I was seven full strides away from him when I heard his boots on the cobblestones, chasing after me.

“If you won’t let me walk you home, take my jacket, or let me call you a cab,” he exclaimed, and I pivoted in surprise. “At least take the umbrella.”

He withdrew the small trinket from his pocket and uttered the charm to return it to its natural size. And when he extended the umbrella to me . . . I accepted it, my icy fingers brushing his.

I didn’t want it. For all I knew, he had ensorcelled it with awareness, and the umbrella would track me all the way home. But nor could I refuse it, not when the rain turned earnest, drenching my hair and blouse in mere moments. Not when he was staring at me with such intensity, as if he feared I would catch a cold and die on him.

“Thank you,” I said, clearing my throat to hide how rusted those words sounded. “That is kind of you. . . .”

“If you think I’m kind, then I’ve fooled you,” he said tersely. Shocked by his admission, I watched the rain drip from his top hat. “I’m no better than all the other nobles at court, and all of us play a game, Miss Neven.”

For one heady moment, I feared that he had seen through me. I thought I might have fractured, due to feeling soft at dinner with his friends. I resisted the urge to touch my face, to ensure my disguise was sound.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said in an abrupt tone.

I left him standing in the middle of the street, keen to be gone. I waited until I was two blocks away before I hailed a coach, grateful to be out of the rain. My mind whirled, off-kilter from the strange words Phelan had said to me.

If you think I’m kind, then I’ve fooled you.

I closed the umbrella and propped it against the bench.

When the coach was three streets away from my mother’s home, I disembarked. And just in case my suspicions were true . . . I left Phelan’s umbrella in the cab.

16

Word soon came of a nightmare, something I had been anxiously awaiting as the days were beginning to pass and no sinister dreams had emerged. I was in the library, watering Phelan’s plants, when he brought the letter to me.

“Do you feel up to collecting a nightmare, Miss Neven?”

I set down the watering can. “Indeed. Am I to go alone, then?”