Eleanor didn't bring up uneasy subjects for the next several weeks, so Halston quickly adapted to the routines of Wickerwill Hall. His work mostly involved analyzing what various substances did to the blood of volunteers. It wasn't always as boring as it sounded — just last Saturday, a Welshman working in the laboratory had singed off an eyebrow after putting flame to a round-bottomed flask. Now everyone in their unnamed department knew that heating the blood of a volunteer with ice abilities could produce deadly amounts of steam. The incident had resulted in several lectures on safety protocols, and speculation on how to weaponize such a dramatic and dangerous effect.

Halston had no experiments today, thankfully. All he needed to do was compare the last week's blood samples of volunteers to this week's batch. The work was tedious, but necessary; two weeks ago, a select number of volunteers had begun taking various medicines that might dampen the effects of their strange powers. Any changes needed to be noted, then compared to the blood samples of non-medicated volunteers.

Far beyond his work table, the door to the lab opened. Eleanor strolled in, wearing a laboratory coat over a suit; she had taken to such fashion after one of the senior scientists had said that women draped in silk only acted as a distraction to the work of men. Her commitment to irritating her critics set a shining example for Halston. One day, he would be such a gadfly to his enemies.

"Do you need any help?" she said, entering the storeroom to the side of the lab. She located a pair of rubber gloves and put one onto her left hand. It would keep her and the samples free of contamination, but also allow her to have a hand free for other things.

No, he didn't need her help, but he would enjoy the company. He wouldn't tell her that, though. Whenever he saw her, his heart beat like that of a lovesick schoolboy. The intensity of his fascination with her was embarrassing, and he didn't want to be like the rest of the men who stared after her whenever they thought she wasn't looking. Sometimes, they wouldn't even wait for that.

"Yes," he said, "I could use some help."

His pulse began rushing in his ears before she reached him. He needed to stop thinking like this. Fancying her was nothing more than the direct result of her having saved his life, and the fascination he had for her power.

"Where do you want me?"

Good Lord, did she have a talent for accidentally unnerving him! "Hand me that slide there, would you?" he said, as he unnecessarily adjusted his microscope.

"Which one?"

"The nearest, the one with Paxton's blood smear on it. It's labeled on the end with his initials."

"Here," she said.

He glanced from the corner of an eye that could no longer be called useful, then sighed before turning to face her. She wore a hurt expression, and now he needed to explain himself. "Sorry," he said. "I wasn't upset with you. It's my eye." He gestured vaguely at it. "I should be used to it by now, the trouble that I have seeing from that side."

"Sounds like the trouble didn't happen very long ago."

Her quick mind was always a pleasure, especially compared to some of the thick-headed fools in their department. How so many men with so many degrees still managed to be stupid about the simplest things baffled him. Thank Christ he'd gone into the Army instead of university, even if it had led to the ruination of his sight. That had led him to her, too, but he couldn't let his thoughts get away with him. "No," he said, "it wasn't very long ago. I'm almost blind in that eye. I can see light and shadows by it, and colors, sometimes, too."

"Are you in any pain?"

"No." He shook his head. "No pain."

She bit her lower lip. Her mouth was bare of lipstick today, for she had taken to infrequently wearing makeup "in the name of the war." It seemed that she really went without it so she wouldn't have to hear the men grumbling about her being extravagant when their wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters went without. Now they grumbled about her not looking presentable. Being a woman seemed an unwinnable war.

"If you hadn't been injured," she said, "would you have wanted to fight instead?"

"I would've more than wanted it," he said. "A year before the war, I'd gone straight into the Army after leaving Sandhurst, commissioned a second lieutenant." Talking about his former life didn't sting as much as it used to do, but the pain of it was still present, like an old wound that sang when storms came. "That's not as impressive as it sounds; any new officers out of the academy are given that rank. I would've gained a much higher one, eventually, but then Uncle Archie and I had that damned — er, blasted car accident, and it was all over for the both of us."

If his swearing bothered her, she kept her thoughts securely away from her face. "His limp's from a car accident?"

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Why did speaking with her always prove to be a mistake of one sort or another? "Yes, but he doesn't like to have it mentioned."

"I'll bet," she said. "Everyone here thinks it some kind of war wound."

"If they don't know, then I'll ask that you please don't tell them. He really doesn't like to mention it."

"Don't worry about me." She gave him a smile that didn't reassure him at all.

* * *

His unease had good reason, as the next morning showed. Save for the household staff and most of the guardsmen, everyone working at Wickerwill came to the dining hall for breakfast. That included volunteers like Eleanor. The first sign that the day was off to an abnormal start was where she had chosen to sit — the chair to the right of the head of the table, where Archie always sat. She never sat near him if she could help it.

Halston, arriving late, had to sit halfway down the table opposite her.

Knifing into soft-boiled egg with a spoon, she said, "Was your recovery a quick one, sir?"

No, she wasn't asking that, was she?

Though Archie didn't answer her, she went on. "It must've been, because you were able to take over this department so soon."

God, she was.

Halston tried to catch her eye, but he was too distant from her. Yet even if he'd been sitting next to her, he might have been unable to do anything. Few could withstand the force of her personality.

Archie disliked conversation during mealtimes, thinking it crass. Not one person in the hall was unaware of that fact, for he had reminded them of it several times since Halston had begun working there. Even so, Archie set aside his cutlery and spoke. "For all their money, it seems that your parents had failed to buy you decent manners."

"It's because of my manners that I'm inquiring after your poor leg," she said. She took a moment to eat a bit of her egg. "You know, it really is terrible that people get into car accidents in this day and age." She didn't seem to notice Archie standing from the table. "Something ought to be done about the safety standards. But it's a relief that you weren't actually injured while you were in the Army."

When no reply came, she looked up at him with absolute innocence.

Blood had darkened his face. Veins stood out in his neck. He lifted one of his hands, and drew it back. She flinched, turning her head aside in expectation of a slap. In a flash, his hand was down at his side again, having never struck her at all. He threw his napkin onto his plate, then stormed from the hall.

Halston rose, his mind blank and guts twisting. How could Archie had thought of hurting her? A woman? A civilian? Though telling everyone the truth about Archie's leg had been unkind, hitting women wasn't the sort of thing that men did, not in Halston's family, and certainly not in his mother's family. But a man of his family wouldn't have pressed a revolver to her side and abducted her off the street, either. Yet he had done so.

He dropped back into his chair at that thought.

Besides Eleanor, no one had much of an appetite left. They had conversations instead. Whispered ones. The contents of them were clear to Halston without him ever needing to hear a single word. When everyone finished not eating breakfast, they hurried off to wherever they would be working for the day. Eleanor took the stairs instead of the lift up to the first story, so Halston did the same. As ever, they had to wait an interminable moment before one of the guards unlocked the gate to the grand staircase. No one wanted to risk any of the low-level staff going upstairs, so such precautions had been necessary to install.

On the first break that she had, Halston had one as well. She stood facing the doorway of the tea room as he entered, leaning against a table.

"Well," she said, "go on. Tell me how I shouldn't have gossiped. Blame me. Say it's my fault."

That she thought he was going to say those things pained his stomach even worse. He rushed to her, but stopped when she flinched. Flinched, as if he would've hurt her. He turned to shut the door, and stayed pointed in that direction. "Has he ..." Halston began. "Has he tried to hurt you before?"

"Oh, Archie's been the perfect gentleman." Footsteps. The sound of the kettle being put on. "It's what he orders the doctors to do that really hurts."

"What do the doc —"

"You don't want to know." Now the pantry door opening. "You couldn't handle it, and even if you could, you wouldn't believe it."

He spun to face her. "You can't know that."

She took a tea tin down from one of the pantry shelves. "Assumptions can be deadly," she said. "Or at least painful. If I assume you're kind, that might be a big mistake on my part." She set the tin onto the worktop. "I already miscalculated today, as you saw at breakfast."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry that I hadn't been sitting near you at the table. If I had been, I might've —"

"Done nothing." She moved to one of the cabinets now, taking out sturdy tea mugs instead of cups. "You would've done nothing, the same as everyone else has done nothing. That's how it goes. One man rules, the others obey."

"That's not true," he said.

But was it? If Archie had struck her, what would have Halston done? Stood with her or with his own family? The fact that he didn't have an immediate answer plunged a knife in his guts, one made of his own guilt and shame. What sort of man had he let himself become? The answer came to him, and it twisted the blade. He stood in dismayed silence until she finished the tea, serving him a mug complete with sugar and powdered milk from her personal tins.

"Thank you," he said, but not only for the tea. Just giving it to him had been a sign of kindness he hadn't deserved, not when his uncle had almost slapped her. "Thank you for letting me know who I am."

She stood before him clutching her mug in both hands. "Some days, it feels as if I've been thousands of women — perhaps even tens of thousands. Some good and some bad." Her gaze grew distant. "But always the same soul. An unending ouroboros whose only change is the shedding of its skin." She clutched the china hard, then loosened her grip. "If you don't like who you are, change yourself."

"You make it sound as if it's easy."

"It's easier than staying the same," she said.

Yes, it would be easier, wouldn't it? Much easier than letting himself grow into a hateful, spineless thing. Easier than growing willfully ignorant of the difference between right and wrong. Easier than letting the orders he was given or the actions of other men go unquestioned.

"You're right," he said, and drank of the gift she had given him.