She plucked the notebook out of his grasp, which finally silenced him.
After studying the scribbled lists and rough sketches, she saw the problem. He’d been trying to use the existing layout in the conservatory, presumably to avoid moving tables, but that wouldn’t work.
“Do we still have the Great Exhibition collection in storage?” she asked.
Most of the objects from the grand event more than a decade earlier had been relocated to more prestigious museums or remained in the Crystal Palace, but a few of the more esoteric items had ended up at auctions, where Mr. Blackwood had acquired them.
“Yes!” the curator said. “Yes, that will work. Oh, thank you, Miss Sorrow!”
There was a soft knock at the door. The curator jumped to his feet. “Oh! That must be your great-uncle. I hope you don’t mind, my dear. I summoned him when I discovered we’d been burgled.”
Felicity tensed, expecting the old man to be furious, but when he entered the room, he lifted her into a crushing hug. “Where have you been?” He set her down. “You had us all worried, vanishing like that.”
“W-Well, I…” How could she tell him she’d occupied her evening engaged inamorous congresswith a vampire? “I was out hunting.”
It was the best excuse she could come up with. Having him angry at her for disobeying that order was preferable to him learning she’d betrayed her family by siding with the enemy. “I’m sorry. I told you I would give up trying to follow in my parents’ footsteps if anything went wrong with my exhibit, and, well”—she dipped her chin—“you know the rest.”
He chuckled. “What you have done is worth setting aside my anger at the loss of a few artifacts. A haven is within our reach! It is only a matter of time before we find it. When we do, I will ensure you are officially credited with the kills.”
This was everything she had wanted. All she had to do was stay silent, and she’d have the future she’d imagined for nearly a decade.
She couldn’t do it.
After everything she’d seen, and especially after meeting Mordecai and the others, she couldn’t imagine hurting them. Some of the creatures she’d previously hunted had undoubtedly been monsters, but that was true of humanity as much as it was true of vampires.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No need to apologize,” the old man said. He guided her out of the room with an arm around her back. “You will lead a patrol tonight. That will ease your mind.”
“W-What?” She’d hardly imagined joining a patrol, and now he wanted her to lead one. How could she explain that the thought of donning her gear again gave her chills? That she feared she would see Jonathan’s face in every vampire they fought?
Jonathan.
He’d said there could be nothing more between them, but she still didn’t want him to die of mate atrophy. Her blood had healed him. Did that mean she was his fated mate? She’d have toask Winifred, now that the walls around her heart had fallen and she was no longer afraid of the answer.
“…cousins are preparing your equipment,” Great-Uncle Ezra said.
“I’m quite tired,” she said. She mostly wanted him to stop, although there was an aching in the back of her skull, like someone had smashed her head against the tile. She’d wait for her family to leave her alone, then return to Winifred’s haven.
The old man’s expression softened. “Of course. You will have as much time as you need to rest. You can always join the hunt tomorrow. Come, let us return home.”
He led her out of the museum, droning on about how her parents would have been so proud and that he’d known all along that she was meant to be a hunter. She ignored him and stared at her feet during the cab ride.
Storming out of Jonathan’s house without giving him a chance to explain had been rather impulsive. Perhaps he had a good reason for keeping his true motives from her. She had certainly hidden enough from him. Anything he had done had been to protect himself from the enemy.
She owed him an explanation.
Unfortunately, escaping her family proved much more difficult than expected.
Her cousins mobbed her the moment she’d walked through the door and made her suffer several hours of celebrating. By the time she convinced them she had a megrim, it was well past midnight. She trudged up the stairs and waited in her room until the house fell silent, then threw her cloak over her shoulders and crept down the back staircase into the alley.
The air was thick with smoke, and the sky above her was stained pink. Her mouth went dry as a terrible suspicion entered her mind. She ran around the building and halted at the edge of a crowd.
Thick, black smoke billowed out of open windows on the ground floor of Marguerite’s haven as firemen pumped water out of a small, wheeled fire engine.
A group of black-clothed figures lingered across the street, the leader of the Sorrow hunters among them. When he spotted her, he lifted his arm in greeting.
She approached with numb legs.
