Don’t be foolish.
She had seen him before—everywhere. In the blur of carriage windows, in the angle of a stranger’s shoulders, in dreams so real she woke certain his breath was still warm against her cheek. Her mind conjured him whenever it pleased, and tonight was no different. It couldn’t be.
Still, her eyes clung to him.
The hedgerow shivered. Leaves stirred, restless. She blinked hard. Lamplight fractured across a thin veil of droplets.
Rain.
Her fingertips pressed harder against the glass. “Not again,” she whispered.
England rained like Vienna had, but here it carried no sweetness. The Oxfordshire rain had smelled of meadows and turned the fields lush and forgiving. London rain collected in gutters, thickened into mud, and penned her in. No newspapers. No archives. No quiet alleys to chase his ghost.
Behind her, the stairs creaked.
Deena slipped into the room, her voice already softened with the finality of adulthood. “It’s raining,” she sighed. “I don’t want to walk home.”
“You can take our carriage,” Rachel said at once, rising from her chair.
But Maisie didn’t move. Didn’t turn.
The man had not stirred—
Until he did.
Slowly, he glanced upward, as if greeting the rain with the kind of patience only solitude allowed. Then, in one unhurried motion, he reached to lift his collar and began to walk.
Something about him pulled at her.
A strange weight pressed behind her ribs.
She exhaled, forced herself to look away.
“Yes,” Maisie said, finally stepping back from the window. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t sayhome.Not out loud. The townhouse wasn’t quite that—not truly. Perhaps it never had been.
But Maisie was pulled toward the door that faced the street. Her chest tightened; it felt like the room had shrunk around her. She needed to get out—out where the air was raw, even if it was wet and filthy. Her palms grew damp as she pressed them to the wood. If she stayed another moment, she would choke. She needed air. Now.
*
Rain. Again.
Of course.
Felix tugged his coat closer and tipped his head toward the sky. The clouds had thickened fast, swallowing the last scraps of light, and now the air carried that heavy scent—wet stone, soot, something faintly green beneath it, like grass pressed into mud.
He’d told himself he would wait ten minutes. Fifteen at the most, while Raphi delivered the parcel. But the minutes had stretched. Too many.
Too long.
Lilly would need to be let out soon. Last time he’d lingered, she’d left a puddle right in the middle of his bedroom rug. The apology had come with wide eyes and a head nudged against his boot—more than enough to win him over. Still, he owed her better.
“I’ll tell him I’m going,” Felix muttered, stepping toward the door. Best to let Raphi know not to hurry.
He rapped three times, brisk against polished wood. Almost at once, the butler appeared—a tall man, silver hair gleaming, his expression softened by years of careful courtesy.
“Dr. Leafley,” he said with recognition. “Good evening. Has anyone called you?”
