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“I need to leave,” I said suddenly. “I need to⁠—”

“You need to sit still and smile,” Adeline said firmly. “Because Elias Hawthorne is watching. And the moment you run, the moment you show fear, he'll know something is wrong.”

She was right. I knew she was right. But knowing what I now knew made staying still unbearable.

August had built a house of cards around me. And I'd been shaking the foundation without even realizing it.

If his father discovered what I was—what August had been hiding—it wouldn't just be me who was unraveled. It would be August, Adeline, and Garrick too. And that thought terrified me more than my own death ever could.

CHAPTER 33

AUGUST

Constance had done what she promised. She slid the ledger into my hand, the calfskin still warm from her body heat. Ink bled where her perspiration had smeared one margin—but the Osney Power Order of June 1893 was clear as sunrise.

My pulse misstepped. Lily hadn’t spun lies—she’d quoted the minutes of an empire already in motion. She had been telling the truth. She was from the future.

“Thank you, Constance.”

Her finger hovered as though she might reclaim the book. “Anything for you.”

I drained the rest of my drink, setting the glass down with deliberate calm.

Constance’s slippers scraped the flagstones as I left her behind the column, breath fogging in the draught. I tucked the ledger inside my jacket.

I moved back to the table where Lily sat. “Walk with me.” Not a question; pitched low so only she could hear.

We threaded past chandeliers and murmured politics. Our footsteps echoed off stone, steady as a heartbeat, until the gallery opened onto the terrace and night air knifed between us and the revelry.

Only then did we stop, frost-bright moonlight hemming the silence.

“Your father. The Unraveler. You never told me.”

I'd known this would come eventually.

“Would it have changed anything?” I asked quietly.

“Changed—” She turned on me, eyes blazing. “I've been living in his house. Under his roof. While—” Her words caught.

“You're not living in his house. You're living in mine.”

“Don't.” Her hands trembled. “Don't pretend there's a difference. You're his son. His hunter. He built you piece by piece.”

The words landed like blows, each one true enough to sting.

“Yes,” I said. “He made me. Raised me. Trained me to hunt Weavers without question.” I stepped closer. “And for weeks, I've been lying to him. About you.”

She stilled.

“Why?” The question was barely a whisper.

“Because—” I stopped, the words caught in my throat. Because she intrigued me. Because I couldn't watch her be erased. Because she'd gotten under my skin in ways I couldn't explain. Because choosing her over my father's expectations was the first real choice I'd ever made.

But I couldn't say any of that. Not here. Not with my father's eyes somewhere in that ballroom.

Instead, I reached into my coat and withdrew the ledger. “A document surfaced tonight. From a London engineering firm. Plans to bring electricity to Oxford by summer.”

Her breath caught.