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She watched me, wary. “I did.”
“Then dig.” The words surprised even me. “Tell me about the Oxford you know. Tell me why Magdalen Road is wrong. Why the fire matters. Give me something I can cross-reference.”
Her eyes widened, bright as sea-glass in the firelight. “You’d believe me?”
“Yes, if I have proof. I will believe you.”
Something flickered across her face—hope or something more fragile. She looked at me like I'd just offered her something precious, something she'd stopped expecting.
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
She paused for a moment. “Come mid-June, Osney’s canal-side streets will glow under electric lamps. They’re switching on the power plant on the eighteenth.”
The words landed with a strange kind of weight.
“Lily, that’s months away. I don’t have months.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue. Just looked at me like she already knew how this would end—and pitied me for it. She’d given me details I could test, dates I could confirm. Facts. That should have been enough. But proof meant consequences I wasn't ready to face.
Because if she was telling the truth about the future, what else had she been right about? The questions she'd asked that I'd tried to ignore. About whether disappearing from records was the same as being guilty. About whether we knew for certain every person we'd hunted was a threat.
She hadn't accused anyone. She'd just asked questions I'd never let myself consider. And if I believed her about electric lamps and altered streets, I'd have to face those questions honestly.
I wasn't ready for that. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
“You should rest,” I said, the words coming out rougher than I intended. “Mrs. Hartley will have left fresh linens in your room.”
I stood, needing distance before I said something I couldn't take back. Before I admitted that months felt impossibly far away not because I didn't have time—but because I wasn't sure I'd be able to let her go when the time came.
She rose slowly, my coat still wrapped around her shoulders. At the doorway, she paused.
“August?”
I looked up.
“Thank you. For tonight. For. . .” Her voice caught. “For believing I'm worth saving.”
The truth nearly escaped—that I didn't know if she was worth saving or if I was just too compromised to see clearly. I locked it down. “Get some rest, Lily.”
She nodded and disappeared into the hallway. I listened to her footsteps climb the stairs—slow, exhausted, safe.
For tonight, at least, she was safe.
I poured myself another brandy and stood at the window, watching the empty street. Tomorrow I'd have to decide what to do about the electric lamps, about proof, about the growing certainty that keeping Lily Whitmore alive was going to cost me everything.
But tonight, I let myself pretend that protecting her and doing my duty could somehow be the same thing. Even though I already knew they couldn't.
CHAPTER 16
LILY
Golden morning light spilled through the window, pooling across the streets below. The bruise on my shoulder throbbed with each breath—a reminder of last night's assault, of August's careful hands tending wounds he hadn't caused. For believing I'm worth saving. The words I'd said to him echoed in my mind.
Still, my thoughts snapped back to the girl. I didn't know how much time I had before Adeline woke and I doubted she'd be thrilled if she found me gone. But if the girl had magic, she might know why Gran's necklace had brought me here and how to get back home.
I just had to make sure no one saw me leave.
