James burst into the infirmary to find a scene of horror. Screens had been put up between the beds along the west wall where the sick lay in their poisoned sleep. James could see only their silhouettes—dark shapes hunched under covers, still as corpses. At the far end of the room two beds had been pushed together: Tatiana had been carried across the room, and blood smeared the floor in a trail leading to where she lay sprawled crosswise upon them, her body jerking and twisting. Her shoulder had been torn, and her arm; her hat had come off, and the thin tufts of her graying hair were matted to her skull.

Brother Enoch was bending over Tatiana, dripping dark blue fluid from a beaker into her open mouth as she gasped for air. James thought wildly of a baby bird being fed by its mother. Jem stood by, holding bandages soaked in antiseptic. Grace knelt in the shadows by the foot of her mother’s bed, her hands gripping each other tightly.

James approached, passing the beds in which the other patients lay in their restless drugged states. Ariadne, Vespasia, and Gerald might have been only sleeping, had it not been for the dark maps of black veins beneath their skin. They seemed to grow more visible by the day.

Hello, James.

It was Jem’s voice, gentle in his mind. James wished he had something to tell his uncle, other than the frustrating threads of a mystery that refused to knit itself together. But Jem was already searching out the identity of James’s grandfather. He couldn’t burden Jem with more questions that might have no answers.

Will she live? he asked silently, indicating Tatiana.

Jem’s voice was unusually strained. If she dies, it will not be because of these injuries you see here.

The poison. Death-dealer, poisoner of life, Gast had said. But what in the Angel’s name had he raised?

“James.” A hand caught at his arm; he looked down to see Grace, her face ashen, her lips deadly white. She was gripping his arm with both hands. “Take me out of here.”

He turned slightly to shield them both from view. “Where shall I take you? What do you need?”

Her hands trembled, shaking his arm. “I need to talk to you, James. Take me somewhere we can be alone.”

“James has been gone for an absolute age,” Lucie said. She had been scribbling in her notebook, but had begun to look worried. “Would you go and look for him, Cordelia?”