If Jane could only sleep, then her senses might be more ordered and she would know how to respond; but slumber seemed as impossible as the idea that Mr. Vincent thought of her as his muse. Jane stifled a cry and snagged a fold of glamour out of the ether.

Perhaps if she exhausted herself, she might find sleep. She pushed her agitation into the lines of a birch tree, finding structure in its straight trunk and letting her trembling nerves express themselves in the delicate vibrations of the leaves. Her breath quickened, and Jane turned to giving the birch tree a sister. Reaching for the edges of exhaustion, Jane sketched a grove of trees in the corner. Her blood pounded in her veins, shaking her knees with its pulsing. She wanted to fly from the room, so a flock of doves soared above her birch trees, making her head spin with their flight.

Jane heard a door open in the hall, coming from what could only be Melody’s room.

Footfalls passed her room. What could her sister be doing up when dawn and her departure were yet hours away? Jane thought for a moment of following her sister and confessing her unease, but the fatigue she had so longed for tugged at her bones. Sleep was not far away. Jane reached for another fold of glamour and heard the front door open and shut.

That sound in the dead of night disquieted her and tore the veil from her grasp. She looked out the window and beheld Melody, with a shielded lantern, creeping into the maze; the thin beam of light from the lantern cut through the dark in front of her sister. Of course, with her departure to Bath she must take her leave from her secret lover. Jane stood irresolute for only a moment before she, too, crept out the door, intent on following her sister.

If she could let Melody know that her nighttime excursion was noticed, perhaps she would forgo it, and then Jane would have no qualms about either her own or Melody’s behaviour. In truth, though, she knew that Melody would merely slip out another way and make her appointment in a yet more furtive manner. It was perhaps better to preserve secrecy until the revelation of her presence might truly accomplish something.

Jane slipped down to the ground floor and then out the kitchen door to the garden. Eschewing the Long Walk, Jane made for the side of the hedge. Her breath sounded unnaturally loud in her own ears.

Her memories of fleeing her governess led her to a place where the yew boughs gave every appearance of thick, verdant growth, but had been trained past a missing shrub. It was easy to push them aside and slip through the wall of the maze, entering it at a deeper point than Melody. In this way, using a very different map of the maze than its designer had intended, Jane reached the center of the maze before her sister. She paused before walking to the entrance of the center, listening for any noises within. Footsteps, pacing on the gravel, betrayed an anxious gentleman. Jane could not enter the heart of the maze without his awareness.