He’d won. The bearded little clergyman had won—against Dr. Thornhill. Although I had the fearful sense that Thornhill, in a way, believed he had won too.

I sat on the familiar stool, Harford’s pleased face nearby, and lifted my arms that were heavy with metal chains.

“The shackles, Dr. Thornhill?”

“They will remain. Unfortunately they are necessary.”

Harford raised his eyebrows but said nothing else. “By the by,” he whispered, leaning close to my ear as Thornhill turned away, “I’m terribly sorry it has gone this far. It was never meant to.”

I stared at him, incredulous. Shocked. He had done this? He was the one who’d set me up? “How long do you plan to keep me here?”

“Unfortunately, I do not have the means to get you out.” He looked strained. Remorseful. “As I said, it’s gone further than I ever intended.”

I forced myself to breathe.

“And . . . about Beauchene. Terribly sorry for your loss. The world will feel it keenly.”

I stiffened on that stool, flooded with horror. Marcel, dead? “When?”

His eyes widened. “You did not know?”

I turned back to the pianoforte, looking over the familiar strings and soundboard as they began to blur. I’d misheard. This couldn’t be right.

“It was summer. There were articles in all the newspapers. He was rather a well-known figure in the world of theater.”

Months ago. Horror socked me, tidal waves of it pummeling me. Drowning me. I pressed my lips together and stared down at the keys, those perfectly even rows that were the same as every other pianoforte I’d played for my entire life. I could play Mozart—no, my hands wouldn’t stretch far enough apart. A Schubert waltz? I strained against the shackles until I trembled.

“Perhaps you’d like me to find Nurse Branson—I believe she played in her church as a girl.” Dr. Thornhill spoke up from his spot a few yards away. “Since it seems this patient is unwilling . . . or unable to play.”

I despised the man. Despised Harford for somehow manipulating me into this position. Too far, he’d said, as if he meant to destroy my life only a little bit instead of all the way.

I had missed Marcel’s funeral mass. The burial. He was already in the ground, and I couldn’t say goodbye. Because of Harford, who’d somehow lured me here, and Thornhill, who kept me trapped. My heart hammered with a sense of claustrophobia, of the walls of that dark larder that locked from the outside, closing in on me, on Bridget. I could do nothing about it. Nothing, but jump and do bidding like a trained monkey. Thornhill eyed me from the right, Harford from my left, expectation on both their faces.