Jacob and I exchanged glances. The coincidence was too close for my liking. One week a book on demonology is stolen and the next a shape-shifting demon just happens to be summoned from the Otherworld? Unlikely.

"Stolen!" I said to Mr. Culvert. "By whom?"

George Culvert drummed his fingers on his knee, sighed, drummed some more then finally answered me. "I'm sad to say that it must have been one of the servants. I can see no other explanation. No one enters during the day without Greggs the footman letting them in and the house is locked up at night. It must have been someone who lives here and since Mother and I do not need to steal it..." He sank back into the chair, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed. He looked like a deflated balloon. I knew what it was like to have a trusted servant steal from you. Bella's predecessor had taken the payment from one of our séances before we'd had a chance to put it away. Celia and I had been devastated when we saw the money fall out of her apron pocket.

"Perhaps it wasn’t a servant. The book could have been missing for some time," I said. "Months even. If it's an obscure one and your library is large, you wouldn't have noticed it. You probably had any number of people come into the house in that time."

"Good point," Jacob said with admiration.

Mr. Culvert shook his head. "The missing book is large with a beautiful red leather spine. It made quite a hole in my shelves and I noticed it missing immediately. I questioned the servants of course, but none owned up to the theft. However I'm quite certain it was one particular maid. She has been with us for only a month, and as the newest member in the house, I'm afraid suspicion naturally fell on her. Besides, the girl was very nervous when I questioned her."

"She's still with you?" I asked.

He nodded. "I couldn't dismiss her without evidence and I never found the book despite having the housekeeper search the room the girl shares with two other maids."

"We'll speak to her later," Jacob said.

I'd been thinking the same thing but wasn't sure if involving George Culvert any more than he already was would be a good idea. On the other hand, the more we spoke to him, the more I liked him and thought he could be trusted with all the information we knew. He might even prove helpful.

And I had a feeling he wouldn't think I was mad for talking to a ghost.

Before I could think further on the matter, he stood and offered me his hand. "Would you like to come with me to the library, Miss Chambers? We might as well get started on your research topic."

I took his hand and heard a grunt from Jacob. I casually raised my brows in his direction, challenging him to tell me what bothered him so much about the courteous action, but he merely grunted again and turned away. We both followed Culvert down to an enormous room on the ground floor filled to bursting with books. The library took up two entire levels and every spare space of wall was covered in shelves crammed with books of all shapes and sizes. Each wall had a ladder to reach the higher volumes, and two big arched windows framed with heavy crimson drapes allowed light into even the furthest corners. For night, cast iron gas lamps topped with crouching angels were bolted to the vertical sides of the shelves and were also positioned on pedestals beside most of the chairs. The mahogany furniture looked heavy with solid, stumpy legs ending in clawed feet, so unlike the spindly pieces in the drawing room. There were two leather-inlaid desks, one small and one large, and deep reading chairs upholstered in red leather that looked soft enough to curl up in. A small fire burned low in the enormous hearth to keep the chill away and the thick rug covering most of the floor gave the room a warm, welcoming feel. It was my idea of heaven.

"You like it." Mr. Culvert seemed genuinely pleased.

"It's wonderful," I said on a breath. "Are they all works dedicated to demonology?"

"Not all. Only half of that wall there." He indicated the wall opposite the door, the only one where the shelves weren't interrupted by windows or the fireplace. "The rest are volumes on other supernatural phenomena, and there's a few novels and medical texts too. My father's tastes were eclectic."

Even Jacob looked impressed. He went straight to the demonology books and scanned the shelves. "This might be a good one to start with, Emily."

I came up beside him and extracted the book he indicated. "An Introduction to Demonic Phenomena."

Culvert pulled out a chair at the large central table. "Would you like to sit while you read?"

"Thank you, Mr. Culvert."

"Please, call me George."

I smiled at him. "And you shall call me Emily."

"That's a little informal on such short acquaintance, don’t you think?" Jacob said, suddenly standing behind me.

I wanted to retort that he and I had dispensed with formalities on an equally short acquaintance but I couldn't alert George to his presence. Not yet. And I suspected Jacob would tell me the normal rules didn't apply to him anyway because he was a ghost.

I sat in the chair—I was right, the leather was soft and welcoming—and flipped to the table of contents. Jacob returned to browsing the shelves while George closed some books he had open on the other side of the large desk and tidied his notes.

"George!" came a shrill voice from outside the room. "George, do you have your nose buried in a blasted book again?" A striking woman dressed in a burgundy satin gown with excessively puffed sleeves and a cascade of ruffles on the skirt strode into the library. She stopped abruptly when she saw me and fixed me with a glare that could have frozen the Thames in summer. "Oh. You have a guest." She didn't sound pleased although she seemed surprised.

I lifted my chin and gave her a sweet smile in return. It was a tactic I'd seen Celia use at our séances. Whenever she was faced with a skeptical audience member, she would charm them. It worked most of the time. "Emily Chambers," I said, rising. "Pleased to—."

"I wasn't addressing you."

I plopped back down in the chair. So much for charm.

I felt rather than saw Jacob move up beside me. "Would you like me to pull the pins out of that ridiculous hair style and poke them one by one into her ear?"

I laughed then tried to stifle it but only ended up making a horrid snorting sound. Mrs. Culvert's glare—for I'd guessed it to be her—turned even frostier. I could not, however, quaver anymore, not after Jacob’s offer. She did indeed have a rather ridiculous hairstyle, scraped back so tightly it made her eyes slant. The ridiculousness was amplified by her tiny hat with the very tall feathers shooting straight up from the crown in a V-shape. I'd not seen anything like it.

George placed a book on the table and gave me an apologetic grimace. "Mother, this is Miss Emily Chambers. She was a friend of Jacob Beaufort."

"Beaufort!" Mrs. Culvert's eyes widened and she suddenly smiled. It was dazzling and changed her face from one of severity to friendliness. The transformation was remarkable, if insincere, and I could see she must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. She had the same well-defined cheekbones as her son and a luscious, wide mouth with perfect teeth. "Such an illustrious family, and such a lovely boy was poor Jacob. So handsome and charming. Clever too. Cleverer even than you, George." This she said with a satisfactory gleam in her eye. George merely shrugged.

"Maybe she's not so bad after all," Jacob said.

"Shame he died," Mrs. Culvert continued with a sigh. "And in terribly mysterious circumstances too. I hear his poor mother hasn't quite got over it."

I glanced up at Jacob. A muscle pulsed high in his jaw and his fingers dug into the leather backrest of my chair. The indentations would have been noticeable to anyone who cared to look. I went to touch his hand to obscure the marks and calm him but he vanished. He reappeared near one of the long windows overlooking Wilton Crescent, his straight back to me.

"My dear Miss Chambers," Mrs. Culvert said, coming up beside me and standing in the exact place Jacob had vacated. She continued to smile but I now thought it stretched, almost gruesome. "How well do you know the family? Could you introduce me to Lady Preston I wonder?"

Lady Preston? Who on earth was she?

"Mother," George warned.

"I believe they throw the most lavish parties," she went on. "Or they used to. There haven't been any parties there since poor Jacob died." She stopped smiling for all of a second then the beam returned, harder than ever. "Perhaps a party is exactly what they need to take their mind off their loss. What do you think, Miss Chambers? We can have one here. I'll send the Prestons an invitation but if Lady Preston refuses you simply must speak to her and insist. Tell Lord and Lady Preston their daughter needs to enjoy herself again. It’s not wholesome to keep a young lady of spirit away from Society. She should be enjoying herself, attending balls and teas and meeting young men." Her gaze flicked to George, then back to me again. "She must be about your own age, hmmm?"

If I was following the conversation correctly—and that was an If with a capital I—then the Prestons were Jacob’s parents and Jacob was nobility!

Good lord, and I'd been addressing him by his first name all this time. I turned to him but he'd disappeared again. Thank goodness. Apart from the awkwardness of knowing he was so far above me on the social ladder that we might as well have been on different ladders entirely, I was also beginning to feel sick on his behalf having to listen to the awful Mrs. Culvert prattle on about his family in such a heartless way.

"Mother," George said again but to no avail. She was completely ignoring him now. It was as if he wasn't even in the room.

"Thank you for the invitation," I said although I wasn't sure I was actually invited without the Beauforts or Prestons or whoever they were. "However I must decline. I'm otherwise engaged that evening."

Her smile wilted like a lily in the hot sun as my snub hit home. She hadn't given me a date.

Her cold stare turned on George and I felt sorry for him. To his credit, he didn't flinch. He was probably used to her. "I'm going out for the rest of the day." She strode to the door, her broad skirts rippling like waves in time to her vigorous walk.

"Sorry," George said when she was gone. He glanced around the room. "Is he terribly mad now?"

All the blood drained from my face and plunged to my toes. "Uh...who?" I felt like a fool for even asking. He knew about Jacob. Of course he did. He was a clever man and I was hopeless at lying and keeping secrets. "He's gone," I said, answering my own question.

"Tell me when he returns so I can apologize."

"I didn't realize it was that obvious. How did you work out he was here?"

He smiled. "You are the pre-eminent spirit medium in London, you used his name as an introduction to me and you kept looking at certain spots about the room as if you were listening to someone speak. Oh, and you picked out the most useful book on demonology without even browsing the spines first."

I bit my lip and the blood returned to my cheeks with a vengeance. Now I knew why I was a terrible liar—because being caught out gave me such an awful feeling that I preferred not to risk it, hence the lack of practice. "I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Culvert. It was very wrong of me to mislead you."

"You agreed to call me George."

"George, as I said, I'm very sorry. Can you forgive me?"

He grinned and he had the same beautiful smile as his mother, although his was by far the more spectacular because of its sincerity. "Of course, although I'm not sure there's anything to forgive. Not telling me about Beaufort's ghost was understandable. I imagine not everyone is so...believing in your abilities."

"Not everyone, no. Not even all of the people who pay us to perform séances in their drawing rooms. I'm afraid we are still very much seen as a novelty act. A harmless entertainment for ladies."

"You're not entirely thought of in that light, let me assure you. Some are beginning to take you seriously. I'd heard about you and your sister at one of my Society for Supernatural Activity meetings. One of the members had witnessed a séance you conducted and was convinced you were genuine. I wanted to see for myself and tried to convince Mother to have you perform here for her friends while I watched on but she'd have none of the paranormal. She said she'd had enough of that nonsense when Father was alive."

"Then I'm glad we finally get to meet in this way." I indicated the bookshelves, the luxurious furniture. "This is a far more interesting setting. Perhaps one day, after this is all over, I can come back and summon a spirit for you."

"Thank you! That would be fascinating." He frowned. "But what do you mean, after all this is over? Does it have something to do with shape-shifting demons and why you want to study them?"

I nodded and finally told him the story about the demon's release. "Dear God," he murmured when I'd finished. He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This isn't good. Not good at all."

"Jacob told me it's very dangerous."

He nodded and put his glasses back on. "It is. But...didn't he tell you everything about them? Why do you need to read books?"

"It seems he's not privy to some details. How is it directed, for instance? Is there another way to return it to the Otherworld? Which cultures know of its existence? That sort of thing. We hoped you might be able to help us while we wait for the amulet peddler to return tomorrow."

"Of course, I'd be happy to. My own knowledge of the shape-shifting variety is somewhat lacking but I'll tell you what I know and then we'll search the books."

"Excellent. Let's see...ah yes. Jacob thinks it can only be killed by a weapon that has come from the Otherworld. But what kind of weapon?"

"It must be a blade of some kind—sword, dagger, axe, that sort of thing. Oh, and the demon's head must be severed from its neck by the blade."

Ugh. "Next question, how does it harm people?"

"Through good old fashioned physical violence, but of course its capabilities are dependent on the form it takes. In other words, if it changes into a snail, it cannot claw someone's heart out. No claws on snails you see."

"Perhaps it could slime them to death."

He laughed, loudly. "Very amusing." He continued to laugh much too vigorously. I hadn't thought it that amusing, particularly considering the gruesome nature of the conversation but I didn't say so. He seemed to suddenly notice I didn't share his enthusiasm for my own joke and his laughter died. He cleared his throat and said, "Did you know it could kill ghosts too?"

"Kill ghosts? That doesn't seem entirely logical. Ghosts are already dead."

"What I meant was a demon can extract a ghost's soul." He tapped his chest. "From here. The soul can be quite literally pulled out. Not by us of course."

Why didn't I know this? Why hadn't Jacob told me? "And what happens if a ghost's soul is removed?"

"You don't know?" I shook my head and he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well it ceases to exist at all, in any realm," he said. "It has no energy, no cognitive abilities. It becomes...nothing."

Oh. No. To become nothing would be, well, a fate worse than death to use a cliché.

"So your friend Jacob must be careful," he added.

"Yes," I said weakly. "Extremely." This information put Jacob’s involvement into an entirely different context—this assignment could destroy him.

"Now, that's all I know. Shall we each find a book and begin?"

We spent the next three hours looking through books, making notes and cross-checking facts. Jacob didn't return but I didn't mind. I suspect I would have found it difficult to concentrate with him in the room. He was rather distracting. George and I worked quietly until a footman interrupted us with lunch, which George had requested to be served in the library.

"What's he like?" George asked, in between bites of warm ham. "Jacob Beaufort's ghost, I mean."

I paused, the fork half way to my mouth. Jacob was handsome, magnificent, intriguing and compelling. I found it hard not to look at him when he was in my presence, and hard not to think about him when he wasn't. "He seems nice," was all I said. Gushing about a ghost, particularly to a man, seemed foolish. It was times like this I wish I had a female friend of my own age to talk to. Celia wasn't quite the understanding type when it came to discussing men, dead or alive, unless it was with a view to matrimony and even then she would want me to temper my descriptions. "I was surprised when you said Jacob didn't really notice people at school though," I said. "He seems very aware of others." He'd definitely noticed me. My face still burned just thinking about his intense stares.

George shrugged. "Perhaps he's changed since his death. I hardly knew him but I do know that his awareness of others did not extend to those outside his circle. How did he die, by the way?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. We haven't discussed it and I don’t want to ask...just in case." I put my fork down, no longer hungry. It had just struck me that I'd hit on the reason why Jacob was so solid, so real to me—perhaps he'd taken his own life. I'd never met a ghost who had, so maybe solidness was a characteristic of those spirits. I swallowed past the lump lodged in my throat. The thought was so awful I didn't want to think about it let alone voice it.

"You think he...?" George shook his head so vigorously I worried it would roll off his neck. "Even from my limited knowledge of him I can tell you Beaufort wasn't the sort. I've never met anyone so full of life, so content with his lot. Not to mention he had so much to live for."

Relief made me feel momentarily light-headed so I picked up my fork and began to eat again to give myself something to focus on.

"I didn't speak out of turn in the drawing room earlier," George went on. "Beaufort was good at everything. Sport, school, politics. Everyone loved him—students, teachers even the servants." He chuckled as he poked a potato with his fork. "And the girls too."

"Girls! Oh." Of course there would be girls. Jacob Beaufort was definitely the sort to attract females.

Had he ever looked at any of them the way he looked at me?

"Sorry," George said, "I forgot for a moment there was a lady present."

I pushed my plate away, my hunger gone for good. "So you know nothing about his death?"

More head shaking from George. "He simply vanished from his Oxford rooms one night apparently. His body was never found."

"Never found! Good lord, how awful." Perhaps that was why Jacob was so solid and could wander where he pleased. His earthly body had not found a final resting place where his family could honor and remember him properly. It made quite a bit of sense to me.

"Terrible," George agreed. "My mother may be a lot of things, but she is certainly a voracious collector of gossip. If she says Lady Preston is still grieving, then most likely she is. And for Lady Preston to show her emotions in public, she must be very distressed indeed."

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Losing a child must be the worst thing that could happen to a mother, but to not have found his body, to be left wondering if he was alive somewhere but unable to contact his family...it was too awful to contemplate.

I forced the tears away. There was no point in getting upset for Lady Preston because I alone knew Jacob was not going to be found safe and sound. He was most definitely dead.

"Tell me about his family," I said. "His father is a lord?"

George nodded. "Viscount. Beaufort is the family name, Preston the title. I don't know them well. As I said, Jacob and I went to Eton together but our families have never mixed socially even though they only live around the corner in Belgrave Square. My father was considered a bit of an eccentric, you see, much to Mother's disappointment. Despite her attempts to further our standing in Society, we were never really accepted, particularly by a family like Jacob's."

"Oh? Are they terribly upright?"

"Very. The family is old, has buckets of money and owns a great deal of land in Essex. They spend most of their time there except when Parliament is open in spring and summer and they come to London together. Lord Preston has a lot of political influence in the House of Lords but he's a Tory—very conservative. Could you imagine a man who doesn't want to give farmers the right to vote associating with a demonologist?"

He laughed and I laughed too. But I couldn't imagine it. I wondered what Lord Preston would think of his dead son communicating with a spirit medium.

"What's so funny?" asked Jacob, suddenly appearing beside me.

I put a hand to my rapidly pounding heart. "You scared me."

"My apologies. If there was another way to come and go without alarming you I'd employ it." He gave me that smile I'd become so used to, the crooked one that made his lips curve in just the right way. It would seem he was no longer upset by what Mrs. Culvert had said.

"Is he here?" George asked, glancing around the room.

"He is," I said.

"Oh. Good." He cleared his throat. "Hello, Beaufort, how are you?"

Jacob sighed and shook his head in disbelief at the polite but inappropriate question. "I see you told him about me. Was that wise?"

"He guessed." To George I said, "He's well thank you, and asks how are you?"

"Very well," George said. "Fit as a fiddle." He pushed his glasses up his nose and grinned at me. He was enjoying this. I suppose he'd never had a conversation with a ghost before. Although to be technically accurate, he wasn't having one now, I was.

"Since he knows about me, I want to ask him something," Jacob said.

"He wants to ask you something," I said to George. "He's standing right beside me."

George's gaze settled on my right.

Jacob, on my left side, sighed again and picked up a book. George's gaze shifted. "Ask him to introduce us to the maid he suspects of stealing the book."

* * *

The girl, known by her surname of Finch, said she was sixteen but she looked older. Dark circles underscored eyes that drooped at the corners as if they were too tired to open properly. Red blotches on her cheeks and chin marked her otherwise sallow skin and she seemed to have far more teeth than could fit in her small mouth.

"Finch," George said, towering over the girl, "this lady wants to ask you some questions." He spoke to her with his hands clasped behind him and a deeper voice than he used when addressing me. I suppose he was fulfilling his role as master of the house by asserting his authority over her but, like most men, he didn't realize the best way to get answers was with kindness, not by frightening the poor girl.

"My name is Emily Chambers," I said to her. "And you are?"

"Finch," she said, eyes downcast.

George looked at me as if I had a memory like a sieve. Jacob, however, nodded his approval. He at least seemed to know what I was doing.

"Your first name?" I persisted.

"Maree, miss." Her hands, reddened and chapped, twisted and stretched her apron to the point where I thought she might tear it.

"Well then, Maree, Mr. Culvert tells me you started working here only a month ago."

"On the twenty-fifth, miss." Still she did not look at me.

"Ask her if she stole the book," Jacob said.

I refrained from rolling my eyes. Just. "Do you know the book Mr. Culvert claims was stolen from this library, Maree?" I asked instead.

Maree's gaze flicked up to mine then lowered again. "I don't know nothin' 'bout no books, miss. I can't read." Her hands twisted faster and faster and she shifted her weight from foot to foot as if she would bolt at any moment.

"Don't fret, Maree," I said, touching her shoulder. "No one's going to hurt you. You're not in trouble. I believe you."

She looked at me, her eyes not quite trusting. "You do?"

"I do." I smiled at her. "You must not have any need for books or the time to learn to read them."

"I don't, miss. Them words and stuff all looked funny to me. And the pictures in that book scared me, they did. I wanted nothin' to do wiv it."

George shook his head. "And yet—"

"Of course you didn’t," I said, cutting him off.

George cleared his throat and thrust out his chin. Jacob chuckled beside me. "He thinks your methods aren't getting results."

I had a feeling George wasn't the only one. I gave Jacob a pointed glare. If he had a better way of doing this, then he was welcome to feed me questions to ask the maid.

"So if you wanted nothing to do with the book," I said to her, "who did you give it to?"

Maree's gaze remained downcast. After a moment her shoulders slumped and began to shake. She was crying. Oh dear, I was going about this all wrong. I put my arm around her but she stepped away and I let my arm fall to my side.

George frowned at the girl. "Answer Miss Chambers, Finch. Who did you give the book to?"

"No one." She wiped away her tears with her apron but still they came. And still she kept looking at the rug. If she'd only meet my gaze I might believe her.

"She's lying," Jacob said.

"I know," I said on a sigh.

"Answer me, Finch," George said. I was struck by the change in him. When it had been just the two of us, he'd been gentle and kind, but now there was a commanding note in his tone that would make an army general proud. I wouldn't want to be in Finch's shoes. "Have you fallen in with a bad lot, is that it?" George asked. "I was told by the school's administrators that your brother was thrown out for thievery. Is he behind this?"

"No! It's nothin' to do wiv 'im, sir! Please, sir."

"Was it one of your friends from that school? Have they put you up to this?"

"Sir, please, sir, can I go? It weren't my fault! I don't know nothin' 'bout no book! Please, sir."

I caught George's gaze and nodded. He dismissed the maid and she ran from the room. Her footsteps and sobs finally grew distant and I sat down, defeated.

"Good try," Jacob said, perching on the desk near me. He gave me a sad smile. "Are you all right?"

I blew out a breath. "That was awful." I rubbed my temples where a headache threatened.

"But you see what I mean when I say she was lying," George said.

I nodded. "I know she was lying, but I wonder if we could have handled that interview better. It's likely she stole the book for someone else."

"Perhaps she had no choice in the matter," Jacob said.

"You think someone threatened her and if she refused to take the book then..." I couldn't finish the sentence. It was too horrible to contemplate the things that could befall a poor girl like Maree if she fell into the clutches of an unscrupulous player.

"I suppose," George said. He pursed his lips together in thought then shrugged one shoulder. "But she's not likely to tell us anything now."

"Probably not. George, you mentioned a school to Maree just now. Are you referring to the North London School for Domestic Service?"

He nodded. "Many of our junior staff come from there. Why?"

"No particular reason. My sister is going there to find a maid today, that's all."

"It has a good reputation and we've never had a problem with any of the servants from there. Until now," he added with a grunt of disgust.

Jacob narrowed his eyes at George. "Emily, what's say you and I continue the interview without our friend here?"

My thoughts exactly. "I think it's time we leave," I said to George. "I have another séance to conduct this afternoon with my sister." It was the truth. Celia and I did have an appointment to keep, but not for another hour if my pocket watch was anything to go by.

George rang for his footman who showed me out. Jacob disappeared then reappeared when I reached the street corner.

"I'll watch the main door while you go down to the basement," he said. There was a lightness about his step that hadn't been there before, and although he wasn't smiling, I suspected he was controlling it.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"George Culvert deserves us going behind his back to speak to his servants."

"That's not fair, Jacob. I quite like him. Most of the time." Although a gentleman couldn't be expected to treat his servants the way he treated his guests, it had come as something of a shock to see him turn from meek to master when the interrogation began. I'd not have expected it from him. Jacob on the other hand seemed like exactly the sort to order people about, no matter their station.

Jacob regarded me with a raised eyebrow. "You can't possibly like him. He's strange. Who chooses to study demonology for pity's sake?"

"Who chooses to see ghosts?"

Two finely dressed women I hadn't seen approaching quickened their steps as they passed by and lowered their parasols to avoid making eye contact. They must have heard me speaking to Jacob, or rather, to myself. At least they were too scared to give me odd looks.

I checked that no one else was within earshot then muttered, "Let's go. And don’t say anything to me unless it's vitally important to my conversation with Maree. You're very off-putting at times."

"I am?" He grinned. Dazzled by his beautiful smile, my irritation disappeared and I grinned back.

We walked side by side to the Culvert house once more. Jacob took the steps up to the main door then vanished. I suppose he'd reappeared on the other side where he could keep a closer watch. I descended the other stairs that led down to the basement entrance used by the servants, not the Culverts themselves. I knocked on the door and a maid answered.

"Hello, I went to the North London School for Domestic Service with Maree Finch. Is she here? I need to speak to her."

It was a bold lie and the maid, a middle-aged matronly woman in white cap and apron, looked suspicious. "You friends wiv her?" she asked. I nodded. "Didn’t fink the likes o’ her had friends."

"Yes, well, can I see her? I’ll be brief," I added when she began to shake her head. "It’s about…the passing of a favorite teacher."

The maid heaved a sigh and asked me, grudgingly, to wait while she fetched her.

Jacob came in behind me as Maree emerged from one of the rooms off the narrow hallway, her hands buried in her apron again. She took one look at me and burst into tears.

"Leave me be! I dunno nothin'!" she cried. She backed away as I stepped forward.

"It's all right, Maree. I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just tell the truth and everything will be all right. Tell me who made you steal the book."

She shook her head. "No. No." Tears streamed down her face and her nose oozed a thick green sludge. "Leave me be. Go away!"

"Maree—."

"I said go away!" She ran at me, teeth bared, cap falling to once side. A knife in her grasp.

She hadn't been ringing her hands in her apron, she'd been polishing the blade.

I gasped and put my arms up to cover my face.

"Emily!" Jacob's shout sounded strange in my ears, not like him at all. High, strained.

Scared.