Julian shoved the man to the floor and stood over him, his face blank, watching the runnels of blood stream across the stones.

“Christ!” Matthew cried out. “What have you done?”

“Wait,” Julian replied.

Firebaugh’s body contorted. He clutched at the gape of his throat. The blood was spraying out, nearly hitting Matthew. Firebaugh’s eyes bulged from his face, the spectacles hanging by his good ear. He put a hand to the floor and tried to stand, but his hand slipped in the gore and he went down again. His chin cracked on the stones.

“Wait,” Julian repeated.

Firebaugh shivered. From the gashed throat there came a noise like the wind ripping through dry reeds.

Then he was still, lying on his side like his own question mark.

Julian knelt down and wiped the blade clean on the dead doctor’s shoulder.

“I knew he was ill-named,” Julian said, straightening up again.

“Have you lost your mind?” Matthew backed away. “Why?”

Julian’s eyes were dark and hard, but his mouth twisted in the grimace of a smile. “No one,” he said, “makes me clean out their chamberpot and gets away with it.” He looked toward the writing desk and walked to it. He picked up the book of potions. He slid the knife into its sheath under his coat, and he took the glass chimney off the lantern and turned the wick up high.

As Matthew watched with a mixture of terror and warped fascination, Julian began to methodically tear the pages from the book and touch them to the flame.

“This book should not be. You know that as well as I,” he said as the smoke rose up and the papers curled and blackened. He dropped each one just before the flames reached his gloved fingers. The ashes fell like gray snowflakes around the doctor’s corpse. “Don’t speak, Matthew. Just stand there. Good boy,” he said, as the pages of the book continued to crisp away.

When the last of the pages had been burned and its ashes joined with the others on the bloodied floor, Julian opened the book’s empty binding and laid it down almost reverentially across Firebaugh’s pallid face.

“There,” Julian said. “Finished.”

“You came here to kill him, didn’t you,” said Matthew.

“Guilty.”

“The professor will cut you to pieces for this.”

“Not if the professor can’t find me.” Julian’s eyes were no longer hard but they were still cautious. “I am going to talk my way past McBray at the back gate. Easy enough. I am going to take a boat. A nice boat, not like that little splinter we took from Adderlane. I am leaving here, and soon I plan to be sailing off to Bristol.” He smiled faintly. “A plan. How quaint. Now … as for you … you won’t tell anyone where I’ve gone, will you?”

“No. Of course not.”