Her eyes were hard, her fingers dug into my flesh, and a low sound of suffering escaped me. “No,” I whispered. “Please. I must not . . .”

“By the gods, it’s her, isn’t it?” Rebecca’s face drew close to mine, white and cold as a moon. Her mouth twisted in disgust, and in triumph. “I had suspected it, only I didn’t wish to believe it was true, but it is. You love her, Marius, don’t you? The woman you were sent to watch and observe—Lady Alis Faraday.”

Now it was I who clutched at her. “Please, Rebecca. Do not tell them, I beg you. Do not tell the Philosophers.”

She disengaged herself from me. “You pitiable fool.”

I staggered back, gaping at her.

“It is over, Marius,” she said, her voice cool with detachment. “Do not return to the vaults. You will not find what you seek there.”

“You,” I gasped, but horror constricted my throat, and I could say no more. I pushed past her, running out the door and into the night, weaving the darkness around me with my old, familiar skill.

Only it did not matter. I could not hide from them. Their golden eyes pierced any gloom. Rebecca would tell them what I had done, if she had not already. She had been watching me; she had taken the letters. But she had not taken my will to help Alis. I would find a way, with or without the Seekers.

However, that proved harder than even I imagined. They would not allow me near the Faraday estate. I went the next morning, just after dawn, and a trio of Seekers accosted me before I could approach the gate. Richard Mayburn was among them, and Byron.

“Go back, Marius,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You are not to try coming here again.” Then, in a lower voice, he said, “Please, Marius, listen to me. I know you cannot see it now, but this is for the best. Truly it is.”

“What do you know of what’s best?” I spat, breaking free of their grip and vanishing into the morning fog.

That evening I attempted stealth, thinking I could easily creep past them. I had performed similar feats countless times as a boy in Edinburgh. However, either my powers of concealment had fled me, or the Seekers possessed some uncanny ability to see through the shadows I wove about myself. I could not get past them.

Defeated, I returned to my house in the city, reasoning that the Faradays would soon come looking for me. However, days passed without any sign of them, and in time I learned that Byron had gone to Lord Faraday, posing as my representative and saying that I had been recalled to Scotland on sudden business, and would not be returning in the foreseeable future. I cursed the Seekers; they thought of everything.

However, I could be resourceful as well, and though I was being kept from Alis, I could help her yet. I began to make inquiries, venturing into the darkest neighborhoods of the city, asking about taverns that folk frequented, and if there were any that were unusual in some way. This line of investigation revealed nothing, save the locations of some of the most sordid drinking houses in all of London.

Just when hope began to fail, chance renewed my quest. One morning, after another night of fruitless searching, as I walked through one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods, I was recognized by a plain-faced young woman who dared to approach me. Although I did not recognize her, she knew me from the Faraday estate, where she had labored as a servant until a month ago, when she had returned home to care for her ailing mother.

An idea came to me, and I asked the young woman if she knew the families of any of the other servants who worked at the Faraday estate, specifically of the old woman Sadie. She did not, but she knew someone who might—an old aunt who lived a few streets over.

I thanked her and hurried to the house of this aunt. The old woman was suspicious, but a few coins loosened her toothless jaw well enough, and I soon learned the name and dwelling place of a certain niece of the old woman, Sadie, whose last name was Greenfellow.

A visit was paid that afternoon to the niece, who spun wool in a cottage on the fringes of the city. Jenny Greenfellow was pretty despite her middling years and the burdens of a hard life, and after a long look she invited me in. Introducing myself as an acquaintance of the Faradays, I gave her my condolences regarding Sadie’s passing.

“It is kind of you to think of my aunt,” Jenny said, pouring me a cup of tea.

I took a sip. It was fragrant, and tasted like nothing I had drunk before. My pain and weariness receded a fraction.

“You have her look,” I said without really thinking. But it was true. Her eyes were green and bright, as the old woman’s had been.

“Nay,” she said, smiling, “ ’Tis my brother who takes after her. Everyone says he has her spirit.”

“Your brother?”

“Aye. His name is John. He works at our uncle’s tavern.”

My cup clattered to the table, spilling tea. She stared at me.

“Your uncle’s tavern?” I fought to keep my words controlled. “You mean to say the proprietor of this establishment was Sadie’s husband?”

“Nay, sir. He is her brother. Neither of them ever married. Only their youngest brother, my father, ever did. But he passed away some years ago. Now Sadie has followed, and Uncle is getting on himself. I believe he means to leave the place to John when he’s gone.”

I hardly heard these words. It seemed impossible, yet it could only be so. According to the letters, the folk of the tavern knew how to brew elixirs to restore those of fairy blood, and so had Sadie Greenfellow. Feigning no more than polite interest, I inquired after the location of the tavern, then took my leave of Jenny, though not before giving her several coins for her trouble, which were not refused.

I walked fast through the streets of the city, back toward the river, and for the first time in days, hope—real hope—welled up in my heart.

“Be strong, Alis,” I murmured under my breath. “Endure it only a little while more, dearest. I am coming.”

As dusk drifted like soot from the sky, I turned onto the street Jenny had described and craned my neck, peering at the signs hanging over the various establishments, looking for one painted green.

There was none. The street was dirty and empty, save for a stray dog that slunk away into the shadows. No laughter spilled out of doorways, no cheerful clinking of cups. Night fell.

Perhaps I had passed the tavern in my haste. I turned to go back the way I had come, and that was when I saw him. He tried to leap into the shadows, but he had not my skill. I raced after him, catching his arm, and dragged him into the light of a torch.

“Marius,” Byron said. There was fear in his eyes. What must I have looked like at that moment? Fey and perilous, I can only imagine now, my eyes blazing green as my mother’s had years ago.

“Rebecca sent you, didn’t she?” I said through clenched teeth. “Are you her lapdog then, that you’ll do whatever she bids you? Gods, man, have you no pride at all?”

Anger registered on his usually jovial face, then he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Marius, but you must stop now. Go back to the Seekers. Beg forgiveness. They’ll take you back if they know you’re sincere. It’s not too late.”

“No.” I turned away from him.

He caught my shoulder. “Please, Marius, listen to me. I know you love her, but you have to let her go. It’s for your own good.”

Rage boiled within me, and I whirled around. “My own good? What can any of you possibly know of my own good, Byron?”

I had thought he would lash back at me, but instead he only sighed. “Marius, my friend, would that I was not the one to give you this news. But there is something you must know. I have just come from—”

“Do not trouble yourself,” I said, “for there is nothing you can say that I would wish to hear.” And before he could protest, I wrapped the shadows around myself and was gone.