speaking to a frightened animal. “Come here, Emily.”
Emily crawled to where he sat, put her body alongside his. He smelled of blood and sugar; his breathing was shallow and ragged. She put her forehead against his good shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut tight.
Stanton took Emily’s hands. With trembling, blood-slick fingers, he untied the leather that bound her wrists. Then he took her right hand and pulled the glove off of it. Together, they looked at the stone.
The yellowish color was gone. The stone was now completely clear, clear as glass. And in the center of it, like a foul yolk in a bizarre egg, was a perfectly round black blob that pulsed with every beat of Emily’s hard-pounding heart.
Emily did what she could to stop Stanton’s bleeding, using wadded cloth torn from the hem of her petticoat. When she was done, she went to kneel over Rose’s motionless form. Letting her hand rest on Rose’s belly, she was overjoyed to feel breath stirring there.
Grimaldi’s revolvers were still clutched in the girl’s hands; Emily took them and tucked them away. She touched the bruised places on the girl’s face, and the garish welts where the leather had cut into the white flesh of her throat.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Rose,” Emily said, voice breaking. “Honest I didn’t.”
Stanton was silent for a long time.
“Hembry,” he said finally, “give me your jar.”
“What fer?” Hembry took the jar from his back pocket, rolled it toward Stanton. “Got weevils?”
“Of a sort,” Stanton said.
He came to kneel beside Emily. Emily watched as he pushed Rose’s collar aside, revealing the uchawi pod nestled in the dip between her collarbones. Using the lid of the jar as a scoop, he tipped the uchawi pod into the jar and captured the pendant’s chain between the lid and lip. Clamping the lid down tight, Stanton jerked the chain from around Rose’s throat.
The girl gasped, every muscle in her body contracting to board-stiffness. After a moment, she exhaled, her body melting and softening like honey spreading out on a plate.
“Rose Hibble,” Stanton said in her ear, loudly. “Now you are free.”
Then, sitting back, Stanton lifted the jar and watched the uchawi pod settle into the foul brown muck at the bottom.
“Serves him just about right,” Stanton said.
“That’s all it takes?” Emily said.
“If she’d been awake, Grimaldi would have made her claw my eyes out.” He gave the jar an angry shake. “He would have used her until she was dead. Vicious bastard.”
Emily stared at the jar. All that cruelty, all that malice … trapped inside a fragile shell of green glass.
“You’re sure that will hold him?”
“Glass is one of the most powerful magical insulators known,” Stanton said. “He’s in there until he can be released into custody.”
“Or until we kill him,” Emily was aware of a brutal note in her voice. She looked at Stanton. “We could crush the uchawi pod.”
Stanton stared at the jar, his jaw clenched tightly, eyes narrowed with despising. Finally, though, he put the jar down and did not look at it again.
“This is still the United States of America,” he said. “Even Grimaldi is entitled to a trial by jury.” Stanton’s voice became soft. “We are not murderers.”
At that moment, Rose began to stir. She sat up slowly, her hand against her head. Emily helped her sit up, murmuring comfort. Rose looked at Emily, but not for long. Her eyes searched wildly until they found Stanton. She reached for his hands, pressing her lips to them fervently.
“Thank you, Mr. Stanton,” she mumbled against his fingers. “Thank you for setting me free. He was so terrible. So … mean. The things he said to me … in my head, where I couldn’t get away …” Squeezing her eyes shut, she broke down in horrible racking sobs, curling up against him, limp and shuddering.
“I know, Miss Hibble,” Stanton murmured. “I know.”
They came over Philadelphia a little after midday. A wild whoop from Hembry alerted them to their arrival.
“We’re coming up on the exposition grounds … there!” Hembry pointed. Perched on the bank of a slow shining river, the grounds were dominated by two long, low buildings, massive ware house like structures of cast iron and brick and glass, their cupolaed roofs surmounted by hundreds of gold-edged pennants snapping in the afternoon breeze. Broad flagstone causeways gleamed white, lined with saplings and dotted with pavilions. A rail line encircled the whole conurbation like a border drawn around a child’s picture.
Before the larger of the two buildings stretched a