The cedar recovery box sat near the edge of the workbench, padded with coarse flannel and warmed by two heated river stones tucked beneath the bedding. Inside, Pip lay with his head resting over his folded feet. The bird’s breathing was no longer a wild struggle against choking soot. His tiny breast rose and fell in a calm, rhythmic cycle, each breath out with a low, bubbling purr that sounded like simmering syrup.
Arthur rinsed his curved Dumont metal tongs in ninety-five percent grain alcohol, wiped them dry with a lint-free cloth, and laid them in the velvet-lined dark wood instrument case.
Across the room, Grimm lay stretched out on the stone flags between the cutting table and the arched doorway. The hound’s black glass-black coat drank the amber glow of the gas lamps. His paws twitched once in a dream of running down quarry in the cold melted rock waste trenches. But his ears remained pricked. He tracked every sound in the halls above.
Heavy, hurried bootsteps echoed down the spiral stonework stairs outside.
The heavy oak door swung open with a dry groan of iron hinges.
Dr. Morrigan Calder swept into the sickness theater. That brought with her a slipstream of cold night air, distilled peppermint ether. The bitter reek of over-boiled chicory coffee. Her floor-length ivory lab coat was a record of chemical warfare. The hem was frayed by hydrochloric vapor, the right pocket had an acid-etched hole large enough to pass three fingers through, and both…
