Maisie didn’t answer. If I saw him—just once—I’d know without asking.
Finally, she spoke. “I think… I’d want to know everything. Even if it breaks me.”
Rachel’s eyes softened, but then she reached for the foldedBristol Gazetteon the side table. “Then you must also know this.” She smoothed the paper, voice tightening. “Read.”
Maisie bent closer. The words spilled like acid across the page:
Summary Punishment.—At Bristol, two Jews, much reduced in appearance, were discovered in the stables of the White Hart Inn, seeking scraps where honest labour could not be had. Their conduct was judged a trespass upon the property of the house, and they were chastised with severity by those present. Their hands were bound together, and the correction proved so sharp that the unfortunate fellows did not long survive. The spectacle, while deemed a just warning to others inclined to dishonesty, left the townspeople with the disagreeable duty of restoring order to the yard.
The words made Maisie’s skin prickle. She pressed a hand to her chest. “They write it as though it were a joke.”
Rachel’s jaw tightened. “That’s the point. The law does not always defend us, Maisie. The law sometimes joins the mob—or hides behind laughter. And Baron von List—he applauds these humiliations, encourages them. He is already celebrated on the continent for showing the world how—what was the phrase?—‘deplorable’ Jews are.”
Maisie drew from her reticule a few folded slips, ink smudged from travel. “I’ve looked, too. German papers, Prussian ones. They mention him as if he were a reformer, a champion of purity. But everyparagraph is stained. Every ‘reform’ means another way to make us small. I cannot put a notice for Faivish in such places. If he hides, it may be from men like List.”
Rachel’s gaze softened, though her eyes gleamed with something fierce. “You’ve done more than most. You’ve read. You’ve searched. You’ve carried the risk yourself. But you see now—it’s not just whether Faivish is lost. It’s whether he hides from danger that would devour him if he were found.”
Maisie folded the scraps tight in her palm, as if ink itself might shield him. “Then I must walk the knife’s edge. To search, but not too loudly. To hope, but not too openly.”
The parlor seemed to hush around them, the summer air suddenly heavy. The world beyond them had teeth, and Baron von List was sharpening them.
Rachel leaned closer, her voice dropping. “We know what men like Baron von List can do behind closed doors. He has power, paper, and coin. He can strip a doctor of patients, denounce his remedies as poison, whisper in the ears of parliamentarians eager to believe him. He can ruin a man without ever dirtying his hands. And all the while, the press will cheer, or—worse—turn it into entertainment.”
Silence pressed in, heavy as an anvil.
Maisie clutched her teacup tighter, willing its heat to seep into her bones. This wasn’t just about storms at sea or marriage vows broken by time. It was about enemies who never rested—enemies with ink and law and resources at their disposal. Enemies who could erase a man like Faivish as easily as scratching his name from a ledger.
And she wondered if her hope of finding him was already too fragile to survive, or if she was truly more useful as Eleanor Spencer than as Maisie Morgenschein.
*
It was wellpast dusk when Felix and Raphi turned the corner toward Green Park, the cobbles crunching beneath their boots.
The evening air held a damp chill—not sharp, but enough to find its way under the collar of Felix’s coat and curl in his lungs. He shifted his satchel higher on his shoulder, trying to ignore the ache in his chest.
“So, listen,” Raphi said, light but focused, “I’ll deliver these diamonds to Fave Pearler. While we’re there, we can ask Rachel a few quiet questions. She may know someone who can help us find Maisie.”
“She still has those kinds of connections?” Felix asked.
“Through her father’s business, yes,” Raphi said. “Docks, shipping ledgers, foreign correspondents. Every name that passes through. If I found no Maisie Morgenschein in England, perhaps her contacts can.”
Felix’s throat tightened. He kept his eyes ahead, on the soft glow spilling from the tall windows of the Pearler home.
They passed through the curve at Green Park’s edge, the city softened by lamplight. The Pearler house rose before them—tall, elegant, lit with the golden shimmer of Shabbat candles.
Felix stopped. “I’m not invited,” he said quietly.
Raphi was already bounding up the steps. “You’re family.”
“No,” Felix said. “Not tonight. It’sShabbos. I can’t… I won’t intrude.”
Raphi turned, sighed. “Come. You know them.”
Felix took a step back. “If I ever find her again,” he murmured, “I won’t miss a single Shabbos. Not one. I’d hold on to every second.”
Raphi hesitated, nodded. “Alright.”
He knocked once, confidently. A moment later, warmth and laughter spilled out from the open door, and Felix caught the smoke of burned candles and freshly-baked challah before it all closed again.
