Chapter 13
AUGUST
The evening air was cool as we stepped onto the street, carrying the scent of coal smoke and distant rain.
The gas lamps had been lit, casting pools of golden light along the cobblestones.
Oxford at dusk had a particular quality—ancient and alive, the weight of centuries pressing against the urgency of the present moment.
Lily pulled her cloak tighter, gaze sweeping across the street with a hunger I was beginning to recognize. She was cataloguing everything. Perhaps, comparing it to memories of a world that wouldn't exist for another century.
“You look like you want to ask a question,” I noted, raising my hand to signal for a hansom.
“I have about a thousand, but I doubt you'd answer any of them.”
“Try me.”
She considered that for a moment before saying, “This street, it’s Magdalen Road, isn’t it?”
I frowned slightly. “Yes.”
“It's wrong.” She gestured at the buildings. “The width is off. It should be narrower here. And some of these buildings—” She stopped herself, seeming to realize how odd she sounded.
“Go on.”
“Some are here that shouldn't be. And some that should be here aren't yet.” She looked at me, something vulnerable in her expression. “It's disorienting. Like looking at a familiar face that's been subtly altered.”
I hadn't expected her to articulate it quite that way. Most people wouldn't notice such subtle changes, wouldn't have the reference point to compare against. But she seemed to.
“Must be strange,” I said quietly. “Seeing the past when you remember the future.”
“Strange doesn't begin to cover it.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I know where I am, but I don't.” The words came quieter, uncertain. “It’s like I’m a ghost haunting my own life.”
The honesty caught me off-guard. This didn't seem like a performance.
Before I could respond, a hansom clattered to a stop beside us. The driver, a grizzled man with a salt-and-pepper beard tipped his hat.
“Where to, sir?”
“The Copper Kettle, near Carfax.”
He nodded, and I handed Lily up into the cab. Her hand was cold through her glove, and I found myself holding it a moment longer than necessary before letting go.
The interior was close, intimate. Our knees nearly touched, and I was acutely aware of her beside me—the scent of lavender soap, the rustle of her skirts, the warmth of her even in the cool evening air.
The hansom lurched forward, wheels clattering. Lily gripped the seat’s edge, eyes wide as she stared out the window.
“You've never ridden in one of these before,” I observed.
“I've read about them. Studied photographs. But actually being in one—” She laughed, slightly breathless. “It's different. Everything moves so slowly compared to cars. You can actually see the world passing by instead of it being a blur.”
“Cars.” I repeated. “That's what you called them earlier. When you spoke about your family's accident.”
Her expression shuttered. “Yes.”
“Tell me about them. If I'm going to believe your story about being from the future, I need to understand what that future looks like. And you said yourself—question for question. So I'm asking: what is a car?”
She was quiet for a long moment, then said, “It's a horseless carriage. Powered by an engine—a machine that burns fuel to create motion. No horses needed. They can travel faster than any horse, for longer distances, and they're everywhere in my time. Millions of them.”
I tried to picture it and failed. “Millions of horseless carriages?”
“On every street. In every city. Some families own two or three.” She watched me carefully. “They're loud. They produce smoke. Though different from coal smoke. And they're dangerous. Thousands die in car accidents every year.”
“And yet people use them anyway.”
“Because they're convenient. Fast. They change everything about how people live, where they work, how far they can travel in a day.” Her voice turned wistful.
“I used to drive one. Had a little blue sedan that I bought with my first paycheck. It was freedom, in a way. The ability to go anywhere, anytime.”
“And now you're trapped in a hansom cab going ten miles per hour.”
The hansom hit a rut. Lily pitched forward, and I caught her elbow, steadying her. She looked up, close enough that I could see gold flecks in her blue eyes, the faint freckles across her nose.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“City hazard.” I didn't release her immediately.
She didn't pull away either.
The moment lengthened. Dangerous. Wholly inappropriate.
I was supposed to be using her. Not noticing the gold flecks in her eyes. Not wondering what she'd do if I closed the distance between us.
I released her abruptly, forcing space between us. “Tell me more,” I said, needing to fill the silence. “About your time. What else is different?”
“Everything.” She turned to the window. “We have machines that can send messages across the world in seconds. Boxes that show moving pictures and sound. We can fly—”
“Fly?”
“In machines. Airplanes. Some can cross the entire Atlantic in hours.” She glanced back at me. “We've been to the moon, August.” She paused, letting that land. “Humans walked on the moon and came back to Earth.”
The sheer impossibility of it made my head spin. We already lived in a city choking on its own growth—soot, disease, endless noise. Yet she spoke of a world that had taken it even further.
“Your eyes catch what most would miss—the wrong width of a street, buildings that no longer stand. You see the scars left behind,” I said at last.
Her expression shifted. “I read about the fire that swept these roads years ago. The records mention destruction, but not how the city rearranged itself afterward. I suppose that part was lost to history.”
A part of me wanted to tell her that history was always rewritten by the victors, that what she knew was only the version deemed worthy enough to survive. But I held my tongue as Mother’s pendant tapped against my sternum. A cold reminder of a story that had been written in blood.
“Here we are, sir,” the driver called out as the hansom slowed.
The Copper Kettle glowed with warm light. Respectable enough to avoid gossip, common enough that no one would look twice. Perfect.
I climbed out first, handed Lily down. Her gloved fingers curled around mine as she descended with more grace than this morning.
“Remember,” I said quietly as we approached the entrance. “You're Adeline's cousin from Yorkshire. Nothing scandalous, nothing remarkable.”
“Decoratively vague,” she murmured. “I remember.”
“And Lily?” I paused at the door. “Try to look like you're enjoying yourself.”
“Everything with you is performance, isn't it?” she said softly.
“Everything in this world is performance, Lily. The sooner you master it, the safer you'll be.”
Inside, the warmth hit us immediately. A handful of patrons glanced up: university types hunched over books, a trio in modest office coats, an elderly couple bundled close together. Their gazes swept over us with mild curiosity before returning to their plates.
Nothing remarkable. Just a gentleman and his friend, sharing a meal.
“This way,” I said, guiding her toward a table near the back.
Lily slid into her seat. I caught the way her hands gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white for just a moment before she forced them to relax.
Still on guard. Still aware she was being watched.
Smart girl.
A serving woman approached, Clara, who'd worked here for years and knew better than to ask questions. “Evening, Mr. Hawthorne. What'll it be?”
“What's fresh tonight?”
“Beef-and-barley pies just came out, sir. Also, mutton broth, and we've treacle pudding cooling if you've a sweet tooth.”
“Two pies. Bread with dripping. And a pot of strong tea.”
“Right away, sir.”
Lily was studying the room with the same precise focus, cataloguing every detail.
“Overwhelmed?” I asked, keeping my tone conversational.
“Observing,” she corrected
“Is there a difference?”
“Usually.”
“You've been observing quite a bit today. The streets, the buildings, the people.” I paused. “Anything particularly interesting catch your attention?”
Something flickered in her expression. “Everything is interesting when you're living in a history textbook,” she said lightly. “Though I have to admit, I expected Victorian England to be louder. More chaotic.”
“It is, during the day. At night it quiets. Different people come out. The ones who prefer darkness to daylight.”
“Like Weavers?”
“Among others.” I let the silence stretch, noting how she filled it by looking away, fingers tracing patterns on the table. “But you saw that firsthand this morning. The arrest.”
Her jaw tightened. “I'd rather not relive that, if it's all the same to you.”
“Of course. Distressing, I'm sure. Are you feeling better? I have to say, you recovered remarkably quickly afterward. You faltered most dramatically in the street, only to appear fully restored an instant later.”
She stiffened. “I told you, I felt dizzy.”
“Yes, you mentioned that. Strange though. You were perfectly steady all morning. Then suddenly, on that particular street corner, you became dizzy. And then recovered completely.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I'm observing,” I said evenly. “As you said, there's a difference.”
Clara returned with tea, and Lily used the interruption to compose herself. Her hands were steady now, but I’d seen them tremble.
“You know,” I said once Clara had left, “most people who've suffered head trauma show consistent symptoms. But you. . . you seem perfectly fine. Unless something specific triggers a reaction.”
“Maybe I'm just remarkably resilient.” But she wasn't meeting my eyes now.
“Perhaps.” I took a sip of tea. “Or something on that street caught your attention. Something you didn't want to explain.”
“Like what?”
“No, you tell me.”
The food arrived before she could reply, steaming pies set before us with gravy pooling around their crusts and bread glistening with fat. The air grew thick with the scent of meat and warm spices.
“It was that child. The beggar. She looked like my sister for a moment, and it. . . hurt. That's all. Nothing mysterious or suspicious. Just grief ambushing me.”
It was a good lie. Would have convinced most people. Real emotion wrapped around misdirection.
“I'm sorry,” I said, and meant it even as I filed the information away. “Grief has a way of finding us in unexpected moments.”
She finally took a bite of pie, and I watched her expression shift—surprise, then something close to pleasure.
“This is good,” she admitted after a second bite. “Better than I expected.”
“You thought Victorian food would be terrible?”
“I thought it would be. . . bland. Overcooked.” She took another bite, this time with more enthusiasm. “But this actually has flavor. Pepper and. . . is that rosemary?”
“Thyme, I think.” I found myself relaxing slightly despite my better judgment. “We're not complete barbarians, you know. Some of us understand seasoning.”
Her smile was genuine. “Point taken.”
We ate in silence for a few moments, and I caught myself noticing too much—the way she ate without pretense. The slight furrow between her brows when she was thinking. The way lamplight kindled in her hair.
“You told me before that you believed the disappeared people in your research were Weavers,” I said finally. “After what you saw this morning—the arrest, the way the crowd reacted—do you still believe that?”
She was quiet for a moment. “I believe it more than ever. But believing they were Weavers and believing they deserved to be erased are two very different things.”
“You saw one arrest. One woman.”
“I've seen seventy-three villages worth of absence, August. Hundreds of names that stopped existing. And now I've seen how this city treats people suspected of having magic. The patterns I studied weren't just bureaucratic errors. They were evidence of something systematic. Something brutal.”
My chest tightened. She wasn't wrong. The hunts had become efficient by the 1880s. Father had seen to that.
“And you think we're the monsters in your research,” I said quietly.
She hesitated. “Empires have always needed monsters, August. Every century rewrites the facts to keep the fear alive. I’ve read the ledgers, the proclamations, the sermons—each one swearing its purge was righteous.”
She was questioning everything I'd been taught to defend. I'd be lying if I said her words didn't strike deep.
“You are correct. Empires do invent their monsters.” I didn’t raise my voice but something in it sharpened.
“But monsters aren’t made only by sermons and ledgers, Lily.
They’re made by the blood left on the ground when those pages are written.
I’ve walked through that blood. So before I weigh any evidence, I make certain no one else has to. ”
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a moment.
“Haven't you been asking me things all evening?”
“This is different.” She held my gaze. “When you die. . . do you think you'll be someone worth remembering? Or just another name that gets erased?”
The question stole my breath. Because I didn't have an answer. Had never let myself think about legacy beyond duty, beyond the mission.
“I don't know,” I admitted finally.
“Then maybe,” she said softly, “that's something worth figuring out.”