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They’d taken her hand. “I have other ideas.”

“Like what?”

The wind blew, flattening their hair on their brow, and they shivered. The sun was sinking, and the shadow anticipated the evening’s chill, but their hand felt warm. It wasn’t the cold that made them quake.

“Shall we leave the stones?” They glanced about, fingers tightening on hers. “This is the site, isn’t it? Where your grandfather burned the wicker man.”

Her turn to laugh. “You’re frightened.”

“So what if I am?” They frowned at her. “Who wouldn’t be?”

“Despite rumors to the contrary, I can assure you that my family doesn’t practice human sacrifice.”

“You’re barefoot.” They were staring at her feet, white and stark in the dim grass. “Like a druid priestess.”

“Indeed.” She curled her toes. “And behind my back I hold a ceremonial dagger.”

“You don’t.” Georgie’s eyes widened. She’d folded her arm, hidden her free hand behind her. “Let me see.”

She bent backward as they tried to reach for it.

“Sacrificed by a druid priestess,” they muttered, tugging her forward. “What did I do to deserve such a fate?”

“Everything.” She was giggling now, which made her easier to subdue. They had her pinned against them in an instant, and it took only an instant longer for them to wrench her arm around.

“No dagger,” they confirmed. They were gripping both her wrists, grinning down at her, eyes darkened by the shadow of the stone.

“The wicker man was filled with straw.” Her pulse was thundering, beating in her wrists, under their thumbs. “But I’ve looked at Grandpapa’s sketches. It was enormous. People saw it burning from Thornton. I understand how they might have jumped to conclusions.”

“Mm,” said Georgie, amusement in their voice. “As far as outlandish rumors go, it has a surprisingly solid basis in reality.”

“And the ones about you?” Her breath hitched. A broken engagement. A duel. A curricle crash.

“Also.” They nodded and released her.

She walked out of the circle of stones, as they’d suggested, but mostly to clear her own head, to exist again in ordinary daylight. The unkempt lawn prickled the soles of her feet. She sat on the nearest bench and gazed over the grounds. When Grandmama was still alive, before the gardener was sacked, the garden hadn’t been smothered with weeds and vines. Now the fountains were dry, the camellia walk impassable. The statues had been swallowed whole by the shrubberies. Stray tulips provided pops of color here and there, but green and brown predominated. The wind made a whisking, rattling sound as dried stalks and pods rubbed together.

Georgie sat beside her for a time in silence. Finally, they spoke, quiet as a sigh. “Within my depths, the shadows play.”

It turned her toward them. She’d lain awake last night with the riddle running through her head. She supplied the second line. “And yet there is light at my mouth and water that brings life.”

They smiled. “I know the answer.”

“I doubt it.” The words slipped out.

Their smile became a laugh. “Of course you do.”

She rolled her eyes, a warm glow in her chest.

Strange thought: Georgina Redmayne was poking fun at her, at both of them, and she liked it.

“Go on,” she said. “I have a guess of my own, but I want to hear yours. What’s the answer?”

“I can’t tell you. Not until I know we’re looking together.”

“I don’t know that we are looking together.”

“You’d rather we compete?”