Jackaby cleared his throat and nodded for me to look around. In the cell beyond Jackaby’s, our inebriated neighbor in red suspenders had awoken and was sullenly picking at the crumbs of a piece of cake. Between nibbles, the man sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Tears had cleaned twin trails down the grime of his cheeks. I whirled around. At his desk, the portly policeman wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and then leaned heavily on his elbows, his hands sliding up to cover his ears.

They could hear the banshee’s wail. All of them.

Chapter Twenty-Two

We have to warn them!” I swiveled back to face Jackaby, who looked remarkably composed for one who had just realized that a wholesale massacre was descending upon the town.

“You hear the keening, as well. Has it been of great help to you, knowing the sound is a portent of your impending extermination?”

I scowled at my employer, then deflated. He was right. I did not know how much time I had already lost, succumbing to the lilting wails. They had been possible to overlook when they were just a feeling in the back of my skull, an intangible sadness on the breeze—but knowing their full meaning had given the notes a dismal weight. I was going to die, and worse, I was going to squander my last minute thinking about the fact that I was going to die. “Ignorance is bliss, is that it?”

“That’s insipid. Happiness is bliss—but ignorance is anesthetic, and in the face of what’s to come, that may be the best we can hope for our ill-fated acquaintances.”

The howling wails of the banshee were becoming more distinct from the wind and rain with each passing minute. The storm seemed to be abating. Wisps of rain, rather than heavy sheets, struck the small, barred window. The mournful cries, however, had not diminished in the least. They were, in fact, becoming unbearably intense. I had just crossed to peer out the window when another wave of sadness slammed into me. My eyes clenched shut, and I felt my knees give out and crack into the floor. With my hands clamped over my ears, I forced my eyes open and peered around.

In a muffled semivacuum of sound, with the echoes of the last cry bouncing about my head, I tried to reorient myself. The man in the far cell had curled into a fetal position and was rocking slightly. Jackaby was shouting something about his tuning fork at the desk officer, but the portly man had slouched back in his chair, keeping his hands clapped to either side of his head. I took my hands tentatively away from my own ears, only to be caught by another terrible wail.