The words hit her chest like a mallet striking stone.
If Faivish did not take his place on the dais, theBruderschaftboys—Hofstätter’s son among them—would rise instead. They would seize the honors he had earned. They would win.
“Vile opportunists,” she muttered, the words slipping past before she could stop them.
Both men looked at her. And in their eyes—for one fleeting moment—she saw not correction, not reprimand, but softness.
“Yes,” her father said quietly. “But that is the world we live in. And it is the world I would spare you—and Deena—because I cannot change what I will soon leave behind. The future belongs to you.”
The words landed in her chest like stones, heavy and final. She tried to breathe but could not seem to let the air out.
Faivish’s jaw tightened. His nod was slight, but resolute. “I understand.”
Her father’s gaze flicked briefly to her, then back to Faivish. “I believe you care for my daughter.”
Faivish did not hesitate. “I do.”
“Then here is my condition.” The professor’s voice softened, though the tonnage of it filled the room. “Go to India. Take the apprenticeship. Work. Learn. A year from now, if your feelings remain—and hers do as well—you may return and claim her hand. If your love is true, a year will prove it.”
Maisie swallowed hard, the cry rising in her throat. A year? A year was an ocean. She lifted her chin, tried to let her eyes thank him, tried to show gratitude, but inside she was screaming.
Faivish’s gaze met hers and held it. And in that look, she knew he heard her scream as if she had spoken aloud.
“I will go,” he said. His voice carried the solemnity of an oath. “And I will come back.”
Her father inclined his head, as if the matter had been sealed. “Then I expect to be here when you return.”
Maisie kept her face still, but her fists tightened against her skirts until her nails bit half-moons into her palms.
When Faivish bowed his head in thanks, it was not only to her father. It was to her.
*
From the dormitorywindow, Vienna’s night crept in on scraps of sound: carriage wheels grinding over cobblestones, the faint jangle of a harness bell, a burst of laughter from the beer hall, rough and sudden. Somewhere below, a cat yowled, then was shooed into silence.
Inside, the noises were smaller, lonelier—the groan of the water pipes, the steady tick of the wall clock that had marked out every day of his studies. Faivish knelt beside his open trunk, folding shirts with deliberate care, smoothing each crease as though neatness might steady what felt dangerously close to unraveling.
Across the room, Alfie sprawled in the only chair, his bruised cheekbone catching the lamplight like a dark bloom.
“So it’s real then,” Alfie said at last. “We’re leaving on the morning carriage to the port? Before graduation.” His tone wasn’t surprised, only worn down, the ring of someone who’d braced for the blow. “Bloody unfair. I thought we had more time.”
Faivish’s hands didn’t pause, but his jaw tightened.
I thought so too.
“It’s the world,” he said, the words flat on his tongue. He could almost feel Maisie’s hand on his sleeve again, hear her whisper asking him not to go. But memory pressed back harder—his mother’s last warning:Keep your head low. Don’t waste yourself for justice. The bad men always prevail.
He’d believed she was wrong, once. Tonight, with Hofstätter’s verdict still ringing in his ears, with Morgenschein’s trembling voice laying out conditions for Maisie’s hand, he feared she’d always been right.
Alfie leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, his bruised face lit sharp by the lamp. “If they’re forcing you out, we make it count. I’ve got the fare. Dawn, we take the coach to Trieste. Ship across the Mediterranean, past Sicily, through the Red Sea. Camels over Egypt. Then the Arabian Sea toward Calcutta.”
Faivish let out a short huff—half laugh, half disbelief. “You’ve planned every mile.”
“Of course I have.” Alfie’s mouth tilted, but his gaze stayed earnest. “It’s the road to my apothecary. And to you coming back with more than a diploma. You’ll come back for her.”
Her.
Maisie.
