The Black Dog was where the street bent away from the market and the fog gathered beneath the lamps. I knew the door by the scrape it made against the stone threshold. I knew the window with its painted black hound, the gold leaf worn thin around the paws. I knew the warmth that met us when I pushed inside. Beer. Smoke. Bread. Wet wool drying too close to the fire. For the first time since Crawmoor, I stopped walking. The room was busy enough to hide in. Men with caps pulled low sat over cards near the hearth. Two women argued quietly at the bar over a rent book. Someone in the back had begun a song and abandoned it before the second line. Iona stood behind the counter, drawing ale. She looked up at the sound of the door. Her eyes found me. For a moment, she did not move. Then she set the tankard down. “Caleb.” It was only my name. Still, something in my chest loosened. “Hello,” I said. She came around the end of the bar. Her gaze moved over me without lingering: the dried salt on my coat, the cut across my knuckles, the case in my hand. Then it went to Father Greaves. He was standing behind me with one hand braced against the wall. The borrowed coat had slipped open at his throat. A strip of stained bandage showed beneath his collar. Iona’s expression changed, though not much. “You’re back,” she said. “We are,” Edmund replied. He sounded as if that were an inconvenience. Iona looked at him for a second longer. Then she said, “Come and sit down.” Edmund did not argue. That worried me more than if he had. We took the table near the wall, the one Edmund always chose because he could see the front door and the stairs at the same time. I put the case beneath my chair, handle turned inward. Edmund lowered himself across from me with care he tried to hide. Iona brought a kettle and three cups without asking. She poured tea for Edmund first. He looked into it. “No whisky?” “Not yet.” “I have survived worse injuries with worse medicine.” “You can have whisky after you drink that.” Edmund looked up at her. Iona met his eyes. After a moment, he picked up the cup. “An appalling compromise,” he said. “I know.” She turned to me. Up close, I could see a faint dusting of flour on the side of her hand. Her sleeve had been rolled to the elbow. A loose strand of hair rested against her cheek. Her eyes dropped to my collar. The rosary was tucked inside my shirt, but one small piece of its worn wooden cross showed at the throat. She touched it lightly with two fingers. “You kept it.” I swallowed. “I said I would.” “I know.” Her smile came then, small and tired and real. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll bring you something.” “I can help.” “You can eat first.” I wanted to say I was not hungry. But the smell from the kitchen reached me at that moment, and my stomach made the decision for me. Iona heard it. She did not smile wider. She only turned away toward the kitchen. Edmund watched me over the rim of his tea. “You are very subtle,” he said. “Do not start.” “I have not started.” “You have.” He drank the tea. His face suggested he regretted it. For a little while, the Black Dog continued around us. A chair scraped near the fire. Dice rolled across a table. Someone opened the front door and let in a blade of cold air before shutting it again. I could hear Iona speaking to someone behind the bar, low enough that the words did not carry. The case rested against my ankle. I tried not to look at it. I failed. It was a plain black thing beneath the table. Old wood. Tarnished brass. Leather handle cracked from years of use. No one in the room could know that three red stones lay beneath its lining, or that the Vowkeeper’s parts had been fitted inside it by someone who had expected to repair them alone. I placed my boot more firmly against it. Edmund noticed. He did not tell me to stop. That was almost worse. Iona returned with two bowls of stew and a plate of bread. She set Edmund’s down first, then mine. The stew smelled of barley, onion, and thyme. “Slowly,” she told Edmund. “I am not a child.” “No. Children complain less.” He looked as though he wanted to answer. Instead, he took the spoon. Iona set the bread between us. Her hand rested briefly on the back of my chair. “Are you hurt?” she asked. The question was quiet enough that it belonged only to our table. “Not badly.” Her eyes went to the cut on my knuckles. “You always say that as though I cannot see you.” “I am all right.” She was silent for a moment. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said. Not because she believed me. Because she knew I could not say more yet. That kindness nearly undid me. I looked down at the bowl. The spoon trembled once in my hand. I tightened my grip until it stopped. Across the table, Edmund had eaten two mouthfuls before he spoke. “We should see Honoria after this.” I looked up. “Do you think she knows we are back?” “She will, once someone tells her.” “She told us Crawmoor was a closed casket.” “She was correct.” His hand paused near his ribs. The movement was small, but I saw it. “We tell her what we found,” he continued. “Then we decide what it means.” The case seemed heavier beneath my chair. The field notes. The dead exorcist’s mark scratched beneath the lining. The perfect Stones. The Choir beneath Saint Aldric’s. The men in dark vestments who had promised Sir Silas Blackwood something that looked too much like salvation. Iona had gone still beside the table. She was looking past us. I turned. Prudence Hale stood near the front door. She still wore her dark travelling coat. Rain beaded on the shoulders. Her gloves were on, though the room was warm. She had the composed, careful look she always carried, but it sat differently on her now. Tighter. Behind her stood Zeke. He filled the doorway without seeming to mean to. His beard was wet from the fog, his broad shoulders hunched beneath a dark coat. He looked from Edmund to Caleb, then to the bandages at Edmund’s throat. “Damn,” he said quietly. Edmund glanced at him. “A prayer from you. How touching.” Zeke did not smile. That was when I knew something was wrong. Prudence came toward the table. Iona moved aside without being asked, but she did not leave. Prudence stopped across from Edmund. Her eyes took in the mud on our boots, the case by my chair, the way Edmund held his spoon as though it weighed more than it should. “You are back,” she said. “So it appears.” “You should have sent word.” “We were occupied.” Prudence looked at him. Edmund’s expression changed first. Not into fear. Into attention. “What happened?” he asked. Zeke pulled out the empty chair beside him but did not sit. Prudence removed one glove. Her fingers were pale from the cold. “Bishop Marlowe was found dead this morning,” she said. The sound of the tavern continued. A man laughed near the bar. Someone called for another drink. The kitchen door opened, then shut. But the words sat between us and made everything else seem far away. Edmund did not move. “Dead,” he said. “Murdered,” Prudence replied. Iona’s hand tightened around the edge of the table. I looked at Edmund. He set down his spoon. “Where?” “His study. At the Archiepiscopal House.” Edmund’s eyes narrowed. “Who found him?” “Archdeacon Croft’s clerk. Croft arrived soon after.” “That is not what I asked.” Prudence held his gaze. “The clerk.” Edmund said nothing. Zeke looked toward the front windows, though there was nothing outside except fog and the blurred movement of people in the street. “What about Honoria?” Edmund asked. Prudence did not answer immediately. The pause was small. It was enough. My hand closed around the edge of the table. “Prudence,” Edmund said. “She was at the House,” Prudence said. “She went there before dawn.” “Why?” “I do not know.” “Was she seen?” “Yes.” “Leaving?” “No.” Edmund’s face had gone still in a way I had learned to distrust. “And now?” Prudence reached inside her coat. She took out a folded sheet of paper and placed it on the table between the bowls of untouched stew. The Church seal was stamped in black wax. I could see Honoria’s name before I read the rest. **SISTER HONORIA MACE** Below it were the words: **WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN CONNECTION WITH THE MURDER OF BISHOP MARLOWE.** My mouth went dry. “They are saying she did it?” I asked. Zeke’s jaw tightened. “Yael was found beside the body,” Prudence said. Edmund looked up. “Her lancet?” “Yes.” “And the wound?” Prudence held his gaze. “The report says it matches.” Edmund was quiet for a moment. “The report,” he said. “Croft’s people are calling it conclusive.” I looked from Prudence to the notice. “But Honoria is gone.” “No one has seen her since before dawn,” Prudence said. “Did she send a message?” Edmund asked. “No.” “Was there blood?” “Enough to say there was a struggle,” Prudence replied. “Not enough to say whose.” Edmund took the notice but did not unfold it further. “Who else knows she was there?” “Croft. The clerk. Two constables. Perhaps more by now.” “And the body?” “Still in the study.” “Guarded?” “Yes.” “By whom?” “Church constables.” Edmund looked at the seal on the paper. He did not touch the food. Neither did I. Iona stood beside me, quiet. Her hand found my shoulder once, briefly, then stayed there. Prudence looked at Edmund. “What happened in Crawmoor?” “Later.” “Edmund—” “Later.” His voice was not loud. It did not need to be. Prudence fell silent. He folded the notice once, precisely, and set it beside his cup. Then he looked at Zeke. “Did anyone see Honoria after dawn?” Zeke shook his head. “No.” “Did she send a message?” “No.” The front door opened. Cold fog spilled across the floorboards. For a moment, everyone at the table looked toward it. No one came in. The door closed again. Edmund rose too quickly. His hand went to his ribs. Iona caught his sleeve before he could pretend otherwise. “Sit,” she said. He looked down at her hand. Then at the empty bowl before him. For a second, he seemed older than I had ever seen him. Not weak. Only tired. He sat back down. Prudence watched him. “What do we do?” I asked. No one answered at once. The Black Dog was warm around us. The fire snapped in the hearth. Iona’s stew cooled untouched between my hands. Outside, London went on beneath the fog as though a bishop had not been murdered and Sister Honoria Mace had not vanished into it. Edmund looked at the notice again. Then he said, “First, we find out what they want us to believe.”

Chapter 38: No Safe Place