“The disturbing way Mr. Hale talked about that Society of Aberrations. We don’t know why they supported Dr. Beck’s research. We don’t know what others might do to continue his work. And we don’t know anything about them, which terrifies me most of all. Part of me wants to run away like—”
She stopped herself before saying Sebastian’s name, but it didn’t matter. In fact, it felt more appropriate that it was missing. He’d barely given any indication of where he was going when he ran away. Just a letter delivered to Mae the next day, apologizing for another abrupt departure with the excuse that he needed to take control of some of his family’s land.
I sucked in a breath of bracing air before asking the question I both had and hadn’t wanted to ask for weeks. “Have you seen Mr. Braddock in your dreams?”
“Once,” she said, tightly. “He seemed to be traveling through France, but I couldn’t learn his destination.”
“Was he—how was he?”
“He—he had his health,” Miss Grey said, grasping at straws and her purse. “And he seemed to be very much alone.”
“A consequence of running away,” I said evenly, choosing bitterness over anything else that was potentially embarrassing for the London streets. It was safer than wondering if that day had driven him to isolate himself from the rest of the world. Or if he thought I blamed him for Rose. Or whether he knew that I often found myself on the verge of hysterics when I saw that Lord Byron book in the bedroom.
“What about Mr. Kent? Have you heard from him?” She ushered me past a flower seller, trying hard to be cheerful.
“Yes, he’s well . . . and that’s why I can’t involve him.” After I’d helped heal his injuries, Mr. Kent had sent flowers and letters, but I was in no state to respond to them, and he was in no position to receive replies. Any further contact would only cause more trouble within his difficult family.
Miss Grey nodded firmly and surveyed the street as we rounded a corner. “All the more reason why you and I cannot sit idle. I think there is a particular role we must each play. A purpose. Our abilities are too unique and too specific to have emerged entirely by chance, as the saltation theory suggests. I believe I am the one meant to find others like us. I ignored it for long enough, and I . . . I wonder how things might be different had I taken up the responsibility earlier.”
“But what are you supposed to do when you find others?” I asked.
“Gather and connect us all, teach them what we are, offer protection. Anything to keep what happened with Dr. Beck from happening again. As far as we know, I am the only one who can locate other extraordinary individuals, and it feels as if it would be a waste of a gift to not use it.”
We found ourselves on Great Ormond Street, standing before the hospital entrance. An unhelpful fairy that sounded very much like Rose seemed to whisper in my ear, nudging me to answer my own unspoken question: Would it be a waste if I didn’t try to heal every sick and injured person in the world?
As we entered the three-story building and claimed to be visitors on behalf of some fictitious Christian children’s rescue society, I couldn’t help but wish someone would see through the lie and send me back to my bed, away from Miss Grey and her ideas of responsibility and purpose. Could I not sleep away the rest of my life? Could I not let others hold the world on their back?
But the busy woman at the front waved us in when Miss Grey pulled out her Bible as irrefutable proof, and I found my feet following her. A nurse asked us the patient’s name and led us down a clean, gaslit hallway, passing room after room until she veered into a boy’s ward at the end. About twenty beds filled the room, all occupied by ill and injured boys between the ages of five and fourteen. Some of them had a doting mother or father by their side, some had a concerned nurse, and a few had only a book or a toy to keep them company. One of those few, in the far corner of the room, was Oliver Myles, though it seemed like a mistake. Such a young boy couldn’t have a power yet.
But after the nurse made the introductions and left to help another patient, I saw from closer inspection of his thin face that he was probably fourteen years old—just sadly undersized from malnourishment. We found two chairs and took our places at his bedside.
“I ain’t working in a factory,” the boy said defensively, eyes dull and determined, hidden beneath his fair hair. It sounded as if he’d had this conversation before.
“Don’t worry. We aren’t that sort of rescue society,” Miss Grey said soothingly. “We haven’t come to force you into a job.”
She looked to me, but I glared back. This was her insane idea. She should handle it. With thinned lips, Miss Grey continued. “We just want to help you if you need it. Is any of your family here?”
He frowned, looking suspicious. “I’ve got friends who’ll take care of me till I’m on my feet again.”