His lips twitched. “Not laugh. Feel. I’ve been stitched together by everyone here even beyond Andre’s apt hands… but you, Maisie—” his grip tightened, surprising even himself—“you’re the one who makes me whole.”
Her breath shuddered out.
With effort, Felix fumbled at his side, fingers closing on the folded cloth Raphi had given him earlier. He drew it out, slow, every motion costing him.
He reached for her hand, clean and cold again. Then he kissed the finger with the diamond ring.
“For every name you carried,” he said, his voice rough, “every danger you shouldered—” He stopped, swallowed, forced the words out. “I want you to have one name that’s yours. I want you to have mine. Maisie Leafley.”
She made a sound between a sob and a laugh and dropped to her knees so she could see him level. “Yes,” she said at once, breathless. “Yes. Always yes. Faivish—always my Faivish.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger with shaking hands.
No one cheered but everyone shifted. Rachel let out a long breath she seemed to have held for years. Alfie touched Felix’s shoulder gently. Andre, still severe, inclined his head.
And John—John stepped forward. He looked at Maisie, then Felix. “So… you’re really my family now?” His voice cracked on the word.
Maisie’s hand went to his cheek. Felix lifted his own trembling hand and laid it on the boy’s shoulder.
“Family,” he said simply.
John leaned awkwardly into both of them, fierce like he meant to hold them there by force.
Felix let his head tip back against the chair, breath catching. For the first time since leaving Vienna, he didn’t feel exiled. He felt home.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Two weeks later, at 87 Harley Street…
Felix leaned onhis crutch, bracing against the edge of the chair as he closed the leather satchel at his feet. For once, the bag wasn’t for leaving—it would only carry papers back and forth. Harley Street wasn’t ending. He would instill work here. But he would no longer live inside its walls but with Maisie, Deena, and John at the townhouse.
Alfie held up a jar of lavender lozenges. “Do these go with you or stay with the practice?”
Felix squinted. “I can’t remember if they’re medicinal or just sweets.”
“They’re from Paris. Definitely sweets.”
Felix waved it off. “Then they stay. Harley Street deserves a stash.”
Andre chuckled. “You’re the only man I know who thinks leaving candy behind is a sign of maturity.”
Felix shook his head. “Not maturity. Balance. For years, I only had the work. Now… I have a life beyond these walls.”
Wendy appeared in the doorway, cheeks pink from the cold. “I hear this is the last official packing day?”
“Not quite,” Alfie said. “Patients still need us. But from now on, we’ll work here, not live here.”
Nick tied off a bundle of texts. “The practice remains. The miracles remain and some we get to carry with us.”
Laughter rippled, gentle but real, as if they all needed to let it out after too much waiting, too much fear. The walls of Harley Street had heard weeping, shouting, and even blood hitting the floorboards. But today it heard laughter, and Felix thought Professor Morgenschein would have approved.
Just then, Maisie stepped into the room, John at her side and Deena trailing shyly behind, her hands clasped tight. Lilly, the little pup, bounded ahead of them, ears too big for her body, tail wagging furiously until she made her usual beeline for Felix’s good leg.
Felix bent stiffly to rub her ears, and the sight made Maisie’s chest ache. All this time, she had imagined him swallowed by these rooms, by pain and ghosts of patients lost. Now, he stood here alive, with a future. With her.
Alfie nodded to Maisie. “Your father would be proud of you all,” he said simply.
The room quieted. Felix leaned heavily on his crutch, steadying himself as Alfie’s words hung in the air. He saw Maisie’s breath catch, the way her lashes fluttered, and he knew what those words meant to her. Professor Ephraim Morgenschein’s dream—science and compassion, carried forward and it was alive before them. And Maisie stood at its center, no longer hidden. Not Lady Spencer, not a shadow, but his life partner.
