And then, quite unexpectedly, I saw another face I knew, half-hidden by a grey cocked hat. He had been sitting at a table near the door, but when he saw me notice him, he stood and pulled the collar of his grey coat close, and slipped out of the tavern like a shadow.

I excused myself from Gordon’s group, explaining that I meant to take some air. It was no lie. The pipe smoke hung like layered webs within the room, and while the company and warmth were welcome, I felt the beginnings of a headache from the wine and noise and staleness of the space.

Outside, the night was clear and cold, a perfect half-moon hanging in the sky, with all the watching stars to serve as sentinels. I could see no one in Steell’s Close nor in the High Street, though I looked in both directions, but I knew he could not have gone far. I also knew it would be best to face him now and get our meeting over with, instead of always wondering when it was going to happen.

There was silence tonight at the front of St. Giles’s, and the dark, shuttered Luckenbooths held their own secrets. My footsteps rang hard on the stones of the street as I passed them all by.

Though the shadows lay thickly as always at the head of Forrester’s Wynd, there was nobody there, either. And there was no candle shining tonight from Lily’s window.

My mind had barely registered that fact before I’d started up the turnpike stair toward her door.

It was not, in looking back, the wisest thing to do. The hour was late, and I was not the only person looking for that light who knew its meaning. But I acted on pure impulse when I saw that darkened window, thinking only that the candle’s absence meant something was wrong.

A troubling play of possibilities ran through my mind as I went up those stairs, and when I reached her door and found it had been left unbolted and ajar, I feared the worst. I drew the whinger from its scabbard as I stepped inside her lodgings.

All was silent. There was little light to see by, save the moonlight coming through the windows, for the fire in the hearth had burnt too low to be of any use.

Lily spoke up quietly. “I’m here.”

The oath I swore could not be helped. I closed the door securely. Slid the bolt home. Sheathed my blade. “Why would you be so careless as to sit with your door open?”

Lily could have answered that I had no right to chastise her, but she did not. She only said, “I knew that it was you upon the stair. I saw you.” She had dragged the cushioned chair close by the window with the candle, and was sitting curled up on its seat just far enough out of the light that she would not be seen, while she yet had a view of where the High Street met the wynd below. She would, indeed, have witnessed my approach. “You often take your walks this time of night,” she added, and I lost my irritation then, because it caught me strangely in my heart to think she might have sat here watching for me.