The snow was wet and cold underneath her, and the wind swirled around her body, cutting through her thin dress like it didn’t exist. He was behind her, and she had to run, even though she knew for sure she’d never escape him.

She was in the woods, and this time she knew exactly how it would end—with a silver knife glinting in the moonlight.

Still, she ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was over.

The thought kept repeating in his head: It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over. As he walked through the front door: It’s over. As he checked on his experiments: It’s over. As he continued the modifications on a piece of equipment: It’s over.

When the knife he was using slipped and skinned his thumb, adding another cut to the scabbing one on his palm, he winced and thought: It’s over.

He was hollowed out; tired and hollowed out. In the weeks he’d pursued her, he’d never really allowed for the possibility that they wouldn’t have a happy ending. Buoyed by what he now recognized as cheerful arrogance, he’d seen their future together stretching forward decades. He’d seen them together as old people, cuddling on a sofa in front of a fire.

He’d been a fool. Their future had an end date, written in bright red letters, standing twenty yards high. He’d see her until his work at Liefdehuis was over, and that would be it.

A poem he’d memorized in school came back to him with sudden force. Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part, it had gone, Nay, I have done, you get no more of me.

He heard the door open behind him, clattering as it banged against the sheets of metal sitting next to it. His body jerked around before he was even conscious of what he was hoping to see, but disappointment flooded him when it was only Henry, adding a layer of disgust to his mood.

“I’m working,” he said.

“I can see that,” Henry said. “I thought you might like to know Maggie was arrested this morning.”

Sam dropped the knife and turned to look at Henry properly. The man looked exhausted, his face pale and his clothes lacking their usual crisp perfection. “What?”

“At one of those suffrage marches. The sooner your parents get her out of the city the better, in my opinion.”

“But—why did they arrest her, if she was just marching?”

“Marching for suffrage is often more than enough to get a woman arrested.” Henry rubbed his face, as if he was trying to increase his energy through friction. “But in this case she chained herself to the railing in front of City Hall. They had to cut the chains with a bolt cutter to drag her off.”