“We have to run, darling,” Cilla had whispered, smiling despite the tears in her swollen eyes. “Don’t be afraid. A whole world of fun and games is ahead of us!”

Little Cecilia had not liked the sound of that, but she’d obeyed. They had fled across the moors, their dark cloaks swooping, the moonlight plucking at them with long, ghostly fingers. If Morvath had seen it he would have run after them with pen and paper, begging them to describe their emotions as they went (and then dragging them home). But Morvath had been hunched over a glass of brandy in his study, feeling sorry for himself, and by the time he realized they had gone and made chase, it was too late. “We’re safe now,” Cilla had promised as they made their way to London and Miss Darlington . . .

She had been wrong.

Two years later, on a sunlit field in Greenwich, as Cilla blew dandelions and Cecilia danced laughing after them, Morvath had finally caught up.

“Run!” her mother had cried then too, much louder and wilder than before. So Cecilia had run again, run alone into a world that held no more fun and games, at least not until she met a half-Italian pirate with a sweet, wayward smile. She’d run until Miss Darlington found her crouched shivering behind the Greenwich Observatory, seeing nothing but her father’s sword falling and her mother’s fragile white wishes rising . . .

And Miss Darlington had enfolded her in calm, strong arms.

She gasped, opening her eyes, desperately shoving memory away.

A hundred mad birds stared at her.

Blinking groggily, Cecilia realized she was in her old childhood bedroom. The yellow wallpaper, teeming with green and orange cockatiels, seemed to bulge and shrink as her vision adjusted. The dolls lined up along shelves leered at her. Cecilia turned over in the bed—

And found a young man seated at the bedside, watching her hungrily.

“I beg your pardon!” she admonished him, sitting up and reaching for a knife that was no longer up her sleeve. Nor in her garter belt. Nor under her waistband.

The young man leaned forward, his mustached smile slithering toward trim black sideburns. Cecilia moved as far from him as possible without falling out of the bed.

“Cousin,” he said. His voice was as silky as oil on water. “I’ve been guarding you whilst you lay here the past two nights like Sleeping Beauty, deep in a forcèd slumber, your innocence dependent on a hopeful awakening.”

Cecilia stared at him.

“You are,” he said, pressing a hand against his breast, “as lovely as I ever dreamed, as dew bright and morning soft, with buds of womanhood unfurling in your eyes.”

“What?” Cecilia said.

“You are a melody in form, a promise made real by the—”

“Who are you?” she asked. Her abruptness sliced through his effusions and left him silent, mouth agape. She watched as he regathered his superciliousness and slid it over his thin, jutting face. He was all gloss, from his slicked-back hair to his large, polished teeth; and yet, Cecilia noticed a scab of fear deep inside his gaze.