^^Above, top: Solly McLeod (pictured in Tom Jones) as Tobin Seaton; Bottom: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (pictured in Sing Street) as Richard Isham.^^

A Lockpicker's Field Guide

By Samuel Darling

Dear Son— Read this book. Don't write in it. Blank journals exist for a reason.

—Father.

3 April, Midnight. — The school's bell tower is tolling the stroke of midnight when we reach the Institute's front gates. I know how to get through almost all the locks around the campus, having spent so much time sneaking around with my mates in tow. The lock on the gate is fairly simple, and all it takes is a little wriggling of the tie pin I'd remembered putting in at the last minute. At least someone had thought to oil it recently, or we would have had to be much more careful — or find another way in.

"You're sure you know what you're doing?" Wells hisses as we sneak through the gate and into the courtyard. "No one even makes rounds?"

I shake my head. For all the security the Institute claims to have, it's remarkably thin at night.

"Which way now?" Naomi whispers once we're inside the gate.

"In there." I nod to the building across the grassy quad, the only one with a bell tower and columns at its entrance. That had been Father's idea, apparently, to put all the important offices in the most showy building.

We flit across the quad, one after the other. The moon's not quite full, but it will be in a couple more days, casting a silvery sheen over everything and lighting us up almost as bright as daylight. Once we reach the front doors, I pick that lock too, a little more sticky than the first one.

"Well, this is a bit intimidating, isn't it?" Naomi says, looking around us. The front hall looks like the nave of a church — with a high vaulted ceiling, tall narrow lancet windows set with stained glass panes, and thin fluted columns that curve seamlessly into the stone floor. In front of us is an impressively carved staircase that boasts heavily detailed panels instead of banisters. Once it reaches the landing, it curls upward and disappears into the dimness above our heads.

"We here to admire the scenery?" Wells growls from behind us.

"Will you just relax?" Naomi hisses.

"Come on," I say, breaking up what looks like a potential argument. "We should go before Crowder makes his rounds."

"Crowder?" Wells says as we climb the stairs. "Who on earth is that?"

"Groundskeeper," I answer. "But he looks in on the buildings too most nights."

"When does he usually come through here?" Naomi asks.

"Not sure. I've never been here at night before."

We reach the gallery, which allows access to the rest of the building. I see corridors branching off in different directions, just barely illuminated by the glass skylight above us. Father's office is straight ahead of us, and I nod them in that direction.

Down at the end of the hallway is a set of double doors with a buffed metal plate nailed to them that reads Headmaster. I go about picking the lock, the stickiest of the three so far. I can hear Wells's raspy breathing behind me, and the quiet rustle of Naomi's cloak as she shifts from foot to foot nervously.

"There. Got it." The click of the door unlocking is satisfying, but also loud enough for Crowder to hear if he's anywhere in our proximity. "Let's make this fast, shall we?"

We slip inside, me first followed by Naomi, then Wells last. I'm surprised to see light in Father's office — someone's evidently been in here to pull back the drapes. I hunt around for the matches to light a couple lanterns, and once I've done that I scuttle over to Father's desk and begin disabling the contraption he's set up to prevent theft. Naomi joins me, standing opposite as I tinker with it. The lantern illuminates her face and her hair the brightest, making her appear to be glowing from the inside.

"Your father won't know it's been tampered with?" she asks worriedly.

"It's possible," I say. "Always. Father doesn't miss a trick, unfortunately. But I'll tell him I did it with my mates, as a prank."

"Langdon." I see her brow furrow. "You shouldn't have to..."

"It's a solid excuse," grunts Wells. "Let him use it."

"If you hadn't mentioned it, we wouldn't be here at all," she snaps at her brother. "And then he wouldn't have to."

"Coast clear," I say, again cutting an argument of theirs short. For the most part, Father probably won't notice. I don't think he thinks anyone will be looking inside his desk, because what interest are student records and so on.

We start looking, Naomi thumbing through the files while I hold the lantern for her up one side and Wells doing it on his own on the other. I find myself highly aware of how near he is, because of the scuffing of his shoes on the floor and a faint whiff of leather, iron, and — oddly — rosemary.

"I've got something," he says then. "Gifford's file."

We straighten, and by the light of our two lanterns, we read through it together. Father had been right about one thing, at least — Giff's marks had been at or below average in almost every class, and he'd just barely scraped by on the practical tests. But there's nothing that suggests there was any evil intent for his demise.

"We'll keep looking," Naomi says, when Wells huffs in disappointment. I want badly for my suspicions of Father to be wrong. Of course I'd believed he didn't like Giff, and maybe he'd been harder on him as a result. But him tipping us off about the vampire den and never once mentioning anything about them, leading to Giff's capture, was too much of a coincidence to ignore.

It's Naomi who finds it: a sheaf of loose unbound papers, dropped haphazardly — quite unlike Father — underneath everything else in the top drawer. As she takes them out, one at a time, I pick them up and skim over Father's cursive. Most of it makes no sense, until my eyes snag on one word. My name, at the bottom of one page.

"'Banking on Langdon's carelessness,'" I read, hardly able to believe my eyes. "'He has no experience hunting bloodsuckers.'"

"What's that?" Naomi, still digging out more sheets, suddenly looks up.

"Blooming hell, Naomi," says Wells with an uncharacteristic hardness to his voice. "Wilkes's father was hoping he'd go in there knowing nothing. Purposely unprepared and inexperienced."

"But how could he...?" I can't believe it. I don't. "Why would he want to...?"

"There," Wells says, pointing at another sentence on the next page I pick up. "'It was the King's Bench vampire Family who killed his mother.'"

"Oh, Langdon," Naomi says softly, and her hand settles gently on my shoulder.

"Then he goes on," I say. "'If he had a look at his mother's killer, perhaps his instinct would kick in. Especially when it comes to saving his friend.'"

"But why...?" Naomi's hand squeezes on my shoulder, and her voice comes out a distressed squeak.

"'The plan has started,'" Wells reads. "'Even if it kills him, my son will become the greatest vampire hunter the world has ever seen. And it all starts with losing someone important to him.'"

"Giff," I say. Father hadn't even mentioned his name, but somehow I know that's who he's referring to.

"'This is only the beginning of everything—'" Naomi manages to read before there's an audible thud from outside.

All three of us freeze and fall silent instantly. Very faintly I hear shuffling on the other side of the door, and at that I hand off the loose pages to Wells and scuttle back across the room to the double doors. When I press my eye to the crack I see Crowder's lantern bobbing around, lurching every time he limps on his left leg.

He totters closer, and I can hear his raspy breathing. I pull back from the seam and cover my mouth to silence my own. Hopefully he doesn't try the knob, which I hadn't locked behind us in case we'd needed to make an escape. Which we do, as soon as he's gone.

Then he stops, directly outside the doors. I feel a bead of sweat creeping down my temple, but I don't move to wipe it away. Crowder may be half blind, but his hearing is unnaturally sharp. He coughs, shuffles for another second, and I feel the air pull taut. I don't know what the punishment for finding us on school grounds after hours is, but I can't imagine it'd be anything good.

Crowder snorts, and I see him squinting through the seam. It's the milky eye, giving me a seconds' worth of room to step out of view when he switches. Another tense moment passes, and then I hear his uneven gait moving off again.

"Is he gone?" I see Naomi peep up over the edge of the desk.

I nod. "Not for long, though...if we leave now we won't meet him again when he checks the main doors."

Wells pops up next to her, crouching for just a second before straightening. He looks angry, his brow lowered and a deep furrow between his eyebrows.

"How do you reset this...thingummy?" He makes a flapping gesture at Father's anti-theft device.

"I'll do it," I answer. "Would one of you watch the doors? Just in case Crowder decides to come back?"

He doesn't, and once I've reset Father's device, we make our escape from the school grounds. We don't stop running until Belgrave Square Gardens, at which point Wells descends on me and pins me up against a tree with his forearm pressed into my neck.

"I can't believe you almost got us caught," he hisses, green eyes almost glowing with fury. "You said there was no one making rounds."

"I swear, that was not the intent." I raise my hands in surrender. "And I didn't count Crowder...I thought you meant a security guard."

"We could have planned for that incident with the groundskeeper. Made sure we timed it right."

"Wells, honestly..." Naomi sighs.

He ignores her, instead bearing down harder on me. "What are you playing at, Wilkes?"

"Nothing. I swear." Wisely, I don't remind him that it was his idea.

He doesn't move. I'm instantly aware of our proximity, and how I catch another whiff of iron-leather-rosemary. He seems to realise it too, because I see it in his eyes, but he doesn't pull away. In fact, I feel the pressure of his arm let up just slightly, and how his hand lingers a half-second too long when he finally releases me for good.

"Sorry," he says then, voice rough. "I should have trusted you'd come through for us all along."

That's not something I expect from him, but I recover quickly. "That's all right."

"I suppose you ought to have these," Naomi says, breaking the spell. She holds out my father's notes to me. "Before we squeeze any meaning out of them."

"Naomi, we were supposed to—" Wells starts, but she shakes her head to silence him.

"They're his father's, Wells," she says. "I think before we do anything, Langdon should know what his father's planned for him."

"Fine," Wells concedes. "As long as he gets them to us before his father returns."

"Of course." I take them, intending to read them all the way through enough to memorise them. And then do exactly the opposite.

—

6 April. — When I finally get up the courage to tell Seaton and Isham about it, neither of them seem to fully believe me. Even though Isham was there that night, and saw as clearly as I did what happened to Giff.

"Mate, I don't like your father as headmaster, but I don't think he's that twisted," Seaton says.

"You can doubt me as much as you want," I retort. "But he wrote it, in black and white. Some elaborate revenge plan against the vampires that starts with making me into a vampire hunter and killing Giff myself."

"How would killing our best friend avenge your mum's death, then?" Isham asks. "I mean...her murder?"

"I know about as much as you," I answer. "Which is nothing, beyond what he put down."

"It won't bring either of them back, that's all we're getting at," says Seaton.

"And all I'm getting at is that I think Father has something more devious planned. And that I won't become a pawn in his game for his selfish reasoning."

Except I don't tell them about how I keep thinking about the second Wells's eyes locked with mine, and the way he'd touched my shoulder. Lingered there. And how he'd watched me walk away, all the way up to the corner of my street just like the night we'd first met. I'd thought about it for a day or so after that, remembering how the air had crackled between us.

"Say, mate...not to radically change the subject and all, but...we've got that spring fête in a couple days." Isham looks over at me, one eyebrow raised. "Maybe you'd like to bring your lady friend we met in the park?"

"That's not up to me," I say, so quickly both of them look surprised by my reaction. "I mean...her brother's the one that gets the final say. He's practically her legal guardian."

"Sounds like a lot of excuses to me, Wilkes," Seaton says with a wink. "Give it a go. We don't bite."

Again, I say nothing. I don't like what they're implying, nor do I want Naomi anywhere near them. Wells would never let me see her again if I let something happen to her. And that would mean never seeing Wells again either, which makes my stomach twinge. I don't want that either.

Which can only mean one thing: I have to have another talk with them. I hope that after some explanation, it'll go the way I want it to.

—

7 April. — Predictably, when I meet Naomi and Wells in Hyde Park the next day over the lunch hour, Wells refuses before I've even finished explaining.

"I don't want your friends around my sister," he says, his tone sharp. "I don't like how they look at her."

"Oh, Wells." Naomi scowls and bumps his shoulder hard enough to knock him off-balance. "Langdon won't let anything happen to me. Right?"

"She's safe with me," I agree. "I promise you, Wells. Naomi'll come to no harm while I'm around her."

"Maybe not from you," he says, wavering. "But that Isham...I don't trust him..."

I can see where that might come from. Isham has the reputation of a rake and a womaniser, and most times he's the one leading the charge against an innocent unsuspecting young girl like Naomi. And, it appears, this reputation precedes him.

"I won't let him get her alone, Wells. I swear." In fact, I plan on keeping Naomi close the whole time.

"They put you up to this, didn't they?" Wells scowls. "They asked you to bring her."

"Wells," Naomi hisses, looking appalled and slightly offended. "I'm sorry, Langdon. I need to have a word with my brother."

Then she pulls him away, further down the path, and their voices drop so low I can't hear what they're saying. I see Wells pointing, at me and then further behind me, at the Institute hiding on the other side of the row of trees. Naomi points too, jabbing her finger into Wells's chest and then in my direction. Both their expressions are dark with anger and annoyance.

Soon they're heading back in my direction, Wells with his head down and Naomi scowling off into the distance. They stop next to me again, and Wells speaks first.

"You can take Naomi, Wilkes, on one condition," he says.

"Yes, of course. Name it."

"Get me in too. We can pretend we don't know one another, if that makes it easier. But I'm not letting my sister go in there alone."

"She won't be alone," I protest. "She'll be with me."

"We're both getting in. Or else neither of us goes," Wells says firmly.

Naomi looks helplessly at me. I understand her brother's wanting to keep her safe. But after the incident at Lord Grafton's, surely he knows she can take care of herself and defend herself if the need arises. I realise the one he doesn't trust is me.

"Fine." I give in.

Brief surprise crosses Wells's face. Maybe he'd been thinking I wouldn't agree so easily — or alternately, that I did it so quickly. Then he hides it with a scowl.

"When is it?" Naomi asks then. "The fête?"

"Tomorrow. Starts round one." That's also the day Father gets back, but I don't mention that.

"All right, then..." Wells scuffs his heel in the gravel and shoves his hands in his trouser pockets. I've never seen the long dark grey coat he wears, or the matching waistcoat with a gold pocket-watch chain across the front. "See you tomorrow round one, then."

"Yes. Tomorrow." I notice Wells reach up and tug at the silk cravat around his neck — dark red with a pattern of small gold circles—which makes me realise I'm staring at him and taking in every small detail. I turn away and catch Naomi's expression. Immediately I wish I hadn't. There's a comprehension in her eyes, one that I don't understand. Which means she knows something I don't.

—

8 April, afternoon. — I take a deliberately long time to get ready. The look in Naomi's eyes keeps coming back to me, because she'd noticed something I wasn't even aware of. I can't even think of what that might be, either.

Not to mention there's only a few hours left before Father returns, and I have to think of an excuse for the other night in that time frame. Even though I reset his contraption, he'll know it's been tampered with. I don't know how. He just does.

On the walk to the Institute, I have to prepare myself for seeing Naomi and Wells. Not so much because this time is any different, but because I can sense there's something coming. A conversation I'm not sure I'm ready to have.

"There he is," says Naomi when I reach them, waiting outside the Institute gates. Her smile is as radiant as always, and the kiss she gives to my cheek is affectionate. "It's good to see you, Langdon."

"And you as well." I take Naomi's hand and kiss her knuckles, sensing Wells watching me. "How are you, Naomi? Wells?"

"Quite well, thank you." Her voice betrays nothing, but I feel her withdraw her hand much more hastily than usual.

"All right," Wells grunts with a shrug. Once again he's dressed in top fashion, long black cutaway coat over a tan waistcoat and a light blue cravat. As soon as I look at him his eyes drop, and his hands plunge into his trouser pockets.

I have no trouble getting them in, Naomi least of all. The man taking the register is instantly smitten by her, and the smile she flashes him as we pass makes him flush visibly.

"Quite a charmer, aren't you, Miss Hudson?"

"I've learned a few things here and there, Mr Wilkes," she says.

Although it's been put on every year, this is the first time I've come to the Institute's fête. It's a fairly lavish event: tables piled with food, drink, and dessert, the cloistered walkway around the courtyard where it takes place draped in streamers and bunting, an eight-piece chamber orchestra playing background music, and groups of students and their families socialising. Luckily we don't have to wear our school uniforms, meaning I have an opportunity to trot out a new early-spring ensemble.

"Oi, Wilkes!"

Reluctantly, the three of us turn. Seaton and Isham are sidling towards us, and I see Isham's eyes spark with interest when he spots Naomi.

"Hello, Seaton. Isham." I nod to both of them. "How's tricks, then?"

"Oh, you know." Isham inserts himself between me and Wells, slinging his arm around my neck. "The typical social event."

"Say, who's this?" Seaton's squinting at Wells like he's a unique species of animal he's never seen. "Your friend, Wilkes?"

"My chaperone," Naomi says coolly, before I can answer. "My brother Wells."

"Wells, huh?" Seaton puts out a hand for a shake. "Tobin Seaton."

Stiffly, I see Wells grip Seaton's hand. "Pleasure," he says.

"You're not a student, are you?" Isham says. "Never seen you before."

"No," says Wells.

Isham introduces himself half-heartedly, his interest still very much on Naomi. I feel her hand tighten in my elbow, and if it weren't for his arm around my neck still, I would bar Isham's path to her.

"What do you do, mate?" Seaton asks.

"Pack it in, Seaton," I hiss at him. "Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it."

"I'm a hunter," says Wells. His face stays stony. "Independently contracted."

"Look like a toff to me," Seaton says, making the mistake of reaching up to ruffle Wells's carefully tied cravat.

It happens in a blink-and-miss-it moment. I see them standing face-to-face, and then they're not. Wells has Seaton pinned to the nearby column, his cheek mashed into it and his arm twisted around behind his back. His knee is planted in the middle of Seaton's spine.

"Wells!" Naomi's pulling her brother off Seaton in a second, and her expression is deeply mortified.

"Cripes, mate. I didn't mean to get your knickers in a twist," Seaton says in a huff, straightening his coat and his necktie.

"I think you two ought to go," I say, jerking my chin in the opposite direction. "Before something else happens."

They do, Isham casting me an indignant glare over his shoulder. I ignore it, turning back to Naomi and Wells.

"What was that about?" I ask, more surprised than anything else.

"I don't like being gawked at," says Wells with a twist to his mouth. "Or touched by the likes of him."

"You didn't have to pin him to the wall," Naomi says, giving her brother's shoulder a shove with every word.

"He raised a hand at me," Wells says simply. "I saw it as a challenge."

"Luckily Seaton can't throw a punch to save his life," I say, shrugging.

Wells only scowls.

"Why don't you take a walk to cool down, Wells," Naomi says. "I need to have a word with Langdon anyway."

"I'm not leaving you alone, Naomi—"

"She's safe with me, Wells. Cross my heart." I put out my hand, palm up. "I swear."

"Fine," Wells bites out. "I'm holding you to that, Wilkes."

Then he spins on his heel and stalks off. I turn to Naomi, and the pain in her eyes makes a similar one stab behind my sternum.

"Perhaps I ought to give you an explanation, Langdon," she says softly. "Wells, he...he has romantic inclinations towards men. He has never told anyone except me. Nor has he shown them...especially to those he doesn't know. Afraid of persecution, you see. I don't blame him, either. I think it's wrong to make something one can't change illegal."

I nod. I know what she means. Father has mentioned something about that law, not in so many words.

"I saw the way he was looking at you the other night," Naomi goes on. "After we fled your father's office. And then you...just yesterday...watching him while he wasn't looking, I just...it dawned on me that you may have those inclinations too, and...here I was, throwing myself at you as if I assumed you would return them..."

"Naomi, I—"

"Please forgive me, Langdon." She looks up at me, pleading eyes brimming with tears. "I did not mean to...I didn't realise my brother acts this way not because he doesn't like you, but because he does, and...oh, Langdon, I can't..."

I pull her close and she buries her face in the front of my coat. I've never given it serious thought, but after what she's just said, it's made me reconsider. What does this mean? I like the both of them, for different reasons — Wells because he's fearless, tough, and seems to know what he's doing all the time; Naomi because she's smart, sensitive, and gentle in nature. I never thought it was because, like Naomi says, I had any romantic inclinations.

"I see the pain my brother goes through every day," she says, her voice soft and muffled against my shoulder. "It breaks my heart. And I care about you so much that I hoped you wouldn't have to experience it too, but now I've made it worse..."

"No, you haven't." I rest my chin on her hair. "Both of you understand me so much more than my friends, I...sometimes I think you're the only ones that do."

"Are you calling us your friends?" Naomi takes a shuddering breath, and I hear the hope in her voice.

"Yes. I think you are my friends."

She hides her face in my shoulder, and I take in the warm lemon scent of her hair. In fact, I don't think of anything else going on around us until Wells comes up next to us.

"Wilkes," he says, making me jump and release Naomi like she's burned me.

"Wells," I say, trying to cover my surprise by clearing my throat and tugging at my coat. "Didn't see you there."

"When were you going to tell me your school was haunted?" he says, his tone sharp and cutting like a keen-edged knife.

"What, sorry?" I shake my head in confusion. "It's not."

"Yes it is," he says. "That groundskeeper you told us about...the one who almost caught us in your father's office the other night...he died. Over ten years ago."

"Wells, honestly," Naomi sighs, sounding exhausted by her brother's constant hunting mode. "This is not the time..."

"Follow me," he says, completely ignoring her. "I can prove it."

In spite of myself, I'm intrigued. I trot after him when he starts back across the quad, and by the sound of Naomi's panting behind us, she seems to have chosen to come along. We climb the steps to the administration building and step inside, where Wells is already pointing to a small daguerrotype next to the bust of the founder, with an engraved plaque fastened to the wall above it.

I inch closer, Naomi close by, and squint at it. Regulus Crowder, it reads. Groundskeeper and Nixie expert, 1845-1879. The daguerrotype shows a man who is definitely Crowder, slightly younger, in a black suit, starched shirtfront, and black bow tie. His thinning hair is dark and combed over the bald spot on top of his head. He doesn't even have a cataract yet.

"That's not as surprising as the 'nixie expert,'" I say when I straighten. "I didn't know Crowder had any hunting abilities at all."

"So what was it that we saw that night?" Naomi asks. "It was far too substantial to be a ghost."

"It was definitely a corporeal body," Wells says. "Is it possible your father's managed to resurrect Crowder as a zombi, Wilkes?"

"If he has, he doesn't act like any zombi I've ever seen," I answer.

"I know there's a way to bend them to your will," says Naomi after a moment. "But it's difficult. It takes some dangerous magic. Blood-binding. Things that could be fatal to tangle with if you know nothing about them."

"Father's not some sort of magician," I say quickly, hearing the defensiveness in my voice. "I would have known it already."

"Or maybe you wouldn't have," Wells points out. "Blood-binding is crude magic, but it's the most powerful by far. And we've seen enough literature on it to know it actually exists. One person can control many different beings by using it. Including vampires, werewolves, zombies, and ghouls."

"Ghouls?" I repeat. "I thought ghouls were..."

"Spirits?" Wells finishes, raising an eyebrow. "Yes. But every spirit has a source. A body it originated from. Find the source, control the spirit. And it looks as though your father has managed it."

"But I don't even know...this blood-binding...how does it work?" I squint at Crowder's face again. This doesn't make sense.

"Langdon..." Naomi says, and I hear a clear warning there. It says You don't want to know.

"Come round our place tomorrow," says Wells, before she can say anything more. "It's not a simple explanation."

"Wells..." Naomi spins towards him. "Are you sure...?"

"He should know," says Wells, and he sounds entirely serious. But he doesn't offer any more explanation. And that's how I know they've uncovered something serious — something to do with Father.