The woman harrumphed. “Perhaps you are fit company for that man, after all.” She sneered and bustled out the door. I had been impolite, but I tried not to smile as I watched the pile of colorful blossoms atop her head bouncing away in rhythm down the sidewalk. It would be easy to imagine a domovyk living unnoticed in a hat like that.

“Coming, Miss Rook?” Jackaby was behind me, his task complete. He made for the exit without waiting for an answer, and I bounded after him and onto the sidewalk. A sound caught my ear as I exited, a sort of rattling clank. It might have been anything, a horse’s harness or a loose door latch, but my mind dashed to what Mr. Henderson had said about the noise outside his room the night Bragg was murdered. Clink-clink. Another detail to add to the jumble in my mind. I wished that the woman in the floral bonnet hadn’t distracted me from my thoughts.

“I think I really do need a proper notebook if I’m to be any help as a detective,” I said, matching step with Jackaby.

“You’re not a detective,” said Jackaby. “You are an investigative assistant.”

“All the same, it wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “I met a woman, while you were at the desk, who didn’t seem to think I should be working for you at all.”

“That’s fair. I’m not certain if you should be working for me at all, either. How did you respond?”

“Rather rudely, I must admit.”

“Hmm,” he grunted. “You may find it not worth your trouble to engage in that sort of argument in the future. She is not the first to be put off by who I am and what I do, and she will not be the last.”

“So what are you?” I asked. “A magician? A wizard?”

“I told you, Miss Rook, I don’t go in for that sort of thing. I’m a man of science.”

“Well, what do you call what you do?”

“I call it ratiocination. Deductive reasoning. The logical connection of . . .”

“Not that bit of it. I’m talking about the other side of it. What do you call people like you who can—you know—detect invisible things?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “The term I use is seer. It’s not a perfect title. It’s been used to define all manner of fortune-tellers and prophets over the centuries, but it’s simple and apt. I see. I am a seer. The Seer, in fact, in this usage. The one and only, for the moment. I’ve looked into it a great deal, and there doesn’t appear to be anyone else who can see like I see. There have been others in the past, but never two at the same time. It is as though the ability leaves when one vessel dies and is reborn in another.”