//CLARA//

Two days had passed since we returned to New York.

The mansion felt different now. Emptier. Colder. Even with servants bustling through the halls, even with fires crackling in every hearth, the place had lost something I couldn’t name.

Or maybe I had lost it.

Casimir had disappeared into his study the moment we arrived. I heard the door click shut from across the hall. He hadn’t come out. Or if he had, he’d timed it perfectly to avoid me.

I’d been cooped up in my room. I told myself I was catching up on rest. I told myself I needed space to think. But the truth was simpler and more pathetic. I didn’t want to run into him.

I was reading—or rather, staring at the same page for an hour—when a knock came at my door.

"Come in."

Higgins stepped inside, his face as impassive as ever. "Miss Thorne, you have a visitor. Mr. Whitfield."

The book slipped from my fingers.

I was on my feet before Higgins finished speaking, smoothing my skirts, tucking loose hair behind my ears.

"Tell him I’ll be down in a moment."

I nearly tripped over my own skirts. The Linotype. The letter to Mr. Chamberlain. How could I have let the drama of my own heart make me forget the revolution we were trying to start?

I scrambled downstairs and found Oliver in the receiving area, looking decidedly out of place among the Louis XIV furniture.

"Oliver," I breathed, catching his attention.

"Eleanor." His face broke into a grin. "You look..."

"Terrible? I know." I grabbed his arm. "Come on. The drawing room. We can’t talk here."

His gaze darted around the hallway. "Is your aunt—"

I thought for a second. I’d been so isolated I didn’t actually know if the ghastly spider was lurking in a corner.

"I haven’t seen her. But don’t worry, I won’t let her bite you."

He chuckled, the tension breaking just enough for us to sit. But then his face turned serious.

"Eleanor, why didn’t you tell me sooner?"

"Tell you what?"

"Mr. Chamberlain," Oliver said, his eyes bright. "He’s written to me. He’s foregoing the legalities with the Linotype. He’s speaking to the investors again. He received a letter from your uncle and he’s reconsidered everything."

The air left my lungs. He did? That means the Linotype is back in business?

I squealed. Without thinking, I jumped up and threw my arms around Oliver, laughing for the first time in days.

Oliver stiffened, then laughed, gently pulling back.

"Wait... so you didn’t know? I thought you were the first one to be told. The letter came days ago. When you didn’t write, I thought... well, I thought I’d better check if you were even alive."

The smile stayed on my face, but it felt brittle. He didn’t tell me. He knows how important this is to me, but he chose not to tell me. I wanted to lash out, but I kept my composure and smiled.

"No. I wasn’t informed. It must have slipped his mind. You know him. He’s a busy man."

Oliver’s brow furrowed. "But he always made time for you."

That hit me like a shit ton of bricks. My chest ached with a sudden, sharp pressure, but I forced a laugh and quickly diverted the conversation to the warehouse, to the factory, to anything that wasn’t the man upstairs.

After Oliver left, I stood in the hallway for a long time.

That’s it. It has been long enough he’s avoiding me.

I gathered up my contemptuous courage and marched toward Casimir’s study. I didn’t knock. I threw the door open and barged in.

The room was thick with the scent of expensive tobacco. Casimir wasn’t alone. He was leaning over a desk with a man whose face looked strangely familiar from the papers.

They both froze, staring at me. Casimir was the first to break the tension, clearing his throat, his expression unreadable.

"Mr. Edison," Casimir said with clinical rumble. "This is my ward, Eleanor Thorne. My late brother Alistair’s stepdaughter."

I felt the floor tilt. Edison? Thomas Edison?

The man who would light the world. The man who—I was staring. I closed my mouth.

The inventor tipped his head, acknowledging me with a distracted kindness.

"Miss Thorne."

I couldn’t speak. I just stood there, stunned, while the two men exchanged a glance.

"I should go. It has been a pleasure, Mr. Guggenheim. We shall discuss the arrangement for the proposal once you’ve reviewed the figures."

"Of course."

They shook hands.

Mr. Edison turned to me, nodded once, and walked out. The door clicked shut behind him.

Holy shit! I can’t believe it.

My mind was still reeling from the man I had just met. Silence filled the room. Neither of us spoke.

Casimir reached for a silver case on his desk, pulling out a cigar. He struck a match, and I watched the end of the cigar glow a deep, angry orange, casting shadows across his face. He had always smelled of it, but I had never actually seen him light one. Not until now.

Under any other circumstances, I would have been repulsed. I’ve always hated the habit. It’s a filthy, arrogant vice that stains the fingers and ruins the breath.

But as I watched him... God, I was a hypocrite.

The man could have sat there and smoked an entire tray of cigars, and he would still look like a goddamn masterpiece. It was a new kind of hot I wasn’t prepared for, making my stomach do a slow, treacherous flip.

He didn’t look like a gentleman then. He looked like the monster I knew he was hiding.

"What," I said, my voice trembling, coming back in a rush, though I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or the sight of him, "was Mr. Edison doing in your study?"

"That is not your concern."

The words were muffled by the cigar clamped between his teeth.

"Not my—" I stepped closer, my fury finally snapping. "And Mr. Chamberlain’s letter? Oliver was just here. He told me. You’ve known for days that the Linotype was safe, and you didn’t say a word. Why?"

He exhaled a stream of smoke with nonchalance.

"Must have slipped my mind. I don’t think it would matter."

"You know it would matter to me! How could you not know that?"

"You had a prince to entertain." His voice was flat. Dismissive. "I didn’t want to burden you."

I wanted to scream. Instead, I pointed at the door where Mr. Edison had disappeared.

"What did he want? A partnership? A sponsorship?"

Casimir took a long drag from his cigar. Held it, then exhaled.

"His latest invention. Electricity. He needs funding."

The birth of the modern world.

"Say yes," I blurted.

He frowned. "It’s a complicated risk."

"So was the Linotype." I countered. "If I hadn’t taken that risk, the printing press would still be stuck in the dark ages. This is the same. This is the future."

Casimir stood up slowly. He took the cigar from his mouth, holding it between his fingers. He looked at me then with eyes that were cold, dark, and utterly vacant.

"Don’t you have a prince to write to?"

The air left my lungs. I opened my mouth to retort, to tell him that Felipe was a ghost compared to the man standing in front of me—that I’d fallen into a pit of a bottomless, black abyss and I had no earthly idea how to climb back into the light.

I wanted to tell him that I—

The words clawed at the back of my throat, three syllables of total surrender.

But he didn’t let me speak anyway. He stepped into my space, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. My skin hummed with the proximity.

I expected him to shout. I expected him to wrap his hand around my shoulders or my throat—to finally, finally touch me. Roughly. Violently. Anything to prove he still felt the same friction that was currently setting my blood on fire.

I was practically begging for the bruise.

Instead, he took a long, deep drag of the cigar.

He held the smoke in his lungs for several heartbeats, his eyes locked onto mine with a predatory intensity that made my knees weak. I braced myself, sure he was about to exhale right into my mouth, a dark baptism of nicotine.

At the last second, he angled his head just slightly.

The smoke billowed out in a thick, grey plume, missing my face but brushing past my ear. The heat of it was visceral. Hot, dry ghost of a touch against my skin. The smoke drifted between us, a heavy, acrid curtain that blurred his features and forced me to break our stare.

It was worse than a slap. He was right there, but he had just put a wall of ash between us.

My eyes stung, and for a second, the tears almost won.

I refused to let them fall. I stood my ground as the smoke began to dissipate, revealing the man who was currently breaking my heart with clinical precision.

"I hate you," I whispered.

The words tasted like his tobacco. Like venom.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. He just stared at the spot where the smoke was still curling in the air.

"It’s late, Eleanor. Go to bed."