But Jessamine was staring at her, her ghostly eyes vast in her pale face. “You can command the dead,” she choked out. “That means—every time you asked me to fetch your hairbrush, or asked me to tell you a bedtime story, or asked for the window to be opened—you were commanding me? I had no choice?”

“Jessamine, no,” Lucie protested. “It’s not like that. I didn’t even know.…”

But Jessamine had vanished, between one breath and the next. Lucie slumped onto the bed, her face in her hands. The room stank like smoke and death. She had never thought that even Gast could resist her so hard he would rip himself to smithereens. Surely that would be like tearing one’s own head off.

But he had clearly been terrified. Someone very much did not want him answering her question—perhaps to the point of placing a magical compulsion upon him. Torn between warring compulsions, Gast had been ripped apart.

Lucie went very still. Barely breathing, she thought back on what Gast had said. What Jesse had said.

Do you think you are the only one who can command the dead? Where do you think that power comes from?

The anchor, sunk in his soul.

I knew something was keeping me anchored here, when by all rights I should have vanished.

“The anchor,” Lucie whispered.

She seized up her weapons belt and stele. Any thought of going after Jessamine had vanished. She scrawled a quick note to her aunt and uncle and made straight for the door; she had to get to Chiswick before anyone noticed she’d left.

She had to see Jesse.

A loud metallic rattle sounded through the Sanctuary, causing Thomas to scramble upright on the bed. Someone was unlocking the door.

Thomas had no idea how long he’d been kissing Alastair Carstairs, but he was fairly sure it had been hours. Not that he was complaining. They had stopped once to eat sandwiches and drink cider, laughing together until something about the way Alastair bit into a slice of apple made Thomas want to kiss him again. They’d rolled off the mattress several times, and Thomas had knocked his head fairly hard into the wall at one point, but Alastair had been very apologetic about it. He’d also been gentle and patient, refusing to take things any further than kissing. “If something serious is to happen between us,” he’d said firmly, “it will not be because you were bunged into the Sanctuary on account of being suspected of murder.”

Thomas supposed this line of reason had merit, but he’d rather thought something serious had already happened between them. He had been a bit crushed, but thought he had hidden it well.