I continue to plead a headache so that I am able to avoid having to dine anywhere with Louis or indeed with Mama. Mrs. Jessop has a light supper sent up to my room on a tray, but in truth I have little appetite. The sight of the poacher’s pie, pickles, and crusty rolls all lovingly and lavishly prepared by Cook earlier in the day starts up the gripe of guilt in my stomach. How is it that I have so much when others must go to their beds hungry? And is Mama right, after all? Am I a hypocrite? It has taken a war to wake me from my privileged slumbers. And yet my engagement to Louis continues. I never told him of my feelings for Bram. I should have, perhaps. Should have offered him the chance to turn me away, knowing that I had been in love with someone else. I fully intended doing so. But then, after Freddie, well, it seemed to matter less, where my affections lay. Bram had gone, and I had let him go. There was a moment when I thought I would find him, find him and tell him what had happened. Attempt to explain the inexplicable. Ask him to forgive me for letting him down. Make him see that I loved him still. Love him still. But the events of that terrible night served to remind me of how difficult it would be to make my life with a non-witch. Of how much danger—constant danger—Bram would be in if he were to be with me. How could I hope to protect him? How could I ever convince myself I could keep him safe when I had so utterly failed Freddie?

And Louis had nearly died trying to save my brother. Trying to undo the harm I had caused. And Mama, poor Mama. She has so little left to light her dark existence now. The prospect of my marriage to Louis is some small crumb of comfort that it is within my power to give her. And yet I put off and put off and put off the wedding. So long as this dreadful war lasts no one is able to press me on the matter of a date. To celebrate a marriage with all the fanfare and expense such a union would demand—it would be in poor taste, unseemly, simply wrong, when so many are suffering. As long as the war continues I can avoid becoming Louis’s wife.