//CLARA//

The morning drizzle had turned into a relentless, bone-chilling soak by the time I reached Pearl Street.

I replaced my dress with a grey cotton dress Hattie had dug from the bottom of a trunk. It was a drab, shapeless thing. The kind of garment that turns a woman into a shadow. With a dark wool cloak pulled low, I didn’t look like a Guggenheim’s future bride.

I looked like a widow who had run out of tears.

The stairs to Mr. Cromwell’s office groaned under my boots, protesting every step. The air in the stairwell was a thick, nauseating soup of fresh yeast from the bakery below and the iron-scent of wet stone.

I didn’t knock. I didn’t have the patience for it. I shoved the door open and stepped inside, my wet cloak trailing a path of muddy water across his floor.

Mr. Cromwell wasn’t alone.

A man sat across from him—portly, with a face the color of raw beef and eyes that suggested he hadn’t slept since the turn of the century. He was white-knuckling the edges of Cromwell’s desk, his voice a frantic, low-pitched rasp.

"—can’t wait, Mr. Cromwell. The creditors are practically at the throat of my business. If I don’t find a way by the end of the month, they’ll take the house. My wife’s jewelry. Everything."

The door clicked shut behind me, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cramped room.

The man’s head snapped toward me, panic flaring in his eyes. Mr. Cromwell looked up, too, but his reaction was different. It wasn’t fear of the unknown. It was the sharp spike of recognition.

"Miss Thorne."

Damn.

I stood there, a dripping ghost in his doorway. The portly man looked between us, his mouth hanging open like a landed fish. Mr. Cromwell was already on his feet, his hands smoothing his waistcoat in a reflexive, nervous tic.

"Mr. Henderson, I’m afraid our business must wait," Mr. Cromwell said, his voice tight.

"But my wife—the bank—"

"Another time." Mr. Cromwell’s tone was final, the kind of cold dismissal that left no room for argument. "I’ll send a word for you."

Mr. Henderson scrambled for his hat, shuffling past me with his head down. He didn’t want to know who the woman in the widow’s weeds was. He didn’t want to know what kind of trouble required a hood that deep.

Once the latch clicked, Mr. Cromwell turned the key. He leaned against the door for a second, closing his eyes.

"Now. Why are you here, and who have you killed?"

"I need a private investigator," I said, my voice sounding flat and alien even to my own ears.

His eyebrows shot up. "That’s... a pivot."

"I have a relative. Elias Russell." I watched him pull out a fresh sheet of paper, the scratch of his pen the only sound in the room. "I need to know everything. His origin. His work. Every debt he’s ever incurred and every pocket he’s ever picked."

I leaned over his desk, the wet wool of my cloak smelling of sheep and rain.

"Two men came for him last night. They wanted a ledger. They threatened to burn him alive for it."

Mr. Cromwell’s pen stopped mid-stroke, leaving a dark blot of ink on the page.

"Have you been to the police?"

"I can’t."

"Then Mr. Guggenheim—"

"Especially not him. That’s why I’m here." I held his gaze until he was the one to look away. "I need someone who can dig into the mud without getting any on me. Someone who doesn’t ask questions about why a Thorne is interested in a man who lives in a Grove Street attic."

Mr. Cromwell sighed, a long, weary sound that made him look a decade older.

"I know a man. A retired detective. He’s discreet, he’s effective, and he’s ruinously expensive."

"I don’t care about the cost." I reached into my reticule and pulled out a stack of bills, Casimir’s money, or the Aunt’s, I didn’t even know anymore. I just knew it was enough to buy a man’s soul.

Mr. Cromwell stared at the cash. He’d seen me desperate before, but never like this. Never this cold.

"47 Grove Street," I whispered. "Third door on the left."

He wrote it down, his hand steady but his eyes troubled.

"I’ll handle the meeting. You’re too memorable, Miss Thorne. Even in that rag of a dress, you carry yourself like someone who owns the street."

"Just get me the answers, Mr. Cromwell. I need to know what he stole. And I need to know what’s in that ledger before the men with the heavy boots find it."

I pulled my hood back up, the shadows swallowing my face once more.

"Miss Thorne," he called out as I reached for the lock. "This man... Elias. He isn’t just a relative, is he?"

I paused, my hand on the cold brass.

"No," I said, thinking of Gary’s terrified eyes in that wardrobe. "He’s a ghost I’m trying to keep from being murdered twice."

The rain had stopped by the time I left his office, but the sky was still grey, heavy with clouds that hadn’t decided whether to break.

I walked two blocks before I hailed a hack, giving the driver an address three streets away from the mansion. Old habits.

The streets were crowded, the afternoon traffic thick with carriages and carts and people who had places to be. I kept my head down, my hands tucked into my pockets.

I didn’t see the man in the dark coat again.

But I felt him.

Or maybe I was just paranoid. Maybe the threat to Gary had made me jumpy, seeing shadows where there were none.

Maybe.

I reached the mansion without incident. The front door was unlocked as I slipped inside, hung my cloak on the rack, and stood in the foyer, letting the warmth of the house seep into my bones.

"Clara."

I turned.

Casimir stood at the top of the stairs, his shirt open at the collar, his hair still damp. He looked like a man who had just woken up. A man who had spent the morning in bed, waiting for someone to come back.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"I went for a walk."

"In the rain?"

"I like the rain."

He didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, the way his jaw tightened. But he didn’t push.

"Come here," he said.

I climbed the stairs. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

"I missed you," he murmured against my lips.

"I was gone for two hours."

"Two hours too long."

I laughed. It was easier than crying.

He took my hand and led me back to his room, and I let him.

There would be time for secrets later.