can’t help but think it might do you some good. You’re not one for talking, but I always see a purpose in you, Grace. I haven’t seen a trace of anything in you at all these past few days.”
Janey left, but Grace remained motionless in her bed. In the days since Nell’s death, the bleak winter had wrapped itself around the asylum, seeming to fill even Grace’s head. Everything inside of her was gray, all of her actions meaningless. Letters written to Alice were taken by the wind; long conjectures with Thornhollow produced nothing more concrete than chalk on slate. She was a madwoman in truth, with no direction and no hope.
There was a timid scratching at her door. Grace ignored it but the door creaked open slightly and Elizabeth appeared, long braids hanging out from under a sleeping cap. She crept inside, crawling into bed with Grace without being invited. The girl’s hand wound into Grace’s unbound hair and she nestled in beside her.
“String said you needed me,” she said, tucking the comforter around both of them. Grace slipped off to sleep, lulled by Elizabeth’s hands moving through her hair.
“It was a mistake,” Thornhollow informed her the next day in his office.
“In your opinion,” Grace said. “I didn’t want to look at a dead girl.”
He strolled around her as she sat, deep in thought. “How are you feeling, Grace? Lonely? Hollow?”
“Useless,” she said, eyes not meeting his own.
He slapped his hands together. “Exactly what I’m trying to remedy. Your eyes could’ve gleaned much last night, Grace.”
“As could your own. More than mine.”
“I learned things, yes,” he said. “But you know yourself the million tiny details that assault you in these situations, any one of them holding the key to our killer. What if that one thing avoids me but you catch it?”
“I don’t know, Doctor,” Grace said, head in her hands, fingers finding her scars.
“I do know,” he said. “You complement me, Grace. I work better with you by my side. My mind can be sharply focused while you capture the larger canvas.”
Grace worked at her scars, the soft skin numb to the touch but pleasant to the fingertips. “I wasn’t only mourning for Nell when they locked me away, Doctor. These girls we see, their helplessness is so evident. The ether strips them more completely than he does. They don’t even fight. All they can do is lie there, and be posed and pawed as he pleases.”
“I understand,” Thornhollow said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since . . .” He trailed off, searching for the right words. “I met your father.”
“Yes,” she said, her throat threatening to close still farther. “I saw him, from the turret.”
“He’s an arrogant ass,” Thornhollow said, slamming his hand down on the chair arm. “I’d have disliked him even if I’d never met you.”
“Was it difficult?”
“The entire thing was difficult,” Thornhollow said, drawn back into his own sufferings. “There were people who needed to be met and talked to, a ridiculous amount of food to eat. And there were—”
“Women?” Grace asked, thinking of the lady in blue.
“A few,” he said. “Though they were less of a problem than usual. Your father is a magnetic man.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“It’s easy to see that he’s accustomed to getting his way.”
“Father doesn’t lose. Ever.”
Thornhollow cleared his throat. “Grace, I can’t help but wonder if you see yourself in these helpless girls. Our inability to catch their killer combined with the arrival of your father has intensified the connection.”
“No.” Grace shook her head, voice aching with use. “You’ve drawn too many lines, looked too deeply when it’s really quite simple.”
“How so?”
“I don’t see myself, Dr. Thornhollow. I see Anka. I see Mellie. I see exactly who they are and what’s been done to them. It’s what I can’t see that I couldn’t face last night—the man who had them to their last breath and at his mercy until their darkness fell.”
She went to the blackboard, spinning their notes to the front. “I can’t see him, Doctor. And neither can you. Both our minds have touched every detail, turned it to see if we’ve missed something, and then examined it again. And yet we’ve found nothing, come no nearer than we were the night we saw the crowd forming around Anka. I can’t bear it.”
“Then perhaps I’m wrong,” Thornhollow said. “Taking you out last night would’ve done nothing to gratify your need to avenge them.”
“But you said you learned things?”
“And I did.” Thornhollow rose to