Maisie stepped toward him, her smile quick, wry, and edged with weariness. “Everything is.”
He reached for the doorknob—
—but never touched it.
The latch snapped with a sharp, metallic click. The door swung wide.
Two men filled the frame of the winter night. Professor Morgenschein—her father—stood first, his face pale yet thunderous, two storms wrestled behind his eyes as if he’d met a lynching man. Beside him loomed Rector Hofstätter.
Her father’s gaze swept toward the treatment room, where the air still carried the bitter tang of heated porcelain and dental cement, faint smoke of the kiln clinging like guilt. His mouth thinned to a line that cut deeper than words.
“You’ve been busy.”
The syllables dropped like stones, and the cold from the open door seemed to flood the room until even their breathing felt dangerous.
Rector Hofstätter stepped past, chin angled high, his gait deliberate, proprietary. Clearing his throat, he let the silence stretch before saying, “So, so, so. The nightly use of university resources.”
In that suspended moment, with Maisie’s kiss still lingering on his lips, Faivish understood with perfect clarity:We’re caught.
*
The knock nevercame.
The latch snapped instead—sharp, metallic, final. The door swung wide, letting in the night.
Maisie’s breath hitched. Her father stood there, frost still clinging to his coat, his face drained and thunderous at once—as if two storms wrestled for dominion beneath his skin. Beside him, Rector Hofstätter’s folder glinted like a seal of judgment—a weapon already drawn.
The cold rushed in with them. She could still smell porcelain and cement in the air, hot and faintly acrid, the unmistakable scent of what they had done. Her father’s gaze swept the room, landed on the instruments, and his mouth pinched tight.
The air shifted. Maisie caught the faint, bitter tang of porcelain still cooling in the back room. Her father’s gaze went straight there. His mouth thinned. “You’ve been busy.”
Rector Hofstätter strode in without waiting for an answer. “So. The nightly use of university resources. Porcelain. Cement. A crown, then.” His lip curled. “For whom?”
Faivish didn’t flinch. “For a man attacked in the street. Beaten by theBurschenschaft. By your son among them.”
The words landed like a stone in still water. Hofstätter’s pause was brief—deliberate. “My son,” he said smoothly, “is a devoted scholar. He carries honor into our halls.”
“He carries a knife pommel,” Faivish shot back. “I saw it.”
“Oh please. Boys scuffle.” Hofstätter’s voice carried the lazy dismissal of a man too accustomed to being obeyed. His lip curled in disdain. “Better they learn their duty early—Vienna must be kept clear of vermin.”
The word landed hard, as if the air itself recoiled. Maisie’s father flinched, his voice cracking. “Vermin?”
Faivish stepped forward, every line of him taut with anger. “Your son was among them. You condone their violence?”
The Rector’s smile was slow, deliberate, teeth catching the lamplight. “I applaud it. They understand what must be done to preserve Vienna.” His gaze slid to the cooling porcelain crown on the tray. “And now it is my duty to preserve the university as well.”
The lamp trembled in her father’s grip, glass chiming faintly. Maisie had not seen him like this since the night her mother died—fragile, unmoored, as if the flame he carried might gutter out and take him with it.
“Tomorrow.” Hofstätter’s tone dropped lower, gaining weight. “Nine o’clock. You will present yourselves before the Faculty Council of Medicine. Every senior professor will sit in judgment.” He savored the silence before striking. “And there we strip away the illusion you’ve built. We return the place you’ve stolen to better men. Not Jews.”
“Faivish Blattner earned his place as the best in his class.” Her father lifted his chin, voice thin but steady. “Examinations are anonymous. Numbers, not names. My pupil’s work speaks for itself.”
“Spare me your sermons on fairness,” Hofstätter cut in, folder snapping open with a sound like a blade leaving its sheath. “Life is not fair. Life is a position. My son studies until dawn, yet you let him be discredited by this boy? Enough.”
The lamp shook again, the flame dancing wildly. Her father’s eyes flicked to hers—pleading, helpless—and Maisie felt the world tilt. For the first time, she saw him not as the master craftsman of gold and porcelain, but as a man hollowed by fear.
She swallowed words that clawed her throat. All she could do was lock eyes with Faivish. The warmth of his kiss still lingered, but what she saw in him now was clear: Hofstätter meant to break him.
