“One and two and three and four, coffins laid upon the moor,” he canted in reply. His voice faded at the last word, and I realized he had slipped into unconsciousness.
I gently felt for his pulse and leaned forward, listening to his breath. Both were steady, but that did little to soothe me.
For a time, I paced. Hours may have passed, or perhapsit simply felt like it. I tried to think, tried to soothe myself with the exercise, but both proved useless. I could see no way out of the cell. I could not carry Lewis, and we could not rely on rescue.
Hunger began to gnaw at my stomach and my nerves felt properly fraught. I found no quip, no dry observation to alleviate the gloom.
Once I realized that, my fortitude began to unravel with frightening speed. I stood facing the bars, my back to Lewis, as I battled.
“I am not alone,” I murmured, forcing that to the front of my thoughts. “They do not have the artifact. Pretoria escaped. All is not lost.”
But whatallwould look like, from here on out, I could not say. I simply would have to survive long enough to find out.
“Ottilie?” Lewis called, sounding vaguely more alert. “Ottilie, are you well?”
I tried to scrub my face with my hands, saw my still-bound wrists, and closed my eyes. Several tears trailed down my cheeks.
“A moment, please. I am thinking.”
A stretch of quiet.
“You are crying,” he observed softly.
“I do not cry.”
The cot creaked. “Come here.”
I glanced back, huffing impatiently, but the sight of him sitting there, wounded leg stretched out before him and compassion in his eyes broke the last of my reserve. Some sense seemed to have returned to him, and he looked more alert, too.
I went to him and sat on the edge of the bed. “We will escape,” I promised, though I knew it was a lie.
Warm arms enveloped me. I stilled, too tense, too distraught, to take any consolation from his embrace—an embrace I had imagined a hundred times, alone in my apartment with only Hieronymus for company.
Hieronymus. I had lost him. I had lost him, Mr. Stoke, and Lewis’s and my hope of a free future. Even if we survived this, what was there for us?
“Lewis,” I whispered. “I lost our money. The police confiscated it.”
He stilled. I wondered if he had not understood, if the fever had over whelmed him again.
“No matter,” he said. “Perhaps we can… ah, reclaim it.”
“Perhaps. But even then… it is still not enough for our escape.”
“No matter,” he said again, though this time there was a quality to his voice, a forced mildness, that made my stomach sink.
“You are just saying that because you think you are dying,” I mumbled.
He drew back a little, squinting down at me. “Pardon me?”
“Earlier, you insisted you are dying.”
“Ah. I am sorry. Why are you not embracing me? Would you like me to let go?” He started to pull away.
“No!” I cinched my arms around him, though I felt color rise in my cheeks. I hedged, “I did not want to hurt you.”
“I am not fragile, Ottilie.”
Slowly, I leaned my head into his shoulder. I relished the solidity of him between my arms, the press of his ribs, the shift of his muscle, the rise and fall of his breaths. Harden flickered through my head, but did not root.
