Library of Souls (4 page)

“Look casual,” I said. “Like you belong here.”

This seemed to strike Emma as funny, and she stifled a laugh. It
was funny, I guess, inasmuch as we belonged nowhere in particular, least of all here.

The train stopped and the doors slid open. Addison sniffed the air deeply as a bookish woman in a pea coat stepped into our car. Seeing us, her mouth fell open, and then she turned smartly and walked out again.
Nope. No thanks
. I couldn't blame her. We were filthy, freakish-looking in bizarre old clothes, and splashed with blood. We probably looked like we'd just killed the poor man beside us.

“Look casual,” Emma said, and snorted.

Addison withdrew his nose from the window. “We're on the right track,” he said. “Miss Wren and the others definitely passed this way.”

“They didn't get off here?” I asked.

“I don't think so. But if I don't smell them in the next station, we'll know we've gone too far.”

The doors smacked closed and with an electric whine we were off again. I was about to suggest we find a change of clothes when Emma jolted beside me, as if she'd just remembered something.

“Addison?” she said. “What happened to Fiona and Claire?”

At the mention of their names, a nauseating new wave of worry shot through me. We'd last seen them at Miss Wren's menagerie, where the elder girl had stayed behind with Claire, who was too ill to travel. Caul told us he'd raided the menagerie and captured the girls, but he also told us Addison was dead, so clearly his information couldn't be trusted.

“Ah,” said Addison, nodding gravely. “It's bad news, I'm afraid. Part of me, I admit, was hoping you wouldn't ask.”

Emma's face drained of color. “Tell us.”

“Of course,” he said. “Shortly after your party left, we were raided by a gang of wights. We threw armageddon eggs at them, then scattered and hid. The larger girl, with the unkempt hair—”

“Fiona,” I said, heart thudding.

“She used her facility with plants to hide us—in trees and under
new-grown brush. We were so well camouflaged that it would've taken days for the wights to root us all out, but they gassed us and drove us into the open.”

“Gas!” Emma cried. “The bastards swore they'd never use it again!”

“It appears they lied,” said Addison.

I had seen a photo once, in one of Miss Peregrine's albums, of such an attack: wights in ghostly masks with breathing canisters, standing around casually as they launched clouds of poison gas into the air. Although the stuff wasn't fatal, it made your lungs and throat burn, caused terrible pain, and was rumored to trap ymbrynes in their bird form.

“When they'd rounded us up,” Addison went on, “we were interrogated as to the whereabouts of Miss Wren. They turned her tower inside out—searching for maps, diaries, I don't know what—and when poor Deirdre tried to stop them, they shot her.”

The emu-raffe's long face flashed before me, gawky, gap-toothed, and sweet, and my stomach lurched. What kind of person could kill such a creature? “God, that's awful,” I said.

“Awful,” Emma agreed perfunctorily. “And the girls?”

“The small one was captured by the wights,” Addison said. “And the other … well, there was a scuffle with some of the soldiers, and they were near the cliff's edge, and she fell.”

I blinked at him. “What?” For a moment the world blurred, then snapped back into focus.

Emma stiffened but her face betrayed nothing. “What do you mean, fell? Fell how far?”

“It was a sheer drop. A thousand feet at least.” His fleshy jowls drooped. “I'm so sorry.”

I sat down heavily. Emma kept standing, her hands white-knuckling the rail. “No,” she said firmly. “No, that can't be. Perhaps she grabbed onto something on the way down. A branch or a ledge …”

Addison studied the gum-spackled floor. “It's possible.”

“Or the trees below cushioned her fall and caught her like a net! She can speak to them, you know.”

“Yes,” he said. “One can always hope.”

I tried to imagine being cushioned by a spiky pine tree after such a fall. It didn't seem possible. I saw the small hope Emma had kindled wink out, and then her legs began to tremble and she let go of the rail and thumped down onto the seat beside me.

She looked at Addison with wet eyes. “I'm sorry about your friend.”

He nodded. “Same to you.”

“None of this ever would've happened if Miss Peregrine were
here,” she whispered. And then, quietly, she bowed her head and began to cry.

I wanted to put my arms around her, but somehow it felt like I'd be intruding on a private moment, claiming it for myself when really it was hers alone, so instead I sat and looked at my hands and let her mourn her lost friend. Addison turned away, out of respect, I think, and because the train was slowing into another station.

The doors opened. Addison stuck his head out the window, sniffed the air on the platform, growled at someone who tried to enter our car, then came back inside. By the time the doors closed again, Emma had lifted her head and wiped away her tears.

I squeezed her hand. “Are you all right?” I said, wishing I could think of something more or better to say than that.

“I have to be, don't I?” she said. “For the ones who are still alive.”

To some it might've seemed callous, the way she boxed up her pain and set it aside, but I knew her well enough now to understand. She had a heart the size of France, and the lucky few whom she loved with it were loved with every square inch—but its size made it dangerous, too. If she let it feel everything, she'd be wrecked. So she had to tame it, shush it, shut it up. Float the worst pains off to an island that was quickly filling with them, where she would go to live one day.

“Go on,” she said to Addison. “What happened to Claire?”

“The wights marched off with her. Gagged her two mouths and tossed her into a sack.”

“But she was alive?” I said.

“And biting, as of noon yesterday. Then we buried Deirdre in our little cemetery and I hightailed it for London to find Miss Wren and warn all of you. One of Miss Wren's pigeons led me to her hideaway, and while I was pleased to see that you had arrived before me, unfortunately so had the wights. Their siege had already begun, and I was forced to watch helplessly as they stormed the building,
and—well, you know the rest. I followed as you were led away to the underground. When that blast went off, I saw an opportunity to aid you and took it.”

“Thank you for that,” I said, realizing we hadn't yet acknowledged the debt we owed him. “If you hadn't dragged us away when you did …”

“Yes, well … no need to dwell on hypothetical unpleasantries,” he said. “But in return for my gallantry, I was rather hoping you would assist me in rescuing Miss Wren from the wights. As unlikely as that sounds. She means everything to me, you see.”

It was Miss Wren he'd wanted to snatch away from the wights, not us—but we were the realistic save, farther from the train, and he'd made a snap decision and taken what he could get.

“Of course we'll help,” I said. “Isn't that what we're doing now?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “But you must realize, as an ymbryne, Miss Wren is more valuable to the wights than peculiar children, and thus she may prove more difficult to free. I worry that, if by some miracle we are lucky enough to rescue your friends …”

“Now
wait
a second,” I snapped. “Who says she's more—”

“No, it's true,” Emma said. “She'll be under heavier lock and key, no question. But we won't leave her behind. We're not leaving anyone else behind, ever again. You have our word as peculiars.”

The dog seemed satisfied with that. “Thank you,” he said, and then his ears flattened. He hopped up onto a seat to look out the window as we pulled into the next station. “Hide yourselves,” he said, ducking down. “There are enemies near.”

* * *

The wights were expecting us. I glimpsed two of them waiting on the platform, dressed as police officers among a scattering of commuters. They were scanning the cars as our train pulled into the station.
We dropped down below the windows, hoping they'd miss us—but I knew they wouldn't. The one with the walkie-talkie had radioed ahead; they must've known we were on this train. Now all they had to do was search it.

It came to a stop and people began filing on board, though not into our car. I risked a peek through the open doors and saw one of the wights down the platform, speed walking in our direction as he eyeballed each car.

“One's coming this way,” I muttered. “How's your fire, Em?”

“Running on empty,” she replied.

He was getting close. Four cars away. Three.

“Then get ready to run.”

Two cars away. Then a soft, recorded voice: “Mind the closing doors, please.”

“Hold the train!” the wight shouted. But the doors were already closing.

He stuck an arm through. The doors bounced open again. He got on board—into the car next to ours.

My eyes went to the door that connected our cars. It was locked with a chain—thank God for small mercies. The doors snicked shut and the train began to move. We shifted the folding man onto the floor and huddled with him in a spot where we couldn't be seen from the wight's car.

“What can we do?” said Emma. “The moment this train stops again, he'll come straight in here and find us.”

“Are we absolutely certain he's a wight?” asked Addison.

“Do cats grow on trees?” Emma replied.

“Not in this part of the world.”

“Then of course we aren't. But when it comes to wights, there's an old saying: if you're not sure, assume.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “The second those doors open, we run for the exit.”

Addison sighed. “All this
fleeing
,” he said disdainfully, as if
he were a gourmand and someone had offered him a limp square of American cheese. “There's no imagination in it. Mightn't we try
sneaking?
Blending in? There's artistry in that. Then we could simply walk away, gracefully, unnoticed.”

“I hate fleeing as much as anyone,” I said, “but Emma and I look like nineteenth-century axe murderers, and you're a dog who wears glasses. We're bound to be noticed.”

“Until they start manufacturing canine contact lenses, I'm stuck with these,” Addison grumbled.

“Where's that hollowgast when you need him?” said Emma offhandedly.

“Run over by a train, if we're lucky,” I said. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Only that he came in quite handy earlier.”

“And before that he nearly killed us—twice! No, three times! Whatever it is I've been doing to control it has been half by accident, and the moment I'm
not
able to? We're dead.”

Emma didn't respond right away, but studied me for a moment and then took my hand, all caked in grime, and kissed it gently, once, twice.

“What was that for?” I said, surprised.

“You have no idea, do you?”

“Of what?”

“How completely miraculous you are.”

Addison groaned.

“You have an amazing talent,” Emma whispered. “I'm certain all you need is a little practice.”

“Maybe. But practicing something usually means failing at it for a while, and failing at this means people get killed.”

Emma squeezed my hand. “Well, there's nothing like a little pressure to help you hone a new skill.”

I tried to smile but couldn't muster one. My heart hurt too much at the thought of all the damage I could cause. This thing I
could do felt like a loaded weapon I didn't know how to use. Hell, I didn't even know which end to point away from me. Better to set it down than have it blow up in my hands.

We heard a noise at the other end of the car and looked up to see the door opening. That one wasn't chained, and now a pair of leather-clad teenagers stumbled into our car, a boy and a girl, laughing and passing a lit cigarette between them.

“We'll get in trouble!” the girl said, kissing his neck.

The boy brushed a foppish wave of hair from his eyes—“I do this all the time, sweetheart”—then saw us and froze, his eyebrows parabolic. The door they'd come through banged closed behind them.

“Hey,” I said casually, as if we weren't crouched on the floor with a dying man, covered in blood. “What's up?”

Don't freak out. Don't give us away
.

The boy wrinkled his brow. “Are you …?”

“In costume,” I replied. “Got carried away with the fake blood.”

“Oh,” said the boy, clearly not believing me.

The girl stared at the folding man. “Is he …?”

“Drunk,” said Emma. “Soused out of his brain. Which is how he came to spill all our fake blood on the floor. And himself.”