Thornhollow,” Reed said, his hand trembling on the lantern as he held it aloft.
“Yes, but I’m no greater than you. In fact, I’d venture to say you’re probably the better person, if it came to a matter of weighing souls.”
“I don’t see how one would weigh a soul, sir, or what bearing it would have on the argument.”
“For example,” Thornhollow continued as if Reed hadn’t spoken, “I can see my mother’s house from my office, yet I only visit her once a month or so, and then only under duress. The last visit occurred because I had a bit of glass buried at the base of my spine—never mind how—and had to find someone to pull it out. Even considering that, I think I went there because it was the only house that had a light at the time. I could’ve very well asked a stranger in the street to oblige me—would have, in fact, saved time if I’d done exactly that.”
“Saved time, sir?”
“Yes, of course. Because once I was back in the house of my birth, much the worse for wear for having been out of the womb for some twenty-plus years, my mother had to fuss and pick. Nonetheless, she’s a well-intentioned person and I did get a good dinner out of the whole escapade. I suppose I just don’t go in for that sort of thing.”
“What? Dinners?”
“No, well-intentioned people. Speaking of, where’s the poor soul I’m meant to see to?”
“To the left, sir. Just follow what little noise she’s able to keep making.”
The men moved from Grace’s sight, and she shifted silently, tiptoeing along the edge of the wall. The pale glow cast around them by Reed’s lantern sank to the floor with them while the men knelt beside the spider girl’s cell, one pleading white hand stretched between the bars.
Dr. Thornhollow’s fingers closed around her wrist, and the faded mewlings that she’d been making intensified, like a starving cat in an alley that spotted hope in a stranger. “You can open the cell, Reed. She’s no danger to anyone in this condition.”
“True enough at the moment, but she’s down here because she nearly took the upper lip off of Croomes.”
“Only fair. I assume Croomes has been giving lip to people long before someone accepted her invitation to take it.”
Reed’s keys clanked and the cell door swung open. Thornhollow beckoned for him to follow as he propped the girl against the wall. Her eyes were dark circles, her hair a tangled cloud that moved in a perpetual storm above her head, but she offered no resistance when the doctor touched her, placing his palm against her forehead gently.
“What’s your opinion in this matter, Dr. Falsteed?” Thornhollow asked, raising his voice so it would carry.
“It’s a sad case, Dr. Thornhollow,” Falsteed said, his voice assuming a professional tone Grace had never heard from him before. “She came in recently, claiming that there’s spiders in her veins for blood. Reed said the constables found her in an alleyway, slicing at her wrists with a bit of glass so as to let them out. Nobody’s had a word from her about anything other than the spiders, not even her name.”
Thornhollow nodded, pushing the girl’s hair out of her face. “What’s been done to you, then?” he asked, as if expecting an answer. “Or what have you seen that you’ve gone to the abyss so young?”
Grace’s throat constricted, her words piling on one another in her gut as she yearned to answer the questions that weren’t asked of her.
“It’ll be a mercy, Thornhollow,” Falsteed said. “We both know she’ll get no true care here, and there’s no one to speak for her on the outside. She’s another lamb to the slaughter, and it’s better you wield the blade and bring her the blackness than allow her to know the injustice of this life.”
Thornhollow remained crouched in front of the girl, his hand in her hair and his gaze searching her blank face. Her fingers drummed a rhythm on the stones beside his foot, and her eyes rolled.
“Seems a bit calmer, almost,” Reed observed, leaning toward her.
“Yes, they do that sometimes when you treat them like people,” Thornhollow said, rising to his feet. “All right, Reed. Take her by the hand, please. I believe she’ll follow easily enough. We’ll use the same room as before. If you’ll fetch another light, I believe we’ll need it.”
Grace watched as the doctor stepped out of the cell, all semblance of emotion now stripped as he