“I will,” said Ripper.
“Also?” said Zoe. “Help him figure out where his parents are? He’s right—he needs to know who they were. He deserves to, even if it hurts him like finding out about my dad hurt me.”
“I will,” said Ripper.
“And please tell him to clean his clothes,” said Zoe. “They’re getting gross.”
Ripper laughed.
“I will tell him everything you ask when I return to the Lowlands,” she said. “Yet I must tell you that I am in no hurry to see that fetid place again.” She paused, and her eyes shone mischievously. “I have decided not to return just yet. I have decided to run.”
“Really?” said Zoe. She had stopped crying and was staring at Ripper with wonder. “You are so badass.”
“I suppose I am,” said Ripper. “X once asked if I had ever visited my children when I was a bounty hunter—if I had ever stood across the street just to gaze at them.”
“I asked Banger the same thing,” said Zoe.
“I am ashamed to say that I never did,” said Ripper. “The pain kept me from it. But Jonah has put me in mind of Alfie and Belinda, my own little boy and girl. They were so, so lovely, and deserved so much better than me. I should like to go to New England and find their graves. It might heal me a little to lay some flowers there, and water the grass with my tears.”
“I think that’s a cool idea,” said Zoe.
“Thank you,” said Ripper. “The lords no doubt expect me to flee—and they’ll find a way to haul me back soon enough—but at least there’s no one left on earth they can punish for my misbehavior. It appears there are advantages to having been dead since 1832.”
Ripper was quiet now. She slipped a hand down the neckline of her dress, and withdrew a tightly folded piece of paper she had hidden there.
“X wanted to write you a letter,” she said, “just as you wrote one to him.”
She handed it to Zoe. It was written on a blank page torn from a book in Zoe’s house.
“He begs your forgiveness for the letter being so brief,” said Ripper. “He says that you taught him how to write it—and that you taught him what it means.”
Zoe knew then exactly what the letter would say. She stared at the ratty piece of folded paper. To her eyes, it looked like a flower preparing to open. Her hand trembled just holding it.
She didn’t want to read the letter in front of Ripper. She wanted to be alone. So they said their good-byes, and she watched her new friend stroll down the road in her torn but still glittering dress. There was a light rain falling now, although Zoe couldn’t detect any clouds overhead—the drops seemed to leak down out of the stars.
She didn’t see the exact moment when Ripper disappeared. Suddenly, she was just gone. She must have vanished while walking between one streetlight and the next.
Zoe unfolded the letter, and felt her heart unfold with it.
It was written in pencil, and the point had been pressed down so hard it had nearly torn through the paper.
It was a beautiful letter, as she knew it would be.
It just said: “X.”