Bollocks.

"Just want to say a quick hello and congratulate you on a job well done. I almost did not see you."

If I stayed silent, would he leave me alone?

He waited, patiently staring at where I was hiding. He wasn't going to give up.

Resigned, I took a breath and opened the hidden door and peeked around it.

"Hello there," he said. He squinted at me. "I assume you're there under that mask."

I coughed, embarrassed, and feeling unsure why I had come out from behind the walls. Curiosity. Idiocy.

Quicker than I expected, he darted toward me and pulled off the mask. His eyes flashed with recognition, and I realized my error too late.

"I thought so. Nice to finally meet you, Iphigenia."

I froze.

He held out his hand and he said the words that, somehow, I almost expected. "I believe you know who I am. I am the Royal Physician of Imachara. My name is Doctor Samuel Pozzi."

23.

THE DOCTOR.

"The Royal Physician of Ellada is one of the most esteemed positions. The doctor, when in residence, attends to the royal family in all of their health needs. Sometimes, the physician is called abroad to oversee important medical developments to take back for the good of the citizens of Ellada. Often, Royal Physicians have known more about the royals than even their closest advisers, and have therefore become advisers in turn."

A History of Ellada and its Colonies, Professor Caed Cedar, Royal Snakewood University.

I stumbled backward. The physician held out his hand. "Wait."

"What do you want?" My eyes flashed to the door, hoping Drystan or the others would come through.

"I want to speak with you. We have much to discuss, do we not?" His voice was clipped and perfectly articulated.

"How do you feel about pretending you never saw me, don't know who I am, and I just go on my merry way?" I hid behind the sarcasm, but the quiver in my words gave me away.

He laughed.

"I'm not out to capture you, Iphigenia."

"That's not my name."

"No, it isn't any longer, is it? Alright then. Micah."

Styx. "How do you know who I am?"

"A little birdie whispered in my ear."

The gears fell into place. "You. You're the second client of the Shadow."

"And which Shadow would that be?" He smiled and tilted his head, as if confused.

"Shadow Elwood."

"Ah, yes. He found you for me. I wasn't planning on meeting you, until I realized you'd be here tonight."

"What do you want?"

He shook his head. "You're not acting very ladylike."

"Never did. Caused my mother a lot of grief."

"The Lady Laurus. It must have been difficult, seeing her here tonight."

"You don't know how I feel." I sounded so surly, but I could not help it. The man who gave me to my parents had appeared out of nowhere like a ghost. Shock knocked all manners aside.

He rubbed the back of his neck with his false hand. "This is not going well."

"You're being enigmatic. I don't like enigmatic people. Why'd you hire a Shadow to spy on me?"

"No nefarious reason, I assure you. I was merely curious to see how you have been doing. You were my charge, and I felt responsible. When I discovered you ran away, I wanted to find out why, and see how I could help."

I narrowed my eyes. Help? He had given me to strangers and never taken an interest in me. Why now?

"Did you find out why I ran away from the Lauruses?" I asked.

"No, I did not."

"They were going to operate on me." I gestured to the general vicinity. "Make me more... marriageable."

His mouth dropped open. "They would not dare."

"I overheard them and left the day before they scheduled it."

"I would never have allowed that."

"Who are you to allow anything? You gave me to strangers and you threw dice with my life." The words came out in a hiss.

"I'd say the dice rolled in your favor, young Micah. You were raised in comfort and safety, until your parents acted against my express wishes. Would you rather I had left you with paupers?"

The anger left me in a shaking rush. I sounded quite the spoiled brat. But I still wanted answers, and I still did not trust the man standing across from me.

I heard the murmur of voices through the walls, coming closer.

"We need to speak privately, and soon," Doctor Pozzi said. "We have much to discuss."

My mouth tightened. "What's so important?"

"It's about your health. I need to make sure you're developing normally."

My breath caught in my throat. Developing... normally? The voices grew loud enough that Doctor Pozzi could hear them.

"Come see me the night after Lady's Long Night. I am staying on Ruby Street. Number 12G. It's the top window to the left of the ivy trellis."

"Oh yes. I'm on the run from the policiers so I'll just wander onto the street where the constabulary headquarters are. If this is an attempt at a trap, it's pretty blatant."

"No trap. This I swear to you. Come now, you've shown you're quite adept at not being seen when you wish." He smiled.

"Not good enough," I muttered.

The doctor grabbed my arm and drew me close to him. I could feel the coldness of his clockwork hand through his glove and my sleeve. He had dark eyes, his skin tanned from countless days in the sun. "I'll leave the window by the trellis unlocked," he whispered. "You have to come."

"Why?" I whispered.

"It's one reason I had to find you. Because you might be ill. You might be dying."

And Maske, Cyan, and Drystan walked back into the parlor to see me fainting into a boneless heap on the floor.

I dipped in and out of consciousness as they took me back to the Kymri Theatre. Up in the loft, Drystan removed my coat and shoes. I was in his bed rather than my own. I stared at the ceiling, focusing on my body. Was I ill? I did not feel as though I was dying. Not so much as a cold had troubled me. I did not know what Doctor Pozzi meant, and I did not know if I could trust him. But I needed answers.

And I had now fainted or nearly fainted three times, when before that, I'd never fainted in my life. A tiny corner of my mind wondered if he was right.

Drystan came in, visibly relieved when he saw I was awake.

"What happened?"

"The Royal Physician."

He frowned. "What about him? What did he do?"

"He's Doctor Pozzi, the man who gave me to my parents. And he was the second client of Shadow Elwood."

"Styx."

"Yeah."

"What does he want?"

I told him.

"Are you going to go?"

"Do I have any choice?" He didn't threaten me, but if I didn't go, he knew who I was, where I worked, where I lived.

I rubbed my temples. I decided not to tell him what Doctor Pozzi had said about my health. I had no proof. And, truth be told, I could not say "I might be dying" aloud.

"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked.

I nodded. "Not into his house, but if you were nearby, it would be a comfort."

"Of course." He settled into the bed, wrapping an arm around me.

"Considering how often we're sleeping in each other's beds, maybe we should push them together."

He made an affirmative noise against my hair. "Tomorrow. Can't be bothered tonight."

"Agreed."

The strong, steady beating of his heart lulled me to sleep.

24.

LADY'S LONG NIGHT "Once there was a prince who was very cruel. The king and queen lived in fear of him. Though nearly grown, he was prone to tantrums and violence. One day he went hunting in the woods and came upon a lovely nymph. He ordered her to be his lover, but she declined. He was enraged and took up his bow, meaning to shoot her.

She laughed instead, and the wooden bow grew leaves and branches and twined around his arms, pinning them to his sides. The nymph showed him his own cruelty in visions, until he wept and begged to be let go. But still she kept him pinned to the forest for a day and a night before making him promise that if he were ever cruel again, any scrap of wood around him would pin him and not let him go.

The prince came back to his land and ordered all wood to be burned and only stone and metal used. This proved to be difficult, but everyone did as he bade. He married a timid princess from a faraway land and was very cruel to her. One day she went into the woods to cry. The nymph found her, and gave her a wooden staff to bring back with her to the castle, asking her to leave it underneath the bed that night. She did, smuggling it into the city under her cloak, and the next morning, she awoke to find the prince pinned to the stone bed, no longer able to hurt anyone."

"The Cruel Prince and the Wooden Staff," Hestia's Fables.

The low gong of the doorbell tolled.

"I'll get it!" I cried, bounding down the stairs from the loft and dashing to the door. I dampened my enthusiasm long enough to check through the peephole that it was the guest I was expecting.

Earlier that afternoon, I had waited for Cyril at the spot I mentioned in my note, breaking into a smile when I saw him walking up the path of the park toward the fountain where I stood. We hadn't spoken properly since he'd come to the circus and tried to convince me to go home. He knew I was wanted by the law, but I hadn't been able to properly explain. So over a cup of coffee I'd told him about what really happened the night R.H. Ragona's Circus of Magic fell. Grief and guilt still hit me in the stomach. I would never forgive myself for the mistakes I had made. I would never forgive myself for Aenea, and for the clowns I hurt.

He'd understood, as I'd hoped he would, though I could tell he hurt for me, and realized that I was, in many ways, a completely different person from the sister he had climbed trees with. He in turn told me about what happened at home a that mother drank more than ever and might be coming to Imachara for the "ladies' spa", the polite phrase for the Fir Tree Hospital for Women, which had two wings: an asylum and a treatment center.

"Is this my fault?" I gasped.

Cyril hesitated. "You may have been the catalyst, but it's not your fault. They knew what they planned to do to you, and they're the ones who chose to lie. Mother and Father haven't been getting along for some time now. It's her idea to go a to make sure she's better before she grows any worse."

He didn't try to convince me to come home with him again a he knew that home was broken. I decided to invite him around to the Kymri Theatre for Lady's Long Night, for levity and to put him at ease about my new life. Hopefully. I knew I could trust him with it a if there was anyone I trusted, it was Cyril, the brother who'd always been there for me.

Now, I threw open the door, dragged Cyril into the hallway and embraced him. He hugged me back. The others came into the foyer to greet us, and then gaped at me.