“It would have killed you stone dead.” From the depths of his chair Lockwood gave me a look. “Your Talent’s amazing, Luce, but the only ghost you should communicate with is the skull, because it’s locked up in its jar….And to be honest, I’m not even sure that’s safe.”

“Oh, the skull’s okay,” I said. “It helped me with my Lurker case last night. Gave me a fix on the Source, so I could dig it up. We were quite close to Chelsea, where we were. What about you two? Either of you hear the sirens?”

Lockwood nodded. “Another three people killed. DEPRAC is completely clueless, as usual. They were evacuating a couple of streets, I think.”

“Way more than that,” George said. “The outbreak stretches a good square mile along the King’s Road. More ghosts every night, in greater concentration than ever before, and no one knows why.” He adjusted his glasses. “It’s weird. Until recently, Chelsea was pretty quiet, everything peaceful—then, all at once, things go into haunting overdrive. It’s like an infection spreading. But here’s what I want to know—how do you actually fire ghosts up? How do you infect the dead?”

There was no answer to this, and I didn’t try to provide one. Lockwood just groaned; he’d been chasing a Specter through Hackney marshes until the early hours and was in no mood for George’s ponderings. “All I care about,” he said, “is how Chelsea’s hogging our publicity. You do know that Kipps’s team is working on it? He’s on page one today, giving some stupid quote or other. Page one! That’s where we should be! We need to take part in something big like that. I should speak to Barnes, maybe, see if he wants us to help out. Trouble is, we’re already so overworked….”

Yes, we were….It was November, as I’ve mentioned, at the beginning of what would become known as the “Black Winter,” the deadliest period yet in the history of the Problem. The epidemic of hauntings that had beset the nation for more than fifty years had reached new levels of intensity, and the terrifying outbreak in the district of Chelsea was just the tip of the iceberg. All psychic investigation agencies were stretched to the breaking point. Lockwood & Co. was no exception. “Overworked” didn’t really cover it.

We lived, the three of us, in a four-story property in Portland Row, London, which was the headquarters of our agency. Lockwood himself owned the house. It had once belonged to his parents, and their collection of oriental wards and ghost-chasers still lined the walls of many rooms. Lockwood had converted the basement into an office, with desks, iron stores, and a rapier practice room. At the rear, a reinforced glass door led out into the garden, complete with a little lawn and apple trees, where we’d sometimes lounge in summer. On the upper floors were bedrooms; the ground floor contained the kitchen, the library, and the living room, where Lockwood interviewed our clients. It was here that we spent most time.

For several months, though, time had been in extremely short supply. This was partly due to our own success. In July our investigation at Kensal Green Cemetery had ended with the so-called “Battle in the Graveyard,” featuring a fight between agents and a group of violent black-marketeers. Along with our encounter with the horrific Rat-Ghost of Hampstead, it had aroused a lot of interest in the press, and this interest continued during the trial of the chief marketeer, a man named Julius Winkman. Lockwood, George, and I had all testified against him; by the time Winkman was sent down for a stiff stretch in Wandsworth Prison, it was the middle of September, and our period of free publicity had lasted nearly two months. During this time, our phone had seldom stopped ringing.

It was true that most wealthy clients preferred to stick with the large agencies, which had swankier equipment and bigger reputations. Most of our business came from poorer districts like Whitechapel, where clients didn’t pay so well. But jobs were jobs, and Lockwood didn’t like to turn any of them down. This meant that free evenings were few and far between.

“Anything going on tonight, George?” Lockwood said suddenly. He’d thrown a weary arm over his face, and I’d assumed he was asleep. “Please say no.”

George said nothing, just raised three fingers.

“Three?” Lockwood uttered a long and hollow groan. “What are they?”

“Woman in a veil on Nelson Street, Whitechapel; a haunted apartment in a housing project, and a Shade spotted behind some public restrooms. The usual glamorous stuff.”

“We’ll have to split up again,” Lockwood said. “Dibs on the veiled woman.”

George grunted. “Dibs on the Shade.”

“What?” My head jerked up. The dibs rule was second only to the biscuit rule in terms of importance. It always held firm. “So I get the housing project? Brilliant. I bet the elevators will be out, and everything.”

“You’re fit enough to manage a few stairs, Luce,” Lockwood murmured.

“What if it’s twenty-one floors? What if there’s a Raw-bones at the top, and I’m too out of breath to deal with it? Wait, what if the elevator is working, but the ghost’s hidden inside? You remember what happened to that girl from the Sebright Agency when she got stuck in that haunted elevator at Canary Wharf? They only found her shoes!”

“Stop burbling,” Lockwood said. “You’re tired. We all are. You know it’ll be fine.”

We all subsided again. I leaned my head back against the sofa cushions. Rivulets of water laced the library window like veins of blood.

Okay, not really like veins of blood. I was tired…like Lockwood said.

Lockwood…Through half-closed eyes, I watched him now, trapping him tight between my lashes. I looked at his long legs, loosely crossed over the side of the chair; at the bare feet, at the slim contours of his body half-concealed beneath the rumpled shirt. His face was mostly covered by his arm, but you could see the line of his jaw and the expressive lips, relaxed and slightly parted. His dark hair spilled softly over the white sleeve.

How did he manage to look like that after five hours’ sleep, lying curled and crumpled in the chair? Being half-dressed never did me any favors; with George, it practically came with a health warning. Yet Lockwood managed to carry it off perfectly. It was pleasantly warm in the room. My eyelashes squeezed a little tighter. I put my hand to my silver necklace, turning it slowly between my fingers….

“We need a new agent,” Lockwood said.

I opened my eyes wide. Behind me, I heard George put his comic down. “What?”

“We need another operative. Another working agent to back us up. Don’t we? We shouldn’t have to keep separating all the time.”

“We worked together at Lavender Lodge,” I said.

“That was a one-off.” Lockwood moved his arm, and pushed the hair out of his face. “Hardly ever happens now. Anyway, look around. We’re not really coping, are we?”

George yawned. “What makes you say that?” He gave an almighty stretch and knocked over the pile of ironing, which collapsed on my head. Like a giant amoeba undulating purposefully across a petri dish, a pair of George’s briefs flopped slowly past my nose.

“Case in point,” Lockwood said as I shook myself free. “One of you should have sorted all that. But you haven’t had time.”

“Or you could always iron them, of course,” George said.

“Me? I’m even busier than you.”

This was the way it always went now. We were working so hard at night, we had no energy for doing stuff during the day. So we no longer got around to inessential things, such as keeping the place tidy or sorting the laundry. All of 35 Portland Row was suffering. The kitchen looked like a salt-bomb had gone off in it. Even the skull in the jar, no stranger to vile surroundings, had made indignant comments about the environment we lived in.

“If we had another agent,” Lockwood said, “we could properly take turns. One of us could rest at home each night and do odd jobs during the day. I’ve been considering this for a while. It’s the only answer, I think.”

George and I were silent. The idea of a new colleague didn’t much appeal to me. In fact, it gave me a twisty sort of feeling in my belly. Overstretched as we definitely were, I liked the way we operated. As we had at Lavender Lodge, we backed each other up when necessary, and we got things done.

“Are you sure?” I said at last. “Where would they sleep?”

“Not on the floor,” George said. “They’d probably get some disease.”

“Well, they’re not sharing the attic with me.”

“They wouldn’t have to sleep here, you idiots,” Lockwood growled. “Since when has living under the same roof been a requirement for the job? They could turn up for work in the morning, like ninety-nine percent of other people do.”

“Maybe it’s not a full agent that we need,” I suggested. “Maybe we just need an assistant. Someone to tidy up after us. In all the important stuff, surely, we’re doing fine.”

“I agree with Lucy.” George returned to his comic. “We’ve got a good setup here. We shouldn’t mess it up.”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Lockwood said.

The truth was, of course, that Lockwood was far too busy to think about it at all, and so nothing was ever likely to happen. Which suited me just fine. I’d been at the company eighteen months so far. Yes, we were overworked; yes, we lived in partial squalor. Yes, we risked our lives almost every night. Yet I was very happy.

Why? Three reasons: my colleagues, my new self-knowledge, and because of an opened door.

Of all the agencies in London, Lockwood & Co. was unique. Not just because it was the smallest (total number of agents: three), but because it was owned and run by someone who was himself young. Other agencies employed hundreds of child operatives—they had to, of course, because only children could detect ghosts—but these companies were firmly controlled by adults who never got closer to a haunted house than shouting distance across the street. Lockwood, however, was a leader who fought ghosts himself—his skills with the rapier were second to none—and I knew I was lucky to work at his side. Lucky in a lot of ways. Not only was he independent, but he was an inspiring companion, managing to be both coolly unflappable and recklessly audacious at the same time. And his air of mystery only added to his allure.

Lockwood seldom spoke of his emotions, desires, or the influences that drove him, and in the first year of living at Portland Row, I had learned almost nothing about his past. His absent parents were an enigma, even though their possessions hung on every wall. How he’d come to own the house, with enough money to start his own agency, I likewise didn’t have a clue. To begin with, this didn’t much matter. Secrets followed Lockwood about like the flapping of his coat, and it was nice to be close enough to feel them brush against me, too.

So Lockwood’s proximity made me happy. George, it had to be said, had been more of an acquired taste, being scruffy, acerbic, and renowned around London for his casual approach to the application of soap. But he was also intellectually honest, had boundless curiosity, and was a brilliant researcher whose insights kept us all alive. Plus—and this is the crucial point—he was ferociously loyal to his friends, who happened to be Lockwood and me.

And it was precisely because we were friends, because we trusted one another, that we were each free to explore the things closest to our hearts. George could happily research the causes of the Problem. Lockwood could steadily build the reputation of the firm. Me? Before arriving at Portland Row, I’d been ignorant—even uneasy—about my ability to hear the voices of the dead and (sometimes) communicate with them. But Lockwood & Co. gave me the opportunity to explore my psychic Talents at my own pace, and uncover what I could do. After the pleasure I got from my companions, this new self-perception was the second reason why I was so content that grim November morning as the rain poured down outside.

And the third? Well, for some months I’d been growing frustrated by Lockwood’s ultimate remoteness. All three of us certainly benefited from our shared experiences and mutual trust, but as time went by the mysteries that surrounded him had begun to weigh heavily on me. This had been symbolized by his refusal to tell us anything about a particular room on the first floor of the house, a room we had never been allowed to enter. I’d had a lot of theories about this strange, shut door, but it was clear to me it had something to do with his past—and probably with the fate of his missing parents. The secret of the room had steadily become an invisible block between us, keeping us apart, and I’d despaired of ever understanding it—or ever understanding him.

Until one summer day, when Lockwood had unexpectedly relented. Without preamble he’d taken George and me up to the landing, opened the forbidden door, and shown us a little of the truth.

And do you know what? It turned out I’d been wrong.

It wasn’t his parents’ room at all.

It was his sister’s.

His sister, Jessica Lockwood, who had died there six years before.

To protect our clients’ sanity, and my own peace and quiet, the skull in the ghost-jar ordinarily resided in a remote corner of our basement office, concealed beneath a tea cozy. Occasionally it was brought up to the living room and the lever in its lid opened, so that it could communicate eerie secrets of the dead—or exchange childish insults with me, whichever it felt like doing. It so happened that it was sitting on the sideboard late that afternoon, when I came in to gather equipment for the evening.

As arranged earlier, we were splitting forces. George had already departed for the Whitechapel public restrooms in search of the reported Shade. Lockwood was readying himself for his expedition in search of the veiled woman. My visit had been canceled; I’d just been gearing up for the block of apartments when I’d had a call from my client, postponing the visit due to illness. That meant I had a swift choice: stay at home and sort the laundry or accompany Lockwood instead. You can guess which one I picked.

I gathered my rapier from where I’d chucked it the night before, and also a few scattered salt-bombs that had been dumped beside the sofa. As I made for the door, a hoarse voice spoke from the shadows. “Lucy! Lucy…”

“What now?” With the onset of evening, dim flecks were swirling in the glass. The hunched mass of the battered skull faded from view. The flecks congealed to form a malicious face, glowing green and soft in the darkness.

“Going out?” the ghost said agreeably. “I’ll come along.”

“No, you won’t. You’re staying here.”

“Oh, do a skull a favor. I’ll get bored.”

“So dematerialize. Rotate. Turn inside out. Stick around and enjoy the view. Do whatever it is ghosts do. I’m sure you can find ways to amuse yourself.” I turned to go.

“Enjoy the view? In this hellhole?” The face swiveled in the jar, the tip of its nose dragging against the inside of the glass. “I’ve been in mortuaries with better standards of housekeeping. I wish I didn’t have to see the squalor I’m surrounded by.”