In the fifteen years since her first flight, Melanie had not learned to enjoy them any more than she had the first time. She didn’t have Martin’s level of anxiety, and it was definitely easier without her stepmother on board—especially now that Mary Keay was really most sincerely dead—but she still hated flying. Give her a good old-fashioned train ride any day. Which was why she was dragging herself back up the front walk of her house two weeks later than she had necessarily planned on; while she’d left India within her allotted time frame, technically, she’d spent the last fifteen days on a train.
It wasn’t as relaxing as usual.
She should probably text Martin or Gerry and let them know she was back in town, but fuck it, that could wait until morning. Her leg had mostly healed, but it still hurt, and she was looking forward to a good, long soak in the bathtub, followed by a glass of red wine and a cuddle with the kittens. Hopefully they wouldn’t knead her stitches.
She’d closed off her bedroom, but let them have the run of the rest of the house since they’d finally got the hang of the litter box, so she limped towards the living room and called, “Babies? Mummy’s home!”
She expected to hear thumps or mews. She did not expect to hear a startled gasp and a clatter.
Melanie’s flight or fight instincts triggered immediately. There wasn’t anything weapon-like in the hallway, but she burst into the living room fully prepared to tear whatever burglar was in her house while she was gone limb from limb.
“What are you—” she began, then stopped abruptly, her anger draining away as quickly as it had come. “Jon?”
“Melanie,” Jon stammered. He was sitting in the armchair, the throw Martin had made over his lap and Nod, true to his name, curled up on top of it fast asleep. On the floor in front of him was a tape recorder, and he held a few papers in his other. “I—I didn’t know you’d be back today.”
“Yeah, I kind of didn’t give anyone a specific ETA.” Melanie made her way over to the loveseat and collapsed onto it with a groan, stretching out her leg. Blynken popped up over the back and mewed at her, and she reached up to scratch his chest. “Hello, baby. Have you been good for Uncle Jon?” Looking back over at Jon, she added, “I did tell Gerry I’d be longer than three weeks. I figured he’d let you know…thanks for looking in on the cats, but, uh, why are you just sitting here?”
“Oh. Uh.” Jon swallowed, biting his lip hard, and looked down at Nod, who hadn’t so much as flicked an ear. “I’m sorry, I—I should…go. I should find somewhere else to…be.”
“What? No. Fuck that, you’re welcome to come over.” Melanie frowned at him. “You don’t have to…is everything all right at the Institute? Is Martin okay?”
“I—yes. I mean, that is, I—” Jon flailed helplessly. “It’s—i-it’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere tonight.” Melanie raised an eyebrow at him.
Jon fidgeted with the cuff of his jumper. At least, Melanie assumed it was his now, since Martin didn’t seem to have asked for it back. “I’m putting you in danger by being here.”
Melanie gestured at her leg. “I’ve already been shot. How much more danger can I be in?”
“Shot?” Jon’s head jerked up in alarm. “Good Lord. Are you—”
“I’m fine. The doctors didn’t find anything.” Melanie waved a hand at him. “I’ll tell you about it later. We were talking about you. What the fuck is going on?”
Jon took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m…I’m currently wanted for murder.”
“Oh.” Melanie blinked at him. “Who did you kill?”
“I didn’t.” Jon gaped at her. “You really think I would have?”
“Anything’s possible.” Melanie rubbed her leg. “Okay, then, who didn’t you kill?”
Jon didn’t answer her for a long moment. Just as she was about to snap at him, he said, “I’m not…really sure where to start.”
“How about at the beginning? I hear it’s a very good place to start.”
“At least you didn’t quote Alice in Wonderland.” Jon tried and failed to smile. “Right. Um. Well, the beginning, I suppose, is Rosie. I couldn’t…what you said about the woman who called you down that first visit set off a chain reaction. Long story short…Rosie Zampano was taken by the thing from Amy Patel’s statement. Gertrude called it a Not-Them. It…replaces a person, almost entirely, but it doesn’t seem able to replace Polaroids or magnetic tape.”
“Makes sense. Polaroids are something even believers are skeptical of, because there’s no negative, so it’s hard to tell if they’ve been tampered with,” Melanie mused. “It probably could replace them, but it chooses not to, because who’s going to believe that? And magnetic tape is so easily warped, it’s not hard at all to dismiss a voice that doesn’t sound right as just having been distorted. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you. Did you take this thing down? Is that what you’re accused of killing?”
“I—oh, Christ, I didn’t even think about that, the police probably think I had a hand in Rosie’s disappearance as well.” Jon tucked his legs up underneath himself. Nod remained asleep.
“Is he breathing?”
“And purring. I’m shocked you can’t hear him. He sleeps more than any cat I’ve ever seen…no, it’s not Rosie’s murder I’m on the run for.” Jon swallowed. “I fled down to the tunnels—the Distortion gave me a shortcut, heaven knows why—but the, the Not-Rosie came after me. And…there was a man down there, the one Martin and I heard when we were exploring the day Helen Richardson made her statement. He…had that book—The Seven Lamps of Architecture, the one Gertrude bought—he used it to move the walls around down there. He trapped the Not-Rosie and…he said we needed to talk, so we went up to my office.” He rubbed a hand over his face. Melanie noticed he kept hold of the papers he’d been reading when she came in. “I knew…a lot of what he was telling me, but not all of it, and some of it was…i-it was a lot to take in, and I just, I needed a break, so I stepped out for a cigarette.”
“Those things will kill you, you know,” Melanie said automatically.
“I know…I keep trying to quit. It never sticks.” Jon sighed heavily. “Maybe it will this time, though. I went back inside and—the old man was dead. He’d been beaten to death with a lead pipe, rather brutally. Once I took in what had happened and—and what it meant…I ran for it.”
Melanie raised an eyebrow. “And you came here?”
“Not at first,” Jon admitted. “I went to M—to the bookshop first. Everyone else was there and—”
“It’s all right,” Melanie interrupted. She let herself smile a little, despite the seriousness of the situation. “You can say it. You went to Martin first.”
“I—I did.” Jon exhaled heavily. “Like I told you in Sheffield…I just, I feel safer, braver, with Martin there. So, yes, I went to the bookshop looking for Martin, and I ran into him coming looking for me. I was rather later than I’d said I was going to be and…he said something about a tape? I didn’t…really understand that part.”
“So why are you here and not with him?”
“It…we all agreed it would be safer. If I stayed with one of them, or if any of them knew where I was hiding…there was too much of a risk the police would find me, or hurt one of them to get to me. I thought, since you were out of town…” Jon gestured helplessly. “And I did say I’d check up on the cats for you. So I came here.”
Melanie nodded. “Well, you can stay until you’re clear. How are they supposed to get in touch with you if they don’t know where you are?”
Jon hesitated, then indicated the papers. “I think…I think they do. Or at least Martin does. I…someone’s been sending me statements. They seem…relevant maybe? Like they’re leading somewhere. I, I assume Martin is sending them to me to keep me in the loop, give me something to do, until it’s safe for me to go back. I can only assume he’d tell me if it was all right.”
Melanie held her tongue, but she was deeply skeptical of that particular idea. Martin was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them, and if he knew where Jon was he wouldn’t have sent him anything if it wasn’t safe. Either one of the others had sussed it out and was trying to be helpful—and probably failing—or someone was baiting him, neither of which was good. She should probably say something about that, but she’d settle for making sure the wards were lit as much as possible. Jon was doing a good job of that, at least.
“So who was this old man?” she asked instead. “Or did you just get this info dump from some random shadowy homeless person hiding under the Institute who refused to give you his name?”
“He told me. I—I didn’t tell the others,” Jon confessed. “There wasn’t time, and it didn’t seem safe to do it in the middle of the street. Besides that, I was worried if they knew, they’d…bring suspicion down on themselves by being able to identify him. Although Martin might have been able to? I don’t know if they ever met.”
Melanie frowned. “Who was it? Not Salesa, obviously, you know we met him—someone else from one of your statements?”
“Ah—kind of.” Jon took a deep, shaky breath. “It was Jurgen Leitner.”
Melanie let out a stream of invective that had probably been building in her for years, since the first time she’d seen the label. She meant every word of it, at least at first, but when she heard the words shithead idiot avatar of the whore come out of her mouth and saw Jon’s lips twitch in what was probably an involuntary smile, she realized she had probably gone at least slightly silly.
“What the fuck was he doing down there?” she finally demanded, once her rage had wound down a little bit. “Lost his own library, so he was mooching off the Institute’s?”
“I…I’m not completely certain. Hiding, certainly, and he said he’d helped Gertrude some, but…” Jon rubbed Nod’s head gently; the orange ear twitched slightly, so Melanie at least knew he was actually alive. “I don’t know. He hadn’t finished telling me everything when I had to take a break.”
Melanie took a deep breath. “What did he tell you?”
Unexpectedly, Jon’s lips quirked upward in a smile. “He told me Gerry almost beat him to death once.”
“Fuck, that was Leitner?” Melanie’s eyes widened. “We thought he was at first, but—Jesus, he was just a pathetic old man.”
“And a fool. You were right about that. He thought he could…control the books. Master them somehow. He thought he alone had the power.”
“Yeah, Aunt Mary was the same. Only she thought she could do it better than Leitner could.”
“I doubt anyone could do it worse.” Jon froze. “Oh, God.”
“What?” Melanie demanded.
“He—one of the things Leitner said was that he didn’t think burning the books would do as much good as I thought. That—that many of them wouldn’t have burned, that some liked the flames, and that the ones that did would be…released into a new form.”
Melanie snorted. “Oh. For a second I thought you had something new.”
Jon stared at her. “You—knew that?”
“Why do you think we have the ritual we do? It’s not just to protect us. Some won’t burn if we don’t sing shanties. And things don’t…come after us as much afterwards. It’s safer all around.”
“Do they…come after you often?”
“More than we’d like. First time we burnt a Leitner, I had to spray my flat with diluted peppermint oil and hide chestnuts in the corners for months before the spiders stopped trying to get in. So yeah, he’s not wrong, but he’s not right either. Anyway, you can’t destroy fear, just…change how it gets at people.”
“I…I suppose that makes sense.” Jon slumped. He stared down at Nod for a long moment, gently teasing at the fur at the nape of his neck. Melanie was just gearing up to ask another question when he said softly, “He and Gertrude were planning to destroy the Archives.”
Melanie froze. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know. That was the point when I needed to get out. He said we didn’t have time for me to have a breakdown, but…” Jon shook his head. “I’ve been quit for five years, but I just—I needed a cigarette.”
“If you’ve been quit for five years, you wouldn’t still have a pack that was any good,” Melanie pointed out. Jon grunted. “You forget, Gerry’s a smoker. I know this shit.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried it,” Jon said dryly.
“Yeah, I did,” Melanie admitted. Jon looked up in surprise. “Woman I dated between college and uni—well, dated, we only actually went out once—she was a smoker, offered me one, and I stupidly took it. Figured after having been around Gerry for six and a half years, I’d be able to resist it better, but I didn’t. Kept it up for about a year.”
“What stopped you?”
“Martin. I joked with him about how he was the only one of us who hadn’t started and he might as well, and he said that wasn’t how he wanted to die. I thought he was talking about lung cancer or something, but…” Melanie hesitated. “Did you ever see him shirtless? Before the attack on the Institute, I mean.”
Jon looked incredibly flustered. Melanie wasn’t sure if she wanted to tease him or hit him for it. “N-no, I—not really, no.”
“He has—had, maybe, not sure if there’s a worm hole there now—a scar on his collarbone. Right here.” Melanie tapped the spot on her own chest. “Lily used to smoke—not often, just every once in a while, Aunt Mary did too—and she put a cigarette out on his chest once. Said if she ever caught him smoking it’d be worse for him than that.” She suddenly realized what she had said and added hastily, “Don’t tell him I told you! It’s his to tell.”
“I—I won’t, I—my God.” Jon looked shocked. “How old was he?”
“Dunno. It was before I met him.” A lie. At least the not-knowing part. Martin had told her he was six—it was even before his dad had left—but Melanie had already said too much. “Anyway, I felt so guilty about it that I quit cold turkey. I was afraid Lily would smell the smoke on him. I don’t think he’s ever told Gerry.”
“Good Lord.” Jon rubbed his face. Melanie was willing to bet even money he never touched another cigarette in his life.
Wynken came out of nowhere and pounced, knocking Blynken off the back of the loveseat and onto Melanie’s lap. The two kittens wrestled for a moment, and then Blynken took off with his sister hot on his heels. Melanie watched them go. “Ah, kittens. Good to know I was missed…we’re getting off topic. So Jurgen Leitner was murdered in your office…by a person or persons unknown…and, what, the others are just still working there?”
“I—I don’t think they’re in danger. It…I don’t exactly know what happened, but I think it was specifically about Leitner.” Jon’s shoulders slumped. “And maybe about blaming me. I don’t…as long as I stay away, they’re safe. I just…wish I knew.” He took a deep breath. “And…I need to put this together. Whatever’s going on with these statements, I need information, but I can’t…go out and look for it. I was just hoping one of them would get in touch with me so I could get back in the Archives and start piecing it together.”
Melanie was silent for a long moment, listening to the hot game of Tag going on down the hall and concentrating to make sure she didn’t hear anything break. She knew it was one of his assistants in particular he most wanted to hear from.
“I can go to the Archives tomorrow,” she said finally. “I need to let Martin know I’m home anyway, so I can do that. While I’m at it, I can find out if he’s the one sending you those tapes, and I can find out if you’re still a suspect. And if you’re not, I can call you and—”
“No, you can’t. I-I dropped my phone, and I heard it break, but I didn’t—I couldn’t go back for it.”
“Well, if you’re not a suspect, I’ll bring Martin back with me then,” Melanie said. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the hopeful look on Jon’s face. “And if you are…I can be your liaison for a bit. I mean, I already know you’re here, so it’s not like it’s going to put me in any extra danger. And I do appreciate you being here with the cats.”
“It’s no hardship.” Jon took a deep breath. “Okay. I…suppose that’s as good a plan as any.” He tilted his head and studied Melanie. “How about you? How was—did you find out anything on your trip?”
Melanie groaned. “Oh, yeah. Okay, let me go soak a month’s worth of travel out of my bones and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Jon nodded. “I’ll make some cocoa. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
Melanie rubbed her leg again. “You’re definitely not wrong about that.”