Chapter Text
Growing up a psychic who hunted ghosts for a living, I had never been a girl who worried very much about blasphemy. It came in the line of work. Mysterious connections to the Other Side didn’t really fall in line with the traditional idea of Heaven, barred by a one-way gate.
But even I felt a little guilty in my current position, kneeling not in prayer but so that I could stick my torch under a pew, looking for clues to help me resolve an old wrongdoing.
“See anything yet, Luce?”
I gave a start; an unfortunate thump sounded as my head smacked against the pew behind me.
“Not yet,” I said, looking over at the speaker.
He was tall, his hair was dark and dashingly styled, and he was impeccably dressed. In other words, he was my employer, Anthony Lockwood. I might have been blushing a little as I got to my feet.
“How are you getting on?” I asked, glancing at the others. Kipps was inspecting one of the stained glass windows—or perhaps he was admiring it, though I’d never known Kipps to be a connoisseur of art. Holly, with elegant little motions of her wrist, was knocking on the wooden sections of the wall and listening for any difference in sound.
George was nowhere to be seen, but if Lockwood wasn’t concerned, then neither was I.
“Great, just great.” He pulled his coat tighter around himself. My mind raced as I tried to think of a worthwhile thing to say.
“I hope we get this cleared out tonight,” I said eventually. “You know, with Sunday service and all. I would feel bad letting down our client.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Lockwood. “He was a kind man, wasn’t he? At least, I would rank him above Mrs. Wintergarden.”
“Eugh, don’t even bring her up,” I said, cringing at the flood of memories. She was one of my least favourite clients we had ever taken—partially because she had caused the death of one Night-Watch kid (and destroyed the mind of a second), and partially because I’d nearly gotten Lockwood killed on that particular case.
“Fair enough. She was a nasty piece of work.”
The conversation trailed off. I offered Lockwood a piece of gum, which he accepted—if the reports of the Night-Watch kids were anything to go off of, the miasma was going to get particularly bad in this place.
“Anyway,” he said, “You look great tonight, Luce!”
I nearly swallowed my gum.
“What I meant to say was, you’re doing great work, as usual. Er, I’m off to ask Holly a question.”
He turned on the spot and left, coat swishing behind him.
As you might have noticed, it was a painfully awkward conversation. We had been having a lot of those lately, in between our usual easy exchange. Sometimes it was so easy to talk to him, but then I would remember the seismic shift that had occurred a few months ago, and my palms would go all sweaty and my eyes would keep flicking down to his lips.
To purge my own awkwardness out of my mind, I stumbled away to find George.
It didn’t take long. He was right up at the front of the church, crouching behind the pulpit. He was jotting down his measurements, squinting at the thermometer clutched in his hand.
“Getting on well with our fearless leader?” he asked.
“Oh, shut up,” I said with a monumental eye roll. “I’m here about the case, funnily enough. Felt anything unusual?”
“Well, it’s bloody freezing, but we could just chalk that up to winter air and all,” he said.
“That’s probably it. I’m not sensing anything quite yet.”
“Me neither.”
For a few moments, I helped him take measurements in companionable silence. I checked the thermometer: seven degrees. I pulled my hat down over my ears.
Would it have hurt our client terribly to leave the heating on? It was true, what Lockwood and I had said; he was a kind man, the pastor, and he had ensured the safety of the Night-Watch kids when he’d hired them for preliminary investigation of this place. But December chill could really get to you, especially in such a huge unheated room.
Aside from the cold that set my breath pluming before my face, it was a beautiful building. It was no ancient monument, but it was certainly pre-Problem. You could always tell—something about the lack of iron laced in the architecture. I surveyed the room, the wooden pews, the high arching ceiling, the moonlight filtered through stained glass.
The glassmaker who had once spent hours on the beautiful windows had probably never imagined that one day the panes would let in the harsh, periodical light of a ghost-lamp, illuminating the agents scouring each corner for clues.
I let my hand trail across a nearby ledge, careful not to disturb the candles sitting there. I was prepared for a rush back into the past, a glimpse of the spirit that had called us here tonight, but nothing came.
“How old is this church, George?”
“Built sometime in the eighteenth century. I did a lot of snooping around trying to figure out who our ghost is, but I can’t find any record of a death here,” he said. “So I’m thinking this is the ghost of someone who had a strong attachment to the church.”
“Any indication from the Night-Watch kids on strength?”
“They said it looked kind of faint. I’m hoping it’s just a glimmer, and we can find its Source, get out of here before one a.m., and have tea before bed. You know, a cute little Type One.”
I snorted. “Cute?”
“Relatively speaking.”
He stood up from his crouched position behind the pulpit, attempting to brush dirt off his trousers. This was utterly ineffectual. I had no idea how he’d even gotten them dirty in the first place—the church was quite spick-and-span.
“Do you think the Problem turned more people towards religion, or away from it? I asked him.
“Depends if you count ghost-cults,” he said.
“I don’t.”
“In all honesty, I think the amount of people who come here to worship is probably about the same now as before the Problem. Some people probably stopped believing after seeing ghosts. Others needed someone to turn to because of the Problem, and God was who they found,” said George. “Religion is a big constant throughout humanity, ghosts or no. I’d quite like to study the topic more.”
I smiled. George, always the researcher.
“Keep me posted, then,” I said.
“Now that we’ve kind of solved the Problem, I wonder how else it’s going to change,” said George thoughtfully. “It’s actually a really interesting question that you’ve asked, Lucy. I mean, think about it. Have you met any religious agents?”
I combed through my memory.
“There was one boy, back home. Always wore a cross. But that might have been just as much to have silver around his neck as any religious motivation.”
“Interesting. Anyway, it feels wrong, having a ghost in church. Like having a ghost in your very own house. I look forward to getting rid of this one.”
I nodded in agreement, and said, “Thank goodness there have never been any ghosts at thirty-five Portland Row.”
George didn’t laugh, but I thought perhaps his lips twitched.
And then, subtly, the atmosphere shifted. We both sensed it—George tensed up beside me. There had been a slight drop in temperature, and despite the gum, a sickening taste had settled in my mouth.
But more than the chill and miasma was the sense of wrongness, like a discordant note in an otherwise perfect piano piece. I had become more attuned to this particular feeling since my most recent trip to the Other Side. Now, even when a Visitor didn’t manifest accompanied by the usual psychic indicators, I could still feel its presence in my bones.
Like you’re recognising kin.
I pushed that thought away. No point wasting time over useless musings. That’s something the skull would say, not me.
George and I walked out to the centre of the church, standing in the aisle between pews. Like water collecting at the bottom of a bowl, the rest of the group drifted over as well. Lockwood gave me a brief smile, but his eyes didn’t stay on me for long. They were darting around, scanning for signs of an apparition.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “Temperature, George?”
“Five degrees, and dropping still.”
“Hear anything, Luce?”
“Faint tapping. Whispering, maybe. Indistinct.”
“Holly?”
“Nothing but the chill and miasma. Got any gum, Lucy?”
I handed her some. She smiled at me, albeit a little nervously, as she placed it on her tongue. Her sleek ponytail swished behind her.
“Kipps?” said Lockwood.
“Nothing. It’s cold, though. Should’ve brought a better hat.
We waited in silence for a few moments. The ghost lamp in the distance switched on, and then back off. I breathed steadily to keep my heart rate down.
“Creeping fear,” I observed a moment later. Holly nodded. I tried to shake off the false emotion. It was a strange thing, creeping fear. You could tell that the feeling didn’t belong to you, but usually it was hard to separate it from your own very real fear. If you weren’t an agent, the fear would build in double time and soon you would be crying in a corner, all nice and ready to be ghost-touched.
Luckily, I was an agent.
“Sound picking up,” I said. The tapping had grown louder, impatient fingers drumming on wood. I could also hear someone speaking. It was muted, though, like I had my head underwater.
“Want to try to follow it?” asked Lockwood. He looked casual, as he always did during a haunting. If you didn’t know him as well as I did, you’d think he was about to put on the kettle for afternoon tea.
But I knew him better than anyone, and I could see the way his fingers twitched towards his rapier, ready to pull it free at a moment’s notice.
“Yeah, hang on. I’ll see where it’s loudest.”
I took a stroll down the aisle, trying to affect that same laid-back poise. The sound did get a bit louder in this direction; I waved for my friends to follow. We advanced down the aisle like the world’s weirdest wedding procession, all the time turning our heads this way and that, our psychic senses on high alert.
I reached the front, where the pulpit loomed over everything else. I touched it, gently, and jerked my hand back—it was deathly cold.
“Will you cover for me? I’m gonna try to get a sense of the ghost.”
They all nodded, and took up defensive positions around the pulpit and me. I laid my hand on the freezing wood and closed my eyes, trying to clear my mind of all distraction. In a few moments, I had my reward.
I was transported, not very far through space, but certainly some distance through time. I was in the very same church, but it glowed with cheerful candlelight. I stared down at a sheaf of papers resting on the pulpit.
And that was all—the fleeting vision disappeared. I struggled to pull myself back into the present.
“Did that take long?” I asked.
“Only a few minutes,” said Holly. “Get anything, then?”
“Yeah. We’re close. I think I know what the Source is, too. A bunch of papers—records of some sort.”
George stooped down, checking by the base of the wall; Kipps looked across the rows of candles.
It was Holly, though, that zeroed in on the real target. She resumed her earlier knocking, but this time around the sides of the pulpit. I joined her, trailing my fingers along the edge of the wood. They caught on a protruding piece—I tugged, and out slid a drawer, smooth as anything.
And there were the very papers I had seen through different eyes just moments before.
Holly had been poised and ready. She threw on her silver net, and in an instant, the psychic charge that had been slowly building up in the room fell away.
Wrapping up a Source before a full manifestation was not something we got the chance to do very often. Holly and I cheered, waving everyone else over to see. We were congratulated, Lockwood throwing an arm around me with a warm, fond grin. My heart thrummed happily.
“What exactly are these papers?” asked George, carefully extracting the bundle from the hidden drawer. “Here, I have a silver-glass box in my backpack; we can read them through there. I’d hate to leave without finding out who our Visitor friend was.”
We wandered over to sit in the front-row pew, our tense muscles finally relaxing. Lockwood had gone to examine the papers with George, but I could still feel the warmth left by the pressure of his arm across my shoulders. Holly and I sat down beside each other, exchanging lazy grins. There’s nothing like a really well done case to put some life back into you. I pulled out my thermos of tea—still plenty hot.
“These look like financial records,” said George. “Money coming in and out of the church. I’m no accountant, but I bet you a pastor was leeching money out of the church some time ago, and he was so guilty his spirit stuck around to let us know.
“Ooh, the Reverend will be horrified,” said Holly.
“Well, whoever he is, he’s gone now, thanks to your sharp ears, Luce.” Lockwood smiled warmly at me, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
“Ugh, we’re still on a case, you know,” said Kipps. “Save the lovey-dovey eyes for a safer place. Like Portland Row, or preferably, a bunker.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said sharply, flushing. Thank God it was dark.
“I agree with Kipps on this one,” said George. “Professionalism is the mark of a true agent.”
“No one is being unprofessional,” said Lockwood, rolling his eyes. “Relax. We’ve just had a great case, and I’m looking forward to sleeping well in the knowledge that the Reverend will get his Sunday service.”
“Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook that easily,” said George. He imitated Lockwood. “All thanks to your marvellous ears, Luce. You’ve got such good ears, Luce. Such shapely ears. Really nice ears. Actually, could I just touch your earlobe-”
“Shut it!” said Lockwood. “Where’s your professionalism?”
“Guys.”
It was Holly who had spoken, and the tone of her voice told us instantly that something was wrong. I turned to look at her—her eyes were wide with fear.
“I’m cold,” she said. “I’m really cold.”
George scrambled for his thermometer, but there was no need for it. Now that Holly had pointed it out, we could all feel the chill that had gradually crept past our layers of clothing and into our skin.
I cursed, getting quickly to my feet. Everyone else did the same. We stood along the pew, rapiers half-drawn.
“I see it,” said Lockwood. “A Phantasm, it must be. Right at the pulpit.”
I could see it out of the corner of my eye, a faint, shimmery presence. So insubstantial you might mistake it for a Grey Haze.
But I knew better; I could feel the power pouring off of it in waves.
“Lucy,” said Lockwood, eyes fixed on the looming figure, “I thought you said the Source was the papers.”
“Well. That was what I thought.”
“Right.”
For a moment, we all stood frozen, staring at the Phantasm.
“Okay,” said Lockwood. “Let’s set up a circle, quickly now, and search for the Source. It has to be somewhere by the pulpit.”
We got a circle down in seconds flat and stood together in it, squeezing tight to fit in. I tried my best not to step on the iron links.
“Ready, everyone?” said Lockwood.
We nodded in unison.
In a motion almost too quick to follow, he threw a salt-bomb. It landed at the base of the Phantasm, which emitted an awful psychic outcry. For the barest moment it crackled out of existence-
-and then it was back in full force, closer to us now. I flinched, nearly tumbling out of the circle.
“Alright, salt-bombs clearly aren’t enough, and I really don’t want to burn this place down,” said Lockwood. “Here’s the plan: Lucy and I give our friend here a nice taste of swordplay, and you three get over there and find the Source.”
Kipps, Holly, and George stared at him in disbelief.
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Kipps. “This is a powerful Phantasm. Don’t tell me you’ve never read the Fittes manual or something.”
“Powerful Type Twos can easily be held back by two capable agents,” said Lockwood, shrugging. “Besides, I gave you lot the most important job: finding the Source. After all, that is the basis of the whole haunting. Don’t tell me you’ve never read the Fittes manual.”
“Oh, knock it off, both of you,” said Holly. “Let’s take on the ghost together, weaken it, and then find the Source. We’ve done this a thousand times.” I nodded vigorously in agreement, eyeing the slowly approaching Phantasm.
“Alright, fine,” said Lockwood. That was enough for us; we surged out of our circle, five flashing rapiers weaving a powerful defence.
I tried to avoid looking at it too closely; Phantasms creeped me out more than most ghosts. Most of the time you saw nothing but a misty grey colour when you looked at them straight on, but sometimes, at just the wrong angle, you would catch a glimpse of their awful, seething faces. From this one, I got nothing but a general impression of wrinkles and pooling robes.
Kipps wasn’t so lucky. I don’t know what he saw, but he let out a shriek so high-pitched that it would traumatise any dog, had one been in the vicinity. He stumbled away, clutching his goggles, and our defence was weakened.
It didn’t help that George had dropped to his knees and was attempting to assemble a mysterious, silvery contraption on the floor. He had been doing this a lot lately: making his own inventions in the absence of constant Rotwell innovation. I seethed with annoyance, calling out,
“George! Get the hell off the ground and help us, or go find the Source! We’re in imminent danger here, if you haven’t noticed!
“Just a minute,” he mumbled, fiddling with his little toy. I didn’t get a close look, but it resembled a cannon.
“We’ll be dead in a minute, so get up and help, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, Lockwood said two was enough. Didn’t you hear him blathering on? You’ll be fine.”
I gave up; at least I still had Lockwood and Holly.
And then I looked to my left and Holly was no longer there. I jerked my head around the room, parrying the ghost and simultaneously searching for her. After a moment, I located a slim, darting figure dressed in black. She appeared to be running around the room at top speed, throwing her net on objects at random.
Well, there was no doubt; Holly had lost it. There was nothing for but to keep fighting this Godforsaken Phantasm.
It was difficult, but I held firm. Lockwood was right. We were two capable agents, and that meant this battle was two against one in our favour. Really, if you looked at it in that way, the ghost was outnumbered. The thought gave me confidence. I slashed and stabbed with increased fervour.
Of course, just as I was starting to believe the ghost was weakening, Lockwood glanced over at me and shouted, “Alright, you’ll have to hold your own, Luce! I need to find Kipps!”
“Is this some kind of a joke?”
But he was already long gone. I swore, loudly, and freed a salt-bomb from my belt, lobbing it at the ghost. I used the twenty seconds the ghost took to reform to step back and get my bearings, panting hard. Of course, Lockwood would never abandon me like that if I was actually in danger of death. I knew that. But still, hadn’t it ever occurred to him that I preferred fighting when he was by my side?
The Phantasm advanced, sucking the heat from the room. I did pretty well, actually, holding the thing off on my own. Even when you’re not a natural at the rapier like Lockwood, years of practice does something to your mind and body. The patterns become intuitive, you become stronger, and before you know it, holding off a Phantasm in a freezing, haunted church is completely within your skill range.
I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I tripped over George.
If you would believe it, he was still crouching on the floor, piecing together his stupid invention. I stumbled against him and tried to stay upright, but instead I spun a full one-eighty degrees like a ballerina and fell head over heels, doing a somersault over the front-row pew.
Looking at it from a certain perspective, the acrobatics were almost impressive.
Perhaps you can picture it, if you try. I was wedged upside-down between two pews, head almost touching the floor. Between the front-row pew and the floor, I had an excellent, inverted view of George. He was unfazed, still crouched over his silver cannon. The Phantasm advanced; I could see Lockwood and Kipps running in from the side.
As I struggled desperately, trying to escape my predicament, and as Kipps and Lockwood arrived and began to fight the ghost once more, I had an epiphany.
Somehow, I righted myself. I tore my silver net from my belt. My rapier’s location was unknown, but I had no need of it. As fast as I could manage, I raced up to the pulpit casting a shadow over the scene.
But when I desperately hugged the pulpit with my silver net, the ghost continued to rage. The pulpit was too big. I stood there like an idiot, a pulpit-hugger instead of a tree-hugger.
Fortunately, I wasn’t alone for long. Holly arrived at my side, breathless, clutching her dusty silver net. She dropped to her knees, hands raised as if in prayer, but really to hold fast to the net she was thrusting against the wood. Kipps arrived next, launching himself on top of the pulpit. He lay there, spread eagled, net beneath his chest. George finally came to his senses and ran to help us, holding his net against another side of the pulpit.
And finally, finally, the ghost was gone. I felt its presence vanish; my shoulders sagged in relief. We all clung to the pulpit for a few seconds, wheezing.
A laugh bubbled up from the aisle.
We looked up, turning our faces towards Lockwood. He was standing there, rapier drawn, laughing his head off.
The nerve!
Keeled over, between peals of laughter, he managed to say, “Do you think they’ll still be able to hold Sunday service without the pulpit?”
***
Morning came late, as it often does in the depths of December. I rose even later.
It was a pretty day from my little attic window. The trees were bare, the sky a rare blue. Ever since Winkman’s men had attacked Portland Row four months ago, I tended to appreciate taking in the view. There had been a terrible few hours in which I’d thought I would never again look down on the street from my third-storey room.
“Our noble heroine looks out over the city, bravely preparing to face another day.”
“Oh, shut it.”
A ghost stood beside me, arms crossed, smile lopsided.
“What? I thought you enjoyed my company. You should have seen your face when I came back that first time. I thought you were going to burst into tears, collapse at my feet, and stroke my skull in worship.”
“Well, I still think you should move on. The Other Side awaits.”
“So unappreciative of all I do for you. It’s not that simple, you know. Now that the silver fences are gone, everyone’s flooding through. Imagine that: years of ghosts all built up, trying to cross through at the same time. You think I want to be a part of that sort of foot traffic?”
“Oh, because you’re just so above all the other ghosts. Forgive me, I forgot.”
“Too right. I’m like a more evolved version of them.”
“Sounds to me like you’re just discriminating against lower classes of ghosts. And after you accused me of skullism.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an evil haunted skull. I’m not sure what else you expect.”
It was a good point, and I didn’t feel like arguing it. I just sighed.
“Oh, back to the sad sighs now, are we? I thought you and Lockwood had finally sorted everything out. You know, with the little necklace and all those longing looks.”
“What would you know about it?” I said. “I bet you never even kissed anyone before you kicked the bucket.”
“Rude!”
“Yeah, well, I’m friends with an evil haunted skull. I’m not sure what else you expect.”
Apparently me using his own line to get back at him was simply too much—the spiky-haired youth faded away. I bit back a grin before heading downstairs.
It was certainly nearing noon by the time I stumbled down to the breakfast table, hair in knots. I started up the kettle and grabbed a piece of toast from a plate stacked high in the centre of the table.
Lockwood already sat at the table, newspaper spread before him. Holly took up another seat, intent on our casebook. She looked up to give me a little smile, patting the chair beside her. I sat down.
“We’ve just been talking about the news. Things are changing in London,” she said.
“Don’t I know it,” I said grimly, taking another bite of my toast. “Problem looking up?”
“There have been no major clusters reported in the past four months,” said Lockwood. “New active areas are popping up all the time, though, and no one can quite figure out why. It’s not quite like how it used to be. A town experiences an influx of hauntings, agents rush in to help—and then, before anyone knows it, everything goes back to normal in that place.”
“You don’t think…”
“I don’t think anyone’s messing around on the Other Side anymore, Luce. I really don’t.”
As always, his words were reassuring. I flashed him a smile, then stood up to prepare my tea.
“This is something else, I’m sure of it,” he continued. “It’s such a different pattern than Chelsea and such. We should ask George; bet he’d have a theory.”
“Ask me what?”
George sauntered in, pyjamas dangerously loose, glasses lopsided. He grabbed himself a few pieces of toast, poured some tea, and collapsed into his chair.
Lockwood explained about the new occurrences regarding the Problem, but I tuned him out. I was too busy basking in the scene. Piles of toast, steam from the tea, and the members of Lockwood & Co. gathered properly together. It was dreadfully sentimental of me, I know, but every time we were all together in the morning I couldn’t help but breathe it all in.
After all, there was no telling how long it would last.
Because the fact was, no matter what weird new phenomena were being observed about the Problem, there was no doubt that it was fading. We could all see it, though we didn’t much like to talk about it. Ghosts were less powerful, Type Two cases a little less common than we were used to.
I knew I should be thrilled about that. Of course I should. It was us that had brought about the end to a dark period in history, and years down the road, when the paperwork expired, we would be allowed to tell the story to a ghost-free generation. The Problem, if all went well, would be no more.
But that would mean the end of psychic investigation, and I didn’t like to envision what it would mean for our little company. We had been on the front lines cleaning up the Problem, and I didn’t like to flatter myself, but we were just about the most popular agency in London.
I tuned back in; George was talking.
“It’s fascinating, the new geographical patterns of the Problem,” he said. He was sketching on the thinking cloth, drawing a rough map of London. “I’ve got a few theories, but nothing too concrete… Ask me again in a week or so.”
His glasses glinted.
“Is that so?” I asked. “Do you have any theories on why you abandoned me last night to build your little toy?”
“It’s not a toy,” said George, ruffled. “It’s a prototype. I’m studying the effects of projectile motion on apparitions. Really, I think I’m onto something.”
“Oh, come off it. Are our tried and tested methods of ghost hunting not enough for you?”
“It all worked out fine in the end, didn’t it?”
I considered continuing the argument, just for the fun of it, but decided against it. Admittedly, George was brilliant, and it was true: it had all turned out just fine.
Fed and filled to the brim with tea, I went to get dressed.
I’d been reading a lot lately, mostly all the old books Lockwood had lying around. There were heaps of detective novels and horror stories, but my favourites were the ones about regular life. Kids going to school, having stupid little romances, getting in trouble for breaking the rules. Something about reading them was cosy and familiar, even though many of the concepts were foreign to me. It had been nearly a decade since I’d attended school.
I picked up one of those books and headed downstairs, settling into a chair. Afternoon light leaked onto the book’s pages. At some point Lockwood wandered in and took the chair opposite, magazine in hand.
I didn’t read for very long before I started to get distracted.
He wasn’t overly absorbed in his magazine; he read it casually, flipping the pages with the kind of elegance that had always drawn me in. His collared shirt was untucked, a rarity for him. His tie hung loose. The flat, white sunlight outlined the contours of his face.
“Great job on the case last night, Luce,” he said. I gave a start; had he seen me watching him?
“Well, not that great,” I said, “I pinpointed the wrong Source.”
“And helped us uncover an old crime. We figured it out, you know. Some pastor from fifty years ago stealing from the church, just like George said.”
“True, but I shouldn’t have let my guard down when I thought we’d found it. The manifestation stopped and everything, so I thought…”
“Probably just because of the proximity of the silver net to the pulpit,” said Lockwood, shrugging. “Really, it wasn’t just a mistake on your part. All of us should have stayed watchful.”
“I guess we’re getting rusty in our old age,” I said, grinning.
“Oh, I haven’t lost my Sight just yet.”
“You sure? I can practically see your wizard beard and cane.”
“That’s low. You know I’m sensitive about my wizard beard.”
I gave a light laugh, the silly sort of giggle that only happened in Lockwood’s company. It was an embarrassing sound, really, but when I was around him my head got too fuzzy to put things into long term memory, so I didn’t tend to stay embarrassed for very long.
My eyes drifted back to my book.
Maybe I should explain how things are between me and Lockwood.
One fateful night, not long after we sent the Fittes House crashing down behind us, Lockwood gave me a necklace. This wasn’t that unusual in itself, seeing as it was the second necklace he’d given me. Technically, in the time that I’d known him, he’d averaged giving me a necklace per year.
But this one was a bit different, seeing as he’d told me in no uncertain terms that the necklace could never be anything but a symbol of undying devotion.
So I rushed after him, down the stairs and into the hall, necklace at my throat. He was waiting for me to join him on a walk. Infuriatingly, he didn’t say a word. He just smiled and held the front door. We stepped out into the dying light, my heart pounding.
And then, if you would believe it, he started to make conversation about the weather.
I stopped him, holding up my hand. We stood still on the pavement, and he looked at me expectantly.
“Lockwood,” I said, my stomach doing nervous flips, “you do realise that this is, like… an insane-level romantic gesture, right?”
I tapped the necklace, staring pleadingly up at him.
“That was sort of the point,” he said, eyebrows raised.
“And now you’re not even going to do anything about it?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Tell me how you feel, or something!”
I wanted to say kiss me, but I couldn’t quite manage it.
“Well, I’m technically still your employer,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe we should wait for a bit, until we’re both-”
“Oh, to hell with that,” I said.
In a move that would have shocked anyone, including myself, I stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
It was brief; instantaneous, really. For a single moment in time our lips were pressed together and my heart beat at the speed of light. Then it was over, and I stood looking up at him again, blush creeping across my neck and cheeks.
He smiled, then, and amongst all of his numerous smiles I would remember that one forever. His eyes slid shut, and for a moment he just stood there and smiled softly, his pale face sharply contrasting with the fading light.
Then he kissed me.
So that was amazing and dizzying and I would probably never get over it as long as I lived. But it did pose the question of how to proceed. Because it’s true, he was still my boss. We decided to keep things quiet, at least for a little while. After all, we were Lockwood & Co.; we were professionals.
Holly and George knew something had changed the moment we stepped back into thirty-five Portland Row. Holly just smiled knowingly—George pretended not to notice.
He started in on the teasing the next day.
But the real pain in the arse was the skull. Of course, that was the day it chose to come back after a week-long hiatus. I had begun to think it would never show its face again. But, as I wandered back into my room, a silly smile pasted across my cheeks, it spoke.
“Oh. I see. Lockwood has finally proposed.”
“He hasn’t prop- Skull! You’re back!”
And then we spent a solid ten minutes arguing—it insulting me for “falling for Lockwood’s surface-level charms” and me berating it for coming back.
The skull won that particular argument, mostly because it was half-hearted on my end. I did my best not to show it, but I was terribly pleased that, at least for a little while, it had returned. From what I could gather, it didn’t plan to stick around forever.
***
A knock sounded on the front door, shaking me out of my musings. My old paperback book had drifted down into my lap; Lockwood rose from his sitting position across from me, looking towards the door.
Holly breezed through the room, already preparing the smile she put on when we had company. She briefly broke the illusion to hiss at us to tidy up before rushing off to answer the door.
Lockwood and I scuttled around like a couple of crabs and made the sitting room as tidy as could be desired. A few moments later, a familiar face bustled into the room: Inspector Montagu Barnes, his moustache restless.
“Hello, Inspector. Care to take a seat?” said Lockwood, smiling easily. Barnes gave a vague grunt of agreement and sat down on the nearest chair. In the next room over, the kettle whistled—George was making tea.
“I’m here for your usual update,” said Barnes after a few moments of quiet contemplation, “but also something more.”
This first part was nothing new. Barnes dropped in every few weeks to give us updates on DEPRAC’s work, and everything he told us tended to be things we’d already read in the paper or that George had theorised about.
George came in and offered everyone tea as Barnes spoke quietly, telling us the bare minimum he could get away with about DEPRAC’s adventures and misadventures in cleaning all human evidence out of the Other Side. All in all, from what we could gather, the process was going well.
We didn’t expect the next bit, though.
“In other news,” said Barnes, after several sips of steaming tea, “within a year or so, if current trends in relation to the Problem continue, DEPRAC will be permanently shutting down.
We stared at him in silence. He took another sip of his tea.
“But Inspector,” said Lockwood, “who are the agencies supposed to report to, then? DEPRAC is half the foundation of London, with Fittes gone. Where will you go?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” said Barnes. “I’m here to talk about you. Many agencies will still be up and running, but just know that you’ll be fully independent. There’s talk of the government giving temporary salaries to kids like you that might lose work as agents.”
Fully independent. It was what Lockwood & Co. had always aimed for, but not like this. My head spun; I tried to imagine life without Barnes knocking on our door to scold us, and I came up empty.
“The world is changing as we speak,” said Inspector Barnes. He had already finished his tea; he rose to leave. “I hope Lockwood & Co. will be prepared for that change when it comes.”