He trails off. Then his steps move away again, back to the kitchen. The silence that follows is worse than the earlier screaming. Thomas kicks at the door. The door will not break.

ф

Livia is not sure what gives him the idea. He acts as though he has rehearsed it, quickly, efficiently, without hesitation. Dips a hand into her jacket pocket; pulls out their mustard jar of purest black; unscrews the tin of Soot from Sebastian’s bag and replenishes its contents. Then Thomas takes the mask off the nail and stretches its rubber over his head and face until his dark eyes are ringed by its glass goggles. The limp tube dangles from his mouth like a length of fireman’s hose. The tin screws smoothly on its copper spout. Sebastian again. Precision work. Only when Thomas tries to insert the needle of one of the spare syringes into one of the glass vials does he slow down. Wearing the goggles, his sense of depth appears to be compromised. He misses twice, breaking off the needle on the floor; labours to attach another. Then Charlie is there, trying to stop him.

“What are you doing, Thomas?”

“You heard! He is coming for us. He is killing Mrs. Grendel and then he is coming for us. For Livia. I am too weak. I can’t even break down the door.” Thomas wraps a hand around the tin dangling at the bottom of his rubber snout. “I need strength. The strength of madness. This is murderer’s Soot. Black as black. From your mother’s secret stash. And this here”—he stabs down with the needle, misses the little ampulla—“will quicken it.”

“You will get lost,” Charlie says. “Lost in the Smoke.”

All the same he kneels down and attempts to help Thomas draw the liquid into the syringe. But his hands, too, are shaking. It’s up to Livia then. She threads the needle through the thick wrapping of foil that seals the little bottle, draws its inch of liquid into the cylindrical glass chamber.

“Good! Now release it into the tin.”

She hesitates, her eyes on Charlie, then Thomas.

“What will happen to you?” she asks.

“Do it!”

“What if—”

“Do it!”

Thomas cups her hands in his. She leans forward. His face is rubber. The goggles are easiest to kiss. A smudge on their glass, his eyelid fluttering underneath. Already he is smoking, green and yellow, an aggressive kind of fear.

“I love you.”