And then everything happened all at once.
She felt a hand clutch her wrist, yanking her back with such force that she stumbled, catching her toe on the edge of the kerb. She smacked into something soft, and felt an arm come around her, a low voice in her ear.
‘Are youtryingto get yourself killed?’
She blinked up at the dusk-blue sky above her. She wasn’t in her bed – she was on the pavement in front of her house, and now she could feel the wind upon her cheeks, could feel the salt air stinging her face. Rough hands helped her to her feet, and in the fog of it all, all she could think was that she’d conjured her dream to her doorstep.
Jem.
He washere– Jem washere, with her. She could still see the image of him kissing her in her mind as she pressed her cheek to the rough wool of his lapel, as she wrapped her arms around him, clutching him tightly.
‘I knew you’d come.’
He didn’t smell like the apothecary – like lavender, and pine, and box paste. He smelled like woodsmoke, and salt air, and for a long moment he just stood there, stiff beneath her embrace, his breath coming fast in his chest.
And then a voice that was very muchnotJem’s said – not with ire, but quiet relief: ‘What were youthinking? That carriage would’ve crushed you beneath its wheels.’
And just like that, the last remnants of her dream shattered.
Ava stumbled back as though she had been burned, heat flushing her cheeks. Dark eyes stared back at her from beneath silver spectacles, the man’s expression frozen somewhere between shock and something else – and it wasn’t until his gaze flicked away that she began to pluck slivers of reality from the remnants of her dream.
‘I tried to stop you,’ he said. ‘I called out to you, but it was as though you couldn’t hear me.’
‘I …’ Her thoughts felt sluggish and slow, her voice cracking between her lips. She looked down the street – to the carriage clattering away, the driver still hurling a colourful selection of curses back towards her. ‘I … haven’t done that in a long time.’
The man raised one dark eyebrow. ‘Run into the street?’
‘Walked in my sleep,’ she corrected, pulling in a shuddering breath.
Not since her mother had died. And even then it had only been the first night – that first, awful night when the house felt silent, and hollow – and she’d wanted to slip into a sleep so deep it could rewind time to but a few days prior, to when she’d walk downstairs and find her mother bundled in quilts upon the mustard-yellow settee, a cup of tea steaming on the table beside her, her book lying open upon her lap.
‘Look at me,’ he said, moving closer, tilting her chin upwards. This close, she could see his eyes were not black – but green – and that his skin was pale. Dark stubble peppered his jaw, and there was a thin cut across the bridge of his nose, mirroring the one that sliced through his eyebrow. ‘Watch my finger as I move it.’
His glove was worn at the seams, and starting to unravel – and she watched it move back and forth.
‘Your gloves need stitching,’ she said quietly.
‘Do you feel dizzy?’ he replied, his voice low. ‘Does anything look blurred?’
‘I can see you as plainly as you can see me,’ Ava said, stepping back from his gentle touch, and the warmth it’d left upon her skin. ‘I can promise you that.’
‘I had to check, for you didn’t seem to see that carriage,’ he said, shucking off his coat despite the rising wind, and holding it out to her. ‘Take it. You’ll catch a chill.’
‘I’mfine,’ she said – though her body had begun to betray her, the shaking that made her voice quiver now spreading to her arms, her hands. ‘And I didn’taskfor your help.’
‘No …’ he said, draping the coat around her shoulders. He was taller than her, and it fell almost the full way to her calves – and though it was musty, and heavy, the warmth was welcome. ‘Though I came to ask for yours.’
He reached into the coat’s pocket – his hand grazing her side as he drew a piece of paper from it. ‘This is you, isn’t it? Ava Adams? “The Memory Binder”?’
She didn’t look down at the small square of paper clutched in his hand – she looked only at him. ‘I’m sorry, whoareyou?’
‘Who amI?’ His lips twitched upwards. ‘I’m the man who just saved your life. So I think the words you are looking for are “thank you”.’
The weight of his gaze meeting hers jolted something inside of her.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
‘Tell me.’ He pushed the paper into her hand. ‘Can you really pull forth someone’s memories? Or is it all some kind of trick?’
