Didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Didn’t know if it mattered. Nothing she’d said sounded any more or less plausible than what Duncan Shriek had written in his books. Understood, too, the weight of everything she had shown him. Knew it in his gut.

Wanted to tell her he lived in a different world. The world where Stark wanted to hurt people he loved, where Heretic could have him killed on a whim. Where Wyte’s condition went from bad to worse. All of it gritty and immediate, with immediate consequences. He wasn’t Crossley’s son anymore. He was Finch, and there was a reason for that. Survival.

“You’re too quiet,” she said.

“I’ve heard worse theories,” Finch said. Because he felt he had to say something. Because he felt overwhelmed.

The Lady in Blue gave him a curious look, head tilted to the side. “Not convinced? That’s a shame, because you can disbelieve it all you want. It’ll get you nowhere. Now get out of the boat and help me,” she said.

The shocking cold of the shallow water woke him up. They pushed the rowboat up onto the shore. The Lady in Blue unhooked the lantern, walked forward.

“What is this place?” Finch asked as his boots found dry land.

“Wait and see,” she said. Ushered him toward the overhang.

A cozy little space, sheltered by the rock. A thick layer of dust covered the uneven floor. Looked fuzzy in the lantern light. A welter of numbers and words had been carved into the far wall, all the way up to the ceiling. So many marks that they struck Finch like a cacophony of noise. Made him claustrophobic.

In the far corner, a skeleton on top of a blanket had disintegrated into a thicket of fibers and fragments. Intact. Yellowing. Human. Delicate, almost birdlike. Curled up in a position of sleep. On its side.

Looking at those small bones, Finch felt a sudden, inexplicable sadness. “Is that the monk?”

Words from the man’s mouth in the clicks and whistles of the gray caps’ language. And then, a sudden and monstrous clarity that can never be put into words.

“Yes, according to Shriek, that’s Samuel Tonsure,” the Lady in Blue said. “This is where he died. A hermit. In exile. Truff knows why the gray caps left him to this fate. Blind. Alone. He must have gone mad in his last years.”