I turned my smile on Henry, and he nodded, relieved but still confused. “Go and tell your parents, Victor,” I said, “so they know to plan for the Clervals. I will see Henry to the boat.”

His anger shed like a coat, Victor calmly walked away.

I kept a distance between Henry and myself, though, as we walked back to the dock. We were nearly there when he grabbed my arm and forced me to stop.

“Elizabeth, I am sorry. I am not sure what I did wrong.”

I gave him a light, careless smile. I used smiles like currency. They were the only currency I ever had. My dresses, my shoes, my ribbons—they all belonged to the Frankensteins. I was a guest in them, just as I was a guest in that house. “You punctured Victor’s make-believe. You know how sensitive he can be.”

“I am sorry I kissed you.”

“I am sorry for that, too.” I lifted my fingers to my lips to find my easy smile had abandoned me. “You cannot do it again.”

His face was a portrait of disappointment. “Will you answer something for me? Truthfully?”

I nodded. But I knew I would not, regardless of what the question was. The truth was not a luxury I could indulge in.

“Are you happy here?”

Henry’s simple question landed like blows on my shoulders, and I flinched away from it as I would have from my old caretaker’s fists. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Sometimes the things you say sound more like the lines I write than like what you are actually feeling.”

“What if I am not happy?” I whispered, smiling, though it was a physical pain to do so. “What would you do? What would anyone do? This is my home, Henry. The only one I have. Without the Frankensteins I have nothing. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course I—”

I lifted a hand to cut him off. He could not understand. If he could, he would never have asked me such a stupid question. “But I am happy. What would I choose but this life? You are such a strange boy. We are together nearly every day! You know I am happy here. And you are happy here, too, or else you would stop coming.”

He nodded, worry clouding the open expanse of his face. I could not bear to look at it, so I drew him close in a hug. “I am happier when you are here,” I said. “Never leave us. Promise.”

“I promise.”

With his promise—because Henry was as truthful as I was not—I took him to the boats and waved him cheerfully away. I would have to be more careful with my two boys, with the balance there. I did not want to think what would happen if I lost Victor’s love. Losing Henry’s would simply hurt.