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same. Has he interviewed you?”
    “No,” I said. “I wasn’t aware he planned to. Has he spoken with you?”
    “I’m sorry to say he has,” Maddy replied, “and I’ve realized all my fears are coming true. He’s out to tarnish Nathan’s name.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “He’s digging up all sorts of facts, prying into everything. Then he’s reporting it all to Lord Ashe.”
    “Oh God,” I said. Nathan’s father was one of the staunchest members of the House of Lords, superior in upbringing and rigid in his systems of rules and philosophies. If he learned even half of what his son had been up to since Nathan returned from the Crimea, it wouldn’t matter if we found our friend or not. Nathan would be disowned—stripped of his inheritance and left to live on the street.
    “You must be prepared, when the time comes, to speak appropriately to Inspector Vidocq,” Maddy said. “You’re easily intimidated, and I don’t want you telling him too much.”
    “I haven’t even been called upon,” I said, the idea of being questioned by the inspector already making me nervous. “I doubt that I matter much to him.”
    “Not so,” she replied. “Vidocq seems quite interested in you—in both of us, actually. The nature of our relationship with Nathan has come under some scrutiny. The inspector seems to think the friendship unnatural.”
    “Well, it is unnatural in some respects,” I said. It felt good to be honest about this.
    “I’m only asking that you watch yourself, Jane.”
    “Of course,” I said.
    “And don’t touch the inspector. Don’t offer your hand. We wouldn’t want his tie pin to start singing lullabies to him.”
    “That isn’t funny,” I said.
    “It wasn’t meant to be.”
    •   •   •
    As I was leaving La Dometa, Maddy said, “When I find the key to my treasure box, Jane, I promise I’ll show you the necklace. I’msorry if I seemed abrupt earlier. I’m just—well, I’m beside myself. It’s been weeks, and we’ve heard nothing.”
    “I’m sure we’ll have some information soon, dear.”
    “Do you think so?”
    “I do.”
    I did not kiss her cheek in parting. I knew Maddy wouldn’t appreciate my skin against her own at that moment. Even a brief transference would be too much for her.

CHAPTER 5

    A s I walked slowly back to Stoke Morrow, I focused on the silence of Hampstead Road. There were no carriages or merchants’ carts, and I found myself alone on the isolated lane where tall willow trees provided shade. The cool of the air felt good against my skin, and I stroked the white feverfew gathered at my wrist. I’d learned once from a physician friend of the Lees that this medicinal flower, when consumed, was known to reduce the size of blood vessels in the human brain. It muted the symptoms of headaches, and it seemed to have a similar effect on my talent. Yet even feverfew could not quell my thoughts of Nathan Ashe. He’d known how to upset me, and thinking about our experiments together made a flush rise in my cheeks. I’d worked against losing control with him, yet in the end, I’d lost that battle. The image of the creature making its way through the painted trees lingered in my thoughts, and I wished, yet again, I had some further possession of Nathan’s to experiment with.
    When Stoke Morrow, black and crumbling, appeared on the horizon, I did not want to return to it. The house looked, for all the world, like a prison. As a child, I sometimes fantasized about simply slipping away and walking forever on the open Heath where no man-made object could trouble me. These fantasies became more pronounced when I reached my teenage years. A series of tutorscame and went, never able to completely explain the reason for their departures. Some said I was not teachable. Others said I had a disease of the mind, and I was attempting to infect them. I wanted to punish those tutors as I punished Miss Anne, but I knew they were too intelligent to stand for it. The