Chapter Twenty-One
The Klonimus’ workshop had taken on a thicker kind of quiet—the kind that settled once the brothers arrived. They moved with purpose, sleeves shoved up, tools in hand. No fanfare. Just the slow clink of metal, the thud of wood against wood. The day had begun.
Felix paced the floor. The same three boards underfoot gave a faint groan with every turn. He didn’t change his route. Let them speak.
Above the hearth, the brass clock ticked with the patience of someone watching him waste time. Each second, a door closes.
“I just wanted to ask about your inquiries before I leave,” he said, shifting Lilly against his chest. “First patient’s at nine.”
“I know,” Raphi said. “I waited.” He nodded toward the nearest chair. “Sit down.”
Felix stayed where he was. He didn’t need to hear the words. Raphi’s voice had already dropped—low, careful. Bad news wore that tone like a coat.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There’s no central record.
No registry. A woman can disappear here just by avoiding the synagogue.
And if she doesn’t marry under our rites, she leaves no trace.
Parish books list only heads of household.
Governesses? Companions? They don’t exist unless someone names them. ”
He looked up, jaw tight. “Maisie wouldn’t hide from me.”
“Not from you,” Raphi said, his voice even. “From men like List, and there are plenty like him, from the law. If she needed to run, she’d leave pieces behind. Enough to start over.”
He tapped the table twice. “She wouldn’t need much. Change one letter—Maisie becomes Mary. Morgenschein becomes Morning. Shine. To the world, she’s a distant cousin, or a nursemaid. The kind of woman who stays polite, keeps quiet, and doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Felix’s gaze dropped to the pages on the table—letter after letter, address after address. None of them was written in her hand. None of them hers.
Ghosts on paper. The phrase landed hard.
Raphi kept going. “You have to ask the one question you don’t want to. What if she doesn’t want to be found? After the riot, would you have left a message behind? I wouldn’t. Not when a knock at the door could end everything.”
Felix blinked. His eyes stung.
He remembered the broken windows. The blood. How silence had become the only response when his parents were beaten to death and when Alfie…
Raphi leaned forward, quicker now. “If she’s staying with someone, she’s off the map.
But the map isn’t where we’ll find her. We look in the ledgers that run alongside: tailors, coachmakers, booksellers, apothecaries.
She may be gone from the records that count names—but not from the ones that count coin. ”
Felix looked up. “Then we trace the transactions. Not the people. She touched the world—she left fingerprints.”
“We’ll need access,” Raphi said. “Most won’t let us in.”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Then we search for the shape of her life. That’s all we’ve got.”
Felix stilled. Let it settle in his chest. He held light little Lilly in his arms, her tiny breath steady against his ribs. If Maisie had chosen to vanish—if she’d stepped sideways into another name—he’d still find her.
He turned to Raphi fully.
Raphi’s hand landed on his shoulder. Solid. Kind. Too much.
“She’s not listed in Vienna,” Felix said, voice steady now. “Or London. Or Paris. Not in Prague. Or Edinburgh. Or—” He stopped himself. “She’s somewhere else. Just out of reach.”
He exhaled. Deep. Measured.
“We keep looking.”
Five years.
Hiding. Waiting. Or worse—trapped somewhere, needing him.
Felix’s jaw worked as the thought twisted in deeper. If she’s in trouble… if she’s alone and thinks I gave up…
Raphi’s voice cut in, tentative. “Are you sure it’s not time to let go?”
Felix jerked back, the touch like a heat wave.
“You think I haven’t asked myself that?” His voice came out too fast, too raw.
“You think I don’t know how insane this sounds?
Every sane part of me—every logical scrap—says I should’ve stopped ages ago.
And still…” He broke off, the sentence splintering.
“Still, I wake up with her name in my mouth.” And of her in my heart.
He gave a brittle laugh. “I’m going to be the mad dentist of London. The man who’s asked every soul from Budapest to Dublin if they’ve seen the woman who once smiled at him like he was the only man alive.”
Raphi didn’t speak. His mouth tightened; fingers tapped once, then stilled. The silence settled in—not empty, but full. That kind of silence only old friends could hold between them, when nothing said was still something.
“I’ve looked everywhere,” Raphi said at last, voice low. “What else can I do?”
Felix’s shoulders tensed. “Nothing,” he said too sharply.
“No one can.” He exhaled, but it didn’t loosen anything inside him.
“I know it sounds absurd. Every day, I fill hollows with gold. I patch teeth. I mend things. And still—” He pressed his palm to his chest. “There’s this place in me that nothing touches. ”
Raphi ran a hand through his hair, the movement slow. “If you haven’t found her name,” he said, choosing his words with care, “then she’s changed it. And you know what that means.”
Felix turned too fast. “Of course I do.” He slammed his fist against the table. The sound rang out—dull, heavy—bone against wood.
Pain was registered, but only as a background sensation.
“You think I haven’t pictured it? That she married someone else? That she’s living some quiet, safe life under another name in another city—one I’ll never set foot in?” He inhaled, shaky now. “I still love her. I’d love her in a thousand versions of the world. Even if she forgot me.”
Raphi stared down, knuckles white on the chair’s edge.
“You’re breaking yourself,” he said. “Why not… stop chasing? Live the life you’ve built.”
Felix raised his head. There was no heat in his voice now. Only truth. “She is my life.”
He stepped closer. “Maisie’s the part of me that breathes. That works. That hopes.” He paused. “If Laila had vanished—no trace, no goodbye—would you have stopped?”
Raphi’s throat moved with a swallow. His face shifted, just enough.
“No,” he said finally. Barely above a whisper. “Never.”
Felix nodded once. “Then don’t ask me to.”
The words fell between them. Soft. Final. Like dust settling over a gold foil sheet—quiet, but unmistakable.
Raphi turned away. But Felix stayed, facing the scattered tools, the bent wire, the cold cup of tea. The room didn’t feel empty. It felt stalled—like a breath held too long.
The world might keep moving. But he would wait, always, for her.
*
About a twenty minute walk away, sunlight spilled across the drawing room just off Green Park.
Maisie had asked to see her friend Rachel Pearler—no grand purpose, only a restless pull she didn’t bother to question.
She’d run down every practical lead, sent notes to every newspaper that might have taken interest, and now her search for Faivish clung to a thread grown thin with wear. Every day without news tightened her.
She was starting to come apart.
The butler opened the door. Maisie adjusted her grip on Deena’s smaller hand, steadying them both. John bounded in ahead, all elbows and energy, already at ease. Maisie paused at the threshold.
The chambers inside smelled of lemon tart and ripe apples. Warmth met her like a shawl pulled from the oven—but she didn’t step forward. The sounds beyond the foyer—silver on porcelain, voices overlapping—slowed her. Too much comfort that wasn’t meant for her.
She wasn’t here to visit and didn’t want tea. She wanted time to collapse into something she could name.
“This way, madam,” the butler said, bowing. She followed, skirts sweeping softly over polished wood. She had imagined the usual parlor—Rachel cross-legged on the settee, Deena curled at her feet, cold tea forgotten. But they passed down a different hall.
The drawing room opened wide.
Sunlight flared against burgundy damask walls. Crystals swung from a chandelier overhead, scattering color across the white-draped table like a dropped handful of gems. And then—music.
Low at first. A fiddle, a singer, a man at the pianoforte. The notes curled through the room—slow and lush, pulling at the edges of things.
Maisie stopped in the doorway.
The sound swelled, close enough to touch. It filled her chest, leaving less room to breathe.
She had come looking for a distraction. But the music didn’t clear her thoughts—it pressed against them. Thick and ornate.
She didn’t want beauty but stillness. A quiet space large enough to hold his voice but anywhere she turned these days, she thought of Faivish. She could almost feel him. Am I going mad?
By the fireplace sat Eve Pearler, Rachel’s mother-in-law, whom Maisie had only met once in passing.
But even at a glance, Eve commanded a room the way some women wore diamonds—calmly, deliberately, without apology.
She sat straight-backed in a high-back chair, her posture untouched by comfort, surveying the room like it belonged to her simply because no one had challenged her claim.
Children sprawled at her feet, tumbling over pillows. Little Maia, Rachel’s daughter, waved at John, who had already plopped down cross-legged at the front. He looked entirely at home. Eager. Unbothered. As though Maisie weren’t standing frozen behind him, her chest tight with unease.
“Over here!” Rachel called, her voice warm as always. A footman appeared and adjusted a chair. Maisie moved reluctantly, tugging Deena’s hand until the girl wriggled onto a footstool beside her.
Rachel leaned in, her voice pitched low beneath the string’s hum. “They’re from Warsaw,” she said. “Traveling musicians. Eve arranged it.”
Of course, she had. Eve Pearler had a way of making generosity feel like a binding contract. Maisie had heard the whispers: Eve was sunlight. Everything grew around her—but stand too close and you’d burn.
Maisie wasn’t here to be scorched. She needed quiet, not attention.
“They played at the new synagogue, too,” Rachel added.
Maisie nodded. Polite. Tight. Her hands rested carefully in her lap, fingers still. She didn’t clench them, but the effort cost her. Every courteous smile felt like a betrayal—of urgency, of longing, of Faivish.
Rachel’s smile didn’t waver. “Most in London haven’t heard anything like this.”
The next piece began—slower, aching. The fiddle keened. The voice followed, heavy with memory.
Maisie’s pulse thudded behind her eyes.
She’d always hated these Yiddish laments.
Not the language, not the notes—but the surrender in them.
Heartbreak set to melody. She didn’t understand why people turned their sorrow into song and offered it up like incense.
Around her, handkerchiefs appeared—Rachel, Eve, even Deena swayed softly, caught in the current.
Maisie kept her eyes on her skirt. Gray wool. Pressed. Every pleat perfectly sharp. Each note pressed in harder. The lump in her throat rose too quickly.
Lately, it took nothing at all to cry. And the reason—always—circled back to him. Faivish. If she gave in here, in Rachel’s drawing room, in Eve’s curated spectacle, she might not know how to stop.
How many nights had she stared at the ceiling, wondering if he still remembered her laugh? If his voice had changed? If he was breathing free air? Or if she’d been chasing a shadow all this time, while life pushed forward without her.
She reached for her handkerchief.
Rachel took her hand. Gave it a quiet squeeze. A nod that said, Yes, we share the weight.
But her tears weren’t Maisie’s.
The music stopped. Maisie’s head snapped up.
Her breath caught when the fiddle fell silent. A flute took its place, playing a low and eerie melody. Then the fiddler stepped forward. Maisie’s chest pulled tight. Then came the first unmistakable notes.
Tumbalalaika.
Deena clapped softly. “Maisie,” she whispered, eyes wide. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Maisie nodded faintly. She couldn’t speak. The song pierced too close, too familiar, as if the past had found her here in this glittering room, refusing to let her pretend.
She leaned toward Rachel. “Do you know this, too?”
Rachel nodded, eyes still on the musicians. “Everyone does. They play it at simchas.” Celebrations.
But this wasn’t one. Everything around her faded—the damask walls, the rainbows, the hush of polite admiration. All she heard was the melody. Every note was a plea. A memory. A wound. Every note was Faivish.