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He smiled, and goodness, it was lovely to see him do that again.

We talked for as long as he had the strength, about Mum and Dad and the things we used to get up to as children. He even managed a little chuckle, though it soon left him coughing, and I helped him lie back against his pillows. When I reached to straighten the blankets around his chest, he caught my wrist with surprising determination.

“No,” he whispered. “You mustn't use that demon's magic on me, Ophi. Promise me.”

I looked down at his poor, wrinkled face, at the brother who'd spent so many years preaching about the mercy of God and had never quite managed to make peace with mine.

“I won't, Gideon,” I told him gently. “I promise.”

He seemed satisfied, and after a little while, his eyes drifted closed. I sat beside him until he began to shiver, then slipped off my shoes and climbed into the narrow bed, easing an arm beneath his shoulders to draw him against me. There was hardly room for us both, and he was so thin that I could feel every bone beneath his nightshirt, but he settled quite happily against my chest, his remaining hand resting upon my arm.

The longer I remained, the worse the burning became. It had begun beneath my skin the moment I crossed the threshold, but now I could feel blisters rising beneath my sleeves, and every movement sent another dreadful wave of pain through me. Still, I tucked the blankets around us and held him close, trying not to flinch whenever he shifted against me. He was comfortable, and that was all that mattered.

Towards the end, he grew too tired to speak, although every now and then his fingers would tighten around my arm, and I'd stroke his hair and speak to him until he calmed again. I don't know how much he heard, but I liked to think he was listening.

When his last breath finally came, I was still holding him.

I stayed beside him for a little while longer, though by the time I finally rose from the bed, my legs were trembling so badly that I had to steady myself against the wall. I scarcely remember making my way out of the church, only the blessed relief of crossing its threshold as the terrible heat began to subside.

We never did agree about God, and I don't suppose we ever would have, but I'm glad I went. For all that had happened between us, there had been a time when Gideon was simply my big brother, the boy who carried me home when my leg hurt too badly to walk.

And after so many years, it was nice to be able to do the same for him.

I fell into a dreadful melancholy after that, a malady of my own that lingered for several years. I'd thought I'd made my peace with everything that happened in Beswick, but losing Gideon brought so much of it back that some days I wanted nothing more than to go home, even if nothing was waiting for me anymore.

Iscairn eventually put his foot down and informed me that I wasn't to go wandering back to Lancashire anymore, which went down about as well as you might imagine. I told him he had a bloody nerve trying to ban me from an entire county, particularly one I'd been born in, and we argued about it for the better part of an afternoon. Unfortunately, the irritating man had a point. Every visit left me more miserable than the last, and no amount of sitting amongst the trees watching other people go about their lives was going to bring mine back.

I still miss Lancashire, of course, and I don't suppose I'll ever stop. Sometimes I miss it so much that I could weep, although I've come to understand that it's not really the place I'm longing for, but the people who once lived there. I could return to Beswick tomorrow and walk every street I knew as a girl, but there'd be nobody left to greet me.

Besides, the world is an awfully big place, and Iscairn has spent the better part of a century showing me just how much of it there is to see. We went to Chester to watch Thomas get married, of all things, and I cried like a fool when he emerged from the church with his new wife upon his arm. He'd grown into such a fine young man that I hardly recognised him, though he still had that smile I remembered from Beswick.

After that, we travelled a little farther afield, spending a winter in Bruges, several happy months wandering the canals of Venice, and far too much money in the markets of Constantinople. We even made it as far as Damascus, where the heat nearly drove me to tears and my hair refused to behave itself for more than five minutes. Still, I managed to buy enough cardamom to last us several years, which pleased me enormously and Iscairn considerably less.

Of course, no matter where we went, I always ended up tending somebody. I've spent countless hours beside sickbeds in places where I could barely understand a word anybody said to me, but it turns out a fever looks much the same wherever you go, and I've never been particularly good at walking away from somebody who's hurting.

More than a hundred and fifty years ago, back in Beswick, I decided the earth had grown sick of mankind, and I've had precious little reason to change my mind since. I've watched the sweating sickness carry people off before their families could summon a physician, seen the vile things smallpox and the French pox can do to a body, and lost count of how many times the plague has returned to claim another few thousand souls. If the earth truly means to rid itself of us, I should think it must be getting awfully frustrated by now.

Because here we all are again, barely a year after the last great pestilence, crammed into the same filthy streets, stumbling drunkenly out of alehouses and emptying our chamber pots into one another's paths.

“Ophelia Harrow, you are thinking too hard again,” Iscairn murmurs, gently squeezing my hand.

“Am not,” I grumble. “And even if I were, there’s nothing wrong with having a little think.”

“None whatsoever,” he assures me with a smirk.

“Well, you needn't look so⁠—”

A woman comes bustling between us with two enormous loaves tucked beneath her arm, knocking me against Iscairn. The bakery door swings shut behind her, but not before a rush of warm air carries the smell of buttery pastry and roasting meat into the street.

I catch Iscairn's arm before he can carry on walking. “Are you hungry?”

He glances towards the shop, his mouth twitching with amusement. “Ophelia, you took a soul this morning.”

“So? A soul's hardly a proper meal, is it?”

“You also ate an entire dish of stewed eels not twenty minutes ago.”

“And?”