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together tightly; I felt my own face crumple a bit in distress and realized that I couldn’t talk about this anymore.
    I looked down at my nearly empty teacup, feeling terribly awkward again. Why couldn’t I control my emotions any better?
    “Excuse me.” I stood and left abruptly, descending the stairs and returning to my work in the nursery.
    Later that day, I returned to the fourth floor to restock the pharmacy closet. As I put the bottles on the shelves in the darkness, I felt a firm grip on my wrist.
    I turned around to meet William’s gaze, and I gasped sharply. He kept the viselike grip, leading me silently to his office. Against my will, I followed, promising myself that at all costs, I would be guarded.
    William’s office felt warm and muggy, even though the spring day outside was chilly and sunless.
    Pushing me back against the closed door, he pressed his forehead against my own. His skin felt scalding upon my skin. His curls tickled my cheeks.
    “I am nearly physically ill,” he murmured.
    I trembled, caught up in the spell of his warmth, of having him close to me. I recalled vomiting the previous night. Although I said nothing, I understood our shared malaise.
    He put both of his hands on my cheeks.
    I wanted to surrender. But I felt too bewildered, confused, angry, sad.
    Scared.
    I pulled away a little.
    “Abbie,” William continued. “I do not understand why something I did before I met you matters so much.”
    My bewilderment rose. Although I didn’t listen to her advice most of the time, in this matter, I could not ignore Grandmother’s words. I could not. They echoed in my mind, echoed too closely my own heart’s trepidation. I was inexperienced in love relationships. And William could be so … volatile. Good sense dictated that I should pull away. I removed his hands from my face and stepped away.
    A tear slid down my cheek. “I’m scared, William.”
    His eyes shined, perplexed. “I have never hurt you. I have never been untrue.”
    “What if you tire of me?” I asked. “What if you become distracted? I have never felt this way about anyone. Anyone .”
    “Abbie, I am not my father.” He saw my troubled expression. “Yes”—he ran his fingers nervously through his hair—“I followed him in that one regard. But please, Abbie, no one is perfect. Trust rather in the person I am now. I do not want to be Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I am more constant than that.”
    He pulled me back to him and kissed me.
    Blood rushed to my head, and I, incapacitated, kissed him back.
    Somewhere in the distance, I heard Simon’s office door shut and his steely steps going toward the staircase.
    Be guarded, Abbie.
    “But there is no guarantee of your constancy,” I said firmly, finally pushing him away from me.
    William sighed. “No, there is not.”
    He pulled away and I saw a realization wash over his expression like a wave rushing over sand.
    We stared at each other, unable to proceed. A cord had been severed that could not be repaired.
    Unbelievably, I saw his dark eyes fill with tears before he turned his head to walk to the window, to stare at the dirty, busy street far below. He squinted and shielded his face with his hands as if he had a headache.
    “Goodbye, William,” I said.
    “Goodbye.”
    He did not even turn around.

Seven
    A fter the bath, she went outside in her monstrous form to rest upon one of her favorite tall craggy peaks on the island. She couldn’t stop thinking of that last kill. Immediately after she’d killed the French boy, so many years ago, her keeper had disposed of the body and returned to her in the menagerie. She was feeding one of the dodo birds; Robert Buck had been trying to breed the two birds with no success for some time. All the animals in the large underground room—indeed, it was larger than the entire house itself—were dear pets to her. They were the only living beings she saw most of her days. She made toys for the monkeys and allowed the numerous