Her boots struck the stoop with a soft click, skirts whispering over the worn wood. She didn’t pause, though the air hummed with gossip about frost and failing crops. None of it mattered. None of her newspaper adverts calling for a Faivish Blattner had brought a single answer.
Inside, the familiar perfume of paper and ink wrapped around her, heavy as memory. The counter overflowed with ledgers and broadsheets. A fire muttered in the hearth, half-hearted but enough to thawthe chill.
The clerk behind the desk, spectacles sliding down his nose, looked up mid-scratch of his pen.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head. “What may I help you find?”
Maisie’s voice surprised her by sounding steady. “I’ve come to search your archives. Newspapers, if you please.”
He tilted his head. “From where, exactly?”
“Vienna. France. India, if possible. The past year or two. In English, French, or German.” She knew how absurd it sounded—like trying to summon love out of a ledger. But if Faivish’s name had surfaced anywhere, she couldn’t afford not to look.
The clerk rose with unexpected briskness and gestured her through the aisles. Leather bindings and dust pressed close around them until they reached a long table at the back, flanked by two rickety chairs. He motioned to the precarious stacks.
“These should suit. Ring if you need me.”
Maisie sat, smoothed her skirts, and opened the first volume. The air ticked with paper and clockwork. Time seemed to thin itself into silence.
Her eyes skimmed headlines—opera notices, political columns, the marvels of steam engines, scandals of duchesses. Page after page, name after name. Never his.
Faivish Blattner. Dr. Blattner. F. Blattner.She whispered his name in her mind a hundred ways, hoping to see it inked here.
Just not in the obituaries. Please, oh please, not there.
Her fingers trembled as she turned the pages. He was clever—too clever to leave a trail if he wanted to vanish. But what if he hadn’t wanted her to find him? That fear bit deeper than all the rest.
Another sheet. Another disappointment. A name close—so close—but not him. Her shoulders sagged, the knot in her stomach tightening.
The fire hissed in the grate, smoke scratching faintly at the air. Maisie blinked hard, willing the blur in her eyes away.
No one was coming to rescue her from this endless hunt. But she could still search. She could try.
Memory tugged her back—Vienna, her father’s quiet practice. Faivish bent the rules for a friend. She, clumsy with instruments, cheeks burning. He had smiled—patient, warm—so certain of her. He had risked everything. She had risked her heart.
Now, only echoes. Only the rustle of pages in a London bookshop.
And still, she turned another.
*
That evening, backat 87 Harley Street, the apothecary’s back room breathed of mint and myrrh. Tooth-powder dusted the lips of glass jars, each labeled in Alfie’s slanted hand. Felix eased the final cork into place and smoothed a paper slip flat with his thumbnail:Charcoal & Sage. Beside him, Alfie twisted a square of muslin into a neat parcel for the front counter. The boy’s carriage had come and gone—polite, brisk—leaving a return appointment and a silence that pressed.
“Too tight,” Alfie muttered, not looking up. “You’ll crease the paper and my shelves will look like a butcher keeps them.”
“I’m a dentist,” Felix said, dry. “You knew the hazard when you asked for help.”
“I asked for help before you alphabetized my stock. Astringents can’t live beside cooling herbs—my tinctures will get ideas.”
Felix lifted a brow. “You’re welcome.”
Only then did he realize he still wore his coat, patient cards peeking from the inner pocket, bills folded in his fist. It was easier here—among rows of jars and Alfie’s reliable complaints—than in the quiet practice where the room felt larger after each patient left.
Especially today, when he’d caught himself searching a girl’s facefor the shadow of someone he’d sworn he’d stopped seeing everywhere.
Footsteps clattered on the stairs. Both men turned as the door pushed wide.
“Raphi,” Alfie said, surprise folding into a grin.
