“You’ve denied the mob their kill. That, here, is more than enough. Go, stay gone, and come home if you still want to. This will always, always be your home.” He looked at her sadly. “I’m going to miss you, apprentice.”

“Yes, sir,” whispered Jack, her lower lip shaking with the effort of keeping herself from bursting into tears. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. Jill had been the one to break the rules, and now Jack was the one on the cusp of losing everything.

Dr. Bleak opened the door. What should have been a view of the back garden was instead a wooden stairway, slowly winding upward into the dark.

Jack took a deep breath. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

“See that you are,” he said.

She stepped through the door. He closed it behind her.

13. A Thousand Miles of Hardship Between Here and Home

13

A THOUSAND MILES OF HARDSHIP BETWEEN HERE AND HOME

DESCENDING THE STAIRS as a twelve-year-old had been tiring but achievable: the work of hours, the amusement of an afternoon.

Climbing the stairs as a seventeen-year-old, arms full of limp, slumbering sister, proved to be rather more difficult. Jack clumped up them methodically, trying to focus on all the repetitive, seemingly meaningless tasks Dr. Bleak had assigned her over the years. She had spent afternoons sorting frogspawn by minute gradations in color, or removing all the seeds from forest-grown strawberries, or sharpening all the thorns in a blackberry hedge. Every one of those chores had been infuriating when it was going on, but had left her better suited to her job. So: what did this leave her better suited to?

Betraying the girl who loved her, who was dead in the Moors, who might stay that way now that Dr. Bleak had no apprentice to assist him.

Carrying the sister who had cost her everything away from the damnation she had earned.

Giving up everything she had finally learned she wanted.

None of those were things she wanted to be suited to, but they were the answer all the same. Jack shook her head to dry her tears, and kept climbing.

The stairs were still old, still solid, still dusty; here and there, she thought she saw the ghosts of her own childish footprints, going down while she was coming up. It only made sense. There had been no foundlings in the Moors since she and Jill had arrived. Maybe there would be another now, since the position was no longer filled. Every breath had to be sucking in millions of dust particles. The thought was nauseating.

They were halfway up when Jill stirred, opening her eyes and staring upward at Jack in confusion. “Jack?” she squeaked.

“Can you walk?” Jack replied brusquely.

“I … Where are we?”

“On the stairs.” Jack stopped walking and dropped Jill, unceremoniously, on her bottom. “If you can ask questions, you can walk. I’m tired of carrying you.”