She wanted Anna to come down the steps. She wanted to take her hand, here on the street in front of Christopher and Thomas. But the boys were already bidding them goodbye and loping off down the lane, the sound of their chatter and footsteps swallowed up quickly by fog and snow.

“Ari.” Anna joined her on the pavement, the tip of her cheroot glowing as cherry red as her ruby pendant. “Taking a walk?”

“I wanted to see you,” Ariadne said. “I thought we could—”

“Go to the Whispering Room?” Anna blew a smoke ring and watched it drift on the cold air. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. Tomorrow afternoon, if you—”

“I was hoping we could go to your flat.”

Anna said nothing, only watched the smoke ring come apart in pieces on the air. She was like starlight, Ariadne thought: it seemed warm and radiant and near, but was in truth uncountable miles away. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I have an assignation tonight.”

Ariadne supposed she ought to have known. Anna had been clear: nothing in her life, about her life, would change for Ariadne’s sake. Still, she felt a dull hurt, as if she had been struck with an unsharpened blade. “Today,” she said, “when we were in the courtyard—when we were first attacked—you pushed me behind you.”

Anna’s delicate eyebrows went up. “Did I?”

And Ariadne knew: Anna remembered. She herself had relived the moment a dozen times since it had happened. Anna had been unguarded in that instant, the fear on her face real as she thrust Ariadne out of the way and turned to face Leviathan, whip in hand.

“You know you did,” Ariadne said. “You would protect me with your life, then, but you will not forgive me. I know I asked you earlier—”

Anna sighed. “I am not angry at you, nor trying to punish you. But I am happy with who I am. I do not desire a change.”

“Maybe you are not angry with me,” Ariadne said. Dampness had gathered on her eyelashes; she blinked it away. “But I am angry with myself. I cannot forgive myself. I had you—I had love—and I turned from it out of fear. And perhaps it was foolish of me to think I could pick it up again, that it would be waiting for me, but you—” Her voice shook. “I fear it is because of me that you have become what you are. Hard and bright as a diamond. Untouchable.”

The cheroot burned, disregarded, in Anna’s hand. “What an unkind characterization,” she said lightly. “I cannot say I agree.”

“I could have managed with you not loving me, but you do not even want me to love you. And that I cannot bear.” Ariadne laced her cold hands together. “Do not ask me to come to the Whispering Room again.”