“Not nearly as much as you.” She grinned wickedly. “I have been stuck in the business of books for so long, I forgot how much fun being a part of a story can be.” She stood, popping a biscuit into her mouth and swallowing it almost whole. “I do not expect you to tell me the truth. I am happy to puzzle over this mystery on my own. As long as you promise not to burn down my house.” She looked at me, her expression shifting from playful to serious with a single movement of her finely shaped black eyebrows. “Please do not burn down my house.”

I matched her sincerity, grateful that she would be complicit in silence. “I promise I have no intention of burning anything ever again. And I appreciate your discretion. I can assure you my intent was only to protect Victor. He was— His work there was the product of an unwell mind. If others were to discover it, it could ruin his chances for future success. I will not let that happen.”

She nodded, pulling another cloak off a hook on the wall and handing it to me. It was worn, older than mine, but soft, and it smelled of ink and dust and leather, my favorite aromas. I felt instantly comforted wrapping myself in it.

“Will you answer something for me?” she asked as we sat in the back of a carriage on the way to the boardinghouse.

“Probably not with honesty,” I said, surprising myself by telling the truth.

“I am going to ask anyway. What is Victor to you that you searched so hard for him and went to such lengths to protect him? Surely he must be more than a cousin. Are you in love with him?”

I looked out the window as we passed the city center, now sunny and bright, as though its nighttime version were a dream best forgotten. Oddly, Mary’s having discovered my secrets freed up my willingness to talk. Normally I kept the truth behind closed doors and heavy locks, letting only careful shadows of it out into the world.

“He is my entire life,” I said. “And my only hope of a future.”

—

Victor left before the dirt had settled over his mother’s grave.

“I will be back when I have solved it,” he promised, pressing his lips to my forehead like a seal in wax.

And then I was the mistress of a house that had never been mine and still was not. I ran the household, overseeing basic management. Judge Frankenstein never gave me funds, always in charge of the budget himself. Madame Frankenstein’s personal maid was immediately dismissed. I was to assume Madame Frankenstein’s role but inherit none of her privileges. I was allowed only the cook, one maid, and Justine.