‘We’re all trapped.’ Tom went right up to the glass and put his forehead on it. It wasn’t cool, but warm and buzzing with energy. He could see into Jack’s rooms. There was no sign of Jack. ‘He’s planned everything. He wanted to kill me. He never wanted me to take over. So …’ He turned back to face Kit and Zita. ‘We have to do something he’s not going to expect.’

‘What’s that, Tommy? What can we do here? You saw yourself, we can’t get out.’

Filled with an odd kind of glee, Tom ran to the window and peered out into the mist.

Then he grabbed the latch.

Chapter 19

My daughter has vanished. There is no other word for it. Every day I pray to God. Every day he does not answer me.

— From a letter by the Rev. Laurence Ravenswood to his Diocesan Bishop, November 1846. The letter was never sent.

Tom could scarcely believe what he had done. He’d thrust open the window. He felt elated.

‘What are you doing?’ Zita jumped up, clutching her hands together. Kit moved sluggishly towards the window to shut it.

The elation did not last long. Mist was pouring into the room now, thick and cold, unpleasantly surging over their skin and all but blinding them.

Kit’s shouts were mingled, confusedly, with Zita’s

‘Find each other!’ Tom shouted. His voice sounded muffled and damp. The mist was seeping into his lungs, clammy and uncomfortable, groping at him, its tendrils seeming to flick at him all over. ‘Zita! Kit!’

He grabbed indiscriminately near him and felt first a sleeve and then a hand. Its fingers closed onto his tightly.

‘Thomas.’ It was Kit. Kit linked his arm into Tom’s. The welcome pressure of another body. The silver hair, dimly discerned.

‘Zita!’ Tom called.

‘Here,’ came a voice, seemingly far distant, and then suddenly her face was close to his, and those familiar dark eyes were blinking at him. Relief. He grasped her hand too, joining his own arm to hers.

‘Stay together.’

‘What if something comes in?’

A gust of wind blew into the room, making them huddle together. The cold was almost unbearable. There was a howl, like a wolf, and then the beating of wings. They braced themselves.

And then the mist began to clear, and within a few seconds they could make out each other’s features.

They stood, panting, regarding each other in the strange light. Beyond the glass of their prison, Jack’s rooms remained as they had always been; they had never felt so far away.

‘You might have killed us, Tommy boy.’ Zita drew him to her, hardly able to disguise her relief, and pulled Kit into the embrace too.

After a second or two, they released each other. Kit was wide-eyed. ‘He maun come.’

‘He’s not here yet,’ said Zita.