“You can stay out here, if you’d like,” Stephen said, “or we can find a place where you’ll be more comfortable. A tea shop, perhaps—”

“No,” said Mina. “We’ve talked about this already.”

“That we have,” he said. “I just wanted to know you were sure.”

“Thank you,” she said and smiled, both because his intentions were good and because she was glad he’d asked. Having to say her will aloud had made it stronger; she felt her feet more firm on this path, whatever it was.

“Now,” said Stephen, and they started forward, both still trying to look casual, both inwardly anything but.

* * *

The door led to a dark, narrow stairwell where the harsh smell of carbolic soap lay thinly over years of mold. Following Stephen up the steps, Mina kept her hands at her sides and stayed to the center, well away from the walls. She didn’t look down, either. All the cleaning in the world wouldn’t keep rats out of city buildings, and though she was too familiar with them to be precisely afraid, she had no desire to see one of the creatures scurry past.

Instead, she counted steps: one-two-four-six-eight-twelve and a landing. Two doors flanked them there; Stephen didn’t stop at either. Twelve more steps went past and another landing, and they kept going. On the third floor, Stephen stopped, hesitated, and then turned right.

There was no light from under the door. Stephen bent and pressed his ear to it and then, after a moment, straightened up with no sign of alarm on his face. Still, Mina held her breath as he turned the key in the lock and let the door swing slowly, quietly open.

Nothing moved in the room beyond. Mina let her breath out in a not-quite-silent sigh of relief.

Inside, Stephen lit the gas lamps on the walls, which did nothing much for the room’s appearance. It was a cheerless place with graying white walls. Someone had scrubbed those walls well, though. The smell of soap was much stronger here than it had been in the hall. A shining mahogany monster of a desk, all pigeonholes and drawers with brass fittings, sat near the window.

“I don’t envy the woman who has to polish that.” Mina eyed the pigeonholes, many stuffed with paper. “I’ll take the right side, you take the left. Anything that looks odd?”

“Or that mentions a particular place. You’ll know as well as I.”

“Oh,” she said, and turned to the desk so she could hide her smile. She’d never thought to hear those words from Stephen.

Taking a sheaf of paper from one of the pigeonholes, she shook it hard, tapping the bottom edges of the papers against the top of the desk. “Centipedes,” she explained when Stephen gave her a curious look. “And similar. They like paper, and they love old buildings.”

“Do they?”

“Mm-hmm. I learned typing in a place like this. We used to find them in the machines some mornings.” Mina shuddered at the memory.

“But you kept going.”

“It was what I could afford,” she said, hearing her voice get brittle and clipped. Even the cheap, dirty school she’d attended had taken a year of saving. “I didn’t have much choice, did I?”

Stephen leafed through a stack of papers. “Because you wanted to be a secretary?”

“I wanted to see more of the world, even if it was secondhand. I figured I might get a position with some old lady, type up her letters and all that.” Mina smiled, remembering nights of circling advertisements in the Times. “Then I saw the Professor’s advert, and I thought a scholar would be even better.”

She put a few more papers aside. Either Ward and his correspondents were very vague, or the messages were in a code that she couldn’t make out. There were many discussions of meeting “at the usual place” or “where we talked last night,” but nothing more concrete. From the way that Stephen was rifling through documents and stuffing them back into the desk, he wasn’t finding anything, either.

Then, pulling papers from the last cubbyhole, Mina stopped and caught her breath.

She hadn’t spent a great deal of time with wealth or land, but even she knew what a property deed looked like. “Stephen,” she said, and he was instantly at her shoulder, his hair brushing against her face as he leaned forward to look.

“Anywhere you recognize?” he asked. “I’m not as familiar with the city these days.”

Mina frowned down at the address. “Not off the top of my head, no, but it looks like it’s down by the docks. Could be a warehouse.” She blinked. “Why would he need a warehouse?”

At first, Stephen didn’t answer, not until Mina looked up at him and he seemed to realize she wasn’t going to drop the question. “He might want room,” he said quietly, “and a place where most people couldn’t hear what happened inside. Creatures like he uses often have a price.” He drew a sudden low breath that was half a snarl.

“What is it?” Mina asked. Stephen’s teeth were very white even in the dim room, and they looked sharper than a normal man’s would, but she didn’t look away. She didn’t even feel the urge to do so.

“The creature that came to the house last time. I think it was human once.”

* * *

In a way, Mina was glad that they’d found the deed so late. It meant they could leave soon afterward. She’d known Ward could and had killed. Now she couldn’t escape the thought that what she knew about might be the smallest part of the blood on his hands. The building seemed very dark as they walked down the stairs, and very empty.

“Are you going to go and”—she cleared her throat, unsure what word she should use—“find him now?”

“Tomorrow, I’d think. Midday. The manes don’t have as much power then, and hopefully Ward won’t, either.”

“And the…other things?” Mina asked, remembering the gelid hand that had punched through the door.

“I don’t know. I’ve not seen anything like them before.”

She couldn’t go, of course. She was small, human, and neither a warrior nor a witch. She couldn’t reliably shoot anything more than a foot or two away from her. In a pitched battle, she’d do more harm than good.

“Will you take anyone?” she asked, her eyes on the back of Stephen’s neck.

“I can’t,” he said, “Not unless Colin’s arm heals sooner than any of us think. If I catch Ward off guard, it should go all right.” He began to say something else and then stopped, so suddenly that Mina nearly ran into his back.

“What is it?” she asked, whispering again.

In answer, Stephen pointed to the window above the door, too high for Mina to see. “There are men out there. Two of them. And from the way they’re talking, they’re not moving for a while.”

Thirty-seven

Every curse Stephen knew, in a variety of languages, went through his mind in a moment. Rather than utter any of them, he bit his tongue and motioned for Mina to go back up the stairs. He followed her. Every so often, he turned to make sure the door hadn’t opened, but it stayed shut. The men outside didn’t seem to have heard their footsteps.

On the second-floor landing, they stopped. Mina sat down on the first step, and Stephen sank down beside her.

“They don’t know we’re here,” he said, once he’d started to think the situation through. “They’d have come in if they did. Or Ward would have.” Ward might also have sent demons after them if he’d known, but Stephen didn’t want to say that aloud just now. He glanced at his pocket watch: quarter past midnight. “He must have them guard the place regularly, this late.”

“Or someone else might,” said Mina. “He’s not the only rich man who keeps a secret or two.”

Even in the darkness, Stephen could see her grin at him. She seemed in no danger of panic. Her voice was a little shaky, but that was all. In that respect, as in others, she was a very good companion to have in these circumstances—even if her presence did bring with it certain complications.

The stairs weren’t wide. As they sat side by side, Mina’s thigh pressed against Stephen’s, the contact was thrilling despite their predicament, several layers of clothing, and the generally uninviting atmosphere of the staircase. He shifted his weight and fought a losing battle with his instincts.

At least it was dark.

“What now?” Mina asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Stephen, fixing his mind on higher things, or at least trying to. “I don’t want to kill the men outside—particularly not if Ward didn’t hire them.”

“No,” said Mina, quiet but firm. “You said you didn’t think they’d go away for a while?”

Stephen shook his head. “One of them said it was a long time until dawn. This place has no back door, either—at least not one we can get to from the staircase. We could break the lock on one of the ground floor offices and break a window from there—”

“—but that would get as much attention as going out the door.”

Stephen looked down at his hands, and the silver ring caught his attention. “I could talk to Colin, at least. I’m not sure what help that would be, though. ‘Excuse me, sir, but my brother and his friend snuck in there and would like to come out now.’ It doesn’t sound promising.”

“Doesn’t have to be him,” said Mina, sitting up as an idea struck her. “And it doesn’t have to be the truth. Have him hire someone to distract the guards. They could…I don’t know, start a fire or break a window round the back and start yelling, and then run for it. You could get a couple men for half a pound each, I’d think.”

“At this time of night?”

Mina laughed. “Especially at this time of night. It’s the sort of idea that’ll sound wonderful to drunk men.”

Without thinking, Stephen put an arm around Mina’s shoulders. “Cerberus, you’re a wonder.”