“I understand,” I murmured. “That is an excellent point.”

Letting out a relieved sigh, he relaxed back into slumber. I realized the nurse had entered the room, and was grateful that Victor had not said anything suspicious.

“Good boy. Knows his Bible.”

“Yes.” I stood, straightening my skirts. In fact, that was one of the few books Victor had never found any use for.

—

With the doctor confident that Victor would be lucid within a day and that there was no danger of him worsening in the meantime, I spent the night in the boardinghouse with Justine. I had no secret errands to run, and I did not want any time alone with Mary, lest she think of more questions I would not answer.

Frau Gottschalk was predictably unpleasant. My dreams were worse. I once again awoke in the middle of the night, breathless with the feeling that I had been in the middle of a bleak conversation, pleading for my life. I went to the window with hopes I could work it open for a stirring of fresh air. The loose slat was easily removed, but I could not get through to the glass behind it. I pressed my face to it and looked longingly at the night.

And discovered the night was looking back.

On the street immediately beneath me, wrapped in the black shadows, a figure stood staring up at me.

No, not at me. No one could have known I was behind these shutters.

But the figure did not move. I watched, terrified that moving would reveal my presence. I had been able to put the chute and whatever or whoever splashed from it out of my mind, but now it rose like a specter. What if someone had been at Victor’s laboratory? What if I had nearly killed someone, and the person had followed me here to exact revenge?

But I had not come back here after the fire. I had gone to Mary’s house. So who would have known I was staying here?

Anyone I left the cards with. I squinted, as though narrowing my eyes would increase their ability to pierce the darkness. But I could not make out any features. I could not tell whether it might be Professor Krempe. The figure seemed far too tall for it to be the charnel house man. But it could have been Judge Frankenstein himself and I would have been none the wiser.

There was some strange trick of the darkness, though, a shifting and magnifying of perspective or perception that made the figure loom larger than life. It looked…wrong. The torso too long, the legs bending at not quite the right place. A bulk of chest that spoke not of excess weight, but rather of unnatural power.

Justine stirred, cooing in her sleep. I glanced over to see if she had awakened. When I looked back, the figure was gone.