Page 61 of Boy of Chaotic Making

He took and unfurled the paper.This new book is interesting. You should read it.

“Starting a book club?” he asked.

Rolling her eyes, Hulda retrieved the paper and shoved it into her pocket. “She won’t say it right out.” She glanced at the door, but they were still alone. Still, she continued at a quieter volume: “Myra’s discovered something new and interesting at the facility. Something she wants to talk to me about. Nothing monumental, I’m sure—not this early on, and not with our—her—limited resources. But somethingconsequential enough that it spurred her to contact me here. Perhaps the start of a road that leads to what she’s been hunting.”

Merritt nodded. Murmured, “I wonder what Blightree would think of this.”

“We will not tell him,” she whispered. “I don’t want to discuss it outside the challenge of obtaining approval for a lab dedicated to the study of magic, which I’m presently querying.” She eyed him, a look that said,This is all I know, and all I want to know.Smoothing her skirt, she added, “I considered querying the British government as well. If we were approved, we could move the facility here, though it would be difficult to maintain privacy while doing so, and honestly, there isn’t a government in Europe more open to experimentation than that of the United States. But either way, it will be a slow process, and the hebetude of it all makes me nervous.”

“Pardon?”

She met his eyes. It took her a beat to understand. “The languidness. The waiting. The longer we wait for answers—”

“The more anxious you feel, of course,” he finished. “Perhaps you could move it farther west. Won’t have to worry about the law, then.”

“For a time, perhaps.” She turned her hand around and clasped his fingers. “But sooner or later, secrets catch up with everyone.” She looked away, not at anything in particular. Almost like she was future-seeing, but not quite.

She was thinking about that bizarre vision of him with another woman. He knew it, somehow.

With his free hand, he touched her chin, encouraging her to meet his gaze. “Hulda. You trust me, don’t you?”

She searched his eyes a moment. “I do.”

He nodded. It would have to be enough.

Hulda did retire to her room for a nap, although she did so only after placing some wards and stones. The guards were still about, as Lady Helen intended to keep four of them on in case another revolutionary came knocking.

Once in her room, Hulda rang for tea. And while she waited for it to arrive, she debated whether or not she could sleep on her hairpins. Napping was not conducive to good hair. Unfortunately, itwasconducive for headache relief, so out the pins came and off the dress went.

She drank her tea in a plush chair by the window, feet pulled up, sipping slowly.What is your secret, Merritt?That was the thought that had come to her in the morning room. She’d chided herself for it. She hadn’t lied, either—shedidtrust Merritt. But her augury was also never wrong.

She reminded herself, yet again, that Merritt had been entirely clothed in the vision. That fact was somewhat helpful.

Tea half finished, she glanced to her black bag, set at the foot of her bed. Putting down the teacup, she crossed to it and pulled out her receipt book with all her notes regarding the goings-on in Cyprus Hall.

Flipping toward the back of the book, she wrote new notes—everything she knew about the vision, and everything she’d thought since the vision. It took longer to jot it all down than she’d expected.

Then, making herself comfortable at the small table, she set the open book before her, took off her ring, and laid it on top—something of Merritt’s, technically, that might help with the reading. Eyes closed, she practiced one of the exercises Professor Griffiths had led her through, focusing all her attention on Merritt. She replayed her first trip to Whimbrel House, recalling the disheveled manner in which he’d answered the door and pled for her toget him out. The bathroom nearly flattening them. The dejected look of him in that hole in the kitchen. The gradual way he’d started to light up whenever he saw her. Untying him in that dreadful basement in Marshfieldin her underwear. Their first kiss. He’d been so gentle, so perfect.

The way he’d shoved Mr. Baillie up against the wall after the hysterian hurt her. Ice skating. Prison sitting ...thathad been a low, though it was also the first time they’d discussed marriage, and Hulda had nearly wept at the idea that he wanted her. Running off to the docks, hiding from the police, finding a new normal once Myra cleared everything up. Lunches in Boston and dinners at Whimbrel House. The way his hands felt on her waist—

Hulda opened her eyes and rolled her set of dice. Nothing. Reread her notes, rolled again—

Merritt filled her vision. He was shadowed, like someone stood over him, but his gaze was fixed downward on something else—something Hulda couldn’t make out. And he was panicked. Breathing hard, sweating, tense.

Something rolled across the floor.

A shod foot came down.

Hulda’s heart thudded in her chest, and the vision dissipated as quickly as it had come.

Picking up her engagement ring with trembling fingers, Hulda whispered, “What’s going to happen, Merritt?”

But she didn’t have the answers.

Chapter 22

March 7, 1847, London, England

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