He shrugs. “Maybe because she called you for tea. The two of you got close in the two years before. Lilibeth liked to keep her friends close, but...” He lifts his brows.
“She recognized you from one of the pictures. You looked like a girl who died a long time ago,” he says. “She told me she remembered seeing that girl often with her aunt in London.”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember.”
“Maybe I’m mistaken,” he says.
As Dasha walks closer, he presses two fingers to his lips, then mimics throwing away a key.
“I wonder how long it’ll be before we hear something,” she says.
I ignore her words and stare at the fireplace, my finger caught between my teeth, trying to remember while the fire ticks and crackles away.
“Aurelia,” she calls. “Are you okay?”
When I turn to face her, I catch sight ofthe Lady of the housepeeking from the hallway.
My breath turns shallow.
I press my hands over my eyes, trying to hide that I saw her. But she saw me too.
Am I like Lilibeth? Did she come for me now?
Victor and Dasha both turn, trying to see what scared me, but when they find nothing there, concern settles over their faces instead.
“Let me take you to bed,” Dasha says, but I shake my head.
She lifts her hands in surrender, then drapes a blanket over me.
“I’ll make some coffee,” Victor says, leaving us alone.
The second he is gone, she leans closer.
“I’m worried,” she says. “What is really going on?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Before, I kept myself closed because I was afraid I’d say the wrong thing and people wouldn’t like me. But now I keep myself closed because I’m afraid they will.
I was always different. The quiet one. The girl with her nose buried in notes, the one people thought they understood just because I stayed still long enough for them to invent a version of me.
But if they knew how strange I really was, I would have no one beside me at all.
With Nathaniel,it’sdifferent.
He is different.
And while I want to keep everything locked inside me, I have a feeling he is the only one I can trust.
I hear the front door open, and we both turn toward the entrance, searching for who it might be.
It’s him.
He is holding his blazer in one hand as he leans against the doorframe.
“Prodigy son returns,” he chuckles, stepping closer to us.
I jump to my feet and move toward him, trying to find the right words, but nothing comes. He just presses his lips to mine and breathes out, “I missed you.”
