It was time, she decided, to reassert order. She thanked the men for their help, and began ushering them toward the front door. It was growing late, the children’s supper was waiting, she’d let them know if they discovered anything new . . . Yes, of course the precinct-house would be invited to the Marching Band Revue, they were welcome every year . . . She saw them out, and then went upstairs.
Kreindel was still in the lavatory; sobs rose now and again from one of the stalls. A group of whispering girls lurked outside, clearly waiting to waylay her with questions. The headmistress told them in no uncertain terms to go downstairs for supper, then knocked gently upon the stall door. “Kreindel? Do you need anything?”
The sobs were tamed to sniffles. “No, thank you,” Kreindel whispered.
The headmistress sighed. She, too, wanted to ask Kreindel what she’d seen in the basement—no more of these outlandish stories, only the honest truth—and what role, if any, Charlotte Levy had played. But the girl had gone through enough for one day. They could resume their questioning in the morning.
“Why don’t you take a nice, long shower,” she told Kreindel. “And then you can have your supper in the infirmary, if you like. I’ll tell Matron to expect you.”
The shower helped, somewhat.
Kreindel had only ever bathed in the mornings, when every faucet in the Asylum was open and the water ran at a lukewarm trickle. But now there was plenty, and steaming hot. Her matted hair unstuck itself from her neck; the film of salt dissolved from her skin. Her head throbbed from crying. Her stomach felt hollow, but she knew she couldn’t eat. She’d just lost her only friend. He’d terrified her, and she’d driven him away. She wanted him back. She hoped she’d never see him again.
She sniffed back more tears, closed her eyes, tilted her face into the spray . . . and for a moment felt a different set of sensations. Water, but colder, and more of it, not just a shower’s worth . . . There, again. She concentrated, seeking it out. Not quite knowing how, she reached out into the darkness—
—and grabbed his hand.
He was walking along a murky river-bottom, the currents curling around him, warm and cool, fresh and salt. He felt oddly at home here, in the quiet. He looked up, and saw faraway glimmers of light, filtering through the depths. Miss Levy was beside him, holding his hand: a hand like his own, not flesh and bone but clay, cool and strong. She, too, had lived in hiding, and had been hurt by it, deeply. Despite everything, he was glad, at this moment, to be walking beside her. She was taking him south toward the river’s end, to a place that she knew of . . .
Kreindel gasped, and jolted back to herself.
Miss Levy was a golem, too.
* * *
The Hotel Earle was in chaos.
Guests roamed the hallways, asking each other if they’d heard the gunshot. In Room 812, they found a scene out of a dime novel: a blood-soaked carpet, a pearl-handled pistol, and an empty bottle of laudanum. It was everything that the newspaper-men could’ve wished for—but they were all out on Waverly Place, following after the lieutenant who’d fled white-faced through the lobby, babbling something about a tiger.
Sophia, meanwhile, only knew that someone was carrying her down a flight of stairs.
Where was she? She turned her head, saw a man’s fleshy cheek and bristling mustache. The hotel manager. He’d come to her room, just before . . . What had happened? Her stomach hurt terribly. She tried to lift her head, but didn’t have the strength. The walls were pale and unpainted, and the manager’s shoes rang on bare risers. It must be a service staircase, she realized. Someone was behind them; she heard heeled boots, a woman’s labored, half-sobbing breaths. Her mother.
The world was dimming; she saw a shimmer in the air, above her. Was it Dima? She tried to squint, to focus, but the pain was growing worse. She was warm, though. Why was she so warm?
I must be dying, she thought.
Above her, the jinniyeh kept pace unseen, watching as Sophia’s face grew ever paler and her blood leaked from her stomach to drip upon the stairs. She had little knowledge of human injury, but this seemed alarming. Would the woman die? She shuddered at the memory of the bullet passing through her own body; even now she felt a horrible wrongness inside herself, as though it were still there somehow.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell, and emerged in an alley. The chauffeur had been idling the limousine nearby, for discretion’s sake; he saw them coming, and rushed to help. Together they bundled Sophia into the back, her head in Julia’s lap, Julia’s cloak pressed upon the wound. There was a brief argument about their destination—Saint Vincent’s was closest, but the House of Relief was the best—and the Oldsmobile sped out of the alley.
They drove south on West Broadway toward the House of Relief, the chauffeur leaning on the horn and speeding through the intersections while Julia gazed down at her now-unconscious daughter. A grown woman, all childhood softness gone, her hair plaited about her head like a Viking queen’s. The first gray hairs were at her temples; the first fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes. Dear God, Julia thought, let me not have killed her.
Still battling her own injuries, the jinniyeh struggled to keep the Oldsmobile in sight, terrified that if she lost track of the woman, she might never find her again. Don’t die, the jinniyeh thought. Don’t leave me alone in this terrible place.
