I squeezed her shoulder with a light laugh. “You make me sound like some sacred celestial being. I’m merely doing what I was created to do, in the place I happen to be. Which is exactly what you convinced me to do.”

We shared a smile.

I made my way back through the walls after Bridget and realized it was mere hours until morning. I climbed into my cot. Metal pipes made tapping sounds as the system rushed to life for the day, working to warm the overlarge space. Through it all, I could not sleep—those nonsensical sounds the man in the tower kept repeating nagged at me.

Hillfaaaa bit her.

Hillfa. Bitter. The sounds were familiar. Something sensible. A code, maybe. I bandied them about in my mind as I struggled to make myself comfortable on the sunken cot. Where had I heard those phrases? Hilfa . . . bit her . . .

No. No!

Hilfe, bitte.

I blinked, memories slamming one over the other of a girl in the alley just outside the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria, when I’d played there two years ago. She had grabbed my arm in a moment I’d never forget, her eyes pleading. Bitte, Hilfe. Hilfe.

Please, help. Help.

I scrambled up in bed, blinking in the dark, weak from lack of sleep but firm in certainty.

Over the hiss of steam and the slap of wet clothing in the laundry that morning, I watched for Dr. Turner and waited. He had promised to change out the chains for leather straps, and I knew he wouldn’t let much time pass before attending to it.

When I saw his lithe figure striding over the dying grass at half past nine, I lowered my head, gripped a metal tub of gray water, and headed toward him.

“Where are you going?” called a voice.

“Dumping water.” I moved without looking up, into the leaf-strewn yard and toward the fence. I dumped it quickly, sloshing it on my woolen stockings and half boots, and turned back, aligning my path with the doctor’s even as I forced myself to stare at my feet.

I hurried my steps and bumped his arm with the tub, fumbling it and letting it clatter to the ground. “Oh! I beg your pardon, Doctor.” I bent to pick it up and so did he. When we leaned close together, I spoke in a terse whisper. “He isn’t hopeless, Dr. Turner. He isn’t even mad. I need to see him. Please.”

He looked at me, blinking.

“The man in the tower. I need to see him again.”

“Impossible. He’s volatile and erratic, and it was foolish to rope you into it.” He gentled. “There’s a reason we keep the brown-gown patients separate.”

“He’s more than a brown gown, you know.” My voice was soft.

He straightened. “Thornhill is here today. And there’s no telling what that nurse saw yesterday.”

“Please—”