I did not remember the carriage. I did not remember the station. I remembered Caleb's face at King's Cross, pale under the soot-streaked glass, his grey eyes asking a question he was too tired to say aloud. Two men from the chapter hospital had me by the arms. The platform swayed. My ribs had gone from pain to a dull white fire, and the drug had left my blood, which meant the blood that was left felt thin and cold. "Go to the Black Dog," I told him. He didn't move. "I should stay with you." "Iona's alone." My voice sounded like it came from a stranger. "If anyone's asking after us, she's the first one they'll reach. Go. Keep your head down. Don't tell her anything." "Father—" "That's an order, Caleb." I watched him go. He looked back once, his hand tight on the strap of his bag. Then the crowd swallowed him, and the men carried me the other way. Now there was only rain, and this white room, and the two red stones on the table beside the cot. The windows had been painted over years ago, so the light came through as a grey wash, the same light you get at the bottom of a well. I sat up slowly, one hand pressed against the wrapping around my ribs. The stones were still warm. I wished they were not. Prudence Hale came in before the hour was up. She did not knock. She carried a leather satchel, her black hair pulled into a tight braid, her dark dress wet at the shoulders. She moved like someone who had walked through worse weather than this to see worse men than me. "Father Greaves," she said. "You're upright. That's either a good sign or a bad one." "I've stopped trying to tell the difference." She set the satchel on the table and looked at the stones, but did not touch them. Then she looked at my bandaged hand. "Let me see it." I gave her my left hand. She unwrapped the linen with quick, steady fingers, far gentler than she needed to be. Her face was calm, clinical, but not unkind. "The bite's clean," she said. "No rot. But these ribs are cracked, not bruised. You'll need a week before you swing anything heavy." "I don't have a week." "You never do." She smeared something from a small jar onto the wound and began re-bandaging. It smelled of pine tar and clean fat. "Your verger is at the Black Dog," she said. "Asking about strangers." I said nothing. "He's a good lad. You should let him rest, too." "I sent him to rest. In a manner." She made a small sound, not quite a laugh. Then she tied off the bandage and stood back. "You have a visitor." "Does she knock?" "No." Honoria Mace entered like a blade drawn in a quiet room. Her black cloak dripped at the hem, her grey habit underneath as plain as hospital linen. She was not old, but she carried herself like someone who had buried enough students to earn the grey in her hair. Her face was sharp, her mouth a thin line, and her eyes were the darkest things in the room. She did not greet me. She closed the door behind her and stood at the foot of the cot, looking at me as if she were reading a report. "Greaves," she said. "You look like a man who fought a Troll with a carving knife." "I fought a Troll with whatever I had." "I heard." She pulled a chair from the corner and sat, her back straight, hands folded in her lap. Prudence moved to the window and stood with her arms crossed, listening. For a long moment, no one spoke. The rain whispered against the painted glass. Then Honoria said, "Your Troll had stitches. Along the spine. Black thread, shaped like a centipede. Am I correct?" I looked at her. "You've been speaking to someone." "I've been doing my work. That is why I'm here." Prudence said nothing. Her face stayed toward the window, but I knew she was watching us in the glass. "Yes," I said. "A line of black stitches. The same mark was on the housemaid." Honoria's expression did not change. "I have seen them before," she said. "Where?" "In a parish near the Scottish border. Twelve years ago. A village called Corran, just past the head of the valley. We were sent to investigate cattle deaths. What we found was worse." Her voice was flat, deliberately so, the voice of a woman retelling a surgical case. "A family there had been changed. The father survived. The mother and two sons were dead. The marks were the same as yours. Black stitches. Too neat to be old skin. The thread moved when the lamplight caught it." "Did you see who did it?" "No. But I saw the pattern. We thought it was a cult. That was the official conclusion. A local superstition, old blood, older rites." She paused. "But the threads were the same. And the ones who made them wore our vestments." The words settled in the room like cold water in a wound. "Are you suggesting—" I started. "I am not suggesting, Greaves. I am telling you what I observed. There is an order inside the Church that the bishops do not name. Not because it does not exist. Because it has been removed from every ledger but the one we are not allowed to read." Prudence finally turned from the window. "Ordo Scolopendrae," she said quietly. I looked at her, then back at Honoria. "Latin for centipede," Honoria said. "A rumor among older exorcists. We all hear it after our fifteenth or twentieth hunt. It is the reason the bestiary has pages torn out. Not lost. Torn." "Then why are you telling me this?" "Because you are already in its shadow. And because you brought back two stones instead of one." Her eyes moved to the table. The red stones glowed faintly in the grey light. I watched her for a moment, then said, "I kept them so no one else would." "Good. But they are not safe here." "Nowhere is." Honoria inclined her head slightly, the closest thing she would ever give to agreement. She stood. "The Church will call you in soon. They will want a report on Blackwood. They will ask questions that are not meant to be answered. Keep the diary and the stones close. Do not let them see you flinch." She moved toward the door, then paused, her hand on the frame. "Rest, Greaves. You will need it." Then she was gone. Prudence remained a moment longer, her hand on the strap of her satchel. "Honoria doesn't say such things lightly," she said. "If you need to hide anything, now is the time." I nodded once. She left and closed the door. I do not remember the carriage that took me back to the safehouse. Perhaps Prudence arranged it. Perhaps I walked. The hours had started to bleed together, and my body was no longer something I commanded so much as followed. I remember the door. The narrow cot. The table with the two red stones already waiting. Then, later, the sound of the front door opening. Slow, careful. Wet boots on the floorboards. Caleb. He stopped beside me. I did not open my eyes. "She's safe," he said. I wanted to answer. I wanted to ask about the Black Dog, about the men in good coats, about the rain. But the words would not come. The bed was pulling me down, and the stones were warm even from the table, and somewhere far away I heard him move to the other side of the room and sit with his back to the wall. I let myself drift.

Chapter 19: The Unread Ledger