“That you’d be sneaking out?” She lit the tip of her cheroot and tossed the match. “Honestly, Thomas, I’ve been waiting for you so long out here I was afraid my waistcoat would go out of style.”

“I just wanted some air—”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, puffing white smoke into the frigid air. “You had that look in your eye. You’re going to go out and patrol alone again. Cousin, don’t be foolish.”

“I have to do what I can, and I’m of better use out there than I am in the drawing room,” Thomas said. “James doesn’t need five of us to make sure he doesn’t leave the house.”

“Thomas, look at me,” she said, and he did. Her blue gaze was steady. His cousin Anna: he remembered when she had worn petticoats and dresses, her hair long and braided into plaits. And always in her eyes a look of discomfort, of sadness. He remembered, too, when she had emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon, transforming into what she was now—a vision in gleaming cuff links and starched collars. She lived her life so boldly, so unapologetically, that sometimes it made Thomas’s stomach hurt a little, just to look at her.

She laid a gloved hand on his cheek. “We are special, unusual, unique people. That means that we must be bold and proud, but also careful. Don’t think you have so much to prove that it makes you foolish. If you must patrol, go to the Institute and ask to be assigned a partner. If I discover that you are out on your own, I will be very angry.”

“All right.” Thomas kissed the palm of Anna’s gloved hand and returned it to her gently.

She watched him with troubled eyes as he scrambled over the back garden wall.

He had, of course, no intention of seeking a patrol partner. He disliked misleading Anna—but this madness of James’s had to end. James was one of the best, kindest, and bravest people Thomas had ever known, and for James to doubt himself like this was painful—for if James could doubt himself like this, what did it mean for those like Thomas, who already doubted themselves so much?

He was determined to put a stop to it, he thought, as he strode out onto Curzon Street, deserted under the moon. He would find the real killer if it was the last thing he ever did.