Charles merely looked puzzled, but Thomas hadn’t said it for Charles. He looked at Alastair, who had been putting on a pair of gloves. Alastair glanced up casually, without looking at Thomas, and said, “Charles, let him use the lab. I will remain and make sure he doesn’t burn down the house.”

Charles looked flabbergasted. “You’d do that?”

“It seems the best course of action, and you know I have no interest in another Enclave meeting.”

“I suppose not,” said Charles, a little reluctantly. “All right. Come when you can, then.” He reached out a hand toward Alastair, as if it were habit, then dropped it quickly. He and Alastair regarded each other with an awkwardness that felt like a pinch at Thomas’s heart.

Charles started down the steps. Halfway to the bottom, he turned and glared. “Destroy nothing,” he said to Thomas, stalked to the foot of the steps, and vanished round the corner.

“We had best get to the lab—” Thomas began, starting toward the main part of the house.

“Stop,” Alastair said. Thomas froze, more surprised than anything else. Alastair’s eyes were chips of black ice. “I don’t care a whit about the lab,” he said. “I want to know where my sister is in all this madness. Where’s she gone?”

“Highgate Cemetery,” said Thomas. “Entrance to the Silent City.”

“Bloody hell,” said Alastair. “Why? You know what, never mind why. It’ll only make me angry.”

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “Not that she’s there—if there were danger, and I don’t think there will be, Cordelia could defend herself admirably—but that all of this is happening. It’s none of our fault, but I’m just—sorry.”

Alastair’s gaze softened, and for a moment, Thomas felt himself back in Paris, hands in his pockets, talking in a low voice to Alastair Carstairs as if it were only the two of them in all the world. “I am sorry as well,” he said. “About your sister. I had not gotten a chance to tell you before.”

Thomas’s breath caught. “Thank you.”

“Do you really think this antidote will work?” Alastair asked.

“I know it will.”

Alastair held Thomas’s gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “And how long will it take to make it?”

“Twenty minutes, if everything goes right.”

Alastair exhaled. “All right,” he said. “Twenty minutes it is. After that, I’m going to find Cordelia.” At Thomas’s puzzled look, he gestured impatiently toward the steps that went down to the laboratory. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”