Weavingshaw

At twilight, Mr. Martin confronts Rami in the courtyard, enraged over the discovery of the ruined Tar. Martin attacks Rami and threatens to hang him. St. Silas intervenes, revealing he anticipated this and sent a letter to Golborne detailing Martin’s secrets, which will be published if he does not return safely. Martin, though trapped, refuses to release Rami, declaring that St. Silas’s party may leave only after Rami’s execution.

Rami proposes a duel, but Martin declines, aware that Rami is a superior swordsman. St. Silas then offers to fight Martin himself. The terms are a duel to the death: If St. Silas wins, he and the Al-Sayer siblings go free. If he loses, his knowledge of Martin’s secrets dies with him. St. Silas assures Martin that, should he perish, Leena and Rami will suppress the incriminating letter. Martin agrees to a duel with swords at dawn. As a guarantee, Rami is locked in his room. Before they are separated, St. Silas quietly warns Rami not to tell Leena that Martin will likely cheat, as she would try to interfere.

St. Silas comes to Leena’s room late that night and gives her the red diary. She uses it to summon the ghost of Theodore, who indicates that Percival’s ghost will appear in her room at noon the next day. St. Silas then apologizes to Theodore for his death, causing the ghost to vanish in distress.

St. Silas reveals he is dueling Martin at dawn in Rami’s place. He gives Leena contingency plans: If he does not return, she and Mrs. Van are to flee to Golborne immediately. He then gives her back her cherished book, A Guide to Botany, revealing that he secretly repaired the pages he once claimed to have burned. When she asks how he learned to sew, he shows her a long, self-sutured scar on his abdomen from a past injury. He gives Leena his pistol, teaches her how to use it, and unpins her hair before leaving in what feels like a final goodbye.

Hoping to find a way to help St. Silas, Leena summons Lady Hargreaves’s ghost. She then experiences a long, dream-like vision of Lady Hargreaves’s memories. As a new bride, Lady Hargreaves grew wary of her husband’s secret society, the Wake, and his close association with Percival, who was trafficking poor boys to a powerful Duke. She came to love Percival’s son as her own, and she was troubled by his father’s neglect and the dark influence of Weavingshaw.

The summer before Bram’s 12th birthday, Percival became increasingly paranoid. Soon after, Bram disappeared. Lord Hargreaves claimed it was a kidnapping, but his wife suspected he was involved. Her marriage collapsed as she watched her husband and Percival have a bitter falling-out over a “stolen” object. After Percival’s new mistress, Moira, also vanished without explanation, Lord Hargreaves killed Percival in a duel. He confessed to his wife that he’d had to stop Percival, who had grown too powerful “since the trade” involving the “Limitless Vessel,” and that Bram was now gone. Grief-stricken and horrified, Lady Hargreaves wrote a letter to Bram, filled her pockets with rocks, and died by suicide in the ocean.

Lord Hargreaves waits with Martin at the dueling ground, the same meadow where he killed Percival years earlier. Rami is tied to a tree nearby, having been beaten. Hargreaves reflects on his role in trading a 12-year-old Bram to the Duke of Fray and on his years-long failed search for the Limitless Vessel, which Percival hid before his death. When St. Silas arrives, Hargreaves holds Rami at gunpoint to ensure the duel proceeds.

St. Silas easily overpowers Martin and is about to win when Hargreaves intervenes, stabbing St. Silas in the side. As Martin moves to kill the wounded St. Silas, St. Silas draws a hidden pistol from his boot and shoots Martin. He then holds Hargreaves at gunpoint. Hargreaves reveals his sword was coated with a rare demon poison and demands the red diary in exchange for the antidote. Hargreaves also discloses that Orley, acting on his instructions, controlled Theodore’s ghost to lure them to Weavingshaw and that Percival’s ghost was never coming. When Hargreaves threatens Leena, St. Silas brutally attacks him, knocking him unconscious. He and Rami then race back to Weavingshaw in the carriage.

Awakening from her vision of Lady Hargreaves’s past, Leena is confronted by a drunken Lord Kilworth, who bursts into her room with a rifle. He threatens Leena and harasses Mrs. Van, whom he wishes to hunt. To create a diversion, Leena suggests a chase, giving Mrs. Van a head start. As Kilworth begins to count, Leena shoots at him with the pistol St. Silas gave her, but the recoil interferes with her aim, and she only grazes his ear.

Kilworth fires back and misses as Leena and Mrs. Van flee into the mansion’s crypts. They become trapped in the Hall of the Lake. Leena hides and waits. When Kilworth enters, he prepares to shoot Mrs. Van and demands to know where Percival hid the “Limitless Vessel.” Stepping out from her hiding place, Leena shoots Kilworth in the chest. His body falls into the black water.

After killing Kilworth, Leena and Mrs. Van emerge from the crypts to find the house deserted. Their escape is interrupted by the arrival of Rami and St. Silas in a carriage, fleeing the Black Coats. Inside, Leena finds St. Silas bleeding heavily from a gruesome wound marked by spreading black veins, which he confirms is demon poison. As she bandages him, he explains Hargreaves’s treachery. While tending to him, she also examines the red diary and discovers its pages are filled with writing from margin to margin, contradicting St. Silas’s belief that most were blank. She suspects this hidden content is what Hargreaves is truly hunting.

Suddenly, a wheel on the carriage breaks, causing it to overturn in a snowbank. Everyone survives, but Mrs. Van identifies the poison as Detritus Poison and states that St. Silas has less than a week to live. The only antidote is one she must prepare in Golborne. They decide that Rami and Mrs. Van will ride ahead to Golborne on the horses to create the cure, while Leena and a feverish St. Silas will hide in the nearby town of Lytham. As he leaves, Rami reveals to Leena that St. Silas knowingly walked into an ambush to save him, all for her sake.

Leena guides the increasingly delirious St. Silas through a blizzard toward Lytham. To keep him conscious, she asks about his past and shares all her own secrets, including her possession by the ghost of Moira and the details of Lady Hargreaves’s memories. He collapses, and she rouses him by calling him “Bram.” After hiding from horsemen, a feverish St. Silas asks her to say his first name again.

As they near Lytham, they see smoke and hear angry shouts from a miners’ revolt in the town. Deeming it too dangerous to seek refuge at the housekeeper’s cottage in the town center, Leena changes their course, heading for a posting inn on the town’s outskirts.

Leena and St. Silas reach the inn and secure a room by pretending to be a wealthy married couple who are guests of Martin and Hargreaves. The innkeeper’s wife secretly provides Leena with a poultice for St. Silas’s wound. While she tends to him, he confesses that she is the first person to ever share a secret for his benefit. As she works, their proximity becomes charged, and he rests his head on her shoulder.

Later, St. Silas awakens in a delirium. He vows to destroy the Fray demon line and, mistaking Leena for a vision, pulls her into a fierce kiss. Leena responds before pulling away, unwilling to take advantage of his compromised state. Overcome with pain and fever, St. Silas calls her his “softest insanity” before collapsing into unconsciousness.

Leena is woken by the innkeeper, who evicts them. Because Leena claimed a connection to Mr. Martin, the innkeeper fears his establishment will be attacked by the revolting miners. Forced back into the storm, Leena and the barely conscious St. Silas head toward the center of the chaotic town, hoping to find refuge at the old housekeeper’s cottage.

In the town square, Leena spots Mackenzie, who sees them and gives chase. As they flee through a maze of alleyways, Theodore’s ghost appears, beckoning them onward. Leena hesitates, unsure if she can trust the spirit who betrayed them. Before she can decide, they are ambushed by Orley, who drags them into a house and knocks St. Silas unconscious.

Trapped in a house with Orley and two of his men, Leena learns that Orley can speak with the dead and used Theo’s ghost, on Hargreaves’s instructions, to orchestrate her capture. He reveals he doesn’t want the red diary; he wants Leena herself. Orley believes she is a “vessel,” a human who has somehow absorbed a magical object that is a key between the human and demon worlds. The vessel is the true source of her ability to see ghosts.

As soldiers begin to break down the front door, Leena strikes a desperate deal: She will use her power to transport Orley to his home world in exchange for a safe place for her and St. Silas and the cure for the Detritus Poison. Orley agrees and leads them to a back room containing a large, ominous mirror. As Leena touches it, the glass dissolves. Stepping through, she is wracked with agonizing pain, bleeding from her eyes and nose before collapsing on the other side.

Leena recovers in a dusty attic room in Bastmore, the demon world. Orley declares their deal fulfilled. He then reveals his treachery: He gives Leena the antidote vial only to immediately snatch it back and throw it out a window, where it shatters. When he tries to shoot the unconscious St. Silas, he finds the pistol is empty. After a final taunt, he leaves.

St. Silas later awakens, lucid. Horrified to find Leena in the demon world, he finally explains his full predicament. He was indentured as a child to the Duke of Fray, and his timepiece reveals that he has 110 years remaining on a contract that extends beyond his death. They deduce that he was traded for the “Limitless Vessel,” a powerful object that can open a permanent gate between worlds, and that the red diary must contain clues to its location. Realizing that anyone associated with him is now a target for Hargreaves, St. Silas releases Leena from her contract and tells her to leave him for her own safety.