Chapter Ten
The city still wore its night quiet when Maisie slipped from the dormitory, Faivish’s promise wrapped around her more tightly than her father’s old cloak.
A year, he had said. She had said yes.
One year. It sounded small, like something she could hold in her hand. But already it pressed on her chest like a weight.
By the time she turned onto their street, dawn had begun to silver the rooftops. She expected darkness—shutters drawn, her father still at rest, the practice silent. Instead, light leaked in jagged strips through the curtains of the treatment room, unnatural at this hour.
Her pace faltered. At this hour, light?
Inside, the air struck her. Ash clung sharp and bitter in her throat, as though a fire had died choking.
Ink spattered across the desk in dried rivulets; chairs were knocked aside as if there’d been a struggle.
Papers wrinkled like autumn leaves left too close to a flame.
From deeper in the house came voices—low, overlapping, taut as wires pulled to snapping.
Then a name cut through them like a lash:
“Hofst?tter!”
Maisie stilled in the shadow of the doorway.
Three young men stood in the hall, their coats cut fine, their expressions smug.
She knew those faces—the Burschenschaft men.
One, broad-shouldered, had Hofst?tter’s same sharp cheekbones, though he would not look her in the eye.
They weren’t visiting, they were attacking.
A sound rose from the kitchen—not words, but a groan thick with pain.
She pushed past before they could block her way.
“Father! No!” Deena cried.
Maisie followed her sister’s voice and found them quickly. Father sat bent in a chair, one trembling hand clutching at his chest, his fingers curled into the fabric as though trying to hold his own heart in place. His other hand braced against the table, nails dug into the wood. “Father?”
But he didn’t respond. His breath came jagged, too shallow, each pull like it might be the last. Sweat gleamed along his hairline. At his knee, Deena clung to him, her small face blotched with tears, whispering fragments of comfort that broke apart in her throat.
Beside them stood the Marquess, straight-backed, papers clutched in his fist like a summons. His eyes locked on Maisie’s with clipped urgency.
“Miss Morgenschein,” he said. “It is time.”
Time for what? Maisie’s mouth opened, but before the question formed, her father’s rasp broke through, raw and thinning, “Leave Vienna and go to London to Rachel. She’ll know what to do.”
She dropped beside him, knees striking the floorboards. The Burschenschaft shadows shifted closer, their nearness answering the question her mind refused to finish. This wasn’t illness. It wasn’t chance, but rather a punishment for defying them and daring to let Faivish finish what he had earned.
Her father’s hand flew to his chest. His groan cracked through her like glass.
“Father,” she choked, gripping his wrist, the thin bones hot beneath her palm.
His eyes found hers, dim already, but still fierce with meaning. “Take Deena,” he whispered. “Go to Rachel. I thought I’d have more time…”
The words shuddered into silence as he sagged, the Marquess catching his shoulder before he slid from the chair. Deena cried out, her thin wail piercing the air, and Maisie gathered her close, pressing her sister’s face into her skirts to shield her from the sight.
Behind them, one of the Burschenschaft stepped fully into the kitchen, his smile wolfish. “Should’ve left when you had the chance.”
The Marquess turned on him, voice steel. “Take another step and I’ll have your name delivered to every foreign ministry from here to London.”
The Burschenschaft men paused, then shifted, and finally withdrew muttering something vicious.
Her father’s hand, still warm, slipped from the table and hung there helpless and emptied of its strength. The lamplight blurred; whether from tears or smoke, Maisie could not tell.
She dropped beside him, knees striking the floorboards. The Burschenschaft shadows had crept closer. Their boots scraped the floor. One leaned toward the doorway and sneered.
It struck her in a wave: the man who had taught her every stitch, every careful measure, who had held their fragile world together since Mother’s death—gone.
There would be no voice at her shoulder correcting her grip on the scalpel, no quiet hum of Yiddish lullabies when Deena had fevers.
The silence where he had always been was unbearable, pressing against her chest until she could scarcely breathe.
Her heart howled with the injustice of it.
That men with crests on their folders, boots polished to a glare, could callously snuff out a life like this.
To leave her with a child’s sobs and a wrecked practice.
She bent her head to Deena’s hair, kissed her crown, and promised without words that she would not let her drown in this loss.
But as the room filled with the shuffle of hurried feet and hushed orders—the Marquess speaking to someone she couldn’t see—one thought pierced through the haze of grief, sharp and merciless: If they take our home and the practice away now, how will I keep Deena safe?
And when Faivish comes back—how will he ever find us again?
When the Marquess returned, his voice low and certain. “You’ll go in my carriage and under the protection of my name. Tonight. You’ll be in Italy by tomorrow evening. England within the fortnight. I promised I’d protect his daughters and hope you’ll protect my only heir.”
Maisie looked at him—truly looked. At the man who had stood between them and danger. Who had carried her father’s weight without flinching.
“I’ll care for your son,” she said. “I swear it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”