"I'm sorry," Dr. Talbott said. He cleared his throat and sat up straighter. "When I returned home, Thomas, our driver, met me at the gate. He told me that Joan hadn't responded when he called to her. He and the groom, Rollins, thought that she must have fallen ill. They pried the door off, but Joan wasn't inside. She had just vanished from inside the locked carriage."

"Did the driver stop anywhere along the way?" I asked.

"No." Dr. Talbott shook his head. "He took her straight home. It was only a few minutes ride. Our house is just across St. Christopher's Park from the Church Banks. Fifteen minutes at the most."

"Have you received a ransom notice?" I asked. A giddy interest bubbled through me.

"No," Dr. Talbott said. "All we have are the letters from Mr. Roffcale."

"Mr. Roffcale?" The name sounded like a Prodigal's. "He would be the member of Good Commons that your wife kept in contact with?"

"Yes." Dr. Talbott looked surprised that I would guess as much.

"Mr. Roffcale had been sending Joan letters." Dr. Talbott frowned as he said this. "She said they were nothing, just news about her old friends at Good Commons. I never thought anything of them. But after she disappeared, William and I went through them." He seemed unable to go on.

Captain Harper again took up where Talbott left off. "The letters could be seen as incriminating. We discovered warnings that she might be abducted in transport. Another letter described tortures inflicted upon women in graphic detail. Roffcale wanted Joan to return to Good Commons. He claimed that they would protect her."

Harper stood and opened his long black coat. I caught sight of the white priest's collar at his throat as well as the pistol holstered beneath his left arm.

That pairing fit the Inquisition perfectly. The white band proclaimed the captain's authority to judge and redeem the souls of those awash with sin. The pistol embodied the very earthly duty of each man of the Inquisition to enforce and uphold the law. Salvation became far more appealing when damnation was faced at gunpoint.

Captain Harper withdrew a bundle of letters from the inner pocket of his coat and handed them to me. His leather gloves brushed against my fingers, and I felt the slight sting of the holy oils used to cure the hide.

Captain Harper was close enough that I could see his eyes and smell his breath. His eyes were dark brown with deep blue shadows beneath them. His breath was nothing but tobacco smoke and coffee. I guessed that he had not eaten recently, nor had he slept.

"These are the letters." Captain Harper stepped back from me before I could catch a deeper impression of him.

"Do you have any idea where Mr. Roffcale might be now?" I turned the bundle of letters over, checking the postmarks and return addresses. All of the letters came from Hells Below.

"He's in custody at the Brighton Inquisition House," Captain Harper said.

I frowned at the thought. It was an unpleasant place to be for anyone, but the worst tortures were reserved for Prodigals. The prayer engines were a particular horror. The scars on my chest and arms burned from just the memory.

"I'm not sure what you could need me for, then. If he's in your power already, I'm sure you'll be able to extract all the information you'd like to have."

"Right now, I'm just holding him. If I have him taken in for a confession, then everything he says goes down in the confessor's records. I would rather not have his name mixed with Joan's if it can be helped," Captain Harper said.

"If it can't be helped?" I asked.

"We will do anything that is required to see that Joan is returned unharmed." Dr. Talbott's low voice trembled with conviction.

Captain Harper gazed out the open window behind me. He studied the empty blackness for several moments and then turned his attention back to me.

"All we want is for you to go in and talk with Roffcale. He's more likely to relax with one of his own. Hopefully, he'll let something slip to you that he wouldn't tell me."

"You're paying quite a bit, just to have me chat a man up," I replied.

"I'm sure I can find more for you to do if that isn't enough," the captain replied.

I glanced up at him. I had no doubt that there was more he would have me do. I glanced out the window. Pairs of fireflies flashed and chased each other across the darkness.

"I suppose that you'll want me to go to the Inquisition House to speak to this Roffcale?" I knew that would be the case but still asked, hoping that somehow I'd be wrong.

"Tonight would be best." Captain Harper buttoned up his coat.

"Yes, I suppose it would," I said.

"Thank you so much." Dr. Talbott stood quickly.

I nodded and picked my coat up off the back of my chair. As I pulled it on, I remembered my fallen hypodermic. I glanced down quickly, wondering if the captain might have caught sight of it. Fortunately, it had rolled under my chair. The only thing on the floor that the captain might have seen was a single, tattered insect wing.

Chapter Two

Silver

Dr. Talbott had a patient who needed his attention and so parted company with Captain Harper and me at Baker Station. Captain Harper and I rode the carriage in silence to the Brighton House of Inquisition.

The big stone building was clean and furiously lit. The doors separating the long halls were etched with blazing silver eyes. Pairs of eyes glared from the walls and stared down from the ceiling. Lime lamps were lit inside them so that the pupils shone like searchlights. Every reflective surface caught the light and ignited to white fire. I flinched from the searing illumination but couldn't find a dim corner or dark shadow. Silver light slashed through my thin eyelids. I held my hand up to shade my eyes. From beneath the shadow of my hand, I stole glances around.

The bare intensity of the light burned the color out of everything. Beside me, Captain Harper's black form looked like a moth-gray shadow. His face was like a ghost's: so white that I could hardly distinguish one feature from another. Only the deep shadow that his cap cast over his eyes remained. It lay over his features like a velvet mask.

"The silver must be burning you quite a bit now," he said as we walked through another set of doors. His tone was neither pleased nor sorry. He said it as if it was simply something to talk about as we walked.

"Yes," I replied. "This particular House seems very well-designed to that purpose."

"The light makes it easier to control Prodigal offenders. Turn right here. There's only a little farther to go." He turned and I dimly stumbled after him. I could imagine the power Captain Harper felt, having me so completely helpless. I decided that no matter what we discovered from Roffcale, I would make it my business to take the captain with me to Hells Below. I would find some reason that we would need to descend into that wet blackness and see how the man fared out of his element.

Murky, gray tears filled my eyes. The light stung and seared every inch of my uncovered body. The tops of my hands turned pink. This was not the first time I had been in a House of Inquisition, and this was far from the worst pain I had endured in such a place. This was only the malevolent gaze. It was a look that could sear and blind, but alone, it could not kill.

Death came by slow degrees on the hard metal tables of the Confessional rooms. It was done with simple questions and endless patience. Unlike the depictions in protest flyers, the Houses of Inquisition did not flow with rivers of blood. The walls were not stained with gore or hung with rusted hooks. The Houses were holy places. They were quiet, clean, and bright. Even the Confessional rooms were subdued and calm. The Inquisitors and Confessors never taunted or screamed threats. They asked politely for everything. The silver knives, nails, and prayer engines were merely devices with which they sought absolute truth. All they demanded was complete honesty.