Page 44 of The Exorcism of Faeries

He said something, but it was too low for her to make out behind the mask.

They continued walking until the trees spit them out at a side entrance to a stunning building of towering stone. Atta looked up at the spires, the arched windows, the utter, sacred beauty. “This is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral."

“It is indeed.”

To her complete astonishment, he pulled out a skeleton key that looked like it belonged to Dracula and shoved it into a lock. “It might be time for that Society history lesson,” she whispered at his back, so nervous that she kept scooting closer to him.

They crept inside, and Gold Stitch locked the door before striding purposefully to a cupboard of some sort Atta couldn’t see for how dark it was. He pulled something out, and she heard him strike a match a split second before the flame ignited, and he lit a gas hand lamp. “You really don’t believe in torches, do you?”

He chuckled. “Secret societies like to dabble in the arcane and ominous.” His words were punctuated by him handing her a plague doctor mask he pulled down from the cupboard. “Put this on. I don’t think we’ll run into anyone, but just in case.”

She followed him to a great wooden door, wishing very much that they were headed into the sanctuary proper, though she knew that was highly unlikely. As expected, the door led to a set of steep stone steps that descended down and down. So far down that it didn’t make a great deal of physical sense.

“Are we going underground?” she whispered when the steps turned into broken cobbles, then dirt.

“Quite far underground.”

Atta thought he was revealing an awful lot for not even letting her know his name. She wasn’t about to say so, though. “About that history lesson . . .”

He glanced at her, the tunnels growing so narrow their beaks were in danger of touching. Her foot kicked something that skittered down ahead of them into the shadows, but not before she could tell it was the skull of some small mammal.

Finally, Gold Stitch spoke. “Agamemnon Society began long ago as a group of comrades who wanted to do academic research outside of regular societal norms without becoming pariahs, mostly hidden behind the HPSC.”

It was difficult for Atta to see with the heavy, oblong mask and she tripped more than once, trying to listen to his story.

“Most of the founding members wanted to research medicine, though the only way to truly understand the human body was to cut into it. Most saw this as disturbing, so the Society formed quietly and made deals with morgues and gravediggers to procure their subjects.”

They rounded a corner, the tunnel widening enough that Atta was no longer brushing shoulders with him.

“Eventually, the Society grew to all manner of outcasts, men and women. Poets, authors, free-thinkers. It was a beautiful thing here in Dublin.”

“Was?” Atta questioned.

“You’re a clever one. Yes, the early days were filled with innovation, breakthroughs, and wonders in all manner of academia you can imagine. Slowly, new members and those who gained entrance by blood—an inherited seat, if you will—began poisoning everything the Society stood for. By the time I joined—my seat was inherited and also earned—the Society had become rife with in-fighting and corruption. Even politicians weaselled their way in and began trying to control everything, to use the Society for their agendas.”

“Then why be in it at all?” she pressed, engrossed.

“Not everyone in Agamemnon is corrupt, and the opportunities it affords are vital to what I do. Sometimes things have to be reformed slowly from the inside.”

Atta reached out and grabbed his bicep to halt him before they went any further. She felt his arm tense, and she let go. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Would you like the truthful answer to that question?”

“As opposed to a lie? Yes, please.”

She watched his mask move as he looked everywhere but at her.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, the words hardly audible. “I think I’m tired of looking for a cure, for reform, on my own.”

“But you said not everyone in the Society is like that. You have Achilles House. The broader Society.”

“You can be surrounded by people and still be alone, Atta.”

She could see her birdlike mask reflected in his goggles in the lamplight. “I understand that.” Possibly better than most.

“Tell me you haven’t been digging alone for years, too.”

“I have.”

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