Berry reached out both arms for him. Before he got to her he began to cry … to weep in wracking sobs … to feel his chest expand with overwhelming joy yet the terror remained that she had been so close … so very, very close … to being forever lost … and might still be, for was this the end of the travail, or might her condition reassert itself? He had no way of knowing, but as he pressed her against himself as to share hearts and her arms locked around his back he thought that for the moment she was returned to him, and pray God it was more than a moment.

Pray God it was a lifetime.

He kissed her full on the lips and she returned the kiss. She shivered in his arms. He kissed her again and smoothed her hair and said the thing he had been yearning to say for so long but had been so fearful of saying: “I love you.”

“I love you,” she answered, and then she began to cry as well, and did ever two souls with such joy leaping in them weep the copious amount of tears that spilled down their cheeks and further dampened the bedclothes?

Doubtful.

After a time Berry looked up at him through her bleary tear-stained eyes and she asked, “Where are we? Where have you been? Where is Hudson … he was with me, I remember. Why do I think I hear someone speaking to me, calling me a different name? And … why do I keep thinking of something that tastes like … well … like dead rats?”

Many questions and more to come, Matthew thought. But praise be to Dr. Firebaugh and praise be to the antidote, no matter how foul its taste.

“Later,” he said. He held her and kissed her again. If he wasn’t bound by the ropes of gentlemanly conduct he would have slipped beneath the sheet and held her body against his own in that way, as well. “You should probably get some more sleep. I’m going to sit over there and just watch you.” He nodded toward a chair in the corner. “May I?”

“You may not,” she said. “Get under this cover with me.”

The antidote, as Berry understood what it was meant to abolish, was delivered for three more days and drunk down without hesitation in the safety and comfort of her own cottage on Redfin Street. Firebaugh informed Matthew that she should still take the antidote for a few more days—just for the sake of completion—but to all intents and purposes the foul-tasting but vital elixir had done its job and she was most happily returned to normal.

On the third night that Berry had left the mayor’s house, two shots were heard on Conger Street.