Baz laughed. She’d missed that sound the past three years. She wouldn’t have to be without it again. But claiming that for herself was going to cost him everything he’d worked for. Shedidn’t doubt him when he said he was doing so willingly. But there weren’t no point pretending he’d not need to make that sacrifice now if there’d been anyone else to help her three and a half years earlier, if he’d not had his arm twisted then.
He threaded his fingers through hers. “We’ll sort it out. I know we will.”
His thoughts, she felt certain, were on their pretended deaths. She hoped the reassurance could be applied more broadly. She didn’t want him to resent her for any of this.
“Our biggest difficulty in this escape scheme is that I ain’t the one doing the resurrecting. I could manage that with hardly a thought.”
“Something your uncles know,” Baz pointed out.
That was true. “I’d have to be in the hearse with you to unbox you anyway. While wider hearses can carry two coffins, there ain’t room enough for a third person to do the resurrecting.”
“So a resurrection would be considered impossible in a hearse with two coffins abreast?” Baz asked with a pointed look.
“Notconsideredimpossible. Itisimpossible. The false bottom allows for the hiding of two people. The one doing the resurrecting would either have to leave one of the bodies in its coffin and climb in the coffin ’imself or be caught out in the back of the hearse when the doors was opened.”
Baz rubbed at his mustache as he sometimes did when pondering a difficult puzzle.
They’d stumbled on something her uncles would think impossible, but only because it actually was. Unless ...
She stood, stepping away from the table as half-formed thoughts rushed in and out of her mind.
“Gemma?” Baz’s voice only vaguely made itself known.
“Silas and Arlo know there’d have to be a third person to get two people out of two coffins in a single hearse.” The idea was so close, but her mind wouldn’t sort it out entirely. “Buta third person’d be caught out. If the hearse was opened at the churchyard and only the two coffins was there with no person larking about, they’d figure the coffins weren’t emptied, leastwise not both of them.”
“And they know neither of us would leave behind the other,” Baz said.
She nodded, thinking frantically. “No third person. But without that third person, there’s no escaping.”Do something the Kincaids believe to be impossible.“Thereisone thing my uncles ain’t never done.” She turned and met Baz’s eye. “They ain’t never resurrected themselves.”
“Have you?”
“Of course not. Cain’t be done.” But she knew that was the answer. She knew. “So that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll get myself out of my coffin, then I’ll help get you out of yours. And we’ll have the length of a single hearse ride to do it.”
She abandoned her barely touched meal and made for the secretary desk, pulling out a sheet of parchment and the nub of a pencil.
“We’ll need someone who knows the scheme to act as the driver of the hearse,” she said.
“Kumar worked for a time as a hackney driver,” Baz said. “He’d do it.”
She began making a detailed sketch even as she kept talking. “And we’ll need to find a hearse what’s wide enough for holding two coffins. They aren’t unheard of, but it’ll take effort, effort that’ll need to be kept quiet.”
Even if they managed to get out of their coffins before the hearse reached the churchyard, they would be seen the moment the doors were opened if there wasn’t a place to hide.
“We’ll need someone who’s a dab hand at carpentry to make a false bottom inside it, far enough above the actual bottom for the two of us to lay flat, side by side, inside of it but low enough thatno one glancing would realize it were there. Flowers and such can help hide it.”
“Dominique worked as a carpenter. He’s one of us too.”
She snatched up another sheet of paper. “He’ll need to modify the coffins as well so we can get them open from the inside but so as nothing looks amiss from the outside.” She began sketching what she had in mind.” This was the most terrifying part. If they couldn’t get out of their coffins, they might be buried alive.
So many things could go wrong. Even if they managed to get out of their coffins but didn’t hide themselves in time, they would be caught and the whole thing would fall to bits. Anything amiss, anything deviating from what the Kincaids expected, would change everything.
She paused in her sketching, uncertainty undermining her determination. “What if something goes wrong?”
“We have to at least try,” he said.
She shook her head. “Resurrectionists don’t resurrect people who ain’t dead. Tools slip. Delicate efforts turn destructive. But those things don’t usually matter. Cain’t kill someone who’s already dead.”
Baz pulled a chair up beside hers at the desk. He sat and put his arm around her, something he did naturally and regularly now.