Chapter 9
LILY
The garden was smaller than I expected. Not tiny—there were roses climbing the brick walls, herb beds laid out in neat geometric patterns, a fountain in the center with water trickling from a stone cherub's urn.
But after three laps around the gravel path, I'd memorized every detail.
The jasmine near the back wall. The mint that Mrs. Hartley probably used for tea.
The bench tucked into an alcove where someone could sit and read.
A beautiful cage was still a cage.
But my attention kept drifting to the house itself.
I'd only been in my room. Now, in the garden, I could see it properly. Three stories of Georgian stone, tall windows with ornate molding, a columned entrance that spoke of money and status. The kind of house that would be worth millions in my time.
August Hawthorne wasn't just a hunter. He was wealthy. Connected. The kind of man who had power in this world.
Which made him exponentially more dangerous.
“You're staring,” he said without looking at me.
“I'm observing.” I gestured at the house. “This is all yours?”
“Yes. I purchased it five years ago.” His tone was neutral. “My father prefers I maintain my own residence. Says it builds character.”
“Does your wealth come from being a Hunter or is it generational?”
He didn't speak for a long moment. “Both, actually. My father has always held status. Being the captain of the hunters further supplements that wealth.”
The idea of acquiring wealth on erasure sent ice through my veins. “Please tell me you don't agree with all of this. This mission to erase people from existence.”
“The mission to protect innocent lives from those who would manipulate fate itself. You've spent three years researching disappearances. Did you ever consider that those people might have been dangerous? That their removal saved countless others?”
“Well, have you ever considered that they weren't all dangerous?” I stopped walking, forcing him to turn and face me. “That some of them were just people trying to survive? That systematic erasure based on what someone can do rather than what they've done is—”
“Necessary.” But he sounded less certain than he had a moment ago. “You make it sound like everything I've been taught is a lie?”
“Well, I don't know yet.” I let out a breath that clouded in the cold air. “But history doesn't lie Mr. Hawthorne. People do.” I started walking again, this time with more purpose. I needed distance from the conversation. From this man and an argument neither of us would win.
“This is pointless,” he said finally. “We're walking in circles, having the same conversation in different words.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
He looked toward the garden gate, then back at me. Something shifted in his expression—calculation giving way to impulse.
“A proper walk. Through Oxford.” He saw my expression and continued before I could object.
“With proper supervision, of course. But you need to acclimate to this world if you're going to pass as Adeline's cousin. And I—” He paused.
“I need to see how you react to it. Whether your claims hold up under scrutiny.”
Translation, he wanted to test me. See if I'd slip up, reveal myself as a Weaver or a fraud or whatever he suspected I might be.
But it also meant getting out of this house. Seeing more of 1892 Oxford than just this garden and that guest room.
“Fine,” I said.
“Come on.” He moved toward the gate. “And Miss Whitmore? Try to relax. You look like a caged animal plotting her next move.”
“That's because I am one.”
“Perhaps. But you'll need to hide it better than this when we're in public.”
“I'll do my best.”
Oxford's streets were nothing like the Oxford I knew.
The buildings were similar—that same honey-colored stone, those same narrow lanes and hidden courtyards.
But everything else was wrong. The smell hit me first—coal smoke and horse manure and something else, something organic and slightly rotten that I couldn't quite identify.
No car exhaust. No coffee shops or chain stores.
Just small shops with hand-painted signs and windows displaying goods I didn't recognize.
I tried to walk normally, to not gawk like a tourist. But it was impossible. Every detail pulled at my attention. Lamplighters extinguishing the last gas lamps while milk carts jingle past. A chimney sweep called out his services from the corner, his soot-blackened cap tilted at a jaunty angle.
For a moment, the historian in me studied every detail—the cut of his jacket, the brass fittings on the cart wheels, the particular cadence of his call.
Then despair crashed over me like a physical blow.
I was studying my cage, not conducting research.
This wasn't an academic exercise—this was my life now.
August walked beside me, his hand occasionally touching my elbow to guide me around obstacles or other pedestrians. Each touch was brief, impersonal. But I was hyperaware of them anyway.
The warmth of his fingers through the fabric of my dress. The way his hand fit naturally at my elbow, as if he'd done this a thousand times before. The scent of him, clean and masculine, that hit me every time he leaned close to murmur a direction.
I hated that I noticed. Hated that even as my mind catalogued historical details, part of me was intensely aware of the man beside me. The set of his shoulders. The way his jaw tensed when someone jostled too close. The controlled grace in every movement.
He was beautiful. And dangerous. And responsible for hunting people like the ones I'd spent three years trying to prove disappeared.
“Your thoughts are elsewhere,” August said evenly.
“I'm mourning.” The admission slipped out before I could stop it. I turned to find him studying me with unexpected gentleness. “Everything I was, everyone I loved—they are gone. Or rather, I am gone from them.”
“Not gone,” he said, a careful pause. “Perhaps just displaced.”
“Is there a difference?”
He didn’t answer me right away. The silence stretched, heavy and brittle. Just when I thought he wouldn’t speak at all, he says, “Displacement leaves a door open. That’s more than most get.”
Something in his tone made me wonder if he was speaking from experience. But before I could ask, a commotion erupted ahead.
Two constables dragged a woman across the street, her wrists bound with iron shackles. She was young dressed in rags that might have once been a decent dress. The crowd that had gathered jeered with the casual cruelty of the righteous.
“Weaver scum!” someone shouted from a doorway.
A young man—barely more than a boy—spat in her direction.
I lurched forward instinctively, every part of screaming that this was wrong, that I should do something, say something—
August's hand clamped down on my arm, pulling me sharply into the shadow of a building. His body blocked me from view, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the solid wall of muscle and controlled strength.
“Don't.” His face was inches from mine, those hazel eyes boring into me with an intensity that made my breath catch. “Don't even think about it.”
“They're—she’s—” I couldn't form words through the rage and horror choking me.
“She's a Weaver. Probably caught manipulating fate, or creating illusions, or any of a dozen other crimes.” His grip didn't loosen. “And if you draw attention to yourself right now, if anyone sees you defending her, they'll start asking questions we cannot answer.”
“So we just watch?” The words came out too loud. I tried to pull away but he held firm, his fingers a bracelet of iron around my wrist. “We just stand here while they—”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No doubt. “That's exactly what we do.”
I stared at him—this man with his expensive clothes and beautiful house and cold certainty. This man who hunted people for what they were, not what they'd done. I wanted to hit him. Shake him. Force him to see the cruelty in his words.
“You're a monster,” I said through gritted teeth.
Something flickered in his expression. “Perhaps. But I'm the monster keeping you alive right now. So, I suggest you remember that.”
The constables disappeared around a corner, the woman stumbling between them. The crowd dispersed, already forgetting what they'd just witnessed. Life in Victorian Oxford continued as if nothing had happened. As if a person hadn't just been dragged through the streets like an animal.
My mind did what it always did when reality became unbearable—it retreated into analysis. Primary source, I thought numbly. I am a primary source now.
August stepped back, putting careful distance between us. But the ghost of his touch lingered. The heat of where his body had pressed close still alive on my skin.
“What happens to her now?” I asked, though part of me didn't want to know.
“She'll be taken to the Iron Spire for questioning.” He scanned the street for witnesses, his expression carefully neutral again. “If she cooperates, provides information about other Weavers—she might earn a quick death. If not. . .”
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
“Unraveling,” I said flatly.
“Yes.”
The casual way he said it made my stomach turn. “And you think that's justice?”
“I think it's necessary.” But he wouldn't look at me.
“Weavers are dangerous, Miss Whitmore. They see threads of probability connecting every moment to the next. Most people follow them blindly. Weavers grab them, twist them, redirect them.” He gestured as if manipulating invisible strings.
“A thread that should lead to a successful harvest instead leads to blight. A safe journey home ends in a fatal accident. They reshape reality to serve their desires.”
“I know what happens after systematic persecution, Mr. Hawthorne.” I moved to stand in front of him, forcing him to meet my eyes. “It never ends with just the 'dangerous' ones. It spreads. It escalates. Eventually, you're erasing people for the crime of existing.”
“That's not—”