There was no protocol for this. No medical training or apprenticeship could have prepared him. No way to steady his hands or slow his pulse when everything inside him screamed she was slipping away—and this time, forever.
“Doctor Leafley?” someone called.
His head snapped up.
It was the girl from the practice—the tall one with wary eyes andcareful hands. She stood in the entryway now, dripping wet beneath a dark cloak. Her voice trembled slightly, but something in the timbre—the very notes she’d hummed at the practice—hit him like a strike to the chest.
Tumbalalaika.That was the tune! He’d heard her humming it while tending the little marquess.
His heart seized. He cocked his head.
No—surely not.
But—
His throat constricted. “Deena Morgenschein?” he rasped.
The hallway froze.
The girl smiled brightly. Rachel Pearler stiffened. Raphi’s brows shot up.
Fave turned, confused. “What did you say?”
But it was the girl’s face that betrayed her. Her eyes widened. She gasped—and her hands flew to her mouth. “I didn’t recognize you!”
Felix’s breath caught.Neither did I.She was so grown compared to the child Maisie had once dragged through Vienna’s streets.
No time to think, but no time to lose.
He turned on his heel.
The door still gaped open—the butler hadn’t yet closed it. Outside, the world gleamed slick and gold beneath the gaslamps, rain falling like a thousand pins on stone.
He looked toward the carriage where Maisie had fled. The driver had just opened the landau’s door.
And she was inside.
Lady Spencer.
No.
My Maisie.
“Maisie!” Felix shouted, his voice breaking as he ran.
His boots skidded across wet cobblestones, slick leaves clinging to the soles. He caught himself on a pillar, pushed off again, heart pounding like a drumbeat that belonged to another life—their life.
Voices rose behind him, a ripple of speculation and awe.
“Is it her?”
“They’ve found each other?”
“She was here all this time?”
Hushed, reverent. As though speaking too loudly might shatter the miracle unfolding before them.
But to Felix, they were echoes. Indistinct. Meaningless.
