The equipment would have to be sent along to him, of course. She’d have to find out his business address in Ohio—it shouldn’t be too hard, given the Moore Laboratories were so famous. She ran her hand over the tops of the machines. He must have been very angry with her, to leave them behind.

How could he have left her?

The pain in her stomach increased. He’d said he loved her. Did people just leave people they loved? Probably. No one had ever loved her before, so she wasn’t sure. Or more likely he’d said that in the heat of the moment and, once he’d left, realized she was much too difficult to be worth the trouble. Perfectly sensible decision.

He’d left her. He was gone. Of course he was gone. He was light, and she was bruises and sharp edges and shadows, and people like her didn’t get to have people like him.

She wasn’t going to cry. Not standing in the middle of a haunted house. This wasn’t a gothic novel, after all.

It was just that her stomach really hurt.

“Pull yourself together,” she said sternly, and when that didn’t work she took two deep breaths and looked around for something to distract herself. There, in the corner, some very ugly crumpling plasterwork. She thought it had been modeled on a Grecian frieze: unfortunately by someone who had never actually seen a Grecian frieze. Whoever had decorated the place really had the most appalling taste.

Another stabbing pain. And now her throat was seizing up. She was not going to cry. She was not going to fall down on this disgusting, dusty floor, curl up in a little ball, and sob.

Fresh air, maybe. Yes, that was the ticket. She was going to walk outside, ignoring the way the shadows seemed to be pressing in on her. “Go ahead,” she said. “Pull out your tricks. I promise you, a little see-through noose isn’t going to make my day any worse.”

Her footsteps sounded loudly in the hallway, echoing off the narrow walls with their dark, peeling paper. He’d left, he’d left, he’d left. Would she ever see him again? Would he even want to see her?

Why would he? She’d behaved abominably. He’d had enough of her nonsense, and he’d gone back to New York, or Ohio, and she was going to miss him. Miss him horribly.

One hand on her stomach, she opened the front door, grimacing at the slight damp on the doorknob. She stepped onto the front steps and forced a deep breath of the cold air. It was … surprisingly cold. Bitingly cold. She was so distracted by it she barely even noticed stepping out onto the fresh snow.