I turned my back on the window and its false threats. Ever since Monsieur Clerval’s visit, I had been haunted by the feeling of being watched. Perhaps it was Judge Frankenstein’s new habit of surprising me at meals he had never customarily taken with me. Or the way he seemed to be staring at me whenever I looked up. But there was also the sense that if I simply turned around fast enough, I would catch a face at the window, staring in at me.

I never did.

“I think you probably will be taller someday,” Justine said. Evidently I had hurt Ernest’s feelings with the truth.

“Good,” Ernest said. “I know I will be stronger. And I know how to fight. Victor never bothered learning that.”

“Are you planning to challenge him to a duel?” I asked, laughing. But my laughter stopped when I saw Ernest rubbing the forearm that bore his scar. Whether the action was conscious or unconscious, I did not know.

Ernest looked at me too closely, much the way his father had begun to. “You have been spending an awful lot of time with us. You never used to.”

“Perhaps our time away taught me to miss you.” I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him as if he were still a little boy. “Or perhaps I am just bored.”

“Must be truly bored to spend time in the nursery.” He flopped back down on the couch, his careful posture abandoned. “I cannot wait to leave this house. This stupid house with no neighbors and nothing to do. I will row away across that lake and never come back.”

“Do not say that,” Justine reprimanded with gentle sadness.

Ernest sighed, sitting up again and crossing the room to her. He revealed his lingering childhood by throwing himself into her lap. Justine hugged him tightly and mussed his hair. He had been young when his mother died, but he was old enough to remember her. I wondered if he preferred Justine. I certainly did.

“I will always come back to see you,” he said. “I promise. And I will write you every week.”

“We have worked so hard on your penmanship, it is the least you can do,” she said teasingly, though I could see her holding back panicked sorrow at the very thought of his permanent departure. “But you are not leaving yet! The military can wait until you are grown. Give us a little more time, dear Ernest.”

“I am not going to be a soldier,” William declared, continuing his march of poorly formed E’s across the parchment. Justine was too permissive, letting him use good ink and paper for his practice.

“What will you be?” Justine said, turning her attention back to him and releasing Ernest to go back to lounging.

“A dragon.”

“That is a deeply practical aspiration,” I remarked dryly. “Your ambition will serve you well.”