Jazza backed up a few steps. I peered down carefully. It was a sheer drop down to the cobblestones. When I looked up again, Jazza had wandered off to examine the view from the other side. It was just Jerome and me facing the square and the sky.

“Worth it?” he asked, smiling.

“So far,” I said.

He laughed a little, then took a few steps back and sat down.

“It’s almost time,” he said. “And we don’t want anyone to see us.”

I sat next to him on the cold roof. He had everything ready—several windows on his computer open to various news and Ripper sites.

“You really like this, don’t you?” I asked.

“I don’t like people getting murdered, but . . . yeah, people are going to ask us where we were when this happened. This is going down in history. I want to be able to remember where I was and have that somewhere be cool. Like on the roof.”

Just the way he looked, the wind lifting up his hair a little, his profile in the low light . . . Jerome was different to me now. He was more than just the friendly and somewhat strange guy I’d gotten to know. He was smart. He was adventurous. He’d been chosen to be a prefect, which had to mean something. I felt the like blossom in me.

“What happens now?” Jazza asked, coming over and joining us.

“We wait,” Jerome said. “Catherine Eddowes was killed sometime between one forty and one forty-five. It’s going to happen soon.”

1:45 arrived. Then 1:46, 1:47, 1:48, 1:49 . . .

The newscasters spun on and on, filling time by showing the same film of police cars going through the streets. I started to feel weird waiting on the roof for someone to die. It was obvious that the news people had run out of ways of saying “nothing has been found.” They returned to descriptions of the third body. The early reports confirmed that this was indeed a third Ripper murder. This was the quickest one, just a slash to the neck.

Two o’clock. Five past two. Jazza got up and began to hop on the balls of her feet and hug herself for warmth. I watched her gleeful pride slipping away with every passing minute.

“I want to go back,” she said. “I can’t stay up here anymore.”

Jerome looked to her, then over to me.

“Do you want to stay, or . . .”

There was just a touch of sadness in his voice. This made me go tingly all over. But there was no way Jazza wanted to go back by herself, and really, neither did I.

“No,” I said. “We should go back together.”

“That’s probably the best idea,” he said.

He escorted us back down the fire stairs, to the back door.

“Be careful,” he said. “Text me when you’re there safe?”

“Okay,” I said. I smiled a little. I couldn’t help it.