to illuminate her brain and make an assessment that moment.
“Quick or not, she’ll have to wait. There’s a man down the hall who is quite insane and needs me immediately.” He gave her one last look before pulling the lantern away, the coldness of the cell instantly sapping all the heat her cheeks had gained from it. His footsteps receded and Grace sank to the floor, all initiative gone now that she had his attention. He would be back, and she would make her plea.
“Grace,” Falsteed chided in the dark. “No.”
“The roses,” she said, sighing. “The smell of the roses, it undid me. How can I call it a life when I curl in the darkness, covered in my own filth? I was once surrounded by light and smelled as lovely as a garden. I’d rather forget both than remember either.”
“Oil of roses,” Falsteed said. “You’ve got a good nose.”
The second patient was brought down before Thornhollow came to her. Grace watched with a keen eye as the insane went into the dark room at the end of the passage like feral animals and walked out led by Reed, simple and trusting as children. If the slackness of their faces was off-putting, the dead calm of their eyes offset it, promising that the tumult that had once raged within was now at rest.
Thornhollow followed on the heels of the last patient, arriving at Grace’s cell with fresh blood spatters speckling his bared forearms. She rose when he came close, moving into the light of the lantern with a calm determination. His eyes searched her face before he spoke.
“You’ve seen it three times now, and you’d still know what goes on in the shadows where Heedson has me do my work?”
“I would,” Grace said, her voice unwavering.
Thornhollow produced a key. “Courtesy of Reed,” he said, unlocking her cell door. The hinges protested as the door moved, and Grace felt the first rush of apprehension. She hadn’t left her safe square of life in the days since she’d been brought to the cellar. She knew the stones under her feet well—her hardened soles had traced their edges in the blackness many sleepless nights. And now her cell had been opened by a man who wielded forgetfulness with a blade.
She stepped out and heard Falsteed’s murmur of disapproval.
“Enough,” Thornhollow snapped. “I’ll show her, and she’ll make her own decisions.” He beckoned with the lantern for Grace to move down the hall and she went, the pale circle of light barely casting a few inches of sight past her grimed toes. Thornhollow followed behind her, his shoes ringing out on the stones.
The hall had always been shrouded in darkness, his earlier patients seeming to evaporate into an unlit hell to rematerialize as tamed demons. The door was not far. Thornhollow reached past her and lifted the latch.
The room was sparse, holding only a bed and table. The brightness of the linens leaped at Grace’s eyes as if there were a phantom in the room, except for a few dark drops that appeared nearly black in the dim light. She crossed to the opposite side of the table, enjoying the feel of the clean stone under her feet. On the table was Thornhollow’s toolbox, the meticulous order now in disarray, along with the apple corer and broken eggshells.
“I suppose to the unpracticed it seems a bit more of a kitchen than a surgery,” Thornhollow said as he set the lantern on the table.
“Explain it to me, then,” she said, running her finger through a trace of yolk.
Thornhollow crossed his arms and studied her for a moment before speaking. She stared back, savoring the appearance of a new face after being denied company for so long. The meager light could hardly penetrate the hollows of his eyes, but she could see the muscles of his jaw tensing as they studied each other, the slightest tic beneath his red sideburns giving him away.
“First you’ll show me why Falsteed thinks your mind is quick. It’s not a compliment he pays easily and I’m intrigued. You caught on quickly enough about the oil of roses, but it takes more than that for me to call you clever.” Thornhollow leaned against the wall. “So, impress me.”
“I . . .” Grace’s recently found voice died inside of her, unable to find proof of her intelligence on demand. “Georgia was not present at the First Continental Congress.”
Thornhollow laughed at the trivial fact, a harsh sound that echoed in their small chamber. “Tell