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He hurried to the door and pushed it.
It didn’t move.
Dorian’s mind began to go black. It was just like when he was a child, and he felt as helpless and as small and as sinful and as worthless as he had then. He pushed with his shoulder. It was the damned latch! The sound he’d heard before—metal clicking against metal—it was the latch falling into the lock.
Panic made his heart beat faster. He kept pushing, but nothing happened. Goddamn it, he’d left the ax right there; he could see it leaning against the outside wall on the other side of the glass.
He looked around frantically, falling into another coughing fit. There was no trough, nothing except the bucket he’d brought the whale oil in, which was now also consumed in flames. Perhaps in the farthest corner of the glasshouse, which was not yet aflame, he could find a potted palm and use that to break through the glass. But he’d need to get past the wall of fire rising from the oil bucket and the plants that fell onto the path.
He felt faint. His head and his eyes hurt. He could barely breathe. He moved towards the wall of fire, hoping to somehow get past it, but he staggered. Good Lord, he was going to fall right into the fire.
He was going to die, wasn’t he?
He swayed and fell to the floor. Panic took over at first as his chest burned, and he exploded in a fit of coughing. His mind was numbing.
These were going to be his last moments. He could feel death present, the strange sense of time slowing, stretching like melting glass.
But he wasn’t afraid.
If these were his last moments in his life, he’d spend them well. He’d go feeling love. He’d go thinking of one person who mattered.
Patience…
Love for her filled his whole being. He was full of her gentle touch, the spark of light in her eyes, her lips stretching in a smile that was like his personal sunlight.
He should have told her how much he loved her. He didn’t need to rage anymore, throw things out of the window, challenge anyone to a duel. What a waste of time.
As everything began to fade into black, he thought he could smell a whiff of fresh air, and feel someone holding him.
“You goddamn fool! What the hell did you do?”
Lucien.
It was Lucien’s voice. Dorian opened his eyes to a blue sky and white, dreamy clouds and a rising column of black and gray smoke.
Smoke was still billowing from the glasshouse. Footmen and maids were passing buckets of water in a line and throwing it into the building.
He was being held by someone, but not Lucien because Lucien towered over him, his face distorted with rage and concern.
“What if Chastity were here?” Lucien roared. “Have you thought about your sister at all? Your poor aunt? Patience, for God’s sake?”
Dorian’s throat hurt so much it felt like there was an actual fire inside.
Lucien was right. He hadn’t thought of his sister or his aunt.
“I was a selfish arse,” he confessed.
“You were,” said the voice directly above him.
He looked up and saw Spencer Seaton, a deep frown furrowing his dark eyebrows on his angular face.
He was pressed against Spencer, who was crouching and holding him half upright.
“What are you doing here?” Dorian croaked, his voice like sand against glass.
“I asked him to come,” exclaimed Lucien.
Dorian rarely saw Lucien serious. Even more rarely did he see his friend terrified and pacing, like he was now.
