Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #3)(107)

There were spontaneous bursts of cheering, laughter, songs. Millard and Bronwyn danced across the scarred ground. Olive and Claire clung to Miss Peregrine, who carried them in her arms as she buzzed around, checking on things. Horace kept pinching himself, suspicious that this was just one of his dreams, some beautiful future that hadn’t yet come to be. Hugh wandered off by himself, no doubt missing Fiona, whose absence had left a hole in us all. Millard was busy fretting over his hero, Perplexus, whose rapid aging had stopped when we entered Abaton and, strangely, not yet resumed. But it would, Millard assured us, and now that Caul’s tower was destroyed, it was unclear how Perplexus would reach his old loop. (There was Bentham’s Panloopticon, of course, but which of its hundred doors was the right one?)

Then there was the matter of Emma and me. We were attached at the hip and yet hardly exchanged a word. We were afraid to talk to each other, I think, because of what we had to talk about.

What would happen next? What would become of us? I knew Emma couldn’t leave peculiardom. She would have to live inside a loop for the rest of her life, be it Devil’s Acre or some other, better place. But I was free to go. I had family and a home waiting for me. A life, or the pale approximation of one. But I had a family here, too. And I had Emma. And there was this new Jacob I had become, was still becoming. Would he survive back in Florida?

I needed all of it. Both families, both Jacobs—all of Emma. I knew I would have to choose, and I was afraid it would split me in half.

It was all too much, more than I could face so soon after the trials we’d just endured. I needed a few more hours, a day, to pretend. So Emma and I stood shoulder to shoulder and looked outward, throwing ourselves into whatever the ymbrynes needed of us.

The ymbrynes, overly protective by nature, decided we’d been through enough. We needed rest, and besides, there were tasks, they said, that peculiar children had no business taking part in. When the tower fell it had crushed a smaller building beneath it, but they didn’t want us combing the wreckage for survivors. Elsewhere in the compound there were ambro vials to be recovered, which they didn’t want us going near. I wondered what they’d do with them, or if those stolen souls could ever be reunited with their rightful owners.

I thought about the vial made from my grandfather’s soul. I’d felt so violated when Bentham used it—and yet, if he hadn’t, we never would have escaped the Library of Souls. So in the end, really, it was my grandfather’s soul that had saved us. It was gratifying to know that at least it had not gone to waste.

There was work to be done outside the wights’ compound, as well. Along Louche Lane and elsewhere in Devil’s Acre, enslaved peculiar children needed to be freed, but the ymbrynes insisted they should be the ones to do it, along with some peculiar adults. As it happened, they would face no resistance: the slavers and other turncoats had fled the Acre the moment the wights fell. The children would be collected and brought to a safe house. The traitors hunted down and brought before tribunals. None of this was our concern, we were told. Right now we needed a place to recuperate, as well as a base of operations from which the reconstruction of peculiardom could begin—and none of us wanted to stay in the wights’ fear-haunted fortress any longer than we had to.

I suggested Bentham’s house. It had tons of space, beds, facilities, a live-in doctor, and a Panloopticon (which, you never know, might come in handy for something). We moved as dark was falling, loading one of the wights’ transport trucks with those of us who couldn’t walk, the rest marching behind it. We crossed out of the fortress with a little help from the bridge hollow, which lifted the truck across the gap first and the rest of us in groups of three. Some of the kids were frightened of the hollow and needed coaxing. Others couldn’t wait and clamored for another ride once they’d crossed. I indulged them. My control over hollows had become second nature, which was satisfying if slightly bittersweet. Now that hollows were nearly extinct, my peculiar ability seemed obsolete—this manifestation of it, anyway. But I was okay with that. I didn’t care about having a showy power; it was just a party trick now. I’d have been much happier if hollows had never existed.

We traveled through Devil’s Acre in a slow procession, those of us on foot surrounding the vehicle like a float in a parade, others riding its bumpers and roof. It felt like a victory lap, and the Acre’s peculiars flooded out of their homes and hovels to watch us pass by. They had seen the tower fall. They knew things had changed. Many applauded. Some gave salutes. Others lurked in the shadows, ashamed of the role they’d played.

When we arrived at Bentham’s house, Mother Dust and Reynaldo met us at the door. We were welcomed warmly and told the house was ours to use as we needed. Mother Dust immediately began treating the injured, showing them to beds, making them comfortable, anointing them with dust. She offered to heal my bruises and the bite wounds across my stomach first, but I told her I could wait. Others were worse off.

I told her how I’d used her finger. How it had saved my life, and the lives of others. She shrugged it off and turned back to her work.

I insisted. “You deserve a medal,” I said. “I don’t know if peculiars give medals, but if they do I’ll make sure you get one.”

She seemed taken aback by this somehow, and let out a choking sob before hurrying away.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked Reynaldo.

“I don’t know,” he said, concerned, and went after her.