But Isaac felt something else deep inside the wraith: longing and desire. Isaac sensed that the wraith wanted love, wanted the love of something it had created, wanted the love of the woman whose soul was locked inside Kat’s thimble, had wanted that love for the longest time, had missed its chance at that love, and the sadness of this realization made Isaac want to weep.

He was frozen with sadness, with the wraith’s terrible unmet desire.

Amelie grabbed Isaac’s hands and forced him to look at her, forced him to look into her blue eyes. “You can stop it. Courage.”

For the second time, Amelie’s strength fed Isaac’s.

He met her gaze and slowly nodded, turning as the wraith sidled toward Kat and took her right arm, and Isaac knew what it sought.

“It wants your chatelaine, Kat,” Isaac said. “It wants the thimble. It wants what’s inside. It calls itself magister, and it wants that trapped soul.”

“I mustn’t let it have it,” Kat wailed, “but I . . . I can’t . . . move.”

Isaac reached into his pocket as he stepped toward the wraith and pulled out the watch, holding his hand open so the wraith could see the watch. The wraith paused, staring, mesmerized by the grinning Death’s Head skull.

Isaac opened the skull to reveal the mechanism, and the wraith gave a tiny squeal. It fixed its eyes on the watch and dropped Kat’s arm, just as Isaac had hoped. It moved toward Isaac, reaching.

Now if only Isaac could do what he must.

“I’m going to use the watch,” Isaac said, not taking his eyes off the wraith. “For you, it will feel like no time at all. But I’ll take this creature with me and leave it in another time.”

“But, where?” Ame asked. “Where, and when?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll just have to—”

A sudden noise came from somewhere outside the kitchen, a howl and then, most horribly, laughter. Diabolical, triumphant laughter.

“Moloch,” Isaac whispered. His hand was extended toward the wraith, the watch open on his palm, and the wraith started at the noise outside and began to turn away.

Isaac had to act. He had to act now.

“Get ready,” he said, speaking fast. “Make for the armory. Amelie, you and Lark grab some of the cast-iron pans to ward off Moloch. Leo and Kat, take Colin. But, Willow, you wait for me here.”

Willow whimpered.

With his thumb on the crown, Isaac kept his eyes on the wraith, who looked confused, its head swiveling from the watch to Kat and back. “It’s all going to happen very fast.” He took a breath.

“Now.”

With his left hand, Isaac grabbed the wraith’s arm, and with his right hand he turned the crown of the watch a quarter turn and set the time machine in motion.

CHAPTER 52

Isaac and the Wraith in London

Circa 1870