“Does the hearse have to be equipped in a special way to resurrect in it while its moving?” Fletcher asked.
Gemma nodded. “It ain’t a simple thing.”
“But it can be done?” Fletcher pressed.
Barnabus was beginning to understand the idea tossing around in Fletcher’s mind. “You want Gemma to sort out how to resurrect me after staging my death?”
“Close,” Fletcher said. “Resurrectboth of you. In movinghearses. Without being caught out. And all before arriving at the churchyard.”
She’d gone pale. “The Kincaids know it’s possible to resurrect in a hearse. It’d have to be done in a way that they’d think it were impossible.”
“You’d have to plan a resurrection that even the Kincaid brothers themselves don’t think can be done,” Barnabus said.
“Is that all? Generations of resurrectionists’ knowledge spilled into those four ears, and I have to fool them? Simple as apples, that.”
“If you decide it can’t be done,” Fletcher said, “we’ll think of something else. But they ain’t going to stop looking for you unless they’re full certain there ain’t no one to look for.”
Chapter 27
Gemma’d been running from the resurrectionist trade for years. She’d sworn she’d never connect herself to it again. Yet there she were, trying to formulate a way to out-resurrect the most skilled grave robbers in all of London.
“It’d have to be something that’d seem entirely impossible.” She picked at the humble meal she and Baz had made for themselves. Fletcher and Stone had left, leaving her to plan something that couldn’t be done. “They can resurrect in a moving hearse. All they need’s a long enough jaunt to the churchyard and room enough for moving about. Loading our coffins into hearses ain’t enough to toss the Kincaids off the scent.”
“Do we choose a shorter route, then?” Baz asked.
“Bustin’ a coffin takes time. Even my uncles cain’t do it in an instant. And unless you know a couple trustworthy resurrectionists, I’ll be offering up rushed training to whoever’ll be springing us.”
“You are the only trustworthy resurrectionist I know,” Baz said.
“I’m the only trustworthy resurrectionistIknow.” She sighed. “I don’t fancy teaching others to do this. It’s a trade I’d favor seeing die, which I realize is a terrible pun.”
Baz nudged her plate closer to her.
“I know,” she said. “I grumbled at you for not eating when you was worried. The least I can do is eat, myself.”
He shook his head. “As a doctor, I would advise against eating yourself.”
Oh, he was good for her heart, helping her laugh when life was painful. “It’s a proper shame we can’t ask Dr. Palmer to set his mind on this puzzle. That bloke don’t let a mystery go unsolved, do he?”
“You’ve been reading ‘Bodies of Light,’” he said.
“I always knew you’d be quality at writing tales.”
“You were the only one who did at first.”
“And you are the only one who thinks I can plan this never-been-done-before resurrection.” She popped a steamed carrot in her mouth, reminding herself shedidneed to keep her strength up.
“If it can’t be done, Gemma, we’ll simply leave London. Under cover of night or in disguise.”
She shook her head, swallowing quickly. “The Kincaids and the Mastiff will hurt people in their search for us.” She knew he’d no sooner let that happen than she would. “We need to move forward with the wake, with being nailed into our coffins and being hauled into hearses. But it’s what to do from that point on I cain’t sort. I can resurrect in a hearse; I’ve done it—” Her heart refused to let her mouth finish the admission.
He set his hand atop hers. “You didn’t choose the life you lived, love, any more than my mother chose the life she did. I’m not one of those hoity-toity types that assumes every desperate person had all the choices in the world and intentionally picked the worst one.”
“It’s why you work so hard giving those desperate people a choice that’s at least a tetch better.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “And did you consider me ‘a tetch better’ than the choices you’d had before meeting me?”
“A tetch or two,” she said with a shrug.