They took Father Greaves to the chapter hospital through the back streets, where the fog was thinner and the carriage wheels made almost no sound. I walked the rest of the way alone. The rain had started again, fine and cold, the kind that settles into wool and never quite dries. By the time I reached The Black Dog, my boots were soaked through and my left hand had begun to bleed through the bandage. I stood for a moment outside the door, listening to the noise inside: voices, the scrape of a chair, a woman laughing near the fire. It all felt foreign now, after High Moor. After the yew tree. I pushed the door open. The tavern was warm and brown with lamplight. A few men sat near the hearth, heads low over their cups. Iona was behind the bar, sleeves rolled, wiping down a row of pewter mugs. She looked up when the door shut, and the cloth went still in her hand. She knew. Maybe it was my face, or the way I stood, or the old blood on my coat. She didn't call out. She only set the cloth down and came around the bar, wiping her hands on her apron as she crossed the floor. "Back so soon," she said. Her voice was even, but her eyes moved over me too quickly, reading. "Yes, Mrs. Marsh," I said. My voice came out hoarse. She stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could smell the soap and ale on her hands. She looked at my bandage, then at my face again. "Come with me." I followed her to the room behind the bar. It was small and clean, with a narrow table, two chairs, and a tall cupboard painted green. A kettle hung over a low coal fire. She pointed to a chair. "Sit." I sat. The warmth hit me, and for the first time since Garsdale I felt how tired I was. My bones ached. My hands lay in my lap like things that belonged to someone else. Iona filled a basin with warm water and set it on the table. She took my wounded hand without asking and began to unwrap the bandage. The cloth stuck in places. She peeled it away slowly, her fingers steady. "What did you do to yourself?" she asked. "A dog," I said. She looked up, one eyebrow raised. "A dog." "Rabid." She said nothing. She dipped a clean cloth in the water and pressed it to the cut. I flinched. She didn't stop. The wound wasn't as bad as it had been, but the skin was raw and red, and the edges had begun to swell. She cleaned it with careful, circular strokes, her head bent low. A loose curl of hair fell against her cheek. I looked away. "You should have seen a surgeon," she said. "I did." She made a small, dismissive sound. "Not a real one." Then she went to the cupboard and came back with a roll of clean linen and a small jar of ointment that smelled of beeswax and thyme. She worked in silence, spreading the ointment along the cut, then winding the linen around my hand with practiced ease. When she finished, she pressed her thumb lightly against the inside of my wrist. I thought she was checking the bandage. She didn't let go. "You're not eating," she said. "I ate." "No." She stood and ladled stew from a pot near the fire. She set the bowl in front of me with a heel of bread and a cup of weak ale. Then she sat across the table, her hands folded, and waited. I ate because I didn't know what else to do. The stew was good, thick with barley and mutton, but I could barely taste it. She watched me the whole time, not unkindly, just the way someone watches a man who might fall over. After a while, she said, "You look like you've been to a funeral." I set the spoon down. "I have." She didn't ask whose. That was the thing about Iona Marsh. She didn't need the details to understand the weight. She only reached across the table and turned my cup a little, so the handle faced me. "Was it worth it?" she asked. I thought of Silas's son. The wet sound of his breathing. The way his fingers had begun to grow together. The two red stones in Edmund's pocket. "I don't know," I said. She nodded as if that was an answer. We sat for a while without speaking. The fire popped. Somewhere in the other room, a chair scraped and a man laughed, too loud, too easy. It seemed impossible that the world could go on like that. Then I asked, "Has anyone been asking after us? The Father and me?" Iona's face changed a little. Not fear. Just focus. "Two men in good coats came in three nights ago," she said. "Drank gin. Didn't say much. Watched the door." She paused. "They asked if the priest from St. Jude still came here." "What did you tell them?" "I said I serve all kinds, but I don't keep a book of priests." She smiled faintly. "They left a coin. Didn't come back." I nodded. Two stones in Edmund's pocket. A girl's diary in my coat. A house in the moors with a cellar that should have been burned. "If anyone asks again," I said, "tell them you haven't seen me." She looked at me for a long moment. "Is that what you want?" "It's safer." She shook her head slowly. "Safety and I have been strangers for years, Caleb Ransome." I didn't know what to say to that. She stood and cleared the bowl. At the door, she stopped and turned back. "You don't have to tell me where you've been. But don't disappear without telling me." She reached out and touched my wrist, just above the fresh bandage. Her fingers were warm. "That's all I ask." I looked down at her hand. Then at her face. "I won't," I said. She held my gaze another second, then nodded and went back to the bar. I stayed in the back room for a while, listening to the rain against the window. My chest felt full in a way that had nothing to do with the stew. When I finally left, the main room had quieted. Iona was at the bar again, drying mugs. I put a coin on the counter. She pushed it back. "Next time," she said. I didn't argue. Outside, the rain had softened to a cold mist. I pulled my coat around me and walked toward the safehouse, one hand pressed against the bandage. The city was loud and grey and indifferent. Somewhere under the fog, the Thames was sliding past, black and slow. I stopped at the door of the safehouse and looked at my wrist. The linen was clean, dry. I could still feel the warmth of her thumb. Then I went inside. Father Greaves was asleep on the narrow cot, still in his torn cassock. His breath was shallow. The two red stones sat on the table beside him, close together, like something waiting to hatch. I closed the door without a sound.

Chapter 18: A Quiet Return