"I'll tell you inside," Tate said. "Jack's in there, and he's very curious about the same things as you, Miss Smith. I'll tell you together."
"Everything?" I asked.
"Yes. The entire story, dating back almost twenty-two years."
"Wait!" Sylvia gripped my arm and pulled me back along the path, out of earshot. Tate didn't come after us, but kept on smiling. "It might be a trick," she hissed into my ear.
"There's a very good chance that it is," I said gravely.
"Then we have to leave!"
"No. Jack might be in there and in difficulty."
"I doubt it. Jack doesn't get himself into difficulties, only out of them. He at least can set things on fire at will. You can't."
"I can if I'm angry, and I can assure you I'll be furious if Tate is lying. Sylvia, I have to find out what he knows. Do you understand how important this is to me? He has the answers to questions I've longed to know, not only about my fire starting, but about my parents. Finding those answers means...everything." My throat squeezed shut with the effort not to cry. I hadn't meant to sound so vehement, nor had I expected to want answers so badly that I would walk into a suspected trap. But I did. God, how I wanted to learn what Tate knew. I suddenly felt like half a person, with a major part of my life missing. Tate could fill in the hollow spaces.
I had to know and I would do anything to get those answers. Anything.
I walked away from her and back to Tate. As I stepped through the doorway, the faint odor of damp ashes filled my nostrils. I could only see what lay within the beam of natural light, yet even that disappeared when Tate shut the door on Sylvia, himself and me.
But not before I saw the twisted and blackened metal of broken machines, the burnt beams and tools, and the utter devastation wrought by fire.
"Is there a lamp, Mr. Tate?" Sylvia tried her best to sound commanding, but the wobble in her voice was unmistakable. "Light it this instant!"
I headed toward her voice and found her outstretched hands, searching for me. She latched onto me and we clasped each other. Her heartbeat hammered against my shoulder, her limbs trembled. She was terrified, and that would make her useless. It was up to me. I had to keep the fear at bay otherwise the anger wouldn't come.
"Where's Jack?" I demanded.
"I thought you wanted answers. Don't you want to know who the third fire starter is?"
"We want Jack. He's not here, is he?" I felt the now familiar heat rise inside me, like a tidal swell that began in my belly and rose outward, upward. I embraced it, fueled it with deliberate thoughts of hatred toward Tate. I did indeed hate him, far more than I feared him.
"I'll tell you anyway." Tate's voice came from further away, in the depths of the factory. "It's me. I'm the third fire starter."
CHAPTER 14
"You!" Sylvia gasped. "How...?" She let the sentence dangle unfinished, but I knew what she was thinking. How could three diverse people have the same ability?
"Are we related?" I asked. "You, Jack and I? Is there some connection between us?"
"We're not blood relatives." His voice sounded disembodied, and it was difficult to tell from which direction it came. "However there is a connection."
Metal scraped and a chain rattled, a macabre sound in the darkness. Sylvia whimpered and clung tighter to me. There was some comfort in her closeness. It would have been worse to be alone.
"Mr. Tate, sir," came a slurring, heavy voice. It belonged to a man and he wasn't near us, but that's all I knew. I didn't recognize the speaker. Whispers followed as Tate and the other man exchanged words. I strained to hear, but caught nothing.
"Light something," Sylvia said, voice low.
"I can't."
"Just try it."
I flicked my fingers out. Nothing happened. I snapped and shook them, but still no heat rose, no sparks flew. "Damn," I muttered.
Tate chuckled. "Are you trying to form a flame, Miss Smith? You ought to know by now that it's futile." He seemed to have finished his conversation with the other man, but I could see no one else in the darkness. Not even a shadow.
"Why?" Sylvia asked.
"I've tried to control it," he said. "Tried to create it when I wanted it and stop it when I didn't. I failed, time after time. As you would have too, Miss Smith."
"But—"
I pinched Sylvia's arm, and she fell silent. I didn't want her telling Tate anything that may be to our advantage. If he didn't know that Jack could start fires at will, then Jack could take him by surprise when he came. If he wasn't already there.
Oh Jack, where are you?
Someone grunted. It came from the far end of the factory. It could have come from the slurring stranger, but I didn't think so.
"Jack?" I called out at the same time Sylvia did. "Jack, is that you?"
"It's me," came Tommy's thick, sleepy voice.
"Tommy!" Sylvia let me go, but I held her back.
"Wait," I whispered.
She said nothing for a few pounding heartbeats, then called out, "Tommy? Are you all right?"
The chain rattled again, followed by more grunting. "Bloody 'ell! What's goin' on? Miss Langley? Is that you?"
"Yes," she said. "Where are you?"
"Don't know. I can't see a bloody thing. There's chains around my wrists and I can't move my legs."
Brightness flared in the depths of the factory as Tate lit a gas lamp. The small circle cast yellow light on the prone figure of Tommy lying on a bench, his wrists attached to chains and his ankles cuffed to the table. Dried blood smeared his bottom lip, and a shadowy bruise cupped one eye. Behind him stood a huge man with a jaw shaped like a brick and just as hard. His shoulders were wide and hunched as if he carried a heavy weight on them. His brow bulged over dull, vacant eyes.
"My God, what have you done to him?" Sylvia cried.
"He's a friend of yours?" Tate asked. "Ham said he was looking around the factory. I can't allow that. Who is he? Another one of Langley's so-called nephews?"
"He's our footman."
Tate tipped his head back and laughed. "Capital! So Langley's sending the servants to do his work for him?"
"Aren't you?" I said, pointing my chin at the brute behind Tommy.
"That's Ham, short for Hamley. August isn't the only one who can recruit oversized idiots to work for him."
"Who're you calling an idiot?" Tommy said, pulling on one of the chains.
"I was referring to Bollard."
Whatever Bollard was, he was not stupid. Not like Ham. Both may have perfected that vacant stare, but Bollard's couldn't always hide the shrewdness behind his eyes. I'd wager there were no thoughts of any kind in Ham's mind. If the label of idiot bothered him, he didn't show it.
"Let Tommy go," I said. "This is nothing to do with him."
"He shouldn't have been in here," Tate said.
"Why?" Sylvia asked. "It's not like there's anything worth seeing in this burnt wreck."
"Let him go!" I shouted.
Tate moved further into the fuzzy circle of light near Tommy. "Are you getting angry, Miss Smith?" He picked up the lamp and held it high in our direction. "Yes, I believe you are. Very good. I'd like to see what happens. It's been a long time since I've observed the phenomena on another."
I swallowed, and some of my anger disappeared. It wasn't the reaction I wanted. Despite his wish to study me, spitting fire from my fingertips would have come in quite handy at that moment. "Jack's not here, is he?" I said in the hope the answer would rile me again.
"No," said Tommy. "I had a good look around before this beast clobbered me." He pointed at Ham and the chain clanked against the bench.