She’d be gone. Into Chiswick instead of Chelsea. Drake would be in Spain. A quick close to a short chapter. Do you remember the autumn of 1917, Lukas and Willa would say to each other, when Margot actually had a friend and a beau? Whatever happened to that?

She shouldn’t pity herself. She must be happy for Dot. Happy for Drake, that he would return to the work he loved. Happy for Holmes, that asking for spare change on a street one night had somehow led to a solid position under the Earl of Whitby, a new home, and a woman who loved him.

Margot’s fingers traced the edge of a florin in her pocket. She’d had a role in that, however small. She’d done the right thing even without any numbers to tell her it was the right thing, and she’d made a difference in a man’s life. In her friend’s life too.

Still, she felt the cold as she walked beside Dot. Because they weren’t moving in parallel lines at all. It had looked that way for a while, but now she could clearly see the distance between them widening. Their paths would diverge, not intersect in infinity. Perhaps they had intersected at that one point, the day they met, and had been at such an acute angle that it had just seemed for a while to be equidistant.

Movement caught her eye, a flash of deeper darkness, even as Dot said, “What in the world is—”

And then a scream cut her off. First a masculine one, more a battle cry than a scream. And then Dot’s piercing shout for help.

Margot spun toward the movement, letting her bag fall to the ground, trying to assess the situation that looked like nothing but a blur. A dark-colored coat, a man’s hat, Dot’s flailing limbs.

In one-eighth of a second, the details came into focus: the man’s shaggy dark hair, his trim beard that hid a nearly delicate mouth, curled back in a snarl. He’d materialized from the alley like a specter.

Williams.

She hadn’t seen him in weeks. And never like this. The stoop was gone, as was the distant look to his eyes. Intent gleamed there now. Malicious intent. It glinted wicked and bright off the blade that Williams held aloft, aimed at Dot.

Why? Why would he do this?

A quarter of a second for it all to process. That was all she could afford. Then Willa’s voice in her ear, teaching her how to walk the streets safely at night, alone. “If anyone ever attacks you, don’t try to recoil. Meet them, move into them. They never expect that. Then use their momentum to keep pushing them in the same direction they’d been going. Don’t try to knock them back, especially if it’s a man. Use their strength against them.”