. I took to touching street poles as I passed, so Mr. Adeoti might be able to track my wanderings. I tried to convey that I wanted to be alone, to come find me only if there was a real need.
It was growing darker. The sounds of laughter brought me down a narrow street, where a young man in a striking red suit drew eager crowds into a penny theater shop. He tempted them with exhibitions centered around these horrifying and extraordinary powers: photographs of curiosities from all over the world, waxwork statues of every known powered person, “authentic” items from the Belgrave Ball, including pieces of the ballroom and Sebastian’s bloody gloves.
There was even a long line forming for a play premiering in an hour, recounting Captain Goode’s heroic defense of the Queen against the dastardly Sebastian Braddock and his gang of villains. Of course, a poster listed all the powers to make special appearances, including the harlot healer.
I turned away and sighed. How had it come to this? I was the only living healer, the one meant to save lives against all odds, not put them in danger. It was absolutely ridiculous that I’d had these powers for four months and I’d saved, at best, ten lives—half of which I’d lost at the ball. Heavens, I didn’t deserve these powers. I was fairly certain if I asked Mr. Adeoti about other healers in the past, he’d probably say they saved more lives in a single day.
Soon I hit the Thames. Through the smog and fog I could see the dark reds and purples of the sunset melting into the night. I wound through streets aimlessly, hoping I might be able to lose myself down a cobblestoned alley.
But as I turned down an empty one, I felt my body freeze midstep. I couldn’t go forward; I couldn’t turn around; my limbs couldn’t even flail in panic. I floated upward, my eyes searching for who or what was doing this to me. Had Captain Goode found me?