Then, a tingling awoke on my skin, beneath my jaw. It spread, familiar and warm, behind my ears and down my throat, over my collarbones and up through my hair, across my temples.
I brushed a hand over my skirt. Memories separated from the fabric, shockingly clear. They were recent—me picking them up off the floor, shaking them out and clothing myself in them. But my relief was so strong I sobbed aloud and clasped an ashamed hand over my mouth. I was too tired, too emotional, too…
Somewhere distant, church bells rang a curfew.
Further awareness overcame me. For my threads were still spreading, moving beyond their usual twilight positions. I felt their warmth from my temples across my forehead, from behind my ears over my jaw, and from my collarbones over my breasts, down my spine.
Energy returned to me—a frantic, desperate spark. I untucked my shirtwaist and divested myself of it with hasty fingers, then pulled down the sleeves of my combinations.
Threads covered my entire upper body. I pulled up my skirts, revealing my bare legs, and saw with growing bafflement that threads trailed there, too—prickling and twining and smoky.
Moonless. Wake’s voice drifted through my head.Now I am what a Moonless becomes.
I closed my eyes. Memories began to come to me, images not connected with this room or my person. I realized with growing apprehension that they were carriedon the aircoming through the cracked balcony door.
Soldiers in the streets. Winds whisking past closed shutters. A body hung from a lamppost against a backdrop of impervious, ever-flowing river and grey-clouded sky.
Thera’s attempt to nullify my power had failed. Instead, she had amplified it.
As the Guild had done with Wake.
I will spare the reader a further account of my thoughts that night, for they were myriad, complex, and deeply personal. My plans were in shambles, my future uncertain, and I, it seemed, was irrevocably changed.
Finally, however, my exhaustion was too much. Even once my magnified threads retreated, I could not leave the apartment in such an exhausted and bewildered state. Evenfear of the searching Guild and prowling Wake could not convince me to go back out into the turbulent city.
Besides, no one would think me stupid enough to come home.
***
I awoke to warm sunlight. There was a weight on my legs and I instinctively did not move them, so as not to dump Hieronymus onto the floor.
My eyes snapped open. I cried out shamelessly and seized the warm bundle from the blankets, clutching him to my chest and burying my face in his fur. He mewed disagreeably and squirmed out, landing on the bed and twining around my back before buffeting my fingers for scratches.
He was whole. He was safe. For one sunny, warm moment, all was right in the world.
Then someone knocked at the door.
I froze. Ronny mewed and leapt to the floor, stretching in the sunlight. The balcony door was cracked—good heavens, had I forgotten to close it?
The knock was firm, but not agitated. My first thought was Pretoria, but she would not have knocked. Neither would Wake or the Guild. It was Lewis or Harden then, perhaps.
I debated climbing out the balcony door. But as I stared at Hieronymus, trying to figure out how to carry him down, a key clicked in the lock. There was no more decision to be made.
Constable Hopgood stepped inside. He saw my state and averted his eyes, but entered all the same and closed the door quietly.
“I apologize, miss, needs must,” he said, holding one hand over his eyes and looking at the floor.
I found my tongue—and my shirtwaist, which I hastily buttoned. “You? What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Stoke requested I watch the apartment for your return,” he confessed. “I came by this morning and saw the balcony door open.”
It said a great deal that he would continue such a duty so long, particularly in the state the city was in.
“Did he ask you to do that when he told you about the artifact?” I asked.
Hopgood looked taken aback, but in a pleased way. “He said you might unravel it.”
I felt a sad smile cross my lips. “Is that it, then? His confidence in me was so great that he abandoned me?”
