The hemorrhaging had started just as it had after the kiss that had rent my last heart.

This time, however, the blood flowed from me in more copious amounts. Not only that, but it came with an unrivaled chaos that had arisen the moment I had ended the dream. Just after I had somehow managed not to kill her young man. I’d still had enough of Wrath coursing through me that I might have had she not reminded me of our bargain. The very same she had perhaps been in the midst of planning to break. I had not overheard enough of the conversation to tell. Only enough to ascertain that Mr. Cheney had joined forces with the medium.

And the boy. Though he’d been foolish to challenge me, his words had hit their mark, dealing more damage than he could know.

I had emerged from the dream to find my world and my masks in disarray. And now here I was. Running from her as well as them.

But I had known better than to hope for respite from either. Or that she would not catch up to me nearly as swiftly as my masks.

The metal-frame door of the conservatory shrieked on its hinges. Her sharp intake of breath alerted me to her presence.

“Come no farther,” I commanded.

Miraculously, she stayed put. Most likely not because I had told her to, though.

The roses. Doubtless they had been what had stalled her.

Myriam’s roses. They had returned from the grave. Going one step further than I had, they had returned to life as well.

With blooms too numerous to count, they ambled over the frosted windows of the conservatory. Perhaps, though, these were not the ghosts of Myriam’s roses resurrected. For Myriam’s had varied in hue, ranging in color from the palest parchment to the deepest violet. These roses had instead taken the likeness of the dozen Stephanie had brought into Moldavia—the externally white and internally crimson variety from which I had plucked my last failed heart.

Never again had I thought I would see them in bloom this way. At least, not outside of a dream. Defying the rules of the natural world as well as this unnatural one, they had simply appeared. Suddenly present where there had previously been nothing. Not unlike what I had come to feel for Stephanie. What I continued to feel despite having no heart with which to feel it.

“Go,” I told her. “Return to your room and lock the door.”

Though I disliked frightening her, I understood her fear would do a better job of keeping her safe than I could in my current state. Because I could not recall when and how I had come to be garbed in the long black frock coat and half-scarred iron mask of Tumult. Nor how, after the changing of masks, my hands had managed to keep Wrath’s rings. I remembered taking Stephanie to her room. Leaving Wrath’s mask in her unyielding grasp, I had walked backward out of her quarters, barefaced, watching her as I went.