Mary set down a tray of sliced bread, cold roast chicken, and a wedge of light, nutty cheese. “It is not much, but better than the overpriced swill they cheat the students with!” Before I could open my mouth to ask her about Victor, she disappeared again, reappearing with a tea service. When she had set that down, too, and seated herself, it was finally acceptably polite for me to begin speaking.

“Now, what type of cousin are you in the market for?” Mary’s eyes sparkled. Adoration and annoyance warred within me. In other circumstances, I would want to be her friend. But right now, she was all that stood between my future and my perilous present.

“Victor Frankenstein.”

She paused with her teacup halfway to her lips. “Victor?”

“You know him, then?”

She laughed. “Victor’s voracious buying habits financed my uncle’s book-hunting trip abroad. He left last month, as giddy as a child when he walked out the door. I think my uncle would adopt Victor if he could. He has suggested on several occasions that I should try to marry him.”

I repented of my previous thoughts. I did not like Mary. Not at all. My teacup trembled in my hand, and I set it down lest I break it.

She must have sensed my reaction, because she laughed again. “You need not fear on my behalf. I have more than enough company with my books as it is. I would never survive having to make room for someone like Victor.”

Victor did take up a tremendous amount of room in one’s life. And when he left, all that vacant space buzzed, demanding to be filled.

I did not quite trust Mary still, but I needed her. “Do you know where Victor is, then?”

Mary opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. “I have just realized that I do not know who you are or what you might want with Victor. And the last few months have taught us all to be cautious.”

“What do you mean?” Justine asked. “Our landlady, too, seemed frightened and overly zealous about safety.”

“It is all just rumor. A sailor missing. The corner drunk, there one day and vanished the next. People move, people leave without telling anyone, it happens. Especially among the lower classes, who have less to tie them to one place. But there is a certain undercurrent of…not fear, but concern, that has gripped the city recently.”

“I assure you I have no intention of murdering Victor,” I said, forcing a smile. Making him disappear from this city, perhaps. But if he was such a good client, she would not want anything to lure him away. “He is my cousin. He left us in Geneva two years ago—”

“After his mother died,” Justine added.